Summary of an International Guide to Stratigraphic Classification,Terminology, and Usage

International Sub commission on Stratigraphic Classification [Report No. 7b; editor H. D. Hedberg]: Summary of an International Guide to Stratigraphic Classification, Terminology, and Usage. Lethaia, Vol. 5, pp. 297–323. Oslo, July 15th, 1972. Six published reports (and some 40 circulars) of the International Sub commission on Stratigraphic Classification (ISSC) constitute the principal bases for the initial edition of an International Guide to Stratigraphic Classification, Terminology, and Usage. The published reports on Lithostratigraphic Units, Biostratigraphic Units, Chronostratigraphic Units, and Stratotypes are advance chapters of the Guide. The following Summary, which with the preceding Introduction will form the first chapter of the completed Guide, provides a concise and condensed statement of principles, definitions, and proposed rules, which are elaborated in more detail in the published reports and individual chapters of the Guide.     

Agricultural (nonbiomedical) animal research outside the laboratory: a review of guidelines for institutional animal care and use committees

Challenges and published guidelines associated with appropriate care and use of farm animals in agricultural research conducted outside the laboratory are briefly reviewed. The Animal Welfare Act (Title 9 of the 2000 Code of Federal Regulations), which regulates the care and use of agricultural animals in biomedical research, does not include livestock and poultry used in agricultural research. Farm animal research funded (and thereby regulated) by the US Public Health Service is further discussed in the National Research Council's 1996 Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. However, neither of these guidelines adequately addresses the unique attributes of research and teaching designed to improve production agriculture. That information is contained in the Guide for the Care and Use of Agricultural Animals in Agricultural Research and Teaching (the Ag Guide), published by the Federation of Animal Science Societies in 1999. The Ag Guide provides excellent general recommendations for agricultural animal research. It serves as an invaluable resource for institutional animal care and use committees, which attempt to balance the welfare of farm animals and the needs of those working to improve animal agriculture.     

Field Test of the World Health Organization Multi-Professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide

Introduction

Although the importance of training in patient safety has been acknowledged for over a decade, it remains under-utilized and under-valued in most countries. WHO developed the Multi-professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide to provide schools with the requirements and tools for incorporating patient safety in education. It was field tested with 12 participating schools across the six WHO regions, to assess its effectiveness for teaching patient safety to undergraduate and graduate students in a global variety of settings.

Methods

The evaluation used a combined prospective/retrospective design to generate formative information on the experiences of working with the Guide and summative information on the impacts of the Guide. Using stakeholder interviews and student surveys, data were gathered from each participating school at three times: the start of the field test (baseline), soon after each school started teaching, and soon after each school finished teaching.

Results

Stakeholders interviewed were strongly positive about the Guide, noting that it emphasized universally important patient safety topics, was culturally appropriate for their countries, and gave credibility and created a focus on patient safety at their schools. Student perceptions and attitudes regarding patient safety improved substantially during the field test, and their knowledge of the topics they were taught doubled, from 10.7% to 20.8% of correct answers on the student survey.

Discussion

This evaluation documented the effectiveness of the Curriculum Guide, for both ease of use by schools and its impacts on improving the patient safety knowledge of healthcare students. WHO should be well positioned to refine the contents of the Guide and move forward in encouraging broader use of the Guide globally for teaching patient safety.     

The design of guide surfaces for fixed-bearing and mobile-bearing knee replacements

In the natural knee, the femoral tibial contacts move posteriorly as the knee is flexed, guided primarily by the cruciate ligaments. This kinematic behaviour is important regarding muscle lever arms and in achieving a high flexion range. Most contemporary total knee designs use either posterior cruciate preservation or a cam system to produce posterior displacement with flexion, but there is no specific provision for anterior displacement. In this study, a method for the design of cams is described where the cams would guide the motion in both posterior and anterior directions, without requiring cruciate ligaments. The cams consist of a femoral Guide Surface interacting with a tibial Guide Surface while the main lateral and medial bearing surfaces carry the forces across the knee. It is shown that Guide Surfaces can be designed which provide the required motion, but with some laxity at different flexion ranges. It is then demonstrated that the Guide Surfaces can be applied to a range of possible knee designs including mobile-bearing types, rotating-platform types, and fixed-bearing types. The relative advantages of the different possibilities are discussed.     

Reviews of Publications

Book reviewed in this article:
Flowers of the Himalaya , by Oleg Polunin and Adam Stainton.
A Guide to the Vegetation of Britain and Europe , by Oleg Polunin and Martin Walters.
The Experimental Biology of Bryophytes, edited by A. F. Dyer & J. G. Duckett.
A Birdwatcher's Miscellany, edited by Rob Hume.
The Moths and Butterjlies of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 10, Noctuidae (Part II) and Agaristidae, edited by J. Heath.
Atlas of Butterjlies in Britain and Ireland, by J. Heath, E. Pollard & J. A. Thomas.
Colour Identification Guide to Butterjlies of the British Isles, revised edition by T. G. Howarth.
The World of Butterjlies, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia, by V. Sbordoni & S.Forestiero.
Colour Identijcation Guide to Moths of the British Isles, by Bernard Skinner.
The Biology of Buttegies, edited by R. I. Vane-Wright & P. R. Ackery.
Australian Grasses, by Nancy T. Burbidge, revised by Surrey W. L. Jacobs.
Collins Guide to Grasses, Sedges, Rushes and Ferns, by R. Fitter & A. Fitter. Collins.
Grasses of the Soviet Union, by N. N. Tsvelev, edited by A. A. Fedorov.
The European Garden Flora, Volume 2, Monocotyledons (Part ZZ), edited by S. M Walters et al.
Grasses, 3rd edition, by C. E. Hubbard, revised by J. C. E. Hubbard.     

Risk communication and decision tools for children's health protection

Scientific discovery linking the environment to beneficial and adverse health children's health outcomes is rapidly expanding, leading scientists and health professionals to call for timely action to prevent harm and secure benefits. A robust method to synthesize what is known about the environmental drivers of health is a foundational step to making the science actionable by individuals and decision‐makers. To meet this need, a methodology called the Navigation Guide was crafted by a collaboration of 22 clinical and environmental health scientists. The Navigation Guide proceeds from methods of research synthesis used in clinical settings but accounts for differences between environmental and clinical health sciences related to the evidence‐base and decision‐context. The methodology can be used to develop evidence profiles that provide simple, transparent summaries, such as practice guidelines or other evidence‐based recommendations for prevention. Establishing proof‐of‐concept of the method is underway. Development of the Navigation Guide is extremely timely as it coincides with growing recognition of the need for updated methods in risk assessment. The costs in 2008 to the US healthcare system for treatment of childhood illnesses linked to toxic environmental exposures is conservatively estimated to be over $76 billion, and it is anticipated that US healthcare policy decisions will increasingly rely on systematic reviews of the evidence. The Navigation Guide is poised to provide a methodological bridge to link healthcare decision‐making to efforts to reduce toxic environmental exposures. The institutionalization of the Navigation Guide would provide a concrete mechanism for linking science to action to protect children's health. Birth Defects Research (Part C) 99:45–49, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An analysis of mismatched duplex DNA unzipping through a bacterial nanopore.

A 50-base Guide strand was synthesized that consisted of a central 10-base probe sequence flanked by two tracts of 20 adenine residues. Target sequences of 10 bases containing up to three mismatches were prepared and hybridized to the Guide strand in 1 M KCl. The transport of these constructs through single alpha-hemolysin pores was analysed by measuring the current blockade as a function of time. Complementary dsDNA takes significantly longer (840 +/- 60 micro s) to pass through the pore than a sequence of the same length containing a single (590 +/- 45 micro s) and a double (270 +/- 50 micro s) mismatch. Constructs involving three mismatches were indistinguishable from Guide ssDNA transport (120 +/- 30 micro s). The results suggest that dsDNA must unzip as it is transported through the nanopore. Duplexes containing mismatches unzip more quickly and can be distinguished from those with perfect complementarity.     

Effects of housing density and cage floor space on three strains of young adult inbred mice

Some recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (the Guide) are based on best professional judgment. Our current efforts are directed toward replacement with data-driven standards. We demonstrated earlier that young adult C57BL/6J mice could be housed with half the floor space recommended in the Guide without discernable negative effects. This report extends that work by examining optimal housing densities for young adult male and female BALB/cJ, NOD/LtJ, and FVB/NJ mice. These 8-week studies were initiated with 3-week-old BALB/cJ and NOD/LtJ mice and 3- to 5-week-old FVB/NJ mice housed in three cage types. We adjusted the number of mice per cage to house them with the floor space recommended in the Guide (approximately 12 in2 [ca. 77 cm2] per mouse) down to 5.6 in2 [ca. 36 cm2] per mouse. Early-onset aggression occurred among FVB/NJ male mice housed at all densities in cages having 51.7 in2 (ca. 333 cm2) or 112.9 in2 (ca. 728 cm2) of space. FVB/NJ male mice housed in shoebox (67.6 in2 [ca. 436 cm2]) cages did not exhibit aggression until the fifth week. Urinary testosterone output was density-dependent only for BALB/cJ male mice in shoebox cages (output decreased with increasing density) and FVB/NJ male mice. We conclude that all but FVB/NJ male mice can be housed with half the floor space specified in the Guide. The aggression noted for male FVB/NJ mice may have been due to their age span, although this did not impact negatively on the female FVB/NJ mice.     

Introduction to an International Guide to Stratigraphic Classification,Terminology, and Usage

International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification [Report No. 7a; editor H. D. Hedberg]: Introduction to an International Guide to Stratigraphic Classification, Terminology, and Usage. Lethaia, Vol 5, pp. 283–295. Oslo, July 15th, 1972. The International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification (ISSC), a subcommission of the IUGS Commission on Stratigraphy, has been working for the last 15–20 years towards the preparation of an International Guide to Stratigraphic Classification, Terminology, and Usage. The purpose of the Guide is to promote international agreement on principles of stratigraphic classification and to establish internationally acceptable stratigraphic terminology and rules of stratigraphic procedure. The Introduction explains the background of its preparation.     

Genetic diversity of Chinese indigenous sheep breeds inferred from microsatellite markers

To determine the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships among Chinese sheep, 10 indigenous breeds and one introduced breed were genotyped for 19 microsatellite loci. The mean number of alleles per breed ranged from 5.44 (Guide Black Fur sheep) to 9.13 (Ujumqin sheep and Hulunbeier sheep), the expected heterozygosity varied from 0.623 (Guide Black Fur sheep) to 0.737 (Zhaotong sheep), and the allelic richness ranged from 5.169 (Guide Black Fur sheep) to 7.610 (Zhaotong sheep). The deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) was statistically significant (P < 0.05) at three loci (SRCRSP5, OarAE129 and DYMS1) in most of the breeds. Chinese sheep breeds had maintained a high level of within-population genetic differentiation (95.23%), with the remainder explained by differentiation among populations (4.77%). The genetic differentiation pattern and genetic relationships among Chinese sheep breeds displayed a high consistency with the traditional classification. Both the Bayesian cluster and principal component analyses showed a reliable clustering pattern, which revealed three major clusters in Chinese indigenous sheep (Mongolian sheep, Kazakh sheep and Tibetan sheep), except Zhaotong and Guide Black Fur sheep. There were probably caused by different breeding history, geography isolation and different levels of inbreeding. This study will help to interpret the genetic characters of Chinese indigenous sheep and benefit to the future conservation programs.     

沙蜥属一有效种贵德沙蜥及红原沙蜥的分类研究(蜥蜴亚目:鬣蜥科)

形态,染色体特征聚类分析表明过去归入青海沙蜥的天祝,贵德居群被聚为一支,而青海沙蜥的其它居群和红原沙蜥 聚为另一支,证明贵,在祝居群与青海沙蜥有显著区别,应当恢复贵德沙蜥Phrynocephalus putjatia为有效种。贵德沙蜥与青海沙蜥的主要鉴别特重是前者的尾长大于吻肛长,后者的尾短,小于吻肛长,前者背鳞100枚以上,后者背鳞不到100枚。红原沙蜥Phrynocephalus hongyuanensis与青海沙蜥的染色体和形态特征相似,应归隶青海沙蜥。     

Book review

A Laboratory Guide to Biotin-Labelling in Biomolecule Analysis. Biomethods Series. Edited by T. Meier and F. Fahrenholz.     

Guide of strategies for urban regeneration: A design-support tool for the Spanish context

Recent studies reveal physical, economical, and socio-technical barriers when measuring performance of sustainable urban ration projects with existing assessment tools. This reality, enlarged in the Spanish context, has revealed the need of a friendly-user and holistic tool that can assist the agents involved in the decision-making process of urban regeneration projects.This paper presents the Guide of strategies for urban regeneration; a design-support tool developed by demand of the Government of the Valencian Community (Spain). Along this paper we describe how the Guide has been designed by integrating: in first place measures of exiting urban assessment tools, secondly lesson learned coming from the application of urban assessment tools to selected and rewarded urban best practices at European level, and thirdly the opinion of regional decision-makers and urban experts. As a result, this Guide offers strategies and recommendations on a self-questioning format that makes easy its implementation by any urban planner regardless of its expertise on the topic. It is based on an open-source philosophy with a nonprofit orientation, using transparent and easy-to-understand technical criteria. It can be applied to any kind of urban fabric and proposes equal representation of the thematic categories needed to be considered during an urban regeneration project design.     

Books

Handbook on Life Cycle Assessment: Operational Guide to the ISO Standards, edited by Jeroen B. Guine'e.
Life-Cycle Impact Assessment: Striving towards Best Practice     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
The Social Life of Information, by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid.
Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian.     

Some New Audiovisual Catalogues

Book reviewed in this article:
Films, The Visualization of Anthropology . Lori A. Baldwin, M. Kathleen Duttro , and Geza Teleki , eds.
The World of Islam, Images and Echoes: A Critical Guide to Films and Recordings . Ellen-Fairbanks Bodman , gen ed.
Media Log. A Guide to Television, Film and Radio Programs Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities . Lilian Jimenez, Mara Mayor , and Virginia Schofield , eds.
Encyclopaedia Cinematographica: Cultural Anthropology Catalog . Richard Lytle and John K. Mallory , compilers.
Films from D.E.R . Toby Alice Volkman
Native Americans on Film and Video . Elizabeth Weatherford , ed.     

Book review

Book review in this article:
Epithelial Transport: A Guide to Methods and Experimental Analysis . Edited by N. K. Wills, L. Reuss and Simon A. Lewis.     

Effects of housing density and cage floor space on C57BL/6J mice

The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (the Guide) is widely accepted as the housing standard by most Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees. The recommendations are based on best professional judgment rather than experimental data. Current efforts are directed toward replacing these guidelines with data-driven, species-appropriate standards. Our studies were undertaken to determine the optimum housing density for C57BL/6J mice, the most commonly used inbred mouse strain. Four-week-old mice were housed for 8 weeks at four densities (the recommended approximately 12 in2 [ca. 77.4 cm2]/mouse down to 5.6 in2 [ca. 36.1 cm2]/mouse) in three cage types with various amounts of floor space. Housing density did not affect a variety of physiologic parameters but did affect certain micro-environmental parameters, although these remained within accepted ranges. A second study was undertaken housing C57BL/6J mice with as little as 3.2 in2/mouse (ca. 20.6 cm2). The major effect was elevated ammonia concentrations that exceeded limits acceptable in the workplace at increased housing densities; however, the nasal passages and eyeballs of the mice remained microscopically normal. On the basis of these results, we conclude that C57BL/6J mice as large as 29 g may be housed with 5.6 in2 of floor space per mouse. This area is approximately half the floor space recommended in the Guide. The role of the Guide is to ensure that laboratory animals are well treated and housed in a species-appropriate manner. Our data suggest that current policies could be altered in order to provide the optimal habitation conditions matched to this species' social needs.     

Reviews

Design + Environment: A Global Guide to Designing Greener Goods , by Helen Lewis and John Gertsakis, with Tim Grant, Nicolla Morelli, and Andrew Sweatman
Ecodesign PILOT: Product Investigation, Learning and Optimization Tool for Sustainable Product Development , by Wolfgang Wimmer and Rainer     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Lichens on Trees. A Guide to some of the commonest species, by Alan Orange.
Stephen Jay Gould on Evolution. CD-ROM for the Macintosh.
Dye Plants and Dyeing, by John and Margaret Cannon, illustr Gretel Dalby-Quenet.