PLAIN ENGLISH SUMMARY There is a consensus that patients and the public should be involved in research in a meaningful way. To date, lay people have been mostly involved in developing research ideas and commenting on patient information but not as much in actual data collection. We have had firsthand experience with lay people helping to conduct a study on how patients in hospital are involved ...

An experimental study is presented on the effects of bolt-hole clearance on the load distribution in multi-bolt composite joints. Single-shear, three-bolt joints were studied. The specimens were manufactured from graphite/epoxy HTA/6376, with quasi-isotropic lay-ups. Protruding head bolts of 8 mm diameter and torqued to finger-tight conditions were used. Different combinations of clearance were...

The use of lay health advisers has become an established approach within public health, in particular for impact on health inequalities and engaging socially excluded groups. Evidence on how differences in terms of the multiple role dimensions impact the outcomes of programs is limited. This creates ambiguity for decision makers on which roles should be implemented in different contexts for dif...

OBJECTIVE To carry out an economic evaluation of a task-shifting intervention for the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders in primary-care settings in Goa, India. METHODS Cost-utility and cost-effectiveness analyses based on generalized linear models were performed within a trial set in 24 public and private primary-care facilities. Subjects were randomly assigned to an intervention ...

Analytical solutions are sought for optimal temperature distributions to control the interlaminar stresses near the free edges of composite laminates subjected to uniaxial loading. Optimal through-thickness temperature gradients are obtained by minimizing appropriate performance indices that are functions of the far-field properties, with respect to the through-thickness temperature differences...

Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) play an important role in interfacing critical loads such as computers, communication systems, medical/life support systems, and industrial controls to the utility power grid. Among the various UPS topologies, on-line UPS provides the most protection to such loads against any utility power problem. However, because of the multiple power conversion stages, on...

Non covalent functionalization by π stacking was accomplished by treating multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) through the use of Kentera, a conjugate rigid rod polymer. The functionalized MWNTs were then introduced into the epoxy resins through a combination of shear and elongation forces. The resulting epoxy resin (containing MWNTs) was then impregnated with carbon fiber under hot-melt condi...

Before being processed into composites, reinforcement fabrics may undergo repeated involuntary deformation, the complete sequence of which is here referred to as specimen history. To mimic its effect, fabric specimens were subjected to sequences of defined shear operations. For single fabric layers with unconstrained thickness, quantitative evaluation of photographic image data indicated that r...