A movable stop mechanism for the SIRE telescope

A movable stop mechanism (MSM) designed to activate flaps that change the size and shape of a telescope aperture stop on command is described. Operating at the cryogenic temperatures of the optical system, it consists primarily of a rotary solenoid that drives (activates) dual four-bar linkages in synchronism that in turn rotate the butterfly flaps into position. The design, performance characteristics, and testing of this mechanism are discussed. Specific problems that occurred during testing and the solutions that were adopted are also described

Conflicting priorities: evaluation of an intervention to improve nurse-parent relationships on a Tanzanian paediatric ward.

BACKGROUND: Patient, or parent/guardian, satisfaction with health care provision is important to health outcomes. Poor relationships with health workers, particularly with nursing staff, have been reported to reduce satisfaction with care in Africa. Participatory research approaches such as the Health Workers for Change initiative have been successful in improving provider-client relationships in various developing country settings, but have not yet been reported in the complex environment of hospital wards. We evaluated the HWC approach for improving the relationship between nurses and parents on a paediatric ward in a busy regional hospital in Tanzania. METHODS: The intervention consisted of six workshops, attended by 29 of 31 trained nurses and nurse attendants working on the paediatric ward. Parental satisfaction with nursing care was measured with 288 parents before and six weeks after the workshops, by means of an adapted Picker questionnaire. Two focus-group discussions were held with the workshop participants six months after the intervention. RESULTS: During the workshops, nurses demonstrated awareness of poor relationships between themselves and mothers. To tackle this, they proposed measures including weekly meetings to solve problems, maintain respect and increase cooperation, and representation to administrative forces to request better working conditions such as equipment, salaries and staff numbers. The results of the parent satisfaction questionnaire showed some improvement in responsiveness of nurses to client needs, but overall the mean percentage of parents reporting each of 20 problems was not statistically significantly different after the intervention, compared to before it (38.9% versus 41.2%). Post-workshop focus-group discussions with nursing staff suggested that nurses felt more empathic towards mothers and perceived an improvement in the relationship, but that this was hindered by persisting problems in their working environment, including poor relationships with other staff and a lack of response from hospital administration to their needs. CONCLUSION: The intended outcome of the intervention was not met. The priorities of the intervention--to improve nurse-parent relationships--did not match the priorities of the nursing staff. Development of awareness and empathy was not enough to provide care that was satisfactory to clients in the context of working conditions that were unsatisfactory to nurses

Impact of the invasive plant, Lantana camara, on bird assemblages at Malé Mahadeshwara Reserve Forest, South India

Lantana camara is an invasive species that is widespread in India. Using birds as an indicator taxon, we investigated whether Lantana invasion was correlated with changes in ecosystem health of the moist and dry deciduous forests at the Malé Madeshwara Hills, Karnataka. We studied Lantana at four densities, low, medium, and high, and a no-Lantana control. Bird species diversity, species richness, and abundance were lower at high densities of Lantana in both forest types. Evenness increased with increase in Lantana density. To better understand the observed changes in bird community composition, we segregated birds into 2 guild types: microhabitat guilds and foraging guilds. An increase in Lantana density was correlated with a decline in canopy birds (of the canopy microhabitat guilds) and insectivores (of the insectivore foraging guilds). Our results suggest that Lantana affects the structure of the bird community by decreasing diversity, and that Lantana affects certain guilds more than others

Mentoring for Faculty from Working-Class Backgrounds

Faculty mentoring across gender, race, and culture is facilitated by formal mentoring programs. Mentoring across the cultural differences associated with social class, however, represents a largely unaddressed gap in the provision of formal faculty mentoring. Based on a pre-program needs survey, we designed and delivered a pilot program that served working-class faculty with mentoring on career self-efficacy. Assessment showed that working-class faculty mentees made gains in this important construct. Our concluding discussion reflects upon the role of mentoring in the experience of working-class faculty

Electrical manipulation of spin states in a single electrostatically gated transition-metal complex

We demonstrate an electrically controlled high-spin (S=5/2) to low-spin (S=1/2) transition in a three-terminal device incorporating a single Mn2+ ion coordinated by two terpyridine ligands. By adjusting the gate-voltage we reduce the terpyridine moiety and thereby strengthen the ligand-field on the Mn-atom. Adding a single electron thus stabilizes the low-spin configuration and the corresponding sequential tunnelling current is suppressed by spin-blockade. From low-temperature inelastic cotunneling spectroscopy, we infer the magnetic excitation spectrum of the molecule and uncover also a strongly gate-dependent singlet-triplet splitting on the low-spin side. The measured bias-spectroscopy is shown to be consistent with an exact diagonalization of the Mn-complex, and an interpretation of the data is given in terms of a simplified effective model.Comment: Will appear soon in Nanoletter

Effects of apples and specific apple components on the cecal environment of conventional rats: role of apple pectin

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Our study was part of the large European project ISAFRUIT aiming to reveal the biological explanations for the epidemiologically well-established health effects of fruits. The objective was to identify effects of apple and apple product consumption on the composition of the cecal microbial community in rats, as well as on a number of cecal parameters, which may be influenced by a changed microbiota.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of cecal microbiota profiles obtained by PCR-DGGE targeting bacterial 16S rRNA genes showed an effect of whole apples in a long-term feeding study (14 weeks), while no effects of apple juice, purée or pomace on microbial composition in cecum were observed. Administration of either 0.33 or 3.3% apple pectin in the diet resulted in considerable changes in the DGGE profiles.</p> <p>A 2-fold increase in the activity of beta-glucuronidase was observed in animals fed with pectin (7% in the diet) for four weeks, as compared to control animals (P < 0.01). Additionally, the level of butyrate measured in these pectin-fed animal was more than double of the corresponding level in control animals (P < 0.01). Sequencing revealed that DGGE bands, which were suppressed in pectin-fed rats, represented Gram-negative anaerobic rods belonging to the phylum <it>Bacteroidetes</it>, whereas bands that became more prominent represented mainly Gram-positive anaerobic rods belonging to the phylum <it>Firmicutes</it>, and specific species belonging to the <it>Clostridium </it>Cluster XIVa.</p> <p>Quantitative real-time PCR confirmed a lower amount of given <it>Bacteroidetes </it>species in the pectin-fed rats as well as in the apple-fed rats in the four-week study (P < 0.05). Additionally, a more than four-fold increase in the amount of <it>Clostridium coccoides </it>(belonging to Cluster XIVa), as well as of genes encoding butyryl-coenzyme A CoA transferase, which is involved in butyrate production, was detected by quantitative PCR in fecal samples from the pectin-fed animals.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings show that consumption of apple pectin (7% in the diet) increases the population of butyrate- and β-glucuronidase producing <it>Clostridiales</it>, and decreases the population of specific species within the <it>Bacteroidetes </it>group in the rat gut. Similar changes were not caused by consumption of whole apples, apple juice, purée or pomace.</p