Comparing research investment to United Kingdom institutions and published outputs for tuberculosis, HIV and malaria: A systematic analysis across 1997-2013

Background: The "Unfinished Agenda" of infectious diseases is of great importance to policymakers and research funding agencies that require ongoing research evidence on their effective management. Journal publications help effectively share and disseminate research results to inform policy and practice. We assess research investments to United Kingdom institutions in HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and analyse these by numbers of publications and citations and by disease and type of science. Methods: Information on infection-related research investments awarded to United Kingdom institutions across 1997-2010 were sourced from funding agencies and individually categorised by disease and type of science. Publications were sourced from the Scopus database via keyword searches and filtered to include only publications relating to human disease and containing a United Kingdom-based first and/or last author. Data were matched by disease and type of science categories. Investment (United Kingdom pounds) and publications were compared to generate an 'investment per publication' metric; similarly, an 'investment per citation' metric was also developed as a measure of the usefulness of research. Results: Total research investment for all three diseases was £1.4 billion, and was greatest for HIV (£651.4 million), followed by malaria (£518.7 million) and tuberculosis (£239.1 million). There were 17,271 included publications, with 9,322 for HIV, 4,451 for malaria, and 3,498 for tuberculosis. HIV publications received the most citations (254,949), followed by malaria (148,559) and tuberculosis (100,244). According to UK pound per publication, tuberculosis (£50,691) appeared the most productive for investment, compared to HIV (£61,971) and malaria (£94,483). By type of science, public health research was most productive for HIV (£27,296) and tuberculosis (£22,273), while phase I-III trials were most productive for malaria (£60,491). According to UK pound per citation, tuberculosis (£1,797) was the most productive area for investment, compared to HIV (£2,265) and malaria (£2,834). Public health research was the most productive type of science for HIV (£2,265) and tuberculosis (£1,797), whereas phase I-III trials were most productive for malaria (£1,713). Conclusions: When comparing total publications and citations with research investment to United Kingdom institutions, tuberculosis research appears to perform best in terms of efficiency. There were more public health-related publications and citations for HIV and tuberculosis than other types of science. These findings demonstrate the diversity of research funding and outputs, and provide new evidence to inform research investment strategies for policymakers, funders, academic institutions, and healthcare organizations.Infectious Disease Research Networ

The predicament of primary physical education: a consequence of 'insufficient' ITT and 'ineffective' CPD?

Background: Research on primary physical education (PE) in England and other countries has shown that it is an aspect of the curriculum that has suffered from sparse initial teacher training (ITT). As a consequence of ‘insufficient’ time spent on PE in ITT (PE-ITT), primary teachers often have low levels of confidence and competence with respect to teaching the subject. Evidence also points to inadequacies in traditional forms of professional development in PE (PE-CPD), leading to calls for more effective ways of developing teachers' competence to deliver high quality PE. Purpose: To explore primary school teachers' experiences of PE during ITT and the PE context in their schools prior to them engaging in a national PE-CPD programme, and their perceptions of the immediate and longer-term effects of this programme. Setting and participants: Primary school teachers in five local education authorities in England. Research design and data collection: A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches were adopted, including: pre-course audits, course evaluations, focus groups and semi-structured interviews. The pre-course audits captured information about the teachers' experiences of PE-ITT and the PE context in their schools prior to them engaging in the CPD. The course evaluations focused on initial impressions of the PE-CPD, and the focus groups and interviews captured the teachers' perceptions of its longer-term effects. Findings: For up to half of the teachers, their PE-ITT was ‘insufficient’ in terms of the time dedicated to it and the breadth of coverage of the subject. The PE-CPD programme, which was designed in the light of ‘insufficient’ PE-ITT, demonstrated features of ‘effective’ CPD in that it was considered relevant to classroom practice and partially addressed some of their many needs (especially in relation to content ideas and inclusive practice). However, its effectiveness was undoubtedly limited due to: its short time span and minimal engagement with teachers; a heavy reliance on resources; and the absence of follow-up support. In addition, it did not adequately address known areas of development for primary PE (such as medium to long-term planning and assessment) and was challenged in meeting the diverse needs of primary teachers of 5–11 year olds. Furthermore, inadequate PE time and reduced opportunities to teach PE in some schools limited implementation of learning from the PE-CPD. Conclusions: The findings of this study confirmed that PE-ITT continues to be ‘insufficient’ for many primary teachers and that the PE-CPD in question, whilst partially ‘effective’, was not, and could never have been, the panacea for the inherent issues within and predicament of primary PE. In effect, this PE-CPD programme with its limited duration and engagement with teachers, a heavy reliance on resources, and no planned follow-up support was not sufficiently different to forms of CPD described in the literature as ‘ineffective’; consequently, it could not hope to compensate for long-term systemic weaknesses such as inadequate primary PE-ITT. These weaknesses need to be addressed through a dual approach of ‘sufficient’ PE-ITT followed by ‘effective’ PE-CPD which engages teachers and their colleagues in long-term collaborative endeavours that support transformative practice

Språklig bevissthet i praksis

Sammendrag på engels

The Legacy of the U. S. Public Health Service Study of Untreated Syphilis in African American Men at Tuskegee on the Affordable Care Act and Health Care Reform Fifteen Years after President Clinton's Apology

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2012.73080

Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The uncertainty on the calorimeter energy response to jets of particles is derived for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). First, the calorimeter response to single isolated charged hadrons is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo simulation using proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt(s) = 900 GeV and 7 TeV collected during 2009 and 2010. Then, using the decay of K_s and Lambda particles, the calorimeter response to specific types of particles (positively and negatively charged pions, protons, and anti-protons) is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo predictions. Finally, the jet energy scale uncertainty is determined by propagating the response uncertainty for single charged and neutral particles to jets. The response uncertainty is 2-5% for central isolated hadrons and 1-3% for the final calorimeter jet energy scale.Comment: 24 pages plus author list (36 pages total), 23 figures, 1 table, submitted to European Physical Journal

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark pair cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using final states with an electron or a muon and a hadronically decaying τ lepton

A measurement of the cross section of top quark pair production in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is reported. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb -1. Events with an isolated electron or muon and a τ lepton decaying hadronically are used. In addition, a large missing transverse momentum and two or more energetic jets are required. At least one of the jets must be identified as originating from a b quark. The measured cross section, σtt-=186±13(stat.)±20(syst.)±7(lumi.) pb, is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction