Opportunistic health promotion among overweight children

Aim To explore children’s nurses’ attitudes to providing health promotion advice to overweight children and their families during hospital admissions. Methods Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted in a private room in the ward setting. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and thematic analysis of the transcripts was undertaken. Findings The six themes generated from responses were: responsibility for health promotion; sensitivity of the topic; long-term benefits; parents – a barrier; need for training; and need for institutional support. Conclusion Further research with acute care children’s nurses in the UK is required to validate the study findings. More work is also needed to explore the ethics of health promotion in the acute care setting

Food Preferences of the Brushtail Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula)

The common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) has been reported to eat vegetation, fruit, invertebrates, and occasionally fungi, eggs and meat. The relative preference between food types found in the wild, however, has not been investigated systematically in a controlled laboratory study. This research investigated captive possums’ food choice using two different methods of preference assessment. The first experiment involved a single stimulus assessment of possums’ (n = 20) consumption of individually presented food items. More than 75% of possums consumed berries, locusts and mushrooms but fewer than 50% of possums consumed fivefinger, raw chicken and eggs. The second experiment that used a paired stimulus assessment to establish relative preference for those foods revealed that no single food was preferred by all possums. Overall locusts were the most preferred food, followed in order of preference by berries, egg, mushrooms, chicken and foliage. The single stimulus preference assessment confirmed the palatability of foods. The paired stimulus assessment provided a rank order of food preferences

Health Promotion and Overweight Children: Whose responsibility? Insights into paediatric nurse’s attitude toward health promotion

Introduction: In England around one in five 4/5 year olds and one in three 10/11 year olds are classified as overweight or obese (NOO, 2014). Childhood obesity poses a significant risk to a psychological and physical health, both now and in the future (WHO, 2012). Health care professionals (HCP) across the board are being asked to take every opportunity to promote healthy living and ‘Make every contact count’ including asking questions regarding patient’s diet and exercise behaviours (Royal College of Physicians 2010). Acute care paediatric nurses are in an ideal position to be able to offer counselling and advice to children and their parents when admitted to hospital, at a time when they may be most receptive to health promotion strategies (Mulgan 2010). The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2008) place a duty of care with nurses to protect and promote the health of those in their care and Public Health England (PHE) calls upon all nurses and midwives to make a personal and professional impact to improve health by becoming health promoting practitioners (PHE, 2013). This study was designed to explore the attitudes of those at the front line being asked to deliver health promotion (including diet and physical activity advice). Aims: to explore the attitudes of paediatric nurses on delivering health promotion to overweight children and their families during acute care admissions. Method: A qualitative study, based on semi -structured interviews, involving six paediatric nurses from a UK based NHS funded hospital. Results: The paediatric nurses, as found with other health care professions, perceived there were both institutional and personal barriers to promoting healthy lifestyles. Six themes emerged from the data i) responsibility for delivery of health promotion, ii) sensitivity of the issue, iii) benefits of health promotion iv) influence of parents, v) skills of the nurses and vi) institutional support. Discussion: The paediatric nurses conceived their priority for the children in their care was treatment of the child’s illness and that the acute care setting was not the appropriate environment to deliver health promotion. Childhood obesity is a serious issue demanding action from health care services and the professionals involved. Further research is required to facilitate the development of ethical policies on the delivery of health promotion strategies within the acute care setting

Focus variation measurement of electron beam melted surfaces

Electron beam melting (EBM) is a promising additive manufacturing process which is seeing increasing use in high value manufacturing sectors such as aerospace [1]. With its layer-by-layer approach, EBM can allow the creation of parts of complex shapes, thus reducing the need for assembly [2]. Surface topography measurement of EBM parts is gaining an increasingly important role, both for assessing the surface finishes that can be obtained with the process before and after post-processing, and as a useful tool to investigate how the manufacturing process behaves through the observation of surface features produced (observation of the manufacturing process signature or fingerprint) [3]. EBM surfaces are very complex and irregular, with a large number of high slopes and undercuts [4]. It is, therefore, very difficult to measure the surface topography of an EBM part. Optical technologies for areal topography measurement are now popular, thanks to their capability for fast acquisition of dense data sets [5]. Focus variation (FV) is one of the most promising measurement technologies for EBM parts, as it combines reasonably fast measurement times with good capability to capture complex topographies [6]. However, many possible FV set-ups could be adopted for measuring an EBM surface. Objective lens magnification, illumination conditions and detector parameters are some of the most relevant control variables that can be varied, in the attempt to achieve optimal measurement results

Focus variation measurement of electron beam melted surfaces

Electron beam melting (EBM) is a promising additive manufacturing process which is seeing increasing use in high value manufacturing sectors such as aerospace [1]. With its layer-by-layer approach, EBM can allow the creation of parts of complex shapes, thus reducing the need for assembly [2]. Surface topography measurement of EBM parts is gaining an increasingly important role, both for assessing the surface finishes that can be obtained with the process before and after post-processing, and as a useful tool to investigate how the manufacturing process behaves through the observation of surface features produced (observation of the manufacturing process signature or fingerprint) [3]. EBM surfaces are very complex and irregular, with a large number of high slopes and undercuts [4]. It is, therefore, very difficult to measure the surface topography of an EBM part. Optical technologies for areal topography measurement are now popular, thanks to their capability for fast acquisition of dense data sets [5]. Focus variation (FV) is one of the most promising measurement technologies for EBM parts, as it combines reasonably fast measurement times with good capability to capture complex topographies [6]. However, many possible FV set-ups could be adopted for measuring an EBM surface. Objective lens magnification, illumination conditions and detector parameters are some of the most relevant control variables that can be varied, in the attempt to achieve optimal measurement results

Primary group size, social support, gender and future mental health status in a prospective study of people living in private households throughout Great Britain

Background. Structural characteristics of social networks such as primary group size have received less attention than measures of perceived social support. Previous research suggests that associations between social network size and later common mental disorder status may differ according to sex and initial mental state. Method. Adults participating in the 2000 British National Household Survey of psychiatric morbidity were randomly selected for follow-up 18 months later. The revised Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-R) and the Interview Measure of Social Relations (IMSR) were administered at baseline and follow-up. Primary group size was defined as the total number of close relatives and friends. A four-level scale of common mental disorder was modelled with ordinal logistic regression, based on weighted data (n=2413). Findings. After adjusting for confounders, a primary group size of three or less at time 1 predicted worse mental health at time 2. This effect was greatest in men who were initially non-cases at baseline (averaged odds 4.5) and in women who were initially cases at baseline (average odds 2.9). Primary group size at time 2 was significantly predicted by level of common mental disorder at time 1 in women but not in men. Thus, confounding by baseline disorder does not explain risk of developing poor mental health in socially isolated men. Conclusion. This study replicates the strong effects of primary group size on future mental health that emerge when men and women are studied separately and when subjects are categorized according to baseline mental health status

Feature-based characterisation of evolving surface topographies in finishing operations for additive manufacturing

Finishing operations play a fundamental role in the additive manufacture of components. Conventional surface metrology solutions allow for the characterisation of surface roughness through texture parameters, but are not fully suitable to capture the evolution of individual surface topographic formations as they undergo changes as a result of finishing operations. Feature-based characterisation of topography offers a new perspective in the investigation of surfaces. The approach consists of the identification, isolation, and dimensional characterisation of surface topography formations (surface features). In this work an original feature- based solution is proposed for the quantitative comparison of topographies before and after a finishing operation: the approach is based on the registration of areal topography datasets and quantitative analysis of shape and size differences pertaining to the relevant topographic features. A variety of finishing operations are investigated on metallic samples manufactured via powder bed fusion