14,787 research outputs found
Stroke treatment academic industry roundtable recommendations for individual data pooling analyses in stroke
Pooled analysis of individual patient data from stroke trials can deliver more precise estimates of treatment effect, enhance power to examine prespecified subgroups, and facilitate exploration of treatment-modifying influences. Analysis plans should be declared, and preferably published, before trial results are known. For pooling trials that used diverse analytic approaches, an ordinal analysis is favored, with justification for considering deaths and severe disability jointly. Because trial pooling is an incremental process, analyses should follow a sequential approach, with statistical adjustment for iterations. Updated analyses should be published when revised conclusions have a clinical implication. However, caution is recommended in declaring pooled findings that may prejudice ongoing trials, unless clinical implications are compelling. All contributing trial teams should contribute to leadership, data verification, and authorship of pooled analyses. Development work is needed to enable reliable inferences to be drawn about individual drug or device effects that contribute to a pooled analysis, versus a class effect, if the treatment strategy combines â„2 such drugs or devices. Despite the practical challenges, pooled analyses are powerful and essential tools in interpreting clinical trial findings and advancing clinical care
Cancer and communication: similarities and differences of men with cancer from six different ethnic groups.
Objective
To report the communication aspects of a pilot study, which explored the cancer meanings and experiences of six men with cancer and their significant others from different ethnic groups.
Design
Case study design using the principles of phenomenology. In-depth semi-structured individual interviews with men with cancer and their wives were conducted.
Setting
London, UK. Interviews took place in participantsâ own homes.
Respondents
Six men with cancer and their wives from different ethnic groups.
Intervention
The pilot study explored the participantsâ experiences and meanings of cancer. However, this paper only deals with the communication aspects of the findings.
Results
Ten themes emerged from the comparative analysis of the studyâs data, with communication as a cross-cutting theme. Further analysis of this theme revealed similarities and differences of the participantsâ experiences of communicating with health professionals; families or friends; and God/Allah. In addition, similarities and differences of communicating meanings of cancer in different cultures were revealed.
Conclusion
The findings revealed similarities in the way that men from these six cultures communicate with health professionals and their families following a diagnosis of cancer, and differences in how they communicated with God/Allah, which depended on their religious beliefs and practices
Developing culturally competent researchers
Background
Whilst we live in multi-cultural societies most health researchers tend to take the cultural perspective of the majority ethnic group at the expense of the perspective of minority ethnic groups.
Aim
This paper discusses the need for the development of culturally competent health researchers in all areas of research and proposes a model for the achievement of this.
Design
A snapshot review of research textbooks used in nursing curricula was conducted to identify whether culturally competent research was being promoted.
Results
The review found that whilst a few textbooks touched on ethnicity, race and culture, none of them addressed the issue of culturally competence. Subsequently the authors adapted their existing model of culturally competent health care practice, and in this paper they propose it as a model for the development of culturally competent researchers.
Discussion
The model put forward by the authors consists of four concepts: cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural sensitivity and cultural competence. A culturally competent researcher is one who is able to apply the related skills and knowledge in project design, data collection, analysis, report writing and dissemination. Furthermore, the authors identify two layers of cultural competence, those of culture-generic (knowledge and skills that are applicable across ethnic groups) and culture-specific competence (knowledge and skills that relate to a particular ethnic group). The relationship between these two layers is a dynamic and spiralling process as illustrated by the model.
Conclusion
Current health policy in many developed countries focuses on inequalities of health and managing diversity, including ethnicity. Thus the authors conclude that the development of culturally competent researchers will lead to both valid research and culturally competent practice by health care professionals
Magnetic properties of geometrically frustrated SrGd2O4
A study of the magnetic properties of the frustrated rare earth oxide SrGd2O4
has been completed using bulk property measurements of magnetization,
susceptibility and specific heat on single crystal samples. Two zero-field
phase transitions have been identified at 2.73 and 0.48 K. For the field, H,
applied along the a and b axes, a single boundary is identified that delineates
the transition from a low field, low temperature magnetically ordered regime to
a high field, high temperature paramagnetic phase. Several field-induced
transitions, however, have been observed with H || c. The measurements have
been used to map out the magnetic phase diagram of SrGd2O4, suggesting that it
is a complex system with several competing magnetic interactions. The
low-temperature magnetic behavior of SrGd2O4 is very different compared to the
other SrLn2O4 (Ln = Lanthanide) compounds, even though all of the SrLn2O4
compounds are isostructural, with the magnetic ions forming a low-dimensional
lattice of zigzag chains that run along the c axis. The differences are likely
to be due to the fact that in the ground state Gd3+ has zero orbital angular
momentum and therefore the spin-orbit interactions, which are crucial for other
SrLn2O4 compounds, can largely be neglected. Instead, given the relatively
short Gd3+-Gd3+ distances in SrGd2O4, dipolar interactions must be taken into
account for this antiferromagnet alongside the Heisenberg exchange terms.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure
Insulatorâmetal transitions in Pr0.7Ca0.3MnO3 induced by a magnetic field
A magnetic field induced insulator to metal transition has been observed in both polycrystalline and single crystals samples of Pr0.7Ca0.3MnO3. Application of a magnetic field leads to a first-order phase transition from an insulating to a conducting state at low temperatures. The hysteresis associated with this transition allows the resistivity at 4 K to be varied by more than eight orders of magnitude depending on the field history of the sample
Remotely triggered scaffolds for controlled release of pharmaceuticals
Fe3O4-Au hybrid nanoparticles (HNPs) have shown increasing potential for biomedical applications such as image guided stimuli responsive drug delivery. Incorporation of the unique properties of HNPs into thermally responsive scaffolds holds great potential for future biomedical applications. Here we successfully fabricated smart scaffolds based on thermo-responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNiPAM). Nanoparticles providing localized trigger of heating when irradiated with a short laser burst were found to give rise to remote control of bulk polymer shrinkage. Gold-coated iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized using wet chemical precipitation methods followed by electrochemical coating. After subsequent functionalization of particles with allyl methyl sulfide, mercaptodecane, cysteamine and poly(ethylene glycol) thiol to enhance stability, detailed biological safety was determined using live/dead staining and cell membrane integrity studies through lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) quantification. The PEG coated HNPs did not show significant cytotoxic effect or adverse cellular response on exposure to 7F2 cells (p < 0.05) and were carried forward for scaffold incorporation. The pNiPAM-HNP composite scaffolds were investigated for their potential as thermally triggered systems using a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. These studies show that incorporation of HNPs resulted in scaffold deformation after very short irradiation times (seconds) due to internal structural heating. Our data highlights the potential of these hybrid-scaffold constructs for exploitation in drug delivery, using methylene blue as a model drug being released during remote structural change of the scaffold
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