Spherical shield Patent

Flexible bellows joint shielding sleeve for propellant transfer pipeline

Access to medicines in remote and rural areas: a survey of residents in the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles.

Objectives: Sparsely populated areas are potentially predisposed to health inequalities due to limited access to services. This study aimed to explore and describe issues of access to medicines and related advice experienced by residents of the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles. Study design: Cross-sectional cohort study. Methods: Anonymized questionnaires were mailed to a random sample of 6000 residents aged ≥18 years identified from the electoral register. The questionnaire contained items on: access to medicines; interactions with health care services; and perceptions of the services. Results were analysed using descriptive, inferential and spatial statistics. Results: Adjusted response rate was 49.5% (2913/5889). Almost two thirds (63.4%, 1847) were prescribed medicines regularly, 88.5% (1634) of whom considered the source convenient. Pharmacy (73.8%, 1364) or dispensing GP (24.0%, 443) were the most accessed sources. Prescription medicine advice was mainly obtained from the GP (55.7%, 1029). Respondents ≥80 years old were significantly (P0.0001) more likely to live alone (45.3%, 92) compared with those 80 (15.8%, 424). Almost a fifth (16.5%, 31) of those 80 years living alone disagreed that they obtained prescribed medicines from a convenient source. The majority of respondents who felt they did not have a convenient medicines source, regardless of urban/rural classification, lived within five miles of a pharmacy or GP practice. Conclusions: Respondents accessed medicines and advice from a variety of sources. While most considered their access to medicines convenient, there were issues for those over 80 years and living alone. Perceived convenience would not appear to be solely based on geographical proximity to supply source. This requires further exploration given that these individuals are likely to have long-term conditions and be prescribed medicines on a chronic basis

Investigating practice integration of independent prescribing by community pharmacists using normalization process theory: a cross-sectional survey.

Independent prescribing (IP) has not been extensively investigated in community pharmacy (CP). Normalization Process Theory (NPT) constructs help explain how interventions are integrated into practice and include: 'coherence' (understanding), 'cognitive participation' (what promotes engagement), 'collective action' (integration with existing systems), 'reflexive monitoring (evaluation). The aim of this study was to use NPT to investigate the integration of pharmacist IP in CP. NHS Scotland Pharmacy First Plus (PFP) is a community pharmacy IP service. Questionnaire items were developed using the NPT derived Normalisation MeAsure Development (NoMAD) tool for an online survey of all PFP IP pharmacists. Demographic data were analysed descriptively and scale scores (calculated from item scores for the 4 NPT constructs) were used for inferential analysis. There was a 73% (88/120) response rate. Greater than 90% 'strongly agreed' / 'agreed' to NoMAD items relating to most NPT constructs. However, responses to 'collective action' items were diverse with more participants answering 'neither agree nor disagree' or 'disagree'. A statistically significant difference in NPT construct scale scores with significant p-values (ranging from p<0.001 to p=0.033) was shown on all the NPT constructs for the variable 'On average, how often do you consult with patients under the PFP service?'. This theory-based work offers perspectives on IP integration within CP. Despite its geographic focus this work offers insights relevant to wider contexts on IP integration. It shows 'collective action' focused 'organisation' and 'group process' challenges with a need for further work on staff training, resource availability and utilisation, working relationships, communication and management

Terminal Ligand and Packing Effects on Slow Relaxation in an Isostructural Set of [Dy(H2_{2}dapp)X2_{2}]+ Single Molecule Magnets**

Three new dysprosium complexes with a pentadentate ligand occupying five equatorial sites differ only in the nature of the axial ligands. These help tune the relaxation properties as judged by an analysis of the AC susceptibility data. More in depth analysis by using two recently suggested fitting equations lead to similar outcomes for all three systems. As a further contribution to the relaxation pathway involving the phonon bath it is concluded that a short nitrate-nitrate interaction between molecules helps dampen the spin phonon coupling. We report three structurally related single ion Dy compounds using the pentadentate ligand 2,6-bis((E)-1-(2-(pyridin-2-yl)-hydrazineylidene)ethyl)pyridine (H$_{2}$dapp) [Dy(H$_{2}$dapp)(NO$_{3}$)$_{2}$]NO$_{3}$ (1), [Dy(H$_{2}$dapp)(OAc)$_{2}$]Cl (2) and [Dy(H$_{2}$dapp)(NO$_{3}$)$_{2}$]Cl$_{0.92}$(NO$_{3}$)$_{0.08}$ (3). The (H$_{2}$dapp) occupies a helical twisted pentagonal equatorial arrangement with two anionic ligands in the axial positions. Further influence on the electronic and magnetic structure is provided by a closely associated counterion interacting with the central N−H group of the (H$_{2}$dapp). The slow relaxation of the magnetisation shows that the anionic acetates give the greatest slowing down of the magnetisation reversal. Further influence on the relaxation properties of compounds1 and 2 is the presence of short nitrate-nitrate intermolecular ligand contact opening further lattice relaxation pathways

Quantitative Foster resonance energy transfer efficiency measurements using simultaneous spectral unmixing of excitation and emission spectra

Accurate quantification of Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) using intensity-based methods is difficult due to the overlap of fluorophore excitation and emission spectra. Consequently, mechanisms are required to remove bleedthrough of the donor emission into the acceptor channel and direct excitation of the acceptor when aiming to excite only the donor fluorophores. Methods to circumvent donor bleedthrough using the unmixing of emission spectra have been reported, but these require additional corrections to account for direct excitation of the acceptor. Here we present an alternative method for robust quantification of FRET efficiencies based upon the simultaneous spectral unmixing of both excitation and emission spectra. This has the benefit over existing methodologies in circumventing the issue of donor bleedthrough and acceptor cross excitation without the need for additional corrections. Furthermore, we show that it is applicable with as few as two excitation wavelengths and so can be used for quantifying FRET efficiency in microscope images as easily as for data collected on a spectrofluorometer. We demonstrate the accuracy of the approach by reproducing efficiency values in well characterized FRET standards: HEK cells expressing a variety of linked cerulean and venus fluorescent proteins. Finally we describe simple ImageJ plugins that can be used to calculate and create images of FRET efficiencies from microscope images.Sanam Mustafa, John Hannagan, Paul Rigby, Kevin Pfleger, and Ben Corr

Swimming Against the Flow: Environmental DNA Can Detect Bull Sharks (\u3ci\u3eCarcharhinus leucas\u3c/i\u3e) Across a Dynamic Deltaic Interface

© 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Human activities in coastal areas are accelerating ecosystem changes at an unprecedented pace, resulting in habitat loss, hydrological modifications, and predatory species declines. Understanding how these changes potentially cascade across marine and freshwater ecosystems requires knowing how mobile euryhaline species link these seemingly disparate systems. As upper trophic level predators, bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) play a crucial role in marine and freshwater ecosystem health. Telemetry studies in Mobile Bay, Alabama, suggest that bull sharks extensively use the northern portions of the bay, an estuarine–freshwater interface known as the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. To assess whether bull sharks use freshwater habitats in this region, environmental DNA surveys were conducted during the dry summer and wet winter seasons in 2018. In each season, 5 × 1 L water samples were collected at each of 21 sites: five sites in Mobile Bay, six sites in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, and ten sites throughout the Mobile-Tombigbee and Tensaw-Alabama Rivers. Water samples were vacuum-filtered, DNA extractions were performed on the particulate, and DNA extracts were analyzed with Droplet Digital™ Polymerase Chain Reaction using species-specific primers and an internal probe to amplify a 237-base pair fragment of the mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 gene in bull sharks. One water sample collected during the summer in the Alabama River met the criteria for a positive detection, thereby confirming the presence of bull shark DNA. While preliminary, this finding suggests that bull sharks use less-urbanized, riverine habitats up to 120 km upriver during Alabama\u27s dry summer season

Measuring opportunity: Redirecting education policy through research

While scholars develop research with clear implications for policy and practice, this work has been largely ineffective in influencing thought beyond the academy. In this article, we explore challenges researchers face in designing public scholarship to influence policy. To illustrate, we profile one such effort, the “Opportunity to Learn Index,” a national project designed to compare opportunities to learn in all 50 states, and we detail challenges related to method, analysis and presentation. This type of effort, we conclude, asks researchers to embrace unique challenges and the inescapably political nature of the knowledge enterprise, especially when engaging with non-researcher audiences