End of Life Quality Measures

This paper explores end-of life quality measures and their relationship to medical versus non-medical hospice and palliative staff. More specifically, “There is a difference between hospice and palliative care medical versus non-medical staff views in relation to end-of-life quality measures.” This study included 121 hospice and palliative care medical and non-medical staff. The staff was from one hospice program in a metropolitan area. The participants were contacted through an anonymous, on line survey package called Qualtircs. The survey did not find any statistical significance to the research question but did find some interesting implications about views of end-of-life quality measures. One conclusion is that medical and non-medical hospice and palliative care staff seems to view the quality measures very similarly and value these measures with high regard. Further research is needed, however, to help solidify the value of quality measures and the involvement of the patient and family in end of life care. More research in end-of-life quality measures would also assist in proving that there is a greater need for these services and that an increase could actually help save health care dollars

End of Life Quality Measures

This paper explores end-of life quality measures and their relationship to medical versus non-medical hospice and palliative staff. More specifically, “There is a difference between hospice and palliative care medical versus non-medical staff views in relation to end-of-life quality measures.” This study included 121 hospice and palliative care medical and non-medical staff. The staff was from one hospice program in a metropolitan area. The participants were contacted through an anonymous, on line survey package called Qualtircs. The survey did not find any statistical significance to the research question but did find some interesting implications about views of end-of-life quality measures. One conclusion is that medical and non-medical hospice and palliative care staff seems to view the quality measures very similarly and value these measures with high regard. Further research is needed, however, to help solidify the value of quality measures and the involvement of the patient and family in end of life care. More research in end-of-life quality measures would also assist in proving that there is a greater need for these services and that an increase could actually help save health care dollars

The incidence and nature of illegitimacy in East Yorkshire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Many historians have studied illegitimacy as a national economic and social problem. Today, in the early years of the 21st century, when many couples enjoy long and stable relationships without the formality of certified marriage, even the word itself is something of an anachronism. Many children are born and brought up in families where the parents never marry but who, nevertheless, support them in exactly the same way as their married counterparts. For these children, happily, social stigma is a thing of the past. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries things were very different and illegitimacy was officially viewed as a great social evil. There is no doubt that single motherhood was thought to have serious implications for the provision of poor relief and was even instrumental in a major change to the law in 1834.Illegitimacy was a personal phenomenon that had a national impact on economic and social affairs. This work is directed at the nature of illegitimacy and examines its effect on the individuals concerned. It looks at the lives of the mothers, fathers and children who were touched by the incidence of illegitimacy. It draws on a variety of national and parish documents in order to gain an insight into their lives and personal circumstances. It investigates the nature of marriage, illegitimate maternity, the effect of the Poor Law, the mortality penalty of illegitimacy, and the prospects of the future lives of single mothers and their children. It will show that they were not necessarily indolent, immoral or feckless, but were affected by circumstance and often lived long and economically productive existences, and were supported by family relationships regardless of the adversity that illegitimacy brought to their young lives

The Administration of Urban Society in Scotland, 1800-50, With Reference to the Growth of Civic Government in Glasgow and Its Suburbs

The early nineteenth century was a period of great change in Scotland, as industrialisation and urbanisation presented many challenges to the existing administrative structures. Within Glasgow, and across the country, the lack of Government intervention meant that Local Acts had to be obtained from Parliament to allow them to develop their role within the community. Conflicts arose over many aspects of the Acts, but concerns over finance remained prominent. Inhabitants wanted to gain the benefits of the new Police Establishments without contributing financially. An examination of the Glasgow, Anderston, Calton and Gorbals Police Commissioners show how local solutions were adopted for problems which were widespread across the country at this time. While the effect of this legislation and the men who implemented it have provided the main focus of this thesis, consideration has also been given to the background and ideas behind these new developments. In particular, the influence of the Enlightenment and Evangelicalism has been explored to show where the concept of Civic duty came from and how it was effectively exploited. Perceptions of rising crime have also been examined to show how the authorities reacted to meet the concerns of the population. In order to ensure a more balanced view of Glasgow's achievements, comparisons have been made with the contemporary situation in England and Wales, as well as a more in-depth examination of developments in Edinburgh

Localisation of gamma-ray interaction points in thick monolithic CeBr3 and LaBr3:Ce scintillators

Localisation of gamma-ray interaction points in monolithic scintillator crystals can simplify the design and improve the performance of a future Compton telescope for gamma-ray astronomy. In this paper we compare the position resolution of three monolithic scintillators: a 28x28x20 mm3 (length x breadth x thickness) LaBr3:Ce crystal, a 25x25x20 mm3 CeBr3 crystal and a 25x25x10 mm3 CeBr3 crystal. Each crystal was encapsulated and coupled to an array of 4x4 silicon photomultipliers through an optical window. The measurements were conducted using 81 keV and 356 keV gamma-rays from a collimated 133Ba source. The 3D position reconstruction of interaction points was performed using artificial neural networks trained with experimental data. Although the position resolution was significantly better for the thinner crystal, the 20 mm thick CeBr3 crystal showed an acceptable resolution of about 5.4 mm FWHM for the x and y coordinates, and 7.8 mm FWHM for the z-coordinate (crystal depth) at 356 keV. These values were obtained from the full position scans of the crystal sides. The position resolution of the LaBr3:Ce crystal was found to be considerably worse, presumably due to the highly diffusive optical in- terface between the crystal and the optical window of the enclosure. The energy resolution (FWHM) measured for 662 keV gamma-rays was 4.0% for LaBr3:Ce and 5.5% for CeBr3. The same crystals equipped with a PMT (Hamamatsu R6322-100) gave an energy resolution of 3.0% and 4.7%, respectively

Intervenciones artísticas en la naturaleza para la concienciación de la conservación de la biodiversidad.

Este Trabajo Fin de Grado es un proyecto de investigación bajo un enfoque interdisciplinar con dos áreas de conocimiento, Educación artística y Ciencias Naturales. Para comenzar, hemos investigado acerca de la definición de Land art como un arte efímero junto a otras manifestaciones de arte público. Asimismo, hemos elaborado un estudio sobre intervenciones artísticas dentro del movimiento Land art, realizando una comparación y analizando sus características. También, hemos investigado la biodiversidad de Anaga y hemos estudiado las diferentes especies del reino vegetal y animal. Por otro lado, hemos llevado a cabo una intervención artística en Anaga, declarada Reserva de la Biosfera, más concretamente en Cruz del Carmen, en Tenerife. Esta intervención se sitúa en el marco de los Objetivos de desarrollo sostenible (ODS) en dos fases: la realización de un paseo sensorial para conocer la zona y la observación de las especies de flora y fauna estudiadas anteriormente y, por otra parte, el diseño y creación de nuestra intervención artística. Con esta intervención, pretendemos visibilizar el efecto que el ser humano provoca en la naturaleza y concienciar a las personas sobre la importancia de cuidarla para proteger la biodiversidad. Consideramos que este proyecto de investigación interdisciplinar, tiene aplicaciones educativas a la hora de transmitir determinados conocimientos y que el alumnado adquiera aprendizajes de una forma vivencial, estando en contacto con la naturaleza, trasladando de esta forma el concepto de aula a un espacio de la naturaleza.This Final Degree Project is a research project under an interdisciplinary approach, Art Education and Natural Sciences. Firstly, we have investigated the definition of Land art as an ephemeral art along with other manifestations of public art. Likewise, we have elaborated a study on artistic interventions within the Land art movement, making a comparison and analyzing its characteristics. We have also investigated the biodiversity of Anaga and studied the different species of the plant and animal kingdom. On the other hand, we have carried out an artistic intervention in Anaga, declared a Biosphere Reserve, more specifically in Cruz del Carmen, in Tenerife. This intervention is situated within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in two phases: the realization of a sensory walk to get to know the area and the observation of the species of flora and fauna studied previously and, on the other hand, the design and creation of our artistic intervention. With this intervention, we intend to make visible the effect that humans have on nature and raise awareness of the importance of taking care of it in order to protect biodiversity. We believe that this interdisciplinary research project has educational applications when it comes to transmitting certain knowledge and that students acquire learning in an experiential way, being in contact with nature, thus transferring the concept of the classroom to a space in nature

Circadian fluctuations in anxiety disorders

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26184/1/0000263.pd

Diagnostics for Yaws Eradication: Insights From Direct Next-Generation Sequencing of Cutaneous Strains of Treponema pallidum.

Background: Yaws-like chronic ulcers can be caused by Treponema pallidum subspecies pertenue, Haemophilus ducreyi, or other, still-undefined bacteria. To permit accurate evaluation of yaws elimination efforts, programmatic use of molecular diagnostics is required. The accuracy and sensitivity of current tools remain unclear because our understanding of T. pallidum diversity is limited by the low number of sequenced genomes. Methods: We tested samples from patients with suspected yaws collected in the Solomon Islands and Ghana. All samples were from patients whose lesions had previously tested negative using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) diagnostic assay in widespread use. However, some of these patients had positive serological assays for yaws on blood. We used direct whole-genome sequencing to identify T. pallidum subsp pertenue strains missed by the current assay. Results: From 45 Solomon Islands and 27 Ghanaian samples, 11 were positive for T. pallidum DNA using the species-wide quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay, from which we obtained 6 previously undetected T. pallidum subsp pertenue whole-genome sequences. These show that Solomon Islands sequences represent distinct T. pallidum subsp pertenue clades. These isolates were invisible to the CDC diagnostic PCR assay, due to sequence variation in the primer binding site. Conclusions: Our data double the number of published T. pallidum subsp pertenue genomes. We show that Solomon Islands strains are undetectable by the PCR used in many studies and by health ministries. This assay is therefore not adequate for the eradication program. Next-generation genome sequence data are essential for these efforts

Information management for high content live cell imaging.

BACKGROUND: High content live cell imaging experiments are able to track the cellular localisation of labelled proteins in multiple live cells over a time course. Experiments using high content live cell imaging will generate multiple large datasets that are often stored in an ad-hoc manner. This hinders identification of previously gathered data that may be relevant to current analyses. Whilst solutions exist for managing image data, they are primarily concerned with storage and retrieval of the images themselves and not the data derived from the images. There is therefore a requirement for an information management solution that facilitates the indexing of experimental metadata and results of high content live cell imaging experiments. RESULTS: We have designed and implemented a data model and information management solution for the data gathered through high content live cell imaging experiments. Many of the experiments to be stored measure the translocation of fluorescently labelled proteins from cytoplasm to nucleus in individual cells. The functionality of this database has been enhanced by the addition of an algorithm that automatically annotates results of these experiments with the timings of translocations and periods of any oscillatory translocations as they are uploaded to the repository. Testing has shown the algorithm to perform well with a variety of previously unseen data. CONCLUSION: Our repository is a fully functional example of how high throughput imaging data may be effectively indexed and managed to address the requirements of end users. By implementing the automated analysis of experimental results, we have provided a clear impetus for individuals to ensure that their data forms part of that which is stored in the repository. Although focused on imaging, the solution provided is sufficiently generic to be applied to other functional proteomics and genomics experiments. The software is available from: fhttp://code.google.com/p/livecellim/RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are