The management of ocular allergy in community pharmacies in the United Kingdom

Background Ocular allergies frequently present in pharmacy practices. However, research into the actual management of ocular allergy in pharmacies is lacking. Objective To determine and quantify history and symptom questioning of a patient with presumed allergic conjunctivitis and management strategies employed by pharmacy staff in the UK. Method A mystery shopper technique was used to simulate an episode of allergic conjunctivitis in 100 community pharmacies across the UK. Results The mean number of questions asked by pharmacy staff to the patient was 3.5 ± 2.6, with a range of 0-10. The most common question was whether the patient had a history of allergies (45 %).Ninety-one percent advised on treatment, with the remaining 9 % directly referring to the patient's general practitioner (n = 4) or pharmacist(n = 4), but only two to their optometrist. The most common treatment suggested was sodium cromoglycate 2 % (50 %). However, many pharmacies advising treatment did not ask the patient's age (37 %), if they wore contact lenses (43 %), or gave dosage advice (43 %). Only 5 % of pharmacies advised follow up and 14 % suggested visiting a general practitioner and 1 % an optometrist if symptoms did not resolve with treatment. Conclusion There is a need for improved ophthalmological training for pharmacy staff with respect to the management of allergic conjunctivitis. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012

Towards the integration of functions, relations and types in an AI programming language

This paper describes the design and implementation of the programming language PC-Life. This language integrates the functional and the Logic-oriented programming style and feature types supporting inheritance. This combination yields a language particularly suited to knowledge representation, especially for application in computational linguistics

L-systems in Geometric Modeling

We show that parametric context-sensitive L-systems with affine geometry interpretation provide a succinct description of some of the most fundamental algorithms of geometric modeling of curves. Examples include the Lane-Riesenfeld algorithm for generating B-splines, the de Casteljau algorithm for generating Bezier curves, and their extensions to rational curves. Our results generalize the previously reported geometric-modeling applications of L-systems, which were limited to subdivision curves.Comment: In Proceedings DCFS 2010, arXiv:1008.127

Recycling bins, garbage cans or think tanks? Three myths regarding policy analysis institutes

The phrase 'think tank' has become ubiquitous – overworked and underspecified – in the political lexicon. It is entrenched in scholarly discussions of public policy as well as in the 'policy wonk' of journalists, lobbyists and spin-doctors. This does not mean that there is an agreed definition of think tank or consensual understanding of their roles and functions. Nevertheless, the majority of organizations with this label undertake policy research of some kind. The idea of think tanks as a research communication 'bridge' presupposes that there are discernible boundaries between (social) science and policy. This paper will investigate some of these boundaries. The frontiers are not only organizational and legal; they also exist in how the 'public interest' is conceived by these bodies and their financiers. Moreover, the social interactions and exchanges involved in 'bridging', themselves muddy the conception of 'boundary', allowing for analysis to go beyond the dualism imposed in seeing science on one side of the bridge, and the state on the other, to address the complex relations between experts and public policy

Super-distributed RFID Tag Infrastructures

With the emerging mass production of very small, cheap Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, it is becoming feasible to deploy such tags on a large scale. In this paper, we advocate distribution schemes where passive RFID tags are deployed in vast quantities and in a highly redundant fashion over large areas or object surfaces. We show that such an approach opens up a whole spectrum of possibilities for creating novel RFID-based services and applications, including a new means of cooperation between mobile physical entities. We also discuss a number of challenges related to this approach, such as the density and structure of tag distributions, and tag typing and clustering. Finally, we outline two prototypical applications (a smart autonomous vacuum cleaner and a collaborative map-making system) and indicate future directions of research

The discoveries of uranium 237 and symmetric fission — From the archival papers of Nishina and Kimura

Shortly before the Second World War time, Nishina reported on a series of prominent nuclear physical and radiochemical studies in collaboration with Kimura. They artificially produced 231Th, a member of the natural actinium series of nuclides, by bombarding thorium with fast neutrons. This resulted in the discovery of 237U, a new isotope of uranium, by bombarding uranium with fast neutrons, and confirmed that 237U disintegrates into element 93 with a mass number of 237. They also identified the isotopes of several middle-weighted elements produced by the symmetric fission of uranium. In this review article, the highlights of their work are briefly summarized along with some explanatory commentaries

Refactoring bacteriophage T7

Natural biological systems are selected by evolution to continue to exist and evolve. Evolution likely gives rise to complicated systems that are difficult to understand and manipulate. Here, we redesign the genome of a natural biological system, bacteriophage T7, in order to specify an engineered surrogate that, if viable, would be easier to study and extend. Our initial design goals were to physically separate and enable unique manipulation of primary genetic elements. Implicit in our design are the hypotheses that overlapping genetic elements are, in aggregate, nonessential for T7 viability and that our models for the functions encoded by elements are sufficient. To test our initial design, we replaced the left 11 515 base pairs (bp) of the 39 937 bp wild-type genome with 12 179 bp of engineered DNA. The resulting chimeric genome encodes a viable bacteriophage that appears to maintain key features of the original while being simpler to model and easier to manipulate. The viability of our initial design suggests that the genomes encoding natural biological systems can be systematically redesigned and built anew in service of scientific understanding or human intention

Forming Judgments of Attitude Certainty, Intensity, and Importance: The Role of Subjective Experiences

Two studies examined the impact of subjective experiences on reports of attitude certainty, intensity, and importance. In Study 1, participants with moderate or extreme attitudes toward doctor-assisted suicide generated three (easy) or seven (hard) arguments that either supported or countered their opinion toward the issue prior to indicating the strength of their attitude. Participants with moderate attitudes rated their opinions as more intense, personally important, and held with greater certainty when they had generated either a small number of supporting arguments or a large number of opposing arguments. Ratings provided by individuals with extreme attitudes were unaffected by the argument generation task. In Study 2, the impact of ease of recall on strength-related judgments was eliminated when it was rendered nondiagnostic by a misattribution manipulation. Implications of these findings for attitude strength and other judgmental phenomena are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68385/2/10.1177_0146167299025007001.pd