298 research outputs found
The body as image: image as body
Pain consultations are often contested spaces where patient and clinician compete for the roles of speaker. Often patients are searching for mechanical explanations and clinicians for psychological ones - creating an impasse and causing distress to both parties. Meanwhile, as technology advances and we have increasing means of seeing inside a person’s body we seem to have less and less ability to see inside another’s world – to understand what it means to live with pain, the significance of that pain for that individual in their social context. In this paper we explore the potential for images of pain, co-created with patients, to intervene in this unproductive patient dynamic and bring the full experience of pain - social, emotional, physical - into focus. Narrative analysis is used on a series of transcripts of pain consultations
Prediction and Simulator Verification of Roll/Lateral Adverse Aeroservoelastic Rotorcraft–Pilot Couplings
The involuntary interaction of a pilot with an aircraft can be described as pilot-assisted oscillations. Such
phenomena are usually only addressed late in the design process when they manifest themselves during ground/flight
testing. Methods to be able to predict such phenomena as early as possible are therefore useful. This work describes a
technique to predict the adverse aeroservoelastic rotorcraft–pilot couplings, specifically between a rotorcraft’s roll
motion and the resultant involuntary pilot lateral cyclic motion. By coupling linear vehicle aeroservoelastic models
and experimentally identified pilot biodynamic models, pilot-assisted oscillations and no-pilot-assisted oscillation
conditions have been numerically predicted for a soft-in-plane hingeless helicopter with a lightly damped regressive
lead–lag mode that strongly interacts with the roll modeat a frequency within the biodynamic band of the pilots. These
predictions have then been verified using real-time flight-simulation experiments. The absence of any similar adverse
couplings experienced while using only rigid-body models in the flight simulator verified that the observed
phenomena were indeed aeroelastic in nature. The excellent agreement between the numerical predictions and the
observed experimental results indicates that the techniques developed in this paper can be used to highlight the
proneness of new or existing designs to pilot-assisted oscillation
Bridge distress caused by approach embankment settlement
Surtees Bridge, which carries the A66(T) over the River
Tees near Thornaby-on-Tees in the UK, has been
showing signs of distress that predate its opening in
1981. Subsequent investigations have shown that the
bridge distress is related to unexpectedly large
settlement of the eastern approach embankment.
Recent ground investigations prompted by a proposed
widening of the river crossing have produced many new
data on the alluvial deposits underlying the site, and
explain why embankment settlement was so much larger
than originally anticipated. Comparison of the
geotechnical parameters obtained from the original and
more recent ground investigations suggests that the
original investigation significantly underestimated the
thickness of an alluvial clay layer underlying the site, and
that its coefficient of consolidation was overestimated.
Settlement analyses using geotechnical data from the
original ground investigations predict moderate
embankment settlements occurring principally during
construction. Settlement analyses based on all the
available data predict far larger embankment
settlements occurring over extended time periods. The
latter analyses predict an embankment settlement
similar to that observed and of sufficient magnitude to
cause the observed lateral displacement of the bridge
due to lateral loading of its piled foundation
Time to negative throat culture following initiation of antibiotics for pharyngeal group A Streptococcus: a systematic review and meta-analysis up to October 2021 to inform public health control measures
Background: Public health guidance recommending isolation of individuals with group A streptococcal (GAS) infection or carriage for 12–24 h from antibiotic initiation to prevent onward transmission requires a strong evidence base. Aim: To estimate the pooled proportion of individuals who remain GAS culture-positive at set intervals after initiation of antibiotics through a systematic literature review (PROSPERO CRD42021290364) and meta-analysis. Methods: We searched Ovid MEDLINE (1946–), EMBASE (1974–) and Cochrane library. We included interventional or observational studies with ≥ 10 participants reporting rates of GAS throat culture positivity during antibiotic treatment for culture-confirmed GAS pharyngitis, scarlet fever and asymptomatic pharyngeal GAS carriage. We did not apply age, language or geographical restrictions. Results: Of 5,058 unique records, 43 were included (37 randomised controlled studies, three non-randomised controlled trials and three before-and-after studies). The proportion of individuals remaining culture-positive on day 1, day 2 and days 3–9 were 6.9% (95% CI: 2.7–16.8%), 5.4% (95% CI: 2.1–13.3%) and 2.6% (95% CI: 1.6–4.2%). For penicillins and cephalosporins, day 1 positivity was 6.5% (95% CI: 2.5–16.1%) and 1.6% (95% CI: 0.04–42.9%), respectively. Overall, for 9.1% (95% CI: 7.3–11.3), throat swabs collected after completion of therapy were GAS culture-positive. Only six studies had low risk of bias. Conclusions: Our review provides evidence that antibiotics for pharyngeal GAS achieve a high rate of culture conversion within 24 h but highlights the need for further research given methodological limitations of published studies and imprecision of pooled estimates. Further evidence is needed for non-beta-lactam antibiotics and asymptomatic individuals
Preliminary guidelines for a requirements-based approach to certification by simulation for rotorcraft
The paper presents an introduction to the preliminary guidelines for rotorcraft certification by simulation developed by the partners of the Clean Sky 2 project Rotorcraft Certification by Simulation – RoCS . The guidelines are primarily aimed at the application of (rotorcraft) flight modelling and simulation in support of certification for compliance with standards CS-27 and CS-29, PART B (Flight) and other Flight-related aspects (e.g. CS-29, Appendix B, Airworthiness Criteria for Helicopter Instrument Flight). However, the guidelines are also applicable, in principle, to the certification of other types of rotorcraft, including tilt-rotors and e-VTOL configurations. A requirements-based approach is advocated and outlined, acknowledging the profound importance of assembling preliminary requirements, as complete as possible, before embarking on simulation development processes. The proposed approach presents examples of metrics for quantifying the fidelity that is ‘sufficient’ for application to relevant Applicable Certification Requirements (ACRs). The concept of ‘adaptive fidelity’ is introduced in this Guidance to emphasise that what might be sufficient is task-specific, and therefore ACR-specific. The paper introduces the structure of the proposed Rotorcraft Certification by Simulation process, together with the main concepts that guide applicants to the development of simulations that can be effectively employed to reduce the cost, timescales, complexity and risks that may be associated with certification performed solely though flight tests
Bacterial colonisation dynamics of household plastics in a coastal environment
This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData availability:
Scripts and final datasets are available on github (https://github.com/padpadpadpad/Lear_et_al_2022_stoten) and raw sequencing files (for the amplicon 16S) and genome assemblies (for the WGS) have been uploaded to the European Nucleotide Archive (Study accession number PRJEB5334).Accumulation of plastics in the marine environment has widespread detrimental consequences for ecosystems and wildlife. Marine plastics are rapidly colonised by a wide diversity of bacteria, including human pathogens, posing potential risks to health. Here, we investigate the effect of polymer type, residence time and estuarine location on bacterial colonisation of common household plastics, including pathogenic bacteria. We submerged five main household plastic types: low-density PE (LDPE), high-density PE (HDPE), polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) at an estuarine site in Cornwall (U.K.) and tracked bacterial colonisation dynamics. Using both culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches, we found that bacteria rapidly colonised plastics irrespective of polymer type, reaching culturable densities of up to 1000 cells cm3 after 7 weeks. Community composition of the biofilms changed over time, but not among polymer types. The presence of pathogenic bacteria, quantified using the insect model Galleria mellonella, increased dramatically over a five-week period, with Galleria mortality increasing from 4% in week one to 65% in week five. No consistent differences in virulence were observed between polymer types. Pathogens isolated from plastic biofilms using Galleria enrichment included Serratia and Enterococcus species and they harboured a wide range of antimicrobial resistance genes. Our findings show that plastics in coastal waters are rapidly colonised by a wide diversity of bacteria independent of polymer type. Further, our results show that marine plastic biofilms become increasingly associated with virulent bacteria over time.Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)Natural Environment Research Council (NERC
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