A study of the female patients committed to the Metropolitan State Hospital for observation while under complaint or indictment for crime

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University, 1947. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Recruiting participants for adult social care studies: challenges and mitigating strategies - methods review

Challenges are often encountered in recruiting participants into adult social care research studies, while strategies to overcome them are not widely understood or shared. This Methods Review aimed to describe the challenges in recruiting organisations and individuals for adult social care research and identify possible strategies to address them. In semi-structured interviews, 17 senior researchers in the social care field were asked about their experiences of recruitment of research participants. One of the main barriers to recruitment was variation among provider organisations, so recruitment strategies needed to be adjusted for different organisations, many of which lacked capacity for research participation. The rapidly changing nature of adult social care organisation and delivery in England also means that recruitment strategies often need to be adapted while research is in progress. Building partnerships between researchers and providers and offering financial and other incentives were suggested as mitigating strategies. In recruiting individuals, a lack of understanding of research benefit and organisations’ gatekeeping arrangements were common difficulties. Interviewees suggested: raising public awareness of adult social care research; building relationships with user/carer groups; using a variety of recruitment strategies and offering a range of participation routes. Researchers and funding bodies should allow sufficient time and resources to recruit representative samples. Researchers should share recruitment knowledge. A limitation in this review is that the individuals who participated in the review may not be representative of all adult social care researchers. This review highlights opportunities for developing recruitment in adult social care research, such as improving recruitment and participation methods; investing in research support and research capacity and increasing public engagement with adult social care research

In Los Angeles, increasing neighborhood diversity means that segregation is on the decline

The makeup of American communities is changing – some communities are becoming more diverse, whilst others are becoming more segregated. In new research, William A.V. Clark, Eva Andersson, John Osth and Bo Malmberg examine trends in neighborhood diversity in Los Angeles since 2000. They find that only one third of people now live in strongly segregated neighborhoods, down from 40 percent in 2010, and that this increasing diversity has mainly been driven by the decline of homogenous white and black neighborhoods

Comparative Testing of Thermal Conductivity for Thermal Insulation Products: The European Keymark Experience for More Than 50 Equipment at 25 Test Institutes

This article describes comparative testing of thermal conductivity on a range of thermal insulation products used in the construction of buildings. This testing was arranged by the CEN Keymark scheme for voluntary certification of insulation within Europe, and measurements have been performed using over 50 instruments in more than 25 registered laboratories. The uniformity of the material and a unique thermal conductivity value for each set of test specimens that were used in the comparison have been established according to the Keymark scheme rules, which were developed by experts from the most respected European laboratories. These experts include most of the laboratories responsible for characterizing the European certified reference material (IRMM 440) for thermal conductivity measurements on thermal insulation products (Quin, Venuti, De Ponte, & Lamberty, 2000). The sets of test specimens that have been characterized by the expert group were circulated and measured by the laboratories registered within the Keymark scheme, and the results are presented in this article and compared to the results of the first comparative testing in the Keymark scheme carried out up to August 2003 and presented at ITCC 27 (Rasmussen & ITCC 27 Paper, 2003). The voluntary Keymark scheme works alongside the mandatory CE conformity mark (CE mark) used within the European Union and includes rigorous auditing and assessment of measurement capability, which provides a high level of confidence in measured thermal conductivity values produced by registered laboratories. Information on this Keymark scheme can be found on the website: www.insulation-keymark.org

The Plasmodium falciparum merozoite surface protein-1 19 KD antibody response in the Peruvian Amazon predominantly targets the non-allele specific, shared sites of this antigen

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>re-emerged in Iquitos, Peru in 1994 and is now hypoendemic (< 0.5 infections/person/year). Purportedly non-immune individuals with discrete (non-overlapping) <it>P. falciparum </it>infections can be followed using this population dynamic. Previous work demonstrated a strong association between this population's antibody response to <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD and protection against febrile illness and parasitaemia. Therefore, some selection for <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD allelic diversity would be expected if the protection is to allele-specific sites of <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD. Here, the potential for allele-specific polymorphisms in this population is investigated, and the allele-specificity of antibody responses to <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD are determined.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The 42KD region in <it>Pf</it>MSP1 was genotyped from 160 individual infections collected between 2003 and 2007. Additionally, the polymorphic block 2 region of <it>Pfmsp1 </it>(<it>Pfmsp1</it>-B2) was genotyped in 781 infection-months to provide a baseline for population-level diversity. To test whether <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD genetic diversity had any impact on antibody responses, ELISAs testing IgG antibody response were performed on individuals using all four allele-types of <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD. An antibody depletion ELISA was used to test the ability of antibodies to cross-react between allele-types.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Despite increased diversity in <it>Pfmsp1</it>-B2, limited diversity within <it>Pfmsp1</it>-42KD was observed. All 160 infections genotyped were Mad20-like at the <it>Pfmsp1</it>-33KD locus. In the <it>Pfmsp1</it>-19KD locus, 159 (99.4%) were the Q-KSNG-F haplotype and 1 (0.6%) was the E-KSNG-L haplotype. Antibody responses in 105 individuals showed that Q-KNG and Q-TSR alleles generated the strongest immune responses, while Q-KNG and E-KNG responses were more concordant with each other than with those from Q-TSR and E-TSR, and vice versa. The immuno-depletion ELISAs showed all samples responded to the antigenic sites shared amongst all allelic forms of <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A non-allele specific antibody response in <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD may explain why other allelic forms have not been maintained or evolved in this population. This has important implications for the use of <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD as a vaccine candidate. It is possible that Peruvians have increased antibody responses to the shared sites of <it>Pf</it>MSP1-19KD, either due to exposure/parasite characteristics or due to a human-genetic predisposition. Alternatively, these allelic polymorphisms are not immune-specific even in other geographic regions, implying these polymorphisms may be less important in immune evasion that previous studies suggest.</p

Towards a reflexive turn in the governance of global environmental expertise the cases of the IPCC and the IPBES

The role and design of global expert organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) needs rethinking. Acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all model does not exist, we suggest a reflexive turn that implies treating the governance of expertise as a matter of political contestation