Hope in dirt: report of the Fort Apache Workshop on Forensic Sedimentology Applications to Cultural Property Crime, 15—19 October 2018

A 2018 workshop on the White Mountain Apache Tribe lands in Arizona examined ways to enhance investigations into cultural property crime (CPC) through applications of rapidly evolving methods from archaeological science. CPC (also looting, graverobbing) refers to unauthorized damage, removal, or trafficking in materials possessing blends of communal, aesthetic, and scientific values. The Fort Apache workshop integrated four generally partitioned domains of CPC expertise: (1) theories of perpetrators’ motivations and methods; (2) recommended practice in sustaining public and community opposition to CPC; (3) tactics and strategies for documenting, investigating, and prosecuting CPC; and (4) forensic sedimentology—uses of biophysical sciences to link sediments from implicated persons and objects to crime scenes. Forensic sedimentology served as the touchstone for dialogues among experts in criminology, archaeological sciences, law enforcement, and heritage stewardship. Field visits to CPC crime scenes and workshop deliberations identified pathways toward integrating CPC theory and practice with forensic sedimentology’s potent battery of analytic methods

Composition of Constraint, Hypothesis and Error Models to improve interaction in Human-Machine Interfaces

We use Weighted Finite-State Transducers (WFSTs) to represent the different sources of information available: the initial hypotheses, the possible errors, the constraints imposed by the task (interaction language) and the user input. The fusion of these models to find the most probable output string can be performed efficiently by using carefully selected transducer operations. The proposed system initially suggests an output based on the set of hypotheses, possible errors and Constraint Models. Then, if human intervention is needed, a multimodal approach, where the user input is combined with the aforementioned models, is applied to produce, with a minimum user effort, the desired output. This approach offers the practical advantages of a de-coupled model (e.g. input-system + parameterized rules + post-processor), keeping at the same time the error-recovery power of an integrated approach, where all the steps of the process are performed in the same formal machine (as in a typical HMM in speech recognition) to avoid that an error at a given step remains unrecoverable in the subsequent steps. After a presentation of the theoretical basis of the proposed multi-source information system, its application to two real world problems, as an example of the possibilities of this architecture, is addressed. The experimental results obtained demonstrate that a significant user effort can be saved when using the proposed procedure. A simple demonstration, to better understand and evaluate the proposed system, is available on the web https://demos.iti.upv.es/hi/. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Navarro Cerdan, JR.; Llobet Azpitarte, R.; Arlandis, J.; Perez-Cortes, J. (2016). Composition of Constraint, Hypothesis and Error Models to improve interaction in Human-Machine Interfaces. Information Fusion. 29:1-13. doi:10.1016/j.inffus.2015.09.001S1132

The Maastricht Ultrasound Shoulder pain trial (MUST): Ultrasound imaging as a diagnostic triage tool to improve management of patients with non-chronic shoulder pain in primary care

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Subacromial disorders are considered to be one of the most common pathologies affecting the shoulder. Optimal therapy for shoulder pain (SP) in primary care is yet unknown, since clinical history and physical examination do not provide decisive evidence as to the patho-anatomical origin of the symptoms. Optimal decision strategies can be furthered by applying ultrasound imaging (US), an accurate method in diagnosing SP, demonstrating a clear relationship between diagnosis and available therapies. Yet, the clinical cost-effectiveness of applying US in the management of SP in primary care has not been studied. The aim of this paper is to describe the design and methods of a trial assessing the cost-effectiveness of ultrasound imaging as a diagnostic triage tool to improve management of primary care patients with non-chronic shoulder pain.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>This randomised controlled trial (RCT) will involve 226 adult patients with suspected subacromial disorders recruited by general practitioners. During a Qualification period of two weeks, patients receive care as usual as advised by the Dutch College of General Practitioners, and patients are referred for US. Patients with insufficient improvement qualify for the RCT. These patients are then randomly assigned to the intervention or the control group. The therapies used in both groups are the same (corticosteroid injections, referral to a physiotherapist or orthopedic surgeon) except that therapies used in the intervention group will be tailored based on the US results. Ultrasound diagnosed disorders include tendinopathy, calcific tendinitis, partial and full thickness tears, and subacromial bursitis. The primary outcome is patient-perceived recovery at 52 weeks, using the Global Perceived Effect questionnaire. Secondary outcomes are disease specific and generic quality of life, cost-effectiveness, and the adherence to the initial applied treatment. Outcome measures will be assessed at baseline, 13, 26, 39 and 52 weeks after inclusion. An economic evaluation will be performed from both a health care and societal perspective with a time horizon of 52 weeks.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The results of this trial will give unique evidence regarding the cost-effectiveness of US as a diagnostic triage tool in the management of SP in primary care.</p

Identification of GSK3186899/DDD853651 as a Preclinical Development Candidate for the Treatment of Visceral Leishmaniasis

The leishmaniases are diseases that affect millions of people across the world, in particular visceral leishmaniasis (VL) which is fatal unless treated. Current standard of care for VL suffers from multiple issues and there is a limited pipeline of new candidate drugs. As such, there is a clear unmet medical need to identify new treatments. This paper describes the optimization of a phenotypic hit against Leishmania donovani, the major causative organism of VL. The key challenges were to balance solubility and metabolic stability while maintaining potency. Herein, strategies to address these shortcomings and enhance efficacy are discussed, culminating in the discovery of preclinical development candidate GSK3186899/DDD853651 (<b>1</b>) for VL

International consensus conference recommendations on ultrasound education for undergraduate medical students

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to provide expert consensus recommendations to establish a global ultrasound curriculum for undergraduate medical students. Methods: 64 multi-disciplinary ultrasound experts from 16 countries, 50 multi-disciplinary ultrasound consultants, and 21 medical students and residents contributed to these recommendations. A modified Delphi consensus method was used that included a systematic literature search, evaluation of the quality of literature by the GRADE system, and the RAND appropriateness method for panel judgment and consensus decisions. The process included four in-person international discussion sessions and two rounds of online voting. Results: A total of 332 consensus conference statements in four curricular domains were considered: (1) curricular scope (4 statements), (2) curricular rationale (10 statements), (3) curricular characteristics (14 statements), and (4) curricular content (304 statements). Of these 332 statements, 145 were recommended, 126 were strongly recommended, and 61 were not recommended. Important aspects of an undergraduate ultrasound curriculum identified include curricular integration across the basic and clinical sciences and a competency and entrustable professional activity-based model. The curriculum should form the foundation of a life-long continuum of ultrasound education that prepares students for advanced training and patient care. In addition, the curriculum should complement and support the medical school curriculum as a whole with enhanced understanding of anatomy, physiology, pathophysiological processes and clinical practice without displacing other important undergraduate learning. The content of the curriculum should be appropriate for the medical student level of training, evidence and expert opinion based, and include ongoing collaborative research and development to ensure optimum educational value and patient care. Conclusions: The international consensus conference has provided the first comprehensive document of recommendations for a basic ultrasound curriculum. The document reflects the opinion of a diverse and representative group of international expert ultrasound practitioners, educators, and learners. These recommendations can standardize undergraduate medical student ultrasound education while serving as a basis for additional research in medical education and the application of ultrasound in clinical practice

Diving into the vertical dimension of elasmobranch movement ecology

Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date, comparative studies among species at global scales have mostly focused on horizontal movements. Our study addresses the knowledge gap of vertical movements by compiling the first global synthesis of vertical habitat use by elasmobranchs from data obtained by deployment of 989 biotelemetry tags on 38 elasmobranch species. Elasmobranchs displayed high intra- and interspecific variability in vertical movement patterns. Substantial vertical overlap was observed for many epipelagic elasmobranchs, indicating an increased likelihood to display spatial overlap, biologically interact, and share similar risk to anthropogenic threats that vary on a vertical gradient. We highlight the critical next steps toward incorporating vertical movement into global management and monitoring strategies for elasmobranchs, emphasizing the need to address geographic and taxonomic biases in deployments and to concurrently consider both horizontal and vertical movements

Diving into the vertical dimension of elasmobranch movement ecology

Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date, comparative studies among species at global scales have mostly focused on horizontal movements. Our study addresses the knowledge gap of vertical movements by compiling the first global synthesis of vertical habitat use by elasmobranchs from data obtained by deployment of 989 biotelemetry tags on 38 elasmobranch species. Elasmobranchs displayed high intra- and interspecific variability in vertical movement patterns. Substantial vertical overlap was observed for many epipelagic elasmobranchs, indicating an increased likelihood to display spatial overlap, biologically interact, and share similar risk to anthropogenic threats that vary on a vertical gradient. We highlight the critical next steps toward incorporating vertical movement into global management and monitoring strategies for elasmobranchs, emphasizing the need to address geographic and taxonomic biases in deployments and to concurrently consider both horizontal and vertical movements

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis