141 research outputs found
Improving the quality of mental health services using patient outcome data: Making the most of HoNOS
Efforts to assess and improve the quality of mental health services are often hampered by a lack of information on patient outcomes. Most mental health services in England have been routinely collecting Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS) data for some time. In this article we illustrate how clinical teams have used HoNOS data to identify areas where performance could be improved. HoNOS data have the potential to give clinical teams the information they need to assess the quality of care they deliver, as well as develop and test initiatives aimed at improving the services they provide
An In Depth Study into Using EMI Signatures for Appliance Identification
Energy conservation is a key factor towards long term energy sustainability.
Real-time end user energy feedback, using disaggregated electric load
composition, can play a pivotal role in motivating consumers towards energy
conservation. Recent works have explored using high frequency conducted
electromagnetic interference (EMI) on power lines as a single point sensing
parameter for monitoring common home appliances. However, key questions
regarding the reliability and feasibility of using EMI signatures for
non-intrusive load monitoring over multiple appliances across different sensing
paradigms remain unanswered. This work presents some of the key challenges
towards using EMI as a unique and time invariant feature for load
disaggregation. In-depth empirical evaluations of a large number of appliances
in different sensing configurations are carried out, in both laboratory and
real world settings. Insights into the effects of external parameters such as
line impedance, background noise and appliance coupling on the EMI behavior of
an appliance are realized through simulations and measurements. A generic
approach for simulating the EMI behavior of an appliance that can then be used
to do a detailed analysis of real world phenomenology is presented. The
simulation approach is validated with EMI data from a router. Our EMI dataset -
High Frequency EMI Dataset (HFED) is also released
Renormalized Classical Theory of Quantum Magnets
We derive a renormalized classical spin (RCS) theory for quantum
magnets by constraining a generalized classical theory that includes all
multipolar fluctuations to a reduced CP phase space of dipolar SU()
coherent states. When the spin Hamiltonian is linear in the
spin operators for each lattice site , the RCS
Hamiltonian coincides with the usual classical model
. In the presence
of non-linear terms, however, the RCS theory is more accurate than
. For the many materials modeled by spin Hamiltonians with
(non-linear) single-ion anisotropy terms, the use of the RCS theory is
essential to accurately model phase diagrams and to extract the correct
Hamiltonian parameters from neutron scattering dataComment: 5 pages, 1 figure
Large-Scale Multi-Omics Studies Provide New Insights into Blood Pressure Regulation
Recent genome-wide association studies uncovered part of blood pressure’s heritability. However, there is still a vast gap between genetics and biology that needs to be bridged. Here, we followed up blood pressure genome-wide summary statistics of over 750,000 individuals, leveraging comprehensive epigenomic and transcriptomic data from blood with a follow-up in cardiovascular tissues to prioritise likely causal genes and underlying blood pressure mechanisms. We first prioritised genes based on coding consequences, multilayer molecular associations, blood pressure-associated expression levels, and coregulation evidence. Next, we followed up the prioritised genes in multilayer studies of genomics, epigenomics, and transcriptomics, functional enrichment, and their potential suitability as drug targets. Our analyses yielded 1880 likely causal genes for blood pressure, tens of which are targets of the available licensed drugs. We identified 34 novel genes for blood pressure, supported by more than one source of biological evidence. Twenty-eight (82%) of these new genes were successfully replicated by transcriptome-wide association analyses in a large independent cohort (n = ~220,000). We also found a substantial mediating role for epigenetic regulation of the prioritised genes. Our results provide new insights into genetic regulation of blood pressure in terms of likely causal genes and involved biological pathways offering opportunities for future translation into clinical practice
Multilateral climate finance coordination: politics and depoliticization in practice
The governance of public climate finance for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries is fragmented on both the international and national levels, with a high diversity of actors with overlapping mandates, preferences, and areas of expertise. In the absence of one unifying actor or institution, coordination among actors has emerged as a response to this fragmentation. In this article, we study the coordination efforts of the two most important multilateral climate funds, the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), on the global level as well as within two recipient countries, Kenya and Zambia. The CIF and the GCF are anchored within the World Bank and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, respectively, and represent two diverging perspectives on climate finance. We find that on both levels, coordination was depoliticized by treating it as a technical exercise, rendering invisible the political divergences among actors. The implications of this depoliticization are that both funds coordinate mainly with actors with similar preferences, and consequently, coordination did not achieve its objectives. The article contributes to the literatures on coordination, climate finance, and environmental governance by showing how a response to the fragmentation of climate governance did not overcome political fault lines but rather reinforced them
Bivariate genome-wide association analyses of the broad depression phenotype combined with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia reveal eight novel genetic loci for depression
Although a genetic basis of depression has been well established in twin studies, identification of genome-wide significant
loci has been difficult. We hypothesized that bivariate analyses of findings from a meta-analysis of genome-wide association
studies (meta-GWASs) of the broad depression phenotype with those from meta-GWASs of self-reported and recurrent
major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder and schizophrenia would enhance statistical power to identify novel
genetic loci for depression. LD score regression analyses were first used to estimate the genetic correlations of broad
depression with self-reported MDD, recurrent MDD, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Then, we performed four bivariate
GWAS analyses. The genetic correlations (rg ± SE) of broad depression with self-reported MDD, recurrent MDD, bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia were 0.79 ± 0.07, 0.24 ± 0.08, 0.53
A genome-wide association meta-analysis implicates Hedgehog and Notch signaling in Dupuytren's disease
Dupuytren's disease (DD) is a highly heritable fibrotic disorder of the hand with incompletely understood etiology. A number of genetic loci, including Wnt signaling members, have been previously identified. Our overall aim was to identify novel genetic loci, to prioritize genes within the loci for functional studies, and to assess genetic correlation with associated disorders. We performed a meta-analysis of six DD genome-wide association studies from three European countries and extensive bioinformatic follow-up analyses. Leveraging 11,320 cases and 47,023 controls, we identified 85 genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphisms in 56 loci, of which 11 were novel, explaining 13.3-38.1% of disease variance. Gene prioritization implicated the Hedgehog and Notch signaling pathways. We also identified a significant genetic correlation with frozen shoulder. The pathways identified highlight the potential for new therapeutic targets and provide a basis for additional mechanistic studies for a common disorder that can severely impact hand function.</p
Electrophilic Organoiridiunn(III) Pincer Complexes on Sulfated Zirconia for Hydrocarbon Activation and Functionalization
Single-site supported organometallic catalysts bring together the favorable aspects of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis while offering opportunities to investigate the impact of metal–support interactions on reactivity. We report a (dmPhebox)Ir(III) (dmPhebox = 2,6-bis(4,4-dimethyloxazolinyl)-3,5-dimethylphenyl) complex chemisorbed on sulfated zirconia, the molecular precursor for which was previously applied to hydrocarbon functionalization. Spectroscopic methods such as diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transformation spectroscopy (DRIFTS), dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP)-enhanced solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (SSNMR) spectroscopy, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) were used to characterize the supported species. Tetrabutylammonium acetate was found to remove the organometallic species from the surface, enabling solution-phase analytical techniques in conjunction with traditional surface methods. Cationic character was imparted to the iridium center by its grafting onto sulfated zirconia, imbuing high levels of activity in electrophilic C–H bond functionalization reactions such as the stoichiometric dehydrogenation of alkanes, with density functional theory (DFT) calculations showing a lower barrier for β-H elimination. Catalytic hydrogenation of olefins was also facilitated by the sulfated zirconia-supported (dmPhebox)Ir(III) complex, while the homologous complex on silica was inactive under comparable conditions
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