The Libyan civil conflict : selected case series of orthopaedic trauma managed in Malta in 2014

Aim: The purpose of this series of cases was to analyse our management of orthopaedic trauma casualties in the Libyan civil war crisis in the European summer of 2014. We looked at both damage control orthopaedics and for case variety of war trauma at a civilian hospital. Due to our geographical proximity to Libya, Malta was the closest European tertiary referral centre. Having only one Level 1 trauma care hospital in our country, our Trauma and Orthopaedics department played a pivotal role in the management of Libyan battlefield injuries. Our aims were to assess acute outcomes and short term mortality of surgery within the perspective of a damage control orthopaedic strategy whereby aggressive wound management, early fixation using relative stability principles, antibiotic cover with adequate soft tissue cover are paramount. We also aim to describe the variety of war injuries we came across, with a goal for future improvement in regards to service providing.Methods: Prospective collection of six interesting cases with severe limb and spinal injuries sustained in Libya during the Libyan civil war between June and November 2014.Conclusions: We applied current trends in the treatment of war injuries, specifically in damage control orthopaedic strategy and converting to definitive treatment where permissible. The majority of our cases were classified as most severe (Type IIIB/C) according to the Gustilo-Anderson classification of open fractures. The injuries treated reflected the type of standard and improved weaponry available in modern warfare affecting both militants and civilians alike with increasing severity and extent of damage. Due to this fact, multidisciplinary team approach to patient centred care was utilised with an ultimate aim of swift recovery and early mobilisation. It also highlighted the difficulties and complex issues required on a hospital management level as a neighbouring country to war zone countries in transforming care of civil trauma to military trauma.peer-reviewe

Automation and hypermedia technology applications

This paper represents a progress report on HyLite (Hypermedia Library technology): a research and development activity to produce a versatile system as part of NASA's technology thrusts in automation, information sciences, and communications. HyLite can be used as a system or tool to facilitate the creation and maintenance of large distributed electronic libraries. The contents of such a library may be software components, hardware parts or designs, scientific data sets or databases, configuration management information, etc. Proliferation of computer use has made the diversity and quantity of information too large for any single user to sort, process, and utilize effectively. In response to this information deluge, we have created HyLite to enable the user to process relevant information into a more efficient organization for presentation, retrieval, and readability. To accomplish this end, we have incorporated various AI techniques into the HyLite hypermedia engine to facilitate parameters and properties of the system. The proposed techniques include intelligent searching tools for the libraries, intelligent retrievals, and navigational assistance based on user histories. HyLite itself is based on an earlier project, the Encyclopedia of Software Components (ESC) which used hypermedia to facilitate and encourage software reuse

Impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: A case study of associate degree freshmen in Hong Kong

This paper examines the correlation between curriculum reforms and the development of generic competencies among Hong Kong tertiary students (or secondary leavers who were admitted to Associate Degree and Higher Diploma). A total number of 3626 freshmen completed a set of self-assessment questionnaires, which were used to analyse the correlation between five generic competencies, across three academic years from 2010 to 2012. Five of the generic competencies, which were highlighted in the proposed new three-year New Senior Secondary (NSS) academic structure, were measured and compared between students from different academic backgrounds. The finding of the study indicated significantly higher scores in generic competencies for the traditional Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE) secondary school curriculum in 2012 compared to earlier cohorts, whilst in general no significant difference was found between students from the traditional curriculum and the new academic structure of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) in the mixed ‘double cohort’ year of 2012. The result points to the potential early impact of NSS on students’ generic skill development across both the old and new curriculum

Glucose uptake regulation in E. coli by the small RNA SgrS: comparative analysis of E. coli K-12 (JM109 and MG1655) and E. coli B (BL21)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The effect of high glucose concentration on the transcription levels of the small RNA SgrS and the messenger RNA ptsG, (encodin<it>g </it>the glucose transporter IICB^Glc), was studied in both <it>E. coli </it>K-12 (MG1655 and JM109) and <it>E. coli </it>B (BL21). It is known that the transcription level of <it>sgrS </it>increases when <it>E. coli </it>K-12 (MG1655 and JM109) is exposed to the non-metabolized glucose alpha methyl glucoside (αMG) or when the bacteria with a defective glycolysis pathway is grown in presence of glucose. The increased level of sRNA SgrS reduces the level of the ptsG mRNA and consequently lowers the level of the glucose transporter IICB^Glc. The suggested trigger for this action is the accumulation of the corresponding phospho-sugars.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the course of the described work, it was found that <it>E. coli </it>B (BL21) and <it>E. coli </it>K-12 (JM109 and MG1655) responded similarly to αMG: both strains increased <it>SgrS </it>transcription and reduced <it>ptsG </it>transcription. However, the two strains reacted differently to high glucose concentration (40 g/L). <it>E. coli </it>B (BL21) reacted by increasing <it>sgrS </it>transcription and reducing <it>ptsG </it>transcription while <it>E. coli </it>K-12 (JM109 and MG1655) did not respond to the high glucose concentration, and, therefore, transcription of <it>sgrS </it>was not detected and ptsG mRNA level was not affected.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results suggest that <it>E. coli </it>B (BL21) tolerates high glucose concentration not only by its more efficient central carbon metabolism, but also by controlling the glucose transport into the cells regulated by the sRNA SgrS, which may suggest a way to control glucose consumption and increase its efficient utilization.</p

Managers' perspectives on restaurant food waste separation intention: the roles of institutional pressures and internal forces.

The hospitality industry, particularly restaurants, generates a large amount of food waste daily. This study draws upon institutional theory using the lens of isomorphic pressures and two internal factors, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and restaurant size, to investigate what drives food waste separation intention in the restaurant sector of a developing economy. Data collected from 395 restaurant managers show that normative, coercive, and mimetic pressures positively impact intention; isomorphic pressures are mediated by CSR to achieve higher intention; and the crucial interaction between restaurant size and CSR significantly strengthens food waste separation intention. The study contributes to institutional theory by offering a novel integrated model to explain the respective mediating and moderating roles that CSR and restaurant size play between institutional pressures and behavioral intention in food waste management

Infidelity in a Fast Paced Society

Abstract There are many possible factors that cause individuals to commit infidelity in modern society. Since the studies that have measured the significance of the factors causing the act of infidelity are scarce, our study aims to investigate the potential causes of infidelity and measure the significance of the causes. Through our research, we have identified that COVID-19, social networking platforms, social status and income level, access to pornography, ethnicity, marital status, and sexual orientation are possible factors of infidelity acts. We have created an anonymous survey to investigate the causes, which will be measured by regression analysis. We plan to distribute the survey worldwide via a link and marriage counseling services. Our sample size will be 0.01% of the country’s population and participation will be made voluntary. The results of the analysis will show which factors are likely to cause infidelity. As infidelity carries undesirable consequences, this proposal aims to spread awareness on infidelity and assist people struggling with the issue

Mixtures of Regression Models for Time-Course Gene Expression Data: Evaluation of Initialization and Random Effects

Finite mixture models are routinely applied to time course microarray data. Due to the complexity and size of this type of data the choice of good starting values plays an important role. So far initialization strategies have only been investigated for data from a mixture of multivariate normal distributions. In this work several initialization procedures are evaluated for mixtures of regression models with and without random effects in an extensive simulation study on different artificial datasets. Finally these procedures are also applied to a real dataset from E. coli