Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) : a qualitative methodology of choice in healthcare research

This paper focuses on the teaching of the qualitative method, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), to healthcare professionals (HCPs). It introduces briefly the philosophical background of IPA and how it has been used within healthcare research, and then discusses the teaching of IPA to HCPs within received educational theory. Lastly, the paper describes how IPA has been taught to students/trainees in some specific healthcare professions (clinical psychology, medicine, nursing and related disciplines). In doing this, the paper demonstrates the essential simplicity, paradoxical complexity, and methodological rigour that IPA can offer as a research tool in understanding healthcare and illness from the patient or service user perspective

The applicability of self-regulation theories in sport : goal adjustment capacities, stress appraisals, coping and well-being among athletes

Objectives: We examined a model, informed by self-regulation theories, which included goal adjustment capacities, appraisals of challenge and threat, coping, and well-being. Design: Prospective. Methods: Two hundred and twelve athletes from the United Kingdom (n = 147) or Australia (n = 65), who played team (n = 135) or individual sports (n = 77), and competed at international (n = 7), national (n = 11), county (n = 67), club (n = 84), or beginner (n = 43) levels participated in this study. Participants completed measures of goal adjustment capacities and stress appraisals two days before competing. Athletes also completed questions on coping and well-being within three hours of their competition ending. Results: The way an athlete responds to an unattainable goal is associated with his or her well-being in the period leading up to and including the competition. Goal reengagement positively predicted well-being, whereas goal disengagement negatively predicted well-being. Further, goal reengagement was positively associated with challenge appraisals, which in turn was linked to task-oriented coping, and task-oriented coping positively associated with well-being. Conclusion: When highly-valued goals become unattainable, consultants could encourage athletes to seek out alternative approaches to achieve the same goal or help them develop a completely new goal

Reassessing the Role of the Indo‐Pacific in the Ocean's Global Overturning Circulation

Surface buoyancy fluxes in the Southern and North Atlantic Oceans are presumed to disproportionately influence the ocean's residual global overturning circulation (GOC) with respect to those in the Indo‐Pacific. Here, this assumption is challenged through an assessment of global buoyancy transport in the Community Earth System Model 1.0, which reveals that the steady state GOC is equally constrained by surface buoyancy flux everywhere. Further, an unacknowledged aspect of the GOC is demonstrated: it transports buoyancy from where it is gained at the surface, predominately in the Indo‐Pacific, to where it is lost, predominately in the Atlantic and Southern Oceans. This global buoyancy transport requires zonal structure in the GOC, linking the Atlantic and Indo‐Pacific within the Southern Ocean, asymmetry and interbasin coupling absent from many conceptual descriptions of overturning dynamics. These results compel a more nuanced appreciation for an Indo‐Pacific influence in GOC evolution

Cardiac Depression Scale: Mokken scaling in heart failure patients

Background: There is a high prevalence of depression in patients with heart failure (HF) that is associated with worsening prognosis. The value of using a reliable and valid instrument to measure depression in this population is therefore essential. We validated the Cardiac Depression Scale (CDS) in heart failure patients using a model of ordinal unidimensional measurement known as Mokken scaling. Findings: We administered in face-to-face interviews the CDS to 603 patients with HF. Data were analysed using Mokken scale analysis. Items of the CDS formed a statistically significant unidimensional Mokken scale of low strength (H<0.40) and high reliability (Rho>0.8). Conclusions: The CDS has a hierarchy of items which can be interpreted in terms of the increasingly serious effects of depression occurring as a result of HF. Identifying an appropriate instrument to measure depression in patients with HF allows for early identification and better medical management. Keywords: Cardiac Depression Scale, Heart failure, Depression, Mokken scalin

Scaling Baroclinic Eddy Fluxes: Vortices and Energy Balance

The eddy heat flux generated by the statistically equilibrated baroclinic instability of a uniform, horizontal temperature gradient is studied using a two-mode f-plane quasigeostrophic model. An overview of the dependence of the eddy diffusivity D on the bottom friction κ, the deformation radius λ, the vertical variation of the large-scale flow U, and the domain size L is provided by numerical simulations at 70 different values of the two nondimensional control parameters κλ/U and L/λ. Strong, axisymmetric, well-separated baroclinic vortices dominate both the barotropic vorticity and the temperature fields. The core radius of a single vortex is significantly larger than λ but smaller than the eddy mixing length ℓ_mix. On the other hand, the typical vortex separation is comparable to ℓ_mix. Anticyclonic vortices are hot, and cyclonic vortices are cold. The motion of a single vortex is due to barotropic advection by other distant vortices, and the eddy heat flux is due to the systematic migration of hot anticyclones northward and cold cyclones southward. These features can be explained by scaling arguments and an analysis of the statistically steady energy balance. These arguments result in a relation between D and ℓ_mix. Earlier scaling theories based on coupled Kolmogorovian cascades do not account for these coherent structures and are shown to be unreliable. All of the major properties of this dilute vortex gas are exponentially sensitive to the strength of the bottom drag. As the bottom drag decreases, both the vortex cores and the vortex separation become larger. Provided that ℓ_mix remains significantly smaller than the domain size, then local mixing length arguments are applicable, and our main empirical result is ℓ_mix ≈ 4λ exp(0.3U/κλ)

A ship-based methodology for high precision atmospheric oxygen measurements and its application in the Southern Ocean region

A method for achieving continuous high precision measurements of atmospheric O-2 is presented based on a commercially available fuel-cell instrument, (Sable Systems, Oxzilla FC-II) with a precision of 7 per meg (approximately equivalent to 1.2 ppm) for a 6-min measurement. The Oxzilla was deployed on two voyages in the Western Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean, in February 2003 and in April 2004, making these the second set of continuous O-2 measurements ever made from a ship. The results show significant temporal variation in O-2, in the order of +/- 10 per meg over 6-hourly time intervals, and substantial spatial variation. Data from both voyages show an O-2 maximum centred on 50 degrees S, which is most likely to be the result of biologically driven O-2 outgassing in the region of subtropical convergence around New Zealand, and a decreasing O-2 trend towards Antarctica. O-2 from the ship-based measurements is elevated compared with measurements from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography flask-sampling network, and the O-2 maximum is also not captured in the network observations. This preliminary study shows that ship-based continuous measurements are a valuable addition to current fixed site sampling programmes for the understanding of ocean-atmosphere O-2 exchange processes. [References: 39

Environmental, developmental, and genetic factors controlling root system architecture

A better understanding of the development and architecture of roots is essential to develop strategies to increase crop yield and optimize agricultural land use. Roots control nutrient and water uptake, provide anchoring and mechanical support and can serve as important storage organs. Root growth and development is under tight genetic control and modulated by developmental cues including plant hormones and the environment. This review focuses on root architecture and its diversity and the role of environment, nutrient, and water as well as plant hormones and their interactions in shaping root architecture

Validating the use of intrinsic markers in body feathers to identify inter-individual differences in non-breeding areas of northern fulmars

Acknowledgments We thank Claire Deacon, Gareth Norton and Andrea Raab for help with laboratory work at the University of Aberdeen, and Barry Thornton and Gillian Martin for running stable isotope analysis at the James Hutton Institute. Thanks to all involved in the collection and processing of dead fulmars through the North Sea plastic pollution project at IMARES, with special thanks to Jens-Kjeld Jensen, Bergur Olsen and Elisa Bravo Rebolledo for samples from the Faroe Islands and Susanne Kühn for those from Iceland. Thanks to Orkney Islands Council for access to Eynhallow and to all the fieldworkers involved in deployment and recovery of the GLS tags. All ringing work was carried out under permit from the BTO, and feather sampling was carried out under licence from the Home Office. We are grateful to James Fox of Migrate Technologies for recovering data from GLS loggers which would not download, and Richard Phillips and Janet Silk of BAS for advice on GLS analysis. We thank Deborah Dawson of the NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility, University of Sheffield and Stuart Piertney of University of Aberdeen for molecular sexing of the fulmars. Lucy Quinn was supported by a NERC Studentship and additional funding to support fieldwork was gratefully received from Talisman Energy (UK) Ltd. We thank Yves Cherel and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The rotation and Galactic kinematics of mid M dwarfs in the Solar Neighborhood

Rotation is a directly-observable stellar property, and drives magnetic field generation and activity through a magnetic dynamo. Main sequence stars with masses below approximately 0.35Msun (mid-to-late M dwarfs) are fully-convective, and are expected to have a different type of dynamo mechanism than solar-type stars. Measurements of their rotation rates provide insights into these mechanisms, but few rotation periods are available for these stars at field ages. Using photometry from the MEarth transit survey, we measure rotation periods for 387 nearby, mid-to-late M dwarfs in the Northern hemisphere, finding periods from 0.1 to 140 days. The typical detected rotator has stable, sinusoidal photometric modulations at a semi-amplitude of 0.5 to 1%. We find no period-amplitude relation for stars below 0.25Msun and an anti-correlation between period and amplitude for higher-mass M dwarfs. We highlight the existence of older, slowly-rotating stars without H{\alpha} emission that nevertheless have strong photometric variability. The Galactic kinematics of our sample is consistent with the local population of G and K dwarfs, and rotators have metallicities characteristic of the Solar Neighborhood. We use the W space velocities and established age-velocity relations to estimate that stars with P<10 days are on average <2 Gyrs, and that those with P>70 days are about 5 Gyrs. The period distribution is mass dependent: as the mass decreases, the slowest rotators at a given mass have longer periods, and the fastest rotators have shorter periods. We find a lack of stars with intermediate rotation periods. [Abridged]Comment: Accepted to ApJ. Machine readable tables and additional figures are available in the published article or on reques