Describing the role and function of Care Advisors in the Motor Neurone Disease Association of West Australia.

Background: The Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association of Western Australia provides information, education and advocacy for people living with MND. The role and function of the personnel who provide this service has not been described in the literature and is therefore poorly understood by both healthcare professionals and the public. Purpose: To describe the role and function of the West Australian Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA [WA]) Care Advisors (CAs). Method: Ethnographic observation of seven MNDA (WA) CAs in their normal daily setting. Interviews with end users of CA service (people living with MND and their carers). Analysis of the observations and interview transcripts was undertaken to identify themes. Findings: The CAs were observed to undertake their supportive role with passion. Clarity around the role and function was ambiguous, even amongst the people in the roles. It is suggested this is due to limited formalised processes and procedures in an organisation that has moved from originally being run by volunteers through to a professional not-for-profit organisation. This in turn led to issues in recruitment and retention, clinical knowledge versus clinical care and demonstrating capabilities against Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) for reporting to funding bodies. Conclusion: Multiple opportunities were highlighted during this study for these service providers to develop robust procedures to record the nature of their work, develop resilience in their work place, and ensure ongoing professional develop processes are engaged

The CAT Imaging Telescope for Very-High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy

The CAT (Cherenkov Array at Themis) imaging telescope, equipped with a very-high-definition camera (546 fast phototubes with 0.12 degrees spacing surrounded by 54 larger tubes in two guard rings) started operation in Autumn 1996 on the site of the former solar plant Themis (France). Using the atmospheric Cherenkov technique, it detects and identifies very high energy gamma-rays in the range 250 GeV to a few tens of TeV. The instrument, which has detected three sources (Crab nebula, Mrk 421 and Mrk 501), is described in detail.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures. submitted to Elsevier Preprin

Nigellissima: A Study of Glamour, Performativity and Embodiment

This is a study of glamour, its complexities and its relationship with and role within celebrity culture. We explore glamour in the context of Nigella, the London-born TV cook, food writer and self-proclaimed ‘domestic goddess’ of British culinary culture. In our study we consider the interconnections between glamour, specifically Italian-style retro-glamour, and performativity in Nigella’s career. We also address the role of embodiment and authenticity in the masquerade of femininity. Our analysis focuses on Nigella’s glamour over time, considering its creation, enactment and reaffirmation following scandal. We conclude by speculating on glamour’s complex and ambivalent relationship with celebrity culture, and the role of vulnerability in creating authentic and enduring glamour in contemporary consumer society

Eyewitness identification in child witnesses on the autism spectrum

Background. Although there is increasing interest in the capabilities of children with autism at different stages of the criminal justice process, there is little research into how well this group perform when asked to identify perpetrators from identification lineups. This is despite theoretical and empirical literature suggesting that autistic children experience face recognition memory difficulties. Method. As part of a broader study into eyewitness memory skills, 50 children with autism and 162 children with typical development (TD) (all with IQs > 69) watched a mock crime event (either live or on a video) involving two male perpetrators. One week later, their eyewitness identification skills were compared, with children asked to identify the perpetrators from two ecologically valid video lineups. The children were also assessed on a standardised face memory task. Results. When asked to identify perpetrators in the video lineups, in many respects the autistic children performed at an equivalent level to the TD children. This was despite the TD children outperforming the autistic children on the standardized face memory task. Conclusions. These preliminary findings suggest that group differences between autistic and TD children may not always emerge on an ecologically valid, real world eyewitness identification lineup task, despite autistic children showing poorer performance on a standardized face memory task. However, as identification performance in both groups was low, it remains important for future research to identify how to scaffold eyewitness identification performance in both children with and without an autism diagnosis

Enrichment of low-frequency functional variants revealed by whole-genome sequencing of multiple isolated European populations

The genetic features of isolated populations can boost power in complex-trait association studies, and an in-depth understanding of how their genetic variation has been shaped by their demographic history can help leverage these advantageous characteristics. Here, we perform a comprehensive investigation using 3,059 newly generated low-depth whole-genome sequences from eight European isolates and two matched general populations, together with published data from the 1000 Genomes Project and UK10K. Sequencing data give deeper and richer insights into population demography and genetic characteristics than genotype-chip data, distinguishing related populations more effectively and allowing their functional variants to be studied more fully. We demonstrate relaxation of purifying selection in the isolates, leading to enrichment of rare and low-frequency functional variants, using novel statistics, DVxy and SVxy. We also develop an isolation-index (Isx) that predicts the overall level of such key genetic characteristics and can thus help guide population choice in future complex-trait association studies.Peer reviewe

Intercalibration of the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter of the CMS experiment at start-up

Calibration of the relative response of the individual channels of the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter of the CMS detector was accomplished, before installation, with cosmic ray muons and test beams. One fourth of the calorimeter was exposed to a beam of high energy electrons and the relative calibration of the channels, the intercalibration, was found to be reproducible to a precision of about 0.3%. Additionally, data were collected with cosmic rays for the entire ECAL barrel during the commissioning phase. By comparing the intercalibration constants obtained with the electron beam data with those from the cosmic ray data, it is demonstrated that the latter provide an intercalibration precision of 1.5% over most of the barrel ECAL. The best intercalibration precision is expected to come from the analysis of events collected in situ during the LHC operation. Using data collected with both electrons and pion beams, several aspects of the intercalibration procedures based on electrons or neutral pions were investigated

Using statolith elemental signatures to confirm ontogenetic migrations of the squid Doryteuthis gahi around the Falkland Islands (Southwest Atlantic)

This work was supported by the Falkland Islands Government. We thank Dr. Simon Chenery and the British Geological Survey for assistance with the LA-ICP-MS analysis and training and use of their facilities. We are grateful to the scientific observers from the Falkland Islands Fisheries Department for sample collection. We thank the Director of Fisheries, John Barton, and the director of SAERI, Paul Brickle, for supporting this work. We thank Dr. Elena Ieno, Dr. Andreas Winter, Dr. Haseeb Randhawa and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that greatly improved the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin