4,750 research outputs found
Survey of Australian father\u27s attitudes towards infant vaccination: Findings from the Australian Father\u27s Study
Objective: To investigate the attitudes of expectant Australian fathers towards vaccination, and to identify factors which may influence these attitudes.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey study of 407 Australian men with expectant partners, mean age 30.4 (SD 6.7). Self reported attitude, level of knowledge and information resources accessed regarding pregnancy related issues. Participant demographics collected included: Age, number of children, relationship status, level of education, employment information and smoking status.
Results: Majority (89%) of participants had a positive attitude towards infant vaccination, 9% felt neutral and 2% had negative attitudes. Positive attitudes towards vaccination were associated with lower self-reported knowledge of pregnancy issues but a higher likelihood of discussing pregnancy issues with health care providers rather than sourcing information from the internet (both p\u3c0.001).
Conclusion: A majority of Australian expectant fathers have a positive attitude towards infant vaccination. Fathers with negative attitudes to vaccination self-reported higher levels of knowledge. They were more likely to obtain information from the Internet instead of healthcare staff.
Implication for public health: Including fathers in health discussion with knowledgeable health care providers may result in increased vaccine uptake
The “charnel house of historic memories”: Salonica as Site of Transcultural Memory in the Published Writings of Cecil Roth
Following his visit to Salonica in 1946 Cecil Roth became the first historian to engage with the significance of the Holocaust in Salonica. This essay analyses Roth’s published writings on Salonica to examine how they radically revise our understanding of Holocaust memory. Roth identifies Holocaust memory at an extraordinarily early moment. By paralleling the Holocaust and the Spanish Inquisition, Roth depicts Holocaust memory as transhistorical. Most transformatively Roth reveals the transcultural memories of Sephardi Jews as an object for Nazi destruction in the Holocaust. Roth’s Salonica writings underline the importance of Jewish Salonica as a site of transcultural memory. Focusing on these writings, my essay recovers Roth as a valuable source for contemporary memory, transcultural and Jewish studies
Dynamical phase transition of a 1D transport process including death
Motivated by biological aspects related to fungus growth, we consider the
competition of growth and corrosion. We study a modification of the totally
asymmetric exclusion process, including the probabilities of injection
and death of the last particle . The system presents a phase transition
at , where the average position of the last particle
grows as . For , a non equilibrium stationary state
exists while for the asymptotic state presents a low density
and max current phases. We discuss the scaling of the density and current
profiles for parallel and sequential updates.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Temperature Effect on Leaf Water Potential Measurements
Silver foil psychrometers were used to monitor water potential in different portions of maize leaves which were subjected to temperature gradients. The psychrometers were preliminarily calibrated over standard NaCI solutions at temperatures ranging from 5°C to 45°C in an aluminum plate apparatus designed to provide uniform temperatures within each psychrometer even while overall temperature was changing. Based on the calibrations, empirical temperature correction equations were derived and used to correct psychrometer readings at different temperatures to equivalent values at 25°C. Temperatures on a single maize leaf were varied by placing the long leaf through an insulated box with several compartments in each of which the temperatures could be separately varied by passing warm or cold air through the compartment. As many as five psychrometers were attached to the leaf to monitor water potentials along the leaf. Although there was some variation, water potentials tend to become lower (more negative) toward the tip of the leaf; the gradient was steeper in moisture stressed plants. Raising or lowering the temperature of proximal and mid portions of leaves between 10°C and 45°C had no measurable influence on the water potentials of more distal leaf parts. In the heated portions themselves, the water potential after correction for temperature, was higher while in cooled portions it was lower
Optimized generation of spatial qudits by using a pure phase spatial light modulator
We present a method for preparing arbitrary pure states of spatial qudits,
namely, D-dimensional (D > 2) quantum systems carrying information in the
transverse momentum and position of single photons. For this purpose, a set of
D slits with complex transmission are displayed on a spatial light modulator
(SLM). In a recent work we have shown a method that requires a single
phase-only SLM to control independently the complex coefficients which define
the quantum state of dimension D. The amplitude information was codified by
introducing phase gratings inside each slit and the phase value of the complex
transmission was added to the phase gratings. After a spatial filtering process
we obtained in the image plane the desired qudit state. Although this method
has proven to be a good alternative to compact the previously reported
architectures, it presents some features that could be improved. In this paper
we present an alternative scheme to codify the required phase values that
minimizes the effects of temporal phase fluctuations associated to the SLM
where the codification is carried on. In this scheme the amplitudes are set by
appropriate phase gratings addressed at the SLM while the relative phases are
obtained by a lateral displacement of these phase gratings. We show that this
method improves the quality of the prepared state and provides very high
fidelities of preparation for any state. An additional advantage of this scheme
is that a complete 2\pi modulation is obtained by shifting the grating by one
period, and hence the encoding is not limited by the phase modulation range
achieved by the SLM. Numerical simulations, that take into account the phase
fluctuations, show high fidelities for thousands of qubit states covering the
whole Bloch sphere surface. Similar analysis are performed for qudits with D =
3 and D = 7.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
The bacillary and macrophage response to hypoxia in tuberculosis and the consequences for T cell antigen recognition
M. tuberculosis is a facultative anaerobe and its characteristic pathological hallmark, the granuloma, exhibits hypoxia in humans and in most experimental models. Thus the host and bacillary adaptation to hypoxia is of central importance in understanding pathogenesis and thereby to derive new drug treatments and vaccines
Effects of stage of lactation and time of year on plasmin-derived proteolytic activity in bovine milk in New Zealand
The objective of this study was to determine the effects of stage of lactation (SOL) and time of year on plasmin-derived proteolytic activity in the milk of pasture-fed dairy cows in New Zealand. Four herds of 20 Friesian cows were used, one herd calving in each of January, April, July and October. Cows grazed ryegrass/white clover pasture only, except during June (winter) when all cows received supplementary pasture silage. Milk samples were collected on four occasions during the year (spring, summer, autumn and winter) from each cow in milk, to give a total of three samples per cow (early, mid and late lactation; c. 30, 120 and 220 days after calving, respectively). Milk samples were analysed for plasmin-derived proteolytic activity. There was no effect of either SOL or time of year on plasmin activity and therefore yields of plasmin followed patterns in milk yield (highest in early lactation and in summer). There were effects of both SOL and time of year on plasminogen-derived and total plasmin plus plasminogen-derived activity, both of which were highest in late lactation and in spring. Changes in plasminogen-derived activity and total plasmin plus plasminogen-derived activity due to SOL were not only due to the decrease in milk yield associated with advancing lactation, because enzyme yields were also increased with advancing lactation. Similarly, effects of time of year on plasminogen-derived activity and total plasmin plus plasminogen-derived activity could not be attributed solely to concomitant changes in milk yield, and may be influenced by the variation in the quality and quantity of feed during the year inherent in a pasture-based dairy system. Effects of SOL on proteolytic activity were greater than, and independent of, effects of time of year
An outside-inside view of exclusive practice within an inclusive mainstream school
This article is a reflection on a sabbatical experience in a mainstream school where an inclusive ethos underpinned the curriculum and environmental approaches for all children. The period as Acting Head teacher raised some challenges for me in reconciling inclusion for all children and the exclusive nature of some professional and physical spaces available to the community of adults working in the school. It has highlighted some development opportunities for the senior management of the school and its governing body
A model of hyphal tip growth involving microtubule-based transport
We propose a simple model for mass transport within a fungal hypha and its
subsequent growth. Inspired by the role of microtubule-transported vesicles, we
embody the internal dynamics of mass inside a hypha with mutually excluding
particles progressing stochastically along a growing one-dimensional lattice.
The connection between long range transport of materials for growth, and the
resulting extension of the hyphal tip has not previously been addressed in the
modelling literature. We derive and analyse mean-field equations for the model
and present a phase diagram of its steady state behaviour, which we compare to
simulations. We discuss our results in the context of the filamentous fungus,
Neurospora crassa.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
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