Pediatric blood transfusion practices at a regional referral hospital in Kenya

Report of an audit of tranfusion blood use in a large Kenyan hospita

Culturally valuable minority crops provide a succession of floral resources for flower visitors in traditional orchard gardens

Agricultural intensification typically has detrimental effects on pollinator communities, but diverse cropping systems that contain sequentially-flowering crops have the potential to benefit pollinators through the provision of additional floral resources. In this study we investigate the importance of cultivated flora for flower visitors in ten agricultural gardens in South Sinai, Egypt. Insect-flower interactions in gardens and unmanaged plots were surveyed across a four-month period in two environmentally distinct years (pre-flood and post-flood). Despite containing an equal abundance and diversity of wild plants as unmanaged habitat, gardens supported a higher abundance and diversity of flower visitors due to the additional presence of cultivated flora. Visitation networks exhibited dramatic intra-annual changes in composition, with cultivated plants becoming increasingly important in later months. Trends were highly conserved across 2 years despite highly contrasting rainfall. Several key crop species were strongly involved in shaping the structure of the networks, the majority of which were herbs with strong cultural significance (fennel, rosemary, mint) and grown incidentally alongside the primary orchard crops. Minority crops are frequently overlooked in agricultural systems due to their low economic value, but we show that they can have a dramatic influence upon the structure of visitation networks, increasing both pollinator abundance and diversity, and emphasising the link between cultural practices and biodiversity conservation

Traces of violence: Representing the atrocities of war

This article explores the relationships between war and representation through the use of visual images, and takes a cue from the French cultural theorist Paul Virilio, who has written extensively on the militarization of vision in ways that have yet to be fully recognized in criminology. It then outlines some of the disputes surrounding documentary photography, not least since one of the main factors driving the development of the medium was the desire to record warfare, before turning to recent efforts to reconfigure the violence of representation by focusing on what has been termed ‘aftermath photography’, where practitioners deliberately adopt an anti-reportage position, slowing down the image-making process and arriving well after the decisive moment. This more contemplative strategy challenges the oversimplification of much photojournalism and the article concludes by reflecting on how military-turned-consumer technologies are structuring our everyday lives in more and more pervasive ways

The Origin of the Doppler Flip in HD 100546: A Large-scale Spiral Arm Generated by an Inner Binary Companion

Companions at subarcsecond separation from young stars are difficult to image. However, their presence can be inferred from the perturbations they create in the dust and gas of protoplanetary disks. Here we present a new interpretation of SPHERE polarized observations that reveal the previously detected inner spiral in the disk of HD 100546. The spiral coincides with a newly detected (CO)-C-12 inner spiral and the previously reported CO emission Doppler flip, which has been interpreted as the signature of an embedded protoplanet. Comparisons with hydrodynamical models indicate that this Doppler flip is instead the kinematic counterpart of the spiral, which is likely generated by an inner companion inside the disk cavity

Myocardial infarction after acute ischaemic stroke: incidence, mortality, and risk factors

Objectives: To determine the risk factor profiles associated with post-acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) myocardial infarction (MI) over long-term follow-up. Methods: This observational study includes prospectively identified AIS patients (n=9840) admitted to a UK regional centre between January 2003-December 2016 (median follow-up: 4.72 years). Predictors of post-stroke MI during follow up were examined using logistic and Cox regression models for in-hospital and post-discharge events, respectively. MI incidence was determined using a competing risk non-parametric estimator. The influence of post-stroke MI on mortality was examined using Cox regressions. Results: Mean age (SD) of study participants was 77.3(12.2) years (48% males). Factors associated with in-hospital MI (OR(95%CI)) were increasing blood glucose (1.80(1.17-2.77) per 10mmol/L), total leukocyte count (1.25(1.01-1.54) per 10x109/L), and CRP (1.05(1.02-1.08) per 10mg/L increase). Age (HR(95%CI) =1.03(1.01-1.06)), coronary heart disease (1.59(1.01-2.50)), chronic kidney disease (2.58(1.44-4.63)), and cancers (1.76(1.08-2.89)) were associated with incident MI between discharge and one year follow-up. Age ((1.02(1.00-1.03)), diabetes (1.96(1.38-2.65)), congestive heart failure (2.07(1.44-2.99), coronary heart disease (1.81(1.31-2.50)), hypertension (1.86(1.24-2.79)), and peripheral vascular disease (2.25(1.40-3.63)) were associated with incident MI between 1-5 years after discharge. Diabetes (2.01(1.09-3.72)), hypertension (3.69(1.44-9.45)), and peripheral vascular disease (2.46(1.02-5.98)) were associated with incident MI between 5-10 years after discharge. Cumulative MI incidence over 10 years was 5.4%. MI during all follow-up periods (discharge-1 year, 1-5 years, 5-10 years) was associated with increased risk of death (respective HR(95%CI)=3.26(2.51-4.15), 1.96(1.58-2.42) and 1.92(1.26-2.93)). Conclusions: In conclusion, prognosis is poor in post-stroke MI. We highlight a range of potential areas to focus preventative efforts