Studies on serum cholesterol and other coronary heart disease precursors in childhood

The change in the pattern of diseases affecting children in industrialised countries during the last century has caused a shift in emphasis from curative to preventive paediatrics. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in adulthood. Its origins have been shown by epidemiological studies to lie in facets of the Western life style which are biologically disadvantageous. By the time CHD becomes symptomatic, primary prevention is too late; but what is the evidence that by starting these measures in early life benefit would result? The studies described in this thesis were planned to determine whether early deviations from the biological norm occur during childhood for factors known to be associated with CHD in adult life. These factors include blood pressure, personality type, and serum cholesterol. The concentration of cholesterol in serum was chosen because its abnormalities are unequivocally associated with an excess risk of CHD, and because it provides a model for analysis of both genetic and environmental nutritional influences. Although there has been an enormous amount of research into the various influences on serum cholesterol, there is very little data about the subject during the first two years of life when future metabolic homeostatic and nutritional patterns may become established. For that reason a longitudinal study was planned, and the data derived from it was supplemented by cross-sectional studies on older children

Calls for Police Service: Understanding the demand profile and the UK police response

Purpose – The purpose of this research paper is to identify and understand the demand profile of a division of Lancashire Police Constabulary in order to assist Police administrators in the evaluation of demand and understanding of Policing response. Design/methodology/approach – Police data records regarding all offences within the Central Division of Lancashire Police Constabulary over the year of 2013 were examined. Descriptive statistics were used to identify the top ten demand addresses in five categories (residential, statutory bodies, retail, nightlife, and young people’s services), and the incident classifications, time frames and response codes that were most associated with these addresses. Further content analysis was conducted on the top ten residential addresses in order to identify specific characteristics of residential demand. Findings - The majority of Lancashire Constabulary resources are being spent dealing with non-traditional police demand. The most demanding residents were found to have one or more of the following properties; (i) to be of white – Northern European origin, (ii) to be unemployed, (iii) to be associated with mental health issues, domestic violence incidents or substance abuse, and (iv) to have previously had other agency involvement. Practical Implications - These results indicate that the police could potentially reduce the demand for service by enhancing work within two key areas; partnership working and early intervention. Originality/value – In this time of austerity and police budget cuts, it is important to understand the demand on the UK police service in an attempt to reduce it

Text annotation using textual semantic similarity and term-frequency (Twitter)

Researchers on social-media understandably assert that the contributions social media has made on various sectors is massive. Business development managers today have directed a huge amount of effort in strategizing efficient collaboration with both customers and other organizations using social-media. Despite the visible impact social media has made, a lot of digitally shared information is yet to be revealed. Gradually twitter has become the main hub for many Information system researchers, because tweets can freely be accessible in real-time by any one. Motivated by earlier studies where IS researchers addressed big-data analysis and management by employing content analysis techniques, this paper proposes a novel approach to perform unsupervised classification of the tweets into different labels. It introduces a unique algorithm that uses semantic similarity between texts, Term-frequency and a determinant threshold to perform content analysis. The goal of this approach is to extract relevant features from a tweet thus reducing dimension and preparing training datasets that would be used to build classifiers

The response of perennial and temporary headwater stream invertebrate communities to hydrological extremes

The headwaters of karst rivers experience considerable hydrological variability, including spates and streambed drying. Extreme summer flooding on the River Lathkill (Derbyshire, UK) provided the opportunity to examine the invertebrate community response to unseasonal spate flows, flow recession and, at temporary sites, streambed drying. Invertebrates were sampled at sites with differing flow permanence regimes during and after the spates. Following streambed drying at temporary sites, dewatered surface sediments were investigated as a refugium for aquatic invertebrates. Experimental rehydration of these dewatered sediments was conducted to promote development of desiccation-tolerant life stages. At perennial sites, spate flows reduced invertebrate abundance and diversity, whilst at temporary sites, flow reactivation facilitated rapid colonisation of the surface channel by a limited number of invertebrate taxa. Following streambed drying, 38 taxa were recorded from the dewatered and rehydrated sediments, with Oligochaeta being the most abundant taxon and Chironomidae (Diptera) the most diverse. Experimental rehydration of dewatered sediments revealed the presence of additional taxa, including Stenophylax sp. (Trichoptera: Limnephilidae) and Nemoura sp. (Plecoptera: Nemouridae). The influence of flow permanence on invertebrate community composition was apparent despite the aseasonal high-magnitude flood events

Hitting the white ceiling: Structural racism and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university graduates

This article reports on a study that explored what it means to be a mature-age Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university graduate in the context of age, life-stage, history, culture, socioeconomic status, race and place. Using narrative interview data and fieldwork observation, we focus on the graduates’ workplace experiences and take a case study approach to amplify their voices. We argue that the data challenges the ideological construct of Australia as a ‘post-racial’ society and illustrates how interrelated variants of structural racism function to sanction, silence and control educated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, divide communities into quasi-hierarchies and sustain white power and privilege. We show how these variants are expressed as low expectations, shadeism, culturism and privilege protectionism, and argue that their enactment can erect an invisible barrier to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander professional progression: a ‘white ceiling’ above which many graduates struggle to ascend

JTEC Panel report on electronic manufacturing and packaging in Japan

This report summarizes the status of electronic manufacturing and packaging technology in Japan in comparison to that in the United States, and its impact on competition in electronic manufacturing in general. In addition to electronic manufacturing technologies, the report covers technology and manufacturing infrastructure, electronics manufacturing and assembly, quality assurance and reliability in the Japanese electronics industry, and successful product realization strategies. The panel found that Japan leads the United States in almost every electronics packaging technology. Japan clearly has achieved a strategic advantage in electronics production and process technologies. Panel members believe that Japanese competitors could be leading U.S. firms by as much as a decade in some electronics process technologies

A small-molecule inhibitor of the aberrant transcription factor CBFβ-SMMHC delays leukemia in mice

This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science on 2015 February 13; 347(6223): 779–784, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa0314.Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common form of adult leukemia. The transcription factor fusion CBFβ-SMMHC (core binding factor β and the smooth-muscle myosin heavy chain), expressed in AML with the chromosome inversion inv(16)(p13q22), outcompetes wild-type CBFβ for binding to the transcription factor RUNX1, deregulates RUNX1 activity in hematopoiesis, and induces AML. Current inv(16) AML treatment with nonselective cytotoxic chemotherapy results in a good initial response but limited long-term survival. Here, we report the development of a protein-protein interaction inhibitor, AI-10-49, that selectively binds to CBFβ-SMMHC and disrupts its binding to RUNX1. AI-10-49 restores RUNX1 transcriptional activity, displays favorable pharmacokinetics, and delays leukemia progression in mice. Treatment of primary inv(16) AML patient blasts with AI-10-49 triggers selective cell death. These data suggest that direct inhibition of the oncogenic CBFβ-SMMHC fusion protein may be an effective therapeutic approach for inv(16) AML, and they provide support for transcription factor targeted therapy in other cancers