Publications by authors named "Ralph Roberts"

Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019. Following decriminalisation, the new regulations set out legal provision for abortion up until 12 weeks, with conditions thereafter. This cross-sectional descriptive survey, conducted in late 2019 in Northern Ireland, gathered the views of health professionals on decriminalisation, and their willingness to provide abortion services.

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Introduction: Abortion became decriminalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019. Until that point there existed no evidence concerning the views of health professionals on decriminalisation or on their willingness to be involved in abortion care. The purpose of this study was to address this lack of evidence, including all categories of health professionals working in obstetrics and gynaecology units in Northern Ireland.

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Recent studies have documented that the hand's ability to perform actions affects the visual processing and attention for objects near the hand, suggesting that actions may have specific effects on visual orienting. However, most research on the relation between spatial attention and action focuses on actions as responses to visual attention manipulations. The current study examines visual attention immediately following an executed or imagined action.

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Spatial attention can be biased to locations near the hand. Some studies have found facilitated processing of targets appearing within hand-grasping space. In this study, we investigated how changing top-down task priorities alters hand bias during visual processing.

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Research confirms that the body influences perception, but little is known about the embodiment of attention. We investigated whether the implied actions of others direct spatial attention, using a lateralized covert-orienting task with nonpredictive central cues depicting static, right/left-facing bodies poised in midaction. Validity effects (decreased response times for validly compared with invalidly cued trials) indicated orienting in the direction of the implied action.

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This study explored whether functional properties of the hand and tools influence the allocation of spatial attention. In four experiments that used a visual-orienting paradigm with predictable lateral cues, hands or tools were placed near potential target locations. Results showed that targets appearing in the hand's grasping space (i.

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Our trunks influence where we perform actions in space. Thus, trunk direction may define a region of spacethat is accorded special treatment by the attention system. We investigated conditions under which a trunk orientation bias for attention might be relevant for healthy adults.

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Purpose: Low perturbation diodes, with thin buildup caps, can be used to reduce perturbations to the delivered dose. The literature states that additional correction factors are required for low perturbation diodes, however, there are few reported studies into their use. This report measured the dose perturbations and correction factors for diodes with varying buildup cap thicknesses.

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This study quantifies the changes in bone height noted in the body of the edentulous mandibles when the load of the complete denture is born by an RA Ramus Frame Implant (Pacific Implant, Rio Dell, Calif). Eighty-three patients with implants were followed for 3 to 24 years. Pre- and postoperative panoramic films were taken and again at each succeeding 5-year follow-up.

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Optimal management of resources is a very complex and difficult task for healthcare systems. Nevertheless, healthcare providers can employ data-driven methodologies and management science tools, coupled with managerial insights, to significantly improve both their resource effectiveness and efficiency. Understanding the full technical complexities of management science models is a daunting task for healthcare managers, but they can be aided by the increased availability of management science software.

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This article describes the use of osteotomes for the placement of plate-form implants. Comparison is made between the use of cylinders and the plate form as it relates to bone mass and resistant forces. It concludes by showing several cases in function.

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Due to the exceptional anticonvulsant activity displayed by substituted aniline enaminones, related pyridine derivatives and phenothiazines synthesised in our laboratories, the further investigation of various aromatic heterocycles was undertaken. Condensation of cyclic 1,3-diketo esters with 3-, and 5-aminoisoxazole derivatives led to a series of potent anti-maximal electroshock (MES) analogues, three of which occurred in the 3-amino series: ethyl ester (10), orally (po) active in rats [ED(50) 68.9 mg kg(-1), TD(50) > 500 mg kg(-1), protective index (PI = TD(50)/ED(50)) > 49.

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A neuropsychological approach was used to examine the frontal lobe and right parietal lobe theories of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Considerable attempts were made to select as pure a group of ADHD boys as possible. The performance of 10-14-year-old ADHD boys (n = 22), both on and off stimulant medication, was compared with the performance of non-ADHD control boys (n = 22) on tasks purported to assess frontal lobe functioning (Stopping Task, Antisaccade Task, Tower of Hanoi) and right parietal lobe functioning (Visual-Spatial Cuing Task, Turning Task, Spatial Relations).

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Reactions of (triphenylsilyl)ethylene oxide (1) with simple Grignard reagents such as EtMgBr and PhMgBr have been reported to yield crystalline hydroxysilanes assigned as the alpha-hydroxy silanes expected from beta opening of the epoxide. Reinvestigation of these reactions showed that the hydroxysilanes were the beta-hydroxy silanes 4 and 7 expected from a rearrangement-trapping sequence; a bromohydrin, assigned as the alpha-bromo-beta-hydroxy silane 9 from alpha opening, and (triphenylsilyl)acetaldehyde (8) were also formed.

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