Silicosis In The Gold Mining Industry In Rhodesia

A CAJM article on silicosis induced by dusty gold mining environments

Institutional abuse – characteristics of victims, perpetrators and organsations: a systematic review

Abuse of vulnerable adults in institutional settings has been reported from various countries; however, there has been no systematic review of the characteristics of the victims and their Q3 abusers. Our aim was to identify and synthesise the literature on victims and perpetrators of abuse in institutions and the characteristics of the institutions where abuse occurs in order to inform interventions to prevent such abuse. Methods: Searches of MEDLINE (OVID), CINHAL (EBSCO), EMBASE (OVID) and PsychINFO (OVID) databases identified 4279 references. After screening of titles and abstracts, 123 citations merited closer inspection. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 22 articles were included in the review. Results: Our review suggested that the evidence available on risk factors is not extensive but some conclusions can be drawn. Clients, staff, institutional and environmental factors appear to play a role in increasing the risk of abuse. Cases of abuse may be underreported. Conclusions: Vulnerable clients need closer monitoring. Clients and staff may lack the awareness and knowledge to identify and report abuse. Institutions should take proactive steps to monitor clients, train staff and devise systems that allow for the identification and reporting of incidents of abuse and take steps to prevent such incidents. Staff need education and awareness of institutional policies to identify and report abuse. There is a need for further research into the association between the individual client, staff and institutional characteristics and abuse. Such information may be useful in quantifying risk to individual clients and planning their care

Indirect Cost Recovery Rates: Why Do They Differ?

This paper reviews the history of the federal government's indirect cost recovery system and empirically examines the determinants of IRC rates. We find that, ceteris paribas schools in the Northeast have higher ICR rates, as do schools with high administrative expenses, a disproportionate number of graduate students, and larger expenditures on physical plant. Private research universities have higher ICR rates than do public research universities, but other factors turn out to explain most of this difference. Institutional characteristics relating to the mix of operations, financial characteristics, and location all play an important role in the determination of this rate, implying that there are good economic reasons for much of the observed variation in ICR rates both between and within sectors.

Video Question Answering with Iterative Video-Text Co-Tokenization

Video question answering is a challenging task that requires understanding jointly the language input, the visual information in individual video frames, as well as the temporal information about the events occurring in the video. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-stream video encoder for video question answering that uses multiple video inputs and a new video-text iterative co-tokenization approach to answer a variety of questions related to videos. We experimentally evaluate the model on several datasets, such as MSRVTT-QA, MSVD-QA, IVQA, outperforming the previous state-of-the-art by large margins. Simultaneously, our model reduces the required GFLOPs from 150-360 to only 67, producing a highly efficient video question answering model.Comment: ECCV 202

ROCK signaling promotes collagen remodeling to facilitate invasive pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tumor cell growth

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a major cause of cancer death; identifying PDAC enablers may reveal potential therapeutic targets. Expression of the actomyosin regulatory ROCK1 and ROCK2 kinases increased with tumor progression in human and mouse pancreatic tumors, while elevated ROCK1/ROCK2 expression in human patients, or conditional ROCK2 activation in a KrasG12D/p53R172H mouse PDAC model, was associated with reduced survival. Conditional ROCK1 or ROCK2 activation promoted invasive growth of mouse PDAC cells into three‐dimensional collagen matrices by increasing matrix remodeling activities. RNA sequencing revealed a coordinated program of ROCK‐induced genes that facilitate extracellular matrix remodeling, with greatest fold‐changes for matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) Mmp10 and Mmp13. MMP inhibition not only decreased collagen degradation and invasion, but also reduced proliferation in three‐dimensional contexts. Treatment of KrasG12D/p53R172H PDAC mice with a ROCK inhibitor prolonged survival, which was associated with increased tumor‐associated collagen. These findings reveal an ancillary role for increased ROCK signaling in pancreatic cancer progression to promote extracellular matrix remodeling that facilitates proliferation and invasive tumor growth

Kepler-445, Kepler-446 And The Occurrence Of Compact Multiples Orbiting Mid-M Dwarf Stars

We confirm and characterize the exoplanetary systems Kepler-445 and Kepler-446: two mid-M dwarf stars, each with multiple, small, short-period transiting planets. Kepler-445 is a metal-rich ([ Fe/H] = + 0.25 0.10) M4 dwarf with three transiting planets, and Kepler-446 is a metal-poor ([ Fe/H] = -0.30 0.10) M4 dwarf also with three transiting planets. Kepler-445c is similar toGJ 1214b: both in planetary radius and the properties of the host star. The Kepler-446 system is similar to the Kepler-42 system: both are metal-poor with large galactic space velocities and three short-period, likely rocky transiting planets that were initially assigned erroneously large planet-to-star radius ratios. We independently determined stellar parameters from spectroscopy and searched for and fitted the transit light curves for the planets, imposing a strict prior on stellar density in order to remove correlations between the fitted impact parameter and planet-to-star radius ratio for short-duration transits. Combining Kepler-445, Kepler-446, and Kepler-42, and isolating all mid-M dwarf stars observed by Kepler with the precision necessary to detect similar systems, we calculate that 21+ 7 -5 % of mid-M dwarf stars host compact multiples ( multiple planets with periods of less than 10 days) for a wide range of metallicities. We suggest that the inferred planet masses for these systems support highly efficient accretion of protoplanetary disk metals by mid-M dwarf protoplanets.NSF DGE1144152, AST-1005313NASA NAS5-26555NASA Office of Space Science NNX13AC07GAstronom

Association Between Cell Phone Restrictions and Teens\u27 Self-Reported Cell Phone Use While Driving

The purpose of this study was to describe the association between a range of cell phone restrictions and self-reported cell phone use while driving among teen drivers. Methods: U.S. high school students (N=780) from 14 states completed questionnaires, including items on cell phone use while driving. Cell phone restrictions for each state were identified using the Public Health Law Research Distracted Driving Law database and divided into five categories. Associations between cell phone restrictions and self-reported cell phone use while driving were estimated as odds ratios, adjusting for driving exposure. Results: In states with cell phone restrictions, teens were less likely to report talking or texting while driving, relative to teens in states with no restrictions. Talking and texting while driving were significantly less likely in states with texting restrictions for all drivers. All driver texting restrictions combined with teen hand-held phone restrictions were significantly associated with lower texting but not talking while driving. Conclusions: The presence of restrictions appears to be better than no restrictions with respect to self-reported teen cell phone use. Further research is needed to determine whether restrictions applying exclusively to teen drivers or restrictions for all drivers provide the greatest safety benefit

The Increasing Financial Impact of Chronic Kidney Disease in Australia

The aim of this investigation was to determine and compare current and projected expenditure associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD), renal replacement therapy (RRT), and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Australia. Data published by Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and World Bank were used to compare CKD-, RRT-, and CVD-related expenditure and prevalence rates. Prevalence and expenditure predictions were made using a linear regression model. Direct statistical comparisons of rates of annual increase utilised indicator variables in combined regressions. Statistical significance was set at P<0.05. Dollar amounts were adjusted for inflation prior to analysis. Between 2012 and 2020, prevalence, per-patient expenditure, and total disease expenditure associated with CKD and RRT are estimated to increase significantly more rapidly than CVD. RRT prevalence is estimated to increase by 29%, compared to 7% in CVD. Average annual RRT per-patient expenditure is estimated to increase by 16%, compared to 8% in CVD. Total CKD- and RRT-related expenditure had been estimated to increase by 37%, compared to 14% in CVD. Per-patient, CKD produces a considerably greater financial impact on Australia’s healthcare system, compared to CVD. Research focusing on novel preventative/therapeutic interventions is warranted