Barrows in the cultural imagination of later Medieval England

When history has gone beyond memory, and where there is little or no written record, then objects in the landscape are used and interpreted in order both to understand the past, and to tie the past to the present. This thesis explores the places of barrows in the cultural imagination of later medieval England, following the interdisciplinary approaches of Sarah Semple (Perceptions of the Prehistoric in Anglo-Saxon England: Religion, Ritual, and Rulership in the Landscape, 2013) and Anwen Cooper (Other Types of Meaning: Relationships between Round Barrows and Landscapes from 1500 BC-AC 1086, 2016). This thesis identifies and examines a range of historical sources to explore an area of research which has not previously been studied in depth. Whilst it is the case that barrows appear in texts relatively infrequently during the later medieval period, this thesis argues that these references were included specifically because they had significance and meaning both for the writer and the intended audience. Those writers who included barrows in their work anticipated that their intended audience would be able to recognise them, and to be aware of their significance. The intended audience for many of the texts discussed in this thesis was primarily aristocratic elites and the clergy, and therefore the texts speak to their interests and concerns, with barrows often being connected to themes of exemplary kingship. The past is also used to talk about the present; here barrows become symbols of the past, both ‘historic’, and at times mythical, having links to the supernatural. They act as focal points through which wider, contemporary issues can be explored, thus allowing authors access to the past and to a landscape onto which they can project the concerns of the present, and therefore talk about them more freel

The influence of certain fungi on the sporulation of Melanospora destruens shear and of some other ascomycetes

This article does not have an abstract

Increasing Pasture Production on Drained Saltland

The Upper South East of South Australia has been identified as being at risk of extensive soil degradation, with large areas already affected by dryland salinity and waterlogging. To mitigate this, an extensive network of drains has been installed. In 2009, 19 soil surveys were conducted on land adjacent to a number of deep drains (\u3e 1.0 m) in order to determine soil salinity and pH. The surveys indicated low levels of topsoil salinity (0-10 cm) in the southern part of the region, while 66% of soil sampling sites in the northern zone had salinity levels (ECe) below 4 dS/m. These results suggest that important changes in soil salinity have occurred, which are likely to impact on pasture species adaptation. To identify suitable pasture options for these drained areas, four pasture evaluation trials were established in 2009. These trials were established on four different soil types, with each sown to 32 species including annual and perennial legumes, annual and perennial grasses and perennial herbs. Results show that an array of productive pasture species could potentially be suited to these environments, with species performance often site specific. This contrasts to the limited range of previously sown saltland species, principally puccinellia (Puccinellia ciliata) and tall wheat grass (Thinopyrum ponticum). The results demonstrate that pasture productivity can be substantially improved by the resowing of new pasture species in these areas

Feel My Pain: Design and Evaluation of Painpad, a Tangible Device for Supporting Inpatient Self-Logging of Pain

Monitoring patients' pain is a critical issue for clinical caregivers, particularly among staff responsible for providing analgesic relief. However, collecting regularly scheduled pain readings from patients can be difficult and time-consuming for clinicians. In this paper we present Painpad, a tangible device that was developed to allow patients to engage in self-logging of their pain. We report findings from two hospital-based field studies in which Painpad was deployed to a total of 78 inpatients recovering from ambulatory surgery. We find that Painpad results in improved frequency and compliance with pain logging, and that self-logged scores may be more faithful to patients' experienced pain than corresponding scores reported to nurses. We also show that older adults may prefer tangible interfaces over tablet-based alternatives for reporting their pain, and we contribute design lessons for pain logging devices intended for use in hospital settings

Understanding the pain experience in hip and knee osteoarthritis – an OARSI/OMERACT initiative

SummaryObjectiveTo examine the pain experience of people with hip or knee osteoarthritis (OA), particularly changes over time and most distressing features.MethodFocus groups in individuals aged 40+ years with painful hip or knee OA obtained detailed descriptions of OA pain from early to late disease. A modified Patient Generated Index (PGI) was used to assess the features of OA pain that participants found most distressing. Content analysis was performed to examine response patterns; descriptive statistics were used to summarize PGI responses.ResultsMean age of the 143 participants (52 hip OA; 91 knee OA) was 69.5 years (47–92 years); 60.8% were female and 93.7% Caucasian. Participants described two distinct types of pain – a dull, aching pain, which became more constant over time, punctuated increasingly with short episodes of a more intense, often unpredictable, emotionally draining pain. The latter, but not the former, resulted in significant avoidance of social and recreational activities. From PGI responses, distressing pain features were: the pain itself (particularly intense and unpredictable pain) and the pain's impact on mobility, mood and sleep.ConclusionsTwo distinct pain types were identified. Intermittent intense pain, particularly when unpredictable, had the greatest impact on quality of life

Ranking of 10 Global One-Arc-Second DEMs Reveals Limitations in Terrain Morphology Representation

At least 10 global digital elevation models (DEMs) at one-arc-second resolution now cover Earth. Comparing derived grids, like slope or curvature, preserves surface spatial relationships, and can be more important than just elevation values. Such comparisons provide more nuanced DEM rankings than just elevation root mean square error (RMSE) for a small number of points. We present three new comparison categories: fraction of unexplained variance (FUV) for grids with continuous floating point values; accuracy metrics for integer code raster classifications; and comparison of stream channel vector networks. We compare six global DEMs that are digital surface models (DSMs), and four edited versions that use machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques to create a bare-earth digital terrain model (DTM) for different elevation ranges: full Earth elevations, under 120 m, under 80 m, and under 10 m. We find edited DTMs improve on elevation values, but because they do not incorporate other metrics in their training they do not improve overall on the source Copernicus DSM. We also rank 17 common geomorphic-derived grids for sensitivity to DEM quality, and document how landscape characteristics, especially slope, affect the results. None of the DEMs perform well in areas with low average slope compared to reference DTMs aggregated from 1 m airborne lidar data. This indicates that accurate work in low-relief areas grappling with global climate change should use airborne lidar or very high resolution image-derived DTMs

Expanding Paramedicine in the Community (EPIC): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

BackgroundThe incidence of chronic diseases, including diabetes mellitus (DM), heart failure (HF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is on the rise. The existing health care system must evolve to meet the growing needs of patients with these chronic diseases and reduce the strain on both acute care and hospital-based health care resources. Paramedics are an allied health care resource consisting of highly-trained practitioners who are comfortable working independently and in collaboration with other resources in the out-of-hospital setting. Expanding the paramedic's scope of practice to include community-based care may decrease the utilization of acute care and hospital-based health care resources by patients with chronic disease.Methods/designThis will be a pragmatic, randomized controlled trial comparing a community paramedic intervention to standard of care for patients with one of three chronic diseases. The objective of the trial is to determine whether community paramedics conducting regular home visits, including health assessments and evidence-based treatments, in partnership with primary care physicians and other community based resources, will decrease the rate of hospitalization and emergency department use for patients with DM, HF and COPD. The primary outcome measure will be the rate of hospitalization at one year. Secondary outcomes will include measures of health system utilization, overall health status, and cost-effectiveness of the intervention over the same time period. Outcome measures will be assessed using both Poisson regression and negative binomial regression analyses to assess the primary outcome.DiscussionThe results of this study will be used to inform decisions around the implementation of community paramedic programs. If successful in preventing hospitalizations, it has the ability to be scaled up to other regions, both nationally and internationally. The methods described in this paper will serve as a basis for future work related to this study.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02034045. Date: 9 January 2014

A One-Step Strategy for End-Functionalized Donor–Acceptor Conjugated Polymers

A modular and robust method for preparing end-functionalized donor–acceptor (D–A) narrow bandgap conjugated polymers is reported that avoids multistep reactions and postpolymerization modification. The strategy is well-controlled and affords functional materials with predictable molecular weight and high end-group fidelity. To exemplify this synthetic strategy, narrow bandgap conjugated polymers based on PDPP2FT were prepared that contain perylene diimide (PDI) units at the chain-ends. Monte Carlo simulations confirm the high degree of chain-end functionalization while photoluminescence studies reveal the unique photophysical properties of the end-functional polymers with efficient charge transfer occurring between the main polymer chain and PDI end-groups that results exclusively from their covalent linkage