'Sounds of Intent' : Mapping musical behaviour and development in children and young people with complex needs

This article reports on the first year of an Esmae Fairbairn Foundation-funded research project into the design and evaluation of an original 'framework' for mapping the behaviour and development in, and through, music for children with complex needs, specifically those with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD). An initial four-month design and pilot phase critiqued and evaluated a framework that was grounded in video-based iterative analyses of individual case studies that had been collected during the previous two years. The piloting phase was followed by a sustained period of classroom-based music lesson observation in five special schools over a period of seven months. A total of 630 observations were made using the framework for 68 participants whose ages ranged from 4 years 7 months to 19 years 1 month. Subsequent analyses support the general design features of the observational framework and provide new evidence of PMLD musical behaviour and development

File audit to assess sustained fidelity to a recovery and wellbeing oriented mental health service model: An Australian case study

2019 The Author(s). Background: Over the past decade there has been increasing attention to implementing recovery-oriented approaches within mental health service practice and enhancing fidelity to such approaches. However, as is often the case with evidence-based practices, less attention has been paid to the sustainability of recovery-oriented approaches over time. This study sought to investigate whether fidelity to a recovery-oriented practice framework - the Collaborative Recovery Model could be sustained over time. Method: The study setting was an Australian community managed mental health organisation. A file audit of consumer support plans was undertaken using the Goal and Action Plan Instrument for Quality audit tool (GAP-IQ). The audit tool assessed 17 areas for quality. Consumers (n = 116) from a large community managed mental health organisation participated in the study. Sustained fidelity to the Collaborative Recovery Model (CRM) was determined by comparing results from the file audit to a similar audit conducted 3 years earlier. Results: The file audit revealed a significant increase in fidelity to CRM practices between 2011 and 2014. Fidelity to individual audit items that comprise the GAP-IQ was also found to significantly increase across 16 of the 17 GAP-IQ audit items, with the exception of the \u27Action Plan Review\u27 audit item. Conclusions: A comparison of file audit data across different time points within the same setting can provide useful feedback about whether or not a practice is being sustained over time. Although fidelity increased overtime the study design does not allow conclusions that training and coaching practices implemented by the organisation were responsible

Quiet islands in a world of fear: Wolves seek core zones of protected areas to escape human disturbance

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)The Anthropocene continuously escalates the challenges and threats faced by large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes. Given their unique conservation and management requirements, detailed insights into their behaviour in relation to human-induced risks are crucial to designing landscapes of coexistence for people and predators, containing key features such as nature conservation areas. Adaptations like selection or avoidance of areas at certain times reveal the dynamic perception of large carnivores to risk-landscapes and the trade-offs with potential resources. This study investigates these ideas by applying a habitat-selection approach to GPS collared wolves in Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park (Belarus) to quantify fine-scale avoidance of human disturbance. Our results indicate that wolves selected strongly for areas of higher nature protection within the national park. They also avoided human disturbance from settlements and roads, but mediated their behaviour depending on the shifting risk throughout the day and night. They selected for more open areas during darkness. Seasonal and sex-based differences shifted avoidance, such as females being more avoidant of settlements. This suggests evidence of a successful anti-predator strategy against humans. Our study offers some of the most detailed and novel insights into wolf spatio-temporal avoidance of disturbance in the context of protected areas, which is imperative for fine-tuning management measures for continued coexistence and effective conservation of this functionally important species.publishedVersio

Signal and noise of Diamond Pixel Detectors at High Radiation Fluences

CVD diamond is an attractive material option for LHC vertex detectors because of its strong radiation-hardness causal to its large band gap and strong lattice. In particular, pixel detectors operating close to the interaction point profit from tiny leakage currents and small pixel capacitances of diamond resulting in low noise figures when compared to silicon. On the other hand, the charge signal from traversing high energy particles is smaller in diamond than in silicon by a factor of about 2.2. Therefore, a quantitative determination of the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of diamond in comparison with silicon at fluences in excess of 10$^{15}$ n$_{eq}$ cm$^{-2}$, which are expected for the LHC upgrade, is important. Based on measurements of irradiated diamond sensors and the FE-I4 pixel readout chip design, we determine the signal and the noise of diamond pixel detectors irradiated with high particle fluences. To characterize the effect of the radiation damage on the materials and the signal decrease, the change of the mean free path $\lambda_{e/h}$ of the charge carriers is determined as a function of irradiation fluence. We make use of the FE-I4 pixel chip developed for ATLAS upgrades to realistically estimate the expected noise figures: the expected leakage current at a given fluence is taken from calibrated calculations and the pixel capacitance is measured using a purposely developed chip (PixCap). We compare the resulting S/N figures with those for planar silicon pixel detectors using published charge loss measurements and the same extrapolation methods as for diamond. It is shown that the expected S/N of a diamond pixel detector with pixel pitches typical for LHC, exceeds that of planar silicon pixels at fluences beyond 10$^{15}$ particles cm$^{-2}$, the exact value only depending on the maximum operation voltage assumed for irradiated silicon pixel detectors

Ovine Enzootic Abortion (OEA): a comparison of antibody responses in vaccinated and naturally-infected swiss sheep over a two year period

Background Prevention and control of ovine enzootic abortion (OEA) can be achieved by application of a live vaccine. In this study, five sheep flocks with different vaccination and infection status were serologically tested using a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (cELISA) specific for Chlamydophila (Cp.) abortus over a two-year time period. Results Sheep in Flock A with recent OEA history had high antibody values after vaccination similar to Flock C with natural Cp. abortus infections. In contrast, OEA serology negative sheep (Flock E) showed individual animal-specific immunoreactions after vaccination. Antibody levels of vaccinated ewes in Flock B ranged from negative to positive two and three years after vaccination, respectively. Positive antibody values in the negative control Flock D (without OEA or vaccination) are probably due to asymptomatic intestinal infections with Cp. abortus. Excretion of the attenuated strain of Cp. abortus used in the live vaccine through the eye was not observed in vaccinated animals of Flock E. Conclusion The findings of our study indicate that, using serology, no distinction can be made between vaccinated and naturally infected sheep. As a result, confirmation of a negative OEA status in vaccinated animals by serology cannot be determined

Дослідження багатошарових нейронних мереж для автоматичного виділення ознак при вирішенні задачі розпізнавання образів

В роботі розглянуто підходи до виділення ознак при розпізнаванні образів і застосування багатошарових нейронних мереж для розв'язання таких задач. Проведено процес моделювання багатошарового перцептрону для автоматичного виділення ознак зображення і подальшої класифікації. Досліджено вплив базових параметрів на якість розпізнавання.The paper deals with approaches to feature extraction in pattern recognition and application of multilayer neural nets for solving such problems. The modeling process of multilayer perceptron for automatic feature extraction and further classification is described. The basic parameters influence on quality of recognition is researched

The Calcitonin and Glucocorticoids Combination: Mechanistic Insights into Their Class-Effect Synergy in Experimental Arthritis

PMCID: PMC3564948This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited