Nature of behaviours that challenge in residents living in aged care homes: implications for psychosocial interventions and service development

Background/Aims: Competing theories exist regarding the causes and nature of behaviours that challenge (BC). The present study attempted to provide better insight into these behaviours and determine whether there were any underlying relationships for people living in care homes with and without dementia. Methods: Cross sectional data for 2185 residents living in 63 UK care homes using the Challenging Behaviour Scale were collected. The incidence (i.e. presence/absence) of 25 commonly reported behaviours that challenge staff were determined using dichotomous scoring. Cluster analysis and Mokken scaling were used to examine underlying relationships. Mokken is a method of analysing data to determine whether there is a ‘latent’ structure within a data set. Results: The prevalence of reported BC was 87.5%. Cluster analysis revealed three main clusters: apathy, agitation with internal focus, agitation with active external focus. For seven of the 25 items a hierarchical model emerged, where behaviours at the bottom of the hierarchy tended to occur in the presence of those higher up. Behaviours at the bottom of the hierarchy (dangerous behaviour) were less frequently observed than the items at the top (lack of self-care, verbal aggression). Conclusion: Some common BC may occur in groups and themed clusters. This study has shown that a hierarchical structure of BC in residents may be present. The findings testify to the complexity in the aetiology and treatment of BC and hence the need for focussed high intensity bio-psychosocial interventions to be targeted towards those with high levels of ‘unmet need’. Implications for future research and practice are discussed

Julian of Norwich and her children today: Editions, translations and versions of her revelations

The viability of such concepts as "authorial intention," "the original text," "critical edition" and, above all, "scholarly editorial objectivity" is not what it was, and a study of the textual progeny of the revelations of Julian of Norwich--editions, versions, translations and selections--does little to rehabilitate them. Rather it tends to support the view that a history of reading is indeed a history of misreading or, more positively, that texts can have an organic life of their own that allows them to reproduce and evolve quite independently of their author. Julian's texts have had a more robustly continuous life than those of any other Middle English mystic. Their history--in manuscript and print, in editions more or less approximating Middle English and in translations more or less approaching Modern English--is virtually unbroken since the fifteenth century. But on this perilous journey, many and strange are the clutches into which she and her textual progeny have fallen

Development and assessment of a bone scanning device to enhance restraint performance

The objective of the BOSCOS (BOne Scanning for Occupant Safety) project was the development of a system that can make an assessment of the bone characteristics of each vehicle occupant in order to estimate their skeletal strengths. The seatbelt and airbag characteristics can then be adjusted to deliver optimum levels of protection specifically for each occupant. A system introduced into every vehicle has the capacity to save lives and reduce injury levels across the whole spectrum of vehicle occupants. This paper describes the contributions from academic and industrial partners to this UK Department for Transport funded project.Commercial pressure focuses restraint design on meeting legal requirements for vehicle approval, but legal requirements use dummies which do not represent the range of car occupant shapes, sizes, and driving positions. A person with lower skeletal characteristics may not be able to withstand the current fixed levels of restraint without sustaining injuries. Conversely, a person with greater skeletal characteristics may be capable of withstanding greater levels of restraint.Possible technologies that are available have been assessed for their suitability for an in-vehicle monitoring system. Accident studies have been conducted to create a baseline of statistics in terms of casualties and their injuries. Initial bone scanning studies have utilised different types of equipment and a new prototype scanner has been developed for use in a vehicle environment using ultrasound technology.Computer based occupant mathematical modelling has been used to establish the potential gains from a working system and also the requirements needed of the restraint systems toachieve these gains. In addition, bone scanning has been conducted, to determine a method to read across from scan values to skeletal condition to provide data for the optimisation of the restraint system

MPSoCs for Reconfigurable Modular Spacecraft

Modular, reconfigurable spacecraft offer a new approach to extending mission capability and maximising the lifetime of a spacecraft. Future uses of space robotics such as in-orbit construction and servicing allow faulty or obsolete parts of a modular spacecraft to be replaced by servicer spacecraft that dock with their targets and perform upgrades and maintenance. Such manoeuvres will require a high degree of autonomy from both platforms and thus will need to leverage high-performance onboard computing for both the robotic control and manipulation of service spacecraft but also for managing Thales Alenia Space in the UK (TAS UK) and The University of York (UoY) are involved in projects towards this goal and are collaborating to research autonomous network reconfiguration and fault tolerance of the onboard network based on existing space technology (SpaceWire, SpaceFibre). Both organisations have identified FPGA based MPSoCs as a solution for providing the high-performance computing that autonomous robotic systems require, using the FPGA fabric for mission-phase related hardware accelerators (e.g. vision soft co- processors) that can be swapped as the construction or maintenance task demands. In this presentation we will describe the modular spacecraft avionics unit that TAS UK is developing for the H2020 MOSAR project. This is based on the Xilinx Ultrascale+ MPSoC and uses the “big-little” architecture to provide a split between the spacecraft module’s mission functionality (executing on the “big” quad-core A53) and the support functions to provide: the communication network, module-to-module docking management and the module power management functions of the spacecraft (implemented on the “little” dual-core R5 cores). Details on our development of an AXI4 compatible SpaceWire and RMAP IP core will also be included. RMAP forms an important part of the MOSAR fault management strategy and this core allows processor-transparent RMAP access to the full MPSoC address range, with automatic DMA descriptors for all other SpaceWire traffic. The AXI4 interface simply allows it to be dropped into any Ultrascale+, Zynq 7000 and NG-ultra based design and several configuration options allow options such as SpW front end type (oversampling /clock recovery) and output data path width (32-bit/16bit) to be selected. We will also present details of research by the University of York on using RMAP in a MPSoC environment. Access to the full address space of a MPSoC via RMAP brings security and fault management concerns to complex SoCs and hardware security based approaches (e.g. ARM’s TrustZone) could be used in future MP- SoC architectures to protect against damage by either corrupt RMAP packets, damage from failure modes of RMAP initiators or malicious/compromised spacecraft modules. To tackle autonomy challenges UoY is cur- rently developing a reasoner based, reconfigurable modular robotic platform that can cope with uncertain environments that arise in space applications using FPGA based MPSoC and soft-processor technologies. MOSAR has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant agreement No. 821996. Part of this work is funded by EPSRC and Innovate UK under grant KTP12066

Clone stories: ‘shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder’

This article explores literary interrogations of the bioethical implications of cloning. It does so by outlining the basic science of cloning before going on to question the dominance of the Freudian notion of the ‘uncanny’ in the critical theoretical responses to cloning by figures such as Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Žižek. The second half of the article turns to two recent novels exploring the theme of cloning: Eva Hoffman's The Secret, and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. It is argued that the former rehearses familiar themes of revulsion connected to the figure of the clone, yet resolves the struggle for identity in a ‘human’ conclusion; whereas the latter maintains the uncanny in-human difference of the clone even as it highlights the dangers of the biopolitical instrumentalization of life itself. The article therefore argues that fictional treatments of cloning can provide an important alternative to simplified debates on the subject in the mass media

BOSCOS - development and benefits of a Bone Scanning System

The objective of the BOSCOS (BOne SCanning for Occupant Safety) project was the development of a system that can make an assessment of the bone characteristics of each vehicle occupant in order to estimate their skeletal strengths. The seatbelt and airbag characteristics can then be adjusted to deliver optimum levels of protection specifically for each occupant. A system introduced into every vehicle has the capacity to save lives and reduce injury levels across the whole spectrum of vehicle occupants. This paper describes the contributions from academic and industrial partners to this UK Department for Transport funded project

Postdexamethasone plasma cortisol and [beta]-endorphin levels in depression: Relationship to severity of illness

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is dysregulated in many patients with depression, probably at all levels of the axis. To determine if HPA dysregulation is associated with severity of depression, we studied a group of 66 patients with major depressive disorder. Each patient underwent a pretreatment Dexamethasone Suppression Test, with plasma postdexamethasone cortisol determination at 8:00 AM, 4:00 PM, and 11:00 PM. All three postdexamethasone cortisol levels were significantly correlated with the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) scores. We also examined the "profile" measures of mean, maximum, and minimum of the three cortisol values; again, all three were significantly correlated with HRSD scores. To evaluate associations between clinical severity and HPA dysregulation at the pituitary level, we studied a second group of 44 patients with major depressive disorder. Each had postdexamethasone cortisol determinations at 4:00 PM and 11:00 PM as well as pre- and postdexamethasone [beta]-endorphin determinations at 4:00 PM. The cortisol data from this group followed the same pattern as in the first sample, and there was a significant relationship between HRSD score and degree of [beta]-endorphin nonsuppression as well. These results suggest that severity of depression is one of the determinants of dysregulation at both adrenal and pituitary levels of the HPA axis, accounting for 10%-20% of the observed variance.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26603/1/0000144.pd

Response to The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet's discussion paper "Connecting with Confidence"

The ACS has prepared this response to the discussion paper to assist with the design of the cyber whitepaper expected in 2012. The ACS also welcomes the opportunity to promote discussion and support of our digital economy to position Australia for the future. Drawing from its membership of ICT professionals, and academics - particularly in areas of cyber resilience and security - the ACS established a Cyber Taskforce for this purpose. The ACS recommends: greater focus on education - noting that ICT education in primary and secondary schooling is essential - to developing ICT skills of the future and that school level educational activity forms the base on which appropriate tertiary level education programs can function for the education and training of ICT professionals; greater assistance to small and medium sized business as this is the engine room of the Australian economy; policy coordination on trusted identities; better coordination of cyber related education and research; providing consumers and businesses with resources directed to the everyday real-life challenges they face; global Internet governance changes designed to underpin and deliver trustworthy people, processes and systems including, where appropriate, a legislated mandatory baseline of trustworthiness attributes analogous to the non-excludable warranties implied in consumer contacts

Discovery of an intermediate-luminosity red transient in M51 and its likely dust-obscured, infrared-variable progenitor

We present the discovery of an optical transient (OT) in Messier 51, designated M51 OT2019-1 (also ZTF19aadyppr, AT 2019abn, ATLAS19bzl), by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF). The OT rose over 15 days to an observed luminosity of $M_r=-13$ (${\nu}L_{\nu}=9\times10^6~L_{\odot}$), in the luminosity gap between novae and typical supernovae (SNe). Spectra during the outburst show a red continuum, Balmer emission with a velocity width of $\approx400$ km s$^{-1}$, Ca II and [Ca II] emission, and absorption features characteristic of an F-type supergiant. The spectra and multiband light curves are similar to the so-called "SN impostors" and intermediate-luminosity red transients (ILRTs). We directly identify the likely progenitor in archival Spitzer Space Telescope imaging with a $4.5~\mu$m luminosity of $M_{[4.5]}\approx-12.2$ and a $[3.6]-[4.5]$ color redder than 0.74 mag, similar to those of the prototype ILRTs SN 2008S and NGC 300 OT2008-1. Intensive monitoring of M51 with Spitzer further reveals evidence for variability of the progenitor candidate at [4.5] in the years before the OT. The progenitor is not detected in pre-outburst Hubble Space Telescope optical and near-IR images. The optical colors during outburst combined with spectroscopic temperature constraints imply a higher reddening of $E(B-V)\approx0.7$ mag and higher intrinsic luminosity of $M_r\approx-14.9$ (${\nu}L_{\nu}=5.3\times10^7~L_{\odot}$) near peak than seen in previous ILRT candidates. Moreover, the extinction estimate is higher on the rise than on the plateau, suggestive of an extended phase of circumstellar dust destruction. These results, enabled by the early discovery of M51 OT2019-1 and extensive pre-outburst archival coverage, offer new clues about the debated origins of ILRTs and may challenge the hypothesis that they arise from the electron-capture induced collapse of extreme asymptotic giant branch stars.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, published in ApJ