In search of wellness: Allied health professionals\u27 understandings of wellness in childhood disability services

Purpose. Wellness approaches are not routine in childhood disability services, despite theoretical and empirical support and an increasing demand for them from health consumers and disability activists. We aimed to investigate how health professionals define or understand wellness and its practice in the context of childhood disability. Method. A qualitative, interpretive approach was taken. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 health professionals (allied health therapists and managers) providing early intervention and ongoing therapy within four Australian childhood health and disability services. Years of experience providing services to children with disabilities and their families ranged from 6 months to 30 years (M = 9.41, SD = 9.04). Results.  The data revealed a noteworthy impediment to incorporating wellness into practice – the difficulties in the allied health professionals reaching consensus in defining wellness. There appeared to be distinct differences between the four services, while there appeared to be no appreciable difference based on the individual professional\u27s years of experience or allied health discipline. Conclusions.  The effect of organisational culture should be considered in efforts to embed wellness in childhood health and disability services in order to address client well-being, empowerment, choice, independence and rights to meaningful and productive lives

In search of wellness: Allied health professionals\u27 understandings of wellness in childhood disability services

Purpose. Wellness approaches are not routine in childhood disability services, despite theoretical and empirical support and an increasing demand for them from health consumers and disability activists. We aimed to investigate how health professionals define or understand wellness and its practice in the context of childhood disability. Method. A qualitative, interpretive approach was taken. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 health professionals (allied health therapists and managers) providing early intervention and ongoing therapy within four Australian childhood health and disability services. Years of experience providing services to children with disabilities and their families ranged from 6 months to 30 years (M = 9.41, SD = 9.04). Results.  The data revealed a noteworthy impediment to incorporating wellness into practice – the difficulties in the allied health professionals reaching consensus in defining wellness. There appeared to be distinct differences between the four services, while there appeared to be no appreciable difference based on the individual professional\u27s years of experience or allied health discipline. Conclusions.  The effect of organisational culture should be considered in efforts to embed wellness in childhood health and disability services in order to address client well-being, empowerment, choice, independence and rights to meaningful and productive lives

Reconstruction of baseline time-trace under changing environmental and operational conditions

Compensation of changing environmental and operational conditions (EOC) is often necessary when using guided-wave based techniques for structural health monitoring in real-world applications. Many studies have demonstrated that the effect of changing EOC can mask damage to a degree that a critical defect might not be detected. Several effective strategies, specifically for compensating the temperature variations, have been developed in recent years. However, many other factors, such as changing humidity and boundary conditions or degradation of material properties, have not received much attention. This paper describes a practical method for reconstruction of the baseline time-trace corresponding to the current EOC. Thus, there is no need for differentiation or compensation procedures when using this method for damage diagnosis. It is based on 3D surface measurements of the velocity field near the actuator using laser vibrometry, in conjunction with high-fidelity finite element simulations of guided wave propagation in free from defects structure. To demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed method we provide several examples of the reconstruction and damage detection.P. Aryan, A. Kotousov, C.T. Ng and S. Wild

A Live-Attenuated HSV-2 ICP0− Virus Elicits 10 to 100 Times Greater Protection against Genital Herpes than a Glycoprotein D Subunit Vaccine

Glycoprotein D (gD-2) is the entry receptor of herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2), and is the immunogen in the pharmaceutical industry's lead HSV-2 vaccine candidate. Efforts to prevent genital herpes using gD-2 subunit vaccines have been ongoing for 20 years at a cost in excess of $100 million. To date, gD-2 vaccines have yielded equivocal protection in clinical trials. Therefore, using a small animal model, we sought to determine if a live-attenuated HSV-2 ICP0− virus would elicit better protection against genital herpes than a gD-2 subunit vaccine. Mice immunized with gD-2 and a potent adjuvant (alum+monophosphoryl lipid A) produced high titers of gD-2 antibody. While gD-2-immunized mice possessed significant resistance to HSV-2, only 3 of 45 gD-2-immunized mice survived an overwhelming challenge of the vagina or eyes with wild-type HSV-2 (MS strain). In contrast, 114 of 115 mice immunized with a live HSV-2 ICP0− virus, 0ΔNLS, survived the same HSV-2 MS challenges. Likewise, 0ΔNLS-immunized mice shed an average 125-fold less HSV-2 MS challenge virus per vagina relative to gD-2-immunized mice. In vivo imaging demonstrated that a luciferase-expressing HSV-2 challenge virus failed to establish a detectable infection in 0ΔNLS-immunized mice, whereas the same virus readily infected naïve and gD-2-immunized mice. Collectively, these results suggest that a HSV-2 vaccine might be more likely to prevent genital herpes if it contained a live-attenuated HSV-2 virus rather than a single HSV-2 protein