Development of the CHARIOT Research Register for the Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia and Other Late Onset Neurodegenerative Diseases

Identifying cognitively healthy people at high risk of developing dementia is an ever-increasing focus. These individuals are essential for inclusion in observational studies into the natural history of the prodromal and early disease stages and for interventional studies aimed at prevention or disease modification. The success of this research is dependent on having access to a well characterised, representative and sufficiently large population of individuals. Access to such a population remains challenging as clinical research has, historically, focussed on patients with dementia referred to secondary and tertiary services. The primary care system in the United Kingdom allows access to a true prodromal population prior to symptoms emerging and specialist referral. We report the development and recruitment rates of the CHARIOT register, a primary care-based recruitment register for research into the prevention of dementia. The CHARIOT register was designed specifically to support recruitment into observational natural history studies of pre-symptomatic or prodromal dementia stages, and primary or secondary prevention pharmaceutical trials or other prevention strategies for dementia and other cognitive problems associated with ageing.Participants were recruited through searches of general practice lists across the west and central London regions. Invitations were posted to individuals aged between 60 and 85 years, without a diagnosis of dementia. Upon consent, a minimum data set of demographic and contact details was extracted from the patient's electronic health record.To date, 123 surgeries participated in the register, recruiting a total of 24,509 participants-a response rate of 22.3%. The age, gender and ethnicity profiles of participants closely match that of the overall eligible population. Higher response rates tended to be associated with larger practices (r = 0.34), practices with a larger older population (r = 0.27), less socioeconomically disadvantaged practices (r = 0.68), and practices with a higher proportion of White patients (r = 0.82).Response rates are comparable to other registers reported in the literature, and indicate good interest and support for a research register and for participation in research for the prevention of age-related neurodegenerative diseases and dementia. We consider that the simplicity of the approach means that this system is easily scalable and replicable across the UK and internationally

Bonding machine for forming a solar array strip

A machine is described for attaching solar cells to a flexable substrate on which printed circuitry has been deposited. The strip is fed through: (1) a station in which solar cells are elevated into engagement with solder pads for the printed circuitry and thereafter heated by an infrared lamp; (2) a station at which flux and solder residue is removed; (3) a station at which electrical performance of the soldered cells is determined; (4) a station at which an encapsulating resin is deposited on the cells; (5) a station at which the encapsulated solar cells are examined for electrical performance; and (6) a final station at which the resulting array is wound on a takeup drum

Energetics and geometry of excitations in random systems

Methods for studying droplets in models with quenched disorder are critically examined. Low energy excitations in two dimensional models are investigated by finding minimal energy interior excitations and by computing the effect of bulk perturbations. The numerical data support the assumptions of compact droplets and a single exponent for droplet energy scaling. Analytic calculations show how strong corrections to power laws can result when samples and droplets are averaged over. Such corrections can explain apparent discrepancies in several previous numerical results for spin glasses.Comment: 4 pages, eps files include

Mean winds of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere at 52° N in the period 1988?2000

International audienceA meteor radar in the UK (near 52° N) has been used to measure the mean winds of the mesosphere/lower-thermosphere (MLT) region over the period 1988?2000. The seasonal course and interannual variability is characterised and comparisons are made with a number of models. Annual mean wind trends were found to be + 0.37 ms-1 yr-1 for the zonal component and + 0.157 ms-1 yr-1 for the meridional component. Seasonal means revealed significant trends in the case of meridional winds in spring ( + 0.38 ms-1 yr-1) and autumn ( + 0.29 ms-1 yr-1), and zonal winds in summer ( + 0.48 ms-1 yr-1) and autumn ( + 0.38 ms-1 yr-1). Significant correlation coefficients, R, between the sunspot number and seasonal mean wind are found in four instances. In the case of the summer zonal winds, R = + 0.732; for the winter meridional winds, R = - 0.677; for the winter zonal winds, R = - 0.472; and for the autumn zonal winds R = + 0.508

A minimum income standard for Britain : What people think

A minimum income standard, based on what people said is needed to achieve an acceptable standard of living in Britain today. While politicians from all parties are committed to tackling relative poverty, the debates lack a robust definition of a minimum income standard (MIS), below which people’s incomes should not fall. This study devised a minimum income standard for Britain based on what members of the public said, and shows the cost of covering basic goods and services for different household types. The project blends the best elements of the two main methods that have been used to develop budget standards in Britain in recent years. It reconciles the views of experts with those of ordinary people, allowing budgets based on social consensus to be tested against expert knowledge and research. As such, the MIS represents a new and important tool for informing social policy in order to promote fairness and well-being in Britain

Resonant steps and spatiotemporal dynamics in the damped dc-driven Frenkel-Kontorova chain

Kink dynamics of the damped Frenkel-Kontorova (discrete sine-Gordon) chain driven by a constant external force are investigated. Resonant steplike transitions of the average velocity occur due to the competitions between the moving kinks and their radiated phasonlike modes. A mean-field consideration is introduced to give a precise prediction of the resonant steps. Slip-stick motion and spatiotemporal dynamics on those resonant steps are discussed. Our results can be applied to studies of the fluxon dynamics of 1D Josephson-junction arrays and ladders, dislocations, tribology and other fields.Comment: 20 Plain Latex pages, 10 Eps figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Driven depinning of strongly disordered media and anisotropic mean-field limits

Extended systems driven through strong disorder are modeled generically using coarse-grained degrees of freedom that interact elastically in the directions parallel to the driving force and that slip along at least one of the directions transverse to the motion. A realization of such a model is a collection of elastic channels with transverse viscous couplings. In the infinite range limit this model has a tricritical point separating a region where the depinning is continuous, in the universality class of elastic depinning, from a region where depinning is hysteretic. Many of the collective transport models discussed in the literature are special cases of the generic model.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Magpie: towards a semantic web browser

Web browsing involves two tasks: finding the right web page and then making sense of its content. So far, research has focused on supporting the task of finding web resources through ‘standard’ information retrieval mechanisms, or semantics-enhanced search. Much less attention has been paid to the second problem. In this paper we describe Magpie, a tool which supports the interpretation of web pages. Magpie offers complementary knowledge sources, which a reader can call upon to quickly gain access to any background knowledge relevant to a web resource. Magpie automatically associates an ontologybased semantic layer to web resources, allowing relevant services to be invoked within a standard web browser. Hence, Magpie may be seen as a step towards a semantic web browser. The functionality of Magpie is illustrated using examples of how it has been integrated with our lab’s web resources

Process poesis: A comparison of the concept of God found in the Whiteheadian process theology and in the narrative fiction of Nikos Kazantzakis

Our study engages a conversation between literature and theology by using the narrative fiction of Nikos Kazantzakis and Whiteheadian process thought. This 'dialogue' unfolds in five chapters. It begins as we locate an affinity between Kazantzakis and Alfred North Whitehead in their understanding of an evolving deity who relies on our support to progress into the future. Utilizing The Saviours of God: Spiritual Exercises and Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, our objective in this first chapter is to reveal the common philosophy (Bergsonian transformism and evolutionary thought) which shapes both Kazantzakis and Whitehead's understanding of God. In chapter two, we recognize that the exercise of sustaining this interchange becomes, at times, demanding because our conversation partners use dissimilar textual modes and forms of discourse. By further exploring the role of God in Kazantzakis and Whitehead, we hold that literature and theology constantly (de)construct one another. Suggesting that this (de)constructive assignment is one that cannot but be 'in process' itself, we return to it throughout our study. The following chapters are arranged according to the standard order and progression of Christian theological topics. We bring theology and literature into conversation by comparing a specific theme in a novel by Kazantzakis and in the work(s) of a particular Whiteheadian process theologian. In chapter three. The Last Temptation is coupled with John Cobb's Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Here we note how Kazantzakis and Cobb write of Jesus becoming divine and of Christ as one who fights against the mortmain of the past which holds us in thrall. We next read God's Pauper: St Francis of Assisi alongside of Blair Reynolds's Toward a Process Pneumatology in a consideration of God as evolving Spirit. Uniting these differently structured texts is a portrayal of the divine transcendence-within-immanence (process panentheism). We find in our fifth and final chapter that common to both Zorba the Greek and David Ray Griffin's God and Religion in the Postmodern World: Essays in Postmodern Theology is the belief that creativity is universal, that spirituality involves the imitation of an adventurous God, and that our attempts to instantiate moral and religious beauty can enhance the becoming of others (human and divine). With the help of ideas culled from the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, we note that the tense but close alliance between the Dionysiac and Apollonian traits of Zorba and the Boss evokes the relationship between literature and theology. We end our final chapter with a discussion of possible points of divergence and convergence between the two disciplines in light of insights from deconstruction theory, and we maintain that the dialogue we have sustained between them allows us to interpret Kazantzakis's narrative fiction as a mythopoesis of process thought. In a succinct conclusion, we consider the value of this interpretation to Whiteheadian process theologians and Kazantzakis scholars