Introduction: The effectiveness of intravenous alteplase is highly time dependent, and very short door-to-needle times (DNT) of 30 minutes or less have been reported in single centre hospitals, but never in an entire population. QuICR (Quality Improvement and Clinical Research) Alberta Stroke Program aimed to reduce DNT to a median of 30 minutes across the Canadian province of Alberta. Methods: We used the Improvement Collaborative Methodology from early 2015 to September 2016 with participation from all 17 Stroke Centres in Alberta. This methodology included 4 face-to-face workshops, site visits, webinars, data collection, data feedback, intensive process mapping, and process improvements. We compared data in the pre-intervention period from 2009-2014 (collected during the Alberta Provincial Stroke Strategy) to data in the post-intervention period from March 2016-February 2017 (collected during the QuICR DTN Collaborative). Data from January 2015-February 2016 were excluded, as improvements were being implemented during this time. Results: There were a total of 2,322 treated cases in the pre- and post-intervention periods. The results show that the median DNT dropped from 68 minutes (n=1846) in the pre-intervention period to 36 minutes (n=476) in the post-intervention period (p<0.001). There were reductions in DNT across all hospital types: median DNT dropped from 63 to 32 minutes in Urban Tertiary Centres (p<0.001), from 73 to 32 minutes in Community with 24/7 neurology (p<0.001), from 85 to 62 minutes in Community with limited/no neurology (p<0.001), and from 74 to 52.5 minutes in rural centres (p<0.001). Conclusion: There were 21.5 to 41 minute reductions in median DNT across all hospital types including smaller rural and community hospitals. A targeted multi-site improvement collaborative can be an effective intervention to reduce DNT across an entire population.

Selective breeding has been an important component in the increased output and efficiency of animal production since the 1950's. At the same time there has been increasing moral concern over the welfare of modern farmed animals with much of the focus on the environment and management of farm animals and relatively little consideration of the impact of genetic change on welfare. This is now changing, partly because of some well-publicised examples where selection has led to ‘undesirable’ side effects, and because of the perceived welfare risk of emerging biotechnologies. This paper will address whether and how moral concerns over animal welfare should place limitations on genetic change in animal production.

This paper briefly describes the principle of operation and science goals of the AMANDA high energy neutrino telescope located at the South Pole, Antarctica. Results from an earlier phase of the telescope, called AMANDA-BIO, demonstrate both reliable operation and the broad astrophysical reach of this device, which includes searches for a variety of sources of ultrahigh energy neutrinos: generic point sources, Gamma-Ray Bursts and diffuse sources. The predicted sensitivity and angular resolution of the telescope were confirmed by studies of atmospheric muon and neutrino backgrounds. We also report on the status of the analysis from AMANDA-II, a larger version with far greater capabilities. At this stage of analysis, details of the ice properties and other systematic uncertainties of the AMANDA-II telescope are under study, but we have made progress toward critical science objectives. In particular, we present the first preliminary flux limits from AMANDA-II on the search for continuous emission from astrophysical point sources, and report on the search for correlated neutrino emission from Gamma Ray Bursts detected by BATSE before decommissioning in May 2000. During the next two years, we expect to exploit the full potential of AMANDA-II with the installation of a new data acquisition system that records full waveforms from the in-ice optical sensors.

We present a determination of the lithium abundance from high quality spectra in an extremely metal poor star where the lithium line had not been detected.

This paper is an interim report of our inferences about the hydrostatic structure of the Sun, following the first report of the GONG team in Science (Gough et al., 1996). That work confirms that the spherically averaged structure of the Sun is more or less in agreement with current standard solar models. However, there remain some significant deviations which we regard as important clues to the existence of dynamical phenomena which are not taken into account in standard solar modelling.

A linked submillimeter-wave interferometer using the CSO 10.4 m and the JCMT 15 m telescopes located on Mauna Kea at an elevation of 4200 m, has been built and tested successfully. The capabilities of the instrument and an outline of the type of observations that can be made with a single, fixed-baseline interferometer are given. In particular, an experiment to detect gas infalling onto low-mass protostellar sources is proposed. The design of the instrument is described briefly and the successful results of the first tests are summarized.

In the United States alone, ∼14,000 children are hospitalised annually with acute heart failure. The science and art of caring for these patients continues to evolve. The International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was held on February 4 and 5, 2015. The 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute was funded through the Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program Endowment, a philanthropic collaboration between All Children’s Hospital and the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida (USF). Sponsored by All Children’s Hospital Andrews/Daicoff Cardiovascular Program, the International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit assembled leaders in clinical and scientific disciplines related to paediatric heart failure and created a multi-disciplinary “think-tank”. The purpose of this manuscript is to summarise the lessons from the 2015 International Pediatric Heart Failure Summit of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Heart Institute, to describe the “state of the art” of the treatment of paediatric cardiac failure, and to discuss future directions for research in the domain of paediatric cardiac failure.

The Millimetre Astronomy Legacy Team 90 GHz (MALT90) survey aims to characterise the physical and chemical evolution of high-mass star-forming clumps. Exploiting the unique broad frequency range and on-the-fly mapping capabilities of the Australia Telescope National Facility Mopra 22 m single-dish telescope 1 , MALT90 has obtained 3′ × 3′ maps towards ~2 000 dense molecular clumps identified in the ATLASGAL 870 μm Galactic plane survey. The clumps were selected to host the early stages of high-mass star formation and to span the complete range in their evolutionary states (from prestellar, to protostellar, and on to $\mathrm{H\,{\scriptstyle {II}}}$ regions and photodissociation regions). Because MALT90 mapped 16 lines simultaneously with excellent spatial (38 arcsec) and spectral (0.11 km s−1) resolution, the data reveal a wealth of information about the clumps’ morphologies, chemistry, and kinematics. In this paper we outline the survey strategy, observing mode, data reduction procedure, and highlight some early science results. All MALT90 raw and processed data products are available to the community. With its unprecedented large sample of clumps, MALT90 is the largest survey of its type ever conducted and an excellent resource for identifying interesting candidates for high-resolution studies with ALMA.

Clovis sites occur throughout the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, but are poorly documented in the central Rio Grande rift region. Here, we present data from two relatively unknown Clovis projectile point assemblages from this region: the first is from the Mockingbird Gap Clovis site and the second is from a survey of the surrounding region. Our goals are to reconstruct general features of the paleoecological adaptation of Clovis populations in the region using raw material sourcing and then to compare the point technology in the region to other Clovis assemblages in the Southwest and across the continent. Our results show that both assemblages were manufactured from similar suites of raw materials that come almost exclusively from the central Rio Grande rift region and the adjacent mountains of New Mexico. Additionally, we show that Clovis projectile points in the study region are significantly smaller than the continental average. Our results suggest that Clovis populations in this region operated within a large, well-known, and relatively high-elevation territory encompassing much of northern and western New Mexico.

A survey of the Milky Way disk and the Magellanic System at the wavelengths of the 21-cm atomic hydrogen (H i) line and three 18-cm lines of the OH molecule will be carried out with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope. The survey will study the distribution of H i emission and absorption with unprecedented angular and velocity resolution, as well as molecular line thermal emission, absorption, and maser lines. The area to be covered includes the Galactic plane (|b| < 10°) at all declinations south of δ = +40°, spanning longitudes 167° through 360°to 79° at b = 0°, plus the entire area of the Magellanic Stream and Clouds, a total of 13 020 deg2. The brightness temperature sensitivity will be very good, typically σT≃ 1 K at resolution 30 arcsec and 1 km s−1. The survey has a wide spectrum of scientific goals, from studies of galaxy evolution to star formation, with particular contributions to understanding stellar wind kinematics, the thermal phases of the interstellar medium, the interaction between gas in the disk and halo, and the dynamical and thermal states of gas at various positions along the Magellanic Stream.