Superconducting Diamond on Silicon Nitride for Device Applications.

Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) grown nanocrystalline diamond is an attractive material for the fabrication of devices. For some device architectures, optimisation of its growth on silicon nitride is essential. Here, the effects of three pre-growth surface treatments, often employed as cleaning methods, were investigated.

Clinical Outcomes of Escalation vs Early Intensive Disease-Modifying Therapy in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis.

Importance: Uncertainty remains about how aggressively to treat early multiple sclerosis. High-efficacy disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) are often reserved for individuals expressing poor prognostic features at baseline.

Objective: To analyze long-term outcomes in a population-based cohort according to initial treatment strategy.

A fiber coherence index for quality control of B-table orientation in diffusion MRI scans.

Purpose: The diffusion MRI "b-vector" table describing the diffusion sensitization direction can be flipped and permuted in dimension due to different orientation conventions used in scanners and incorrect or improperly utilized file formats. This can lead to incorrect fiber orientation estimates and subsequent tractography failure. Here, we present an automated quality control procedure to detect when the b-table is flipped and/or permuted incorrectly.

An inverse free electron laser acceleration-driven Compton scattering X-ray source.

The generation of X-rays and γ-rays based on synchrotron radiation from free electrons, emitted in magnet arrays such as undulators, forms the basis of much of modern X-ray science. This approach has the drawback of requiring very high energy, up to the multi-GeV-scale, electron beams, to obtain the required photon energy. Due to the limit in accelerating gradients in conventional particle accelerators, reaching high energy typically demands use of instruments exceeding 100's of meters in length.

Impact of Patient Language on Emergency Medical Service Use and Prenotification for Acute Ischemic Stroke.

Background And Purpose: Use of emergency medical services (EMS) is associated with decreased door-to-needle time in acute ischemic stroke (AIS). Whether patient language affects EMS utilization and prenotification in AIS has been understudied. We sought to characterize EMS use and prenotification by patient language among intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (IV-tPA) tissue plasminogen (IV-tPA) treated patients at a single center with a large Spanish-speaking patient population.

Removal of copper from cattle footbath wastewater with layered double hydroxide adsorbents as a route to antimicrobial resistance mitigation on dairy farms.

Copper and zinc are routinely used in livestock antimicrobial footbaths in commercial farming. The footbath mix is a cost to farmers, and the disposal of spent footbath into slurry tanks leads to soil contamination, as well as the potential for antimicrobial metal resistance and co-selection. This study assesses the potential to mitigate a source of antimicrobial metal resistance in slurry tanks while recovering copper and zinc from spent cattle footbaths.

Vascular burden and APOE ε4 are associated with white matter microstructural decline in cognitively normal older adults.

White matter microstructure can be measured with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). While increasing age is a predictor of white matter (WM) microstructure changes, roles of other possible modifiers, such as cardiovascular risk factors, APOE ε4 allele status and biological sex have not been clarified. We investigated 665 cognitively normal participants from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (age 50-95, 56.

SMARTWOMAN™: Feasibility assessment of a smartphone app to control cardiovascular risk factors in vulnerable diabetic women.

Background/hypothesis: SMARTWOMAN™ was designed to develop and assess the feasibility of a smartphone app to control cardiovascular risk factors in vulnerable diabetic women.

Methods: Fourteen African-American women with diabetes and without known cardiovascular disease were enrolled. A weight-scale, glucometer, sphygmomanometer, and FitBit were synchronized to the smartphone, and text messaging was provided.

Obesity, stigma and reflexive embodiment: the 'weight' of expectation.

The dominant obesity discourse which emphasises individual moral responsibility and lifestyle modification encourages weight-based stigma. Existing research overwhelmingly demonstrates that obesity stigma is an ineffective means by which to reduce the incidence of obesity and that it promotes weight-gain. However, the sensate experiences associated with the subjective experience of obesity stigma as a reflexively embodied phenomenon have been largely unexamined.

Integrated HIV self-testing (HIVST) service delivery in Queensland for policy and service development: study protocol.

This study aims to pilot and evaluate an integrated model for HIV self-testing (HIVST) service delivery in a peer-led Queensland community setting to increase access to HIVST, particularly for men who have sex with men (MSM) living in regional, remote and rural areas. It seeks to provide evidence that would overcome some of the key objections previously raised to HIVST. Recruitment strategies have been designed to engage hard to reach MSM populations in testing.

Clinical research training and capacity building for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases: A programme in India.

Background.: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs)-a term which includes diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and mental illness-are now the major cause of death in India and pose healthcare and economic challenges. There is an urgent need for enhanced clinical research training and capacity building for NCD prevention and control in India.

A pilot study of performance among hospitalised elderly patients on a novel test of visuospatial cognition: the letter and shape drawing (LSD) test.

Objectives: Conventional bedside tests of visuospatial function such as the clock drawing (CDT) and intersecting pentagons tests (IPT) are subject to considerable inconsistency in their delivery and interpretation. We compared performance on a novel test - the letter and shape drawing (LSD) test - with these conventional tests in hospitalised elderly patients.

Methods: The LSD, IPT, CDT and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were performed in 40 acute elderly medical inpatients at University Hospital Limerick The correlation between these tests was examined as well as the accuracy of the visuospatial tests to identify significant cognitive impairment on the MoCA.

A contemporary study of mortality in the multiple sclerosis population of south east Wales.

Background: Mortality studies in multiple sclerosis (MS) are valuable to identify changing disease patterns and inform clinical management. This study examines mortality in a British MS cohort.

Methods: Patients were selected from the southeast Wales MS registry.

Transferring Stroke Knowledge from Children to Parents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Community Stroke Educational Programs.

Background: The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis on child-to-parent communication of stroke information (Child-Mediated Stroke Communication, CMSC) is to provide the highest levels of evidence supporting the role of this approach in community education.

Methods: Databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, PsycINFO, Web of Science, MEDLINE, and CINHAL were searched to gather information on CMSC followed by a meta-analysis. The eligibility criteria were as follows: (a) children aged 9-15years and parents, (b) randomized or nonrandomized trials, and (c) outcome variables that included the proportions of parents answering the pretest and post-test on stroke knowledge regarding risk factors, symptoms, and what to do in the event of stroke.

Lifestyle drift and the phenomenon of 'citizen shift' in contemporary UK health policy.

Despite political change over the past 25 years in Britain there has been an unprecedented national policy focus on the social determinants of health and population-based approaches to prevent chronic disease. Yet, policy impacts have been modest, inequalities endure and behavioural approaches continue to shape strategies promoting healthy lifestyles. Critical public health scholarship has conceptualised this lack of progress as a problem of 'lifestyle drift' within policy whereby 'upstream' social contributors to health inequalities are reconfigured 'downstream' as a matter of individual behaviour change.

Applicability of Mechanical Tests for Biomass Pellet Characterisation for Bioenergy Applications.

In this paper, the applicability of mechanical tests for biomass pellet characterisation was investigated. Pellet durability, quasi-static (low strain rate), and dynamic (high strain rate) mechanical tests were applied to mixed wood, eucalyptus, sunflower, miscanthus, and steam exploded and microwaved pellets, and compared to their Hardgrove Grindability Index (HGI), and milling energies for knife and ring-roller mills. The dynamic mechanical response of biomass pellets was obtained using a novel application of the Split Hopkinson pressure bar.

The successful treatment of a multidrug-resistant corneal ulcer with topical meropenem.

Microbial keratitis is a common corneal condition, with many known risk factors. We present a case of an 88-year-old female patient with a multidrug-resistant corneal ulcer in a previously failed second penetrating keratoplasty, successfully managed with topical meropenem drops administered hourly around the clock, for five days preceding and then hourly day only, for five days following a repeat third penetrating keratoplasty. Topical meropenem 50 mg/mL was prepared by mixing a 500 mg vial of meropenem with 10 mL of sterile water with pharmacy advice that administration should be within an hour.

A Review of Regulation of Development and Possible Roles in Cancer Progression and Metastasis.

Development and cancer share a variety of functional traits such as EMT, cell migration, angiogenesis, and tissue remodeling. In addition, many cellular signaling pathways are noted to coordinate developmental processes and facilitate aspects of tumor progression. The Forkhead box superfamily of transcription factors consists of a highly conserved DNA binding domain, which binds to specific DNA sequences and play significant roles during adult tissue homoeostasis and embryogenesis including development, differentiation, metabolism, proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion.

Identifying preclinical vascular dementia in symptomatic small vessel disease using MRI.

Sporadic cerebral small vessel disease is an important cause of vascular dementia, a syndrome of cognitive impairment together with vascular brain damage. At post-mortem pure vascular dementia is rare, with evidence of co-existing Alzheimer's disease pathology in 95% of cases. This work used MRI to characterize structural abnormalities during the preclinical phase of vascular dementia in symptomatic small vessel disease.

Air-clad suspended nanocrystalline diamond ridge waveguides.

A hybrid group IV ridge waveguide platform is demonstrated, with potential application across the optical spectrum from ultraviolet to the far infrared wavelengths. The waveguides are fabricated by partial etching of sub-micron ridges in a nanocrystalline diamond thin film grown on top of a silicon wafer. To create vertical confinement, the diamond film is locally undercut by exposing the chip to an isotropic fluorine plasma etch via etch holes surrounding the waveguides, resulting in a mechanically stable suspended air-clad waveguide platform.

Lessons Learned in Clinical Trial Communication During an Ebola Outbreak: The Implementation of STRIVE.

ClinicalTrials.gov [NCT02378753] and Pan African Clinical Trials Registry [PACTR201502001037220].

Experimental Characterization of Electron-Beam-Driven Wakefield Modes in a Dielectric-Woodpile Cartesian Symmetric Structure.

Photonic structures operating in the terahertz (THz) spectral region enable the essential characteristics of confinement, modal control, and electric field shielding for very high gradient accelerators based on wakefields in dielectrics. We report here an experimental investigation of THz wakefield modes in a three-dimensional photonic woodpile structure. Selective control in exciting or suppressing of wakefield modes with a nonzero transverse wave vector is demonstrated by using drive beams of varying transverse ellipticity.

Energy transfer mechanisms in layered 2D perovskites.

Two-dimensional (2D) perovskite quantum wells are generating broad scientific interest because of their potential for use in optoelectronic devices. Recently, it has been shown that layers of 2D perovskites can be grown in which the average thicknesses of the quantum wells increase from the back to the front of the film. This geometry carries implications for light harvesting applications because the bandgap of a quantum well decreases as its thickness increases.