Preventing child pedestrian injuries and deaths arising from vehicle-child accidents in domestic driveways: An action research project

This research was a three-fold investigation into the viability of previous recommendations for vehicle-related child driveway accident safety . Firstly, the groups most at risk of these types of accidents were determined in order that they could be specifically considered when reviewing the practicalities of previous recommendations . Secondly, the feasibility of previous recommendations was systematically examined through both an extensive literature review and key and expert informant interviews . Based on these, the likelihood of implementation of previous safety recommendations for the identified high risk groups was ascertained, providing a basis on which to abandon some previous recommendations, remove obstacles to others which would enhance practicability and generate further recommendations that would be tenable for the at-risk groups in particular. The key findings of this research were, foremost, that there is a noticeable lack of specific reference to vehicle-related child driveway accidents in any legislation or safety guidelines, as well as a shortage of official data that deal expressly with this type of accident. Further, it was found that the major obstacles to the implementation of previous recommendations - particularly the environmental ones - were cost, autonomy, and spatial constraints. While several recommendations were abandoned due to factors such as unproven or dubious effectiveness and/or prohibitive cost, it was found that the most viable recommendations were characterised by their relatively low cost for the families involved. These recommendations were typically environmental or educational in nature. Thus, the recommendations in this report include some moderate regulatory changes to facilitate greater uptake of environmental and behaviour-modifying recommendations as well as practical ideas that all need to be part of a cohesive campaign to address the issue of vehicle-related child driveway accidents in New Zealand

Investigation of a geodesy coexperiment to the Gravity Probe B relativity gyroscope program

Geodesy is the science of measuring the gravitational field of and positions on the Earth. Estimation of the gravitational field via gravitation gradiometry, the measurement of variations in the direction and magnitude of gravitation with respect to position, is this dissertation's focus. Gravity Probe B (GP-B) is a Stanford satellite experiment in gravitational physics. GP-B will measure the precession the rotating Earth causes on the space time around it by observing the precessions of four gyroscopes in a circular, polar, drag-free orbit at 650 km altitude. The gyroscopes are nearly perfect niobium-coated spheres of quartz, operating at 1.8 K to permit observations with extremely low thermal noise. The permissible gyroscope drift rate is miniscule, so the torques on the gyros must be tiny. A drag-free control system, by canceling accelerations caused by nongravitational forces, minimizes the support forces and hence torques. The GP-B system offers two main possibilities for geodesy. One is as a drag-free satellite to be used in trajectory-based estimates of the Earth's gravity field. We described calculations involving that approach in our previous reports, including comparison of laser only, GPS only, and combined tracking and a preliminary estimate of the possibility of estimating relativistic effects on the orbit. The second possibility is gradiometry. This technique has received a more cursory examination in previous reports, so we concentrate on it here. We explore the feasibility of using the residual suspension forces centering the GP-B gyros as gradiometer signals for geodesy. The objective of this work is a statistical prediction of the formal uncertainty in an estimate of the Earth's gravitation field using data from GP-B. We perform an instrument analysis and apply two mathematical techniques to predict uncertainty. One is an analytical approach using a flat-Earth approximation to predict geopotential information quality as a function of spatial wavelength. The second estimates the covariance matrix arising in a least-squares estimate of a spherical harmonic representation of the geopotential using GP-B gradiometer data. The results show that the GP-B data set can be used to create a consistent estimate of the geopotential up to spherical harmonic degree and order 60. The formal uncertainty of all coefficients between degrees 5 and 50 is reduced by factors of up to 30 over current satellite-only estimates and up to 7 over estimates which include surface data. The primary conclusion resulting from this study is that the gravitation gradiometer geodesy coexperiment to GP-B is both feasible and attractive

Investigation of growth rate dispersion in lactose crystallisation by AFM

α-Lactose monohydrate crystals have been reported to exhibit growth rate dispersion (GRD). Variation in surface dislocations has been suggested as the cause of GRD, but this has not been further investigated to date. In this study, growth rate dispersion and the change in morphology were investigated in situ and via bottle roller experiments. The surfaces of the (0 1 0) faces of crystals were examined with Atomic Force Microscopy. Smaller, slow growing crystals tend to have smaller (0 1 0) faces with narrow bases and displayed a single double spiral in the centre of the crystal with 2 nm high steps. Additional double spirals in other crystals resulted in faster growth rates. Large, fast growing crystals were observed to have larger (0 1 0) faces with fast growth in both the a and b directions (giving a broader crystal base) with macro steps parallel to the (c direction). The number and location of spirals or existence of macro steps appears to influence the crystal morphology, growth rates and growth rate dispersion in lactose crystals

Care home staff's experiences and views of supporting the dietary management and choices of older residents with obesity

BackgroundRising numbers of older people with obesity living in care homes is an international phenomenon. Addressing dietary management of residents with obesity is a cause of debate and controversy. On one hand, the ‘obesity paradox’ suggests obesity protects against morbidity in frail older people. On the other hand, obesity reduces functional status and restricts activity for this group. This paper considers care home staff’s experience and views of supporting dietary management and choice for residents with obesity within the context of this controversy. DesignIn this qualitative study, 33 staff from seven care homes in the North East of England participated in focus groups, and data were analysed using Braun and Clarkes’s (2006) six phase thematic analysis approach. FindingsFindings indicate that participants’ support of dietary management and choice for residents with obesity may be strongly influenced by the care home environment. Care priorities, dietary management approaches, care home life, and family involvement in residents’ dietary intake facilitate and encourage weight gain, and as such, pose challenges for staff attempting to support weight management of residents with obesity.ConclusionFindings suggest that in the care home setting, nutrition policy, guidelines and service commissioning processes, and staff nutrition education, should include management of obesity. Furthermore, families should be supported to understand the implications of their own caring behaviours on residents’ nutritional status

Contesting conservation-planning: insights from Ireland

In most European countries, the 20th Century witnessed a growing interest in urban conservation as both a social movement and public policy domain, and by the 1960s urban conservation had emerged as a key planning and urban policy goal and a central feature of how cities positioned themselves within the globalised economy. However, where it evolves in contentious political contexts, urban conservation can be framed by competing priorities reflecting collective remembering, cultural politics and identities intertwined with the symbolic representation of the built environment. Ireland provides a unique lens to examine these themes in a western European context. Ireland is the only western European country to experience colonial domination. In relation to built heritage, Ireland’s urban centres have their historical roots in successive waves of colonial settlement, and buildings within these urban centres were inevitably perceived as tools of colonial oppression, representing the colonial state and power and domination of colonial capital interests. The built environment was also shaped by the tastes and preferences of the colonial elite, particularly in relation to prominent residences in the urban landscape, and outside of the main urban centres, landlord estates represented domination of landownership and agricultural production, manifested in large estate houses (referred to as the ‘big house’) and remodelled rural villages. This context provides an important backdrop to the evolution of conservation policy and practice in Ireland and to how representations of heritage have been continually (re)shaped in the urban development process. The aim of this paper is to chart the shifting representations of built heritage in Ireland, and their relevance in the emergence of conservation and heritage policy, set in the context of broader social, political and economic change over time. This is achieved, firstly, by a review of secondary source material to identify key events, eras and trends. Discourses of heritage are then examined in debates of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature), which provide a consistent record of national heritage debates in the Irish state. This identifies tensions around the emergence of built heritage policy in a historic environment largely associated with colonial power and identity, and shifts in how the historic built environment was represented in different eras. These representations range from outright antipathy, towards a more positive revalorisation of heritage, and a recent awakening amongst policymakers to the potential of heritage as a driver of urban regeneration. We then relate these shifting discourses to policy evolution, particularly the late adoption of comprehensive legislative framework for conservation (in 1999) and the important influence of international charters rather than bottom-up or national priorities in policy agenda-setting. Finally, conclusions are developed to identify wider lessons from the production of urban conservation priorities in the context of contested heritage

Facilitating social coping-‘seeking emotional and practical support from others’-as a critical strategy in maintaining the family care of people with dementia

The aim of this study was to identify how the family care of people living with dementia could be supported to make reliance on family care sustainable in the long term despite the impact of stress. A Realist Evaluation (Pawson & Tilley, 1997) was conducted to investigate this aim. An initial review established ‘coping’ as a primary means of mediating stressors associated with caregiving. However, there was a need to specify which coping approaches/strategies are most effective. In-depth interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of family carers (n = 18) in a suburb in North East England from 2016 to 2017. Analysis of the data revealed ‘social coping’ (SC) that included an emotional support component as a critical mediator of family carer stress. Several key hindrances to the utilisation of SC, including underpinning causal factors, are explicated. Ways in which these hindrances might be overcome are discussed and guidelines introduced for how family carers, formal providers and practitioners can facilitate SC as a critical coping strategy in sustaining the family care of people with dementia over the long term

Making sense of EST sequences by CLOBBing them

BACKGROUND: Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are single pass reads from randomly selected cDNA clones. They provide a highly cost-effective method to access and identify expressed genes. However, they are often prone to sequencing errors and typically define incomplete transcripts. To increase the amount of information obtainable from ESTs and reduce sequencing errors, it is necessary to cluster ESTs into groups sharing significant sequence similarity. RESULTS: As part of our ongoing EST programs investigating 'orphan' genomes, we have developed a clustering algorithm, CLOBB (Cluster on the basis of BLAST similarity) to identify and cluster ESTs. CLOBB may be used incrementally, preserving original cluster designations. It tracks cluster-specific events such as merging, identifies 'superclusters' of related clusters and avoids the expansion of chimeric clusters. Based on the Perl scripting language, CLOBB is highly portable relying only on a local installation of NCBI's freely available BLAST executable and can be usefully applied to > 95 % of the current EST datasets. Analysis of the Danio rerio EST dataset demonstrates that CLOBB compares favourably with two less portable systems, UniGene and TIGR Gene Indices. CONCLUSIONS: CLOBB provides a highly portable EST clustering solution and is freely downloaded from: http://www.nematodes.org/CLOB

Positive adaptation to Dementia: A Realist Evaluation of family carers’ journey towards Resilience

Background: Prevalence of dementia and especially Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is increasing exponentially, both in the U.K. and more globally. Reliance on family carers of people living with AD (FCOPWA) to provide the backbone of care remains critical and continued reliance on such carers also represents current governmental policy. However, carers are vulnerable to salient health inequalities and chronic variable stress in particular as a direct consequence of taking on the carer role. The numbers of those family carers whose own health and wellbeing might be affected has reached unprecedented levels which are set to increase further in future. Aims: This study therefore aims to investigate ways in which FCOPWA can be optimally supported to maintain and sustain family care over the course of the AD trajectory. Research questions: ‘What works’ ‘when’ and ‘in what circumstances’ to enable the FCOPWA?’ Design: this study adopted a scientific realist methodology to identify ‘generative mechanisms’ which support the long-term maintenance and sustenance of FCOPWA. A rapid realist review (RRR) is employed to investigate a comprehensive range of candidates for ‘what enables the FCOPWA,’ draw up a new conceptual framework based on ‘what works’ and formulate candidate Program Theories (CPTs) to be empirically tested. Testing comprised eighteen in-depth interviews with family carers to gather data which could be analysed to further investigate the CPTs. This led to the establishment of more specific and narrowly defined Program Theories (PTs). Findings: Five PTs emerged, presenting an adaptive carer pathway covering the three main stages of the AD trajectory. This adaptive pathway was underpinned by resilience as a key mechanism and facilitated by the adaptive and differentiated employment of a range of problem and emotion-focused coping approaches and strategies. Hope was also found to provide a pivotal positive and motivating influence throughout the FCOPWA. The pathway offered a way to promote the sustainability of FCOPWA. Conclusions: The adaptive pathway outlined by this study may also prove useful in similar adult care contexts beyond AD and dementia. Additionally, the three main emergent strands: resilience, coping and salutogenesis might be usefully combined to represent an alternative paradigm to the traditional Medical model as part of the solution to the burgeoning question of how diseases which are chronic and life-limiting but not life-threatening such as dementia, but also other diseases with similar criteria, can be better served and supported in future by health and social care system