FINITE H-DIMENSION DOES NOT IMPLY EXPRESSIVE COMPLETENESS

Accepted versio

Diamonds are Forever

We defend the thesis that every necessarily true proposition is always true. Since not every proposition that is always true is necessarily true, our thesis is at odds with theories of modality and time, such as those of Kit Fine and David Kaplan, which posit a fundamental symmetry between modal and tense operators. According to such theories, just as it is a contingent matter what is true at a given time, it is likewise a temporary matter what is true at a given possible world; so a proposition that is now true at all worlds, and thus necessarily true, may yet at some past or future time be false in the actual world, and thus not always true. We reconstruct and criticize several lines of argument in favor of this picture, and then argue against the picture on the grounds that it is inconsistent with certain sorts of contingency in the structure of time

Oscillograms and their tests

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Inflammatory or rheumatoid arthritis patients’ perspectives on the effect of arthritis gloves on their hand pain and function (A-GLOVES TRIAL) : a qualitative study

Background: Arthritis (compression) gloves are frequently provided to people with inflammatory (IA) or rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the NHS, to help reduce swelling and alleviate hand pain by providing compression and improving circulation. However evidence for their effectiveness is limited.[1] Objectives: Nested within a randomised controlled trial (RCT) testing the effectiveness of intervention (compression) gloves with control gloves (fitted at least one size too big) in people with RA and IA, this qualitative study aimed to explore patients’ perspectives on the effect of the arthritis gloves on their hand pain and function. Methods: Once randomised, participants were provided joint protection and hand exercise booklets and fitted with either the intervention or the control glove(s) by a trained occupational therapist.[2] Both gloves had similar thermal qualities but control gloves did not apply compression. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants, purposively selected from each group (n=20) following 12 weeks of glove wear. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed by three researchers using thematic analysis with a critical realist perspective. Results: Participants’ perspectives on the effects of the arthritis gloves had three emergent sub-themes. These were: Usage: both groups predominantly used the gloves for activities such as wearing them outdoors to keep hands warm, night-time wear to help with sleep, and doing light domestic activities (e.g. dusting). Gloves were not used for cooking or washing-up or for personal activities of daily living (e.g. toileting, grooming) “What didn’t help as such, obviously was with washing etc. and toileting because I had to keep taking them off and putting them back on again”; Symptomatology: while some reported that gloves helped to keep their “hand pain in check” others said that gloves had no effect on their hand pain or that they’d found “it’s made them worse”. Participants from both groups frequently mentioned the warmth element of the gloves, as a positive attribute to help with their symptoms; Aesthetics: participants had opposing views on the appearance of the arthritis gloves. Some felt that the intervention gloves “look a bit ugly with the seams outside” or stated that they “would not want to wear that colour” but did not think they were obtrusive. Most noticeably, patients seemed to view the arthritis gloves as ordinary everyday gloves, rather than a medical device “if it was cold I wore them outside”. Conclusions: Trial participants reported experiencing similar effects from wearing either the intervention or control gloves, with varied perspectives on whether or not gloves affected hand pain and/or function. Overall, patients did not reflect on the compressive but rather the thermal qualities of the gloves, as warmth was the main effect perceived. References: Hammond, et al. Clin Rehabil 2016 30:213–24 Prior, et al. Rheum 2017(Supp1) Acknowledgements: This project was funded by the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme (PB-PG-0214–33010). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health

Synthesis and antibacterial effects of cobalt–cellulose magnetic nanocomposites

© The Royal Society of Chemistry. Green synthesis is employed to prepare cobalt/cellulose nanocomposites with cubic (α-cobalt) cobalt as a main component with antibacterial and magnetic properties. An in situ reduction of aqueous solutions of cobalt ions on a model cellulose substrate surface using hydrogen gas affords spherical, cellulose-stabilised cobalt nanoclusters with magnetic properties and an average diameter of 7 nm that are distributed evenly over the surface of the cellulose fibres. These cobalt/cellulose nanocomposites exhibit good antibacterial action against opportunistic pathogens both Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli, A. baumannii and P. aeruginosa), with zones of inhibition up to 15 mm, thereby encouraging the deployment of these advanced materials for the treatment of wastewater or within medical dressings. This method of preparation is compared with the analogous in situ reduction of cobalt ions on a cellulose surface using sodium borohydride as reducing agent

'TaxTrack': Introducing a Democratic Innovation for Taxation

In this article we introduce an input-oriented democratic innovation – that we term ‘TaxTrack’ – which offers individual taxpayers the means to engage with their political economies in three ways. After joining the TaxTrack program, an individual can: (1) see and understand how much, and what types, of taxes they have contributed, (2) see and understand how their tax contributions are, or have been, used, and (3) control what their tax contributions can, or cannot, be spent on. We explain this democratic innovation in two ways. The first is through evocation to prefigure what the innovation could look like in future practise which raises the prospects for both good and problematic outcomes. The second is through formal theory to produce a detailed model of the innovation to assist theory building. We conclude by discussing three interactive outcomes of ‘TaxTrack’ through the democratic innovations literature to establish the beginnings of a theory for the model. This theory tells us that ‘TaxTrack’ can return benefits to its users and the democratic regimes in which they are located but it may also place restrictions on output-oriented innovations like Participatory Budgeting