Carbide Composition Changes in Power Plant Steels as a Method of Remanent Creep Life Prediction

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D061499 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Soluble Fermentable Dietary Fibre (Pectin) Decreases Caloric Intake, Adiposity and Lipidaemia in High-Fat Diet-Induced Obese Rats

Funding: This work was funded by the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Integrating a sense of coherence into the neonatal environment

Background: Family centred care (FCC) is currently a valued philosophy within neonatal care; an approach that places the parents at the heart of all decision-making and engagement in the care of their infant. However, to date, there is a lack of clarity regarding the definition of FCC and limited evidence of FCCs effectiveness in relation to parental, infant or staff outcomes. Discussion: In this paper we present a new perspective to neonatal care based on Aaron Antonovksy’s Sense of Coherence (SOC) theory of well-being and positive health. Whilst the SOC was originally conceptualised as a psychological-based construct, the SOCs three underpinning concepts of comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness provide a theoretical lens through which to consider and reflect upon meaningful care provision in this particular care environment. By drawing on available FCC research, we consider how the SOC concepts considered from both a parental and professional perspective need to be addressed. The debate offered in this paper is not presented to reduce the importance or significance of FCC within neonatal care, but, rather, how consideration of the SOC offers the basis through which meaningful and effective FCC may be delivered. Practice based implications contextualised within the SOC constructs are also detailed. Summary: Consideration of the SOC constructs from both a parental and professional perspective need to be addressed in FCC provision. Service delivery and care practices need to be comprehensible, meaningful and manageable in order to achieve and promote positive well-being and health for all concerned

A meta-ethnographic study of health care staff perceptions of the WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Health Initiative

Background Implementation of the Baby Friendly Health Initiative (BFHI) is associated with increases in breastfeeding initiation and duration of exclusive breastfeeding and ‘any’ breastfeeding. However, implementation of the BFHI is challenging. Aim To identify and synthesise health care staff perceptions of the WHO/UNICEF BFHI and identify facilitators and barriers for implementation. Method Seven qualitative studies, published between 2003 and 2013 were analysed using meta-ethnographic synthesis. Findings Three overarching themes were identified. First the BFHI was viewed variously as a ‘desirable innovation or an unfriendly imposition’. Participants were passionate about supporting breastfeeding and improving consistency in the information provided. This view was juxtaposed against the belief that BFHI represents an imposition on women's choices, and is a costly exercise for little gain in breastfeeding rates. The second theme highlighted cultural and organisational constraints and obstacles to BFHI implementation including resource issues, entrenched staff practices and staff rationalisation of non-compliance. Theme three captured a level of optimism and enthusiasm amongst participants who could identify a dedicated and credible leader to lead the BFHI change process. Collaborative engagement with all key stakeholders was crucial. Conclusions Health care staff hold variant beliefs and attitudes towards BFHI, which can help or hinder the implementation process. The introduction of the BFHI at a local level requires detailed planning, extensive collaboration, and an enthusiastic and committed leader to drive the change process. This synthesis has highlighted the importance of thinking more creatively about the translation of this global policy into effective change at the local level

Dose-dependent effects of a soluble dietary fibre (pectin) on food intake, adiposity, gut hypertrophy and gut satiety hormone secretion in rats

Acknowledgments We thank Donna Wallace and Animal House staff at the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health for the daily care of experimental rats and for the body weight, food intake and MRI measurements.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Content and discontent: a qualitative exploration of obstacles to elearning engagement in medical students

BACKGROUND: Elearning is ubiquitous in healthcare professions education. Its equivalence to ‘traditional’ educational delivery methods is well established. There is a research imperative to clarify when and how to use elearning most effectively to mitigate the potential of it becoming merely a ‘disruptive technology.’ Research has begun to broadly identify challenges encountered by elearning users. In this study, we explore in depth the perceived obstacles to elearning engagement amongst medical students. Sensitising concepts of achievement emotions and the cognitive demands of multi-tasking highlight why students’ deeply emotional responses to elearning may be so important in their learning. METHODS: This study used focus groups as a data collection tool. A purposeful sample of 31 participated. Iterative data gathering and analysis phases employed a constant comparative approach to generate themes firmly grounded in participant experience. RESULTS: Key themes that emerged from the data included a sense of injustice, passivity and a feeling of being ‘lost at sea’. The actual content of the elearning resource provided important context. CONCLUSIONS: The identified themes have strong emotional foundations. These responses, interpreted through the lens of achievement emotions, have not previously been described. Appreciation of their importance is of benefit to educators involved in curriculum development or delivery. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12909-016-0710-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Cutting care clusters: the creation of an inverse pharmacy care law? An area-level analysis exploring the clustering of community pharmacies in England

Objectives To (1) explore the clustering of community pharmacies in England and (2) determine the relationship between community pharmacy clustering, urbanity and deprivation. Design An area-level analysis spatial study. Setting England. Primary and secondary outcome measures Community pharmacy clustering determined as a community pharmacy located within 10 min walking distance to another community pharmacy. Participants Addresses and postal codes of each community pharmacy in England were used in the analysis. Each pharmacy postal code was assigned to a lower layer super output area, which was then matched to urbanity (urban, town and fringe or village, hamlet and isolated dwellings) and deprivation decile (using the Index of Multiple Deprivation score). Results 75% of community pharmacies in England were located in a ‘cluster’ (within 10 min walking distance of another pharmacy): 19% of community pharmacies were in a cluster of two, while 56% of community pharmacies were in clusters of three or more. There was a linear relationship between community pharmacy clustering and social deprivation—with clustering more prevalent in areas of higher deprivation: for community pharmacies located in areas of lowest deprivation (decile 1), there was a significantly lower risk of clustering compared with community pharmacies located in areas of highest deprivation (relative risk 0.12 (95% CI 0.10 to 0.16)). Conclusions Clustering of community pharmacies in England is common, although there is a positive trend between community pharmacy clustering and social deprivation, whereby clustering is more significant in areas of high deprivation. Arrangements for future community pharmacy funding should not solely focus on distance from one pharmacy to another as means of determining funding allocation, as this could penalise community pharmacies in our most deprived communities, and potentially have a negative effect on other healthcare providers, such as general practitioner and accident and emergency services

The Identification and Support of Child Victims of Trafficking in Scotland: A Child Protection Model

In February 2013 an earlier version of this paper was presented to a stakeholder group, proposing a child-rights approach to the identification and protection of child victims of trafficking in Scotland; an approach that sought to prioritise the protection of children being a higher policy and practice importance than immigration control.  This updated paper, taking account of recent developments, proposes a model of child protection focused practice for child victims of trafficking in Scotland, underpinned by multiagency practice experience and research developed over the last 10 years. The proposal seeks to locate child trafficking practice firmly within existing devolved powers and legislation; any decisions regarding immigration control and residency remain firmly within the powers of the UK Government. This proposal does not necessitate any legislative changes and can be accommodated in existing child protection policy and practice in Scotland

A real-time study of sound change in inner-city Dublin-English over five decades

The purpose of this study is to identify variation and change in the pronunciation of Dublin’s inner-city dialect over the last fifty years, and if so, whether this involves association with or dissociation from traditional local norms (Hickey, 1999). Dublin’s inner-city has experienced notable demographic changes since the recession of the 1980s, the economic boom of the 1990s and the subsequent influx of migrants to the city, initially from returning Irish emigrants and some British, but later from other European countries (Darmody, 2011). Dublin English is known for characteristic and stable local productions of /ð/, /θ/ and /t/ e.g. water [wɒṱər], thin [tɪn], breathe [bri:d̪] and this [dɪs] (Hickey, 2004). The demographic changes to the inner-city predict the possible introduction of non-local variants for all three variables. The research question for this dissertation is: What evidence is there for sound change in local Dublin English in an area which has shown substantial demographic shifts? Specifically, to what extent is phonetic variation over time for /ð/, /θ/ and /t/ consistent with a shift away from local norms? For example, have the words mother, think and what maintained the local realisations [mʌdr], [tIŋk] and [ʍɒʔ] or, over time has there been a shift towards use of the supralocal or standard Irish English forms [mod̪ər], [t̪ɪŋk] and [ʍɒṱ]? This study analyses the speech of twenty-three recordings from inner-city Dublin school-children in 1961 and seventeen school-children and one adult in 2016 (a total of forty-one speakers). The early recordings were made by the class teacher, but have since been digitised and are well-known as Give Up Yer Aul Sins, which is a quote from one of the children and she narrates a Bible story. The more recent recordings were made by me in 2016, when I returned to the same inner-city school in Dublin to interview children of the same age. The adult speaker, now in her early sixties, was one of the children in the 1961 class, although was not one of the children recorded. Results show that over time there is maintenance of local variants, but all three apparently stable variables show a shift to pan-Irish and even some Standard English variants in the children recorded in 2016. For example, /ð/ and /θ/ show a shift from 1961 to 2016, with fewer local alveolar stops, more supralocal dental stops, and even some Standard English dental fricatives. These results are discussed in the context of the impact of mobility and dialect contact on sound change for this inner-city Dublin community