Use of strategies to improve retention in primary care randomised trials: a qualitative study with in-depth interviews

Objective To explore the strategies used to improve retention in primary care randomised trials.<p></p> Design Qualitative in-depth interviews and thematic analysis.<p></p> Participants 29 UK primary care chief and principal investigators, trial managers and research nurses.<p></p> Methods In-depth face-to-face interviews.<p></p> Results Primary care researchers use incentive and communication strategies to improve retention in trials, but were unsure of their effect. Small monetary incentives were used to increase response to postal questionnaires. Non-monetary incentives were used although there was scepticism about the impact of these on retention. Nurses routinely used telephone communication to encourage participants to return for trial follow-up. Trial managers used first class post, shorter questionnaires and improved questionnaire designs with the aim of improving questionnaire response. Interviewees thought an open trial design could lead to biased results and were negative about using behavioural strategies to improve retention. There was consensus among the interviewees that effective communication and rapport with participants, participant altruism, respect for participant's time, flexibility of trial personnel and appointment schedules and trial information improve retention. Interviewees noted particular challenges with retention in mental health trials and those involving teenagers.<p></p> Conclusions The findings of this qualitative study have allowed us to reflect on research practice around retention and highlight a gap between such practice and current evidence. Interviewees describe acting from experience without evidence from the literature, which supports the use of small monetary incentives to improve the questionnaire response. No such evidence exists for non-monetary incentives or first class post, use of which may need reconsideration. An exploration of barriers and facilitators to retention in other research contexts may be justified.<p></p&gt

Context Dependence, MOPs,WHIMs and procedures Recanati and Kaplan on Cognitive Aspects in Semantics

After presenting Kripke’s criticism to Frege’s ideas on context dependence of thoughts, I present two recent attempts of considering cognitive aspects of context dependent expressions inside a truth conditional pragmatics or semantics: Recanati’s non-descriptive modes of presentation (MOPs) and Kaplan’s ways of having in mind (WHIMs). After analysing the two attempts and verifying which answers they should give to the problem discussed by Kripke, I suggest a possible interpretation of these attempts: to insert a procedural or algorithmic level in semantic representations of indexicals. That a function may be computed by different procedures might suggest new possibilities of integrating contextual cognitive aspects in model theoretic semanti

A methodology for the capture and analysis of hybrid data: a case study of program debugging

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Creating quantitative scenario projections for the UK shared socioeconomic pathways

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) were developed as a framework for exploring alternative futures with challenges for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Whilst originally developed at the global scale, the SSPs have been increasingly interpreted at the national scale in order to inform national level climate change policy and impact assessments, including mitigation and adaptation actions. Here, we present a set of quantitative SSP scenario projections, based on narratives and semi-quantitative trends, for the UK (the UK-SSPs) for a wide range of sectors that are relevant to the UK climate research, policy and business communities. We show that a mixed-methods approach that combines computational modelling with an interpretation of stakeholder storylines and empirical data is an effective way of generating a comprehensive range of quantitative indicators across sectors and geographic areas in a specific national context. The global SSP assumptions of low challenges to climate adaptation lead to similar socioeconomic outcomes in UK-SSP1 and UK-SSP5, although based on very different dynamics and underlying drivers. Convergence was also identified in indicators related to more efficient natural resource use in the scenarios with low challenges to climate change mitigation (UK-SSP1 and UK-SSP4). Alternatively, societal inequality played a strong role in scenarios with high challenges to adaptation leading to convergence in indicator trends (UK-SSP3 and UK-SSP4)

Superconducting properties of PEO coatings containing MgB2 on niobium

A study has been carried out of superconductivity in coatings formed on niobium by plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) in an electrolyte containing different concentrations of MgB2. From preliminary experiments, a suitable PEO condition was selected. The coatings were examined by analytical scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Superconductivity was assessed using magnetic moment-field measurements. At 6 K, superconductivity of the niobium dominated, which revealed strong flux pinning and sudden release. The latter was more gradual following PEO, indicating pinning was a surface effect. Between the critical temperature of niobium (9.25 K) and MgB2 (about 39 K), the diamagnetic behaviour of superconducting MgB2 was present, with earlier flux penetration the closer the temperature to 39 K. The hysteresis loop indicated stronger flux pinning for lower temperatures, as expected for a superconductor

Counting the Acid Sites in a Commercial ZSM-5 Zeolite Catalyst

This work was funded by Johnson Matthey plc. through the provision of industrial CASE studentships in partnership with the EPSRC (AZ (EP/N509176/1), APH (EP/P510506/1)). Experiments at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source were made possible by beam time allocations from the Science and Technologies Facilities Council.45,46 Resources and support were provided by the UK Catalysis Hub via membership of the UK Catalysis Hub consortium and funded by EPSRC grants EP/R026815/1 and EP/R026939/1Peer reviewedPublisher PD