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The role of anti-racism in early childhood remains a salient concern for many educators working with young children. Yet to what extent, and through what socio-political paradigms, government guidance supports proactive engagement remains an area to be mapped and explored. In this article, through a critical scoping review we aim to consider the context and policy landscape for anti-racist practice in Scotland and England and examine confluences and divergences between each country.

Abstract The only cure of HIV has been achieved in a small number of people who received a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) comprising allogeneic cells carrying a rare, naturally occurring, homozygous deletion in the CCR5 gene. The rarity of the mutation and the significant morbidity and mortality of such allogeneic transplants precludes widespread adoption of this HIV cure. Here, we show the application of CRISPR/Cas9 to achieve >90% CCR5 editing in human, mobilized hematopoietic stem progenitor cells (HSPC), resulting in a transplant that undergoes normal hematopoiesis, produces CCR5 null T cells, and renders xenograft mice refractory to HIV infection. Titration studies transplanting decreasing frequencies of CCR5 edited HSPCs demonstrate that

Collaborative writing is well established in the humanities, but with little focus on how the writing relationship comes into being, including the power and relational dynamics at play. This is especially pertinent both when Black and "white" (sic) authors collaborate in writing about race, and in the process of writing collaborative autoethnographies. In this article the authors narrate, or rather "enact", the movements of their coming together in order to write about race in the context of early learning and childcare. Linking their collaboration to the Deleuzian theory of becoming and Bakhtin's dialogic imagination, they present a manifesto for anti-racist inquiry which decentres colonial tropes of individuation in favour of "staying with the trouble" of identity and race. Throughout, they connect the inception of their research relationship to the politics of childhood and early years education in Scotland today.

In this paper, we present an argument for Practitioner Inquiry (PI). We briefly introduce PI, and we indicate how PI recasts the professional and political role of the Early Years Practitioner (practitioner). At the core of this article is the work of the early childhood pioneer, Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852). Froebel provided principles to support the continued professional development of practitioners. We draw on data from our Froebelian Futures project, which could be described as a call to action, where practitioners are viewed as research active, and competing values exist. Several strong, committed practitioners gave their time, energy and intellectual resources to further enhance their knowledge of Froebel and develop their skills as researchers. This led us to ask questions about the role that ethics plays in PI research and the boundaries that exist between university ethics committees and more practitioner led research.

Objective: This study aimed to develop and pilot test a new framework for the adaptation of patient decision aids (PtDAs) using a specific case example of contraceptive method PtDAs for Chinese-speaking migrant women. Methods: We developed a novel approach for adaptation – the PACE (Population And ContExt adaption of decision aids) framework – that incorporated both existing models and frameworks and innovative elements. It involves six stages: selection and appraisal; review by content experts; content validity and usability pre-testing; translation; decisional needs assessment; and perceived acceptability, usability and feasibility testing. We then followed the framework to pilot and adapt a suite of PtDAs on contraceptive methods for Chinese-speaking migrant women in Australia. Twenty healthcare providers and 22 Chinese migrant women participated during the stages five and six. Results: The pilot resulted in adapted PtDAs that were acceptable to end users. For future research, we proposed further recommendations and considerations based on lessons learnt, which include flexibility in applying the framework and considering an additional real-world evaluation step. Conclusion: Adaptation of PtDAs required a multi-stage and multidisciplinary team-based and pragmatic approach as exemplified in the application of the PACE framework. Innovation: The PACE framework developed and piloted in this study fills a crucial gap in knowledge about how to adapt PtDAs for new populations and contexts and provides an innovative and systemic approach to guide the adaptation process.

Objective: The coronavirus pandemic impacted health-seeking behaviour and access to primary care in Australia. We investigated factors associated with intention-to-attend and attendance of cervical screening during the pandemic, mainly in Victoria, Australia. Methods: We used questionnaire and attendance data (Aug 2020-Nov 2022) from Compass-PLUS, a sub-study of the Compass randomized-controlled trial of Human Papillomavirus-based vs cytology-based screening. Data was restricted to the HPV-screening arm for comparability to the national program. We investigated associations overall and for younger (25–39 years) and older (≥40 years) cohorts, between intention-to-attend/attendance, and socio-demographics, anxiety-related scores, and agreement with beliefs about screening during the pandemic (e.g. importance of screening, increased workload, working from home, risk of infection). Results: Among 2,226 participants, positive intention to attend screening was more likely among those with a family history of cancer (p = 0.030) or living outside major cities (p = 0.024). Increased attendance was associated with increasing age (p

BackgroundThe World Health Organisation’s vision of eliminating cervical cancer as a public health problem is achievable, but elimination must be achieved equitably, including for people with intellectual disability. A better understanding of cervical screening within the context of the lives of people with intellectual disability is needed. This study systematically reviewed research on the rates of cervical screening participation among people with intellectual disability, and facilitators and barriers that affect participation.MethodSix electronic databases were systematically searched: MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, PsycINFO, Embase and Pro-Quest Central Social Sciences Collection. Empirical studies published between 1986 and 2023, in English language peer-reviewed journals were eligible for inclusion. Further articles were identified through forward and backward citation tracking, and hand-searching the index lists of two key journals. Two authors screened the studies, extracted the data and collated study outcomes using a standardised software program. A meta-analysis was performed using the DerSimonian and Laird method to estimate pooled effect sizes in prevalence rates and odds ratios (ORs). The socio-ecological model (SEM) was used as a framework to thematically analyse facilitators and barriers impacting participation in cervical screening.ResultsSixty-three articles met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 42 reported on rates of cervical screening participation and 24 reported on facilitators or barriers to cervical screening for people with intellectual disability. Overall, the studies reported a screening prevalence of 35% (95% CI: 26% to 45%), indicating that just over a third of people with intellectual disability have had cervical screening. The pooled odds ratio of 0.30 (95% CI: 0.23 to 0.41) indicated that people with intellectual disability are significantly less likely to have a cervical screening test compared with people without intellectual disability. Most studies examined individual and interpersonal factors impacting cervical screening. These included: (i) fear and anxiety among people with intellectual disability, (ii) misassumptions preventing screening participation, (iii) the role of support people, (iv) the need for education, (v) accessible information, and time to prepare for screening, (vi) patient-provider communication including challenges obtaining informed consent, and (vii) healthcare provider lack of confidence.ConclusionFuture research, policy and practice efforts must address barriers to cervical screening participation among people with intellectual disability and ensure these efforts are co-produced and community-led. This is critical to ensuring equity in global and local efforts to eliminate cervical cancer.

Research suggests that oculomotor dysfunctions, such as convergence insufficiency, impact children's ability to read and write. Studies have identified convergence insufficiencies in near 6.8% of school-aged children. Oculomotor dysfunctions, such as convergence insufficiency, have responded favorably to oculomotor rehabilitation once identified. This case study discusses the identification of an oculomotor dysfunction, treatment, and outcome for a 10 year-old who participated in a Title One reading program at their school as well as comparative Individualized Education Plan findings. This case study supports the effectiveness of oculomotor rehabilitation treatment in addressing oculomotor dysfunctions that may impact a child's ability to read and write as well as the value of oculomotor screening in addition to a traditional eye examination.

Atmospheric methane (CH4) concentrations have more than doubled since the beginning of the industrial age, making CH4 the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2). The oil and gas sector represents one of the major anthropogenic CH4 emitters as it is estimated to account for 22 % of global anthropogenic CH4 emissions. An airborne field campaign was conducted in April–May 2019 to study CH4 emissions from offshore gas facilities in the southern North Sea with the aim of deriving emission estimates using a top-down (measurement-led) approach. We present CH4 fluxes for six UK and five Dutch offshore platforms or platform complexes using the well-established mass balance flux method. We identify specific gas production emissions and emission processes (venting and fugitive or flaring and combustion) using observations of co-emitted ethane (C2H6) and CO2. We compare our top-down estimated fluxes with a ship-based top-down study in the Dutch sector and with bottom-up estimates from a globally gridded annual inventory, UK national annual point-source inventories, and operator-based reporting for individual Dutch facilities. In this study, we find that all the inventories, except for the operator-based facility-level reporting, underestimate measured emissions, with the largest discrepancy observed with the globally gridded inventory. Individual facility reporting, as available for Dutch sites for the specific survey date, shows better agreement with our measurement-based estimates. For all the sampled Dutch installations together, we find that our estimated flux of (122.9 ± 36.8) kg h−1 deviates by a factor of 0.64 (0.33–12) from reported values (192.8 kg h−1). Comparisons with aircraft observations in two other offshore regions (the Norwegian Sea and the Gulf of Mexico) show that measured, absolute facility-level emission rates agree with the general distribution found in other offshore basins despite different production types (oil, gas) and gas production rates, which vary by 2 orders of magnitude. Therefore, mitigation is warranted equally across geographies.

This study assessed nutrition literacy levels among women in Antioquia, Colombia, using the Nutrition Literacy Assessment Tool – Spanish (NLit-S) to evaluate both overall and domain-specific nutrition literacy. This was a cross-sectional study of female participants in community kitchens in Antioquia, Colombia. The NLit-S provided scores for overall nutrition literacy and six specific domains: Nutrition and Health, Food Groups, Energy Sources in Food, Household Food Measurements, Food Labels and Numeracy, and Consumer Skills. Results from the assessment are divided into three categories: the likelihood of poor nutrition literacy (NLit-S score ≤ 28), the possibility of poor nutrition literacy (NLit-S score 29–38), and the likelihood of good nutrition literacy (NLit-S score ≥ 39). The overall scores of the NLit-S indicate that there is likely poor nutrition literacy among the women who participated in the study. The low levels of nutrition literacy indicate a significant public health challenge in Antioquia, Colombia, and suggest that there is a need for targeted nutrition education programs, especially programs designed to address the gaps in knowledge related to food measurements, nutrition label comprehension, and overall dietary practices. Enhancing nutrition literacy among women in Antioquia could lead to improved dietary choices and better health outcomes for the community.

IntroductionCervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers yet remains a disease of inequity for people with intellectual disability, in part due to low screening rates. The ScreenEQUAL project will use an integrated knowledge translation (iKT) model to co-produce and evaluate accessible cervical screening resources with and for this group.MethodsStage 1 will qualitatively explore facilitators and barriers to screening participation for people with intellectual disability, families and support people, healthcare providers and disability sector stakeholders (n ≈ 20 in each group). An accessible multimodal screening resource, accompanying supporting materials for families and support people, and trauma-informed healthcare provider training materials will then be co-produced through a series of workshops. Stage 2 will recruit people with intellectual disability aged 25 to 74 who are due or overdue for screening into a single-arm trial (n = 48). Trained support people will provide them with the co-produced resource in accessible workshops (intervention) and support them in completing pre-post questions to assess informed decision-making. A subset will participate in qualitative post-intervention interviews including optional body-mapping (n ≈ 20). Screening uptake in the 9-months following the intervention will be measured through data linkage. Family members and support people (n = 48) and healthcare providers (n = 433) will be recruited into single-arm sub-studies. Over a 4-month period they will, respectively, receive the accompanying supporting materials, and the trauma-informed training materials. Both groups will complete pre-post online surveys. A subset of each group (n ≈ 20) will be invited to participate in post-intervention semi-structured interviews.Outcomes and analysisOur primary outcome is a change in informed decision-making by people with intellectual disability across the domains of knowledge, attitudes, and screening intention. Secondary outcomes include: (i) uptake of screening in the 9-months following the intervention workshops, (ii) changes in health literacy, attitudes and self-efficacy of family members and support people, and (iii) changes in knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy and preparedness of screening providers. Each participant group will evaluate acceptability, feasibility and usability of the resources.DiscussionIf found to be effective and acceptable, the co-produced cervical screening resources and training materials will be made freely available through the ScreenEQUAL website to support national, and potentially international, scale-up.

Abstract Background Abortion stigma involves the stereotyping of, discrimination against, and delegitimization of those who seek and provide abortion. Experiences of abortion care are shaped by stigma at the meso (e.g., lack of local providers) and macro (e.g., abortion regulations) levels. Yet abortion stigma and quality of care are often examined separately. This study sought to articulate the impact of abortion stigma on quality of care in the context of healthcare interactions. It did so by characterizing the features of stigmatizing and non-stigmatizing care in the context of macro-level stigma and other structural factors that influence abortion-seeking experiences, including the coronavirus pandemic’s influence on the health system. Methods This qualitative study comprised in-depth interviews with people who sought abortion across Australia between March 2020 and November 2022, recruited through social media and flyers in clinics. Thematic analysis drew on concepts of micro, meso, and macro stigma and person-centered care. We developed typologies of the interactions between abortion seekers and healthcare workers by analytically grouping together negative and positive experiences to characterize features of stigmatizing and and non-stigmatizing care in the context of macro-level influences. Results We interviewed 24 abortion seekers and developed five typologies of stigmatizing care: creating barriers; judging; ignoring emotional and information needs; making assumptions; and minimizing interactions. There are five corresponding positive typologies. Macro-level factors, from abortion regulations to rural and pandemic-related health system pressures, contributed to poor experiences in care. Conclusions The positive experiences in this study illustrate how a lack of stigma enables patient-centered care. The negative experiences reflect the interrelationship between stigmatizing beliefs among healthcare workers, macro-level (policy and regulatory) abortion stigma, and structural health service limitations exacerbated during the pandemic. Interventions are needed to reduce stigmatizing interactions between abortion seekers and healthcare workers, and should also consider macro-level factors that influence the behaviors of healthcare workers and experiences of abortion seekers. Without addressing stigma at multiple levels, equitable access to high-quality abortion care will be difficult to achieve. Efforts to integrate stigma reduction into quality improvement have relevance for maternal and reproductive health services globally.

Size distribution of sea ice floes is an important component for sea ice thermodynamic and dynamic processes, particularly in the marginal ice zone. Recently processes related to the floe size distribution (FSD) have been incorporated into sea ice models, but the sparsity of existing observations limits the evaluation of FSD models, thus hindering model improvements. In this study, perimeter density has been applied to characterise the floe size distribution for evaluating three FSD models – the Waves-in-Ice module and Power law Floe Size Distribution (WIPoFSD) model and two branches of a fully prognostic floe size-thickness distribution model: CPOM-FSD and FSDv2-WAVE. These models are evaluated against a new FSD dataset derived from high-resolution satellite imagery in the Arctic. The evaluation shows an overall overestimation of floe perimeter density by the models against the observations. Comparison of the floe perimeter density distribution with the observations shows that the models exhibit a much larger proportion for small floes (radius <10–30 m) but a much smaller proportion for large floes (radius >30–50 m). Observations and the WIPoFSD model both show a negative correlation between sea ice concentration and the floe perimeter density, but the two prognostic models (CPOM-FSD and FSDv2-WAVE) show the opposite pattern. These differences between models and the observations may be attributed to limitations in the observations (e.g. the image resolution is not sufficient to detect small floes) or limitations in the model parameterisations, including the use of a global power-law exponent in the WIPoFSD model as well as too weak a floe welding and enhanced wave fracture in the prognostic models.

Developmental plasticity enables organisms to cope with new environmental challenges. If deploying such plasticity is costly in terms of time or energy, the same adaptive behaviour could subsequently evolve through piecemeal genomic reorganisation that replaces the requirement to acquire that adaptation by individual plasticity. Here, we report a new dimension to the way in which plasticity can drive evolutionary change, leading to an ever-greater complexity in biological organisation. Plasticity dramatically accelerates the evolutionary accumulation of adaptive systems in model organisms with relatively low rates of mutation. The effect of plasticity on the evolutionary growth of complexity is even greater when the number of elements needed to construct a functional system is increased. These results suggest that, as the difficulty of challenges from the environment becomes greater, plasticity exerts an ever more powerful role in meeting those challenges and in opening up new avenues for the subsequent evolution of complex adaptations.

Environmental enrichment programmes are widely used to improve welfare of captive and laboratory animals, especially non-human primates. Monitoring enrichment use over time is crucial, as animals may habituate and reduce their interaction with it. In this study we aimed to monitor the interaction with enrichment items in groups of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), each consisting of an average of ten individuals, living in a breeding colony. To streamline the time-intensive task of assessing enrichment programmes we automated the evaluation process by using machine learning technologies. We built two computer vision-based pipelines to evaluate monkeys’ interactions with different enrichment items: a white drum containing raisins and a non-food-based puzzle. The first pipeline analyses the usage of enrichment items in nine groups, both when it contains food and when it is empty. The second pipeline counts the number of monkeys interacting with a puzzle across twelve groups. The data derived from the two pipelines reveal that the macaques consistently express interest in the food-based white drum enrichment, even several months after its introduction. The puzzle enrichment was monitored for one month, showing a gradual decline in interaction over time. These pipelines are valuable for assessing enrichment by minimising the time spent on animal observation and data analysis; this study demonstrates that automated methods can consistently monitor macaque engagement with enrichments, systematically tracking habituation responses and long-term effectiveness. Such advancements have significant implications for enhancing animal welfare, enabling the discontinuation of ineffective enrichments and the adaptation of enrichment plans to meet the animals’ needs.

Abstract. Background: Previous research has documented that unemployed individuals who engage in recreational activities, either alone or with others, experience higher levels of mental health and psychological well-being relative to those who do not engage in recreational activities. Aims: In this study, we examined whether engagement in health promoting activities, alone or with other family members, is associated with reduced levels of depression and enhanced levels of life satisfaction in unemployed individuals. Method: We employed a cross-sectional design in which we measured life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, consumption of healthy meals and engagement in physical activities in 203 unemployed individuals (male = 90, female = 113, age= 33.79, SD = 11.16). Results: Independent of age, gender, and partner employment status, hierarchical regression analyses revealed statistically significant effects for social forms of healthy eating (consumption of healthy meals with others) and solitary forms of physical activity (exercising alone) on depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Limitations: The research design was cross-sectional using self-report questionnaires. The present study does not to explain why and how health promoting activities enhance well-being outcomes among the unemployed. Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of measuring engagement in health promoting activities through separate constructs that capture engagement in social and solitary health promoting activities and suggest that unemployed individuals are likely to experience optimal levels of psychological well-being if they exercise alone and consume healthy meals with other family members.