SME Access to Finance: An exploration into the demand and supply contraints around SME access to finance

In March 2011, the Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University was commissioned by North East Access to Finance (NEA2F) to undertake a major piece of independent academic research to explore both the demand and supply sides of SME access to finance in the North East of England. The aim of the research was to gain insight and understanding into the challenges faced not only by the SME sector but also by the key suppliers of finance to that community, specifically the banking sector and Business Angels. Thus we do not take a position on what we think is right or what a best practice approach might be but rather reflect, as accurately as possible, the information that was shared with us. The research project commenced in May 2011 and was completed at the end of March 2012

Intervention for Inclusivity: Gender Politics and Indie Game Development

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the indie identity, independence as a rhetoric, principles of interventionist work, and different models for creating a more inclusive industry. Through clashing understandings of the needs of aspiring game developers indie culture can serve to reify dominant narratives of the mainstream industry, including discourses that hinder female participation therein. However, there are successful models in which we can observe other, more inclusive, modes of welcoming previously marginalized and excluded groups, which can be taken up in other contexts for diversifying local indie game development

Linear Self-Motion Cues Support the Spatial Distribution and Stability of Hippocampal Place Cells

The vestibular system provides a crucial component of place-cell and head-direction cell activity [1-7]. Otolith signals are necessary for head-direction signal stability and associated behavior [8, 9], and the head-direction signal's contribution to parahippocampal spatial representations [10-14] suggests that place cells may also require otolithic information. Here, we demonstrate that self-movement information from the otolith organs is necessary for the development of stable place fields within and across sessions. Place cells in otoconia-deficient tilted mice showed reduced spatial coherence and formed place fields that were located closer to environmental boundaries, relative to those of control mice. These differences reveal an important otolithic contribution to place-cell functioning and provide insight into the cognitive deficits associated with otolith dysfunction

Effects of mavoglurant on visual attention and pupil reactivity while viewing photographs of faces in Fragile X Syndrome.

BackgroundNumerous preclinical studies have supported the theory that enhanced activation of mGluR5 signaling, due to the absence or reduction of the FMR1 protein, contributes to cognitive and behavioral deficits in patients with fragile X syndrome (FXS). However multiple phase 2 controlled trials in patients with FXS have failed to demonstrate efficacy of compounds that negatively modulate mGluR5, including two phase 2b randomized controlled trials (RCT) of mavoglurant (AFQ056, Novartis Pharma AG), when the primary measures of interest were behavioral ratings. This has cast some doubt onto the translation of the mGluR5 theory from animal models to humans with the disorder.MethodsWe evaluated social gaze behavior-a key phenotypic feature of the disorder-and sympathetic nervous system influence on pupil size using a previously-validated eye tracking paradigm as a biobehavioral probe, in 57 adolescent or adult patients with FXS at baseline and following three months of blinded treatment with one of three doses of mavoglurant or placebo, within the context of the AFQ056 RCTs.ResultsPatients with FXS treated with mavoglurant demonstrated increased total absolute looking time and number of fixations to the eye region while viewing human faces relative to baseline, and compared to those treated with placebo. In addition, patients had greater pupil reactivity to faces relative to baseline following mavoglurant treatment compared to placebo.DiscussionThe study shows that negative modulation of mGluR5 activity improves eye gaze behavior and alters sympathetically-driven reactivity to faces in patients with FXS, providing preliminary evidence of this drug's impact on behavior in humans with the disorder

Track 1.b Introduction: Re-Designing Health: Transforming Systems, Practices and Care

The Re-Designing Health: Transforming Systems, Practices and Care track explores the increasing role and possibility for a wide range of design practices and methods to contribute to health care products, provision, and systems. There is growing recognition of the increasing complexity faced by healthcare systems; critical issues and challenges include ageing populations, chronic diseases, growing drug ineffectiveness, and lack of access to comprehensive services (to name only a few examples). Concurrently design thinking, methods and practices are increasingly recognized as means of addressing complex, multi-levelled and systemic problems. The track session brought together design academics, researchers and practitioners that are working in—and across—areas of design, medicine and health. Employing design methods, practices, and thinking to address a range of healthcare challenges—from individual product to large-scale policy. This track provided a forum for researchers, practitioners, students, and designers to provide evidence for these relationships, document challenges and successes and to provide theoretical and practical models for healthcare and design to work collaboratively to address complex healthcare problems

Effects of skeletal streetscape design on perceived safety

It is important for planners and urban designers to understand how physical characteristics of urban streetscapes contribute to perceptions of them as safe, comfortable urban spaces. While urban design theory offers numerous suggestions for successful streetscapes there is meager empirical evidence of their effects. We suggest that this is largely due to precision and sample size limitations on audit-based physical design and human perception measurements. This paper overcomes these limitations by identifying a key set of streetscape skeleton design variables that can be efficiently measured using a GIS-based method. It then measures these variables on a large and diverse sample of streetscapes, and examines their relationship to crowdsourced perceived safety scores, a useful indicator of environmental comfort. Regression modeling indicates that factors related to streetscape enclosure have a substantial positive effect on perceived safety. These include street tree canopy, the number of buildings along a block, and the cross-sectional proportion-the ratio of building height to width across the street between building façades. Importantly, these streetscape-scale skeleton variables have greater effect than neighborhood-scale urban form and affluence measures that are commonly used to identify desirable urban environments. Planning practitioners can draw on our results to set priorities for urban forestry and design guidelines that shape the spatial proportions of streetscapes and their success as spaces that feel safe and comfortable for human users

The Clinical Reasoning Assessment Tool for Learning from Standardized Patient Experiences: A Pilot Study

Purpose: Clinical reasoning (CR) is the ability to integrate the knowledge of diagnoses with the use of supporting theories to create effective, client-centered interventions. One means of teaching CR to rehabilitation students is using standardized patient (SP) experiences. The relationship between faculty and student CR ratings after SP experiences has not been researched. The purpose of the study was to determine if there would be correlations between physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) student and faculty ratings of CR skills after an SP experience. Method: The Clinical Reasoning Assessment Tool (CRAT) was used by students to self-reflect on their CR performance after an SP experience and compared to their respective faculty ratings. The CRAT includes three subsections: content knowledge, procedural knowledge, and conceptual reasoning, each with a visual analog scale. Correlations between students’ self-assessment of CR and faculty reviews were analyzed using Spearman’s rho correlations. Results: Seventeen PT and seventeen OT students participated. Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients for the PT students and their faculty were: content knowledge (r=.180; p=.488), procedural knowledge (r=.697; p=.002), and conceptual reasoning (r=.258; p=.317). Spearman’s rho correlation coefficients for the OT students and their faculty were: content knowledge (r=.103; p=.693), procedural knowledge (r=.676; p=.003), and conceptual reasoning (r=.505; p=.039). Conclusions: Neither PT nor OT student ratings was a statistically significant correlation in content knowledge ratings in relation to respective faculty ratings. Both PT and OT student procedural knowledge rating correlations with faculty were strong and statistically significant. PT student and faculty ratings were not significantly correlated in conceptual reasoning compared to faculty; however, OT students and faculty ratings were strong, had positive correlations, and were statistically significant. Further research is needed to assess students’ CR development longitudinally across curricula

Long term improvements in activities of daily living in patients with hemispatial neglect

No abstract available

Chiasma

Newspaper reporting on events at the Boston University School of Medicine in the 1960s

Essentials of Biology I & II (GSW)

This Grants Collection for Essentials of Biology was created under a Round Four ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process. Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials: Linked Syllabus Initial Proposal Final Reporthttps://oer.galileo.usg.edu/biology-collections/1010/thumbnail.jp