Broadening Responsibilities: Consideration Of The Potential To Broaden The Role Of Uniformed Fire Service Employees

What is this report about? This report, commissioned by the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services (NJC), aims to identify what impact, if any, firefighters can have on the delivery of emergency medical response and wider community health interventions in the UK. What are the overall conclusions? Appropriately trained and equipped firefighters co-responding1 to targeted, specific time critical medical events, such as cardiac arrest, can improve patient survival rates. The data also indicate that there is support from fire service staff – and a potential need from members of the public, particularly the elderly, isolated or vulnerable – to expand ‘wider work’. This includes winter warmth assessments, Safe and Well checks, community defibrillator training and client referrals when staff believe someone may have dementia, are vulnerable or even, for example, have substance dependencies such as an alcohol addiction. However, there is currently insufficient data to estimate the net benefit of this work

Online resource for the history of astronomy

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Toward semi-automatic biologically effective dose treatment plan optimisation for Gamma Knife radiosurgery

Objective. Dose-rate effects in Gamma Knife radiosurgery treatments can lead to varying biologically effective dose (BED) levels for the same physical dose. The non-convex BED model depends on the delivery sequence and creates a non-trivial treatment planning problem. We investigate the feasibility of employing inverse planning methods to generate treatment plans exhibiting desirable BED characteristics using the per iso-centre beam-on times and delivery sequence. Approach. We implement two dedicated optimisation algorithms. One approach relies on mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) using a purposely developed convex underestimator for the BED to mitigate local minima issues at the cost of computational complexity. The second approach (local optimisation) is faster and potentially usable in a clinical setting but more prone to local minima issues. It sequentially executes the beam-on time (quasi-Newton method) and sequence optimisation (local search algorithm). We investigate the trade-off between time to convergence and solution quality by evaluating the resulting treatment plans’ objective function values and clinical parameters. We also study the treatment time dependence of the initial and optimised plans using BED95 (BED delivered to 95% of the target volume) values. Main results. When optimising the beam-on times and delivery sequence, the local optimisation approach converges several orders of magnitude faster than the MILP approach (minutes versus hours-days) while typically reaching within 1.2% (0.02-2.08%) of the final objective function value. The quality parameters of the resulting treatment plans show no meaningful difference between the local and MILP optimisation approaches. The presented optimisation approaches remove the treatment time dependence observed in the original treatment plans, and the chosen objectives successfully promote more conformal treatments. Significance. We demonstrate the feasibility of using an inverse planning approach within a reasonable time frame to ensure BED-based objectives are achieved across varying treatment times and highlight the prospect of further improvements in treatment plan quality

Kranc: a Mathematica application to generate numerical codes for tensorial evolution equations

We present a suite of Mathematica-based computer-algebra packages, termed "Kranc", which comprise a toolbox to convert (tensorial) systems of partial differential evolution equations to parallelized C or Fortran code. Kranc can be used as a "rapid prototyping" system for physicists or mathematicians handling very complicated systems of partial differential equations, but through integration into the Cactus computational toolkit we can also produce efficient parallelized production codes. Our work is motivated by the field of numerical relativity, where Kranc is used as a research tool by the authors. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of both the Mathematica packages and the resulting code, we discuss some example applications, and provide results on the performance of an example numerical code for the Einstein equations.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure. Corresponds to journal versio

One future or many? November 14, 15, and 16, 2002

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Conference Series, a publication series that began publishing in 2006 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. This was the Center's 2nd annual Conference that took place during November 14, 15, and 16, 2002.The conference brought together some 30 experts from various disciplines to discuss whether the trajectories of the future will be ‘global’ or ‘regional’ in nature. Different panels looks at the future trajectories for Europe, the Western Hemisphere, Central Asia and the Former Soviet Union, and on Asia and in each case the discussion looked at the relative importance of the regional and of global dynamics on teh forces shaping the future of these regions.Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affair

Rapid Mapping of Zebrafish Mutations With SNPs and Oligonucleotide Microarrays

Large-scale genetic screens in zebrafish have identified thousands of mutations in hundreds of essential genes. The genetic mapping of these mutations is necessary to link DNA sequences to the gene functions defined by mutant phenotypes.Here, we report two advances that will accelerate the mapping of zebrafish mutations: (1) The construction of a first generation single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) map of the zebrafish genome comprising 2035 SNPs and 178 small insertions/deletions, and (2) the development of a method for mapping mutations in which hundreds of SNPs can be scored in parallel with an oligonucleotide microarray.We have demonstrated the utility of the microarray technique in crosses with haploid and diploid embryos by mapping two known mutations to their previously identified locations.We have also used this approach to localize four previously unmapped mutations.We expect that mapping with SNPs and oligonucleotide microarrays will accelerate the molecular analysis of zebrafish mutations

Zebrafish Comparative Genomics and the Origins of Vertebrate Chromosomes

To help understand mechanisms of vertebrate genome evolution, we have compared zebrafish and tetrapod gene maps. It has been suggested that translocations are fixed more frequently than inversions in mammals. Gene maps showed that blocks of conserved syntenies between zebrafish and humans were large, but gene orders were frequently inverted and transposed. This shows that intrachromosomal rearrangements have been fixed more frequently than translocations. Duplicated chromosome segments suggest that a genome duplication occurred in ray-fin phylogeny, and comparative studies suggest that this event happened deep in the ancestry of teleost fish. Consideration of duplicate chromosome segments shows that at least 20% of duplicated gene pairs may be retained from this event. Despite genome duplication, zebrafish and humans have about the same number of chromosomes, and zebrafish chromosomes are mosaically orthologous to several human chromosomes. Is this because of an excess of chromosome fissions in the human lineage or an excess of chromosome fusions in the zebrafish lineage? Comparative analysis suggests that an excess of chromosome fissions in the tetrapod lineage may account for chromosome numbers and provides histories for several human chromosomes

Looking ahead: forecasting and planning for the longer-range future, April 1, 2, and 3, 2005

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Conference Series, a publication series that began publishing in 2006 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. This was the Center's spring Conference that took place during April 1, 2, and 3, 2005.The conference allowed for many highly esteemed scholars and professionals from a broad range of fields to come together to discuss strategies designed for the 21st century and beyond. The speakers and discussants covered a broad range of subjects including: long-term policy analysis, forecasting for business and investment, the National Intelligence Council Global Trends 2020 report, Europe’s transition from the Marshal plan to the EU, forecasting global transitions, foreign policy planning, and forecasting for defense

Application of ultrafast gold luminescence to measuring the instrument response function for multispectral multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging

When performing multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging in multiple spectral emission channels, an instrument response function must be acquired in each channel if accurate measurements of complex fluorescence decays are to be performed. Although this can be achieved using the reference reconvolution technique, it is difficult to identify suitable fluorophores with a mono-exponential fluorescence decay across a broad emission spectrum. We present a solution to this problem by measuring the IRF using the ultrafast luminescence from gold nanorods. We show that ultrafast gold nanorod luminescence allows the IRF to be directly obtained in multiple spectral channels simultaneously across a wide spectral range. We validate this approach by presenting an analysis of multispectral autofluorescence FLIM data obtained from human skin ex vivo

Association between a high number of isolated lymph nodes in T1 to T4 N0M0 colorectal cancer and the microsatellite instability phenotype

Hypothèse : Les carcinomes colorectaux de stade I ou II microsatellites instables (MSI) sont caractérisés par plus de ganglions lymphatiques isolés sur la pièce de résection par rapport à leurs homologues microsatellites stables (MSS). Conception : Étude prospective. Patients : Le statut MSI a été déterminé de façon prospective chez 135 patients opérables, par l’utilisation d’une PCR pentaplex. Puis, les défauts de réparation des mésappariements de l’ADN ont été étudiés par immunohistochimie. Résultats : Parmi les 82 cancers colorectaux de stade I ou II, 11 étaient MSI et 71 MSS, avec une moyenne (écart-type) de 23,6 (3,1) et 13,7 (1,0) ganglions négatifs, respectivement (p = .001). Le nombre moyen de ganglions pour tous les cancers colorectaux de stade I ou II analysés dans notre hôpital était de 15. La prévalence des MSI dans les tumeurs avec plus de 15 ganglions prélevés était de 25 % (9 sur 36) et 82 % (9 sur 11) des tumeurs MSI appartenaient à ce groupe. Conclusions : Un nombre élevé de ganglions isolés en cas de cancer colorectal de stade I ou II est associé au phénotype MSI. Le bon pronostic qui est habituellement associé à des tumeurs ayant un nombre élevé de ganglions N0 pourrait refléter la prévalence élevée des MSI chez ces tumeurs. Le nombre de ganglions examinés comme un critère de qualité doit être utilisé avec prudence. Limiter le phénotypage MSI aux tumeurs colorectales de stade I ou II ayant plus que le nombre moyen de ganglions identifie presque toutes les tumeurs MSI.Hypothèse : Les carcinomes colorectaux de stade I ou II microsatellites instables (MSI) sont caractérisés par plus de ganglions lymphatiques isolés sur la pièce de résection par rapport à leurs homologues microsatellites stables (MSS). Conception : Étude prospective. Patients : Le statut MSI a été déterminé de façon prospective chez 135 patients opérables, par l’utilisation d’une PCR pentaplex. Puis, les défauts de réparation des mésappariements de l’ADN ont été étudiés par immunohistochimie. Résultats : Parmi les 82 cancers colorectaux de stade I ou II, 11 étaient MSI et 71 MSS, avec une moyenne (écart-type) de 23,6 (3,1) et 13,7 (1,0) ganglions négatifs, respectivement (p = .001). Le nombre moyen de ganglions pour tous les cancers colorectaux de stade I ou II analysés dans notre hôpital était de 15. La prévalence des MSI dans les tumeurs avec plus de 15 ganglions prélevés était de 25 % (9 sur 36) et 82 % (9 sur 11) des tumeurs MSI appartenaient à ce groupe. Conclusions : Un nombre élevé de ganglions isolés en cas de cancer colorectal de stade I ou II est associé au phénotype MSI. Le bon pronostic qui est habituellement associé à des tumeurs ayant un nombre élevé de ganglions N0 pourrait refléter la prévalence élevée des MSI chez ces tumeurs. Le nombre de ganglions examinés comme un critère de qualité doit être utilisé avec prudence. Limiter le phénotypage MSI aux tumeurs colorectales de stade I ou II ayant plus que le nombre moyen de ganglions identifie presque toutes les tumeurs MSI