A 5 item version of the Compliance Questionnaire for Rheumatology (CQR5) successfully identifies low adherence to DMARDs

© 2013 Hughes et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedTaking DMARDs as prescribed is an essential part of self-management for patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis. To date, the Compliance Questionnaire for Rheumatology (CQR) is the only self-report adherence measure created specifically for and validated in rheumatic diseases. However, the factor structure of the CQR has not been reported and it can be considered lengthy at 19 items. The aim of this study was to test the factor structure of the CQR and reduce the number of items whilst retaining robust explanation of non-adherence to DMARDs. Such a reduction would increase the clinical utility of the scale, to identify patients with sub-optimal adherence to DMARDs in the clinic as well as for research purposes.Peer reviewe

Glitched Rhetorics: Online Deliberation of New Technology

This dissertation examines public deliberation on the social media site reddit regarding two controversial technologies: Alexa and Bitcoin. Such vernacular deliberation of prominent new technologies is widespread online and increasingly significant—with Alexa and Bitcoin generating numerous controversies throughout the 2010s & early 2020s—yet understudied by rhetoric and media scholars. Arguments for and against the technologies consistently emerge, and so I ask: What are the terms, patterns, and logics in the binarized reddit deliberations of emergent technology? There is also an alternative rhetorical practice of those conflicted and ambivalent, yet not absent from the deliberations. I name it glitching, a paleologism used to describe a digital version of a transhistorical and transgressive anti-idealism (i.e., kynicism). My second question is: In what way do redditors glitch the deliberation of emergent technology? Rhetorical-archaeological analysis and digital rhetorical ethnography are the methods I utilize to answer the first and second questions, respectively. Arguments for Alexa employ terms “connect,” “work,” and “convenience,” in patterns emphasizing expertise and rationality, toward a logic of technological progress. “Listening” and “labor” are the terms which appear throughout anti-Alexa posts and comments, in patterns resembling investigative journalism, to advance a logic of economic justice. Pro-Bitcoin arguments employ terms “buy” and “celebration,” in a pattern resembling that of speculative finance, undergirding a logic of prosperity technology. “Privacy” and “scam” are the terms which appear throughout anti-Bitcoin posts and comments, in a pattern of technical expertise which supports logics of technological and financial skepticism. Glitched rhetorics are ambivalent and irreverent interruptions in the binary oscillation of vernacular deliberation about technology which frequently appear in online fora, and closely resemble the kynicism of Diogenes of Sinope. The glitched rhetorics about Alexa and Bitcoin diverge in extremeness, but share embrace of risk and use of sexual vulgarity to challenge customs and interrupt sober deliberations which otherwise lead to the synthesis of managed decline. Glitched rhetorics are not the collective action necessary for systemic change in the matter of society’s relationship to technology, but as a kynical signal not unlike the barking of a dog they persistently reveal that such action is necessary

‘It's Man Devouring Man, My Dear’: Studying The Musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street As Multimedia Adaptation

Described by John Kander as a ‘theater of adaptations’, works of commercial musical theatre are predominantly products of cross-media adaptation. Film, theatre, television, literature, and visual art: musical theatre takes inspiration and narrative from broad sources. Within current musical theatre scholarship, the musical’s status as a product of cross-media adaptation is acknowledged but has to-date received little focused investigation. Of the published studies that do discuss musical theatre adaptation, many adopt a fidelity-based model of comparative analysis. Studies of this type often, either explicitly or implicitly, treat the musical as an imitation of its source material; faithfulness to the original text is used as a measure of its success as a work of musical theatre. Within this context the process of adaptation is represented in simple terms in which replication of the source is viewed as the musical’s goal. In this thesis I study the musical Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street as an example of multimedia adaptation. I investigate the process of cross-media adaptation undertaken to transform the hypotext –Bond’s Sweeney Todd – into the hypertext– the musical. To do so I apply Nicholas Cook’s theory of musical multimedia as an analytical framework and draw on semiotic, narratological and musicological analysis techniques. I consider how the meaning, specifically the socio-economic critique, of the originary text are adapted into the musical theatre art form. Employing a combination of analytical perspectives, I argue that Sweeney Todd can be understood as a complex multimedia product in which each constituent medium is responding to the source material in a distinct fashion and by analysing each in isolation a fuller understanding of the overall work can be formed

Accessing Socially Excluded People — Trust and the Gatekeeper in the Researcher-Participant Relationship

This paper describes methodological findings from research to recruit and research hard-to-reach socially excluded people. We review the ways in which researchers have used particular strategies to access hard-to-reach individuals and groups and note that little attention has been given to understanding the implications of the nature of the trust relationship between researcher and participant. Gatekeepers invariably play a role in accessing socially excluded people in research, yet discussion to date invariably focuses on the instrumental role gatekeepers play in facilitating researchers\' access. In this paper we explore the possibilities for analysing relationships in terms of trust and distrust between gatekeeper and socially excluded participant. Our analysis considers the different kinds of relationships that exist between gatekeepers and socially excluded people and, in particular, the relationships of power between gatekeepers and socially excluded people. Insights into the nature of trust among socially excluded people will also be considered. Finally, we discuss how size and use of social networks among socially excluded groups and perceptions of risk in interactions with gatekeepers are important to understanding the possibilities for trustful relationships, and for meaningful and successful access for researchers to socially excluded individuals and groups.Social Exclusion, Access, Research, Gatekeepers, Trust, Distrust, Risk

Determining the shape of a liquid droplet: from microscopic theory to coarse grained models

This thesis investigates the wetting of simple liquids using two density functional theory (DFT) models. The first model is a discrete lattice-gas model and the second a continuum DFT model of a hard-sphere reference system with an additional attractive perturbation. The wetting properties of liquids are principally investigated by studying the binding, or interface, potential of the fluid and this thesis presents a method by which a binding potential can be fully calculated from the microscopic DFT. The binding potentials are used to investigate the behaviour of the model fluid depending on the range to which particle interactions are truncated. Long ranged particle interactions are commonly truncated to increase computational efficiency but the work in this thesis shows that in making this truncation some important aspects of the interfacial phase behaviour are changed. It is demonstrated that in some instances by reducing the interaction range of fluid particles a shift in phase behaviour from wetting to non wetting occurs. The binding potential is an input to larger scale coarse grained models and this is traditionally given as an asymptotic approximation of the binding potential. By using the full binding potential, calculated from the DFT model, as an input, excellent agreement can be found between the results from the microscopic DFT model and the larger scale models. This is first verified with the discrete lattice-gas model where the discrete nature of the model causes some non-physical behaviour in the binding potentials. The continuum DFT model is then applied which corrects this behaviour. An adaptation to this continuum model is used to study short ranged systems at high liquid densities at state points below the `Fisher-Widom' line. The form of the decay of the density profiles and binding potentials now switches from monotonic to oscillatory. This model leads to highly structured liquid droplets exhibiting a step-like structure

Do Artificial Riffles Enhance Nutrient Retention in Restored Streams?

Kickapoo Creek, a tributary of the Embarrass River in Central Illinois, has undergone a stream restoration that included the construction of two artificial riffles. These structures were designed to slow flood waters, increase channel and substrate stability, and increase habitat heterogeneity in a stream impacted by erosion and sediment deposition. They may also provide stable substrates that affect the algal community, leading to shifts in algal community composition, increases in the biomass of primary producers, and subsequent increases in nutrient retention. I explored the effects of the restoration on instream nutrient retention by measuring and comparing phosphate uptake lengths, velocities, and areal uptake in restored and unrestored reaches of Kickapoo Creek. I employed a pulse method with a mass balance approach to measure phosphate uptake dynamics. I also used single station in situ dissolved oxygen assays to measure gross primary productivity, and analyzed the relative concentrations of chlorophylls a, b, and c, as well as ash free dry masses of algal communities on different substrates such as sand, natural rocks, and restoration rip rap. I was able to demonstrate shorter uptake lengths, higher uptake velocities, greater areal uptake, and greater primary production in the restored reaches of the stream, suggesting that the restoration structures enhanced nutrient retention by increasing algal activity. Results of chlorophyll analysis demonstrated statistically significant differences in the quantity and relative ratios of chlorophylls a, b, and c on the different substrate types, suggesting that the stable substrates provided by the artificial riffles and bank stabilization rip rap enhance the growth of different algal taxa compared to the unstable sandy substrates found in unrestored reaches of the creek

Do Artificial Riffles Enhance Nutrient Retention in Restored Streams?

Kickapoo Creek, a tributary of the Embarrass River in Central Illinois, has undergone a stream restoration that included the construction of two artificial riffles. These structures were designed to slow flood waters, increase channel and substrate stability, and increase habitat heterogeneity in a stream impacted by erosion and sediment deposition. They may also provide stable substrates that affect the algal community, leading to shifts in algal community composition, increases in the biomass of primary producers, and subsequent increases in nutrient retention. I explored the effects of the restoration on instream nutrient retention by measuring and comparing phosphate uptake lengths, velocities, and areal uptake in restored and unrestored reaches of Kickapoo Creek. I employed a pulse method with a mass balance approach to measure phosphate uptake dynamics. I also used single station in situ dissolved oxygen assays to measure gross primary productivity, and analyzed the relative concentrations of chlorophylls a, b, and c, as well as ash free dry masses of algal communities on different substrates such as sand, natural rocks, and restoration rip rap. I was able to demonstrate shorter uptake lengths, higher uptake velocities, greater areal uptake, and greater primary production in the restored reaches of the stream, suggesting that the restoration structures enhanced nutrient retention by increasing algal activity. Results of chlorophyll analysis demonstrated statistically significant differences in the quantity and relative ratios of chlorophylls a, b, and c on the different substrate types, suggesting that the stable substrates provided by the artificial riffles and bank stabilization rip rap enhance the growth of different algal taxa compared to the unstable sandy substrates found in unrestored reaches of the creek