The effect of stage of maturity and inclusion rate of processed, whole-crop wheat on the metabolism and performance of dairy cows

A series of experiments were undertaken to determine the effects of stage of maturity and inclusion rate of processed whole-crop wheat (WCW) on crop production, dairy cow performance and metabolism. In experiment one, WCW was harvested at four stages of maturity. Harvesting WCW at approximately 700 g dry matter (DM)/kg significantly increased grain DM yield. Inclusion of processed WCW harvested at 700 g DM/kg and urea-treated resulted in a higher milk yield and lower DM intake compared with animals offered a lower DM, fermented forage or a high DM processed untreated forage. In experiment two, WCW was harvested at 800 g/kg and urea-treated. Processed, urea-treated WCW was included in the ration of dairy cows at differing inclusion rates and the effect on dairy cow performance and apparent digestibility determined. Inclusion of WCW at 0.25 of the forage DM resulted in increased milk yield and protein yield compared with feeding grass silage alone, whilst there was little benefit in feeding WCW at higher inclusion rates. In the third experiment, the effect of rate of inclusion of processed, urea-treated WCW on ruminal fermentation, microbial growth and ruminal digestibility was determined using continuous culture fermentors. The inclusion of processed, urea-treated WCW had no effect on pH, total volatile fatty acid concentration or the proportion of acetate and butyrate. However, the ratio of acetate to propionate increased with rate of inclusion of processed, urea-treated WCW from 2.5 in vessels receiving 0.25 whole-crop wheat to 3.2 in those receiving 0.75 whole-crop wheat. Dry matter, organic matter and neutral detergent fibre digestibilities were not affected by WCW inclusion whilst starch digestibility increased. There was no effect of inclusion on microbial protein synthesis, although numerically diets containing 0.25 WCW had higher values. It is therefore recommended that processed, urea-treated WCW be harvested at a minimum of 700 g DM/kg or as soon thereafter as practically possible and urea-treated and that it should replace 0.25 of the silage in the ration

Do randomised controlled trials relevant to pharmacy meet best practice standards for quality conduct and reporting? : A systematic review

Funding This review received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not‐for‐profit sectors. Acknowledgements The study was conceived by CB, all authors contributed to the design, reviewed results and commented on successive drafts of the paper and approved the final version. AR undertook all the searches, data extraction and analyses, and prepared the first draft of the manuscript. The project was undertaken by AR as her Master of Pharmacy research project during a placement at the University of Aberdeen Scotland under the local supervision of Christine Bond. Special thanks to Moira Cruickshank, from the Health Services Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen for assistance in the construction of the search strategy.Peer reviewedPostprin

Uncertainty in geological interpretations : Effectiveness of expert elicitations

We would like to thank all those who took part in our elicitations, as well as all those who helped in their facilitation. This work was undertaken while C.H. Randle held a joint University of Aberdeen, College of Physical Science Ph.D. Award and British Geological Survey University Funding Initiative (BUFI) Ph.D. Studentship at Aberdeen University, through Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The contributions by C.H. Randle, R.M. Lark, and A.A. Monaghan are published with the permission of the Executive Director of BGS (NERC). The authors would like to thank Hazel Gibson and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on the manuscript and confirm that all views expressed are the opinions of the authors.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Can uncertainty in geological cross-section interpretations be quantified and predicted?

This work was undertaken while C.H. Randle held a joint British Geological Survey University Funding Initiative (BUFI) and University of Aberdeen, College of Physical Sciences Ph.D. Studentship at Aberdeen University. The contributions by C.H. Randle, R.M. Lark, and A.A. Monaghan are published with the permission of the Executive Director of the British Geological Survey Natural Environment Research Council. We would also like to thank all those who took part in both experiments as well as the many people who have given input on our results.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Pharmacist-led management of chronic pain in primary care:results from a randomised controlled exploratory trial

To compare the effectiveness of pharmacist medication review, with or without pharmacist prescribing, with standard care, for patients with chronic pain

Navigating 'ethics in practice': An ethnographic case study with young women living with HIV in Zambia.

While 'procedural ethics' provides essential frameworks for governing global health research, reflecting on 'ethics in practice' offers important insights into addressing ethically important moments that arise in everyday research. Particularly for ethnographic research, renowned for it's fluid and spontaneous nature, engaging with 'ethics in practice' has the potential to enhance research practice within global health. We provide a case study for such reflexivity, exploring 'ethics in practice' of ethnographic research with middle-income young women living with HIV in Lusaka, Zambia. We explore the ethical issues arising from the layered interaction of the population (young women), the disease under investigation (HIV), the method of study (ethnographic), and the setting (Zambia, a lower middle income country). We describe how we navigated five key practical ethical tensions that arose, namely the psycho-emotional benefits of the research, the negotiated researcher-participant relationship, protecting participants' HIV status, confidentiality and data ownership, and researcher obligations after the end of the research. We exemplify reflexive engagement with 'ethics in practice' and suggest that engaging with ethics in this way can make important contributions towards developing more adequate ethical guidelines and research practice in global public health

Coming of age with HIV: a temporal understanding of young women's experiences in Zambia.

Young perinatally-infected women living with HIV in Zambia grew up alongside antiretroviral therapy (ART) roll-out and expanding prevention programmes. We used Bonnington's temporal framework to understand how HIV impacted the experiences of these women over time. Data were drawn from two sequential studies with a cohort of young women living with HIV: a qualitative study in 2014-16 and an ethnographic study in 2017-18. Data from workshops, in-depth interviews, participant observation and diaries were analysed thematically, guided by three temporalities within the framework: everyday, biographical and epochal time. In everyday time, repetitive daily treatment-taking reminded young women of their HIV status, affecting relationships and leading to secrecy with ART. In biographical time, past events including HIV disclosure, experiences of illness, and loss shaped present experiences and future aspirations. Lastly, in epochal time, the women's HIV infection and their survival were intimately interlinked with the history of ART availability. The epochal temporal understanding leads us to extend Reynolds Whyte's notion of "biogeneration" to conceptualise these women, whose experiences of living with HIV are enmeshed with their biosocial environment. Support groups for young women living with HIV should help them to process biographical events, as well as supporting their everyday needs

Tracing the Filamentary Structure of the Galaxy Distribution at z~0.8

We study filamentary structure in the galaxy distribution at z ~ 0.8 using data from the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe 2 (DEEP2) Redshift Survey and its evolution to z ~ 0.1 using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We trace individual filaments for both surveys using the Smoothed Hessian Major Axis Filament Finder, an algorithm which employs the Hessian matrix of the galaxy density field to trace the filamentary structures in the distribution of galaxies. We extract 33 subsamples from the SDSS data with a geometry similar to that of DEEP2. We find that the filament length distribution has not significantly changed since z ~ 0.8, as predicted in a previous study using a \LamdaCDM cosmological N-body simulation. However, the filament width distribution, which is sensitive to the non-linear growth of structure, broadens and shifts to smaller widths for smoothing length scales of 5-10 Mpc/h from z ~ 0.8 to z ~ 0.1, in accord with N-body simulations.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted for the publication in MNRA

Secrets and Silence: Agency of Young Women Managing HIV Disclosure.

Drawing on a 12-month ethnography with young women living with HIV in Zambia, we explore their everyday strategies to avoid unintentional disclosure of their HIV status. Young women practiced secrecy with sexual partners, through hiding their antiretroviral therapy and using veiled language around HIV. Whilst remaining silent about their HIV status enabled them to maintain identities beyond HIV, this secrecy triggered feelings of guilt and anxiety, suggesting that their agency was "bounded" by the context of persistent stigma. These strategies to hide their HIV status question public health narratives urging disclosure, and support disclosure-counseling approaches that champions choice