Dioxins released from chemical accidents

Discrepancies in environmental budgets of dioxin-like compounds may be explained by emissions from accidents involving chlorinated organic chemicals. This source may have important implications for regulation inventories. © 1995 Nature Publishing Group.

A Novel Method to Enable Trade-offs Across the Whole Product Life of an Aircraft Using Value Driven Design

The increasing need to understand complex products and systems with long life spans, presents a significant challenge to designers who increasingly require a broader understanding of the operational aspects of the system. This demands an evolution in current design practice, as designers are often constrained to provide a subsystem solution without full knowledge of the global system operation. Recently there has been a push to consider value centric approaches which should facilitate better or more rapid convergence to design solutions with predictable completion schedules. Value Driven Design is one such approach, in which value is used as the system top level objective function. This provides a broader view of the system and enables all sub-systems and components to be designed with a view to the effect on project value. It also has the capacity to include value expressions for more qualitative aspects, such as environmental impact. However, application of the method to date has been restricted to comparing value in a programme where the lifespan is fixed and known a priori. This paper takes a novel view of value driven design through the surplus value objective function, and shows how it can be used to identify key sensitivities to guide designers in design trade-off decisions. By considering a new time based approach it can be used to identify optimum programme life-span and hence allow trade-offs over the whole product life.

Multidimensional simulations of radiative transfer in Type Ia supernovae

A three-dimensional Monte Carlo code for modelling radiation transport in Type Ia supernovae is described. In addition to tracking Monte Carlo quanta to follow the emission, scattering and deposition of radiative energy, a scheme involving volume-based Monte Carlo estimators is used to allow properties of the emergent radiation field to be extracted for specific viewing angles in a multidimensional structure. This eliminates the need to compute spectra or light curves by angular binning of emergent quanta. The code is applied to two test problems to illustrate consequences of multidimensional structure on the modelling of light curves. First, elliptical models are used to quantify how large-scale asphericity can introduce angular dependence to light curves. Secondly, a model which incorporates complex structural inhomogeneity, as predicted by modern explosion models, is used to investigate how such structure may affect light-curve properties. © 2006 RAS.

A Family Booklet About Comfort Care in Advanced Dementia:Three-Country Evaluation

Objectives: To evaluate a booklet on comfort care in dementia from the perspective of family with relevant experience, and assess nursing home resident and family factors associated with evaluations. Design: Retrospective study. Setting: Long term care facilities in French-speaking Canada, and the Netherlands and Italy.
Participants: Bereaved family (n = 138).
Measurements: An 8-item scale assessed the booklet's acceptability. Usefulness was rated on a 0 to 10 scale, and perceived usefulness referred to usefulness if family had had the booklet during the resident's stay. Families indicated preferred ways of obtaining, and the most appropriate time to get the booklet.
Results: Almost all families (94%) perceived the booklet as useful. Canadian and Dutch families evaluated the booklet's contents and format favorably, whereas Italian families' evaluations were less favorable. Almost all families endorsed roles for physicians or nurses and about half additionally accepted availability through own initiative, in print or through the Internet. Preference of timing was highly variable. Better acceptability, usefulness, and availability through own initiative were independently associated with non-Italian nationality, presence of more physical signs discussed in the booklet, feeling ill-prepared, and higher satisfaction with care. A preference of receiving the booklet early was more likely in Italian families, those without university education, and those involved with older residents.
Conclusion: The booklet is suitable to inform Dutch and Canadian families on comfort care in dementia, but implementation in Italy requires further consideration. The booklet may be integrated in advance care planning in long term care, and made available outside long term care settings to serve families who wish to be informed early. © 2012 American Medical Directors Association, Inc.
Keywords: Decision aid; decision making; advance care planning; palliative care; nursing homes; dementia.

Alternative treatments to inhibit VEGF in age-related choroidal neovascularisation: 2-year findings of the IVAN randomised controlled trial

Background: Bevacizumab has been suggested to have similar effectiveness to ranibizumab for treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration. The Inhibition of VEGF in Age-related choroidal Neovascularisation (IVAN) trial was designed to compare these drugs and different regimens. Here, we report the findings at the prespecified 2-year timepoint. Methods: In a multicentre, 2×2 factorial, non-inferiority randomised trial, we enrolled adults aged at least 50 years with active, previously untreated neovascular age-related macular degeneration and a best corrected distance visual acuity (BCVA) of at least 25 letters from 23 hospitals in the UK. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1:1) to intravitreal injections of ranibizumab (0·5 mg) or bevacizumab (1·25 mg) in continuous (every month) or discontinuous (as needed) regimens, with monthly review. Study participants and clinical assessors were masked to drug allocation. Allocation to continuous or discontinuous treatment was masked up to 3 months, at which point investigators and participants were unmasked. The primary outcome was BCVA at 2 years, with a prespecified non-inferiority limit of 3·5 letters. The primary safety outcome was arterial thrombotic event or hospital admission for heart failure. Analyses were by modified intention to treat. This trial is registered, number ISRCTN92166560. Findings: Between March 27, 2008, and Oct 15, 2010, 628 patients underwent randomisation. 18 were withdrawn; 610 received study drugs (314 ranibizumab; 296 bevacizumab) and were included in analyses. 525 participants reached the visit at 2 years: 134 ranibizumab in continuous regimen, 137 ranibizumab in discontinuous regimen, 127 bevacizumab in continuous regimen, and 127 bevacizumab in discontinuous regimen. For BCVA, bevacizumab was neither non-inferior nor inferior to ranibizumab (mean difference -1·37 letters, 95% CI -3·75 to 1·01; p=0·26). Discontinuous treatment was neither non-inferior nor inferior to continuous treatment (-1·63 letters, -4·01 to 0·75; p=0·18). Frequency of arterial thrombotic events or hospital admission for heart failure did not differ between groups given ranibizumab (20 [6%] of 314 participants) and bevacizumab (12 [4%] of 296; odds ratio [OR] 1·69, 95% CI 0·80-3·57; p=0·16), or those given continuous (12 [4%] of 308) and discontinuous treatment (20 [7%] of 302; 0·56, 0·27-1·19; p=0·13). Mortality was lower with continuous than discontinuous treatment (OR 0·47, 95% CI 0·22-1·03; p=0·05), but did not differ by drug group (0·96, 0·46-2·02; p=0·91). Interpretation: Ranibizumab and bevacizumab have similar efficacy. Reduction in the frequency of retreatment resulted in a small loss of efficacy irrespective of drug. Safety was worse when treatment was administered discontinuously. These findings highlight that the choice of anti-VEGF treatment strategy is less straightforward than previously thought.

A Dynamic Buffer Management Scheme for End-to-End QoS Enhancement of Multi-flow Services in HSDPA

End-user multi-flow services support is a crucial aspect of current and next generation mobile networks. This paper presents a dynamic buffer management strategy for HSDPA end-user multi-flow traffic with aggregated real-time and non-real-time flows. The scheme incorporates dynamic priority switching between the flows for transmission on the HSDPA radio channel. The end-to-end performance of the proposed strategy is investigated with an end-user multi-flow session of simultaneous VoIP and TCP-based downlink traffic using detailed HSDPA system-level simulations. Compared to an equivalent static buffer management scheme, the results show that end-to-end throughput performance gains in the non-real-time flow and better HSDPA channel utilization is attainable without compromising the real-time VoIP flow QoS constraints

Leatherback turtles satellite-tagged in European waters

The North Atlantic is considered a stronghold for the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle. However, limited information exists regarding the movements of individuals to and from the seas off Europe's northwesterly fringe, an area where featherbacks have been historically sighted for the past 200 yr. Here, we used satellite telemetry to record the movements and behaviour of 2 individuals bycaught in fisheries off the southwest coast of Ireland. The turtle T1 (tagged 1 September 2005; female; tracked 375 d) immediately travelled south via Madeira and the Canaries, before residing in West African waters for 3 mo. In spring, T1 migrated north towards Newfoundland where transmissions ceased. T2 (29 June 2006; male; 233 d) travelled south for a short period before spending 66 d west of the Bay of Biscay, an area previously asserted as a high-use area for leatherbacks. This prolonged high latitude summer residence corresponded with a mesoscale feature evident from satellite imagery, with the implication that this turtle had found a rich feeding site. A marked change in dive behaviour was apparent as the turtle exited this feature and provided useful insights on leatherback diving behaviour. T2 headed south in October 2006, and performed the deepest-ever dive recorded by a reptile (1280 m) southwest of Cape Verde. Unlike T1, T2 swam southwest towards Brazil before approaching the major nesting beaches of French Guiana and Surinam. Importantly, these tracks document the movement of leatherbacks from one of the remotest foraging grounds in the North Atlantic. © Inter-Research 2008.

The Developing Habitus of the Anti-Social Behaviour Practitioner: From Expansion in Years of Plenty to Surviving the Age of Austerity

Specialist anti-social behaviour units are common within social housing providers, with many established in response to the policies of the New Labour governments of 1997–2010. These units now find themselves operating in a different political and financial environment. Following the English riots of 2011, the Coalition government, whilst imposing budgetary cuts across the public sector, called on social housing providers to intensify their role in tackling disorder. This article explores the habitus or working cultures within anti-social behaviour units post-New Labour. It does so through empirical research conducted in the aftermath of the English riots. The research finds that practitioners view their work as a core function of social housing provision. They have developed an understanding of human behaviour, which crosses the criminal and social policy fields with a wide skillset to match. A number of factors including national policy, community expectations, and multi-partnership engagement influence their dynamic working culture.

Two potential clinical applications of the alkaline single-cell gel electrophoresis assay .1. Human bladder washings and transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder .2. Human sperm and male infertility

Part 1: The alkaline single-cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay was used to analyse the integrity and DNA content of exfoliated cells extracted from bladder washing specimens from 9 transitional cell carcinoma patients and 15 control patients. DNA damage, as expressed by % tail DNA and tail moment values, was observed to occur in cells from both control and bladder cancer samples. The extent of the damage was, however, found to be significantly greater in the cancer group than in the control group. Comet optical density values were also recorded for each cell analysed in the comet assay and although differences observed between tumour grades were not found to be statistically significant, the mean comet optical density value was observed to be greater in the cancer group than in the control population studied, These preliminary results suggest that the comet assay may have potential as a diagnostic tool and as a prognostic indicator in transitional cell carcinoma, Part 2: Baseline DNA damage in sperm cells from 13 normozoospermic fertile males, 17 normozoospermic infertile males and 11 asthenozoospermic infertile males were compared using a modified alkaline comet assay technique. No significant difference in the level of baseline DNA damage was observed between the 3 categories of sperm studied; however the untreated sperm cells were observed to display approximately 20% tail DNA. This is notably higher than the background DNA damage observed in somatic cells where the % tail DNA is normally less than 5%. Sperm from the 3 groups of men studied were also compared for sensitivity to DNA breakage, using the modified alkaline comet assay, following X-ray irradiations (5, 10 and 30 Gy) and hydrogen peroxide treatments (40, 100 and 200 mu M). Significant levels of X-ray-induced damage were found relative to untreated control sperm in the two infertile groups following 30 Gy irradiation. Significant damage in hydrogen peroxide-treated sperm was observed in sperm from fertile samples, at 200 mu M and in infertile samples at 100- and 200-mu M doses relative to controls. These results therefore indicate that fertile sperm samples are more resistant to X-ray- and hydrogen peroxide-induced DNA breakage than infertile samples. Further studies involving greater numbers of individuals are currently in progress to confirm these findings.