1,362 research outputs found
The School Improvement Partnership Programme: Using Collaboration and Enquiry to tackle Educational Inequity
No abstract available
Removable Partial Dentures for Older Adults.
Improvements in oral health including increased retention of natural teeth have given rise to a partially dentate older population. Replacement of missing natural teeth is important to improve function, aesthetics and quality of life for this patient group. A variety of options are available to replace missing teeth in partially dentate older adults, including fixed, removable and implant retained prostheses. This article will discuss the provision of removable partial dentures including treatment planning and denture design. When planning removable partial dentures, careful attention must be paid to stabilising the patient prior to delivering any prosthesis. Partial dentures should be designed to minimise the potential for plaque accumulation with carefully designed metal based frameworks. Acrylic resin can also be utilised with attention to detail to minimise the risk of damage to delicate supporting tissues. Removable dentures have the advantage that they can be readily added to in the event of further tooth loss which may be particularly relevant for older adults. Partial dentures which optimise support, retention and stability can function very successfully and significantly improve patients' oral health related quality of life
Measuring progess on diet-related NCD's: the need to address the causes of the causes
WHO has developed nine voluntary global monitoring targets and 25 indicators to assess progress in the implementation of national strategies to achieve the global political commitment to reduce the probability of dying from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) for people aged 30â70 years, by 25% by 2025.1,2 Robert Beaglehole and colleagues (Oct 13, p 1283)3 argue that it is better to focus on two of the population-wide targets: tobacco control and dietary salt reduction, and the treatment target, and that the targets should be reported according to socioeconomic status and gender.Department of HE and Training approved lis
Noisy Monte Carlo: Convergence of Markov chains with approximate transition kernels
Monte Carlo algorithms often aim to draw from a distribution by
simulating a Markov chain with transition kernel such that is
invariant under . However, there are many situations for which it is
impractical or impossible to draw from the transition kernel . For instance,
this is the case with massive datasets, where is it prohibitively expensive to
calculate the likelihood and is also the case for intractable likelihood models
arising from, for example, Gibbs random fields, such as those found in spatial
statistics and network analysis. A natural approach in these cases is to
replace by an approximation . Using theory from the stability of
Markov chains we explore a variety of situations where it is possible to
quantify how 'close' the chain given by the transition kernel is to
the chain given by . We apply these results to several examples from spatial
statistics and network analysis.Comment: This version: results extended to non-uniformly ergodic Markov chain
The intermediate-age open cluster NGC 2112
We report on CCD photometry of a field centered on the region of the
intermediate-age open cluster NGC 2112 down to V=21. Due to the smaller field
coverage, we are able to limit the effect of field star contamination which
hampered in the past precise determinations of the cluster age and distance.
This way, we provide updated estimates of NGC 2112 fundamental parameters.
Having extended the photometry to the pass-band, we are able to construct a
colour-colour diagram, from which we infer a reddening
mag. The comparison of the Colour-Magnitude Diagram (CMD) with theoretical
isochrones leads to a distance of pc, and an age of
Gyr. While the distance is in agreement with previous determinations, the age
turns out to be much better constrained and significantly lower than previous
estimates.Comment: 7 pages, 7 eps figures, in press in MNRA
Social determinants in an Australian urban region: A 'complexity' lens
This item is under embargo for a period of 12 months from the date of publication, in accordance with the publisher's policy.
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Health Promotion International following peer review. The version of record [Fisher, M., Milos, D., Baum, F., & Friel, S (2014) Social determinants in an Australian urban region: a âcomplexityâ lens, Health Promotion International] is available online at: doi: 10.1093/heapro/dau071Area-based strategies have been widely employed in efforts to improve population health and take action on social determinants of health (SDH) and health inequities; including in urban areas where many of the social, economic and environmental factors converge to influence health. Increasingly, these factors are recognised as being part of a complex system, where population health outcomes are shaped by multiple, interacting factors operating at different levels of social organisation. This article reports on research to assess the extent to which an alliance of health and human service networks is able to promote action on SDH within an Australian urban region; using a complex systems frame. We found that such an alliance was able to promote some effective action which takes into account complex interactions between social factors affecting health, but also identified significant potential barriers to other forms of desired action identified by alliance members. We found that a complex systems lens was useful in assessing a collaborative intervention to address SDH within an urban region.
Key words:
Complex systems, urban health, social determinants of health, collaboratio
Old open clusters in the outer Galactic disk
The outer parts of the Milky Way disk are believed to be one of the main
arenas where the accretion of external material in the form of dwarf galaxies
and subsequent formation of streams is taking place. The Monoceros stream and
the Canis Major and Argo over-densities are notorious examples. VLT high
resolution spectra have been acquired for five distant open clusters. We derive
accurate radial velocities to distinguish field interlopers and cluster
members. For the latter we perform a detailed abundance analysis and derive the
iron abundance [Fe/H] and the abundance ratios of several elements.
Our analysis confirms previous indications that the radial abundance gradient
in the outer Galactic disk does not follow the expectations extrapolated from
the solar vicinity, but exhibits a shallower slope. By combining the
metallicity of the five program clusters with eight more clusters for which
high resolution spectroscopy is available, we find that the mean metallicity in
the outer disk between 12 and 21 kpc from the Galactic center is [Fe/H]
, with only marginal indications for a radial variation. In
addition, all the program clusters exhibit solar scaled or slightly enhanced
elements, similar to open clusters in the solar vicinity and thin disk
stars. We investigate whether this outer disk cluster sample might belong to an
extra-galactic population, like the Monoceros ring. However, close scrutiny of
their properties - location, kinematics and chemistry - does not convincingly
favor this hypothesis. On the contrary, they appear more likely genuine
Galactic disk clusters. We finally stress the importance to obtain proper
motion measurements for these clusters to constrain their orbits.Comment: 19 pages, 9 eps figure, in press in A&A, abstract rephrased to fit i
Open clusters as key tracers of Galactic chemical evolution. III. Element abundances in Berkeley 20, Berkeley 29, Collinder 261, and Melotte 66
Galactic open clusters are since long recognized as one of the best tools for
investigating the radial distribution of iron and other metals. We employed
FLAMES at VLT to collect UVES spectra of bright giant stars in a large sample
of open clusters, spanning a wide range of Galactocentric distances, ages, and
metallicities. We present here the results for four clusters: Berkeley 20 and
Berkeley 29, the two most distant clusters in the sample; Collinder 261, the
oldest and the one with the minimum Galactocentric distance; Melotte 66.
Equivalent width analysis was carried out using the spectral code MOOG and
Kurucz model atmospheres to derive abundances of Fe, Al, Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, Cr,
Ni, Ba; non-LTE Na abundances were derived by direct line-profile fitting. We
obtain subsolar metallicities for the two anticenter clusters Be 20
([Fe/H]=-0.30, rms=0.02) and Be 29 ([Fe/H]=-0.31, rms=0.03), and for Mel 66
([Fe/H]=-0.33, rms=0.03), located in the third Galactic quadrant, while Cr 261,
located toward the Galactic center, has higher metallicity ([Fe/H]=+0.13,
rms=0.05 dex). The alpha-elements Si, Ca and Ti, and the Fe-peak elements Cr
and Ni are in general close to solar; the s-process element Ba is enhanced.
Non-LTE computations of Na abundances indicate solar scaled values, suggesting
that the enhancement in Na previously determined in giants in open clusters
could be due to neglected non-LTE effects. Our results support the presence of
a steep negative slope of the Fe radial gradient up to about 10-11 kpc from the
Galactic center, while in the outer disk the [Fe/H] distribution seems flat.
All the elemental ratios measured are in very good agreement with those found
for disk stars of similar metallicity and no trend with Galactocentric distance
seems to be present.Comment: Accepted for publication on A&
Element abundances in the metal rich open cluster NGC6253
We have carried out a big FLAMES survey of 10 Galactic open clusters aiming
at different goals. One of them is the determination of chemical abundances, in
order to put constraints on the radial metallicity gradient in the disk and its
evolution. One of the sample clusters is the very metal rich NGC 6253. We have
obtained UVES high resolution spectra of seven candidate cluster members (from
the turn off up to the red clump) with the goal of determining the chemical
composition of NGC 6253 and to investigate its origin and role in the
interpretation of the radial metallicity gradient in the disk. Equivalent width
analysis and spectral synthesis were performed using MOOG and Kurucz model
atmospheres. We derived abundances of Fe, alpha- and Fe-peak elements, the
light element Na and the s-process element Ba. Excluding two likely non-members
and the clump giant, whose metallicity from equivalent widths is overestimated,
we find an average [Fe/H]=+0.36+/-0.07 (rms) for the cluster. For most of the
other elements we derive solar abundance ratios.Comment: accepted by A&A (02/01/2007), 21 pages, 11 ps figure
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