A method for isolating and culturing placental cells from failed early equine pregnancies

Early pregnancy loss occurs in 6–10% of equine pregnancies making it the main cause of reproductive wastage. Despite this, reasons for the losses are known in only 16% of cases. Lack of viable conceptus material has inhibited investigations of many potential genetic and pathological causes. We present a method for isolating and culturing placental cells from failed early equine pregnancies. Trophoblast cells from 18/30 (60%) failed equine pregnancies of gestational ages 14–65 days were successfully cultured in three different media, with the greatest growth achieved for cells cultured in AmnioChrome™ Plus. Genomic DNA of a suitable quality for molecular assays was also isolated from 29/30 of these cases. This method will enable future investigations determining pathologies causing EPL

Establishing key criteria to define and compare models of specialist palliative care : a mixed-methods study using qualitative interviews and Delphi survey

Background: Specialist palliative care services have various configurations of staff, processes and interventions, which determine how care is delivered. Currently, there is no consistent way to define and distinguish these different models of care. Aim: To identify the core components that characterise and differentiate existing models of specialist palliative care in the United Kingdom. Design: Mixed-methods study: (1) semi-structured interviews to identify criteria, (2) two-round Delphi study to rank/refine criteria, and (3) structured interviews to test/refine criteria. Setting/participants: Specialist palliative care stakeholders from hospice inpatient, hospital advisory, and community settings. Results: (1) Semi-structured interviews with 14 clinical leads, from eight UK organisations (five hospice inpatient units, two hospital advisory teams, five community teams), provided 34 preliminary criteria. (2) Delphi study: Round 1 (54 participants): thirty-four criteria presented, seven removed and seven added. Round 2 (30 participants): these 34 criteria were ranked with the 15 highest ranked criteria, including setting, type of care, size of service, diagnoses, disciplines, mode of care, types of interventions, ‘out-of-hours’ components (referrals, times, disciplines, mode of care, type of care), external education, use of measures, bereavement follow-up and complex grief provision. (3) Structured interviews with 21 UK service leads (six hospice inpatients, four hospital advisory and nine community teams) refined the criteria from (1) and (2), and provided four further contextual criteria (team purpose, funding, self-referral acceptance and discharge). Conclusion: In this innovative study, we derive 20 criteria to characterise and differentiate models of specialist palliative care – a major paradigm shift to enable accurate reporting and comparison in practice and research

Spatial Solitons and Anderson Localization

Stochastic (Anderson) localization is the spatial localization of the wave-function of quantum particles in random media. We show, that a corresponding phenomenon can stabilize spatial solitons in optical resonators: spatial solitons in resonators with randomly distorted mirrors are more stable than in perfect mirror resonators. We demonstrate the phenomenon numerically, by investigating solitons in lasers with saturable absorber, and analytically by deriving and analyzing coupled equations of spatially coherent and incoherent field components.Comment: submitted to Phys.Rev.

Urban blue: A global analysis of the factors shaping people's perceptions of the marine environment and ecological engineering in harbours.

Marine harbours are the focus of a diverse range of activities and subject to multiple anthropogenically induced pressures. Support for environmental management options aimed at improving degraded harbours depends on understanding the factors which influence people's perceptions of harbour environments. We used an online survey, across 12 harbours, to assess sources of variation people's perceptions of harbour health and ecological engineering. We tested the hypotheses: 1) people living near impacted harbours would consider their environment to be more unhealthy and degraded, be more concerned about the environment and supportive of and willing to pay for ecological engineering relative to those living by less impacted harbours, and 2) people with greater connectedness to the harbour would be more concerned about and have greater perceived knowledge of the environment, and be more supportive of, knowledgeable about and willing to pay for ecological engineering, than those with less connectedness. Across twelve locations, the levels of degradation and modification by artificial structures were lower and the concern and knowledge about the environment and ecological engineering were greater in the six Australasian and American than the six European and Asian harbours surveyed. We found that people's perception of harbours as healthy or degraded, but not their concern for the environment, reflected the degree to which harbours were impacted. There was a positive relationship between the percentage of shoreline modified and the extent of support for and people's willingness to pay indirect costs for ecological engineering. At the individual level, measures of connectedness to the harbour environment were good predictors of concern for and perceived knowledge about the environment but not support for and perceived knowledge about ecological engineering. To make informed decisions, it is important that people are empowered with sufficient knowledge of the environmental issues facing their harbour and ecological engineering options