Predictors of functional dependency in Parkinson’s disease

Financial disclosures/conflicts of interest: Dr Macleod was funded by a Clinical Academic Fellowship from the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government and received grant funding from Parkinson’s UK, the Wellcome Trust, University of Aberdeen, and NHS Grampian endowments relating to this research. Dr Counsell received grant funding from Parkinson’s UK, National Institute for Health Research, the Scottish Chief Scientist Office, the BMA Doris Hillier award, RS Macdonald Trust, the BUPA Foundation, NHS Grampian endowments and SPRING relating to this research. We declare we have no conflicts of interest. Financial support: This study was funded by Parkinson’s UK, the Scottish Chief Scientist Office, NHS Grampian endowments, the BMA Doris Hillier award, RS Macdonald Trust, the BUPA Foundation, and SPRING.  Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A Case Study: Law and Emotions Within the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Whether you are a Christian or not, you cannot deny the truth of the proverb “[a] brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarrelling is like the bars of a castle,”1 especially when you study the constitutional relationship between the Netherlands and its former colonies Aruba, Curacao, and St. Maarten. The Netherlands, Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten are four countries that together constitute the Kingdom of the Netherlands.2 These countries feel so wronged by one another that emotions often take over. In July 2014, for instance, the Prime Minister of Aruba desperately went on a hunger strike because he felt that the autonomy of Aruba had been illegally infringed upon as the Kingdom Government ordered the Governor of Aruba not to sign the country’s budget. The reasoning behind this order was in response to an opinion of the Kingdom Government that the debt had grown explosively and that this budget aggravated the problem. Subsequently, the Prime Minister of Aruba believed that the dispute settlement procedure between the Kingdom, ‘central’ (predominantly Dutch) government, and ‘local’ government was useless.3 He felt that the Dutch government would be overrepresented in this procedure, and he was afraid that the Dutch government would maintain its stance.4 The Dutch government urged for reasonableness.

A Case Study: Law and Emotions Within the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Whether you are a Christian or not, you cannot deny the truth of the proverb “[a] brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarrelling is like the bars of a castle,”1 especially when you study the constitutional relationship between the Netherlands and its former colonies Aruba, Curacao, and St. Maarten. The Netherlands, Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten are four countries that together constitute the Kingdom of the Netherlands.2 These countries feel so wronged by one another that emotions often take over. In July 2014, for instance, the Prime Minister of Aruba desperately went on a hunger strike because he felt that the autonomy of Aruba had been illegally infringed upon as the Kingdom Government ordered the Governor of Aruba not to sign the country’s budget. The reasoning behind this order was in response to an opinion of the Kingdom Government that the debt had grown explosively and that this budget aggravated the problem. Subsequently, the Prime Minister of Aruba believed that the dispute settlement procedure between the Kingdom, ‘central’ (predominantly Dutch) government, and ‘local’ government was useless.3 He felt that the Dutch government would be overrepresented in this procedure, and he was afraid that the Dutch government would maintain its stance.4 The Dutch government urged for reasonableness.

Using legacy data to reconstruct the past? Rescue, rigour and reuse in peatland geochronology

There is a growing interest in the rescue and reuse of data from past studies (so-called legacy data). Data loss is alarming, especially where natural archives are under threat, such as peat deposits. Here we develop a workflow for reuse of legacy radiocarbon dates in peatland studies, including a rigorous quality assessment that can be tailored to specific research questions and study regions. A penalty is assigned to each date based on criteria that consider taphonomic quality (i.e., sample provenance) and dating quality (i.e., sample material and method used). The weights of quality criteria may be adjusted based on the research focus, and resulting confidence levels may be used in further analyses to ensure robustness of conclusions. We apply the proposed approach to a case study of a (former) peat landscape in the Netherlands, aiming to reconstruct the timing of peat initiation spatially. Our search yielded 313 radiocarbon dates from the 1950s to 2019. Based on the quality assessment, the dates—of highly diverse quality—were assigned to four confidence levels. Results indicate that peat initiation for the study area first peaked in the Late Glacial (~14,000 cal years BP), dropped during the Boreal (~9,500 cal years BP) and showed a second peak in the Subboreal (~4,500 cal years BP). We tentatively conclude that the earliest peak was mostly driven by climate (Bølling–Allerød interstadial), whereas the second was probably the result of Holocene sea level rise and related groundwater level rise in combination with climatic conditions (hypsithermal). Our study highlights the potential of legacy data for palaeogeographic reconstructions, as it is cost-efficient and provides access to information no longer available in the field. However, data retrieval may be challenging, and reuse of data requires that basic information on location, elevation, stratigraphy, sample and laboratory analysis are documented irrespective of the original research aims

The bilirubin albumin ratio in the management of hyperbilirubinemia in preterm infants to improve neurodevelopmental outcome: A randomized controlled trial - BARTrial

Background and Objective: High bilirubin/albumin (B/A) ratios increase the risk of bilirubin neurotoxicity. The B/A ratio may be a valuable measure, in addition to the total serum bilirubin (TSB), in the management of hyperbilirubinemia. We aimed to assess whether the additional use of B/A ratios in the management of hyperbilirubinemia in preterm infants improved neurodevelopmental outcome. Methods: In a prospective, randomized controlled trial, 615 preterm infants of 32 weeks' gestation or less were randomly assigned to treatment based on either B/A ratio and TSB thresholds (consensus-based), whichever threshold was crossed first, or on the TSB thresholds only. The primary outcome was neurodevelopment at 18 to 24 months' corrected age as assessed with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development III by investigators unaware of treatment allocation. Secondary outcomes included complications of preterm birth and death. Results: Composite motor (100±13 vs. 101±12) and cognitive (101±12 vs. 101±11) scores did not differ between the B/A ratio and TSB groups. Demographic characteristics, maximal TSB levels, B/A ratios, and other secondary outcomes were similar. The rates of death and/or severe neurodevelopmental impairment for th

Continuum-based models and concepts for the transport of nanoparticles in saturated porous media: A state-of-the-science review

Environmental applications of nanoparticles (NP) increasingly result in widespread NP distribution within porous media where they are subject to various concurrent transport mechanisms including irreversible deposition, attachment/detachment (equilibrium or kinetic), agglomeration, physical straining, site-blocking, ripening, and size exclusion. Fundamental research in NP transport is typically conducted at small scale, and theoretical mechanistic modeling of particle transport in porous media faces challenges when considering the simultaneous effects of transport mechanisms. Continuum modeling approaches, in contrast, are scalable across various scales ranging from column experiments to aquifer. They have also been able to successfully describe the simultaneous occurrence of various transport mechanisms of NP in porous media such as blocking/straining or agglomeration/deposition/detachment. However, the diversity of model equations developed by different authors and the lack of effective approaches for their validation present obstacles to the successful robust application of these models for describing or predicting NP transport phenomena. This review aims to describe consistently all the important NP transport mechanisms along with their representative mathematical continuum models as found in the current scientific literature. Detailed characterizations of each transport phenomenon in regards to their manifestation in the column experiment outcomes, i.e., breakthrough curve (BTC) and residual concentration profile (RCP), are presented to facilitate future interpretations of BTCs and RCPs. The review highlights two NP transport mechanisms, agglomeration and size exclusion, which are potentially of great importance in controlling the fate and transport of NP in the subsurface media yet have been widely neglected in many existing modeling studies. A critical limitation of the continuum modeling approach is the number of parameters used upon application to larger scales and when a series of transport mechanisms are involved. We investigate the use of simplifying assumptions, such as the equilibrium assumption, in modeling the attachment/detachment mechanisms within a continuum modelling framework. While acknowledging criticisms about the use of this assumption for NP deposition on a mechanistic (process) basis, we found that its use as a description of dynamic deposition behavior in a continuum model yields broadly similar results to those arising from a kinetic model. Furthermore, we show that in two dimensional (2-D) continuum models the modeling efficiency based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC) is enhanced for equilibrium vs kinetic with no significant reduction in model performance. This is because fewer parameters are needed for the equilibrium model compared to the kinetic model. Two major transport regimes are identified in the transport of NP within porous media. The first regime is characterized by higher particle-surface attachment affinity than particle-particle attachment affinity, and operative transport mechanisms of physicochemical filtration, blocking, and physical retention. The second regime is characterized by the domination of particle-particle attachment tendency over particle-surface affinity. In this regime although physicochemical filtration as well as straining may still be operative, ripening is predominant together with agglomeration and further subsequent retention. In both regimes careful assessment of NP fate and transport is necessary since certain combinations of concurrent transport phenomena leading to large migration distances are possible in either case