Physiotherapy students\u27 perceptions and experiences of clinical prediction rules

Objectives: Clinical reasoning can be difficult to teach to pre-professional physiotherapy students due to their lack of clinical experience. It may be that tools such as clinical prediction rules (CPRs) could aid the process, but there has been little investigation into their use in physiotherapy clinical education. This study aimed to determine the perceptions and experiences of physiotherapy students regarding CPRs, and whether they are learning about CPRs on clinical placement. Design: Cross-sectional survey using a paper-based questionnaire. Participants: Final year pre-professional physiotherapy students (n=371, response rate 77%) from five universities across five states of Australia. Results: Sixty percent of respondents had not heard of CPRs, and a further 19% had not clinically used CPRs. Only 21% reported using CPRs, and of these nearly three-quarters were rarely, if ever, learning about CPRs in the clinical setting. However most of those who used CPRs (78%) believed CPRs assisted in the development of clinical reasoning skills and none (0%) was opposed to the teaching of CPRs to students. The CPRs most commonly recognised and used by students were those for determining the need for an X-ray following injuries to the ankle and foot (67%), and for identifying deep venous thrombosis (63%). Conclusions: The large majority of students in this sample knew little, if anything, about CPRs and few had learned about, experienced or practiced them on clinical placement. However, students who were aware of CPRs found them helpful for their clinical reasoning and were in favour of learning more about them

100 years of chemistry at Rhodes University

The history of Grahamstown is well documented and two books deal with the history of Rhodes University.1,2 Although the Chemistry Department was one of the founding departments, coverage in the official histories is minimal and sometimes inaccurate or misleading. The Rhodes University Centenary is an appropriate time to look back on some of the achievements of the department and some of its graduates over the past 100 years

The impact of azithromycin therapy on the airway microbiota in asthma

There is interest in the use of macrolide antibiotics in asthma. Macrolides have been shown to improve airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and measures of airway inflammation.The degree of AHR may relate to the microbiota present in the airways, with a recent study reporting that patients with asthma with a significant improvement in AHR following treatment with clarithromycin had a higher bacterial diversity prior to treatment. To our knowledge, the impact on the asthmatic airway microbiota of an antibiotic has not been reported and we therefore set out to establish if macrolide therapy was associated with a change in airway microbiota in asthma

Quantum decision making by social agents

The influence of additional information on the decision making of agents, who are interacting members of a society, is analyzed within the mathematical framework based on the use of quantum probabilities. The introduction of social interactions, which influence the decisions of individual agents, leads to a generalization of the quantum decision theory developed earlier by the authors for separate individuals. The generalized approach is free of the standard paradoxes of classical decision theory. This approach also explains the error-attenuation effects observed for the paradoxes occurring when decision makers, who are members of a society, consult with each other, increasing in this way the available mutual information. A precise correspondence between quantum decision theory and classical utility theory is formulated via the introduction of an intermediate probabilistic version of utility theory of a novel form, which obeys the requirement that zero-utility prospects should have zero probability weights.Comment: This paper has been withdrawn by the authors because a much extended and improved version has been submitted as arXiv:1510.02686 under the new title "Role of information in decision making of social agents

Environmental Baseline Monitoring Project. Phase II, final report

This report is submitted in compliance with the conditions set out in the grant awarded to the British Geological Survey (BGS), for the period April 2016 – March 2017, to support the jointly-funded project "Science-based environmental baseline monitoring". It presents the results of monitoring and/or measurement and preliminary interpretation of these data to characterise the baseline environmental conditions in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire and for air quality, the Fylde in Lancashire ahead of any shale gas development. The two areas where the monitoring is taking place have seen, during the project, planning applications approved for the exploration for shale gas and hydraulic fracturing. It is widely recognised that there is a need for good environmental baseline data and establishment of effective monitoring protocols ahead of any shale gas/oil development. This monitoring will enable future changes that may occur as a result of industrial activity to be identified and differentiated from other natural and man-made changes that are influencing the baseline. Continued monitoring will then enable any deviations from the baseline, should they occur, to be identified and investigated independently to determine the possible causes, sources and significance to the environment and public health. The absence of such data in the United States has undermined public confidence, led to major controversy and inability to identify and effectively deal with impact/contamination where it has occurred. A key aim of this work is to avoid a similar situation and the independent monitoring being carried out as part of this project provides an opportunity to develop robust environmental baseline for the two study areas and monitoring procedures, and share experience that is applicable to the wider UK situation. This work is internationally unique and comprises an inter-disciplinary researcher-led programme that is developing, testing and implementing monitoring methodologies to enable future environmental changes to be detected at a local scale (individual site) as well as across a wider area, e.g. ‘shale gas play’ where cumulative impacts may be significant. The monitoring includes: water quality (groundwater and surface water), seismicity, ground motion, soil gas, atmospheric composition (greenhouse gases and air quality) and radon in air. Recent scientific and other commissioned studies have highlighted that credible and transparent monitoring is key to gaining public acceptance and providing the evidence base to demonstrate the industry’s impact on the environment and importantly on public health. As a result, BGS and its partners initiated in early 2015, a co-ordinated programme of environmental monitoring in Lancashire that was then extended to the Vale of Pickering in North Yorkshire after the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (BEIS) awarded a grant to the British Geological Survey (BGS). The current duration of the grant award is to 31st March 2018. It has so far enabled baseline environmental monitoring for a period of more than 12 months. With hydraulic fracturing of shale gas likely to take place during late 2017/early 2018, the current funding will allow the environmental monitoring to continue during the transition from baseline to monitoring during shale gas operations. This report presents the monitoring results to April 2017 and a preliminary interpretation. A full interpretation is not presented in this report as monitoring is continuing and it is expected that there will be at least six months of additional baseline data before hydraulic fracturing takes place. This represents up to 50% more data for some components of the montoring, and when included in the analysis will significantly improve the characterisation and interpretation of the baseline. In addition to this report, the BGS web site contains further information on the project, near real-time data for some components of the monitoring and links to other projects outputs, e.g. reports and videos (www.bgs.ac.uk/research/groundwater/shaleGas/monitoring/home.html)

Reproducibility of Bacterial Cellulose Nanofibers Over Sub-Cultured Generations for the Development of Novel Textiles

The textile industry is in crisis and under pressure to minimize the environmental impact on its practices. Bacterial cellulose (BC), a naturally occurring form of cellulose, displays properties superior to those of its cotton plant counterpart, such as enhanced purity, crystallinity, tensile strength, and water retention and is thus suitable for an array of textile applications. It is synthesized from a variety of microorganisms but is produced in most abundance by Komagataeibacter xylinus. K. xylinus is available as a type strain culture and exists in the microbial consortium commonly known as Kombucha. Whilst existing literature studies have described the effectiveness of both K. xylinus isolates and Kombucha in the production of BC, this study investigated the change in microbial communities across several generations of sub-culturing and the impact of these communities on BC yield. Using Kombucha and the single isolate strain K. xylinus as inocula in Hestrin and Schramm liquid growth media, BC pellicles were propagated. The resulting pellicles and residual liquid media were used to further inoculate fresh liquid media, and this process was repeated over three generations. For each generation, the thickness of the pellicles and their appearance under SEM were recorded. 16S rRNA sequencing was conducted on both pellicles and liquid media samples to assess changes in communities. The results indicated that the genus Komagataeibacter was the most abundant species in all samples. Cultures seeded with Kombucha yielded thicker cellulose pellicles than those seeded with K. xylinus, but all the pellicles had similar nanofibrillar structures, with a mix of liquid and pellicle inocula producing the best yield of BC after three generations of sub-culturing. Therefore, Kombucha starter cultures produce BC pellicles which are more reproducible across generations than those created from pure isolates of K. xylinus and could provide a reproducible sustainable model for generating textile materials

Modelo de avaliação da disfunção arterial na região cervical, pré-­‐intervenção com Terapia Manual Ortopédica (TMO)

Tradução do documento “International Framework for Examination of the Cervical Region for potential of Cervical Arterial Dysfunction prior to Orthopaedic Manual Therapy Intervention" por Diogo Pires, Eduarto Brazete Cruz, Isabel Bastos de Almeida, João Filipe Vasconcelos Abreu, Lúcia Domingues e Susana Duarteinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Recommendations for environmental baseline monitoring in areas of shale gas development

Environmental monitoring plays a key role in risk assessment and management of industrial operations where there is the potential for the release of contaminants to the environment (i.e. air and water) or for structural damage (i.e. seismicity). The shale-gas industry is one such industry. It is also new to the UK and so specific environmental regulation and other controls have been introduced only recently. Associated with this is a need to carry out monitoring to demonstrate that the management measures to minimise the risk to the environment are being effective. While much of the monitoring required is common to other industries and potentially polluting activities, there are a number of requirements specific to shale gas and to what is a new and undeveloped industry. This report presents recommendations for environmental monitoring associated with shale-gas activities and in particular the monitoring required to inform risk assessment and establish the pre-existing environmental conditions at a site and surrounding area. This baseline monitoring is essential to provide robust data and criteria for detecting any future adverse environmental changes caused by the shale-gas operations. Monitoring is therefore required throughout the lifecycle of a shale gas operation. During this lifecycle, the objectives of the monitoring will change, from baseline characterisation to operational and post-operational monitoring. Monitoring requirements will also change. This report focusses on good practice in baseline monitoring and places it in the context of the longer-term environmental monitoring programme, recognising the need to transition from the baseline condition and to establish criteria for detecting any changes within the regulatory framework. The core suite of environmental monitoring activities currently required to support regulatory compliance, i.e. meet environmental and other permit conditions, encompasses monitoring of seismicity, water quality (groundwater and surface water) and air quality. Recommendations for each of these are included in this report. Additionally, recommendations for a number of other types of environmental monitoring are included – radon in air, soil gas and ground motion (subsidence/uplift). These are not associated directly with regulatory compliance but can provide information to support interpretation of statutory monitoring results. They are also considered important for public reassurance. Health impacts arising from radon and damage caused by ground motion are both issues of public concern in relation to shale gas

Photodoping through local charge carrier accumulation in alloyed hybrid perovskites for highly efficient luminescence

© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. Metal halide perovskites have emerged as exceptional semiconductors for optoelectronic applications. Substitution of the monovalent cations has advanced luminescence yields and device efficiencies. Here, we control the cation alloying to enhance optoelectronic performance through alteration of the charge carrier dynamics in mixed-halide perovskites. In contrast to single-halide perovskites, we find high luminescence yields for photoexcited carrier densities far below solar illumination conditions. Using time-resolved spectroscopy we show that the charge carrier recombination regime changes from second to first order within the first tens of nanoseconds after excitation. Supported by microscale mapping of the optical bandgap, electrically gated transport measurements and first-principles calculations, we demonstrate that spatially varying energetic disorder in the electronic states causes local charge accumulation, creating p- and n-type photodoped regions, which unearths a strategy for efficient light emission at low charge-injection in solar cells and light-emitting diodes.S.F. acknowledges funding from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and EPSRC, as well as support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability. S.M. acknowledges funding from an EPSRC studentship. M.A.-J. thanks Nava Technology Limited, Cambridge Materials Limited and EPSRC (grant number: EP/M005143/1) for their funding and technical support. S.P.S. acknowledges funding from the Royal Society Newton Fellowship and EPSRC through a program grant (EP/M005143/1). T.A.S.D. acknowledges the National University of Ireland (NUI) for a Travelling Studentship and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (HYPERION, grant agreement number 756962). K.F. acknowledges funding from a George and Lilian Schiff Foundation Studentship, an EPSRC studentship and a scholarship from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability. E.R. acknowledges funding from an ERC starting grant (no. 804523). R.H.F. acknowledges support from the Simons Foundation (grant 601946). Research work in Mons was supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique - Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) and the EU Marie-Curie IEF project ‘DAEMON’. Computational resources have been provided by the Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif (CÉCI). D.B. is an FNRS Research Director. S.D.S. acknowledges the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (HYPERION, grant agreement number 756962), the Royal Society and Tata Group (UF150033). F.D. acknowledges funding from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability

Photodoping through local charge carrier accumulation in alloyed hybrid perovskites for highly efficient luminescence

Metal halide perovskites have emerged as exceptional semiconductors for optoelectronic applications. Substitution of the monovalent cations has advanced luminescence yields and device efficiencies. Here, we control the cation alloying to enhance optoelectronic performance through alteration of the charge carrier dynamics in mixed-halide perovskites. In contrast to single-halide perovskites, we find high luminescence yields for photoexcited carrier densities far below solar illumination conditions. Using time-resolved spectroscopy we show that the charge carrier recombination regime changes from second to first order within the first tens of nanoseconds after excitation. Supported by microscale mapping of the optical bandgap, electrically gated transport measurements and first-principles calculations, we demonstrate that spatially varying energetic disorder in the electronic states causes local charge accumulation, creating p- and n-type photodoped regions, which unearths a strategy for efficient light emission at low charge-injection in solar cells and light-emitting diodes