A Tale of One City - A History of HIV/AIDS Policy-Making in Edinburgh, 1982-1994

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Current trends and practices in the use of imprisonment

This article charts the rapid rise in the use of imprisonment in recent decades before considering some of the most pressing issues of concern in the use of imprisonment today. First among these is prison overcrowding, which continues to blight the record of many countries in their treatment of prisoners. To illustrate the potentially dire consequences of overcrowding – a problem common to many other countries and regions – an account is given of a recent visit to a prison in El Salvador. The article then provides an overview of the relevant regional and international standards on the treatment of prisoners, referring also to the role of judicial bodies in ensuring implementation

Learning technology in Scottish higher education ‐ a survey of the views of senior managers, academic staff and ‘experts’

As part of an evaluation of the Scottish Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative (LTDI), a survey was conducted of the views of academic staff, members of computer‐assisted learning and staff development units, and senior managers in all Scottish higher education institutions (HEIs). Most respondents across all subject areas and types of institutions (including those who rated themselves as less experienced with use of C&IT in teaching than their colleagues) believed that learning technology (LT) had moderate to very high potential for improving the way in which students learn. Awareness of the various agencies which have been established to promote its use in HEIs was very high, with few staff being unaware of any of them. Senior staff largely agreed that the value of these approaches lay in the improvement or maintenance of quality rather than in creating efficiency gains. Whilst there was a mostly positive view of the value of learning technology there are still significant barriers to its uptake by staff, the most important being lack of time, infrastructure, software and training, plus a failure (perceived or actual) of institutions to value teaching. The rather pessimistic view of ‘experts’ of the willingness of their less committed colleagues to make use of learning technology contrasted with the generally positive responses obtained from a broad group of 1,000 academic staff on their awareness of and attitudes to it. An analysis of the SHEFC's Teaching Quality Assessment reports during 1992–6 revealed substantial variability between and within subject assessments as to whether specific comments were made about IT provision and its use in learning and teaching

Socio-economic status and lifestyle factors are associated with achalasia risk: a population-based case-control study.

AIM: To evaluate the association between various lifestyle factors and achalasia risk. METHODS: A population-based case-control study was conducted in Northern Ireland, including n = 151 achalasia cases and n = 117 age- and sex-matched controls. Lifestyle factors were assessed via a face-to-face structured interview. The association between achalasia and lifestyle factors was assessed by unconditional logistic regression, to produce odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). RESULTS: Individuals who had low-class occupations were at the highest risk of achalasia (OR = 1.88, 95%CI: 1.02-3.45), inferring that high-class occupation holders have a reduced risk of achalasia. A history of foreign travel, a lifestyle factor linked to upper socio-economic class, was also associated with a reduced risk of achalasia (OR = 0.59, 95%CI: 0.35-0.99). Smoking and alcohol consumption carried significantly reduced risks of achalasia, even after adjustment for socio-economic status. The presence of pets in the house was associated with a two-fold increased risk of achalasia (OR = 2.00, 95%CI: 1.17-3.42). No childhood household factors were associated with achalasia risk. CONCLUSION: Achalasia is a disease of inequality, and individuals from low socio-economic backgrounds are at highest risk. This does not appear to be due to corresponding alcohol and smoking behaviours. An observed positive association between pet ownership and achalasia risk suggests an interaction between endotoxin and viral infection exposure in achalasia aetiology

Predicting beneficial effects of atomoxetine and citalopram on response inhibition in Parkinson's disease with clinical and neuroimaging measures.

Recent studies indicate that selective noradrenergic (atomoxetine) and serotonergic (citalopram) reuptake inhibitors may improve response inhibition in selected patients with Parkinson's disease, restoring behavioral performance and brain activity. We reassessed the behavioral efficacy of these drugs in a larger cohort and developed predictive models to identify patient responders. We used a double-blind randomized three-way crossover design to investigate stopping efficiency in 34 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease after 40 mg atomoxetine, 30 mg citalopram, or placebo. Diffusion-weighted and functional imaging measured microstructural properties and regional brain activations, respectively. We confirmed that Parkinson's disease impairs response inhibition. Overall, drug effects on response inhibition varied substantially across patients at both behavioral and brain activity levels. We therefore built binary classifiers with leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) to predict patients' responses in terms of improved stopping efficiency. We identified two optimal models: (1) a "clinical" model that predicted the response of an individual patient with 77-79% accuracy for atomoxetine and citalopram, using clinically available information including age, cognitive status, and levodopa equivalent dose, and a simple diffusion-weighted imaging scan; and (2) a "mechanistic" model that explained the behavioral response with 85% accuracy for each drug, using drug-induced changes of brain activations in the striatum and presupplementary motor area from functional imaging. These data support growing evidence for the role of noradrenaline and serotonin in inhibitory control. Although noradrenergic and serotonergic drugs have highly variable effects in patients with Parkinson's disease, the individual patient's response to each drug can be predicted using a pattern of clinical and neuroimaging features.The BCNI is supported by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council. We are grateful to Dr Gordon Logan for advice on stop-signal reaction time estimation and to Dr Marta Correia for advice on diffusion-weighted imaging data analysis. Conflict of interest: Prof. Sahakian has received grants from Janssen/J&J, personal fees from Cambridge Cognition, personal fees from Lundbeck, and personal fees from Servier, outside the submitted work. Prof. Robbins has received personal fees and royalties from Cambridge Cognition, personal fees and grants from Eli Lilly Inc, personal fees and grants from Lundbeck, grants from GSK, personal fees from Teva Pharmaceuticals, personal fees from Shire Pharmaceuticals, grants from Medical Research Council, editorial honorarium from Springer Verlag Germany, and personal fees from Chempartners, outside the submitted work. Prof. Rowe has received grant funding from AZ-Medimmune unrelated to the current work. Dr Housden is an employee of Cambridge Cognition. Other authors reported no biomedical financial interests or potential conflict of interest.This is the final version of the article. It was first available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.2308

Transcriptional Subtyping and CD8 Immunohistochemistry Identifies Patients With Stage II and III Colorectal Cancer With Poor Prognosis Who Benefit From Adjuvant Chemotherapy

This work was funded by Cancer Research UK: C212/A13721 and C11884/A24387Peer reviewedPublisher PD

An economic evaluation of Alexander Technique lessons or acupuncture sessions for patients with chronic neck pain : A randomized trial (ATLAS)

OBJECTIVES: To assess the cost-effectiveness of acupuncture and usual care, and Alexander Technique lessons and usual care, compared with usual GP care alone for chronic neck pain patients. METHODS: An economic evaluation was undertaken alongside the ATLAS trial, taking both NHS and wider societal viewpoints. Participants were offered up to twelve acupuncture sessions or twenty Alexander lessons (equivalent overall contact time). Costs were in pounds sterling. Effectiveness was measured using the generic EQ-5D to calculate quality adjusted life years (QALYs), as well as using a specific neck pain measure-the Northwick Park Neck Pain Questionnaire (NPQ). RESULTS: In the base case analysis, incremental QALY gains were 0.032 and 0.025 in the acupuncture and Alexander groups, respectively, in comparison to usual GP care, indicating moderate health benefits for both interventions. Incremental costs were £451 for acupuncture and £667 for Alexander, mainly driven by intervention costs. Acupuncture was likely to be cost-effective (ICER = £18,767/QALY bootstrapped 95% CI £4,426 to £74,562) and was robust to most sensitivity analyses. Alexander lessons were not cost-effective at the lower NICE threshold of £20,000/QALY (£25,101/QALY bootstrapped 95% CI -£150,208 to £248,697) but may be at £30,000/QALY, however, there was considerable statistical uncertainty in all tested scenarios. CONCLUSIONS: In comparison with usual care, acupuncture is likely to be cost-effective for chronic neck pain, whereas, largely due to higher intervention costs, Alexander lessons are unlikely to be cost-effective. However, there were high levels of missing data and further research is needed to assess the long-term cost-effectiveness of these interventions

The first myriapod genome sequence reveals conservative arthropod gene content and genome organisation in the centipede Strigamia maritima.

Myriapods (e.g., centipedes and millipedes) display a simple homonomous body plan relative to other arthropods. All members of the class are terrestrial, but they attained terrestriality independently of insects. Myriapoda is the only arthropod class not represented by a sequenced genome. We present an analysis of the genome of the centipede Strigamia maritima. It retains a compact genome that has undergone less gene loss and shuffling than previously sequenced arthropods, and many orthologues of genes conserved from the bilaterian ancestor that have been lost in insects. Our analysis locates many genes in conserved macro-synteny contexts, and many small-scale examples of gene clustering. We describe several examples where S. maritima shows different solutions from insects to similar problems. The insect olfactory receptor gene family is absent from S. maritima, and olfaction in air is likely effected by expansion of other receptor gene families. For some genes S. maritima has evolved paralogues to generate coding sequence diversity, where insects use alternate splicing. This is most striking for the Dscam gene, which in Drosophila generates more than 100,000 alternate splice forms, but in S. maritima is encoded by over 100 paralogues. We see an intriguing linkage between the absence of any known photosensory proteins in a blind organism and the additional absence of canonical circadian clock genes. The phylogenetic position of myriapods allows us to identify where in arthropod phylogeny several particular molecular mechanisms and traits emerged. For example, we conclude that juvenile hormone signalling evolved with the emergence of the exoskeleton in the arthropods and that RR-1 containing cuticle proteins evolved in the lineage leading to Mandibulata. We also identify when various gene expansions and losses occurred. The genome of S. maritima offers us a unique glimpse into the ancestral arthropod genome, while also displaying many adaptations to its specific life history.This work was supported by the following grants: NHGRIU54HG003273 to R.A.G; EU Marie Curie ITN #215781 “Evonet” to M.A.; a Wellcome Trust Value in People (VIP) award to C.B. and Wellcome Trust graduate studentship WT089615MA to J.E.G; Marine rhythms of Life” of the University of Vienna, an FWF (http://www.fwf.ac.at/) START award (#AY0041321) and HFSP (http://www.hfsp.org/) research grant (#RGY0082/2010) to KT-­‐R; MFPL Vienna International PostDoctoral Program for Molecular Life Sciences (funded by Austrian Ministry of Science and Research and City of Vienna, Cultural Department -­‐Science and Research to T.K; Direct Grant (4053034) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong to J.H.L.H.; NHGRI HG004164 to G.M.; Danish Research Agency (FNU), Carlsberg Foundation, and Lundbeck Foundation to C.J.P.G.; U.S. National Institutes of Health R01AI55624 to J.H.W.; Royal Society University Research fellowship to F.M.J.; P.D.E. was supported by the BBSRC via the Babraham Institute;This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from PLOS via http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.100200

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission: Optical Telescope Element Design, Development, and Performance

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared space telescope that has recently started its science program which will enable breakthroughs in astrophysics and planetary science. Notably, JWST will provide the very first observations of the earliest luminous objects in the Universe and start a new era of exoplanet atmospheric characterization. This transformative science is enabled by a 6.6 m telescope that is passively cooled with a 5-layer sunshield. The primary mirror is comprised of 18 controllable, low areal density hexagonal segments, that were aligned and phased relative to each other in orbit using innovative image-based wavefront sensing and control algorithms. This revolutionary telescope took more than two decades to develop with a widely distributed team across engineering disciplines. We present an overview of the telescope requirements, architecture, development, superb on-orbit performance, and lessons learned. JWST successfully demonstrates a segmented aperture space telescope and establishes a path to building even larger space telescopes.Comment: accepted by PASP for JWST Overview Special Issue; 34 pages, 25 figure

Abstracts from the NIHR INVOLVE Conference 2017

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