Near-IR Spectra of Red Supergiants and Giants. I- Models with Solar and with Mixing-Induced Surface Abundance Ratios

We provide a grid of PHOENIX spectra of red giant and supergiant stars, that extend through optical and near-IR wavelengths. For the first time, models are also provided with modified surface abundances of C, N and O, as a step towards accounting for the changes known to occur due to convective dredge-up (and to be enhanced in the case of rotation). The aims are (i) to assess how well current models reproduce observed spectra, (ii) to quantify the effects of the abundance changes on the spectra, and (iii) to determine how these changes affect estimates of fundamental stellar parameters. Observed giant star spectra can be fitted very well at solar metallicity down to about 3400K. Modified surface abundances are preferred in only a minority of cases for luminosity class II, possibly indicating mixing in excess of standard first dredge-up. Supergiant stars show a larger variety of near-IR spectra, and good fits are currently obtained for about one third of the observations only. Modified surface abundances help reproducing strong CN bands, but do not suffice to resolve all the difficulties. The effect of the abundance changes on the estimated Teff depends on the wavelength range of observation and can amount several 100K. Reasons for the remaining discrepancies are discussed.Comment: To be published in A&A. 19 p., 35 postscript figures, uses aa.cls. Selected model spectra available through CD

The Emerging Scholarly Brain

It is now a commonplace observation that human society is becoming a coherent super-organism, and that the information infrastructure forms its emerging brain. Perhaps, as the underlying technologies are likely to become billions of times more powerful than those we have today, we could say that we are now building the lizard brain for the future organism.Comment: to appear in Future Professional Communication in Astronomy-II (FPCA-II) editors A. Heck and A. Accomazz

Dementia-friendly interventions to improve the care of people living with dementia admitted to hospitals: a realist review

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Objectives: To identify features of programmes and approaches to make healthcare delivery in secondary healthcare settings more dementia friendly, providing a context-relevant understanding of how interventions achieve outcomes for people living with dementia. Design: A realist review conducted in three phases (1) stakeholder interviews and scoping of the literature to develop an initial programme theory for providing effective dementia care; (2) structured retrieval and extraction of evidence; (3) analysis and synthesis to build and refine the programme theory. Data sources: PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, NHS Evidence, Scopus, grey literature. Eligibility criteria: Studies reporting interventions and approaches to make hospital environments more dementia friendly. Studies not reporting patient outcomes or contributing to the programme theory were excluded. Results: Phase 1 combined findings from 15 stakeholder interviews and 22 publications to develop candidate programme theories. Phases 2 and 3 identified and synthesised evidence from 28 publications. Prominent context-mechanism-outcome configurations were identified to explain what supported dementia-friendly healthcare in acute settings. Staff capacity to understand the behaviours of people living with dementia as communication of an unmet need, combined with a recognition and valuing of their role in their care prompted changes to care practices. Endorsement from senior management gave staff confidence and permission to adapt working practices to provide good dementia care. Key contextual factors were the availability of staff and an alignment of ward priorities to value person-centred care approaches. Preoccupation with risk generated responses that were likely to restrict patient choice and increase their distress. Conclusions: This review suggests strategies such as dementia awareness training alone will not improve dementia care or outcomes for patients with dementia. Instead, how staff are supported to implement learning and resources by senior team members with dementia expertise is a key component for improving care practices and patient outcomes. PROSPERO Trial Registration Number: CRD42015017562Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Clivus Composting Toilet Systems at Flag Staff Lake

Clivus Multrum composting toilet systems have been used in homes, parks and commercial buildings as the sole method of treating toilet waste. The composting process is reliable, convenient and safe. Its results are both conservative and productive; water is saved from use as a carriage medium and the fertilizer content in excreta is made available for reuse. The Clivus composting toilet uses aerobic decomposition to slowly break down both urine and feces into stable compounds within the polyethylene composting unit. Our poster will outline the technology and economics behind a Clivus system as part of the course Joules to Dollars

Cannabidiol regulation of learned fear: implications for treating anxiety-related disorders

Anxiety and trauma-related disorders are psychiatric diseases with a lifetime prevalence of up to 25%. Phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterized by abnormal and persistent memories of fear-related contexts and cues. The effects of psychological treatments such as exposure therapy are often only temporary and medications can be ineffective and have adverse side effects. Growing evidence from human and animal studies indicates that cannabidiol, the main non-psychotomimetic phytocannabinoid present in Cannabis sativa, alleviates anxiety in paradigms assessing innate fear. More recently, the effects of cannabidiol on learned fear have been investigated in preclinical studies with translational relevance for phobias and PTSD. Here we review the findings from these studies, with an emphasis on cannabidiol regulation of contextual fear. The evidence indicates that cannabidiol reduces learned fear in different ways: (1) cannabidiol decreases fear expression acutely, (2) cannabidiol disrupts memory reconsolidation, leading to sustained fear attenuation upon memory retrieval, and (3) cannabidiol enhances extinction, the psychological process by which exposure therapy inhibits learned fear. We also present novel data on cannabidiol regulation of learned fear related to explicit cues, which indicates that auditory fear expression is also reduced acutely by cannabidiol. We conclude by outlining future directions for research to elucidate the neural circuit, psychological, cellular, and molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of fear memory processing by cannabidiol. This line of investigation may lead to the development of cannabidiol as a novel therapeutic approach for treating anxiety and trauma-related disorders such as phobias and PTSD in the future

Asteroseismology and Interferometry

Asteroseismology provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Recent developments, including the first systematic studies of solar-like pulsators, have boosted the impact of this field of research within Astrophysics and have led to a significant increase in the size of the research community. In the present paper we start by reviewing the basic observational and theoretical properties of classical and solar-like pulsators and present results from some of the most recent and outstanding studies of these stars. We centre our review on those classes of pulsators for which interferometric studies are expected to provide a significant input. We discuss current limitations to asteroseismic studies, including difficulties in mode identification and in the accurate determination of global parameters of pulsating stars, and, after a brief review of those aspects of interferometry that are most relevant in this context, anticipate how interferometric observations may contribute to overcome these limitations. Moreover, we present results of recent pilot studies of pulsating stars involving both asteroseismic and interferometric constraints and look into the future, summarizing ongoing efforts concerning the development of future instruments and satellite missions which are expected to have an impact in this field of research.Comment: Version as published in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review, Volume 14, Issue 3-4, pp. 217-36

Health-seeking behaviours of older black women living with non-communicable diseases in an urban township in South Africa

BACKGROUND: Various studies have shown that non-communicable diseases (NCDs) especially diabetes and hypertension are prevalent among older women living in South African urban areas, placing a heavy burden on the healthcare system. This study aimed to understand the health-seeking behaviour, healthcare practices and prevalence of traditional herbal medicine (THM) use among older women self-reporting NCDs from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology study (PURE). METHOD: A homogenous purposive sampling of PURE participants was used to recruit women who were 50 years or older (n = 250). Descriptive statistics were used to examine the number of NCDs reported by the study sample, health seeking behaviour and practices as well as THM use. Logistic regression was also employed to investigate possible associations between reported conditions and THM use or medical pluralism. RESULTS: Within the study sample, 72 % self-reported an NCD. Of those with self-reported NCDs, 46 % had one, and 54 % had two or more NCDs. Those with NCDs usually visited public clinics (80 %), relied on doctors (90 %) and nurses (85 %) for health information, and mostly used conventional medicine (CM) to manage high blood pressure (81 %). About 30 % of those with NCDs indicated using THM, of whom 29 (53 %) reported practicing medical pluralism. Participants with dental problems (OR: 3.24, 95 % CI: 1.30–8.20), headaches (OR: 2.42, 95 % CI: 1.24–4.94), heart burn (OR: 2.30, 95 % CI: 1.18–4.48) and severe tiredness (OR: 2.05, 95 % CI: 1.08–3.99) were more likely to use THM. Anxiety and allergies increased the likelihood to practise medical pluralism by five and 20 times, respectively. CONCLUSION: Self-reported NCD with co-morbidities was prevalent among the participants in the study. Most of the study participants utilized state-owned clinics and hospitals for the management of their chronic conditions. THM use was not very common. However, among those who used THM, medical pluralism was prevalent. Family history was the most common reason for THM use, with many THM patrons utilizing these for treatment of a health condition. Older black women with anxiety and allergies were more likely to practise medical pluralism

Outpatient costs in pharmaceutically treated diabetes patients with and without a diagnosis of depression in a Dutch primary care setting

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To assess differences in outpatient costs among pharmaceutically treated diabetes patients with and without a diagnosis of depression in a Dutch primary care setting.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A retrospective case control study over 3 years (2002-2004). Data on 7128 depressed patients and 23772 non-depressed matched controls were available from the electronic medical record system of 20 general practices organized in one large primary care organization in the Netherlands. A total of 393 depressed patients with diabetes and 494 non-depressed patients with diabetes were identified in these records. The data that were extracted from the medical record system concerned only outpatient costs, which included GP care, referrals, and medication.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mean total outpatient costs per year in depressed diabetes patients were €1039 (SD 743) in the period 2002-2004, which was more than two times as high as in non-depressed diabetes patients (€492, SD 434). After correction for age, sex, type of insurance, diabetes treatment, and comorbidity, the difference in total annual costs between depressed and non-depressed diabetes patients changed from €408 (uncorrected) to €463 (corrected) in multilevel analyses. Correction for comorbidity had the largest impact on the difference in costs between both groups.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Outpatient costs in depressed patients with diabetes are substantially higher than in non-depressed patients with diabetes even after adjusting for confounders. Future research should investigate whether effective treatment of depression among diabetes patients can reduce health care costs in the long term.</p

Are all ‘research fields’ equal? Rethinking practice for the use of data from crowd-sourcing market places

New technologies like large-scale social media sides (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) and crowdsourcing services (e.g., Amazon Mechanical Turk, Crowdflower, Clickworker) impact social science research and provide many new and interesting avenues for research. The use of these new technologies for research has not been without challenges and a recently published psychological study on Facebook led to a widespread discussion on the ethics of conducting large-scale experiments online. Surprisingly little has been said about the ethics of conducting research using commercial crowdsourcing market places. In this paper, I want to focus on the question of which ethical questions are raised by data collection with crowdsourcing tools. I briefly draw on implications of internet research more generally and then focus on the specific challenges that research with crowdsourcing tools faces. I identify fair-pay and related issues of respect for autonomy as well as problems with power dynamics between researcher and participant, which has implications for ‘withdrawal-withoutprejudice’, as the major ethical challenges with crowdsourced data. Further, I will to draw attention on how we can develop a ‘best practice’ for researchers using crowdsourcing tools

A systematic review of the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pharmacological and psychological interventions for the management of obsessive–compulsive disorder in children/adolescents and adults

Background: Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a relatively common and disabling condition. Objectives: To determine the clinical effectiveness, acceptability and cost-effectiveness of pharmacological and psychological interventions for the treatment of OCD in children, adolescents and adults. Data sources: We searched the Cochrane Collaboration Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis Trials Registers, which includes trials from routine searches of all the major databases. Searches were conducted from inception to 31 December 2014. Review methods: We undertook a systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA) of the clinical effectiveness and acceptability of available treatments. Outcomes for effectiveness included mean differences in the total scores of the Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale or its children’s version and total dropouts for acceptability. For the cost-effectiveness analysis, we developed a probabilistic model informed by the results of the NMA. All analyses were performed using OpenBUGS version 3.2.3 (members of OpenBUGS Project Management Group; see www.openbugs.net). Results: We included 86 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in our systematic review. In the NMA we included 71 RCTs (54 in adults and 17 in children and adolescents) for effectiveness and 71 for acceptability (53 in adults and 18 in children and adolescents), comprising 7643 and 7942 randomised patients available for analysis, respectively. In general, the studies were of medium quality. The results of the NMA showed that in adults all selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and clomipramine had greater effects than drug placebo. There were no differences between SSRIs, and a trend for clomipramine to be more effective did not reach statistical significance. All active psychological therapies had greater effects than drug placebo. Behavioural therapy (BT) and cognitive therapy (CT) had greater effects than psychological placebo, but cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) did not. BT and CT, but not CBT, had greater effects than medications, but there are considerable uncertainty and methodological limitations that should be taken into account. In children and adolescents, CBT and BT had greater effects than drug placebo, but differences compared with psychological placebo did not reach statistical significance. SSRIs as a class showed a trend for superiority over drug placebo, but the difference did not reach statistical significance. However, the superiority of some individual drugs (fluoxetine, sertraline) was marginally statistically significant. Regarding acceptability, all interventions except clomipramine had good tolerability. In adults, CT and BT had the highest probability of being most cost-effective at conventional National Institute for Health and Care Excellence thresholds. In children and adolescents, CBT or CBT combined with a SSRI were more likely to be cost-effective. The results are uncertain and sensitive to assumptions about treatment effect and the exclusion of trials at high risk of bias. Limitations: The majority of psychological trials included patients who were taking medications. There were few studies in children and adolescents. Conclusions: In adults, psychological interventions, clomipramine, SSRIs or combinations of these are all effective, whereas in children and adolescents, psychological interventions, either as monotherapy or combined with specific SSRIs, were more likely to be effective. Future RCTs should improve their design, in particular for psychotherapy or combined interventions. Study registration: The study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42012002441. Funding details: The National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment programme