Search Results (4)

A Spirituality Interest Group (SIG) was set up in in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland (ROI), in March 2013. This paper reports on some of the journey and requirements involved in developing the group. It highlights the essential work of establishing agreed understandings in an objective way in order for the group to move forward with action. These agreed understandings have contributed to the group’s success. Outlining the group’s journey in arriving at agreements may be of use to others considering creating similar groups. One key action taken to determine the suitability of the group’s aims and terms of reference was the distribution of a Survey Monkey to group members (n = 28) in 2014. One early meeting of the group discussed future goals and direction using the responses of this anonymous survey. This paper reports on the results of the survey regarding the establishment of the SIG and the development of a shared understanding of spiritual care among the members. There is consensus in the group that the spiritual care required by clients receiving healthcare ought to be an integrated effort across the healthcare team. However, there is an acceptance that spirituality and spiritual care are not always clearly understood concepts in practice. By developing shared or at least accepted understandings of spirituality and spiritual care, SIG hopes to be able to underpin both research and practice with solid foundational conceptual understanding, and in the process also to meet essential prerequisites for achieving the group’s aims. Full article

Bispecific antibodies offer a promising approach for the treatment of cancer but can be challenging to engineer and manufacture. Here we report the development of PF-06671008, an extended-half-life dual-affinity re-targeting (DART^®) bispecific molecule against P-cadherin and CD3 that demonstrates antibody-like properties. Using phage display, we identified anti-P-cadherin single chain Fv (scFv) that were subsequently affinity-optimized to picomolar affinity using stringent phage selection strategies, resulting in low picomolar potency in cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) killing assays in the DART format. The crystal structure of this disulfide-constrained diabody shows that it forms a novel compact structure with the two antigen binding sites separated from each other by approximately 30 Å and facing approximately 90° apart. We show here that introduction of the human Fc domain in PF-06671008 has produced a molecule with an extended half-life (-4.4 days in human FcRn knock-in mice), high stability (T_m1 > 68 °C), high expression (>1 g/L), and robust purification properties (highly pure heterodimer), all with minimal impact on potency. Finally, we demonstrate in vivo anti-tumor efficacy in a human colorectal/human peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) co-mix xenograft mouse model. These results suggest PF-06671008 is a promising new bispecific for the treatment of patients with solid tumors expressing P-cadherin. Full article

Complex teleoperative tasks, such as surgery, generally require human control. However, teleoperating a robot using indirect visual information poses many technical challenges because the user is expected to control the movement(s) of the camera(s) in addition to the robot’s arms and other elements. For humans, camera positioning is difficult, error-prone, and a drain on the user’s available resources and attention. This paper reviews the state of the art of autonomous camera control with a focus on surgical applications. We also propose potential avenues of research in this field that will support the transition from direct slaved control to truly autonomous robotic camera systems. Full article

The European sovereign-debt crisis began in Greece when the government announced in December, 2009, that its debt reached 121% of GDP (or 300 billion euros) and its 2009 budget deficit was 12.7% of GDP, four times the level allowed by the Maastricht Treaty. The Greek crisis soon spread to other Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) countries, notably Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Using quarterly data for the 2000–2011 period, we implement a panel-vector autoregressive (PVAR) model for 11 EMU countries to examine the extent to which a rise in a country’s bond-yield spread or debt-to-GDP ratio affects another EMU countries’ fiscal and macroeconomic outcomes. To distinguish between interdependence and contagion among EMU countries, we compare results obtained for the pre-crisis period (2000–2007) with the crisis period (2008–2011) and control for global risk aversion. Full article