NBA Rookie Career Length Projections

https://digitalcommons.misericordia.edu/research_posters2020/1052/thumbnail.jp

The Morphometric Properties of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament

The anatomy of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) has been thoroughly studied to further the understanding of functionality and pursue improvements in anatomical reconstruction [5]. Among the relevant studies are morphometrical investigations that analyze the cross-sectional area and shape of the ligament mid-substance and insertion sites [5][11][15]. The purpose of this study was to analyze additional geometric properties of the ACL along the mid-substance, including the first and second principal second moments of inertia, the major and minor axis lengths, and the major axis rotation relative to the anterior direction. Nine (n=9) fresh-frozen cadaveric knee specimens were tested. A six-degrees of freedom robotic testing system was used with a universal force-moment sensor to collect a passive path of flexion-extension, from full extension to 90°, by minimizing forces and moments about the intact knee joint for every 0.5° [5]. The femur and tibia were fixed in custom cylinders, with the femoral cylinder attached to a rigid base and the tibial cylinder fixed to the robot end-effector. The knee was carefully dissected until the tibial and femoral ACL insertion sites were exposed. Bone was then removed around the insertion sites to expose the ACL for laser scanning, and the cylinders were remounted on the robotic arm, maintaining the tibial-femoral position of the intact knee. A three-dimensional laser was used to scan the ACL at 15° of flexion and the tibial and femoral insertion sites were circumscribed using a 3 mm–diameter ball probe. A three-dimensional model of the ligament was used to calculate the cross-sectional properties. The angle of each cross-section was also varied in two directions in order to observe how the data changed. This study confirmed previous descriptions of the ACL, such as having an hourglass structure [5], and having a “flat-ribbon” mid-substance [11]. It was found that the ratio of major-to-minor axis length decreased from the femoral insertion site to the tibial insertion site. The change in cross-sectional plane angles only showed a significant effect on the geometric data at 20° relative to the original angle

Debt and financial expectations: an individual and household level analysis

In this paper we show that optimistic financial expectations impact positively on both the uantity of debt and the growth in debt, at the individual and household levels. Our heoretical model shows that this association is predicted under a variety of plausible cenarios. In the empirical analysis we explore the determinants of debt and of growth in ebt using British data. We find convincing support for our theoretical priors and show that t is optimistic financial expectations per se that are important in influencing debt, rather han the accuracy of individuals’ predictions regarding their future financial situation.Debt; Financial Expectations; Inter-temporal Consumption; Random Effects; Tobit Estimator

Repeat prescribing of medications: a system-centred risk management model for primary care organisations

Rationale, aims and objectives: Reducing preventable harm from repeat medication prescriptions is a patient safety priority worldwide. In the United Kingdom, repeat prescriptions items issued has doubled in the last 20 years from 5.8 to 13.3 items per patient per annum. This has significant resource implications and consequences for avoidable patient harms. Consequently, we aimed to test a risk management model to identify, measure, and reduce repeat prescribing system risks in primary care. Methods: All 48 general medical practices in National Health Service (NHS) Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group (an inner city area of south London in England) were recruited. Multiple interventions were implemented, including educational workshops, a web-based risk monitoring system, and external reviews of repeat prescribing system risks by clinicians. Data were collected via documentation reviews and interviews and subject to basic thematic and descriptive statistical analyses. Results: Across the 48 participating general practices, 62 unique repeat prescribing risks were identified on 505 occasions (eg, practices frequently experiencing difficulty interpreting medication changes on hospital discharge summaries), equating to a mean of 8.1 risks per practice (range: 1-33; SD = 7.13). Seven hundred sixty-seven system improvement actions were recommended across 96 categories (eg, alerting hospitals to illegible writing and delays with discharge summaries) with a mean of 15.6 actions per practice (range: 0-34; SD = 8.0). Conclusions: The risk management model tested uncovered important safety concerns and facilitated the development and communication of related improvement recommendations. System-wide information on hazardous repeat prescribing and how this could be mitigated is very limited. The approach reported may have potential to close this gap and improve the reliability of general practice systems and patient safety, which should be of high interest to primary care organisations internationally

Plant functionality across an environmental gradient

Community assemblages provide insight into ecosystem processes, both spatially and temporally. They interact with biotic and abiotic factors that vary with habitat structure, influencing community composition. Ecological theory demonstrates that species have the potential for a wide fundamental niche, but habitat range may be restricted by factors exposed to species in their realized niche. In barrier island ecosystems, edaphic and environmental characteristics (e.g. elevation and distance to shoreline) are major drivers determining where and how plant communities establish. Physical stressors, such as salt stress and drought influence community grouping and can alter plant function within the environment. With projected increases in sea level rise and storm disturbance it is important to understand how plant communities are organized across barrier islands, as most studies are limited to dune habitats and not inland plant communities. I analyzed plant communities across environmental gradients on a Virginia barrier island from dune to marsh. I established transects on Hog Island and assessed soil characteristics (i.e. carbon, nitrogen, pH), species composition, percent cover and specific leaf area. Elevation and distance to shoreline were obtained using recent Lidar imagery. Bray-Curtis ordination showed that position in landscape is an important driver in structuring dominant species such as the grasses Ammophila breviligulata, Spartina patens, and S. alterniflora. Elevation (r = -0.511) and distance to shoreline (r = 0.551) both show relationships with species composition and distribution across the island. Elevation was important in structuring dominant community types (i.e. dune building and marsh plants). Mantel test was used to determine if relationship exists between species cover and measured edaphic/environmental factors (r = 0.299, p \u3e 0.0001). Percent carbon found in soil within plots was weakly related with distance to the inner portion of the island (r = 0.56). This reflects biotic processes that occur in interior portions of the island. There was no obvious relationship with percent nitrogen due to extremely low levels across the ecosystem. Understanding community structure across coastal ecosystems is necessary for predicting how shorelines and interior communities will be affected with projected sea level rise and increases in storm frequencies. An updated understanding of how biotic and abiotic drivers of community composition will provide information into predictive modeling of plant community and ecosystem level responses to change.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1219/thumbnail.jp

Polyandry in nature: a global analysis

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordA popular notion in sexual selection is that females are polyandrous and their offspring are commonly sired by more than a single male. We now have large-scale evidence from natural populations to be able to verify this assumption. Although we concur that polyandry is a generally common and ubiquitous phenomenon, we emphasise that it remains variable. In particular, the persistence of single paternity, both within and between populations, requires more careful consideration. We also explore an intriguing relation of polyandry with latitude. Several recent large-scale analyses of the relations between key population fitness variables, such as heterozygosity, effective population size (Ne), and inbreeding coefficients, make it possible to examine the global effects of polyandry on population fitness for the first time.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC

Observation of the March Maximum in the Daemon Flux from Neos in the Year 2005: New Efforts and New Effects

The experiments of 2005 aimed at detection of low-velocity (~10-15 km s-1) daemons falling on to the Earth's surface from Near-Earth, Almost Circular Heliocentric Orbits (NEACHOs) have corroborated once more the existence of the March maximum in their flux by raising its confidence level to 99.99%. In addition, these experiments permitted us to identify several FEU-167-1-type PM tubes, with a few times thicker inner Al coating, which appear to be capable to detect, without any scintillator, the crossing of negatively charged daemons. As a result, detection efficiency increases tens of times, thus raising the measured level of the March daemon flux to f > 0.5E-7 cm-2s-1.Comment: 14 page

A multi-centre study of adults with learning disabilities referred to services for antisocial or offending behaviour: demographic, individual, offending and service characteristics

This study was carried out as part of a larger study commissioned by the UK Department of Health to investigate the service pathways for offenders with learning disabilities (LD). The study covered three health regions in the UK and included 477 people with LD referred to services because of antisocial or offending behaviour during a 12-month period. Data were collected concerning demographic, individual, offending behaviour and service characteristics. The findings of the study are broadly consistent with contemporary research concerning this population, particularly in relation to the nature and frequency of offending, history of offending, psychopathology, age and gender distribution. However, very few of those referred had any form of structured care plan, despite having significant offending histories, and this may have compromised early identification of their needs and communication between the health, social and other services involved

Experimental Technology Prototype At Microsoft

In our project, sponsored by Microsoft, we built a proof of concept application to demonstrate the capabilities of an emerging technology when compared with a parallel implementation currently being developed using a similar technology. With technical specifications and interface mockups, we created a UI infrastructure and components such as filtered and searchable tables, dialog boxes, context menus, and navigation to allow users to manage server entities. The application makes minimal use of open source libraries for platform compatibility, but in general runs solely on a custom framework used primarily for UI layout management and for standardizing communication and XML parsing between the server and client systems