More and Better Jobs in Home-Care Services

[Excerpt] This study examines recruitment and retention measures in community-based care and support services for adults with disabilities and health problems. It focuses on 10 EU Member States: Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. It examines 30 case studies from these countries, analysing initiatives that were successful either in creating more jobs in the provision of health and social care for adults in the community or in improving the quality of jobs, with the aim of both attracting new recruits and retaining existing staff

Persistent neuronal firing in the medial temporal lobe supports performance and workload of visual working memory in humans

The involvement of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) in working memory is controversially discussed. Recent findings suggest that persistent neural firing in the hippocampus during maintenance in verbal working memory is associated with workload. Here, we recorded single neuron firing in 13 epilepsy patients (7 male) while they performed a visual working memory task. The number of coloured squares in the stimulus set determined the workload of the trial. Performance was almost perfect for low workload (1 and 2 squares) and dropped at high workload (4 and 6 squares), suggesting that high workload exceeded working memory capacity. We identified maintenance neurons in MTL neurons that showed persistent firing during the maintenance period. More maintenance neurons were found in the hippocampus for trials with correct compared to incorrect performance. Maintenance neurons increased and decreased firing in the hippocampus and increased firing in the entorhinal cortex for high compared to low workload. Population firing predicted workload particularly during the maintenance period. Prediction accuracy of workload based on single-trial activity during maintenance was strongest for neurons in the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus. The data suggest that persistent neural firing in the MTL reflects a domain-general process of maintenance supporting performance and workload of multiple items in working memory below and beyond working memory capacity. Persistent neural firing during maintenance in the entorhinal cortex may be associated with its preference to process visual-spatial arrays

Understanding elevated lactate level in a large-scale perfusion process to improve performance

Operational differences between the development lab and the GMP manufacturing facility can present challenges when developing a scalable process that conforms to the intended facility. Differences in the media storage conditions and metabolite sampling method between the bench scale and manufacturing scale perfusion processes were found to contribute to discrepancies in process parameters and ultimately lower productivity during scale-up runs. Unlike the bench scale runs, perfusion media was prepared and stored in an air-sparged vessel prior to being fed into a 500L bioreactor. Media air sparging resulted in elevated media pH, which consequently altered the dissolved amino acid and metal ion levels in the media prior to being fed into the reactor. During a subsequent run, the pH level was controlled during air-sparging. Productivity from the 500L process with pH-controlled media storage was higher than the 500L process with uncontrolled pH during media storage. Additionally, lactate levels were lower for the 500L scale process when pH was controlled during media storage. Comparing the 500L scale process to the 3L scale process used in development, measured lactate concentration levels during all 500L scale runs were elevated relative to the lactate concentrations measured during the 3L development runs. A key difference between development and 500L runs was the procedure used to measure lactate, specifically the difference in timing between drawing the sample and measurement. This difference combined with the fact that the 500L runs were performed in pressurized vessels led to the discrepancy in measured lactate levels during the process. The mechanism involved is likely related to CHO cell regulatory volume decrease (RVD).1 When CHO cells are withdrawn from a pressurized reactor, they undergo osmotic swelling followed by efflux of ions such as potassium and chloride as well as organic osmolytes such as amino acids, glucose and lactate. This efflux is known to occur over only a few minutes; therefore, a delay of such time in metabolite measurements can lead to a discrepancy between scale-up and development data. Careful consideration must be given to differences not only in the process (e.g. media storage), but also in the methods utilized to gather process parameter data. Because adjustments to the cell culture conditions affecting cell productivity are made based on measurements of process parameters (e.g. pH level), discrepancies in the data acquisition methods for these parameters can indirectly affect cell productivity if not carefully evaluated. [1] Sarkadi, B., Attisan, L., Grinstein, S., Buchwald, M., Rothstein, A., “Volume Regulation of Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells in Aniisoosmotic Media”, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 774 (1984) 159-168

Book Review of Conservation by Proxy: Indicator, Umbrella, Keystone, Flagship, and Other Surrogate Species

In the tallgrass prairies of the United States, the regal fritillary (Speyeria idalia) often is considered a reliable indicator of high quality remnant habitat. Purple milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens) is considered an indicator of high quality oak savanna habitat at the edge of prairie. Indicator and other surrogate species often are regarded as inescapable necessities in conservation, because limited budgets and the myriad pieces of an ecosystem render comprehensive monitoring impossible. Regardless of whether or not surrogate species are necessary, do they really work

Brain volumes predict neurodevelopment in adolescents after surgery for congenital heart disease

Patients with complex congenital heart disease are at risk for neurodevelopmental impairments. Evidence suggests that brain maturation can be delayed and pre- and postoperative brain injury may occur, and there is limited information on the long-term effect of congenital heart disease on brain development and function in adolescent patients. At a mean age of 13.8 years, 39 adolescent survivors of childhood cardiopulmonary bypass surgery with no structural brain lesions evident through conventional cerebral magnetic resonance imaging and 32 healthy control subjects underwent extensive neurodevelopmental assessment and cerebral magnetic resonance imaging. Cerebral scans were analysed quantitatively using surface-based and voxel-based morphometry. Compared with control subjects, patients had lower total brain (P = 0.003), white matter (P = 0.004) and cortical grey matter (P = 0.005) volumes, whereas cerebrospinal fluid volumes were not different. Regional brain volume reduction ranged from 5.3% (cortical grey matter) to 11% (corpus callosum). Adolescents with cyanotic heart disease showed more brain volume loss than those with acyanotic heart disease, particularly in the white matter, thalami, hippocampi and corpus callosum (all P-values < 0.05). Brain volume reduction correlated significantly with cognitive, motor and executive functions (grey matter: P < 0.05, white matter: P < 0.01). Our findings suggest that there are long-lasting cerebral changes in adolescent survivors of cardiopulmonary bypass surgery for congenital heart disease and that these changes are associated with functional outcom

The effect of Cr concentration on single interstitials stability in FeCr alloys

Finding adequate materials to withstand the demanding conditions in future fusion and fission reactors is a real challenge in the development of these technologies. Structural materials are going to be subjected to high irradiation doses and operating temperatures which will affect and modify material properties at a microstructural level. Understanding the changes in the microstructure induced by irradiation is needed in order to predict the response of these materials, ensuring safe and reliable future power plants. High-Cr ferritic/martensitic steels are preferred candidate structural materials due to their high resistance to radiation effects and their good resistance against corrosion. On the other hand, it is well known that these alloys present a problem of embrittlement, which could be caused by the presence of defects created by irradiation as these defects act as obstacles for dislocation motion. Therefore, the mechanical response of these materials will depend on the type of defects created during irradiation. In this work, we address a study of the effect of Cr concentration on single interstitial defect formation energies in FeCr alloys