Willis and the generic turn in nursing

Over the past months a series of articles in the journal have drawn attention to concerns about aspects of the quality of nursing care in the UK (Paley, 2013; Darbyshire, 2013; Rolfe and Gardner, 2014; Roberts and Ion, 2014). Jackson et al.’s (2014) recent review of the whistleblowing literature indicates that these concerns are more widespread. This view is echoed by Ion et al. (2015) who noted that student nurses from across the world encountered poor practice while on placement. In the UK this has led to a good deal of reflection with some arguing that the problem is a function of chronic under funding of health services and a workforce which is understaffed (Randall and Mckeown, 2014). For others, the issue is tied to the way in which nurses are educated. This is the view taken by Lord Willis whose Shape of Caring report was published in March (Willis, 2015)

Enhancing design learning using a digital repository

The process of design is context dependent and open-ended, and therefore does not revolve around a specific body of information or knowledge. The educational paradigm shift in the area of engineering design from teaching to coaching and the increased use of social constructivist learning ideals requires students to have access to as wide a range of information as possible. Digital resources provide an excellent opportunity for extending the range of information available to design students and to this end, as part of a joint research program with Stanford University, the University of Strathclyde has developed a groupware product called LauLima to provide students with a collaborative environment which allows them to gather, organise, store and share information. This paper describes the improvement to design learning, based on a Design Knowledge Framework, in a 3rd year product design engineering project from session 03/04 to 04/05 which has been facilitated by the implementation of this technology

On the computation of the term w21z2zˉw_{21}z^2\bar{z} of the series defining the center manifold for a scalar delay differential equation

In computing the third order terms of the series of powers of the center manifold at an equilibrium point of a scalar delay differential equation, with a single constant delay $r>0,$ some problems occur at the term $w_{21}z^2\bar{z}.$ More precisely, in order to determine the values at 0, respectively $-r$ of the function $w_{21}(\,.\,),$ an algebraic system of equations must be solved. We show that the two equations are dependent, hence the system has an infinity of solutions. Then we show how we can overcome this lack of uniqueness and provide a formula for $w_{21}(0).$Comment: Presented at the Conference on Applied and Industrial Mathematics- CAIM 2011, Iasi, Romania, 22-25 September, 2011. Preprin

Insights from molecular dynamics on substrate binding and effects of active site mutations in Delta1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate dehydrogenase

The NAD+-dependent enzyme, 1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate dehydrogenase (P5CDH), has an important role in proline and hydroxyproline catabolism for humans. Specifically, this aldehyde dehydrogenase is responsible for the oxidation of both L-glutamate- -semialdehyde (GSA) and 4-erythro-hydroxy-L-glutamate- -semialdehyde (4-OH-GSA) to their respective L-glutamate product forms. We have performed a detailed molecular dynamics (MD) study of both the reactant and product complex structures of P5CDH to gain insights into ligand binding (i.e., GSA, 4-OH-GSA, NAD+, GLU) in the active site. Moreover, our investigations were further extended to examine the structural impact of S352L, S352A, and E314A mutations on the deficiency in the P5CDH enzymatic activity. Our in silico mutation analysis indicated that the conserved Glu447 has significantly shifted in both the S352L and E314A mutants, causing NAD+ to be displaced from its predictive orientation in the binding site and hence forming a catalytically inactive enzyme. However in the case of S352A, the catalytic site including the oxyanion hole and Cys348 remain virtually unchanged, and the coenzyme maintains its binding position

Automated microstructural analysis of titanium alloys using digital image processing

Titanium is a material that exhibits many desirable properties including a very high strength to weight ratio and corrosive resistance. However, the specific properties of any components depend upon the microstructure of the material, which varies by the manufacturing process. This means it is often necessary to analyse the microstructure when designing new processes or performing quality assurance on manufactured parts. For Ti6Al4V, grain size analysis is typically performed manually by expert material scientists as the complicated microstructure of the material means that, to the authors knowledge, no existing software reliably identifies the grain boundaries. This manual process is time consuming and offers low repeatability due to human error and subjectivity. In this paper, we propose a new, automated method to segment microstructural images of a Ti6Al4V alloy into its constituent grains and produce measurements. The results of applying this technique are evaluated by comparing the measurements obtained by different analysis methods. By using measurements from a complete manual segmentation as a benchmark we explore the reliability of the current manual estimations of grain size and contrast this with improvements offered by our approach

Effects of Canola and Corn Oil Mimetic on Jurkat Cells

BACKGROUND: The Western diet is high in omega-6 fatty acids and low in omega-3 fatty acids. Canola oil contains a healthier omega 3 to omega 6 ratio than corn oil. Jurkat T leukemia cells were treated with free fatty acids mixtures in ratios mimicking that found in commercially available canola oil (7% α-linolenic, 30% linoleic, 54% oleic) or corn oil (59% linoleic, 24% oleic) to determine the cell survival or cell death and changes in expression levels of inflammatory cytokines and receptors following oil treatment. METHODS: Fatty acid uptake was assessed by gas chromatography. Cell survival and cell death were evaluated by cell cycle analyses, propidium-iodide staining, trypan blue exclusion and phosphatidylserine externalization. mRNA levels of inflammatory cytokines and receptors were assessed by RT-PCR. RESULTS: There was a significant difference in the lipid profiles of the cells after treatment. Differential action of the oils on inflammatory molecules, following treatment at non-cytotoxic levels, indicated that canola oil mimetic was anti-inflammatory whereas corn oil mimetic was pro-inflammatory. SIGNIFICANCE: These results indicate that use of canola oil in the diet instead of corn oil might be beneficial for diseases promoted by inflammation

Structural results on convexity relative to cost functions

Mass transportation problems appear in various areas of mathematics, their solutions involving cost convex potentials. Fenchel duality also represents an important concept for a wide variety of optimization problems, both from the theoretical and the computational viewpoints. We drew a parallel to the classical theory of convex functions by investigating the cost convexity and its connections with the usual convexity. We give a generalization of Jensen's inequality for cost convex functions.Comment: 10 page

Design ideation through improvised comedy processes

We argue that the processes of creating successful comedy are comparable to the processes of designing an innovative product. Our research explores how constructs of humour may be applied to the early phase of engineering design, when divergent thinking is assumed to be most valuable. During a series of exploratory workshops, the principles and processes of creating improvised comedy presented an opportunity to reinvigorate the design process, and overcome some of the common barriers to effective group brainstorming. This paper discusses the link between improvised comedy and design creativity, and the early development of a new improvisation-based approach to design ideation