Solution-processed nickel tetrabenzoporphyrin thin-film transistors

We describe nickel tetrabenzoporphyrin (NiTBP) as a solution-processible organic semiconductor. Whereas porphyrins in an unmodified state are typically planar and insoluble, a precursor synthetic route (NiCP) was used to deposit thin films via solution. Amorphous, insulating thin films of NiCP were deposited, and thermally converted to polycrystalline, semiconducting NiTBP. Films were studied using optical absorption and microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and x-ray diffraction. Highly concentrated NiCP was shown to form large, needle-shaped crystals drop-cast from solution. NiTBP thin-film field-effect transistors fabricated from spun-cast films demonstrated charge-carrier field-effect mobilities on the order of 0.1 and 0.2 cm2/V s0.2cm2∕Vs and accumulation threshold voltages of −19−19 and −13−13, in the linear and saturation regimes, respectively.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87777/2/034502_1.pd

The experiences of student nurses in a pandemic : a qualitative study

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. his is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Aim/objective: To record and learn from the experiences of students working on clinical placement in a pandemic. Background: In March of 2020, final and second year student nurses in England were given the option to join the Covid-19 pandemic work-force, paid as high-level health care assistants. Methods/design: Using qualitative methods and rapid analysis techniques, this study gathered the unique experiences of 16 final year students, from all fields of nursing at a University in the East of England, who chose to complete their final extended placement in a diverse range of clinical placements at the height of the first wave of the pandemic. Data was collected between July and September 2020. Results: Five key themes were identified across our data: rationale for undertaking the extended placement, role tensions, caring for patients and their families, the impact on teaching and learning, and personal health and wellbeing. Conclusions: While our participants reported largely positive experiences including a perceived heightened preparedness for qualification, their experiences provide important insights for nurse educators for the education and support of future students going into similar situations, in particular relating to welfare and support, preparation for placement, resilience, e-learning and learning on the front line.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Communication and virtual visiting for families of patients in intensive care during the COVID-19 pandemic:A UK National Survey

© 2021 by the American Thoracic Society. This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 4.0.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Rationale: Restriction or prohibition of family visiting intensive care units (ICUs) during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic poses substantial barriers to communication and family- and patient-centered care. Objectives: To understand how communication among families, patients, and the ICU team was enabled during the pandemic. The secondary objectives were to understand strategies used to facilitate virtual visiting and associated benefits and barriers. Methods: A multicenter, cross-sectional, and self-administered electronic survey was sent (June 2020) to all 217 UK hospitals with at least one ICU. Results: The survey response rate was 54%; 117 of 217 hospitals (182 ICUs) responded. All hospitals imposed visiting restrictions, with visits not permitted under any circumstance in 16% of hospitals (28 ICUs); 63% (112 ICUs) of hospitals permitted family presence at the end of life. The responsibility for communicating with families shifted with decreased bedside nurse involvement. A dedicated ICU family-liaison team was established in 50% (106 ICUs) of hospitals. All but three hospitals instituted virtual visiting, although there was substantial heterogeneity in the videoconferencing platform used. Unconscious or sedated ICU patients were deemed ineligible for virtual visits in 23% of ICUs. Patients at the end of life were deemed ineligible for virtual visits in 7% of ICUs. Commonly reported benefits of virtual visiting were reducing patient psychological distress (78%), improving staff morale (68%), and reorientation of patients with delirium (47%). Common barriers to virtual visiting were related to insufficient staff time, rapid implementation of videoconferencing technology, and challenges associated with family members’ ability to use videoconferencing technology or access a device. Conclusions: Virtual visiting and dedicated communication teams were common COVID-19 pandemic innovations addressing the restrictions to family ICU visiting, and they resulted in valuable benefits in terms of patient recovery and staff morale. Enhancing access and developing a more consistent approach to family virtual ICU visits could improve the quality of care, both during and outside of pandemic conditions.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Florence Nightingale's legacy for clinical academics: A framework analysis of a clinical professorial network and a model for clinical academia.

BACKGROUND: Clinical academic nursing roles are rare, and clinical academic leadership positions even more scarce. Amongst the United Kingdom (UK) academia, only 3% of nurses who are employed within universities are clinically active. Furthermore, access to research fellowships and research grant funding for nurses in clinical or academic practice is also limited. The work of Florence Nightingale, the original role model for clinical academic nursing, is discussed in terms of how this has shaped and influenced that of clinical academic nurse leaders in modern UK healthcare settings. We analysed case studies with a view to providing exemplars and informing a new model by which to visualise a trajectory of clinical academic careers. METHODS: A Framework analysis of seven exemplar cases was conducted for a network of Clinical Academic Nursing Professors (n = 7), using a structured template. Independent analysis highlighted shared features of the roles: (a) model of clinical academic practice, (b) infrastructure for the post, (c) capacity-building initiatives, (d) strategic influence, (e) wider influence, (f) local and national implementation initiatives, (g) research area and focus and (h) impact and contribution. FINDINGS: All seven of the professors of nursing involved in this discourse were based in both universities and healthcare organisations in an equal split. All had national and international profiles in their specialist clinical areas and were implementing innovation in their clinical and teaching settings through boundary spanning. We outline a model for career trajectories in clinical academia, and how leadership is crucial. CONCLUSION: The model outlined emphasises the different stages of clinical academic roles in nursing. Nursing as a discipline needs to embrace the value of these roles, which have great potential to raise the standards of healthcare and the status of the profession

Ethical Use and Impact of Participatory Approaches to Research in Post-Disaster Environments: An Australian Bushfire Case Study

Copyright © 2018 L. Gibbs et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This paper presents a case study of Beyond Bushfires, a large, multisite, mixed method study of the psychosocial impacts of major bushfires in Victoria, Australia. A participatory approach was employed throughout the study which was led by a team of academic investigators in partnership with service providers and government representatives and used on-site visits and multiple methods of communication with communities across the state to inform decision-making throughout the study. The ethics and impacts of conducting and adapting the approach within a post-disaster context will be discussed in reference to theories and models of participatory health research. The challenges of balancing local interests with state-wide implications will also be explored in the description of the methods of engagement and the study processes and outcomes. Beyond Bushfires demonstrates the feasibility of incorporating participatory methods in large, post-disaster research studies and achieving rigorous findings and multilevel impacts, while recognising the potential for some of the empowering aspects of the participatory experience to be reduced by the scaled-up approach

Operation Moonshot: rapid translation of a SARS-CoV-2 targeted peptide immunoaffinity liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry test from research into routine clinical use

OBJECTIVES: During 2020, the UK's Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) established the Moonshot programme to fund various diagnostic approaches for the detection of SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen behind the COVID-19 pandemic. Mass spectrometry was one of the technologies proposed to increase testing capacity. METHODS: Moonshot funded a multi-phase development programme, bringing together experts from academia, industry and the NHS to develop a state-of-the-art targeted protein assay utilising enrichment and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to capture and detect low levels of tryptic peptides derived from SARS-CoV-2 virus. The assay relies on detection of target peptides, ADETQALPQRK (ADE) and AYNVTQAFGR (AYN), derived from the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2, measurement of which allowed the specific, sensitive, and robust detection of the virus from nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of LC-MS/MS was compared with reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) via a prospective study. RESULTS: Analysis of NP swabs (n=361) with a median RT-qPCR quantification cycle (Cq) of 27 (range 16.7-39.1) demonstrated diagnostic sensitivity of 92.4% (87.4-95.5), specificity of 97.4% (94.0-98.9) and near total concordance with RT-qPCR (Cohen's Kappa 0.90). Excluding Cq>32 samples, sensitivity was 97.9% (94.1-99.3), specificity 97.4% (94.0-98.9) and Cohen's Kappa 0.95. CONCLUSIONS: This unique collaboration between academia, industry and the NHS enabled development, translation, and validation of a SARS-CoV-2 method in NP swabs to be achieved in 5 months. This pilot provides a model and pipeline for future accelerated development and implementation of LC-MS/MS protein/peptide assays into the routine clinical laboratory

Generation and Validation of a Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 Clone Set for Protein Expression and Phage Display

A comprehensive gene collection for S. oneidensis was constructed using the lambda recombinase (Gateway) cloning system. A total of 3584 individual ORFs (85%) have been successfully cloned into the entry plasmids. To validate the use of the clone set, three sets of ORFs were examined within three different destination vectors constructed in this study. Success rates for heterologous protein expression of S. oneidensis His- or His/GST- tagged proteins in E. coli were approximately 70%. The ArcA and NarP transcription factor proteins were tested in an in vitro binding assay to demonstrate that functional proteins can be successfully produced using the clone set. Further functional validation of the clone set was obtained from phage display experiments in which a phage encoding thioredoxin was successfully isolated from a pool of 80 different clones after three rounds of biopanning using immobilized anti-thioredoxin antibody as a target. This clone set complements existing genomic (e.g., whole-genome microarray) and other proteomic tools (e.g., mass spectrometry-based proteomic analysis), and facilitates a wide variety of integrated studies, including protein expression, purification, and functional analyses of proteins both in vivo and in vitro

Physical rehabilitation interventions for adult patients with critical illness across the continuum of recovery:an overview of systematic reviews protocol

Background: Patients admitted to the intensive care unit with critical illness often experience significant physical\ud impairments, which typically persist for many years following resolution of the original illness. Physical rehabilitation\ud interventions that enhance restoration of physical function have been evaluated across the continuum of recovery\ud following critical illness including within the intensive care unit, following discharge to the ward and beyond hospital\ud discharge. Multiple systematic reviews have been published appraising the expanding evidence investigating these\ud physical rehabilitation interventions, although there appears to be variability in review methodology and quality. We\ud aim to conduct an overview of existing systematic reviews of physical rehabilitation interventions for adult intensive\ud care patients across the continuum of recovery.\ud Methods/design: This protocol has been developed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic\ud Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocol (PRISMA-P) guidelines. We will search the Cochrane Systematic Review Database,\ud Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, Excerpta\ud Medica Database and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature databases. We will include systematic\ud reviews of randomised controlled trials of adult patients, admitted to the intensive care unit and who have received\ud physical rehabilitation interventions at any time point during their recovery. Data extraction will include systematic\ud review aims and rationale, study types, populations, interventions, comparators, outcomes and quality appraisal\ud method. Primary outcomes of interest will focus on findings reflecting recovery of physical function. Quality of\ud reporting and methodological quality will be appraised using the PRISMA checklist and the Assessment of Multiple\ud Systematic Reviews tool.\ud Discussion: We anticipate the findings from this novel overview of systematic reviews will contribute to the synthesis\ud and interpretation of existing evidence regarding physical rehabilitation interventions and physical recovery in post-critical\ud illness patients across the continuum of recovery