7,709 research outputs found

    Infection and transmission of Nosema bombi in Bombus terrestris colonies and its effect on hibernation, mating and colony founding

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    The impact of the microsporidium Nosema bombi on Bombus terrestris was studied by recording mating, hibernation success, protein titre in haemolymph, weight change during hibernation, and colony founding of queens that were inoculated with N. bombi in the larval phase. Infection with N. bombi was diagnosed in 36% of B. terrestris queens exposed to N. bombi. Mating and hibernation of queens was not significantly affected by N. bombi infection but colony founding was reduced significantly. Haemolymph protein titre of N. bombi diseased queens was reduced, possibly indicating a disturbance of the metabolism. It was demonstrated that N. bombi infection was transmitted to the successive age cohorts in a colony and to the adults that were already in the colony prior to the introduction of the infection. The study showed a significant negative impact of N. bombi on B. terrestris colony development and indoor rearing

    Review of the methods to determine the hazard and toxicity of pesticides to bumblebees

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    Methods to determine the impact of pesticides on bumblebees are described. They are classified into laboratory tests to determine the acute toxicity and the hazard to bumblebees, (semi) field tests, and brood tests. The reproducibility and the significance of the data for practical purpose are discussed. Standardized laboratory toxicity tests supply reproducible data. In hazard tests, both in the laboratory and semi field tests, the exposure is not proportionate to the number of adult insects and the brood. Field tests provide realistic data on the hazard of a pesticide to bumblebee colonies but when the results are interpreted it must be taken in account that the test plot is only a portion of the total foraging area of a bumblebee colony. In a brood nest, due to the disorderly structure, only major effects can be recognized. Laboratory rearing of bumblebee brood should be developed to produce a standardized brood test that supplies reproducible dat

    What research we no longer need in neurodegenerative disease at the end of life : The case of research in dementia

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    A complete silence. That was what we got back from the European experts who had been energetically discussing research priorities in palliative care in neurodegenerative disease (ND) until a short while ago.1 The chair, an entertaining professor with good manners, must have felt the unease and quickly refocused the group to their task. But, wasn’t this the best question of all day? What research we no longer need? As scientists able to consider different perspectives, shouldn’t we have some idea of what research is, by contrast, no longer necessary? Palliative care research and research with people who have ND and are at the end of their life is, by definition, difficult. Making choices is a sensitive issue, but funds are limited. Therefore, we take a counterpoint to the research agenda recently reported by European Union (EU) Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND),1 and consider whether there are studies we no longer need or are low priority, taking the example of dementiaPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

    Synthesis of novel urethanes from a castor oil derived C22-acyloin

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    The synthesis of new bio-based chemical building blocks, resulting from the condensation of a renewable C-22 acyloin derived from non-edible castor oil, with mono- and bifunctional isocyanates is reported. The condensation with aliphatic mono-isocyanates was relatively straightforward, however phenyl isocyanates only resulted in low yields together with the formation of a cyclic hemi-aminal during purification. The condensation with diisocyanates was successful for the aliphatic hexamethylene diisocyanate. As for the aromatic 2,4-toluene diisocyanate, a low yield of the desired product was obtained, since a similar ring closing reaction took place. The urethanes were synthesized in order to evaluate their plasticizing and viscosity-modifying properties

    The development of a mapping tool for the evaluation of building systems for future climate scenarios on European scale

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    The paper presents a tool for the mapping of the performance of building systems on European scale for different (future) time periods. The tool is to use for users and be applicable for different building systems. Users should also be able to use a broad range of climate parameters to assess the influence of climate change on these climatic parameters. Also should the calculation time be reasonable short. The mapping tool is developed in MATLAB, which can be used by other users for their own studies.Comment: 21 pages, 24 figures, pre-conferenc

    Palliative care in dementia: does it work?

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    The topic of palliative care in dementia has attracted increasing interest in recent years. Entering palliative+care+dementia into PubMed yields only 10 papers before 1990, the first from 1982. In contrast, there have been 100 or so papers in each of the last three years. The question we have set in this editorial is deliberately ambiguous. ‘Does it work?’ can be either a question about effectiveness in practice or a question about the concept of palliative care as applied to dementia and, in this regard, it’s a question as to how palliative care fits in with the journey of dementia and the other models of care that may be relevant. Conceptual In relation to dementia, palliative care could cover a huge range from the whole course of dementia from diagnosis onwards to a much narrower focus on end-of-life care. And maybe there are points in between, e.g. as a person passes from ‘living well with dementia’ to the next stage, which might be regarded as that of inexorable decline. Van der Steen et al [1] have attempted to create clearer boundaries for what we mean by ‘palliative care’ in dementia. They used a Delphi process to generate a set of core domains and then tested these on a wider international panel of experts. Most of these domains achieved consensus: the two which did not were about the importance of palliative care in relation to the stage of dementia and to provision of artificial nutrition and hydration. The first of these concerns reflected disagreement as to whether all dementia care should be relabelled as palliative care [2]. Another issue for palliative dementia care is that it has to compete with other terms that belong to other frameworks. Palliative care has a fairly simple conceptual basis (we allege) in that in the absence of a cure, health professionals should concentrate on relieving troublesome symptoms and avoiding unnecessary, potentially harmful, interventions. It has noble Classical roots – primum non nocere – that probably go back to Hippocrates. It is closely associated with ‘end of life care’ or ‘care of the dying’ which has similar sentiments but is perhaps more closely associated with the relief of pain and bringing comfort and solace. End of life care implies a clinical milieu, even if this happens to be the person’s own home. The prevailing paradigm in dementia, however, is person-centred care, which derives from the work of Kitwood and the Bradford group. By contrast to palliative care, this arises from a reaction to the medicalisation of dementia and uses social psychology to draw attention to the perspective of the person with dementia and how the actions of those around them can shape behaviour. This model has been highly attractive for the public, the voluntary sector, and workers and academics with a psychosocial bent. It is clear how person-centred care is applicable across the whole pathway of dementia. It has enabled the voice of people with dementia to be heard, so that we now have the remarkable growth of a disability movement within dementia, with bloggers, activists, and groups such as Dementia Alliance International (http://www.dementiaallianceinternational.org/). Expect further changes in the future as people living with dementia demand their rights, equality and full citizenship. Empirical Universal acceptance of palliative care in dementia would be easier if there was good research evidence that it delivers better outcomes than other forms of care. This is more difficult to test than it appears at first sight, for at least two good reasons. The first of these is that, if we take the view that all dementia care is palliative care, any trial of palliative care might need to be across the whole pathway of dementia. This is unfeasible given the length of time that such a trial would have to run, not to mention some of the methodological issues as to what outcomes are desirable and at what points in the course of the dementia they should be ascertained. The second problem is that it is customary in studies of psychosocial interventions in dementia to compare the treatment of interest with ‘usual care’. However, this is difficult too. Is palliative care an ‘intervention’? And what is ‘usual care’? And does it not already have a palliative quality? Thus, it is probably impossible to test empirically whether palliative care ‘works’ as a form of dementia care across the whole pathway. In practice, we duck this question by talking about a palliative care approach but it isn’t established whether this adds anything to what we already do. Palliative care can be tested if specific aspects of management, usually towards the end of life, are being evaluated. For example, it is perfectly possible to compare the outcomes of artificial nutrition with not providing it, in terms of survival, pain, quality of life and so on (see Sampson et al [3] for a review). Although, note that either arm of this trial can be regarded as palliative care so, even if one arm does better, this doesn’t tell us if palliative care is effective. It is simply a judgement between two palliative care options. Conclusion Applying the term palliative care in dementia has some attractions and this accounts for the expansion of recent interest. However, it is a slippery concept to use as there is no agreement as to when it is best applied to dementia and there is no evidence that any thus-labelled intervention has improved outcomes. Furthermore, this may not even be an empirical question, in which case it is either a moral question (‘how do we wish to end our lives?’) or one of popular taste. So far, the discourse has been confined to professionals and experts and the voice of people with dementia is missing. ‘Palliative’ may be too clinical a word for their taste

    Uncertainty and growth of the firm

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    Using data from a survey of 1097 Dutch firms we investigate the relation between growth of the firm and uncertainty. We focus on the impact of uncertainty on various types of investment, employment demand, and expected maturity of the firm. The special feature of the survey is that it includes data on non-listed (small) firms. We include uncertainty with respect to expected sales and Return on Investment (ROI). We find that sales uncertainty, measured by the conditional variance, has a negative impact on various investment decisions. We include an analysis of financial structure and firm size on the growth-uncertainty relation
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