Evaluation of work-related psychosocial factors and regional musculoskeletal pain: results from a EULAR Task Force

Objectives: to establish whether review articles provide consistent conclusions on associations between workplace psychosocial factors and musculoskeletal pain and, if differences exist, to explore whether this is related to the methods used.Methods: reviews, reported up to February 2007, that included consideration of workplace psychosocial factors and upper limb, back or knee pain were identified through searches of multiple databases. The specific work-related psychosocial factors considered were job demands, support, job autonomy and job satisfaction. The conclusions of each review on one or more of the psychosocial/musculoskeletal pain associations were extracted.Results: 15 review articles were identified that considered one or more of the regional pain syndromes included in the study. For back pain, the most consistent conclusions (four reviews positive out of six) were with high job demands and low job satisfaction. The studies of upper limb pain were exclusively related to shoulder and/or neck pain, and the most consistent positive conclusions were with high and low job demands (four reviews positive out of six and two reviews positive out of three, respectively). For knee pain, only a single review was identified. For individual reviews of back and upper limb pain, there were marked differences in the number of associations concluded to be positive between reviews.Conclusions: the reasons for reviews coming to different conclusions included that they were often evaluating different bodies of evidence (according to their search criteria, the year when the review was conducted, the role that quality assessment played in whether studies contributed to evidence, and the combination of risk factors addressed in individual studies), but more important was whether the review specified explicit criteria for making conclusions on strength of evidence. These conclusions emphasise the importance of developing standardised methods for conducting such evaluations of existing evidence and the importance of new longitudinal studies for clarifying the temporal relationship between psychosocial factors and musculoskeletal pain in the workplac

Automating Deductive Verification for Weak-Memory Programs

Writing correct programs for weak memory models such as the C11 memory model is challenging because of the weak consistency guarantees these models provide. The first program logics for the verification of such programs have recently been proposed, but their usage has been limited thus far to manual proofs. Automating proofs in these logics via first-order solvers is non-trivial, due to reasoning features such as higher-order assertions, modalities and rich permission resources. In this paper, we provide the first implementation of a weak memory program logic using existing deductive verification tools. We tackle three recent program logics: Relaxed Separation Logic and two forms of Fenced Separation Logic, and show how these can be encoded using the Viper verification infrastructure. In doing so, we illustrate several novel encoding techniques which could be employed for other logics. Our work is implemented, and has been evaluated on examples from existing papers as well as the Facebook open-source Folly library.Comment: Extended version of TACAS 2018 publicatio

GPUVerify: A Verifier for GPU Kernels

We present a technique for verifying race- and divergence-freedom of GPU kernels that are written in mainstream ker-nel programming languages such as OpenCL and CUDA. Our approach is founded on a novel formal operational se-mantics for GPU programming termed synchronous, delayed visibility (SDV) semantics. The SDV semantics provides a precise definition of barrier divergence in GPU kernels and allows kernel verification to be reduced to analysis of a sequential program, thereby completely avoiding the need to reason about thread interleavings, and allowing existing modular techniques for program verification to be leveraged. We describe an efficient encoding for data race detection and propose a method for automatically inferring loop invari-ants required for verification. We have implemented these techniques as a practical verification tool, GPUVerify, which can be applied directly to OpenCL and CUDA source code. We evaluate GPUVerify with respect to a set of 163 kernels drawn from public and commercial sources. Our evaluation demonstrates that GPUVerify is capable of efficient, auto-matic verification of a large number of real-world kernels

Comment on ``Structure of exotic nuclei and superheavy elements in a relativistic shell model''

A recent paper [M. Rashdan, Phys. Rev. C 63, 044303 (2001)] introduces the new parameterization NL-RA1 of the relativistic mean-field model which is claimed to give a better description of nuclear properties than earlier ones. Using this model ^{298}114 is predicted to be a doubly-magic nucleus. As will be shown in this comment these findings are to be doubted as they are obtained with an unrealistic parameterization of the pairing interaction and neglecting ground-state deformation.Comment: 2 pages REVTEX, 3 figures, submitted to comment section of Phys. Rev. C. shortened and revised versio

Empowering patient education on self-care activity among patients with colorectal cancer - a research protocol for a randomised trial

Background: Chemotherapy-induced side effects may have a negative effect on nutrition intake, thus increasing the risk of malnutrition and consequently, other serious complications for patients with cancer. The prevalence of malnutrition is common among patients with colorectal cancer. Nurse-led empowering education may have a positive effect on self-care activity in this patient group. Therefore, our purpose is to develop an empowering educational nursing intervention and test its effect on self-care activation and knowledge level among patients with colorectal cancer during chemotherapy. Secondary outcomes are quality of life and risk of malnutrition. Methods: An interdisciplinary expert group developed a face-to-face empowering educational intervention using teach-back method. A two-arm, single-centre, superiority trial with stratified randomisation (1:1) and pre-post measures will be used to assess the effect of the intervention compared to standard care. Patients (N = 40 + 40) will be recruited in one university hospital outpatient clinic in Finland. Eligibility criteria are adult patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer starting oral fluoropyrimidine or combination chemotherapy treatment. A registered nurse experienced in oncology will deliver the intervention 2 weeks after the first chemotherapy. Outcomes are measured before intervention (M0) and after a two-month follow-up period (M1). Discussion: This study will assess whether nurse-led empowering education using teach-back method is effective on self-care activity among patients with colorectal cancer. If the intervention has a positive effect, it may be implemented into patient education in a corresponding context.Peer reviewe

Shape coexistence at the proton drip-line: First identification of excited states in 180Pb

Excited states in the extremely neutron-deficient nucleus, 180Pb, have been identified for the first time using the JUROGAM II array in conjunction with the RITU recoil separator at the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Jyvaskyla. This study lies at the limit of what is presently achievable with in-beam spectroscopy, with an estimated cross-section of only 10 nb for the 92Mo(90Zr,2n)180Pb reaction. A continuation of the trend observed in 182Pb and 184Pb is seen, where the prolate minimum continues to rise beyond the N=104 mid-shell with respect to the spherical ground state. Beyond mean-field calculations are in reasonable correspondence with the trends deduced from experiment.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.

First observation of excited states in 173Hg

The neutron-deficient nucleus 173Hg has been studied following fusion-evaporation reactions. The observation of gamma rays decaying from excited states are reported for the first time and a tentative level scheme is proposed. The proposed level scheme is discussed within the context of the systematics of neighbouring neutron-deficient Hg nuclei. In addition to the gamma-ray spectroscopy, the alpha decay of this nucleus has been measured yielding superior precision to earlier measurements.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure