Political Culture, Policy Liberalism, and the Strength of Journalist\u27s Privilege in the States

This study examined the relationships between the strength of states\u27 journalist\u27s privileges and state characteristics. The state characteristics included political culture and policy liberalism. The study created an index to identify and score several important components of journalist\u27s privilege in each state. The various components included the legal source of the privilege, when journalists could use the privilege, what types of information the privilege protected, and who could invoke the privilege. The study then used statistical tests to test the relationships between state characteristics and privilege strength. The results indicated that policy liberalism was a significant predictor of a state\u27s journalist\u27s privilege strength. Political culture was not related to privilege strength. In a larger context, the study\u27s results added evidence to a larger trend that policy liberalism influences state media law. The results also found that several states limited journalist\u27s privilege to traditional journalists. Only a small number of states have extended the privilege to non-traditional journalists, such as Internet journalists and book authors

A comparison of impurity-free and ion-implantation-induced intermixing of InGaAs/InP quantum wells

We have compared the time integrated photoluminescence (PL) and the time resolved PL of several lattice matched InGaAs/InP quantum wells intermixed either by ion implantation or an impurity-free method. We have found that the carrier capture rates into quantum wells and carrier relaxation from the wells depend on the type of intermixing used. Our results indicate that the carrier lifetimes are significantly longer in samples intermixed by the impurity-free methods, while the carrier collection efficiency of the quantum wells is more efficient in samples intermixed by ion implantation

Identification of Sonographic B-lines with Linear Transducer Predicts Elevated B-Type Natriuretic Peptide Level

Objective: This study sought to correlate the presence of pleural-based B-lines seen by emergency department ultrasound performed with the linear transducer with B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) level in patients with suspected congestive heart failure.Methods: The study was a prospective convenience sample on adult patients in an academic, urban emergency department with over 100,000 annual patient visits. Adult patients with a BNP level ordered by the treating physician were prospectively enrolled by one of four physicians, blinded to the BNP level. The enrolling physicians included an emergency ultrasound director, two emergency ultrasound fellows, and a senior emergency medicine resident. Bedside ultrasound was performed using a 3-12 MHz linear broadband transducer in four lung fields. The serum BNP level was correlated with bilateral B-lines, defined as three or more comet-tail artifacts arising from the pleural line extending to the far field without a decrease in intensity on the right and left thorax.Results: Sixty three patients were consented and enrolled during a four-month period. Fifteen patients had the presence of bilateral B-lines. The median BNP in patients with bilateral B-lines was 1560 pg/mL (95% confidence interval (CI) 1141-3706 pg/mL), compared with 538 pg/mL (95% confidence interval 310-1917 pg/mL) in patients without B-lines. The distributions in the two groups differed significantly (p=0.0006). Based on the threshold level of BNP 500 pg/mL, the sensitivity of finding bilateral B-lines on ultrasound was 33.3% (95% CI: 0.19-0.50), and the specificity was 91.7% (95% CI: 0.73-0.99). In addition, bilateral B-lines were absent in all patients with a BNP<100 pg/mL.Conclusion: The presence of bilateral B-lines identified with the linear probe is associated with significantly higher BNP levels than patients without B-lines. In our patient population, the presence of B-lines was specific but not sensitive for BNP>500. Further research may show that it can be applied to quickly assess patients with undifferentiated dyspnea. [West J Emerg Med. 2011;12(1):102-106.

The Medical Action Ontology: A tool for annotating and analyzing treatments and clinical management of human disease

Clinical management; Medical action ontology; OntologyGestión clínica; Ontología de la acción médica; OntologíaGestió clínica; Ontologia de l'acció mèdica; OntologiaBackground Navigating the clinical literature to determine the optimal clinical management for rare diseases presents significant challenges. We introduce the Medical Action Ontology (MAxO), an ontology specifically designed to organize medical procedures, therapies, and interventions. Methods MAxO incorporates logical structures that link MAxO terms to numerous other ontologies within the OBO Foundry. Term development involves a blend of manual and semi-automated processes. Additionally, we have generated annotations detailing diagnostic modalities for specific phenotypic abnormalities defined by the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO). We introduce a web application, POET, that facilitates MAxO annotations for specific medical actions for diseases using the Mondo Disease Ontology. Findings MAxO encompasses 1,757 terms spanning a wide range of biomedical domains, from human anatomy and investigations to the chemical and protein entities involved in biological processes. These terms annotate phenotypic features associated with specific disease (using HPO and Mondo). Presently, there are over 16,000 MAxO diagnostic annotations that target HPO terms. Through POET, we have created 413 MAxO annotations specifying treatments for 189 rare diseases. Conclusions MAxO offers a computational representation of treatments and other actions taken for the clinical management of patients. Its development is closely coupled to Mondo and HPO, broadening the scope of our computational modeling of diseases and phenotypic features. We invite the community to contribute disease annotations using POET (https://poet.jax.org/). MAxO is available under the open-source CC-BY 4.0 license (https://github.com/monarch-initiative/MAxO).This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NHGRI 1U24HG011449-01A1 and NHGRI 5RM1HG010860-04. R.H. is a Wellcome Trust Investigator (109915/Z/15/Z), who receives support from the Medical Research Council (UK) (MR/V009346/1), the Addenbrookes Charitable Trust (G100142), the Evelyn Trust, the Stoneygate Trust, the Lily Foundation, Action for AT and an MRC strategic award to establish an International Centre for Genomic Medicine in Neuromuscular Diseases (ICGNMD) MR/S005021/1. This research was supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care

Electronic discharge summary driving advice: current practice and future directions

BackgroundDriving is a complex task. Many older drivers are unaware of their obligation to inform authorities of conditions which may impact upon their driving safety.  AimsThis study sought to establish the adequacy of driving advice in electronic discharge summaries from an Australian stroke unit.MethodOne month of in-patient electronic discharge summaries were reviewed. A predetermined list of items was used to assess each electronic discharge summary: age; gender; diagnosis; relevant co-morbidities; deficit at time of discharge; driving advice; length of stay; and discharge destination.ResultsOf 41 participants, the mean age was 72 years. Twenty patients had a discharge diagnosis of stroke, nine of transient ischaemic attack, four of seizure and one of encephalitis. Of these, only eight discharge summaries included driving advice.ConclusionThe documentation of driving advice in electronic discharge summaries is poor. This has important public health, ethical and medico-legal implications. Avenues for future research are explore

Dry Gas Seals: General (Installation, Operation, Troubleshooting, and Retrofitting), Controls

Discussion GroupSuggested Topics for Dry Gas Seals Discussion group: • DGS operating characteristics • Unidirectional versus bidirectional • Seals faces and seats, O rings materials • Explosive decompression • Primary seal gas supply control system Primary seal failure detection • Primary seal gas vent to flare control system • Secondary seal failure detection • Tertiary seal types, carbon rings versus labyrinth • Buffer gas and associated control • Separation gas, air or nitrogen and associated controls • Tandem versus double seals application • Field problems and experiences • Challenges in Dry Gas Seal retrofits • Operation and spares maintenance, shelf life and requalification. • Dry Gas seals reliability and availability. • Dew point monitoring and control • Seal Gas Conditioning systems • Seal Gas Boosters and Heaters • API 614 – 5th Edition, current and advancements in Dry Gas seals & System

Framing best practice: National Standards for the primary prevention of sexual assault through education (National Sexual Assault Prevention Education Project for NASASV)

In 2008, the Rudd Labor Government identified the prevention of violence against women as a priority for action. The National Sexual Assault Prevention Education Research Project (SAPE) was established to complete a one-year project to develop and trial a national sexual assault prevention education framework. The project was to identify best or promising practice models for doing sexual assault prevention education in the Australian context with the aim of building upon existing prevention education activities to provide a framework that can be implemented across Australia by prevention educators, service providers, policy makers and funding bodies. In considering existing prevention programs the following areas were of particular interest: programs that have incorporated men as well as women, that are targeted to culturally and sexually diverse groups, and that address the specific needs of regional women and men and people with disabilities. Another key component of the consultation process was to identify programs that included some form of evaluation, particularly programs that have included steps toward assessing behavioural change. In addition, the research was to identify some of the barriers to wider implementation of primary sexual assault prevention education. This report provides a comprehensive discussion of the research underpinning the framework, along with some of the researchers' analysis of the 32 fieldwork interviews that were completed with workers and other key individuals in most states in Australia. Six national standards for sexual assault prevention education are identified and described as the framework for increasing the capacity of the sector to deliver high quality primary prevention education programs