1,958 research outputs found
What does a primary care annual review for RA include? A national GP survey
Letter to the edito
A feasibility study of signed consent for the collection of patient identifiable information for a national paediatric clinical audit database
Objectives: To investigate the feasibility of obtaining signed consent
for submission of patient identifiable data to a national clinical
audit database and to identify factors influencing the consent process
and its success.
Design: Feasibility study.
Setting: Seven paediatric intensive care units in England.
Participants: Parents/guardians of patients, or patients aged 12-16
years old, approached consecutively over three months for signed
consent for submission of patient identifiable data to the national
clinical audit database the Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network
(PICANet).
Main outcome measures: The numbers and proportions of admissions for
which signed consent was given, refused, or not obtained (form not
returned or form partially completed but not signed), by age, sex,
level of deprivation, ethnicity (South Asian or not), paediatric index
of mortality score, length of hospital stay (days in paediatric
intensive care).
Results: One unit did not start and one did not fully implement the
protocol, so analysis excluded these two units. Consent was obtained
for 182 of 422 admissions (43%) (range by unit 9% to 84%). Most
(101/182; 55%) consents were taken by staff nurses. One refusal (0.2%)
was received. Consent rates were significantly better for children who
were more severely ill on admission and for hospital stays of six days
or more, and significantly poorer for children aged 10-14 years. Long
hospital stays and children aged 10-14 years remained significant in a
stepwise regression model of the factors that were significant in the
univariate model.
Conclusion: Systematically obtaining individual signed consent for
sharing patient identifiable information with an externally located
clinical audit database is difficult. Obtaining such consent is
unlikely to be successful unless additional resources are specifically
allocated to training, staff time, and administrative support
Chemical variations in Yellowknife Bay formation sedimentary rocks analyzed by ChemCam on board the Curiosity rover on Mars
The Yellowknife Bay formation represents a ~5 m thick stratigraphic section of lithified fluvial and lacustrine sediments analyzed by the Curiosity rover in Gale crater, Mars. Previous works have mainly focused on the mudstones that were drilled by the rover at two locations. The present study focuses on the sedimentary rocks stratigraphically above the mudstones by studying their chemical variations in parallel with rock textures. Results show that differences in composition correlate with textures and both manifest subtle but significant variations through the stratigraphic column. Though the chemistry of the sediments does not vary much in the lower part of the stratigraphy, the variations in alkali elements indicate variations in the source material and/or physical sorting, as shown by the identification of alkali feldspars. The sandstones contain similar relative proportions of hydrogen to the mudstones below, suggesting the presence of hydrous minerals that may have contributed to their cementation. Slight variations in magnesium correlate with changes in textures suggesting that diagenesis through cementation and dissolution modified the initial rock composition and texture simultaneously. The upper part of the stratigraphy (~1 m thick) displays rocks with different compositions suggesting a strong change in the depositional system. The presence of float rocks with similar compositions found along the rover traverse suggests that some of these outcrops extend further away in the nearby hummocky plains.
Representations of sport in the revolutionary socialist press in Britain, 1988–2012
This paper considers how sport presents a dualism to those on the far left of the political spectrum. A long-standing, passionate debate has existed on the contradictory role played by sport, polarised between those who reject it as a bourgeois capitalist plague and those who argue for its reclamation and reformation. A case study is offered of a political party that has consistently used revolutionary Marxism as the basis for its activity and how this party, the largest in Britain, addresses sport in its publications. The study draws on empirical data to illustrate this debate by reporting findings from three socialist publications. When sport did feature it was often in relation to high profile sporting events with a critical tone adopted and typically focused on issues of commodification, exploitation and alienation of athletes and supporters. However, readers’ letters, printed in the same publications, revealed how this interpretation was not universally accepted, thus illustrating the contradictory nature of sport for those on the far left
Abelian Monopoles in SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory as Physical Objects
By numerical calculations we show that the abelian monopole currents are
locally correlated with the density of SU(2) lattice action. The correlations
are larger by the order of magnitude in the maximal abelian projection than in
the projections which correspond to the diagonalization of Polyakov line and to
the diagonalization of the plaquette. These facts show that (at least) in the
maximal abelian projection the monopoles are the physical objects, they carry
the SU(2) action. The larger value of \beta, the larger the relative action
carried by monopole. Calculations on the asymmetric lattice show that this
correlation exists also in the deconfinement phase of gluodynamics.Comment: 6 pages, RevTeX, 3 figures, uses epsf.sty; to be published in
Phys.Rev.Lett., replaced to match version accepted for publicatio
Recommended from our members
Development of a model of focal pneumococcal pneumonia in young rats
BACKGROUND: A recently licensed pneumococcal conjugate vaccine has been shown to be highly effective in the prevention of bacteremia in immunized children but the degree of protection against pneumonia has been difficult to determine. METHODS: We sought to develop a model of Streptococcus pneumoniae pneumonia in Sprague-Dawley rats. We challenged three-week old Sprague-Dawley pups via intrapulmonary injection of S. pneumoniae serotypes 3 and 6B. Outcomes included bacteremia, mortality as well histologic sections of the lungs. RESULTS: Pneumonia was reliably produced in animals receiving either 10 or 100 cfu of type 3 pneumococci, with 30% and 50% mortality respectively. Similarly, with type 6B, the likelihood of pneumonia increased with the inoculum, as did the mortality rate. Prophylactic administration of a preparation of high-titered anticapsular antibody prevented the development of type 3 pneumonia and death. CONCLUSION: We propose that this model may be useful for the evaluation of vaccines for the prevention of pneumococcal pneumonia
On projection (in)dependence of monopole condensate in lattice SU(2) gauge theory
We study the temperature dependence of the monopole condensate in different
Abelian projections of the SU(2) lattice gauge theory. Using the
Frohlich-Marchetti monopole creation operator we show numerically that the
monopole condensate depends on the choice of the Abelian projection. Contrary
to the claims in the current literature we observe that in the Abelian Polyakov
gauge and in the field strength gauge the monopole condensate does not vanish
at the critical temperature and thus is not an order parameter.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
Improving tribological properties of cast Al-Si alloys through application of wear-resistant thermal spray coatings
Flame Spray Thermal Spray coatings are low-cost, high-wear surface-treatment technologies. However, little has been reported on their potential effects on cast automotive aluminum alloys. The aim of this research was to investigate the tribological properties of as-sprayed NiCrBSi and WC/12Co Flame Spray coatings applied to two cast aluminum alloys: high-copper LM24 (AlSi8Cu3Fe), and low-copper LM25 (AlSi7Mg). Potential interactions between the mechanical properties of the substrate and the deposited coatings were deemed to be significant. Microstructural, microhardness, friction, and wear (pin-on-disk, microabrasion, Taber abrasion, etc.) results are reported, and the performance differences between coatings on the different substrates were noted. The coefficient of friction was reduced from 0.69-0.72 to 0.12-0.35. Wear (pin-on-disk) was reduced by a factor of 103-104, which was related to the high surface roughness of the coatings. Microabrasion wear was dependent on coating hardness and applied load. Taber abrasion results showed a strong dependency on the substrate, coating morphology, and homogeneity
Confinement and the analytic structure of the one body propagator in Scalar QED
We investigate the behavior of the one body propagator in SQED. The self
energy is calculated using three different methods: i) the simple bubble
summation, ii) the Dyson-Schwinger equation, and iii) the Feynman-Schwinger
represantation. The Feynman-Schwinger representation allows an {\em exact}
analytical result. It is shown that, while the exact result produces a real
mass pole for all couplings, the bubble sum and the Dyson-Schwinger approach in
rainbow approximation leads to complex mass poles beyond a certain critical
coupling. The model exhibits confinement, yet the exact solution still has one
body propagators with {\it real} mass poles.Comment: 5 pages 2 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
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