Genetic polymorphism of both 29 Y-STRs and 213 Y-SNPs in Han populations from Shandong Province,China

Genetic markers on the Y chromosome, including short tandem repeats (Y-STRs) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (Y-SNPs), are used widely in forensic genetics. Both Y-STR-based haplotypes and Y-SNP-based haplogroups provide information on a population’s genetic structure, which is useful for the identification of individuals. However, there are few studies on these two types of genetic markers in the various Chinese populations. In this study, 284 Han individuals from four prefecture-level cities in Shandong Province (Binzhou, Dezhou, Heze, and Weihai) were genotyped by 29 Y-STRs (from our previous study) and 213 Y-SNPs (self-designed for the Haplogroup O2 Y-SNP panel). Haplogroup O was the most predominant among the four cities. The highest haplogroup diversity (0.9745) was observed in the Heze population, with a discrimination capacity (DC) value of 0.5625. The haplotype diversity and DC values of the Binzhou and Heze populations were 1.0000. Furthermore, genetic differences were observed between the coastal and inland cities; the results of their statistical analysis are presented herein.     

Comparing algorithms for deriving psychosis diagnoses from longitudinal administrative clinical records

Purpose

Registers derived from administrative datasets are valuable tools in psychosis research, but diagnostic accuracy can be problematic. We sought to compare the relative performance of four methods for assigning a single diagnosis from longitudinal administrative clinical records when compared with reference diagnoses.

Methods

Diagnoses recorded in inpatient and community mental health records were compared to research diagnoses of psychotic disorders obtained from semi-structured clinical interviews for 289 persons. Diagnoses were derived from administrative datasets using four algorithms; ‘At least one’ diagnosis, ‘Last’ or most recent diagnosis, ‘Modal’ or most frequently occurring diagnosis, and ‘Hierarchy’ in which a diagnostic hierarchy was applied. Agreements between algorithm-based and reference diagnoses for overall presence/absence of psychosis and for specific diagnoses of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and affective psychosis were examined using estimated prevalence rates, overall agreement, ROC analysis, and kappa statistics.

Results

For the presence/absence of psychosis, the most sensitive and least specific algorithm (‘At least one’ diagnosis) performed best. For schizophrenia, ‘Modal’ and ‘Last’ diagnoses had greatest agreement with reference diagnosis. For affective psychosis, ‘Hierarchy’ diagnosis performed best. Agreement between clinical and reference diagnoses was no better than chance for diagnoses of schizoaffective disorder. Overall agreement between administrative and reference diagnoses was modest, but may have been limited by the use of participants who had been screened for likely psychosis prior to assessment.

Conclusion

The choice of algorithm for extracting a psychosis diagnosis from administrative datasets may have a substantial impact on the accuracy of the diagnoses derived. An ‘Any diagnosis’ algorithm provides a sensitive measure for the presence of any psychosis, while ‘Last diagnosis’ is more accurate for specific diagnosis of schizophrenia and a hierarchical diagnosis is more accurate for affective psychosis.     

An integrative review of Enrolled Nurse recruitment and retention

BackgroundAustralia is facing a severe shortage of Enrolled Nurses. Jurisdictions have introduced strategies in attempts to recruit and retain Enrolled Nurses in the health workforce.AimTo explore factors impacting recruitment and retention of Enrolled Nurses.MethodsA systematic search of literature published in the English language from 2000 to 2018 that addressed the recruitment or retention of aspiring and current Enrolled Nurses (or global equivalents). The search yielded 6955 publications; 20 articles were retained for full-text review and eleven articles were included in the final review.FindingsThree major themes (Nursing work and the EN role, Educational structure and support, and Personal attributes) were identified that covered enablers and barriers to the recruitment of Diploma of Nursing students and Enrolled Nurses. Evidence of the efficacy of programs designed to integrate and retain Enrolled Nurses in the health workforce is scant. Enrolled Nurses viewed participation in a Transition to Practice Program as an integral step in the pathway to becoming a registered nurse.DiscussionContinued debate around scope of practice is contributing to organisational and collegial confusion and discriminatory practices with negative consequences for the recruitment and retention of Enrolled Nurses.ConclusionThe value of Enrolled Nurse Transition to Practice Programs for recruitment and retention is questionable. Greater recognition of Enrolled Nurses’ contributions to patient care is essential and could provide Assistants in Nursing with a career opportunity.     

Identifying nurse sensitive indicators specific to haemodialysis nursing: A Delphi approach

BackgroundNurse sensitive indicators measure the quality of care that is specific to the practice of nurses. There are currently few indicators suitable to measure haemodialysis nursing practice.AimTo identify haemodialysis nurse sensitive indicators.MethodsThe Delphi technique, an iterative process, was used to attain consensus from a national expert panel of haemodialysis registered nurses. The panel rated their level of agreement, importance and frequency of nurse sensitive indicators using online surveys that included qualitative feedback. Results of each round shaped subsequent rounds. Consensus was set at greater than 70.0%.FindingsThe 38-member expert panel had a median haemodialysis experience of 17 years (IQR 8.5–22) and 89% had attained a specialist post-registration renal qualification. Round 1 assessed the suitability of 38 nurse sensitive indicators. Those indicators failing to achieve consensus were retested and removed after round 2 (n = 12). Round 3 assessed a modified list of 26 nurse sensitive indicators with all achieving consensus. The fourth and final round was used to both provide feedback to the expert panel and to elicit further qualitative feedback.DiscussionA comprehensive set of quality indicators to measure nursing-sensitive activities in the specialised context of haemodialysis have been developed.ConclusionThese 26 haemodialysis nurse sensitive indicators capture the structures, processes and outcomes which could measure the quality of nursing care provided to people receiving haemodialysis.     

Modified T-maze training demonstrates dissociated memory loss in rats with ischemic hippocampal injury

Rats were trained for 20 days on a modified T-maze which required discrimination of a stem choice that was invariant and a goal choice that alternated. Animals were then exposed to 30 min of transient severe forebrain ischemia (postischemic, PI animals), 30 min of less severe ischemia (non-criterion ischemic, NCI animals), or sham operations (controls). After 30 postoperative days, all animals were returned to the maze for an additional 30 trials. PI rats demonstrated a dissociated performance on stem and goal choice. Specifically, the PI animals were significantly impaired on discrimination of a goal choice, yet performed comparably to controls on discrimination of a stem choice. Impaired goal choice for PI animals was not due to differential run times, proactive interference, or interaction between goal and stem choice. Histopathologic analysis of PI animals revealed bilateral destruction of the pyramidal neurons in the dorsal CA1 region of the hippocampus and lesser damage in the anterodorsal subiculum and the dorsolateral caudate. NCI animals had patchy variable ischemic neuronal damage. These data suggest that ischemic-induced bilateral CA1 pyramidal neuron loss is sufficient to cause dissociated performance in trained animals on a T-maze, but that less severe ischemia does not cause reproducible hippocampal neuron damage or functional deficits. Further, the data extends the development of reliable behavioral measures for an animal model of the amnesic syndrome that may occur in humans after cardiac arrest.     

Endoscopic evaluation of middle ear anatomic variations in autopsy series: analyses of 204 ears

IntroductionMicrosurgery of the ear requires complete evaluation of middle ear surgical anatomy, especially the posterior tympanic cavity anatomy. Preoperative assessment of the middle ear cavity is limited by the permeability of eardrum and temporal bone density. Therefore, middle ear exploration is an extremely useful method to identify structural abnormalities and anatomical variations.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to determine anatomic variations of the middle ear in an autopsy series.MethodsAll evaluations were performed in the Forensic Medicine Institute Morgue Department. The cases over 18 years of age, with no temporal bone trauma and history of otologic surgery included in this study.ResultsOne hundred and two cadavers were included in the study. The mean age was 49.08 ± 17.76 years. Anterior wall prominence of the external auditory canal was present in 27 of all cadavers (26.4%). The tympanic membrane was normal in 192 ears (94%) while several eardrum pathologies were detected in 12 ears (6%). Agenesis of the pyramidal eminence and stapedial tendon was found in 3 ears. While the ponticulus was bony ridge-shaped in 156 of 204 ears (76.4%), it was bridge-shaped in 25 ears (12.3%). The ponticulus was absent in 23 ears (11.3%). While complete subiculum was present in 136 of all ears (66.7%), incomplete subiculum was present in 21 ears (10.3%). Subiculum was absent in 47 ears (23%). Facial dehiscence was found in 32 ears and the round window niche was covered by a pseudomembrane in 85 ears (41.6%). A fixed footplate was present in 7.4% of all ears, and no persistent stapedial artery was seen in any cases.ConclusionThe pseudomembrane frequency covering the round window niche was found different from reports in the literature. In addition, the frequency of the external auditory canal wall prominence has been reported for the first time.     

Massively parallel pyrosequencing of the mitochondrial genome with the 454 methodology in forensic genetics

Resultsof sequencing of whole mitochondrial genome, HV1 and HV2 DNA with the second generation system (SGS) Roche 454 GS Junior were compared with results of Sanger sequencing and SNP typing with SNaPshot single base extension detected with MALDI-TOF and capillary electrophoresis. We investigated the performance of the software analysis of the data, reproducibility, ability to sequence homopolymeric regions, detection of mixtures and heteroplasmy as well as the implications of the depth of coverage. We found full reproducibility between samples sequenced twice with SGS. We found close to full concordance between the mtDNA sequences of 26 samples obtained with (1) the 454 SGS method using a depth of coverage above 100 and (2) Sanger sequencing and SNP typing. The discrepancies were primarily observed in homopolymeric regions. The 454 SGS method was able to sequence 95% of the reads correctly in homopolymers up to 4 bases, and up to 6 bases could be sequenced with similar success if the results were carefully, visually inspected. The 454 technology was able to detect mixtures or heteroplasmy of approximately 10%. We detected previously unreported heteroplasmy in the GM9947A component of the NIST human mitochondrial DNA SRM-2392 standard reference material.     

Screening and confirmation of microRNA markers for distinguishing between menstrual and peripheral blood

The identification of menstrual blood (MB) and peripheral blood (PB) left at a crime scene is crucial for crime reconstruction, especially in sexual assaults. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of non-protein coding molecules, have been demonstrated to be a viable tool for body fluid identification in forensic casework. Several groups have searched for miRNAs that are specific to different body fluids. Blood has been studied the most extensively. However, menstrual blood was only involved in five studies, and the results confirming the presence of specific miRNAs could not be reproduced in other studies. In this study, we attempted to screen new markers that can differentiate between menstrual blood and peripheral blood by using Exiqon’s miRCURY™ LNA Array. Five miRNAs were selected based on the microarray results, namely, miR-141-3p, miR-373-3p, miR-497-5p, miR-143-5p, and miR-136-5p, whose expression levels exhibited 27.95-, 17.96-, 16.74-, 10.14-, and 9.21-fold changes, respectively, compared to the level in peripheral blood. Two classic quantitative methods, TaqMan hydrolysis probes (TaqMan for short) and SYBR Green fluorochrome (SYBR Green for short), were applied in the confirmation step to study the impact of different quantitative methods on the results. Three miRNAs (miR-141-3p, miR-497-5p, and miR-143-5p) were confirmed by TaqMan and one (miR-141-3p) by SYBR Green. Furthermore, bioinformatic methods were applied to interpret the candidate miRNAs. Our results established a multi-step procedure for body fluid identification and showed that the choice of quantitative method is important when miRNAs are used to identify the origin of blood samples.     

道路交通事故鉴定信息处理的哲学思考

道路交通事故鉴定信息处理是一个复杂的鉴定体系,具有信息量大、涉及专业面广、不确定因素多等特点。在事故鉴定过程中,运用唯物辩证法观点进行信息处理,有助于进一步认识事故碰撞的形态及时空变化,全面、多角度、多层次提升事故鉴定的质量和水平,为事故责任认定服务。本文就道路交通事故鉴定信息处理过程中时、空、力的辩证统一,特性与共性的辩证关系,部分与整体相互联系的本质,信息参数选择的偶然性和必然性等方面,探讨唯物辩证法在交通事故鉴定信息处理中的应用价值。