Designing with Care - Interior Design and Residential Child Care Final Report

This exploratory study examined the attitudes to a range of design interventions in four residential care homes for children in South Lanarkshire. The project set out to identify the benefits and disadvantages to young people and staff of a change in approach to the design of interior spaces. It was undertaken by Farm7 (specialists in design research and consultancy) and the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care (SIRCC). The main focus of the research was to evaluate design interventions aimed at removing 'institutional' approaches to design in the care environment and improving the experience of looked after children. This involved the commissioning of interior design consultants Graven Images in the development and design of South Lanarkshire's residential children's homes. Post-occupancy evaluation of the four residential homes was undertaken with the participation of both looked after children and staff. It was envisaged that this study would contribute to the development of design guidance that will promote a more systematic approach to the design of care environments. This will allow social work and design professionals to draw on a design framework in order to significantly enhance the experience of looked after children and staff

Occasional Paper No. 24: Review of the National Sexual Health IT System (NaSH) in Scotland: the potential for sexual health research

Background: Specialist sexual health settings present specific challenges to electronic record systems, including enhanced requirements from patients for discretion, anonymity, and rapid turn around. A number of international sexual health settings have pioneered bespoke electronic patient record (EPR) systems, and the National Sexual Health (NaSH) electronic clinical record system has been rolled out across specialist sexual health services in Scotland. The data collected could present a rich resource and here we discuss the key issues to address in the routine use of NaSH data for sexual health research. The intended audience for this report is primarily those in Scotland who are using, responsible for, or have the potential need to access, NaSH data, but the report will have wider relevance to those interested in sexual e-health.<p></p> Methods: Scoping review in three stages: a policy review of NaSH documentation; a review of EPR issues reported by an international selection of clinics known to be using computerized clinical systems; and a review of more general methodological issues related to the use of EPR.<p></p> Results: NaSH entails a data set with over 700,000 patients and more than 300,000 attendances recorded annually. Data include medical, family and sexual history, reproductive health and contraception, social and lifestyle factors, test requests/results, patient actions/recalls, prescriptions, symptoms, physical examination details, partner notification, and referrals. NaSH allows patientcentred choice of whether to use an anonymous identifier or CHI number, which could facilitate record linkage. Key issues in the use of the data are: data collection and completeness; storage and retrieval; and research governance. An anonymised data view has been created, but not all NHS boards complete all data fields, and even though minimum input criteria have been established, use of NaSH in real time has been problematic and variable. The data view only reflects current, visible data, and while episode-based data remain true, lifetime sexuality and smoking status, for example, can change over time, and the ‘original’ or preceding data are written over; precluding any longitudinal analysis. Similarly, longer term retention of NaSH data and availability to researchers out with the NHS are issues that have yet to be addressed.<p></p> Conclusions: Interrogating NaSH would enable research to make better use of existing sexual health data in Scotland, be cheaper than initiating large-scale surveys, and give access to high-risk populations, but would need to address conflict between the need for comprehensive and complete data for research purposes and the need for a routine clinical system to function in a routine way. Concerns over data collection, storage and retention should be considered within the context of the wider public health and research benefit.<p></p&gt

Adenovirus Mediated Gene Transfer of Skeletal Troponin C to Myocardium

Ischaemic heart disease and the syndrome of congestive cardiac failure are increasing in prevalence within western societies. The limitations of present day interventions are discussed. There is a need to identify new therapeutic targets and the potential of molecular genetic methods is discussed. Experimental data from transgenic mice expressing skeletal troponin C is considered together with data from substitution of troponin isoforms in isolated preparation. The function of cardiac troponin C is significantly affected by intracellular acidosis and this is largely responsible for the early decoupling of the calcium transient and contractile dysfunction. In comparison skeletal troponin C is relatively unaffected by moderate degrees of intracellular acidosis. This led to the hypothesis that by displacing a proportion of the cardiac troponin C with the skeletal isoform, there would be the possibility of rendering cardiac muscle relatively resistant to the effects of intracellular acidosis. Perhaps such altered myocardium would be able to contract for longer in conditions of ischaemia. Vectors for gene transfer are considered and the attractive properties of adenoviral vectors detailed. Routes by which to deliver vector to the heart are discussed and particular consideration is given to the intra-coronary injection of adenoviral vector. Chapter 3 deals with the production and quality assurance of replication defective adenoviral vectors. The "supernatant rescue assay" method to detect wild type contamination is discussed but not utilised. Further experiments depend on the adenoviral vector which is free of wild type contamination. Although virus was propagated from single plaques and the 15 viral DNA tested by restriction enzyme analysis, the possibility of wild type contamination remained. This was to undermine the value of the data from subsequent experiments. Chapter 4 details the failure of the Swan-Ganz method of viral delivery, which in part may have been due to contamination of vector by replication competent wild-type virus. A selective coronary injection method of vector delivery was achieved and then compared with an aortic cross-clamp method of vector delivery. The experimental design permitted a direct comparison of the efficiency of both methods. The selective coronary injection method was found to be more efficient. Neither method achieved adequate efficiency of gene transfer to allow investigation of genetically altered contractile physiology by means of a working heart preparation. The selective coronary injection method achieved foreign gene expression in up to 30% of myocytes in the trabeculae rich basal right ventricle. Pre-injection of serotonin before injection of low dose virus resulted in more myocardial damage than expected. The lack of a control group, injected with only vehicle, limited the value of these data. Chapter 7 details the results of physiological investigation of right ventricular trabeculae, isolated from rabbits following selective coronary injection of adenoviral vector encoding either beta-galactosidase or skeletal troponin C. The results are negative and the possible reasons discussed. The vector used for these experiments encoded a skeletal troponin C mutant where the final 9 amino-acids at the C-terminal had been deleted and replaced with a 12 amino-acid sequence which included a haemagglutinin antigen motif. In retrospect, confirmation of the integration of the gene product into the sarcomere should have been undertaken prior to proceeding to in vivo investigation. The final chapter places the results of this work in the context of a rapidly advancing field

Cobalt‐Catalysed, Ligand‐Controlled Regiodivergent Alkene Hydrosilylation

Alkene hydrosilylation is amongst the largest industrial homogenous catalysis processes. Cobalt catalysis offers a sustainable alternative to commonly used platinum catalysts to achieve this transformation. Using two bisiminopyridine cobalt(II) catalysts the regiodivergent hydrosilylation of alkenes has been developed. Variation of pre-catalyst activator and ligand substituents were investigated to enable the controlled, regiodivergent hydrosilylation of both aryl- and alkyl-substituted alkenes with phenylsilane. In contrast to other regiodivergence strategies, excellent regioselectivity for either isomer was achieved using the same ligand class but differing by a single methyl group (ethyl vs isopropyl)

Nucleophile induced ligand rearrangement reactions of alkoxy- and arylsilanes

The ligand-redistribution reactions of aryl- and alkoxy-hydrosilanes can potentially cause the formation of gaseous hydrosilanes, which are flammable and pyrophoric. The ability of generic nucleophiles to initiate the ligand-redistribution reaction of commonly used hydrosilane reagents was investigated, alongside methods to hinder and halt the formation of hazardous hydrosilanes. Our results show that the ligand-redistribution reaction can be completely inhibited by common electrophiles and first-row transition metal pre-catalysts

Association studies of up to 1.2 million individuals yield new insights into the genetic etiology of tobacco and alcohol use.

Tobacco and alcohol use are leading causes of mortality that influence risk for many complex diseases and disorders1. They are heritable2,3 and etiologically related4,5 behaviors that have been resistant to gene discovery efforts6-11. In sample sizes up to 1.2 million individuals, we discovered 566 genetic variants in 406 loci associated with multiple stages of tobacco use (initiation, cessation, and heaviness) as well as alcohol use, with 150 loci evidencing pleiotropic association. Smoking phenotypes were positively genetically correlated with many health conditions, whereas alcohol use was negatively correlated with these conditions, such that increased genetic risk for alcohol use is associated with lower disease risk. We report evidence for the involvement of many systems in tobacco and alcohol use, including genes involved in nicotinic, dopaminergic, and glutamatergic neurotransmission. The results provide a solid starting point to evaluate the effects of these loci in model organisms and more precise substance use measures

Computational modelling of inertia friction welding

This study details the development and validation of a finite element methodology to robustly simulate the inertia friction welding (IFW) process. There are many difficulties involved in modelling IFW. These include the short and violent process to complete a weld, as well as the challenges in obtaining experimental data throughout the process to complement, validate and inform the modelling effort. The objectives here are to model the macroscale multiphysical process leading to an accurate prediction of key process output variables, ultimately leading to a reliable method for predicting the post weld microstructure

Dialectics and difference: against Harvey's dialectical post-Marxism

David Harvey`s recent book, Justice, nature and the geography of difference (JNGD), engages with a central philosophical debate that continues to dominate human geography: the tension between the radical Marxist project of recent decades and the apparently disempowering relativism and `play of difference' of postmodern thought. In this book, Harvey continues to argue for a revised `post-Marxist' approach in human geography which remains based on Hegelian-Marxian principles of dialectical thought. This article develops a critique of that stance, drawing on the work of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. I argue that dialectical thinking, as well as Harvey's version of `post-Marxism', has been undermined by the wide-ranging `post-' critique. I suggest that Harvey has failed to appreciate the full force of this critique and the implications it has for `post-Marxist' ontology and epistemology. I argue that `post-Marxism', along with much contemporary human geography, is constrained by an inflexible ontology which excessively prioritizes space in the theory produced, and which implements inflexible concepts. Instead, using the insights of several `post-' writers, I contend there is a need to develop an ontology of `context' leading to the production of `contextual theories'. Such theories utilize flexible concepts in a multilayered understanding of ontology and epistemology. I compare how an approach which produces a `contextual theory' might lead to more politically empowering theory than `post-Marxism' with reference to one of Harvey's case studies in JNGD