RISK FACTORS, TRENDS, HEALTH CARE AND GENERAL LIFE SATISFACTION FOR SELECT NEUROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AMONG AN AGING POPULATION IN CANADA

There is an increasing number of people with neurological conditions. These people are living longer due to advances in critical care medicine and increasing survival and life expectancy rates among an aging population. As a result, neurological conditions and their attendant disabilities impact over 3.7 million people living in Canada and account for large health care expenditures, both by the publicly funded health system and through out-of-pocket payments by individuals with the conditions. Our main objective is to discover, other factors besides age, that affect the quality of life for Canadians living with neurological conditions. We use nationally representative population based survey data to identify risk factors, trends, health care and general life satisfaction for select neurological conditions found among Canadians. In order to inform health systems planning and direction of financial resources, policy and services, especially amidst grim predictions on the overall burden of these conditions on the Canadian economy, we examine specific neurological conditions (Alzheimer’s disease (AD)/dementia, Parkinson’s disease (PD), stroke effects, migraine headaches, multiple sclerosis (MS), cerebral palsy, epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington's disease, Tourette’s syndrome, dystonia, muscular dystrophy, hydrocephalus, spina bifida, brain and spinal cord tumors, and brain and spinal cord injuries), either independently or collectively in four distinct studies. In the first study, chapter 3, we confirmed through our systematic review and meta-analysis that toxic occupational exposures are significant risk factors for the development of Parkinson’s disease especially that confirmed by a neurologist or nurse using standardized diagnostic methodology. The second study analyzed the trends in AD/dementia prevalence by age, gender, education and geographic regions and found increasing prevalence across all strata of the community, with more men than women living with AD/dementia in the community. Increases in prevalence over the twenty-year period were less among those with higher levels of education and in the 45-64 age category, while prevalence was higher in the 65-79 age category and ballooned in the 80+ age categories of both men and women. The third study assessed the relationship between self-reported unmet care needs and general health care satisfaction, satisfaction with physician and satisfaction with hospital services among Canadians with neurological conditions. We found that patient satisfaction was positively influenced by quality and availability of provincial and received care and being satisfied with life in general while unmet health care needs and receiving emergency services at the hospital had a negative impact on patient satisfaction. The final study which examined the association between spirituality/religiosity and general life satisfaction among Canadians with neurological conditions found a protective relationship between spiritual values providing strength to face everyday difficulties, regular attendance at religious services and self-perceived physical and mental health and satisfaction with life in general. The final take-home messages from our findings is that a population-based approach and a coordinated holistic system of care are needed for primary prevention of neurological conditions and the enhanced quality of life among the patients

Scarcely visible? Analysing initial teacher education research and the Research Excellence Framework

In the UK, the Research Excellence Framework is a mechanism used for ranking the quality of research in higher education institutions. While there has been analysis of the entire Research Excellence Framework, and of the Education unit of assessment more generally, analysis of how research on initial teacher education featured in the Research Excellence Framework has been minimal. In this article, we report on Phase I of an 18-month project that mapped the extent to which initial teacher education-focused research was included in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. Employing a novel methodology and a theoretical framework based on policy as text and discourse, we identify a sample of 12 higher education institutions that provided initial teacher education programmes and returned outputs to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. Analysis of over 1,600 outputs suggest that in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework only 5.5 per cent of these were focused on initial teacher education. We discuss the methodological approach, some headline findings and areas for future research, arguing that these add evidence to the literature of initial teacher education-focused research and, in doing so, can inform policy at the levels of schools, higher education institutions, Research Excellence Framework and the government. We conclude that although the Research Excellence Framework only concerns the UK, similar exercises are becoming increasingly prevalent globally, and therefore the extent to which research on initial teacher education was marginalised in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework is of interest to all concerned with teacher education

A molecular dynamics study of plasticiser migration in nitrocellulose binders

The migration of the energetic plasticisers 1-nitramino-2,3-dinitroxypropane; 2,4-dinitroethylbenzene; and 2,4,6-trinitroethylbenzene in two nitrocellulose binder mixtures has been investigated by the calculation of diffusion coefficients and activation energies of diffusion from molecular dynamics simulations. The study included parameterisation of force fields for nitrocellulose; 1-nitramino-2,3-dinitroxypropane; the stabilizer ethyl centralite; and the overall nitrocellulose binder mixtures. Simulated densities obtained were in very good agreement with experimental densities. The diffusion coefficients compare favourably with experimental values available for similar systems, when differences such as the proportions of plasticisers are taken into consideration. Examination of the plasticiser diffusion rates suggests that 1-nitramino-2,3-dinitroxypropane migrates more slowly from a nitrocellulose binder than 2,4-dinitroethylbenzene for the nitrocellulose and plasticiser proportions used in this study. Understanding plasticiser migration is essential for the long-term storage of energetic material formulations without significant changes occurring in their properties or compositions

Parent population of flat-spectrum radio-loud narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies

Flat-spectrum radio-loud Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) are a recently discovered class of $\gamma$-ray emitting Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), that exhibit some blazar-like properties which are explained with the presence of a relativistic jet viewed at small angles. When blazars are observed at larger angles they appear as radio-galaxies, and we expect to observe an analogue parent population for beamed NLS1s. However, the number of known NLS1s with the jet viewed at large angles is not enough. Therefore, we tried to understand the origin of this deficit. Current hypotheses about the nature of parent sources are steep-spectrum radio-loud NLS1s, radio-quiet NLS1s and disk-hosted radio-galaxies. To test these hypotheses we built three samples of candidate sources plus a control sample, and calculated their black hole mass and Eddington ratio using their optical spectra. We then performed a Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test to investigate the compatibility of our different samples with a beamed population. Our results indicate that, when the inclination angle increases, a beamed source appears as a steep-spectrum radio-loud NLS1, or possibly even as a disk-hosted radio-galaxy with low black hole mass and high Eddington ratio. Further investigations, involving larger complete samples and observations at radio frequency, are needed to understand the incidence of disk-hosted radio-galaxies in the parent population, and to assess whether radio-quiet NLS1s can play a role, as well.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication by Astronomy and Astrophysic

Modelling water diffusion in plasticizers: development and optimization of a force field for 2,4-dinitroethylbenzene and 2,4,6-trinitroethylbenzene

A classical all-atom force field has been developed for 2,4,6-trinitroethylbenzene and 2,4-dinitroethylbenzene and applied in molecular dynamics simulations of the two pure and two mixed plasticizer systems. Bonding parameters and partial charges were derived through electronic and geometry optimization of the single molecules. The other required parameters were derived from values already available in the literature for generic nitro aromatic compounds, which were adjusted to reproduce to a high level of accuracy the densities of 2,4-dinitroethylbenzene, 2,4,6-trinitroethylbenzene and the energetic plasticizers K10 and R8002. This force field has been applied to both K10 and R8002, which when used as plasticizers form an energetic binder with nitrocellulose. Nitrocellulose decomposes in storage, under varying conditions, but in particular where it may become increasingly dry. Following the derivation of the force field, we have therefore applied it to calculate water diffusion coefficients for each of the different materials at 298 K and 338 K, thereby providing a starting point for understanding water behaviour in a nitrocellulose binder

Tools for computing the AGN feedback: radio-loudness distribution and the kinetic luminosity function

We studied the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) radio emission from a compilation of hard X-ray selected samples, all observed in the 1.4 GHz band. A total of more than 1600 AGN with 2-10 keV de-absorbed luminosities higher than 10^42 erg/s were used. For a sub-sample of about 50 z\lsim 0.1 AGN it was possible to reach a ~80% fraction of radio detections and therefore, for the first time, it was possible to almost completely measure the probability distribution function of the ratio between the radio and the X-ray luminosity Rx=log[L(1.4)/Lx]. The probability distribution function of Rx was functionally fitted as dependent on the X-ray luminosity and redshift, P(Rx|Lx,z). It roughly spans over 6 decades (-7<Rx<-1), and does not show any sign of bi-modality. It resulted that the probability of finding large values of the Rx ratio increases with decreasing X-ray luminosities and (possibly) with increasing redshift. No statistical significant difference was found between the radio properties of the X-ray absorbed and unabsorbed AGN. The measure of the probability distribution function of Rx allowed us to compute the kinetic luminosity function and the kinetic energy density which, at variance with what assumed in many galaxy evolution models, is observed to decrease of about a factor of five at redshift below 0.5. About half of the kinetic energy density results to be produced by the more radio quiet (Rx<-4) AGN. In agreement with previous estimates, the AGN efficiency in converting the accreted mass energy into kinetic power is, on average, ~5x10-3.Comment: 13 pages, ApJsty; ApJ in pres

Probing the faint end of the quasar luminosity function at z ~ 4 in the COSMOS field

We searched for quasars that are ~ 3 mag fainter than the SDSS quasars in the redshift range 3.7 < z < 4.7 in the COSMOS field to constrain the faint end of the quasar luminosity function. Using optical photometric data, we selected 31 quasar candidates with 22 < i' < 24 at z ~ 4. We obtained optical spectra for most of these candidates using FOCAS on the Subaru telescope, and identified 8 low-luminosity quasars at z ~ 4. In order to derive the quasar luminosity function (QLF) based on our spectroscopic follow-up campaign, we estimated the photometric completeness of our quasar survey through detailed Monte Carlo simulations. Our QLF at z ~ 4 has a much shallower faint-end slope beta = -1.67^{+0.11}_{-0.17} than that obtained by other recent surveys in the same redshift. Our result is consistent with the scenario of downsizing evolution of active galactic nuclei inferred by recent optical and X-ray quasar surveys at lower redshifts.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure, Accepted for publication in ApJ

Exploring the parent population of beamed NLS1s: from the black hole to the jet

The aim of this work is to understand the nature of the parent population of beamed narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s), by studying the physical properties of three parent candidates samples: steep-spectrum radio-loud NLS1s, radio-quiet NLS1s and disk-hosted radio-galaxies. In particular, we focused on the black hole mass and Eddington ratio distribution and on the interactions between the jet and the narrow-line region.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Proceedings of High Energy Phenomena in Relativistic Outflows (HEPRO) V, Workshop Series of the Argentinian Astronomical Societ

An exploratory study into the effects of a 20 minute crushed ice application on knee joint position sense during a small knee bend.

Objectives The effect of cryotherapy on joint positioning presents conflicting debates as to whether individuals are at an increased risk of injury when returning to play or activity immediately following cryotherapy application at the knee. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a 20 minute application of crushed ice at the knee immediately affects knee joint position sense during a small knee bend. Design Pre and post-intervention. Setting University movement analysis laboratory. Participants Eleven healthy male participants. Main Outcome Measures Kinematics of the knee were measured during a weight bearing functional task pre and post cryotherapy intervention using three-dimensional motion analysis (Qualisys Medical AB Gothenburg, Sweden). Tissue cooling was measured via a digital thermometer at the knee. Results Results demonstrated significant reductions in the ability to accurately replicate knee joint positioning in both sagittal (P=.035) and coronal (P=.011) planes during the descent phase of a small knee bend following cryotherapy. Conclusion In conclusion a twenty minute application of crushed ice to the knee has an adverse effect on knee joint repositioning. Team doctors, clinicians, therapists and athletes should consider these findings when deciding to return an athlete to functional weight bearing tasks immediately following ice application at the knee, due to the potential increase risk of injury