Writing the history of British business in Latin America

This paper briefly surveys the ways in which historians have studied the evolution of British business in Latin America.In the 1970s and 1980s research was dominated by questions of power, imperialism and dependency rather thanorthodox business history themes. The latter made their way into the subject from the 1980s when historians began toaddress issues of structure, organisation and governance in British firms in Latin America, and in particular utilise the conceptsof ‘free-standing companies’ and ‘investment groups’. More recently they have used ideas from international humanresource management and international political economy, and the growth in the employment of business historians inbusiness and management schools is likely to further encourage such approaches.Keywords: British business, Latin America, historiography, business imperialis

Crew factors in flight operations 6: Psychophysiological responses to helicopter operations

Thirty-two helicopter pilots were studied before, during, and after 4-5 day trips providing support services from Aberdeen, Scotland, to rigs in the North Sea oil fields. Early on-duty times obliged subjects to wake up 1.5 hours earlier on trip days than on pretrip days. Consequently, they slept nearly an hour less per night on trips. They reported more fatigue on post-trip days than on pretrip days, suggesting a cumulative effect of duty-related activities and sleep loss. Fatigue and negative affect were higher, and activation lower, by the end of trip days than by the end of pretrip days. The earlier a subject went on duty, the lower his activation by the end of the day. Caffeine consumption increased 42 percent on trip days. The incidence of headache doubled, of back pain increased twelve fold, and of burning eyes quadrupled. In the aircraft studied, thermal discomfort and high vibration levels were common. The longer pilots remained on duty, the more negative their mood became

An Assessment of H1N1 Influenza-Associated Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Severity after Adjustment for Treatment Characteristics

Pandemic influenza caused significant increases in healthcare utilization across several continents including the use of high-intensity rescue therapies like extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) or high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV). The severity of illness observed with pandemic influenza in 2009 strained healthcare resources. Because lung injury in ARDS can be influenced by daily management and multiple organ failure, we performed a retrospective cohort study to understand the severity of H1N1 associated ARDS after adjustment for treatment. Sixty subjects were identified in our hospital with ARDS from “direct injury” within 24 hours of ICU admission over a three month period. Twenty-three subjects (38.3%) were positive for H1N1 within 72 hours of hospitalization. These cases of H1N1-associated ARDS were compared to non-H1N1 associated ARDS patients. Subjects with H1N1-associated ARDS were younger and more likely to have a higher body mass index (BMI), present more rapidly and have worse oxygenation. Severity of illness (SOFA score) was directly related to worse oxygenation. Management was similar between the two groups on the day of admission and subsequent five days with respect to tidal volumes used, fluid balance and transfusion practices. There was, however, more frequent use of “rescue” therapy like prone ventilation, HFOV or ECMO in H1N1 patients. First morning set tidal volumes and BMI were significantly associated with increased severity of lung injury (Lung injury score, LIS) at presentation and over time while prior prescription of statins was protective. After assessment of the effect of these co-interventions LIS was significantly higher in H1N1 patients. Patients with pandemic influenza-associated ARDS had higher LIS both at presentation and over the course of the first six days of treatment when compared to non-H1N1 associated ARDS controls. The difference in LIS persisted over the duration of observation in patients with H1N1 possibly explaining the increased duration of mechanical ventilation

Implementation of Multigene Germline and Parallel Somatic Genetic Testing in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer: SIGNPOST Study

We present findings of a cancer multidisciplinary-team (MDT) coordinated mainstreaming pathway of unselected 5-panel germline BRCA1/BRCA2/RAD51C/RAD51D/BRIP1 and parallel somatic BRCA1/BRCA2 testing in all women with epithelial-OC and highlight the discordance between germline and somatic testing strategies across two cancer centres. Patients were counselled and consented by a cancer MDT member. The uptake of parallel multi-gene germline and somatic testing was 97.7%. Counselling by clinical-nurse-specialist more frequently needed >1 consultation (53.6% (30/56)) compared to a medical (15.0% (21/137)) or surgical oncologist (15.3% (17/110)) (p 0.001). The median age was 54 (IQR = 51–62) years in germline pathogenic-variant (PV) versus 61 (IQR = 51–71) in BRCA wild-type (p = 0.001). There was no significant difference in distribution of PVs by ethnicity, stage, surgery timing or resection status. A total of 15.5% germline and 7.8% somatic BRCA1/BRCA2 PVs were identified. A total of 2.3% patients had RAD51C/RAD51D/BRIP1 PVs. A total of 11% germline PVs were large-genomic-rearrangements and missed by somatic testing. A total of 20% germline PVs are missed by somatic first BRCA-testing approach and 55.6% germline PVs missed by family history ascertainment. The somatic testing failure rate is higher (23%) for patients undergoing diagnostic biopsies. Our findings favour a prospective parallel somatic and germline panel testing approach as a clinically efficient strategy to maximise variant identification. UK Genomics test-directory criteria should be expanded to include a panel of OC genes.Peer reviewe

Troponin release following endurance exercise: is inflammation the cause? a cardiovascular magnetic resonance study

Background: The aetiology and clinical significance of troponin release following endurance exercise is unclear but may be due to transient myocardial inflammation. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) affords us the opportunity to evaluate the presence of myocardial inflammation and focal fibrosis and is the ideal imaging modality to study this hypothesis. We sought to correlate the relationship between acute bouts of ultra endurance exercise leading to cardiac biomarkers elevation and the presence of myocardial inflammation and fibrosis using CMR.Methods: 17 recreation athletes (33.5 +/- 6.5 years) were studied before and after a marathon run with troponin, NTproBNP, and CMR. Specific imaging parameters to look for inflammation included T2 weighted images, and T1 weighted spin-echo images before and after an intravenous gadolinium-DTPA to detect myocardial hyperemia secondary to inflammation. Late gadolinium imaging was performed (LGE) to detect any focal regions of replacement fibrosis.Results: Eleven of the 17 participant had elevations of TnI above levels of cut off for myocardial infarction 6 hrs after the marathon (0.075 +/- 0.02, p = 0.007). Left ventricular volumes were reduced post marathon and a small increase in ejection fraction was noted (64 +/- 1% pre, 67 +/- 1.2% post, P = 0.014). Right ventricular volumes, stroke volume, and ejection fraction were unchanged post marathon. No athlete fulfilled criteria for myocardial inflammation based on current criteria. No regions of focal fibrosis were seen in any of the participants.Conclusion: Exercise induced cardiac biomarker release is not associated with any functional changes by CMR or any detectable myocardial inflammation or fibrosis

The Association of Systemic Microvascular Changes with Lung Function and Lung Density: A Cross-Sectional Study

10.1371/journal.pone.0050224PLoS ONE712

Paired opposing leukocyte receptors recognizing rapidly evolving ligands are subject to homogenization of their ligand binding domains

Some leukocyte receptors come in groups of two or more where the partners share ligand(s) but transmit opposite signals. Some of the ligands, such as MHC class I, are fast evolving, raising the problem of how paired opposing receptors manage to change in step with respect to ligand binding properties and at the same time conserve opposite signaling functions. An example is the KLRC (NKG2) family, where opposing variants have been conserved in both rodents and primates. Phylogenetic analyses of the KLRC receptors within and between the two orders show that the opposing partners have been subject to post-speciation gene homogenization restricted mainly to the parts of the genes that encode the ligand binding domains. Concerted evolution similarly restricted is demonstrated also for the KLRI, KLRB (NKR-P1), KLRA (Ly49), and PIR receptor families. We propose the term merohomogenization for this phenomenon and discuss its significance for the evolution of immune receptors

Multimodal population brain imaging in the UK Biobank prospective epidemiological study

Medical imaging has enormous potential for early disease prediction, but is impeded by the difficulty and expense of acquiring data sets before symptom onset. UK Biobank aims to address this problem directly by acquiring high-quality, consistently acquired imaging data from 100,000 predominantly healthy participants, with health outcomes being tracked over the coming decades. The brain imaging includes structural, diffusion and functional modalities. Along with body and cardiac imaging, genetics, lifestyle measures, biological phenotyping and health records, this imaging is expected to enable discovery of imaging markers of a broad range of diseases at their earliest stages, as well as provide unique insight into disease mechanisms. We describe UK Biobank brain imaging and present results derived from the first 5,000 participants' data release. Although this covers just 5% of the ultimate cohort, it has already yielded a rich range of associations between brain imaging and other measures collected by UK Biobank