Historical pipe organs offer rich insights into the relationships between materials and music in the past, and they represent a laboratory for contemporary materials science. Recent cross-disciplinary research has explored problems of conservation and corrosion in old organ pipes. The ability of some notable European Baroque organs to produce sound is threatened by atmospheric corrosion of their lead-tin alloy pipes. Organic acids emitted from the wood of organ cases are corrosive agents for lead-rich pipes. Laboratory exposure experiments were used to study the roles of humidity and alloy composition in the susceptibility to organic acid attack. The rates of growth, as well as the compositions and morphologies of the corrosion products were studied using gravimetry, x-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy of surfaces and cross sections. This interdisciplinary project provides one model for the interplay of scientific and humanities research in addressing materials problems in cultural heritage.

This paper examines how the relationships between the factors (predisposing, enabling and illness) of the 1973 Andersen framework and service use are influenced by changes in the caring role in older women of the 1921–26 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Outcome variables were the use of three formal community support services: (a) nursing or community health services, (b) home-making services and (c) home maintenance services. Predictor variables were survey wave and the following carer characteristics: level of education, country of birth, age, area of residence, ability to manage on income, need for care, sleep difficulty and changes in caring role. Carer changes were a significant predictor of formal service use. Their inclusion did not attenuate the relationship between the Andersen framework factors and service use, but instead provided a more complete representation of carers' situations. Women were more likely to have used support services if they had changed into or out of co-resident caring or continued to provide co-resident care for a frail, ill or disabled person, needed care themselves, and reported sleep difficulties compared with women who did not provide care. These findings are important because they indicate that support services are particularly relevant to women who are changing their caring role and who are themselves in need of care.

Objective: All patients who resided in state provided long-stay care in Ireland were required to pay the state for that care until 2006. In 2001 the Irish Ombudsman and Information Commissioner had highlighted the issue of the entitlement of people with medical cards to provision of free long-stay care. The Health Repayment scheme was subsequently set up in 2006 to facilitate the repayment of long-stay charges wrongly paid by patients. Issues of mental capacity arise particularly in the context of long-stay psychiatric patients applying for repayment of long-stay charges. Our aim was to devise a test suitable to assess the capacity of an individual to make an application for refund charges.

Method: There was no specific test in existence to assess the capacity of an individual to make an application for refund of charges. A suitable test was devised based on the available literature which assessed whether the person understands the ‘nature and effects’ of making a refund application. Fifty-eight long-stay patients were deemed to be entitled to apply for a refund.

Results: Staff identified 47 (80%) patients as possibly lacking the capacity to make an application. Of these, 14 patients (29.8%) were found to have capacity to make an application (mean age 58.5 years) with 33 (70.2%) found to lack capacity (mean age 73 years). Of those with capacity 50% had a diagnosis of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder. None had cognitive impairment of degenerative origin. Of those who lacked capacity 45.5% had a diagnosis of dementia. All of the patients with dementia who were assessed were found to lack capacity whereas 59% of those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder lacked capacity.

Conclusion: A substantial number of long-stay psychiatric patients may lack the capacity to make particular decisions. In this study the group who lacked capacity were an elderly group with dementia common. This process raised a dilemma about how a patient without capacity to make a refund application can then manage the money claimed on their behalf and whether guardianship safeguards are necessary.

Fat is often included in common foods as an emulsion of dispersed oil droplets to enhance the organoleptic quality and stability. The intragastric acid stability of emulsified fat may impact on gastric emptying, satiety and plasma lipid absorption. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether, compared with an acid-unstable emulsion, an acid-stable fat emulsion would empty from the stomach more slowly, cause more rapid plasma lipid absorption and cause greater satiety. Eleven healthy male volunteers received on two separate occasions 500 ml of 15 % (w/w) [13C]palmitate-enriched olive oil-in-water emulsion meals which were either stable or unstable in the acid gastric environment. MRI was used to measure gastric emptying and the intragastric oil fraction of the meals. Blood sampling was used to measure plasma lipids and visual analogue scales were used to assess satiety. The acid-unstable fat emulsion broke and rapidly layered in the stomach. Gastric emptying of meal volume was slower for the acid-stable fat emulsion (P < 0·0001; two-way ANOVA). The rate of energy delivery of fat from the stomach to the duodenum was not different up to t = 110 min. The acid-stable emulsion induced increased fullness (P < 0·05), decreased hunger (P < 0·0002), decreased appetite (P < 0·0001) and increased the concentration of palmitic acid tracer in the chylomicron fraction (P < 0·04). This shows that it is possible to delay gastric emptying and increase satiety by stabilising the intragastric distribution of fat emulsions against the gastric acid environment. This could have implications for the design of novel foods.

The globally distributed leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea is subject to fisheries bycatch throughout its range. Protection from fisheries within pelagic foraging habitats is difficult to achieve but may be more tractable when populations are concentrated near neritic breeding and nesting grounds. We used satellite telemetry to describe patterns of habitat utilization during the inter-nesting period for seven leatherback turtles nesting at Mayumba National Park in Gabon on the equatorial West African coast. The National Park includes critical nesting grounds and a marine protected area to 15 km offshore. Turtles dispersed widely from the nesting beach spending a mean of 62 ± SD 26% of tracking time outside the confines of the National Park. This propensity to disperse is likely to increase the chance of deleterious interactions with fisheries in the region. Patterns of habitat utilization indicate the need for wider spatial scale planning on the West African continental shelf to enhance protection of leatherback turtles when they are seasonally occupying these habitats in great numbers for breeding and nesting.

The objective of the study was to evaluate treatments for infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (IBK), based on a systematic review of the published literature. A search was conducted to identify all manuscripts relating to antibiotic treatment of cattle with IBK. Relevant studies involved naturally occurring IBK and reported the resolution of lesions as a study outcome. Studies which failed to use methods such as blinding, blocking or randomization to minimize bias were excluded from the review. The initial search yielded 196 manuscripts, of which nine described high-quality, randomized clinical trials. These manuscripts reported antibiotic treatment of IBK with florfenicol, ceftiofur, oxytetracycline, procaine penicillin G, procaine penicillin G and dexamethasone, tilmicosin, or benzathine cloxacillin compared to either a placebo control or a non-medicated control. Overall, the studies suggest that antibiotic treatment is successful in reducing healing times of IBK-associated corneal lesions. Very few manuscripts reported a direct comparison of different antibiotic classes, so it was not possible to make comparative evaluations of efficacy. This review demonstrates the need for further randomized controlled trials that evaluate the efficacy of antibiotic treatment for IBK, including direct comparisons of two or more antibiotics.

Pre-processed foods often contain a high percentage of lipid, present as emulsions stabilised with various surface-active agents. The acidic gastric environment can affect the behaviour of such emulsions, modifying the lipid spatial distribution and, in turn, the rate of gastric emptying and nutrient delivery to the gut. The aim of the present study was to use echo-planar magnetic resonance imaging (EPI) to determine the behaviour of model olive oil emulsions during gastric processing. Six healthy male volunteers were intubated nasogastrically on two separate occasions and fed 500ml 15% (w/w) olive oil-in-water, surfactant-stabilised emulsions designed to have identical droplet size distribution and which were either stable or unstable under gastric acid conditions. EPI was used to assess the oil fraction of the intragastric emulsions, gastric emptying and to visualise the spatial distribution of the oil at 10, 30 and 50min postprandially. The in vivo imaging measurements of the oil volume fraction of the emulsions correlated well (r 0·66, acid-stable; r 0·52, acid-unstable) with that assayed in the gastric aspirates. Compared with the acid-stable emulsion, the acid-unstable emulsion in the gastric lumen rapidly separated into lipid-depleted ‘aqueous’ and lipid layers. Phase separation in the acid-unstable meal allowed the oil-depleted component to empty first and more rapidly than the stable emulsion as determined by the gastric emptying curves. These pilot data suggest that gastric processing and emptying of high-fat foods could be manipulated by careful choice of emulsifier.

Pallister–Killian syndrome (PKS) is a rare, sporadic, genetic disorder characterized by dysmorphic features, learning disability, and epilepsy. It is caused by a mosaic supernumerary isochromosome 12p (i[12p]). The i(12p) is rarely found in peripheral blood but it is present in skin fibroblasts. Recognition is essential for cytogenetic diagnosis. We describe a male aged 2 years 6 months and a female aged 11 years with PKS and epileptic spasms (ES). This type of seizure is not unusual in patients with brain malformations and with severe developmental delay, but it is sometimes difficult to recognize without video–electroencephalogram studies and could be mistaken for other types of seizure or behavioural manifestations. In these two patients with PKS, spasms had late onset, persisted beyond infancy, and were drug resistant. Clinicians should be aware of this possibility in PKS, which appears to be a rare cause of ES.