The good, the bad, and the efficient: Productivity, efficiency, and technical change in the airline industry, 2004–11

This study models the joint production of desirable and undesirable output production (that is, CO2 emissions) of airlines. The Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index is employed to measure productivity growth when undesirable output production is incorporated into the production model. The results show that pollution abatement activities of airlines lowers productivity growth, which suggests that the traditional approach of measuring productivity growth, which ignores CO2 emissions, overstates ‘true’ productivity growth. The reliability of the results is also tested and verified using confidence intervals based on bootstrapping.

Common variants in the CYP2C19 gene are associated with susceptibility to endometriosis

Objective: To follow-up previous studies highlighting a possible role for cytochrome P450, family 2, subfamily C, 19 (CYP2C19) in susceptibility to endometriosis by searching for additional variants in the CYP2C19 gene that may be associated with the disease. Design Case-control study. Setting Academic research. Subject(s) The cases comprised 2,271 women with surgically confirmed endometriosis; the controls comprised 939 women with self-report of no endometriosis and 1,770 unscreened population samples. Intervention(s) Sequencing of the CYP2C19 region and follow-up of 80 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in two case-control samples. Main Outcome Measure(s) Allele frequency differences between cases and controls. Result(s) Sequencing of the CYP2C19 gene region resulted in the detection of a large number of known and novel SNPs. Genotyping of 80 polymorphic SNPs in 901 endometriosis cases and 939 controls resulted in study-wide significant association signals for SNPs in moderate or complete linkage disequilibrium with rs4244285, a functional SNP in exon 5 that abrogates CYP2C19 function through the creation of an alternative splice site. Evidence of association was also detected for another functional SNP in the CYP2C19 promoter, rs12248560, which was highlighted in our previous study. Conclusion(s) Functional variants in CYP2C19 may contribute to endometriosis susceptibility in both familial and sporadic cases. © 2014 by American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Inability to swallow tablets is common and cause for concern

We naturally chew food before swallowing, but tablets and capsules require a complicated, conscious mechanism to over-ride the need to chew and the gag reflex, designed to eject foodstuffs that are not adequately chewed...

Exploring the Potential to Educate “Good Citizens” through the Australian Civics and Citizenship Curriculum.

This chapter examines the ways in which notions of ‘a good citizen’ and ‘civic virtue’ have been conceptualized in the new Civics and Citizenship Curriculum for students in Years 3 – 10 in Australia. It argues that whilst Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE) has, over time and in various ways, been recognized as a significant aspect of Australian education, only recently has attention been given to the relational and multidimensional conceptions of citizenship. Considerations of ‘morality’, ‘a good citizen’ and ‘civic virtue’ offer possibilities to engage with multidimensional notions of citizenship, which acknowledge that citizenship perspectives can be affected by personal, social, spatial and temporary situations (Cogan & Derricott, 2000). In the current statement on national goals for schooling in Australia, which informed the development of CCE, the Melbourne Declaration (MCEETYA, 2008) called for young Australians to be educated to “act with moral and ethical integrity” and be “committed to national values of democracy, equity and justice, and participate in Australia’s civic life” (MCEETYA, 2008, pp. 8–9). The chapter claims that this maximal emphasis (McLaughlin, 1992), based on active, values based and interpretive approaches to democratic citizenship which encourage debate and participation in civil society, was evident in the new Civics and Citizenship Curriculum. However, it contends that the recommendations of the recent Review of the Australian Curriculum: Final report (Australian Government, 2014a & b), will now limit CCE’s potential to deliver the sort of active and informed citizenship heralded by the Melbourne Declaration. This is because the Review advocates for a content-focused minimal (McLaughlin, 1992) emphasis on civic knowledge, with diminished attention to citizenship participation and processes. In doing so, the Review foregrounds conceptions of the ‘good citizen’ in more limited terms of responsibility, obligations and compliance with the status quo.

Microscopy for the detection, identification and quantification of malaria parasites on stained thick and thin blood films in research settings

Summary This manual was developed to guide a move towards common standards for undertaking and reporting research microscopy for malaria parasite detection, identification and quantification. It contains procedures based on agreed quality assurance standards for research malaria microscopy defined at a consultation of: TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases; the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN), United Kingdom; the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), Switzerland; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA; the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and later expanded to include Amref Health Africa (Kenya); the Eijkman-Oxford Clinical Research Unit (EOCRU), Indonesia; Institut Pasteur du Cambodge (IPC); Institut de recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Senegal; the Global Good and Intellectual Ventures Laboratory (GG-IVL), USA; the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Thailand; Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, and the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), Thailand. These collaborating institutions commit to adhering to these standards in published research studies. It is hoped that they will form a solid basis for the wider adoption of standardized reference microscopy protocols for malaria research.

Road safety and pavement management: A case study of Tanzania

The implementation of pavement management seems to ignore road safety, with its focus being mainly on infrastructure condition. Safety management as part of pavement management should consider various means of reducing the frequency of vehicle crashes by allocating corrective measures to mitigate accident exposure, as well as reduce accident severity and likelihood. However, it is common that lack of accident records and crash contributing factors impedes incorporating safety into pavement management. This paper presents a case study for the initial development of pavement management systems considering data limitations for 3000 km of Tanzania’s national roads. A performance based optimization utilizes indices for safety and surface condition to allocate corrective measures. A modified Pareto analysis capable of accounting for annual performance and of balancing resources to achieve good surface condition and low levels of safety was applied. Tradeoff analysis for the case study found the need to assign 30% relevance to condition and 70% to road safety. Safety and condition deficiencies were corrected within 5 years with the majority of improvements dedicated to surface treatments and some geometric corrections. Large investments for correcting geometric issues were observed in years two and three if more money was made available.

Quality of life and caregiver outcomes following decompressive hemicraniectomy for severe stroke: A narrative literature review

AIMS The aim of this narrative review of the literature was to examine the current state of knowledge regarding the impact of aggressive surgical interventions for severe stroke on patient and caregiver quality of life and caregiver outcomes. BACKGROUND Decompressive hemicraniectomy (DHC) is a surgical therapeutic option for treatment of massive middle cerebral artery infarction (MCA), lobar intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), and severe aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). Decompressive hemicraniectomy has been shown to be effective in reducing mortality in these three life-threatening conditions. Significant functional impairment is an experience common to many severe stroke survivors worldwide and close relatives experience decision-making difficulty when confronted with making life or death choices related to surgical intervention for severe stroke. DATA SOURCES Academic Search Premier, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medline, and PsychInfo. REVIEW METHODS A narrative review methodology was utilized in this review of the literature related to long-term outcomes following decompressive hemicraniectomy for stroke. The key words decompressive hemicraniectomy, severe stroke, middle cerebral artery stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, lobar ICH, intracerebral hemorrhage, quality of life, and caregivers, literature review were combined to search the databases. RESULTS Good functional outcomes following DHC for life-threatening stroke have been shown to be associated with younger age and few co-morbid conditions. It was also apparent that quality of life was reduced for many stroke survivors, although not assessed routinely in studies. Caregiver burden has not been systematically studied in this population. CONCLUSION Most patients and caregivers in the studies reviewed agreed with the original decision to undergo DHC and would make the same decision again. However, little is known about quality of life for both patients and caregivers and caregiver burden over the long-term post-surgery. Further research is needed to generate information and interventions for the management of ongoing patient and carer recovery following DHC for severe stroke.

Common psychotic symptoms can be explained by the theory of ecological perception

The symptoms of psychiatric illness are diverse, as are the causes of the illnesses that cause them. Yet, regardless of the heterogeneity of cause and presentation, a great deal of symptoms can be explained by the failure of a single perceptual function – the reprocessing of ecological perception. It is a central tenet of the ecological theory of perception that we perceive opportunities to act. It has also been found that perception automatically causes actions and thoughts to occur unless this primary action pathway is inhibited. Inhibition allows perceptions to be reprocessed into more appropriate alternative actions and thoughts. Reprocessing of this kind takes place over the entire frontal lobe and it renders action optional. Choice about what action to take (if any) is the basis for the feeling of autonomy and ultimately for the sense-of-self. When thoughts and actions occur automatically (without choice) they appear to originate outside of the self, thereby providing prima facie evidence for some of the bizarre delusions that define schizophrenia such as delusional misidentification, delusions of control and Cotard’s delusion. Automatic actions and thoughts are triggered by residual stimulation whenever reprocessing is insufficient to balance automatic excitatory cues (for whatever reason). These may not be noticed if they are neutral and therefore unimportant whereas actions and thoughts with a positive bias are desirable. Responses to negative stimulus, on the other hand, are always unwelcome, because the actions that are triggered will carry the negative bias. Automatic thoughts may include spontaneous positive feelings of love and joy, but automatic negative thoughts and visualisations are experienced as hallucinations. Not only do these feel like they emerge from elsewhere but they carry a negative bias (they are most commonly critical, rude and are irrationally paranoid). Automatic positive actions may include laughter and smiling and these are welcome. Automatic behaviours that carry a negative bias, however, are unwelcome and like hallucinations, occur without a sense of choice. These include crying, stereotypies, perseveration, ataxia, utilization and imitation behaviours and catatonia.

Good for the environment good for health

“First do no harm”. This phrase, attributed to the 19th century surgeon, Thomas Inman, 1 reflects an equivalent phrase found in Epidemics, Book I of the Hippocratic School, “Practise two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient”. Pharmacists have played, and continue to play, an important role in reducing patient harm from medication misadventures. Now, they have a new role to play. The delivery of pharmaceutical care contributes to climate change (e.g. through the embedded carbon in the manufacture and distribution of medicines, disposal of waste, and energy and water use),2 which in turn has a negative impact on health. 3,4 This paradox argues a moral and ethical obligation by pharmacists, to deliver pharmaceutical care more sustainably – do no harm. Sustainability “…. is concerned, on one hand, with resources and how we can preserve them, and, on the other hand, with waste products and how we can best reduce or dispose of them.” 5(p.37) It is about preserving and nurturing Earth’s resources and systems for this generation and future generations to enjoy. Pharmacists play an important role in preventative health strategies such as smoking cessation, promotion of healthier lifestyles and vaccination/immunisation programmes and have the potential to also play a significant role in delivering pharmaceutical care more sustainably. Sustainable pharmaceutical care may be considered a virtuous cycle - what is good for the environment is also good for our health. 5 The good news for community pharmacy owners and managers is that implementing sustainability initiatives in the pharmacy can also have significant financial co-benefits.

Common Alzheimer's disease risk variant within the CLU gene affects white matter microstructure in young adults

There is a strong genetic risk for late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), but so far few gene variants have been identified that reliably contribute to that risk. A newly confirmed genetic risk allele C of the clusterin (CLU) gene variant rs11136000 is carried by ~88% of Caucasians. The C allele confers a 1.16 greater odds of developing late-onset AD than the T allele. AD patients have reductions in regional white matter integrity. We evaluated whether the CLU risk variant was similarly associated with lower white matter integrity in healthy young humans. Evidence of early brain differences would offer a target for intervention decades before symptom onset. We scanned 398 healthy young adults (mean age, 23.6 ± 2.2 years) with diffusion tensor imaging, a variation of magnetic resonance imaging sensitive to white matter integrity in the living brain. We assessed genetic associations using mixed-model regression at each point in the brain to map the profile of these associations with white matter integrity. Each C allele copy of the CLUvariant was associated with lower fractional anisotropy-a widely accepted measure of white matter integrity-in multiple brain regions, including several known to degenerate in AD. These regions included the splenium of the corpus callosum, the fornix, cingulum, and superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculi in both brain hemispheres. Young healthy carriers of the CLU gene risk variant showed a distinct profile of lower white matter integrity that may increase vulnerability to developing AD later in life.

Common genetic variants influence human subcortical brain structures

The highly complex structure of the human brain is strongly shaped by genetic influences. Subcortical brain regions form circuits with cortical areas to coordinate movement, learning, memory and motivation, and altered circuits can lead to abnormal behaviour and disease. To investigate how common genetic variants affect the structure of these brain regions, here we conduct genome-wide association studies of the volumes of seven subcortical regions and the intracranial volume derived from magnetic resonance images of 30,717 individuals from 50 cohorts. We identify five novel genetic variants influencing the volumes of the putamen and caudate nucleus. We also find stronger evidence for three loci with previously established influences on hippocampal volume and intracranial volume. These variants show specific volumetric effects on brain structures rather than global effects across structures. The strongest effects were found for the putamen, where a novel intergenic locus with replicable influence on volume (rs945270; P = 1.08×10 -33; 0.52% variance explained) showed evidence of altering the expression of the KTN1 gene in both brain and blood tissue. Variants influencing putamen volume clustered near developmental genes that regulate apoptosis, axon guidance and vesicle transport. Identification of these genetic variants provides insight into the causes of variability in human brain development, and may help to determine mechanisms of neuropsychiatric dysfunction.

Predicting white matter integrity from multiple common genetic variants

Several common genetic variants have recently been discovered that appear to influence white matter microstructure, as measured by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Each genetic variant explains only a small proportion of the variance in brain microstructure, so we set out to explore their combined effect on the white matter integrity of the corpus callosum. We measured six common candidate single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the COMT, NTRK1, BDNF, ErbB4, CLU, and HFE genes, and investigated their individual and aggregate effects on white matter structure in 395 healthy adult twins and siblings (age: 20-30 years). All subjects were scanned with 4-tesla 94-direction high angular resolution diffusion imaging. When combined using mixed-effects linear regression, a joint model based on five of the candidate SNPs (COMT, NTRK1, ErbB4, CLU, and HFE) explained ∼ 6% of the variance in the average fractional anisotropy (FA) of the corpus callosum. This predictive model had detectable effects on FA at 82% of the corpus callosum voxels, including the genu, body, and splenium. Predicting the brain's fiber microstructure from genotypes may ultimately help in early risk assessment, and eventually, in personalized treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders in which brain integrity and connectivity are affected.

Genetic architecture of subcortical brain regions: Common and region-specific genetic contributions

Understanding the aetiology of patterns of variation within and covariation across brain regions is key to advancing our understanding of the functional, anatomical and developmental networks of the brain. Here we applied multivariate twin modelling and principal component analysis (PCA) to investigate the genetic architecture of the size of seven subcortical regions (caudate nucleus, thalamus, putamen, pallidum, hippocampus, amygdala and nucleus accumbens) in a genetically informative sample of adolescents and young adults (N=1038; mean age=21.6±3.2years; including 148 monozygotic and 202 dizygotic twin pairs) from the Queensland Twin IMaging (QTIM) study. Our multivariate twin modelling identified a common genetic factor that accounts for all the heritability of intracranial volume (0.88) and a substantial proportion of the heritability of all subcortical structures, particularly those of the thalamus (0.71 out of 0.88), pallidum (0.52 out of 0.75) and putamen (0.43 out of 0.89). In addition, we also found substantial region-specific genetic contributions to the heritability of the hippocampus (0.39 out of 0.79), caudate nucleus (0.46 out of 0.78), amygdala (0.25 out of 0.45) and nucleus accumbens (0.28 out of 0.52). This provides further insight into the extent and organization of subcortical genetic architecture, which includes developmental and general growth pathways, as well as the functional specialization and maturation trajectories that influence each subcortical region. This multivariate twin study identifies a common genetic factor that accounts for all the heritability of intracranial volume (0.88) and a substantial proportion of the heritability of all subcortical structures, particularly those of the thalamus (0.71 out of 0.88), pallidum (0.52 out of 0.75) and putamen (0.43 out of 0.89). In parallel, it also describes substantial region-specific genetic contributions to the heritability of the hippocampus (0.39 out of 0.79), caudate nucleus (0.46 out of 0.78), amygdala (0.25 out of 0.45) and nucleus accumbens (0.28 out of 0.52).

Identification of common variants associated with human hippocampal and intracranial volumes

Identifying genetic variants influencing human brain structures may reveal new biological mechanisms underlying cognition and neuropsychiatric illness. The volume of the hippocampus is a biomarker of incipient Alzheimer's disease and is reduced in schizophrenia, major depression and mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Whereas many brain imaging phenotypes are highly heritable, identifying and replicating genetic influences has been difficult, as small effects and the high costs of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have led to underpowered studies. Here we report genome-wide association meta-analyses and replication for mean bilateral hippocampal, total brain and intracranial volumes from a large multinational consortium. The intergenic variant rs7294919 was associated with hippocampal volume (12q24.22; N = 21,151; P = 6.70 × 10 -16) and the expression levels of the positional candidate gene TESC in brain tissue. Additionally, rs10784502, located within HMGA2, was associated with intracranial volume (12q14.3; N = 15,782; P = 1.12 × 10 -12). We also identified a suggestive association with total brain volume at rs10494373 within DDR2 (1q23.3; N = 6,500; P = 5.81 × 10 -7).

In search of good probability assessors: An experimental comparison of elicitation rules for confidence judgments

In this paper, we use an experimental design to compare the performance of elicitation rules for subjective beliefs. Contrary to previous works in which elicited beliefs are compared to an objective benchmark, we consider a purely subjective belief framework (confidence in one’s own performance in a cognitive task and a perceptual task). The performance of different elicitation rules is assessed according to the accuracy of stated beliefs in predicting success. We measure this accuracy using two main factors: calibration and discrimination. For each of them, we propose two statistical indexes and we compare the rules’ performances for each measurement. The matching probability method provides more accurate beliefs in terms of discrimination, while the quadratic scoring rule reduces overconfidence and the free rule, a simple rule with no incentives, which succeeds in eliciting accurate beliefs. Nevertheless, the matching probability appears to be the best mechanism for eliciting beliefs due to its performances in terms of calibration and discrimination, but also its ability to elicit consistent beliefs across measures and across tasks, as well as its empirical and theoretical properties.