Design considerations in a clinical trial of a cognitive behavioural intervention for the management of low back pain in primary care : Back Skills Training Trial

Background Low back pain (LBP) is a major public health problem. Risk factors for the development and persistence of LBP include physical and psychological factors. However, most research activity has focused on physical solutions including manipulation, exercise training and activity promotion. Methods/Design This randomised controlled trial will establish the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a group programme, based on cognitive behavioural principles, for the management of sub-acute and chronic LBP in primary care. Our primary outcomes are disease specific measures of pain and function. Secondary outcomes include back beliefs, generic health related quality of life and resource use. All outcomes are measured over 12 months. Participants randomised to the intervention arm are invited to attend up to six weekly sessions each of 90 minutes; each group has 6–8 participants. A parallel qualitative study will aid the evaluation of the intervention. Discussion In this paper we describe the rationale and design of a randomised evaluation of a group based cognitive behavioural intervention for low back pain

Al2O3-based nanofluids: a review

Ultrahigh performance cooling is one of the important needs of many industries. However, low thermal conductivity is a primary limitation in developing energy-efficient heat transfer fluids that are required for cooling purposes. Nanofluids are engineered by suspending nanoparticles with average sizes below 100 nm in heat transfer fluids such as water, oil, diesel, ethylene glycol, etc. Innovative heat transfer fluids are produced by suspending metallic or nonmetallic nanometer-sized solid particles. Experiments have shown that nanofluids have substantial higher thermal conductivities compared to the base fluids. These suspended nanoparticles can change the transport and thermal properties of the base fluid. As can be seen from the literature, extensive research has been carried out in alumina-water and CuO-water systems besides few reports in Cu-water-, TiO2-, zirconia-, diamond-, SiC-, Fe3O4-, Ag-, Au-, and CNT-based systems. The aim of this review is to summarize recent developments in research on the stability of nanofluids, enhancement of thermal conductivities, viscosity, and heat transfer characteristics of alumina (Al2O3)-based nanofluids. The Al2O3 nanoparticles varied in the range of 13 to 302 nm to prepare nanofluids, and the observed enhancement in the thermal conductivity is 2% to 36%

Inflammatory arthritis in HIV positive patients: A practical guide

Background: Musculoskeletal manifestations of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have been described since the outset of the global HIV epidemic. Articular syndromes that have been described in association with HIV include HIV-associated arthropathy, seronegative spondyloarthropathies (SPA) (reactive arthritis, psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and undifferentiated SPA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and painful articular syndrome. Methods: We carried out a computer-assisted search of PubMed for the medical literature from January 1981 to January 2015 using the keywords HIV, acquired immune-deficiency syndrome, rheumatic manifestations, arthritis, spondyloarthropathy, anti-TNF and disease modifying antirheumatic drugs. Only English language literature was included and only studies involving adult human subjects were assessed. Results: There are challenges in the management of inflammatory arthritis in patients who are HIV-positive, including difficulties in the assessment of disease activity and limited information on the safety of immunosuppressive drugs in these individuals. Conclusions: This review focuses on the clinical characteristics of the inflammatory articular syndromes that have been described in association with HIV infection and discusses the therapeutic options for these patients

Compressed representation of a partially defined integer function over multiple arguments

In OLAP (OnLine Analitical Processing) data are analysed in an n-dimensional cube. The cube may be represented as a partially defined function over n arguments. Considering that often the function is not defined everywhere, we ask: is there a known way of representing the function or the points in which it is defined, in a more compact manner than the trivial one

Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions

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Constraints on parton distribution functions and extraction of the strong coupling constant from the inclusive jet cross section in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

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Measurement of prompt J/ψ pair production in pp collisions at √s = 7 Tev

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Study of hadronic event-shape variables in multijet final states in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

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Measurement of top quark–antiquark pair production in association with a W or Z boson in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV

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