Genome-wide association of multiple complex traits in outbred mice by ultra low-coverage sequencing

We thank the High-Throughput Genomics Group at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute for the generation of the sequencing data. This work was funded by Wellcome Trust grant 090532/Z/09/Z (J.F.). Primary phenotyping of the mice was supported by the Mary Lyon Centre and Mammalian Genetics Unit (Medical Research Council, UK Hub grant G0900747 91070 and Medical Research Council, UK grant MC U142684172). D.A.B acknowledges support from NIH R01AR056280. The sleep work was supported by the state of Vaud (Switzerland) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF 14694 and 136201 to P.F.). The ECG work was supported by the Netherlands CardioVascular Research Initiative (Dutch Heart Foundation, Dutch Federation of University Medical Centres, the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences) PREDICT project, InterUniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands (ICIN; 061.02; C.A.R., C.R.B). Na Cai is supported by the Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Graduate Academy. The authors wish to acknowledge excellent technical assistance from: Ayako Kurioka, Leo Swadling, Catherine de Lara, James Ussher, Rachel Townsend, Sima Lionikaite, Ausra S. Lionikiene, Rianne Wolswinkel and Inge van der Made. We would like to thank Thomas M Keane and Anthony G Doran for their help in annotating variants and adding the FVB/NJ strain to the Mouse Genomes Project.

Type of actors, objects of exchange, type of original transactions in the coverage of corruption

In the following analysis we deal with only specific corruption cases within our seven-country sample for content analysis (France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, and the UK). Only 5,212 relevant articles dealt with such cases within the total sample (12,742). We focus here on providing a descriptive comparative analysis of the actors, types of transactions and country specifics. The second part of the analysis describes the actors involved in the corrupt transactions, while in the third section we deal with the object of exchange in corrupt transactions. The fourth section focuses on the type of transaction which is linked to the corruption. Finally, a summary of the results of our preliminary findings is provided.

Straw - structured reading, analysis and writing in humanities disciplines

Technology provides a range of tools which facilitate parts of the process of reading, analysis and writing in humanities, but these tools are limited and poorly integrated. Methods of providing students with the skills to make good use of a range of tools to create an integrated, structured process of writing in the disciplines are examined, compared and critiqued. Tools for mindmapping and outlining are examined both as reading tools and as tools to structure knowledge and explore ontology creation. Interoperability between these and common wordprocessors is examined in order to explore how students may be taught to develop a structured research and writing process using currently available tools. Requirements for future writing tools are suggested

Putting Adequate Financial and Human Resources in Healthcare for Effective Universal Health Coverage in Kenya: Lessons and Experiences from China

In recent years, most low and middle-income countries, have adopted different approaches to universal health coverage (UHC), to ensure equity and financial risk protection in accessing essential healthcare services. UHC-related policies and delivery strategies are largely based on existing healthcare systems, a result of gradual development (based on local factors and priorities). Most countries have emphasized on health financing, and human resources for health (HRH) reform policies, based on good practices of several healthcare plans to deliver UHC for their population.

Health financing and labor market frameworks were used, to understand health financing, HRH dynamics, and to analyze key health policies implemented over the past decade in Kenya’s effort to achieve UHC. Through the understanding, policy options are proposed to Kenya; analyzing, and generating lessons from health financing, and HRH reforms experiences in China. Data was collected using mixed methods approach, utilizing both quantitative (documents and literature review), and qualitative (in-depth interviews) data collection techniques.

The problems in Kenya are substantial: high levels of out-of-pocket health expenditure, slow progress in expanding health insurance among informal sector workers, inefficiencies in pulling of health are revenues, inadequate deployed HRH, maldistribution of HRH, and inadequate quality measures in training health worker. The government has identified the critical role of strengthening primary health care and the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) in Kenya’s move towards UHC. Strengthening primary health care requires; re-defining the role of hospitals, and health insurance schemes, and training, deploying and retaining primary care professionals according to the health needs of the population; concepts not emphasized in Kenya’s healthcare reforms or programs design. Kenya’s top leadership commitment is urgently needed for tougher reforms implementation, and important lessons from China’s extensive health reforms in the past decade are beneficial. Key lessons from China include health insurance expansion through rigorous research, monitoring, and evaluation, substantially increasing government health expenditure, innovative primary healthcare strengthening, designing, and implementing health policy reforms that are responsive to the population, and regional approaches to strengthening HRH.

Seawater carbonate chemistry, and Lithophyllum sp. and Feldmannia spp. coverage and dry weight during experiments, 2009

Climate-driven change represents the cumulative effect of global through local-scale conditions, and understanding their manifestation at local scales can empower local management. Change in the dominance of habitats is often the product of local nutrient pollution that occurs at relatively local scales (i.e. catchment scale), a critical scale of management at which global impacts will manifest. We tested whether forecasted global-scale change [elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) and subsequent ocean acidification] and local stressors (elevated nutrients) can combine to accelerate the expansion of filamentous turfs at the expense of calcifying algae (kelp understorey). Our results not only support this model of future change, but also highlight the synergistic effects of future CO2 and nutrient concentrations on the abundance of turfs. These results suggest that global and local stressors need to be assessed in meaningful combinations so that the anticipated effects of climate change do not create the false impression that, however complex, climate change will produce smaller effects than reality. These findings empower local managers because they show that policies of reducing local stressors (e.g. nutrient pollution) can reduce the effects of global stressors not under their governance (e.g. ocean acidification). The connection between research and government policy provides an example whereby knowledge (and decision making) across local through global scales provides solutions to some of the most vexing challenges for attaining social goals of sustainability, biological conservation and economic development.

Spatio-temporal coverage optimization of sensor networks

Les réseaux de capteurs sont formés d’un ensemble de dispositifs capables de prendre individuellement des mesures d’un environnement particulier et d’échanger de l’information afin d’obtenir une représentation de haut niveau sur les activités en cours dans la zone d’intérêt. Une telle détection distribuée, avec de nombreux appareils situés à proximité des phénomènes d’intérêt, est pertinente dans des domaines tels que la surveillance, l’agriculture, l’observation environnementale, la surveillance industrielle, etc. Nous proposons dans cette thèse plusieurs approches pour effectuer l’optimisation des opérations spatio-temporelles de ces dispositifs, en déterminant où les placer dans l’environnement et comment les contrôler au fil du temps afin de détecter les cibles mobiles d’intérêt. La première nouveauté consiste en un modèle de détection réaliste représentant la couverture d’un réseau de capteurs dans son environnement. Nous proposons pour cela un modèle 3D probabiliste de la capacité de détection d’un capteur sur ses abords. Ce modèle inègre également de l’information sur l’environnement grâce à l’évaluation de la visibilité selon le champ de vision. À partir de ce modèle de détection, l’optimisation spatiale est effectuée par la recherche du meilleur emplacement et l’orientation de chaque capteur du réseau. Pour ce faire, nous proposons un nouvel algorithme basé sur la descente du gradient qui a été favorablement comparée avec d’autres méthodes génériques d’optimisation «boites noires» sous l’aspect de la couverture du terrain, tout en étant plus efficace en terme de calculs. Une fois que les capteurs placés dans l’environnement, l’optimisation temporelle consiste à bien couvrir un groupe de cibles mobiles dans l’environnement. D’abord, on effectue la prédiction de la position future des cibles mobiles détectées par les capteurs. La prédiction se fait soit à l’aide de l’historique des autres cibles qui ont traversé le même environnement (prédiction à long terme), ou seulement en utilisant les déplacements précédents de la même cible (prédiction à court terme). Nous proposons de nouveaux algorithmes dans chaque catégorie qui performent mieux ou produits des résultats comparables par rapport aux méthodes existantes. Une fois que les futurs emplacements de cibles sont prédits, les paramètres des capteurs sont optimisés afin que les cibles soient correctement couvertes pendant un certain temps, selon les prédictions. À cet effet, nous proposons une méthode heuristique pour faire un contrôle de capteurs, qui se base sur les prévisions probabilistes de trajectoire des cibles et également sur la couverture probabiliste des capteurs des cibles. Et pour terminer, les méthodes d’optimisation spatiales et temporelles proposées ont été intégrées et appliquées avec succès, ce qui démontre une approche complète et efficace pour l’optimisation spatio-temporelle des réseaux de capteurs.

Expanding a Global Company Management System to An Integrated Coverage of Several Standards

This Master’s thesis examines the implementation of management system standard requirements as integrated in the organization. The aim is to determine how requirements from management system standards ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 9001:2015 can be integrated and implemented into the existing ISO 9001:2008 compliant management system. Research was executed as action research by utilizing an operating model about the integrated use of management system standards created by the International Organization for Standardization. Phases of the operating model were applied to the target organization. The similarity and integration potential of relevant standards were assessed by using comparative matrices. Allocation of the requirements and conformity assessment of the processes was executed by gap analysis. The main results indicate that the requirements of the relevant standards are principally equivalent or have the same kind of purpose. The results also show the most important processes of the target organization in terms of requirement compliance, as well as the requirements which affect the process the most. Prioritizing the compliance achievement of the most important processes and implementation of those requirements that have the most effect create an opportunity for organizations to implement the integrated requirements effectively.

A Study to Assess the Vaccination Coverage of University Students in Mumbai, India

Immunization is the most cost-effective intervention for infectious diseases, which are the major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Vaccines not only protect the individual who is vaccinated but also reduce the burden of infectious vaccine-preventable diseases for the entire community.1 Adult vaccination is very important given that >25% of mortality is due to infectious diseases.2 There is a scarcity of information on the vaccination status of young adults and the role of socioeconomic conditions in India.

Kinetics and coverage dependent reaction mechanisms of the copper atomic layer deposition from copper dimethylamino-2-propoxide and diethylzinc

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) has been recognized as a promising method to deposit conformal and uniform thin film of copper for future electronic devices. However, many aspects of the reaction mechanism and the surface chemistry of copper ALD remain unclear. In this paper, we employ plane wave density functional theory (DFT) to study the transmetalation ALD reaction of copper dimethylamino-2-propoxide [Cu(dmap)2] and diethylzinc [Et2Zn] that was realized experimentally by Lee et al. [ Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 4536−4539]. We find that the Cu(dmap)2 molecule adsorbs and dissociates through the scission of one or two Cu–O bonds into surface-bound dmap and Cu(dmap) fragments during the copper pulse. As Et2Zn adsorbs on the surface covered with Cu(dmap) and dmap fragments, butane formation and desorption was found to be facilitated by the surrounding ligands, which leads to one reaction mechanism, while the migration of ethyl groups to the surface leads to another reaction mechanism. During both reaction mechanisms, ligand diffusion and reordering are generally endothermic processes, which may result in residual ligands blocking the surface sites at the end of the Et2Zn pulse, and in residual Zn being reduced and incorporated as an impurity. We also find that the nearby ligands play a cooperative role in lowering the activation energy for formation and desorption of byproducts, which explains the advantage of using organometallic precursors and reducing agents in Cu ALD. The ALD growth rate estimated for the mechanism is consistent with the experimental value of 0.2 Å/cycle. The proposed reaction mechanisms provide insight into ALD processes for copper and other transition metals.

Iowa : index to topographic and other map coverage / published and distributed by United States Geological Survey, National Mapping Program, 1989

This index is designed to inform map users of the various series of maps produced and distributed by the U.S. Geological Survey, and to assist users in selecting and purchasing maps.

Inhomogeneous cloud coverage through the Coulomb explosion of dust in substellar atmospheres

Context. Recent observations of brown dwarf spectroscopic variability in the infrared infer the presence of patchy cloud cover. Aims. This paper proposes a mechanism for producing inhomogeneous cloud coverage due to the depletion of cloud particles through the Coulomb explosion of dust in atmospheric plasma regions. Charged dust grains Coulomb-explode when the electrostatic stress of the grain exceeds its mechanical tensile stress, which results in grains below a critical radius a < a Coul crit being broken up. Methods. This work outlines the criteria required for the Coulomb explosion of dust clouds in substellar atmospheres, the effect on the dust particle size distribution function, and the resulting radiative properties of the atmospheric regions. Results. Our results show that for an atmospheric plasma region with an electron temperature of Te = 10 eV (≈105 K), the critical grain radius varies from 10−7 to 10−4 cm, depending on the grains’ tensile strength. Higher critical radii up to 10−3 cm are attainable for higher electron temperatures. We find that the process produces a bimodal particle size distribution composed of stable nanoscale seed particles and dust particles with a ≥ a Coul crit , with the intervening particle sizes defining a region devoid of dust. As a result, the dust population is depleted, and the clouds become optically thin in the wavelength range 0.1–10 μm, with a characteristic peak that shifts to higher wavelengths as more sub-micrometer particles are destroyed. Conclusions. In an atmosphere populated with a distribution of plasma volumes, this will yield regions of contrasting radiative properties, thereby giving a source of inhomogeneous cloud coverage. The results presented here may also be relevant for dust in supernova remnants and protoplanetary disks.

Sistemas de produção de milho sob adubação nitrogenada e plantas de cobertura do solo

The no-tillage system is the predominant model in the agricultural scenario of southern Brazil. Thus, the use of cover crops is significant due to the addition of biomass to protect the soil surface, and contribute to the cycling and/or fixing of nutrients, and in particular nitrogen (N) with liberation for the subsequent culture. Among the cool season species, it was found predominant use of oat to obtain straw to system. Though large quantities input of residue is not the preferred species to precede the corn, cereal with relevant importance in the Paraná Southwest region. It was aimed to evaluate the productivity capacity of corn in no-tillage, in the absence or presence of nitrogen fertilization, on waste of winter cover crops on soil and climatic conditions of the Paraná Southwest region. The installation of no-tillage was held in 2010 in the experimental area belonging to UTFPR, Campus Dois Vizinhos, on a Red Latosol. For the present study, we used data relating to three agricultural years (2012/2013, 2013/2014 and 2014/2015). The experimental design was randomized block design with split plots with three replications. The main plots consisted of systems composed by cover crops (black oat, ryegrass, rye, turnip, vetch, white lupine, aot+vetch consortium and oat+vetch+turnip), preceding corn. In the subplots were used two doses of nitrogen fertilization (0 and 180 kg ha N) coverage in maize.The biggest coverage rates occurred in the consortium with 95% at 62 days after sowing. The residual effect of 180 kg ha cool season plants following year. The residual effect of 180 kg ha systems, reduced in 21% the C/N ratio of poaceae. The common vetch accumulated 32 kg N per ton of MS added. The oat and rye keeps more than 50% waste to the land cover, after 120 days, while the ryegrass and vetch provide low soil protection. Consortium oat+vetch+turnip, vetch and white lupine, released the largest amounts of N, between 52 and 59 kg ha brassica and consortia positively influencing the diameter and length of cobs, number of kernels per row and, total number of grains per ear of corn, in the absence of mineral N. The weight of a thousand grains was increased by 12.4% by the addition of 180 kg ha increase in productivity of grain by the addition of 180 kg ha N, was 2.1 Mg ha 5.6 Mg ha 6.4 Mg ha components when cultivated on vetch. Systems containing fabaceae, brassica and consortium oat+vetch+turnip, predating the corn, in the absence of mineral N, provided similar grain yelds inrelation to the systems with the addition of 180 kg ha Keywords: Cover crops. No-tillage. Grain yield. Zea mays - 1 -1 N, increased 4.8% coverage rate in the of N in corn/cover crops -1 -1 . Fabaceae, -1 N mineral. The average N, in relation to dose 0 kg ha corn kernels on fabaceae, brassica and consortium oat+vetch+turnip, and poaceae the grains in succession. The consortium added amount between 4.0 the DM in the years of study. There was no effect of mineral N rate for corn yield components when cultivated on vetch. Systems containing fabaceae, brassica and consortium oat+vetch+turnip, predating the corn, in the absence of mineral N, provided similar grain yelds inrelation to the systems with the addition of 180 kg ha-1 N.

Adubação nitrogenada no milho em sucessão à plantas de cobertura sob sistemas de cultivo do solo

To achieve high yields the corn crop is dependent on nitrogen. Systems of cover crops preceding corn and form of land cultivation are essential for the best use of nitrogen by corn. This study aimed to evaluate the use or not of nitrogen fertilization in corn in succession to cover crops, planted in three cropping systems. The experimental design was randomized blocks with sub-divided portion where the main plots consisted of three cultivation systems (tillage, conventional tillage and minimum tillage), the subplots by four plant cover in monocrop (oat, hairy vetch, field peas and turnip) and sub-subplots by nitrogen fertilization (0 and 160 kg ha-1 N). Evaluations were performed, the cover crops, soil cover rate, dry matter, content and accumulation of nutrients. In corn we evaluated yield components, yield, chlorophyll and nutrient levels in leaves. Among the species coverage studied the oat showed hardiness in the experiment, covering ground faster and showing more dry matter, however vetch hairy showed higher concentrations of N, P and K and higher accumulation of N ha-1. The soil tillage system influenced the K leaf content. The interaction cultivation x coverage showed significance for the total chlorophyll of corn. In the absence of N, N content and chlorophyll were higher where the corn was sown on the pea and hairy vetch. The corn production, despite a higher average in the presence of nitrogen fertilization, did not differ significantly when used the pea and hairy vetch as a cover crop.