Baseline Scotland : groundwater chemistry of the Carboniferous sedimentary aquifers of the Midland Valley

This report describes the baseline groundwater chemistry of the sedimentary aquifers of Carboniferous age in the Midland Valley of Scotland. Groundwater is an important resource in the Midland Valley, largely for agriculture, but also for industry – including food and drink processing and mineral water bottling, and for domestic use. A large but unquantified volume of groundwater is also still pumped from former mine workings, largely coal mines, in order to maintain water levels and for quality treatment. Analyses for 62 groundwater samples were interpreted for the purposes of this study. Of these, 36 samples were collected for the Baseline Scotland project between September and December 2008. These were augmented with a further 25 samples collected during separate BGS projects since 2001. The sites were chosen largely to be representative of groundwater in the area, and sources that were very poorly constructed were avoided. A small number of samples were deliberately targeted from mines, either from adits, shafts or boreholes. The data were classed in one of five different hydrogeological units (or aquifer groups): four chronostratigraphic groups, which in decreasing order of age are the Inverclyde, Strathclyde, Clackmannan and Coal Measures groups; and a fifth group incorporating waters sampled from mine discharges. An estimate of the baseline groundwater chemistry conditions in the four chronostratigraphic hydrogeological units is presented, based on a statistical summary of the chemical data, which represents values between the 10th and 90th A summary of the conclusions arising from this study follows. percentiles of the full dataset range. This statistical approach to estimating baseline compositions was complemented by selecting 11 analyses of groundwater from sources where there is little or no indication of direct contamination, including likely impact from mining. The chemistry of these samples represents the typical groundwater conditions in the four non-mine hydrogeological units in the sedimentary Carboniferous aquifers of the Midland Valley

Effectiveness of an influenza vaccine programme for care home staff to prevent death, morbidity, and health service use among residents: cluster randomised controlled trial

Objective To determine whether vaccination of care home staff against influenza indirectly protects residents.Design Pair matched cluster randomised controlled trial.Setting Large private chain of UK care homes during the winters of 2003-4 and 2004-5.Participants Nursing home staff (n = 1703) and residents (n = 2604) in 44 care homes (22 intervention homes and 22 matched control homes).Interventions Vaccination offered to staff in intervention homes but not in control homes.Main outcome measures The primary outcome was all cause mortality of residents. Secondary outcomes were influenza-like illness and health service use in residents.Results In 2003-4 vaccine coverage in full time staff was 48.2% (407/884) in intervention homes and 5.9% (51/859) in control homes. In 2004-5 uptake rates were 43.2% (365/844) and 3.5% (28/800). National influenza rates were substaritially below average in 2004-5. In the 2003-4 period of influenza activity significant decreases were found in mortality of residents in intervention homes compared with control homes (rate difference - 5.0 per 100 residents, 95% confidence interval - 7.0 to - 2.0) and in influenza-like illness (P = 0.004), consultations with general practitioners for influenza-like illness (P = 0.008), and admissions to hospital with influenza-like illness (P = 0.009). No significant differences were found in 2004-5 or during periods of no influenza activity in 2003-4.Conclusions Vaccinating care home staff against influenza can prevent deaths, health service use, and influenza-like illness in residents during periods of moderate influenza activity

A thematic analysis of messages posted by moderators within health-related asynchronous online support forums

Objective: To identify and describe the activities performed by online support community moderators. Methods: A total of 790 messages were downloaded for analysis. Messages were written by 59 moderators from 6 forums that represent a diverse range of conditions (arthritis, complex regional pain syndrome, Crohn’s disease, depression, diabetes and Huntington’s disease). Results:Thematic analysis revealed four themes: supportive tasks supportive tasks involve providing help to members, moderators sharing experiences shows how they use forums to fulfil their own personal support needs, making announcements about new discoveries and upcoming events, and administrative tasks such as enforcing rules and deleting spam. Conclusion: These results are consistent with the helper-therapy principle and provide a new insight into the diverse and varied range of activities carried out by moderators. Practice implications: Moderators perform many roles, including using forums for their own support needs

Genetic testing for Huntington’s disease: A thematic analysis of online support community messages

Huntington’s disease is a fatal late-onset genetic illness that causes motor, cognitive and psychiatric disorders. Individuals considering genetic testing may benefit from online social support. This study investigates how genetic testing is discussed within health forums. 337 messages written by 58 individuals were analysed using deductive thematic analysis. Discussions examined three themes: deciding to be tested (enquiring about symptoms, starting a new family), preparing for the test (information seeking, attending appointments), and receiving the results (positive results, negative results). Forums can reduce the uncertainty of ambiguous symptoms, and provide ongoing personalized support before, during and after a genetic test

CSA Survivors: What Heals and What Hurts in a Couple Relationship

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a significant trauma that affects a person\u27s self-concept and the ability to form healthy intimate relationships later in adulthood. Approximately 20% of adults who experience childhood sexual abuse go on to evidence serious psychopathology in adulthood (Harway & Faulk, 2005). Besides individual disturbances, CSA survivors struggle with many relational difficulties. These difficulties are usually most pronounced among their intimate partners (Reid, et al., 1995). According to attachment theory, attachment injuries are best healed in the context of a healthy, intimate relationship (Kochka & Carolan, 2002) (MacIntosh & Johnson, 2008). Conversely, the couple relationship may be a stumbling block and even an insurmountable obstacle to healing (Miller & Sutherland, 1999). The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of the survivor\u27s experience of what is helpful and what is counterproductive in their healing process within the construct of their couple relationship. This is a qualitative study employing phenomenological theory. Qualified participants were CSA survivors in a committed relationship of at least one year. 8 participants were interviewed using semi-structured interview questions. Results of the study yielded helpful themes of 1) a sense of safety and trust 2) acceptance and validation 3) open communication 4) emotional intimacy and the perception of being truly loved by their partner 5) support 6) empathy 7) freedom of choice and 8) positive growth with their partner. Themes of what was hurtful included 1) criticism and rejection 2) betrayal 3) disrespect of personhood 4) lack of choice 5) lack of communication 6) partner mistrust and 7) lack of growth

Scalable angular adaptivity for Boltzmann transport

This paper describes an angular adaptivity algorithm for Boltzmann transport applications which for the first time shows evidence of $\mathcal{O}(n)$ scaling in both runtime and memory usage, where $n$ is the number of adapted angles. This adaptivity uses Haar wavelets, which perform structured $h$-adaptivity built on top of a hierarchical P$_0$ FEM discretisation of a 2D angular domain, allowing different anisotropic angular resolution to be applied across space/energy. Fixed angular refinement, along with regular and goal-based error metrics are shown in three example problems taken from neutronics/radiative transfer applications. We use a spatial discretisation designed to use less memory than competing alternatives in general applications and gives us the flexibility to use a matrix-free multgrid method as our iterative method. This relies on scalable matrix-vector products using Fast Wavelet Transforms and allows the use of traditional sweep algorithms if desired

Angular adaptivity with spherical harmonics for Boltzmann transport

This paper describes an angular adaptivity algorithm for Boltzmann transport applications which uses Pn and filtered Pn expansions, allowing for different expansion orders across space/energy. Our spatial discretisation is specifically designed to use less memory than competing DG schemes and also gives us direct access to the amount of stabilisation applied at each node. For filtered Pn expansions, we then use our adaptive process in combination with this net amount of stabilisation to compute a spatially dependent filter strength that does not depend on a priori spatial information. This applies heavy filtering only where discontinuities are present, allowing the filtered Pn expansion to retain high-order convergence where possible. Regular and goal-based error metrics are shown and both the adapted Pn and adapted filtered Pn methods show significant reductions in DOFs and runtime. The adapted filtered Pn with our spatially dependent filter shows close to fixed iteration counts and up to high-order is even competitive with P0 discretisations in problems with heavy advection.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1901.0492

EFFECT OF TWO KINESIO TAPE TECHNIQUES ON KNEE KINEMATICS DURING A DROP JUMP TEST

This study investigated the effects of Kinesio® Tape on knee kinematics during a drop jump (DJ) test in 20 young women that had or were currently participating in competitive basketball or volleyball. Three taping conditions were randomly applied to the dominant leg of each participant: no tape (NT), gluteus medius (GM) facilitation, and spiral technique (ST). Multiple 3 x 2 RMANOVAs assessed the differences in peak knee flexion and abduction, and time to peak (TTP) angles, between taping conditions. No significant differences were found for peak knee angles or TTP, suggesting that GM and ST Kinesio® Tape applications did not alter measured knee kinematics during a DJ test. Any mitigation strategy should not depend on Kinesio® Tape alone and take a comprehensive approach that includes strength and neuromuscular training

Book Review: Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive

N/A - Book revie