2,053 research outputs found
Final Report: Talking about sex and relationships: The views of young people with learning disabilities
We ran a drama group with
young people with learning
disabilities.
We also interviewed parents
of young people with
learning disabilities.
We also talked to groups of
teachers.
There has not been much
research done about this
before
Additional interventions to enhance the effectiveness of individual placement and support: a rapid evidence assessment
Topic: Additional interventions used to enhance the effectiveness of individual placement and support (IPS). Aim: To establish whether additional interventions improve the vocational outcomes of IPS alone for people with severe mental illness. Method: A rapid evidence assessment of the literature was conducted for studies where behavioural or psychological interventions have been used to supplement standard IPS. Published and unpublished empirical studies of IPS with additional interventions were considered for inclusion.
Conclusions. Six published studies were found which compared IPS alone to IPS plus a supplementary intervention. Of these, three used skills training and three used cognitive remediation. The contribution of each discrete intervention is difficult to establish. Some evidence suggests that work-related social skills and cognitive training are effective adjuncts, but this is an area where large RCTs are required to yield conclusive evidence
The influence of anæsthesia on the restoration of the volume of the blood after hæmorrhage and after transfusion
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An Analytical Approach to Neuronal Connectivity
This paper describes how realistic neuromorphic networks can have their
connectivity properties fully characterized in analytical fashion. By assuming
that all neurons have the same shape and are regularly distributed along the
two-dimensional orthogonal lattice with parameter , it is possible to
obtain the accurate number of connections and cycles of any length from the
autoconvolution function as well as from the respective spectral density
derived from the adjacency matrix. It is shown that neuronal shape plays an
important role in defining the spatial spread of network connections. In
addition, most such networks are characterized by the interesting phenomenon
where the connections are progressively shifted along the spatial domain where
the network is embedded. It is also shown that the number of cycles follows a
power law with their respective length. Morphological measurements for
characterization of the spatial distribution of connections, including the
adjacency matrix spectral density and the lacunarity of the connections, are
suggested. The potential of the proposed approach is illustrated with respect
to digital images of real neuronal cells.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Assessing the Current Status and Distribution of Crawfish Frogs in Louisiana
The abstract for this presentation can be downloaded by clicking on the blue download button
On the Potential of the Excluded Volume and Auto-Correlation as Neuromorphometric Descriptors
This work investigates at what degree two neuromorphometric measurements,
namely the autocorrelation and the excluded volume of a neuronal cell can
influence the characterization and classification of such a type of cells.
While the autocorrelation function presents good potential for quantifying the
dendrite-dendrite connectivity of cells in mosaic tilings, the excluded volume,
i.e. the amount of the surround space which is geometrically not accessible to
an axon or dendrite, provides a complementary characterization of the cell
connectivity. The potential of such approaches is illustrated with respect to
real neuronal cells.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure
Exploring factors associated with strain in carers of patients with traumatic brain injury
This study explored what factors are associated with strain in 48 carers of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). This was a cross-sectional cohort study of patients who were admitted to a Neurosurgical Unit with TBI over a period of nine years and followed up between five and 14 years post-injury. Their carers were assessed via postal survey for levels of strain using the Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) and asked for their perception of the patients’ disabilities using the family form of the Neurobehavioral Functioning Inventory (NFI). Elevated levels of strain were found in 42% of carers. Using logistic regression, outcome as rated by the patients’ GP on the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) and all subscales of the NFI (except Somatic) contributed to explain 41 - 57% of the variance in strain, and predicted group membership correctly in 72.9% of cases. No individual variable contributed significantly to the explained variance in the model. The model was not significantly improved after removing outliers. Findings suggest that a number of factors combine to result in feelings of strain and illustrates the difficulty for clinicians to predict when strain may occur. The clinical implications of the study are discussed
Growth-Driven Percolations: The Dynamics of Community Formation in Neuronal Systems
The quintessential property of neuronal systems is their intensive patterns
of selective synaptic connections. The current work describes a physics-based
approach to neuronal shape modeling and synthesis and its consideration for the
simulation of neuronal development and the formation of neuronal communities.
Starting from images of real neurons, geometrical measurements are obtained and
used to construct probabilistic models which can be subsequently sampled in
order to produce morphologically realistic neuronal cells. Such cells are
progressively grown while monitoring their connections along time, which are
analysed in terms of percolation concepts. However, unlike traditional
percolation, the critical point is verified along the growth stages, not the
density of cells, which remains constant throughout the neuronal growth
dynamics. It is shown, through simulations, that growing beta cells tend to
reach percolation sooner than the alpha counterparts with the same diameter.
Also, the percolation becomes more abrupt for higher densities of cells, being
markedly sharper for the beta cells.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure
Field testing an acoustic lighthouse : Combined acoustic and visual cues provide a multimodal solution that reduces avian collision risk with tall human-made structures
Billions of birds fatally collide with human-made structures each year. These mortalities have consequences for population viability and conservation of endangered species. This source of human-wildlife conflict also places constraints on various industries. Furthermore, with continued increases in urbanization, the incidence of collisions continues to increase. Efforts to reduce collisions have largely focused on making structures more visible to birds through visual stimuli but have shown limited success. We investigated the efficacy of a multimodal combination of acoustic signals with visual cues to reduce avian collisions with tall structures in open airspace. Previous work has demonstrated that a combination of acoustic and visual cues can decrease collision risk of birds in captive flight trials. Extending to field tests, we predicted that novel acoustic signals would combine with the visual cues of tall communication towers to reduce collision risk for birds. We broadcast two audible frequency ranges (4 to 6 and 6 to 8 kHz) in front of tall communication towers at locations in the Atlantic migratory flyway of Virginia during annual migration and observed birds’ flight trajectories around the towers. We recorded an overall 12–16% lower rate of general bird activity surrounding towers during sound treatment conditions, compared with control (no broadcast sound) conditions. Furthermore, in 145 tracked “at-risk” flights, birds reduced flight velocity and deflected flight trajectories to a greater extent when exposed to the acoustic stimuli near the towers. In particular, the 4 to 6 kHz stimulus produced the greater effect sizes, with birds altering flight direction earlier in their trajectories and at larger distances from the towers, perhaps indicating that frequency range is more clearly audible to flying birds. This “acoustic lighthouse” concept reduces the risk of collision for birds in the field and could be applied to reduce collision risk associated with many human-made structures, such as wind turbines and tall buildings
Ultraviolet-reflective film applied to windows reduces the likelihood of collisions for two species of songbird
Perhaps a billion birds die annually from colliding with residential and commercial windows. Therefore, there is a societal need to develop technologies that reduce window collisions by birds. Many current window films that are applied to the external surface of windows have human-visible patterns that are not esthetically preferable. BirdShades have developed a short wavelength (ultraviolet) reflective film that appears as a slight tint to the human eye but should be highly visible to many bird species that see in this spectral range. We performed flight tunnel tests of whether the BirdShades external window film reduced the likelihood that two species of song bird (zebra finch, Taeniopygia guttata and brown-headed cowbird, Molothrus ater) collide with windows during daylight. We paid particular attention to simulate the lighting conditions that birds will experience while flying during the day. Our results indicate a 75–90% reduction in the likelihood of collision with BirdShades-treated compared with control windows, in forced choice trials. In more ecologically relevant comparison between trials where all windows were either treated or control windows, the estimated reduction in probability of collision was 30–50%. Further, both bird species slow their flight by approximately 25% when approaching windows treated with the BirdShades film, thereby reducing the force of collisions if they were to happen. Therefore, we conclude that the BirdShades external window film will be effective in reducing the risk of and damage caused to populations and property by birds’ collision with windows. As this ultraviolet-reflective film has no human-visible patterning to it, the product might be an esthetically more acceptable low cost solution to reducing bird-window collisions. Further, we call for testing of other mitigation technologies in lighting and ecological conditions that are more similar to what birds experience in real human-built environments and make suggestions for testing standards to assess collision-reducing technologies
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