Children as partners with adults in their medical care

Aims: To investigate the seldom published views of children with type 1 diabetes about their condition and ways in which they share in managing their medical and health care with adults. Methods: Semi-structured, tape recorded interviews, during 2003, with a purposive sample of 24 children aged 3–12 years who have type I diabetes and who attend two inner London hospitals and one hospital in a commuter town. Results: The children reported high levels of understanding, knowledge, and skill gained from their experience of living with diabetes and constantly having to take account of the condition and their paediatrician’s guidance. Their key goals were to be “normal” and “just get on with their lives”. Discussion: The interviews showed that children’s experiences of diabetes tended to enable them to make informed, “wise” decisions in their own best interests, even at a young age. They achieved a complicated balance between the sometimes competing goals of social health “being normal” and physiological health in controlling glycaemia. Their competence supports approaches in children’s rights and in policy makers’ aims that people with diabetes—including children—gain more knowledge, skills, and responsibility for their own care in partnership with healthcare professionals. Consent is usually considered in relation to surgery; however the children showed how they constantly dealt with decisions about consent or refusal, compliance with, or resistance to their prescribed treatment. Their health depends on their informed commitment to medical guidance; more research is needed about the daily realities of children’s committed and responsible co-management of their chronic illness

High Q BPS Monopole Bags are Urchins

It has been known for 30 years that 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles of charge Q greater than one cannot be spherically symmetric. 5 years ago, Bolognesi conjectured that, at some point in their moduli space, BPS monopoles can become approximately spherically symmetric in the high Q limit. In this note we determine the sense in which this conjecture is correct. We consider an SU(2) gauge theory with an adjoint scalar field, and numerically find configurations with Q units of magnetic charge and a mass which is roughly linear in Q, for example in the case Q=81 we present a configuration whose energy exceeds the BPS bound by about 54 percent. These approximate solutions are constructed by gluing together Q cones, each of which contains a single unit of magnetic charge. In each cone, the energy is largest in the core, and so a constant energy density surface contains Q peaks and thus resembles a sea urchin. We comment on some relations between a non-BPS cousin of these solutions and the dark matter halos of dwarf spherical galaxies.Comment: LaTeX, 25 pages, 4 figure

Spiral Growth Manufacturing (SGM) – A Continuous Additive Manufacturing Technology for Processing Metal Powder by Selective Laser Melting

Spiral growth manufacturing is a new innovative powder based rapid manufacturing technique. The innovation exists in the methodology in which powder layers are deposited. Unlike other pre-placed powder systems, the deposited layers move relative to the location at which they are processed. This is made possible by a rotating build drum into which powder is deposited, in spiralled layers, from a stationary hopper. With this configuration powder can be continuously deposited and levelled and simultaneously processed, eliminating delays in the build cycle. Stainless steel and cobalt-chrome powder is selectively melted using a 100W flash lamp pumped Nd:YAG laser. This paper reports on factors affecting build rate and on build strategies for creating a number of axis-symmetric thin and thick walled cylinders. Experimental results suggest that build rate for thin walled structures bonded to a substrate will ultimately be governed by tangential movements of the powder particles when frictional forces are not sufficient to accelerate the particles along a curved path, provided that enough laser power is available for melting. Even melt pool balling, which is evident when melting one layer at high speeds, diminishes in multiple layer builds due to re-melting and infilling.Mechanical Engineerin

Kink Chains from Instantons on a Torus

We describe how the procedure of calculating approximate solitons from instanton holonomies may be extended to the case of soliton crystals. It is shown how sine-Gordon kink chains may be obtained from CP1 instantons on a torus. These kink chains turn out to be remarkably accurate approximations to the true solutions. Some remarks on the relevance of this work to Skyrme crystals are also made.Comment: latex 17 pages, DAMTP 94-7

The moduli space metric for tetrahedrally symmetric 4-monopoles

The metric on the moduli space of SU(2) charge four BPS monopoles with tetrahedral symmetry is calculated using numerical methods. In the asymptotic region, in which the four monopoles are located on the vertices of a large tetrahedron, the metric is in excellent agreement with the point particle metric. We find that the four monopoles are accelerated through the cubic monopole configuration and compute the time advance. Numerical evidence is presented for a remarkable equivalence between a proper distance in the 4-monopole moduli space and a related proper distance in the point particle moduli space

Drape optimization in woven composites manufacture.

This paper addresses the optimisation of forming in manufacturing of composites. A simplified finite element model of draping is developed and implemented. The model incorporates the non-linear shear response of textiles and wrinkling due to buckling of tows. The model is validated against experimental results and it is concluded that it reproduces successfully the most important features of the process. The simple character of the model results in low computational times that allow its use within an optimisation procedure. A genetic algorithm is used to solve the optimisation problem of minimising the wrinkling in the formed component by selecting a suitable holding force distribution. The effect of regularisation is investigated and the L-curve is used to select a regularisation parameter value. Optimised designs resulting from the inversion procedure have significantly lower wrinkling than uniform holding force profiles, while regularisation allows force gradients to be kept relatively low so that suggested process designs are feasible

Automated verification of refinement laws

Demonic refinement algebras are variants of Kleene algebras. Introduced by von Wright as a light-weight variant of the refinement calculus, their intended semantics are positively disjunctive predicate transformers, and their calculus is entirely within first-order equational logic. So, for the first time, off-the-shelf automated theorem proving (ATP) becomes available for refinement proofs. We used ATP to verify a toolkit of basic refinement laws. Based on this toolkit, we then verified two classical complex refinement laws for action systems by ATP: a data refinement law and Back's atomicity refinement law. We also present a refinement law for infinite loops that has been discovered through automated analysis. Our proof experiments not only demonstrate that refinement can effectively be automated, they also compare eleven different ATP systems and suggest that program verification with variants of Kleene algebras yields interesting theorem proving benchmarks. Finally, we apply hypothesis learning techniques that seem indispensable for automating more complex proofs

VELO Module Production - Final Module Metrology

This note describes in detail the procedures used in the metrology of the completed modules on the Wenzel CMM machine

User interface design for mobile-based sexual health interventions for young people: Design recommendations from a qualitative study on an online Chlamydia clinical care pathway

Background: The increasing pervasiveness of mobile technologies has given potential to transform healthcare by facilitating clinical management using software applications. These technologies may provide valuable tools in sexual health care and potentially overcome existing practical and cultural barriers to routine testing for sexually transmitted infections. In order to inform the design of a mobile health application for STIs that supports self-testing and self-management by linking diagnosis with online care pathways, we aimed to identify the dimensions and range of preferences for user interface design features among young people. Methods: Nine focus group discussions were conducted (n=49) with two age-stratified samples (16 to 18 and 19 to 24 year olds) of young people from Further Education colleges and Higher Education establishments. Discussions explored young people's views with regard to: the software interface; the presentation of information; and the ordering of interaction steps. Discussions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Four over-arching themes emerged: privacy and security; credibility; user journey support; and the task-technology-context fit. From these themes, 20 user interface design recommendations for mobile health applications are proposed. For participants, although privacy was a major concern, security was not perceived as a major potential barrier as participants were generally unaware of potential security threats and inherently trusted new technology. Customisation also emerged as a key design preference to increase attractiveness and acceptability. Conclusions: Considerable effort should be focused on designing healthcare applications from the patient's perspective to maximise acceptability. The design recommendations proposed in this paper provide a valuable point of reference for the health design community to inform development of mobile-based health interventions for the diagnosis and treatment of a number of other conditions for this target group, while stimulating conversation across multidisciplinary communities