Introduction: Abdominal pain is one of the most frequent reasons for an emergency department (ED) visit. Most cases are functional and no therapy has proven effective. Our objective was to determine if hyoscine butylbromide (HBB) (BuscopanTM) is effective for children who present to the ED with functional abdominal pain. Methods: We conducted a randomized, blinded, superiority trial comparing HBB 10 mg plus acetaminophen placebo to oral acetaminophen 15 mg/kg (max 975 mg) plus HBB placebo using a double-dummy approach. We included children 8-17 years presenting to the ED at London Health Sciences Centre with colicky abdominal pain rated >40 mm on a 100 mm visual analog scale (VAS). The primary outcome was VAS pain score at 80 minutes post-administration. Secondary outcomes included adverse effects; caregiver satisfaction with pain management using a five-item Likert scale; recidivism and missed surgical diagnoses within 24-hours of discharge. Analysis was based on intention to treat. Results: We analyzed 225 participants (112 acetaminophen; 113 HBB). The mean (SD) age was 12.4 (3.0) years and 148/225 (65.8%) were females. Prior to enrollment, the median (IQR) duration of pain prior was 2 (4.5) hours and analgesia was provided to 101/225 (44.9%) of participants. The mean (SD) pre-intervention pain scores in the acetaminophen and HBB groups were 62.7 (15.9) mm and 60.3 (17.3) mm, respectively. At 80 minutes, the mean (SD) pain scores in the acetaminophen and HBB groups were 30.1 (28.8) mm and 29.4 (26.4) mm, respectively and there were no significant differences adjusting for pre-intervention scores (p = 0.96). The median (IQR) caregiver satisfaction was high in the acetaminophen [5 (2)] and HBB [5 (1)] groups (p = 0.79). The median (IQR) length of stay between acetaminophen [235 (101)] and HBB [234 (103)] was not significantly different (p = 0.53). The proportion of participants with a return visit for abdominal pain was 4/112 (3.5%) in the acetaminophen group and 6/113 (5.3%) in the HBB group. The most common adverse effect was nausea (9% in each group) and there were no significant differences in adverse effects between acetaminophen (26/112, 23.2%) and HBB (31/113, 27.4%) (p = 0.52). There were no missed surgical diagnoses. Conclusion: For children with presumed functional abdominal pain who present to the ED, both acetaminophen and HBB produce a clinically important (VAS < 30 mm) reduction in pain and should be routinely considered in this clinical setting.

We describe the motivation and design details of the ‘Phase II’ upgrade of the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope. The expansion doubles to 256 the number of antenna tiles deployed in the array. The new antenna tiles enhance the capabilities of the Murchison Widefield Array in several key science areas. Seventy-two of the new tiles are deployed in a regular configuration near the existing array core. These new tiles enhance the surface brightness sensitivity of the array and will improve the ability of the Murchison Widefield Array to estimate the slope of the Epoch of Reionisation power spectrum by a factor of ∼3.5. The remaining 56 tiles are deployed on long baselines, doubling the maximum baseline of the array and improving the array u, v coverage. The improved imaging capabilities will provide an order of magnitude improvement in the noise floor of Murchison Widefield Array continuum images. The upgrade retains all of the features that have underpinned the Murchison Widefield Array’s success (large field of view, snapshot image quality, and pointing agility) and boosts the scientific potential with enhanced imaging capabilities and by enabling new calibration strategies.

The Arbitrary Linear Plasma Solver (ALPS) is a parallelised numerical code that solves the dispersion relation in a hot (even relativistic) magnetised plasma with an arbitrary number of particle species with arbitrary gyrotropic equilibrium distribution functions for any direction of wave propagation with respect to the background field. ALPS reads the background momentum distributions as tables of values on a $(p_{\bot },p_{\Vert })$ grid, where $p_{\bot }$ and $p_{\Vert }$ are the momentum coordinates in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the background magnetic field, respectively. We present the mathematical and numerical approach used by ALPS and introduce our algorithms for the handling of poles and the analytic continuation for the Landau contour integral. We then show test calculations of dispersion relations for a selection of stable and unstable configurations in Maxwellian, bi-Maxwellian, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D705}$ -distributed and Jüttner-distributed plasmas. These tests demonstrate that ALPS derives reliable plasma dispersion relations. ALPS will make it possible to determine the properties of waves and instabilities in the non-equilibrium plasmas that are frequently found in space, laboratory experiments and numerical simulations.

Cardiometabolic diseases exhibit changes in lipid biology, which is important as lipids have critical roles in membrane architecture, signalling, hormone synthesis, homoeostasis and metabolism. However, Developmental Origins of Health and Disease studies of cardiometabolic disease rarely include analysis of lipids. This short review highlights some examples of lipid pathology and then explores the technology available for analysing lipids, focussing on the need to develop imaging modalities for intracellular lipids. Analytical methods for studying interactions between the complex endocrine and intracellular signalling pathways that regulate lipid metabolism have been critical in expanding our understanding of how cardiometabolic diseases develop in association with obesity and dietary factors. Biochemical methods can be used to generate detailed lipid profiles to establish links between lifestyle factors and metabolic signalling pathways and determine how changes in specific lipid subtypes in plasma and homogenized tissue are associated with disease progression. New imaging modalities enable the specific visualization of intracellular lipid traffic and distribution in situ. These techniques provide a dynamic picture of the interactions between lipid storage, mobilization and signalling, which operate during normal cell function and are altered in many important diseases. The development of methods for imaging intracellular lipids can provide a dynamic real-time picture of how lipids are involved in complex signalling and other cell biology pathways; and how they ultimately regulate metabolic function/homoeostasis during early development. Some imaging modalities have the potential to be adapted for in vivo applications, and may enable the direct visualization of progression of pathogenesis of cardiometabolic disease after poor growth in early life.

Background: With the emergence of competency-based residency education (CBME) in Europe and North America, supervised operative experience is essential for residents to demonstrate competency in requisite neurosurgical procedures prior to board certification. This study explores the implications of such operative exposure to patient safety. Methods: Using a pro- and retrospectively maintained databank at two Swiss teaching hospitals, we compared complications, revision surgery rates, and outcome of consecutive patients undergoing lumbar microdiscectomy (n=102), lumbar decompression (n=471), anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (n=281), cranioplasty (n=240), shunt implantation (n=200), and epidural steroid injections (n=354) by a supervised resident versus a board-certified faculty neurosurgeon as primary surgeon using logistic regression. Results: Intra- (OR 0.68, 95%CI 0.33–1.41, p=0.305) and postoperative complications (OR 1.14, 95%CI 0.78–1.65, p=0.49), revision surgeries (OR 1.23, 95%CI 0.78–1.93, p=0.36), operating time (p=0.87), blood loss (p=0.57) and the likelihood to be considered treatment responder (OR 0.91, 95%CI 0.65–1.28, p=0.62) was similar for both groups. Specifics of European and Canadian neurosurgery training are compared and discussed. Conclusions: Hands-on surgical education within the framework of a structured residency-training program is safe in cervical and lumbar spine surgery and for standard cranial procedures. The summarized results in conjunction with the literature suggest that CBME in Europe and Northern America would not compromise patient safety.

The hedonic pricing technique was used to measure that component of house price attributable to proximity to a city park, using data on sale prices and characteristics of houses in Worcester, MA. Aggregation of these residual values over all houses in the neighborhood of a park provided an estimate of the value of the park, to which was added an estimate of recreation benefits from extrazonal users. The policy question of park system development or contraction was addressed by comparing these benefits with operating costs to gain a net measure of parkland value.

We present results from a multiwavelength study of the blazar PKS 1954–388 at radio, UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray energies. A RadioAstron observation at 1.66 GHz in June 2012 resulted in the detection of interferometric fringes on baselines of 6.2 Earth-diameters. This suggests a source frame brightness temperature of greater than 2 × 1012 K, well in excess of both equipartition and inverse Compton limits and implying the existence of Doppler boosting in the core. An 8.4-GHz TANAMI VLBI image, made less than a month after the RadioAstron observations, is consistent with a previously reported superluminal motion for a jet component. Flux density monitoring with the Australia Telescope Compact Array confirms previous evidence for long-term variability that increases with observing frequency. A search for more rapid variability revealed no evidence for significant day-scale flux density variation. The ATCA light-curve reveals a strong radio flare beginning in late 2013, which peaks higher, and earlier, at higher frequencies. Comparison with the Fermi gamma-ray light-curve indicates this followed ~ 9 months after the start of a prolonged gamma-ray high-state—a radio lag comparable to that seen in other blazars. The multiwavelength data are combined to derive a Spectral Energy Distribution, which is fitted by a one-zone synchrotron-self-Compton (SSC) model with the addition of external Compton (EC) emission.

The fragmented ecosystems along the Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve provide important habitats for biota including lichens. Nonetheless, the Reserve is disturbed by dense human populations and associated air pollution. Here we investigated patterns of lichen diversity within urban and rural sites at three different locations (Niagara, Hamilton, and Owen Sound) along the Niagara Escarpment in Ontario, Canada. Our results indicate that both lichen species richness and community composition are negatively correlated with increasing human population density and air pollution. However, our quantitative analysis of community composition using canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) indicates that human population density and air pollution is more independent than might be assumed. The CCA analysis suggests that the strongest environmental gradient (CCA1) associated with lichen community composition includes regional pollution load and climatic variables; the second gradient (CCA2) is associated with local pollution load and human population density factors. These results increase the knowledge of lichen biodiversity for the Niagara Escarpment and urban and rural fragmented ecosystems as well as along gradients of human population density and air pollution; they suggest a differential influence of regional and local pollution loads and population density factors. This study provides baseline knowledge for further research and conservation initiatives along the Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve.

Burnt mounds, or fulachtaí fiadh as they are known in Ireland, are probably the most common prehistoric site type in Ireland and Britain. Typically Middle–Late Bronze Age in age (although both earlier and later examples are known), they are artefact-poor and rarely associated with settlements. The function of these sites has been much debated with the most commonly cited uses being for cooking, as steam baths or saunas, for brewing, tanning, or textile processing. A number of major infrastructural development schemes in Ireland in the years 2002–2007 revealed remarkable numbers of these mounds often associated with wood-lined troughs, many of which were extremely well-preserved. This afforded an opportunity to investigate them as landscape features using environmental techniques – specifically plant macrofossils and charcoal, pollen, beetles, and multi-element analyses. This paper summarises the results from eight sites from Ireland and compares them with burnt mound sites in Great Britain. The fulachtaí fiadh which are generally in clusters, are all groundwater-fed by springs, along floodplains and at the bases of slopes. The sites are associated with the clearance of wet woodland for fuel; most had evidence of nearby agriculture and all revealed low levels of grazing. Multi-element analysis at two sites revealed elevated heavy metal concentrations suggesting that off-site soil, ash or urine had been used in the trough. Overall the evidence suggests that the most likely function for these sites is textile production involving both cleaning and/or dyeing of wool and/or natural plant fibres and as a functionally related activity to hide cleaning and tanning. Whilst further research is clearly needed to confirm if fulachtaí fiadh are part of the ‘textile revolution’ we should also recognise their important role in the rapid deforestation of the wetter parts of primary woodland and the expansion of agriculture into marginal areas during the Irish and British Bronze Ages.

During the past three years radiocarbon assay has emerged as a primary tool in the quantitative assignment of sources of urban and rural particulate pollution. Its use in several major field studies has come about because of its excellent (fossil/biogenic) discriminating power, because of advances in 14C measurements of small samples, and because of the increased significance of carbonaceous particles in the atmosphere. The problem is especially important in the cities, where increased concentrations of fine particles lead to pollution episodes characterized by poor visibility and changes in the radiation balance (absorption, scattering), and immediate and possibly long-term health effects. Efforts in source apportionment in such affected areas have been based on emissions inventories, dispersion modeling, and receptor modeling – ie, chemical and physical (and statistical) characterization of particles collected at designated receptor sites. It is in the last category that 14C has become quite effective in helping to resolve particle sources. Results are presented for studies carried out in Los Angeles, Denver, and Houston which incorporated 14C measurements, inorganic and organic chemical characterization, and receptor modeling. The 14C data indicated wide ranging contributions of biogenic and fossil carbon sources – eg, <10% to 60% contemporary (biogenic) in Houston – depending on meteorological, biological, and anthropological activity. The combined (chemical, isotopic, statistical) data point to sources such as vehicles, wood combustion, power plants, and vegetation.

We present recent observation results of Sgr A* at millimeter obtained with VLBI arrays in Korea and Japan.

7 mm monitoring of Sgr A* is part of our AGN large project. The results at 7 epochs during 2013-2014, including high resolution maps, flux density and two-dimensional size measurements are presented. The source shows no significant variation in flux and structure related to the G2 encounter in 2014. According to recent MHD simulations by kawashima et al., flux and magnetic field energy can be expected to increase several years after the encounter; We will keep our monitoring in order to test this prediction.

Astrometric observations of Sgr A* were performed in 2015 at 7 and 3.5 millimeter simultaneously. Source-frequency phase referencing was applied and a combined ”core-shift” of Sgr A* and a nearby calibrator was measured. Future observations and analysis are necessary to determine the core-shift in each source.

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.

In western Canada, more money is spent on wild oat herbicides than on any other weed species, and wild oat resistance to herbicides is the most widespread resistance issue. A direct-seeded field experiment was conducted from 2010 to 2014 at eight Canadian sites to determine crop life cycle, crop species, crop seeding rate, crop usage, and herbicide rate combination effects on wild oat management and canola yield. Combining 2× seeding rates of early-cut barley silage with 2× seeding rates of winter cereals and excluding wild oat herbicides for 3 of 5 yr (2011 to 2013) often led to similar wild oat density, aboveground wild oat biomass, wild oat seed density in the soil, and canola yield as a repeated canola–wheat rotation under a full wild oat herbicide rate regime. Wild oat was similarly well managed after 3 yr of perennial alfalfa without wild oat herbicides. Forgoing wild oat herbicides in only 2 of 5 yr from exclusively summer annual crop rotations resulted in higher wild oat density, biomass, and seed banks. Management systems that effectively combine diverse and optimal cultural practices against weeds, and limit herbicide use, reduce selection pressure for weed resistance to herbicides and prolong the utility of threatened herbicide tools.

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.