Regional Follow up of Late Preterm Neonatal Intensive Care Graduates: Methodological Considerations.

The aim is to guide researchers who are contemplating embarking on research by discussing the methodological challenges encountered in a retrospective follow-up study of three-year-old, late preterm infants (LPIs) who received neonatal intensive care (NIC) in Northern Ireland in 2006. The importance of effective research examining the longer term outcomes of infants admitted to NIC has received increasing recognition. Follow-up cohort and longitudinal studies have grown in number globally, yet the research methodology relating to follow up of NIC graduates is unclear. This paper highlights the methodological challenges of conducting retrospective follow-up research, from the initial planning stages through to the collection of data from the children, including identification of infants from a retrospective database, ethical issues, child-safety concerns and recruitment challenges. This paper creates an awareness of potential issues that may arise in follow-up research with NIC graduates. The paper also offers practical and effective examples of dealing with these issues, helping to ensure the smooth running of an ethical, professionally conducted, methodologically sound and clinically relevant follow-up study.

Directed self-assembly of nanorod networks: bringing the top down to the bottom up

Self-assembled electrodeposited nanorod materials have been shown to offer an exciting landscape for a wide array of research ranging from nanophotonics through to biosening and magnetics. However, until now, the scope for site-specific preparation of the nanorods on wafers is limited to local area definition. Further there is little or no lateral control of nanorod height. In this work we present a scalable method for controlling the growth of the nanorods in the vertical direction as well as their lateral position. A focused ion beam (FIB) pre-patterns the Au cathode layer prior to the creation of the Anodized Aluminium Oxide (AAO) template on top. When the pre-patterning is of the same dimension to the pore spacing of the AAO template, lines of single nanorods are successfully grown. Further, for sub-200 nm wide features a relationship between the nanorod height and distance from non-patterned cathode can be seen to follow a quadratic growth rate obeying Faradays law of electrodeposition. This facilitates lateral control of nanorod height combined with localised growth of the nanorods.

Up-regulation of the endothelial cell adhesion molecule intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) by autoantibodies in autoimmune vasculitis

Autoimmune vasculitis is characterized by the presence of autoantibodies, particularly anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) and anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA), in patient sera. These autoantibodies have an incompletely understood role in development of vascular injury. The expression or up-regulation of cell adhesion molecules is an early phase in the development of an inflammatory vascular lesion. Autoantibody-positive sera from patients with vasculitis were assessed for their ability to modulate adhesion molecule expression by human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC). Autoantibody-positive serum samples from 11 out of 21 patients with primary vasculitis produced substantial up-regulation of ICAM-1 on HUVEC. Autoantibody-negative samples did not produce adhesion molecule up-regulation. Up-regulation of adhesion molecules on HUVEC was observed with samples positive for ANA, a phenomenon not previously reported. Preincubation of the sera with purified antigens recognized by ANCA failed to block this activation. In addition, MoAbs to ANCA antigens were ineffective at inducing ICAM-1 up-regulation, suggesting that activation is independent of the molecular specificity of the antibody. This capacity of ANCA- and ANA-positive sera to up-regulate adhesion molecules on endothelial cells may be a factor in the vessel wall inflammation seen in ANCA-associated vasculitis.

Up-regulation of the granulocyte adhesion molecule Mac-1 by autoantibodies in autoimmune vasculitis

The characteristic finding of autoantibodies in patients with vasculitis has raised the possibility that these antibodies play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease. The expression of adhesion molecules (AM) on leucocytes and endothelial cells is believed to be integral to the development of vasculitis. We therefore investigated the effect of sera, positive for anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) or anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) from patients with vasculitis, on granulocyte expression of the adhesion molecule Mac-1 (CD11b). Autoantibody-positive sera from 15 out of 35 patients with vasculitis stimulated an up-regulation of Mac-1 on granulocytes. In most cases this effect was reproduced by the autoantibody-positive purified IgG fraction. Autoantibody-negative samples did not stimulate AM up-regulation. Of interest, preincubation of sera with purified antigens did not inhibit AM up-regulation by the autoantibody samples. Blocking the Fc receptors on granulocytes did result in a decrease of Mac-1 up-regulation, but this trend was not statistically significant. These results suggest that both ANCA and ANA have the capacity to up-regulate granulocyte AM expression, and that while Fc interaction with granulocyte Fc receptors is important, it is not the only mechanism whereby such autoantibodies activate cells.

Older people and legal advice – the need for joined up and creative approaches

This paper reports the findings from research conducted with older people in Northern
Ireland which investigated whether their needs for legal information and advice were
being met. One of the unique aspects of the research involved investigating the
potential of the internet as a possible source for advising older people in relation to
legal problems. The findings suggest that online legal information may frequently assist
older people in identifying potential answers to their legal questions, but may not be an
adequate substitute for personal communication and advice. The research also
highlights the need for professionals to work together to meet the needs of older
persons for legal advice and to safeguard their interests. Such ‘joined up’ approaches
are particularly important, for example at the point of dementia diagnosis, where
information sharing between health and social care professionals may significantly
promote the legal and welfare interests of older people at a vulnerable point in their
lives. This paper therefore turns to work by university-based legal clinics in the United
States, such as the Elder Law Clinic at Pennsylvania State University, where social
work or healthcare professionals, lawyers and law students collaborate to support older
people in their search for resolution of legal problems.

Visuomotor transformation for interception:catching while fixating

Catching a ball involves a dynamic transformation of visual information about ball motion into motor commands for moving the hand to the right place at the right time. We previously formulated a neural model for this transformation to account for the consistent leftward movement biases observed in our catching experiments. According to the model, these biases arise within the representation of target motion as well as within the transformation from a gaze-centered to a body-centered movement command. Here, we examine the validity of the latter aspect of our model in a catching task involving gaze fixation. Gaze fixation should systematically influence biases in catching movements, because in the model movement commands are only generated in the direction perpendicular to the gaze direction. Twelve participants caught balls while gazing at a fixation point positioned either straight ahead or 14 degrees to the right. Four participants were excluded because they could not adequately maintain fixation. We again observed a consistent leftward movement bias, but the catching movements were unaffected by fixation direction. This result refutes our proposal that the leftward bias partly arises within the visuomotor transformation, and suggests instead that the bias predominantly arises within the early representation of target motion, specifically through an imbalance in the represented radial and azimuthal target motion.

Adaptations of lateral hand movements to early and late visual occlusion in catching

Recent studies suggested that the control of hand movements in catching involves continuous vision-based adjustments. More insight into these adjustments may be gained by examining the effects of occluding different parts of the ball trajectory. Here, we examined the effects of such occlusion on lateral hand movements when catching balls approaching from different directions, with the occlusion conditions presented in blocks or in randomized order. The analyses showed that late occlusion only had an effect during the blocked presentation, and early occlusion only during the randomized presentation. During the randomized presentation movement biases were more leftward if the preceding trial was an early occlusion trial. The effect of early occlusion during the randomized presentation suggests that the observed leftward movement bias relates to the rightward visual acceleration inherent to the ball trajectories used, while its absence during the blocked presentation seems to reflect trial-by-trial adaptations in the visuomotor gain, reminiscent of dynamic gain control in the smooth pursuit system. The movement biases during the late occlusion block were interpreted in terms of an incomplete motion extrapolation--a reduction of the velocity gain--caused by the fact that participants never saw the to-be-extrapolated part of the ball trajectory. These results underscore that continuous movement adjustments for catching do not only depend on visual information, but also on visuomotor adaptations based on non-visual information.

How position, velocity, and temporal information combine in the prospective control of catching:data and model

The cerebral cortex contains circuitry for continuously computing properties of the environment and one's body, as well as relations among those properties. The success of complex perceptuomotor performances requires integrated, simultaneous use of such relational information. Ball catching is a good example as it involves reaching and grasping of visually pursued objects that move relative to the catcher. Although integrated neural control of catching has received sparse attention in the neuroscience literature, behavioral observations have led to the identification of control principles that may be embodied in the involved neural circuits. Here, we report a catching experiment that refines those principles via a novel manipulation. Visual field motion was used to perturb velocity information about balls traveling on various trajectories relative to a seated catcher, with various initial hand positions. The experiment produced evidence for a continuous, prospective catching strategy, in which hand movements are planned based on gaze-centered ball velocity and ball position information. Such a strategy was implemented in a new neural model, which suggests how position, velocity, and temporal information streams combine to shape catching movements. The model accurately reproduces the main and interaction effects found in the behavioral experiment and provides an interpretation of recently observed target motion-related activity in the motor cortex during interceptive reaching by monkeys. It functionally interprets a broad range of neurobiological and behavioral data, and thus contributes to a unified theory of the neural control of reaching to stationary and moving targets.

A comparison of real catching with catching using stereoscopic visual displays

To date, the usefulness of stereoscopic visual displays in research on manual interceptive actions has never been examined. In this study, we compared the catching movements of 8 right-handed participants (6 men, 2 women) in a real environment (with suspended balls swinging past the participant, requiring lateral hand movements for interception) with those in a situation in which similar virtual ball trajectories were displayed stereoscopically in a virtual reality system (Cave Automated Virtual Environment [CAVE]; Cruz-Neira, Sandin, DeFranti, Kenyon, & Hart, 1992) with the head fixated. Catching the virtual ball involved grasping a lightweight ball attached to the palm of the hand. The results showed that, compared to real catching, hand movements in the CAVE were (a) initiated later, (b) less accurate, (c) smoother, and (d) aimed more directly at the interception point. Although the latter 3 observations might be attributable to the delayed movement initiation observed in the CAVE, this delayed initiation might have resulted from the use of visual displays. This suggests that stereoscopic visual displays such as present in many virtual reality systems should be used circumspectly in the experimental study of catching and should be used only to address research questions requiring no detailed analysis of the information-based online control of the catching movements.

Rijndael FPGA implementations utilising look-up tables

This paper presents single-chip FPGA Rijndael algorithm implementations of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm, Rijndael. In particular, the designs utilise look-up tables to implement the entire Rijndael Round function. A comparison is provided between these designs and similar existing implementations. Hardware implementations of encryption algorithms prove much faster than equivalent software implementations and since there is a need to perform encryption on data in real time, speed is very important. In particular, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are well suited to encryption implementations due to their flexibility and an architecture, which can be exploited to accommodate typical encryption transformations. In this paper, a Look-Up Table (LUT) methodology is introduced where complex and slow operations are replaced by simple LUTs. A LUT-based fully pipelined Rijndael implementation is described which has a pre-placement performance of 12 Gbits/sec, which is a factor 1.2 times faster than an alternative design in which look-up tables are utilised to implement only one of the Round function transformations, and 6 times faster than other previous single-chip implementations. Iterative Rijndael implementations based on the Look-Up-Table design approach are also discussed and prove faster than typical iterative implementations.

Numbered-up gas-liquid micro/milli channels reactor with modular flow distributor

Gas-liquid processing in microreactors remains mostly restricted to the laboratory scale due to the complexity and expenditure needed for an adequate numbering-up with a uniform flow distribution. Here, the numbering-up is presented for multi-phase (gas-liquid) flow in microreactor suitable for a production capacity of kg/h. Based on the barrier channels concept, the barrier-based micro/milli reactor (BMMR) is designed and fabricated to deliver flow non-uniformity of less than 10%. The BMMR consists of eight parallel channels all operated in the Taylor flow regime and with a liquid flow rate up to 150. mL/min. The quality of the flow distribution is reported by studying two aspects. The first aspect is the influence of different viscosities, surface tensions and flow rates. The second aspect is the influence of modularity by testing three different reaction channels type: (1) square channels fabricated in a stainless steel plate, (2) square channels fabricated in a glass plate, and (3) circular channels (capillaries) made of stainless steel. Additionally, the BMMR is compared to that of a single channel regard the slug and bubble lengths and bubble generation frequency. The results pave the ground for bringing multi-phase flow in microreactor one step closer for large scale production via numbering-up. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

Joined-up government in Ireland:From un-strategic choices to patriotic imperatives

Over the last decade, joined-up government has assumed a prominent place in the study and practice of public management. In this article, drawing on the Irish case we adopt an institutionalist approach to the issue of joining-up government and bureaucratic reform. We explore how the period of sustained and rapid economic growth in Ireland during the 1990s was also characterised by a fragmentation of the public service and proliferation of agencies. Subsequently, as a consequence of the sharp contraction in public spending brought about by the global financial crisis, we find an accelerated process of public sector recentralisation, retrenchment and de-agencification. Much of this is occurring in an unplanned manner but under the generic banner of 'joining up' government. We identify the drivers behind these dynamics and how they have manifested themselves, as well as the changes to politicaladministrative relationships brought about by new initiatives, the power imbalances they expose, and ultimately their consequences on public service delivery. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The up-regulation of voltage-gated sodium channels subtypes coincides with an increased sodium current in hippocampal neuronal culture model

Voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSC) have been linked to inherited forms of epilepsy. The expression and biophysical properties of VGSC in the hippocampal neuronal culture model have not been clarified. In order to evaluate mechanisms of epileptogenesis that are related to VGSC, we examined the expression and function of VGSC in the hippocampal neuronal culture model in vitro and spontaneously epileptic rats (SER) in vivo. Our data showed that the peak amplitude of transient, rapidly–inactivating Na+ current (INa,T) in model neurons was significantly increased compared with control neurons, and the activation curve was shifted to the negative potentials in model neurons in whole cell recording by patch–clamp. In addition, channel activity of persistent, non-inactivating Na+ current (INa,P) was obviously increased in the hippocampal neuronal culture model as judged by single–channel patch–clamp recording. Furthermore, VGSC subtypes NaV1.1, NaV1.2 and NaV1.3 were up-regulated at the protein expression level in model neurons and SER as assessed by Western blotting. Four subtypes of VGSC proteins in SER were clearly present throughout the hippocampus, including CA1, CA3 and dentate gyrus regions, and neurons expressing VGSC immunoreactivity were also detected in hippocampal neuronal culture model by immunofluorescence. These findings suggested that the up-regulation of voltage-gated sodium channels subtypes in neurons coincided with an increased sodium current in the hippocampal neuronal culture model, providing a possible explanation for the observed seizure discharge and enhanced excitability in epilepsy.

Lay-up optimization of composite plates to delay mode-jump instabilities

Experimental and numerical studies have shown that the occurrence of abrupt secondary instabilities, or mode-jumps, in a postbuckling stiffened composite panel may initiate structural failure. This study presents an optimisation methodology, using a genetic algorithm and finite element analysis for the lay-up optimisation of postbuckling composite plates to delay the onset of mode-jump instabilities. A simple and novel approach for detecting modejumps is proposed, based on the RMS value of out-of-plane pseudo-velocities at a number of locations distributed over the postbuckling structure