Psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life and emotional wellbeing in newly diagnosed cancer patients

Title
Psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life and emotional wellbeing for recently diagnosed cancer patients.

Background
Despite clear guidelines recommending the provision of emotional support for cancer patients, we do not know how best to address psychological distress in this group.

Aim
To assess the effects of psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life (QoL) and general psychological distress newly diagnosed cancer patients.

Methods
We searched electronic sources for RCTs of psychosocial interventions or ‘talking therapies’ with individual newly diagnosed cancer patients. Only trials measuring QoL and general psychological distress were included. Meta-analyses examined subgroups by outcome measurement, mode of delivery and discipline of trained helper.

Results
Thirty trials met the criteria. No significant effects were observed for QoL at 6-months (SMD 0.11; 95% CI -0.00 to 0.22) except when using cancer-specific measures (SMD 0.16; 95% CI 0.02 to 0.30). Sub-group analyses revealed that psycho-educational, nurse-delivered interventions improved QoL (SMD 0.23; 95% CI 0.04 to 0.43). General psychological distress as assessed by ‘mood measures’ improved (SMD - 0.81; 95% CI -1.44 to -0.18), but heterogeneity was a factor.

Discussion and conclusion
Psychosocial interventions vary in format and content, raising concerns about heterogeneity, despite appearing to have a beneficial impact on cancer-specific QoL and mood. Future research should concentrate on screening for emotional support needs and identifying common elements within interventions that are of value. Authors should carefully select outcome measures that are appropriately sensitive to change.

Psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life and emotional wellbeing in newly diagnosed cancer patients

Title
Psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life and emotional wellbeing for recently diagnosed cancer patients.

Background
Despite clear guidelines recommending the provision of emotional support for cancer patients, we do not know how best to address psychological distress in this group.

Aim
To assess the effects of psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life (QoL) and general psychological distress newly diagnosed cancer patients.

Methods
We searched electronic sources for RCTs of psychosocial interventions or ‘talking therapies’ with individual newly diagnosed cancer patients. Only trials measuring QoL and general psychological distress were included. Meta-analyses examined subgroups by outcome measurement, mode of delivery and discipline of trained helper.

Results
Thirty trials met the criteria. No significant effects were observed for QoL at 6-months (SMD 0.11; 95% CI -0.00 to 0.22) except when using cancer-specific measures (SMD 0.16; 95% CI 0.02 to 0.30). Sub-group analyses revealed that psycho-educational, nurse-delivered interventions improved QoL (SMD 0.23; 95% CI 0.04 to 0.43). General psychological distress as assessed by ‘mood measures’ improved (SMD - 0.81; 95% CI -1.44 to -0.18), but heterogeneity was a factor.

Discussion and conclusion
Psychosocial interventions vary in format and content, raising concerns about heterogeneity, despite appearing to have a beneficial impact on cancer-specific QoL and mood. Future research should concentrate on screening for emotional support needs and identifying common elements within interventions that are of value. Authors should carefully select outcome measures that are appropriately sensitive to change.

Measurement of single mode imprint in laser ablative drive of a thin Al foil by extreme ultraviolet laser radiography

The temporal development of laser driven single mode perturbations in thin A1 foils has been measured using extreme ultraviolet (XUV) laser radiography. 15, 30, 70 and 90 mu m single modes were imprinted on 2 mu m thick A1 foils with an optical driver laser at 527 nm for intensities in the range 5 x 10(12) to 1.5 x 10(13) W cm(-2). The magnitude of the imprinted perturbation at the time of shock break out was determined by fitting to the data estimated curves of growth of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability after shock break out. The efficiency of imprinting is independent of perturbation wavelength in the parameter range of this experiment, suggesting little influence of thermal conduction smoothing. The results are of interest for directly driven inertially confined fusion. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.

Type Synthesis of 3-DOF Multi-Mode Translational/Spherical Parallel Mechanisms with Lockable Joints

A 3-DOF (degrees-of-freedom) multi-mode translational/spherical PM (parallel mechanism) with lockable joints is a novel reconfigurable PM. It has both 3-DOF spatial translational operation mode and 3-DOF spherical operation mode. This paper presents an approach to the type synthesis of translational/spherical PMs with lockable joints. Using the proposed approach, several 3-DOF translational/spherical PMs are obtained. It is found that these translational/spherical PMs do not encounter constraint singular configurations and self-motion of sub-chain of a leg during reconfiguration. The approach can also be used for synthesizing other classes of multi-mode PMs with lockable joints, multi-mode PMs with variable kinematic joints, partially decoupled PMs, and reconfigurable PMs with a reconfigurable platform.

Towards Multi-Sensor Spectral Alignment Through Post Measurement Calibration Correction

Semiconductor manufactures are increasing reliant on optical emission spectroscopy (OES) to source information on plasma characteristics and process change. However, nonlinearities in the response of OES sensors and errors in their calibration lead to discrepancies in observed wavelength detector response. This paper presents a technique for the retrospective spectral calibration of multiple OES sensors. Underlying methodology is given, and alignment performance is evaluated using OES recordings from a semiconductor plasma process. The paper concludes with a discussion of results and suggests avenues for future work.

Atomic excitation during recollision-free ultrafast multi-electron tunnel ionization

Modern intense ultrafast pulsed lasers generate an electric field of sufficient strength to permit tunnel ionization of the valence electrons in atoms(1). This process is usually treated as a rapid succession of isolated events, in which the states of the remaining electrons are neglected(2). Such electronic interactions are predicted to be weak, the exception being recollision excitation and ionization caused by linearly polarized radiation(3). In contrast, it has recently been suggested that intense field ionization may be accompanied by a two-stage 'shake-up' reaction(4). Here we report a unique combination of experimental techniques(5-8) that allows us to accurately measure the tunnel ionization probability for argon exposed to 50-fs laser pulses. Most significantly for the current study, this measurement is independent of the optical focal geometry(7,8), equivalent to a homogenous electric field. Furthermore, circularly polarized radiation negates recollision. The present measurements indicate that tunnel ionization results in simultaneous excitation of one or more remaining electrons through shake-up(9). From an atomic physics standpoint, it may be possible to induce ionization from specific states, and will influence the development of coherent attosecond extreme-ultraviolet-radiation sources(10). Such pulses have vital scientific and economic potential in areas such as high-resolution imaging of in vivo cells and nanoscale extreme-ultraviolet lithography.

Measurement of highly transient electrical charging following high-intensity laser-solid interaction

The multi-million-electron-volt proton beams accelerated during high-intensity laser-solid interactions have been used as a particle probe to investigate the electric charging of microscopic targets laser-irradiated at intensity similar to10(19) W cm(2). The charge-up, detected via the proton deflection with high temporal and spatial resolution, is due to the escape of energetic electrons generated during the interaction. The analysis of the data is supported by three- dimensional tracing of the proton trajectories. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.

Plasma power measurement and hysteresis in the E-H transition of a rf inductively coupled plasma system

An experimental investigation of the argon plasma behavior near the E-H transition in an inductively coupled Gaseous Electronics Conference reference cell is reported. Electron density and temperature, ion density, argon metastable density, and optical emission measurements have been made as function of input power and gas pressure. When plotted versus plasma power, applied power corrected for coil and hardware losses, no hysteresis is observed in the measured plasma parameter dependence at the E-H mode transition. This suggests that hysteresis in the E-H mode transition is due to ignoring inherent power loss, primarily in the matching system.

Monitoring microbial sulfate reduction in porous media using multi-purpose electrodes

There is growing interest in the application of electrode-based measurements for monitoring microbial processes in the Earth using biogeophysical methods. In this study, reactive electrode measurements were combined to electrical geophysical measurements during microbial sulfate reduction occurring in a column of silica beads saturated with natural river water. Electrodic potential (EP), self potential (SP) and complex conductivity signals were recorded using a dual electrode design (Ag/AgCl metal as sensing/EP electrode, Ag/AgCl metal in KCl gel as reference/SP electrode). Open-circuit potentials, representing the tendency for electrochemical reactions to occur on the electrode surfaces, were recorded between sensing/EP electrode and reference/SP electrode and showed significant spatiotemporal variability associated with microbial activity. The dual electrode design isolates the microbial driven sulfide reactions to the sensing electrode and permits removal of any SP signal from the EP measurement. Based on the known sensitivity of a Ag electrode to dissolved sulfide, we interpret EP signals exceeding 550 mV recorded in this experiment in terms of bisulfide (HS-) concentration near multiple sensing electrodes. Complex conductivity measurements capture an imaginary conductivity (s?) signal interpreted as the response of microbial growth and biomass formation in the column. Our results suggest that the implementation of multipurpose electrodes, combining reactive measurements with electrical geophysical measurements, could improve efforts to monitor microbial processes in the Earth using electrodes.

Measurement-based Method for Wind Farm Power System Oscillations Monitoring

The global increase in the penetration of renewable energy is pushing electrical power systems into uncharted territory, especially in terms of transient and dynamic stability. In particular, the greater penetration of wind generation in European power networks is, at times, displacing a significant capacity of conventional synchronous generation with fixed-speed induction generation and now more commonly, doubly fed induction generators. The impact of such changes in the generation mix requires careful monitoring to assess the impact on transient and dynamic stability. This study presents a measurement-based method for the early detection of power system oscillations, with consideration of mode damping, in order to raise alarms and develop strategies to actively improve power system dynamic stability and security. A method is developed based on wavelet-based support vector data description (SVDD) to detect oscillation modes in wind farm output power, which may excite dynamic instabilities in the wider system. The wavelet transform is used as a filter to identify oscillations in frequency bands, whereas the SVDD method is used to extract dominant features from different scales and generate an assessment boundary according to the extracted features. Poorly damped oscillations of a large magnitude, or that are resonant, can be alarmed to the system operator, to reduce the risk of system instability. The proposed method is exemplified using measured data from a chosen wind farm site.

Acoustic solitary waves in dusty and/or multi-ion plasmas with cold, adiabatic, and hot constituents

Large nonlinear acoustic waves are discussed in a four-component plasma, made up of two superhot isothermal species, and two species with lower thermal velocities, being, respectively, adiabatic and cold. First a model is considered in which the isothermal species are electrons and ions, while the cooler species are positive and/or negative dust. Using a Sagdeev pseudopotential formalism, large dust-acoustic structures have been studied in a systematic way, to delimit the compositional parameter space in which they can be found, without restrictions on the charges and masses of the dust species and their charge signs. Solitary waves can only occur for nonlinear structure velocities smaller than the adiabatic dust thermal velocity, leading to a novel dust-acoustic-like mode based on the interplay between the two dust species. If the cold and adiabatic dust are oppositely charged, only solitary waves exist, having the polarity of the cold dust, their parameter range being limited by infinite compression of the cold dust. However, when the charges of the cold and adiabatic species have the same sign, solitary structures are limited for increasing Mach numbers successively by infinite cold dust compression, by encountering the adiabatic dust sonic point, and by the occurrence of double layers. The latter have, for smaller Mach numbers, the same polarity as the charged dust, but switch at the high Mach number end to the opposite polarity. Typical Sagdeev pseudopotentials and solitary wave profiles have been presented. Finally, the analysis has nowhere used the assumption that the dust would be much more massive than the ions and hence, one or both dust species can easily be replaced by positive and/or negative ions and the conclusions will apply to that plasma model equally well. This would cover a number of different scenarios, such as, for example, very hot electrons and ions, together with a mix of adiabatic ions and dust (of either polarity) or a very hot electron-positron mix, together with a two-ion mix or together with adiabatic ions and cold dust (both of either charge sign), to name but some of the possible plasma compositions.

Nonlinear Dynamics of Rotating Multi-Component Pair Plasmas and e-p-i Plasmas

The propagation of small amplitude stationary profile nonlinear electrostatic excitations in a pair plasma is investigated, mainly drawing inspiration from experiments on fullerene pair-ion plasmas. Two distinct pair ion species are considered of opposite polarity and same mass, in addition to a massive charged background species, which is assumed to be stationary, given the frequency scale of interest. In the pair-ion context, the third species is thought of as a background defect (e.g. charged dust) component. On the other hand, the model also applies formally to electron-positron-ion (e-p-i) plasmas, if one neglects electron-positron annihilation. A two-fluid plasma model is employed, incorporating both Lorentz and Coriolis forces, thus taking into account the interplay between the gyroscopic (Larmor) frequency ?c and the (intrinsic) plasma rotation frequency O0. By employing a multi-dimensional reductive perturbation technique, a Zakharov-Kuznetsov (ZK) type equation is derived for the evolution of the electric potential perturbation. Assuming an arbitrary direction of propagation, with respect to the magnetic field, we derive the exact form of nonlinear solutions, and study their characteristics. A parametric analysis is carried out, as regards the effect of the dusty plasma composition (background number density), species temperature(s) and the relative strength of rotation to Larmor frequencies. It is shown that the Larmor and mechanical rotation affect the pulse dynamics via a parallel-to-transverse mode coupling diffusion term, which in fact diverges at ?c ? ±2O0. Pulses collapse at this limit, as nonlinearity fails to balance dispersion. The analysis is complemented by investigating critical plasma compositions, in fact near-symmetric (T- ˜ T+) “pure” (n- ˜ n+) pair plasmas, i.e. when the concentration of the 3rd background species is negligible, case in which the (quadratic) nonlinearity vanishes, so one needs to resort to higher order nonlinear theory. A modified ZK equation is derived and analyzed. Our results are of relevance in pair-ion (fullerene) experiments and also potentially in astrophysical environments, e.g. in pulsars.

MEASUREMENT OF THE PHOTO-PUMP STRENGTH OF THE 3D-5F TRANSITIONS IN THE AUTOMATICALLY LINE MATCHED NI-LIKE SM PHOTOPUMPED X-RAY LASER

The photo-pump strengths of both the ((3 (d) over bar(4))(0)(3d(6))(0))(0)-(((3 (d) over bar(3))(3/2)(3d(6))(0))(3/2)(5 (f) over bar)(5/2))(1) and the ((3 (d) over bar(4))(0)(3d(6))0)0-(((3 (d) over bar(4))(0)(3d(5))(5/2))(5/2)(5f)(7/2))(1) transitions in Ni-like Sm34+ have been measured to be 2.0 x 10(-4) and 2.4 x 10(-4) photons/mode respectively. The implications of the measurement are briefly discussed in a comparison of the merits of automatically line matched photo-pump scheme to those of the collisional excitation Ni-like Sm+34 scheme.

An investigation of Mode I fracture toughness using aligned carbon nanotube forests at the crack interface

This paper presents a novel approach for introducing aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) at the crack interface of pre-impregnated (prepreg) carbon fibre composite plies, creating a hierarchical (three-phase) composite structure. The aim of this approach is to improve the interlaminar fracture toughness. The developed method for transplanting the aligned CNTs from the silicon wafer onto the pre-preg material is described. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to analyse the effects of the transplantation method. Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) specimens were prepared, according to ASTM standard D5528- 01R07E03 [1] and aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were introduced at the crack-tip. Mode I fracture tests for pristine (control) specimens and CNT-enhanced specimens were conducted and an average increase in the critical strain energy release rate (GIc) of approximately 50 % was achieved.