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3D-printing of dipyridamole/thermoplastic polyurethane materials for bone regeneration
Full text linkTissue engineering combines biology and engineering to develop constructs for repairing or replacing damaged tissues. Over the last few years, this field has seen significant advancements, particularly in bone tissue engineering. 3D printing has revolutionised this field, allowing the fabrication of patient- or defect-specific scaffolds to enhance bone regeneration, thus providing a personalised approach that offers unique control over the shape, size, and structure of 3D-printed constructs. Accordingly, thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)-based 3D-printed scaffolds loaded with dipyridamole (DIP) were manufactured to evaluate their in vitro osteogenic capacity. The fabricated DIP-loaded TPU-based scaffolds were fully characterised, and their physical and mechanical properties analysed. Moreover, the DIP release profile, the biocompatibility of scaffolds with murine calvaria-derived pre-osteoblastic cells, and the intracellular alkaline phosphatase (ALP) assay to verify osteogenic ability were evaluated. The results suggested that these materials offered an attractive option for preparing bone scaffolds due to their mechanical properties. Indeed, the addition of DIP in concentrations up to 10% did not influence the compression modulus. Moreover, DIP-loaded scaffolds containing the highest DIP cargo (10% w/w) were able to provide sustained drug release for up to 30 days. Furthermore, cell viability, proliferation, and osteogenesis of MC3T3-E1 cells were significantly increased with the highest DIP cargo (10% w/w) compared to the control samples. These promising results suggest that DIP-loaded TPU-based scaffolds may enhance bone regeneration. Combined with the flexibility of 3D printing, this approach has the potential to enable the creation of customized scaffolds tailored to patients’ needs at the point of care in the future.</p
‘Eating with Others’: planning, developing and optimising a self-management intervention to promote social eating for patients living with and beyond head and neck cancer
Full text linkIntroduction: After treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC), up to 90% of patients have difficulties eating and drinking. Despite the enormity of challenges explicitly relating to the social dimension of eating, there are limited extant interventions to specifically support social eating, nor any replicable for use in contemporary clinical practice. This study aims to plan, develop and optimise a self-management intervention to promote social eating for patients living with and beyond HNC. Methods: This research was intervention development of a self-management ‘Eating with Others’ resource, guided by the person-based approach (PBA) framework. Initially, a systematic review was conducted, with 24 included studies exploring HNC patients’ social eating experiences, followed by thematically analysed qualitative interviews with patients (n = 14), family members (n = 12) and healthcare professionals (n = 13). Alongside this data, iterative input was sought from an advisory group (n = 22) to culminate in an intervention prototype. The intervention prototype was iteratively user-tested over three cycles for usability and acceptability, using think-aloud interviews (n = 10). Results: A patient-centred, evidence-based and theory-driven self-management resource, entitled ‘Eating with Others’, was designed to promote social eating for patients with HNC. Sections included the benefits of social eating; the impact of HNC on social eating, strategies and reflective activities to overcome social eating barriers; and the use of a social eating card for restaurants. The think-aloud interviews revealed that the resource was appropriate and acceptable for patients with HNC. Conclusion: The systematic and iterative PBA intervention development framework enabled empirical research findings, relevant theory and extensive advisory group involvement to design an acceptable self-management social eating intervention for patients living with and beyond HNC. Mixed-methods evaluation is required to determine feasibility in clinical practice
Implementing an AI That Automatically Extracts Standardized Functional Patterns From Wearable Sensor Data
Full text linkStandardized functional tests (SFTs) are frequently used to quantify a person's ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) against expected values. SFTs provide valuable information to aid a clinician's understanding of a patient's status and direction of improvement. Such information may support clinicians when assessing a wide range of conditions such as musculoskeletal or neurological diseases or age-related frailty. If these SFTs could be performed reliably by patients in their own home without supervision, they could track and help to guide rehabilitation. Wearable devices have the potential to collect reliable data from the wearer when performing SFTs. However, the data generated from sensors for long-term recordings of movement can become very large, making it difficult to manually extract movement information with any level of accuracy. Hence, it is important to evaluate whether it is possible to implement an automated system capable of extracting SFT patterns from long-term sensor data without manual data processing. This article describes an artificial neural network (ANN) system that was trained to extract specific SFTs such as the 30-s chair stand test (CST) (30s-CST) and the 40-m fast-paced walk test (40m-FPWT). The resultant model obtained 99.7% accuracy in 30s-CST pattern recognition, 99.3% accuracy in 40m-FPWT pattern recognition, and 97.3% accuracy in detecting false patterns. The system provided an overall accuracy of 98.76% with supervised clinical trial data. The ambulatory data testing phase obtained an overall accuracy of 90.18%. Specifically, it achieved 92.73% accuracy in detecting 30s-CST patterns and 86.67% accuracy in recognizing 40m-FPWT patterns.</p
Northern Ireland Childcare Strategy: A Work in Progress?
Full text linkNorthern Ireland has been without a Childcare Strategy for more than a decade – the only region in the United Kingdom (UK) that does not have one. As a devolved responsibility, progress in childcare has been significantly limited, and there is currently no government-funded childcare provision available. This is compared to England, Scotland, and Wales, where investment to expand provision has been introduced to help parents meet the cost of childcare by providing funded entitlement. This article examines and discusses policy developments in early education and childcare in Northern Ireland and the other UK nations. It is argued that the lack of progress by the Northern Ireland Executive to develop a Childcare Strategy overlooks it’s economic and social importance and reflects how childcare continues to be underfunded and undervalued
Ulster University Open Research Conference:Conference Speaker Abstracts
Full text linkThis document summarises the abstracts from Ulster University’s inaugural Open Research conference held in January 2025
Communities of Hope:Design-led Innovation for Landscape Decision-Making
Full text linkQuestions around future land-use and landscape decision-making pose challenges for communities with an increasing recognition that localised, contextual perspectives and creative modes of engagement have an important role to play. Focusing on landscape decision-making in the context of the Scottish Highlands & Islands, specifically the Northern and Western Isles, this article explores the potential of a design-led innovation approach. The methodological contribution connects design-led innovation and social design as modes of creative engagement that enable communities to play a key role in democratic deliberation. The Stravaig Symposium supported communities to engage in rich forms of dialogue and conversations for action across geographic, regional and local scales. Through the co-development of a conceptual Landscape Decision-Making Framework to navigate landscape decision-making the article advocates for the emergence of communities of hope, that is, communities capable of realising desirable environmental-cultural futures in relation to the complex systems that determine these futures
The influence of covalently bound phosphorus-containing groups on the flammability of some styrenic and acrylic polymers
Full text linkWhen subjected to heat, polystyrene (PSt), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) can undergo extensive chain-scission/chain-stripping reactions to form relatively low-molecular weight volatile fragments, including their monomeric species. Given that PSt and PMMA are not typically char- forming polymers, they burn readily in air when subjected to a sufficient amount heat and in the presence of a suitable pilot. On the other hand, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) upon thermal decomposition can form a significant amount of char residue, owing to the condensation of the pendant nitrile units, which in turn depends on the rate of heating. In all cases, low molecular weight volatiles once formed can subsequently undergo combustion reactions, and hence PSt, PMMA and PAN are generally considered to be relatively flammable. With a view to improving the flame retardance of these polymers, we have chemically modified them (i.e. through an additive approach) with phosphorus-, or optionally, phosphorus/nitrogen-containing groups. The recovered polymers, after necessary purification, were subjected to a host of characterization techniques that included spectroscopic, thermal and calorimetric tests. We have also endeavored to formulate the modes of action of the flame-retardant groups, in the condensed- and gaseous-phase, occurring during the decomposition and combustion of these modified systems, by employing variety analytical instruments, that also included, optionally, some hyphenated techniques. The results revealed that phosphorus-containing moieties exert combustion inhibitory effects, in both condensed- and gaseous-phase, and the relative predominance of which in turn depend on the chemical environment of the phosphorus group and the nature of the polymer matrix in question
The future for sport officiating research: An expert statement
Full text linkResearch, coverage, and understanding in sport officiating related scholarly activity have increased markedly in the last decade. Sport officials (referees, judges, umpires) have been historically underrepresented in the sport management, psychology, and physiology literature, but this collection of experts provides avenues for collaboration and exploration that can contribute to understanding systems, individuals, and initiate real-world changes for sporting organisations, policy makers, and officials themselves. Focused and organised around the key research areas and priorities of physiology, decision making, psychology, mental health, management, and training and development, this statement offers detail on the development of the research and associated literature and provides proposals for future scholarship linked to each of the key research areas.<p/
Factors which influence young people’s experience of gaelic games. A secondary analysis of results from a large cross-sectional national study
Full text linkEnjoyment of sport is an important factor in preventing dropout or drop off. Using a cross-sectional design, and a sample of 4,594 Gaelic games players (aged 13 to 20), the present study was a secondary analysis, examining which factors (if any) were significantly related to self-reported past-year experience in sport. Results show that when comparing those reporting their experience as very poor/poor, fair, or good against those reporting it as very good, the three variables that were consistent in their statistical significance were, age (being younger associated with a better experience), mean scores on a coaching autonomy measure (higher associated with a better experience), and self-reported playing time (higher associated with a better experience). There were nuanced results depending on the nature of the comparisons. At the most extreme comparison (‘very poor or poor’ versus ‘very good’), the former were significantly more likely to report playing other sports, and reported a lower likelihood of continuing to play Gaelic games. Results in the comparison of ‘fair’ and ‘very good’ were slightly different. Here, rather than playing other sports being statistically significant, there was a lower likelihood of playing in multiple contexts (or viewed conversely, a higher likelihood of playing Club only). Finally, when comparing those reporting their experience as ‘good’ versus ‘very good’, the former were significantly more likely to be male. The standout finding of this study (regression coefficients) is that coach autonomy score is significantly related to past year experience of Gaelic games, adjusting for a range of other relevant variables
Theranostics for Neuroblastoma: Making Molecular Radiotherapy Work Better
Full text linkDespite improvements in neuroblastoma treatment, survival figures lag behind those of many other childhood malignancies. New treatments, and better use of existing treatments, are essential to reduce mortality. Neuroblastoma expresses several molecular targets for radionuclide imaging and therapy, of which the most widely exploited is the norepinephrine transporter. [ 123I]metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) imaging and [ 131I]MIBG treatment, which target this physiologic pathway, have been in clinical practice for 40 y. Although therapy outcomes have been favorable, [ 131I]MIBG use has not yet been optimized. Somatostatin receptors and the disialoganglioside are alternative targets, but their use remains experimental. The charity Children's Cancer Research Fund organized a workshop bringing together a broad range of scientists including radiochemists, radiobiologists, radiation physicists, clinical researchers including pediatric oncologists and nuclear medicine physicians, and patient advocates from the United Kingdom, United States, and continental Europe to share their experiences with molecular imaging and radiotherapy of neuroblastoma and discuss potential ways of improving treatment outcomes and access. These include development of alternative vectors targeting somatostatin receptors and disialoganglioside, isotopes such as α-particle and Auger electron emitters with different radiation characteristics, and combinations with external-beam radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and DNA damage repair inhibitors. Barriers to progress discussed included the unpredictable radioisotope supply, production of novel radiopharmaceuticals, lack of data regarding which are the best combination therapies, and insufficient clinical facilities. The aim was to stimulate the development and assessment of more effective treatments. </p