Sex Estimation Using Morphological Traits of the Skull

Estimating the sex of an individual from skeletal remains can help in their identification. There are many methods that can be implemented to help assess the sex, but when only a skull is available, common morphological traits of the cranium and mandible can be used. Ten morphological traits were used to estimate the sex of the unknown skull. Using these ten characteristics, I was able to accurately conclude whether the skull came from a male or female individual

Introduction - Beckett, Medicine and the Brain

When Samuel Beckett’s library was opened up to scholars, it gave some sense of the extraordinary amount of material that had been funnelled into the development of a writer so famed for his minimalism. Alongside an extensive array of books that spoke to his literary interests, there were texts suggestive of medical and scientific concerns, a number of dictionaries and the eleventh edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Some sections of the encyclopaedia were clearly marked by Beckett, and there is a folded page that suggests an entry over which he may have lingered: “Brain”. Beckett did dog-ear pages in books that interested him though there is no way of knowing definitively if he was the one who pressed down this page; still, Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon note, somewhat conservatively, that “Brain” “could conceivably have interested Beckett” (2013, 193). Indeed, as this issue of the Journal of Medical Humanities demonstrates, the brain and its functioning was of abiding, particular interest to Beckett. Scholars now know that Beckett took extensive notes (held in Trinity College Dublin) on contemporary psychology and psychoanalysis in the 1930s; he also read medical text books and the neurological conditions they detailed with more attention than one would expect from a casually interested amateur. But then, there was nothing casual about Beckett’s anatomising of the mind and body in his work. From the 1930s, when he began to write creatively in a sustained fashion, until the final parched utterances of the 1980s, the tensely discordant relationship between mind and body and the functioning of the brain – the site where mind and body are most insistently implicated – remain key thematic interests for Beckett and produce an extraordinary push and pull on the form of his texts. It is certainly hard to think of a non-medically-trained writer who has returned more insistently to the phenomenological experience of disorder and the technical language of neurological and psychological dysfunction. Equally, it is hard to think of another writer who has a stronger sense of the potential of disorder and dysfunction to scuff up the window of internal representation that, in health, can render our experience so smoothly continuous, so transparent, that one only looks through it rather than at it. Like scratches on a pane of glass, Beckett’s articulations of disorder and disease work to denude experience of its occulting clarity, as they render grittily explicit the uncomfortable disjunctions between idea and expression, mind and body, free will and automaticity, continuity and rupture, endurance and senescence that are as much a part of human experience as the evenness of wellbeing

Lymphoid Infiltrates in B Cell Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma: Comparing Nuclear Characteristics between Lymph Node and Bone Marrow; and Evaluating Diagnostic Features of Bone Marrow Infiltrates in Paraffin Embedded Tissues

Distinguishing non Hodgkin’s lymphoma from benign lymphoid aggregates in bone marrow is well recognised to be difficult. Our objective was to evaluate nuclear morphology, and to perform morphometry on benign and neoplastic lymphoid infiltrates, to establish if objective criteria were of value in the diagnosis of neoplasia. By comparing neoplastic infiltrates in bone marrow with infiltrates in lymph nodes, the validity of grading non Hodgkin’s lymphoma on the basis of bone marrow histology alone was assessed. 82 cases of B cell non Hodgkin’s lymphoma (44 low grade and 38 high grade), known to have both lymph node and bone marrow involvement at the time of presentation, were compared with bone marrow trephines containing reactive lymphoid infiltrates

Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic

Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic (March 25 - 27, 2018 -- The University of New Hampshire) paired two of NSF\u27s 10 Big Ideas: Navigating the New Arctic and Growing Convergence Research at NSF. During this event, participants assessed economic, environmental, and social impacts of Arctic change on New England and established convergence research initiatives to prepare for, adapt to, and respond to these effects. Shipping routes through an ice-free Northwest Passage in combination with modifications to ocean circulation and regional climate patterns linked to Arctic ice melt will affect trade, fisheries, tourism, coastal ecology, air and water quality, animal migration, and demographics not only in the Arctic but also in lower latitude coastal regions such as New England. With profound changes on the horizon, this is a critical opportunity for New England to prepare for uncertain yet inevitable economic and environmental impacts of Arctic change

Combining ERP and Structural MRI Information in First Episode Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

The electrical activity in the electroencephalogram (EEG) and the event-related potentials extracted from the EEG provide the greatest temporal resolution for examining brain function. When coupled with the high spatial resolution of structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), the combined techniques provide a powerful tool for neuroscience in the examination of brain abnormalities in major psychiatric illnesses. Over the last 20 years, our work has examined brain structure and function in schizophrenia. Both EEG and MRI measures have indicated profound abnormalities in schizophrenia within the temporal lobe, particularly marked over the left hemisphere. Our studies of patients first hospitalized due to psychosis revealed the early course of the disease to be characterized by progressive impairment and cortical gray matter reduction, most intense near the time of first hospitalization. Knowledge of those locations and brain signals affected early should help understand the basic physiological defect underlying this progression, with potential implications for new therapeutic interventions

Surface Ocean pCO2 Seasonality and Sea-Air CO2 Flux Estimates for the North American East Coast

Underway and in situ observations of surface ocean pCO2, combined with satellite data, were used to develop pCO2 regional algorithms to analyze the seasonal and interannual variability of surface ocean pCO2 and sea-air CO2 flux for five physically and biologically distinct regions of the eastern North American continental shelf: the South Atlantic Bight (SAB), the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB), the Gulf of Maine (GoM), Nantucket Shoals and Georges Bank (NS+GB), and the Scotian Shelf (SS). Temperature and dissolved inorganic carbon variability are the most influential factors driving the seasonality of pCO2. Estimates of the sea-air CO2 flux were derived from the available pCO2 data, as well as from the pCO2 reconstructed by the algorithm. Two different gas exchange parameterizations were used. The SS, GB+NS, MAB, and SAB regions are net sinks of atmospheric CO2 while the GoM is a weak source. The estimates vary depending on the use of surface ocean pCO2 from the data or algorithm, as well as with the use of the two different gas exchange parameterizations. Most of the regional estimates are in general agreement with previous studies when the range of uncertainty and interannual variability are taken into account. According to the algorithm, the average annual uptake of atmospheric CO2 by eastern North American continental shelf waters is found to be between 3.4 and 5.4 Tg C/yr (areal average of 0.7 to 1.0 mol CO2 /sq m/yr) over the period 2003-2010

Semantic bias, homograph comprehension, and event-related potentials in schizophrenia

Objectives: It is controversial whether a semantic processing bias for strong associates is present in schizophrenia, and unknown whether the language abnormalities observed in schizophrenia can be attributed to dysfunctions early or late in cognitive processing. Combined behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data can indicate the nature and timing of such abnormalities. Methods: Sensibility judgements of dominant and subordinate homograph sentences were measured in 12 schizophrenia patients and 13 normal controls. ERPs were recorded to the disambiguating sentence-ending word. Results: All subjects showed greatest misinterpretation of subordinate homograph sentences, but schizophrenia patients particularly misinterpreted these sentence types. For control subjects, subordinate homograph sentences that were classified as nonsensical showed greater N400 than those classified as sensible. By contrast, the N400 of patients was large, regardless of the sensibility judgement – patients’ brains initially responded to all subordinate sentences as if nonsensical. These data are consonant with a semantic bias. However, the patients’ N400 to dominant homograph sentence endings was also larger than that of controls, a finding not consonant with a semantic bias. Conclusions: The behavioral results indicate a selective comprehension abnormality in schizophrenia dependent on the content of verbal memory. The ERP results suggest a pervasive contextual memory failure. A semantic activation decay model is proposed to explain these results

Isisfordia molnari sp. nov., a new basal eusuchian from the mid-Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, Australia

The Australian Mesozoic crocodyliform record is sparse in comparison to other Gondwanan localities. A single formally-named taxon is known from this interval; Isisfordia duncani (Winton Formation, Albian–Turonian, Queensland). We present a previously undescribed crocodyliform braincase from the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, which we assign to Isisfordia molnari sp. nov. Assignment to the genus is based on the possession of a newly-defined autapomorphy of Isisfordia: a broadly exposed prootic within the supratemporal foramen. A second autapomorphy of I. duncani (maximum diameter of the caudal aperture of the cranioquadrate siphonium approximately one-third the mediolateral width of the foramen magnum, with the lateral wall of the caudal aperture formed exclusively by the quadrate) may also be present in I. molnari; however, definitive recognition of this feature is marred by incomplete preservation. The new taxon is differentiated from I. duncani based on the absence of a median ridge on the parietal, and the lack of characteristic ridges on the parietal that form the medial margin of the supratemporal foramina. Reanalysis of a second specimen (the former holotype of the nomen dubium,‘Crocodylus (Bottosaurus) selaslophensis’) allows for its referral to the genus Isisfordia. Crucial to this reappraisal is the reinterpretation of the specimen as a partial maxilla, not the dentary as previously thought. This maxillary fragment possesses specific characteristics shared only with I. duncani; namely an alveolar groove. However, several key features differentiate the maxillary fragment from I. duncani, specifically the presence of continuous alveolar septa, the thickening of the medial alveolar rim, and the alveolar and crown base morphology. These findings constitute the first evidence of Isisfordia outside of the type locality and indicate its widespread occurrence on the freshwater floodplains along the eastern margin of the epeiric Eromanga Sea during the Albian–Cenomanian

The use of microfluidics and dielectrophoresis for separation, concentration, and identification of bacteria

Traditional bacterial identification methods take one to two days to complete, relying on large bacteria colonies for visual identification. In order to decrease this analysis time in a cost-effective manner, a method to sort and concentrate bacteria based on the bacteria\u27s characteristics itself is needed. One example of such a method is dielectrophoresis, which has been used by researchers to separate bacteria from sample debris and sort bacteria according to species. This work presents variations in which dielectrophoresis can be performed and their associated drawbacks and benefits specifically to bacterial identification. In addition, a potential microfluidic design will be discussed