Is diagnosis enough to guide interventions in mental health? Using case formulation in clinical practice

While diagnosis has traditionally been viewed as an essential concept in medicine, particularly when selecting treatments, we suggest that the use of diagnosis alone may be limited, particularly within mental health. The concept of clinical case formulation advocates for collaboratively working with patients to identify idiosyncratic aspects of their presentation and select interventions on this basis. Identifying individualized contributing factors, and how these could influence the person's presentation, in addition to attending to personal strengths, may allow the clinician a deeper understanding of a patient, result in a more personalized treatment approach, and potentially provide a better clinical outcome.

Formulation and simulation of a 3D mechanical model of embryos for microinjection

The understanding of cell manipulation, for example in microinjection, requires an accurate model of the cells. Motivated by this important requirement, a 3D particlebased mechanical model is derived for simulating the deformation of the fish egg membrane and the corresponding cellular forces during microrobotic cell injection. The model is formulated based on the kinematic and dynamic of spring- damper configuration with multi-particle joints considering the visco-elastic fluidic properties. It simulates the indentation force feedback as well as cell visual deformation during microinjection. A preliminary simulation study is conducted with different parameter configurations. The results indicate that the proposed particle-based model is able to provide similar deformation profiles as observed from a real microinjection experiment of the zebrafish embryo published in the literature. As a generic modelling approach is adopted, the proposed model also has the potential in applications with different types of manipulation such as micropipette cell aspiration.

Fabrication and applications of ultrafine powder from cashmere guard hair

Cashmere guard hair, an industrial animal protein fibre waste material has been very first time converted into ultra-fine powder particles. The work also demonstrates potential of the newly developed particles in high value technical applications such as toxic heavy metal ion separation and surface functionalization of textile fabrics.

The effect of plant tissue and vaccine formulation on the oral immunogenicity of a model plant-made antigen in sheep

Antigen-specific antibody responses against a model antigen (the B subunit of the heat labile toxin of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, LTB) were studied in sheep following oral immunisation with plant-made and delivered vaccines. Delivery from a root-based vehicle resulted in antigen-specific immune responses in mucosal secretions of the abomasum and small intestine and mesenteric lymph nodes. Immune responses from the corresponding leaf-based vaccine were more robust and included stimulation of antigen-specific antibodies in mucosal secretions of the abomasum. These findings suggest that oral delivery of a plant bioencapsulated antigen can survive passage through the rumen to elicit mucosal and systemic immune responses in sheep. Moreover, the plant tissue used as the vaccine delivery vehicle affects the magnitude of these responses.

Comparison of food industry policies and commitments on marketing to children and product (re)formulation in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji

Unhealthy food environments are known to be major drivers of diet-related non-communicable diseases globally, and there is an imperative for major food companies to be publicly accountable for their actions to improve the healthiness of food environments. This paper examines the prevalence of publicly available policies and commitments of major packaged food and soft drink manufacturers, and fast-food restaurants in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji with respect to reducing food marketing to children and product (re)formulation. In each country, the most prominent companies in each sector were selected. Company policies, commitments and relevant industry initiatives were gleaned from company and industry association websites. In Australia and New Zealand, there are a higher proportion of companies with publicly available marketing and formulation policies than in Fiji. However, even in Australia, a large proportion of the most prominent food companies do not have publicly available policies. Where they exist, policies on food marketing to children generally focus on those aged less than 12, do not apply to all types of media, marketing channels and techniques, and do not provide transparency with respect to the products to which the policies apply. Product formulation policies, where they exist, focus mostly on salt reduction and changes to the make-up of overall product portfolios, and do not generally address saturated fat, added sugar and energy reduction. In the absence of strong policies and corresponding actions by the private sector, it is likely that government action (e.g. through co-regulation or legislation) will be needed to drive improved company performance.

Silk powder: production, characterisation, and application

 For the first time, produced silk particles with unique properties in the range of 7 µm – 200 nm using milling process which opens up new opportunities for silk particle for diverse applications especially drug delivery and tissue scaffolds.