Analyzing Baseline Phase Data

2021 ◽  
pp. 31-56
Author(s):  
Charles Auerbach

This chapter discusses the analysis of the baseline phase. The baseline serves as the comparison for information collected during subsequent phases. It allows the researcher or practitioner to determine if the target behaviors are changing in a desirable or undesirable direction. Two different types of baselines are presented, concurrent and reconstructed. In a concurrent baseline, data are collected simultaneously, while other assessment activities are being conducted. A reconstructed baseline is an attempt to approximate naturally occurring behavior based on memories or case records. Issues related to comparing phases are discussed and illustrated, including stability of the baseline, trending data, and autocorrelation (or serial dependency). Guidance is provided on how each of these can be assessed and addressed, including the transformation of highly autocorrelated data. Examples are provided throughout to illustrate each concept.

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (9) ◽  
pp. 1387-1404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karishma Biswas ◽  
Humaira Ilyas ◽  
Aritreyee Datta ◽  
Anirban Bhunia

Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs), within their realm incorporate a diverse group of structurally and functionally varied peptides, playing crucial roles in innate immunity. Over the last few decades, the field of AMP has seen a huge upsurge, mainly owing to the generation of the so-called drug resistant ‘superbugs’ as well as limitations associated with the existing antimicrobial agents. Due to their resilient biological properties, AMPs can very well form the sustainable alternative for nextgeneration therapeutic agents. Certain drawbacks associated with existing AMPs are, however, issues of major concern, circumventing which are imperative. These limitations mainly include proteolytic cleavage and hence poor stability inside the biological systems, reduced activity due to inadequate interaction with the microbial membrane, and ineffectiveness because of inappropriate delivery among others. In this context, the application of naturally occurring AMPs as an efficient prototype for generating various synthetic and designed counterparts has evolved as a new avenue in peptide-based therapy. Such designing approaches help to overcome the drawbacks of the parent AMPs while retaining the inherent activity. In this review, we summarize some of the basic NMR structure based approaches and techniques which aid in improving the activity of AMPs, using the example of a 16-residue dengue virus fusion protein derived peptide, VG16KRKP. Using first principle based designing technique and high resolution NMR-based structure characterization we validate different types of modifications of VG16KRKP, highlighting key motifs, which optimize its activity. The approaches and designing techniques presented can support our peers in their drug development work.


Development ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-372
Author(s):  
C. H. Waddington ◽  
Margaret Perry

Several authors have studied the effects on developing embryos of substances which are analogues of naturally occurring amino-acids and purines, and known to act, in other systems, as metabolic inhibitors. It was emphasized by Waddington, Feldman, & Perry (1955) that any particular substance may exhibit very different effects in embryos of different types. They found, for instance, that the purine analogue 8-azaguanine has a very strong action in the chick and a much lesser one in the newt embryo. It is therefore necessary to consider the various classes of embryos separately. In this communication we shall be concerned only with chick embryos. Substances under test can be administered to such embryos by injection through the shell, as was done in the paper cited above With this technique it is impossible to know how much diffusion takes place of the substance injected, and one cannot therefore be certain of the effective concentration which actually reaches the embryo.


2019 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Spickett ◽  
K. Junker ◽  
G. Froeschke ◽  
V. Haukisalmi ◽  
S. Matthee

Abstract Currently, descriptive information on the host range and geographic distribution of helminth parasites associated with naturally occurring rodents in South and southern Africa is scant. Therefore, we embarked on a countrywide study to: (1) identify gastrointestinal helminths and their host range, and (2) provide baseline data on the geographic distribution of helminths across the country. Altogether, 55 helminth taxa were recovered from at least 13 rodent species (n = 1030) at 26 localities across South Africa. The helminth taxa represented 25 genera (15 nematodes, nine cestodes and one acanthocephalan). Monoxenous nematodes were the most abundant and prevalent group, while the occurrence of heteroxenous nematodes and cestodes was generally lower. The study recorded several novel helminth–host associations. Single-host-species infections were common, although multiple-host-species infections by helminth species were also recorded. Monoxenous nematodes and some cestodes were recovered countrywide, whereas heteroxenous nematodes were restricted to the eastern regions of South Africa. The study highlights the as yet unexplored diversity of helminth species associated with naturally occurring rodent species and provides initial data on their geographical distribution in South Africa.


1947 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 821-826

Abstract 1. Information received from rubber manufacturers on their experience of the effects of manganese and copper on aging is summarized. Although there is evidence that the amounts of these impurities in fillers tended to increase during the early war years (1939–42), it seems to be the general experience that little trouble arose from their effects on the properties of the rubber. Fillers containing as much as 0.05–0.10 per cent of manganese, or 0.005 per cent of copper, have not shown any obvious harmful effects. 2. Experiments with a large number of manganese compounds, including naturally occurring (mineral) forms and salts of organic acids, used in amounts equivalent to 0.01 per cent manganese on the raw rubber, have failed to show any pronounced harmful effect on the aging (oven or oxygen bomb) of a vulcanized natural rubber containing mercaptobenzothiazole, although deterioration was noticeably accelerated in some cases. Probably on account of the smallness of the effects observed, it is not possible as yet to draw any conclusion as to the relative activities of different types of manganese compound. 3. According to results of previous workers, manganese in the amount used in the present experiments can produce a more serious effect than these experiments indicate. The effect of manganese is known to depend on the type of mix used, and this aspect of the problem would thus appear to merit further investigation, as does also the influence of the method and degree of dispersion of the manganese compound in the rubber mix.


1977 ◽  
Vol 55 (10) ◽  
pp. 1345-1350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel F. Alvarez ◽  
Fields W. Cobb Jr.

Nine different types of mycorrhizae were observed on naturally occurring white fir seedlings in the north central Sierra Nevada, including one formed by the ubiquitous Cenococcum graniforme. The macro- and micro-scopic characteristics and reactions to different chemical reagents are described for five types. Possible mycorrhizal fungi of white fir are listed. Nursery-grown seedlings examined were ectomycorrhizal; intracellular penetration was not observed. None of the naturally occurring mycorrhizal types were found on nursery seedlings.


1984 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Baker

The colonization rates of substrates, differing in their surface charge and asperity, have been determined in a temperate river. Glass, which has a high surface charge, was colonized by the natural bacterial population just as fast as polystyrene with a low surface charge. However, roughening the surface of either substrate greatly increased the rate of bacterial colonization. On the roughened surfaces bacteria did not selectively colonize cavities or grooves and current velocity was not an important factor. It is suggested that different sections of the naturally occurring bacterial population are the initial colonizers of different types of surface.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-395
Author(s):  
Ruth Osimk-Teasdale ◽  
Nora Dorn

This paper reports on some issues encountered when using various ‘external points of reference’ in the development of POS-tagging guidelines for the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE). VOICE is a corpus of spoken English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) containing naturally occurring, plurilingual data. As in all kinds of natural language use, speakers recorded in VOICE exploit available linguistic resources, often resulting in non-codified language use and language which is difficult to classify unambiguously. However, detailed tagging solutions for such phenomena are rarely reported. We discuss usefulness and limitations of external points of reference with regard to their suitability for POS-tagging VOICE and address methodological as well as practical issues, especially the handling of non-codified language use and different types of ambiguities. We suggest that the solutions found, and the theoretical approach adopted, could be relevant for the tagging of other spoken corpora.


Antibiotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 981
Author(s):  
Firzan Nainu ◽  
Andi Dian Permana ◽  
Nana Juniarti Natsir Djide ◽  
Qonita Kurnia Anjani ◽  
Rifka Nurul Utami ◽  
...  

The rapid increase in pathogenic microorganisms with antimicrobial resistant profiles has become a significant public health problem globally. The management of this issue using conventional antimicrobial preparations frequently results in an increase in pathogen resistance and a shortage of effective antimicrobials for future use against the same pathogens. In this review, we discuss the emergence of AMR and argue for the importance of addressing this issue by discovering novel synthetic or naturally occurring antibacterial compounds and providing insights into the application of various drug delivery approaches, delivered through numerous routes, in comparison with conventional delivery systems. In addition, we discuss the effectiveness of these delivery systems in different types of infectious diseases associated with antimicrobial resistance. Finally, future considerations in the development of highly effective antimicrobial delivery systems to combat antimicrobial resistance are presented.


Author(s):  
Perran A. Ross ◽  
Neda Nematollahi ◽  
Anne Steinemann ◽  
Spas D. Kolev ◽  
Ary A. Hoffmann

Abstract Common fragranced consumer products, such as cleaning supplies and personal care products, emit chiral compounds such as limonene that have been associated with adverse effects on human health. However, those same compounds abound in nature, and at similar concentrations as in products, but without the same apparent adverse human health effects. We investigated whether different types of limonene may elicit different biological effects. In this study, we investigated the mortality rate of mosquito larvae in response to changes in their environment. Specifically, we tested different sources of naturally occurring R-limonene and chemically synthetized limonene, containing one of its enantiomeric forms (R-, S-) in mortality bioassays with Aedes aegypti mosquito larvae. We found that a natural source of limonene extracted from oranges induced lower mortality of mosquito larvae compared to synthetic sources at the same concentration. However, enantiomeric forms did not differ in their effects on mortality. Our results provide novel evidence that natural sources of a chemical can cause lower rates of mortality than synthetic sources.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 711-716
Author(s):  
Maruti Chowdary Bathula ◽  
Saisantosh Vamshi Harsha Madiraju

The vital physical characteristics of aggregates used in engineering and for interpretation of the genesis of naturally occurring sediment are shape and size of rocks. The mineralogical and physical composition of the rock is necessary to cater to the interaction within bounded space and soundings. Several image processing programs are available to measure the size and shape of various types of objects. The accuracy and reproducibility of the results of these imaging methods could be bettered. This paper aims to determine the aggregate dimension and volume to space behaviors through image processing tools. This study is extended investigation of the coarse aggregate shape properties such as area, volume, center of gravity (CG), elongation and flakiness index. Also, this paper discuss the development of an easy to use image processing tool to determine the shrinkage of soils due to lack of moisture content either because of natural ways/artificial ways. Two different types of soils including first sample near the SNU lake and second sample near Business Management School at Shiv Nadar University (SNU), India were collected. The samples were oven-dried over a period and shrinkage values were determined by Digital Image Processing (DIP) using MATLAB. The results are compared to wax-water method (manual method) results of shrinkage. The properties found by DIP method are reasonably agreeable for multiple aggregates and minor percentage differences in the soil shrinkage results.


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