Tributyltin (TBT) and the decline of the Norfolk Broads

This is the final report to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on the contract "Tributyltin (TBT) and the decline of the Norfolk Broads"

Developing Core Sets for Persons With Traumatic Brain Injury Based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health

The authors outline the process for developing the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) Core Sets for traumatic brain injury (TBI). ICF Core Sets are selections of categories of the ICF that identify relevant categories of patients affected by specific diseases. Comprehensive and brief ICF Core Sets for TBI should become useful for clinical practice and for research. The final definition of the ICF Core Sets for TBI will be determined at an ICF Core Sets Consensus Conference, which will integrate evidence from preliminary studies. The development of ICF Core Sets is an inclusive and open process and rehabilitation professionals are invited to participate

A Repeated Measures Experiment of Green Exercise to Improve Self-Esteem in UK School Children

Exercising in natural, green environments creates greater improvements in adult's self-esteem than exercise undertaken in urban or indoor settings. No comparable data are available for children. The aim of this study was to determine whether so called 'green exercise' affected changes in self-esteem; enjoyment and perceived exertion in children differently to urban exercise. We assessed cardiorespiratory fitness (20 m shuttle-run) and self-reported physical activity (PAQ-A) in 11 and 12 year olds (n = 75). Each pupil completed two 1.5 mile timed runs, one in an urban and another in a rural environment. Trials were completed one week apart during scheduled physical education lessons allocated using a repeated measures design. Self-esteem was measured before and after each trial, ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) and enjoyment were assessed after completing each trial. We found a significant main effect (F (1,74), = 12.2, p<0.001), for the increase in self-esteem following exercise but there was no condition by exercise interaction (F (1,74), = 0.13, p = 0.72). There were no significant differences in perceived exertion or enjoyment between conditions. There was a negative correlation (r = -0.26, p = 0.04) between habitual physical activity and RPE during the control condition, which was not evident in the green exercise condition (r = -0.07, p = 0.55). Contrary to previous studies in adults, green exercise did not produce significantly greater increases in self-esteem than the urban exercise condition. Green exercise was enjoyed more equally by children with differing levels of habitual physical activity and has the potential to engage less active children in exercise. © 2013 Reed et al

In vitro production of bovine embryos derived from individual donors in the Corral® dish

Background: Since the identity of the embryo is of outmost importance during commercial in vitro embryo production, bovine oocytes and embryos have to be cultured strictly per donor. Due to the rather low yield of oocytes collected after ovum pick-up (OPU) per individual cow, oocyte maturation and embryo culture take place in small groups, which is often associated with inferior embryo development. The objective of this study was to improve embryonic development in small donor groups by using the Corral (R) dish. This commercial dish is designed for human embryo production. It contains two central wells that are divided into quadrants by a semi-permeable wall. In human embryo culture, one embryo is placed per quadrant, allowing individual follow-up while embryos are exposed to a common medium. In our study, small groups of oocytes and subsequently embryos of different bovine donors were placed in the Corral (R) dish, each donor group in a separate quadrant. Results: In two experiments, the Corral (R) dish was evaluated during in vitro maturation (IVM) and/or in vitro culture (IVC) by grouping oocytes and embryos of individual bovine donors per quadrant. At day 7, a significantly higher blastocyst rate was noted in the Corral (R) dish used during IVM and IVC than when only used during IVM (12.9% +/- 2.10 versus 22.8% +/- 2.67) (P < 0.05). However, no significant differences in blastocyst yield were observed anymore between treatment groups at day 8 post insemination. Conclusions: In the present study, the Corral (R) dish was used for in vitro embryo production (IVP) in cattle; allowing to allocate oocytes and/or embryos per donor. As fresh embryo transfers on day 7 have higher pregnancy outcomes, the Corral (R) dish offers an added value for commercial OPU/IVP, since a higher blastocyst development at day 7 is obtained when the Corral (R) dish is used during IVM and IVC

Perspectives from deductible plan enrollees: plan knowledge and anticipated care-seeking changes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Consumer directed health care proposes that patients will engage as informed consumers of health care services by sharing in more of their medical costs, often through deductibles. We examined knowledge of deductible plan details among new enrollees, as well as anticipated care-seeking changes in response to the deductible.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In a large integrated delivery system with a range of deductible-based health plans which varied in services included or exempted from deductible, we conducted a mixed-method, cross-sectional telephone interview study.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among 458 adults newly enrolled in a deductible plan (71% response rate), 51% knew they had a deductible, 26% knew the deductible amount, and 6% knew which medical services were included or exempted from their deductible. After adjusting for respondent characteristics, those with more deductible-applicable services and those with lower self-reported health status were significantly more likely to know they had a deductible. Among those who knew of their deductible, half anticipated that it would cause them to delay or avoid medical care, including avoiding doctor's office visits and medical tests, even services that they believed were medically necessary. Many expressed concern about their costs, anticipating the inability to afford care and expressing the desire to change plans.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Early in their experience with a deductible, patients had limited awareness of the deductible and little knowledge of the details. Many who knew of the deductible reported that it would cause them to delay or avoid seeking care and were concerned about their healthcare costs.</p

Influence of the gender on the relationship between heart rate and blood pressure

Blood Pressure (BP) and Heart Rate (HR) provide information on clin-ical condition along 24h. Both signals present circadian changes due to sympa-thetic/parasympathetic control system that influence the relationship between them. Moreover, also the gender could modify this relation, acting on both con-trol systems. Some studies, using office measurements examined the BP/HR re-lation, highlighting a direct association between the two variables, linked to sus-pected coronary heart disease. Nevertheless, till now such relation has not been studied yet using ambulatory technique that is known to lead to additional prog-nostic information about cardiovascular risks. In order to examine in a more ac-curate way this relation, in this work we evaluate the influence of gender on the BP/HR relationship by using hour-to-hour 24h ambulatory measurements. Data coming from 122 female and 50 male normotensive subjects were recorded using a Holter Blood Pressure Monitor and the parameters of the linear regression fit-ting BP/HR were calculated. Results confirmed those obtained in previous stud-ies using punctual office measures in males and underlined a significant relation between Diastolic BP and HR during each hour of the day in females; a different trend in the BP/HR relation between genders was found only during night-time. Moreover, the circadian rhythm of BP/HR is similar in both genders but with different values of HR and BP at different times of the day

Induced Disjoint Paths in Circular-Arc Graphs in Linear Time

The Induced Disjoint Paths problem is to test whether a graph G with k distinct pairs of vertices (si,ti) contains paths P1,…,Pk such that Pi connects si and ti for i=1,…,k, and Pi and Pj have neither common vertices nor adjacent vertices (except perhaps their ends) for 1≤

A survey of statistics in three UK general practice journal

Background Many medical specialities have reviewed the statistical content of their journals. To our knowledge this has not been done in general practice. Given the main role of a general practitioner as a diagnostician we thought it would be of interest to see whether the statistical methods reported reflect the diagnostic process. Methods Hand search of three UK journals of general practice namely the British Medical Journal (general practice section), British Journal of General Practice and Family Practice over a one-year period (1 January to 31 December 2000). Results A wide variety of statistical techniques were used. The most common methods included t-tests and Chi-squared tests. There were few articles reporting likelihood ratios and other useful diagnostic methods. There was evidence that the journals with the more thorough statistical review process reported a more complex and wider variety of statistical techniques. Conclusions The BMJ had a wider range and greater diversity of statistical methods than the other two journals. However, in all three journals there was a dearth of papers reflecting the diagnostic process. Across all three journals there were relatively few papers describing randomised controlled trials thus recognising the difficulty of implementing this design in general practice

Ethnic Variation in Inflammatory Profile in Tuberculosis

PMCID: PMC3701709This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited