Does initial postgraduate career intention and social demographics predict perceived career behaviour?:A national cross-sectional survey of UK postgraduate doctors

Acknowledgements: Our thanks to all those FP2 doctors who participated in the survey. Our thanks also to the Foundation Programme Directors across the UK for allowing permission to conduct research on this data set. No patients or any members of the public were involved in this study. Funding: Our thanks go to NHS Education for Scotland for funding Gillian Scanlan’s programme of work through the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC). Data sharing statement: The data reported is from the UKFPO dataset, and any data shared would need the permission of the UK Foundation Programme directorsPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Factors associated with the suppressiveness of sugarcane soils to plant-parasitic nematodes

Observations in three Australian sugarcane fields suggested that the soil just under the trash blanket (the covering of crop residue that remains on the soil surface after crops are harvested) was suppressive to plant-parasitic nematodes. Roots were concentrated in this upper layer of soil but plant-parasitic nematode populations were relatively low and roots showed few signs of nematode damage. Root biomass was much lower 15 cm further down the soil profile, where root health was poor and populations of plant-parasitic nematodes were 3-5 times higher than near the soil surface. A bioassay in which Radopholus similis (a nematode that does not occur in sugarcane soils) was inoculated into heat-sterilized and untreated soils, confirmed that biological factors were limiting nematode populations in some of the soils, with soil from 0-2 cm much more suppressive than soil from 15-17 cm. Surface soil from one site was highly suppressive, as only 16% of R. similis recoverable from heated soil were retrieved from this soil after 8 days. Numerous soil chemical, biochemical, and biological properties were measured, and non-linear regression analysis identified two major groups of factors that were significantly associated with suppressiveness. One group reflected the amount of organic matter in soil (total C, total N, and labile C) and the other was associated with the size of the free-living nematode community (total numbers of free-living nematodes, and numbers of plant associates, bacterial feeders, fungal feeders, and carnivores). These results suggested that suppressiveness was biologically mediated and was sustained by C inputs from crop residues and roots. Since nematode-trapping fungi in the test soils could not be quantified using traditional dilution plating methods, their possible role as suppressive agents was assessed by generating TRFLP profiles with Orbiliales-specific primers, and by sequencing cloned PCR products. Although the molecular data were obtained from a limited number of samples, the level of suppression was significantly correlated to the number of Orbiliales clone groups and was also related to the number of Orbiliales species and TRFs, suggesting that this group of fungi may have been one of the suppressive factors operating in the test soils

Restoring good high energy behaviour in Higgs production via W fusion at the LHC

The W-fusion scattering process W+W- --> ZZ for off-shell W bosons is studied, focusing on the issue of its high-energy behaviour which is known to be anomalous. It is shown that the unitarity violating terms can be isolated and extracted in a well-defined and efficient way using the pinch-technique. This restores the good high energy behaviour of the cross section and, in particular, makes possible the identification of the Higgs resonance in the invariant mass distribution M(ZZ) of the Z pair. The discarded terms, which are proportional to the off-shellness of the W bosons, cancel against similar terms originating from the remaining diagrams for the full physical process f1 f2 --> f1' f2' Z Z. This cancellation ensures the gauge invariance of our result, which therefore constitutes a meaningful separation between signal and background when they both contribute coherently. Equipped with this result, we are able to define a resonant approximation for the process p p --> Z Z + 2 jets + X, which circumvents the problem of good high energy behaviour without having to resort to the lengthy calculation of the complete set of diagrams. In this approximation only the W and Z fusion signal graphs are included, i.e. the ones which contain the Higgs resonance. We have verified that the approximate resonant cross section describes very well the full result not only close to the resonance but also beyond it.Comment: 32 pages, Latex, 11 figures as postscript file

Exploring the efficacy of Facebook groups for collective occupant learning about using their homes

The need for quality learning about how to use a home has been an issue gradually emerging from building performance evaluation (BPE) studies carried out in occupied energy efficient homes (Brown & Cole, 2009; Day & Gunderson, 2014). The BPE gap between the internal environment control as intended by designers and the actual inhabitant practices is associated with unpredicted energy consumption and poor indoor air quality (Balvers et al., 2012). The key inhabitant related causes of the ‘performance gap’ are a discrepancy between user needs and design intentions, lack of user understanding and skills to interact with the available controls and insufficient maintenance. These findings indicate that modifying tacit home use practices, adjusting them to new, more technically advanced contexts, is still not sufficiently addressed by the current learning opportunities offered by the professional actors. This paper explores how self-organised closed Facebook Groups set up independently by the residents of two UK case study urban developments have become supportive environments for such learning

Prognostic value of troponins in acute coronary syndrome depends upon patient age

Peer reviewedPostprin

Towards inclusive social appraisal: risk, participation and democracy in governance of synthetic biology

Frameworks that govern the development and application of novel products, such as the products of synthetic biology, should involve all those who are interested or potentially affected by the products. The governance arrangements for novel products should also provide a democratic mechanism that allows affected parties to express their opinions on the direction that innovation does or does not take. In this paper we examine rationales, obstacles and opportunities for public participation in governance of novel synthetic biology products. Our analysis addresses issues such as uncertainties, the considering of alternative innovations, and broader social and environmental implications. The crucial issues in play go beyond safety alone, to include contending social values around diverse notions of benefit and harm. The paper highlights the need for more inclusive social appraisal mechanisms to inform governance of Synthetic Biology and alternative products, and discusses a few practical methods to help achieve this goal

J/psi production at the Tevatron and HERA: the effect of k_T smearing

We study the effects of intrinsic transverse momentum smearing on J/psi production both at the Tevatron and at HERA. For the case of large-p_T J/psi production at the Tevatron, the effects due to k_T smearing are mild. On the other hand, inelastic J/psi photoproduction at HERA is very sensitive to the k_T smearing and, in fact, with a reasonable value of it is possible to resolve the large-z discrepancy seen by comparing non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) predictions with the HERA data. We conclude that, with the present kinematic cuts, photoproduction at HERA is not a good test of NRQCD.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, uses epsfi

Extended Bell and Stirling numbers from hypergeometric exponentiation

Exponentiating the hypergeometric series 0FL(1,1,...,1;z), L = 0,1,2,..., furnishes a recursion relation for the members of certain integer sequences bL(n), n = 0,1,2,.... For L >= 0, the bL(n)'s are generalizations of the conventional Bell numbers, b0(n). The corresponding associated Stirling numbers of the second kind are also investigated. For L = 1 one can give a combinatorial interpretation of the numbers b1(n) and of some Stirling numbers associated with them. We also consider the L>1 analogues of Bell numbers for restricted partitions