Leading from the Back of the Pack

Can a project be considered a success even if you do not necessarily meet the goals you had originally established for the project? The beginning of any project is filled with optimism and excitement for the possibilities of the future and the potential outcome. Through the course of the past 13 weeks I saw success, but not necessarily in the quantifiable areas in which I had thought I would be successful. However, the impact of this project will be felt hopefully for years to come and for myself, the lessons learned will certainly stay with me as I prepare for future projects. And I can state with confidence that I experienced personal growth in many areas including leadership, determination and tenacity

Nature\u27s Memory

This poem was inspired by the understanding that we, as humans, are able to hold onto memories and treasure those memories as a way to heal from loss. While observing the way nature moves seemingly unaware of grief, pain and the unfairness of the world, I was able to understand how beautiful it is to move on from those negative emotions with positive reflection and appreciation for the past. This poem relates to the theme of narrative medicine in that it reflects how we can heal and teach our patient\u27s to heal through peaceful remembrance, honoring loss, and showing gratitude

An Improved Method of Documenting Activity Patterns of Post-Emergence Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) in Northern Alaska

Throughout their circumpolar range, pregnant female polar bears (Ursus maritimus) create snow dens in which they give birth to altricial cubs. Because polar bear neonates are born in such an undeveloped state, their survival requires a long, undisturbed period of in-den development. To mitigate human impacts on denning bears, it is necessary to understand the chronology of denning, the behaviors of denning bears, and their sensitivity to human activities. Since 2002, we have studied the den emergence behaviors of polar bears in northern Alaska; however, we moved from using on-site observers (2002 – 03) to using autonomous video systems (2005 – 08). Here we compare the duration, activity budgets, and behaviors of polar bears to see whether observation methods affected their activities. Camera systems recorded nearly 10 times the data per den recorded by human observers (526 h/den and 57 h/den respectively). We found no difference between the two study periods in emergence dates, duration at den sites, abandonment dates, or activity budgets for polar bears. We observed a 16-fold reduction in the number of bear-human interactions when using cameras instead of human observers. There was, however, a marked increase in the intensity of response when using cameras (125 m) as compared to observers in blinds (400 m). An understanding of these activity patterns can be used to manage human activities near dens so as to minimize disturbance.À l’échelle de leur aire de répartition circumpolaire, les ourses polaires (Ursus maritimus) en gestation se créent une tanière de neige pour donner naissance à leurs oursons à développement tardif. Puisque les nouveau-nés de l’ourse polaire naissent dans un état si peu développé, leur survie nécessite une longue période de développement non perturbé en tanière. Afin d’atténuer les incidences de l’être humain sur les ours en tanière, il est nécessaire de comprendre la chronologie de la mise bas, les comportements des ours en tanière et leur sensibilité à l’activité humaine. À partir de 2002, nous avons étudié les comportements de sortie des tanières des ours polaires du nord de l’Alaska, tout d’abord au moyen d’observations faites sur place (en 2002 et 2003) et ensuite, au moyen de caméras vidéo autonomes (de 2005 à 2008). Ici, nous comparons la durée, la répartition des activités et les comportements des ours polaires afin de déterminer si les méthodes d’observation ont influencé leurs activités. Les caméras ont enregistré près de dix fois plus de données par tanière que les observateurs humains (526 h/tanière et 57 h/tanière respectivement). Nous n’avons trouvé aucune différence entre les deux périodes à l’étude en ce qui a trait aux dates de sortie, aux durées de séjour en tanière, aux dates d’abandon ou à la répartition des activités des ours polaires. Lorsque nous avons utilisé des caméras par opposition à des observateurs, nous avons dénoté 16 fois moins d’interactions entre les ours et l’être humain. Cependant, nous avons remarqué une augmentation accrue sur le plan de l’intensité de la réponse lorsque nous nous sommes servis de caméras (125 m) comparativement aux observateurs dissimulés (400 m). La compréhension de ces modèles d’activités peut servir à gérer l’activité humaine à proximité des tanières afin de minimiser les perturbations

Applications of the ACGT Master Ontology on Cancer

In this paper we present applications of the ACGT Master Ontology (MO) which is a new terminology resource for a transnational network providing data exchange in oncology, emphasizing the integration of both clinical and molecular data. The development of a new ontology was necessary due to problems with existing biomedical ontologies in oncology. The ACGT MO is a test case for the application of best practices in ontology development. This paper provides an overview of the application of the ontology within the ACGT project thus far

Modeling effects of crop production, energy development and conservation-grassland loss on avian habitat

Birds are essential components of most ecosystems and provide many services valued by society. However, many populations have undergone striking declines as their habitats have been lost or degraded by human activities. Terrestrial grasslands are vital habitat for birds in the North American Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), but grassland conversion and fragmentation from agriculture and energy-production activities have destroyed or degraded millions of hectares. Conservation grasslands can provide alternate habitat. In the United States, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the largest program maintaining conservation grasslands on agricultural lands, but conservation grasslands in the PPR have declined by over 1 million ha since the program’s zenith in 2007. We used an ecosystemservices model (InVEST) parameterized for the PPR to quantify grassland-bird habitat remaining in 2014 and to assess the degradation status of the remaining grassland-bird habitat as influenced by crop and energy (i.e., oil, natural gas, and wind) production. We compared our resultant habitat-quality ratings to grassland-bird abundance data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey to confirm that ratings were related to grassland-bird abundance. Of the grassland-bird habitat remaining in 2014, about 19% was degraded by crop production that occurred within 0.1 km of grassland habitats, whereas energy production degraded an additional 16%. We further quantified the changes in availability of grasslandbird habitat under various land-cover scenarios representing incremental losses (10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) of CRP grasslands from 2014 levels. Our model identified 1 million ha (9%) of remaining grassland-bird habitat in the PPR that would be lost or degraded if all CRP conservation grasslands were returned to crop production. Grassland regions world-wide face similar challenges in maintaining avian habitat in the face of increasing commodity and energy production to sate the food and energy needs of a growing world population. Identifying ways to model the impacts of the tradeoff between food and energy production and wildlife production is an important step in creating solutions

Comparison of Commonly Used Sail Cloths through Photogrammetric Acquisitions, Experimental Tests and Numerical Aerodynamic Simulations

Abstract The use of polymer composites has been increasing over the years and nowadays the requirements for designing high performance and lightweight fabrics and laminates for sail manufacturing have become more stringent than ever. The present paper offers an effective methodology that enhances the understanding of the influence of fibres orientation and arrangement of panels on sail performance. Constitutive characteristics of the ten commonly used sail cloths are experimentally measured and their influence on sail dynamic performance is compared using an aerodynamic approach. As expected also in industry 4.0 the method allows to control the production process and final product optimization

Synaptic Protection in the Brain of WldS Mice Occurs Independently of Age but Is Sensitive to Gene-Dose

Disruption of synaptic connectivity is a significant early event in many neurodegenerative conditions affecting the aging CNS, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Therapeutic approaches that protect synapses from degeneration in the aging brain offer the potential to slow or halt the progression of such conditions. A range of animal models expressing the slow Wallerian Degeneration (Wld(S)) gene show robust neuroprotection of synapses and axons from a wide variety of traumatic and genetic neurodegenerative stimuli in both the central and peripheral nervous systems, raising that possibility that Wld(S) may be useful as a neuroprotective agent in diseases with synaptic pathology. However, previous studies of neuromuscular junctions revealed significant negative effects of increasing age and positive effects of gene-dose on Wld(S)-mediated synaptic protection in the peripheral nervous system, raising doubts as to whether Wld(S) is capable of directly conferring synapse protection in the aging brain.We examined the influence of age and gene-dose on synaptic protection in the brain of mice expressing the Wld(S) gene using an established cortical lesion model to induce synaptic degeneration in the striatum. Synaptic protection was found to be sensitive to Wld(S) gene-dose, with heterozygous Wld(S) mice showing approximately half the level of protection observed in homozygous Wld(S) mice. Increasing age had no influence on levels of synaptic protection. In contrast to previous findings in the periphery, synapses in the brain of old Wld(S) mice were just as strongly protected as those in young mice.Our study demonstrates that Wld(S)-mediated synaptic protection in the CNS occurs independently of age, but is sensitive to gene dose. This suggests that the Wld(S) gene, and in particular its downstream endogenous effector pathways, may be potentially useful therapeutic agents for conferring synaptic protection in the aging brain

Stochastic PCA-based bone models from inverse transform sampling: Proof of concept for mandibles and proximal femurs

Principal components analysis is a powerful technique which can be used to reduce data dimensionality. With reference to three-dimensional bone shape models, it can be used to generate an unlimited number of models, defined by thousands of nodes, from a limited (less than twenty) number of scalars. The full procedure has been here described in detail and tested. Two databases were used as input data: the first database comprised 40 mandibles, while the second one comprised 98 proximal femurs. The “average shape” and principal components that were required to cover at least 90% of the whole variance were identified for both bones, as well as the statistical distributions of the respective principal components weights. Fifteen principal components sufficed to describe the mandibular shape, while nine components sufficed to describe the proximal femur morphology. A routine has been set up to generate any number of mandible or proximal femur geometries, according to the actual statistical shape distributions. The set-up procedure can be generalized to any bone shape given a sufficiently large database of the respective 3D shapes