William Smith - 200 years of geomodelling celebrated at IAMG

The International Association for Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG) commemorated William Smith (23rd March 1769 - 28th August 1839) and 200 years of geomodelling with geological surveys and academics across the globe at the 17th annual conference of the IAMG in Freiberg, Germany from the 5th to 13th September 2015. The aim of the IAMG is to promote the use of mathematics, statistics and geoinformatics in the geosciences. The annual IAMG conference is an opportunity for geoscientists to collaborate with mathematicians and statisticians and present their recent work. The

17th annual IAMG conference, with 300 participants from across the world, differed from previous IAMG conferences in that it included a special ‘Day of Surveys’ to acknowledge 200 years of science and methodologies to construct maps.

Respecting and fulfilling the right of post-primary pupils to consent to participate in trials and evaluative research: A discussion paper

This paper provides an introduction to issues surrounding the participation rights of young people in research and the implications of their growing involvement in research as well as providing a discourse on the ethical implications related to consent. The unique contribution of this paper is that it considers children’s rights in respect to the increasing opportunities for young people to take part in evaluation research. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to acknowledge the growing involvement for young people in research and the implications of ensuring that their rights of participation are respected. Secondly we will consider the children’s rights legislation and our obligations as researchers to implement this. Finally we will explore consent as an issue in its own right as well as the practicalities of accessing participants. This paper will postulate that any research about young people should involve and prioritise at all stages of the research process; including participation in decision-making. We conclude by identifying five key principles, which we believe can help to facilitate the fulfilment of post-primary pupils’ ability to consent to participate in trials and evaluative research.

Ethnicity and the prostate cancer experience: a qualitative metasynthesis

Objectives: To summarise black and minority ethnic (BME) patients' and partners
experiences of prostate cancer (PCa) by examining the findings of existing qualitative studies
Methods:
We undertook a systematic metasynthesis of qualitative studies using a modified version of
Noblit and Hare's 'meta-ethnography' approach, with a 2000-2015 search of seven databases.
Results: Thirteen studies of men from US and UK BME groups were included. We explored
constructs with BME-specific features. Healthcare provider relationships, formation of a
spiritual alliance with God (which enhanced the participants’ feeling of empowerment and
ability to cope with the cancer) and living on for others (generally to increase cancer
awareness), often connected to spiritual regrowth, were the three constructs most commonly
reported. A magnified effect from erectile dysfunction was also common. Initially this
affected men’s disclosure to others about their cancer and their sexual problems, but
eventually men responded by shifting their conceptualisations of masculinity to sustain self
and social identities. There was also evidence of inequality resulting from financial
constraints and adversity that necessitated resilience in coping.
Conclusions: The prostate cancer experience of BME men and their partners is affected by a
complex intersection of ethnicity with other factors. Healthcare services should acknowledge
this. If providers recognise the men’s felt masculinities, social identities and spiritual beliefs
and their shifting nature, services could be improved, with community as well as individual
benefits. More studies are needed in diverse ethnic groups

Graphene-MoS2 Hybrid Technology for Large-Scale Two-Dimensional Electronics

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have generated great interest in the last few years as a new toolbox for electronics. This family of materials includes, among others, metallic graphene, semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (such as MoS2) and insulating Boron Nitride. These materials and their heterostructures offer excellent mechanical flexibility, optical transparency and favorable transport properties for realizing electronic, sensing and optical systems on arbitrary surfaces. In this work, we develop several etch stop layer technologies that allow the fabrication of complex 2D devices and present for the first time the large scale integration of graphene with molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) , both grown using the fully scalable CVD technique. Transistor devices and logic circuits with MoS2 channel and graphene as contacts and interconnects are constructed and show high performances. In addition, the graphene/MoS2 heterojunction contact has been systematically compared with MoS2-metal junctions experimentally and studied using density functional theory. The tunability of the graphene work function significantly improves the ohmic contact to MoS2. These high-performance large-scale devices and circuits based on 2D heterostructure pave the way for practical flexible transparent electronics in the future. The authors acknowledge financial support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program, the ONR GATE MURI program, and the Army Research Laboratory. This research has made use of the MI.