Method in limbo? Theoretical and empirical considerations in using thematic analysis by veterinary and One Health researchers

This article spans a number of theoretical, empirical and practice junctures at the intersection of human and animal medicine and the social sciences. We discuss the way thematic analysis, a qualitative method borrowed from the social sciences, is being increasingly used by veterinary and One Health researchers to investigate a range of complex issues. By considering theoretical aspects of thematic analysis, we expand our discussion to question whether this tool, as well as other social science methods, is currently being used appropriately by veterinary and human health researchers. We suggest that additional engagement with social science theory would enrich research practices and improve findings. We argue that considerations of ‘big theory’ - ontological and epistemological positionings of the researcher - and ‘small(er)’ theory, the specific social theory in which research is situated, are both necessary. Our point of departure is that scientific discourse is not merely construction or ideology but a unique and continuing arena of debate, in part at least because of the elevation of self-criticism to a central tenet of its practice. We argue for further engagement with the core ideas and concepts outlined above and discuss them in what follows. In particular, and by way of focusing the point, we suggest that for veterinary, One Health, and human medical researchers to use thematic analysis to its maximum potential they should be encouraged to engage with both broader socio-economic theories and with questions of ontology and epistemology

A study to compare the effects of Honey and Saline Dressing in the Wound Healing of Chronic Foot Ulcers

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To study the efficacy of application of honey dressing in the management of chronic foot ulcers and comparison of the results over the conventional method of saline dressing. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sterilised Honey, Normal Saline. Study Population: This is a prospective study conducted on 80 individuals (40 control group, 40 test group) who are admitted in GOVERMENT RAJAJI HOSPITAL, MADURAI during the study period of August 2013 to August 2014 2014.Subjects of this study include all individuals with chronic non healing non malignant ulcers. Randomization is done ( by allotting random numbers one to hundred to all the patients coming with complaints of chronic non healing non malignant ulcers) followed by alternate subjects were treated with treatment A (saline dressing) and the others will be treated with treatment B (honey dressing). Inclusion criteria: a. Patients aged more than 20 years with chronic foot ulcer. b. Ulcers of Wagener’s Grade II-IV. Exclusion criteria: 1. Malignant ulcers. 2. Ulcers of Wagner’s Grade V. 3. X-ray showing osteomyelitis. 4. Doppler showing gross atherosclerotic arterial changes and venous Abnormalities like varicosities. 5. Malnutrition, uncontrolled diabetes. 6. Other clinically significant medical conditions that would impair wound healing including renal, hepatic, hematological, neurological, and immunological diseases. 7. Patients receiving corticosteroids, immunosuppressive agents, radiation, or chemotherapy within one month prior to entry into the study were also excluded. DATA COLLECTION: The selected patients have to undergo screening for a period of one to two weeks, to stabilize the wound and institute appropriate medical and surgical line of treatment like diabetic control, control of infection by initiating appropriate antibiotic based on culture sensitivity report, surgical debridement, correction of anemia and correction of other medical illness. After the initial screening period the eligible patients who required bed side debridement to be divided randomly into test group and control groups. 1. Test group: Receive dressing with gauze embedded with thin layer of natural honey bed side surgical debridement when ever required for wounds / ulcers which had slough in the floor and till granulation tissue appeared. 2. Control group: Receive bed side surgical debridement with conventional saline dressing. The test medication to be applied to test group once daily, only superficial slough was removed using bed side surgical debridement when ever required. Wounds to be treated once daily until complete debridement or up to seven weeks. The amount of nonviable tissue, degree of wound granulation, and overall wound response to be evaluated weekly using a visual score. The visual scores are as follows a. The score for the percentage of wound covered by slough and nonviable (necrotic) tissue are 1. = 76-100% wound covered with nonviable tissue. 2. = 51-75% wound covered with nonviable tissue. 3. = 26-50% wound covered with nonviable tissue. 4. = 11-25% wound covered with nonviable tissue. 5. = 0-10% wound covered with nonviable tissue. 6. = No necrotic tissue b. The score for the percentage of wound covered by granulation tissue are 1. = No granulation present 2. = < 25% of wound covered by granulation tissue 3. = 25-74% of wound covered by granulation tissue 4. = 75-100% of wound covered by granulation tissue The reduction of wound size and area measured in cm2. Design of Study: prospective comparison study. Period of Study: August 2013 to August 2014. Selection of Study Subjects: All patients belonging to age more than 20 years in both sexes admitted in Govt Rajaji Hospital with chronic non malignant foot ulcers. Data Collection: Data regarding history, clinical examination, investigation, surgery, time, cost and outcome. RESULTS: The number of patients with no necrotic tissue is significantly higher in Test group at 3rd week follow up (P< 0.001), at 4th week (P <0.001), at 5th week (P <0.001), at 6th week (P < 0.001) and at the 7th week (P<0.01) when compared to control group. There is minimal loss of viable tissue in the test group compared to that of control group this is because the number of bedside surgical debridements required is less and done superficially to remove dead tissue only. The number of patients with 75-100% wound filled by granulation tissue is significantly higher in Test group at 3rd week follow up (P<0.001), at 4th week (P <0.001), at 5th week (P <0.001), at 6th week (P <0.001) and at the 7th week (P< 0.05) when compared to control group. The number of patients with no wound surface (nil) is significantly higher in Test group at 3rd week follow up (P<0.05), at 4th week (P <0.05), at 5 week (P <0.05), at 6th week (P < 0.001) at the 7th week (P < 0.001) when compared to control group. In addition to the above observation test group has experienced less pain and reduced Malodor from the ulcer site compared to that of control group. The duration of hospital stay was less in test group compared to control group. The patients treated with Honey dressings had faster reduction of slough / necrotic tissue and increased granulation tissue. This study demonstrated that Honey dressings along with bed side surgical debridement had cumulative effect in reduction of slough, increase granulation tissue and faster wound bed preparation. The test group patients had increased growth of the granulation tissue along with epithelization which is generally correlated with the development of a granulating wound bed. All this are done with visual score. Hence it was not possible to determine if the granulation tissue production was actually increased after treatment or if just more granulation became visible after debriding the ulcer But patients in test group produced better results than the control group. The test group patients also experienced less pain than the control group because the need for the bed side surgical debridement is less than the control group The test group patients under went skin grafting, secondary suturing and flap as early as 3rd week than control group because of faster wound bed preparation. The wound also healed faster this is due to increased epithelisation. CONCLUSION: Honey dressing proved to be highly effective in reduction of slough, promoting granulation tissue formation and reepitheilization Honey dressing proved to be significantly effective in wound bed preparation in comparison with conventional treatment with normal saline. Our study concluded that Honey is a effective topical applicant in faster reduction of slough, regeneration of granulation tissue and Reepitheilization in chronic foot ulcer

The effect of whisker movement on radial distanceestimation: A case study in comparative robotics

Whisker movement has been shown to be under active control in certain specialistanimals such as rats and mice. Though this whisker movement is well characterized,the role and effect of this movement on subsequent sensing is poorly understood. Onemethod for investigating this phenomena is to generate artificial whisker deflections withrobotic hardware under different movement conditions. A limitation of this approachis that assumptions must be made in the design of any artificial whisker actuators,which will impose certain restrictions on the whisker-object interaction. In this paperwe present three robotic whisker platforms, each with different mechanical whiskerproperties and actuation mechanisms. A feature-based classifier is used to simultaneouslydiscriminate radial distance to contact and contact speed for the first time. We showthat whisker-object contact speed predictably affects deflection magnitudes, invariantof whisker material or whisker movement trajectory. We propose that rodent whiskercontrol allows the animal to improve sensing accuracy by regulating contact speed inducedtouch-to-touch variability

Optimal decision-making in mammals : insights from a robot study of rodent texture discrimination

Texture perception is studied here in a physical model of the rat whisker system consisting of a robot equipped with a biomimetic vibrissal sensor. Investigations of whisker motion in rodents have led to several explanations for texture discrimination, such as resonance or stick-slips. Meanwhile, electrophysiological studies of decision-making in monkeys have suggested a neural mechanism of evidence accumulation to threshold for competing percepts, described by a probabilistic model of Bayesian sequential analysis. For our robot whisker data, we find that variable reaction-time decision-making with sequential analysis performs better than the fixed response-time maximum-likelihood estimation. These probabilistic classifiers also use whatever available features of the whisker signals aid the discrimination, giving improved performance over a single-feature strategy, such as matching the peak power spectra of whisker vibrations. These results cast new light on how the various proposals for texture discrimination in rodents depend on the whisker contact mechanics and suggest the possibility of a common account of decision-making across mammalian species

Pyxis: A ground-based demonstrator for formation-flying optical interferometry

In the past few years, there has been a resurgence in studies towards space-based optical/infrared interferometry, particularly with the vision to use the technique to discover and characterise temperate Earth-like exoplanets around solar analogues. One of the key technological leaps needed to make such a mission feasible is demonstrating that formation flying precision at the level needed for interferometry is possible. Here, we present $\textit{Pyxis}$, a ground-based demonstrator for a future small satellite mission with the aim to demonstrate the precision metrology needed for space-based interferometry. We describe the science potential of such a ground-based instrument, and detail the various subsystems: three six-axis robots, a multi-stage metrology system, an integrated optics beam combiner and the control systems required for the necessary precision and stability. We end by looking towards the next stage of $\textit{Pyxis}$: a collection of small satellites in Earth orbit.Comment: 27 Pages, 14 Figures, submitted to JATI

Probing Feedback in Galaxy Formation with Millimeter-wave Observations

Achieving a precise understanding of galaxy formation in a cosmological context is one of the great challenges in theoretical astrophysics, due to the vast range of spatial scales involved in the relevant physical processes. Observations in the millimeter bands, particularly those using the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation as a "backlight", provide a unique probe of the thermodynamics of these processes, with the capability to directly measure the density, pressure, and temperature of ionized gas. Moreover, these observations have uniquely high sensitivity into the outskirts of the halos of galaxies and clusters, including systems at high redshift. In the next decade, the combination of large spectroscopic and photometric optical galaxy surveys and wide-field, low-noise CMB surveys will transform our understanding of galaxy formation via these probes.Comment: Submitted to the Astro2020 Decadal Surve

Expression of an S phase-stabilized version of the CDK inhibitor Dacapo can alter endoreplication

In developing organisms, divergence from the canonical cell division cycle is often necessary to ensure the proper growth, differentiation, and physiological function of a variety of tissues. An important example is endoreplication, in which endocycling cells alternate between G and S phase without intervening mitosis or cytokinesis, resulting in polyploidy. Although significantly different from the canonical cell cycle, endocycles use regulatory pathways that also function in diploid cells, particularly those involved in S phase entry and progression. A key S phase regulator is the Cyclin E-Cdk2 kinase, which must alternate between periods of high (S phase) and low (G phase) activity in order for endocycling cells to achieve repeated rounds of S phase and polyploidy. The mechanisms that drive these oscillations of Cyclin E-Cdk2 activity are not fully understood. Here, we show that the Drosophila Cyclin E-Cdk2 inhibitor Dacapo (Dap) is targeted for destruction during S phase via a PIP degron, contributing to oscillations of Dap protein accumulation during both mitotic cycles and endocycles. Expression of a PIP degron mutant Dap attenuates endocycle progression but does not obviously affect proliferating diploid cells. A mathematical model of the endocycle predicts that the rate of destruction of Dap during S phase modulates the endocycle by regulating the length of G phase. We propose from this model and our in vivo data that endo S phase-coupled destruction of Dap reduces the threshold of Cyclin E-Cdk2 activity necessary to trigger the subsequent G-S transition, thereby influencing endocycle oscillation frequency and the extent of polyploidy

Current state of Fusarium wilt of banana in the subtropics

The original publication is available at https://www.actahort.org/books/1272/1272_7.ht