Analysis of bolted flanged panel joint for GRP sectional tanks

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Surviving Sepsis Campaign: International Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock: 2016.

OBJECTIVE: To provide an update to "Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock: 2012." DESIGN: A consensus committee of 55 international experts representing 25 international organizations was convened. Nominal groups were assembled at key international meetings (for those committee members attending the conference). A formal conflict-of-interest (COI) policy was developed at the onset of the process and enforced throughout. A stand-alone meeting was held for all panel members in December 2015. Teleconferences and electronic-based discussion among subgroups and among the entire committee served as an integral part of the development. METHODS: The panel consisted of five sections: hemodynamics, infection, adjunctive therapies, metabolic, and ventilation. Population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes (PICO) questions were reviewed and updated as needed, and evidence profiles were generated. Each subgroup generated a list of questions, searched for best available evidence, and then followed the principles of the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system to assess the quality of evidence from high to very low, and to formulate recommendations as strong or weak, or best practice statement when applicable. RESULTS: The Surviving Sepsis Guideline panel provided 93 statements on early management and resuscitation of patients with sepsis or septic shock. Overall, 32 were strong recommendations, 39 were weak recommendations, and 18 were best-practice statements. No recommendation was provided for four questions. CONCLUSIONS: Substantial agreement exists among a large cohort of international experts regarding many strong recommendations for the best care of patients with sepsis. Although a significant number of aspects of care have relatively weak support, evidence-based recommendations regarding the acute management of sepsis and septic shock are the foundation of improved outcomes for these critically ill patients with high mortality

Age-related differences in 1p and 19q deletions in oligodendrogliomas

BACKGROUND: Recent reports indicate that anaplastic oligodendrogliomas frequently show allelic losses on chromosome arms 1p and 19q, and that these deletions are associated with better chemotherapeutic response and overall patient survival. Because of the diversified genetic makeup of the population and the centralized provincial referral system for brain tumor patients in Manitoba, the epidemiological features of such tumors sometimes differ from the published data acquired from non-community based settings. In this study, we assessed the prevalence of allelic deletions for chromosome arms 1p and 19q in anaplastic and in low-grade oligodendrogliomas in the Manitoba population. METHODS: Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) analysis of brain tumors was carried out using 4 microsatellite markers (D1S508, D1S2734, D19S219 and D19S412) and a PCR based assay. The tumors were consecutively acquired during the period September 1999–March 2001 and a total of 63 tumors were assessed. RESULTS: We found that allelic loss of chromosome 1p and 19q was higher in oligodendrogliomas than in other diffuse gliomas and that for anaplastic oligodendrogliomas, younger patients exhibited significantly more deletions than older patients (>60 years of age). CONCLUSIONS: These studies suggest that age may be a factor in the genetic alterations of oligodendrogliomas. In addition, these studies demonstrate that this assay can easily be carried out in a cost-effective manner in a small tertiary center

Similarities and Differences in Chinese and Caucasian Adults' Use of Facial Cues for Trustworthiness Judgments

All cultural groups in the world place paramount value on interpersonal trust. Existing research suggests that although accurate judgments of another's trustworthiness require extensive interactions with the person, we often make trustworthiness judgments based on facial cues on the first encounter. However, little is known about what facial cues are used for such judgments and what the bases are on which individuals make their trustworthiness judgments.In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that individuals may use facial attractiveness cues as a “shortcut” for judging another's trustworthiness due to the lack of other more informative and in-depth information about trustworthiness. Using data-driven statistical models of 3D Caucasian faces, we compared facial cues used for judging the trustworthiness of Caucasian faces by Caucasian participants who were highly experienced with Caucasian faces, and the facial cues used by Chinese participants who were unfamiliar with Caucasian faces. We found that Chinese and Caucasian participants used similar facial cues to judge trustworthiness. Also, both Chinese and Caucasian participants used almost identical facial cues for judging trustworthiness and attractiveness.The results suggest that without opportunities to interact with another person extensively, we use the less racially specific and more universal attractiveness cues as a “shortcut” for trustworthiness judgments

Interaction effects on common measures of sensitivity:Choice of measure, type I error, and power

Here we use simulation to assess previously unaddressed problems in the assessment of statistical interactions in detection and recognition tasks. The proportion of hits and false-alarms made by an observer on such tasks is affected by both their sensitivity and bias, and numerous measures have been developed to separate out these two factors. Each of these measures makes different assumptions regarding the underlying process and different predictions as to how false-alarm and hit rates should covary. Previous simulations have shown that choice of an inappropriate measure can lead to inflated type I error rates, or reduced power, for main effects, provided there are differences in response bias between the conditions being compared. Interaction effects pose a particular problem in this context. We show that spurious interaction effects in analysis of variance can be produced, or true interactions missed, even in the absence of variation in bias. Additional simulations show that variation in bias complicates patterns of type I error and power further. This under-appreciated fact has the potential to greatly distort the assessment of interactions in detection and recognition experiments. We discuss steps researchers can take to mitigate their chances of making an error

The feasibility of canine rabies elimination in Africa: dispelling doubts with data

<p><b>Background:</b> Canine rabies causes many thousands of human deaths every year in Africa, and continues to increase throughout much of the continent.</p> <p><b>Methodology/Principal Findings:</b> This paper identifies four common reasons given for the lack of effective canine rabies control in Africa: (a) a low priority given for disease control as a result of lack of awareness of the rabies burden; (b) epidemiological constraints such as uncertainties about the required levels of vaccination coverage and the possibility of sustained cycles of infection in wildlife; (c) operational constraints including accessibility of dogs for vaccination and insufficient knowledge of dog population sizes for planning of vaccination campaigns; and (d) limited resources for implementation of rabies surveillance and control. We address each of these issues in turn, presenting data from field studies and modelling approaches used in Tanzania, including burden of disease evaluations, detailed epidemiological studies, operational data from vaccination campaigns in different demographic and ecological settings, and economic analyses of the cost-effectiveness of dog vaccination for human rabies prevention.</p> <p><b>Conclusions/Significance:</b> We conclude that there are no insurmountable problems to canine rabies control in most of Africa; that elimination of canine rabies is epidemiologically and practically feasible through mass vaccination of domestic dogs; and that domestic dog vaccination provides a cost-effective approach to the prevention and elimination of human rabies deaths.</p&gt

An ENU-induced mutation of miR-96 associated with progressive hearing loss in mice.

Progressive hearing loss is common in the human population, but little is known about the molecular basis. We report a new N-ethyl-N-nitrosurea (ENU)-induced mouse mutant, diminuendo, with a single base change in the seed region of Mirn96. Heterozygotes show progressive loss of hearing and hair cell anomalies, whereas homozygotes have no cochlear responses. Most microRNAs are believed to downregulate target genes by binding to specific sites on their mRNAs, so mutation of the seed should lead to target gene upregulation. Microarray analysis revealed 96 transcripts with significantly altered expression in homozygotes; notably, Slc26a5, Ocm, Gfi1, Ptprq and Pitpnm1 were downregulated. Hypergeometric P-value analysis showed that hundreds of genes were upregulated in mutants. Different genes, with target sites complementary to the mutant seed, were downregulated. This is the first microRNA found associated with deafness, and diminuendo represents a model for understanding and potentially moderating progressive hair cell degeneration in hearing loss more generally

External tagging does not affect the feeding behavior of a coral reef fish, Chaetodon vagabundus (Pisces: Chaetodontidae)

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Environmental Biology of Fishes 86 (2009): 447-450, doi:10.1007/s10641-009-9545-9.Increasingly, the ability to recognize individual fishes is important for studies of population dynamics, ecology, and behavior. Although a variety of methods exist, external tags remain one of the most widely applied because they are both effective and cost efficient. However, a key assumption is that neither the tagging procedure nor the presence of a tag negatively affects the individual. While this has been demonstrated for relatively coarse metrics such as growth and survival, few studies have examined the impact of tags and tagging on more subtle aspects of behavior. We tagged adult vagabond butterflyfish (Chaetodon vagabundus) occupying a 30-ha insular reef in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, using a commonly-utilized t-bar anchor tag. We quantified and compared feeding behavior (bite rate), which is sensitive to stress, of tagged and untagged individuals over four separate sampling periods spanning four months post-tagging. Bite rates did not differ between tagged and untagged individuals at each sampling period and, combined with additional anecdotal observations of normal pairing behavior and successful reproduction, suggest that tagging did not adversely affect individuals.The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Fulbright Program, National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council