605 research outputs found
Preregistration house officers in general practice: review of evidence
OBJECTIVES: To examine the strengths and weaknesses
of the national and local schemes for preregistration
house officers to spend four months in general
practice, to identify any added value from such
placements, and to examine the impact on career
choices.
DESIGN: Review of all studies that reported on
placements of preregistration house officers in
general practice.
SETTING: 19 accounts of preregistration house officersā
experience in general practice, ranging from single
case reports to a national evaluation study, in a variety
of locations in Scotland and England.
PARTICIPANTS: Views of 180 preregistration house
officers, 45 general practitioner trainers, and 105
consultant trainers.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Main findings or themes
weighted according to number of studies reporting
them and weighted for sample size.
RESULTS: The studies were unanimous about the
educational benefits of the placements. The
additional learning included communication skills,
social and psychological factors in illness, patient
centred consultations, broadening of knowledge base,
and dealing with uncertainty about diagnosis and
referral.
CONCLUSIONS: Despite the reported benefits and
recommendations of the scheme, it is not expanding.
General practitioner trainers reported additional
supervision that was unremunerated. The reforms of
the senior house officer grade may resolve this
problem by offering the placements to senior house
officers, who require less supervision
Invariance Violation Extends the Cosmic Ray Horizon ?
We postulate in the present paper that the energy-momentum relation is
modified for very high energy particles to violate Lorentz invariance and the
speed of photon is changed from the light velocity c. The violation effect is
amplified, in a sensitive way to detection, through the modified kinematical
constraints on the conservation of energy and momentum, in the absorption
process of gamma-rays colliding against photons of longer wavelengths and
converting into an electron-positron pair. For gamma-rays of energies higher
than 10 TeV, the minimum energy of the soft photons for the reaction and then
the absorption mean free path of gamma-rays are altered by orders of magnitude
from the ones conventionally estimated. Consideration is similarly applied to
high energy cosmic ray protons. The consequences may require the standard
assumptions on the maximum distance that very high energy radiation can travel
from to be revised.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Ap J Letter
Safety Engineering with COTS components
Safety-critical systems are becoming more widespread, complex and reliant on software. Increasingly they are engineered through Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) (Commercial Off The Shelf) components to alleviate the spiralling costs and development time, often in the context of complex supply chains.
A parallel increased concern for safety has resulted in a variety of safety standards, with a growing consensus that a safety life cycle is needed which is fully integrated with the design and development life cycle, to ensure that safety has appropriate influence on the design decisions as system development progresses.
In this article we explore the application of an integrated approach to safety engineering in which assurance drives the engineering process. The paper re- ports on the outcome of a case study on a live industrial project with a view to evaluate: its suitability for application in a real-world safety engineering setting; its benefits and limitations in counteracting some of the difficulties of safety en- gineering with COTS components across supply chains; and, its effectiveness in generating evidence which can contribute directly to the construction of safety cases
Integrating physical activity promotion into UK medical school curricula: testing the feasibility of an educational tool developed by the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine.
Background: At present education on exercise medicine and physical activity (PA) promotion does not feature heavily within the medical curriculum. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to test the feasibility of a self-directed educational tool (Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine (FSEM) exercise prescription booklet) on medical students' understanding of PA in disease management. Methods: Students from 22 UK medical schools were invited to complete a brief online questionnaire before and after being provided access to the FSEM exercise prescription booklet. Results: A total of 205 students responded to the open invitation to participate. At baseline 59% of students agreed that PA promotion was an important part of a doctor's job with 86% agreeing that PA was important in the prevention of disease. However, confidence to prescribe PA and knowledge of chief medical officer's adult PA guidelines was low. Following use of the FSEM booklet students' (n=53) knowledge of PA guidelines and confidence to advise patients about PA significantly improved (p<0.05). Correct response answers to case scenarios covering PA in disease management (specifically osteoarthritis and cancer) also improved (32% and 44% increase, respectively, p<0.01). Conclusion: Self-guided educational tools have the potential to improve the exercise prescription skills of undergraduate medical students. Future research should compare different methods of delivering education on PA within medical schools to determine the most effective means of integrating PA into the curriculum
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon processing in interstellar shocks
Context: PAHs appear to be an ubiquitous interstellar dust component but the
effects of shocks waves upon them have never been fully investigated. Aims: To
study the effects of energetic (~0.01-1 keV) ion (H, He and C) and electron
collisions on PAHs in interstellar shock waves.Methods: We calculate the
ion-PAH and electron-PAH nuclear and electronic interactions, above the
threshold for carbon atom loss from a PAH, in 50-200 km/s shock waves in the
warm intercloud medium. Results: Interstellar PAHs (Nc = 50) do not survive in
shocks with velocities greater than 100 km/s and larger PAHs (Nc = 200) are
destroyed for shocks with velocities greater/equal to 125 km/s. For shocks in
the ~75 - 100 km/s range, where destruction is not complete, the PAH structure
is likely to be severely denatured by the loss of an important fraction
(20-40%) of the carbon atoms. We derive typical PAH lifetimes of the order of a
few x10^8 yr for the Galaxy. These results are robust and independent of the
uncertainties in some key parameters that have yet to be well-determined
experimentally. Conclusions: The observation of PAH emission in shock regions
implies that that emission either arises outside the shocked region or that
those regions entrain denser clumps that, unless they are completely ablated
and eroded in the shocked gas, allow dust and PAHs to survive in extreme
environments.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, typos corrected and PAH acronym in
the title substituted with full name to match version published in Astronomy
and Astrophysic
Summertime Influences of Tidal Energy Advection on the Surface Energy Balance in a Mangrove Forest
Mangrove forests are ecosystems susceptible to changing water levels and temperatures due to climate change as well as perturbations resulting from tropical storms. Numerical models can be used to project mangrove forest responses to regional and global environmental changes, and the reliability of these models depends on surface energy balance closure. However, for tidal ecosystems, the surface energy balance is complex because the energy transport associated with tidal activity remains poorly understood. This study aimed to quantify impacts of tidal flows on energy dynamics within a mangrove ecosystem. To address the research objective, an intensive 10-day study was conducted in a mangrove forest located along the Shark River in the Everglades National Park, FL, USA. Forestāatmosphere turbulent exchanges of energy were quantified with an eddy covariance system installed on a 30-m-tall flux tower. Energy transport associated with tidal activity was calculated based on a coupled mass and energy balance approach. The mass balance included tidal flows and accumulation of water on the forest floor. The energy balance included temporal changes in enthalpy, resulting from tidal flows and temperature changes in the water column. By serving as a net sink or a source of available energy, flood waters reduced the impact of high radiational loads on the mangrove forest. Also, the regression slope of available energy versus sink terms increased from 0.730 to 0.754 and from 0.798 to 0.857, including total enthalpy change in the water column in the surface energy balance for 30-min periods and daily daytime sums, respectively. Results indicated that tidal inundation provides an important mechanism for heat removal and that tidal exchange should be considered in surface energy budgets of coastal ecosystems. Results also demonstrated the importance of including tidal energy advection in mangrove biophysical models that are used for predicting ecosystem response to changing climate and regional freshwater management practices
Clathrin heavy chain is required for pinocytosis, the presence of large vacuoles, and development in Dictyostelium.
A Super Industrial Application of PSGraph
The ClawZ toolset has been successful in verifying that Ada code is correctly generated from Simulink models in an industrial setting, using the Z notation. D-RisQ is now extending this technique to new domains of the C programming language, which requires changes to their highly complex proof technique. In this paper, we present initial results in the technology transfer of the graphical PSGraph language to support this extension, and show feasibility of PSGraph for industrial use with strong maintainability requirements
Examining the relationship between inflammatory biomarkers during COVIDā19 hospitalization and subsequent longāCOVID symptoms: A longitudinal and retrospective study
IntroductionLong-COVID is a heterogeneous condition with a litany of physical and neuropsychiatric presentations and its pathophysiology remains unclear. Little is known about the association between inflammatory biomarkers, such as interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) in the acute phase, and persistent symptoms after hospitalization in COVID-19 patients.MethodsIL-6, CRP, troponin-T, and ferritin were analyzed at admission for all patients with COVID-19 between September 1, 2020 to January 10, 2021. Survivors were followed up 3-months following hospital discharge and were asked to report persistent symptoms they experienced. Admission data were retrospectively collected. Independent t-tests and MannāWhitney U tests were performed.ResultsIn a sample of 144 patients (62.5% male, mean Age 62 years [SDā=ā13.6]) followed up 3 months after hospital discharge, the commonest symptoms reported were fatigue (54.2%), breathlessness (52.8%), and sleep disturbance (37.5%). In this sample, admission levels of IL-6, CRP and ferritin were elevated. However, those reporting myalgia, low mood, and anxiety at follow-up had lower admission levels of IL-6 (34.9 vs. 52.0āpg/mL, pā=ā.043), CRP (83 vs. 105āmg/L, pā=ā.048), and ferritin (357 vs. 568āug/L, pā=ā.01) respectively, compared with those who did not report these symptoms. Multivariate regression analysis showed that these associations were confounded by gender, as female patients had significantly lower levels of IL-6 and ferritin on admission (29.5 vs. 56.1, pā=ā.03 and 421.5 vs. 589, pā=ā.001, respectively) and were more likely to report myalgia, low mood and anxiety, when compared to males.ConclusionsOur data demonstrate that female patients present more often with lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers on admission which are subsequently associated with long-term post-COVID symptoms, such as myalgia and anxiety, in those discharged from hospital with severe COVID-19. Further research is needed into the role of serum biomarkers in post-COVID prognostication
Conformational and thermodynamic hallmarks of DNA operator site specificity in the copper sensitive operon repressor from Streptomyces lividans
Metal ion homeostasis in bacteria relies on metalloregulatory proteins to upregulate metal resistance genes and enable the organism to preclude metal toxicity. The copper sensitive operon repressor (CsoR) family is widely distributed in bacteria and controls the expression of copper efflux systems. CsoR operator sites consist of G-tract containing pseudopalindromes of which the mechanism of operator binding is poorly understood. Here, we use a structurally characterized CsoR from Streptomyces lividans (CsoRSl) together with three specific operator targets to reveal the salient features pertaining to the mechanism of DNA binding. We reveal that CsoRSl binds to its operator site through a 2-fold axis of symmetry centred on a conserved 5ā²-TAC/GTA-3ā² inverted repeat. Operator recognition is stringently dependent not only on electropositive residues but also on a conserved polar glutamine residue. Thermodynamic and circular dichroic signatures of the CsoRSl-DNA interaction suggest selectivity towards the A-DNA-like topology of the G-tracts at the operator site. Such properties are enhanced on protein binding thus enabling the symmetrical binding of two CsoRSl tetramers. Finally, differential binding modes may exist in operator sites having more than one 5ā²-TAC/GTA-3ā² inverted repeat with implications in vivo for a mechanism of modular control. Ā© 2013 The Author(s)
- ā¦