Work stress and cancer researchers : an exploration of the challenges, experiences and training needs of UK cancer researchers.

Work stress is a significant issue for many UK healthcare professionals, in particular those working in the field of oncology. However, there have been very few attempts to explore the challenges, experiences or training needs of researchers working in cancer research. In doing so, we will be better positioned to support and develop these researchers. 18 UK oncology researchers from a variety of backgrounds took part in a semi-structured interview. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. The analysis identified two overarching themes: logistical research issues (workload, accessing/ recruiting participants, finances) and sensitive research issues (emotional demands, professional boundaries, sensitivity around recruitment). One cross-cutting theme, supportive strategies (support and training, coping mechanisms), was seen to influence both logistical and sensitive research issues. While further research is needed to fully understand the causes and impact of work stress on cancer researchers, three specific issues were highlighted: emotional demands are relevant to quantitative and mixed methods researchers as well as those engaged in qualitative research; the researchers’ background (experience; clinical/non-clinical) was influential and an exploration of effective coping strategies is required; and there is a clear need for adequate support systems and training to be available, particularly for early career researchers.</p

How can rural health be improved through community participation?

Executive summary Rural Australians generally experience poorer health than their city counterparts. Rural Australia is a vast geographical region, with significant diversity, where there is good health and prosperity, as well as disadvantage. The purpose of this issue brief is to provide evidence on how the health of rural Australians can be improved through community participation initiatives, which are currently being funded and delivered by health services and networks. Rural Australians need innovative health services that are tailored to the local context and meet increasing healthcare demands, without increases to expenditure. There are community participation approaches supported by research that can improve existing practice. Avoiding duplication, including the current work of Medicare Locals and Local Hospital Networks, is important for ensuring good outcomes from community participation initiatives. The following recommendations are made to improve practice: New ways to contract and pay for health services are needed, which use ideas developed with communities, within current budgets State and federal government competitive grants and tenders should prioritise proposals that demonstrate effective community participation approaches Community-based services, such as community health centres, Medicare Locals and Local Health Networks, have an important role to play in facilitating community participation, including: Building partnerships between existing services and leveraging existing participation strategies, rather than developing new services or standalone initiatives—to leverage available funds and maximise outcomes Employment of a jointly-appointed, paid community leadership position across existing community-based health services, to avoid duplication and overcome barriers of over-consultation and volunteer fatigue Formal and robust evaluation of initiatives is necessary to guide future policy and research A national innovative online knowledge sharing portal is required to share best practice in rural community participation, save time and money on ineffective approaches, and to support the rural health workforce

Risk of vicarious trauma in nursing research:a focused mapping review and synthesis

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To provide a snapshot of how vicarious trauma is considered within the published nursing research literature. BACKGROUND: Vicarious trauma (secondary traumatic stress) has been the focus of attention in nursing practice for many years. The most pertinent areas to invoke vicarious trauma in research have been suggested as abuse/violence and death/dying. What is not known is how researchers account for the risks of vicarious trauma in research. DESIGN: Focused mapping review and synthesis. Empirical studies meeting criteria for abuse/violence or death/dying in relevant Scopus ranked top nursing journals (n = 6) January 2009 to December 2014. METHODS: Relevant papers were scrutinised for the extent to which researchers discussed the risk of vicarious trauma. Aspects of the studies were mapped systematically to a pre-defined template, allowing patterns and gaps in authors' reporting to be determined. These were synthesised into a coherent profile of current reporting practices and from this, a new conceptualisation seeking to anticipate and address the risk of vicarious trauma was developed. RESULTS: Two thousand five hundred and three papers were published during the review period, of which 104 met the inclusion criteria. Studies were distributed evenly by method (52 qualitative; 51 quantitative; one mixed methods) and by focus (54 abuse/violence; 50 death/dying). The majority of studies (98) were carried out in adult populations. Only two papers reported on vicarious trauma. CONCLUSION: The conceptualisation of vicarious trauma takes account of both sensitivity of the substantive data collected, and closeness of those involved with the research. This might assist researchers in designing ethical and protective research and foreground the importance of managing risks of vicarious trauma. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Vicarious trauma is not well considered in research into clinically important topics. Our proposed framework allows for consideration of these so that precautionary measures can be put in place to minimise harm to staff

Pre-registration of CT pulmonary volumetric image data

Bakalárska práca sa zaoberá predregistráciou pľúcnych objemových CT obrazových dát. Predregistrácia je riešená metódou fázovej korelácie pri rozklade 3D obrazu na 2D rezy usporiadané za sebou. Práca ďalej popisuje geometrické transformácie, interpolácie, výpočet podobnostných kritérií, optimalizáciu registrácie obrazu a proces samotnej registrácie obrazu. Predregistračný softvér je navrhnutý v programovom prostredí MATLAB^®, kde prebieha predregistrácia 3D reálnych CT obrazových dát s dôrazom na rýchlosť procesu.This bachelor thesis is dealing with pre-registration of CT pulmonary volumetric image data. Pre-registration is solved by phase correlation method, which decomposes 3D images into 2D slices arranged in a row. It further describes the geometric transformations, interpolation, calculations of similarity criteria, optimization of registration of images and the image registration process itself. The pre-registration software runs in MATLAB^®, which works with 3D images of real CT image data with an emphasis on process speed.

Arctic Ocean fresh water changes over the past 100 years and their causes

Recent observations show dramatic changes of the Arctic atmosphere–ice–ocean system. Here the authors demonstrate, through the analysis of a vast collection of previously unsynthesized observational data, that over the twentieth century the central Arctic Ocean became increasingly saltier with a rate of freshwater loss of 239 ± 270 km3 decade−1. In contrast, long-term (1920–2003) freshwater content (FWC) trends over the Siberian shelf show a general freshening tendency with a rate of 29 ± 50 km3 decade−1. These FWC trends are modulated by strong multidecadal variability with sustained and widespread patterns. Associated with this variability, the FWC record shows two periods in the 1920s–30s and in recent decades when the central Arctic Ocean was saltier, and two periods in the earlier century and in the 1940s–70s when it was fresher. The current analysis of potential causes for the recent central Arctic Ocean salinification suggests that the FWC anomalies generated on Arctic shelves (including anomalies resulting from river discharge inputs) and those caused by net atmospheric precipitation were too small to trigger long-term FWC variations in the central Arctic Ocean; to the contrary, they tend to moderate the observed long-term central-basin FWC changes. Variability of the intermediate Atlantic Water did not have apparent impact on changes of the upper–Arctic Ocean water masses. The authors’ estimates suggest that ice production and sustained draining of freshwater from the Arctic Ocean in response to winds are the key contributors to the salinification of the upper Arctic Ocean over recent decades. Strength of the export of Arctic ice and water controls the supply of Arctic freshwater to subpolar basins while the intensity of the Arctic Ocean FWC anomalies is of less importance. Observational data demonstrate striking coherent long-term variations of the key Arctic climate parameters and strong coupling of long-term changes in the Arctic–North Atlantic climate system. Finally, since the high-latitude freshwater plays a crucial role in establishing and regulating global thermohaline circulation, the long-term variations of the freshwater content discussed here should be considered when assessing climate change and variability

Decreasing intensity of open-ocean convection in the Greenland and Iceland seas

The air–sea transfer of heat and fresh water plays a critical role in the global climate system. This is particularly true for the Greenland and Iceland seas, where these fluxes drive ocean convection that contributes to Denmark Strait overflow water, the densest component of the lower limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Here we show that the wintertime retreat of sea ice in the region, combined with different rates of warming for the atmosphere and sea surface of the Greenland and Iceland seas, has resulted in statistically significant reductions of approximately 20% in the magnitude of the winter air–sea heat fluxes since 1979. We also show that modes of climate variability other than the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are required to fully characterize the regional air–sea interaction. Mixed-layer model simulations imply that further decreases in atmospheric forcing will exceed a threshold for the Greenland Sea whereby convection will become depth limited, reducing the ventilation of mid-depth waters in the Nordic seas. In the Iceland Sea, further reductions have the potential to decrease the supply of the densest overflow waters to the AMOC

Increasing inter-generational social mobility: is educational expansion the answer?

Reforms which increase the stock of education in a society have long been held by policy-makers as key to improving rates of intergenerational social mobility. Yet, despite the intuitive plausibility of this idea, the empirical evidence in support of an effect of educational expansion on social fluidity is both indirect and weak. In this paper we use the raising of the minimum school leaving age from 15 to 16 years in England and Wales in 1972 to estimate the effect of educational participation and qualification attainment on rates of intergenerational social class mobility. Because, in expectation, children born immediately before and after the policy was implemented are statistically exchangeable, the difference in the amount of education they received may be treated as exogenously determined. The exogenous nature of the additional education gain means that differences in rates of social mobility between cohorts affected by the reform can be treated as having been caused by the additional education. The data for the analysis come from the ONS Longitudinal Study, which links individual records from successive decennial censuses between 1971 and 2001. Our findings show that, although the reform resulted in an increase in educational attainment in the population as a whole and a weakening of the association between attainment and class origin, there was no reliably discernible increase in the rate of intergenerational social mobility

Effect of the overflows on the circulation in the Subpolar North Atlantic: A regional model study

An ocean circulation model for process studies of the Subpolar North Atlantic is developed based on the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) Modular Ocean Model (MOM) code. The basic model configuration is identical with that of the high-resolution model (with a grid size of 1/3° × 2/5°) of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) Community Modeling Effort (CME), except that the domain of integration is confined to the area from 43° to 65°N. Open boundary conditions are used for the inflows and outflows across the northern and southern boundaries. A comparison with the CME model covering the whole North Atlantic (from 15°S to 65°N) shows that the regional model, with inflow conditions at 43°N from a CME solution, is able to reproduce the CME results for the subpolar area. Thus the potential of a regional model lies in its use as an efficient tool for numerical experiments aiming at an identification of the key physical processes that determine the circulation and water mass transformations in the subpolar gyre. This study deals primarily with the representation and role of the overflow waters that enter the domain at the northern boundary. Sensitivity experiments show the effect of closed versus open boundaries, of different hydrographic conditions at inflow points, and of the representation of the narrow Faeroe Bank Channel. The representation of overflow processes in the Denmark Strait is the main controlling mechanism for the net transport of the deep boundary current along the Greenland continental slope and further downstream. Changes in the Faeroe Bank Channel throughflow conditions have a comparatively smaller effect on the deep transport in the western basin but strongly affect the water mass characteristics in the eastern North Atlantic. The deep water transport at Cape Farewell and further downstream is enhanced compared to the combined Denmark Strait and Iceland-Scotland overflows. This enhancement can be attributed to a barotropic recirculation in the Irminger Basin which is very sensitive to the outflow conditions in the Denmark Strait. The representation of both overflow regions determine the upper layer circulation in the Irminger and Iceland Basins, in particular the path of the North Atlantic Current