The facies architecture of large igneous provinces: an integrated geological and geophysical approach to the characterisation of volcanic successions in 3-D

Quantifying the facies architecture of flood volcanic provinces is important as it can be used to understand the physical volcanology and rock property variations throughout the igneous succession. This is very important to the petroleum industry exploration efforts in volcanic rifted margins as volcanic successions commonly mask geophysical images of sub-volcanic petroleum plays. This problem is known as the 'sub-basalt imaging problem' and is caused by factors including the geometrical heterogeneities and elastic velocity and density contrasts through the volcanic pile. The study of facies architecture is broken down into a series of orders of scale. These scales reflect a systematic approach to the characterisation of the facies architecture, from a centimetre through to kilometre-scale, and incorporates 3D modelling of a range of data types for constructing the 3D structure of the flood volcanic successions. A system for the characterisation of lava flow scale facies is presented termed the 'intrafacies scheme'. This may be used to assess and interpret the geological facies heterogeneities present on a 'micro-scale' and link the interpretations to geophysical rock properties. The scheme is applied to outcrop-scale case studies in the Talisker Bay area of the Skye Lava Field on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. On a lava field scale of study ('meso-scale'), the geometrical relationships of several flood basalt provinces are studied, focusing on the Skye Lava Field. This is studied in ID through to 3D, revealing that the lava field may be divided into architectural sequences based on lava flow facies interpretations. The facies evolve upwards through the volcanic succession from geometrically complex thin, olivine-basaltic compound-braided lava flow facies towards the base, to simple, thick basaltic-andesite tabular lava flows. The lower lavas are interpreted to have formed on the gently dipping flanks of a shield volcano. The observations and understanding of flood volcanics on a lava field scale of observation and the facies forming the building blocks of lava fields are used to interpret the GFA-99 2D seismic data from the Faeroe-Shetland Basin. The interpretation is developed into 3D and thicknesses of the Faeroes Lava Group are calculated. The complete study of facies from intrafacies through to basin-scale interpretations reveal that flood volcanic successions contain substantial geometrical and rock property heterogeneities, and that these can be characterised in the 3D modelling environment into geologically realistic geophysical flood basalt facies architectural models

Changing the Trajectory of Substance Use and Depression beyond the Formative Years: The Virginia Screening, Brief Intervention, & Referral to Treatment Project

Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is an important secondary prevention strategy to address substance use and depression risk beginning in youth and continuing across the lifespan. Ten healthcare settings in Virginia implemented the SBIRT model between 2017 and 2020. A total of 65,315 participants ages 18 and older were universally screened to determine the severity of their substance use and depression and offered a risk-informed intervention. 12.7 percent of individuals endorsed some level of risky substance use and 4.5 percent screened positive for depression overall (11.1 percent in the outpatient setting). 10 percent of all brief intervention recipients were enrolled for follow-up screening 6 months later. Younger adults had significantly greater prevalence of risky drug use and depression compared to older age groups while middle-age adults displayed higher prevalence of moderate to severe alcohol risk highlighting the need for early intervention among younger adults. Significant reductions were observed in risky alcohol use (52.2%), as well as illicit drug use (44.7%) and depression (63.0%)

Improving quality of breast cancer surgery through development of a national breast cancer surgical outcomes (BRCASO) research database

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Common measures of surgical quality are 30-day morbidity and mortality, which poorly describe breast cancer surgical quality with extremely low morbidity and mortality rates. Several national quality programs have collected additional surgical quality measures; however, program participation is voluntary and results may not be generalizable to all surgeons. We developed the Breast Cancer Surgical Outcomes (BRCASO) database to capture meaningful breast cancer surgical quality measures among a non-voluntary sample, and study variation in these measures across providers, facilities, and health plans. This paper describes our study protocol, data collection methods, and summarizes the strengths and limitations of these data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We included 4524 women ≥18 years diagnosed with breast cancer between 2003-2008. All women with initial breast cancer surgery performed by a surgeon employed at the University of Vermont or three Cancer Research Network (CRN) health plans were eligible for inclusion. From the CRN institutions, we collected electronic administrative data including tumor registry information, Current Procedure Terminology codes for breast cancer surgeries, surgeons, surgical facilities, and patient demographics. We supplemented electronic data with medical record abstraction to collect additional pathology and surgery detail. All data were manually abstracted at the University of Vermont.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The CRN institutions pre-filled 30% (22 out of 72) of elements using electronic data. The remaining elements, including detailed pathology margin status and breast and lymph node surgeries, required chart abstraction. The mean age was 61 years (range 20-98 years); 70% of women were diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, 20% with ductal carcinoma in situ, and 10% with invasive lobular carcinoma.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The BRCASO database is one of the largest, multi-site research resources of meaningful breast cancer surgical quality data in the United States. Assembling data from electronic administrative databases and manual chart review balanced efficiency with high-quality, unbiased data collection. Using the BRCASO database, we will evaluate surgical quality measures including mastectomy rates, positive margin rates, and partial mastectomy re-excision rates among a diverse, non-voluntary population of patients, providers, and facilities.</p

Copy Number Variation of KIR Genes Influences HIV-1 Control

The authors that the number of activating and inhibitory KIR genes varies between individuals and plays a role in the regulation of immune mechanisms that determine HIV-1 control

Identification and Classification of Conserved RNA Secondary Structures in the Human Genome

The discoveries of microRNAs and riboswitches, among others, have shown functional RNAs to be biologically more important and genomically more prevalent than previously anticipated. We have developed a general comparative genomics method based on phylogenetic stochastic context-free grammars for identifying functional RNAs encoded in the human genome and used it to survey an eight-way genome-wide alignment of the human, chimpanzee, mouse, rat, dog, chicken, zebra-fish, and puffer-fish genomes for deeply conserved functional RNAs. At a loose threshold for acceptance, this search resulted in a set of 48,479 candidate RNA structures. This screen finds a large number of known functional RNAs, including 195 miRNAs, 62 histone 3′UTR stem loops, and various types of known genetic recoding elements. Among the highest-scoring new predictions are 169 new miRNA candidates, as well as new candidate selenocysteine insertion sites, RNA editing hairpins, RNAs involved in transcript auto regulation, and many folds that form singletons or small functional RNA families of completely unknown function. While the rate of false positives in the overall set is difficult to estimate and is likely to be substantial, the results nevertheless provide evidence for many new human functional RNAs and present specific predictions to facilitate their further characterization

ELECTRONIC COMMUNITIES: A FORUM FOR SUPPORTING WOMEN PROFESSIONALS AND STUDENTS IN TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC FIELDS

These e-lists are a feature of MentorNet’s larger electronic mentoring program and were sponsored t

Building a better bridge: Testing e-training to improve e-mentoring programmes in higher education

ABSTRACT Uniting mentoring with e-mail results in expanded opportunities In this article, we examine one feature of a structured e-mentoring programme, a series of interactive, web-based case studies used as training modules, and test it