Choosing to Provide: Early Medical Abortion and Clinician Conscience in Ireland.

Providers are essential to the delivery of abortion care. Yet, they often occupy an ambiguous space in political discourse around abortion. The introduction of a new abortion service in Ireland invites us to look afresh at providers.

Stakeholder perspectives on the barriers and facilitators of engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviours in underrepresented adolescents: a focus group study from the European SEEDS project.

Background: Obesity in adolescence has increased in the last decades. Adolescents fail to meet the recommended guidelines for physical activity (PA) and healthy diet. Adolescents with a low socioeconomic status (SES) particularly seem to have fewer healthy lifestyle behaviours.

Crystals in the community and the classroom.

The growing pressure on school curricula has meant crystals and the science of crystallography have been cut from or made optional for many educational programs. This omission is a serious disservice to the history and understanding of modern sciences, given that crystallography underpins many of the greatest advancements in science over the past century, is a critical component of many modern research papers and patents, and has 29 Nobel Prizes awarded in the field. This contribution describes a simple activity to target classroom and public engagement with crystallography, using marshmallows or equivalent sweets/candy to represent atoms and cocktail sticks to represent bonds, together with examples of how crystals are studied and how they are useful.

Exploring the role of solvent polarity in mechanochemical Knoevenagel condensation: investigation and isolation of reaction intermediates.

Mechanochemistry has proven to be a highly effective method for the synthesis of organic compounds. We studied the kinetics of the catalyst-free Knoevenagel reaction between 4-nitrobenzaldehyde and malononitrile, activated and driven by ball milling. The reaction was investigated in the absence of solvents (neat grinding) and in the presence of solvents with different polarities (liquid-assisted grinding).

High wavenumber Raman spectroscopy for intraoperative assessment of breast tumour margins.

Optimal oncological results and patient outcomes are achieved in surgery for early breast cancer with breast conserving surgery (BCS) where this is appropriate. A limitation of BCS occurs when cancer is present at, or close, to the resection margin - termed a 'positive' margin - and re-excision is recommended to reduce recurrence rate. This is occurs in 17% of BCS in the UK and there is therefore a critical need for a way to assess margin status intraoperatively to ensure complete excision with adequate margins at the first operation.

Citizen Science to improve healthy and active living among adolescents in four European countries: a protocol of the cluster randomised controlled trial of the Science Engagement to Empower aDolescentS (SEEDS) project.

Introduction: Improving healthy lifestyles of adolescents is challenging. Citizen Science is a way to engage them in the design and delivery of interventions, and may also increase their interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The Science Engagement to Empower aDolescentS (SEEDS) project aims to use an equity-lens, and engage and empower boys and girls from deprived areas by designing and cocreating interventions to promote healthy lifestyles, and to seed interest in STEM.

Monitoring the Formation of Nickel-Poor and Nickel-Rich Oxide Cathode Materials for Lithium-Ion Batteries with Synchrotron Radiation.

The syntheses of Ni-poor (NCM111, LiNiCoMnO) and Ni-rich (NCM811 LiNiCoMnO) lithium transition-metal oxides (space group 3̅m) from hydroxide precursors (NiCoMn(OH), NiCoMn(OH)) are investigated using synchrotron powder diffraction and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy. The development of the layered structure of these two cathode materials proceeds two utterly different reaction mechanisms. While the synthesis of NCM811 involves a rock salt-type intermediate phase, NCM111 reveals a layered structure throughout the entire synthesis.

Variability in X-ray induced effects in [Rh(COD)Cl] with changing experimental parameters.

X-ray characterisation methods have undoubtedly enabled cutting-edge advances in all aspects of materials research. Despite the enormous breadth of information that can be extracted from these techniques, the challenge of radiation-induced sample change and damage remains prevalent. This is largely due to the emergence of modern, high-intensity X-ray source technologies and the growing potential to carry out more complex, longer duration or studies.

GLIDE Wellcome Open Research Gateway.

The Global Infectious Disease Ethics (GLIDE) Collaborative is launching a new Wellcome Open Research (WOR) Gateway, and we as the leaders of GLIDE hope to encourage submissions to this timely and necessary new platform for publishing open access peer-reviewed articles focusing on this area.

Negative X-ray expansion in cadmium cyanide.

Cadmium cyanide, Cd(CN), is a flexible coordination polymer best studied for its strong and isotropic negative thermal expansion (NTE) effect. Here we show that this NTE is actually X-ray-exposure dependent: Cd(CN) contracts not only on heating but also on irradiation by X-rays. This behaviour contrasts that observed in other beam-sensitive materials, for which X-ray exposure drives lattice expansion.

Insights into the Mechanochemical Synthesis of MOF-74.

Mechanochemical synthesis has recently emerged as a scalable "green" approach for the preparation of MOFs, but current understanding of the underlying reaction mechanisms is limited. In this work, an investigation of the reaction pathway of the mechanochemical synthesis of MOF-74 from ZnO and 2,5-dihydroxyterephthalic acid (HHDTA), using DMF as a liquid additive, is presented. The complex reaction pathway involves the formation of four short-lived intermediate phases, prior to the crystallization of MOF-74.

Compositional flexibility in Li-N-H materials: implications for ammonia catalysis and hydrogen storage.

Li-N-H materials, particularly lithium amide and lithium imide, have been explored for use in a variety of energy storage applications in recent years. Compositional variation within the parent lithium imide, anti-fluorite crystal structure has been related to both its facile storage of hydrogen and impressive catalytic performance for the decomposition of ammonia. Here, we explore the controlled solid-state synthesis of Li-N-H solid-solution anti-fluorite structures ranging from amide-dominated (Li4/3(NH2)2/3(NH)1/3 or Li1.

Cation Ordering and Exsolution in Copper-Containing Forms of the Flexible Zeolite Rho (Cu,M-Rho; M=H, Na) and Their Consequences for CO Adsorption.

The flexibility of the zeolite Rho framework offers great potential for tunable molecular sieving. The fully copper-exchanged form of Rho and mixed Cu,H- and Cu,Na-forms have been prepared. EPR spectroscopy reveals that Cu ions are present in the dehydrated forms and Rietveld refinement shows these prefer S6R sites, away from the d8r windows that control diffusion.

Discovery of a Low Thermal Conductivity Oxide Guided by Probe Structure Prediction and Machine Learning.

We report the aperiodic titanate Ba Y Ti O with a room-temperature thermal conductivity that equals the lowest reported for an oxide. The structure is characterised by discontinuous occupancy modulation of each of the sites and can be considered as a quasicrystal. The resulting localisation of lattice vibrations suppresses phonon transport of heat.

Refinement of pore size at sub-angstrom precision in robust metal-organic frameworks for separation of xylenes.

The demand for xylenes is projected to increase over the coming decades. The separation of xylene isomers, particularly p- and m-xylenes, is vital for the production of numerous polymers and materials. However, current state-of-the-art separation is based upon fractional crystallisation at 220 K which is highly energy intensive.

Abortion care in Ireland: Developing legal and ethical frameworks for conscientious provision.

This article celebrates the remarkable changes which have occurred in the provision of abortion care in Ireland following the vote to remove the restrictive Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland in May 2018. However, it also identifies ways in which the emerging legal, ethical and clinical landscape is still impeding the conscientious provision of abortion care. It argues that in order to address these impediments, more attention needs to be paid to the ethical context for conscientious provision.

Exploring patients' and carers' views about the clinical use of ketamine to inform policy and practical decisions: mixed-methods study.

Background: Only one-third of patients with major depressive disorder achieve remission. One new and promising treatment, ketamine, may prove challenging to implement because of its abuse potential. Although clinicians' views have been sought, we need patients' views before large scale roll-out is considered.

In-situ Electrochemical X-ray Diffraction: A Rigorous Method to Navigate within Phase Diagrams Reveals β-Fe Se as Superconductor for All x.

We report the precise postsynthetic control of the composition of β-Fe Se by electrochemistry with simultaneous tracking of the associated structural changes via in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction. We access the full phase width of 0.01 View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Inorganic co-crystal formation and thermal disproportionation in a dicyanometallate 'superperovskite'.

We report the synthesis, crystal structure, and thermally-driven phase transformation of the dicyanometallate superperovskite co-crystal [NBu4]Mn[Au(CN)2]3·[NBu4]ClO4. This phase is understandable in terms of the conventional ABX3 perovskite structure type, but with the NBu4+ A-site cation displaced onto the perovskite cage face and 1-dimensional AX' chains included within framework pores opened up by these displacements. On heating to 380 K, the co-crystal disproportionates into its two inorganic components: a bcs-structured ABX3 phase and [NBu4]ClO4.

Post-synthetic modulation of the charge distribution in a metal-organic framework for optimal binding of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide.

Modulation of pore environment is an effective strategy to optimize guest binding in porous materials. We report the post-synthetic modification of the charge distribution in a charged metal-organic framework, MFM-305-CH, [Al(OH)(L)]Cl, [(HL)Cl = 3,5-dicarboxy-1-methylpyridinium chloride] and its effect on guest binding. MFM-305-CH shows a distribution of cationic (methylpyridinium) and anionic (chloride) centers and can be modified to release free pyridyl N-centres by thermal demethylation of the 1-methylpyridinium moiety to give the neutral isostructural MFM-305.

Unravelling the spatial dependency of the complex solid-state chemistry of Pb in a paint micro-sample from Rembrandt's Homer using XRD-CT.

The surface of many Old Master paintings has been affected by the appearance of whitish lead-rich deposits, which are often difficult to fully characterise, thereby hindering conservation. A paint micro-sample from Rembrandt's Homer was imaged using X-ray Diffraction Computed Tomography (XRD-CT) in order to understand the evolving solid-state Pb chemistry from the painting surface and beneath. The surface crust was identified as a complex mixture of lead sulfates.