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Inter-disciplinary Working in Speech & Language Therapy:Samuel: They Can't Possibly Cope at Home
No full textThis book presents a variety of dilemmas that highlight the breadth and complexity of speech and language therapy and provides guidance for ethically informed clinical decision making. Realistic case studies written by a range of speech and language therapists from around the globe examine the decision-making process in speech and language therapy, providing a careful balance of clinical knowledge and expertise along with addressing the priorities and needs of the individual, and wider ethical considerations. Students and educators can debate real dilemmas faced by clinicians, taking diverse values and theoretical models into account to foster students’ learning development. This book is an invaluable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students and lecturers in speech and language therapy programmes and clinical educators on placement. Charities working with children and adults with communication disorders may also benefit from this resource in training and assessments
Your job makes us lose sleep: The effect of workplace bullying on own and partner’s insomnia
Full text linkExposure to bullying behaviors has been associated with a variety of negative health outcomes, such as sleep complaints. However, the current state of the knowledge is limited regarding the short-term bullying processes. Thus, we conducted research with two different time frames, to analyze short (diary) and medium-term (monthly) associations of workplace bullying with insomnia. In the first study, we used a daily diary research design, with a sample of 147 participants (N=735 occasions). In the second study, we used a longitudinal design with four waves and two months of time lag, with a sample of 139 heterosexual couples (N= 278 participants; N= 1112 occasions). Multilevel analyses showed that, in the first study, there was an indirect effect of bullying on sleep severity through rumination. In the second study, rumination transmitted the indirect effect of bullying on sleep satisfaction and sleep impact. In addition, we found a partial mediation effect of rumination between bullying and sleep severity. Furthermore, we also found a contagion of employees’ and their partners’ insomnia symptoms (i.e., severity and sleep impact). The results of this study provide some insight into the mechanisms underlying workplace bullying's effects on sleep and identify a differential effect based on time lag
Importance of beginning industrial-era climate simulations in the eighteenth century
Full text linkClimate simulations of the industrial era typically start in 1850, using the first fifty years as a baseline for ‘pre-industrial’ climate. However, the period immediately prior to 1850 is of particular interest due to early human influence and heightened volcanic activity, the latter of which led to cooler global temperatures than those observed in the subsequent historical period. In this study, we present a suite of Earth system model simulations (using UKESM1.1) that start in 1750 and span the entire industrial period. We compare these simulations to a new instrumental observation-based dataset, GloSATref, which provides global surface air temperature variations from 1781 onwards. We investigate the climatic changes during the early industrial period, separating the effects of natural and anthropogenic forcings. Model-simulated early-19th-century temperature patterns show substantial cooling relative to the long-term mean, particularly in low latitudes, which agree well with observed patterns. We find significant long-term differences between simulations initialised in 1750 and 1850, with lasting effects well into the 20th century, consistent with differences in vegetation and the substantial ocean cooling driven by high volcanic activity in the 1750 simulations. Our results indicate that an earlier start to historical simulations could lead to more representative climate simulations over the historical period, and deepen our understanding of early anthropogenic warming, natural climate variability, and the climate responses to future volcanic eruptions
Corruption and entrepreneurship in developed and emerging economies
No full textThe aim of this study was to clarify how entrepreneurship is affected at the individual level by corruption. To this end, we investigated how major corruption scandals impact entrepreneurs in developed and emerging economies. After observing what the literature says, we developed quantitative research with secondary data. We use individual-level data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor to study how entrepreneurs react to major corruption scandals in a developed and an emerging economy. Results indicate that for the developed economy, major corruption events have virtually no direct effect on entrepreneurs' decisions, and relations between entrepreneurs' perceptions and characteristics and entrepreneurial variables are stable. However, in the emerging economy, it has a severe negative direct impact on future intentions. It can change the relationship between several entrepreneurs' perceptions and characteristics and entrepreneurial variables, further impairing future intentions. The volatility we document in the weaker institutional environment is a novel result that may help conciliate conflicting results in the literature and expands the literature on moderating factors in entrepreneurship
Decolonising Intellectual Property Law:An Afrocentric Approach
No full textThis book advocates for an Afrocentric approach to intellectual property (IP) law, using lessons from Nigeria’s past to encourage reform for the future of Africa’s legal IP landscape. Highlighting the Eurocentric influence on the history of intellectual property law in Africa, the book demonstrates how this contradicts traditional African community culture. This book makes the case for legitimising cultural expressions of traditional communities despite the western legal framework within which they exist, reimagining a decolonised IP framework whereby African histories are centred. Questioning the fundamentals of the current IP landscape, such as the concept of eligibility in copyright which developed alongside European technological advances, the book also details the role of the courts in resolving IP disputes. It highlights Africa as a powerhouse of original, autonomous innovation, values and traditions which predate the West’s concept of intellectual property. It illustrates the African experience of intellectual property from a pro-African perspective as shared by African authors. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of Intellectual Property, copyright and patent law, as well as African law
Memory consolidation during sleep: A facilitator of new learning?
Full text linkSleep plays a crucial role in consolidating recently acquired memories and preparing the brain for learning new ones, but the relationship between these two processes is currently unclear. According to the prominent Active Systems Consolidation model, memory representations that are initially reliant on the hippocampus are redistributed to neocortex during sleep for long-term storage. An indirect assumption of this model is that sleep-associated memory processing paves the way for next-day learning by freeing up hippocampal encoding resources. In this review, we evaluate two central tenets of this ‘resource reallocation hypothesis’: (i) sleep-associated memory consolidation reduces hippocampal engagement during retrieval, and (ii) this reduction in hippocampal burden enhances the brain's capacity for new learning. We then describe recent work that has directly tested the relationship between sleep-associated memory processing and next-day learning. In the absence of clear evidence supporting the resource reallocation hypothesis, we consider alternative accounts in which efficient learning is not contingent on prior overnight memory processing, but rather that sleep-associated consolidation and post-sleep learning rely on overlapping or independent mechanisms. We conclude by outlining how future research can rigorously test the resource reallocation hypothesis
Sotrovimab versus usual care in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): A randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial
No full textBackground: Sotrovimab is a neutralising monoclonal antibody targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of sotrovimab in the RECOVERY trial, an investigator-initiated, individually randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial testing treatments for patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Methods: Patients admitted with COVID-19 pneumonia to 107 UK hospitals were randomly assigned (1:1) to either usual care alone or usual care plus a single 1 g infusion of sotrovimab, using web-based unstratified randomisation. Participants were eligible if they were aged at least 18 years, or aged 12–17 years if weighing at least 40kg, and had confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia with no medical history that would put them at significant risk if they participated in the trial. Participants were retrospectively categorised as having a high antigen level if baseline serum SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antigen was above the median concentration (the prespecified primary efficacy population), otherwise they were categorised as having a low antigen level. The primary outcome was 28-day mortality assessed by intention to treat. Safety outcomes were assessed among all participants, regardless of antigen level. Recruitment closed on March 31, 2024, when funding ended. The trial is registered with ISRCTN (50189673) and ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04381936). Findings: From Jan 4, 2022, to March 19, 2024, 1723 patients were enrolled in the RECOVERY sotrovimab comparison. Of these, 828 (48%) were assigned to usual care plus sotrovimab and 895 (52%) were assigned to usual care only. Mean patient age was 70·7 years (SD 14·8) and 1033 (60%) were male. 720 (42%) patients were classified as having a high antigen level, 717 (42%) as having a low antigen level, and 286 (17%) had unknown antigen status. 1389 (81%) patients were vaccinated, 1179 (82%) of 1438 patients with known serostatus had anti-spike antibodies at randomisation, and 1021 (>99%) of 1026 patients with sequenced samples were infected with omicron variants. Among patients with a high antigen level, 82 (23%) of 355 assigned to sotrovimab versus 106 (29%) of 365 assigned usual care died within 28 days (rate ratio 0·75, 95% CI 0·56–0·99; p=0·046). In an analysis of all randomly assigned patients (regardless of antigen status), 177 (21%) of 828 patients assigned to sotrovimab versus 201 (22%) of 895 assigned to usual care died within 28 days (0·95, 0·77–1·16; p=0·60). Infusion reactions were recorded in 12 (2%) of 781 patients receiving sotrovimab. We found no difference between groups in any other safety outcome. Interpretation: In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 pneumonia, sotrovimab was associated with reduced mortality in the primary analysis population who had a high serum SARS-CoV-2 antigen concentration at baseline, but not in the overall population. Treatment options for patients admitted to hospital are limited, and mortality in those receiving current standard of care was high. The emergence of high-level resistance to sotrovimab among subsequent SARS-CoV-2 variants restricts its current usefulness, but these results indicate that targeted neutralising antibody therapy could potentially still benefit some patients admitted to hospital who are at high risk of death in an era of widespread vaccination and omicron infection
Task irrelevant sounds influence visual attention through graded crossmodal semantic modulation
No full textThe role of semantics in guiding attentional prioritization visually is well established, but how semantic information shapes attention in multisensory, rather than unisensory, contexts has been less well characterized. Task-irrelevant sounds can speed search for matched visual targets; e.g., you find a dog more quickly if you hear it barking. However, matched sounds and images may be a unique case, with the attentional benefit derived by integration into a combined multisensory event. To establish if semantic information influences attention in audiovisual contexts beyond direct matches, we systematically varied sound–image semantic relatedness while participants searched for target images. Search speed scaled with sound–image semantic relatedness, such that target images were found faster when the sound was more closely related to the image. To examine whether sound–image semantic scaling hinges on task relevance, we conducted two follow up experiments while participants completed an orthogonal Gabor discrimination task. Observed results demonstrate that semantic knowledge guides audiovisual attention, even when task-irrelevant and not matched, suggesting a robust underlying cognitive mechanism processing semantics both within and across sensory modality that goes on to influence attentional allocation
The experiences of people with dementia and their informal carers of long-term condition reviews in primary care: A qualitative study
No full textMultimorbidity (having more than one long term condition) is common for people with dementia and leads to increased healthcare needs and poorer outcomes for those individuals and also their informal carers. In the UK, part of the management of co-morbidities occurs through annual long-term condition reviews in primary care. To date there has been little research on the experiences of people with dementia and their informal carers with regards to these reviews. A qualitative study of people with dementia and informal carers recruited across England was undertaken, exploring their experiences of long-term condition reviews in primary care. Semi-structured interviews with 16 participants (two people with dementia, 10 informal carers and two informal carer/people with dementia dyads) were conducted via telephone and the principles of Reflexive Thematic Analysis used to analyse the data. We identified four main themes from the data: 1) What matters to people (identifying and meeting both medical and holistic needs) 2) The experience of the review (the wide range of experiences) 3) The importance of communication (the desire for better communication) and 4) The involvement of people with dementia and carers in decisions (their wish to be involved, the lack of opportunity for this and how this reduces shared decision making and patient-lead care). Our findings suggest that current long-term condition reviews are frequently not meeting the needs of people with dementia and their informal carers. Initial strategies to improve long-term condition review should include ensuring that patients and informal carers (including for informal carers of people with dementia in residential homes) are able to participate in the reviews. Further research with key stakeholders is now needed to improve our understanding of current organisational and clinician perspectives and to aid in optimising long-term condition reviews
National epidemiology of dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, England 2013–2022
No full textThe incidence data for England from 2013 to 2022 indicates that there were 171 cases every year on average, which gives a crude incidence rate of 0.31 per 100 000 person-years and a nonsignificant annual increase of 1.42%, before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2013–2019. Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP) has a high 5-year net survival rate of 99.2% and an overall survival rate of 96.5%, which indicates a generally favourable DFSP prognosis once resected