An investigation of family carers' needs following stroke survivors' discharge from acute hospital care in Australia

Purpose.To expand understanding of informal stroke care-giving, validated tools previously used in Hong Kong and in the UK were used with Australian stroke carers to assess their stroke-related knowledge, perceived needs, satisfaction with services received and sense of burden after stroke patients' discharge home from acute hospital care. Methods.Record audit and telephone interviews with two cohorts of 32 carers recruited in Sydney and Brisbane 1 and 3 months post-hospital discharge, using validated scales and open questions in MayJuly 2006. Results.Female carers, those with prior care-giving responsibility, and those interviewed at three compared to one month post-discharge reported greatest needs and burden from the care-giving role; needs alone significantly predicted burden. Getting information and being prepared for life after discharge were central concerns. Some felt this was accomplished, but inadequate information giving and communication mismatches were apparent. Conclusions.Service providers need to develop partnership working with stroke families and provide a network of services and inputs that cut across conventional boundaries between health and social care, public, private and voluntary organisations, with care plans that deliver what they delineate. Stroke care-givers have common issues across countries and healthcare systems; collaborative research-based service development is advocated. © 2011 Informa UK, Ltd

Compositional redistribution during casting of Hg sub 0.8 Cd sub 0.2 Te alloys

A series of Hg(0.8)Cd(0.2)Te ingots was cast both vertically and horizontally under well-defined thermal conditions by using a two-zone furnace with isothermal heat-pipe liners. The main objective of the experiments was to establish correlations between casting parameters and compositional redistribution and to develop ground-based data for a proposed flight experiment of casting of Hg(1-x)Cd(x)Te alloys under reduced gravity conditions. The compositional variations along the axial and radial directions were determined by precision density measurements, infrared transmission spectra, and X-ray energy dispersion spectrometry. Comparison between the experimental results and a numerical simulation of the solidification process of Hg(0.8)Cd(0.2)Te is described

Discovery of near-Earth asteroids by CCD scanning

The found near-Earth asteroid are different objects with peculiar orbits. With the new technique of CCD scanning we entered the domain of the smallest, the fastest, and the closest near-Earth asteroids. The results are presented

The art of spending and recommendations in personal finance

Happiness is one of the most important aspects of human lives, yet the literature on emotional well-being indicates that people often fail to correctly anticipate the hedonic consequences of future events. As a result, individuals end up being not as happy as they thought they would be. This phenomenon also applies to the domain of personal finance where people make bad decisions about purchases. In this paper, we identified a new opportunity for the research on recommender systems in personal finance and through analysis demonstrated that intelligent recommenders can help to minimize errors in affective forecasts and enhance happiness of people in the domain of consumption. Furthermore, we reviewed problems associated with design of such recommenders and proposed approaches to overcome them.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 655723

Categorisation and Detection of Dark Matter Candidates from String/M-theory Hidden Sectors

We study well-motivated dark matter candidates arising from weakly-coupled hidden sectors in compactified string/$M$-theory. Imposing generic top-down constraints greatly restricts allowed candidates. By considering the possible mechanisms for achieving the correct dark matter relic density, we compile categories of viable dark matter candidates and annihilation mediators. We consider the case where supersymmetry breaking occurs via moduli stabilisation and is gravitationally mediated to the visible and other hidden sectors, without assuming sequestering of the sector in which supersymmetry is broken. We find that in this case, weakly-coupled hidden sectors only allow for fermionic dark matter. Additionally, most of the mechanisms for obtaining the full relic density only allow for a gauge boson mediator, such as a dark $Z'$. Given these considerations, we study the potential for discovering or constraining the allowed parameter space given current and future direct detection experiments, and direct production at the LHC. We also present a model of a hidden sector which would contain a satisfactory dark matter candidate.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figure

What are the benefits of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme for teaching and learning? Perspectives from stakeholders in Australia

The report was commissioned by the IB and builds on existing studies on the Middle Years Program. It is the first study to comprehensively examine key ‘insider’ stakeholder perspectives of the benefits of the MYP for teaching and learning in Australia. Specifically it examines the perspectives of seventeen MYP teachers, five MYP Coordinators and six school principals from three public and two private schools, and four representatives from governing bodies and public education authorities. A qualitative research design involving case studies, semi-structured interviews and document analysis was used to gather rich data about insiders’ and key stakeholders’ perspectives of the impact of MYP on teaching and learning addressing the following research questions: 1) What are the impediments and enablers of offering the MYP? 2) What are the benefits of the MYP for teaching and learning? 3) What are the challenges of the MYP for teaching and learning

Formation of a Nematic Fluid at High Fields in Sr3Ru2O7

In principle, a complex assembly of strongly interacting electrons can self-organise into a wide variety of collective states, but relatively few such states have been identified in practice. We report that, in the close vicinity of a metamagnetic quantum critical point, high purity Sr3Ru2O7 possesses a large magnetoresistive anisotropy, consistent with the existence of an electronic nematic fluid. We discuss a striking phenomenological similarity between our observations and those made in high purity two-dimensional electron fluids in GaAs devices.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 11 extra pages of supplementary informatio

Two-photon absorption and broadband optical limiting with bis-donor stilbenes

Large two-photon absorptivities are reported for symmetrical bis-donor stilbene derivatives with dialkylamino or diphenylamino groups. These molecules exhibit strong optical limiting of nanosecond pulses over a broad spectral range in the visible. Relative to bis(di-n-butylamino)stilbene, bis(diphenylamino)stilbene exhibits a 90-nm red shift of its optical limiting band but only a minimal shift of ~13 nm of its lowest one-photon electronic absorption band. Mixtures of these compounds offer an unprecedented combination of broad optical limiting bandwidth and high linear transparency