Psychological Aspects of Cardiac Care and Rehabilitation: Time to Wake Up to Sleep?

Psychological and psychosocial factors have long been linked to cardiovascular disease. These psychosocial factors, including low socioeconomic status, social support/isolation, stress and distress, personality, and sleep disturbance increase risk of cardiovascular events and negatively impact quality of life. These factors may have direct effects on cardiovascular disease via immune or neuroendocrine pathways, or more indirect effects, by, for example, limiting adherence to recommended therapies and cardiac rehabilitation. Most psychosocial risk factors can be assessed relatively easily using standardised tools. Sleep disturbance, in particular, is gaining evidence for its importance and may be crucial to address. While the management of certain psychosocial risk factors is an ethical requirement for care and improves quality of life, unfortunately there is little evidence that such strategies impact on \u27hard\u27 endpoints such as recurrent myocardial infarction. A comprehensive biopsychosocial approach to management of these psychosocial factors is required to maximise the benefits patients derive from cardiac care

Magnetospheric plasma dynamics:investigating ion and electron flow in the magnetotail

An investigation was carried out using moment data from the Cluster CIS and PEACE instruments, examining earthward and tailward directed ion and electron flows within the terrestrial magnetotail. For a time interval spanning 2001-2006, the study looked at the distribution of ion bulk velocity vectors in the magnetotail, separating the region up into discreet slices in the XY plane, and later in the XZ plane. Key features of the ion velocity distribution and flow directions were uncovered, highlighting how ions behave within the magnetotail over large time periods and helping to form a greater understanding of the overall picture of the Earth’s magnetosphere. The results found are in general agreement with a number of similar studies previously carried out on topic, and found that overall, the magnetosphere is a rather stagnant system. An important mechanism in the terrestrial magnetosphere is the transportation of energy and momentum throughout the system. Magnetospheric substorms have been linked to much of this transportation and as such, the investigation in this thesis shifts the focus from the occurrence of plasma flow for all times, to just during substorm events, concentrating on the three substorm phases, the growth expansion and recovery phase. The duration of each phase is quite short, meaning that the amount of data available was somewhat limited. This led to the time interval used to be increased to 14 years. Observations of key differences in the velocity distributions and flow patterns between each substorm phase were made, and the dominant direction of ion flow was found, both at the equatorial plane and further out into the magnetospheric lobes. The final investigation looked at how the data availability could be increased in order to improve the quality and reliability of the results. Following the frozen-in theorem, all charged particles are constrained to their local magnetic field lines and as such, they should all follow the same general flow pattern. An attempt was made to recreate the results of the first study instead using PEACE electron moments. If it was found to be possible, both data sets could be combined to greatly increase the resolution of the results. The electron velocity distribution was investigated and the dominant electron flow direction was found to be tailward within the plasma sheet, the opposite of ion flows. A further examination of the results was carried out to establish what could be causing tailward flow dominance in this region and in conclusion, it was decided that until a more in-depth investigation is carried out, PEACE electron moments are unsuitable for large time scale analysis of magnetospheric plasma flows

A6_6 Venusian Vacation

In this paper, we investigated the conditions required to ensure human survival on Venus, along with the effects of the Venusian climate on the astronauts and the spacecraft. By considering thermal conductivity and Young's modulus, we calculated that 78 MW of power would be required to maintain a room temperature environment within the spacecraft, a human would last 47.5 s before succumbing to the high temperatures, and that Tungsten would be required to prevent a spacecraft from breaking due to thermal expansion

First record of biofluorescence in lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus), a commercially farmed cleaner fish

This study is the first known observation of biofluorescence in the lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus). Individual lumpfish were illuminated with blue excitation lighting for photography with both hyperspectral and filtered multispectral cameras. All photographed juvenile lumpfish (n = 11) exhibited green biofluorescence. Light emissions were characterised with two peaks observed at 545 and 613 nm, with the greatest intensity along the tubercles of the high crest and the three longitudinal ridges. Further research on the dynamics of biofluorescence through the lifecycle of this species is required

Optical Flow Background Estimation for Real-time Pan/tilt Camera Object Tracking

As Computer Vision (CV) techniques develop, pan/tilt camera systems are able to enhance data capture capabilities over static camera systems. In order for these systems to be effective for metrology purposes, they will need to respond to the test article in real-time with a minimum of additional uncertainty. A methodology is presented here for obtaining high-resolution, high frame-rate images, of objects traveling at speeds ⩾1.2 m/s at 1 m from the camera by tracking the moving texture of an object. Strong corners are determined and used as flow points using implementations on a graphic processing unit (GPU), resulting in significant speed-up over central processing units (CPU). Based on directed pan/tilt motion, a pixel-to-pixel relationship is used to estimate whether optical flow points fit background motion, dynamic motion or noise. To smooth variation, a two-dimensional position and velocity vector is used with a Kalman filter to predict the next required position of the camera so the object stays centered in the image. High resolution images can be stored by a parallel process resulting in a high frame rate procession of images for post-processing. The results provide real-time tracking on a portable system using a pan/tilt unit for generic moving targets where no training is required and camera motion is observed from high accuracy encoders opposed to image correlation

HEMI-SYNC® AND RADIATION ONCOLOGY: A PILOT STUDY

This pilot study is reprinted from the Monroe Institute Hemi-Sync Journal, Vol. XXVI, Nos. 3 & 4, Summer/Fall 2008 Hemi-Sync, a binaural-beat brain-wave entrainment technology and consciousness-modulating tool developed by Robert Monroe and his associates, can be combined with guided meditation to produce a useful tool for behavioral medicine: the field of treating medical problems with behavioral modalities.The authors applied the technology to the problem of side effects of radiation treatment in cancer patients. Patients filled out the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) daily in the course of listening to MIND FOOD Energy Walk. At the end of the study, participants also completed a patient satisfaction questionnaire, which included questions about pain. Only two of the sixteen patients who returned the BFI questionnaire found the tape ineffective for pain and fatigue.The data strongly support the binaural-beat exercise's effectiveness for relieving fatigue associated with radiation treatments. Though this was an open rather than a placebo-controlled study, the effect size is far beyond what one would expect from a placebo effect. This pilot study gives strong encouragement for using the Hemi-Sync technology as an adjunct to radiation oncology. Further investigation with a larger patient population is recommended

HEMI-SYNC® AND RADIATION ONCOLOGY: A PILOT STUDY

This pilot study is reprinted from the Monroe Institute Hemi-Sync Journal, Vol. XXVI, Nos. 3 & 4, Summer/Fall 2008 Hemi-Sync, a binaural-beat brain-wave entrainment technology and consciousness-modulating tool developed by Robert Monroe and his associates, can be combined with guided meditation to produce a useful tool for behavioral medicine: the field of treating medical problems with behavioral modalities.The authors applied the technology to the problem of side effects of radiation treatment in cancer patients. Patients filled out the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI) daily in the course of listening to MIND FOOD Energy Walk. At the end of the study, participants also completed a patient satisfaction questionnaire, which included questions about pain. Only two of the sixteen patients who returned the BFI questionnaire found the tape ineffective for pain and fatigue.The data strongly support the binaural-beat exercise's effectiveness for relieving fatigue associated with radiation treatments. Though this was an open rather than a placebo-controlled study, the effect size is far beyond what one would expect from a placebo effect. This pilot study gives strong encouragement for using the Hemi-Sync technology as an adjunct to radiation oncology. Further investigation with a larger patient population is recommended