The theory of Barlow packings: Basic properties and cohesive energies from exact lattice summations within the sticky hard-sphere model.

The theory of periodic Barlow multi-lattices (X1X2…XN)∞ with Xi ∈ {A, B, C} and Xi ≠ Xi+1 of stacked two-dimensional hexagonal close-packed layers is presented and used to derive exact lattice sum expressions in terms of fast converging Bessel function expansions for inverse power potentials. We describe in detail the mathematical properties of Barlow sphere packings and demonstrate that only two basic lattice sums are required to describe all periodic packings. For the sticky hard-sphere model with an attractive inverse power law potential, we find a linear correlation between the cohesive energies of different Barlow packings and the face-centered cubic packing fraction.

Tipping the Balance Between the bcc and fcc Phase Within the Alkali and Coinage Metal Groups.

Why the Group 1 elements crystallize in the body-centered cubic (bcc) structure, and the iso-electronic Group 11 elements in the face-centered cubic (fcc) structure, remains a mystery. Here we show that a delicate interplay between many-body effects, vibrational contributions and dispersion interactions obtained from relativistic density functional theory offers an answer to this long-standing controversy. It also sheds light on the Periodic Table of Crystal Structures.

Lattice sum for a hexagonal close-packed structure and its dependence on the c/a ratio of the hexagonal cell parameters.

We continue the work by Lennard-Jones and Ingham, and later by Kane and Goeppert-Mayer, and present a general lattice sum formula for the hexagonal close packed (hcp) structure with different c/a ratios for the two lattice parameters a and c of the hexagonal unit cell. The lattice sum is expressed in terms of fast converging series of Bessel functions. This allows us to analytically examine the behavior of a Lennard-Jones potential as a function of the c/a ratio.

Alpine grassland degradation intensifies the burrowing behavior of small mammals: evidence for a negative feedback loop.

Globally, grassland degradation is an acute ecological problem. In alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau, increased densities of various small mammals in degraded grassland are assumed to intensify the degradation process and these mammals are subject to lethal control. However, whether the negative impact of small mammals is solely a result of population size or also a result of activity and behavior has not been tested.

Is the dark triad always detrimental to firm performance? Testing different performance outcomes and the moderating effects of competitive rivalry.

There is growing evidence that CEOs who have the 'dark triad' of personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) detrimentally influence firm performance. However, there is still much we do not know. The present study suggests that the CEO dark triad might directly influence typical performance indicators in different ways: positively affecting external performance indicators (breakthrough sales), but negatively affecting internal performance indicators (organizational performance).

Enhancing an online cognitive behavioural therapy intervention for depression: Harnessing the feedback of sexual and gender minority youth to help improve SPARX.

Objective: SPARX is an online cognitive behavioural therapy self-help intervention for adolescent depression provided in serious game format. Since 2014, it has been freely available in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) due to funding from the NZ government. In 2020/21, feedback from sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY) was used to refine and update SPARX.

Respiratory support of adults in the emergency department: A protocol for a prospective, observational, multicenter point prevalence study.

Background And Aims: Providing respiratory support (RS) to patients may improve their oxygenation and ventilation, reducing the work of breathing. Emergency department (ED) patients often need RS; COVID-19 has heightened this need. Patients receiving RS may need escalation of their treatment; hence, studies considering the prevalence of escalation are warranted.

An audit of nurses using standing order directives to administer medications to children at risk of contracting rheumatic fever.

Aim: The following article reports an audit, conducted between July 2014 and July 2017, of adherence to best practice in medication administration and documentation by nurses.

Method: A sample of 47 registered nurses' (RNs') documentation relating to the administration of 939 medications using standing order directives were examined and scored by seven senior nurses and a medical practitioner against an audit tool. The scores were divided into four quartiles with the top two quartiles demonstrating best practice in adherence to safety standards for the administration of medication.

Learning emergent partial differential equations in a learned emergent space.

We propose an approach to learn effective evolution equations for large systems of interacting agents. This is demonstrated on two examples, a well-studied system of coupled normal form oscillators and a biologically motivated example of coupled Hodgkin-Huxley-like neurons. For such types of systems there is no obvious space coordinate in which to learn effective evolution laws in the form of partial differential equations.

The effects of docosahexaenoic acid supplementation on cognition and well-being in mild cognitive impairment: A 12-month randomised controlled trial.

Objectives: Several recent clinical trials have shown that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplements have a significant effect on cognition in cognitively impaired older adults. This randomised controlled trial aimed to investigate the cognitive effects of a DHA fish oil supplement in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, and to examine the moderating effect of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ɛ4 allele on cognition and well-being.

Methods/design: Seventy-two older adults between the ages of 60 and 90 from New Zealand were given a DHA supplement equivalent to 1491 mg DHA + 351 mg eicosapentaenoic acid per day or a placebo for a period of 12 months.

Long-read sequencing reveals atypical mitochondrial genome structure in a New Zealand marine isopod.

Most animal mitochondrial genomes are small, circular and structurally conserved. However, recent work indicates that diverse taxa possess unusual mitochondrial genomes. In Isopoda species in multiple lineages have atypical and rearranged mitochondrial genomes.

Exploring the needs and coping strategies of New Zealand parents in the neonatal environment.

Aim: Having an infant admitted to a neonatal care facility can be highly distressing for parents given the fragile state of their child and the often-unfamiliar environment. This study aimed to explore the needs and coping strategies of parents in this setting.

Methods: An online qualitative survey was used to explore the needs of parents who had a child discharged from a New Zealand neonatal unit in the past 12 months.

Multi-task multi-modality SVM for early COVID-19 Diagnosis using chest CT data.

In the early diagnosis of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), it is of great importance for either distinguishing severe cases from mild cases or predicting the conversion time that mild cases would possibly convert to severe cases. This study investigates both of them in a unified framework by exploring the problems such as slight appearance difference between mild cases and severe cases, the interpretability, the High Dimension and Low Sample Size (HDLSS) data, and the class imbalance. To this end, the proposed framework includes three steps: (1) feature extraction which first conducts the hierarchical segmentation on the chest Computed Tomography (CT) image data and then extracts multi-modality handcrafted features for each segment, aiming at capturing the slight appearance difference from different perspectives; (2) data augmentation which employs the over-sampling technique to augment the number of samples corresponding to the minority classes, aiming at investigating the class imbalance problem; and (3) joint construction of classification and regression by proposing a novel Multi-task Multi-modality Support Vector Machine (MM-SVM) method to solve the issue of the HDLSS data and achieve the interpretability.

Intimacy for older adults in long-term care: a need, a right, a privilege-or a kind of care?

Background: To investigate attitudes of staff, residents and family members in long-term care towards sex and intimacy among older adults, specifically the extent to which they conceptualise sex and intimacy as a need, a right, a privilege or as a component of overall well-being.

Methods: The present study was a part of a two-arm mixed-methods cross-sectional study using a concurrent triangulation design. A validated survey tool was developed; 433 staff surveys were collected from 35 facilities across the country.

The Lennard-Jones Potential Revisited: Analytical Expressions for Vibrational Effects in Cubic and Hexagonal Close-Packed Lattices.

Analytical formulas are derived for the zero-point vibrational energy and anharmonicity corrections of the cohesive energy and the mode Grüneisen parameter within the Einstein model for the cubic lattices (sc, bcc, and fcc) and for the hexagonal close-packed structure. This extends the work done by Lennard-Jones and Ingham in 1924, Corner in 1939, and Wallace in 1965. The formulas are based on the description of two-body energy contributions by an inverse power expansion (extended Lennard-Jones potential).

Prevalence of spp. in translocated wild reptiles and effect of duration of quarantine on their body condition.

Aims: To assess the prevalence of carriage of spp. in wild reptiles translocated from multiple locations to a single island, and determine changes in their body condition (BC) during quarantine.

Methods: Between 2007 and 2009, six endemic reptile species (, , , , , and ) were caught from several locations in the northern North Island of New Zealand.

Male-biased sexual selection, but not sexual dichromatism, predicts speciation in birds.

Sexual selection is thought to shape phylogenetic diversity by affecting speciation or extinction rates. However, the net effect of sexual selection on diversification is hard to predict because many of the hypothesized effects on speciation or extinction have opposing signs and uncertain magnitudes. Theoretical work also suggests that the net effect of sexual selection on diversification should depend strongly on ecological factors, though this prediction has seldom been tested.

Recovering Uncertainty: Exploring Eating Disorder Recovery in Context.

Attending to the shades of grey in eating disorder recovery may help to illuminate possibilities for navigating recoveries in their full complexity and diversity. There is a need for more complexity and flexibility in understandings of the timelines, processes, endpoints, and versions of eating disorder recoveries. In this article, we explore eating disorder recovery as a dynamic, intercorporeal, and non-linear process.

Host adaptation and microbial competition drive phylotype I evolution in the Republic of Korea.

Bacterial wilt caused by the species complex (RSSC) threatens the cultivation of important crops worldwide. We sequenced 30 RSSC phylotype I () strains isolated from pepper () and tomato () across the Republic of Korea. These isolates span the diversity of phylotype I, have extensive effector repertoires and are subject to frequent recombination.

The need to integrate in primary healthcare: nurse identity constructions of pharmacists as entrepreneurs.

Purpose: This study explores nurses' views as to whether they see community pharmacists as "entrepreneurial" and what this might mean for working together in primary care. Pharmacists are expected to fully integrate with their colleagues - particularly nurses - under the New Zealand health policy. Yet, there is scarce literature that examines multidisciplinary teamwork and integration through an entrepreneurial identity lens.

Oganesson: A Noble Gas Element That Is Neither Noble Nor a Gas.

Oganesson (Og) is the last entry into the Periodic Table completing the seventh period of elements and group 18 of the noble gases. Only five atoms of Og have been successfully produced in nuclear collision experiments, with an estimate half-life for Og of 0.  ms.

Facilitators and barriers to general practitioner and general practice nurse participation in end-of-life care: systematic review.

Background: General practitioners (GPs) and general practice nurses (GPNs) face increasing demands to provide palliative care (PC) or end-of-life care (EoLC) as the population ages. To enhance primary EoLC, the facilitators and barriers to their provision need to be understood.

Objective: To provide a comprehensive description of the facilitators and barriers to GP and GPN provision of PC or EoLC.

Spatial and temporal variation in prey color patterns for background matching across a continuous heterogeneous environment.

In heterogeneous habitats, camouflage via background matching can be challenging because visual characteristics can vary dramatically across small spatial scales. Additionally, temporal variation in signaling functions of coloration can affect crypsis, especially when animals use coloration seasonally for intraspecific signaling (e.g.

Flexibility of the petunia strigolactone receptor DAD2 promotes its interaction with signaling partners.

Strigolactones (SLs) are terpenoid-derived plant hormones that regulate various developmental processes, particularly shoot branching, root development, and leaf senescence. The SL receptor has an unusual mode of action. Upon binding SL, it hydrolyzes the hormone, and then covalently binds one of the hydrolytic products.

Milk fat influences proteolytic enzyme activity of dairy Pseudomonas species.

This study investigated the effect of growth conditions on proteolytic activity of six Pseudomonas strains, (Pseudomonas fragi DZ1, Pseudomonas koreensis DZ138, Pseudomonas rhodesiae DZ351, Pseudomonas fluorescens DZ390, Pseudomonas synxantha DZ832 and Pseudomonas lundensis DZ845), isolated from raw milk. The proteolytic activity of all Pseudomonas strains in dairy media (skim milk and whole milk) was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than in non-dairy media (TSB), with most activity from Pseudomonas grown in whole milk.