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Care home residents are vulnerable to severe outcomes from infections such as COVID-19 and influenza. However, measures to control outbreaks, such as care home closures to visitors and new admissions, have a detrimental impact on their quality of life. Many infections and outbreaks could be prevented but the first step is to measure them reliably. This is challenging in care homes due to the lack of data and research infrastructure. During the pandemic, the VIVALDI study measured COVID-19 infections in residents and staff by partnering with care providers and using routinely collected data. This study aims to establish sentinel surveillance and a research database to enable observational and future interventional studies in care homes. The project has been co-produced with care providers, staff, residents, relatives, and researchers. The study (October 2023 to March 2025) will explore the feasibility of establishing a network of 500-1500 care homes for older adults in England that is underpinned by a linked data platform. No data will be collected from staff. The cohort will be created by regularly extracting resident identifiers from Digital Social Care Records (DSCR), followed by pseudonymisation and linkage to routinely collected datasets. Following extensive consultation, we decided not to seek informed consent from residents for data collection, but they can ‘opt out’ of the study. Our goal is to be inclusive, and it is challenging to give every resident the opportunity to ‘opt in’ due to cognitive impairment and the requirement for consultees. The project, and all requests to use the data will be overseen by relatives, residents, staff, and care providers. The study has been approved by the Health Research Authority Confidentiality Advisory Group (23/CAG/0134&0135) and the South-West Frenchay Research Ethics Committee (23/SW/0105). It is funded by the UK Health Security Agency.

Estuaries along the southeast coast of Australia form distinctive biophysical types. Each type reflects both geological setting and a Holocene geomorphic history associated with the degree of infill driven by marine and terrestrial processes. Of the 180 estuaries found within the state of New South Wales (NSW) many occur in national parks or are not significantly modified by human activities. For those estuaries where human activities are directly impacting environmental conditions and social, cultural and economic functions of the waterways, the management challenge is more complex. We combine the biophysical and socio-economic characteristics for the NSW coast to identify four “estuary contexts”, referred to as: 1) intermittently closed and open lakes and lagoons (ICOLLs), 2) coastal lakes, 3) deltaic floodplains, and 4) drowned river valleys. Each context may require different governance arrangements to address the coastal management requirements as outlined in recently introduced NSW legislation and planning policy. Such arrangements become especially urgent given threats facing private and public assets in low-lying locations around the shores of these estuaries as sea level continues to rise and climate change adaptation strategies set out in local government Coastal Management Programs are developed and implemented.

Background: Advanced aged adults have the highest rate of traumatic brain injury (TBI) related hospital admissions, compared to younger age groups. Data were published in 2014 indicating differential injury and neurological responses to a TBI by age categories. In a recent article examining patients with mTBI and isolated subdural hematoma, it was found that older patients had a decreased risk of documented loss of consciousness (LOC). The primary objective was to determine the extent to which the odds of documented LOC changes with increasing age in a population of older adults suffering an isolated concussion and uncomplicated mTBI.Methods: This was a retrospective study utilizing 6 years (2010–2015) of National Trauma Data Bank data. This study included patients with (1) diagnosis of concussion; (2) positive or negative loss of consciousness; (3) loss of consciousness durations no longer than 59 min or undefined; (4) age ≥50 years; (5) had a “fall” mechanism of injury; and (6) a valid emergency department Glasgow coma scale 13–15. We excluded patients (1) with any intracranial hemorrhage or intracranial injury of other and unspecified nature; (2) skull fracture; (3) an injury severity scale score >17; (4) a concussion with “unspecified” LOC (ICD-9: 850.9).Results: There were 7,466 patients included in the study; the median (IQR) age was 70 (60–80) years. The risk of documented LOC was 71% (n = 5,319). An 80-year-old had 72% decreased odds of having a documented LOC, compared to a 50-year-old (OR = 0.28, 99.5%CI [0.23–0.34], P < 0.001). This association held when controlling for multiple demographic, comorbid, and clinical variables, and in sensitivity analyses.Conclusion: These nationwide data suggest that in patients aged ≥50 years, a significant inverse association exists between age and odds of documented LOC after sustaining a fall-related concussion. Additional studies are needed to validate these findings and to investigate the triad of age, documented LOC, and intracranial hemorrhage. Clinical diagnostic criteria relying on LOC might be at risk of being modified by the association between increasing age and decreasing odds of LOC.

Purpose: The paper examines the potential effects of academic publications on patenting and the share of high technology exports. We test the short-run and the long-run causalities among high technology exports, the number of academic publications and the number of patents in three separate models. Methodology/Approach: Our sample consists of panel data for 61 countries and 20 years. The panel Granger causality and vector error correction model have been used in order to capture the short-run causalities. Furthermore, panel cointegration regressions have been applied to test for long-run causalities. Findings: Our results strongly suggest that there is a positive long-run effect of academic publications on both patenting and the share of high technology exports. This suggests that the outcomes of basic science in the form publications strongly support technological development, and thus emphasises the importance of basic research. In addition the effect of patents on high technology exports is mostly insignificant when controlling for academic publications and GDP. Research Limitation/implication: First, the variables used in the analysis are only proxies. The scope of the data has been significantly limited by the data availability. This leads also to limited the number of control variables. Originality/Value of paper: There are still only a very limited number of studies testing the effect of academic outcomes on the technological development of the economy. Our research brings new empirical insights into this problem.

Standardization is a relatively neglected aspect of the EU regulatory process and yet it is fundamental to that process and arguably has recently been the key vehicle in making the single market an economic reality. Yet the key standardization bodies in the EU, the ESOs, are scarcely known to the public and seldom discussed in the literature. In this article we redress this imbalance, arguing that standardization and integration are closely related concepts. We also argue that the ESOs have developed a degree of autonomy in expanding the boundaries of standardization and even in developing their own links with the rest of the world. Recent proposals put forward by the European Commission can be seen as an attempt to reduce that autonomy. These proposals emphasize the speed of, and stakeholder involvement in, standards production, which we further suggest are somewhat conflicting aims.

The term anti-Americanism has become common in public and academic debate in the last decade. Yet we have only limited knowledge of those who hold such views. From 2003, 2005, and 2006 Eurobarometer data, almost 20% of European Union (EU) respondents disapproved of U.S. policy in all five dimensions the surveys examined. Following the literature, this consistent opposition is defined as anti-American. Anti-Americans exhibit systematic differences in age, education, geographical location, policy preferences, and nationality. In addition, although anti-Americanism is associated with a preference for greater European independence, perhaps surprisingly, it is also linked to a desire for a less federal and hence less powerful Europe. In both sets of attitudes, to the United States and to the EU, there are substantial variations within countries between different types of locality, which reinforces the view that it is too simplistic to describe a country as being anti-American or being pro-European integration.

Este artículo examina la función del derecho y de las ideas legales en las disputas de la Inglaterra anglonormanda. Contiene una crítica de dos modelos de disputa muy influyentes, uno que destaca el uso de la ordalía, el otro la influencia de los factores «políticos», tales como el poder y la amistad. Señala que los procesos de disputas pueden ajustarse a uno u otro de esos modelos, pero que una gran proporción y una amplia variedad de casos muestran una mayor influencia por las normas e ideas legales. Termina comparando tales normas e ideas con ciertas imágenes del derecho moderno realizadas en algunos trabajos recientes sobre jurisprudencia.

Purpose - The paper seeks to examine the background to the UK Government White Paper on the conservation of the built environment, and particularly to identify drivers for legislative change and possible consequences of new legislation for conservation practice. Design/methodology/approach - A critical review is undertaken of major trends in conservation and management of the historic built environment that may affect future conservation legislation. Findings - Three major trends are identified: the development of holistic landscape-based approaches to conservation; the widening of heritage values to include those of particular groups and communities as well as those based on academic disciplines; and a shift from control-based approaches to conservation towards those based on dynamic management of change. Each of these trends presents opportunities and challenges in framing of legislation and policy. Research limitations/implications - This is a wide and fast-developing field. The UK Government's proposals for legislation are not yet in place and the framework for debate may change. Practical implications - There has been a long period of stability and consolidation in the legal framework for conservation of the historic built environment. It is likely that we are moving towards a period of accelerating change in which accepted values may be challenged and new skills may be required. Originality/value - The paper draws together a diverse set of themes that are likely to affect the future development of conservation legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose ? To consider the extent to which the concept of social enterprise fits within facilities management (FM) thinking in helping to create community benefit in the process of delivering housing market renewal (HMR) in the UK. HMR via its HMR pathfinder organisations is part of many strategies in the ODPM (2003), introduced by the UK government to tackle low demand and housing abandonment across the UK. Design/methodology/approach ? This paper considers two key themes. First, it focuses on social enterprise practice within the context of supporting and sustaining the existing economy of the local communities in the most deprived areas in the UK. Second, it discusses the present understanding of FM practices and how far these fit within social enterprise practices in delivering social objectives. Findings ? Social enterprises tackle a wide range of social, environmental and economic issues to achieve public benefit. It is a promising vehicle for the development of community-based FM. Originality/value ? The paper builds on established literature and generates debate on the role of FM within the context of relevant organisations that offers new ways of operating for public benefit rather than purely maximising profits for shareholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present two different approaches to detect and quantify phase synchronization in the case of coupled non-phase coherent oscillators. The first one is based on the general idea of curvature of an arbitrary curve. The second one is based on recurrences of the trajectory in phase space. We illustrate both methods in the paradigmatic example of the Rössler system in the funnel regime. We show that the second method is applicable even in the case of noisy data. Furthermore, we extend the second approach to the application of chains of coupled systems, which allows us to detect easily clusters of synchronized oscillators. In order to illustrate the applicability of this approach, we show the results of the algorithm applied to experimental data from a population of 64 electrochemical oscillators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has been marked by rapid innovation in vaccine development. Given that nurse practitioners (NPs) are often involved in vaccine counseling and administration, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners developed a continuing education (CE) series that covered COVID-19 vaccine development, recommendations, administration, and solutions for overcoming hesitancy. In 2020 and 2021, three separate live webinars were delivered; each webinar was updated with the latest vaccine recommendations and was then archived in an enduring format for up to 4 months. The goal of this study was to assess changes in preactivity and postactivity knowledge and confidence and to qualitatively report other learner outcomes. Across the three webinars, 3,580 unique learners who self-reported seeing patients eligible for COVID-19 vaccination completed at least one activity. Knowledge and competence improved from the preactivity to postactivity survey in all webinars, with the overall rates of correct answers increasing by 30% after webinar 1, 37% after webinar 2, and 28% after webinar 3 (all p < .001). Furthermore, mean confidence in learner's ability to address vaccine hesitancy improved across all three webinars (range, 31-32%; all p < .001). The majority of learners indicated that they planned to incorporate lessons from the activity into their clinical practice (range, 85-87%). In postactivity surveys, vaccine hesitancy was identified as an ongoing barrier by up to 33% of learners. In conclusion, this CE activity improved learner knowledge, competence, and confidence related to COVID-19 vaccination and underscores the importance of up-to-date CE targeted to NPs., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 American Association of Nurse Practitioners.)

We present here the complete genomes of two Streptomyces bacteriophages, Satis and JustBecause. Both phages were isolated directly from soil samples collected in St. Louis, MO, and present with an unusual prolate head morphology and large genome lengths of over 180 kb., (Copyright © 2019 Hartigan et al.)