"Austropop" : Stationen der Entwicklung einer nationalen Pop- und Rockmusik

Urban stormwater is a crucial resource at a time when climate change and population growth threaten freshwater supplies; but there are health risks from contaminants, such as toxic metals. It is vitally important to understand how to use this resource safely and responsibly. Our study investigated the extent of metal contamination in vegetable crops irrigated with stormwater under short- and long-term conditions. We created artificially aged gardens by adding metal-contaminated sediment to soil, simulating accumulation of metals in the soil from irrigation with raw stormwater over zero, five and ten years. Our crops--French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala), and beetroot (Beta vulgaris)--were irrigated twice a week for 11 weeks, with either synthetic stormwater or potable water. They were then tested for concentrations of Cd, Cr, Pb, Cu and Zn. An accumulation of Pb was the most marked sign of contamination, with six of nine French bean and seven of nine beetroot leaf samples breaching Australia's existing guidelines. Metal concentration in a crop tended to increase with the effective age of the garden; but importantly, its rate of increase did not match the rate of increase in the soil. Our study also highlighted differences in sensitivity between different crop types. French bean demonstrated the highest levels of uptake, while kale displayed restrictive behaviour. Our study makes it clear: irrigation with stormwater is indeed feasible, as long as appropriate crops are selected and media are frequently turned over. We have also shown that an understanding of such risks yields meaningful information on appropriate safeguards. A holistic approach is needed--to account for all routes to toxic metal exposure, including especially Pb. A major outcome of our study is critical information for minimising health risks from stormwater irrigation of crops

How alternative urban stream channel designs influence ecohydraulic conditions.

Streams draining urban catchments ubiquitously undergo negative physical and ecosystem changes, recognized to be primarily driven by frequent stormwater runoff input. The common management intervention is rehabilitation of channel morphology. Despite engineering design intentions, ecohydraulic benefits of urban channel rehabilitation are largely unknown and likely limited. This investigation uses an ecohydraulic modeling approach to investigate the performance of alternative channel design configurations intended to restore key ecosystem functioning in urban streams. Channel reconfiguration design scenarios, specified to emulate the range of channel topographic complexity often used in rehabilitation are compared against a reference 'natural' scenario using ecologically relevant hydraulic metrics. The results showed that the ecohydraulic conditions were incremental improved with the addition of natural oscillations to an increasing number of individual topographic variables in a degraded channel. Results showed that reconfiguration reduced excessive frequency of bed mobility, loss of habitat and hydraulic diversity particularly as more topographic variables were added. However, the results also showed that none of the design scenarios returned the ecohydraulics to their reference conditions. This indicate that channel-based restoration can offer some potential changes to hydraulic habitat conditions but are unlikely to completely mitigate the effects of hydrologic change. We suggest that while reach-scale channel modification may be beneficial to restore urban stream, addressing altered hydrology is critical to fully recover natural ecosystem processes

Paracetamol plus ibuprofen for the treatment of fever in children (PITCH): economic evaluation of a randomised controlled trial

Objective To estimate the cost to the NHS and to parents and carers of treating febrile preschool children with paracetamol, ibuprofen, or both, and to compare these costs with the benefits of each treatment regimen

Medicine dosing by weight in the home: Can parents accurately weigh preschool children? A method comparison study

Objective: To determine the accuracy with which parents can estimate preschool children's weight using home scales in order to calculate antipyretic dose. Design: Cross-sectional, method comparison study. Setting and participants: 156 preschool children aged 6 months to 6 years recruited from primary care and the community to an antipyretic strategies trial and managed at home. Comparison and outcome measures: Research nurse weight estimate using Seca 835-2 digital paediatric scales compared with parental weight estimate using usual home scales. Results: Parents of 62 (40%) preschool children had home scales. Research scale estimated weights were heavier than home scale weight estimates, with a mean difference of 0.41 kg (95% CI -0.24 to 0.74 kg), with 95% limits of agreement of -2.44 to 1.47 kg. Conclusion: Weight can be estimated accurately enough to calculate antipyretic medicine doses by the minority of parents having scales that can be used to estimate their child's weight

Use of a Structured Mirrors Intervention Does Not Reduce Delirium Incidence But May Improve Factual Memory Encoding in Cardiac Surgical ICU Patients Aged Over 70 Years: A Pilot Time-Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.

Introduction: Post-operative delirium remains a significant problem, particularly in the older surgical patient. Previous evidence suggests that the provision of supplementary visual feedback about ones environment via the use of a mirror may positively impact on mental status and attention (core delirium diagnostic domains). We aimed to explore whether use of an evidence-based mirrors intervention could be effective in reducing delirium and improving post-operative outcomes such as factual memory encoding of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) environment in older cardiac surgical patients. Methods: This was a pilot time-cluster randomized controlled trial at a 32-bed ICU, enrolling 223 patients aged 70 years and over, admitted to ICU after elective or urgent cardiac surgery from October 29, 2012 to June 23, 2013. The Mirrors Group received a structured mirrors intervention at set times (e.g., following change in mental status). The Usual Care Group received the standard care without mirrors. Primary outcome was ICU delirium incidence; secondary outcomes were ICU delirium days, ICU days with altered mental status or inattention, total length of ICU stay, physical mobilization (balance confidence) at ICU discharge, recall of factual and delusional ICU memories at 12 weeks, Health-Related Quality of Life at 12 weeks, and acceptability of the intervention. Results: The intervention was not associated with a significant reduction in ICU delirium incidence [Mirrors: 20/115 (17%); Usual Care: 17/108 (16%)] or duration [Mirrors: 1 (1-3); Usual Care: 2 (1-8)]. Use of the intervention on ICU was predictive of significantly higher recall of factual (but not delusional) items at 12 weeks after surgery (p = 0.003) and acceptability was high, with clinicians using mirrors at 86% of all recorded hourly observations. The intervention did not significantly impact on other secondary outcomes. Conclusion: Use of a structured mirrors intervention on the post-operative ICU does not reduce delirium, but may result in improved factual memory encoding in older cardiac surgical patients. This effect may occur via mechanisms unrelated to delirium, altered mental status, or inattention. The intervention may provide a new means of improving outcomes in patients at risk of post-ICU anxiety and/or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT01599689

Paracetamol plus ibuprofen for the treatment of fever in children (PITCH): randomised controlled trial

Objective To investigate whether paracetamol (acetaminophen) plus ibuprofen are superior to either drug alone for increasing time without fever and the relief of fever associated discomfort in febrile children managed at home

The frequency distribution of presenting symptoms in children aged six months to six years to primary care.

Primary care providers and researchers wishing to estimate study recruitment rates need estimates of illness frequency in primary care. Previous studies of children's symptoms have found that presentations are most common for the symptoms: cough, fever, earache, rash, diarrhoea and vomiting. Since 2000, primary care provision in the United Kingdom has changed with the introduction of Walk-in-Centres (WICs) and new Out of Hours (OoHs) providers. To describe the type and frequency of parent-reported presenting symptoms at a range of primary care sites between 2005 and 2007. Parent-reported presenting symptoms, recorded in their own words, were extracted from data collected from all children aged six months to six years during recruitment to a randomised controlled trial. Presenting symptoms were coded and presented as frequency per 100 'consulting sessions' by type of primary care site. Results were evaluated from 2491 episodes of illness at 35 sites. When grouped by primary care site, respiratory symptoms were the most common at OoHs centres, the WIC and general practitioner (GP) surgeries. Trauma symptoms were common in the Emergency Department, but unexpectedly, diarrhoea and vomiting were more common in the Emergency Department and skin presenting symptoms more common at the WIC than at GP sites. We report the relative frequency of acute symptoms by type of primary care provider. These data may be useful to those planning recruitment to primary care paediatric studies and policy makers for planning primary care service provision

INTRINSIC CURVATURE: A MARKER OF MILLIMETER-SCALE TANGENTIAL CORTICO-CORTICAL CONNECTIVITY?

In this paper, we draw a link between cortical intrinsic curvature and the distributions of tangential connection lengths. We suggest that differential rates of surface expansion not only lead to intrinsic curvature of the cortical sheet, but also to differential inter-neuronal spacing. We propose that there follows a consequential change in the profile of neuronal connections: specifically an enhancement of the tendency towards proportionately more short connections. Thus, the degree of cortical intrinsic curvature may have implications for short-range connectivity

SUDS, LID, BMPs, WSUD and more - The evolution and application of terminology surrounding urban drainage

Open Access articleThe management of urban stormwater has become increasingly complex over recent decades. Consequently, terminology describing the principles and practices of urban drainage has become increasingly diverse, increasing the potential for confusion and miscommunication. This paper documents the history, scope, application and underlying principles of terms used in urban drainage and provides recommendations for clear communication of these principles. Terminology evolves locally and thus has an important role in establishing awareness and credibility of new approaches and contains nuanced understandings of the principles that are applied locally to address specific problems. Despite the understandable desire to have a ‘uniform set of terminology’, such a concept is flawed, ignoring the fact that terms reflect locally shared understanding. The local development of terminology thus has an important role in advancing the profession, but authors should facilitate communication between disciplines and between regions of the world, by being explicit and accurate in their application

PhyloSim - Monte Carlo simulation of sequence evolution in the R statistical computing environment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Monte Carlo simulation of sequence evolution is routinely used to assess the performance of phylogenetic inference methods and sequence alignment algorithms. Progress in the field of molecular evolution fuels the need for more realistic and hence more complex simulations, adapted to particular situations, yet current software makes unreasonable assumptions such as homogeneous substitution dynamics or a uniform distribution of indels across the simulated sequences. This calls for an extensible simulation framework written in a high-level functional language, offering new functionality and making it easy to incorporate further complexity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><monospace>PhyloSim</monospace> is an extensible framework for the Monte Carlo simulation of sequence evolution, written in R, using the Gillespie algorithm to integrate the actions of many concurrent processes such as substitutions, insertions and deletions. Uniquely among sequence simulation tools, <monospace>PhyloSim</monospace> can simulate arbitrarily complex patterns of rate variation and multiple indel processes, and allows for the incorporation of selective constraints on indel events. User-defined complex patterns of mutation and selection can be easily integrated into simulations, allowing <monospace>PhyloSim</monospace> to be adapted to specific needs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Close integration with <monospace>R</monospace> and the wide range of features implemented offer unmatched flexibility, making it possible to simulate sequence evolution under a wide range of realistic settings. We believe that <monospace>PhyloSim</monospace> will be useful to future studies involving simulated alignments.</p