A randomised controlled trial of long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the management of rotator cuff related shoulder pain

Study design Multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomised clinical trial. Objectives To compare the effectiveness of long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) as part of the management for people diagnosed with rotator cuff related shoulder pain (RCRSP). Summary of background Although there is no robust evidence to support their use, omega-3 PUFAs have been recommended for those with tendinopathy due to their potential to moderate inflammation. Methods Participants with RCRSP (n=73) were randomised to take either nine MaxEPA capsules providing 1.53 g eicosapentaenoic acid, 1.04 g docosahexaenoic acid or nine matching placebo capsules containing oleic acid per day for 8 weeks. In addition, participants attended an exercise/education programme for 8 weeks. Participants were assessed at prerandomisation, 8 weeks (primary outcome point), 3 months, 6 months and 12 months (secondary outcome point). Primary outcome was the Oxford Shoulder Score (OSS). Secondary outcomes included the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI), Patient Specific Functional Score, Euro Qol 5D-3L, Short Form 36, global rating of change and impairment measurements. Analysis was by intention to treat. Results Difference in the change in the OSS between the two groups at 2 months was –0.1 (95% CI −2.6 to 2.5, p=0.95). The change in SPADI scores was −8.3 (95% CI −15.6 to −0.94, p=0.03, analysed by analysis of covariance adjusted for baseline) at 3 months. Conclusion Omega-3 PUFA supplementation may have a modest effect on disability and pain outcomes in RCRSP.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

What has Royal Society Open Science achieved in its first few years?

It has been a pleasure and a privilege to serve as the first Editor-in-Chief of Royal Society Open Science for the past 6 years. I step down at the end of December 2021, having completed two 3-year terms, and am taking the opportunity here to reflect on some of the successes and challenges that the journal has experienced and the innovations that we have introduced. When I was first approached back in 2015, the breadth of the journal, covering the whole of science, resonated with my own interests: my research career has ranged across the entire landscape of chemistry, while my leadership roles have embraced all of science, technology and medicine. The open access ethos, the objective refereeing policy that rejects the idea of only publishing what is in fashion, and the opportunities offered by a new venture that could transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries also all appealed to me. Among our successful innovations are Registered Reports, Replication Studies and the new 'Science, Society and Policy' section. The challenges have included the transition to paid article processing charges (APCs), whether to resist pressure to retract a controversial paper, and bullying of young female authors by established senior males in the same field. I explore all of these below, provide some statistics on the journal's performance, also cover some of the notable papers we have published, and provide some concluding thoughts

On Large-Scale Graph Generation with Validation of Diverse Triangle Statistics at Edges and Vertices

Researchers developing implementations of distributed graph analytic algorithms require graph generators that yield graphs sharing the challenging characteristics of real-world graphs (small-world, scale-free, heavy-tailed degree distribution) with efficiently calculable ground-truth solutions to the desired output. Reproducibility for current generators used in benchmarking are somewhat lacking in this respect due to their randomness: the output of a desired graph analytic can only be compared to expected values and not exact ground truth. Nonstochastic Kronecker product graphs meet these design criteria for several graph analytics. Here we show that many flavors of triangle participation can be cheaply calculated while generating a Kronecker product graph. Given two medium-sized scale-free graphs with adjacency matrices $A$ and $B$, their Kronecker product graph has adjacency matrix $C = A \otimes B$. Such graphs are highly compressible: $|{\cal E}|$ edges are represented in ${\cal O}(|{\cal E}|^{1/2})$ memory and can be built in a distributed setting from small data structures, making them easy to share in compressed form. Many interesting graph calculations have worst-case complexity bounds ${\cal O}(|{\cal E}|^p)$ and often these are reduced to ${\cal O}(|{\cal E}|^{p/2})$ for Kronecker product graphs, when a Kronecker formula can be derived yielding the sought calculation on $C$ in terms of related calculations on $A$ and $B$. We focus on deriving formulas for triangle participation at vertices, ${\bf t}_C$, a vector storing the number of triangles that every vertex is involved in, and triangle participation at edges, $\Delta_C$, a sparse matrix storing the number of triangles at every edge.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, IEEE IPDPS Graph Algorithms Building Block

Efficient and Mild Microwave-Assisted Stepwise Functionalization of Naphthalenediimide with α-Amino Acids

Microwave dielectric heating proved to be an efficient method for the one-pot and stepwise syntheses of symmetrical and unsymmetrical naphthalenediimide derivatives of α-amino acids. Acid-labile side chain protecting groups are stable under the reaction conditions; protection of the α-carboxylic group is not required. The stepwise condensation of different amino acids resulted in high yields of unsymmetrical naphthalenediimides. The reaction proceeds without racemization and is essentially quantitative.

Editorial for 'New talent' collection: introducing New Talent in chemistry and material science.

We introduce 14 articles published as part of the 'New talent' special collection of invited articles to showcase some of the exciting work being funded by the Royal Society. As Royal Society University Research Fellows or Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship holders, the contributors to this collection are rising stars in their areas of research. This collection also illustrates the close collaboration between Royal Society Open Science and the Royal Society of Chemistry. The collection spans the range of the chemical and material sciences, reflecting the breadth of research areas receiving Royal Society grant support

X-ray observations of the galaxy cluster PKS 0745-191: To the virial radius, and beyond

We measure X-ray emission from the outskirts of the cluster of galaxies PKS 0745-191 with Suzaku, determining radial profiles of density, temperature, entropy, gas fraction, and mass. These measurements extend beyond the virial radius for the first time, providing new information about cluster assembly and the diffuse intracluster medium out to ~1.5 r_200, (r_200 ~ 1.7 Mpc ~ 15'). The temperature is found to decrease by roughly 70 per cent from 0.3-1 r_200. We also see a flattening of the entropy profile near the virial radius and consider the implications this has for the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium when deriving mass estimates. We place these observations in the context of simulations and analytical models to develop a better understanding of non-gravitational physics in the outskirts of the cluster.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, accepted to MNRAS; expanded discussion of analysis and uncertainties, results qualitatively unchange