590 research outputs found
Effect of using internal teat sealant with or without antibiotic therapy at dry-off on subsequent somatic cell count and milk production
peer-reviewedThe objective of this study was to assess the effect of treating cows with teat sealant only compared with antibiotic plus teat sealant at drying off on weekly somatic cell count, potential intramammary infection, and milk production across the entire subsequent lactation. In 3 research herds in the south of Ireland, cows with SCC that did not exceed 200,000 cells/mL in the previous lactation (LowSCC) were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatments at drying off: internal teat sealant alone (ITS) or antibiotic plus teat sealant (AB+ITS). Cows with SCC that exceeded 200,000 cells/mL in the previous lactation were treated with AB+ITS and included in the analyses as a separate group (HighSCC). Weekly individual animal composite SCC records were available for 654 cow lactations and were transformed to somatic cell scores (SCS) for the purpose of analysis. Data were divided into 3 data sets to represent records obtained (1) up to 35 DIM, (2) up to 120 DIM, and (3) across the lactation. Foremilk secretions were taken from all quarters at drying off, at calving, 2 wk after calving, and in mid-lactation and were cultured to detect the presence of bacteria. The LowSCC cows treated with ITS alone had higher daily milk yield (0.67 kg/d) across lactation compared with LowSCC cows treated with AB+ITS. The LowSCC cows treated with ITS alone had higher SCS in early, up to mid, and across lactation compared with LowSCC cows treated with AB+ITS. We detected no difference in weekly SCS of LowSCC cows treated with ITS alone and SCS of HighSCC cows. The least squares means back-transformed SCC across lactation of the LowSCC cows treated with ITS alone, LowSCC cows treated with AB+ITS, and HighSCC cows were 41,523, 34,001, and 38,939 cells/mL respectively. The odds of LowSCC cows treated with ITS alone having bacteria present in their foremilk across lactation was 2.7 (95% confidence interval: 1.91 to 3.85) and 1.6 (1.22 to 2.03) times the odds of LowSCC cows treated with AB+ITS and of HighSCC cows treated with AB+ITS, respectively. In this study, Staphylococcus aureus was the most prevalent pathogen isolated from the population. Recategorizing the threshold for LowSCC cows as â€150,000 cells/mL or â€100,000 cells/mL in the previous lactation had no effect on the results. The results indicate that herds with good mastitis control programs may use ITS alone at dry-off in cows with SCC <200,000 cells/mL across lactation with only a small effect on herd SCC
Development of a self-report measure of capability wellbeing for adults: the ICECAP-A
Purpose The benefits of health and social care are not confined to patient health alone and therefore broader measures of wellbeing may be useful for economic evaluation.\ud
This paper reports the development of a simple measure of capability wellbeing for adults (ICECAP-A).\ud
Methods In-depth, informant-led, interviews to identify the attributes of capability wellbeing were conducted with 36 adults in the UK. Eighteen semi-structured, repeat interviews were carried out to develop a capability-based descriptive system for the measure. Informants were purposively selected to ensure variation in socio-economic status, age, sex, ethnicity and health. Data analysis was carried out inductively and iteratively alongside interviews, and findings were used to shape the questions in later interviews.\ud
Results Five over-arching attributes of capability wellbeing were identified for the measure: ââstabilityââ,ââattachmentââ, ââachievementââ, ââautonomyââ and ââenjoymentââ. One item, with four response categories, was developed for each attribute for the ICECAP-A descriptive system.\ud
Conclusions The ICECAP-A capability measure represents a departure from traditional health economics outcome measures, by treating health status as an influence over broader attributes of capability wellbeing. Further work is required to value and validate the attributes and test the sensitivity of the ICECAP-A to healthcare interventions
Empathy Gaps Between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation
Help-seekers and potential helpers often experience an âempathy gapâ â an inability to understand each otherâs unique perspectives. Both parties are concerned about their reputation, self-esteem, and relationships, but these concerns differ in ways that lead to misinterpretation of the other partyâs actions, and, in turn, missed opportunities for cooperation. In this article, we review research that describes the role-specific concerns of helpers and help-seekers. We then review studies of emotional perspective-taking, which can help explain why help-seekers and helpers often experience empathy gaps. We go on to discuss recent work that illustrates the consequences of empathy gaps between helpers and help-seekersâsocial prediction errors that prevent helping and misguided intentions that can lead to unhelpful help. Finally, we discuss some promising directions for future research
Collisional dust avalanches in debris discs
We quantitatively investigate how collisional avalanches may developin debris
discs as the result of the initial break-up of a planetesimal or comet-like
object, triggering a collisional chain reaction due to outward escaping small
dust grains. We use a specifically developed numerical code that follows both
the spatial distribution of the dust grains and the evolution of their
size-frequency distribution due to collisions. We investigate how strongly
avalanche propagation depends on different parameters (e.g., amount of dust
released in the initial break-up, collisional properties of dust grains and
their distribution in the disc). Our simulations show that avalanches evolve on
timescales of ~1000 years, propagating outwards following a spiral-like
pattern, and that their amplitude exponentially depends on the number density
of dust grains in the system. We estimate a probability for witnessing an
avalanche event as a function of disc densities, for a gas-free case around an
A-type star, and find that features created by avalanche propagation can lead
to observable asymmetries for dusty systems with a beta Pictoris-like dust
content or higher. Characteristic observable features include: (i) a brightness
asymmetry of the two sides for a disc viewed edge-on, and (ii) a one-armed open
spiral or a lumpy structure in the case of face-on orientation. A possible
system in which avalanche-induced structures might have been observed is the
edge-on seen debris disc around HD32297, which displays a strong luminosity
difference between its two sides.Comment: 18 pages, 19 figures; has been accepted for publication in Astronomy
and Astrophysics, section 6. Interstellar and circumstellar matter. The
official date of acceptance is 29/08/200
'He just gave up': an exploratory study into the perspectives of paid carers on supporting older people living in care homes with depression, self-harm, and suicide ideation and behaviours
This study explored the concept of âgiving upâ from the perspective of care staff working in care homes, and their everyday communication and hidden knowledge concerning what they think about this taboo topic and the context it reflects. Moving to a care home is a major transition where cumulative losses can pose risks to mental health in later life. If not recognised, this vulnerability can lead to depression which extends to suicide ideation and behaviours in the form of self-harm and self-neglect. Care homes are a significant place of care until death, yet a discourse of silence means that self-harm and suicide is under-reported or not attended to with specialist expertise. The laypersonâs concept of an older person âgiving upâ on life is hardly discussed in the literature. This co-produced qualitative study used an inductive approach to explore this phenomenon through focus groups with 33 care staff across four care homes in South-East England. Findings paint a complex picture, highlighting tensions in providing the right support and creating spaces to respond to such challenging situations. âGiving upâ requires skilled detailed assessment to respond to risks alongside improved training and support for paid carers, to achieve a more holistic strategy which capitalises on significant relationships within a wider context
Spectropolarimetric variability in the repeating fast radio burst source FRB 20180301A
As the sample size of repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) has grown, an
increasing diversity of phenomenology has emerged. Through long-term
multi-epoch studies of repeating FRBs, it is possible to assess which phenomena
are common to the population and which are unique to individual sources. We
present a multi-epoch monitoring campaign of the repeating FRB source 20180301A
using the ultra-wideband low (UWL) receiver observations with Murriyang, the
Parkes 64-m radio telescope. The observations covered a wide frequency band
spanning approximately 0.7--4 GHz, and yielded the detection of 46 bursts. None
of the repeat bursts displayed radio emission in the range of 1.8--4 GHz, while
the burst emission peaked at 1.1 GHz. We discover evidence for secular trends
in the burst dispersion measure, indicating a decline at a rate of
. We also found significant variation
in the Faraday rotation measure of the bursts across the follow-up period,
including evidence of a sign reversal. While a majority of bursts did not
exhibit any polarization, those that did show a decrease in the linear
polarization fraction as a function of frequency, consistent with spectral
depolarization due to scattering, as observed in other repeating FRB sources.
Surprisingly, no significant variation in the polarization position angles was
found, which is in contrast with earlier measurements reported for the FRB
source. We measure the burst rate and sub-pulse drift rate variation and
compare them with the previous results. These novel observations, along with
the extreme polarization properties observed in other repeating FRBs, suggest
that a sub-sample of FRB progenitors possess highly dynamic magneto-ionic
environments.Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures; accepted for publication in MNRA
A Systematic Review Comparing the Acceptability, Validity and Concordance of Discrete Choice Experiments and BestâWorst Scaling for Eliciting Preferences in Healthcare
Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the acceptability, validity and concordance of discrete choice experiment (DCE) and bestâworst scaling (BWS) stated preference approaches in health. Methods: A systematic search of EMBASE, Medline, AMED, PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library and EconLit databases was undertaken in October to December 2016 without date restriction. Studies were included if they were published in English, presented empirical data related to the administration or findings of traditional format DCE and object-, profile- or multiprofile-case BWS, and were related to health. Study quality was assessed using the PREFS checklist. Results: Fourteen articles describing 12 studies were included, comparing DCE with profile-case BWS (9 studies), DCE and multiprofile-case BWS (1 study), and profile- and multiprofile-case BWS (2 studies). Although limited and inconsistent, the balance of evidence suggests that preferences derived from DCE and profile-case BWS may not be concordant, regardless of the decision context. Preferences estimated from DCE and multiprofile-case BWS may be concordant (single study). Profile- and multiprofile-case BWS appear more statistically efficient than DCE, but no evidence is available to suggest they have a greater response efficiency. Little evidence suggests superior validity for one format over another. Participant acceptability may favour DCE, which had a lower self-reported task difficulty and was preferred over profile-case BWS in a priority setting but not necessarily in other decision contexts. Conclusion: DCE and profile-case BWS may be of equal validity but give different preference estimates regardless of the health context; thus, they may be measuring different constructs. Therefore, choice between methods is likely to be based on normative considerations related to coherence with theoretical frameworks and on pragmatic considerations related to ease of data collection
Ward Identities, B-> \rho Form Factors and |V_ub|
The exclusive FCNC beauty semileptonic decay B-> \rho is studied using Ward
identities in a general vector meson dominance framework, predicting vector
meson couplings involved. The long distance contributions are discussed which
results to obtain form factors and |V_ub|. A detailed comparison is given with
other approaches.Comment: 30 pages+four postscript figures, an Appendix adde
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