In principle, nanometer thick, metal oxide shells provide a robust passivation layer that can minimize chemical and photochemical corrosion of semiconductor nanocrystals. Here, formation of single crystal, wurtzite ZnO shells by thermal decomposition of zinc acetylacetonoate is demonstrated. As an example, a simple, one-pot protocol for the preparation of CdSe@ZnO core−shell nanocrystals is presented. The CdSe photoluminescence quantum yield increases 6-fold from 1.4% to 8.6%, while the lifetime increases from 8.7 to 60 ns upon deposition of the ZnO shell and peaks for 5 monolayers of ZnO. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy reveals the core−shell particles to be single crystals with the wurtzite structure. The polydipsersity is maintained at less than σ < 5% for deposition of up to four monolayers of ZnO.

Purpose The prevalence of obesity in secure mental health units is higher than in the general population, having a negative impact on the physical health and mental well-being of people with severe mental health illness (SMI). The purpose of this study was to describe the feasibility of a programme aimed to help people with SMI to eat healthily and be physically active. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods approach was used. A questionnaire administered to patients in both wards measured acceptability, demand, implementation and practicality of the project. Individual semi-structured interviews and focus groups were used to explore staff and patients’ perceptions of the project; as well as the barriers and enablers towards an effective implementation and participation in the project’s activities. Findings Patients were, overall, satisfied with the activities implemented. Successful activities were easy to implement, had staff actively engaged and did not require logistic or administrative planning beforehand. Barriers included unawareness around funding mechanisms of activities, staff capacity issues or lack of patients’ permission to leave the ward. Originality/value Few studies have assessed the feasibility of real-life interventions aimed to improve healthy eating and physical activity in secure mental health units. The results of this study can inform commissioners and providers of mental health services to design and implement new interventions and programmes.

Myo-inositol’s role in improving acne by reducing hyperandrogenism has been demonstrated in PCOS patients. Inositol and associated molecules display inhibitory properties against 5-α reductase, COX-2, and lipase enzymes in addition to their antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. However, the role of myo-inositol is not well established in women patients with normal hormone levels but with clinical manifestations of PCOS. In this study, we evaluate the efficacy of Tracnil™, a combination of myo-inositol with folic acid and vitamin D3, in resolving acne in overweight women of menstruation age displaying normal hormone levels. It is a single-arm study conducted at 2 centers including 33 women with acne, hirsutism, and menstrual irregularities. Acne and hirsutism were assessed by manual lesion count, modified Cook’s scale, and modified Ferriman–Gallwey hirsutism score (mFGHS). Hormone levels and safety parameters were assessed throughout the study. Our results show that Tracnil™ monotherapy could drastically reduce acne-related lesions of both inflammatory and noninflammatory types as quickly as 8 weeks. Additionally, it improves hirsutism and menstrual irregularities. Adverse reactions were negligible during the whole study period with no drastic side effects reflected by a modulatory effect on hormone levels. Despite the subjects having normal hormone levels, the acne treatment with myo-inositol and vitamin D3 shows improvement in hirsutism and regularization of menstrual cycle. Therefore, we attribute the mechanism of action of Tracnil™ to modulation of receptor sensitivity to sex hormones or other downstream processing events. Tracnil™ may be considered as a first-line treatment for dermatological manifestations of PCOS even in the absence of significant hormonal abnormalities. This treatment is practically implementable in a dermatologists’s office practise.

<p>This thesis considers the early works of J. C. Sturm, her own thesis, her short stories, articles and book reviews written in the 1950s before her writing and publishing silence. It examines where this writing places her in context of the post-Second World War period and where it could have placed her in the New Zealand literary canon had it not been for her ensuing literary silence.  The first chapter briefly discusses the nature of literary silences and then introduces Sturm with some biographical information. It details the approach that I take writing the thesis using three readings of her works: as social informer; as woman writer; and as Maori writer. These readings inform my commentary on her work and attempt to place her in the literary canon of the fifties. I discuss my reservations, as a Pakeha, in approaching Sturm as a Maori writer.  I use Sturm’s own comments “that many literary works can be taken as social documents and many authors can be taken as social informers” as a licence to use Sturm herself as “social informer”. It can be demonstrated how the ideas she promulgates in her thesis, New Zealand Character as Exemplified in Three New Zealand Novelists are developed in her short stories, articles and book reviews and in how Sturm holds her mirror up to New Zealand society.  Reading Sturm as a "woman” writer demonstrates how, through her short stories, she destroyed the “idyll of suburban domesticity”. Terry Sturm wrote of women’s writing of the 1970s that “its main tendency is to challenge male accounts of New Zealand society and culture”. Twenty years before this date I show that J. C. Sturm was writing that woman’s account and challenging the male expectations of a woman’s place in the home and society.  Using Sturm’s description that being a Maori writer is “a way of feeling”, her short stories and articles published in Te Ao Hou enable a discussion of Maori writing in the fifties, exploring both the writing context and the critical environment in which this writing was received. The hindsight provided by this exploration some fifty to sixty years on demonstrates the forgetting and misremembering that can happen in a literary context and the effect that forgetting can have on a Maori literary history.  In the final section I reconstruct the somewhat artificially deconstructed strands that have made up the previous chapters, bringing Sturm’s works together as a whole to enable a discussion on Sturm’s rightful place in the New Zealand’s literary canon of the fifties, as well as exploring further the natures of Sturm’s silence in order to bring some remembering into the long forgetting of Sturm’s early work.</p>

<p>This thesis considers the early works of J. C. Sturm, her own thesis, her short stories, articles and book reviews written in the 1950s before her writing and publishing silence. It examines where this writing places her in context of the post-Second World War period and where it could have placed her in the New Zealand literary canon had it not been for her ensuing literary silence.  The first chapter briefly discusses the nature of literary silences and then introduces Sturm with some biographical information. It details the approach that I take writing the thesis using three readings of her works: as social informer; as woman writer; and as Maori writer. These readings inform my commentary on her work and attempt to place her in the literary canon of the fifties. I discuss my reservations, as a Pakeha, in approaching Sturm as a Maori writer.  I use Sturm’s own comments “that many literary works can be taken as social documents and many authors can be taken as social informers” as a licence to use Sturm herself as “social informer”. It can be demonstrated how the ideas she promulgates in her thesis, New Zealand Character as Exemplified in Three New Zealand Novelists are developed in her short stories, articles and book reviews and in how Sturm holds her mirror up to New Zealand society.  Reading Sturm as a "woman” writer demonstrates how, through her short stories, she destroyed the “idyll of suburban domesticity”. Terry Sturm wrote of women’s writing of the 1970s that “its main tendency is to challenge male accounts of New Zealand society and culture”. Twenty years before this date I show that J. C. Sturm was writing that woman’s account and challenging the male expectations of a woman’s place in the home and society.  Using Sturm’s description that being a Maori writer is “a way of feeling”, her short stories and articles published in Te Ao Hou enable a discussion of Maori writing in the fifties, exploring both the writing context and the critical environment in which this writing was received. The hindsight provided by this exploration some fifty to sixty years on demonstrates the forgetting and misremembering that can happen in a literary context and the effect that forgetting can have on a Maori literary history.  In the final section I reconstruct the somewhat artificially deconstructed strands that have made up the previous chapters, bringing Sturm’s works together as a whole to enable a discussion on Sturm’s rightful place in the New Zealand’s literary canon of the fifties, as well as exploring further the natures of Sturm’s silence in order to bring some remembering into the long forgetting of Sturm’s early work.</p>