Ski and Snowboard School Programs: Incidence and Risk Factors for Injury

BACKGROUND Participating in skiing and snowboarding is a great way to encourage physical activity in youth. Current safety guidelines for physical activity in Alberta schools suggest that skiing and snowboarding are suitable for grades 4-12 [1]. As a number of schools follow these guidelines, we set out to evaluate age-specific incidence and nature of ski and snowboard related injuries in school-aged children. METHODS Historical cohort study; participants were children and youth who presented to the ski patrol after sustaining a ski or snowboard injury during the 2013-2014 season at a ski area in Southern Alberta (N=198). Injury information was extracted from Accident Report Forms (ARF) completed by the ski patrol. Rate denominator data were obtained from school enrolment forms. Outcome measures included injury rates and injury severity. Injured participants were defined as skiers or snowboarders injured at the ski area that presented to ski patrol. Severe injuries were defined as those where the destination on the ARF was indicated as “hospital”. Severity was compared among those <8, 8-12 and13-17 years old. RESULTS Ninety-two of 198 (46%) injuries reported to the ski patrol were severe. Preliminary analyses indicated higher odds of severe injury for those 13-17 (OR 4.59; 1.44-18.08) compared with those <8 (reference) and 8-12 (OR 1.66; 0.52-6.5) years old. Males (OR 2.43; 1.25-4.92), snowboarders (OR 2.07; 1.14-3.82), and those injured while jumping (OR 4.33; 1.74-11.44) had greater odds of severe injury, in comparison with females, alpine skiers, and those in lessons. There was evidence that participating in a ski/snowboard school program reduced the likelihood of severe injury (OR 0.46; 0.24-0.90). Adolescents (13-17 year olds) had a higher rate of injury (437/10,000 visits) than children (≤12) (175/10,000 visits). The rate of snowboarder injury (205/10,000 visits) was almost 3 times higher than the rate in skiers (69/10,000 visits). Snowboarders had a higher incidence of fractures and upper extremity injuries, while skiers had a higher incidence of lower extremity injuries. Trunk and head injury rates were similar for skiers and snowboarders. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Preliminary results indicated that younger participants and those in school programs had lower odds of severe injury. Future work will involve more advanced regression analyses to adjust for additional potential confounding factors. We will also continue to explore factors that contribute to higher risk of injury for adolescents in subsequent analyses

Synthesis, Properties, and Applications of Carboxylic Acid Functionalized Polyisobutylene

Polyisobutylene (PIB) and its copolymers are used in a wide range of commercial products owing to their high chemical stability, impermeability, elasticity, and biocompatibility. In this thesis, linear and arborescent PIB containing small percentages of isoprene (IP) were functionalized to provide different derivatives and their physical and biological properties were studied

Severe Pre-Eclampsia in the Setting of COVID-19 Case Report of Three Patients in Detroit, Michigan

This case series discusses three patients who presented to our institution with elevated blood pressures and respiratory complaints to demonstrate the complexity of delineating the diagnoses.https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/merf2020caserpt/1118/thumbnail.jp

Preconscious Influences on Decision Making about Complex Questions

There is evidence that the most widely accepted theories and models of judgment, decision making and reasoning are inadequate because they do not accurately describe what people do or are able to do when making decisions. One shortcoming of existing theories and models may be that they do not account for the potential influence of preconscious processes on decision making and conscious reasoning. The present study investigated whether preconscious processes influenced decision making about complex questions based on interviews with 41 state legislators and 18 doctoral students. This inquiry also examined whether participants' decision making processes differed by issue and whether legislators and doctoral students differed in how they made policy decisions. Participants were asked to make two educational policy decisions and were asked follow-up questions about each decision. These follow-up questions were designed to collect data concerning the source and quality of participants' evidence, their ability to generate counterarguments, their certainty in the accuracy of their decisions, whether the policy questions evoked an affective response, and how much participants reported knowing about each decision topic. The study also measured and compared how quickly participants made decisions and provided reasons to support their decisions. To complete the interview, participants were asked to review two decision-making models, a traditional purely-conscious model and a second intuitive model that incorporated preconscious processes, and to select the model that better described how most people and how the participants themselves made political decisions. Based on the data collected there is reason to believe that preconscious processes may influence decisions about policy and other complex questions. Participants made decisions quickly, with little external evidence to support the decisions. They were quite certain about the accuracy of their decisions even though many reported having little or know knowledge about the decision questions. Participants' comments also suggested that one or both decision topics evoked an affective response to the policy question. And most participants described their own decision making using the decision model that depicted the influence of preconscious processes. These findings do not support the accuracy of traditional, purely conscious models of judgment and decision making

Design requirements for an online data exchange platform to bridge the gap between farmers and researchers in India

The rising awareness of information transparency and the increasing trend of citizen participation in the agriculture sector has created new opportunities for information sharing. There are numerous information resources available for farmers from private, government sources and industry stakeholders. There are also various farm surveys by which farmers contribute towards the agricultural sector. However, no such platform connects farmers and researchers in which data exchange happens simultaneously between them. This gap in information exchange contributes to slow growth in the advancement of the agricultural sector. Research results do not reach the end-users in time to adopt agricultural improvement practices. Often researchers do not get the opportunity to engage and encourage farmers to be citizen scientists to contribute to the research. In this thesis, we develop design requirements for an online web-based prototype data exchange platform to bridge the gap between researchers and farmers. The platform can serve as a way to build farmers’ trust in researchers and encourage them to contribute more towards agricultural research to develop the sector. We believe that the findings of this study will prove helpful to interface designers and researchers to inform and guide future work in this critical area

Assessing the sustainability of anticoagulant-based rodent control for wildlife conservation in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Conservation Biology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Figures 1.4, 1.5 & 1.6 were removed for copyright reasons, but may be accessed via their respective sources: Schulman & Furie, 2015 Fig 1; Ishizuka et al., 2007 Fig 1; & Ishizuka et al., 2008 Fig 3.Brodifacoum is used extensively to control invasive rodent pest populations in New Zealand. However, there are major concerns regarding non-target poisoning due to brodifacoum, its high persistence and risk of emergence of resistance in targeted rodents. In the present study, I assessed brodifacoum resistance in ship rats and house mice using blood-clotting response (BCR) tests. Mature ship rats of both sexes were live trapped from Akatarawa forest, an area of no known anticoagulant use history in Wellington. A ranging study was performed whereby healthy ship rats were administered increasing doses of brodifacoum to calculate the effective dose, which in ship rats is considered to be the dose giving a 3.6-fold increase in blood-clotting time (this proportional increase is referred to as the International Normalised Ratio, or INR). An unexpectedly high effective dose of 2.9 and 3.8 mg/kg was calculated for male and female ship rats respectively. The calculated effective dose was used to access brodifacoum susceptibility in ship rats captured from nine areas of known brodifacoum use history in the Wellington region and Palmerston North. A total of 54 ship rats were successfully tested, and there was a significant decrease in INR with increasing number of years of brodifacoum use in an area. Despite this evidence of anticoagulant resistance revealed by BCR tests, no mutations conferring anticoagulant resistance were found in VKORC1 gene sequences in tested ship rats. This suggests that resistance may be caused by other pathways. Similarly, BCR tests were performed in house mice using the effective dose from published literature, i.e. 0.52 mg/kg for males and 0.46 mg/kg for females. Twenty out of 26 house mice assessed were found to be resistant to administered dose of brodifacoum, meaning the INR was >5. However, no relationship was observed between the INR value and the number of years of brodifacoum use in an area. Seven of the tested mice were found to have a non-synonymous mutation, Tyr139Cys in exon 3 of the VKORC1 gene. The house mouse individuals carrying this mutation are known to be fully resistance to all first-generation anticoagulants and a second-generation anticoagulant, bromadiolone, but only minor resistance is known to occur towards more potent second-generation anticoagulants. At present, only technical resistance to brodifacoum has been reported in ship rats and house mice, and brodifacoum may still be used effectively to control these rodent populations. However, continual use of brodifacoum may encourage further resistance. Effective long-term control of anticoagulant-resistant populations can only be achieved by use of alternative non- anticoagulant rodenticides

Physical therapy for urinary incontinence in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis or low bone density : a randomized controlled trial

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of 12 weekly physical therapy sessions for urinary incontinence (UI) compared with a control intervention, for reducing the number of UI episodes measured with the 7-day bladder diary, at 3 months and 1 year postrandomization. Methods: A single parallel-group randomized controlled trial was conducted at one outpatient public health center, in postmenopausal women aged 55 years and over with osteoporosis or low bone density and UI. Women were randomized to physical therapy (PT) for UI or osteoporosis education. The primary outcome measure was number of leakage episodes on the 7-day bladder diary, assessed at baseline, after treatment and at 1 year. The secondary outcome measures included the pad test and disease-specific quality of life and self-efficacy questionnaires assessed at the same timepoints. Results: Forty-eight women participated (24 per group). Two participants dropped out of each group and one participant was deceased before 3-month follow-up. Intention-to-treat analysis was undertaken. At 3 months and 1 year, there was a statistically significant difference in the number of leakage episodes on the 7-day bladder diary (3 mo: P = 0.04; 1 y: P = 0.01) in favor of the PT group. The effect size was 0.34 at 1 year. There were no harms reported. Conclusions: After a 12-week course of PT once per week for UI, PT group participants had a 75% reduction in weekly median number of leakage episodes, whereas the control group's condition had no improvement. At 1 year, the PT group participants maintained this improvement, whereas the control group's incontinence worsened

Polyisobutylene-paclitaxel conjugates with pendant carboxylic acids and polystyrene chains: Towards multifunctional stent coatings with slow drug release

Drug-eluting stents are used in the treatment of atherosclerosis, where the incorporation of anti-proliferative or anti-inflammatory drugs decreases the rate of restenosis, the recurrence of artery narrowing. However, these stents can suffer from limitations such as drug depletion and delamination of the drug-eluting coating from the stent surface. Described here is an approach aimed at addressing these issues. Starting from a maleic anhydride adduct of polyisobutylene (PIB) prepared from butyl rubber, ring opening using paclitaxel (PTX) or a combination of PTX and polystyrene (PS) afforded covalent conjugates of PTX and PIB or PIB-PS graft copolymers bearing pendant carboxylic acids. When coated on stainless steel, the drug release was slower than that from a control coating that ressembles a clinical formulation comprising a physical mixture of a PS-PIB-PS triblock copolymer (SIBS) and PTX. The PTX conjugates also exhibited enhanced adhesion to stainless steel and increased tensile strength in comparison with the starting rubber. Cytotoxicity assays indicated that the materials did not leach toxic levels of PTX into cell culture media. Nevertheless, they were capable of inhibiting the adhesion and proliferation of C2C12 cells on their surfaces. These properties are advantageous for the potential application of the materials as stent coatings

Innovative Strategies to Develop Abiotic and Biotic Stress Tolerance in Mustard (Brassicaceae)

Mustard crop is the third important source of vegetable oil randomly below soybean L. and palm, all over the world. Brassica crop is extremely susceptible to some biotic and abiotic stresses and they significantly influence the quality and quantity of the crop. In the past generally breeding techniques are used to develop resistance in mustard to avoid diseases though various pathogens are soon able to overcome that resistance by modifying their metabolic cycles. To bear the challenge there is an urgent need to develop abiotic as well as biotic stress tolerant plants using advanced techniques by understanding metabolic and biochemical pathways of plants and pathogens. Several techniques such selection of stress tolerance microbes, metabolite, enzymes, and genes are very important to avoid stresses. Whereas several techniques such as deployment of molecular markers for breeding, identification of Quantitative trait loci (QTL), in vitro tissue culture etc. can be more useful to improve biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in mustard. To develop healthy and high yield varieties, the mix of these techniques is needs to be implemented