Automatic Detection of Seizures with Applications

There are an estimated two million people with epilepsy in the United States. Many of these people do not respond to anti-epileptic drug therapy. Two devices can be developed to assist in the treatment of epilepsy. The first is a microcomputer-based system designed to process massive amounts of electroencephalogram (EEG) data collected during long-term monitoring of patients for the purpose of diagnosing seizures, assessing the effectiveness of medical therapy, or selecting patients for epilepsy surgery. Such a device would select and display important EEG events. Currently many such events are missed. A second device could be implanted and would detect seizures and initiate therapy. Both of these devices require a reliable seizure detection algorithm. A new algorithm is described. It is believed to represent an improvement over existing seizure detection algorithms because better signal features were selected and better standardization methods were used

CPCP: Colorado Plateau Coring Project — 100 Million Years of Early Mesozoic Climatic, Tectonic, and Biotic Evolution of an Epicontinental Basin Complex

Early Mesozoic epicontinental basins of western North America contain a spectacular record of the climatic and tectonic development of northwestern Pangea as well as what is arguably the world's richest and most-studied Triassic-Jurassic continental biota. The Colorado Plateau and its environs (Fig. 1) expose the textbook example of these layered sedimentary records (Fig. 2). Intensely studied since the mid-nineteenth century, the basins, their strata, and their fossils have stimulated hypotheses on the development of the Early Mesozoic world as reflected in the international literature. Despite this long history of research, the lack of numerical time calibration, the presence of major uncertainties in global correlations, and an absence of entire suites of environmental proxies still loom large and prevent integration of this immense environmental repository into a useful global picture. Practically insurmountable obstacles to outcrop sampling require a scientific drilling experiment to recover key sedimentary sections that will transform our understanding of the Early Mesozoic world

Using Physical Education Courses to Help Increase Well-Being of RN-BSN Nursing Students: An Exploratory Analysis of Outcomes

Background: Student health and wellness has been a growing concern over the years. Evidence is showing that behaviors and health patterns developed in college tend to hold through the years after graduation.Aim: To examine the pre-post wellness outcomes of nursing students taking a physical education course in an online accelerated Registered Nurse-Bachelor of Science Nursing (RN-BSN) program at a university in the Southeast region of the United States.Methods: An online course with incorporated physical activities and tutorials was designed based on the Travis Wellness Inventory to teach about 12 different dimensions of wellness. Students completed modules that addressed different aspects of wellness. Wellness was assessed using the Wellness Inventory and pre-post outcomes were examined. Results: The results found statistically significant changes between the pre and post assessments for all dimensions of wellness outcomes. There were also significant changes between the pre and post assessments when investigating differences based on gender with females improving on all 12 dimensions and males on 4.Conclusion: Introductory Physical Education (PED101) courses may be useful in improving wellness and reducing stress and turnover for RN-BSN students

Cyclo-, Magneto-, and Bio-Stratigraphic Constraints on the Duration of the CAMP Event and its Relationship to the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary

Early Mesozoic tholeiitic flood basalts of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) are interbedded throughout much of their extent with cyclical lacustrine strata, allowing Milankovitch calibration of the duration of the extrusive episode. This cyclostratigraphy extends from the Newark basin of the northeastern US, where it was first worked out, to Nova Scotia and Morocco and constrains the outcropping extrusive event to less than 600 ky in duration, beginning roughly 20 ky after the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, and to within one pollen and spore zone and one vertebrate biochron. Based principally on the well-known Newark astronomically calibrated magnetic polarity time scale with new additions from the Hartford basin, the rather large scatter in recent radiometric dates from across CAMP (>10 m.y.), centering on about ~200 m.y., is not likely to be real. Rather, the existing paleomagnetic data from both intrusive and extrusive rocks suggest emplacement of nearly all the CAMP within less than 3 m.y. of nearly entirely normal polarity. The very few examples of reversed magnetizations suggest that some CAMP activity probably occurred just prior to the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. Published paleomagnetic and 40Ar / 39Ar data from the Clubhouse Crossroads Basalt are reviewed and with new paleomagnetic data suggest that alteration and possible core misorientation could be responsible for the apparent differences with the CAMP. The Clubhouse Crossroads Basalt at the base of the Coastal Plain of South Carolina and Georgia provides a link to the volumetrically massive volcanic wedge of seaward dipping reflectors present in the subsurface off the southeastern US that may be part of the same igneous event, suggesting that the CAMP marks the formation of the oldest Atlantic oceanic crust

Survival of Salmonella and Escherichia coli in pig slurry: results of a plot study

Application of slurry from swineherds infected with multi-resistant Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 (MRDT104) to arable land is considered a hazard for transmission to wildlife and farm animals, and in Denmark slurry from such herds must be ploughed in. We investigated the effect of 4 different application methods on survival of Salmonella and E. coli in a plot study. Both organisms could not be detected at any time following ploughing in of contaminated slurry. Following harrowing, injection and hose application, Salmonella and E. coli could not be detected after 7 and 21 days, respectively. The results suggest that alternative methods may be considered for application of MRDT104 slurry

Nutrigenomic profiling of transcriptional processes affected in liver and distal intestine in response to a soybean meal-induced nutritional stress in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

The aim of the present study was to generate an experimental model to characterize the nutrigenomic profile of a plant-derived nutritional stress. Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) was used as the model species and the nutritional stress was induced by inclusion of dietary defatted soybean meal (SBM), as this ingredient had been previously demonstrated to induce enteropathy in the distal intestine and reduced growth performance in salmon. Triplicate groups of Atlantic salmon were fed increasing concentrations (0, 100, 200 and 300 g kg-1) of SBM for 12 weeks and reduced growth performance was used as the indicator of nutritional stress. The transcriptome was analysed in two tissues, distal intestine and liver, with the hypothesis being that intestinal gene expression would be dominated by specific responses to SBM whereas the liver transcriptome would include gene expression responses that could be more general and related to overall performance. Specifically, a set of 133 genes was differentially expressed in liver including 45 genes in common with the intestinal response. The liver specific response included genes involved in protein digestion and energy metabolism that were up-regulated, whereas genes in other pathways were generally anabolic and down-regulated. These responses may be more related to general nutritional stress than to SBM per se. This study provides a comprehensive report on the profiles of distal intestine and liver transcriptomes, highlighting the role of the latter tissue in fish undergoing SBM-induced nutritional stress

Analysis of gene order data supports vertical inheritance of the leukotoxin operon and genome rearrangements in the 5' flanking region in genus Mannheimia

BACKGROUND: The Mannheimia subclades belong to the same bacterial genus, but have taken divergent paths toward their distinct lifestyles. For example, M. haemolytica + M. glucosida are potential pathogens of the respiratory tract in the mammalian suborder Ruminantia, whereas M. ruminalis, the supposed sister group, lives as a commensal in the ovine rumen. We have tested the hypothesis that vertical inheritance of the leukotoxin (lktCABD) operon has occurred from the last common ancestor of genus Mannheimia to any ancestor of the diverging subclades by exploring gene order data. RESULTS: We examined the gene order in the 5' flanking region of the leukotoxin operon and found that the 5' flanking gene strings, hslVU-lapB-artJ-lktC and xylAB-lktC, are peculiar to M. haemolytica + M. glucosida and M. granulomatis, respectively, whereas the gene string hslVU-lapB-lktC is present in M. ruminalis, the supposed sister group of M. haemolytica + M. glucosida, and in the most ancient subclade M. varigena. In M. granulomatis, we found remnants of the gene string hslVU-lapB-lktC in the xylB-lktC intergenic region. CONCLUSION: These observations indicate that the gene string hslVU-lapB-lktC is more ancient than the hslVU-lapB-artJ-lktC and xylAB-lktC gene strings. The presence of (remnants of) the ancient gene string hslVU-lapB-lktC among any subclades within genus Mannheimia supports that it has been vertically inherited from the last common ancestor of genus Mannheimia to any ancestor of the diverging subclades, thus reaffirming the hypothesis of vertical inheritance of the leukotoxin operon. The presence of individual 5' flanking regions in M. haemolytica + M. glucosida and M. granulomatis reflects later genome rearrangements within each subclade. The evolution of the novel 5' flanking region in M. haemolytica + M. glucosida resulted in transcriptional coupling between the divergently arranged artJ and lkt promoters. We propose that the chimeric promoter have led to high level expression of the leukotoxin operon which could explain the increased potential of certain M. haemolytica + M. glucosida strains to cause a particular type of infection

Observations and Implications of the Star Formation History of the LMC

We present derivations of star formation histories based on color-magnitude diagrams of three fields in the LMC from HST/WFPC2 observations. A significant component of stars older than 4 Gyr is required to match the observed color-magnitude diagrams. Models with a dispersion-free age-metallicity relation are unable to reproduce the width of the observed main sequence; models with a range of metallicity at a given age provide a much better fit. Such models allow us to construct complete ``population boxes'' for the LMC based entirely on color-magnitude diagrams; remarkably, these qualitatively reproduce the age-metallicity relation observed in LMC clusters. We discuss some of the uncertainties in deriving star formation histories. We find, independently of the models, that the LMC bar field has a larger relative component of older stars than the outer fields. The main implications suggested by this study are: 1) the star formation history of field stars appears to differ from the age distribution of clusters, 2) there is no obvious evidence for bursty star formation, but our ability to measure bursts shorter in duration than $\sim$ 25% of any given age is limited by the statistics of the observed number of stars, 3) there may be some correlation of the star formation rate with the last close passage of the LMC/SMC/Milky Way, but there is no dramatic effect, and 4) the derived star formation history is probably consistent with observed abundances, based on recent chemical evolution models.Comment: Accepted by AJ, 36 pages including 12 figure