Autocatalytic sets in a partitioned biochemical network

In previous work, RAF theory has been developed as a tool for making theoretical progress on the origin of life question, providing insight into the structure and occurrence of self-sustaining and collectively autocatalytic sets within catalytic polymer networks. We present here an extension in which there are two "independent" polymer sets, where catalysis occurs within and between the sets, but there are no reactions combining polymers from both sets. Such an extension reflects the interaction between nucleic acids and peptides observed in modern cells and proposed forms of early life.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figure

A Southern Hemisphere radar meteor orbit survey

A meteor radar system has been operated on a routine basis near Christchurch, New Zealand, to determine the orbits of Earth-impacting interplanetary dust and meteoroids. The system sensitivity is +13 visual magnitude, corresponding to approximately 100 micron sized meteoroids. With an orbital precision of 2 degrees in angular elements and 10 percent in orbital energy (1/a), the operation yields an average of 1500 orbits daily with a total to date in excess of 10(exp 5). The use of pc's and automated data reduction permit the large orbital data sets we collect to be routinely reduced. Some illustrative examples are presented of the signal formats/processing and the results of data reduction, giving the individual orbital elements and hence the overall distributions. Current studies include the distribution of dust in the inner solar system; the influx of meteoroids associated with near-Earth asteroids; and the orbital structure existing in comet-produced streams

Community education and health promotion activities of naturopathic practitioners: results of an international cross-sectional survey.

BackgroundHealth promotion and patient education are crucial to improved population health and are also among the core principles that define naturopathy. Yet, the activities of naturopathic practitioners (NPs) with regards to health promotion and community education have not been widely studied.MethodsA cross-sectional online survey of an international convenience sample of NPs was conducted through disseminating a 15-item questionnaire prepared in five languages. Correlates of most frequently mentioned NP activities were studied.ResultsThe survey was completed by 813 NPs representing all world regions. Almost all participants (98%) reported at least one health promotion activity. Most reported were information sheets and handouts (92.7%) or social and professional network communications (91.8%) and information talks presented to community members (84.9%). The majority of NPs (79.5%) indicated that the 'health issues individuals in NPs' community have said they need help with' were a 'very important' consideration when they designed health promotion activities. NP characteristics associated with the likelihood of engaging in specific health promotion activities varied between activities but include gender, time since first qualification, factors considered to identify need when designing an activity, and stakeholder involvement in activity design.ConclusionsHealth promotion is a key activity of the global naturopathic profession. There are a wide range of patient education tools utilized by NPs

The challenges and opportunities for professional societies in higher education in Australasia: a PEST analysis

Professional societies, established to support academic and professional staff in higher education, need to be vigilant of regional and international trends that affect their core business. In this paper, we provide an analysis of political, economic, social and technological factors that are impacting upon the Australasian higher education environment through considering the case of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite). Drawing on two ascilite membership surveys along with the relevant literature we identify significant challenges for professional societies and offer some strategic insights for similar regional societies and their executive teams.published_or_final_versio

A tradeoff in simultaneous quantum-limited phase and loss estimation in interferometry

Interferometry with quantum light is known to provide enhanced precision for estimating a single phase. However, depending on the parameters involved, the quantum limit for the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters may not attainable, leading to trade-offs in the attainable precisions. Here we study the simultaneous estimation of two parameters related to optical interferometry: phase and loss, using a fixed number of photons. We derive a trade-off in the estimation of these two parameters which shows that, in contrast to single-parameter estimation, it is impossible to design a strategy saturating the quantum Cramer-Rao bound for loss and phase estimation in a single setup simultaneously. We design optimal quantum states with a fixed number of photons achieving the best possible simultaneous precisions. Our results reveal general features about concurrently estimating Hamiltonian and dissipative parameters, and has implications for sophisticated sensing scenarios such as quantum imaging.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Do statins reduce mortality in older people? Findings from a longitudinal study using primary care records

OBJECTIVE: Assess whether statins reduce mortality in the general population aged 60 years and above. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Primary care practices contributing to The Health Improvement Network database, England and Wales, 1990–2017. PARTICIPANTS: Cohort who turned age 60 between 1990 and 2000 with no previous cardiovascular disease or statin prescription and followed up until 2017. RESULTS: Current statin prescription was associated with a significant reduction in all-cause mortality from age 65 years onward, with greater reductions seen at older ages. The adjusted HRs of mortality associated with statin prescription at ages 65, 70, 75, 80 and 85 years were 0.76 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.81), 0.71 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.75), 0.68 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.72), 0.63 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.73) and 0.54 (95% CI 0.33 to 0.92), respectively. The adjusted HRs did not vary by sex or cardiac risk. CONCLUSIONS: Using regularly updated clinical information on sequential treatment decisions in older people, mortality predictions were updated every 6 months until age 85 years in a combined primary and secondary prevention population. The consistent mortality reduction of statins from age 65 years onward supports their use where clinically indicated at age 75 and older, where there has been particular uncertainty of the benefits

Circular Networks from Distorted Metrics

Trees have long been used as a graphical representation of species relationships. However complex evolutionary events, such as genetic reassortments or hybrid speciations which occur commonly in viruses, bacteria and plants, do not fit into this elementary framework. Alternatively, various network representations have been developed. Circular networks are a natural generalization of leaf-labeled trees interpreted as split systems, that is, collections of bipartitions over leaf labels corresponding to current species. Although such networks do not explicitly model specific evolutionary events of interest, their straightforward visualization and fast reconstruction have made them a popular exploratory tool to detect network-like evolution in genetic datasets. Standard reconstruction methods for circular networks, such as Neighbor-Net, rely on an associated metric on the species set. Such a metric is first estimated from DNA sequences, which leads to a key difficulty: distantly related sequences produce statistically unreliable estimates. This is problematic for Neighbor-Net as it is based on the popular tree reconstruction method Neighbor-Joining, whose sensitivity to distance estimation errors is well established theoretically. In the tree case, more robust reconstruction methods have been developed using the notion of a distorted metric, which captures the dependence of the error in the distance through a radius of accuracy. Here we design the first circular network reconstruction method based on distorted metrics. Our method is computationally efficient. Moreover, the analysis of its radius of accuracy highlights the important role played by the maximum incompatibility, a measure of the extent to which the network differs from a tree.Comment: Submitte

Economic inequalities in burden of illness, diagnosis and treatment of five long-term conditions in England: panel study

We compared the distribution by wealth of self-reported illness burden (estimated from validated scales, biomarker and reported symptoms) for angina, cataract, depression, diabetes and osteoarthritis, with the distribution of self-reported medical diagnosis and treatment. We aimed to determine if the greater illness burden borne by poorer participants was matched by appropriately higher levels of diagnosis and treatment

Naturopaths’ mobilisation of knowledge and information in clinical practice: an international cross-sectional survey

Background The contemporary evidence-based practice model acknowledges the importance of patient preferences and clinician experience when applying evidence within a clinical setting. Knowledge mobilisation (KM) acknowledges the complexities of knowledge translation by recognising and respecting diversity in types of knowledge and how such diversity can influence health care and health care choices. While there has been considerable discussion on KM in health care, it has received little attention in the field of naturopathy. Despite naturopathy’s widespread international use, it is unclear how naturopathic practitioners (NPs) use and share knowledge and information in clinical practice. This study examines the mobilisation of knowledge amongst NPs internationally. Methods Online, international, cross-sectional survey of a self-selected sample of NPs from any country, that were either currently in clinical practice or had been in practice within the previous 12 months. The survey was administered in five languages (English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, German). Descriptive statistics were prepared for all survey items. Results The survey was completed by 478 NPs who reported using an average of seven (median = 7, SD = 2.6) information sources to inform patient care. NPs also drew on knowledge gained through patients sharing their perspectives of living with their health condition (Always/Most of the time: 89.3%). They mostly sought knowledge about how a treatment might benefit a patient, as well as knowledge about treatment safety and a better understanding of a patient’s health condition. NPs frequently reported sharing knowledge developed through consideration of the patient’s unique needs (83.3%), and primarily shared knowledge by producing information for the public (72.6%) and for patients (72.2%). Conclusions Based on these findings, it may be argued that NPs practice knowledge mobilisation; employing multiple forms and sources of knowledge, and mobilising knowledge to - as well as from - others. Due to their active engagement in patient and community education, NPs also may be considered knowledge brokers. In the context of the growing understanding of the complexities of knowledge translation and mobilisation in contemporary health care – and particularly within the context of implementation science – this study provides novel insights into an under-researched element of health services accessed by the communit