Perigraft air is not always pathological: a case report

© 2007 Ball et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

A Critical Review of Anti‐Bullying Programs in North American Elementary Schools

BACKGROUNDBullying behavior is a concern among school‐aged youth and anti‐bullying programs have been implemented in schools throughout North America. Most anti‐bullying programs are delivered to adolescent youth because antisocial‐aggressive behaviors are typically associated with this developmental stage. This paper is a review of empirically evaluated school‐based bullying prevention and intervention programs in North American elementary schools.METHODSWe conducted a systematic, critical review of bullying prevention programming. Data were analyzed to determine the study method, intervention components, measurement of bullying, aggression, or peer victimization, outcomes measured, and results.RESULTSOur review resulted in the identification of 10 interventions aimed at youth in grades K‐6 enrolled in North American elementary schools. Effective intervention strategies targeted a variety of bullying behaviors using diverse mechanisms and included a school—and community‐wide approach. Direct outcomes of the reviewed evaluations were centered on bullying, aggression, and victimization. Indirect outcomes of review evaluations included strategies for bystanders, school achievement, perceived school safety, and knowledge or attitudes about bullying.CONCLUSIONSRecommendations for promising practices in effective bullying intervention programming are offered. The review concludes with suggestions for supporting school health staff and in‐service teachers drawn from the body of research, and offers direction for future study.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151360/1/josh12814_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151360/2/josh12814.pd

Improving the sensitivity of Higgs boson searches in the golden channel

Leptonic decays of the Higgs boson in the ZZ* channel yield what is known as the golden channel due to its clean signature and good total invariant mass resolution. In addition, the full kinematic distribution of the decay products can be reconstructed, which, nonetheless, is not taken into account in traditional search strategy relying only on measurements of the total invariant mass. In this work we implement a type of multivariate analysis known as the matrix element method, which exploits differences in the full production and decay matrix elements between the Higgs boson and the dominant irreducible background from q bar{q} -> ZZ*. Analytic expressions of the differential distributions for both the signal and the background are also presented. We perform a study for the Large Hadron Collider at sqrt{s}=7 TeV for Higgs masses between 175 and 350 GeV. We find that, with an integrated luminosity of 2.5 fb^-1 or higher, improvements in the order of 10 - 20 % could be obtained for both discovery significance and exclusion limits in the high mass region, where the differences in the angular correlations between signal and background are most pronounced.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures. v2: Minus signs in definitions of angles corrected. Typos fixed. Reference added. Cosmetic changes to Figure 4. Additional sentence added for clarificatio

Clinical utility of tibial motor and sensory nerve conduction studies with motor recording from the flexor hallucis brevis: a methodological and reliability study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Standard tibial motor nerve conduction measures are established with recording from the abductor hallucis. This technique is often technically challenging and clinicians have difficulty interpreting the information particularly in the short segment needed to assess focal tibial nerve entrapment at the medial ankle as occurs in posterior tarsal tunnel syndrome. The flexor hallucis brevis (FHB) has been described as an alternative site for recording tibial nerve function in those with posterior tarsal tunnel syndrome. Normative data has not been established for this technique. This pilot study describes the technique in detail. In addition we provide reference values for medial and lateral plantar orthodromic sensory measures and assessed intrarater reliability for all measures.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eighty healthy female participants took part, and 39 returned for serial testing at 4 time points. Mean values ± SD were recorded for nerve conduction measures, and coefficient of variation as well as intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Motor latency, amplitude and velocity values for the FHB were 4.1 ± 0.9 msec, 8.0 ± 3.0 mV and 45.6 ± 3.4 m/s, respectively. Sensory latencies, amplitudes, and velocities, respectively, were 2.8 ± 0.3 msec, 26.7 ± 10.1 μV, and 41.4 ± 3.5 m/s for the medial plantar nerve and 3.2 ± 0.5 msec, 13.3 ± 4.7 μV, and 44.3 ± 4.0 msec for the lateral plantar nerve. All values demonstrated significant ICC values (<it>P </it>≤ 0.007).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Motor recording from the FHB provides technically clear waveforms that allow for an improved ability to assess tibial nerve function in the short segments used to assess tarsal tunnel syndrome. The reported means will begin to establish normal values for this technique.</p

Barriers and opportunities for evidence-based health service planning: the example of developing a Decision Analytic Model to plan services for sexually transmitted infections in the UK

Decision Analytic Models (DAMs) are established means of evidence-synthesis to differentiate between health interventions. They have mainly been used to inform clinical decisions and health technology assessment at the national level, yet could also inform local health service planning. For this, a DAM must take into account the needs of the local population, but also the needs of those planning its services. Drawing on our experiences from stakeholder consultations, where we presented the potential utility of a DAM for planning local health services for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the UK, and the evidence it could use to inform decisions regarding different combinations of service provision, in terms of their costs, cost-effectiveness, and public health outcomes, we discuss the barriers perceived by stakeholders to the use of DAMs to inform service planning for local populations, including (1) a tension between individual and population perspectives; (2) reductionism; and (3) a lack of transparency regarding models, their assumptions, and the motivations of those generating models

Strain- and Adsorption-Dependent Electronic States and Transport or Localization in Graphene

The chapter generalizes results on influence of uniaxial strain and adsorption on the electron states and charge transport or localization in graphene with different configurations of imperfections (point defects): resonant (neutral) adsorbed atoms either oxygen- or hydrogen-containing molecules or functional groups, vacancies or substitutional atoms, charged impurity atoms or molecules, and distortions. To observe electronic properties of graphene-admolecules system, we applied electron paramagnetic resonance technique in a broad temperature range for graphene oxides as a good basis for understanding the electrotransport properties of other active carbons. Applied technique allowed observation of possible metal-insulator transition and sorption pumping effect as well as discussion of results in relation to the granular metal model. The electronic and transport properties are calculated within the framework of the tight-binding model along with the Kubo-Greenwood quantum-mechanical formalism. Depending on electron density and type of the sites, the conductivity for correlated and ordered adsorbates is found to be enhanced in dozens of times as compared to the cases of their random distribution. In case of the uniaxially strained graphene, the presence of point defects counteracts against or contributes to the band-gap opening according to their configurations. The band-gap behaviour is found to be nonmonotonic with strain in case of a simultaneous action of defect ordering and zigzag deformation. The amount of localized charge carriers (spins) is found to be correlated with the content of adsorbed centres responsible for the formation of potential barriers and, in turn, for the localization effects. Physical and chemical states of graphene edges, especially at a uniaxial strain along one of them, play a crucial role in electrical transport phenomena in graphene-based materials.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Telepresence and the Role of the Senses

The telepresence experience can be evoked in a number of ways. A well-known example is a player of videogames who reports about a telepresence experience, a subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when physically situated in another place. In this paper we set the phenomenon of telepresence into a theoretical framework. As people react subjectively to stimuli from telepresence, empirical studies can give more evidence about the phenomenon. Thus, our contribution is to bridge the theoretical with the empirical. We discuss theories of perception with an emphasis on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gibson, the role of the senses and the Spinozian belief procedure. The aim is to contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon. A telepresence-study that included the affordance concept is used to empirically study how players report sense-reactions to virtual sightseeing in two cities. We investigate and explore the interplay of the philosophical and the empirical. The findings indicate that it is not only the visual sense that plays a role in this experience, but all senses

The holographic principle

There is strong evidence that the area of any surface limits the information content of adjacent spacetime regions, at 10^(69) bits per square meter. We review the developments that have led to the recognition of this entropy bound, placing special emphasis on the quantum properties of black holes. The construction of light-sheets, which associate relevant spacetime regions to any given surface, is discussed in detail. We explain how the bound is tested and demonstrate its validity in a wide range of examples. A universal relation between geometry and information is thus uncovered. It has yet to be explained. The holographic principle asserts that its origin must lie in the number of fundamental degrees of freedom involved in a unified description of spacetime and matter. It must be manifest in an underlying quantum theory of gravity. We survey some successes and challenges in implementing the holographic principle.Comment: 52 pages, 10 figures, invited review for Rev. Mod. Phys; v2: reference adde

Logopenic and nonfluent variants of primary progressive aphasia are differentiated by acoustic measures of speech production

Differentiation of logopenic (lvPPA) and nonfluent/agrammatic (nfvPPA) variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia is important yet remains challenging since it hinges on expert based evaluation of speech and language production. In this study acoustic measures of speech in conjunction with voxel-based morphometry were used to determine the success of the measures as an adjunct to diagnosis and to explore the neural basis of apraxia of speech in nfvPPA. Forty-one patients (21 lvPPA, 20 nfvPPA) were recruited from a consecutive sample with suspected frontotemporal dementia. Patients were diagnosed using the current gold-standard of expert perceptual judgment, based on presence/absence of particular speech features during speaking tasks. Seventeen healthy age-matched adults served as controls. MRI scans were available for 11 control and 37 PPA cases; 23 of the PPA cases underwent amyloid ligand PET imaging. Measures, corresponding to perceptual features of apraxia of speech, were periods of silence during reading and relative vowel duration and intensity in polysyllable word repetition. Discriminant function analyses revealed that a measure of relative vowel duration differentiated nfvPPA cases from both control and lvPPA cases (r2 = 0.47) with 88% agreement with expert judgment of presence of apraxia of speech in nfvPPA cases. VBM analysis showed that relative vowel duration covaried with grey matter intensity in areas critical for speech motor planning and programming: precentral gyrus, supplementary motor area and inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally, only affected in the nfvPPA group. This bilateral involvement of frontal speech networks in nfvPPA potentially affects access to compensatory mechanisms involving right hemisphere homologues. Measures of silences during reading also discriminated the PPA and control groups, but did not increase predictive accuracy. Findings suggest that a measure of relative vowel duration from of a polysyllable word repetition task may be sufficient for detecting most cases of apraxia of speech and distinguishing between nfvPPA and lvPPA

Middleborns disadvantaged? testing birth-order effects on fitness in pre-industrial finns

Parental investment is a limited resource for which offspring compete in order to increase their own survival and reproductive success. However, parents might be selected to influence the outcome of sibling competition through differential investment. While evidence for this is widespread in egg-laying species, whether or not this may also be the case in viviparous species is more difficult to determine. We use pre-industrial Finns as our model system and an equal investment model as our null hypothesis, which predicts that (all else being equal) middleborns should be disadvantaged through competition. We found no overall evidence to suggest that middleborns in a family are disadvantaged in terms of their survival, age at first reproduction or lifetime reproductive success. However, when considering birth-order only among same-sexed siblings, first-, middle-and lastborn sons significantly differed in the number of offspring they were able to rear to adulthood, although there was no similar effect among females. Middleborn sons appeared to produce significantly less offspring than first-or lastborn sons, but they did not significantly differ from lastborn sons in the number of offspring reared to adulthood. Our results thus show that taking sex differences into account is important when modelling birth-order effects. We found clear evidence of firstborn sons being advantaged over other sons in the family, and over firstborn daughters. Therefore, our results suggest that parents invest differentially in their offspring in order to both preferentially favour particular offspring or reduce offspring inequalities arising from sibling competition