Valley formation aridifies East Africa and elevates Congo Basin rainfall.

East African aridification during the past 8 million years is frequently invoked as a driver of large-scale shifts in vegetation and the evolution of new animal lineages, including hominins. However, evidence for increasing aridity is debated and, crucially, the mechanisms leading to dry conditions are unclear. Here, numerical model experiments show that valleys punctuating the 6,000-km-long East African Rift System (EARS) are central to the development of dry conditions in East Africa.

Experimental study on the hemostatic effect of cyanoacrylate intended for catheter securement.

Purpose:: The use of cyanoacrylate for intravenous catheter securement is of interest to clinicians and patients, because of the superior adhesive strength and hemostatic effect of cyanoacrylate compared to current securement devices. The purpose of this study is to use novel in vitro and in vivo testing methods to analyze the hemostatic effect of a catheter securement cyanoacrylate (cyanoacrylate).

Methods:: An unprecedented in vitro method was performed to determine the effects of a cyanoacrylate on a customized modified activated clotting time assay and blood flow inhibition assay by exposing blood or plasma to either one or three drops of cyanoacrylate.

Comparative Diagnostic Performance of the Granulocyte and Neutrophil Counts.

Objectives: Use of point-of-care testing is increasing, however many haematology analysers can only determine granulocyte count without further differentiation into neutrophils, eosinophils and basophils. Since the diagnosis of life-threatening neutropenia in cancer patients requires a distinct neutrophil count, this study aimed to determine the comparative performance between the neutrophil and granulocyte count.

Design And Methods: A database of 508 646 venous full blood count results measured on a laboratory reference analyser was mined from a large oncology unit.

Process mining routinely collected electronic health records to define real-life clinical pathways during chemotherapy.

Background: There is growing interest in the use of routinely collected electronic health records to enhance service delivery and facilitate clinical research. It should be possible to detect and measure patterns of care and use the data to monitor improvements but there are methodological and data quality challenges. Driven by the desire to model the impact of a patient self-test blood count monitoring service in patients on chemotherapy, we aimed to (i) establish reproducible methods of process-mining electronic health records, (ii) use the outputs derived to define and quantify patient pathways during chemotherapy, and (iii) to gather robust data which is structured to be able to inform a cost-effectiveness decision model of home monitoring of neutropenic status during chemotherapy.

Age and sex variation in serum albumin concentration: an observational study.

Background: In the UK, a common reference interval for serum albumin is widely used irrespective of age or sex. Implicit in this is that laboratories produce analytically similar results. This paper challenges the validity of this approach.

Informatics and the clinical laboratory.

The nature of pathology services is changing under the combined pressures of increasing workloads, cost constraints and technological advancement. In the face of this, laboratory systems need to meet new demands for data exchange with clinical electronic record systems for test requesting and results reporting. As these needs develop, new challenges are emerging especially with respect to the format and content of the datasets which are being exchanged.

Attribution of changes in precipitation patterns in African rainforests.

Tropical rainforests in Africa are one of the most under-researched regions in the world, but research in the Amazonian rainforest suggests potential vulnerability to climate change. Using the large ensemble of Atmosphere-only general circulation model (AGCM) simulations within the weather@home project, statistics of precipitation in the dry season of the Congo Basin rainforest are analysed. By validating the model simulation against observations, we could identify a good model performance for the June, July, August (JJA) dry season, but this result does need to be taken with caution as observed data are of poor quality.

Contesting neoliberalism through critical pedagogy, intersectional reflexivity, and personal narrative: queer tales of academia.

In this article, we use personal narrative to explore allies and alliance building between marginalized people working in and through higher education, with an eye toward interrogating the ways in which ideologies of neoliberalism work to maintain hierarchy through the legitimation of othering. Inspired by Conquergood (1985 ), who calls scholars to engage in intimate conversation rather than distanced observation, we offer our embodied experiences as a way to use the personal to reflect on the cultural, social, and political. Our narratives often recount being out of place, moments of incongruence, or our marked otherness.

Increasing molecular weight parameters of a helical polymer through polymerization in a chiral solvent.

In this communication, we will demonstrate that polymerization in a chiral solvent can affect the molecular weight distribution of the product by perturbing the balance of the P and M helical screw senses of the growing chains. Specifically, for the Wurtz-type synthesis of polymethylphenylsilane (PMPS) in either (R) or (S)-limonene, the weight-average molecular weight of the products (average Mw = 80 000) was twice that of PMPS synthesized in (R/S)-limonene (average Mw = 39 200). Peturbation of the helical segmentation along the polymer chains leads to a reduction in the rate of occurrence of a key termination step.