1,515 research outputs found
The Pendulum Has Swung: How Do We Ensure a Life Course Approach to Immunisation in Australia?
Rather than concentrating primarily on children and adolescents, there has been a shift in the discourse around immunisation to encompass a whole-of-life approach. Despite this acknowledgement and ongoing high burdens of vaccine preventable diseases in adults, coverage for some adult risk groups remains sub-optimal. This study aimed to explore key informant's and stakeholder's perceptions of factors impacting provision of immunisation programs for Australian adults and to identify strategies to promote acceptance and uptake. Semi-structured telephone interviews were undertaken with people involved in adult immunisation program delivery, advocacy, policy or research between September 2020 and June 2021. Transcripts were inductively analysed, with the resulting themes categorised into the five influences on vaccination gaps that have informed program planning in other countries: Access, Affordability, Awareness, Acceptance and Activation. Participants spoke of improvements in the provision of vaccines to adults, however, ongoing challenges persisted. Participants agreed that the focus or emphasis of policies and the promotion/communication strategies has been on childhood vaccination in Australia, however there is a sense that the âpendulum has swung.â These included understanding of eligibility amongst the Australian population and the reluctance of some health providers to dedicate time to exploring immunisation needs with adult patients. In comparison to the childhood vaccination program, there has been a lack of data available on coverage for adult vaccines on the national immunisation program. This has contributed to the ongoing challenges of identifying and promoting certain vaccines. At a government level, questions were raised about why the Australian government has never set an aspirational target for adult vaccination (i.e., influenza or pneumococcal) coverage. While significant improvements have been made in adult immunisation uptake, there are still gaps across the program. While the system remains under stress because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is not appropriate to implement any additional programs. There needs to be strong commitment to establish the value of adult vaccination in the eyes of community members, policy makers and healthcare professionals. Having a national adult immunisation strategic plan would help advance action
The Stripe 82 1-2 GHz Very Large Array Snapshot Survey: Multiwavelength Counterparts
We have combined spectrosopic and photometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS) with GHz radio observations, conducted as part of the
Stripe 82 GHz Snapshot Survey using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array
(VLA), which covers sq degrees, to a flux limit of 88 Jy rms.
Cross-matching the radio source components with optical data via
visual inspection results in a final sample of cross-matched objects,
of which have spectroscopic redshifts and objects have
photometric redshifts. Three previously undiscovered Giant Radio Galaxies
(GRGs) were found during the cross-matching process, which would have been
missed using automated techniques. For the objects with spectroscopy we
separate radio-loud Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and star-forming galaxies
(SFGs) using three diagnostics and then further divide our radio-loud AGN into
the HERG and LERG populations. A control matched sample of HERGs and LERGs,
matched on stellar mass, redshift and radio luminosity, reveals that the host
galaxies of LERGs are redder and more concentrated than HERGs. By combining
with near-infrared data, we demonstrate that LERGs also follow a tight
relationship. These results imply the LERG population are hosted by population
of massive, passively evolving early-type galaxies. We go on to show that
HERGs, LERGs, QSOs and star-forming galaxies in our sample all reside in
different regions of a WISE colour-colour diagram. This cross-matched sample
bridges the gap between previous `wide but shallow' and `deep but narrow'
samples and will be useful for a number of future investigations.Comment: 17 pages, 19 figures. Resubmitted to MNRAS after the initial comment
A close-pair binary in a distant triple supermassive black-hole system
Galaxies are believed to evolve through merging, which should lead to
multiple supermassive black holes in some. There are four known triple black
hole systems, with the closest pair being 2.4 kiloparsecs apart (the third
component is more distant at 3 kiloparsecs), which is far from the
gravitational sphere of influence of a black hole with mass 10
M (about 100 parsecs). Previous searches for compact black hole systems
concluded that they were rare, with the tightest binary system having a
separation of 7 parsecs. Here we report observations of a triple black hole
system at redshift z=0.39, with the closest pair separated by 140
parsecs. The presence of the tight pair is imprinted onto the properties of the
large-scale radio jets, as a rotationally-symmetric helical modulation, which
provides a useful way to search for other tight pairs without needing extremely
high resolution observations. As we found this tight pair after searching only
six galaxies, we conclude that tight pairs are more common than hitherto
believed, which is an important observational constraint for low-frequency
gravitational wave experiments.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures. Published online by Nature on 25 June 2014.
Extremely minor differences with published version exis
Nesiritide: Harmful or Harmless?
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90328/1/phco.26.10.1465.pd
Nonperiodic Oscillations of Pressure in a Spark Ignition Engine
We report our results on non-periodic experimental time series of pressure in
a spark ignition engine. The experiments were performed for a low rotational
velocity of a crankshaft and a relatively large spark advance angle. We show
that the combustion process has many chaotic features. Surprisingly, the
reconstructed attractor has a characteristic butterfly shape similar to a
chaotic attractor of Lorentz type. The suitable recurrence plot shows that the
dynamics of the combustion is a nonlinear multidimensional process mediated by
stochastic noise.Comment: Latex, 6 pages, 5 figure
Cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light levels in CLN2 disease patients treated with enzyme replacement therapy normalise after two years on treatment [version 1; peer review: 1 approved with reservations]
Classic late infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (CLN2 disease) is caused by a deficiency of tripeptidyl-peptidase-1. In 2017, the first CLN2 enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) cerliponase alfa (Brineura) was approved by the FDA and EMA. The CLN2 disease clinical rating scale (CLN2 CRS) was developed to monitor loss of motor function, language and vision as well as frequency of generalised tonic clonic seizures. Using CLN2 CRS in an open label clinical trial it was shown that Brineura slowed down the progression of CLN2 symptoms.
Neurofilament light chain (NfL) is a protein highly expressed in myelinated axons. An increase of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood NfL is found in a variety of neuroinflammatory, neurodegenerative, traumatic, and cerebrovascular diseases. We analysed CSF NfL in CLN2 patients treated with Brineura to establish whether it can be used as a possible biomarker of response to therapy. Newly diagnosed patients had CSF samples collected and analysed at first treatment dose and up to 12 weeks post-treatment to look at acute changes. Patients on a compassionate use programme who were already receiving ERT for approximately 1yr had CSF samples collected and NfL analysed over the following 1.3 years (2.3 years post-initiation of ERT) to look at long-term changes.
All newly diagnosed patients we investigated with classical late infantile phenotype had high NfL levels >2000 pg/ml at start of treatment. No significant change was observed in NfL up to 12 weeks post-treatment. After one year of ERT, two out of six patients still had high NfL levels, but all patients showed a continued decrease, and all had low NfL levels after two years on ERT. NfL levels appear to correspond and predict improved clinical status of patients on ERT and could be useful as a biomarker to monitor neurodegeneration and verify disease modification in CLN2 patients on ERT
Regulating the automobile
Division of Policy Research and Analysis.
National Science Foundatio
Evaluating academic and media nongovernmental organization partnerships for participatory data gathering
This article discusses participatory methods for data gathering in the context of a partnership between a Swiss-based media development organization, Fondation Hirondelle, and a research team at the University of Sheffield. In 2018â2019, the partnership conducted fieldwork which focused on the impact of radio on women listeners in Niger. The project used participatory methods of data gathering in the form of workshops and focus group discussions (FGDs). The article examines the advantages and limitations of combining the practical experience of international development organizations and the in-depth research capabilities of academia. To triangulate this collaboration and to navigate the limitations of FGDs, the use of workshops is discussed as an important method for providing feedback among the radio practitioners and experts in Niger. The article examines the usefulness of combining these methods and reshaping their application to promote participatory research with radio audiences and practitioners
Sub-Sets of Cancer Stem Cells Differ Intrinsically in Their Patterns of Oxygen Metabolism
PMCID: PMC3640080This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
MESMER: MeerKAT Search for Molecules in the Epoch of Reionization
[Abridged] Observations of molecular gas at all redshifts are critical for
measuring the cosmic evolution in molecular gas density and understanding the
star-formation history of the Universe. The 12CO molecule (J=1-0 transition =
115.27 GHz) is the best proxy for extragalactic H2, which is the gas reservoir
from which star formation occurs, and has been detected out to z~6. Typically,
redshifted high-J lines are observed at mm-wavelengths, the most commonly
targeted systems exhibiting high SFRs (e.g. submm galaxies), and far-IR-bright
QSOs. While the most luminous objects are the most readily observed, detections
of more typical galaxies with modest SFRs are essential for completing the
picture. ALMA will be revolutionary in terms of increasing the detection rate
and pushing the sensitivity limit down to include such galaxies, however the
limited FoV when observing at such high frequencies makes it difficult to use
ALMA for studies of the large-scale structure traced out by molecular gas in
galaxies. This article introduces a strategy for a systematic search for
molecular gas during the EoR (z~7 and above), capitalizing on the fact that the
J=1-0 transition of 12CO enters the upper bands of cm-wave instruments at
high-z. The FoV advantage gained by observing at such frequencies, coupled with
modern broadband correlators allows significant cosmological volumes to be
probed on reasonable timescales. In this article we present an overview of our
future observing programme which has been awarded 6,500 hours as one of the
Large Survey Projects for MeerKAT, the forthcoming South African SKA pathfinder
instrument. Its large FoV and correlator bandwidth, and high-sensitivity
provide unprecedented survey speed for such work. An existing astrophysical
simulation is coupled with instrumental considerations to demonstrate the
feasibility of such observations and predict detection rates.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "Astronomy with
megastructures: Joint science with the E-ELT and SKA", 10-14 May 2010, Crete,
Greece (Eds: Isobel Hook, Dimitra Rigopoulou, Steve Rawlings and Aris
Karastergiou
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