Should the Glidescope video laryngoscope be used first line for all oral intubations or only in those with a difficult airway? A review of current literature

The purpose of this study was to review literature that looked into the efficacy of the Glidescope video laryngoscope versus the Macintosh laryngoscope in oral endotracheal intubations. We aimed to answer the question 'Should the Glidescope video laryngoscope laryngoscopes be used as first line intubation aids or only in the difficult airway?’ A systematic search of electronic databases was made. The inclusion criteria included: Glidescope, video laryngoscope, and Macintosh laryngoscope in human studies. The study aimed to compare first attempt success rate, glottic view and intubation time in papers dating between 2009 and 2017. Eleven trials with a total of 7,919 patients with both difficult and normal airways were included. The trials showed an improvement in first attempt success rate and glottic view with the Glidescope video laryngoscope especially in those with difficult airways. Overall time to intubate showed no significant differences between the Glidescope video laryngoscope and the Macintosh laryngoscope although it was identified that with increased training and experience with the Glidescope video laryngoscope, intubation time was reduced. Glidescope video laryngoscopes show advantages over the Macintosh laryngoscopes in obtaining better glottic views in those with difficult airways. However its use is not supported in all routine intubations

Introducing the Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator of political violence

Modern armed conflicts have a tendency to cluster together and spread geographically. However, the geography of most conflicts remains under-studied. To fill this gap, this article presents a new indicator that measures two key geographical properties of subnational political violence: the conflict intensity within a region on the one hand, and the spatial distribution of conflict within a region on the other. We demonstrate the indicator in North and West Africa between 1997 to 2019 to show that it can clarify how conflicts can spread from place to place and how the geography of conflict changes over time

From the Sewing Room to the Ballroom, the Evolution of Ballroom Dance Costumes

Although I have danced all my life, I only began to ballroom dance and dance socially after starting college at the University of South Carolina. While dancing with the Carolina Ballroom Club, I learned some of the history of ballroom dance from our instructors, but I never quite understood how we went from having very conservative court dances to the wide variety of ballroom dances where dancers wear extravagant costumes. I also have been sewing since I was a child; I helped do minor repairs in the costume room for ballet productions, and recently began making clothing for myself. I decided to research the history of ballroom dance costumes and design and make my own. Although dancing has been a part of human society for millennia, the focus of this thesis is only on the past two centuries in Western Europe and the United States. Ballroom dancing originated from court dances and country dances that had designated steps and sometimes were called dances, like square dances where there is a leader that announces the steps as the crowd dances. However, these dances like the minuet did not allow for any close contact between the dancers and didn’t look like any of today’s “ballroom” dances. In the 1800s, the waltz became popular and spread from Germany into France and England where the close embrace between dancers was initially considered scandalous. Waltz was the prominent ballroom dance of the 19 th century, and the costumes for women consisted of a corseted waistline, whose style changed throughout the decades, a stiff bodice, and a full skirt created by large numbers of underskirts called petticoats or wire cages. Men wore black tailcoats with a white shirt, 4 some variety of tie, and pants that began much shorter and tighter and grew into the slacks one is accustomed to seeing today. Both men and women in the 19 th century wore gloves to dance. In the early 20 th century, ballroom dancing saw many changes. The tango from Argentina made its way to Europe, dances from the United States like swing dance and foxtrot grew in popularity, and interest in dances from Latin America began to grow. During the ragtime era, clothing became less rigid and allowed for more freedom of movement. This trend continued into the jazz age where women’s skirts became shorter and gained more movement. In the 1950s, Latin dances like the Rumba were added to the ballroom repertoire and dancers began to have different styles of costumes for “Latin” dances like cha cha than they had for “Standard” dances like the waltz. The silhouettes of both dresses were similar but with different embellishments. By the 1970s, Latin costumes became shorter and varied widely in style. This trend continues to this day, and standard costumes are long and flowing, while Latin costumes are short and diverse in style. All of this knowledge helped me design my ballroom gown for standard dances. I chose a silhouette that has been used often in the past decades and a cut that fits my body well. The construction of the dress was time-consuming but well worth it, as I intend to wear this dress in many competitions to come

The Response of Elite European Merchant Companies to European Expansion into Asia and the Americas, c.1492-c.1530

This thesis analyses the multi-national European merchant-banking companies who dominated European commerce at the beginning of European engagement with the Americas and with Asia via the Cape Route, focusing upon how they responded to these changes. In the first decades of the sixteenth century, it was these companies, mostly from southern Germany and the Italian city-states, who dominated the European trade in Asian and American goods, whose capital funded Spanish and Portuguese royal policies overseas, and whose agents played crucial roles in establishing the Spanish and Portuguese empires and colonial trade. Using their correspondence as its main source material, it analyses their participation in overseas trade and the networks which they used to participate; their specifically mercantile perception of the New World and Asia; and their exploitation of the opportunities newly made available, particularly through the use of luxury exotica, for political, social, and commercial advantage. It examines how their position changed in response to political and economic shifts, highlighting their cultural and economic flexibility that allowed them to adapt to overseas activity and to the decline of their near-hegemonic position when the growing centralisation and power of the states in the 1530s caused their previous authority to wane. It re-examines the traditional quantitative, statistical approach to economic history and the general separation of economic and cultural history, instead prioritising the choices and motivations of these powerful individuals and groups in their political, cultural, and economic contexts, with the broader political and economic changes as background to the questions of who these merchants thought that they were, and what they thought that they were doing. This dissertation considers how merchants sought to increase their status, their wealth, their political connections, their power, and their commercial success through their trade in and conspicuous consumption of luxury items and their facilitation of the same for the princes with whom they sought economic relations.University of Sydne

Hereditary colorectal cancer : clinical and biological consequences of known and new genes, as well as modifiers

Each year 3500 people in Switzerland are diagnosed with colorectal cancer, approximately 51.8 and 34.3 per 100’000 inhabitants for males and females, respectively. Those patients with a familial risk ie. they haveor more first or second degree relatives with colorectal cancer, account for approximately 20 percent of all affected patients, whereas roughlyto 10 percent of the total annual burden of colorectal cancer is mendelian in nature – that is, it is inherited in an autosomal dominant manner. This thesis has focused on genotype-phenotype correlations in two hereditary colorectal cancer syndromes, hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) and familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) in an attempt to optimise the selection criteria for affected individuals, to establish the sensitivity and specificity of different screening methods, to investigate a relatively new gene associated with a multiple colorectal adenoma and carcinoma phenotype and to assess the role of a modifier gene locus on chromosome 1p33-36. Since only limited data are available which detail the value of the different HNPCC referral criteria in combination with microsatellite instability (MSI) testing and various mutation screening methods, 222 unrelated Swiss patients were studied in order to (i) assess the phenotypic and molecular differences between patients belonging to different referral criteria groups, and (ii) determine the diagnostic accuracy of the criteria and screening procedures employed in identifying individuals with mismatch repair (MMR) gene alterations. The Bethesda Guidelines (BG) proved to be of superior sensitivity and diagnostic accuracy compared to Amsterdam Criteria I/II (AC I/II) alone, in identifying patients with MMR gene alterations. Based on the evaluation of the different screening techniques employed in this study, it is suggested that MSI analysis combined with immunohistochemistry testing and subsequent mutational analysis of the positively scored individuals encompassing both a DNA and a mRNA-based technique, should be conducted for optimal rates of mutation detection. Investigations subsequently continued in attempts to further characterise the phenotype of Swiss HNPCC patients by comparing 46 MMR gene mutation carriers to 84 gene alteration negative individuals in order to ultimately aid the identification of HNPCC individuals and MMR gene mutation carriers. Ninety-four percent of the mutation positive patients were classified by referral criteria (AC or BG) compared to only 76% of mutation negative individuals. Mutation positive patients were also younger at the time of their CRC diagnosis, had more often proximally located CRCs, a higher prevalence of syn-/metachronous CRCs and more frequently extracolonic manifestations. Using such phenotypic differences to distinguish mutation positive from mutation negative individuals, clinicians may be aided in their preselection of patients for genetic surveillance, mutation screening and subsequently, genetic counselling. In light of results from recent studies, implicating germline mutations in MYH with a multiple colorectal adenoma and carcinoma phenotype, it was the purpose of this study to further correlate MYH germline mutations with Swiss APC-negative individuals (n=65) and establish any genotype-phenotype correlations to aid in the optimisation of clinical screening and prevention strategies. An optimised protocol for the rapid and sensitive mutation analysis of MYH via high performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) was established. Thirteen (20%) individuals were identified as MYH mutation carriers, 7 (54%) of which had biallelic mutations. Aside from previously reported mutations, 3 apparently novel gene alterations were established in 3 patients with a multiple adenoma phenotype. The phenotypical characteristics of all patients investigated were similar, with no statistically significant correlations to genotype, hence, clinicians and counsellors are advised to screen for MYH mutations in patients displaying tens to hundreds of colorectal adenomas, and a family history consistent only with recessive inheritance. FAP patients typically display considerable inter- and intra-familial phenotypic heterogeneity, which represents a major problem in genetic counselling of APC mutation carriers. The Min mouse model indicated a putative disease modifier locus on chromosome 4, which is syntenic to human chromosome 1p35-36. Furthermore, germline mutations in the base-excision repair gene MYH, which maps to the 1p33-34 region, have been described in patients with multiple adenomas, pointing to a possible role as disease modifier in FAP. Here, the re-assessment of one of the largest FAP kindreds published, which was previously used in linkage mapping of 1p35- 36, is documented. Using the latest available clinical information, additional mutation carriers and polymorphic markers, fine-mapping of the critical region as well as mutation analysis of the MYH gene were performed. These investigations significantly excluded (i) the 1p33-36 region as a modifier locus and (ii) MYH as a modifier gene for extracolonic disease in this FAP kindred. The results indicate that linkage analysis of further putative candidate regions is necessary to identify a disease modifier locus in FAP

Leadership Skills and Stress

The present study induced stress in order to examine the relationship between leadership skills and stress. The study evaluated leadership skills, personality, and affect in order to measure the differences between perceived stress and physiological stress. Physiological stress was measured by salivary Cortisol samples that were taken before and after the stressor. The participants were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) as the stressor. A stepwise regression found that the personality factor, Neuroticism, was a significant predictor of Cortisol reactivity (R2 = .081, F(1, 68) = 5.966, p < .05) and self-reports of stress (R2 = .057, F(1, 68) = 4.113, p < .05). These findings suggest that individuals who are high in neuroticism might not be the best candidates for high stress jobs or workplaces

Women's participation motivation in rugby, cricket and netball:body satisfaction and self-identity

Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN052574 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Copepods as biocontrols of an invasive mosquito in the UK

Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are highly invasive and are capable of transmitting debilitating diseases such as dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and chikungunya to humans. Cyclopoid copepods have previously been suggested as biocontrol agents against aedine mosquitoes, but they are rarely incorporated by most vector control programs due to heavy reliance on pyrethroid insecticides. In this thesis, I conducted a series of analyses to inform future Ae. albopictus biocontrol strategies in the UK. First, I used a meta-analysis approach to investigate the existing evidence for both consumptive and non-consumptive effects of predation on mosquito populations. I found that predation generally results in smaller mosquito body size, and this non-consumptive effect can lead to lower rates of disease transmission. Since Ae. albopictus are predicted to establish throughout most of England and Wales within the next fifty years, I examined the efficacy of UK copepod species against invasive larvae at temperatures that they are likely to experience in South East England. I found that cyclopoid copepods are effective predators against newly-hatched Ae. albopictus larvae across temperatures from 15 to 25°C, and that these predators exhibit type II functional response curves, indicating their suitability as biocontrols. The invasive mosquito larvae prey were preferred by copepod predators when both invasive Ae. albopictus prey and resident Culex pipiens prey were made available. I did not find any significant change in development time or size of Ae. albopictus mosquitoes that were exposed to copepod predation during the later stages of larval development. The absence of non-consumptive effects on Ae. albopictus may be due to their lack of a shared evolutionary history with UK copepod predators. In summary, my findings support the integration of local cyclopoid copepods as biocontrols into future vector control programs that target Ae. albopictus in the UK.Open Acces