Rotating massive main-sequence stars II. Simulating a population of LMC early B-type stars as a test of rotational mixing

Context. Rotational mixing in massive stars is a widely applied concept, with far-reaching consequences for stellar evolution, nucleosynthesis, and stellar explosions.

Committing to Effective Climate Governance in Northern Ireland: A Defining Test of Devolution

This is the second of a two-part analysis exploring the interaction between UK devolution and governance of the national low carbon transition. It argues that devolution shaped the national climate governance regime created by the Climate Change Act 2008, but will itself be tested and even altered as the traction of the low carbon imperative intensifies. This dynamic is explored in the specific context of the UK’s most devolved region. The first article argued that devolution facilitated and arguably forced Northern Ireland’s devolved administration to give a highly qualified and potentially illusory consent to the regional application of the UK Act. The second article argues that making a more effective commitment to climate governance will be a defining test of its devolution arrangements but will require constitutional arrangements designed for conflict resolution to mature. Failure to do so will have important implications for the UK’s putative ‘national’ low carbon transition and the longer-term viability of devolution in the region.

Factor structure and validity of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) in a sample of mentally disordered offenders

Investigations of the factor structure of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) have produced conflicting results. The current study assessed the factor structure of the AUDIT for a group of Mentally Disordered Offenders (MDOs) and examined the pattern of scoring in specific subgroups. The sample comprised 2005 MDOs who completed a battery of tests including the AUDIT. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a two-factor solution – alcohol consumption and alcohol-related consequences – provided the best data fit for AUDIT scores. A three-factor solution provided an equally good fit, but the second and third factors were highly correlated and a measure of parsimony also favoured the two-factor solution. This study provides useful information on the factor structure of the AUDIT amongst a large MDO population, while also highlighting the difficulties associated with the presence of people with mental health problems in the criminal justice system.

A TMA De-Arraying Method for High Throughput Biomarker Discovery in Tissue Research

Background: Tissue MicroArrays (TMAs) represent a potential high-throughput platform for the analysis and discovery of tissue biomarkers. As TMA slides are produced manually and subject to processing and sectioning artefacts, the layout of TMA cores on the final slide and subsequent digital scan (TMA digital slide) is often disturbed making it difficult to associate cores with their original position in the planned TMA map. Additionally, the individual cores can be greatly altered and contain numerous irregularities such as missing cores, grid rotation and stretching. These factors demand the development of a robust method for de-arraying TMAs which identifies each TMA core, and assigns them to their appropriate coordinates on the constructed TMA slide.

Methodology: This study presents a robust TMA de-arraying method consisting of three functional phases: TMA core segmentation, gridding and mapping. The segmentation of TMA cores uses a set of morphological operations to identify each TMA core. Gridding then utilises a Delaunay Triangulation based method to find the row and column indices of each TMA core. Finally, mapping correlates each TMA core from a high resolution TMA whole slide image with its name within a TMAMap.

Conclusion: This study describes a genuine robust TMA de-arraying algorithm for the rapid identification of TMA cores from digital slides. The result of this de-arraying algorithm allows the easy partition of each TMA core for further processing. Based on a test group of 19 TMA slides (3129 cores), 99.84% of cores were segmented successfully, 99.81% of cores were gridded correctly and 99.96% of cores were mapped with their correct names via TMAMaps. The gridding of TMA cores were also extensively tested using a set of 113 pseudo slide (13,536 cores) with a variety of irregular grid layouts including missing cores, rotation and stretching. 100% of the cores were gridded correctly.

PicSOr - An objective test of perceptual skill that predicts laparoscopic technical skill in three initial studies of laparoscopic performance

Background: Laparoscopic surgery requires surgeons to infer the shape of 3-D structures, such as the internal organs of patients, from 2-D displays on a video monitor. Recent evidence indicates that the issue is not resolved by the use of contemporary 3-D camera systems. It is therefore crucial to find ways of measuring differences in aptitude for recovering 3-D structure from 2-D images, and assessing its impact on performance. Our aim was to test empirically for a relationship between laparoscopic ability and the perceptual skill of recovering information about 3-D structures from 2-D monitor displays.

The impact of biomarkers in multivariate algorithms for bladder cancer diagnosis in patients with hematuria

BACKGROUND: We appraised 23 biomarkers previously associated with urothelial cancer in a case-control study. Our aim was to determine whether single biomarkers and/or multivariate algorithms significantly improved on the predictive power of an algorithm based on demographics for prediction of urothelial cancer in patients presenting with hematuria. METHODS: Twenty-two biomarkers in urine and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in serum were evaluated using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) and biochip array technology in 2 patient cohorts: 80 patients with urothelial cancer, and 77 controls with confounding pathologies. We used Forward Wald binary logistic regression analyses to create algorithms based on demographic variables designated prior predicted probability (PPP) and multivariate algorithms, which included PPP as a single variable. Areas under the curve (AUC) were determined after receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) analysis for single biomarkers and algorithms. RESULTS: After univariate analysis, 9 biomarkers were differentially expressed (t test; P

Comparison of two assays, a faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) and a coproantigen reduction test (CRT), for the diagnosis of resistance to triclabendazole in Fasciola hepatica in sheep

A sheep trial was performed to evaluate two diagnostic assays, a faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) and a coproantigen reduction test (CRT), for the diagnosis of resistance of Fasciola hepatica to triclabendazole (TCBZ). The FECRT defines successful TCBZ treatment as a 95% or greater reduction in fluke faecal egg counts (FECs) at 14 days post-treatment (dpt). The CRT defines effective TCBZ treatment as faeces negative for Fasciola coproantigens at 14 dpt, as measured by the commercial BIO K201 coproantigen ELISA (Bio-X Diagnostics, Jemelle, Belgium).

Standardisation of a coproantigen reduction test (CRT) protocol for the diagnosis of resistance to triclabendazole in Fasciola hepatica

A sheep trial was performed to standardise a coproantigen reduction test (CRT) protocol for the diagnosis of resistance to triclabendazole (TCBZ) in Fasciola hepatica). The CRT employs the BIO K201 Fasciola coproantigen ELISA (Bio-X Diagnostics, Jemelle, Belgium) to test for the presence of F. hepatica coproantigens in a faecal sample. If it is coproantigen-positive, the CRT protocol recommends that faecal samples are re-tested for coproantigens at 14 days post-treatment (dpt), with negative testing at this point indicating TCBZ success.