Evaluation of dental therapists undertaking dental examinations in a school setting in Scotland

Objective: To measure agreement between dental therapists and the Scottish gold-standard dentist undertaking National Dental Inspection Programme (NDIP) examinations. Methods: A study of interexaminer agreement between 19 dental therapists and the national gold-standard dentist was carried out. Pre-calibration training used the caries diagnostic criteria and examination techniques agreed by the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry (BASCD). Twenty-three 5-year-old children (Primary 1) and 17 11-year-old children (Primary 7) children were examined. Agreement was assessed using kappa statistics on d 3 mft and D 3 MFT for P1 and P7 children, sensitivity and specificity values, and kappa statistics on d 3 t/D 3 T and ft/FT. Calibration data on P1 and P7 children from 2009–2012 involving dentists as examiners were used for comparison. Economic evaluation was undertaken using a cost minimization analysis approach. Results: The mean kappa score was 0.84 (SD 0.07) ranging from 0.69 to 0.94. All dental therapists scored good or very good agreement with the gold-standard dentist. This compares with historic NDIP calibration data with dentists, against the same gold-standard dentist, where the mean kappa value was 0.68 (SD 0.22) with a range of 0.35-1.00. The mean sensitivity score was 0.98 (SD 0.04) (range 0.88-1.0) and mean specificity score was 0.90 (SD 0.06) (range 0.78-0.96). Health economic analysis estimated that salary costs would be 33.6% lower if dental therapists were substituted for dentists in the year 2013, with an estimated saving of approximately £103 646 per annum on the national budget. Conclusion: We conclude that dental therapists show a high level of interexaminer agreement, and with the appropriate annual training and calibration, they could undertake dental examinations as part of the NDIP programme

HST imaging of hyperluminous infrared galaxies

We present HST WFPC2 I band imaging for a sample of 9 Hyperluminous Infrared Galaxies spanning a redshift range 0.45 < z < 1.34. Three of the sample have morphologies showing evidence for interactions, six are QSOs. Host galaxies in the QSOs are reliably detected out to z ~ 0.8. The detected QSO host galaxies have an elliptical morphology with scalelengths spanning 6.5 < r_{e}(Kpc) < 88 and absolute k corrected magnitudes spanning -24.5 < M_{I} < -25.2. There is no clear correlation between the IR power source and the optical morphology. None of the sources in the sample, including F15307+3252, show any evidence for gravitational lensing. We infer that the IR luminosities are thus real. Based on these results, and previous studies of HLIRGs, we conclude that this class of object is broadly consistent with being a simple extrapolation of the ULIRG population to higher luminosities; ULIRGs being mainly violently interacting systems powered by starbursts and/or AGN. Only a small number of sources whose infrared luminosities exceed 10^{13}Lsun are intrinsically less luminous objects which have been boosted by gravitational lensing.Comment: 16 Pages. Accepted for publication in MNRA

The X-ray Spectrum of the z=6.30 QSO SDSS J1030+0524

We present a deep XMM-Newton observation of the z=6.30 QSO SDSS J1030+0524, the second most distant quasar currently known. The data contain sufficient counts for spectral analysis, demonstrating the ability of XMM-Newton to measure X-ray spectral shapes of z~6 QSOs with integration times >100ks. The X-ray spectrum is well fit by a power law with index Gamma=2.12 +/- 0.11, an optical-X-ray spectral slope of a_{ox}=-1.80, and no absorption excess to the Galactic value, though our data are also consistent with a power law index in the range 2.02 < Gamma < 2.5 and excess absorption in the range 0 < N_H(cm^-2) < 8x10^22. There is also a possible detection (2 sigma) of FeKa emission. The X-ray properties of this QSO are, overall, similar to those of lower-redshift radio-quiet QSOs. This is consistent with the statement that the X-ray properties of radio-quiet QSOs show no evolution over 0<z<6.3. Combined with previous results, this QSO appears indistinguishable in any way from lower redshift QSOs, indicating that QSOs comparable to those seen locally existed less than one Gyr after the Big Bang.Comment: ApJ Letters, accepte

Takayasu arteritis in childhood: retrospective experience from a tertiary referral centre in the United Kingdom.

Takayasu arteritis (TA) is an idiopathic large-vessel vasculitis affecting the aorta and its major branches. Although the disease rarely affects children, it does occur, even in infants. The objective of this study was to evaluate the clinical features, disease activity, treatment and outcome of childhood TA in a tertiary UK centre

New Limits on the Polarized Anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background at Subdegree Angular Scales

We update the limit from the 90 GHz PIQUE ground-based polarimeter on the magnitude of any polarized anisotropy of the cosmic microwave radiation. With a second year of data, we have now limited both Q and U on a ring of 1 degree radius. The window functions are broad: for E-mode polarization, the effective l is = 191 +143 -132. We find that the E-mode signal can be no greater than 8.4 microK (95% CL), assuming no B-mode polarization. Limits on a possible B-mode signal are also presented.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letter

CENP-A Is Dispensable for Mitotic Centromere Function after Initial Centromere/Kinetochore Assembly

Human centromeres are defined by chromatin containing the histone H3 variant CENP-A assembled onto repetitive alphoid DNA sequences. By inducing rapid, complete degradation of endogenous CENP-A, we now demonstrate that once the first steps of centromere assembly have been completed in G1/S, continued CENP-A binding is not required for maintaining kinetochore attachment to centromeres or for centromere function in the next mitosis. Degradation of CENP-A prior to kinetochore assembly is found to block deposition of CENP-C and CENP-N, but not CENP-T, thereby producing defective kinetochores and failure of chromosome segregation. Without the continuing presence of CENP-A, CENP-B binding to alphoid DNA sequences becomes essential to preserve anchoring of CENP-C and the kinetochore to each centromere. Thus, there is a reciprocal interdependency of CENP-A chromatin and the underlying&nbsp;repetitive centromere DNA sequences bound by CENP-B in the maintenance of human chromosome segregation

Near-infrared colors of minor planets recovered from VISTA - VHS survey (MOVIS)

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) provide information about the surface composition of about 100,000 minor planets. The resulting visible colors and albedos enabled us to group them in several major classes, which are a simplified view of the diversity shown by the few existing spectra. We performed a serendipitous search in VISTA-VHS observations using a pipeline developed to retrieve and process the data that corresponds to solar system objects (SSo). The colors and the magnitudes of the minor planets observed by the VISTA survey are compiled into three catalogs that are available online: the detections catalog (MOVIS-D), the magnitudes catalog (MOVIS-M), and the colors catalog (MOVIS-C). They were built using the third data release of the survey (VISTA VHS-DR3). A total of 39,947 objects were detected, including 52 NEAs, 325 Mars Crossers, 515 Hungaria asteroids, 38,428 main-belt asteroids, 146 Cybele asteroids, 147 Hilda asteroids, 270 Trojans, 13 comets, 12 Kuiper Belt objects and Neptune with its four satellites. The colors found for asteroids with known spectral properties reveal well-defined patterns corresponding to different mineralogies. The distributions of MOVIS-C data in color-color plots shows clusters identified with different taxonomic types. All the diagrams that use (Y-J) color separate the spectral classes more effectively than the (J-H) and (H-Ks) plots used until now: even for large color errors (<0.1), the plots (Y-J) vs (Y-Ks) and (Y-J) vs (J-Ks) provide the separation between S-complex and C-complex. The end members A, D, R, and V-types occupy well-defined regions.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figure

Impact case studies submitted to REF2014: the hidden impact of nursing research

The UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 rated the research from 154 universities and the impact of research was evaluated in 6975 impact case studies. Nursing was returned within unit of Assessment (UoA) 3 which also included Dentistry, Pharmacy, Allied Health Professions, although nursing research was also submitted within other UoAs. The study aim was to collate and categorise available REF impact case studies involving nursing researchers or on topics of relevance to nursing. Using nurs* as a search term 469 case study entries were retrieved from the REF database and placed into three categories determined by the level of involvement of nurses. Some 80 impact case studies were submitted by nurses across 11 UoAs: the majority being in UoA3 (n=55). A further 50 revealed some relevant impact, though nurses did not have an obvious research role. A total of 248 case studies described actual or potential impact on health or social care but were not associated specifically with nursing. Nursing research has demonstrable impact, however there is a significant body of research with relevance for nursing that has not been associated with the profession in the REF. More attention should be paid to the ‘hidden impact’ of nursing research to ensure the full impact of nursing is recognised

Total energy calculation of high pressure selenium: The origin of incommensurate modulations in Se-IV and the instability of proposed Se-II

We present calculation of the high pressure crystal structures in selenium, including rational approximants to the recently reported incommensurate phases. We show how the incommensurate phases can be intuitively explained in terms of imaginary phonon frequencies arising from Kohn anomalies in the putative undistorted phase. We also find inconsistencies between the calculated and experimental Se-II phase - the calculations show it to be a metastable metal while the experiment finds a stable semiconductor. We propose that the experimentally reported structure is probably in error.Comment: 4 pages 4 figure