Yarn Design Characteristics Which Influence Crafters

Crafting has undergone a major resurgence since the new millennium. Numerous businesses emerged to satisfy the demand for craft supplies (Jakob, 2013). Of these businesses, there are many small retailers and producers of exclusive, handmade yarns. These artisan brand yarns (ABY) may be: handspun, hand-dyed, and/or also may be farmstead yarns (sold directly to the consumer by the farmer who raised the fiber animals). ABYs are different from national brand yarns (NBY) which are produced by large, national companies and are standardized in terms of fiber, dyeing techniques, and production. The increasing availability of yarn options begs the question, what aspects of raw materials are important to crafters and why? The purpose of this research was to determine the characteristics of yarn (visceral, behavioral, and/or emotional) that influence crafters to choose either ABY or NBY for their craft projects

Metabolic responses of osteochondral allografts to re-warming after MOPS(TM) preservation versus standard of care storage

Osteoarthritis (OA) affects ~90% of people older than 65, and associated costs top $100 billion annually in the U.S. One treatment available for large cartilage defects seen in osteoarthritis is osteochondral allograft (OCA) transplantation. Currently, tissue banks store OCAs at 4 degree C and implantation is recommended within 28 days after procurement due to significant loss in chondrocyte viability after this time. Because mandatory disease screening protocols typically take 14 days to complete, the window for surgical implantation is narrow, which severely limits clinical use. The MOPS(TM) protocol can maintain OCAs for 56 days. In this study, OCAs stored using MOPS(TM) and SOC protocol were assessed for cell viability and metabolic biomarker production

A third of patients treated at a tertiary-level surgical service could be treated at a secondary-level facility

Background. South Africa (SA) has an overburdened public healthcare system. Some patients admitted to Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH), SA, may not require tertiary care, but the numbers and details are uncertain. Clinical research in SA is limited by scarce skills and limited access to data.Objective. To determine the proportion of and length of stay for secondary-, tertiary- and quaternary-level patients discharged from the Department of Surgery at CMJAH over 1 year.Methods. This is a retrospective analysis of electronic discharge (ED) summaries from the Department of Surgery at CMJAH between 1 April 2015 and 1 April 2016. An SQL query of the database generated a .csv file of all discharges with the following fields: database reference number, length of stay and level of care. The details of each record were verified by MBBCh V students, using a defined level-ofcare template and the full discharge summary. The data were reviewed by a senior clinician.Results. There were 3 007 discharge summaries – 97 were not classifiable, two were test records and one was a duplicate. These 100 records were excluded. There were no primary-level records. Secondary-level patients represented 29% (854) of those discharged and 19% of total bed days. Tertiary- and quaternary-level patients together represented 71% of the total and 81% of bed days. The average length of stay was 4.31 days for secondary, 6.98 days for tertiary and 9.77 days for quaternary level-of-care allocation.Conclusion. Almost one-third (29%) of patients discharged from CMJAH’s Department of Surgery were deemed suitable for secondarylevel care. These patients had a shorter length of stay and comprised 19% of total bed days. Students and electronic databases represent an important research resource

Comparison of mortality with home hemodialysis and center hemodialysis: A national study

Comparison of mortality with home hemodialysis and center hemodialysis: A national study. We sought to determine whether lower mortality rates reported with hemodialysis (HD) at home compared to hemodialysis in dialysis centers (center HD) could be explained by patient selection. Data are from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) Special Study Of Case Mix Severity, a random national sample of 4,892 patients who started renal replacement therapy in 1986 to 1987. Intent-to-treat analyses compared mortality between home HD (N =70) and center HD patients (N = 3,102) using the Cox proportional hazards model. Home HD patients were younger and had a lower frequency of comorbid conditions. The unadjusted relative risk (RR) of death for home HD patients compared to center HD was 0.37 (P < 0.001). The RR adjusted for age, sex, race and diabetes, was 44% lower in home HD patients (RR = 0.56, P = 0.02). When additionally adjusted for comorbid conditions, this RR increased marginally (RR = 0.58, P = 0.03). A different analysis using national USRDS data from 1986/7 and without comorbid adjustment showed patients with training for self care hemodialysis at home or in a center (N = 418) had a lower mortality risk (RR = 0.78, P = 0.001) than center HD patients (N = 43,122). Statistical adjustment for comorbid conditions in addition to age, sex, race, and diabetes explains only a small amount of the lower mortality with home HD

Broken symmetry and the variation of critical properties in the phase behaviour of supramolecular rhombus tilings

The degree of randomness, or partial order, present in two-dimensional supramolecular arrays of isophthalate tetracarboxylic acids is shown to vary due to subtle chemical changes such as the choice of solvent or small differences in molecular dimensions. This variation may be quantified using an order parameter and reveals a novel phase behaviour including random tiling with varying critical properties as well as ordered phases dominated by either parallel or non-parallel alignment of neighbouring molecules, consistent with long-standing theoretical studies. The balance between order and randomness is driven by small differences in the intermolecular interaction energies, which we show, using numerical simulations, can be related to the measured order parameter. Significant variations occur even when the energy difference is much less than the thermal energy highlighting the delicate balance between entropic and energetic effects in complex self-assembly processes

Stabilising Lyme Regis – a strategic approach

Coastal erosion and landslides have been a constant threat to Lyme Regis in West Dorset, UK for over 250 years. By the 1980s, the frequency and scale of coastal erosion and land instability had reached a point whereby the local council realised that a change from the previous ad hoc repair and protection approach was needed to secure the long-term future of the town. An environmental improvements initiative was developed from then onwards to provide a strategic and integrated programme of coast protection and cliff stabilisation measures designed to mitigate the increasing threat of climate change, coastal erosion and landslides, while respecting the site’s unique heritage and environmental interests. This paper outlines the background and principal phases of the project that have been successfully delivered over the period 1990–2015

Reported livestock guarding dog-wildlife interactions: implications for conservation and animal welfare

Livestock depredation by carnivores is a key cause of human-wildlife conflict around the world. Recently, the use of livestock-guarding dogs (LGDs) to reduce livestock depredation has been challenged in terms of their impact on wild animal welfare and survival, but the prevalence of LGD-wildlife interactions is poorly understood. Using data for 225 LGDs on South African farms, we determined the prevalence of farmer-reported LGD-wildlife interactions to contextualise the potential concerns. Wildlife interactions were reported for a total of 71 dogs (32%); McNemar’s tests revealed non-lethal herbivore interactions (8%) were significantly lower than non-lethal predator interactions (17%; p < 0.01), but no significant difference was detectable in the proportion of lethal interactions according to type of wildlife (9% for herbivores and 10% for predators). All reported predator interactions were defensive, compared to only 25% of reported herbivore interactions (p = 0.016). Of the dogs for which data on corrective measures were available, 44% were successfully corrected following intervention. Of the remainder, 42% had ceased exhibiting this behaviour independently or were acting defensively, 21% were removed from the programme, and 11% had died. Reported interactions with predators were rare, entirely defensive, and predominantly non-lethal. However, interactions with non-target species (herbivores) were more prevalent, necessitating remedial interventions. Overall, the conservation benefit of LGDs does not appear to be outweighed by ethical implications of their use; LGDs were shown to be highly targeted and discriminatory towards predators attempting to predate on livestock