Universal Core Research Articles

A Dispatch-Mediated Communication Model for Emergency Response Systems

The current state of emergency communication is dispatch-mediated (the messages from the scene are directed towards the responders and agencies through the dispatch agency). These messages are logged in electronic documents called incident reports, which are useful in monitoring the incident, off-site supervision, resource allocation, and post-incident analysis. However, these messages do not adhere to any particular structure, and there is no set format. The lack of standards creates a problem for sharing information among systems and responders and has a detrimental impact on systems interoperability. In this article, we develop a National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and Universal Core (UCORE) compliant messaging model, considering message structures and formats, to foster message standardization.

A Universal Core Model for Multiple-Gate Field-Effect Transistors. Part I: Charge Model

A universal core model for multiple-gate field-effect transistors (Mug-FETs) is proposed. The proposed charge and drain current models are presented in Parts I and II, respectively. It is first demonstrated that an exact potential profile in the entire channel is not necessary for the derivation of accurate charge models in inversion-mode FETs. With application of this new concept, a universal charge model is derived for Mug-FETs by assuming an arbitrary channel potential profile, which simplifies the mathematical formulation. Thereafter, using the Pao-Sah integral, a drain current model is obtained from the charge model of Part I. The proposed model can be expressed as an explicit and continuous form for all operation regimes; therefore, it is well suited for compact modeling to support fast circuit simulations. The model shows good agreement with 2-D and 3-D numerical simulations for several multiple-gate structures, such as single-gate, double-gate, triple-gate, rectangular gate-all-around, and cylindrical gate-all-around FETs.

Rule of law and democracy: Addressing the gap between policies and practices

The Declaration adopted on 24 September 2012 by the United Nations General Assembly at the High-level Meeting on the Rule of Law at the National and International Levels reaffirmed that “human rights, the rule of law and democracy are interlinked and mutually reinforcing and that they belong to the universal and indivisible core values and principles of the United Nations”. Indeed, government responsiveness to the interests and needs of the greatest number of citizens is strictly associated with the capacity of democratic institutions and processes to bolster the dimensions of rights, equality and accountability.

Discrimination in a universal health system: Explaining socioeconomic waiting time gaps

One of the core goals of a universal health care system is to eliminate discrimination on the basis of socioeconomic status. We test for discrimination using patient waiting times for non-emergency treatment in public hospitals. Waiting time should reflect patients’ clinical need with priority given to more urgent cases. Using data from Australia, we find evidence of prioritisation of the most socioeconomically advantaged patients at all quantiles of the waiting time distribution. These patients also benefit from variation in supply endowments. These results challenge the universal health system's core principle of equitable treatment.

Modeling the Thermoproteaceae RNase P RNA

The RNA component of the RNase P complex is found throughout most branches of the tree of life and is principally responsible for removing the 5′ leader sequence from pre-tRNA transcripts during tRNA maturation. RNase P RNA has a number of universal core features, however variations in sequence and structure found in homologs across the tree of life require multiple Rfam covariance search models to detect accurately. We describe a new Rfam search model to enable efficient detection of the diminutive archaeal Type T RNase P RNAs, which are missed by existing Rfam models. Using the new model, we establish effective score detection thresholds, and detect four new RNase P RNA genes in recently completed genomes from the crenarchaeal family Thermoproteaceae.

Is rooted cosmopolitanism bad for women?

Assuming similarities between the domestic and global spheres of justice, I consider how lessons from the debate over women's rights and multiculturalism can be applied to global justice. In doing so, I focus on one strain of thinking on global justice, current moderations and modifications to cosmopolitanism. Discussions of global justice tend to approach the question of gender equity in one of two distinct ways: through articulations a cosmopolitanism ethic, advancing women's rights with the discourse of universal human rights or through the lens of Care Ethics. The former approach emphasizes a universal core shared by all human beings, the latter the specific relationships we each are situated within. Recently, the discourse of global justice has moved away from this universal/particular dichotomy, with a range of theories, call them rooted cosmopolitanisms. My goal in this paper is to consider how these rooted versions of cosmopolitanism might respond to issues of gender equity and women's rights. (1) In pursuit of this aim, I first outline the parameters that define rooted cosmopolitanism. (2) I then assume, for the sake of argument, a continuity between domestic and global domains of justice, a continuity which allows for a translation of insights gained in domestic debates over multiculturalism into the global domain. (3) Finally, offering an answer to my leading question, I claim that rooted cosmopolitanism might assist in the struggle to protect the well-being of women as it endeavors to advance global justice.

Networked Based Evaluation: ArtsSmarts Inquiry Model

There are many handbooks on research and evaluation that are useful to read but difficult to implement in complex networked situations. This paper describes the ArtsSmarts Inquiry Model (AIM), which is founded on action research principles, and allows for networks of partners to conduct program evaluations. The AIM emerged from a special research project funded by the Canadian Council on Learning as a method of increasing research capacity within ArtsSmarts, a non-profit organization that facilitates relationships between artists and teachers in the classroom. Because ArtsSmarts is based on partnerships with distributed capacity, the research framework had to be flexible, while providing a structure with a universal core to facilitate the sharing of stories. This paper outlines the development process, the design of the framework, and some of the reflections from participating partners.

Practice Analysis of Nutrition Support Professionals

The National Board of Nutrition Support Certification (NBNSC) is an independent credentialing board responsible for administering the multidisciplinary certification examination in nutrition support. For an exam to be legally and practically defensible, it must represent practice. Validation is by practice audit, the highest level of supporting evidence. To define the role of the nutrition support professional (NSP) and the current elements (knowledge and functions) required for competent NSP practice. A survey instrument was constructed using a content validation strategy to establish the link between job tasks and the content of the examination. Internet-based surveys were made available to 5100 NSPs. NSP duties performed and knowledge required for patient safety and welfare were analyzed for the group as a whole and for each profession separately. A total of 765 surveys were completed (return rate of 15%). The results of the practice audit demonstrate a common core of practice across the nutrition support disciplines as well as a universal core of elements believed to be important for competent nutrition support practice. The results of this survey continue to support a common core of practice across nutrition support disciplines as well as a common core of elements believed to be important for competent nutrition support practice. Accordingly, the NBNSC will continue to offer one examination to all disciplines both nationally and internationally and confer the Certified Nutrition Support Clinician (CNSC) credential to all individuals who successfully pass this validated examination.

As ciências sociais e a diversidade dos sotaques

Este artigo retoma um tema clássico nas ciências sociais latino-americanas: a relação entre o seu desenvolvimento interno (nacional) e as influências externas. Trata-se, no entanto, de uma retomada que insere a problemática do pensamento sociológico no contexto da mundialização da cultura. Nesse sentido, para escapar à dicotomia entre pensamento nacional e pensamento cosmopolita, o autor propõe que as ciências sociais constituem uma língua com diferentes sotaques. Não existiria, portanto, um núcleo universal (identificado às teorias produzidas na Europa ou nos Estados Unidos) e um saber regional, identificado com os países ditos periféricos.

Exploring Habermas’s Critical Engagement with Chomsky

This article explores Jurgen Habermas’s critical employment of Noam Chomsky’s insights and the philosophical assumptions that motivate or justify Habermas’s early enrichment of his universal pragmatics with material drawn from generative linguistics. The investigation of the influence Chomsky’s theory has exerted on Habermas aims to clarify what Habermas means by universalism, reason embedded in language and the universal core of communicative competence—away from various misinterpretations of Habermas’s rationalist commitments and from reductive, conventionalist readings of his notion of consensus. Much against hasty and unexamined incriminations of Habermasian pragmatics, a turn to a neglected and scantly researched topic such as the philosophical affinity of some Chomskian and Habermasian themes (and to the philosophical justification of the points where Chomsky and Habermas part company) will retrieve the kind of depth and nuance that may lead us beyond facile and simplistic understandings of what discursively reaching consensus might mean from a Habermasian point of view.

Perspectives on the RNA polymerase II core promoter

The RNA polymerase II core promoter is sometimes referred to as the gateway to transcription. The core promoter is generally defined to be the stretch of DNA that directs the initiation of transcription. This simple description belies a complex multidimensional regulatory element, as there is considerable diversity in core promoter structure and function. Core promoters can be viewed at the levels of DNA sequences, transcription factors, and biological networks. Key DNA sequences are known as core promoter elements, which include the TATA box, initiator (Inr), polypyrimidine initiator (TCT), TFIIB recognition element (BRE), motif ten element (MTE), and downstream core promoter element (DPE) motifs. There are no universal core promoter elements that are present in all promoters. Different types of core promoters are transcribed by different sets of transcription factors and exhibit distinct properties, such as specific interactions with transcriptional enhancers, that are determined by the presence or absence of particular core promoter motifs. Moreover, some core promoter elements have been found to be associated with specific biological networks. For instance, the TCT motif is dedicated to the transcription of ribosomal protein genes in Drosophila and humans. In addition, nearly all of the Drosophila Hox genes have a DPE motif in their core promoters. The complexity of the core promoter is further seen in the relation among transcription initiation patterns, the stability or lability of transcriptional states, and the organization of the chromatin structure in the promoter region. Hence, the current data indicate that the core promoter is a critical component in the regulation of gene activity.

Mystical Experience Among Tibetan Buddhists: The Common Core Thesis Revisited

In the study of mysticism the debate has centered on whether a universal experiential core exists regardless of religious interpretation. The current investigation combines Jamesian empiricist and social constructivist perspectives to argue that stable experiential facets load variously on factors to construct local interpretations. Local interpretations reflect a family resemblance—a mystical common core experienced across cultures. Results of confirmatory factor analyses, based on data from 240 Tibetan Buddhist adults, suggest statistical model fit and superiority for the three-factor model compared to the unidimensional model. Pure experience can be distinguished explicitly from its context-specific hermeneutical construal.

EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL quality of life scores in patients with advanced cancer referred for palliative radiotherapy

Symptom control and improved quality of life (QOL) are primary goals of treatment in palliative oncology. The present study assessed and compared patient demographics, baseline Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) and QOL using the QLQ-C15-PAL questionnaire prior to palliative radiotherapy (RT) for bone, brain, or lung disease. Few studies have used this questionnaire, an abbreviated version that was developed by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer specifically for patients with advanced cancer to decrease the burden of completing the longer, more time-consuming QLQ-C30. Patients referred to an outpatient palliative RT clinic completed QLQ-C15-PAL questionnaires prior to palliative RT for bone, brain, or lung cancer sites. The associations between baseline QLQ-C15-PAL functional/symptom scales, patient demographics, and clinical variables including KPS were explored. When data from all 369 patients were analyzed, higher KPS scores correlated significantly with better overall QOL and higher physical and emotional functioning. The QLQ-C15-PAL provided more detailed information regarding how symptom burden varied depending on disease site. Patients with bone metastases had worse QLQ-C15-PAL scores for pain, while those with brain and lung disease had worse scores for fatigue. Other health-related QOL scores measured by the QLQ-C15-PAL varied as a function of age and gender. As the QLQ-C15-PAL provides detailed and often critical information regarding symptom burden, it may eventually be recognized as a universal core questionnaire to assess QOL in this patient population with advanced cancer while relieving the survey burden.

An international survey in postgraduate training in Oral Medicine

The aim of this preliminary study was to investigate postgraduate Oral Medicine training worldwide and to begin to identify minimum requirements and/or core content for an International Oral Medicine curriculum. Countries where there was believed to be postgraduate training in Oral Medicine were identified by the working group. Standardized emails were sent inviting participants to complete an online survey regarding the scope of postgraduate training in Oral Medicine in their respective countries. We received 69 total responses from 37 countries. Of these, 22 countries self-identified as having postgraduate Oral Medicine as a distinct field of study, and they served as the study group. While there is currently considerable variation among Oral Medicine postgraduate training parameters, there is considerable congruency in clinical content of the Oral Medicine syllabi. For example, all of the training programs responded that they did evaluate competence in diagnosis and management of oral mucosal disease. This preliminary study provides the first evidence regarding international Oral Medicine postgraduate training, from which recommendations for an international core curriculum could be initiated. It is through such an initiative that a universal clinical core syllabus in postgraduate Oral Medicine training may be more feasible.

Brain activations associated with sign production using word and picture inputs in deaf signers

Effective literacy education in deaf students calls for psycholinguistic research revealing the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying their written language processing. When learning a written language, deaf students are often instructed to sign out printed text. The present fMRI study was intended to reveal the neural substrates associated with word signing by comparing it with picture signing. Native deaf signers were asked to overtly sign in Chinese Sign Language (CSL) common objects indicated with written words or presented as pictures. Except in left inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule where word signing elicited greater activation than picture signing, the two tasks engaged a highly overlapping set of brain regions previously implicated in sign production. The results suggest that word signing in the deaf signers relies on meaning activation from printed visual forms, followed by similar production processes from meaning to signs as in picture signing. The present study also documents the basic brain activation pattern for sign production in CSL and supports the notion of a universal core neural network for sign production across different sign languages.

Net-centric issues for large scale tactical data

This paper illustrates use of the Universal Core messaging framework to enable request and return of large environmental data files, specifically meteorological and oceanographic (MetOc) data. The utility of the approach is described by experiments conducted during the Trident Warrior 2010 Naval exercise. We next overview development of a web services broker system for MetOc data. The implementation of this broker system incorporates both automated data discovery and retrieval capabilities. An extension of UCore, C2 (Command and Control) Core is described and an evaluation to assess its effectiveness for the MetOc domain is described.

A Functional Tom70 in the Human Parasite Blastocystis sp.: Implications for the Evolution of the Mitochondrial Import Apparatus

Core proteins of mitochondrial protein import are found in all mitochondria, suggesting a common origin of this import machinery. Despite the presence of a universal core import mechanism, there are specific proteins found only in a few groups of organisms. One of these proteins is the translocase of outer membrane 70 (Tom70), a protein that is essential for the import of preproteins with internal targeting sequences into the mitochondrion. Until now, Tom70 has only been found in animals and Fungi. We have identified a tom70 gene in the human parasitic anaerobic stramenopile Blastocystis sp. that is neither an animal nor a fungus. Using a combination of bioinformatics, genetic complementation, and immunofluorescence microscopy analyses, we demonstrate that this protein functions as a typical Tom70 in Blastocystis mitochondrion-related organelles. Additionally, we identified putative tom70 genes in the genomes of other stramenopiles and a haptophyte, that, in phylogenies, form a monophyletic group distinct from the animal and the fungal homologues. The presence of Tom70 in these lineages significantly expands the evolutionary spectrum of eukaryotes that contain this protein and suggests that it may have been part of the core mitochondrial protein import apparatus of the last common ancestral eukaryote.

An integrative and functional framework for the study of animal emotion and mood

A better understanding of animal emotion is an important goal in disciplines ranging from neuroscience to animal welfare science. The conscious experience of emotion cannot be assessed directly, but neural, behavioural and physiological indicators of emotion can be measured. Researchers have used these measures to characterize how animals respond to situations assumed to induce discrete emotional states (e.g. fear). While advancing our understanding of specific emotions, this discrete emotion approach lacks an overarching framework that can incorporate and integrate the wide range of possible emotional states. Dimensional approaches that conceptualize emotions in terms of universal core affective characteristics (e.g. valence (positivity versus negativity) and arousal) can provide such a framework. Here, we bring together discrete and dimensional approaches to: (i) offer a structure for integrating different discrete emotions that provides a functional perspective on the adaptive value of emotional states, (ii) suggest how long-term mood states arise from short-term discrete emotions, how they also influence these discrete emotions through a bi-directional relationship and how they may function to guide decision-making, and (iii) generate novel hypothesis-driven measures of animal emotion and mood.

Reflections on Paranoia

Paranoia is about alienation of the Other and from the Other. It is about the creation of enemies, a process where inner tension, fear of humiliation, shame about weakness, and repressed self-doubt crystallize into the figure of a threatening Other. This Other, the persecutor, the enemy, provides a sense, however truncated, of connection, a feeling of clarity and the relief that comes with certitude. The “paranoid streak”, as Arthur Koestler (1967) called it, is an indelible part of human nature. Stanley Cath (1982), who studied cult followers, postulates “a universal social paranoid core with its roots extending into the matrix of individual infantile and childish helplessness, fear, and hate.” Variations in this reservoir or core probably determine the degree of projection of paranoid constructs each society will tolerate. Many of us have had moments of vague suspicion that something is out there just waiting to get us. Some say that these feelings are produced by the lower, “visceral” brain, the limbic system, which generates raw feelings from deep inside the body, which we feel we cannot shake. It is only moments later that the “thinking” areas take over and the intellectual fixation on this quirk of fear (in the underlying system) is born. The fear creates a premonition, a warning of impending danger. Beset by such deep-seated fear, the brain searches for explanations. It decides that something is persecuting you. The brain is in the grips of paranoia. One of the strengths of psychoanalysis is its awareness of mental continuities. There is a spectrum whose range stretches from the “everyday” paranoia just described, or what we might call, paralleling Bion’s (1957) “psychotic part of the personality”

Study of inter- and intra-individual variations in the salivary microbiota

BackgroundOral bacterial communities contain species that promote health and others that have been implicated in oral and/or systemic diseases. Culture-independent approaches provide the best means to assess the diversity of oral bacteria because most of them remain uncultivable.ResultsThe salivary microbiota from five adults was analyzed at three time-points by means of the 454 pyrosequencing technology. The V1-V3 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA genes was amplified by PCR using saliva lysates and broad-range primers. The bar-coded PCR products were pooled and sequenced unidirectionally to cover the V3 hypervariable region. Of 50,708 obtained sequences, 31,860 passed the quality control. Non-bacterial sequences (2.2%) were removed leaving 31,170 reads. Samples were dominated by seven major phyla: members of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and candidate division TM7 were identified in all samples; Fusobacteria and Spirochaetes were identified in all individuals, but not at all time-points. The dataset was represented by 3,011 distinct sequences (100%-ID phylotypes) of ~215 nucleotides and 583 phylotypes defined at ≥97% identity (97%-ID phylotypes). We compared saliva samples from different individuals in terms of the phylogeny of their microbial communities. Based on the presence and absence of phylotypes defined at 100% or 97% identity thresholds, samples from each subject formed separate clusters. Among individual taxa, phylum Bacteroidetes and order Clostridiales (Firmicutes) were the best indicators of intraindividual similarity of the salivary flora over time. Fifteen out of 81 genera constituted 73 to 94% of the total sequences present in different samples. Of these, 8 were shared by all time points of all individuals, while 15-25 genera were present in all three time-points of different individuals. Representatives of the class Sphingobacteria, order Sphingobacteriales and family Clostridiaceae were found only in one subject.ConclusionsThe salivary microbial community appeared to be stable over at least 5 days, allowing for subject-specific grouping using UniFrac. Inclusion of all available samples from more distant time points (up to 29 days) confirmed this observation. Samples taken at closer time intervals were not necessarily more similar than samples obtained across longer sampling times. These results point to the persistence of subject-specific taxa whose frequency fluctuates between the time points. Genus Gemella, identified in all time-points of all individuals, was not defined as a core-microbiome genus in previous studies of salivary bacterial communities. Human oral microbiome studies are still in their infancy and larger-scale projects are required to better define individual and universal oral microbiome core.