Alexander Russell Simpson

Sir Alexander Russell Simpson FRCPE FRSE LLD (20 April 1835–6 April1916) was a Scottish physician and Professor of Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh. He invented the axis-traction forceps also known as the obstetrics forceps which assisted in childbirth and reducing pain.
Life.
Simpson was born in Bathgate on 30 April 1835, the son of Alexander Simpson (1797–1877), and nephew of James Young Simpson. He was educated locally then studied medicine primarily at the University of Edinburgh but also at Montpellier, Berlin and Vienna, graduating with an MD in 1856 with the thesis ""On the anatomy of the umbilical cord" ."
From 1865 to 1870 he operated a doctor's surgery in Glasgow at 1 Blythswood Square. In 1870, on the death of his uncle, Professor James Young Simpson, he inherited his uncle's large townhouse at 52 Queen Street in Edinburgh and returned to that city, also taking over his uncle's position at the University of Edinburgh as Professor of Midwifery.
In 1871 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being John Hutton Balfour. He was President of the Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1889 and President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh from 1891 to 1893.
He was a member of the United Free Church of Scotland and helped to run the Carrubbers Close Mission. He was a strong supporter of the Temperance Movement.
He retired in 1905 and was knighted in 1906.
He died in a road accident on 6 April 1916, and was buriedon 10 April in Grange Cemetery in the south of Edinburgh. The grave lies in the main south-west section.
Family.
In 1872 he married Margaret Stewart Barbour (d.1911), sister of Professor Alexander Hugh Freeland Barbour. She was an author and wrote "Awakings or Butterfly Chrysalids" in 1892.
Their children included James Young Simpson and George Freeland Barbour Simpson (1875–1958).
He was grandfather to the geographer Alexander Rudolph Barbour Simpson FRSE (d.1977).
He was paternal uncle to Thomas Blantyre Simpson FRSE QC.
Artistic recognition.
His sketch portrait of 1884, by William Brassey Hole, is held by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.


Camille Biot

Camille Biot (19 December 1850, Châtenoy-le-Royal - 1918, Mâcon) was a French physician who is remembered for describing Biot's respiration.
Biography.
Camille Biot was born in Chatenoy-le-Royal, Saône-et-Loire, France in 1850. He made observations about breathing patterns while working as an intern at the Hôtel Dieu Hospital in Lyon, which were published in 1876. After 1875 he practised medicine in Mâcon.


Elizabeth Allgeier

Elizabeth Rice Allgeier (March 4, 1941 – October 9, 2016) was an American psychologist and sexologist. She was the Editor of the "Journal of Sex Research" in the 1990s. She was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Bowling Green State University. She joined BGSU in 1980 and retired in 2004. She received her PhD from Purdue University. She was a Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, serving as its president between 1985–86. She was one of the experts to file an amicus brief in "United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group".


Anne S. Bassett

Anne Susan Bassett is a Canadian psychiatrist, specifically in mental behaviour. She is a Full Professor and Canada Research Chair in Schizophrenia Genetics and Genomic Disorders at University of Toronto. Bassett is also a Clinician Scientist at CAMH and a Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute. As a result of her work in psychiatry, Bassett was awarded a Distinguished Fellowship from the American Psychiatric Association.


Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University

The Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University () is the third oldest medical school in Thailand located in Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai and is the first medical school in Thailand to be set up in a regional location outside Bangkok.
History.
The need for increased medical personnel in Thailand rose rapidly and the country only had two medical schools at the time which was the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital and Faculty of Medicine Chulalongkorn Hospital of the University of Medical Sciences (now Mahidol University). Therefore, the University and the Ministry of Public Health proposed the construction of the Faculty of Medicine Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital which was to be set up to spread medical education to more regional parts of Thailand. This was done in 1954 and in 1956 involved cooperation with United States Overseas Missions (USOM), providing the funding, equipment and technology for the medical school. The organisation of the faculty was approved by the cabinet on 12 December 1956 and construction was ordered by royal decree of King Bhumibol Adulyadej on 28 October 1959.
Chiang Mai University was then founded in 1964 by royal decree and officially opened on 24 January 1965. On 16 March 1965, the Faculty of Medicine was moved from the University of Medical Sciences to Chiang Mai University and so became the Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University.
As of the 2018 academic year, the Faculty of Medicine Chiang Mai University accepted 258 undergraduate students for the Medicine (MD) course.


Sharon Webb

Sharon Lynn Webb (born in Tampa, Florida on February 29, 1936; died in Blairsville, Georgia on April 29, 2010) was a science fiction writer and nurse.
Biography.
Born on Tampa, Florida on February 29, 1936, Sharon Lynn Webb began her career as a published author when one of her poems was published in a 1963 edition of "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction". Frequently writing under the pseudonym "Ron Webb" during the early part of her career, her work increased in frequency under her given name by 1979. Her works often concerned medical issues or advances in medicine. Along with science fiction she also wrote medically-oriented thrillers. Webb suffered a heart attack, and died in Blairsville, Georgia on April 29, 2010.


Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory

Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL) is an integral part of the Texas A&M University System. It consists of four lab locations spread across Texas; two full-service laboratories located in Amarillo and College Station and two poultry laboratories in Center and Gonzales.
Established in 1916 and formally created by the Sixtieth Texas Legislature in 1967, the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory contains some of the busiest full-service veterinary diagnostic laboratories in the world.
 TVMDL receives more than 160,000 cases in need of diagnostic assistance each year.
TVMDL has a major branch located in College Station, Texas on the Texas A&M University campus. It is not associated with the GI Lab|Texas A&M Gastrointestinal Lab, also located on the same campus. Both labs conduct veterinary diagnostic tests.
In 1981, Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory discovered a new strain of anthrax dubbed the Ames strain, which isolated from a diseased 14-month-old Beefmaster heifer that died in Sarita, Texas. This particular strain was later used in the 2001 anthrax attacks in which seven letters mailed to media outlets and US Senators on September 18, 2001 and October 9, 2001.


David W. Horohov

David W. Horohov is an American veterinary scientist and the current William Robert Mills Chair in Equine Infectious Diseases at University of Kentucky.


Allan Watt Downie

Allan Watt Downie FRS (5 September 1901 – 26 January 1988) was a Scottish microbiologist involved in the eradication of smallpox.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1955.
Downie bodies are named for him.


Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah

Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah, or Muhammed Ali, Wallajah (7 July 1717 – 13 October 1795), was the Nawab of Arcot in India and an ally of the British East India Company. Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah was born to Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan, by his second wife, "Fakhr un-nisa Begum Sahiba", a niece of Sayyid Ali Khan Safavi ul-Mosawi of Persia, sometime Naib suba of Trichonopoly, on 7 July 1717 at Delhi. Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah the Nawab of Arcot often referred to himself as the Subedar of the Carnatic in his letters and correspondence with the then Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II.
Official name.
His official name was "Amir ul Hind, Walla Jah, 'Umdat ul-Mulk, Asaf ud-Daula, Nawab Muhammad 'Ali Anwar ud-din Khan Bahadur, Zafar Jang, Sipah-Salar, Sahib us-Saif wal-qalam Mudabbir-i-Umur-i-'Alam Farzand-i-'Aziz-az Jan, Biradarbi Jan-barabar [Nawab Jannat Aramgah], Subadar of the Carnatic".
Life.
Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah was granted the titles of "Siraj ud-Daula", Anwar ud-din Khan Bahadur, and Dilawar Jang, together with the Subadarship of the Carnatic Payeen Ghaut and a mensab of 5,000 zat and 5,000 sowar, the Mahi Maratib, Naubat, etc. by Imperial firman on 5 April 1750.
He joined forces with Nasir Jung and the British in opposing Chanda Sahib, the French nominee for the Subadarship. He was defeated by the French at Gingee in December 1750, and fled to Trichnopoly for a second time. He received an Imperial firman confirming his possession of the Carnatic and appointing him as Naib to Viceroy of the Deccan, 21 January 1751.
Raised to the titles of Walla Jah and Sahib us-Saif wal-qalam Mudabbir-i-Umur-i-'Alam Farzand-i-'Aziz-az Jan by Emperor Shah Alam II in 1760, he was recognised by the Treaty of Paris as an independent ruler in 1763 and by the Emperor of Delhi 26 August 1765.
Sir John Macpherson, writing to Lord Macartney in November 1781 declared, "I love the old man...mind me to my old Nabob. I have been sending him sheep and bags of rice by every ship. It is more than he did for me when I was fighting his battles."
The Nawab was an ally of the British East India Company, but also harboured great ambitions of power in the South Indian arena, where Hyder Ali of the Mysore, the Marathas, and the Nizam of Hyderabad were constant rivals. The Nawab could also be unpredictable and devious, and his breach of promise in failing to surrender Tiruchirappalli to Hyder Ali in 1751 was at the root of many confrontations between Hyder Ali and the British.
When Hyder Ali swept into the Carnatic towards Arcot on 23 July 1780, with an army estimated at 86–100,000 men, it was not the Nawab, however, but the British who had provoked Hyder Ali's wrath, by seizing the French port of Mahé which was under his protection. Much of the ensuing war was fought on the Nawab's territory.
For the defence of his territory, the Nawab paid the British 400,000 pagodas per annum (about £160,000) and 10 out of the 21 battalions of the Madras army were posted to garrison his forts. The British derived income from his "jagirs" (land grants).
Political influence.
For a period the situation of the Nawab was a significant factor in Westminster politics. The Nawab had borrowed heavily; and many East India Company officials, in India or in the United Kingdom, were his creditors. Elections in the UK could be, and were, influenced by nabob money, with the result that a group of about a dozen Members of Parliament formed a discernible "Arcot interest", as it was called.
By the 1780s issues affecting Arcot were therefore having a direct impact on British politics: the debts of the Nawab mattered in domestic terms.
Death.
He died from gangrene poisoning, at Madras on 13 October 1795. He was buried outside the gate of the Gunbad of Shah Chand Mastan, Trichinopoly.
He was succeeded by his son Umdat ul-Umara, who was later accused of supporting Tipu Sultan the heir of Hyder Ali during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.


Franz Leopold Lafontaine

Franz Anton Leopold Lafontaine (14 January 1756 – 12 December 1812) was a military surgeon. He was known as the editor of the first Polish medical journal and for his work on catarrh.
Lafontaine was the maternal grandfather of Princess Julia of Battenberg. Through her, Lafontaine is an ancestor to Charles, Prince of Wales and other descendants of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in the British Royal Family, and also an ancestor to current members of the Spanish Royal Family, including King Felipe VI of Spain.


Shanti Roy

Dr. Shanti Roy is an Indian gynaecologist. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020.< She hails from the Gopalganj district of Bihar. She used to practice in Siwan but now practices in Patna.


Health Republic Insurance of New York

Health Republic Insurance of New York was a not-for-profit health insurance cooperative in New York State.
Health Republic was created as one of 23 Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, known as CO-OPs, established under the Affordable Care Act to increase competition in the marketplace and give consumers a voice in their healthcare. Health Republic began selling insurance plans to individuals and small groups, both on and off the NY State of Health marketplace, in October 2013.
During the 2013-2014 Open Enrollment period, Health Republic captured the largest marketshare on the New York State of Health marketplace. It became the largest CO-OP in the country during this period.
In September 2014, Health Republic members were able to vote for Member Directors on the CO-OP's Board of Directors, with nine members ultimately elected from across the state, making up a majority of the Board.
For 2015, Health Republic expanded its service area by 11 counties upstate to a total of 43 counties statewide; added two new products: an out-of-network plan for small groups and a higher-deductible plan for individuals; and expanded its provider network in the Albany area
On September 27, 2015, Health Republic announced that it would begin the processes of ceasing operations, effective immediately.


Medicaid Drug Rebate Program

The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program is a program in the United States that was created by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (OBRA'90).
The program establishes mandatory rebates that drug manufacturers must pay state Medicaid agencies related to the dispensing of outpatient prescription drugs covered by Medicaid. To participate in the program, drug manufacturers must have a National Drug Rebate Agreement with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As of 2020, approximately 600 pharmaceutics companies participated in the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program. Rebate amounts are confidential under section 1927(b)(3)(D) of the Social Security Act.
The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program also provides for savings in other Federal health care programs. Signing the National Drug Rebate Agreement also requires drug manufacturers to enter into agreements for the 340B Drug Pricing Program as well as the Federal Supply Schedule.
Rebate Methodology.
The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program provides for mandatory rebates on innovator drugs (e.g., brand drugs), blood clotting factors, drugs Food and Drug Administration-approved exclusively for pediatric indications, and non-innovator drugs (e.g., generic drugs). The maximum rebate is capped at 100% of the Average Manufacturer Price (AMP).
Innovator drugs.
The mandatory rebate is calculated as a base rebate plus an inflationary rebate. The base rebate is the greater of 23.1% of the AMP per unit, or the difference between the AMP and the "best price," defined as the best price given to most commercial insurers. The inflationary rebate as the difference between the AMP on the launch date compared with the current quarter and the United States Consumer Price Index-Urban.
Blood clotting factors and drugs FDA-approved exclusively for pediatric indications.
The mandatory rebate is calculated as a base rebate plus an inflationary rebate. The base rebate is the greater of 17.1% of the AMP, or the difference between the AMP and the best price. The inflationary rebate, when applicable, is calculated with the same methodology as for innovator drugs.
Non-innovator drugs.
The mandatory rebate is calculated as a base rebate plus an inflationary rebate. The base rebate is defined as 13% of the AMP. The inflationary rebate, when applicable, is calculated with the same methodology as for innovator drugs.
Historical Changes.
The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program has undergone a number of changes since its inception. For example, Section 606 of the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999 (BBRA) amended Section 1927(a)(1) allowing states to have the option of different rebate effective dates. This section states that agreements to the rebate program that have been entered on or after November 29, 1999 may go into effect that day, and states option, any date after up to the first day of the quarter.
The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and Medicaid Managed Care.
At the time the law was enacted, outpatient prescription drugs covered by Medicaid managed care organizations were excluded from access to the drug rebate program. In 1990, only 2.8 million people were enrolled in Medicaid managed care and so the savings lost by the exemption were relatively small. However, enrollment in Medicaid managed care plans has grown significantly.
The Drug Rebate Equalization Act of 2009 (DRE), introduced in the 111th United States Congress by Representative Bart Stupak as H.R. 904, and in the Senate by Senator Jeff Bingaman as S. 547, sought to equalize the treatment of prescription drug discounts between Medicaid managed care and Medicaid fee-for-service. In offering states access to rebates for drugs covered by Medicaid managed care plans, this policy was seen as a way to provide relief for federal and state budgets. The Congressional Budget Office scored the DRE as saving $11 billion over ten years. This proposal was also in President Barack Obama’s 2010 United States federal budget. The DRE passed in both the House and Senate as part of their respective comprehensive health care reform legislation, and was signed into law on March 23, 2010 by President Obama with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The DRE became effective upon enactment.


John Geier

John George Geier, III (Flint, Michigan; January 24, 1934 – September 26, 2009) was an American psychologist who worked extensively on the DISC assessment systems, which improve work/life performance. Dr. Geier had a 40-year career in the assessment process and was known as a pioneer and founder of personnel selection, training and research, and a leader of human assessment. During his career, he developed numerous assessment tools, including the DiSC Personal Profile System, and the Personality Factor Profile, used for more than 50 million people around the world and translated to more than 30 different languages.
Family background and early years.
John G. Geier III was born to John George Geier, Jr. (1900–1967) and Irene E. Bock (1911–1978). John III's father was of Volga-German extraction, and Irene was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
John III was a bright student who worked his way through college by assisting his father on painting jobs.
Education and career.
John G. Geier graduated from NWC with a major in speech (psychology minor). He excelled in speech and debate and served as senior class vice president. He chose Joshua 1:8 as his verse for the '58 yearbook: "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."
He earned a master in speech communication (educational psychology & statistics minor) and a Ph.D. in communication theory (organizational behavior/public administration minor) at the U of M While attending the university, he worked at NWC as an instructor, then as assistant to the president and director of public relations.
Dr. Geier's career included co-founder of the health ecology divisions, director of behavioral sciences and management education, and dean of the summer school at the University of Minnesota, dean of the extended university, University of Arizona, adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Graduate School of Business where he taught the internationally renowned Manager of Managers seminar, and work as a researcher, author and consultant.
His honors included Outstanding Teacher of the Year (health sciences), U of M; Distinguished Service Award, Citicorp Executive Development Center; and Special Appreciation Award, National Telemarketing Association. He conducted research for the U.S. Health Commission, U of M Medical School, Oldsmobile and IBM Corp.
Dr Geier's professional and community participation included founder/president of Outreach Home for the Mentally Retarded (now the Portland Residence), designer and instructor for sensitivity training courses for Minneapolis and Saint Paul police departments, and lead instructor for the Allie Q. Brown Afro-American Special School.


JAMA Ophthalmology

JAMA Ophthalmology (formerly Archives of Ophthalmology) is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering all aspects of ophthalmology. The editor-in-chief is Neil M. Bressler (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine). It is published by the American Medical Association, with which it has been affiliated since 1929.
History.
The journal was established in New York in 1869 as the "Archives of Ophthalmology and Otology", with a simultaneous German language version published in Karlsruhe, Germany, as "Archiv für Augen- und Ohrenheilkunde"; sometimes articles would be slightly different. The editors were Hermann Knapp (New York), who practiced both ophthalmology and otology, with greater emphasis on the eye, and the otologist Salomon Moos (Heidelberg). The journal obtained its current name in 2013.
Abstracting and indexing.
The journal is abstracted and indexed in:
According to "Journal Citation Reports", the journal has a 2019 impact factor of 6.198, ranking it 4th out of 60 titles in the category "Ophthalmology".


Courtney Nedwill

Courtney Nedwill (14 August 1837 – 10 April 1920) was a New Zealand doctor and public health officer. He was born in Ballyronan, County Londonderry, Ireland. He is said to have been "one of Christchurch's most prominent medical men for half a century".


Thomas Gisborne (physician)

Thomas Gisborne (died 1806) was President of the College of Physicians in 1791, 1794 and from 1796 to 1803.


NOG mouse

A NOG (NOD/Shi-"scid"/IL-2Rγnull) mouse is a new generation of severely immunodeficient mouse, developed by Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA) in 2000. The NOG mouse accepts heterologous cells much more easily compared with any other type of immunodeficient rodent models, such as nude mouse and NOD/"scid" mouse. Thus, the mouse can be the best model as a highly efficient recipient of human cells to engraft, proliferate and differentiate. This unique feature offers a great opportunity for enhancing therapy researches of cancer, leukemia, visceral diseases, AIDS, and other human diseases. It also provides applications for cancer, infection, regeneration, and hematology researches.
Origin.
The NOG mouse was generated in CIEA in 2000 by back-cross mating of C57BL/6J-IL-2Rγnull mouse that was originally developed by Kazuo Sugamura, a professor of Tohoku University, to NOD/Shi-"scid" mouse that was developed in CIEA.
Characteristics.
NOG mouse has multiple immunodeficiencies that are principally derived from three strains of mice: 1) NOD/Shi inbred strain, 2) SCID, 3) IL-2Rγnull. These include:


Herbert Barrie

Herbert Barrie (9 October 1927 – 20 March 2017), was a consultant paediatrician and a leading figure in neonatology. He was a pioneer in the emerging specialty of paediatrics and neonatal medicine; and he developed one of the first neonatal intensive care units in London.
In 1959 he was appointed as a senior registrar, then five years later as a senior lecturer, at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. It was here that he developed a profound interest in the care of premature infants. This was a time of rapid medical advances, particularly in respiratory support, that were at last making the survival of premature newborn babies a reality. Barrie pioneered advances in resuscitation of the newborn, publishing his seminal paper on the subject in The Lancet in 1963.
One of the concerns at this time was the worry that using high pressures of oxygen could be damaging to newborn lungs. Barrie developed an underwater safety valve in the oxygen circuit. The tubes were originally made of rubber, but these had the potential to cause irritation to sensitive newborn tracheas: Barrie switched to plastic, which was fashioned from a pre-cut roll and so had an inherent curvature. This plastic tube, based on his design, was known as the ‘St Thomas’s tube’.
In 1966 Barrie was appointed consultant paediatrician to Charing Cross Hospital in Fulham. At Charing Cross, Barrie continued his ground-breaking and pioneering work in the care of the preterm infant. He ran a renowned department and built his special care baby unit (SCBU): this neonatal unit became a hot bed of innovation and expertise.
At Charing Cross Hospital, Barrie was in charge of the paediatric research laboratory – here he conducted research into neonatal respiratory physiology and intensive care. He raised funds for an ambulance that could collect babies requiring intensive care from other hospitals and bring them back to Charing Cross; this was the first - and at the time the only - dedicated neonatal ambulance in the country. He was made head of the department of child health in 1983.
Barrie was an early member of the British Paediatric Association, which was to become the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. He was a founder member of the Neonatal Society and the British Association of Perinatal Medicine.
Book.
"Putting Tiny Patients First" "," a book edited and compiled by his son, describing Herbert Barrie's early life and his time in paediatrics, was released in 2018.


Diaverum

Diaverum is a provider of renal healthcare with about 430 clinics in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.
History.
Diaverum was originally part of the Swedish company Gambro, founded in Lund, Sweden in 1964. Gambro opened its first dialysis clinic in Lund in 1991. The clinic activities expanded under the name Gambro Healthcare and by 2005 the company managed 150 dialysis clinics worldwide. Gambro Healthcare was divested from Gambro in 2007 and taken over by Bridgepoint Capital, a major private healthcare investor in Europe, and the company management. The name Diaverum was adopted in 2008. Today, Diaverum is led by Dag Andersson, President and CEO and his executive team.
It established a contract with IWantGreatCare in 2012 to allow its customers to provide feedback. Responses are collected and analysed in multiple languages for an initial roll out covering the UK and Spain.
Since the Health and Social Care Act 2012 came into force in April 2013 the company has been awarded three British contracts worth at least £150m. In 2020 it won a contract to operate haemodialysis and outpatient services covering East Lancashire, North Lancashire and South Cumbria for seven years, on more accessible sites than were previously provided.
In 2020 the kidney dialysis centers market was expected to continue to grow at a continued Compound Annual Growth Rate of 3.3%. Diaverum is ranked as the global no.3 dialysis clinic operator after Fresenius Medical Care and DaVita Inc.
Service offer.
Diaverum describes itself as integrated renal care provider offering renal care from preventive and early stage to renal replacement therapies:
Medical research.
Diaverum also conducts clinical research, under the direction of the company's scientific director Giovanni FM Strippoli. The research focuses on preventing or minimising the risks for dialysis, making dialysis more effective, finding solutions to minimise risks of dialysis side effects, and finding proof of the efficacy of dialysis related drugs. The research has been published in international medical journals such as The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.


Joseph ben Judah of Ceuta

Joseph ben Judah ( "Yosef ben Yehuda") of Ceuta ( 1160–1226) was a Jewish physician and poet, and disciple of Moses Maimonides.
It is as an address to Joseph that Maimonides introduces his "Guide for the Perplexed".
Life.
For the first 25 years of his life ben Judah lived with his father, who was an artisan at Ceuta then part of the Almohad Empire.
He left the Maghreb when he was about twenty-five years old, and was already engaged in the practice of medicine. When not occupied with professional work he wrote Hebrew poems, which were known to Al-Ḥarizi, who speaks highly of them in his "Taḥkemoni". Maimonides, to whom Joseph sent his poems together with other compositions from Alexandria, was not so lavish with his praise. He appreciated only the great longing for higher studies which found expression in Joseph's poems.
Joseph went from Alexandria to Fustat (Cairo) and studied logic, mathematics, and astronomy under Maimonides. Maimonides likewise expounded the writings of the Prophets, because Joseph seemed perplexed as to the possibility of reconciling the teachings of the Prophets with the results of metaphysical research. Maimonides advised patience and systematic study; but the disciple left before Maimonides had completed his course of lectures on the Prophets. His stay with Maimonides was short: less than two years.
Joseph went further east and settled in Aleppo. Here he established himself as a medical practitioner, married, and made a successful commercial journey which enabled him to live henceforth independently and free from care. It was probably in the course of this journey that he witnessed at Baghdad the burning of the works of the philosopher 'Abd al-Salam (1192).
After Joseph's departure from Fusṭaṭ, the intercourse between master and student was continued in writing. Maimonides's "The Guide for the Perplexed" was written for Joseph and for those like him who found it difficult to harmonize the results of philosophical research with the teachings of the Prophets. Joseph, however, was not convinced; for he writes allegorically to his master as follows:
Maimonides replies in the same style, declaring the innocence of his daughter and the guilt of the husband; and he advises his disciple to have faith in God, and to be more modest and more careful in his utterances lest he bring evil upon himself.
Joseph remained, however, a true disciple of his master. He abandoned his other pursuits and wished to open a school. Maimonides dissuaded him from the undertaking, unless he should do it without seeking material profit from his teaching. When, thirty years later, Al-Ḥarizi visited Aleppo (1217) he found Joseph in the zenith of his glory. He praised him as the "Western light," and applied to him the words of Scripture, "and Joseph was ruler over the whole land; he supplied food for all". He must indeed have had great authority when he defended his master and silenced the opposition expressed by some rabbis in Baghdad against the works of Maimonides. Maimonides exhorted Joseph to moderation, begging him, being young in years, not to oppose an old rabbi whose authority was recognized in the congregation.
Joseph was twice married: by the first wife he had two daughters; by the second, several sons.
Works.
Joseph's poems are all lost except one in praise of Maimonides, and the beginning of another preserved by AlḤarizi.
His only other surviving work is a dissertation in Arabic on the problem of Creation. This appears (but is not certain) to have been written before his contact with Maimonides—the opinions attributed to philosophy are those of Avicenna.
It is entitled "Ma'amar bimehuyav ha-metsiut ve'eykhut sidur ha-devarim mimenu vehidush ha'olam" ("A Treatise as to (1) Necessary Existence (2) The Procedure of Things from the Necessary Existence and (3) The Creation of the World").
In it, as summarised by Sirat, "the necessity of God's existence is first demonstrated by Avicenna's proof of contingency, but this demonstration is, as the author says, that of the philosophers, and seems to him less convincing than that proposed by the theologians—the "mutakallimūn", who affirm not only the existence of a necessary being, but the temporal creation of the world, which cannot be deduced by philosophical demonstration. In effect, only divine choice and will can explain the multiplicity evident in the world, for out of an absolutely One and Only God only unity can necessarily proceed; the multiplicity that exists in fact is therefore an act of will and not the consequence of a necessary cause".
References.
 Its bibliography:


James Orbinski

James Jude Orbinski, (born 1960 in England) is a Canadian physician, humanitarian activist, author and leading scholar in global health. Orbinski was the 2016-17 Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of California, Irvine, and as of September 1, 2017, he is professor and inaugural director of the Dahdaleh Institute of Global Health Research at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was previously the CIGI Chair in Global Health Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Wilfrid Laurier University (2012-2017), Chair of Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (2010-2012) and full professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto (2003-2012), where he was the founding Saul Rae Fellow at Massey College. Orbinski’s current research interests focus on the health impacts of climate change, medical humanitarianism, intervention strategies around emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and global health governance.
After extensive fieldwork with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), in 1998 Orbinski was elected President of the International Council. He was MSF International Council president at the time the organization received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Orbinski is also co-founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of Dignitas International, a medical humanitarian organization researching and working with communities in the global south to increase access to life-saving treatment and prevention in areas overwhelmed by HIV/AIDS, and with Aboriginal communities in Canada to improve community based care for diseases such as diabetes. He is a strong advocate for increasing access to essential medicines for neglected diseases, particularly across vulnerable populations.
In 1998, Orbinski received the Governor General's Meritorious Service Cross for his work as the MSF Head of Mission during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In 2009, Orbinski became an Officer of the Order of Canada and in the citation was recognized by the Governor General of Canada as a humanitarian practitioner and advocate for those who have been silenced by war, genocide and mass starvation.
He lives in Guelph, Canada with his wife and their three children.
Education and career.
Orbinski attended Dawson CEGEP in Montreal, received a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Trent University (1984), a medical degree from McMaster University Medical School (1990), and a master's degree in international relations from the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies (1998).
Following medical school, Orbinski held a Medical Research Council of Canada fellowship to study pediatric HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 1991, he began working internationally with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). After his first mission in Peru, Orbinski served as MSF’s Medical Coordinator in Baidoa during the Somali Civil War and famine of 1992-93, and in Jalalabad, Afghanistan during the winter of 1994. He was subsequently MSF’s Head of Mission in Kigali during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and in Goma, Zaire during the refugee crisis in 1996-97.
Orbinski was elected President of the International Council of MSF from 1998 to 2001. As international president of MSF, he represented the organization in numerous humanitarian emergencies and on critical humanitarian issues including in the Sudan, Kosovo, Russia, Cambodia, South Africa, India and Thailand, among others. Orbinski also represented MSF at the UN Security Council, in many national parliaments, to the World Health Organization, as well as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to MSF for its pioneering approach to medical humanitarianism, and most especially for its approach to bearing witness. As MSF International Council president, he allocated the Nobel Prize money to launch MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines that year.
On September 11, 2001, Orbinski was in Lower Manhattan to present at a UN meeting on Neglected Tropical Diseases. He witnessed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and participated in relief efforts for injured people ferried across the Hudson river.
From 2001 to 2004 Orbinski co-chaired MSF's Neglected Diseases Working Group, which created and launched the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi). The DNDi is a global not-for-profit research consortia focused on developing treatments for tropical diseases of the developing world that are largely neglected by profit driven research and development companies. Since its inception, the DNDi has engaged significant international advocacy for neglected tropical diseases, and moreover developed and disseminated two antimalarial treatments, one new treatment against sleeping sickness, one new treatment against Visceral leishmaniasis, a set of treatments for Visceral leishmaniasis in Asia, and a pediatric dosage formulation for Chagas Disease. These new drugs are now available to millions of people. DNDi also has a development portfolio of over 30 lead compounds targeting neglected diseases.
In 2004, Orbinski became a research scientist at St. Michael's Hospital and professor of both medicine and political science at the University of Toronto. The medical journal The Lancet recognized one of his co-authored papers on HIV/AIDS treatment adherence as among the 20 most significant medical research papers of that year (2006). Another 2002 paper in The Lancet that he co-authored analyzing the lack of research for neglected diseases has been recognized as "one of the most important scholarly articles that shaped scholarship in the field of global health in the post Second World War years."
Orbinski was promoted to full Professor of Medicine in 2010 at the University of Toronto. From 2012 to 2017, he was CIGI Research Chair in Global Health at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and Professor of International Policy and Governance at the Wilfrid Laurier University. Orbinski was the 2016-2017 Fulbright Visiting Professor on Health at University of California, Irvine. As of September 1, 2017 he is professor and inaugural director of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University, in Toronto, Canada.
He remains closely associated with the University of Toronto, as founding Saul Rae Fellow at Massey College, Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, and as Professor of Medicine at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Books and films.
Orbinski's best-selling 2008 book, 'An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the 21st Century', recounts his experiences as a physician working for MSF throughout the 1990s, including a "harrowing personal account" as MSF Chief of Mission in Rwanda during the genocide. It also explores the political context for medical humanitarianism, and some of the challenges for humanitarianism in the 21st Century. 'An Imperfect Offering' has been translated into five languages and has won the Writers' Trust of Canada's 2009 Shaughnessy Cohen Award for best political writing in Canada. It was also one of five books nominated for the 2008 Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award in non-fiction, and was selected as one of National Public Radio’s 2008 Top Five Political & Current Affairs Books.
Orbinski is the subject of the award-winning 2005 CBC documentary 'Evil Revisited', which documented his visit to Rwanda on the tenth anniversary of the genocide, his first such visit since the violence' He was also the subject of the award-winning and internationally acclaimed documentary film on medial humanitarianism, 'Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma', which follows Orbinski's return to Somalia, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Triage" was screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and won the Amnesty International Gold Medal Award. It was released in theatres across Canada in the fall of 2008, and was televised in Canada and the US in 2009. In 2011 'Triage' was incorporated into the "War and Medicine" at the Canadian War Museum.
Activist.
Orbinski was a co-founder of McMaster University's Health Reach Program that investigates and promotes the health of children in war zones, and he was a founding member of MSF Canada in 1990. In 2004, he co-founded Dignitas International, a hybrid medical/research non-government organization focusing on transforming global health for the most vulnerable. Dignitas remains at the forefront of addressing chronic and extreme humanitarian vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. It is also committed to continuing to improve health systems and the quality of patient care, and to the transformational power of research. Through a 12-year partnership with the Malawi Ministry of Health, more than 1.4 million people have been tested for HIV infection, and more than 270,000 people have been started on treatment for AIDS in three hospitals and in 165 remote village based clinics in the southern region of Malawi. Dignitas trains more than 500 Malawian health care workers a year, and maintains an extensive and ongoing research platform. It has published more than fifty major research papers, many of which have transformed patient care, health systems, and health policy. As of 2014 and in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, and the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority, Dignitas has also established an Aboriginal Health Partners Program focused on the health needs of First Nations Communities in Northern Ontario, Canada. Since 2017, Dignitas has committed to exploring, defining and participating in a research collaboration on the health impacts of climate change.
Orbinski is also a founding board member of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, the Stephen Lewis Foundation and Canadian Doctors for Medicare. A founding board member of the editorial boards of Open Medicine and Conflict and Health, he also sits on the editorial board of Ars Medica. Orbinski additionally serves on the advisory boards of Global Policy, Engineers Without Borders (Canada), The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal. He is a member of the Climate Change and Health Council and the Davos World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Health Care Systems and Cooperation. He was an invited member of the UNEP Scientific Steering committee on Disaster Preparedness and early Warning for Extreme Weather, and in 2011 the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences Expert Panel on Canada’s Strategic Role in Global Health. As of 2011, he is an honorary director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) and sits on several global health-related advisory boards.
Honours.
For his medical humanitarian leadership in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, Orbinski was awarded the Meritorious Service Cross in 1997, Canada’s highest civilian award. His citation reads:
In 2009, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his contributions as a physician who has worked to improve health care access and delivery in developing countries, and as an advocate for those who have been silenced by war, genocide and mass starvation". In 2010 he was appointed to the Order of Ontario.
In 2011, Orbinski was the recipient of the Walter S. Tarnopolsky Human Rights Award (conferred by the Canadian Superior Court Judges Association, the International Commission of Jurists Canada, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Canadian Association of Law Teachers), recognizing his contributions to domestic and international human rights. That year, he was the Mark Wainberg lecturer at the Canadian Association for HIV Research Conference. Orbinski was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, the University of California Human Security Award in 2015, and the Teasdale Corti Award in 2016, given by Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, recognizing his contributions to medicine and humanitarianism.
In 2001, Orbinski was awarded the honorary degree, Doctor of Laws, from Trent University. He was awarded a second honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Windsor in 2006. In 2007, he received a Doctor of Laws from Queen's University and in 2009, was awarded an additional two honorary degrees from the University of Calgary and Laurentian University, at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine's charter class graduation. In 2012 he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Alberta. Orbinski received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from St Francis Xavier University in 2014, and the Loyola Medal from Concordia University in 2017.
Personal.
Orbinski is an avid canoeist and lives in Guelph, Ontario with his wife and their three children, aged 16, 14 and 11.


Georg Ludwig Kobelt

Georg Ludwig Kobelt (March 12, 1804 in Kehl – May 18, 1857) was a German anatomist. He studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg, where he was a student of Friedrich Tiedemann (1781–1861). He received his medical doctorate in 1833, later working as a prosector at Heidelberg. From 1841 he was a prosector at the University of Freiburg, subsequently becoming an associate professor (1844), followed by a full professorship in anatomy a few years later (1847).
Kobelt is remembered for his studies in sexual anatomy. In 1844, he published the influential "Die männlichen und weiblichen Wollust-Organe des Menschen und einiger Säugetiere" ("The Male and Female Organs of Sexual Arousal in Man and some other Mammals"). Kobelt is credited for providing a comprehensive and accurate description of the function of the clitoris. ]
The eponymous "Kobelt's tubules" are named after him, which are remnants of mesonephric ducts in the paroophoron. These remnants are sometimes referred to as Wolffian tubules, named after Caspar Friedrich Wolff (1733–1774).


Naval Medical Research Unit Three

Naval Medical Research Unit Three (NAMRU-3) is a biomedical research laboratory of the US Navy located in Sigonella, Italy. Previously it was located in Cairo, Egypt. NAMRU-3 is the oldest US overseas military medical research facility that has remained in the same location, and one of the largest medical research laboratories in the North Africa-Middle East region. The laboratory has been in continuous operation despite periods of political tension and a seven-year lapse in U.S.-Egyptian relations (1967–1973) since 1942.
NAMRU-3 is the first overseas Department of Defense research laboratory to receive the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Laboratory Accreditation for infectious diseases clinical diagnostics. NAMRU-3 is the only research institution in North Africa with an AAALAC International (Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International) accredited animal research facility and is one of only two institutions in Africa with a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory. Animal research conducted at NAMRU-3 is subject to approval by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and is focused on tropical viral, bacterial and parasitic diseases; infection of blood-feeding arthropods; and tissue harvesting techniques training. In addition to these assets, NAMRU-3 has modern laboratory spaces, a centralized medical library and access to the US National Library of Medicine. All human research conducted by NAMRU-3 is conducted under supervision of duly constituted Institutional Review Boards (IRBs).
Mission.
NAMRU-3's mission is to study, monitor, and detect emerging and re-emerging disease threats of military and public health importance; develop mitigation strategies against these threats in partnership with host nations and international and U.S. agencies in CENTCOM, EUCOM, and AFRICOM areas of responsibility. NAMRU-3 basic science, epidemiologic, and clinical investigations have included numerous tropical and subtropical infectious diseases such as enteric diseases, acute respiratory infections, hepatitis, tuberculosis, meningitis, HIV, and various parasitic, rickettsial, and arboviral infections that are endemic and important public health problems to the region.
The modern mission of the NAMRUs is threefold:
NAMRU-3 collaborators include the Egyptian Ministry of Health, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). NAMRU-3 has been a WHO Collaborating Center for HIV/AIDS since 1987. NAMRU-3 also serves as a WHO reference laboratory for influenza and meningitis in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) and is in the process of being recognized as an Avian Influenza reference laboratory by WHO. Research partnerships exist with the countries of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Syria, Sudan, and the Republics of Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan.
History.
NAMRU-3 was informally established in Egypt in 1942 when the U.S. Typhus Commission placed a research laboratory staffed by American military scientists and technicians to work with Egyptian physicians adjoining Abbassia Fever Hospital, Cairo, Egypt, thus averting a serious typhus outbreak in the city during and following World War II. After the war, the U.S. Navy was invited by the Egyptian Government to study, prevent, and control epidemic diseases and diseases endemic in subtropical areas and NAMRU-3 was formally established by the Secretary of the Navy in the same buildings formerly occupied by the Typhus commission in 1946.
Working with the Egyptian ministry of Health, initial diseases studied included brucellosis, cholera, meningitis, schistosomiasis, smallpox and tick-borne illnesses. Dr. Harry Hoogstraal founded the Department of Medical Zoology in 1949 and amassed the world's largest collection of ticks at NAMRU-3, almost 600 unique species from over 160 countries. The lab has played a critical role in understanding several diseases. In 1962 NAMRU-3 investigators described the natural infection cycle of West Nile fever, which involves mosquitoes and birds as primary vectors and hosts. NAMRU-3 through a collaboration with the WHO in the early 1970s was instrumental in developing typhoid and Group A Meningococcal meningitis vaccines. In 2000, NAMRU-3 successfully investigated the first outbreak of Rift Valley fever outside Africa in Yemen.
In 1965 NAMRU-3 opened an Addis Ababa Detachment in Ethiopia and a collecting station in Gambela, Ethiopia and in the early 1970s a similar detachment in the Sudan focusing on malaria and leishmaniasis research. The Ethiopian detachment would go on to become NAMRU-5 in 1974. In 1967 a break in U.S.-Egyptian relations required all US diplomats to leave the country. The commanding officer was allowed to return after several months and from 1967-1974 an Egyptian co-director and the unit's Egyptian staff ran the laboratory's functions and research receiving supplies through the Embassy of Spain. In 1983 a $10 million six story biosciences building was constructed on the grounds. In the 1990s NAMRU-3 pioneered studies into prophylaxis of traveler's diarrhea with norfloxacin and treatment with ciprofloxacin and lopramide.
In 1998, NAMRU-3 became part of the newly reorganized Naval Medical Research Center.
NAMRU-3 began conducting joint malaria research projects with Ghana in 1995 and established a detachment there in 2001 with the aim of preparing skills and facilities for malaria vaccine trials. In 1999, the US Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections System (GEIS) program was established which expanded NAMRU-3's mandate to include public health activities and capacity building in host countries. In 2001 NAMRU-3 was recognized as a WHO Collaborating Center for Emerging/Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases. From 2001-11 NAMRU-3 conducted 69 disease outbreak investigations in 25 different countries. In 2007 NAMRU-3 established a detachment at Camp Lemonnier Djibouti for diarrheal disease surveillance.
References.
Navy Research timeline
Hibbs RG Jr. NAMRU-3: forty-six years of infectious disease research.
Relocation to Sigonella


Grenz rays

Grenz rays are part of the electromagnetic spectrum comprising low energy (ultrasoft) X-rays. These were first investigated by Gustav Bucky in 1923 using a cathode vacuum tube with a lithium borate glass window, which he labeled Grenz rays as he believed that the biological effects resembled those of UV light and traditional X-rays and hence were on the border between the two ("Grenz" = border in German). These rays are also known as Bucky rays.
Grenz rays are produced by specially calibrated X-ray machines generally operating in the 10 to 30 kV range to produce X-rays with HVL less than 0.035 mm in aluminum. (HVL is half-value layer, and refers to a thickness of a given material that will cut the X-ray flux by 50%). Grenz rays are absorbed by air and therefore treatments must be given at fixed distances for which the machine has been calibrated. In human tissue Grenz rays have a half-value depth of 0.5 mm and are essentially absorbed within the first 2 mm of skin. The exact mechanism of action is unknown but it does have effects on the Langerhans cells in the epidermis.
Uses.
Grenz rays are indicated for treatment of eczema, psoriasis, palmoplantar pustulosis, neurodermatitis, pruritus ani and pruritus vulvae. They have been reported to be helpful for lichen planus, Grover's disease, Darier's disease, Hailey–Hailey disease and histiocytosis X. Grenz rays have also been used for treatment of actinic keratosis and Bowen's disease.


John Franklin Witter

John Franklin Witter (1906-1982) was a veterinarian specialist in avian medicine as well as a researcher and professor at the University of Maine, Orono.
Frank Wittner was born on June 11, 1906, in Frederick, Maryland, the eighth of nine children to Harry and “Jennie” (Mary Catherine Virginia) Miller Witter. He was raised on a farm, and his father was a professional livestock showman. Wittner was admitted into the University of Maryland in College Park where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture in 1928. In 1929, Witter enrolled in the veterinary school at Michigan State College in East Lansing and upon graduating in 1932 was immediately offered a faculty position at the University of Maine, eventually becoming the head of the newly created Department of Animal Pathology in 1953. As a faculty member, he published many papers on poultry health and pathology. He served as president and secretary-treasurer of the Maine Veterinary Medical Association. He retired in 1971. The new J. Franklin Witter Animal Science Center was named in his honor in 1974, as well as one of the Orono-Old Town Kiwanis Club auction barns. Witter died on September 29, 1982.


Dell Medical School

The Dell Medical School is the graduate medical school of The University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas. The school opened to the inaugural class of 50 students in the summer of 2016 as the newest of 18 colleges and schools on the UT Austin campus. S. Claiborne "Clay" Johnston, M.D., Ph.D., was named as the medical school's inaugural dean in January 2014.
In accordance with the Medical District Master Plan released in 2013, the University's portion of the medical district is being constructed in four phases. The new medical campus includes the Health Transformation Building, Health Learning Building, Health Discovery Building and Health Center Garage. They sit on existing University property at the southeastern corner of the central campus, adjacent to the UT School of Nursing and to the Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas—the new $295 million, 211-bed teaching hospital that Seton Healthcare built.
In late 2011, Texas Senator Kirk Watson created a list of ten health-care centered goals he hoped to achieve within ten years for his Central Texas district. Number one on that list was to build a medical school. In May 2012, the Board of Regents allocated $25 million of annual funding to a UT Austin medical school, plus another $40 million spread over eight years for faculty recruiting. In November 2012, Travis County voters approved a proposition to raise property tax revenue in support of health care initiatives for Central Texas, including $35 million annually for a medical school. The school refused to fill out the U.S. News statistical survey, so it is unranked for both Research and Primary Care by "US News & World Report".
The medical school is named after the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, which has pledged $50 million over ten years to the school.


Heavy chain disease

Heavy chain disease is a form of paraproteinemia and plasma cell dyscrasia that involves the proliferation of cells producing immunoglobulin heavy chains.
This disease is characterized by an excessive production of heavy chains that are short and truncated. These heavy chain disease proteins have various deletions, mainly in their amino-terminal part, which causes the heavy chains to lose the ability to form disulfide bonds with the light chains. The defect in the immunoglobulins presumably arises during somatic hypermutation. Deletion of the N-terminal part of the heavy chain disease protein leads to aggregation and signaling of the B cell receptor, presumably due to the loss of the anti-aggregating properties of the light chain.
Classification.
There are four forms:
IgA/αHCD.
The most common type of heavy chain disease is the IgA type, known as αHCD. The most common type of αHCD is the gastrointestinal form (known as immunoproliferative small intestine disease or IPSID), but it has also been reported in the respiratory tract, and other areas of the body.
IgG/γHCD.
Franklin's disease (gamma heavy chain disease)
It is a very rare B-cell lymphoplasma cell proliferative disorder which may be associated with autoimmune diseases and infection is a common characteristic of the disease. It is characterized by lymphadenopathy, fever, anemia, malaise, hepatosplenomegaly, and weakness. The most distinctive symptom is palatal edema, caused by nodal involvement of Waldeyer's ring.
Diagnosis is made by the demonstration of an anomalous serum M component that reacts with anti-IgG but not anti-light chain reagents. Bone marrow examination is usually nondiagnostic.
Patients usually have a rapid downhill course and die of infection if left untreated or misdiagnosed.
Patients with Franklin disease usually have a history of progressive weakness, fatigue, intermittent fever, night sweats and weight loss and may present with lymphadenopathy (62%), splenomegaly (52%) or hepatomegaly (37%). The fever is considered secondary to impaired cellular and humoral immunity, and thus recurrent infections are the common clinical presentation in Franklin disease. Weng et al. described the first case of Penicillium sp. infection in a patient with Franklin disease and emphasized the importance of proper preparation for biopsy, complete hematologic investigation, culture preparation and early antifungal coverage to improve the outcome.
The γHCD can be divided into three categories based on the various clinical and pathological features. These categories are disseminated lymphoproliferative disease, localized proliferative disease and no apparent proliferative disease.
IgM/μHCD.
The IgM type of heavy chain disease, μHCD, is often misdiagnosed as chronic lymphoid leukemia (CLL) because the two diseases are often associated with each other and show similar symptoms.


Toe walking

Toe walking refers to a condition where a person walks on their toes without putting much weight on the heel or any other part of the foot. Toe walking in toddlers is common. These children usually adopt a normal walking pattern as they grow older. If a child continues to walk on their toes past the age of three, they should be evaluated by a doctor.
Toe walking can be caused by different factors. One type of toe walking is also called "habitual" or "idiopathic" toe walking, where the cause is unknown. It should only be diagnosed after all other conditions have been excluded. Other causes include a congenital short Achilles tendon, muscle spasticity (especially as associated with cerebral palsy) and paralytic muscle disease such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. A congenital shortening of the Achilles tendon can be hereditary, can take place over time as the result of abnormal foot structure which shortens the tendon, or can shorten over time if its full length is not being used. Toe walking is sometimes caused by a bone block located at the ankle which prevents the antagonist movement, dorsiflexion. This cause is often associated with trauma or arthritis. It may also be one way of accommodating a separate condition, foot drop. Persistent toe walking in children has been identified as a potential early sign of autism.
It is estimated that 5% of healthy children are diagnosed with idiopathic toe walking. Idiopathic toe walking has also been found to be more prevalent in males than females when tested with very large numbers of children. This study looked for family history of toe walking and the connection to children demonstrating idiopathic toe walking (ITW).There 64.2% of children with ITW who were male and 348 children with a positive family history of toe walking. This means idiopathic toe walking may have a genetic link. In 30–42% of children with idiopathic toe walking, a family link has been observed.
Cause.
Unknown.
Idiopathic toe walking is always bilateral (or on both sides) and has no orthopedic or neurological cause. It is diagnosed after if it continues past the age of three. In this condition, children are able to voluntarily walk with the typical heel-toe pattern, but prefer to walk on their tip toes. In order for it to be considered idiopathic, the child's medical history should be clear of any neurological, orthopedic, or neuro-psychiatric conditions including other gait abnormalities. It is thought to be related to sensory processing challenges.
Two classifications of idiopathic toe walking have been established. The Alvarez's classification identifies the severity of the dysfunction based upon kinematics and ankle rockers. The Pomarino classification identifies the toe walking according to the individual's specific characteristics and characterizes them into three types based on the signs presented.
Cerebral palsy.
Studies have been performed to determine the source of the association between toe walking and cerebral palsy. One study suggests that the toe walking—sometimes called an equinus gait—associated with cerebral palsy presents with an abnormally short medial and lateral gastrocnemius and soleus—the primary muscles involved in plantarflexion. A separate study found that the gait could be a compensatory movement due to weakened plantarflexion muscles. In people who have cerebral palsy and toe walk, there is greater plantarflexion force required for normal heel-to-toe walking than for toe walking. When typically developing children are tasked to perform different types of toe walking, their toe walking could not reduce the force to the levels that children who toe walking with cerebral palsy have when they walk. This suggests that toe walking associated with cerebral palsy may be due to abnormally weakened plantarflexion that can only manage toe walking.
Diagnosis.
A doctor will typically evaluate if the toe walking affects both or one leg, what the child's range of motion is (how far they can flex their feet) and perform a basic neurological exam. Treatment will depend on the cause of the condition.
Treatment.
For idiopathic toe walking in young children, doctors may prefer to watch and wait: the child may "outgrow" the condition. There are limited treatments that demonstrate long term walking change. But there are treatments that can change the length of muscles in the short term.
For toe walking which results from more serious neuro-muscular conditions, additional specialists may need to be consulted.


Golan Maaka

Golan Haberfield Maaka (4 April 1904 – 17 May 1978) was a New Zealand doctor. Of Māori descent, he identified with the Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāi Tahu iwi. He was born in Takapau, Hawke's Bay Region, New Zealand on 4 April 1904. He was educated at Te Aute College, Dannevirke High School, and the University of Otago. He was one of New Zealand's first full-time Māori general practitioners (GP).


Fatma Hajiyeva

Fatma Rasim gizi Hajiyeva (, born September 15, 1979) is a Doctor of Philosophy in Medicine, Head of the gynecology department of the Scientific Research Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Biography.
Fatma Hajiyeva was born on September 15, 1979 in Marneuli. She studied at Azerbaijan Medical University in 1995–2001. In 2019, she was awarded the title of Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology by the Supreme Attestation Commission under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.


Cindy Jackson

Cindy Jackson is an aesthetic consultant, author and television personality.
Biography.
Jackson is British-American based in England since 1977. ABC News reported in 2011 that Jackson had undergone a former world-record 52 cosmetic treatments, including tooth whitening, filler injections, AHA peels, Botox, three face-lifts and liposuction," among others, with a total value of over $60,000. After 17 years in the Guinness Book of Records, Jackson lost her world record for having the most cosmetic procedures in the world. As a member of Mensa, Jackson has stated that the operations she has undergone have changed her life.


Lateral supracondylar ridge

The lateral supracondylar ridge is a prominent, rough margin on the lower part of the lateral border of the humerus. It presents an anterior lip for the origin of forearm extensors, including the brachioradialis muscle above, and the extensor carpi radialis longus muscle below. It also presents a posterior lip for the triceps brachii, and an intermediate ridge for the attachment of the lateral intermuscular septum.
Clinical significance.
The lateral supracondylar ridge may be broken in a supracondylar humerus fracture, common in children.


Claude Dufourmentel

Claude Dufourmentel (1915–2012) was a plastic surgeon from Paris who described a skin flap for reconstructing rhomboid defects in 1962. This flap has been commonly referred to as the "Dufourmentel flap." He was the son of Léon Dufourmentel.


Ankur Kalra

Ankur Kalra is an Indian interventional cardiologist and research scholar specialised in advanced interventional and structural cardiology, cardiovascular disease, and internal medicine.
Kalra serves as an interventional cardiologist in the Section of Invasive and Interventional Cardiology and Medical Director of Clinical Research in the Section of Regional Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, and Section Head of Cardiovascular Research at Cleveland Clinic Akron General. He is also the Associate Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, and NEOMED (Adjunct Associate Professor).
Education.
Ankur Kalra obtained his graduate medical education (MBBS) at Indira Gandhi Medical College (Shimla, India) in 2005. Later in 2009, he left medical training at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, AIIMS (New Delhi, India) to pursue further training in the United States of America. In 2012, he completed residency in internal medicine from Cooper University Hospital (Camden, NJ).
Kalra became a fellow in cardiovascular disease at Hennepin County Medical Center and Minneapolis Heart Institute (Minneapolis, MN), clinical fellow in interventional cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston, MA), and a clinical fellow in medicine at the Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA). He then completed a year of advanced interventional and structural cardiology fellowship at Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center, Houston Methodist Hospital (Houston, TX).
Research and career.
Kalra’s research interests and specialties include Interventional Cardiology, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, Clinical Cardiology, Health Economics, Health Policy, Aortic Stenosis, Aortic Regurgitation, Arterial Diseases - "blocked arteries' and Valvular Heart Disease.


John Pearce (actor)

John Pearce (November 27, 1927 - April 29, 2000) was an American theater, television and film actor, as well as occasional stuntman.


Foundation Programme

The UK Foundation Programme is a two-year structured programme of workplace-based learning for junior doctors that forms a bridge between medical school and specialty training. The programme aims to provide a safe, well-supervised environment for doctors to put into practice what they learned in medical school. It provides them with the generalist medical knowledge and skills to meet the requirements of the General Medical Council (GMC) The New Doctor (2007) and the Foundation Programme Curriculum (2007) and prepares them for entry into specialty training. All medical graduates must undertake, and complete the Foundation Programme in order to work as a specialist or a general practitioner in the UK.
The programme was first proposed by England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson in 2002 in his document Unfinished Business and replaces the old Pre-Registration House Officer year and the first year of the Senior House Officer grade. Introduced as part of a series of initiatives under the Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) umbrella, the programme aims to ensure that foundation doctors develop and enhance their clinical and generic skills at the same time as exploring a range of career options.


Alfred George Barrs

Alfred George Barrs, M.D., F.R.C.P. Hon. LL.D (1853 - 28 February 1934) was a physician and professor of medicine. He was among the first medical professionals to identify a link between tuberculosis and pleural effusions.
Life and education.
Alfred Barrs was born in Leicester in 1853, the son of John Barrs. He was educated at his local grammar school and completed his medical training at Guy's Hospital and the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with a M.B.Ed. in 1875, followed by a M.D. in 1882. In 1884 he became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians (M.R.C.P.) and became a Fellow (F.R.C.P.) in 1897. His doctoral thesis "On adherent pericardium of rheumatic origin, with cases" was written in 1883.
Barrs was married to Alice Bywater Nelson, daughter of Henry Nelson, solicitor. She died in 1897. They had no children.
Career.
Alfred Barrs moved to Leeds in 1879, having previously worked in junior positions at Guy's Hospital. After becoming M.R.C.P. in 1884, he was appointed assistant physician at Leeds General Infirmary, becoming a full physician in 1892 and remaining in this position for twenty years. The areas he worked in included cardiac disease, publishing a paper in the British Medical Journal on the subject in 1892, and dermatology, looking after the dermatological patients as a junior physician. He also submitted four water color drawings to the Dermatological Society of London. In 1890 he published a paper on the tubercular origins of some pleural effusions, one of the first medical professionals to link the two. As well as publishing articles in journals such as the BMJ and British Journal of Dermatology, Barrs also edited Braithwaite's Retrospect of Medicine.
Barrs taught Physiology at Leeds University (he was the university's first Demonstrator of Physiology) before becoming Chair of Medicine from 1899 to 1910, when he became Professor of Clinical Medicine. In 1904, when the university gained its charter (it had previously been Yorkshire College), he became its first representative to the General Medical Council. He was elected emeritus professor of medicine in 1921 and, on the centenary of Leeds medical school in 1931, was awarded an honorary L.L.D. in recognition of his services to medicine.
World War I.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Alfred Barrs served in the medical division of the 2nd Northern General Hospital at Beckett Park, Leeds, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. The hospital was a former teacher training college and was converted into a hospital on the outbreak of war. It treated around 57,000 soldiers during the course of the war.


Capita

Capita plc (), commonly known as Capita, is an international business process outsourcing and professional services company headquartered in London.
It is the largest business process outsourcing and professional services company in the UK, with an overall market share of 29% in 2016, and has clients in central government, local government and the private sector. It also has a property and infrastructure consultancy division which is the fourth largest multidisciplinary consultancy in the UK. Roughly half of its turnover comes from the private sector and half from the public sector. Whilst UK-focused, Capita also has operations across Europe, Africa and Asia.
Capita is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
History.
Capita was formed in 1984 as a division of the non-profit CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy). In 1987 it became an independent company with 33 staff as a result of a management buy-out, led by Rod Aldridge, and was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1991.
In March 2006, Executive Chairman Rod Aldridge resigned in the aftermath of claims that contracts awarded to the Group were influenced by his loan of £1 million to the Labour Party. Aldridge resigned saying that he denied the claims, but to avoid any lingering doubts about it, he was leaving the company. Aldridge had overseen the company's growth from a small company in 1987 to a FTSE 100 member in 2006. He was replaced by his longtime associate Paul Pindar.
In February 2007, a Capita office in Victoria, London was subject to a letter bomb attack. One person was injured.
On 2 October 2009, one of Capita's businesses (Capita Financial Group) announced plans to move some of its operations from London to Leeds.
On 1 July 2011, Capita acquired Ventura, a customer contact specialist for a cash consideration of £65 million.
On 28 February 2013, Capita bought the Fire Service College from the Department for Communities and Local Government for £10 million.
In 2014 Pindar stepped down as chief executive. He was replaced by Andy Parker.
The company acquired Avocis, a German call centre business, in 2015, Orange Bus, a specialist digital interaction agency, in 2016 and NYS Corporate events and travel agency in 2017.
In October 2017, the company announced that former Amec Foster Wheeler CEO Jonathan Lewis would take over as CEO from 1 December 2017 following departure of Andy Parker. After completing an initial assessment, on 31 January 2018 Lewis announced a profits warning, dividend suspension, a £700 million rights issue, cost cutting and a disposals programme, as net debts were predicted to hit £1.15 billion and a pensions deficit reached £381 million. The announcement knocked 47% off Capita's shares, reducing its market value by over £1.1 billion. The share price slide continued the following day, losing a further 13%. On 3 April 2018, Capita shares fell 6% to a 20-year low after British Airways decided to retain in-house operation of two UK call centres rather than award contracts to run them to Capita.
On 23 April 2018, Capita launched a cash call to raise £701m and reported a £513m loss for the previous financial year. On 1 August 2018, Capita announced its profits in the six months to 30 June had dropped to £80.5m (from £195m in the same period in 2017), while revenues were down 4% to £1.98bn; the company's shares fell almost 9% after markets opened, to 148p a share.
Following Lewis's appointment, the company embarked on a "multi-year strategy" to turn around the company. In May 2019 the company became the first FTSE 250 company in 30 years to appoint rank-and-file workers to its board. Lyndsay Browne, a chartered accountant and finance manager, and Joseph Murphy, a project manager in the real estate division, beat competition from other internal candidates to become the first workers' representatives on the Capita board.
In September 2019 the company announced that it was re-branding as a "purpose-led" living wage employer, changing its logo for the first time in 13 years. The company said that from April 2020 it will pay all 40,000 of its employees an independently verified "real living wage". This will involve a pay rise for almost 6,000 employees. The rates, which are set at the basic income needed to cover the real cost of living, are overseen by the Living Wage Commission.
Operations.
Consultancy division.
In July 2019 the company announced that it was launching a consultancy arm. The new division will employ around 1,000 consultants and compete with the likes of Accenture, Deloitte and KPMG.
Healthcare recruitment.
Capita entered the healthcare recruitment market during May 2011 through acquisition of Team24, a healthcare recruitment specialist owned by Robert Stiff - extending the services offered within the recruitment industry.
Capita Financial Administrators.
In 2006 Capita Financial Administrators (CFA) was fined £300,000 by the Financial Services Authority for having poor anti-fraud controls. The division provides administration services for third parties and the Capita Group.
Legal Services.
Capita also intended to enter into the legal services market and entered into a funding arrangement with the Law Firm Optima Legal Services Limited which saw them, in the period between May 2006 to the end of 2009 invest a total of £36,700,000 by way of investment loans into Optima. As part of the funding arrangement Capita Group had the option of acquiring the shares of Optima Legal Services for the nominal sum of £1 upon the full implementation of the Legal Services Act 2007 which would make ownership of law firms by the likes of Capita possible. It is thought that such Alternative Business Structures ("ABS") could be lawful around October 2011. However, on 9 August 2010 it was reported that the Solicitors Regulatory Authority ("SRA") had found that the arrangement breached its rules in that it effectively amounted to an ABS. As a consequence, Optima Legal Services Lead Litigation and Property Partners, Philip Robinson and Anthony Ruane respectively were both severely reprimanded by the SRA for what was found to be professional misconduct and only narrowly avoided referral to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and Adrian Lamb, former CEO of Optima Legal Services Limited, left the business in June 2010.
Constructionline.
In 1998, Capita won the contract to run Constructionline, the newly created Public-Private Partnership owned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). In January 2015, Capita acquired Constructionline outright from BIS for £35m. Three years later, on 31 January 2018, Capita announced it wanted to sell Constructionline as part of a transformation programme including disposal of non-core assets and cost cutting. In June 2018, it was reported that Constructionline had been sold to private equity investor Warburg Pincus for £160m.
NHS Services.
In June 2014 it was reported that at least five of eight Liverpool NHS Trusts which had contracted their payroll and recruitment to Capita in 2012 were withdrawing because of concerns about the quality of the service provided. Several NHS trusts contracted with the company for human resources services. West London Mental Health NHS Trust cancelled their contract in September 2014 after the company proved "unable to meet acceptable 'time to hire' targets", particularly for nurses. At the same time Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust terminated their contracts.
In November Mersey Care Trust revealed that "information governance issues" had been uncovered when the services were taken back in-house. Details of staff at other Merseyside trusts were sent to Liverpool Community Health Trust's HR department.
The company was awarded a 4-year contract to become sole provider of administrative services including payment administration, management of medical records and eligibility lists of practitioners for GPs, opticians and dentists across the UK by NHS England in June 2015. In July 2016 it was reported that there was "a large backlog of unprocessed correspondence relating to patients". It was earlier reported that the company was unable to deal "effectively" with the movement of paper records between practices.
In 2015, an undercover investigation by "The Daily Telegraph" showed that in some cases locum agencies, Medicare and Team24 owned by Capita were charging some hospitals higher fees than others and giving false company details. The agencies were charging up to 49% of the fee. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt criticised agencies who sought "big profits" at the expense of the NHS and taxpayers and promised to "reduce the margins rip-off agencies are able to generate."
The company established Primary Care Support England in September 2015, replacing former regional services provided by each local health authority. The new service was described as shambolic by the Local Optical Committee Support Unit and the Optical Confederation. A deal was negotiated to enable optician practices to claim interest, administrative costs and bank charges on late payments of General Ophthalmic Services fees by Capita. In August 2016 a survey of GPs found 85% were missing records of recently registered patients, 65% had experienced shortages of clinical supplies or delays in deliveries, and 32% had suffered from missed or delayed payments. Delays in the payment of GP trainees' salaries were also reported. The situation was repeated in October 2017 with "The Guardian" reporting that "hundreds" of trainee GPs had not been paid. Capita was unable to say how many were affected in what the Cameron fund - a GP hardship charity - blamed on "another botched privatisation." Inadequacies by Capita may have put patients at risk. The National Audit Office maintains almost 90 women were told incorrectly they were no longer in the cervical screening programme. Patients could have been at risk due to trouble with the 'performers list' a list of NHS dentists, GP's and opticians. "The failure to update performers lists may have compromised patient safety in cases where practitioners should have been removed," the report authors maintained. Roughly 1,000 dentists, doctors and opticians could not work in 2016 due to delays processing new applications. Further failures included a backlog of 500,000 patient registration letters, failure to deliver medical supplies, and patients' medical records being lost or delayed.
In March 2019 Simon Stevens announced that the cervical screening programme administration they had been running would be brought back in house.
Irish postcodes.
In 2014, Capita were awarded the contract to introduce postcodes to the Republic of Ireland. The Irish communications minister has welcomed the implementation saying that the Irish code is the first in the world to be unique to each individual address. The scheme was launched in July 2015.
The emergency services have expressed concern that the new system may lead to responders having difficulty getting to incidents. Further, the Irish Data Protection Authority has raised concerns over the design of the code as information about individuals will be made more accessible. Liam Duggan, CEO of Capita Ireland stated at a Government enquiry in 2014 that they had thoroughly tested the new system for unsuitable words and even used a game of Scrabble for this purpose.
The project is generally running to programme and budget: roll out, which was originally planned to start in March 2015, will now take place in "mid-2015" and the cost, which was originally budgeted at €25 million has increased to €27 million.
Ministry of Defence Services.
In 2012, Capita was awarded a 10 year long recruiting contract for the British Army, worth £1.3 billion. However, they have been greatly criticised, as they failed to meet the army's recruiting target every year up until 2020, with the shortfall ranging between 21% and 45% every single year. According to the National Audit Office one of the main failings of the contract was the new recruiting website, that was delivered in 2017- four years late and three times the original cost. In 2020, the contract was extended for two further years, meaning that it will now terminate in 2024. The Public Accounts Committee stated that Capita entered into the contract without "understanding the complexity of what it was taking on."
In 2019, Capita won a 12-year contract to operate the Defence Fire and Rescue Service, at 53 sites across the UK, Cyprus, and the Falkland Islands, in a deal worth £525 million. The deal also saw Capita take over all the work of the Defence Fire Training and Development Centre and transfer it to the national Fire Service College- including Royal Air Force firefighter training. However, Capita once more was subject to criticism when it proposed to cut firefighter numbers at HMNB Clyde and RNAD Coulport, two nuclear warhead facilities, by 15% less than two years after the contract was awarded. This was described as a purely cost-cutting measure, as the firm is set to request the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to backfill the gaps in response.
In 2020, an industry consortium led by Capita, called "Fisher Training" won a contract to deliver shore-based training to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines at 16 sites across the UK. The consortium is composed of Capita, Raytheon UK, Elbit Systems UK, and Fujitsu, and the contract is worth up to £2 billion.
Criticism.
Capita Group has not been received well by the public and in the media. It has gained the nickname "Crapita", particularly from the coverage in the satirical and current affairs magazine "Private Eye", which routinely documents the company's many failures and setbacks in the public sector.
It was revealed in January 2013 that Capita was embroiled in a scandal over misinforming people that they had to leave the UK as they had no valid visa. One such person was, in fact, the holder of a UK passport.
In 2014, a leak to "The Guardian" revealed that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had to send civil servants in to help the company process personal independence payments for the seriously ill and the disabled. "Waiting times for assessment," the newspaper noted, "have been so long that in some cases people with terminal conditions have died before receiving a penny."
The 2015 sale of a government research operation charged with overlooking food safety to Capita has been criticized by Tim Lang, an advisor to the UK government and the WHO on food safety issues. Arguing that a for-profit operation will be under pressure to ignore low-paying projects vital to public safety and the environment, he indicates that there is no profit in public research concerning food and biodiversity or food and pesticide residues, and predicts "commercial concerns will skew Fera's priorities"
Former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron questioned how Atos and Capita could have been paid over £500m from taxpayers money for assessing fitness to work as 61% who appealed won their appeals. Farron stated, "This adds to the suspicion that these companies are just driven by a profit motive, and the incentive is to get the assessments done, but not necessarily to get the assessments right. They are the ugly face of business."


Sadashiva S. Karnik

Sadashiva "Sadu" Karnik is an Indian-born American molecular biologist who is a Professor in the Molecular Medicine Department of Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. He is also head of the Karnik-lab at the Lerner Research Institute of Cleveland Clinic.
Early life and education.
Sadu Karnik earned a B.Sc. degree in botany, zoology and chemistry from Sri Poornaprajna College, Udupi in 1973 and a M.Sc. degree in Clinical Biochemistry by research from Kasturba Medical College, Manipal. He entered the Indian Institute of Science, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology Bengaluru in 1976 for doctoral studies on Mycobacteriophage in the laboratory of Prof. K.P Gopinathan. His post-doctoral studies were on Bacteriophage Qβ at the laboratory of molecular biologist Martin Billetter of the ETH Institute for Molecular Biology, University of Zurich, Switzerland. He later joined the laboratory of Har Gobind Khorana at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study disulfide-bonding in integral membrane proteins. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1995.
Career.
Karnik started his independent laboratory at the Cleveland Clinic research foundation as assistant staff studying Angiotensin receptor molecular biology and was promoted to full-staff in 2002. In 2000 he received conjoint appointment as professor of chemistry and biology at Cleveland State University (CSU), Cleveland, OH, and in 2003, he became Professor (non-tenure track) of Molecular Medicine in the newly accredited Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM) at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. His research programs have been supported by National Institutes of Health funding continuously for the past 25 years.
Research.
The Karnik-lab is known for first reporting of constitutive activation, atypical G protein coupling, biased ligand signaling, X-ray structure of antihypertensive drug bound angiotensin receptor, and structure-based allosteric ligand of Angiotensin receptors. These discoveries facilitated the development of novel transgenic models of cardiovascular diseases, β-arrestin biased agonists, next generation antihypertensive drugs and novel structures of GPCRs. His current research is aimed at developing novel allosteric ligand drugs for intervention in Preeclampsia due to autoimmunity and Hyperaldosteronism due to adrenal hyperplasia. In 1986 Sadu Karnik and colleagues at MIT reported that production of a functional, light sensing-state of rhodopsin depended on formation of a unique disulfide bond that is conserved in >90% GPCRs. The Karnik-lab at Cleveland Clinic extended this finding to other hormone and neurotransmitter GPCRs including β-adrenegic and Angiotensin Receptors.
Awards and honors.
Karnik won several fellowships including the Junior Research Fellowship of the Indian Institute of Science, Department of Science Technology (India) Senior Research Fellowship and the Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship.


Albert Dastre

Albert Dastre (7 November 1844 – 22 October 1917) was a French physiologist born in Paris.
He studied and worked under Claude Bernard (1813–1878) and Paul Bert (1830–1886) in Paris and attained the chair of general physiology at the Sorbonne in 1886. In 1904, Dastre became a member of the Académie des Sciences. One of his better-known assistants was Romanian physiologist Nicolae Paulescu (1869–1931), who was the discoverer of insulin.
Dastre specialized in the field of physiological chemistry. He is remembered for his studies of glycosuria and diabetes, as well as for his investigations involving the proteolytic properties of blood. In 1893, he introduced the term "fibrinolysis", to define a process involving the spontaneous dissolution of blood clots.
Among his written works was a philosophic and scientific treatise on life and death titled "La Vie et la Mort". In 1878–79, he edited and published "Leçons sur les Phénomènes de la vie communs aux animaux et aux végétaux", a work composed by his former mentor, Claude Bernard. With his colleague Jean-Pierre Morat (1846–1920), the "Dastre-Morat Law" is derived, a dictum which states that "constriction of the body's surface blood vessels is usually accompanied by dilation of vessels of the viscera, and vice versa".


Bacterial patterns

The formation of patterns in the growth of bacterial colonies has extensively been studied experimentally. Resulting morphologies appear to depend on the growth conditions. They include well known morphologies such as dense branched morphology (DBM) or diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA), but much complex patterns and temporal behaviour can be found.
A large number of studies on pattern formation in bacterial colonies have been performed in "Bacillus subtilis" and in "Proteus mirabilis". Mathematical modeling of colony growth can reproduce the observed morphologies and the effect of environmental changes. Employed models include:
Colonies of Bacillus subtilis.
Colonies of Bacillus subtilis on a Petri dish can grow under controlled conditions. By varying agar concentration (which permits the control of the hardness of the medium), and the nutrient concentration, the response of the colony to external stresses can be studied. The different morphologies appear in the following growth conditions:
A complete morphological diagram can then be drawn by varying growth conditions.
These different morphologies can be obtained from a reaction-diffusion model. This kind of model is useful to assess which mechanisms are relevant for the different morphologies. The complete morphological diagram can be obtained by using two fields, density of bacteria and nutrient concentration, and taking into account that bacteria can increase motility in response to adverse external conditions. That means that diffusion in the medium and the response of bacteria are the relevant factors in this particular case.
External links.
Some more images of patterns in bacterial growth can be found in:


Jack Block

Jacob "Jack" Block (April 28, 1924 – January 13, 2010) was a psychology professor at UC Berkeley. His main areas of research were personality theory, personality development, research methodology, personality assessment, longitudinal research, and cognition. He often collaborated with his wife Jeanne Block.
His most renowned body of work, undertaken primarily with his wife, was a longitudinal study on a cohort of more than 100 San Francisco Bay Area toddlers. He studied them regularly for nearly 30 years. Unlike most longitudinal studies, the Blocks' focused on the psychological makeup and history of the subjects, rather than quantitative measures such as IQ. The study tracked how the subjects' background influenced their later choices and the outcomes of their lives.
Block was born in Brooklyn, New York, and received a bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College. He earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1950. He received many awards over the years and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
One of Block's studies drew particular notice in the news media. Published in "The Journal of Research in Personality" in 2006, it found that subjects who at 3 years old had seemed thin-skinned, rigid, inhibited and vulnerable tended at 23 to be political conservatives. On the other hand, 3-year-olds characterized as self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating and resilient were inclined to become liberals.


Institute for Public Health Sciences

The Institute for Public Health Sciences at Yeshiva University provides research and training opportunities for faculty, students, and researchers interested in public health and preventive medicine, consolidating university resources in these areas and creating new programs, including a Master of Public Health degree. The institute emphasizes public health research with a particular focus on the behavioral determinants of health, global health issues, and health disparities.
In addition to Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University programs involved include Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Wurzweiler School of Social Work, and Sy Syms School of Business.
The institute is directed by Sonia Suchday and Paul R. Marantz.


James Cyriax

James Henry Cyriax (October 27, 1904 – June 17, 1985) was a British doctor known as the "father of orthopedic medicine." His work is influential in the areas of sports medicine and physical therapy.
The son of two doctors, he qualified for membership and licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1929 and was appointed house surgeon of orthopedic surgery at St. Thomas' Hospital in London, where he worked for 40 years. He went on to develop a system of clinical exams to diagnose and treat soft tissue lesions, indicated by assessing body movements; this was his most well-known contribution to medicine. In 1943, he earned the Heberden prize for his essay on the pathology and treatment of elbow sprains. He founded the Association of Manipulative Medicine and later the Cyriax Foundation, which has since shut down, to promote orthopedic medical education.
He was appointed a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1954. Later in his career, he was a visiting professor at the University of Rochester in the United States. He was considered a controversial figure during his lifetime both for his personality and his views on medicine.
Cyriax developed a series of simple objective clinical exams that would effectively diagnose soft tissue musculoskeletal lesions. His collected results, after many years of trial and error, coalesced into a set of systematic simple clinical exams for each joint and a treatment system for the soft tissue lesions around each joint. Cyriax's Rule states that pain with both active range of motion and passive range of motion in the same direction points to inert tissue dysfunction (ligament, capsular, cartilage). Pain with active range of motion in one direction and pain with passive range of motion in the opposite direction signal contractile tissue dysfunction.
Cyriax's papers are held at the Wellcome Library.