26199 research outputs found
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Greener on the outside for prisons (GOOP)
No full textPeople in prison tend to come from marginalised, economically, and socially disadvantaged sections of society, exhibiting disproportionately high incidences of ill-health. Growing food in prison can provide an intervention that supports both health improvement and positive resettlement opportunities via education, learning, and skills development. This chapter explores these opportunities through the therapeutic horticulture programme, Greener on the Outside for Prisons (GOOP), in England. It proposes the transition of existing GOOP therapeutic horticulture projects into commercial cooperative businesses in order to further reinforce the health and rehabilitative benefits of prison-grown food and to take GOOP to a new level of intervention through the prison gate. This would enable GOOP to deliver additional employment and resettlement benefits as well as its existing health and rehabilitation benefits. Integrating this transition into local food-based Community Wealth Building strategies in the communities to which GOOP participants will return on release would offer a truly whole system of prison-grown food for both individual and wider public health and wealth-building benefit
Equine fatalities in equestrian eventing
No full textBackground
To date, industry and research outputs that have aimed to improve safety in equestrian eventing have tended to focus on identifying risk factors for horse falls during cross-country, which have been identified as the greatest risk of injury and fatality for riders. There is an absence of research that investigates fatalities of horses within the sport of eventing.
Objectives
To use a combination of media reports and eventing federation databases to describe and document equine fatalities in equestrian eventing, including their context, location and a basic pathology.
Study Design
Descriptive study.
Methods
A study describing equine fatalities that occurred between 1998 and 2023. Study data were taken from a combination of media reports (to identify occurrences of equine fatalities) and federation databases (to confirm a fatality did indeed occur and validate data).
Results
One hundred and ten equine fatality records were included. Median horse age was 12 years. 62.7% of equine fatalities were not associated with a report of a horse fall during the cross-country phase. Of all fatalities, 36.4% involved a musculoskeletal (MSK) injury, 36.4% were considered sudden death and 27.3% did not report the pathology (unknown). A total of 47.5% of MSK-related fatalities and 90% of sudden death fatalities occurred during cross-country but were unrelated to horse falls at cross-country fences.
Main Limitations
The data presented within this study do not provide a complete picture of global equine eventing fatalities during the study period. Details around the context/pathology of fatalities are also limited because of the sources they are derived from.
Conclusions
This study demonstrates that equine fatalities in eventing occur in contexts other than horse falls, including as a result of MSK injury and sudden death. Future research and risk management work in eventing should include work that investigates sudden death and MSK injury in eventing horses and their causative/associative factors
Challenging magicians’ intuitive insights: The role of audience participation in experiencing a magic trick.
Get PDFMagic is a performance art that relies on tricking the spectator’s mind into experiencing things that seem impossible. Experience in performing these tricks in front of live audiences provides magicians valuable insights into how spectators experience such tricks. However, most of these assumptions have not been empirically tested. Three widely held assumptions were selected: active participation increases the sense of wonder that participants experience, naming a card feels freer to the participant than physically selecting a card from a deck, and a trick that happens in the spectator’s hand is more impressive than if it happens elsewhere. To validate those assumptions, we asked 201 magicians about their insights on performing magic. Data from our experimental studies did not support magicians’ assumptions about how magic is experienced. Magic that happened in the participant’s hand was not viewed as more impossible or engaging than when it happened elsewhere. Also, active participation did not increase enjoyment but increased confusion. Interestingly, contrary to magicians’ insights, we observed that participants felt that selecting a card was felt as being freer than naming a card. We discuss these findings in light of the sense of agency participants experienced over their own thoughts and behaviors. These findings provide interesting insight into how the art of magic is experienced and pave new avenues into the study of the sense of agency over one’s thoughts and behaviors
Evaluating Interactive Technology with Children
No full textWhile evaluating technology with adults is well understood, evaluating interactive technology with child users has received far less attention and raises a range of unusual and unexpected challenges. With more children than ever before using interactive technology on a daily basis, this course, for practitioners and researchers, aims to provide a succinct and useful introduction to evaluating technology with children. The course begins with the developmental and ethical challenges of working with children, then covers a range of foundational evaluation techniques, along with how techniques are used and how results are reported both in publications and to child audiences
The Cyprus Troubles, 1963–1964
No full textThis chapter deals with the core period of extensive inter-communal violence in the Republic of Cyprus, from December 1963 to September 1964. It introduces the arrival of an ICRC delegation and of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), and it elaborates on the actions and the organisation of the paramilitary groups involved, the National Guard and the Turkish Airforce. It sets the facts in a coherent chronological order, accompanied by legal commentary, making extensive reference to previously unpublished archival material. It also provides an extensive study of the Ibrahim case, the case which invoked the application of the Doctrine of Necessity in the Cypriot constitutional order
Epilogue
No full textThe fundamental reforms to the constitutional order, the four years of Turkish Cypriot isolation and the exponential growth of militarism, put the two communities before a series of faits accomplis. Despite the first formal inter-communal round of negotiations in 1968, the deadlock continued into the 1970s and the darkest moments of Cypriot history were yet to unfold
REGULATION OF GLYCOGEN METABOLISM AS A POTENTIAL THERAPEUTIC APPROACH AGAINST GLIOBLASTOMA
No full textAIMS Glioblastoma (GB) is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer of the brain and spinal cord with a mean sur- vival of only 15 months following maximal treatment. This demonstrates a demand for discovery of effective compounds as novel therapeutics for GB. One of the hallmarks of cancer includes the ability of malignant cells to reprogramme cellular metabolism. This includes up-regulation of glycogenolysis, the process whereby stored glycogen is broken down into glucose. The rate-determining enzyme involved in this process is glycogen phos- phorylase (GP), of which there are three isoforms (brain, liver, muscle). Recent studies indicate GP as a promis- ing target of inhibition for the treatment of GB. We aim to identify effective GP inhibitor compounds, selective to the liver isoform, and investigate their anti-glioblastoma potential. METHODS Initial research utilises in silico screening of compounds to establish a narrow selection of compounds with the best chances of selectivity for liver GP via the quercetin binding site (QBS). These inhibitors will then be tested against GB cell lines, with normal human astrocytes as a control, in cell viability assays to assess their effectiveness in vitro. Results from cell viability assays will determine the best compounds for use in further experimental studies, including cell cycle analysis and wound healing assays to investigate their effect apoptotic potential and impact on migration. RESULTS The structure of human liver GP, determined through X-ray crystallography, was computationally optimised to effectively dock compounds of interest to the QBS. Compounds were assessed based on their respective docking score and binding interactions observed in silico to predict effective inhibitors. Results indicate that certain compounds display greater affinity liver GP. These were validated through in vitro experiments. CONCLUSION Targeting the QBS demonstrates promise as a therapeutic approach against GB by providing selectivity for the inhibition of liver G
The social conception of space of birth according to women with positive birth experiences: A trans-European study
Get PDFBackground
The social space of birth—the birth environment, its occupants, and the human activities taking place—is interconnected with birth experiences.
Aim
To investigate how the reality of the social space of birth affects women’s positive birth experiences.
Methods
We combined open-text responses to the Babies Born Better survey from 3633 postpartum women in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom and 39 interview transcripts from Czech and Dutch postpartum women. We conducted a textual and thematic analysis.
Findings
Three themes and 11 categories were generated: (1) Exercising fundamental human agency in the birth space consists of the categories: ‘exercising rights’, ‘the protection of human vulnerability’, and ‘the freedom to be authentic’, which women regard as prerequisite components of the birth space. (2) Regulatory frameworks & care philosophies in maternity services, including the categories ‘(financial) regulations’, ‘values of the care provider and the institution’, and ‘model of care’, are regarded as attributes of the birth space. Theme (3) Building a nest for comfort and connection comprises the categories ‘relational and affective atmosphere during labour & birth’, ‘performative atmosphere during labour & birth’, ‘shelter’, ‘implicit and explicit tacit doing & being’ and ‘symbol of deeper meaning’.
Discussion/Conclusion
The reality of the birth space of women with positive birth experiences consists of human rights and birth rights, the quality of interactions with care providers during labour and birth in a relationship-centred and relation-continuity model of care, and a place to retreat from the world
Cemento-osseous dysplasia: a multi-centre analysis of surgical management
Get PDFPurpose: Cemento-osseous dysplasia (COD) is a fibro-osseous lesion whose management is highly controversial in the literature. Due to scarcity of comprehensive studies on its management, the aim of this study was to analyse its management and develop a treatment protocol. Methods: A multi-centre retrospective cohort analysis was conducted at two tertiary referral hospitals on 124 patients diagnosed with COD from 2005 to 2023. Demographic, clinical, and radiological data were analysed and correlated with treatment methods. Post-operative complications such as osteomyelitis or pathological fracture were documented along with follow-up visits to evaluate the need for further treatment. Data was analysed using Student’s t-test and Fisher’s exact test. Statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. Results: The patients’ ages ranged from 22 to 78 years (mean: 48.5 years), with majority being females (90.4%) and of African descent (95.9%). Radiopaque CODs presented significantly higher rate of symptoms compared to radiolucent or mixed lesions (p = 0.02). The majority of incidental CODs were managed through observation (72%), while six incidental CODs underwent biopsy due to suspicion of more sinister lesions. Symptomatic lesions were mainly treated by curettage (29.7%) or local excision (48.6%), while only one symptomatic case was managed with observation and antibiotics (p = 0.0001). Conclusion: Biopsy of asymptomatic COD should only be reserved for cases with inconclusive clinico-pathological features. The decision to surgically treat COD should be based on the presence of symptoms and infection. Early curettage or excision of infected COD is the most effective approach to eradicate the disease and prevent progression into osteomyelitis. Clinical trial number: : Not applicable