A service evaluation of parent adherence with dysphagia management therapy guidelines: Reports from family carers supporting children with complex needs in Greece

Purpose: Many children with complex needs exhibit eating, drinking and/or swallowing disorders (dysphagia). These children often have associated learning needs, and require assistance from carers for daily tasks such as eating and drinking. The aim of this study was to identify which strategies to manage dysphagia were challenging for family carers, and reasons for any non-adherence. Method: In this service evaluation researchers observed carers during mealtimes, and investigated carer opinions of strategies used to minimise the risks of dysphagia. Eight children with complex needs aged 3.4 - 7.5 years and their primary family caregiver participated. Results: Adherence with speech and language pathologists’ dysphagia recommendations overall was over 50% in all but one case. For specific strategies, the highest adherence was observed for diet modifications of foods (89%), communication during the mealtime (83%), amount of food to present (81%) and the pacing of fluids and foods (81%). Lower levels of adherence were identified in relation to postural management (58%), environmental changes (58%), utensils (56%) and preparatory strategies (49%). Conclusion: Adherence with use of strategies to support mealtimes was over 50% in all but one case. Findings suggest that support is essential in order to promote safe mealtimes, reduce family carers’ stress and increase knowledge, confidence and adherence in implementing dysphagia guidelines in the family home

Foster-Miller's development of dry coal feed systems

Dry coal feeder systems developed for pressurized conversion processes were carried through a laboratory scale development program. These concepts include: (1) a centrifugal solids feeder; (2) a fluidized piston feeder; (3) a linear pocket feeder; and (4) a compacted coal plug feeder. Results of laboratory model testing of all concepts are reviewed

Using non-nutritive sucking to support feeding development for premature infants: A commentary on approaches and current practice

Non-nutritive sucking is often used with premature infants by either using a pacifier or an expressed breast nipple to support the introduction and development of early oral feeding. The pattern of non-nutritive sucking is distinct in that it involves two sucks per second in contrast to nutritive sucking which is one suck per second. Although some literature has identified that non-nutritive sucking has some benefit for the premature infant’s feeding development, it is not entirely clear why such an approach is helpful as neurologically, activation of non-nutritive and nutritive skills are different. A summary is presented of the main approaches that use non-nutritive sucking with reference to the literature. This paper also considers other factors and beneficial approaches to managing the introduction of infant feeding. These are: the infant’s toleration of enteral feeds pre oral trials, overall development and gestational age when introducing oral experiences, developing swallowing skills before sucking, physiological stability, health status, as well as the development and interpretation of infant oral readiness signs and early communication

The Effect of Statutory Rape Laws on Teen Birth Rates

Policymakers have often been explicit in expanding statutory rape laws to reduce teenage pregnancies and live births by teenage mothers, often with the goal of reducing associated welfare outlays. In this paper, we explore whether expansions in such laws are indeed associated with reductions in teen birth rates. In order to codify statutory-rape-law expansions, we use a national micro-level sample of sexual encounters to simulate the degree to which such encounters generally implicate the relevant laws. By codifying statutory-rape laws in terms of their potential reach into sexual encounters, as opposed to using crude binary treatment variables, this simulation approach facilitates the use of multi-state difference-in-difference designs in the face of highly heterogeneous legal structures. Our results suggest that live birth rates for teenage mothers fall by roughly 4.5 percent (or 0.1 percentage points) upon a 1 standard-deviation increase in the share of sexual activity among a given age group that triggers a felony for the elder party to the encounter. This response, however, is highly heterogeneous across ages and weakens notably in the case of the older teen years. Furthermore, we do not find strong results suggesting a further decline in birth rates upon increases in punishment severities

Probing millisecond pulsar emission geometry using light curves from the Fermi Large Area Telescope

An interesting new high-energy pulsar sub-population is emerging following early discoveries of gamma-ray millisecond pulsars (MSPs) by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). We present results from 3D emission modeling, including the Special Relativistic effects of aberration and time-of-flight delays and also rotational sweepback of B-field lines, in the geometric context of polar cap (PC), outer gap (OG), and two-pole caustic (TPC) pulsar models. In contrast to the general belief that these very old, rapidly-rotating neutron stars (NSs) should have largely pair-starved magnetospheres due to the absence of significant pair production, we find that most of the light curves are best fit by TPC and OG models, which indicates the presence of narrow accelerating gaps limited by robust pair production -- even in these pulsars with very low spin-down luminosities. The gamma-ray pulse shapes and relative phase lags with respect to the radio pulses point to high-altitude emission being dominant for all geometries. We also find exclusive differentiation of the current gamma-ray MSP population into two MSP sub-classes: light curve shapes and lags across wavebands impose either pair-starved PC (PSPC) or TPC / OG-type geometries. In the first case, the radio pulse has a small lag with respect to the single gamma-ray pulse, while the (first) gamma-ray peak usually trails the radio by a large phase offset in the latter case. Finally, we find that the flux correction factor as a function of magnetic inclination and observer angles is typically of order unity for all models. Our calculation of light curves and flux correction factor for the case of MSPs is therefore complementary to the "ATLAS paper" of Watters et al. for younger pulsars.Comment: 51 pages, 23 figures, 3 tables; low-resolution figures; accepted for publication by Ap

Response of a one-dimensional Vlasov plasma to external electric fields

Numerical results of calculated response of collisionless electron plasma to externally imposed electric fiel

Pulsar emission in the very-high-energy regime

The vast majority of the pulsars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) display spectra with exponential cutoffs falling in a narrow range around a few GeV. Early spectral modelling predicted spectral cutoff energies of up to 100 GeV. More modern studies estimated spectral cutoff energies in the 1-20 GeV range. It was therefore not expected that pulsars would be visible in the very-high-energy (VHE; >100 GeV) regime. The VERITAS detection (confirmed by MAGIC) of pulsed emission from the Crab pulsar up to 400 GeV (and now possibly up to 1 TeV) therefore raised important questions about our understanding of the electrodynamics and local environment of pulsars. H.E.S.S. has now detected pulsed emission from the Vela pulsar in the 20-120 GeV range, making this the second pulsar detected by a ground-based Cherenkov telescope. We will review the latest developments in VHE pulsar science, including an overview of recent observations and refinements to radiation models and magnetic field structures. This will assist us in interpreting the VHE emission detected from the Crab and Vela pulsars, and predicting the level of VHE emission expected from other pulsars, which will be very important for the upcoming CTA.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, "To appear in the Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on High Energy Astrophysics in Southern Africa (HEASA2015), 18-20 June 2015, Johannesburg, South Africa, Eds. M. Boettcher, D. Buckley, S. Colafrancesco, P. Meintjes and S. Razzaque.

Commentary on Experiential Learning: Changing student attitudes towards learning disabilities

Purpose: This paper provides some thoughts following on from reading: Experiential Learning: Changing students’ attitudes towards learning disabilities. Design/methodology/approach: This commentary outlines some considerations for the continued development of using service users in tertiary education as educators. Findings: The literature is not clear on the involvement of people with more profound and multiple learning disabilities, or for those who do not use much spoken language in tertiary level teaching. Originality/value: A further cultural shift is needed to ensure that all people with learning disabilities regardless of their communication style have the opportunity to share their experiences within a teaching and learning context