Direct administration of 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin into guinea pig cochleae: Effects on physiological and histological measurements

<p>Cochlear response measurements from two different animals made before (red) and after (blue) treatment with HPβCD (Panel A) and TTX (Panel B) to 80 dB SPL 4 kHz tone bursts. Cochlear response waveform maintained CAP-like morphology after HPβCD treatment, consistent with reduced mechanical drive to neural excitation (Panel B, blue). In contrast, response waveform is EPSP-like following TTX treatment. Unlike TTX, results from HPβCD do not support the hypothesis that the auditory nerve is a site of action for 13 mM HPβCD.</p

The evolution of gregariousness in parasitoid wasps

Data are assembled on the clutch-size strategies adopted by extant species of parasitoid wasp. These data are used to reconstruct the history of clutch-size evolution in the group using a series of plausible evolutionary assumptions. Extant families are either entirely solitary, both solitary and gregarious, or else clutch size is unknown. Parsimony analysis suggests that the ancestors of most families were solitary, a result which is robust to different phylogenetic relationships and likely data inadequacies. This implies that solitariness was ubiquitous throughout the initial radiation of the group, and that transitions to gregariousness have subsequently occurred a minimum of 43 times in several, but not all lineages. Current data suggest that species-rich and small-bodied lineages are more likely to have evolved gregariousness, and contain more species with small gregarious brood sizes. I discuss the implications of these data for clutch-size theory

Heavy Quark Parameters and Vcb from Spectral Moments in Semileptonic B Decays

We extract the heavy quark masses and non-perturbative parameters from the Delphi preliminary measurements of the first three moments of the charged lepton energy and hadronic mass distributions in semileptonic B decays, using a multi-parameter fit. We adopt two formalisms, one of which does not rely on a 1/mc expansion and makes use of running quark masses. The data are consistent and the level of accuracy of the experimental inputs largely determines the present sensitivity. The results allow to improve on the uncertainty in the extraction of Vcb.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure

Replacement for the 10 page paper? A pilot project using blogs and wikis for a collaborative EBM assignment in a 3rd year internal medical clerkship

Objective Pilot a group assignment using blogs and wikis to develop evidence-based medicine skills in third year medical students on an internal medicine clerkship. Instead of the clerkship’s previous individual ten-page paper assignment, the students were divided into four groups of sixteen. During the clerkship, students are on geographically dispersed rotations. The earlier ten-page paper had required the students to complete a patient history and physical write-up. With the pilot project, each group was assigned a librarian and a physician faculty mentor. Each student recorded on the blog a clinical scenario and question they encountered. They were encouraged to communicate with the librarian to construct a well formed clinical question. Each student group then came to consensus on which question to pursue and collaborated on a wiki including a list of citations to the best available evidence, a critique of the studies, and implications for the patient

Vegetarianism

Ethical vegetarians maintain that vegetarianism is morally required. The principal reasons offered in support of ethical vegetarianism are: (i) concern for the welfare and well-being of the animals being eaten, (ii) concern for the environment, (iii) concern over global food scarcity and the just distribution of resources, and (iv) concern for future generations. Each of these reasons is explored in turn, starting with a historical look at ethical vegetarianism and the moral status of animals

The uses and misuses of dialogue

'Civilisation' as a tool of power has been a constant in world history since the 'discovery' of new worlds by Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British adventurers. 'Discovery' conferred ownership and 'civilisation' justified it. The classification of humans into descending categories of civilised, savages and barbarians was a form of moral stratification. Beginning as a neologism from its Latin roots, civilisation moved forward with 'western'1 explorers and armies wherever they set foot. The implicit message was not what we are doing to you but what we are doing for you. Inevitably, the invaded and colonised fought back and sometimes had the numbers to inflict significant defeats. In Muslim territories, because there was no nation, and displaced rulers who left behind no structure of government, Islam had to be the rallying point. In south-eastern Europe, and amongst the Christians of the Ottoman domains, it was identified as the central source of the problems they were experiencing under 'Muhammadan rule'. No wonder, then, at the high point of imperialism, in a deeply evangelistic age, that the Scottish orientalist Sir William Muir could write that 'the sword of Mahomet, and the Coran, are the most stubborn enemies of Civilisation, Liberty and Truth which the world has yet known'.2 Muir, Stanley Lane-Poole and Ignaz Goldziher were among the orientalists of the late nineteenth century who were the authorities for the scholars who dominated the field for much of the twentieth. The most influential of them, at least in Britain and the United States, were D.S. Margoliouth, H.A.R. (Hamilton) Gibb, Alfred Guillaume, A.J. Arberry, Bernard Lewis, Marshall Hodgson, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Elie Kedourie and Stanford Shaw. Of those named here, only Bernard Lewis (born in 1916) is still living, and, until very recently at least, still turning out one book after another. As a link not just between the scholarship of the late nineteenth century but its culture, it is not surprising that Lewis also hands civilisation to his readers as a means of understanding the problems of the Arab and Muslim worlds (but not of the problems of the 'west'). What is somewhat surprising is that nowhere in this book do any of the authors point out that the 'clash of civilisations' belongs not to Samuel P. Huntington but to Lewis. © 2012 Taylor & Francis

Israel's nuclear weapons: The white house factor

[No abstract available