Impacts of ecosystem service message framing and dynamic social norms on public support for tropical forest restoration.

The effectiveness of strategic psychology-based marketing techniques for increasing public support for conservation is poorly understood. We assessed how such techniques affect support for tropical rainforest restoration with a controlled online experiment with 1166 nationally representative residents of the United Kingdom. We tested whether support increased when adding ecosystem service (ES) framings to typical nongovernmental organizations' (NGOs) biodiversity-focused messages that emphasize benefits to UK residents or people living near the tropical restoration site and a dynamic social norm nudge that emphasized increasing popularity of environmental restoration. We considered how respondents' psychological traits (nature connection, self-efficacy, psychological benefits of supporting charities, awareness of environmental degradation in the Global South, and climate change skepticism) influenced responses. Outcomes included respondents' reported advertisement sufficiency, sympathetic attitudes, behavioral support, and financial support. The study population typically found advertisements sufficient and exhibited sympathetic attitudes and financial, but not behavioral, support. Younger people exhibited greater conservation support than older respondents. Messages framed solely on biodiversity conservation were as effective as those highlighting additional ES benefits received by UK residents and people near the tropical restoration site. This suggests that framing around ESs, rather than nature's intrinsic value, may not strengthen public support for conservation. The dynamic social norm nudge had perverse effects. It reduced perceived social norms and most outcome variables. Alternative dynamic norm nudges warrant testing, but our results support research suggesting dynamic norm nudges can be ineffective when associated with activism, challenging their use by conservation NGOs. Psychological benefits of supporting charities and perceived self-efficacy increased support for advertisements, highlighting the benefits of including impact statements relating respondents' support to specific outcomes. Climate change skepticism decreased support, whereas nature connection and perceived static social norms increased it, highlighting the need to increase nature connection and pro-environmental social norms to elevate public support for conservation.

Impactos del encuadre de los mensajes sobre servicios ambientales y las normas sociales dinámicas sobre el apoyo público hacia la restauración de bosques tropicales Resumen Sabemos poco sobre la eficiencia de las técnicas de mercadotecnia basadas en la psicología estratégica para aumentar el apoyo público a la conservación. Evaluamos cómo afectan dichas técnicas al apoyo a la restauración de la selva tropical mediante un experimento controlado en línea con 1,166 residentes del Reino Unido representativos a nivel nacional. Comprobamos si el apoyo aumentaba al añadir marcos de servicios ambientales a los mensajes típicos de las organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG) centrados en la biodiversidad, que hacen hincapié en los beneficios para los residentes del Reino Unido o las personas que viven cerca del lugar de restauración tropical y un empuje dinámico de normas sociales que hacía hincapié en la creciente popularidad de la restauración ecológica. Analizamos la influencia de los rasgos psicológicos de los encuestados (conexión con la naturaleza, autoeficacia, beneficios psicológicos de apoyar a organizaciones benéficas, experiencia de degradación ambiental en el Sur Global y escepticismo ante el cambio climático) sobre las respuestas. Los resultados fueron la suficiencia de los anuncios, las actitudes de simpatía, el apoyo conductual y el apoyo económico. En general, la población del estudio consideró que los anuncios eran suficientes y mostró actitudes de simpatía y apoyo económico, pero no conductuales. La población más joven mostró un mayor apoyo a la conservación que los encuestados de más edad. Los mensajes centrados únicamente en la conservación de la biodiversidad fueron tan eficaces como los que destacaban los beneficios adicionales de los servicios ambientales recibidos por los residentes del Reino Unido y las personas cercanas al lugar de restauración tropical. Esto sugiere que el encuadre en torno a los servicios ambientales, en lugar del valor intrínseco de la naturaleza, puede no reforzar el apoyo público a la conservación. El empuje dinámico de la norma social tuvo efectos perversos ya que redujo las normas sociales percibidas y la mayoría de las variables de resultado. Es necesario probar otros incentivos dinámicos, pero nuestros resultados corroboran las investigaciones que sugieren que los incentivos dinámicos pueden ser ineficaces cuando se asocian con el activismo, lo que cuestiona su uso por parte de las ONG de la conservación. Los beneficios psicológicos por apoyar a organizaciones benéficas y la autoeficacia percibida aumentaron el apoyo a los anuncios, lo que resalta las ventajas de incluir declaraciones de impacto que relacionen el apoyo de los encuestados con resultados específicos. El escepticismo ante el cambio climático redujo el apoyo, mientras que la conexión con la naturaleza y las normas sociales estáticas percibidas lo aumentaron, lo que destaca la necesidad de aumentar la conexión con la naturaleza y las normas sociales proambientales para elevar el apoyo público a la conservación.

Challenges identified in a pilot outreach dental service for Traveller children in Hackney, East London.

IMPETUS FOR ACTION: Inequity of dental health and dental service use for Travellers in the UK. National guidance on improving community oral health, stresses an imperative to involve and engage with "those whose economic, social and environmental circumstances or lifestyle place them at high risk of poor oral health or make it difficult for them to access dental services". SOLUTION: Oral health promotion and simple treatments were provided on two Traveller sites from a mobile dental unit (MDU) over a 5-day period and patients with extensive oral disease were referred to a fixed-site clinic for continued care. OUTCOMES: Most children, 60%, reportedly brushed once daily or less, only 40% brushed twice daily. Obvious visual caries were evident in 23 out of the 35 children (66%). A moderate to high risk of developing future caries was identified in 92% of Traveller children based on their existing diet, oral hygiene practices and caries experience. FUTURE: Oral care was successfully provided on an MDU, but this is an expensive resource and should not be considered a permanent solution. Oral health promotion messages delivered in the families' homes or local community settings through their established health services, such as health visitors or community nurses, may help to reinforce good oral hygiene and diet practices and needs robust evaluation.

Alterations in functional thalamocortical connectivity following neonatal whisker trimming with adult regrowth.

Neonatal whisker trimming followed by adult whisker regrowth leads to higher responsiveness and altered receptive field properties of cortical neurons in corresponding layer 4 barrels. Studies of functional thalamocortical (TC) connectivity in normally reared adult rats have provided insights into how experience-dependent TC synaptic plasticity could impact the establishment of feedforward excitatory and inhibitory receptive fields. The present study employed cross-correlation analyses to investigate lasting effects of neonatal whisker trimming on functional connections between simultaneously recorded thalamic neurons and regular-spike (RS), presumed excitatory, and fast-spike (FS), presumed inhibitory, barrel neurons. We find that, as reported previously, RS and FS cells in whisker-trimmed animals fire more during the earliest phase of their whisker-evoked responses, corresponding to the arrival of TC inputs, despite a lack of change or even a slight decrease in the firing of thalamic cells that contact them. Functional connections from thalamus to cortex are stronger. The probability of finding TC-RS connections was twofold greater in trimmed animals and similar to the frequency of TC-FS connections in control and trimmed animals, the latter being unaffected by whisker trimming. Unlike control cases, trimmed RS units are more likely to receive inputs from TC units (TCUs) and have mismatched angular tuning and even weakly responsive TCUs make strong functional connections on them. Results indicate that developmentally appropriate tactile experience early in life promotes the differential thalamic engagement of excitatory and inhibitory cortical neurons that underlies normal barrel function.

Improving access to dental care for vulnerable children; further development of the Back2School programme in 2013.

This paper describes a service evaluation of a dental treatment programme providing care to children not normally taken to the dentist. It explains the extension of the Back2School programme from the pilot phase and assesses if a mobile dental unit (MDU) can provide a high quality service. The public health competencies it illustrates include oral health improvement, developing and monitoring quality dental services, and collaborative working.

[Clinical forensic imaging. Detection and documentation of internal injuries in living victims of violence]. / Klinisch-forensische Bildgebung. Erfassung und Dokumentation innerer Verletzungsbefunde bei lebenden Gewaltopfern.

External examination of the body surface with documentation of all visible findings can still be regarded as the status quo of clinical forensic injury assessment. It is obvious that internal findings cannot be detected using this technique. For obtaining such findings accessible well-established radiological techniques, such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) should be used. Especially MRI with no damaging radiation exposure for the examined person allows the detection of internal soft tissue and organ damage and offers a great potential regarding new techniques for allowing insights into tissue composition and function. Furthermore, imaging data collected in clinical institutions before the patient was transferred to the department of legal medicine will play a major role in the future. Although these data were obtained based on a different approach, they provide excellent and recent information on injuries in the respective (current) case und can therefore be of high value for the forensic expertise.

Weaker feedforward inhibition accounts for less pronounced thalamocortical response transformation in mouse vs. rat barrels.

Feedforward inhibition is a common motif of thalamocortical circuits. Strong engagement of inhibitory neurons by thalamic inputs enhances response differentials between preferred and nonpreferred stimuli. In rat whisker-barrel cortex, robustly driven inhibitory barrel neurons establish a brief epoch during which synchronous or near-synchronous thalamic firing produces larger responses to preferred stimuli, such as high-velocity deflections of the principal whisker in a preferred direction. Present experiments in mice show that barrel neuron responses to preferred vs. nonpreferred stimuli differ less than in rats. In addition, fast-spike units, thought to be inhibitory barrel neurons, fire less robustly to whisker stimuli in mice than in rats. Analyses of real and simulated data indicate that mouse barrel circuitry integrates thalamic inputs over a broad temporal window, and that, as a consequence, responses of barrel neurons are largely similar to those of thalamic neurons. Results are consistent with weaker feedforward inhibition in mouse barrels. Differences in thalamocortical circuitry between mice and rats may reflect mechanical properties of the whiskers themselves.

Intact T cell receptor signaling by CD4(+) T cells cultured in the rotating wall-vessel bioreactor.

T lymphocytes fail to proliferate or secrete cytokines in response to T cell receptor (TCR) agonists during culture in spaceflight or ground-based microgravity analogs such as rotating wall-vessel (RWV) bioreactors. In RWVs, these responses can be rescued by co-stimulation with sub-mitogenic doses of the diacyl glycerol (DAG) mimetic phorbol myristate acetate. Based on this result we hypothesized that TCR activation is abrogated in the RWV due to impaired DAG signaling downstream of the TCR. To test this hypothesis we compared TCR-induced signal transduction by primary, human, CD4(+) T cells in RWV, and static culture. Surprisingly, we found little evidence of impaired DAG signaling in the RWV. Upstream of DAG, the tyrosine phosphorylation of several key components of the TCR-proximal signal was not affected by culture in the RWV. Similarly, the phosphorylation and compartmentalization of ERK and the degradation of IkappaB were unchanged by culture in the RWV indicating that RAS- and PKC-mediated signaling downstream of DAG are also unaffected by simulated microgravity. We conclude from these data that TCR signaling through DAG remains intact during culture in the RWV, and that the loss of functional T cell activation in this venue derives from the affect of simulated microgravity on cellular processes that are independent of the canonical TCR pathway.

Targeted enrichment of 28Si thin films for quantum computing.

We report on the growth of isotopically enriched 28Si epitaxial films with precisely controlled enrichment levels, ranging from natural abundance ratio of 92.2% all the way to 99.99987% (0.83 × 10-6 mol mol-1 29Si). Isotopically enriched 28Si is regarded as an ideal host material for semiconducting quantum computing due to the lack of 29Si nuclear spins. However, the detailed mechanisms for quantum decoherence and the exact level of enrichment needed for quantum computing remain unknown. Here we use hyperthermal energy ion beam deposition with silane gas to deposit epitaxial 28Si. We switch the mass selective magnetic field periodically to control the 29Si concentration. We develop a model to predict the residual 29Si isotope fraction based on deposition parameters and measure the deposited film using secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). The measured 29Si concentrations show excellent agreement with the prediction, deviating on average by only 10%.

A compact, ultra-high vacuum ion source for isotopically enriching and depositing 28Si thin films.

An ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) compatible Penning ion source for growing pure, highly enriched 28Si epitaxial thin films is presented. Enriched 28Si is a critical material for quantum information due to the elimination of nuclear spins. In some cases, the material must be grown by low temperature molecular beam epitaxy, e.g., scanning tunneling microscopy hydrogen lithography-based devices. Traditional high-purity physical vapor methods typically deliver a very small fraction of source material onto the target substrate, making the cost for use with highly enriched source materials very high. Thus, directed beam sources provide an efficient alternative. This UHV Penning source uses all metal or ceramic parts and a removable electromagnet to allow bake-out. The source gas is a commercial (natural isotope abundance) silane gas (SiH4), an inexpensive source material. High enrichment levels up to 99.999 87% (8.32 × 10-7 mol/mol 29Si) and high chemical purity of 99.965% are shown without postprocessing. We present and discuss the discharge properties of this new source, the ion mass spectrum when coupled to our mass filter, and the secondary ion mass spectroscopy of the grown films.

Use of quantum effects as potential qualifying metrics for "quantum grade silicon".

Across solid state quantum information, materials deficiencies limit performance through enhanced relaxation, charge defect motion or isotopic spin noise. While classical measurements of device performance provide cursory guidance, specific qualifying metrics and measurements applicable to quantum devices are needed. For quantum applications, new materials metrics, e.g., enrichment, are needed, while existing, classical metrics like mobility might be relaxed compared to conventional electronics. In this work, we examine locally grown silicon superior in enrichment, but inferior in chemical purity compared to commercial-silicon, as part of an effort to underpin the materials standards needed for quantum grade silicon and establish a standard approach for intercomparison of these materials. We use a custom, mass-selected ion beam deposition technique, which has produced isotopic enrichment levels up to 99.99998 % 28Si, to isotopically enrich 28Si, but with chemical purity > 99.97% due the MBE techniques used. From this epitaxial silicon, we fabricate top-gated Hall bar devices simultaneously on the 28Si and on the adjacent natural abundance Si substrate for intercomparison. Using standard-methods, we measure maximum mobilities of ≈(1740±2)cm2/(V⋅s) at an electron density of (2.7×1012±3×108) cm-2 and ≈(6040±3)cm2/(V⋅s) at an electron density of (1.2×1012±5×108) cm-2 at T=1.9 K for devices fabricated on 28Si and natSi, respectively. For magnetic fields B>2 T, both devices demonstrate well developed Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations in the longitudinal magnetoresistance. This provides transport characteristics of isotopically enriched 28Si, and will serve as a benchmark for classical transport of 28Si at its current state, and low temperature, epitaxially grown Si for quantum devices more generally.

Dalton's and Amagat's laws fail in gas mixtures with shock propagation.

A shock propagating through a gas mixture leads to pressure, temperature, and density increases across the shock front. Rankine-Hugoniot relations correlating pre- and post-shock quantities describe a calorically perfect gas but deliver a good approximation for real gases, provided the pre-shock conditions are well characterized with a thermodynamic mixing model. Two classic thermodynamic models of gas mixtures are Dalton's law of partial pressures and Amagat's law of partial volumes. We measure post-shock temperature and pressure in experiments with nonreacting binary mixtures of sulfur hexafluoride and helium (two dramatically disparate gases) and show that neither model can accurately predict the observed values, on time scales much longer than that of the shock front passage, due to the models' implicit assumptions about mixture behavior on the molecular level. However, kinetic molecular theory can help account for the discrepancy. Our results provide starting points for future theoretical work, experiments, and code validation.

Temperature dependent 29Si incorporation during deposition of highly enriched 28Si films.

In this study, we examine the mechanisms leading to 29Si incorporation into highly enriched 28Si films deposited by hyperthermal ion beams at elevated temperatures in the dilute presence of natural abundance silane (SiH4) gas. Enriched 28Si is a critical material in the development of quantum information devices because 28Si is free of nuclear spins that cause decoherence in a quantum system. We deposit epitaxial thin films of 28Si enriched in situ beyond 99.99998 % 28Si onto Si(100) using an ion beam deposition system and seek to develop the ability to systematically vary the enrichment and measure the impact on quantum coherence. We use secondary ion mass spectrometry to measure the residual 29Si isotope fraction in enriched samples deposited from ≈ 250 °C up to 800 °C. The 29Si isotope fraction is found to increase from < 1 × 10-6 at the lower temperatures, up to > 4 × 10-6 at around 800 °C. From these data, we estimate the temperature dependence of the incorporation fraction, s, of SiH4, which increases sharply from about 2.9 × 10-4 at 500 °C to 2.3 × 10-2 at 800 °C. We determine an activation energy of 1.00(8) eV associated with the abrupt increase in incorporation and conclude that below 500 °C, a temperature independent mechanism such as activation from ion collisions with adsorbed SiH4 molecules is the primary incorporation mechanism. Direct incorporation from the adsorbed state is found to be minimal.

Processing in layer 4 of the neocortical circuit: new insights from visual and somatosensory cortex.

Recent experimental and theoretical results in cat primary visual cortex and in the whisker-barrel fields of rodent primary somatosensory cortex suggest common organizing principles for layer 4, the primary recipient of sensory input from the thalamus. Response tuning of layer 4 cells is largely determined by a local interplay of feed-forward excitation (directly from the thalamus) and inhibition (from layer 4 inhibitory interneurons driven by the thalamus). Feed-forward inhibition dominates excitation, inherits its tuning from the thalamic input, and sharpens the tuning of excitatory cells. Recurrent excitation enhances responses to effective stimuli.

Dynamic culture in a rotating-wall vessel bioreactor differentially inhibits murine T-lymphocyte activation by mitogenic stimuli upon return to static conditions in a time-dependent manner.

Depressed immune function is a well-documented effect of spaceflight. Both in-flight studies and ground-based studies using microgravity analogs, such as rotating wall vessel (RWV) bioreactors, have demonstrated that mitogen-stimulated T lymphocytes exhibit decreased proliferation, IL-2 secretion, and activation marker expression in true microgravity and the dynamic RWV-culture environment. This study investigates the kinetics of RWV-induced T lymphocyte inhibition by monitoring the ability of Balb/c mouse splenocytes to become activated under static culture conditions after concanavalin A (Con A) stimulation in an RWV. Splenocytes were stimulated with Con A and cultured for up to 24 h in the RWV before being allowed to "recover" under static culture conditions in the continued presence of Con A. The T-lymphocyte fraction of splenocytes was assayed during the recovery period for IL-2 secretion, expansion of the T-lymphocyte population, and expression of the activation marker CD25. Our results indicate that CD25 expression was not affected by any duration of RWV exposure. In contrast, proliferation and IL-2 secretion were inhibited by >8 and 12 h of exposure, respectively. Culture in the RWV for 24 h resulted in a near-complete loss of cellular viability during the recovery period, which was not seen in cells maintained in the RWV for 16 h or less. Taken together, these results indicate that for up to 8 h of RWV culture activation is not significantly impaired upon return to static conditions; longer duration RWV culture results in a gradual loss of activation during the recovery period most likely because of decreased T-cell viability and/or IL-2 production.

Inhibition suppresses transmission of tonic vibrissa-evoked activity in the rat ventrobasal thalamus.

Previous studies have demonstrated that tonic responses of trigeminal ganglion neurons to maintained whisker deflections are transformed to mainly phasic responses in thalamocortical neurons. The high tonic responsiveness of thalamic reticular neurons suggests that thalamic inhibition may contribute to this suppression of tonic activity. To test this hypothesis we recorded responses of thalamocortical neurons in the ventroposterior medial (VPm) nucleus to 200 and 400 msec sustained whisker deflections during simultaneous microiontophoresis of the GABA receptor antagonists bicuculline and phaclofen. Under control conditions, VPm units responded to deflection plateaus with mean activities of only 18 spikes/sec, compared with 16 spikes/sec spontaneous firing. A minority of cells (5/19) had significantly greater plateau than spontaneous activity, and these cells were classified as tonic; the other 14/19 were considered phasic. Under GABA receptor antagonism, however, mean plateau activity increased to 53 spikes/sec compared with 30 spikes/sec spontaneous activity, and 7 of the 14 phasic units became tonically responsive. Increases in plateau activity were significantly greater, by both absolute and relative measures, than increases in spontaneous activity. Transient responses to stimulus onsets and offsets also increased in magnitude 4.0- and 2. 9-fold, attributable mainly to their increased duration. These data indicate that VPm neurons receive tonic excitatory inputs that under normal conditions are masked by inhibition. Suppression of tonic activity in VPm by inhibitory thalamic reticular neurons may reduce tonic inhibition in cortical layer IV circuits, preserving their responsiveness to transient signals.

Sensory loss by selected whisker removal produces immediate disinhibition in the somatosensory cortex of behaving rats.

This study used extracellular unit recordings in behaving animals to evaluate thalamocortical response transformations in the rat whisker-barrel system. Based on previous acute studies using controlled whisker stimulation, we hypothesized that in a cortical barrel adjacent (non-principal) whiskers exert a net inhibitory effect. In contrast, in thalamic barreloid neurons, the effects of neighboring whiskers should be net facilitatory. We evaluated these hypotheses by recording unit activity at 21 sites in 17 animals trained to explore a wire mesh screen with their whiskers. In the middle of the recording session, selected vibrissae were clipped close to the skin surface. The absence of whiskers surrounding the principal whisker was associated with a mean 20% increase in cortical activity and, conversely, a 37% decrease in the thalamic activity. Removal of the principal whisker resulted in a 50% decrease in cortical unit firing. Findings are consistent with the idea that, in the behaving animal, each barrel uses multi-whisker thalamic inputs and local inhibitory circuitry to sharpen the receptive field properties of its constituent neurons. Cortical disinhibition as a consequence of selective whisker removal is likely to be an important factor underlying altered receptive field properties in sensory-deprived animals.

Chordal geometry determines the shape and extent of systolic anterior mitral motion: in vitro studies.

In patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the mitral valve moves anteriorly and assumes a unique shape, with mitral-septal contact centrally and preserved valve orifice area laterally. This shape is not clearly predicted by the Venturi mechanism, which stresses flow above the valve as opposed to changes intrinsic to the valve. On the other hand, it has been suggested that displacement of the papillary muscles anteriorly and toward one another, as observed in this disease, can promote anterior mitral valve motion and produce this unusual shape. The purpose of this in vitro study was to test the hypotheses that anterior motion of a membrane in a flow field can be generated by altering the distribution or effectiveness of chordal tension tethering the membrane, and that the shape achieved by this membrane depends on the geometry of chordal tension. Accordingly, a horizontal leaflet mounted in a flow chamber was attached by chords at its distal end to a series of upstream screws. Chordal tension could be varied by turning the screws or redirected by shifting the screws anteriorly. Anterior leaflet motion having the same unusual configuration seen in patients was reproduced by decreasing central chordal restraint while tension on the leaflet edges was maintained. Directing chordal tension anteriorly caused greater degrees of anterior motion at earlier stages in the release of chordal restraint; increased flow rate had a similar but less marked effect. These studies suggest that primary geometric alterations in the papillary-mitral apparatus can play an important role in determining the presence and geometry of systolic anterior mitral motion. The nature of these alterations suggests a role for anterior and inward papillary muscle displacement in promoting such motion. The geometric factors embodied in this model can explain many observed features of this motion not adequately explained by the Venturi effect, such as early systolic onset and the importance of a distal residual leaflet. Finally, flow visualization studies emphasize the importance in this process of drag forces caused by interposing the leaflet into the flow stream, and of geometric factors that enhance such forces.

Noninvasive definition of anatomic coronary artery disease by ultrafast computed tomographic scanning: a quantitative pathologic comparison study.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine the relation between coronary artery calcification detected by ultrafast computed tomographic scanning and histopathologic coronary artery disease. BACKGROUND: Recent studies suggest that discrete coronary artery calcification as visualized by ultrafast computed tomographic scanning may facilitate the noninvasive detection or estimation, or both, of the in situ extent of coronary disease. Such quantitative relations have not been established. METHODS: Thirteen consecutive perfusion-fixed autopsy hearts (from eight male and five female patients aged 17 to 83 years) were scanned by ultrafast computed tomographic scanning in contiguous 3-mm tomographic sections. The major epicardial arteries were dissected free, positioned longitudinally and scanned again in cross section. Coronary artery calcification in a coronary segment was defined as the presence of one or more voxels with a computed tomographic density > 130 Hounsfield units. Each epicardial artery was sectioned longitudinally, stained and measured with a planimeter for quantification of cross-sectional and atherosclerotic plaque areas at 3-mm intervals, corresponding to the computed tomographic scans. A total of 522 paired coronary computed tomographic and histologic sections were studied. RESULTS: Direct relations were found between ultrafast computed tomographic scanning coronary artery calcium burden and atherosclerotic plaque area and percent lumen area stenosis. However, the range for plaque area or percent lumen stenosis, or both, associated with a given calcium burden was broad. Three hundred thirty-one coronary segments showed no calcification by computed tomography. Although atherosclerotic disease was found in several corresponding pathologic specimens, > 97% of these noncalcified segments were associated with nonobstructive disease (< 75% area stenosis); if no calcification was determined in an entire coronary vessel, all corresponding coronary disease was found to be nonobstructive. To determine the relation between arterial calcification and any atheromatous disease, computed tomographic calcium burden for each segment was paired with the histologic absence or presence of disease. Ultrafast computed tomographic scanning had a sensitivity and specificity of 59% and 90% and a negative and positive predictive value of 65% and 87%, respectively. A direct correlation was found (r = 0.99) between total calcium burden calculated from tomographic scans of the heart as a whole and scans of the arteries obtained in cross section. CONCLUSIONS: The detection of coronary calcification by ultrafast computed tomographic scanning is highly predictive of the presence of histopathologic coronary disease, but the use of this technique to define the extent of coronary disease may be limited. However, the absence of coronary calcification at any site is highly specific for the absence of obstructive disease.

Change blindness.

Although at any instant we experience a rich, detailed visual world, we do not use such visual details to form a stable representation across views. Over the past five years, researchers have focused increasingly on 'change blindness' (the inability to detect changes to an object or scene) as a means to examine the nature of our representations. Experiments using a diverse range of methods and displays have produced strikingly similar results: unless a change to a visual scene produces a localizable change or transient at a specific position on the retina, generally, people will not detect it. We review theory and research motivating work on change blindness and discuss recent evidence that people are blind to changes occurring in photographs, in motion pictures and even in real-world interactions. These findings suggest that relatively little visual information is preserved from one view to the next, and question a fundamental assumption that has underlain perception research for centuries: namely, that we need to store a detailed visual representation in the mind/brain from one view to the next.

Why are vulnerable children not brought to their dental appointments?

A considerable number of children under 16 years of age, with an oral healthcare need, are not brought to their Barts Health Special Care Community Dental Service (BHSCCDS) appointments. The BHSCCDS needed to understand more about why parents/carers (parents) were failing to bring their children, in order to identify appropriate strategies to reduce the non-attendance. Thus, an audit was conducted to assess the number, frequency and reasons for all missed appointments (MA); this included feedback conversations with dental staff and parents. Information obtained from this cohort of high-risk children's families through personal, respectful and supportive contact improved understanding of the parents' individual and collective issues and lead to recommendations that could reduce the number of MA in the future.