714 research outputs found
Percutaneous absorption of a corticosteroid (Betamethasone valerate) in combination with an antibiotic (Gentamicin)
No Abstract
The use of admissions simulation to stabilize ancillary workloads
As part of the planning of a new hospital, an analysis was per formed to determine the number of procedures that would be performed in each of nineteen ancillary departments on a day of the week basis. Because the planned occupancy was not the maximum possible, attempts were made using simulation to smooth the daily ancillary loads by varying the admission day of elective, urgent inpatient and outpatient loads. The methodology, sample outputs, and main conclusions are presented.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69095/2/10.1177_003754978404300203.pd
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Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant Review of Lessons Learned of the Tokaimura Criticality Accident
Improving seabed cable plough performance for offshore renewable energy
Seabed ploughing plays an important part in providing protection to subsea cables that connect offshore renewables, and the process represents a significant portion of the overall installation cost. Current models for predicting the required tow forces for seabed ploughs are based on semi-empirical methods as conventional geotechnical finite element analysis is not suited to modelling this process due to the large de-formations involved. The project described in this paper aims to develop a new material point method numerical modelling software to predict seabed plough response, which will enable new designs to be optimised. This will be validated against physical modelling, a part of which is the focus of this paper. This includes both 1g and centrifuge testing as well as new techniques such as 3D soil surface scanning. The testing also provides insights into share geometry influences on plough behaviour, and will allow improvements to existing empirical models
Population dynamics in compressible flows
Organisms often grow, migrate and compete in liquid environments, as well as
on solid surfaces. However, relatively little is known about what happens when
competing species are mixed and compressed by fluid turbulence. In these
lectures we review our recent work on population dynamics and population
genetics in compressible velocity fields of one and two dimensions. We discuss
why compressible turbulence is relevant for population dynamics in the ocean
and we consider cases both where the velocity field is turbulent and when it is
static. Furthermore, we investigate populations in terms of a continuos density
field and when the populations are treated via discrete particles. In the last
case we focus on the competition and fixation of one species compared to
anotherComment: 16 pages, talk delivered at the Geilo Winter School 201
Psychometric assessment of the short-form Child Perceptions Questionnaire: an international collaborative study.
OBJECTIVE: To examine the factor structure and other psychometric characteristics of the most commonly used child oral-health-related quality-of-life (OHRQoL) measure (the 16-item short-form CPQ11-14 ) in a large number of children (N = 5804) from different settings and who had a range of caries experience and associated impacts. METHODS: Secondary data analyses used subnational epidemiological samples of 11- to 14-year-olds in Australia (N = 372), New Zealand (three samples: 352, 202, 429), Brunei (423), Cambodia (244), Hong Kong (542), Malaysia (439), Thailand (220, 325), England (88, 374), Germany (1055), Mexico (335) and Brazil (404). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the factor structure of the CPQ11-14 across the combined sample and within four regions (Australia/NZ, Asia, UK/Europe and Latin America). Item impact and internal reliability analysis were also conducted. RESULTS: Caries experience varied, with mean DMFT scores ranging from 0.5 in the Malaysian sample to 3.4 in one New Zealand sample. Even more variation was noted in the proportion reporting only fair or poor oral health; this was highest in the Cambodian and Mexican samples and lowest in the German sample and one New Zealand sample. One in 10 reported that their oral health had a marked impact on their life overall. The CFA across all samples revealed two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. The first involved all items in the oral symptoms and functional limitations subscales; the second involved all emotional well-being and social well-being items. The first was designated the 'symptoms/function' subscale, and the second was designated the 'well-being' subscale. Cronbach's alpha scores were 0.72 and 0.84, respectively. The symptoms/function subscale contained more of the items with greater impact, with the item 'Food stuck in between your teeth' having greatest impact; in the well-being subscale, the 'Felt shy or embarrassed' item had the greatest impact. Repeating the analyses by world region gave similar findings. CONCLUSION: The CPQ11-14 performed well cross-sectionally in the largest analysis of the scale in the literature to date, with robust and mostly consistent psychometric characteristics, albeit with two underlying factors (rather than the originally hypothesized four-factor structure). It appears to be a sound, robust measure which should be useful for research, practice and policy
Is the evidence for dark energy secure?
Several kinds of astronomical observations, interpreted in the framework of
the standard Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology, have indicated that our
universe is dominated by a Cosmological Constant. The dimming of distant Type
Ia supernovae suggests that the expansion rate is accelerating, as if driven by
vacuum energy, and this has been indirectly substantiated through studies of
angular anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and of spatial
correlations in the large-scale structure (LSS) of galaxies. However there is
no compelling direct evidence yet for (the dynamical effects of) dark energy.
The precision CMB data can be equally well fitted without dark energy if the
spectrum of primordial density fluctuations is not quite scale-free and if the
Hubble constant is lower globally than its locally measured value. The LSS data
can also be satisfactorily fitted if there is a small component of hot dark
matter, as would be provided by neutrinos of mass 0.5 eV. Although such an
Einstein-de Sitter model cannot explain the SNe Ia Hubble diagram or the
position of the `baryon acoustic oscillation' peak in the autocorrelation
function of galaxies, it may be possible to do so e.g. in an inhomogeneous
Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi cosmology where we are located in a void which is
expanding faster than the average. Such alternatives may seem contrived but
this must be weighed against our lack of any fundamental understanding of the
inferred tiny energy scale of the dark energy. It may well be an artifact of an
oversimplified cosmological model, rather than having physical reality.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures; to appear in a special issue of General
Relativity and Gravitation, eds. G.F.R. Ellis et al; Changes: references
reformatted in journal style - text unchange
Factorization Breaking in Dijet Photoproduction with a Leading Neutron
The production of dijets with a leading neutron in ep-interactions at HERA is
calculated in leading order and next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD using
a pion-exchange model. Differential cross sections for deep-inelastic
scattering (DIS) and photoproduction are presented as a function of several
kinematic variables. By comparing the theoretical predictions for DIS dijets to
recent H1 data, the pion flux factor together with the parton distribution
functions of the pion is determined. The dijet cross sections in
photoproduction show factorization breaking if compared to the H1
photoproduction data. The suppression factor is S = 0.48 (0.64) for resolved
(global) suppression.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure
Structural Determinants and Children's Oral Health: A Cross-National Study
Much research on children's oral health has focused on proximal determinants at the expense of distal (upstream) factors. Yet, such upstream factors-the so-called structural determinants of health-play a crucial role. Children's lives, and in turn their health, are shaped by politics, economic forces, and social and public policies. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between children's clinical (number of decayed, missing, and filled teeth) and self-reported oral health (oral health-related quality of life) and 4 key structural determinants (governance, macroeconomic policy, public policy, and social policy) as outlined in the World Health Organization's Commission for Social Determinants of Health framework. Secondary data analyses were carried out using subnational epidemiological samples of 8- to 15-y-olds in 11 countries ( N = 6,648): Australia (372), New Zealand (three samples; 352, 202, 429), Brunei (423), Cambodia (423), Hong Kong (542), Malaysia (439), Thailand (261, 506), United Kingdom (88, 374), Germany (1498), Mexico (335), and Brazil (404). The results indicated that the type of political regime, amount of governance (e.g., rule of law, accountability), gross domestic product per capita, employment ratio, income inequality, type of welfare regime, human development index, government expenditure on health, and out-of-pocket (private) health expenditure by citizens were all associated with children's oral health. The structural determinants accounted for between 5% and 21% of the variance in children's oral health quality-of-life scores. These findings bring attention to the upstream or structural determinants as an understudied area but one that could reap huge rewards for public health dentistry research and the oral health inequalities policy agenda
Unification of multi-species vertebrate anatomy ontologies for comparative biology in Uberon.
BACKGROUND: Elucidating disease and developmental dysfunction requires understanding variation in phenotype. Single-species model organism anatomy ontologies (ssAOs) have been established to represent this variation. Multi-species anatomy ontologies (msAOs; vertebrate skeletal, vertebrate homologous, teleost, amphibian AOs) have been developed to represent 'natural' phenotypic variation across species. Our aim has been to integrate ssAOs and msAOs for various purposes, including establishing links between phenotypic variation and candidate genes.
RESULTS: Previously, msAOs contained a mixture of unique and overlapping content. This hampered integration and coordination due to the need to maintain cross-references or inter-ontology equivalence axioms to the ssAOs, or to perform large-scale obsolescence and modular import. Here we present the unification of anatomy ontologies into Uberon, a single ontology resource that enables interoperability among disparate data and research groups. As a consequence, independent development of TAO, VSAO, AAO, and vHOG has been discontinued.
CONCLUSIONS: The newly broadened Uberon ontology is a unified cross-taxon resource for metazoans (animals) that has been substantially expanded to include a broad diversity of vertebrate anatomical structures, permitting reasoning across anatomical variation in extinct and extant taxa. Uberon is a core resource that supports single- and cross-species queries for candidate genes using annotations for phenotypes from the systematics, biodiversity, medical, and model organism communities, while also providing entities for logical definitions in the Cell and Gene Ontologies. THE ONTOLOGY RELEASE FILES ASSOCIATED WITH THE ONTOLOGY MERGE DESCRIBED IN THIS MANUSCRIPT ARE AVAILABLE AT: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/uberon/releases/2013-02-21/ CURRENT ONTOLOGY RELEASE FILES ARE AVAILABLE ALWAYS AVAILABLE AT: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/uberon/releases
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