Wood-Nymph

Photograph of woman standing in woods; Illustration of vines and leaves surrounding photographhttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/6840/thumbnail.jp

Dreamy Slumber Time

Illustration of road leading up to churchhttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/12455/thumbnail.jp

A controlled trial of the effectiveness of a diabetes education programme in a multi-ethnic community in Glasgow [ISRCT28317455]

BACKGROUND: Epidemiologic data have shown that the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes varies with ethnic origin. Type 2 diabetes is up to four times more common in British South Asians than in the indigenous white population. The aim of this study was to develop a culturally appropriate educational intervention programme for South Asians with Type 2 diabetes. We then investigated whether this intervention could produce an improvement, and finally whether any improvement was greater than background changes in knowledge in comparison groups. METHODS: A multi-site prospective, randomised controlled study was conducted in all day care centres and three general practice registers with high proportion patients from different ethnic minority groups in Glasgow, Scotland. The intervention consisted of 18 educational sessions in 6 separate programmes. A modified questionnaire was used to measure the knowledge, attitudes, and practice of diabetes before and after intervention. RESULTS: Baseline assessment showed that Indian and Pakistani subjects had less knowledge about diabetes, regarded the disease less seriously, and had a lesser understanding of the relationship between control and complications than the white population. No differences in initial responses were found between those who completed the second assessment and those who did not. The intervention group showed significant improvements in scores for Knowledge (+12.5%); Attitudes toward seriousness (+13.5%), complications (+8.1%), Practice (+20.0%). However there were also changes in the ethnic control group scores; respectively +5.0%, +16.3% (significant P < 0.001), +1.5%, +1.7%. The single white control group also showed some improvements; respectively +12.2%, +12.4% (P = 0.04), +6.0%, +25.0% (P = 0.007), but the differences in improvement between these two control groups were not significant. Overall, the improvement seen was similar in both intervention and ethnic control groups and there was no significant difference in the amount of change (P = 0.36 CI -0.9 to +2.6). CONCLUSION: This study has shown that conducting a culturally-competent educational intervention in patients with Type 2 diabetes from ethnic minority groups is feasible and can improve their knowledge and attitudes and practice. However there was no net benefit compared with the control group

Effect of poly(ethylene glycol) on insulin stability and cutaneous cell proliferation in vitro following cytoplasmic delivery of insulin-loaded nanoparticulate carriers – A potential topical wound management approach

We describe the development of a nanoparticulate system, with variation of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) content, capable of releasing therapeutic levels of bioactive insulin for extended periods of time. Recombinant human insulin was encapsulated in poly(d,l-lactide-co-glycolide) nanoparticles, manufactured with variation in poly(ethylene glycol) content, and shown to be stable for 6days using SDS-PAGE, western blot and MALDI MS. To determine if insulin released from this sustained release matrix could stimulate migration of cell types normally active in dermal repair, a model wound was simulated by scratching confluent cultures of human keratinocytes (HaCaT) and fibroblasts (Hs27). Although free insulin was shown to have proliferative effect, closure of in vitro scratch fissures was significantly faster following administration of nano-encapsulated insulin. This effect was more pronounced in HaCaT cells when compared to Hs27 cells. Variation in PEG content had the greatest effect on NP size, with a lesser influence on scratch closure times. Our work supports a particulate uptake mechanism that provides for intracellular insulin delivery, leading to enhanced cell proliferation. When placed into an appropriate topical delivery vehicle, such as a hydrogel, the extended and sustained topical administration of active insulin delivered from a nanoparticulate vehicle shows promise in promoting tissue healing

The open future, bivalence and assertion

It is highly intuitive that the future is open and the past is closed—whereas it is unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first. Recently, it has become increasingly popular to claim that the intuitive openness of the future implies that contingent statements about the future, such as ‘there will be a sea battle tomorrow,’ are non-bivalent (neither true nor false). In this paper, we argue that the non-bivalence of future contingents is at odds with our pre-theoretic intuitions about the openness of the future. These are revealed by our pragmatic judgments concerning the correctness and incorrectness of assertions of future contingents. We argue that the pragmatic data together with a plausible account of assertion shows that in many cases we take future contingents to be true (or to be false), though we take the future to be open in relevant respects. It follows that appeals to intuition to support the non-bivalence of future contingents is untenable. Intuition favours bivalence

Resolved Spectroscopy of the Narrow-Line Region in NGC 1068. II. Physical Conditions Near the NGC 1068 ``Hot-Spot''

The physical conditions near the optical continuum peak (``hot spot'') in the inner narrow line region (NLR) of the Seyfert 2 galaxy, NGC 1068. Spectra were taken with HST/STIS through the 0.1X52 arcsec slit, covering the full STIS 1200 to 10000 Angstrom waveband, and are from a region that includes the hot spot, extending 0.2, or ~ 14 pc (for H= 75 km/sec/Mpc). Perhaps the most striking feature of these spectra is the presence of strong coronal emission lines, including [S XII] 7611 which has hitherto only been identified in spectra of the solar corona. There is an apparent correlation between ionization energy and velocity of the emission lines with respect to the systemic velocity of the host galaxy, with the coronal lines blueshifted, most other high excitation lines near systemic, and some of the low ionization lines redshifted. From the results of our modeling, we find that the emission-line gas consists of three principal components: 1) one in which most of the strong emission-lines, such as [O III] 5007, [Ne V] 3426, C IV 1550, arise, 2) a more tenuous, highly ionized component, which is the source of the coronal-line emission, and 3) a component, which is not co-planar with the other two, in which the low ionization and neutral lines, such as [N II] 6548 and [O I] 6300, are formed. The first two components are directly ionized by the EUV-Xray continuum emitted by the central source, while the low ionization gas is ionized by a combination of highly absorbed continuum radiation and a small fraction of unabsorbed continuum scattered by free electrons associated with the hot spot. The combination of covering factor and Thomson optical depth of the high ionization components is insufficient to scatter the observed fraction of continuum radiation into our line-of-sight.Comment: 42 pages, Latex, includes 5 figures (postscript), to appear in the Astrophysical Journa

Precis of epistemic angst:Book Symposium: Duncan Pritchard, Epistemic Angst (Princeton University Press, 2015, xiii + 236 pages)

ABSTRACT This book symposium features three critical pieces dealing with Duncan Pritchard's book, 'Epistemic Angst'; the symposium also contains Pritchard's replies to his critics

Modal Ω-Logic: Automata, Neo-Logicism, and Set-Theoretic Realism

This essay examines the philosophical significance of $\Omega$-logic in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with choice (ZFC). The duality between coalgebra and algebra permits Boolean-valued algebraic models of ZFC to be interpreted as coalgebras. The modal profile of $\Omega$-logical validity can then be countenanced within a coalgebraic logic, and $\Omega$-logical validity can be defined via deterministic automata. I argue that the philosophical significance of the foregoing is two-fold. First, because the epistemic and modal profiles of $\Omega$-logical validity correspond to those of second-order logical consequence, $\Omega$-logical validity is genuinely logical, and thus vindicates a neo-logicist conception of mathematical truth in the set-theoretic multiverse. Second, the foregoing provides a modal-computational account of the interpretation of mathematical vocabulary, adducing in favor of a realist conception of the cumulative hierarchy of sets

Tuberculosis incidence correlates with sunshine : an ecological 28-year time series study

Birmingham is the largest UK city after London, and central Birmingham has an annual tuberculosis incidence of 80 per 100,000. We examined seasonality and sunlight as drivers of tuberculosis incidence. Hours of sunshine are seasonal, sunshine exposure is necessary for the production of vitamin D by the body and vitamin D plays a role in the host response to tuberculosis. Methods: We performed an ecological study that examined tuberculosis incidence in Birmingham from Dec 1981 to Nov 2009, using publicly-available data from statutory tuberculosis notifications, and related this to the seasons and hours of sunshine (UK Meteorological Office data) using unmeasured component models. Results: There were 9,739 tuberculosis cases over the study period. There was strong evidence for seasonality, with notifications being 24.1% higher in summer than winter (p<0.001). Winter dips in sunshine correlated with peaks in tuberculosis incidence six months later (4.7% increase in incidence for each 100 hours decrease in sunshine, p<0.001). Discussion and Conclusion: A potential mechanism for these associations includes decreased vitamin D levels with consequent impaired host defence arising from reduced sunshine exposure in winter. This is the longest time series of any published study and our use of statutory notifications means this data is essentially complete. We cannot, however, exclude the possibility that another factor closely correlated with the seasons, other than sunshine, is responsible. Furthermore, exposure to sunlight depends not only on total hours of sunshine but also on multiple individual factors. Our results should therefore be considered hypothesis-generating. Confirmation of a potential causal relationship between winter vitamin D deficiency and summer peaks in tuberculosis incidence would require a randomized-controlled trial of the effect of vitamin D supplementation on future tuberculosis incidence