The treatment-related experiences of parents, children and young people with regular prescribed medication

Background Taking regular medication has been shown to have an impact on the daily lives of patients and their families. Objective To explore the medication-related experiences of patients and their families when a child or young person is prescribed regular medication. Setting A specialist U.K. paediatric hospital. Method Semi-structured face-to-face interviews of 24 parents/carers, children or young people, who had been taking two or more medications for 6 weeks or longer. The themes explored included the medication regimen, formulation, supplies, social aspects and adverse effects. The data was analysed using NVIVO version 11. Main outcome measure The experiences of patients, and their parents/carers, when a child/young person takes regular medication. Results Participants described a range of experiences associated with taking regular medication. Medication-related challenges were experienced around the timing of administration which was managed over 24 h rather than waking hours. Updating medication doses for administration at school was often delayed. Unintended nonadherence was cited as the biggest challenge with a range of strategies employed to manage this. The internet was commonly used as a source of additional information accessed for reassurance and adverse effects but there were varying experiences of using patient forums/help groups. Other challenges included the adequacy of information, travelling with medication, formulation issues, arranging supplies and adverse effects. Conclusion Patients and parents experience many challenges with children’s medication. Individualised treatment options should be considered. Further research is required to determine how these experiences may be managed including the role of paediatric medication review

Buses, cars, bicycles and walkers the influence of the type of human transport on the flight responses of waterbirds

One way to manage disturbance to waterbirds in natural areas where humans require access is to promote the occurrence of stimuli for which birds tolerate closer approaches, and so cause fewer responses. We conducted 730 experimental approaches to 39 species of waterbird, using five stimulus types (single walker, three walkers, bicycle, car and bus) selected to mimic different human management options available for a controlled access, Ramsar-listed wetland. Across species, where differences existed (56% of 25 cases), motor vehicles always evoked shorter flight-initiation distances (FID) than humans on foot. The influence of stimulus type on FID varied across four species for which enough data were available for complete cross-stimulus analysis. All four varied FID in relation to stimuli, differing in 4 to 7 of 10 possible comparisons. Where differences occurred, the effect size was generally modest, suggesting that managing stimulus type (e.g. by requiring people to use vehicles) may have species-specific, modest benefits, at least for the waterbirds we studied. However, different stimulus types have different capacities to reduce the frequency of disturbance (i.e. by carrying more people) and vary in their capacity to travel around important habita

Aquaponics in the Built Environment

Aquaponics’ potential to transform urban food production has been documented in a rapid increase of academic research and public interest in the field. To translate this publicity into real-world impact, the creation of commercial farms and their relationship to the urban environment have to be further examined. This research has to bridge the gap between existing literature on growing system performance and urban metabolic flows by considering the built form of aquaponic farms. To assess the potential for urban integration of aquaponics, existing case studies are classified by the typology of their building enclosure, with the two main categories being greenhouses and indoor environments. This classification allows for some assumptions about the farms’ performance in their context, but a more in-depth life cycle assessment (LCA) is necessary to evaluate different configurations. The LCA approach is presented as a way to inventory design criteria and respective strategies which can influence the environmental impact of aquaponic systems in the context of urban built environments

Sex difference in criteria determining fidelity towards breeding sites in the great cormorant.

1. Many animals choose to breed in sites where they have previously been successful. Such fidelity could arise from the predictability of high quality breeding sites in a temporally stable environment. The quality of a site may be indicated by factors other than an individual's own success, because it may fail as a result of a random event that is unrelated to the intrinsic quality of the site. In particular, prior experience (familiarity) with the breeding area and the performance of neighbours could give complementary information about the quality of the site. 2. We present results from a long-term study of colonial great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis), where movement and reproductive success of individually marked birds within a colony was known. 3. Individuals were more likely to return to the same breeding site if they had been successful the previous season. 4. Fidelity of both males and females increased with increasing level of familiarity with the breeding area. Males were more likely to breed again in the same area, and their fidelity was more dependent on familiarity with the area than female fidelity. 5. The success of breeding sites within the colony was spatially autocorrelated, and cueing on neighbour performance should thus be advantageous. Female fidelity increased with increasing success of neighbouring birds, while male fidelity was unaffected by neighbour success. 6. We suggest that the difference between the sexes in the criteria determining fidelity arises because it is mainly the males that are involved in territorial disputes. They may therefore benefit more than females from knowing their neighbours, and this could override the importance of the intrinsic quality of the breeding area (i.e. reproductive success of neighbours). 7. The conflict over preferred breeding sites that arises within breeding pairs because of this sex difference may be an explanation for the high rate of mate change between years (92.5%) observed in this species

Effects of distance to wintering area on arrival data and breeding performance in great cormorants Phalacrocorax carbo

Great Cormorants Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis breeding in the same colony often vary markedly in where they winter and in their date of arrival. The main aim of this study was to explore whether date of arrival, fledgling production and lifetime reproductive success were related to the distance migrated in spring. Based on resightings and dead recoveries of colour-ringed birds we identified the approximate wintering area for 195 breeding males and 179 breeding females. Based on daily searches for colour-ringed individuals in the study colony we found timing of arrival to vary by up to 1.5 months for a given distance to the wintering area. Males and females wintering 300 km from the colony. For breeders wintering 601–2500 km from the colony, date of arrival was only weakly related to distance from the colony, probably because of an earlier onset of spring migration from the most southern wintering areas, allowing these individuals to catch up with birds wintering further north. Mean fledgling production per individual did not decrease with increasing distance to the wintering area. However, lifetime reproductive success of males wintering 301–900 km from the colony was lower than among males wintering closer to or further from the colony. These birds had fewer breeding seasons, suggesting that wintering at intermediate distances was a poor strategy for males. Females that arrived early and were presumed to winter locally had more breeding seasons and thus higher lifetime reproductive success than migrating females. We found that in this population long-distance migrants do not arrive later, do not breed with lower success or less frequently than those wintering at intermediate distances from the colony