A comparison of errorless and errorful therapies for dysgraphia after stroke.

Despite the increasing significance of written communication, there is limited research into spelling therapy for adults with acquired dysgraphia. Existing studies have typically measured spelling accuracy as an outcome, although speed may also be important for functional writing. As spelling is relatively slow, effortful and prone to errors in people with dysgraphia, minimising errors within therapy could be a factor in therapy success. This within-participant case-series study investigated whether errorless and errorful therapies would differ in their effects on spelling speed and accuracy for four participants with acquired dysgraphia. Matched sets of words were treated with errorless or errorful therapy or left untreated. Results were collated one week and five weeks after therapy. Both therapy approaches were successful in improving spelling accuracy. For three participants, equivalent gains were demonstrated following errorless and errorful therapy. One participant made significantly greater improvements in spelling accuracy following errorless therapy. The effects were maintained five weeks later. There was no significant difference in post-therapy spelling speed between the two therapy conditions. The results of this study suggest that both errorful and errorless therapies can be effective methods with which to treat spelling in adults with acquired dysgraphia

Cancer worry among Norwegian male BRCA1/2 mutation carriers

This qualitative study explored the experiences of Norwegian men after being identified as BRCA 1/2 mutation-positive. Only limited knowledge is available on this topic; therefore, the aim of this study was to gain a deeper insight from the men’s own perspectives. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 15 men and seven of their partners. The participants described fear of cancer development, and two main narrative patterns were identified: fear for their own health, including fear of developing cancer, and negative feelings about responsibility for others’ health. The men expressed fear of developing cancer themselves and described a need for genetic risk information. They were also deeply concerned about how the mutation might affect their children and other relatives. There is a need for guidelines concerning genetic risk information and follow-up programs for male BRCA 1/2 mutation carriers. This study adds valuable contextual insights into their experiences of living with fear of cancer

Detours and Paths: BRST Complexes and Worldline Formalism

We construct detour complexes from the BRST quantization of worldline diffeomorphism invariant systems. This yields a method to efficiently extract physical quantum field theories from particle models with first class constraint algebras. As an example, we show how to obtain the Maxwell detour complex by gauging N=2 supersymmetric quantum mechanics in curved space. Then we concentrate on first class algebras belonging to a class of recently introduced orthosymplectic quantum mechanical models and give generating functions for detour complexes describing higher spins of arbitrary symmetry types. The first quantized approach facilitates quantum calculations and we employ it to compute the number of physical degrees of freedom associated to the second quantized, field theoretical actions.Comment: 1+35 pages, 1 figure; typos corrected and references added, published versio

Prevention is better than cure, but...: Preventive medication as a risk to ordinariness?

Preventive health remains at the forefront of public health concerns; recent initiatives, such as the NHS health check, may lead to recommendations for medication in response to the identification of 'at risk' individuals. Little is known about lay views of preventive medication. This paper uses the case of aspirin as a prophylactic against heart disease to explore views among people invited to screening for a trial investigating the efficacy of such an approach. Qualitative interviews (N=46) and focus groups (N=5, participants 31) revealed dilemmas about preventive medication in the form of clashes between norms: first, in general terms, assumptions about the benefit of prevention were complicated by dislike of medication; second, the individual duty to engage in prevention was complicated by the need not to be over involved with one's own health; third, the potential appeal of this alternative approach to health promotion was complicated by unease about the implications of encouraging irresponsible behaviour among others. Though respondents made different decisions about using the drug, they reported very similar ways of trying to resolve these conflicts, drawing upon concepts of necessity and legitimisation and the special ordinariness of the particular dru

Long-Term Functionality of Rural Water Services in Developing Countries: A System Dynamics Approach to Understanding the Dynamic Interaction of Causal Factors

Research has shown that sustainability of rural water infrastructure in developing countries is largely affected by the dynamic and systemic interactions of technical, social, financial, institutional, and environmental factors that can lead to premature water system failure. This research employs systems dynamic modeling, which uses feedback mechanisms to understand how these factors interact dynamically to influence long-term rural water system functionality. To do this, the research first identified and aggregated key factors from literature, then asked water sector experts to indicate the polarity and strength between factors through Delphi and cross impact survey questionnaires, and finally used system dynamics modeling to identify and prioritize feedback mechanisms. The resulting model identified 101 feedback mechanisms that were dominated primarily by three and four-factor loops that contained some combination of the factors: Water System Functionality, Community, Financial, Government, Management, and Technology. These feedback mechanisms were then scored and prioritized, with the most dominant feedback mechanism identified as Water System Functionality – Community – Finance – Management. This research offers insight into the dynamic interaction of factors impacting sustainability of rural water infrastructure through the identification of these feedback mechanisms and makes a compelling case for future research to longitudinally investigate the interaction of these factors in various contexts

On the cubic interactions of massive and partially-massless higher spins in (A)dS

Cubic interactions of massive and partially-massless totally-symmetric higher-spin fields in any constant-curvature background of dimension greater than three are investigated. Making use of the ambient-space formalism, the consistency condition for the traceless and transverse parts of the parity-invariant interactions is recast into a system of partial differential equations. The latter can be explicitly solved for given s_1-s_2-s_3 couplings and the 2-2-2 and 3-3-2 examples are provided in detail for general choices of the masses. On the other hand, the general solutions for the interactions involving massive and massless fields are expressed in a compact form as generating functions of all the consistent couplings. The St\"uckelberg formulation of the cubic interactions as well as their massless limits are also analyzed.Comment: 42 pages, 2 tables, LaTex. Comments on two-derivative couplings involving partially-massless spin-2 fields added, typos corrected, references added. v2: final version to appear in JHEP. v3: formulae (3.4) and (3.9) correcte

Maxwell-like Lagrangians for higher spins

We show how implementing invariance under divergence-free gauge transformations leads to a remarkably simple Lagrangian description of massless bosons of any spin. Our construction covers both flat and (A)dS backgrounds and extends to tensors of arbitrary mixed-symmetry type. Irreducible and traceless fields produce single-particle actions, while whenever trace constraints can be dispensed with the resulting Lagrangians display the same reducible, multi-particle spectra as those emerging from the tensionless limit of free open-string field theory. For all explored options the corresponding kinetic operators take essentially the same form as in the spin-one, Maxwell case.Comment: 77 pages, revised version. Erroneous interpretation and proof of the gauge-fixing procedure for mixed-symmetry fields corrected. As a consequence, the mixed-symmetry, one-particle Lagrangians are to be complemented with conditions on the divergences of the fields; all other conclusions unchanged. Additional minor changes including references added. To appear in JHE

Returning genome sequences to research participants:Policy and practice

Despite advances in genomic science stimulating an explosion of literature around returning health-related findings, the possibility of returning entire genome sequences to individual research participants has not been widely considered. Through direct involvement in large-scale translational genomics studies, we have identified a number of logistical challenges that would need to be overcome prior to returning individual genome sequence data, including verifying that the data belong to the requestor and providing appropriate informatics support. In addition, we identify a number of ethico-legal issues that require careful consideration, including returning data to family members, mitigating against unintended consequences, and ensuring appropriate governance. Finally, recognising that there is an opportunity cost to addressing these issues, we make some specific pragmatic suggestions for studies that are considering whether to share individual genomic datasets with individual study participants. If data are shared, research should be undertaken into the personal, familial and societal impact of receiving individual genome sequence data

Communication and information-giving in high-risk breast cancer consultations: influence on patient outcomes

This longitudinal study aimed to document (i) the information-giving and patient-communication styles of clinical geneticists and genetic counsellors (consultants) in familial breast cancer clinics and (ii) assess the effect of these styles on women`s knowledge, whether their expectations were met, satisfaction, risk perception and psychological status. A total of 158 women from high-risk breast cancer families completed self-report questionnaires at 2 weeks preconsultation and 4 weeks postconsultation. The consultations were audiotaped, transcribed and coded. Multivariate logistic regressions showed that discussing prophylactic mastectomy (P = 0.00) and oophorectomy (P = 0.01) led to women having significantly more expectations met; discussing genetic testing significantly decreased anxiety (P = 0.03) and facilitating understanding significantly decreased depression (P = 0,05). Receiving a summary letter of the consultation significantly lowered anxiety (P = 0.01) and significantly increased the accuracy of perceived risk (P = 0.02). Women whose consultant used more supportive communications experienced significantly more anxiety about breast cancer at the 4 weeks follow-up (P=0.00), These women were not significantly more anxious before genetic counselling. In conclusion, this study found that consultants vary in the amount of information they give and the way they communicate; and this variation can result in better or worse psychosocial outcomes. Greater use of supportive and counselling communications appeared to increase anxiety about breast cancer. Identifying methods to assist consultants to address emotional issues effectively may be helpful

Systematics of 2+ states in C isotopes from the ab initio no-core shell model

We study low-lying states of even carbon isotopes in the range A = 10 - 20 within the large- scale no-core shell model (NCSM). Using several accurate nucleon-nucleon (NN) as well as NN plus three-nucleon (NNN) interactions, we calculate excitation energies of the lowest 2+ state, the electromagnetic B(E2; 2+1 -> 0+1) transition rates, the 2+1 quadrupole moments as well as se- lected electromagnetic transitions among other states. Recent experimental campaigns to measure 2+-state lifetimes indicate an interesting evolution of nuclear structure that pose a challenge to reproduce theoretically from first principles. Our calculations do not include any effective charges or other fitting parameters. However, calculated results extrapolated to infinite model spaces are also presented. The model-dependence of those results is discussed. Overall, we find a good agree- ment with the experimentally observed trends, although our extrapolated B(E2; 2+1 -> 0+1) value for 16C is lower compared to the most recent measurements. Relative transition strengths from higher excited states are investigated and the influence of NNN forces is discussed. In particular for 16C we find a remarkable sensitivity of the transition rates from higher excited states to the details of the nuclear interactions.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, preprint version. Accepted for publication in Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physic