International Design Study Research Articles

Factors influencing nurses' practice of skin-to-skin contact as a pain management intervention for preterm infants

PurposeTo identify contextual as well as individual (personal and professional) factors influencing the practice of skin-to-skin contact (SSC) by nurses as a pain management intervention for preterm infants. SSC is among the most effective non-pharmacological interventions to manage procedural pain in preterm infants. MethodsIn this secondary analysis of a comparative international cross-sectional design study, 202 nurses were recruited and completed self-administered questionnaires. A mixed model was conducted. ResultsThe contextual factors correlated with the use of SSC for pain management included the country (p < 0.001) and work shift (p < 0.001). Individual nurse factors were level of education (p < 0.001), motherhood history (p < 0.001) as well as self-reported skin-to-skin practices [p < 0.001] (positive attitudes, education, and implementation). ConclusionMany factors may contribute to explain the differences in the use of SSC for pain management by nurses. These factors could be of relevant to consider when implanting SSC to manage procedural pain in preterm neonates.

The Relationship of Gender Roles and Beliefs to Crying in an International Sample

This study aimed to (1) investigate the variation in self ascription to gender roles and attitudes toward gender roles across countries and its associations with crying behaviors, emotion change, and beliefs about crying and (2) understand how the presence of others affects our evaluations of emotion following crying. This was a large international survey design study (N = 893) conducted in Australia, Croatia, the Netherlands, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. Analyses revealed that, across countries, gender, self-ascribed gender roles, and gender role attitudes (GRA) were related to behavioral crying responses, but not related to emotion change following crying. How a person evaluates crying, instead, appeared to be highly related to one’s beliefs about the helpfulness of crying, irrespective of gender. Results regarding crying when others were present showed that people are more likely both to cry and to feel that they received help around a person that they know, compared to a stranger. Furthermore, closeness to persons present during crying did not affect whether help was provided. When a crier reported that they were helped, they also tended to report feeling better following crying than those who cried around others but did not receive help. Few cross-country differences emerged, suggesting that a person’s responses to crying are quite consistent among the countries investigated here, with regard to its relationship with a person’s gender role, crying beliefs, and reactions to the presence of others.

Steps towards the Neutrino Factory

The properties of the neutrino provide a unique window on physics beyond that described by the Standard Model. The study of sub-leading effects in neutrino oscillations has begun with the race to measure θ13. A consensus is emerging within the international community that a novel neutrino source is required to allow sensitive searches for leptonic CP violation to be carried out and the neutrino mass-hierarchy to be determined. The Neutrino Factory, in which intense neutrino beams are produced from the decay of muons, has been shown to out-perform the other proposed facilities. The physics case for the Neutrino Factory will be reviewed and the baseline design of the facility being developed by the International Design Study for the Neutrino Factory (the IDS-NF) collaboration will be described.

Neutrino oscillations physics with the Neutrino Factory

We discuss recent results and current issues of the IDS-NF (International Design Study for the Neutrino Factory) physics and performance evaluation group (PPEG).

The International Design Study for the Neutrino Factory

This poster summarizes the scope of the International Design Study for the Neutrino Factory.

Accelerator systems for the International Design Study of the Neutrino Factory

The Neutrino Factory produces high-energy neutrino beams with a well-defined flavour content and energy spectrum from the decay of intense, high-energy, stored muon beams. The muon storage rings include long straight sections that are directed toward neutrino detectors that are sited several thousand kilometres away. This poster defines the muon-beam requirements and describes the accelerator facility that is required to deliver them. We give a baseline specification for the accelerator facility and describe the accelerator subsystems of which it is comprised. We will briefly present some of the accelerator-physics challenges such a facility presents and alternative designs for some of the subsystems.

Neutrino Factory: status and prospects

The properties of the neutrino provide a unique window on physics beyond that described by the Standard Model. The study of sub-leading effects in neutrino oscillations has begun with the race to measure θ 13 consensus is emerging within the international community that a novel neutrino source is required to allow sensitive searches for leptonic CP violation to be carried out and the neutrino mass-hierarchy to be determined. The Neutrino Factory, in which intense neutrino beams are produced from the decay of muons, has been shown to out-perform the other proposed facilities. The physics case for the Neutrino Factory will be reviewed and the baseline design of the facility being developed by the International Design Study for the Neutrino Factory (the IDS-NF) collaboration will be described.

Testing non-standard CP violation in neutrino propagation

Non-standard physics which can be described by effective four fermion interactions may be an additional source of CP violation in the neutrino propagation. We discuss the detectability of such a CP violation at a neutrino factory. We assume the current baseline setup of the international design study of a neutrino factory (IDS-NF) for the simulation. We find that the CP violation from certain non-standard interactions is, in principle, detectable significantly below their current bounds – even if there is no CP violation in the standard oscillation framework. Therefore, a new physics effect might be mis-interpreted as the canonical Dirac CP violation, and a possibly even more exciting effect might be missed.

Neutrino factory optimization for nonstandard interactions

We study the optimization of a neutrino factory with respect to nonstandard neutral current neutrino interactions, and compare the results to those obtained without nonstandard interactions. We discuss the muon energy, baselines, and oscillation channels as degrees of freedom. Our conclusions are based on both analytical calculations and on a full numerical simulation of the neutrino factory setup proposed by the international design study (IDS-NF). We consider all possible nonstandard parameters, and include their complex phases. We identify the impact of the different parameters on the golden, silver, and disappearance channels. We come to the conclusion that, even in the presence of nonstandard interactions, the performance of the neutrino factory hardly profits from a silver channel detector, unless the muon energy is significantly increased compared to the IDS-NF setup. Apart from the dispensable silver channel detector, we demonstrate that the IDS-NF setup is close to optimal even if nonstandard interactions are considered. We find that one very long baseline is a key component in the search for nonstandard interactions, in particular, for $|{ϵ}_{\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\tau}}^{m}|$ and $|{ϵ}_{\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\tau}}^{m}|$.

International scoping study: accelerator working group report

During the past several years, an International Scoping Study (ISS) of a Neutrino Factory was carried out, with the aim of developing an internationally accepted baseline facility design. Progress toward that goal will be described. Many of the key technical aspects of a Neutrino Factory facility design are presently being investigated experimentally, and the status of these investigations will be mentioned. Plans for the recently launched International Design Study (IDS), which serves as a follow-on to the ISS, will be briefly described.

The neutrino factory and related accelerator R&D

A muon-based neutrino factory, encompassing high power proton accelerators, innovations in rapid acceleration techniques for unstable particles, and initiatives such as ionisation cooling, provides a rich and varied source of high-energy R&D. Over the last ten years, the UK has played a leading role in progress towards a large-scale neutrino facility, both at national and international level, and now seeks to move to the next phase with preparation of an International Design Study report for publication in 2010. The basic principles of the project are outlined here, with emphasis on the major problems still to be overcome. Much of the development work relates to other areas of accelerator science - such as spallation neutron sources, used for research in condensed matter physics - and the way in which such projects interact and benefit from each other is also described.