International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force Consensus Proposal: Diagnostic approach to epilepsy in dogs

This article outlines the consensus proposal on diagnosis of epilepsy in dogs by the International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force. The aim of this consensus proposal is to improve consistency in the diagnosis of epilepsy in the clinical and research settings. The diagnostic approach to the patient presenting with a history of suspected epileptic seizures incorporates two fundamental steps: to establish if the events the animal is demonstrating truly represent epileptic seizures and if so, to identify their underlying cause. Differentiation of epileptic seizures from other non-epileptic episodic paroxysmal events can be challenging. Criteria that can be used to make this differentiation are presented in detail and discussed. Criteria for the diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy (IE) are described in a three-tier system. Tier I confidence level for the diagnosis of IE is based on a history of two or more unprovoked epileptic seizures occurring at least 24 h apart, age at epileptic seizure onset of between six months and six years, unremarkable inter-ictal physical and neurological examination, and no significant abnormalities on minimum data base blood tests and urinalysis. Tier II confidence level for the diagnosis of IE is based on the factors listed in tier I and unremarkable fasting and post-prandial bile acids, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain (based on an epilepsy-specific brain MRI protocol) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis. Tier III confidence level for the diagnosis of IE is based on the factors listed in tier I and II and identification of electroencephalographic abnormalities characteristic for seizure disorders. The authors recommend performing MRI of the brain and routine CSF analysis, after exclusion of reactive seizures, in dogs with age at epileptic seizure onset 6 years, inter-ictal neurological abnormalities consistent with intracranial neurolocalisation, status epilepticus or cluster seizure at epileptic seizure onset, or a previous presumptive diagnosis of IE and drug-resistance with a single antiepileptic drug titrated to the highest tolerable dose

Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself: Community Formation and the Church

The church has played a central role in establishing and maintaining, as well as undermining, communities throughout modern history. In this paper we explore some of the mechanisms through which the church can coordinate individual behavior to achieve improvements in individual and social welfare, and reveal the ways in which the church can fail, causing established communities to founder or dissolve. In our model inherently religious individuals may become trapped in a secular equilibrium that is strictly dominated by a religious equilibrium in which individuals’ actions bestow positive external benefits on other community members. The church, via its teachings, clergy and ministries, reveals the benefits of coordinated behavior, both in this world and in the world to come, and the costs of uncoordinated behavior, separation from God and one’s fellow man, to induce community members to take actions which are both individually and socially beneficial. External forces, such as the state and secular society, and internal forces, such as doctrinal disputes, inconsistencies, and incoherence, can reduce a church’s ability to coordinate, to the detriment of all

Gluttony and Sloth: Signs of Trouble or Evidence of Bliss?

In a model of rational agent choice in which agents value consumption and leisure as well as health, we establish that individuals, unconstrained by concerns of income or time, can and will choose levels of consumption and leisure that exceed their physiological optima. By how much they exceed the optima depends on a variety of factors, most importantly, the utility cost (benefit) of achieving health. Observed positive long-run trends in adult weight, brought on by higher levels of consumption and lower levels of physical activity, often interpreted as a public health crisis in the making, can be explained by these factors. But, rather than the trend suggesting crisis, it suggests only optimal responses to altered, and perhaps improved, circumstances. While individuals today, all else equal, may weigh more than those a generation or two ago, they also may be happier

Contrasting effects of linezolid on healthy and dysfunctional human neutrophils: reducing C5a-induced injury

Background: To manage increasing demand for emergency and unscheduled care NHS England policy haspromoted services in which patients presenting to Emergency Departments (EDs) with non-urgent problems aredirected to general practitioners (GPs) and other primary care clinicians working within or alongside emergencydepartments. However, the ways that hospitals have implemented primary care services in EDs are varied. The aimof this study was to describe ED clinical leads’ experiences of implementing and delivering ‘primary care services’and ‘emergency medicine services’ where GPs were integrated into the ED team. Methods: We conducted interviews with ED clinical leads in England (n = 19) and Wales (n = 2). We usedframework analysis to analyse interview transcripts and explore differences across ‘primary care services’, ‘emergency medicine services’ and emergency departments without primary care services. Results: In EDs with separate primary care services, success was reported when having a distinct workforce ofprimary care clinicians, who improved waiting times and flow by seeing primary care-type patients in a timely way,using fewer investigations, and enabling ED doctors to focus on more acutely unwell patients. Some challengeswere: trying to align their service with the policy guidance, inconsistent demand for primary care, accessiblecommunity primary care services, difficulties in recruiting GPs, lack of funding, difficulties in agreeing governanceprotocols and establishing effective streaming pathways. Where GPs were integrated into an ED workforce successwas reported as managing the demand for both emergency and primary care and reducing admission

The One with the Feminist Critique: Revisiting Millennial Postfeminism with Friends

In the aftermath of its initial broadcast run, iconic millennial sitcom Friends (NBC, 1994–2004) generated some quality scholarship interrogating its politics of gender. But as a site of analysis, it remains a curious, almost structuring absence from the central canon of the first wave of feminist criticism of postfeminist culture. This absence is curious not only considering the place of Friends at the forefront of millennial popular culture but also in light of its long-term syndication in countries across the world since that time. And it is structuring in the sense that Friends was the stage on which many of the familiar tropes of postfeminism interrogated across the body of work on it appear in retrospect to have been tried and tested. This article aims to contribute toward redressing this absence through interrogation and contextualization of the series’ negotiation of a range of structuring tropes of postfeminist media discourse, and it argues for Friends as an unacknowledged ur-text of millennial postfeminism

The psychosocial impact of microtia and ear reconstruction: A national data-linkage study

Introduction: Children with visible facial differences are believed to be at increased risk of negative psychosocial behaviours which may manifest as affective disorders. The aim of this study was to determine whether a diagnosis of microtia, and the associated surgical intervention, is associated with psychosocial implications including impaired educational attainment and a diagnosis of an affective disorder.Methods: A retrospective case-control study was conducted using data linkage to identify patients in Wales with a diagnosis of microtia. Matched controls were sought on the basis of age, gender and socioeconomic deprivation status to yield a total sample size of 709. incidence was calculated using annual and geographic birth rates. Surgical operation codes were used to classify patients into those that had no surgery, autologous reconstruction or prosthetic reconstruction. Educational attainment at 11 years of age, plus a diagnosis of depression or anxiety were used as markers of adverse psychosocial outcomes and the relative risk was attained using logistic regression analyses.Results: There were no significant associations between a diagnosis of microtia and an increased risk of adverse educational attainment or a risk of an affective disorder diagnosis. Male gender and higher deprivation scores were significantly associated with poorer educational attainment, irrespective of a diagnosis of microtia. Surgical intervention of any nature was also not associated with any increased risk of adverse educational or psychosocial outcomes in microtia patients.Discussion: Microtia patients in Wales do not appear to be at greater risk of developing affective disorders or impaired academic performance as a result of their diagnosis or associated surgical intervention. Whilst reassuring, the need for appropriate support mechanisms to maintain positive psychosocial wellbeing and academic achievement in this patient cohort is reinforced

Організаційно-економічне забезпечення розвитку електронної промисловості

Розкрито питання організаційно-економічного забезпечення електронної промисловості в рамках організаційно-економічного механізму розвитку електронної промисловості на інноваційній основі, який регламентує діяльність державних, галузевих і підприємницьких структур, що забезпечують розвиток електронної промисловості. Ключові слова: електронна промисловість, організаційне забезпечення розвитку електронної промисловості, організаційно-економічний механізм, інноваційний розвиток.  Раскрываются вопросы организационно-экономического обеспечения электронной промышленности в рамках организационно-экономического механизма развития электронной промышленности на инновационной основе, который регламентирует деятельность государственных, отраслевых и предпринимательских структур, обеспечивающих развитие электронной промышленности. Ключевые слова: электронная промышленность, организационное обеспечение развития электронной промышленности, организационно-экономический механизм, инновационное развитие.  The paper deals with the issues of organizational and economic support of electronic industry in the framework of the organizational and economic mechanism of the above industry development on the basis of innovation. It regulates the activities of the government, sectoral and business organizations, which provide the development of the electronic industry. The proposalsare as follows: to work out a State Program of Development of the Electronic Industry, andto create a sectoral information system, a cluster “development of the electronic industry”, holding the electronic industry, a sectoral technology transfer system, training educational and scientific centres for the engineering staff. It is shown that at a corporate level the development of electronic industry is promoted by establishment of production facilities with the use of well-known brands and foreign electronic productions, technologies transfer with consideration of supply channels, introduction of business market mechanisms, IPC standards, and production information systems PDM/PLM. A specific feature of these measures is that to develop the issues of financial and economic, technical and technological, innovation and market support of the electronic industry development the methods of grouping, generalization of economic indicators received from the enterprises of this industry, and economic mathematical modelling using a correlation regression and structural logical analysis have been used. The application of these methods suggests that the use of the organizational and economic support contributes to promising development of the electronic industry in Ukraine which consists in formation of the core of the electronic industry and its integration in the world electronic space in the future. Keywords: electronic industry, organizational support of electronic industry development, organizational and economic mechanism, innovation-based development

The effect of the financial crisis on older households in England

Prices of real and financial assets fell substantially in the UK during 2008-09. The fourth wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) was in the field throughout this 'financial crisis'. We use these data and earlier ELSA waves first to document the effect of the crisis on the finances of those aged 50 and over in England, and second, to estimate the effect of wealth shocks on household consumption and individual expectations of the future. Many household experienced a significant wealth shocks, but these shocks led to modest spending effects and small revisions to expectations regarding future bequests. Expectations of bequests seem particularly tied to housing wealth