569 research outputs found
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Is there a crisis in inpatient mental health care?
The standards of care in the NHS are the subject of debate. Frequently, members of the public have complained about poor staff attitudes towards patients and visitors alike and this has generated discussion as to the best way forward for the nursing profession. In mental health, poor standards have been reported on numerous occasions and the first author had firsthand experience of casual nursing attitudes when she visited a friend in an acute inpatient mental health ward. This article uses her anecdotal account to highlight poor standards in mental health. The paper then examines possible antecedents to this vexed issue before suggesting a way forward
Lasing in localized modes of a slow light photonic crystal waveguide
We demonstrate lasing in GaAs photonic crystal waveguides with InAs quantum
dots as gain medium. Structural disorder is present due to fabrication
imperfection and causes multiple scat- tering of light and localization of
light. Lasing modes with varying spatial extend are observed at random
locations along the guide. Lasing frequencies are determined by the local
structure and occur within a narrow frequency band which coincides with the
slow light regime of the waveguide mode. The three-dimensional numerical
simulation reveals that the main loss channel for lasing modes located away
from the waveguide end is out-of-plane scattering by structural disorder.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Community occupational therapy for people with dementia and their family carers: A national survey of United Kingdom occupational therapy practice
Introduction: A national survey was conducted with United Kingdom (UK) occupational therapists to scope occupational therapy service provision for people with dementia and their family carers in the community. /
Method: This was an online questionnaire with topics on occupational therapists’ roles, service provision, referral, assistive technology and assessment tools. Recruitment was through direct invitation, and promotion via occupational therapy networks, websites and newsletters. /
Results: A total of 197 responded. Occupational therapy referrals most commonly came from the multidisciplinary team. Over half primarily undertook profession-specific work, with occupational therapy assessments the most common profession-specific task. Two-thirds of referrals for initial assessments were for people with mild-to-moderate dementia. A median of 2.5 hours for assessment/intervention was spent for each person with dementia. Almost two-thirds used the Model of Human Occupation Screening Tool. Most could prescribe personal activities of daily living equipment and Telecare, with few able to prescribe equipment for reminiscence or leisure. /
Conclusion: This national survey increases knowledge of UK community occupational therapy practice and service provision for people with dementia and their family carers. It informs occupational therapists about national trends within this practice area, and development of the community occupational therapy intervention (COTiD-UK) as part of the Valuing Active Life in Dementia research programme
Wetting of Curved Surfaces
As a first step towards a microscopic understanding of the effective
interaction between colloidal particles suspended in a solvent we study the
wetting behavior of one-component fluids at spheres and fibers. We describe
these phenomena within density functional theory which keeps track of the
microscopic interaction potentials governing these systems. In particular we
properly take into account the power-law decay of both the fluid-fluid
interaction potentials and the substrate potentials. The thicknesses of the
wetting films as a function of temperature and chemical potential as well as
the wetting phase diagrams are determined by minimizing an effective interface
potential which we obtain by applying a sharp-kink approximation to the density
functional. We compare our results with previous approaches to this problem.Comment: 54 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in Physica
Spatial distribution of local currents of massless Dirac fermions in quantum transport through graphene nanoribbons
We employ the formalism of bond currents, expressed in terms of the
nonequilibrium Green functions, to image the charge flow between two sites of
the honeycomb lattice of graphene ribbons of few nanometers width. In sharp
contrast to nonrelativistic electrons, current density profiles of quantum
transport at energies close to the Dirac point in clean zigzag graphene
nanoribbons (ZGNR) differs markedly from the profiles of charge density peaked
at the edges due to zero-energy localized edge states. For transport through
the lowest propagating mode induced by these edge states, edge vacancies do not
affect current density peaked in the center of ZGNR. The long-range potential
of a single impurity acts to reduce local current around it while concurrently
increasing the current density along the zigzag edge, so that ZGNR conductance
remains perfect .Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Improving Human Health by Increasing Access to Natural Areas: Opportunities and Risks
Report of the 2013 Berkley Workshop
Held at the Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Tarrytown, NY - July 201
Structural characterization of nanofiber silk produced by embiopterans (webspinners)
Embiopterans produce silken galleries and sheets using exceptionally fine silk fibers in which they live and breed. In this study, we use electron microscopy (EM), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) techniques to elucidate the molecular level protein structure of webspinner (embiid) silks. Silks from two species Antipaluria urichi and Aposthonia ceylonica are studied in this work. Electron microscopy images show that the fibers are about 90–100 nm in diameter, making webspinner silks among the finest of all known animal silks. Structural studies reveal that the silk protein core is dominated by β-sheet structures, and that the protein core is coated with a hydrophobic alkane-rich surface coating. FTIR spectra of native embiid silk shows characteristic alkane CH2 stretchings near 2800–2900 cm−1, which decrease approximately 50% after washing the silk with 2 : 1 CHCl3 : MeOH. Furthermore, 13C ssNMR data shows a significant CH2 resonance that is strongly affected by the presence of water, supporting the idea that the silk fibers are coated with a hydrocarbon-rich layer. Such a layer is likely used to protect the colonies from rain. FTIR data also suggests that embiid silks are dominated by β-sheet secondary structures similar to spider and silkworm silk fibers. NMR data confirms the presence of β-sheet nanostructures dominated by serine-rich repetitive regions. A deconvolution of the serine Cβ NMR resonance reveals that approximately 70% of all seryl residues exist in a β-sheet structure. This is consistent with WAXD results that suggest webspinner silks are 70% crystalline, which is the highest crystalline fraction reported for any animal silks. The work presented here provides a molecular level structural picture of silk fibers produced by webspinners
Development of a novel, windowless, amorphous selenium based photodetector for use in liquid noble detectors
Detection of the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) scintillation light produced by
liquid noble elements is a central challenge in order to fully exploit the
available timing, topological, and calorimetric information in detectors
leveraging these media. In this paper, we characterize a novel, windowless
amorphous selenium based photodetector with direct sensitivity to VUV light. We
present here the manufacturing and experimental setup used to operate this
detector at low transport electric fields (2.7-5.2 V/m) and across a wide
range of temperatures (77K-290K). This work shows that the first
proof-of-principle device windowless amorphous selenium is robust under
cryogenic conditions, responsive to VUV light at cryogenic temperatures, and
preserves argon purity. These findings motivate a continued exploration of
amorphous selenium devices for simultaneous detection of scintillation light
and ionization charge in noble element detectors
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