When is choice a good thing?: An experimental study of the impact of choice on patient outcomes

The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright @ Taylor & FrancisAlthough policy emphasises the benefits of choice, an increasing body of work points to times when choice may not always have positive consequences. The present experimental study aimed to explore the impact of choice on a number of patient outcomes in the health care setting. The study also explored the extent to which the influence of choice was affected by patient uncertainty and anticipated regret. Choice was conceptualized as consisting of two dimensions: ‘having choice’ which reflects the availability of a number of options and ‘making choice’ reflecting resolution and a desire for a choice to be made. Consecutive patients (n=427) from 4 General Practices in Surrey were asked to read one of 16 vignettes which varied in terms of 4 independent variables (having choice, making choice, uncertainty, anticipated regret) and to rate items relating to 4 outcome variables (patient satisfaction, perceived control, negative emotions, information seeking). The results showed that having more choice was consistently associated with more positive patient outcomes than having no choice. Having no choice was particularly detrimental for those experiencing anticipated regret and uncertainty. In contrast, whether or not a choice was made had no impact upon any of the outcome measures. In line with current policy having choice in the health care setting is related to improved patient outcomes. The results provide some insights into the factors which influence the direction of the impact of choice. They also indicate the importance of differentiating between ‘having choice’ and ‘making choice’.Funding received from ESRC award: RES-000-22-165

Sphaerodactylus fantasticus

Number of Pages: 8Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Growth, yield and Fusarium wilt resistance of six FHIA tetraploid bananas (Musa spp.) grown in the Australian subtropics

Six tetraploid hybrids from Fundación Hondureña de Investigación Agrícola (FHIA) were evaluated in Australia over a five year period. They included three AAAA hybrids (FHIA-02, FHIA-17 and FHIA-23) and three AAAB hybrids (FHIA-01, FHIA-18 and SH-3640.10) and they were compared with industry standards, ‘Williams’ (AAA, Cavendish subgroup) and ‘Lady Finger’ (AAB, Pome subgroup). They were screened for their resistance to Fusarium wilt race 1 and subtropical race 4 caused by the pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense and they were also grown for several cycles on farms not infested with Fusarium wilt to record their agronomic characteristics. The AAAB hybrids, all derived from female parent ‘Prata Anã’ (AAB, Pome subgroup) were the most resistant to both races of Fusarium wilt and were very productive in the subtropics. They were significantly more productive than ‘Lady Finger’, which was susceptible to both races of Fusarium wilt. The AAAA hybrids, with the exception of FHIA-02 which was very susceptible to Fusarium wilt and displayed the poorest agronomic traits of the six hybrids, produced bunch weights as good as Cavendish but were significantly slower to cycle. FHIA-17 and FHIA-23, both derived from the female parent ‘Highgate’ (AAA, Gros Michel subgroup), were also significantly more resistant to Fusarium wilt than ‘Gros Michel’, while FHIA-17 demonstrated a level of resistance similar to ‘Williams’ and FHIA-23 was intermediate between ‘Lady Finger’ and ‘Williams

Banana Cultivar Field Screening for Resistance to Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 in the Northern Territory

Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense, causal agent of Panama disease, is one of the biggest threats to global banana production, particularly the Cavendish competent tropical race 4 (Foc TR4). It continues to spread globally with detections occurring in regions of the Middle East and new continents such as Africa and South America in the last decade. As the search was on for new management strategies and resistant cultivars to combat the disease, a banana cultivar-screening trial took place in the Northern Territory of Australia, which examined the responses of 24 banana cultivars to the soil borne fungus. These cultivars included material from TBRI, FHIA and selections from Thailand, Indonesia and Australia and evaluated for their resistance to tropical race 4 for two cropping cycles. Several cultivars displayed considerable resistance to Foc TR4, including several FHIA parental lines and hybrids, the Cavendish (AAA) selections GCTCV 215 and GCTCV 247 from TBRI and an Indonesian selection CJ19 showed either very little to no plant death due to the disease

MGIS: managing banana (Musa spp.) genetic resources information and high-throughput genotyping data

Unraveling the genetic diversity held in genebanks on a large scale is underway, due to advances in Next-generation sequence (NGS) based technologies that produce high-density genetic markers for a large number of samples at low cost. Genebank users should be in a position to identify and select germplasm from the global genepool based on a combination of passport, genotypic and phenotypic data. To facilitate this, a new generation of information systems is being designed to efficiently handle data and link it with other external resources such as genome or breeding databases. The Musa Germplasm Information System (MGIS), the database for global ex situ-held banana genetic resources, has been developed to address those needs in a user-friendly way. In developing MGIS, we selected a generic database schema (Chado), the robust content management system Drupal for the user interface, and Tripal, a set of Drupal modules which links the Chado schema to Drupal. MGIS allows germplasm collection examination, accession browsing, advanced search functions, and germplasm orders. Additionally, we developed unique graphical interfaces to compare accessions and to explore them based on their taxonomic information. Accession-based data has been enriched with publications, genotyping studies and associated genotyping datasets reporting on germplasm use. Finally, an interoperability layer has been implemented to facilitate the link with complementary databases like the Banana Genome Hub and the MusaBase breeding database. Database URL:https://www.crop-diversity.org/mgis

Collection of new diversity of wild and cultivated bananas (Musa spp.) in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea

Bananas (Musa spp.), including dessert and cooking types, are of major importance in the tropics. Due to extremely high levels of sterility, the diversity of cultivated bananas is fixed over long periods of time to the existing genotypes. This pattern puts banana-based agrosystems at risk. Therefore, assessing the extent of wild and cultivated banana diversity, conserving it and making it available for further use is a priority. We report here the collection of new wild and cultivated banana germplasm in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. In total, 61 accessions were collected and their names and uses were recorded when possible. Classification was also provided based on the observations made in the field. Three wild specimens were collected. Among the 58 cultivated accessions, we noted that eight were used as ornamental plants, seven were edible varieties of the Fe’i type and two were natural tetraploids from the Musa section. The ploidy was then checked by flow cytometry and the accessions were genotyped with a set of 19 SSR markers. The genotyping results were merged to the dataset from Christelová et al. (Biodivers Conserv 26:801–824, 2017). This joint analysis helped refine or confirm the classification of the collected accessions. It also allowed to identify 10 private alleles and 35 genotypes or Genotype Groups that were not present in the wider dataset. Finally, it shed light on the diversification processes at work in the region, such as the capture of mutations by farmers and the likely occurrence of geneflow within the cultivated genepool. © 2018, The Author(s)

Measurement of χ c1 and χ c2 production with s√ = 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

The prompt and non-prompt production cross-sections for the χ c1 and χ c2 charmonium states are measured in pp collisions at s√ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using 4.5 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. The χ c states are reconstructed through the radiative decay χ c → J/ψγ (with J/ψ → μ + μ −) where photons are reconstructed from γ → e + e − conversions. The production rate of the χ c2 state relative to the χ c1 state is measured for prompt and non-prompt χ c as a function of J/ψ transverse momentum. The prompt χ c cross-sections are combined with existing measurements of prompt J/ψ production to derive the fraction of prompt J/ψ produced in feed-down from χ c decays. The fractions of χ c1 and χ c2 produced in b-hadron decays are also measured