Innovation in practice: mobile phone technology in patient care

Mobile phones are becoming increasingly important in everyday life and now in healthcare. There has been a steady growth of information and communication technologies in health communication and technology is used progressively in telemedicine, wireless monitoring of health outcomes in disease and in the delivery of health interventions. Mobile phones are becoming an important method of encouraging better nurse-patient communication and will undoubtedly increase in application over coming years. This article presents recent developments and applications of mobile technology for health promotion and patient-monitoring in chronic disease

Explaining spatial variation in housing construction activity in Turkey

In Turkey, there has been a strong policy narrative that has emphasized the importance of construction activity as a driver of economic growth. This has given shape to a central state-led policy regime that has sought to ensure that planners and other urban policy makers develop plans and strategies that support construction activity. Against this backdrop, and a recent history of uneven spatial development, this paper seeks to understand what this policy imperative might mean for housing construction activity in different provinces. It seeks to reflect on both the relationship between the state and the market, and the interaction between state policies, economic drivers and levels of construction activity. The evidence presented in the paper suggests that uneven spatial development might be explained in different ways in different provinces. Although, in many cases, patterns of construction activity are consistent with economic fundamentals, there are important exceptions in some regions where arguably activity levels are at odds with prior expectations

A matched comparison study of hepatitis C treatment outcomes in the prison and community setting, and an analysis of the impact of prison release or transfer during therapy

Prisoners are a priority group for hepatitis C (HCV) treatment. Although treatment durations will become shorter using directly acting antivirals (DAAs), nearly half of prison sentences in Scotland are too short to allow completion of DAA therapy prior to release. The purpose of this study was to compare treatment outcomes between prison- and community-based patients and to examine the impact of prison release or transfer during therapy. A national database was used to compare treatment outcomes between prison treatment initiates and a matched community sample. Additional data were collected to investigate the impact of release or transfer on treatment outcomes. Treatment-naïve patients infected with genotype 1/2/3/4 and treated between 2009 and 2012 were eligible for inclusion. 291 prison initiates were matched with 1137 community initiates: SVRs were 61% (95% CI 55%-66%) and 63% (95% CI 60%-66%), respectively. Odds of achieving a SVR were not significantly associated with prisoner status (P=.33). SVRs were 74% (95% CI 65%-81%), 59% (95% CI 42%-75%) and 45% (95% CI 29%-62%) among those not released or transferred, transferred during treatment, or released during treatment, respectively. Odds of achieving a SVR were significantly associated with release (P<.01), but not transfer (P=.18). Prison-based HCV treatment achieves similar outcomes to community-based treatment, with those not released or transferred during treatment doing particularly well. Transfer or release during therapy should be avoided whenever possible, using anticipatory planning and medical holds where appropriate

Ocean-floor sediments as a resource of rare earth elements: an overview of recently studied sites

The rare earth elements (REE), comprising 15 elements of the lanthanum series (La-Lu) together with yttrium (Y) and scandium (Sc), have become of particular interest because of their use, for example, in modern communications, renewable energy generation, and the electrification of transport. However, the security of supply of REE is considered to be at risk due to the limited number of sources, with dependence largely on one supplier that produced approximately 63% of all REE in 2019. As a result, there is a growing need to diversify supply. This has resulted in the drive to seek new resources elsewhere, and particularly on the deep-ocean floor. Here, we give a summary of REE distribution in minerals, versatile applications, and an update of their economic value. We present the most typical onshore methods for the determination of REE and examine methods for their offshore exploration in near real time. The motivation for this comes from recent studies over the past decade that showed ΣREE concentrations as high as 22,000 ppm in ocean-floor sediments in the Pacific Ocean. The ocean-floor sediments are evaluated in terms of their potential as resources of REE, while the likely economic cost and environmental impacts of deep-sea mining these are also considered

Marine dipole–dipole controlled source electromagnetic and coincident-loop transient electromagnetic experiments to detect seafloor massive sulphides: effects of three-dimensional bathymetry

Seafloor massive sulphides (SMSs) are regarded as a potential future resource to satisfy the growing global demand of metals including copper, zinc and gold. Aside from mining and retrieving profitable amounts of massive sulphides from the seafloor, the present challenge is to detect and delineate significant SMS accumulations, which are generally located near mid-ocean ridges and along submarine volcanic arc and backarc spreading centres. Currently, several geophysical technologies are being developed to detect and quantify SMS occurrences that often exhibit measurable contrasts in their physical parameters compared to the surrounding host rock. Here, we use a short, fixed-offset controlled source electromagnetic (CSEM) system and a coincident-loop transient electromagnetic (TEM) system, which in theory allow the detection of SMS in the shallow seafloor due to a significant electrical conductivity contrast to their surroundings. In 2016, CSEM and TEM experiments were carried out at several locations near the Trans-Atlantic Geotraverse hydrothermal field to investigate shallow occurrences of massive sulphides below the seafloor. Measurements were conducted in an area that contains distinct SMS sites located several kilometres off-axis from the Mid-Atlantic ridge, some of which are still connected to hydrothermal activity and others where hydrothermal activity has ceased. Based on the quality of the acquired data, both experiments were operationally successful. However, the data analysis indicates bias caused by three-dimensional (3D) effects of the rough bathymetry in the study area and, thus, data interpretation remains challenging. Therefore, we study the influence of 3D bathymetry for marine CSEM and TEM experiments, focusing on shallow 3D conductors located beneath mound-like structures. We analyse synthetic inversion models for attributes associated with 3D distortions of CSEM and TEM data that are not sufficiently accounted for in conventional 1D (TEM) and 2D (CSEM) interpretation schemes. Before an adequate quantification of SMS in the region is feasible, these 3D effects need to be studied to avoid over/underestimation of SMS using the acquired EM data. The sensitivity of CSEM and TEM to bathymetry is investigated by means of 3D forward modelling, followed by 1D (TEM) and 2D (CSEM) inversion of the synthetic data using realistic error conditions. Subsequently, inversion models of the synthetic 3D data are analysed and compared to models derived from the measured data to illustrate that 3D distortions are evident in the recorded data sets

Metal preservation and mobilization in sediments at the TAG hydrothermal field, Mid‐Atlantic Ridge

At the Trans-Atlantic Geotraverse hydrothermal field, metalliferous sediments cover extinct hydrothermal mounds and the surrounding seafloor. Here, we report the morphological, mineralogical and geochemical processes that deposit these sediments, remobilize their metals, and affect their preservation. We found that the initial sediment metal tenor is controlled by physical transport of hydrothermal material from its source, followed by diagenetic redistribution and potentially diffuse fluid flow after high-temperature hydrothermal activity has ceased. We distinguished three different environments: (a) proximal metalliferous sediments on top of extinct mounds are mainly derived from oxidative weathering of primary sulfide structures and are predominantly composed of Fe oxyhydroxides with low contents of Cu, Co, and Zn; metal enrichments in specific layers are likely related to upward flow of low-temperature hydrothermal fluids; (b) medial distant metalliferous sediments found at the base of the mounds, deposited by mass transport, contain cm-thick layers of unsorted sulfide sands with high base metal contents (e.g., up to 28% Cu); these buried sulfides continue to undergo dissolution, resulting in metal release into porewaters; (c) distal metalliferous sediments, found in depositional basins a few hundreds of meters from the extinct mounds, include fining-upwards sequences of thin sulfide sand layers with Fe oxyhydroxides and were deposited by recurrent turbiditic flows. Dissolved metals (e.g., Cu2+ and Mn2+) diffuse upwards under reducing conditions and precipitate within the sediment. Hence, when using hydrothermal sediments to construct reliable geochronological records of hydrothermal activity, distance from source, local seafloor morphology, mass-transport and depositional, and diagenetic modification should all be considered

Upper cenozoic volcanic rocks in the Mariana Forearc recovered from drilling at ocean drilling program site 781: implications for forearc magmatism

A horst block was drilled in the center of the Mariana forearc near 20°N during leg 125 of the Ocean Drilling Program. At this site 781, the drill penetrated a Pleistocene vesicular, porphyritic basalt at 72 m below the seafloor, and the top of the basalt corresponds to a high-amplitude reflection on seismic reflection profiles across the site. The thickness of the basalt unit can only be estimated to be between 13 and 25 m because of poor core recovery (28% to 55%). The presence of an upper glassy chilled zone and a lower, fine-grained margin suggest that the basalt unit is either a single lava flow or a near-surface sill. The basalt is an island-arc tholeiite (IAT) enriched in large-ion-lithophile elements relative to high-field-strength elements, similar to the submarine lavas of the southern Mariana Arc seamounts. The basalt layer, the youngest in situ igneous layer reported from the Izu-Bonin and Mariana forearcs, is enigmatic because of its location more than 100 km from the active volcanic arc. The sediment layers above and below the basalt unit are late Pliocene (about 2.5 Ma) and normally magnetized. The basalt has schlieren - like structures, reverse magnetization, and a K-Ar age of 1.68 ± 0.37 Ma. Thus, the basalt layer is probably a sill fed by magma intruded along a fault zone bounding the horst and graben in the forearc. The geochemistry of the basalt is consistent with a magma source similar to that of rocks from the magmatic axis (or volcanic front) of the island arc, and derived from a mantle source above the subducting Pacific plate