382 research outputs found
Stabilization and Enhancement of Sand-modified Root Zones for High Traffic Sports Turfs with Mesh Elements: A Randomly Oriented, Interlocking Mesh Inclusion system.
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The Medical Informatics Group: Ongoing Research
Two current research projects within the Medical Informatics Group are described. The first, the Diabetes Data Management Project, has as its major goal the effective analysis, display, and summarization of information relevant to the care of insulin-dependent diabetics. These goals are achieved through the use of quantitative and qualitative modeling techniques, object-oriented graphical display methods, and natural language generation programs. The second research activity, the Hypertext Medical Handbook Project, emphasizes many aspects of electronic publishing and biomedical communication. In particular, the project explores machine-assisted information retrieval by combining user feedback with Bayesian inference networks
Kosterlitz-Thouless Universality in a Fermionic System
A new extension of the attractive Hubbard model is constructed to study the
critical behavior near a finite temperature superconducting phase transition in
two dimensions using the recently developed meron-cluster algorithm. Unlike
previous calculations in the attractive Hubbard model which were limited to
small lattices, the new algorithm is used to study the critical behavior on
lattices as large as . These precise results for the first time
show that a fermionic system can undergo a finite temperature phase transition
whose critical behavior is well described by the predictions of Kosterlitz and
Thouless almost three decades ago. In particular it is confirmed that the
spatial winding number susceptibility obeys the well known predictions of
finite size scaling for and up to logarithmic corrections the pair
susceptibility scales as at large volumes with for .Comment: Revtex format; 4 pages, 2 figure
Multistate Infestation with the Exotic Disease-Vector Tick Haemaphysalis longicornis - United States, August 2017-September 2018
Haemaphysalis longicornis is a tick indigenous to eastern Asia and an important vector of human and animal disease agents, resulting in such outcomes as human hemorrhagic fever and reduction of production in dairy cattle by 25%. H. longicornis was discovered on a sheep in New Jersey in August 2017 (1). This was the first detection in the United States outside of quarantine. In the spring of 2018, the tick was again detected at the index site, and later, in other counties in New Jersey, in seven other states in the eastern United States, and in Arkansas. The hosts included six species of domestic animals, six species of wildlife, and humans. To forestall adverse consequences in humans, pets, livestock, and wildlife, several critical actions are indicated, including expanded surveillance to determine the evolving distribution of H. longicornis, detection of pathogens that H. longicornis currently harbors, determination of the capacity of H. longicornis to serve as a vector for a range of potential pathogens, and evaluation of effective agents and methods for the control of H. longicornis
Maternal iron status in early pregnancy and birth outcomes: insights from the Baby's Vascular health and Iron in Pregnancy study
Enrollment in HIV Care and Treatment Clinic and Associated Factors Among HIV Diagnosed Patients in Magu District, Tanzania.
HIV care and treatment clinics (CTC) are important for management of HIV morbidity and mortality, and to reduce HIV transmission. Enrollment in HIV care and treatment clinics remains low in many developing countries. We followed up 632 newly diagnosed HIV patients aged 15Â years and above from Magu District, Tanzania. Logistic regression was used to assess factors significantly associated with enrollment for CTC services. Kaplan-Meier plots and log-rank tests were used to evaluate differences in timing uptake of services. Among 632 participants, 214 (33.9%) were enrolled in CTC, and of those enrolled 120 (56.6%) took longer than 3Â months to enroll. Those living in more rural villages were less likely to be enrolled than in the villages with semi-urban settings (OR 0.36; 95% CI 0.17-0.76). Moreover, those with age group 35-44Â years and with age group 45Â years and above were 2 times higher odds compared to those with age group 15-24Â years, (OR 2.03; 95% CI 1.05-3.91) and (OR 2.69; 95% CI 1.40-5.18) respectively. Enrollment in the CTC in Tanzania is low. To increase uptake of antiretroviral therapy, it is critical to improve linkage between HIV testing and care services, and to rollout these services into the primary health facilities
Experiences in running a complex electronic data capture system using mobile phones in a large-scale population trial in southern Nepal.
The increasing availability and capabilities of mobile phones make them a feasible means of data collection. Electronic Data Capture (EDC) systems have been used widely for public health monitoring and surveillance activities, but documentation of their use in complicated research studies requiring multiple systems is limited. This paper shares our experiences of designing and implementing a complex multi-component EDC system for a community-based four-armed cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial in the rural plains of Nepal, to help other researchers planning to use EDC for complex studies in low-income settings. We designed and implemented three interrelated mobile phone data collection systems to enrol and follow-up pregnant women (trial participants), and to support the implementation of trial interventions (women's groups, food and cash transfers). 720 field staff used basic phones to send simple coded text messages, 539 women's group facilitators used Android smartphones with Open Data Kit Collect, and 112 Interviewers, Coordinators and Supervisors used smartphones with CommCare. Barcoded photo ID cards encoded with participant information were generated for each enrolled woman. Automated systems were developed to download, recode and merge data for nearly real-time access by researchers. The systems were successfully rolled out and used by 1371 staff. A total of 25,089 pregnant women were enrolled, and 17,839 follow-up forms completed. Women's group facilitators recorded 5717 women's groups and the distribution of 14,647 food and 13,482 cash transfers. Using EDC sped up data collection and processing, although time needed for programming and set-up delayed the study inception. EDC using three interlinked mobile data management systems (FrontlineSMS, ODK and CommCare) was a feasible and effective method of data capture in a complex large-scale trial in the plains of Nepal. Despite challenges including prolonged set-up times, the systems met multiple data collection needs for users with varying levels of literacy and experience
Estimation of Dietary Iron Bioavailability from Food Iron Intake and Iron Status
Currently there are no satisfactory methods for estimating dietary iron absorption (bioavailability) at a population level, but this is essential for deriving dietary reference values using the factorial approach. The aim of this work was to develop a novel approach for estimating dietary iron absorption using a population sample from a sub-section of the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS). Data were analyzed in 873 subjects from the 2000â2001 adult cohort of the NDNS, for whom both dietary intake data and hematological measures (hemoglobin and serum ferritin (SF) concentrations) were available. There were 495 men aged 19â64 y (mean age 42.7±12.1 y) and 378 pre-menopausal women (mean age 35.7±8.2 y). Individual dietary iron requirements were estimated using the Institute of Medicine calculations. A full probability approach was then applied to estimate the prevalence of dietary intakes that were insufficient to meet the needs of the men and women separately, based on their estimated daily iron intake and a series of absorption values ranging from 1â40%. The prevalence of SF concentrations below selected cut-off values (indicating that absorption was not high enough to maintain iron stores) was derived from individual SF concentrations. An estimate of dietary iron absorption required to maintain specified SF values was then calculated by matching the observed prevalence of insufficiency with the prevalence predicted for the series of absorption estimates. Mean daily dietary iron intakes were 13.5 mg for men and 9.8 mg for women. Mean calculated dietary absorption was 8% in men (50th percentile for SF 85 ”g/L) and 17% in women (50th percentile for SF 38 ”g/L). At a ferritin level of 45 ”g/L estimated absorption was similar in men (14%) and women (13%). This new method can be used to calculate dietary iron absorption at a population level using data describing total iron intake and SF concentration
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