Cultural competency: professional action and South Asian carers

Inequality and exclusion are characteristic of the experience of UK South Asian communities. In health care, community needs are often not addressed by health and social welfare services. An increase in cultural competency is now part of identified policy. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which there is evidence of cultural competency amongst professionals concerning South Asian parents caring for a person with cerebral palsy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with respondents from 19 service organisations. Results are presented on perceptions of service delivery and on the dynamics of service development: evidence is found that inadequate service delivery continues despite professional knowledge that it exists. Conditions necessary for the achievement of cultural competence are discussed. We suggest that service development to meet the needs of South Asian carers must form part of an overall strategy geared to change at different levels within and outside service organisations

Process modelling and techno-economic analysis of natural gas combined cycle integrated with calcium looping

Calcium looping (CaL) is promising for large-scale CO2 capture in the power generation and industrial sectors due to the cheap sorbent used and the relatively low energy penalties achieved with this process. Because of the high operating temperatures the heat utilisation is a major advantage of the process, since a significant amount of power can be generated from it. However, this increases its complexity and capital costs. Therefore, not only the energy efficiency performance is important for these cycles, but also the capital costs must be taken into account, i.e. techno-economic analyses are required in order to determine which parameters and configurations are optimal to enhance technology viability in different integration scenarios. In this study the integration scenarios of CaL cycles and natural gas combined cycles (NGCC) are explored. The process models of the NGCC and CaL capture plant are developed to explore the most promising scenarios for NGCC-CaL integration with regards to efficiency penalties. Two scenarios are analysed in detail, and show that the system with heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) before and after the capture plant exhibited better performance of 49.1% efficiency compared with that of 45.7% when only one HRSG is located after the capture plant. However, the techno-economic analyses showed that the more energy efficient case, with two HRSGs, implies relatively higher cost of electricity (COE), 44.1€/MWh, when compared to that of the reference plant system (33.1€/MWh). The predicted cost of CO2 avoided for the case with two HRSGS is 29.3 €/ton CO2

On the CR transversality of holomorphic maps into hyperquadrics

Let $M_\ell$ be a smooth Levi-nondegenerate hypersurface of signature $\ell$ in $\mathbf C^n$ with $n\ge 3$, and write $H_\ell^N$ for the standard hyperquadric of the same signature in $\mathbf C^N$ with $N-n< \frac{n-1}{2}$. Let $F$ be a holomorphic map sending $M_\ell$ into $H_\ell^N$. Assume $F$ does not send a neighborhood of $M_\ell$ in $\mathbf C^n$ into $H_\ell^N$. We show that $F$ is necessarily CR transversal to $M_\ell$ at any point. Equivalently, we show that $F$ is a local CR embedding from $M_\ell$ into $H_\ell^N$.Comment: To appear in Abel Symposia, dedicated to Professor Yum-Tong Siu on the occasion of his 70th birthda

Virus satellites drive viral evolution and ecology

Virus satellites are widespread subcellular entities, present both in eukaryotic and in prokaryotic cells. Their modus vivendi involves parasitism of the life cycle of their inducing helper viruses, which assures their transmission to a new host. However, the evolutionary and ecological implications of satellites on helper viruses remain unclear. Here, using staphylococcal pathogenicity islands (SaPIs) as a model of virus satellites, we experimentally show that helper viruses rapidly evolve resistance to their virus satellites, preventing SaPI proliferation, and SaPIs in turn can readily evolve to overcome phage resistance. Genomic analyses of both these experimentally evolved strains as well as naturally occurring bacteriophages suggest that the SaPIs drive the coexistence of multiple alleles of the phage-coded SaPI inducing genes, as well as sometimes selecting for the absence of the SaPI depressing genes. We report similar (accidental) evolution of resistance to SaPIs in laboratory phages used for Staphylococcus aureus typing and also obtain the same qualitative results in both experimental evolution and phylogenetic studies of Enterococcus faecalis phages and their satellites viruses. In summary, our results suggest that helper and satellite viruses undergo rapid coevolution, which is likely to play a key role in the evolution and ecology of the viruses as well as their prokaryotic hosts

Experiencia en el salvamento de extremidades en una unidad de tumores óseos

Los autores exponen su experiencia en el tratamiento quirúrgico de 26 casos de tumores malignos primarios de los huesos largos de las extremidades en estadio II.B. El diagnóstico era de osteosarcoma en 12 casos, sarcoma de Ewing en 3, condrosarcoma de bajo grado en 4, sarcomas osteogénicos paraostales en 3, mieloma en 1, adamantinoma en 1, y tumor de células gigantes (TCG) en otro caso. Se trataba de tumores controlados mediante la aplicación de protocolos de Quimioterapia como son el T-10 de Rosen para con el osteosarcoma y el T-9 para el sarcoma de Ewing, consiguiendo necrosis tumorales del orden entre el 75% y el 85%, con buena respuesta de compartimentación y de esclerosis. Todos los tumores se encontraban en estadio H-BNo,Mo, respetando los vasos de la extremidad, según el Divas practicado. En los 26 casos se han seguido los postulados de la ISOLS, para realizar las técnicas de salvamento de extremidad. Estas técnicas consistieron, entre otras, en el implante de prótesis o a medida (12 casos) o bien modulares. Se efectuaron tratamientos mixtos como aloinjertos criopreservados en Banco de Hueso + Endoprótesis en 10 casos. En 2 casos, se realizó artrodesis de rodilla con enclavado de Kunstcher femorotibial y aloinjerto. En otros 2 casos la Osteosíntesis endomedular y cortical fue el método de fijación del aloinjerto. Se hace una valoración crítica de cada caso, del tipo de resección, su resultado funcional, complicaciones, recidivas, metástasis, y el grado de satisfacción personal del pacienteThe experience on the surgical treatment of 26 patients with a Primary Malignant Bone Tumor of the long bones in stage II-B is reported. There weve 12 osteosarcomas, 3 Ewing's sarcoma, 4 low-grade chondrosarcoma, 3 paraosteal sarcoma, 1 myeloma, 1 Adamantinoma and 1 Giant-Cell tumor. Tumors were treated by chemotherapy protocols such as Rosen T-10 for osteosarcomas and T-9 for Ewing's sarcoma, with 75-80% of tumor necrosis disclosing a good response and sclerosis. All tumors were staged as II-BNoMo with vessels preservation according to the DIVAS test. Sugery for limb salvage was performed in all these patients based on ISOLS criteria. Costum-made or modular prosthetic implantation was the surgical technique in 12 cases. Mixed methods susch as cryopreserved allografts they Endoprosthesis was applied in 10 patients, two cases were treated by knee arthrodesis with a femorotibial endomedulary Kunstcher's nail and an allograft. Other 2 cases received endomedular and cortical osteosyntesis to stabilize the allograft. The paper describes the functional evaluation of each patient depending on the type of tumor, the size of the bone resection, complications, recurrences, metastases, surgical revisions and also level of subjective personal satisfaction of each patient

Scale-free equilibria of self-gravitating gaseous disks with flat rotation curves

We introduce exact analytical solutions of the steady-state hydrodynamic equations of scale-free, self-gravitating gaseous disks with flat rotation curves. We express the velocity field in terms of a stream function and obtain a third-order ordinary differential equation (ODE) for the angular part of the stream function. We present the closed-form solutions of the obtained ODE and construct hydrodynamical counterparts of the power-law and elliptic disks, for which self-consistent stellar dynamical models are known. We show that the kinematics of the Large Magellanic Cloud can well be explained by our findings for scale-free elliptic disks.Comment: AAS preprint format, 21 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa