Swollen Micelles Plus Hydrophobically Modified Hydrosoluble Polymers in Aqueous Solutions: Decoration Versus Bridging. a Small Angle Neutron Scattering Study

In this paper we examine the effective interactions introduced between the droplets of an oil in water microemulsion upon progressive addition of hydrophobically modified water soluble poly(ethylene oxide)-PEO using essentially small angle neutron scattering. To discuss the relative importance of decoration and bridging of the droplets we compare analogous samples with addition of a PEO grafted at both extremities with hydrophobic C12H 25 chains (PEO-2m) or addition of a PEO grafted at one extremity only with a C12H 25 chain (PEO-m). PEO-m or PEO-2m adsorb onto the droplets via their hydrophobic extremities and the droplets are found to retain their form and size upon addition of up to 40 hydrophobic C12H 25 chains per droplet. When the volume fraction of droplets is less than about 10%, the effective interactions introduced by PEO-m or PEO-2m are found to be very different: PEO-m introduces a repulsive interaction while PEO-2m introduces an effective attractive interaction. This attractive interaction leads to an associative phase separation in the range of low volume fraction when a sufficient amount of PEO-2m is added

Congenital hearing loss in Malta : a survey

The congenitally deaf infant who acquires deafness prior to development of language present special problems when compared to other hearing impaired individuals. This is because both the development of speech and of language depends on adequate hearing. As speech and language are our prime means of communication, the congenitally deaf child is automatically also handicapped in his psychological development, social adaptation and work adaptability. The authors reviewed cases of congenital hearing loss presenting on a 20 year period to establish the incidence of congenital hearing impairment in the Maltese islands; to determine the common causes; to highlight any difficulties in early diagnosis and management of these children.peer-reviewe

Influence of birth weight, sex, age and adiposity on central leptin and insulin sensitivity in young growing sheep, as indicated by changes in voluntary food intake

Non peer reviewedPublisher PD

Growth, body composition and metabolism at neonatal and adolescent life stages in low birth weight offspring

Non peer reviewedPublisher PD

Central and peripheral insulin resistance in a large animal model of obesity

Non peer reviewedPublisher PD

Early pregnancy weight gain and fat accrual predict pregnancy outcome in growing adolescent sheep

Funding: This work was funded by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division. Author contribution statement: JW developed the animal model, performed experiments, analysed the data and wrote the paper. RA and JM performed experiments and conducted the laboratory analysis. Acknowledgements: Dr Graham Horgan (Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland) provided statistical advice and Dr Clare Adam gifted the leptin antibody.Peer reviewedPostprin

Theoretically and empirically-informed narrative descriptions of competency development

Background: Determining whether a student has demonstrated readiness to enter their profession, particularly in professions where semi-autonomous practice is required on graduation, is challenging. Discourse regarding performance assessment has moved from measurement and psychometric validity towards the value of qualitative approaches and narratives to support sound judgement of readiness for practice. The objective of this study was to develop narrative descriptions of competency development. The research questions were: (i) how do experienced clinicians describe students who are developing their clinical competency, and (ii) how do they describe a student who is ready for semi-autonomous professional practice? We investigated these questions within the profession of clinical exercise physiology (CEP). CEP is a role emerging health profession in Australia and therefore is in the early stages of articulating its understanding of readiness for practice and related assessment of performance. Summary of Work: A social constructivist theoretical perspective informed the methodology. Across three focus groups, 17 CEP clinicians with clinical educator experience were asked to describe (i) what students who are developing their clinical competency 'look like' and (ii) what students who were ready for professional practice 'look like'. Data saturation was reached at the third focus group. A thematic analysis identified the behavioural constructs describing competency development which were then used to write three narrative descriptions of points along a competency continuum. These narrative descriptions were further evaluated and refined through semi-structured interviews. Summary of Results: The behavioural constructs which informed the narrative descriptions included: consistency, managing complexity, flexibility, safe practice, independence and insight into own performance. Participants considered the narrative descriptions to accurately describe the continuum of competency development and a student who is ready for professional practice. Discussion and Conclusions: The narrative descriptions fit with contemporary discourse on assessment in clinical workplace settings. The narrative descriptions may be useful in providing support for quality judgements of students' performances in the workplace setting. That is, the narrative descriptions could be used as reference points by those constructing their judgements of student performances. Take-home Messages: The broad behavioural constructs in the narratives may be relevant to other health professionals' practice

Percolation in a Model Transient Network: Rheology and Dynamic Light Scattering

Step strain experiments and dynamic light scattering measurements are perfomed to characterize the dynamic behavior of an o/w droplet microemulsion into which is incorporated a telechelic polymer. At sufficient droplet and polymer concentrations, above the percolation threshold, the system is viscoelastic and its dynamic structure factor shows up two steps for the relaxation of concentration fluctuations: the fast one is dominated by the diffusion but the slower one is almost independent of the wave vector. The terminal time of the stress relaxation tR and the slow time of the dynamic structure factor tS are both presumably controlled by the residence time of a sticker in a droplet: consistently, tR and tS are of the same order, they both vanishes at the percolation threshold according to power laws but with different exponents. We discuss these features in terms of deviations at the transition, from the usual mean field description of the dynamics of transient networks.Comment: mars 200

Undernutrition and stage of gestation influence fetal adipose tissue gene expression

Funded by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS), including the Strategic Partnership for Animal Science Excellence (SPASE) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (HD045784). None of the authors had any financial or personal conflicts of interest.Peer reviewedPostprin