Consent and privacy in telemedicine.

The electronic broadcast of a medical interview, or a video tele-consultation (VTC), challenges many of our traditional concepts of privacy and confidentiality. The nature of a doctor-patient relationship changes dramatically when the open airwaves carry the personal histories, images, and concerns of a patient. Discussions of telemedicine often allude to inherent ethical concerns yet there are no established guidelines for the ethical conduct of a VTC

Unified Multifractal Description of Velocity Increments Statistics in Turbulence: Intermittency and Skewness

The phenomenology of velocity statistics in turbulent flows, up to now, relates to different models dealing with either signed or unsigned longitudinal velocity increments, with either inertial or dissipative fluctuations. In this paper, we are concerned with the complete probability density function (PDF) of signed longitudinal increments at all scales. First, we focus on the symmetric part of the PDFs, taking into account the observed departure from scale invariance induced by dissipation effects. The analysis is then extended to the asymmetric part of the PDFs, with the specific goal to predict the skewness of the velocity derivatives. It opens the route to the complete description of all measurable quantities, for any Reynolds number, and various experimental conditions. This description is based on a single universal parameter function D(h) and a universal constant R*.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, Extended version, Publishe

Statistical geometry in scalar turbulence

A general link between geometry and intermittency in passive scalar turbulence is established. Intermittency is qualitatively traced back to events where tracer particles stay for anomalousy long times in degenerate geometries characterized by strong clustering. The quantitative counterpart is the existence of special functions of particle configurations which are statistically invariant under the flow. These are the statistical integrals of motion controlling the scalar statistics at small scales and responsible for the breaking of scale invariance associated to intermittency.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Intramuscular Olanzapine – a UK case series of early cases

BACKGROUND: Clinical trials assessing efficacy and safety of Intramuscular (IM) Olanzapine in acute schizophrenia and acute mania have previously been undertaken in studies required for drug registration in patients who were required to give informed consent. These patients may have less severe forms of psychosis than patients treated in routine practice. Data derived from naturalistic practice following the launch of IM olanzapine may be helpful for clinicians in assessing efficacy and safety of IM olanzapine. The PANSS-EC scale used in the clinical studies may represent a tool that could be used in routine clinical practice. CASE PRESENTATION: We report on an early unselected case series of 7 patients who received IM olanzapine in routine clinical practice settings in the UK. In this case series, olanzapine IM was generally effective, and no adverse events were reported. Adjunctive benzodiazepines were given concomitantly in 1 of the 7 subjects. This is relevant as concomitant benzodiazepines are not recommended for a minimum of 1 hour post IM olanzapine administration. PANSS-EC data was collected in 2 of the 7 subjects. CONCLUSION: Although patients had greater severity of psychosis than clinical trial patients there were no unexpected findings. In addition the PANSS-EC scale is a scale that may be useful in assessing the efficacy of IM antipsychotics in routine clinical practice

Grasslands - more important for ecosystem services than you might think

Extensively managed grasslands are recognized globally for their high biodiversity and their social and cultural values. However, their capacity to deliver multiple ecosystem services (ES) as parts of agricultural systems is surprisingly understudied compared to other production systems. We undertook a comprehensive overview of ES provided by natural and semi‐natural grasslands, using southern Africa (SA) and northwest Europe as case studies, respectively. We show that these grasslands can supply additional non‐agricultural services, such as water supply and flow regulation, carbon storage, erosion control, climate mitigation, pollination, and cultural ES. While demand for ecosystems services seems to balance supply in natural grasslands of SA, the smaller areas of semi‐natural grasslands in Europe appear to not meet the demand for many services. We identified three bundles of related ES from grasslands: water ES including fodder production, cultural ES connected to livestock production, and population‐based regulating services (e.g., pollination and biological control), which also linked to biodiversity. Greenhouse gas emission mitigation seemed unrelated to the three bundles. The similarities among the bundles in SA and northwestern Europe suggest that there are generalities in ES relations among natural and semi‐natural grassland areas. We assessed trade‐offs and synergies among services in relation to management practices and found that although some trade‐offs are inevitable, appropriate management may create synergies and avoid trade‐offs among many services. We argue that ecosystem service and food security research and policy should give higher priority to how grasslands can be managed for fodder and meat production alongside other ES. By integrating grasslands into agricultural production systems and land‐use decisions locally and regionally, their potential to contribute to functional landscapes and to food security and sustainable livelihoods can be greatly enhanced

Summary of personal neutron dosemeter results obtained within the EVIDOS project

Within the EC project EVIDOS (‘Evaluation of Individual Dosimetry in Mixed Neutron and Photon Radiation Fields'), different types of active neutron personal dosemeters (and some passive ones) were tested in workplace fields at nuclear installations in Europe. The results of the measurements which have been performed up to now are summarised and compared to our currently best estimates of the personal dose equivalent Hp(10). Under- and over-readings by more than a factor of two for the same dosemeter in different workplace fields indicate that in most cases the use of field-specific correction factors is require

Application of workplace correction factors to dosemeter results for the assessment of personal doses at nuclear facilities

Ratios of Hp(10) and H*(10) were determined with reference instruments in a number of workplace fields within the nuclear industry and used to derive workplace-specific correction factors. When commercial survey meter results together with these factors were applied to the results of the locally used personal dosemeters their results improved and became within 0.7 and 1.7 of the reference values or better depending on the response of the survey meter. A similar result was obtained when a correction was determined with a prototype reference instrument for Hp(10) after adjustment of its response. Commercially available survey instruments both for photon and neutron H*(10) measurements agreed with the reference instruments in most cases to within 0.5-1.5. Those conclusions are derived from results reported within the EC supported EVIDOS contrac

Zinc whisker growth from electroplated finishes – a review

Electroplated zinc finishes have been associated with the electronics industry for many years as a result of their excellent corrosion resistance and relatively low cost. They are normally applied onto ferrous products to provide corrosion protection in a range of different environments. However, the formation of spontaneously grown whiskers on zinc-electroplated components, which are capable of resulting in electrical shorting or other damaging effects, can be highly problematic for the reliability of long life electrical and electronic equipment. The growth of zinc whiskers has been identified as the cause of some electrical and electronic failures in telecommunications and aerospace-based applications, with consequences ranging from mild inconvenience to complete system failures. Investigators have been striving to address the problems induced by whisker growth since 1940s. However, most research effort has been focused on tin whiskers, especially following European Union environmental legislation that restricted the use of lead (Pb), which when alloyed with tin (3–10% by weight) provided effective tin whisker mitigation. Compared with tin whisker research, much less attention has been paid to zinc whiskers. A number of mechanisms to explain zinc whisker growth have been proposed, but none of them are widely accepted and some are in conflict with each other. The aim of this paper is to review the available literature in regard to zinc whiskers, to discuss the reported growth mechanisms, to evaluate the effect of deposition parameters and to explore potential mitigation methods. This paper presents a chronologically ordered review of zinc whisker-related studies from 1946 to 2013. Some important early research, which investigated whisker growth in tin and cadmium, as well as zinc, has also been included

The troposphere-to-stratosphere transition in kinetic energy spectra and nonlinear spectral fluxes as seen in ECMWF analyses

Global horizontal wavenumber kinetic energy spectra and spectral fluxes of rotational kinetic energy and enstrophy are computed for a range of vertical levels using a T799 ECMWF operational analysis. Above 250 hPa, the kinetic energy spectra exhibit a distinct break between steep and shallow spectral ranges, reminiscent of dual power-law spectra seen in aircraft data and high-resolution general circulation models. The break separates a large-scale ‘‘balanced’’ regime in which rotational flow strongly dominates divergent flow and a mesoscale ‘‘unbalanced’’ regime where divergent energy is comparable to or larger than rotational energy. Between 230 and 100 hPa, the spectral break shifts to larger scales (from n 5 60 to n 5 20, where n is spherical harmonic index) as the balanced component of the flow preferentially decays. The location of the break remains fairly stable throughout the stratosphere. The spectral break in the analysis occurs at somewhat larger scales than the break seen in aircraft data. Nonlinear spectral fluxes defined for the rotational component of the flow maximize between about 300 and 200 hPa. Large-scale turbulence thus centers on the extratropical tropopause region, within which there are two distinct mechanisms of upscale energy transfer: eddy–eddy interactions sourcing the transient energy peak in synoptic scales, and zonal mean–eddy interactions forcing the zonal flow. A well-defined downscale enstrophy flux is clearly evident at these altitudes. In the stratosphere, the transient energy peak moves to planetary scales and zonal mean–eddy interactions become dominant