Apparent ileal amino acid digestibility and the nutritive value of the triticale cultivars Moreno and Ulrika for growing-finishing pigs

Selostus: Ruisvehnälajikkeiden Ulrika ja Moreno rehuarvo lihasikojen ruokinnassa

Composition, ileal amino acid digestibility and nutritive value of organically grown legume seeds and conventional rapeseed cakes for pigs

Selostus: Palkoviljojen ja rypsipuristeiden koostumus, aminohappojen ohutsuolisulavuus sekä rehuarvo sikojen ruokinnassa

Retaining Wall - Modular Unit Reinforced Earth Tensar Geogrid Reinforcement, HR-549, 1998

This research, initiated in October 1992, was located at the intersection of Blairs Ferry Road and Lindale Drive in the City of Marion. The wall is located on the southeast corner of the intersection. Reinforced retaining wall construction started with a five inch base of roadstone with one inch of sand for leveling purposes. One and one-half to two feet of one inch clean stone was placed behind the blocks. A four inch perforated plastic pipe was placed approximately nine inches from the bottom of the one inch clean stone. The Tenswal, tensar geogrid was placed at every third layer. Openings in the Tenswal are hooked over plastic dowels in the blocks. The tenswal reaches from the face of the wall back 5' to 8'. The cost for constructing this wall was $124,400. The wall has performed well for the past five years. The wall improves the aesthetics of a high traffic volume intersection of an urban area. Many positive comments have been received by the city regarding its appearance. The City of Marion has been pleased with the wall and has used this type of wall on subsequent projects.

What is the value of forensic science? : an overview of the effectiveness of forensic science in the Australian criminal justice system project

Forensic science is increasingly relied upon by law enforcement to assist in solvingcrime and gaining convictions, and by the judicial system in the adjudication ofspecific criminal cases. However, the value of forensic science relative to the workinvolved and the outcome of cases has yet to be established in the Australiancontext. Previous research in this area has mainly focused on the science andtechnology, rather than examining how people can use forensic services/science tothe best possible advantage to produce appropriate justice outcomes. This fiveyearproject entails an investigation into the effectiveness of forensic science inpolice investigations and court trials. It aims to identify when, where and howforensic science can add value to criminal investigations, court trials and justiceoutcomes while ensuring the efficient use of available resources initially in theVictorian and the ACT criminal justice systems and ultimately across Australiaand New Zealand. This paper provides an overview of the rationale and aims ofthe research project and discusses current work-in-progress.

Continuous determination of optimal cerebral perfusion pressure in traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVES: We have sought to develop an automated methodology for the continuous updating of optimal cerebral perfusion pressure (CPPopt) for patients after severe traumatic head injury, using continuous monitoring of cerebrovascular pressure reactivity. We then validated the CPPopt algorithm by determining the association between outcome and the deviation of actual CPP from CPPopt. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data. SETTING: Neurosciences critical care unit of a university hospital. PATIENTS: A total of 327 traumatic head-injury patients admitted between 2003 and 2009 with continuous monitoring of arterial blood pressure and intracranial pressure. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Arterial blood pressure, intracranial pressure, and CPP were continuously recorded, and pressure reactivity index was calculated online. Outcome was assessed at 6 months. An automated curve fitting method was applied to determine CPP at the minimum value for pressure reactivity index (CPPopt). A time trend of CPPopt was created using a moving 4-hr window, updated every minute. Identification of CPPopt was, on average, feasible during 55% of the whole recording period. Patient outcome correlated with the continuously updated difference between median CPP and CPPopt (chi-square=45, p<.001; outcome dichotomized into fatal and nonfatal). Mortality was associated with relative "hypoperfusion" (CPP<CPPopt), severe disability with "hyperperfusion" (CPP>CPPopt), and favorable outcome was associated with smaller deviations of CPP from the individualized CPPopt. While deviations from global target CPP values of 60 mm Hg and 70 mm Hg were also related to outcome, these relationships were less robust. CONCLUSIONS: Real-time CPPopt could be identified during the recording time of majority of the patients. Patients with a median CPP close to CPPopt were more likely to have a favorable outcome than those in whom median CPP was widely different from CPPopt. Deviations from individualized CPPopt were more predictive of outcome than deviations from a common target CPP. CPP management to optimize cerebrovascular pressure reactivity should be the subject of future clinical trial in severe traumatic head-injury patients.

Parenchymal brain oxygen monitoring in the neurocritical care unit.

Patients admitted to the neurocritical care unit (NCCU) often have serious conditions that can be associated with high morbidity and mortality. Pharmacologic agents or neuroprotectants have disappointed in the clinical environment. Current NCCU management therefore is directed toward identification, prevention, and treatment of secondary cerebral insults that evolve over time and are known to aggravate outcome. This strategy is based on a variety of monitoring techniques including use of intraparenchymal monitors. This article reviews parenchymal brain oxygen monitors, including the available technologies, practical aspects of use, the physiologic rationale behind their use, and patient management based on brain oxygen.

Abdominal infections in the intensive care unit: characteristics, treatment and determinants of outcome.

BACKGROUND: Abdominal infections are frequent causes of sepsis and septic shock in the intensive care unit (ICU) and are associated with adverse outcomes. We analyzed the characteristics, treatments and outcome of ICU patients with abdominal infections using data extracted from a one-day point prevalence study, the Extended Prevalence of Infection in the ICU (EPIC) II. METHODS: EPIC II included 13,796 adult patients from 1,265 ICUs in 75 countries. Infection was defined using the International Sepsis Forum criteria. Microbiological analyses were performed locally. Participating ICUs provided patient follow-up until hospital discharge or for 60 days. RESULTS: Of the 7,087 infected patients, 1,392 (19.6%) had an abdominal infection on the study day (60% male, mean age 62 ± 16 years, SAPS II score 39 ± 16, SOFA score 7.6 ± 4.6). Microbiological cultures were positive in 931 (67%) patients, most commonly Gram-negative bacteria (48.0%). Antibiotics were administered to 1366 (98.1%) patients. Patients who had been in the ICU for ≤ 2 days prior to the study day had more Escherichia coli, methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus and anaerobic isolates, and fewer enterococci than patients who had been in the ICU longer. ICU and hospital mortality rates were 29.4% and 36.3%, respectively. ICU mortality was higher in patients with abdominal infections than in those with other infections (29.4% vs. 24.4%, p < 0.001). In multivariable analysis, hematological malignancy, mechanical ventilation, cirrhosis, need for renal replacement therapy and SAPS II score were independently associated with increased mortality. CONCLUSIONS: The characteristics, microbiology and antibiotic treatment of abdominal infections in critically ill patients are diverse. Mortality in patients with isolated abdominal infections was higher than in those who had other infections.

The evolution of social discounting in hierarchically clustered populations.

The expression of a social behaviour may affect the fitness of actors and recipients living in the present and in the future of the population. When there is a risk that a future reward will not be experienced in such a context, the value of that reward should be discounted; but by how much? Here, we evaluate social discount rates for delayed fitness rewards to group of recipients living at different positions in both space and time than the actor in a hierarchically clustered population. This is a population where individuals are grouped into families, families into villages, villages into clans, and so on, possibly ad infinitum. The group-wide fitness effects are assumed to either increase or decrease the fecundity or the survival of recipients and can be arbitrarily extended in space and time. We find that actions changing the survival of individuals living in the future are generally more strongly discounted than fecundity-changing actions for all future times and that the value of future rewards increases as individuals live longer. We also find that delayed fitness effects may not only be discounted by a constant factor per unit delay (exponential discounting), but that, as soon as there is localized dispersal in a population, discounting per unit delay is likely to fall rapidly for small delays and then slowly for longer delays (hyperbolic discounting). As dispersal tends to be localized in natural populations, our results suggest that evolution is likely to favour individuals that express present-biased behaviours and that may be time-inconsistent with respect to their group-wide effects.

Letter to the Editor : on the value of probability for evaluating results of comparative pattern analyses

This letter to the Editor comments on the article Practical relevance of pattern uniqueness in forensic science by P.T. Jayaprakash (Forensic Science International, in press).

Hand-disinfectant alcoholic vapors in incubators

Objective: To analyze the atmosphere inside incubators regarding alcoholic solvent such as isopropanol or ethanol which are commonly used in hand disinfecting solutions. Design: Observational. Setting: The third level neonatal unit of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland. Patients: Nine neonates with median (range) gestational age of 29 4/7 (25 5/7-39 0/7) weeks and birth weight of 960 (550-3050) grams. All neonates were inside incubators. Interventions: Alcoholic vapors inside incubators were directly and cumulatively measured by photoionisation and gas chromatography respectively after absorption on a charcoal sampling tube. Results: Eleven studies (mean study time: 230 ± 19 minutes) were performed. Highly variable isopropanol/ethanol concentrations profiles were found inside incubators. Peak value for isopropanol was 1982 part per million and for ethanol was 906 part per million. Conclusions: Incubators' inner atmosphere can be highly polluted by alcohol vapors. To reduce them staff should respect long evaporation time between hands disinfection and manipulations inside incubators. The use of an ethanol-based disinfecting solution, because of its short evaporation time, could be favored. As alcohol vapor toxicity for neonate remains largely unknown, further studies could be welcome.

Audit report on the Iowa Department of Human Services – Targeted Case Management Unit for the year ended June 30, 2013

Audit report on the Iowa Department of Human Services – Targeted Case Management Unit for the year ended June 30, 2013

Optimizing the supply chain strategy of a multi-unit Finnish nursery company

Abstract

Testing extreme value copulas to estimate the quantile

Testing weather or not data belongs could been generated by a family of extreme value copulas is difficult. We generalize a test and we prove that it can be applied whatever the alternative hypothesis. We also study the effect of using different extreme value copulas in the context of risk estimation. To measure the risk we use a quantile. Our results have motivated by a bivariate sample of losses from a real database of auto insurance claims. Methods are implemented in R.