How much do you need: a randomised experiment of whether readers can understand the key messages from summaries of Cochrane Reviews, without reading the full review?

Objective: We explored whether readers can understand key messages without having to read the full review, and if there were differences in understanding between various types of summary.
Design: A randomised experiment of review summaries which compared understanding of a key outcome.
Participants: Members of university staff (n = 36).
Setting: Universities on the island of Ireland.
Method: The Cochrane Review chosen examines the health impacts of the use of electric fans during heat waves. Participants were asked their expectation of the effect these would have on mortality. They were then randomly assigned a summary of the review (i.e. abstract, plain language summary, podcast or podcast transcription) and asked to spend a short time reading/listening to the summary. After this they were again asked about the effects of electric fans on mortality and to indicate if they would want to read the full Review.
Main outcome measure: Correct identification of a key review outcome.
Results: Just over half (53%) of the participants identified its key message on mortality after engaging with their summary. The figures were 33% for the abstract group, 50% for both the plain language and transcript groups and 78% for the podcast group.
Conclusions: The differences between the groups were not statistically significant but suggest that the audio summary might improve knowledge transfer compared to written summaries. These findings should be explored further using a larger sample size and with other reviews.

Chromatography- High Performance Liquid Chromatography

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a major analytic tool in contemporary science, with possibly the highest number of systems installed and running globally. Modern HPLC offers high resolutions allowing the quantitative determination of target analytes within complex matrices by its compatibility with a number of detectors. The article describes the major technological characteristics of HPLC, reviewing separation mechanisms and their application in health and food science. Separation modes and media, key instrumental parameters, compatibility with detection modes, and applications are briefly discussed, aiming to provide helpful hints to the reader in the search for appropriate analytic techniques for a given task.

Key Players and Key Groups in Teams

This paper contributes to the literature on centrality measures in economics by defining a team game and identifying the key players and key groups
in the game. We extend the work of Ballester et al. (Econometrica, 2006) by incorporating a network outcome component in the players' payoff functions and prove that there is a unique interior Nash Equilibrium in pure strategies. We develop a team intercentrality measure based on alternative scenarios that capture the externality created by teammates on each player.

Does wave exposure determine the interactive effects of losing key grazers and ecosystem engineers?

The consequences of biodiversity loss in the face of environmental change remain difficult to predict, given the complexity of interactions among species and the context-dependency of their functional roles within ecosystems. Predictions may be enhanced by studies testing how the interactive effects of species loss from different functional groups vary with important environmental drivers. On rocky shores, limpets and barnacles are recognised as key grazers and ecosystem engineers, respectively. Despite the large body of research examining the combined effects of limpet and barnacle removal, it is unclear how their relative importance varies according to wave exposure, which is a dominant force structuring intertidal communities. We tested the responses of algal communities to the removal of limpets and barnacles on three sheltered and three wave-exposed rocky shores on the north coast of Ireland. Limpet removal resulted in a relative increase in microalgal biomass on a single sheltered shore only, but led to the enhanced accumulation of ephemeral macroalgae on two sheltered shores and one exposed shore. On average, independently of wave exposure or shore, ephemeral macroalgae increased in response to limpet removal, but only when barnacles were removed. On two sheltered shores and one exposed shore, however, barnacles facilitated the establishment of fucoid macroalgae following limpet removal. Therefore, at the scale of this study, variability among individual shores was more important than wave exposure per se in determining the effect of limpet removal and its interaction with that of barnacles. Overall, these findings demonstrate that the interactive effects of losing key species from different functional groups may not vary predictably according to dominant environmental factors.

Secure Key Generation from OFDM Subcarriers’ Channel Response

The ability to exchange keys between users is vital in any wireless based security system. A key generation technique exploits the randomness of the wireless channel is a promising alternative to existing key distribution techniques, e.g., public key cryptography. In this paper a secure key generation scheme based on the subcarriers’ channel responses in orthogonal frequencydivision multiplexing (OFDM) systems is proposed. We first implement a time-variant multipath channel with its channel impulse response modelled as a wide sense stationary (WSS) uncorrelated scattering random process and demonstrate that each subcarrier’s channel response is also a WSS random process. We then define the X% coherence time as the time required to produce an X% correlation coefficient in the autocorrelation function (ACF) of each channel tap, and find that when all the channel taps have the same Doppler power spectrum, all subcarriers’ channel responses has the same ACF as the channel taps. The subcarrier’s channel response is then sampled every X% coherence time and quantized into key bits. All the key sequences’ randomness is tested using National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) statistical test suite and the results indicate that the commonly used sampling interval as 50% coherence time cannot guarantee the randomness of the key sequence.

Key performance indicators – A new approach for specifying concrete and assessing state of health of concrete structure

The focus of this paper is to outline a method for consolidating and implementing the work on performance-based specification and testing. First part of the paper will review the mathematical significance of the variables used in common service life models. The aim is to identify a set of significant variables that influence the ingress of chloride ions into concrete. These variables are termed as Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). This will also help to reduce the complexity of some of the service life models and make them more appealing for practicing engineers. The second part of the paper presents a plan for developing a database based on these KPI’s so that relationships can then be drawn between common concrete mix parameters and KPI’s. This will assist designers in specifying a concrete with adequate performance for a particular environment. This, collectively, is referred to as the KPI based approach and the concluding remarks will outline how the authors envisage the KPI theory to relate to performance assessment and monitoring.

Herschel key program HERITAGE:A far-infrared source catalog for the Magellanic Clouds

Observations from the HERschel Inventory of the Agents of Galaxy Evolution (HERITAGE ) have been used to identify dusty populations of sources in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC). We conducted the study using the HERITAGE catalogs of point sources available from the Herschel Science Center from both the Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS; 100 and 160 μm) and Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE; 250, 350, and 500 μm) cameras. These catalogs are matched to each other to create a Herschel band-merged catalog and then further matched to archival Spitzer IRAC and MIPS catalogs from the Spitzer Surveying the Agents of Galaxy Evolution (SAGE) and SAGE-SMC surveys to create single mid- to far-infrared (far-IR) point source catalogs that span the wavelength range from 3.6 to 500 μm. There are 35,322 unique sources in the LMC and 7503 in the SMC. To be bright in the FIR, a source must be very dusty, and so the sources in the HERITAGE catalogs represent the dustiest populations of sources. The brightest HERITAGE sources are dominated by young stellar objects (YSOs), and the dimmest by background galaxies. We identify the sources most likely to be background galaxies by first considering their morphology (distant galaxies are point-like at the resolution of Herschel) and then comparing the flux distribution to that of the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (ATLAS ) survey of galaxies. We find a total of 9745 background galaxy candidates in the LMC HERITAGE images and 5111 in the SMC images, in agreement with the number predicted by extrapolating from the ATLAS flux distribution. The majority of the Magellanic Cloud-residing sources are either very young, embedded forming stars or dusty clumps of the interstellar medium. Using the presence of 24 μm emission as a tracer of star formation, we identify 3518 YSO candidates in the LMC and 663 in the SMC. There are far fewer far-IR bright YSOs in the SMC than the LMC due to both the SMC's smaller size and its lower dust content. The YSO candidate lists may be contaminated at low flux levels by background galaxies, and so we differentiate between sources with a high ("probable") and moderate ("possible ") likelihood of being a YSO. There are 2493/425 probable YSO candidates in the LMC/SMC. Approximately 73% of the Herschel YSO candidates are newly identified in the LMC, and 35% in the SMC. We further identify a small population of dusty objects in the late stages of stellar evolution including extreme and post-asymptotic giant branch, planetary nebulae, and supernova remnants. These populations are identified by matching the HERITAGE catalogs to lists of previously identified objects in the literature. Approximately half of the LMC sources and one quarter of the SMC sources are too faint to obtain accurate ample FIR photometry and are unclassified.

Tracking Change in Northern Ireland Policing: Temporal Phases and Key Themes

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore and explain the change process in Northern Ireland policing through an analysis of temporally bracketed change phases and key change delivery themes ranging from 1996 to 2012.

Design/methodology/approach
– The research approach adopted is process based, longitudinal and multi-method, utilising “temporal bracketing” to determine phases of change and conjunctural reasoning to unravel the systematic factors interacting over time, within the case.

Findings
– The paper identifies and temporally brackets four phases of change: “Tipping point”; “Implementation, Symbolic Modification and Resistance”; “Power Assisted Steering”; and “A Return to Turbulence”, identifies four themes that emerge from RUC-PSNI experience: the role of adaptive leadership; pace and sequencing of change implementation; sufficient resourcing; and the impact of external agents acting as boundary spanners, and comments on the prominence of these themes through the phases. The paper goes on to reflect upon how these phases and themes inform our understanding of organisational change within policing organisations generally and within politically pressurised transition processes.

Originality/value
– The contribution of the paper lies in the documentation of an almost unique organisational case in an environmentally forced change process. In this it contains lessons for other organisations facing similar, if less extreme challenges and presents an example of intense change analysed longitudinally.

Risk factor control is key in diabetic nephropathy

Prolonged duration of diabetes, poor glycaemic control and hypertension are major risk factors for both diabetic nephropathy and cardiovascular disease. Optimising blood sugar control together with excellent control of blood pressure can reduce the risk of developing diabetic nephropathy. Diabetic nephropathy should be considered in any patient with diabetes when persistent albuminuria develops. Microalbuminuria is the earliest clinically detectable indicator of diabetic nephropathy risk. The majority of patients with diabetic nephropathy are appropriately diagnosed based on elevated urinary albumin excretion and/or reduced 0032-6518 renal function. Patients with type 2 diabetes should have annual urinary ACR measurements from the time of diabetes diagnosis while those with type 1 diabetes should commence five years after diagnosis. Blood pressure lowering to 130/80mmHg and reduction of proteinuria to <1 g/day retards progression of diabetic nephropathy and reduces the number of cardiovascular events. Drugs that block the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) are effective in reducing proteinuria, managing hypertension and reducing cardiovascular risk. Unless there are clear contraindications or intolerance all patients with diabetic nephropathy should be prescribed an ACEI or ARB. Stopping an ACEI or ARB during intercurrent illness or times of volume depletion is critically important. Patients with diabetic nephropathy should have at least yearly measurements of blood pressure, renal function and urinary ACR.