Dementia-ism: the denial of equitable care for those living with dementia

There is widespread age discrimination within mental health services in the UK with dementia care comparing poorly to other cohorts. This long history of inequality, poor care and the lack of political willingness to confront it led to a lack of funding to the degree that dementia care falls far short of the standards other groups receive. The inequity can be partially blamed upon ageism but overlying this issues is a further layer of stigma around dementia, hence the term dementia-ism. Not only do we see this in relation to people living with dementia but in the poor levels of support for their carers. Most UK long-term care for dementia has moved from state provision to a means tested private sector. This can be interpreted as a wholesale abandonment by the statutory services. The requirement to make a profit results in care levels which often only meet basic standards with minimum staffing levels, reliance on non-permanent agency staff and over use of anti psychotic drugs. Poor funding is usually accompanied by a reduction in training. Even in the state funded general hospital system, where 25% of the beds are occupied by patients with dementia, staff receive little training in specialist dementia care. Poor training also results in symptoms not being recognised and it is estimated that over 60% of those with dementia in primary care fail to receive a diagnosis during the early stages of the condition; where treatment would be more successful. The lack of a cure for dementia also reflects the inequity with little spent upon research compared to other illnesses whose prevalence rates are much lower. To help address these inequalities we collaborate with the local health community and its users. This has resulted in a dementia awareness programme that is integrated within the training of all nurses at the University of Lincoln. We focus on the recognition of symptoms to allow an early diagnosis to be made, supporting patients and carers and we have developed a simulation laboratory where students are able to experience a range of contemporary treatments

Introduction: What is the Unique Contribution of Volunteering to International Development?

This editorial article introduces this IDS Bulletin on the value of volunteering. The issue is based on the global action research project Valuing Volunteering, undertaken in partnership between Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and IDS, which explored how volunteering contributes to poverty reduction and sustainable positive change in Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal and the Philippines, and the factors that prevent it from doing so. Two core research approaches were used to collect and analyse insights about volunteering; participatory systemic inquiry (PSI) and systemic action research (SAR). In total, some 3,700 people reflected on volunteering during the research process. While recognising the issues that many current forms of volunteering can create, this collection of articles highlights the potential of volunteering, when understood as a relational and collaborative endeavour, which is sometimes at odds with the pressures on the sector to professionalise and compete

More or just more of the same?: a closer look at the NCAA Division II football playoff expansion

In 2004, the NCAA expanded from a 16-to a 24-team playoff format for Division II football. However, many institutions out there felt as though this was not enough. One Rocky Mountain Conference Chancellor summed it up best when he said, "At some point the question is not "Do I reduce scholarships,? but "Do I do this anymore?!" To combat this conflict, Division II football has had three different task forces established since 2001 to examine competitive balance and the playoff structure. Yet, no one has examined what changes, if any, occurred from the format change in 2004. This study compares the three years pre-and post-expansion and examines what effect expansion had on the financial makeup of schools that qualified for postseason play and compares them to the overall means of all Division II (with football) colleges and universities to analyze the extent to which expansion has worked

Work with Us: How People and Organisations Can Catalyse Sustainable Change

This report provides a synthesis of studies conducted by the Participate Participatory Research Group (PRG) in 29 countries, and attempts to identify and draw out the patterns of change that emerge across them from people's accounts of their own experiences of moving in or out of poverty and marginalisation. The Participate PRG is a network of organisations committed to bringing knowledge from the margins into decision-making at every level of society. In all 18 studies, PRG members conducted research using diverse participatory approaches, ranging from oral testimonies to Theatre for Development. The aim of this research, unlike that of parallel studies that have contributed to the post-2015 debate, is not to get a representative sample of the priorities of people living in extreme poverty and marginalisation, or even to map their poverty. The aim has been to get an in-depth understanding of how people living in extreme poverty and marginalisation experience change in their lives, and the different factors that contribute to either negative orpositive change. Most of all, this research calls us to bear witness to the depth of insight and intelligence of people who face extremely difficult circumstances – and pay attention to what this can offer those who seek to promote development. The stories within this research challenge our view of what is common to the experience of poverty and marginalisation, in that there is less in common than assumed by dominant forms of international assistance, but there is more in common than just a collection of parables about the importance of context

No bursts detected from FRB121102 in two 5-hour observing campaigns with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope

Here, we report non-detection of radio bursts from Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102 during two 5-hour observation sessions on the Robert C. Byrd 100-m Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, USA, on December 11, 2017, and January 12, 2018. In addition, we report non-detection during an abutting 10-hour observation with the Kunming 40-m telescope in China, which commenced UTC 10:00 January 12, 2018. These are among the longest published contiguous observations of FRB 121102, and support the notion that FRB 121102 bursts are episodic. These observations were part of a simultaneous optical and radio monitoring campaign with the the Caltech HIgh- speed Multi-color CamERA (CHIMERA) instrument on the Hale 5.1-m telescope.Comment: 1 table, Submitted to RN of AA

The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: A 3.95-8.00 GHz Search for Radio Technosignatures in the Restricted Earth Transit Zone

We report on a search for artificial narrowband signals of 20 stars within the restricted Earth Transit Zone as a part of the ten-year Breakthrough Listen (BL) search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The restricted Earth Transit Zone is the region of the sky from which an observer would see the Earth transit the Sun with an impact parameter of less than 0.5. This region of the sky is geometrically unique, providing a potential way for an extraterrestrial intelligence to discover the Solar System. The targets were nearby (7-143 pc) and the search covered an electromagnetic frequency range of 3.95-8.00 GHz. We used the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope to perform these observations with the standard BL data recorder. We searched these data for artificial narrowband ($\sim$Hz) signals with Doppler drift rates of $\pm 20$ Hz s$^{-1}$. We found one set of potential candidate signals on the target HIP 109656 which was then found to be consistent with known properties of anthropogenic radio frequency interference. We find no evidence for radio technosignatures from extraterrestrial intelligence in our observations. The observing campaign achieved a minimum detectable flux which would have allowed detections of emissions that were $10^{-3}$ to $0.88$ times as powerful as the signaling capability of the Arecibo radar transmitter, for the nearest and furthest stars respectively. We conclude that at least $8\%$ of the systems in the restricted Earth Transit Zone within 150 pc do not possess the type of transmitters searched in this survey. To our knowledge, this is the first targeted search for extraterrestrial intelligence of the restricted Earth Transit Zone. All data used in this paper are publicly available via the Breakthrough Listen Public Data Archive (http://seti.berkeley.edu/bldr2).Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Ap

Monitoring Landscape Dynamics in Central U.S. Grasslands with Harmonized Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 Time Series Data

Remotely monitoring changes in central U.S. grasslands is challenging because these landscapes tend to respond quickly to disturbances and changes in weather. Such dynamic responses influence nutrient cycling, greenhouse gas contributions, habitat availability for wildlife, and other ecosystem processes and services. Traditionally, coarse-resolution satellite data acquired at daily intervals have been used for monitoring. Recently, the harmonized Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 (HLS) data increased the temporal frequency of the data. Here we investigated if the increased data frequency provided adequate observations to characterize highly dynamic grassland processes. We evaluated HLS data available for 2016 to (1) determine if data from Sentinel-2 contributed to an improvement in characterizing landscape processes over Landsat-8 data alone, and (2) quantify how observation frequency impacted results. Specifically, we investigated into estimating annual vegetation phenology, detecting burn scars from fire, and modeling within-season wetland hydroperiod and growth of aquatic vegetation. We observed increased sensitivity to the start of the growing season (SOST) with the HLS data. Our estimates of the grassland SOST compared well with ground estimates collected at a phenological camera site. We used the Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm to assess if the HLS data improved our detection of burn scars following grassland fires and found that detection was considerably influenced by the seasonal timing of the fires. The grassland burned in early spring recovered too quickly to be detected as change events by CCDC; instead, the spectral characteristics following these fires were incorporated as part of the ongoing time-series models. In contrast, the spectral effects from late-season fires were detected both by Landsat-8 data and HLS data. For wetland-rich areas, we used a modified version of the CCDC algorithm to track within-season dynamics of water and aquatic vegetation. The addition of Sentinel-2 data provided the potential to build full time series models to better distinguish different wetland types, suggesting that the temporal density of data was sufficient for within-season characterization of wetland dynamics. Although the different data frequency, in both the spatial and temporal dimensions, could cause inconsistent model estimation or sensitivity sometimes; overall, the temporal frequency of the HLS data improved our ability to track within-season grassland dynamics and improved results for areas prone to cloud contamination. The results suggest a greater frequency of observations, such as from harmonizing data across all comparable Landsat and Sentinel sensors, is still needed. For our study areas, at least a 3-day revisit interval during the early growing season (weeks 14–17) is required to provide a \u3e50% probability of obtaining weekly clear observations

Zeb2 is a negative regulator of midbrain dopaminergic axon growth and target innervation

Neural connectivity requires neuronal differentiation, axon growth, and precise target innervation. Midbrain dopaminergic neurons project via the nigrostriatal pathway to the striatum to regulate voluntary movement. While the specification and differentiation of these neurons have been extensively studied, the molecular mechanisms that regulate midbrain dopaminergic axon growth and target innervation are less clear. Here we show that the transcription factor Zeb2 cell-autonomously represses Smad signalling to limit midbrain dopaminergic axon growth and target innervation. Zeb2 levels are downregulated in the embryonic rodent midbrain during the period of dopaminergic axon growth, when BMP pathway components are upregulated. Experimental knockdown of Zeb2 leads to an increase in BMP-Smad-dependent axon growth. Consequently there is dopaminergic hyperinnervation of the striatum, without an increase in the numbers of midbrain dopaminergic neurons, in conditional Zeb2 (Nestin-Cre based) knockout mice. Therefore, these findings reveal a new mechanism for the regulation of midbrain dopaminergic axon growth during central nervous system development

Excess Molar Volumes of Binary Mixtures of Cyclohexane and y-Butyrolactone with Aromatic Hydrocarbons

This article discusses excess molar volumes of binary mixtures of cyclohexane and y-butyrolactone with aromatic hydrocarbons