1,348 research outputs found
Developing partnerships in social work education in Britain
No full textContents:
Listening to Messages from the First Line: Child welfare on the eve of the twenty first century: what have we learned, Sven Hessle; Changing the face of child welfare: perspectives from the field, Joan Gilroy; Efforts at empowering youth: youth-in-care and the youth-in-care networks in Ontario and Canada, Susan Strega. Building Family and Community Supports: The focus on family when children are at risk: Swedish policy in practice, Sven Hessle with Sölvie Eriksson, Mia Garphult, Berit Jernberg, Gunilla Levin and Petra Wils; The "wraparound" process: strength-based practice, Ralph A. Brown and Andrew Debicki; From case and client to citizen: an innovation in child welfare practice, Judy Burgess, Riley Hern and Brian Wharf. Children on the Move: Unaccompanied and asylum-seeking children encounter Sweden, Marie Hessle; Offering relief to unaccompanied asylum-seekers in Holland, Yvonne Aronson, Ab Bobbink, Peter Ernen, Johan van der Have and Ria Wijnen. Valuing Diversity in Child Welfare Communities: Tackling racism in everyday realities: a task for social workers, Lena Dominelli; A first nations’ experience in first nations child welfare services, Audrey Hill; It takes a village: building networks of support for African Nova Scotian families and children, Wanda Thomas Bernard and Candace Bernard. Valuing the Field in Social Work Education: Developing partnerships in social work education in Britain, Sally Richards, Kish Bhatti-Sinclair, Wendy Borrill, Lena Dominelli and Julia Waldman. Conclusion: Valuing the field: lessons from innovation, Marilyn Callahan. Bibliography; Index
Agent-Based Modeling: The Right Mathematics for the Social Sciences?
No full textThis study provides a basic introduction to agent-based modeling (ABM) as a powerful blend of classical and constructive mathematics, with a primary focus on its applicability for social science research.� The typical goals of ABM social science researchers are discussed along with the culture-dish nature of their computer experiments. The applicability of ABM for science more generally is also considered, with special attention to physics. Finally, two distinct types of ABM applications are summarized in order to illustrate concretely the duality of ABM: Real-world systems can not only be simulated with verisimilitude using ABM; they can also be efficiently and robustly designed and constructed on the basis of ABM principles. �
Retrospective analysis of evidence base for tests used in diagnosis and monitoring of disease in respiratory medicine
No full textOBJECTIVES:
To determine how many common clinical tests used in a respiratory medicine outpatient clinic are based on high quality evidence.
DESIGN:
Retrospective review of case notes. Record of first three tests for each patient. Diagnostic tests, tests used to assess existing condition, explicit trials of therapy were included. Literature search for supporting evidence and grading of best evidence for each test.
SETTING:
Inner city university teaching hospital in the United Kingdom.
PARTICIPANTS:
All new outpatients referred to a single respiratory medicine team over a period of three months.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:
Proportion of tests supported by level 1a-1c evidence (scale developed by Centre for Evidence Based Medicine).
RESULTS:
Only half the tests that were used to make or exclude a diagnosis and a fifth of the tests used to assess a known condition were supported by level 1a-1c evidence. There was no evidence to support trials of therapy.
CONCLUSIONS:
A large proportion of clinical tests in respiratory medicine are not supported by level 1a-1c evidence. None of the therapeutic trials that were used were supported by evidence
Manual mapping of ontology terms and IDs for wheat transcriptomics studies
No full textTo map the ontology terms and IDs to the wheat transcriptomic papers I consulted the databases: OLS and OntoBee.
Some terms could not be mapped accurately.
Certain fields are empty as to avoid repetition, because the ontology terms were mapped elsewhere in the Excel file.
In the Excel file I was responsible for entering the fields denoted with blue font colour.
The Excel file was provided to me by Dr Philippa Borrill, who is the primary author of the paper (Borrill P. et al, 2016) and I was assigned to help with mapping the ontology terms and IDs to the fields created by Dr Borrill.
The Excel file was constructed by Dr Borrill in order to compare the findings of the different papers in the effort of creating the expVIP platform.
Reference: Borrill, P., Ramirez-Gonzalez, R., & Uauy, C. (2016). expVIP: a customizable RNA-seq data analysis and visualization platform. Plant physiology, 170(4), 2172-2186.</p
Constraints on cosmological parameters from MAXIMA-1
No full textWe set new constraints on a seven-dimensional space of cosmological parameters within the class of inflationary adiabatic models. We use the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background measured over a wide range of l in the first flight of the MAXIMA balloon-borne experiment (MAXIMA-1) and the low-l results from the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer experiment. We find constraints on the total energy density of the universe, Omega = 1.0(-0.30)(+0.15), the physical density of baryons, Omega (b)h(2) = 0.03 +/- 0.01, the physical density of cold dark matter, Omega (cdm)h(2) = 0.2(-0.1)(+0.2), and the spectral index of primordial scalar fluctuations, n(s) = 1.08 +/- 0.1, all at the 95% confidence level. By combining our results with measurements of high-redshift supernovae we constrain the value of the cosmological constant and the fractional amount of pressureless matter in the universe to 0.45 < <Omega>(Lambda) < 0.75 and 0.25 < Omega (m) < 0.50, at the 95% confidence level. Our results are consistent with a hat universe and the shape parameter deduced from large-scale structure, and in marginal agreement with the baryon density from big bang nucleosynthesis
Evolution and Genetic Resources in Cocksfoot* *This article was reprinted with minor modifications from the Annual Report, 1977 (pp. 190–209) of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK, with the permission of Dr M. Borrill, the author, and Dr D. Wilson, the Director of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station. The editors express sincere thanks to Dr M. Borrill and Dr D. Wilson for their kind permission to reprint this article.
No full textEstimating health-state utility values for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer using Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy – General mapping algorithms
No full textRobert Hettle,1 John Borrill,2 Gaurav Suri,1 Jerome Wulff1 1Parexel Consulting, London, 2AstraZeneca, Macclesfield, UK Objectives: In the absence of EuroQol 5D data, mapping algorithms can be used to predict health-state utility values (HSUVs) for use in economic evaluation. In a placebo-controlled Phase II study of olaparib maintenance therapy (NCT00753545), health-related quality of life was measured using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy – Ovarian (FACT-O) questionnaire. Our objective was to generate HSUVs from the FACT-O data using published mapping algorithms. Materials and methods: Algorithms were identified from a review of the literature. Goodness-of-fit and patient characteristics were compared to select the best-performing algorithm, and this was used to generate base-case HSUVs for the intention-to-treat population of the olaparib study and for patients with breast cancer antigen mutations. Results: Four FACT – General (the core component of FACT-O) mapping algorithms were identified and compared. Under the preferred algorithm, treatment-related adverse events had no statistically significant effect on HSU (P>0.05). Discontinuation of the study treatment and breast cancer antigen mutation status were both associated with a reduction in HSUVs (–0.06, P=0.0009; and –0.03, P=0.0511, respectively). The mean HSUV recorded at assessment visits was 0.786. Conclusion: FACT – General mapping generated credible HSUVs for an economic evaluation of olaparib. As reported in other studies, different algorithms may produce significantly different estimates of HSUV. For this reason, it is important to test whether the choice of a specific algorithm changes the conclusions of an economic evaluation. Keywords: platinum sensitive ovarian cancer, EQ 5D, maintenance therapy, olapari
Determining foreground contamination in cosmic microwave background observations: Diffuse Galactic emission in the MAXIMA-I field
No full textObservations of the CMB can be contaminated by diffuse foreground emission from sources such as Galactic dust and synchrotron radiation. In these cases, the morphology of the contaminating source is known from observations at different frequencies, but not its amplitude at the frequency of interest for the CMB. We develop a technique for accounting for the effects of such emission in this case, and for simultaneously estimating the foreground amplitude in the CMB observations. We apply the technique to CMB data from the MAXIMA-1 experiment, using maps of Galactic dust emission from combinations of IRAS and DIRBE observations, as well as compilations of Galactic synchrotron emission observations. The spectrum of the dust emission over the 150--450 GHz observed by MAXIMA is consistent with preferred models but the effect on CMB power spectrum observations is negligible
Tests for Gaussianity of the MAXIMA-1 cosmic microwave background map.
No full textGaussianity of the cosmological perturbations is one of the key predictions of standard inflation, but it is violated by other models of structure formation such as cosmic defects. We present the first test of the Gaussianity of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on subdegree angular scales, where deviations from Gaussianity are most likely to occur. We apply the methods of moments, cumulants, the Kolmogorov test, the chi(2) test, and Minkowski functionals in eigen, real, Wiener-filtered, and signal-whitened spaces, to the MAXIMA-1 CMB anisotropy data. We find that the data, which probe angular scales between 10 arcmin and 5 deg, are consistent with Gaussianity. These results show consistency with the standard inflation and place constraints on the existence of cosmic defects
The repeatability of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-&alpha;, and C-reactive protein in COPD patients over one year
No full textUmme Kolsum, Kay Roy, Cerys Starkey, Zo&euml; Borrill, Nick Truman, J&oslash;rgen Vestbo, Dave SinghNorth West Lung Research Centre, University of Manchester, South Manchester University Hospitals Trust, Wythenshawe, Manchester, UKBackground: Many of the systemic manifestations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are mediated through increased systemic levels of inflammatory proteins. We assessed the long term repeatability of Interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-&alpha; (TNF-&alpha;), and C-reactive protein (CRP) over one year and examined the relationships between these systemic markers in COPD.Methods: Fifty-eight stable COPD patients completed a baseline and one-year visit. Serum IL-6, plasma CRP, and plasma TNF-&alpha; were measured. Repeatability was expressed by intraclass correlation coefficient (Ri) and the Bland&ndash;Altman method. Pearson correlations were used to determine the relationships between the systemic markers at both visits.Results: There was moderate repeatability with a very high degree of statistical significance (p&nbsp;&le; 0.001) between the two visits for all the systemic biomarkers (IL-6, CRP, and TNF-&alpha;). CRP was significantly associated with IL-6 at both visits (r = 0.55, p = 0.0001, r = 0.51, p = 0.0002, respectively). There were no other significant associations between the systemic markers at either of the visits.Conclusions: Systemic inflammatory biomarkers IL-6, CRP, and TNF-&alpha; were moderately repeatable over a twelve month period in COPD patients. We have also shown that a robust and repeatable association between IL-6 and CRP exists.Keywords: interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-&alpha;, C-reactive protein, repeatability, COPD&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp
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