Chronic pain assessments in children and adolescents : a systematic literature review of the selection, administration, interpretation, and reporting of unidimensional pain intensity scales

Background. Advances in pain assessment approaches now indicate which measures should be used to capture chronic pain experiences in children and adolescents. However, there is little guidance on how these tools should best be administered and reported, such as which time frames to use or how pain scores are categorised as mild, moderate, or severe. Objective. To synthesise current evidence on unidimensional, single-item pain intensity scale selection, administration, interpretation, and reporting. Methods. Databases were searched (inception: 18 January 2016) for studies in which unidimensional pain intensity assessments were used with children and adolescents with chronic pain. Ten quality criteria were developed by modifying existing recommendations to evaluate the quality of administration of pain scales most commonly used with children. Results. Forty-six studies met the inclusion criteria. The highest score achieved was 7 out of a possible 10 (median: 5; IQR: 4–6). Usage of scales varied markedly in administrator/completer, highest anchors, number of successive assessments, and time referent periods used. Conclusions. Findings suggest these scales are selected, administered, and interpreted inconsistently, even in studies of the same type. Furthermore, methods of administration are rarely reported or justified making it impossible to compare findings across studies. This article concludes by recommending criteria for the future reporting of paediatric chronic pain assessments in studies

‘It's like the bad guy in a movie who just doesn't die’ : a qualitative exploration of young people's adaptation to eczema and implications for self‐care

Background Eczema is a common childhood inflammatory skin condition, affecting more than one in five children. A popular perception is that children ‘outgrow eczema’, although epidemiological studies have shown that, for many, eczema follows a lifelong episodic course. Objectives To explore the perceptions of young people about the nature of their eczema and how these perceptions relate to their self‐care and adapting to living with eczema. Methods This is a secondary inductive thematic analysis of interviews conducted for Healthtalk.org. In total 23 interviews with young people with eczema were included. Of the 23 participants, 17 were female and six male, ranging from 17 to 25 years old. Results Participants generally experienced eczema as an episodic long‐term condition and reported a mismatch between information received about eczema and their experiences. The experience of eczema as long term and episodic had implications for self‐care, challenging the process of identifying triggers of eczema flare‐ups and evaluating the success of treatment regimens. Participants’ experiences of eczema over time also had implications for adaptation and finding a balance between accepting eczema as long term and hoping it would go away. This linked to a gradual shift in treatment expectations from ‘cure’ to ‘control’ of eczema. Conclusions For young people who continue to experience eczema beyond childhood, a greater focus on self‐care for a long‐term condition may be helpful. Greater awareness of the impact of early messages around ‘growing out of’ eczema and provision of high‐quality information may help patients to manage expectations and support adaptation to treatment regimens

Experimental and numerical analysis of supersonic blade profiles developed for highly loaded impulse type steam turbine stages

The paper describes the results of a numerical and experimental research program addressing the aerodynamic investigation on the performance of blade profiles specifically developed for application in highly loaded impulse type turbine stages. The industrial requirements driving toward the adoption of highly loaded stage solutions are presented, along with an estimation of the profiles operating parameters. Two stator vanes and one rotor blade profile have been developed and extensively tested by means of flow field measurements and schlieren visualization in a transonic blow-down wind tunnel for linear cascades. Experimental results for the relevant operating conditions are presented, providing validation data for the CFD model used for blade design and evidencing that the main goals of the design optimization procedure have been achieved

The GRAAL high resolution BGO calorimeter and its energy calibration and monitoring system

We describe the electromagnetic calorimeter built for the GRAAL apparatus at the ESRF. Its monitoring system is presented in detail. Results from tests and the performance obtained during the first GRAAL experiments are given. The energy calibration accuracy and stability reached is a small fraction of the intrinsic detector resolution.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, submitted to Nuclear Instruments and Method

Deuteron photo-disintegration with polarised photons in the energy range 30 - 50 MeV

The reaction d(\vec\gamma,np) has been studied using the tagged and polarised LADON gamma ray beam at an energy 30 - 50 MeV to investigate the existence of narrow dibaryonic resonances recently suggested from the experimental measurements in a different laboratory. The beam was obtained by Compton back-scattering of laser light on the electrons of the storage ring ADONE. Photo-neutron yields were measured at five neutron angle \vartheta_n = 22, 55.5, 90, 125 and 157 degrees in the center of mass system.Our results do not support the existence of such resonances.Comment: 16 pages, Latex, 22 figures, 1 table. Nucl. Phys. A to appea

Eta photoproduction off the neutron at GRAAL: Evidence for a resonant structure at W=1.67 GeV

New (preliminary) data on eta photoproduction off the neutron are presented. These data reveal a resonant structure at W=1.67 GeV.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Published in Proceedings of Workshop on the Physics of Excited Nucleons NSTAR2004, Grenoble, France, March 24 - 27, pg.19

Shedding New Light on Kaon-Nucleon/Nuclei Interaction and Its Astrophysical Implications with the AMADEUS Experiment at DAFNE

The AMADEUS experiment deals with the investigation of the low-energy kaon-nuclei hadronic interaction at the DA{\Phi}NE collider at LNF-INFN, which is fundamental to respond longstanding questions in the non-perturbative QCD strangeness sector. The antikaon-nucleon potential is investigated searching for signals from possible bound kaonic clusters, which would open the possibility for the formation of cold dense baryonic matter. The confirmation of this scenario may imply a fundamental role of strangeness in astrophysics. AMADEUS step 0 consisted in the reanalysis of 2004/2005 KLOE dataset, exploiting K- absorptions in H, 4He, 9Be and 12C in the setup materials. In this paper, together with a review on the multi-nucleon K- absorption and the particle identification procedure, the first results on the {\Sigma}0-p channel will be presented including a statistical analysis on the possible accomodation of a deeply bound stateComment: 6 pages, 2 figure, 1 table, HADRON 2015 conferenc