Open Health Tools: Tooling for Interoperable Healthcare

The Open Health Tools initiative is creating an ecosystem focused on the production of software tooling that promotes the exchange of medical information across political, geographic, cultural, product, and technology lines. At its core, OHT believes that the availability of high-quality tooling that interoperates will propel the industry forward, enabling organizations and vendors to build products and systems that effectively work together. This will ?raise the interoperability bar? as a result of having tools that just work. To achieve these lofty goals, careful consideration must be made to the constituencies that will be most affected by an OHT-influenced world. This document outlines a vision of OHT?s impact to these stakeholders. It does not explain the OHT process itself or how the OHT community operates. Instead, we place emphasis on the impact of that process within the health industry. The catchphrase ?code is king? underpins this document, meaning that the manifestation of any open source community lies in the products and technology it produces

A Statistical description of concurrent mixing and crystallisation during MORB differentiation: Implications for trace element enrichment

The pattern of trace element enrichment and variability found in differentiated suites of basalts is a sim- ple observable, which nonetheless records a wealth of information on processes occurring from the mantle to crustal magma chambers. The incompatible element contents of some mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) sample suites show progressive enrichment beyond the predictions of simple models of fractional crystalli- sation of a single primary melt. Explanations for this over-enrichment have focused on the differentiation processes in crustal magma chambers. In this paper we consider an additional mechanism, and focus instead on the deviation from simple fractionation trends that is possible by mixing of diverse mantle-derived melts supplied to magma chambers. A primary observation motivating this strategy is that there is significant chemical diversity in primitive high MgO basalts, which single liquid parent models cannot match. Models were developed to simulate the compositional effects of concurrent mixing and crystallisation (CMC): diverse parental melts were allowed to mix, with a likelihood that is proportional to the extent of fractional crys- tallisation. Using a simple statistical model to explore the effects of concurrent mixing and crystallisation on apparent liquid lines of descent, we show how significant departure from Rayleigh fractionation is possible as a function of the diversity of trace elements in the incoming melts, their primary MgO, and the relative proportion of enriched to depleted melts. The model was used to make predictions of gradients of trace element enrichment in log[trace element]– MgO space. These predictions were compared with observations from a compilation of global MORB and provide a test of the applicability of CMC to natural systems. We find that by considering the trace element variability of primitive MORB, its MgO content and degree of enrichment, CMC accurately predicts the pattern of trace element over-enrichment seen in global MORB. Importantly, this model shows that the relationship between over-enrichment and incompatibility can derive from mantle processes: the fact that during mantle melting maximum variability is generated in those elements with the smallest bulk K d . Magma chamber processes are therefore filtering the signal of mantle-derived chemical diversity to produce trace element over-enrichment during differentiation. Finally, we interrogate the global MORB dataset for evidence that trace element over-enrichment varies as a function of melt supply. There is no correlation between over-enrichment and melt supply in the global dataset. Trace element over-enrichment occurs at slow-spreading ridges where extensive steady-state axial magma chambers, the most likely environment for repeated episodes of replenishment, tapping and crystallisation, are very rarely detected. This supports a model whereby trace element over-enrichment is an inevitable consequence of chemically heterogeneous melts delivered from the mantle, a process that may operate across all rates of melt supply

Earlier Mother's Age at Menarche Predicts Rapid Infancy Growth and Childhood Obesity

Earlier age at menarche may be a transgenerational marker of faster growth, particularly during infancy, leading to taller childhood stature but earlier maturation and hence shorter adult stature

Stratigraphic Architecture of Bedrock Reference Section, Victoria Crater, Meridiani Planum, Mars

The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has investigated bedrock outcrops exposed in several craters at Meridiani Planum, Mars, in an effort to better understand the role of surface processes in its geologic history. Opportunity has recently completed its observations of Victoria crater, which is 750 m in diameter and exposes cliffs up to ∼15 m high. The plains surrounding Victoria crater are ∼10 m higher in elevation than those surrounding the previously explored Endurance crater, indicating that the Victoria crater exposes a stratigraphically higher section than does the Endurance crater; however, Victoria strata overlap in elevation with the rocks exposed at the Erebus crater. Victoria crater has a well-developed geomorphic pattern of promontories and embayments that define the crater wall and that reveal thick bedsets (3–7 m) of large-scale cross-bedding, interpreted as fossil eolian dunes. Opportunity was able to drive into the crater at Duck Bay, located on the western margin of Victoria crater. Data from the Microscopic Imager and Panoramic Camera reveal details about the structures, textures, and depositional and diagenetic events that influenced the Victoria bedrock. A lithostratigraphic subdivision of bedrock units was enabled by the presence of a light-toned band that lines much of the upper rim of the crater. In ascending order, three stratigraphic units are named Lyell, Smith, and Steno; Smith is the light-toned band. In the Reference Section exposed along the ingress path at Duck Bay, Smith is interpreted to represent a zone of diagenetic recrystallization; however, its upper contact also coincides with a primary erosional surface. Elsewhere in the crater the diagenetic band crosscuts the physical stratigraphy. Correlation with strata present at nearby promontory Cape Verde indicates that there is an erosional surface at the base of the cliff face that corresponds to the erosional contact below Steno. The erosional contact at the base of Cape Verde lies at a lower elevation, but within the same plane as the contact below Steno, which indicates that the material above the erosional contact was built on significant depositional paleotopography. The eolian dune forms exposed in Duck Bay and Cape Verde, combined with the geometry of the erosional surface, indicate that these outcrops may be part of a larger-scale draa architecture. This insight is possible only as a result of the larger-scale exposures at Victoria crater, which significantly exceed the more limited exposures at the Erebus, Endurance, and Eagle craters

Vegetation history and climatic fluctuations on a transect along the Dead Sea west shore and impact on past societies over the last 3500 years.

This study represents the vegetation history of the last 3500 years and conducts an analysis of the climatic fluctuations on a 75 km long transect on the western Dead Sea shore. Palynological and sedimentological data are available from six cores near Mount Sedom, Ein Boqueq, and Ein Gedi and from outcrops near Ze'elim and Ein Feshkha. The comparison of the pollen data with the lake levels shows synchronous trends. During the Middle Bronze Age, Iron Age and Hellenistic to Byzantine Period the high lake level of the Dead Sea signals an increase in precipitation. Contemporaneously, values of cultivated plants indicate an increase in agriculture. Lake level is low during the Late Bronze Age, within the Iron Age and at the end of the Byzantine period, indicating dry periods when all pds show a decrease of cultivated plants. Forest regeneration led by drought-resistant pines is observed in all pollen diagrams (pds) following the agricultural decline in the Byzantine period and, in the pds near Ein Boqeq, Ze'elim and Ein Feshkha, during the late Iron Age. The modern vegetation gradient is reflected in the palaeo-records: a stronger expansion of Mediterranean vegetation and cultivated plants in the northern sites is recognisable