E-government and Planning: Key Citizen Participation Issues and Applications

Citizen participation is a common goal of local governments. Local governments face the challenge of giving information to and getting input from citizens. The use of the Internet for citizen participation is growing among local government planning departments. This book explores the issues related to on-line citizen participation for local government planning departments. In designing for e-government planning departments need to consider accessibility, trust, and the types of participation tools that are most appropriate to meet citizen needs.The John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Polic

Preparatory review of studies of withdrawal of anti-hypertensive medication in older people

Introduction: Since 2012 we have undertaken a programme of research into the management of hypertension in people with dementia. As part of this we are studying the feasibility of withdrawing antihypertensive drugs in people with dementia and well-controlled hypertension, with the aim of them remaining normotensive but avoiding some of the burdens and side-effects of antihypertensive medications. We decided to undertake a preliminary examination of the literature to examine the evidence and safety of antihypertensive withdrawal (not restricted to those with dementia) to determine whether this has already been extensively reviewed, to provide an approximate estimate of the likelihood of success of antihypertensive withdrawal, and to prepare for a systematic review of this literature if required and feasible. Method: For this rapid review, we undertook a search for existing reviews and examined the relevant papers identified, and briefly updated the search once we found that the most recent review was in 2008. Results: One appropriate review (from 2008) yielding seven relevant articles, and one further article were identified, giving eight articles which were examined. Seven of the eight were published more than ten years ago. Six of the eight studies had follow-up data for 1 year or longer. Successful long term (1 year or more) withdrawal of antihypertensive medication was reported in 20-52% of patients. Conclusion: Our review indicates that 22-50% of patients whose blood pressures are currently adequately controlled might be able to withdraw medication without return of long term hypertension. The rapid review approach we took may have missed articles of relevance and so we propose that a systematic review of withdrawal is undertaken. Because much of the data will be old, it should seek data not only on the proportions of patients who remained normotensive at long term follow up using the standards of the day, but should seek data on findings relevant to current guidelines. Only data reporting long term follow up (≥ 1 year) should be included. Data referring to old or discontinued medications should be distinguished

Porphyrin-magnetite nanoconjugates for biological imaging

<p>Background: The use of silica coated magnetic nanoparticles as contrast agents has resulted in the production of highly stable, non-toxic solutions that can be manipulated via an external magnetic field. As a result, the interaction of these nanocomposites with cells is of vital importance in understanding their behaviour and biocompatibility. Here we report the preparation, characterisation and potential application of new “two-in-one” magnetic fluorescent nanocomposites composed of silica-coated magnetite nanoparticles covalently linked to a porphyrin moiety.</p> <p>Method: The experiments were performed by administering porphyrin functionalised silica-coated magnetite nanoparticles to THP-1 cells, a human acute monocytic leukaemia cell line. Cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 medium with 25 mM HEPES supplemented with heat-inactivated foetal bovine serum (FBS).</p> <p>Results: We have synthesised, characterised and analysed in vitro, a new multimodal (magnetic and fluorescent) porphyrin magnetic nanoparticle composite (PMNC). Initial co-incubation experiments performed with THP-1 macrophage cells were promising; however the PMNC photobleached under confocal microscopy study. bmercaptoethanol (b-ME) was employed to counteract this problem and resulted not only in enhanced fluorescence emission, but also allowed for elongated imaging and increased exposure times of the PMNC in a cellular environment.</p> <p>Conclusion: Our experiments have demonstrated that b-ME visibly enhances the emission intensity. No deleterious effects to the cells were witnessed upon co-incubation with b-ME alone and no increases in background fluorescence were recorded. These results should present an interest for further development of in vitro biological imaging techniques.</p&gt

Fast Bootstrapping and Permutation Testing for Assessing Reproducibility and Interpretability of Multivariate fMRI Decoding Models

Multivariate decoding models are increasingly being applied to functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) data to interpret the distributed neural activity in the human brain. These models are typically formulated to optimize an objective function that maximizes decoding accuracy. For decoding models trained on full-brain data, this can result in multiple models that yield the same classification accuracy, though some may be more reproducible than others—i.e. small changes to the training set may result in very different voxels being selected. This issue of reproducibility can be partially controlled by regularizing the decoding model. Regularization, along with the cross-validation used to estimate decoding accuracy, typically requires retraining many (often on the order of thousands) of related decoding models. In this paper we describe an approach that uses a combination of bootstrapping and permutation testing to construct both a measure of cross-validated prediction accuracy and model reproducibility of the learned brain maps. This requires re-training our classification method on many re-sampled versions of the fMRI data. Given the size of fMRI datasets, this is normally a time-consuming process. Our approach leverages an algorithm called fast simultaneous training of generalized linear models (FaSTGLZ) to create a family of classifiers in the space of accuracy vs. reproducibility. The convex hull of this family of classifiers can be used to identify a subset of Pareto optimal classifiers, with a single-optimal classifier selectable based on the relative cost of accuracy vs. reproducibility. We demonstrate our approach using full-brain analysis of elastic-net classifiers trained to discriminate stimulus type in an auditory and visual oddball event-related fMRI design. Our approach and results argue for a computational approach to fMRI decoding models in which the value of the interpretation of the decoding model ultimately depends upon optimizing a joint space of accuracy and reproducibility

All-Sky Near Infrared Space Astrometry

Gaia is currently revolutionizing modern astronomy. However, much of the Galactic plane, center and the spiral arm regions are obscured by interstellar extinction, rendering them inaccessible because Gaia is an optical instrument. An all-sky near infrared (NIR) space observatory operating in the optical NIR, separated in time from the original Gaia would provide microarcsecond NIR astrometry and millimag photometry to penetrate obscured regions unraveling the internal dynamics of the Galaxy.Comment: 7 page

SLAN 2007: Suirbhe ar Nosanna Maireachtala, Dearcai agus Cothu in Eirinn: Priomhthuarascail

Is éard atá sa tuarascáil seo na príomhthorthaí ó Shuirbhé ar Nósanna Maireachtála, Dearcaí agus Cothú in Éirinn 2007 (SLÁN 2007). Is é seo an tríú suirbhé SLÁN agus an suirbhé is mó agus is é seo an chéad suirbhé a áirítear teangacha eile ann seachas Béarla agus Gaeilge. Rinneadh staidéir eile roimhe seo in 1998 (Friel et al, 1999) agus 2002 (Kelleher et al, 2003). Tá an dá thuarascáil seo le fáil ar an láithreán gréasáin www.healthpromotion.ie/publications. Rinneadh príomhshuirbhé SLÁN 2007 trí agallaimh duine le duine. Bhí dhá staidéar foghrúpa ann (i) tomhas airde, meáchain agus imlíne coime (foghrúpa freagróirí níos óige) agus (ii) scrúdú fisiciúil níos mionsonraithe (foghrúpa de fhreagróirí níos sine). Is é a bhí mar aidhm leis an staidéar sonraí náisiúnta maidir le sláinte ghinearálta, iompraíochtaí sláinte agus úsáid seirbhísí sláinte a bhailiú i measc daoine fásta a bhfuil cónaí orthu in Éirinn. Dhírigh staidéar an dá fhoghrúpa ar eolas ríthábhachtach maidir le próifílí riosca sláinte daoine fásta níos óige agus níos sine a sholáthar. Roghnaíodh téamaí SLÁN 2007 bunaithe ar thosaíochtaí reatha náisiúnta beartais agus seirbhíse. Baineadh úsáid as príomhcháipéisí lena n-áirítear an Straitéis Náisiúnta Sláinte, Ardchaighdeán agus Cothroime (An Roinn Sláinte agus Leanaí, 2001); an Straitéis Náisiúnta um Chur chun Cinn na Sláinte (An Roinn Sláinte agus Leanaí, 2000); agus ceathrú Tuarascáil Bhliantúil an Phríomh-Oifigigh Mhíochaine (An Roinn Sláinte agus Leanaí, 2005). Trí chomhairliúchán breise leis an gcuibhreannas taighde, chuir an Grúpa Maoiniúcháin agus Comhairleach sraith míreanna tosaíochta agus soláimhsithe a bhí le meas le chéile. Príomhriachtanas ba ea sraith príomhshonraí sláinte den daonra náisiúnta a sholáthar – sonraí a chiallódh go mbeadh sé indéanta comparáid a dhéanamh laistigh d’fhoghrúpaí staidéir (inscne, aois agus aicme shóisialta), sna réigiúin seirbhíse sláinte laistigh d’Fheidhmeannacht na Seirbhíse Sláinte (HSE), agus le príomhdhaonraí comparáide eile (go háirithe Tuaisceart Éireann) mar aon le suirbhéanna SLÁN a rinneadh roimhe seo. Ba é an tAonad Cothú Sláinte agus Beartais sa Roinn Sláinte agus Leanaí a mhaoinigh SLÁN 2007. Ba é cuibhreannas SLÁN 2007 a rinne na suirbhéanna agus an anailís. I measc chomhaltaí an Chuibhreannais bhí Coláiste Ríoga na Máinleá in Éirinn (RCSI), Coláiste na hOllscoile, Corcaigh (UCC), Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh (OÉG) agus an Institiúid Taighde Eacnamaíochta agus Sóisialta (ESRI)