AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER SWIMMER

This work was motivated by the goal of building a robot capable of swimming on a microscopic scale by changing its shape. Two approaches to low Reynolds number swimming are studied. A deformable sphere is investigated which uses a method of construction called tensegrity to allow changes in shape. We found a method of matching tensegrity spheres to desired shapes and investigated the use of shape memory alloy coils as tensile elements. We propose a model for a box-shaped deformable swimmer, and a prototype is built and tested. The negative results from the prototype tests are then investigated by measuring the drag forces caused by pushing different block sizes through high viscosity fluid. Based on our experimental results we validate our approach and recommend design modifications for a second generation robot

Saving lives through health information; African leadership and partnership

Reliable and timely health information saves lives. Health librarians are crucial to providing access and their effectiveness is enhanced by networks and partnerships. Demonstrable benefits are emerging through a tried and tested model for leadership and partnership working. Longstanding relationships between three pan African bodies Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA), the Information Training & Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA) and Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) have become more strategic through Phi promoting African leadership as a key strand of its strategy and through the partners formalising their partnership. ITOCA, whose established role in capacity building is well respected in the profession, and AHILA whose professional development and advocacy work culminates in biennial congresses bringing together health information professionals to share and learn from one another, and Phi have strengthened their alliance and enhanced their impact through working more closely together under Memorandum of Understanding agreements signed in October 2011. A member of ITOCA staff now serves as Phi coordinator for Africa; and as AHILA coordinator, providing a much needed secretariat to support AHILA Executive. This alliance is paying dividends in enabling easy and speedy communication and collaborative working across all three partners, whose combined networks provide a unique source of knowledge and expertise. Two examples, both with roots in IFLA initiatives, demonstrate the need for such a model and the gaps the partnership works to address. In October 2012 an African led workshop ‘Public Access to Health Information (PAHI); training for Trainers’ sponsored by Phi and AHILA and supported by ITOCA, was held at the AHILA Conference in Cape Verde. In November 2012 a week- long workshop on resource management was held in Lusaka coordinated by Phi and delivered by ITOCA. On the final day, the President of AHILA played a key role, and an adaptation of the IFLA Building Strong Library Associations workshop was held at which the Zambian chapter of AHILA was revitalized

Acceptability of medical digital libraries

Evidenced-based medicine has increased the importance of quick accessibility to reputable, up-to-date information. Web-accessible digital libraries (DLs) on the wards can address the demand for such information. The use and acceptability of these resources has, however, been lower than expected due to a poor understanding of the context of use. To appreciate the social and organizational impacts of ward-accessible DLs for clinicians, results of a study within a large London-based hospital are presented. In-depth interviews and focus groups with 73 clinicians (from pre-registration nurses to surgeons) were conducted, and the data analysed using the grounded theory method. It was found that clinical social structures interact with inadequate training provision (for senior clinicians), technical support and DL usability to produce a knowledge gap between junior and senior staff, resulting in information - and technology - hoarding behaviours. Findings also detail the perceived effectiveness of traditional and digital libraries and the impact of clinician status on information control and access. One important conclusion is that increased DL usability and adequate support and training for senior clinicians would increase perceptions of DLs as support for, rather than replacement of, their clinical expertise

Tamoxifen for prevention of breast cancer: extended long-term follow-up of the IBIS-I breast cancer prevention trial

© Cuzick et al. Open Access article distributed under the terms of CC BY.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(14)71171-

Action Without Awareness: Reaching to an Object You Do Not Remember Seeing

BACKGROUND: Previous work by our group has shown that the scaling of reach trajectories to target size is independent of obligatory awareness of that target property and that "action without awareness" can persist for up to 2000 ms of visual delay. In the present investigation we sought to determine if the ability to scale reaching trajectories to target size following a delay is related to the pre-computing of movement parameters during initial stimulus presentation or the maintenance of a sensory (i.e., visual) representation for on-demand response parameterization. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Participants completed immediate or delayed (i.e., 2000 ms) perceptual reports and reaching responses to different sized targets under non-masked and masked target conditions. For the reaching task, the limb associated with a trial (i.e., left or right) was not specified until the time of response cuing: a manipulation that prevented participants from pre-computing the effector-related parameters of their response. In terms of the immediate and delayed perceptual tasks, target size was accurately reported during non-masked trials; however, for masked trials only a chance level of accuracy was observed. For the immediate and delayed reaching tasks, movement time as well as other temporal kinematic measures (e.g., times to peak acceleration, velocity and deceleration) increased in relation to decreasing target size across non-masked and masked trials. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results demonstrate that speed-accuracy relations were observed regardless of whether participants were aware (i.e., non-masked trials) or unaware (i.e., masked trials) of target size. Moreover, the equivalent scaling of immediate and delayed reaches during masked trials indicates that a persistent sensory-based representation supports the unconscious and metrical scaling of memory-guided reaching