1,010 research outputs found
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Aspects of mountain goat ecology, Wallowa Mountains, Oregon
Twenty- six mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus), located between the Lostine River drainage and the East Fork Wallowa River drainage of the Wallowa Mountains, were monitored from June 1972 through June 1973. The age composition of the population was 76.9 percent adults and 11.5 percent each yearlings and kids. The addition of three kids in 1973 with the absence of any detectable mortality altered the age composition to 79.3 percent adults and 10.3 percent each yearlings and kids. Males comprised 34.6 percent of the population.
Mountain goats were dispersed a maximum of 9 airline miles from the point of original release. In summer the population was divided into two female- subadult groups (one each on the Hurricane and Hurwal divides) with males scattered singly or in small groups throughout goat range. Fifty percent of the population occupied the Hurwal Divide during the summer. In winter at least 77 percent of the population merged into a single group on the Hurwal Divide. Within the approximate 3440 km2 study area an intensive use area of 710 km2 was identified and seven habitat types were defined. High elevation habitat types received the greatest use in summer
and winter while low elevation types received the greatest use in spring and fall. In relation to the relative percent composition of each type, ridge top received the greatest annual use. Population models designed to hypothetically reconstruct the development of the Wallowa Mountains goat population were used to illustrate that low productivity rather than a high rate of mortality may be responsible for the current tenuous status of the population. A 10-20-10 percent mortality schedule for adults, yearlings, and kids respectively combined with alternate year reproduction by females following 15 years of maximum production (one kid per adult female per year) produced a hypothetical population which closely approximated the real population. Eleven factors were evaluated as potential limiting factors. Insufficient winter range leading to winter nutritional stress and ultimately resulting in in-utero or neonatal losses appeared to be the most likely cause of low mountain goat numbers in the Wallowa Mountains
Narratives as a Fundamental Component of Consciousness
In this paper, we propose a conceptual architecture that models human (spatially-temporally-modally) cohesive narrative development using a computer representation of quale properties. Qualia are proposed to be the fundamental "cognitive" components humans use to generate cohesive narratives. The engineering approach is based on cognitively inspired technologies and incorporates the novel concept of quale representation for computation of primitive cognitive components of narrative. The ultimate objective of this research is to develop an architecture that emulates the human ability to generate cohesive narratives with incomplete or perturbated information
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Macrophages promote epithelial proliferation following infectious and non-infectious lung injury through a Trefoil factor 2-dependent mechanism.
Coordinated efforts between macrophages and epithelia are considered essential for wound healing, but the macrophage-derived molecules responsible for repair are poorly defined. This work demonstrates that lung macrophages rely upon Trefoil factor 2 to promote epithelial proliferation following damage caused by sterile wounding, Nippostrongylus brasiliensis or Bleomycin sulfate. Unexpectedly, the presence of T, B, or ILC populations was not essential for macrophage-driven repair. Instead, conditional deletion of TFF2 in myeloid-restricted CD11cCre TFF2 flox mice exacerbated lung pathology and reduced the proliferative expansion of CD45- EpCAM+ pro-SPC+ alveolar type 2 cells. TFF2 deficient macrophages had reduced expression of the Wnt genes Wnt4 and Wnt16 and reconstitution of hookworm-infected CD11cCre TFF2flox mice with rWnt4 and rWnt16 restored the proliferative defect in lung epithelia post-injury. These data reveal a previously unrecognized mechanism wherein lung myeloid phagocytes utilize a TFF2/Wnt axis as a mechanism that drives epithelial proliferation following lung injury
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Self-care habits among people who inject drugs with skin and soft tissue infections: a qualitative analysis.
BACKGROUND:Injection drug use is on the rise in the USA, and skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) are a common complication, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. Due to structural barriers to care-seeking, many people who inject drugs avoid formal care and resort to self-care techniques, but little is known about the nature of these techniques, or more generally about the accuracy or breadth of this population's knowledge of SSTIs. METHODS:Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 people who inject heroin in two metropolitan areas: Sacramento and Boston, USA. RESULTS:These interviews reveal a robust and accurate knowledge base regarding skin infections, including the progression from simple cellulitis to an abscess, and acknowledgment of the possibility of serious infections. Nonetheless, there remains a reticence to seek care secondary to past traumatic experiences. A step-wise approach to self-care of SSTI infections was identified, which included themes of whole-body health, topical applications, use of non-prescribed antibiotics, and incision and drainage by non-medical providers. CONCLUSIONS:The reported SSTI self-care strategies demonstrate resilience and ingenuity, but also raise serious concerns about inappropriate antibiotic consumption and complications of invasive surgical procedures performed without proper training, technique, or materials. Harm reduction agencies and health care providers should work to obviate the need for these potentially dangerous practices by improving healthcare access for this population. In the absence of robust solutions to meet the needs of this population, education materials should be developed to optimize the efficacy and minimize the harms of these practices, while empowering and supporting the autonomy of people who use drugs and providing clear guidance on when self-care should be abandoned in favor of formal medical care
Explorations, Vol. 3, No. 1
Cover: Debouche, a thermo-formed acrylic sculpture, by Deborah de Moulpied, Associate Professor of Art at the University of Maine, (from the collection of Barbara Heldt and Gerald Smith, Oxford, England); photograph by Dale and Nedra Van Volkinburg.
Articles include: Biotechnology, by Michael R. Gross
The Search for Tom Swift or Some Reflections on One of America\u27s Best-Known Cultural Heroes, by David K. Vaughan
ENDO-EXO 1 Sculpture in Motion
Communication is Not Just Saying Words; It is Creating True Understanding, by Marisue Pickering
Maine Outreach: Teaching Success, by Richard A. Hale and James F. Philp
Through Cloud and Fog, Hunting the Elusive pH, by Richard Jagels
Ocean Basin with a Past A Cryptic History: Breaking the Code Discerning a Future, by Detmar Schnitker
We Stand Corrected in Volume II, Number 2, of EXPLORATIONS
Dialogue: Letters [to the Editor]
Updates from the Dispatch Cas
Local lung hypoxia determines epithelial fate decisions during alveolar regeneration.
After influenza infection, lineage-negative epithelial progenitors (LNEPs) exhibit a binary response to reconstitute epithelial barriers: activating a Notch-dependent ΔNp63/cytokeratin 5 (Krt5) remodelling program or differentiating into alveolar type II cells (AEC2s). Here we show that local lung hypoxia, through hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF1α), drives Notch signalling and Krt5pos basal-like cell expansion. Single-cell transcriptional profiling of human AEC2s from fibrotic lungs revealed a hypoxic subpopulation with activated Notch, suppressed surfactant protein C (SPC), and transdifferentiation toward a Krt5pos basal-like state. Activated murine Krt5pos LNEPs and diseased human AEC2s upregulate strikingly similar core pathways underlying migration and squamous metaplasia. While robust, HIF1α-driven metaplasia is ultimately inferior to AEC2 reconstitution in restoring normal lung function. HIF1α deletion or enhanced Wnt/β-catenin activity in Sox2pos LNEPs blocks Notch and Krt5 activation, instead promoting rapid AEC2 differentiation and migration and improving the quality of alveolar repair
The Milky Way in Context: Building an integral-field spectrograph data cube of the Galaxy
The Milky Way (MW) is by far the best-studied galaxy and has been regarded as
an ideal laboratory for understanding galaxy evolution. However, direct
comparisons of Galactic and extra-galactic observations are marred by many
challenges, including selection effects and differences in observations and
methodology. In this study, we present a novel code GalCraft to address these
challenges by generating mock integral-field spectrograph data cubes of the MW
using simple stellar population models and a mock stellar catalog of the Galaxy
derived from E-Galaxia. The data products are in the same format as external
galaxies, allowing for direct comparisons. We investigate the ability of pPXF
to recover kinematics and stellar population properties for an edge-on mock
observation of the MW. We confirm that pPXF can distinguish kinematic and
stellar population differences between thin and thick disks. However, pPXF
struggles to recover star formation history, where the SFR is overestimated in
the ranges between 2-4 and 12-14 Gyr compared to the expected values. This is
likely due to the template age spacing, pPXF regularization algorithm, and
spectral similarities in old population templates. Furthermore, we find
systematic offsets in the recovered kinematics, potentially due to insufficient
spectral resolution and the variation of line-of-sight velocity with [M/H] and
age through a line-of-sight. With future higher resolution and
multi-[/Fe] SSP templates, GalCraft will be useful to identify key
signatures such as [/Fe]-[M/H] distribution at different and
and potentially measure radial migration and kinematic heating efficiency to
study detailed chemodynamical evolution of MW-like galaxies.Comment: 27 pages, 27 figures (8 figs in appendix), submitted to MNRAS.
Comments are welcom
Bounds on the k-domination number of a graph
Abstract The k-domination number of a graph is the cardinality of a smallest set of vertices such that every vertex not in the set is adjacent to at least k vertices of the set. We prove two bounds on the k-domination number of a graph, inspired by two conjectures of the computer program Graffiti.pc. In particular, we show that for any graph with minimum degree at least 2k − 1, the k-domination number is at most the matching number
Maternal super-obesity and perinatal outcomes in Australia: A national population-based cohort study
Background: Super-obesity is associated with significantly elevated rates of obstetric complications, adverse perinatal outcomes and interventions. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence, risk factors,
management and perinatal outcomes of super-obese women giving birth in Australia.
Methods: A national population-based cohort study. Super-obese pregnant women (body mass index (BMI) >50 kg/m2 or weight >140 kg) who gave birth between January 1 and October 31, 2010 and a comparison cohort were identified using the Australasian Maternity Outcomes Surveillance System (AMOSS). Outcomes included
maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. Prevalence estimates calculated with 95 % confidence intervals (CIs). Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were calculated using multivariable logistic regression.
Results: 370 super-obese women with a median BMI of 52.8 kg/m2 (range 40.9–79.9 kg/m2) and prevalence of 2.1 per 1 000 women giving birth (95 % CI: 1.96–2.40). Super-obese women were significantly more likely to be public
patients (96.2 %), smoke (23.8 %) and be socio-economically disadvantaged (36.2 %). Compared with other women, super-obese women had a significantly higher risk for obstetric (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 2.42, 95 % CI: 1.77–3.29)
and medical (AOR: 2.89, 95 % CI: 2.64–4.11) complications during pregnancy, birth by caesarean section (51.6 %) and admission to special care (HDU/ICU) (6.2 %). The 372 babies born to 365 super-obese women with outcomes
known had significantly higher rates of birthweight ≥4500 g (AOR 19.94, 95 % CI: 6.81–58.36), hospital transfer (AOR 3.81, 95 % CI: 1.93–7.55) and admission to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) (AOR 1.83, 95 % CI: 1.27–2.65) compared to babies of the comparison group, but not prematurity (10.5 % versus 9.2 %) or perinatal mortality (11.0 (95 % CI: 4.3–28.0) versus 6.6 (95 % CI: 2.6- 16.8) per 1 000 singleton births).
Conclusions: Super-obesity in pregnancy in Australia is associated with increased rates of pregnancy and birth complications, and with social disadvantage. There is an urgent need to further address risk factors leading to
super-obesity among pregnant women and for maternity services to better address pre-pregnancy and pregnancy care to reduce associated inequalities in perinatal outcomes.
Keywords: Super-obesity, Obesity, Perinatal outcomes, Pregnancy, Maternal socio-economic disadvantage, Obstetric complication
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