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Non-Destructive Testing for Composite Materials: Methods, Challenges, and Future Outlook
No full textComposite materials offer superior specific properties, enabling improved efficiency and cost-effectiveness across a wide range of industries. To ensure safety and reduce maintenance costs, these structures require reliable nondestructive testing (NDT) for effective structural health monitoring (SHM). Various NDT techniques—including microwave sensing, ultrasonic testing, acoustic emission, guided waves, thermography, optical methods, and eddy current testing—are employed to detect deformations, cracks, flaws, and other defects in carbon- and glass-fiber-reinforced polymer composites. This work examines the operational principles, historical evolution, standard procedures, instrumentation, and performance of these methods, highlighting their respective strengths, limitations, and suitability for different defect types. Comparative analysis is provided to identify the most appropriate techniques for specific SHM scenarios. Finally, future trends are discussed, emphasizing automated, intelligent inspection systems with enhanced accuracy, data processing capabilities, and integration potential for next-generation composite monitoring solutions.</p
Job Stress and Counterproductive Work Behaviours: The Roles of Negative Affect States, Vulnerable and Grandiose Narcissism
No full textDrawing on the stressor-emotions model, this study examines the effect of job stress on employee counterproductive work behaviours (CWB) via negative affect states. In line with the conservation of resources theory, it also explores the moderating roles of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism in the job stress–negative affect link. Two-wave survey data were collected from 358 full-time Nigerian employees across various organisations. Regression analysis tested the direct relationships, while mediation and moderation hypotheses were assessed using bootstrapping methods in PROCESS macro. Findings show that job stress is positively related to negative affect states, which in turn increase CWB. Negative affect states mediate the relationship between job stress and CWB. Moreover, the indirect effect of job stress on negative affect states is stronger for employees high in vulnerable and grandiose narcissism. These findings offer practical insights for organisations seeking to reduce CWB and foster positive work behaviours. Targeted job stress interventions ranging from proactive job redesign, stressor reduction and mindfulness training, to recovery-focused counselling are recommended. Additionally, tailored support for narcissistic employees through empathetic communication, mentoring, and promoting a culture of openness can buffer emotional reactivity and reduce CWB.</p
PremPath Implications for policy and practice
No full textThe PremPath study was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Policy Research Programme (NIHR204242) between April 2023 and June 2025. The perinatal optimisation pathway brings together a number of evidence-based interventions to reduce the risk of neonatal death and associated preterm morbidities. This project was commissioned to examine how the pathway is working in practice. We aimed to explore how multiple clinical teams work together to make decisions about the optimisation and stabilisation of preterm infants and to explore the experiences of staff delivering the pathway, and parents and families receiving care. This resource comprises our Implications for Policy and Practice</p
Muscle Recovery and Myofibrillar Protein Synthesis after Damaging Exercise with Recombinant Bovine β-Lactoglobulin, Dairy-Derived Whey or Carbohydrate Supplementation in Young Healthy Adults.
No full textBACKGROUND: Supplementation with recombinant bovine β-lactoglobulin (rBLG), a precision-engineered mimetic of dairy-derived whey, supports similar resistance exercise (RE) training-induced muscle remodeling to whey protein (WHEY). However, the influence of rBLG on recovery indices and muscle protein synthesis rates after damaging exercise is unknown. METHODS: In a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group design, 27 healthy adults consuming a controlled diet (∼0.9 g/kg body mass/d of protein) were supplemented thrice daily with 0.3 g/kg body mass of rBLG, WHEY, or isocaloric carbohydrate placebo for 3 d following an acute bout of damaging lower-body RE (8 × 10 maximal, unilateral, eccentric knee extensions). Consumption of deuterated water combined with serial vastus lateralis muscle biopsies permitted the measurement of integrated myofibrillar protein synthesis (iMyoPS) >72 h before (habitual) and after RE. Knee extensor maximum voluntary contraction (MVC), muscle soreness, and plasma concentrations of creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were also assessed post-RE to characterize muscle recovery. RESULTS: iMyoPS fractional synthetic rate (%/d) increased following damaging RE (P </p
The feasibility of implementing a hospital deprescribing behaviour change intervention and undertaking trial processes: A mixed methods evaluation.
No full textBACKGROUND: CompreHensive geriAtRician-led MEdication Review (CHARMER) is a behaviour change intervention designed to address the determinants of geriatricians and pharmacists deprescribing in hospital. CHARMER comprises a deprescribing action plan, deprescribing briefings, videos of successful deprescribing consultations, deprescribing case studies workshop and a deprescribing performance dashboard. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of undertaking a CHARMER definitive trial and inform primary outcome measure selection (90-day hospital readmission or patient quality of life (QoL)). METHODS: A two-arm purposive allocation feasibility study was undertaken in four hospitals (three intervention, one control). Intervention fidelity and acceptability, outcome data completeness and quality were evaluated alongside acceptability of data collection methods. The process evaluation explored these via interviews with staff and patients. Data were used to inform primary outcome measure selection. RESULTS: Eighteen geriatricians and pharmacists received the CHARMER intervention and 318 patients admitted to study wards were enrolled. 90-day hospital readmission data were available for 290 (91.2 %) patients. Sixty-six (20.8 %) were approached for consent to complete QoL measures; 25 (37.9 %) consented and 13 (52 %) completed at baseline and 90-day follow up. All intervention components were implemented with acceptable fidelity; hospitals were unfamiliar with implementing action plans and unclear who should be involved with implementing the dashboard, leading to delays. CONCLUSIONS: The CHARMER intervention is feasible to implement and given the low patient consent rate, 90-day readmission rate is the most appropriate primary outcome measure. Minor refinements to guidance will facilitate hospitals to undertake activities for implementation that are unfamiliar. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered on ISRCTN (ISRCTN11899506).</p
Dual Public and Private Governance of Companies in China: A Multifaceted Appraisal
No full textThis chapter explores the state's role in governing Chinese companies, aiming to develop an analytical framework based on empirical evidence. It examines how formal law integrates into Chinese society, shaped by ideological shifts from Marxism-Leninism Maoism to Xi Jinping Thought. Communist Party organizations are mandated within companies, increasingly in private ones, yet their governance impact is poorly understood.This dual public-private governance model raises concerns, particularly for overseas investors unfamiliar with Chinese politics. Using corporate disclosures on ownership structure and material changes, the study analyses the interplay of law and politics in China, focusing on ownership structures, policy changes, and party organization mandates. It combines normative analysis and empirical data to unravel the complex dynamics of corporate governance in both state-owned and private Chinese companies.</p
Residual lung abnormality following COVID-19 hospitalisation is characterised by biomarkers of epithelial injury.
No full textBACKGROUND: Long term respiratory symptoms are reported following recovery of acute COVID-19 infection and residual lung abnormalities (RLA) on follow-up thoracic computed tomography (CT) after COVID-19 hospitalisation have been observed. It is unknown whether RLA are associated with epithelial lung injury. METHODS: Plasma was sampled from the observational Post HOSPitalisation-COVID cohort at five months post-hospitalisation. Epithelial injury biomarkers Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6), matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP-7), surfactant protein-D (SP-D) and surfactant protein-A (SP-A) were assayed. In those without follow-up CT, RLA at-risk was defined by percent predicted DLCO </p
INSERTION: From Traditional Incremental Learning to Open-world Stream Learning
No full textIn plenty of real-world applications, data are generated/collected in a streaming way, and it is hard to obtain their accurate labels of known (seen) classes. Moreover, there are several unknown (unseen/novel) classes would emerge with evolving stream data. In the literatures, existing approaches suffer from three limitations: (1) a gap in intra-class variance arises when seen classes are learned more faster than novel classes; (2) a significant issue arises regarding the imbalance in feature weighting among the learning procedures for both new and old classes; (3) a catastrophic forgetting can occur if we exclusively update the model with new data, resulting in the loss of knowledge acquired from known classes when integrating information related to the current novel classes. This paper investigates the problem of learning with unseen classes detection over a non-stationary data stream. Particularly, we introduce uncertainty adaptive margin mechanism from open-world semi-supervised learning to address the bias stemming from the faster learning of discriminative features for seen classes compared to novel classes. We also develop adaptive weighting scheme to dynamically balance the usage of seen and novel classes data by updating their aggregation weights. In addition, we propose a model updating scheme to gradually incorporated the stored memory and novel class information, thereby reducing the risk of forgetting distinctive attributes associated with known classes. Finally, we formulate the objective in a bi-level optimization that enables our model to maintain consistent performance under class distribution shifts, detect unseen classes with minimal supervision, and achieve robust continual learning in open-world streaming scenarios. Our empirical evaluation of this framework using real-world datasets highlights its superior performance when compared to existing methods.</p
Towards Evidence-Based Vital Sign Reference Ranges: Centile Charts from Discharge Data in a UK Paediatric Hospital
No full textNo description supplied</p
Investigating the Role of FES Gene, and Associated DNA Polymorphisms in Relation to Blood Pressure and Coronary Artery Disease
No full textGenome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified significant associations between SNPs on chromosome 15q26.1 and increased risk for blood pressure (BP) and coronary artery disease (CAD), yet the underlying mechanisms by which these variants influence disease pathogenesis remain unclear.This thesis investigates the role of genetic variation at the FES/FURIN locus in regulating BP and CAD risk, particularly focusing on FES, a non-receptor tyrosine kinase. Chapter 2 presents evidence from genetic analyses, including colocalisation with VSMC eQTLs, which suggest that variants at this locus influence gene expression in BP- and CAD-relevant tissues, contributing to vascular dysfunction.In Chapter 3, the functional role of FES in regulating vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) behaviour is explored. Suppression of FES expression led to significant reductions in VSMC migration and proliferation, while enhancing apoptosis, implicating FES in vascular remodelling processes critical to hypertension and CAD. Furthermore, the modulation of FES expression in response to PDGF and TGF-β1 signals its involvement in vascular remodelling, reinforcing its relevance to vascular diseases.Chapter 4 investigates FES in vivo using Fes knockout (KO) mice, revealing elevated systolic and diastolic BP and impaired vascular responses, further confirming the importance of FES in BP regulation. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted immune and metabolic pathway dysregulation underlying these effects. The findings support the hypothesis that FES modulates BP by affecting VSMC contractility and possibly contributing to hypertension and CAD. Despite these insights, the study acknowledges several limitations, including the need for further functional validation of genetic variants in human tissues and more detailed mechanistic studies. The potential risks of targeting FES for hypertension therapy are discussed, considering its involvement in various physiological processes beyond the cardiovascular system, including immune regulation and cancer.This thesis underscores the complex role of FES in vascular biology and highlights its potential as a therapeutic target for hypertension and CAD, while emphasising the need for caution in targeting this protein due to its broader biological functions.</p