Παρασκευή 4 Μαρτίου 2016

Mapping Challenging Mutations by Whole-Genome Sequencing

Whole-genome sequencing provides a rapid and powerful method for identifying mutations on a global scale, and has spurred a renewed enthusiasm for classical genetic screens in model organisms. The most commonly characterized category of mutation consists of monogenic, recessive traits, due to their genetic tractability. Therefore, most of the mapping methods for mutation identification by whole-genome sequencing are directed toward alleles that fulfill those criteria (i.e., single-gene, homozygous variants). However, such approaches are not entirely suitable for the characterization of a variety of more challenging mutations, such as dominant and semi-dominant alleles or multigenic traits. Therefore, we have developed strategies for the identification of those classes of mutations, using polymorphism mapping in Caenorhabditis elegans as our model for validation. We also report an alternative approach for mutation identification from traditional recombinant crosses, and a solution to the technical challenge of sequencing sterile or terminally arrested strains where population size is limiting. The methods described herein extend the applicability of whole-genome sequencing to a broader spectrum of mutations, including classes that are difficult to map by traditional means.



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Massive Amplification at an Unselected Locus Accompanies Complex Chromosomal Rearrangements in Yeast

Gene amplification has been observed in different organisms in response to environmental constraints such as limited nutrients or exposure to a variety of toxic compounds, conferring them specific phenotypic adaptations by increased expression levels. But the presence of multiple gene copies has generally not been found in natural genomes in absence of specific functional selection. Here we show that the massive amplification of a chromosomal locus (up to 880 copies per cell) occurs in absence of any direct selection, associated with low-order amplifications of flanking segments in complex chromosomal alterations. These results were obtained in the mutants with restored phenotypes that spontaneously appeared from genetically engineered strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae suffering from severe fitness reduction. Grossly extended chromosomes (macrotene) were formed, with complex structural alterations but sufficient stability to propagate unchanged over successive generations. Their detailed molecular analysis, including complete genome sequencing, identification of sequence breakpoints and comparisons between mutants revealed novel mechanisms to their formation whose combined action underlies the astonishing dynamics of eukaryotic chromosomes and its consequences./p>



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A Critical Evaluation of the Methodological Obstacles to Translating Cell-Based Research Into an Effective Treatment for People With Parkinsons Disease

The remarkable scientific and technological advances in the field of cell research have not been translated into viable restorative therapies for brain disorders. In this article, we examine the best available evidence for the clinical efficacy of reconstructive intracerebral transplantation in people with Parkinson's disease (PD), with the aim of identifying methodological obstacles to the translation process. The major stumbling block is the fact that the potential contributions of people with neural grafts and the effects of the physical and social environment in which they recover have not been adequately investigated and applied to advancing the clinical stages of the research program. We suggest that the biopsychosocial model along with emerging evidence of targeted rehabilitation can provide a useful framework for conducting research and evaluation that will ensure the best possible outcomes following intracerebral transplantation for PD.



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What the OIG is looking for in EMS documentation

Expect more oversight of EMS billing through post-payment audits and increased investigations, prosecution

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EMS employers can restrict the use of medical or recreational marijuana on or off duty

Here is why paramedic chiefs and EMS leaders need to have a drug-free workplace policy to restrict EMS provider marijuana use

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6 steps for purchasing EMS software

Follow this planning process to ensure the benefits of a new EMS software application are fully realized

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5 questions to answer before any EMS product purchase

Answering these questions provides a blueprint for a quality process and product implementation into the EMS agency

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Paramedic - Life Line Medical Ambulance

Full time or part time paramedic or EMT in North Central Ohio. Work for a Mobile Intensive Care Unit. Huge sign on bonus. Visit our web site at http://ift.tt/1QzpAUp.

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A Facebook-Based Obesity Prevention Program for Korean American Adolescents: Usability Evaluation

Adolescent obesity is one of the most serious global public health challenges. Social networking sites are currently popular among adolescents. Therefore, the obesity prevention program for Korean American adolescents was developed on the most popular social networking site, Facebook. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usability of a culturally tailored Facebook-based obesity prevention program for Korean American adolescents (Healthy Teens).

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Innovation Zone - Triage Lights

Untitled Document Chief Wiley reviews Emergency Triage lights and their versatility in a variety of emergency situations. For more information, visit http://ift.tt/21ctlny.

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Innovation Zone - Triage Lights

Untitled Document Chief Wiley reviews Emergency Triage lights and their versatility in a variety of emergency situations. For more information, visit http://ift.tt/21ctlny.

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Innovation Zone - Triage Lights

Untitled Document Chief Wiley reviews Emergency Triage lights and their versatility in a variety of emergency situations. For more information, visit http://ift.tt/21ctlny.

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Innovation Zone - Triage Lights

Untitled Document Chief Wiley reviews Emergency Triage lights and their versatility in a variety of emergency situations. For more information, visit http://ift.tt/21ctlny.

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Clinical efficacy of modified thoracolumbar interfascial plane block

An ultrasound-guided thoracolumbar interfascial plane (TLIP) block reported in 2015 [1,2] inject a local anesthetic into the fascial plane between the multifidus and longissimus muscles at approximately the level of the third lumbar vertebra (L3) and can block the ventral rami of the thoracolumbar nerves (L2, 3). Therefore, TLIP block will provide for good perioperative pain of lumbar vertebra surgery around L2, 3. But it is said that the efficacy of TLIP block except the region of the L2, 3 is not effective [1].

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Vital Connect Revolutionizes Wearable Medical Biosensors with New Product Launch at the 2016 HIMSS Conference & Exhibition

Single-use, peel and stick health monitoring VitalPatchTM delivers clinical-grade accuracy in a disposable biosensor SAN JOSE, CA – VitalConnect is redefining patient care with the VitalPatchTM biosensor debuting at the 2016 HIMSS Conference. With the global market for biosensors to monitor health projected to exceed $40 billion annually by 2020, Vital Connect's innovative sensor technology ...

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My EMS Story: Official Trailer 2

Official Trailer #2 for the upcoming weekly, online mini-series 'My EMS Story' that documents the lives and stories of the men and women in EMS today and how they came to be our everyday heroes.

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My EMS Story: Official Trailer 2

Official Trailer #2 for the upcoming weekly, online mini-series 'My EMS Story' that documents the lives and stories of the men and women in EMS today and how they came to be our everyday heroes.

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My EMS Story: Official Trailer 2

Official Trailer #2 for the upcoming weekly, online mini-series 'My EMS Story' that documents the lives and stories of the men and women in EMS today and how they came to be our everyday heroes.

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Firefighter / EMT - Albany Fire Department

ALBANY, CITY OF 333 BROADALBIN SW ALBANY, OREGON 97321 Updated: March 03, 2016 Classification: Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) The City of Albany, Lebanon Fire District, and Tangent Rural Fire District are working collaboratively to recruit two (2) full-time EMTs and a minimum of two (2) part-time with flexibility to hire up to four (4) part-time EMTs. All candidates must take FireTEAM testing. Applicants ...

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Escaping Violent Encounters: Fight or flight — don't freeze!

You can have all the physical skills on the planet, but if you're not mentally prepared and have a survival mindset, you're going to freeze

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My EMS Story: Official Trailer 2

Official Trailer #2 for the upcoming weekly, online mini-series 'My EMS Story' that documents the lives and stories of the men and women in EMS today and how they came to be our everyday heroes.

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Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock



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Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock



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How an ambulance agency equipped its ambulances with solar panels

Learn how and why the Richmond Ambulance Authority equipped its 40 ambulances with solar panels to save money and reduce the environmental impact of the ambulance fleet

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Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock



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How an ambulance agency equipped its ambulances with solar panels

Learn how and why the Richmond Ambulance Authority equipped its 40 ambulances with solar panels to save money and reduce the environmental impact of the ambulance fleet

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Narcan, addicts and the cult of public shaming

Firefighter Mark Carron first appeared in my Facebook stream a few days after his deplorable comment about opioid abuse went viral. Carron posted that Narcan was the worst drug ever because it was used to save people who should be allowed to die.

As the public outcry grew steadily and the story appeared in my Facebook stream again and again, I began to feel uneasy. Not about Carron's comment, but about us, the social media public. I thought about how quickly social media commentary can turn to social media justice and mob mentality. And I thought about Justine Sacco.

On December 20th, 2013, Justine Sacco became the number one trending topic on Twitter. Ordinarily this would be wonderful news for the head of a company's PR firm, but Sacco's case was different.

Prior to boarding a plane to South Africa to see her parents, she had sent a tweet joking about how she didn't need to worry about getting AIDS because, after all, she was white.

Sacco later explained she was experimenting with inflammatory tweets and their popularity on Twitter. She was attempting to poke fun at white privilege and our sometimes sheltered bubbles of security.

Her tweet didn't come across as funny.

Instead, it was globally interpreted as the worst kind of racism. By the time her plane had landed, she was out of a job and the subject of one of the most vicious episodes of public shaming since Monika Lewinski.

Sprinkled among the thousands of tweets calling for her job and defiling her as an awful human being were a few comments that called for her to be victimized. These horrific comments received a free pass.

Apparently, when shaming another human being for a deplorable comment, no comment or suggestion is too deplorable. Once the mob of public shame has gathered, there is no stone to large or hurtful to be thrown with glee.

My first response to Carron's comments about naloxone and addicts, like many of us, was anger mixed with a little frustrated head shaking. As one who writes and speaks frequently on the topic of bringing compassion to our work, Carron's comments seemed another example of the callous attitudes that pervade our industry.

Public shaming is not justice
As I watched the story shared over and over, my attitude slowly changed from anger to discomfort as the social media mob began to gather for another public shaming.

These events seem to be growing in popularity when we find an individual who has exposed some horrible secret about their human nature and the mob begins to call for our modern, distorted version of social justice.

But there is no justice in the way a comment stream mob handles these cases. There is only the, me too mentality of the mob. And sometimes, it seems irresistible to step in and take a swing. In tort law they refer to the doctrine of Res Ipsa Loquiter, Latin for, "The thing speaks for itself."

The idea is that, some acts don't need to be argued. They are, by their very nature, self-explanatory.

In the cult of public shaming, nothing is allowed to speak for itself. Even after the comments have run into the hundreds or thousands, with every possible self-righteous angle explored, there always seems to be one more person willing to kick the body where it lays in their own unique way.

Look inward at our own fear of indifference
I've begun to wonder if our desire to cast one more angry stone has little to do with our anger or disappointment and more to do with a vague fear that lies within each of us —our fear of our own occasional shocking indifference.

When we rally against this kind of public behavior, perhaps we actually rally against our own callous, uncaring nature.

I genuinely believe it is our own desire to be seen as compassionate and caring that drives us to jump in to the zealous fervor that surrounds these social media spectacles. In our thirst to publicly display our own moral high-ground, we allow ourselves to take part in some remarkably uncaring behavior.

All the while, we never stop to imagine the horrible desperation that must accompany being on the opposite end of one of the shaming — pinned in a corner and feeling as if every single person is not only against you, but enthusiastically so.

One comment posted on the original news article that the firefighter was "a sickening inhumane individual" and "a disgrace to the town of Weymouth."

It's interesting how many commenters seek to dehumanize individuals like this firefighter in the same breath that they denounce his behavior. It's easier to imagine him as an inhuman villainous figure when we want to totally destroy his character and not feel bad about it later.

World is more complex than all bad and all good
It is so much easier to think of the world of EMS as populated only by heroes and villains. In that world, we are either all-good or all-bad. Instead of seeing Carron as a flawed individual expressing a weak moment of thoughtless cruelty, it's simpler to imagine him an effigy of something we despise in ourselves and others.

The unfortunate truth is far more complex. The truth is that we are all a little bit like Carron. We all have our moments of brilliant selfless service and our moments of frustrated petulant ranting.

We all have the ability to embody the very best of our profession as well as the very worst of it. We are all whole and we are all broken.

It's uncomfortable to imagine each of us existing this way; fighting our own personal battle against burn-out and indifference. Maybe this public shaming should have begun with the decree, "Let he who has never thought ill of his patient cast the first stone."

I imagine it would have been over much sooner.

The Weymouth Fire Department gave Carron a 90-day suspension and ordered him to undergo special training.

Although his record before this was apparently spotless he received a significant punishment. The internet demanded it. I imagine his shame and his embarrassment will go on long after the punishment has been served.

The internet has a long memory but in our rush for the next spectacle we are typically uninterested in the details of the aftermath or the tarnished lives left behind.

For Carron, the most likely outcome for his current situation is to wait for another individual to come along and publicly expose something unsavory about their character, opening themselves up for the ridicule and scorn from the mob.

Social media is exceptional at catching these moments in time and the mob always seems hungry.

I'd like to imagine a small army of thoughtful individuals brave enough to feel compassion for the drug abusers who need lifesaving help and the burned out rescuers who daily come to their aid as well. Sometimes, much like Carron, we seem to reserve our harshest incitements for the most fragile among us and I'd like to think more of us all.



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Calculating flux to predict future cave radon concentrations

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Publication date: June 2016
Source:Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Volume 157
Author(s): Matt D. Rowberry, Xavi Martí, Carlos Frontera, Marco J. Van De Wiel, Miloš Briestenský
Cave radon concentration measurements reflect the outcome of a perpetual competition which pitches flux against ventilation and radioactive decay. The mass balance equations used to model changes in radon concentration through time routinely treat flux as a constant. This mathematical simplification is acceptable as a first order approximation despite the fact that it sidesteps an intrinsic geological problem: the majority of radon entering a cavity is exhaled as a result of advection along crustal discontinuities whose motions are inhomogeneous in both time and space. In this paper the dynamic nature of flux is investigated and the results are used to predict cave radon concentration for successive iterations. The first part of our numerical modelling procedure focuses on calculating cave air flow velocity while the second part isolates flux in a mass balance equation to simulate real time dependence among the variables. It is then possible to use this information to deliver an expression for computing cave radon concentration for successive iterations. The dynamic variables in the numerical model are represented by the outer temperature, the inner temperature, and the radon concentration while the static variables are represented by the radioactive decay constant and a range of parameters related to geometry of the cavity. Input data were recorded at Driny Cave in the Little Carpathians Mountains of western Slovakia. Here the cave passages have developed along splays of the NE–SW striking Smolenice Fault and a series of transverse faults striking NW–SE. Independent experimental observations of fault slip are provided by three permanently installed mechanical extensometers. Our numerical modelling has revealed four important flux anomalies between January 2010 and August 2011. Each of these flux anomalies was preceded by conspicuous fault slip anomalies. The mathematical procedure outlined in this paper will help to improve our understanding of radon migration along crustal discontinuities and its subsequent exhalation into the atmosphere. Furthermore, as it is possible to supply the model with continuous data, future research will focus on establishing a series of underground monitoring sites with the aim of generating the first real time global radon flux maps.



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Activity concentration and spatial distribution of radionuclides in marine sediments close to the estuary of Shatt al-Arab/Arvand Rud River, the Gulf

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Publication date: June 2016
Source:Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Volume 157
Author(s): D.L. Patiris, C. Tsabaris, C.L. Anagnostou, E.G. Androulakaki, F.K. Pappa, G. Eleftheriou, G. Sgouros
Tigris and Euphrates rivers both emerge in eastern Turkey and cross Syria and Iraq. They unite to Shatt al-Arab/Arvand Rud River and discharge in Arabic/Persian Gulf. The activity concentration of natural and anthropogenic radionuclides was measured during the August of 2011 in a number of surficial sediment samples collected from the seabed along an almost straight line beginning near the estuary mouth and extending seaward. The results exhibited low activity concentration levels and an almost homogeneous spatial distribution except locations where sediment of biogenic origin, poor in radionuclides, dilute their concentrations. Dose rates absorbed by reference marine biota were calculated by the ERICA Assessment Tool considering the contribution of 40 K. The results revealed a relatively low impact of 40 K mainly to species living in, on and close to the seabed. Also, statistical association of radionuclides with selected stable elements (Ca, Ba and Sr) did not indicate presence of by-products related with oil and gas exploitation and transportation activities. Moreover, a semi-empirical sedimentology model applied to reproduce seabed granulometric facies based entirely on radionuclides activity concentrations.



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Radiocesium distribution and fluxes in the typical Cryptomeria japonica forest at the late stage after the accident at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant

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Publication date: Available online 3 March 2016
Source:Journal of Environmental Radioactivity
Author(s): Vasyl Yoschenko, Tsugiko Takase, Alexei Konoplev, Kenji Nanba, Yuichi Onda, Sergiy Kivva, Mark Zheleznyak, Natsumi Sato, Koji Keitoku
The Fukushima-derived radiocesium distribution in the typical Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica D. Don) forest ecosystem was determined. In four years after the Fukushima accident, about 74% of the total radiocesium inventory was localized in soil, 20% was in the litter, and only 6% was associated with the aboveground biomass. Most of the radiocesium that was initially intercepted by the tree canopies has been already transported to the ground surface. The importance of the processes for removal of radiocesium from the tree canopies decreased in the order litterfall > throughfall >> stemflow. Within the tree compartments, the largest radiocesium activity fraction, about 46%, was observed in old foliage, which indicates that the process of removal of the initial deposit from the tree crowns has not yet completed. The aggregate soil-to-wood transfer factor was 1.1⋅10−3 m2 kg−1 d.w., which is close to the geometric means of transfer factors recommended by IAEA for other coniferous tree species. Further studies in Fukushima forest are necessary to assess the variation of this parameter under various soil-landscape conditions. Presence of the residues of the initial deposits does not allow to obtain the accurate values of the annual radiocesium fluxes in the ecosystem. Based on the conservative assumptions, the ranges of the fluxes were estimated. Analysis of the flux structures shows that up to percents of the total radiocesium activity in the ecosystem may be involved into biogenic cycling.



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Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock



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How an ambulance agency equipped its ambulances with solar panels

Learn how and why the Richmond Ambulance Authority equipped its 40 ambulances with solar panels to save money and reduce the environmental impact of the ambulance fleet

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How an ambulance agency equipped its ambulances with solar panels

Learn how and why the Richmond Ambulance Authority equipped its 40 ambulances with solar panels to save money and reduce the environmental impact of the ambulance fleet

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Ambulance solar panels save money and reduce environmental impact

A fleet manager equipped 40 ambulances with solar panels, which reduced fuel consumption and extended battery life.

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