Genetic Analysis of Larval Dispersal, Gene Flow, and Connectivity

Genetic data can be used to characterize the scale or magnitude of connectivity via larval dispersal in the plankton as the per capita migration rate (m), the rate of gene flow (Nm), or counts of immigrant individuals. Population-based methods infer average effective rates of connectivity on long time scales (hundreds to thousands of generations), and those estimates will influenced by many processes (including larval dispersal). Individual-based methods based on clustering or assignment of individual genotypes to populations or families are suitable for estimating connectivity on short timescales. The typical or characteristic larval dispersal distance for any one system of populations may best be characterized by isolation-by-distance patterns (using population model methods) or by the dispersal kernel (using parentage-based methods). Migration rates estimated from individual-based methods may be more relevant to ecological studies of demographic connectivity (e.g., among demes in a network of marine prote ted areas) compared to rates of gene flow estimated from population-based methods

Occupancy Rates and Emergency Department Work Index Scores Correlate with Leaving Without Being Seen

Objective: Two crowding metrics are often used to measure emergency department (ED) crowding: the occupancy rate and the emergency department work index (EDWIN) score. To evaluate these metrics for applicability in our community ED, we sought to measure their correlation with the number of patients who left without being seen (LWBS) and determine if either, or both, correlated with our daily LWBS rate. We hypothesized a statistically significant positive correlation between the number of patients who LWBS and both crowding metrics.Methods: We performed a retrospective observational study by reviewing data on all patients who LWBS from December 1, 2007, to February 29, 2008. Occupancy rates and EDWIN scores were obtained through our electronic patient tracking board. We identified LWBS status by searching the final disposition entered into our electronic medical record. We measured the correlation between each crowding metric averaged over each 24-hour day and the number of patients who LWBS per 24-hour day using Spearman's rank correlation, and created receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves to quantify the discriminatory power of occupancy rate and EDWIN score for predicting more than two patients per day who LWBS.Results: We identified 1,193 patients who LWBS during the study period, including patients who registered but then left the waiting room (733), as well as those who left before: registration (71), triage (75), seeing a physician (260), or final disposition (54). The number of patients who LWBS per day ranged from one to 30, with a mean of 13 and median of 11 (IQR 6 to 19). The daily number of patients who LWBS showed a positive correlation with the average daily occupancy rate (Spearman’s rho = 0.771, p = 0.01) and with average daily EDWIN score (Spearman's rho = 0.67, p< .001). Area under the ROC curve for occupancy rate was .97 (95% CI .93 to 1.0) and for EDWIN score was .94 (95% CI .89 to 1.0).Conclusion: Average daily occupancy rates and EDWIN scores both correlate positively with, and have excellent discriminatory power for, the number of patients who LWBS in our ED; however, the scale of our EDWIN scores differs from that obtained at other institutions. For studies of crowding, occupancy rate may be the more useful metric due to its ease of calculation. [West J Emerg Med. 2010; 11(4):324-328.

Casimir scaling of domain wall tensions in the deconfined phase of D=3+1 SU(N) gauge theories

We perform lattice calculations of the spatial 't Hooft k-string tensions in the deconfined phase of SU(N) gauge theories for N=2,3,4,6. These equal (up to a factor of T) the surface tensions of the domain walls between the corresponding (Euclidean) deconfined phases. For T much larger than Tc our results match on to the known perturbative result, which exhibits Casimir Scaling, being proportional to k(N-k). At lower T the coupling becomes stronger and, not surprisingly, our calculations show large deviations from the perturbative T-dependence. Despite this we find that the behaviour proportional to k(N-k) persists very accurately down to temperatures very close to Tc. Thus the Casimir Scaling of the 't Hooft tension appears to be a `universal' feature that is more general than its appearance in the low order high-T perturbative calculation. We observe the `wetting' of these k-walls at T around Tc and the (almost inevitable) `perfect wetting' of the k=N/2 domain wall. Our calculations show that as T tends to Tc the magnitude of the spatial `t Hooft string tension decreases rapidly. This suggests the existence of a (would-be) 't Hooft string condensation transition at some temperature which is close to but below Tc. We speculate on the `dual' relationship between this and the (would-be) confining string condensation at the Hagedorn temperature that is close to but above Tc.Comment: 40 pages, 14 figure

Ground-layer wavefront reconstruction from multiple natural guide stars

Observational tests of ground layer wavefront recovery have been made in open loop using a constellation of four natural guide stars at the 1.55 m Kuiper telescope in Arizona. Such tests explore the effectiveness of wide-field seeing improvement by correction of low-lying atmospheric turbulence with ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO). The wavefronts from the four stars were measured simultaneously on a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor (WFS). The WFS placed a 5 x 5 array of square subapertures across the pupil of the telescope, allowing for wavefront reconstruction up to the fifth radial Zernike order. We find that the wavefront aberration in each star can be roughly halved by subtracting the average of the wavefronts from the other three stars. Wavefront correction on this basis leads to a reduction in width of the seeing-limited stellar image by up to a factor of 3, with image sharpening effective from the visible to near infrared wavelengths over a field of at least 2 arc minutes. We conclude that GLAO correction will be a valuable tool that can increase resolution and spectrographic throughput across a broad range of seeing-limited observations.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures, to be published in Astrophys.

On the glueball spectrum in O(a)-improved lattice QCD

We calculate the light `glueball' mass spectrum in N_f=2 lattice QCD using a fermion action that is non-perturbatively O(a) improved. We work at lattice spacings a ~0.1 fm and with quark masses that range down to about half the strange quark mass. We find the statistical errors to be moderate and under control on relatively small ensembles. We compare our mass spectrum to that of quenched QCD at the same value of a. Whilst the tensor mass is the same (within errors), the scalar mass is significantly smaller in the dynamical lattice theory, by a factor of ~(0.84 +/- 0.03). We discuss what the observed m_q dependence of this suppression tells us about the dynamics of glueballs in QCD. We also calculate the masses of flux tubes that wind around the spatial torus, and extract the string tension from these. As we decrease the quark mass we see a small but growing vacuum expectation value for the corresponding flux tube operators. This provides clear evidence for `string breaking' and for the (expected) breaking of the associated gauge centre symmetry by sea quarks.Comment: 33pp LaTeX. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.

White matter changes and confrontation naming in retired aging national football league athletes

Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), we assessed the relationship of white matter integrity and performance on the Boston Naming Test (BNT) in a group of retired professional football players and a control group. We examined correlations between fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) with BNT T-scores in an unbiased voxelwise analysis processed with tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). We also analyzed the DTI data by grouping voxels together as white matter tracts and testing each tract's association with BNT T-scores. Significant voxelwise correlations between FA and BNT performance were only seen in the retired football players (p < 0.02). Two tracts had mean FA values that significantly correlated with BNT performance: forceps minor and forceps major. White matter integrity is important for distributed cognitive processes, and disruption correlates with diminished performance in athletes exposed to concussive and subconcussive brain injuries, but not in controls without such exposure

Incidence and Outcomes of Acute Implant Extrusion Following Anterior Cervical Spine Surgery.

STUDY DESIGN: Multi-institutional retrospective case series of 8887 patients who underwent anterior cervical spine surgery. OBJECTIVE: Anterior decompression from discectomy or corpectomy is not without risk. Surgical morbidity ranges from 9% to 20% and is likely underreported. Little is known of the incidence and effects of rare complications on functional outcomes following anterior spinal surgery. In this retrospective review, we examined implant extrusions (IEs) following anterior cervical fusion. METHODS: A retrospective multicenter case series study involving 21 high-volume surgical centers from the AOSpine North America Clinical Research Network. Medical records for 17 625 patients who received cervical spine surgery (levels from C2 to C7) between January 1, 2005, and December 31, 2011, were reviewed to identify occurrence of 21 predefined treatment complications. RESULTS: Following anterior cervical fusion, the incidence of IE ranged from 0.0% to 0.8% across 21 institutions with 11 cases reported. All surgeries involved multiple levels, and 7/11 (64%) involved either multilevel corpectomies or hybrid constructs with at least one adjacent discectomy to a corpectomy. In 7/11 (64%) patients, constructs ended with reconstruction or stabilization at C7. Nine patients required surgery for repair and stabilization following IE. Average length of hospital stay after IE was 5.2 days. Only 2 (18%) had residual deficits after reoperation. CONCLUSIONS: IE is a very rare complication after anterior cervical spine surgery often requiring revision. Constructs requiring multilevel reconstruction, especially at the cervicothoracic junction, have a higher risk for failure, and surgeons should proceed with caution in using an anterior-only approach in these demanding cases. Surgeons can expect most patients to regain function after reoperation

Effects of non-perturbatively improved dynamical fermions in QCD at fixed lattice spacing

We present results for the static inter-quark potential, lightest glueballs, light hadron spectrum and topological susceptibility using a non-perturbatively improved action on a $16^3\times 32$ lattice at a set of values of the bare gauge coupling and bare dynamical quark mass chosen to keep the lattice size fixed in physical units ($\sim 1.7$ fm). By comparing these measurements with a matched quenched ensemble, we study the effects due to two degenerate flavours of dynamical quarks. With the greater control over residual lattice spacing effects which these methods afford, we find some evidence of charge screening and some minor effects on the light hadron spectrum over the range of quark masses studied ($M_{PS}/M_{V}\ge0.58$). More substantial differences between quenched and unquenched simulations are observed in measurements of topological quantities.Comment: 53 pages, LaTeX/RevTeX, 16 eps figures; corrected clover action expression and various typos, no results change

Three-dimensional tomographic reconstruction of mesospheric airglow structures using two-station ground-based image measurements

A new methodology is presented to create two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) tomographic reconstructions of mesospheric airglow layer structure using two-station all-sky image measurements. A fanning technique is presented that produces a series of cross-sectional 2D reconstructions, which are combined to create a 3D mapping of the airglow volume. The imaging configuration is discussed and the inherent challenges of using limited-angle data in tomographic reconstructions have been analyzed using artificially generated imaging objects. An iterative reconstruction method, the partially constrained algebraic reconstruction technique (PCART), was used in conjunction with a priori information of the airglow emission profile to constrain the height of the imaged region, thereby reducing the indeterminacy of the inverse problem. Synthetic projection data were acquired from the imaging objects and the forward problem to validate the tomographic method and to demonstrate the ability of this technique to accurately reconstruct information using only two ground-based sites. Reconstructions of the OH airglow layer were created using data recorded by all-sky CCD cameras located at Bear Lake Observatory, Utah, and at Star Valley, Wyoming, with an optimal site separation of ~100 km. The ability to extend powerful 2D and 3D tomographic methods to two-station ground-based measurements offers obvious practical advantages for new measurement programs. The importance and applications of mesospheric tomographic reconstructions in airglow studies, as well as the need for future measurements and continued development of techniques of this type, are discussed. © 2012 Optical Society of America