Measuring the impact and costs of a universal group based parenting programme : protocol and implementation of a trial

Background Sub-optimal parenting is a common risk factor for a wide range of negative health, social and educational outcomes. Most parenting programmes have been developed in the USA in the context of delinquency prevention for targeted or indicated groups and the main theoretical underpinning for these programmes is behaviour management. The Family Links Nurturing Programme (FLNP) focuses on family relationships as well as behaviour management and is offered on a universal basis. As a result it may be better placed to improve health and educational outcomes. Developed in the UK voluntary sector, FLNP is popular with practitioners, has impressed policy makers throughout the UK, has been found to be effective in before/after and qualitative studies, but lacks a randomised controlled trial (RCT) evidence base. Methods/Design A multi-centre, investigator blind, randomised controlled trial of the FLNP with a target sample of 288 south Wales families who have a child aged 2-4 yrs living in or near to Flying Start/Sure Start areas. Changes in parenting, parent child relations and parent and child wellbeing are assessed with validated measures immediately and at 6 months post intervention. Economic components include cost consequences and cost utility analyses based on parental ranking of states of quality of life. Attendance and completion rates and fidelity to the FLNP course delivery are assessed. A nested qualitative study will assess reasons for participation and non-participation and the perceived value of the programme to families. By the end of May 2010, 287 families have been recruited into the trial across four areas of south Wales. Recruitment has not met the planned timescales with barriers including professional anxiety about families entering the control arm of the trial, family concern about video and audio recording, programme facilitator concern about the recording of FLNP sessions for fidelity purposes and delays due to the new UK research governance procedures. Discussion Whilst there are strong theoretical arguments to support universal provision of parenting programmes, few universal programmes have been subjected to randomised controlled trials. In this paper we describe a RCT protocol with quantitative and qualitative outcome measures and an economic evaluation designed to provide clear evidence with regard to effectiveness and costs. We describe challenges implementing the protocol and how we are addressing these

Measurement uncertainty in Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence (TXRF) spectrometry is a multi-elemental technique using micro-volumes of sample. This work assessed the components contributing to the combined uncertainty budget associated with TXRF measurements using Cu and Fe concentrations in different spiked and natural water samples as an example. The results showed that an uncertainty estimation based solely on the count statistics of the analyte is not a realistic estimation of the overall uncertainty, since the depositional repeatability and the relative sensitivity between the analyte and the internal standard are important contributions to the uncertainty budget. The uncertainty on the instrumental repeatability and sensitivity factor could be estimated and as such, potentially relatively straightforward implemented in the TXRF instrument software. However, the depositional repeatability varied significantly from sample to sample and between elemental ratios and the controlling factors are not well understood. By a lack of theoretical prediction of the depositional repeatability, the uncertainty budget can be based on repeat measurements using different reflectors. A simple approach to estimate the uncertainty was presented. The measurement procedure implemented and the uncertainty estimation processes developed were validated from the agreement with results obtained by inductively coupled plasma - optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and/or reference/calculated values.This work has been funded by the Spanish National Research Programme (CGL-2010-22168-C03-01).Peer Reviewe

SLATE program Version 1.3

This document describes the VME (OS-9) steering program for the Second Level Architecture Test Environment (SLATE) mother and HIPPI daughter cards. The installation procedure, usage and the syntax of the user commands are documented. System requirements: OS-9/68020, Version 2.3 or higher Comments and bug reports are welcome. Please send them to [email protected] with a complete description of the problem. EAST 92-20, page 2 Program update history 18 July Version 1.3 Updates in manual 25 September Version 1.2 New commands: RUN LOG *, # (Comments) Modify_Event Modified command: Modify Modifications: slate.hlp file Command START resets HIPPI 17 August 1992 Version 1.1 New commands: Test_Mem CHange_ID Modified command: LoadSQ REPEAT Other modification: Default ID is 7 Maximum event length: 16K word 23 June 1992 Version 1.0 Original version EAST 92-20, page 3 Cont