Patterns of Subject Mix in Higher Education Institutions : A First Empirical Analysis Using the AQUAMETH Database

Teaching and research are organised differently between subject domains: attempts to construct typologies of higher education institutions, however, often do not include quantitative indicators concerning subject mix which would allow systematic comparisons of large numbers of higher education institutions among different countries, as the availability of data for such indicators is limited. In this paper, we present an exploratory approach for the construction of such indicators. The database constructed in the AQUAMETH project, which includes also data disaggregated at the disciplinary level, is explored with the aim of understanding patterns of subject mix. For six European countries, an exploratory and descriptive analysis of staff composition divided in four large domains (medical sciences, engineering and technology, natural sciences and social sciences and humanities) is performed, which leads to a classification distinguishing between specialist and generalist institutions. Among the latter, a further distinction is made based on the presence or absence of a medical department. Preliminary exploration of this classification and its comparison with other indicators show the influence of long term dynamics on the subject mix of individual higher education institutions, but also underline disciplinary differences, for example regarding student to staff ratios, as well as national patterns, for example regarding the number of PhD degrees per 100 undergraduate students. Despite its many limitations, this exploratory approach allows defining a classification of higher education institutions that accounts for a large share of differences between the analysed higher education institutions.

The benefits of using selenium in the treatment of Chagas disease: prevention of right ventricle chamber dilatation and reversion of Trypanosoma cruzi-induced acute and chronic cardiomyopathy in mice

Cardiac damage is a frequent manifestation of Chagas disease, which is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. Selenium (Se) is an essential micronutrient, the deficiency of which has been implicated in the development of cardiomyopathy. Our group has previously demonstrated that Se supplementation prevents myocardial damage during acute T. cruzi infection in mice. In this study, we analyzed the effect of Se treatment in cases of T. cruzi infection using prevention and reversion schemes. In the Se prevention scheme, mice were given Se supplements (2 ppm) starting two weeks prior to inoculation with T. cruzi(Brazil strain) and continuing until 120 days post-infection (dpi). In the Se reversion scheme, mice were treated with Se (4 ppm) for 100 days, starting at 160 dpi. Dilatation of the right ventricle was observed in the infected control group at both phases of T. cruzi infection, but it was not observed in the infected group that received Se treatment. Surviving infected mice that were submitted to the Se reversion scheme presented normal P wave values and reduced inflammation of the pericardium. These data indicate that Se treatment prevents right ventricular chamber increase and thus can be proposed as an adjuvant therapy for cardiac alterations already established by T. cruziinfection.

An automatic correction tool for relational database schemas

A Web-based tool developed to automatically correct relational database schemas is presented. This tool has been integrated into a more general e-learning platform and is used to reinforce teaching and learning on database courses. This platform assigns to each student a set of database problems selected from a common repository. The student has to design a relational database schema and enter it into the system through a user friendly interface specifically designed for it. The correction tool corrects the design and shows detected errors. The student has the chance to correct them and send a new solution. These steps can be repeated as many times as required until a correct solution is obtained. Currently, this system is being used in different introductory database courses at the University of Girona with very promising results

Ultra-fast recovery from right neglect after 'awake surgery' for slow-growing tumor invading the left parietal area

It is now possible to perform resections of slow-growing tumors in awake patients. Using direct electrical stimulation, real-time functional mapping of the brain can be used to prevent the resection of essential areas near the tumor. Simple clinical observations of patients with a resection of slow-growing tumors have demonstrated substantial recovery within a few days of such 'awake surgery'. The aim of this study was to investigate the kinetics of recovery following the resection of slow-growing tumors invading the left parietal area and to focus mainly on its rapidity. Two patients were assessed by standard line bisection tests and compared with eight healthy individuals. Independently of the pure nature of the symptoms, we report that the patients rapidly and substantially recovered from pronounced right neglect. They were tested 48 hours after the surgery and the recovery was significant for both patients after less than 4 hours. Strikingly, for one patient, recovery was ultra fast and substantial in the first practice session within less than 7 minutes: it occurred without verbal feedback and was substantially retained during the following testing session. Its rapidity suggests a process of unmasking redundant networks. With the slow growth of the lesion, the contralesional hemisphere is probably progressively prepared for rapid unmasking of homologue networks. These results have major clinical implications. For patients with an invading left-side tumor, it is now clear that line bisections are required before, during, and after awake surgery to: plan the surgery, control the quality of the resection, and also optimize the rehabilitation of the patient

Assessing the prevalence of hypertension in populations: are we doing it right?

BACKGROUND: Although it is well recognized that the diagnosis of hypertension should be based on blood pressure (BP) measurements taken on several occasions, notably to account for a transient elevation of BP on the first readings, the prevalence of hypertension in populations has often relied on measurements at a single visit. OBJECTIVE: To identify an efficient strategy for assessing reliably the prevalence of hypertension in the population with regards to the number of BP readings required. DESIGN: Population-based survey of BP and follow-up information. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: All residents aged 25-64 years in an area of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Three BP readings at four successive visits in all participants with high BP (n = 653) and in 662 participants without high BP, measured with an automated BP device.RESULTS BP decreased substantially from the first to third readings at each of the four visits. BP decreased substantially between the first two visits but only a little between the next visits. Consequently, the prevalence of high BP based on the third reading--or the average of the second and third readings--at the second visit was not largely different compared to estimates based on readings at the fourth visit. BP decreased similarly when the first three visits were separated by 3-day or 14-day intervals. CONCLUSIONS: Taking triplicate readings on two visits, possibly separated by just a few days, could be a minimal strategy for assessing adequately the mean BP and the prevalence of hypertension at the population level. A sound strategy is important for assessing reliably the burden of hypertension in populations.

Database resources for the tuberculosis community.

Access to online repositories for genomic and associated "-omics" datasets is now an essential part of everyday research activity. It is important therefore that the Tuberculosis community is aware of the databases and tools available to them online, as well as for the database hosts to know what the needs of the research community are. One of the goals of the Tuberculosis Annotation Jamboree, held in Washington DC on March 7th-8th 2012, was therefore to provide an overview of the current status of three key Tuberculosis resources, TubercuList (tuberculist.epfl.ch), TB Database (www.tbdb.org), and Pathosystems Resource Integration Center (PATRIC, www.patricbrc.org). Here we summarize some key updates and upcoming features in TubercuList, and provide an overview of the PATRIC site and its online tools for pathogen RNA-Seq analysis.

The right to appeal in cases of forensic autopsies. [Le droit de recours en matière d'autopsies médico-légales.]

The decision to carry out forensic autopsies is frequently made to determine the reasons of the death, especially in cases of non-natural death. In Switzerland, the judge strictly controls the authorisation to conduct forensic autopsies and the possibility to appeal against such a decision remains limited. This article aims to analyse the legal framework that enables appeals against a decision to conduct a forensic autopsy, taking into account the jurisprudence from the High Court of Switzerland (Tribunal Fédéral) and the European Court of Human Rights. La décision de pratiquer des autopsies médico-légales est très fréquente pour déterminer les causes de décès, notamment lorsque ceux-ci semblent avoir des causes non naturelles. En Suisse, l'autorisation de procéder à des autopsies médico-légales est strictement encadrée sur le plan légal et la faculté de s'opposer à une telle autorisation reste très limitée. L'article s'attache à analyser les conditions qui permettent de recourir contre une décision d'autopsie médico-légale, à la lumière notamment des décisions du Tribunal Fédéral et de la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme.

Finding the right interactional temperature: do colder patients need more warmth in physician communication style?

Being aware of which communication style should be adopted when facing more difficult patients is important for physicians; it can help prevent patient reactions of dissatisfaction, mistrust, or non-adherence that can be detrimental to the process of care. Past research suggests that less agreeable patients are especially critical towards, and reactive to, their physician's communication style, compared to more agreeable patients. On the basis of the literature, we hypothesized that less agreeable patients would react more negatively than agreeable patients to lower levels of affiliativeness (i.e., warmth, friendliness) in the physicians, in terms of satisfaction with the physician, trust in the physician, and determination to adhere to the treatment. Thirty-six general practitioners (20 men/16 women) working in their own practice in Switzerland were filmed while interacting with 69 patients (36 men/33 women) of different ages (M = 50.7; SD = 18.19; range: 18-84) and presenting different medical problems (e.g., back pain, asthma, hypertension, diabetes). After the medical interview, patients filled in questionnaires measuring their satisfaction with the physician, their trust in the physician, their determination to adhere to the treatment, and their trait of agreeableness. Physician affiliativeness was coded on the basis of the video recordings. Physician gender and dominance, patient gender and age, as well as the gravity of the patient's medical condition were introduced as control variables in the analysis. Results confirmed our hypothesis for satisfaction and trust, but not for adherence; less agreeable patients reacted more negatively (in terms of satisfaction and trust) than agreeable patients to lower levels of affiliativeness in their physicians. This study suggests that physicians should be especially attentive to stay warm and friendly with people low in agreeableness because those patients' satisfaction and trust might be more easily lowered by a cold or distant physician communication style.

Timetable database restructuring

Heriot-Watt University uses a software package called Syllabus Plus for its timetabling. This package can perform scheduling functions however it is currently employed only as a room booking system at present. In academic session 2008-2009 the university will be restructuring its academic year from 3 terms of 10 weeks to semesters of 14 weeks and therefore major changes will be required to the timetabling information. This project has two functions, both with practical and relevant applications to the timetabling of the university. The aims of the project are the ability to change population number of modules and activities, delete term 3 modules and activities, the ability to change module and activity name, and change the teaching week pattern from the semester

Repeating with the right hemisphere: reduced interactions between phonological and lexical-semantic systems in crossed aphasia?

Knowledge on the patterns of repetition amongst individuals who develop language deficits in association with right hemisphere lesions (crossed aphasia) is very limited. Available data indicate that repetition in some crossed aphasics experiencing phonological processing deficits is not heavily influenced by lexical-semantic variables (lexicality, imageability, and frequency) as is regularly reported in phonologically-impaired cases with left hemisphere damage. Moreover, in view of the fact that crossed aphasia is rare, information on the role of right cortical areas and white matter tracts underpinning language repetition deficits is scarce. In this study, repetition performance was assessed in two patients with crossed conduction aphasia and striatal/capsular vascular lesions encompassing the right arcuate fasciculus (AF) and inferior frontal-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), the temporal stem and the white matter underneath the supramarginal gyrus. Both patients showed lexicality effects repeating better words than non-words, but manipulation of other lexical-semantic variables exerted less influence on repetition performance. Imageability and frequency effects, production of meaning-based paraphrases during sentence repetition, or better performance on repeating novel sentences than overlearned clichés were hardly ever observed in these two patients. In one patient, diffusion tensor imaging disclosed damage to the right long direct segment of the AF and IFOF with relative sparing of the anterior indirect and posterior segments of the AF, together with fully developed left perisylvian white matter pathways. These findings suggest that striatal/capsular lesions extending into the right AF and IFOF in some individuals with right hemisphere language dominance are associated with atypical repetition patterns which might reflect reduced interactions between phonological and lexical-semantic processes.

Topographic ERP analyses: a step-by-step tutorial review.

In this tutorial review, we detail both the rationale for as well as the implementation of a set of analyses of surface-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) that uses the reference-free spatial (i.e. topographic) information available from high-density electrode montages to render statistical information concerning modulations in response strength, latency, and topography both between and within experimental conditions. In these and other ways these topographic analysis methods allow the experimenter to glean additional information and neurophysiologic interpretability beyond what is available from canonical waveform analyses. In this tutorial we present the example of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) in response to stimulation of each hand to illustrate these points. For each step of these analyses, we provide the reader with both a conceptual and mathematical description of how the analysis is carried out, what it yields, and how to interpret its statistical outcome. We show that these topographic analysis methods are intuitive and easy-to-use approaches that can remove much of the guesswork often confronting ERP researchers and also assist in identifying the information contained within high-density ERP datasets.

Integrating forensic information in a crime intelligence database

Since 2008, Intelligence units of six states of the western part of Switzerland have been sharing a common database for the analysis of high volume crimes. On a daily basis, events reported to the police are analysed, filtered and classified to detect crime repetitions and interpret the crime environment. Several forensic outcomes are integrated in the system such as matches of traces with persons, and links between scenes detected by the comparison of forensic case data. Systematic procedures have been settled to integrate links assumed mainly through DNA profiles, shoemarks patterns and images. A statistical outlook on a retrospective dataset of series from 2009 to 2011 of the database informs for instance on the number of repetition detected or confirmed and increased by forensic case data. Time needed to obtain forensic intelligence in regard with the type of marks treated, is seen as a critical issue. Furthermore, the underlying integration process of forensic intelligence into the crime intelligence database raised several difficulties in regards of the acquisition of data and the models used in the forensic databases. Solutions found and adopted operational procedures are described and discussed. This process form the basis to many other researches aimed at developing forensic intelligence models.

Use of DNA profiles for investigation using a simulated national DNA database: Part II. Statistical and ethical considerations on familial searching.

Familial searching consists of searching for a full profile left at a crime scene in a National DNA Database (NDNAD). In this paper we are interested in the circumstance where no full match is returned, but a partial match is found between a database member's profile and the crime stain. Because close relatives share more of their DNA than unrelated persons, this partial match may indicate that the crime stain was left by a close relative of the person with whom the partial match was found. This approach has successfully solved important crimes in the UK and the USA. In a previous paper, a model, which takes into account substructure and siblings, was used to simulate a NDNAD. In this paper, we have used this model to test the usefulness of familial searching and offer guidelines for pre-assessment of the cases based on the likelihood ratio. Siblings of "persons" present in the simulated Swiss NDNAD were created. These profiles (N=10,000) were used as traces and were then compared to the whole database (N=100,000). The statistical results obtained show that the technique has great potential confirming the findings of previous studies. However, effectiveness of the technique is only one part of the story. Familial searching has juridical and ethical aspects that should not be ignored. In Switzerland for example, there are no specific guidelines to the legality or otherwise of familial searching. This article both presents statistical results, and addresses criminological and civil liberties aspects to take into account risks and benefits of familial searching.

New electrocardiographic criteria for discriminating between Brugada types 2 and 3 patterns and incomplete right bundle branch block.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate new electrocardiographic (ECG) criteria for discriminating between incomplete right bundle branch block (RBBB) and the Brugada types 2 and 3 ECG patterns. BACKGROUND: Brugada syndrome can manifest as either type 2 or type 3 pattern. The latter should be distinguished from incomplete RBBB, present in 3% of the population. METHODS: Thirty-eight patients with either type 2 or type 3 Brugada pattern that were referred for an antiarrhythmic drug challenge (AAD) were included. Before AAD, 2 angles were measured from ECG leads V(1) and/or V(2) showing incomplete RBBB: 1) α, the angle between a vertical line and the downslope of the r'-wave, and 2) β, the angle between the upslope of the S-wave and the downslope of the r'-wave. Baseline angle values, alone or combined with QRS duration, were compared between patients with negative and positive results on AAD. Receiver-operating characteristic curves were constructed to identify optimal discriminative cutoff values. RESULTS: The mean β angle was significantly smaller in the 14 patients with negative results on AAD compared to the 24 patients with positive results on AAD (36 ± 20° vs. 62 ± 20°, p < 0.01). Its optimal cutoff value was 58°, which yielded a positive predictive value of 73% and a negative predictive value of 87% for conversion to type 1 pattern on AAD; α was slightly less sensitive and specific compared with β. When the angles were combined with QRS duration, it tended to improve discrimination. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with suspected Brugada syndrome, simple ECG criteria can enable discrimination between incomplete RBBB and types 2 and 3 Brugada patterns.