What e-patients want from the doctor-patient relationship: content analysis of posts on discussion boards.

People with long-term conditions are encouraged to take control and ownership of managing their condition. Interactions between health care staff and patients become partnerships with sharing of expertise. This has changed the doctor-patient relationship and the division of roles and responsibilities that traditionally existed, but what each party expects from the other may not always be clear. Information that people with long-term conditions share on Internet discussion boards can provide useful insights into their expectations of health care staff. This paper reports on a small study about the expectations that people with a long-term condition (diabetes) have of their doctors using information gleaned from Internet discussion boards

Changing food culture for food wellbeing.

This study investigates what people, in an urban and a rural setting in England, value about their local and home-grown food culture and how this shapes food choices which contribute to a broad definition of Food Wellbeing. Qualitative, ethnographic methods were used to uncover aspects of food relationships which are positive for the environment, communities and personal health. The connections provided by direct contact with local fresh food are explored. Communities such as those featured in this research, with high levels of food expertise, can contribute towards improving food cultures to attain better health outcomes for the planet, for people and for the individual

What factors influence Fair Access students to consider university and what do they look for?

This paper reports the findings of a participatory mixed methods study into the perceptions of Fair Access students on the factors which led them to consider accessing Higher Education. The study consisted of focus groups with thirteen first year Fair Access Students (female n=9, male n=4) studying at the university. The data from which was analysed thematically, identifying five themes (what others say, going to university to escape, influence of habitus, location and what the university offered). These five themes formed the basis of a Likert type questionnaire which was completed by 239 students (n=168 Fair Access, n=71 non-Fair Access). It was evident that students from Fair Access backgrounds have the same high aspirations as their non-Fair Access counterparts, as do their families. However they can be discouraged and disadvantaged in the application system due to a variety of reasons; within compulsory education (perceptions of teachers as well as a lack of careers advice and support), intuitional habitus of Higher Education Institutions (provision of pre-access information and support) as well as not identifying themselves as coming from a widening participation background, thus reducing the likelihood of a contextual offer. All of these could impact on the ability of an individual from a WP background being successful in obtaining a place to study in Higher Education

The construction of identities in narratives about serious leisure occupations

Engagement in occupation contributes to the shaping of identity throughout the human life. The act of telling about such engagement involves interaction based on symbolic meaning; the speaker constructing an identity by conveying how the occupation is personally meaningful. This study explored meaning in narratives told by people who engage in serious leisure occupations. A total of 78 narratives were extracted from interviews with 17 people who invest considerable time and other resources into their leisure. Analysis focused on the content, structure and performance of each narrative in order to explore meaning. The meanings were organised into a framework based around three dimensions: the located self, the active self and the changing self. Each dimension has facets that the individual might emphasise, constructing a unique identity. The framework offers a structured basis for conceptualising how occupation contributes to the shaping of the internalised self and the socially situated identity

Correspondence to William Barrett Taylor, date unknown or unclear

Correspondence to William Barrett Taylor, date unknown or unclear. Box 3, folder 7.https://digitalcommons.wofford.edu/littlejohnboggs/1022/thumbnail.jp

Japanese Ancient Arts and Shinrin-Yoku

Forest bathing (taking in the forest environment through our senses) (shinrin-yoku) (FB) has gained popularity throughout the world recently as research has demonstrated its benefits to health. In Japan FB can be practiced in isolation, or with activities such as gazing at landscapes (Miyazai 2018). This research seeks to establish whether practicing ancient art forms during a FB session can provide any added benefit to the experience. This is based on the assumption that these arts come from a meditative perspective, and that some of these practices have already been shown to improve health. It is proposed that traditions such as haiku, or the creation of small Japanese style rock gardens (within the forest), or learning basic moves in the way of the Japanese sword (iaido) using a wooded bokken (training sword) are included in a traditional FB session. A trained forest bathing guide, and staff who can provide insights into these arts prior to and during the session will be present. Adopting a constructivist perspective and using semi-structured interviews the authors will seek insights relating to health from those who have attended these sessions. The findings will be compared to those related to traditional forest bathing. It is anticipated that the results will add to the growing corpus of research relating to forests and nature, and also, importantly, consider how practices from the ancient arts can further contribute to understandings of wellbeing within a modern setting. Miyazaki, Y. 2018. Shinrin-yoku. Octopus Publishing

Use of clinical guidelines in cardiology practice in Sudan

Rationale, aims, and objective: The aim of this study was to explore the views of prescribers in cardiology in Sudan about the use of guidelines in clinical practice and the extent to which guidelines whether national or international can be adopted in clinical practice in Sudan. Methods: Interviews were conducted with the consultants in 2 of the main cardiac hospitals in Sudan. This was followed by a survey amongst the doctors in the hospitals to examine the views of a larger population of prescribers about the matter investigated. Results: Twelve consultants were interviewed, and 47 prescribers (60%) replied to the questionnaire that followed. Most doctors relied on foreign guidelines to prescribe for their patients. The doctors acknowledged the limitation of using foreign guidelines in Sudan. A number of doctors were not in favour of following any guidelines, as they perceived that the practice in Sudan does not allow implementation of guidelines. Conclusion: The prescribers in Sudan had to rely on guidelines made in foreign countries if they want to get the benefit of evidence‐based medicine to their patients, but they had to find a way to adapt these guidelines to their patients and to the health care system they are working within. However, it is not known if this adaptation of foreign guidelines is providing the benefits intended or is risking evidence‐based medicine

Flat-spectrum symmetric objects with ~1 kpc sizes I. The candidates

In order to understand the origin and evolution of radio galaxies, searches for the youngest such sources have been conducted. Compact-medium symmetric objects (CSO-MSOs) are thought to be the earliest stages of radio sources, with possible ages of <10^3 yrs for CSOs (<1 kpc in size) and 10^4-10^5 yrs for MSOs (1-15 kpc). From a literature selection in heterogeneous surveys, we have established a sample of 37 confirmed CSOs. In addition, we only found three confirmed flat-spectrum MSOs in the literature. The typical CSO resides on a z<0.5 galaxy, has a flat radio spectrum (a_thin<0.5; S_v proportional to v^-a), is <0.3 kpc in size, has an arm length ratio <2, and well-aligned (theta<20 deg) opposite lobes with a flux density ratio <10. In order to populate the 0.3-1 kpc size range (large CSOs) and also in order to find more flat-spectrum MSOs, we have built a sample of 157 radio sources with a_{1.40}^{4.85}<0.5 that were resolved with the VLA-A 8.4 GHz. As first results, we have 'rediscovered' nine of the known CSO/MSOs while identifying two new ~14 kpc MSOs and two candidate CSO/MSOs (which only lack redshifts for final classification). We were able to reject 61 of the remaining 144 objects from literature information alone. In the series of papers that starts with this one we plan to classify the remaining 83 CSO/MSO candidates (thanks to radio and optical observations) as well as characterize the physical properties of the (likely) many 0.3-15 kpc flat-spectrum CSO/MSOs to be found.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, 6 tables (note that Table 2, in landscape format, has a separate file); accepted by MNRA

Fermi-LAT Observations and A Broadband Study of Supernova Remnant CTB 109

CTB 109 (G109.1-1.0) is a Galactic supernova remnant (SNR) with a hemispherical shell morphology in X-rays and in the radio band. In this work we report the detection of {\gamma}-ray emission coincident with CTB 109, using 37 months of data from the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. We study the broadband characteristics of the remnant using a model that includes hydrodynamics, efficient cosmic ray acceleration, nonthermal emission and a self-consistent calculation of the X-ray thermal emission. We find that the observations can be successfully fit with two distinct parameter sets, one where the {\gamma}-ray emission is produced primarily by leptons accelerated at the SNR forward shock and the other where {\gamma}-rays produced by forward shock accelerated cosmic-ray ions dominate the high-energy emission. Consideration of thermal X-ray emission introduces a novel element to the broadband fitting process, and while it does not rule out either the leptonic or the hadronic scenarios, it constrains the parameter sets required by the model to fit the observations. Moreover, the model which best fits the thermal and nonthermal emission observations is an intermediate case, where both radiation from accelerated electrons and hadrons contribute almost equally to the {\gamma}-ray flux observed.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array Dish I: Beam Pattern Measurements and Science Implications

The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) is a radio interferometer aiming to detect the power spectrum of 21 cm fluctuations from neutral hydrogen from the Epoch of Reionization (EOR). Drawing on lessons from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER), HERA is a hexagonal array of large (14 m diameter) dishes with suspended dipole feeds. Not only does the dish determine overall sensitivity, it affects the observed frequency structure of foregrounds in the interferometer. This is the first of a series of four papers characterizing the frequency and angular response of the dish with simulations and measurements. We focus in this paper on the angular response (i.e., power pattern), which sets the relative weighting between sky regions of high and low delay, and thus, apparent source frequency structure. We measure the angular response at 137 MHz using the ORBCOMM beam mapping system of Neben et al. We measure a collecting area of 93 m^2 in the optimal dish/feed configuration, implying HERA-320 should detect the EOR power spectrum at z~9 with a signal-to-noise ratio of 12.7 using a foreground avoidance approach with a single season of observations, and 74.3 using a foreground subtraction approach. Lastly we study the impact of these beam measurements on the distribution of foregrounds in Fourier space.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Replaced to match accepted ApJ versio