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Microalgae as futuristic feeds for securing chicken production while promoting human health
No full textLivestock keepers face growing challenges, notably rising input prices and escalating biotic and abiotic stresses linked to environmental issues like climate change. These stresses pose problems for farmers but could also adversely affect wider society, including food security and the environment. Agricultural innovations are needed to help address such threats, and nature-based solutions are a promising locus of innovative farm inputs. The present paper reviews the available evidence on one species of microalgae – Arthrospira platensis – and its potential significance for chicken production given these challenges. It finds that this feed possesses multifaceted efficacy, namely boosting the production of meat and eggs, enhancing the resilience of production to biotic and abiotic stresses, and improving product quality. These effects could bolster the economic viability of chicken production. The observed quality effects also create scope for producing biofortified chicken products, with potentially major implications for public health. The paper summarises the evidence on these themes in non-technical language using intuitive metrics. It also frames its findings in terms of key target users of this innovative feed, namely farmers, farm advisors and policy makers. It concludes by discussing the potential significance of this agricultural innovation and highlighting key research and policy priorities
Assessing the inclusion of music therapy and music interven-tions in National Dementia Strategies and Clinical Practice Guidelines: A Scoping Review
No full textObjectives: Dementia prevalence continues to rise, predicted to reach 150 million by 2050, making development of effective, person-centred, non-pharmacological interventions an urgent healthcare priority. Music therapy and music (MTAM) are increasingly recognised as low-cost options to alleviate behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), particularly in acute hospital environments. This scoping review evaluates national dementia strategies and clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) to determine how far MTAM are acknowledged as formal components of dementia care. Methods: A scoping review of databases identified the most recent national clinical strategies or CPGs for people with dementia (PWD), published between 2015 and 2025. Using the PRISMA guidelines in June 2025, with pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria we examined four databases, supplemented with an internet search and reference snowballing. National strategies and CPGs that included MTAM were examined in more detail. Results: Of the 37 national strategies or CPGs, 19 were eligible for inclusion, identified from 16 countries. Although non-pharmacological interventions were widely endorsed, only seven guidelines referenced MTAM, and fewer acknowledged its potential value in hospital. In contrast, interventions such as occupational therapy, reminiscence therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy appeared far more frequently. Further analysis was not in the scope of this review. Conclusions: Our findings underscore the gap between emerging evidence supporting music-based interventions and its inclusion in national policy. Clinical Implications: These findings highlight the need for further robust research demonstrating the benefit of MTAM for PWD to strengthen future policy recommendations and promote integration of music-based approaches in dementia care
Daily workplace embitterment and work-related rumination during off-job time: Illegitimate tasks as antecedents and the buffering role of appreciation
Get PDFThis daily diary study aims to expand the understanding of workplace embitterment (i.e. an emotional response to unjust work experiences) by determining its daily antecedents and consequences. By drawing on the stress-as-offense-to-self theory and the recovery literature we hypothesise that daily illegitimate (i.e. unnecessary and unreasonable) tasks (ITs) relate positively to daily embitterment. We argue that this relationship weakens on days employees experience higher appreciation from colleagues and supervisors than usual. Further, we expect daily ITs to relate positively and indirectly with work-related rumination (i.e. affective rumination, problem-solving pondering) and negatively and indirectly to psychological detachment via enhanced embitterment particularly on days employees experience lower appreciation. Seventy-one employees completed a diary for up to five consecutive workdays twice daily: at the end of the workday and bedtime. Daily unreasonable tasks related positively to embitterment, while higher appreciation from colleagues was found to mitigate this positive relationship. Finally, unreasonable tasks related positively to affective rumination and negatively to detachment via increased embitterment but only on days when appreciation from colleagues was lower than usual. This study expands the nomological network of workplace embitterment and highlights its relevance for understanding daily employee wellbeing
Ten tips for supporting clinical teachers’ motivation to teach: A self-determination theory perspective
No full textClinical teachers are vital to Family Medicine and Health Professions Education, yet their motivation to teach is challenged by competing clinical, administrative, and educational demands. Drawing on our recent Best Evidence in Medical Education (BEME) systematic review and guided by Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this paper offers ten practical tips to sustain and strengthen clinical teachers’ motivation. These tips address three domains: understanding and valuing motivation, creating supportive work environments, and enabling and sustaining autonomous motivation. They highlight influences from above (institutional systems, leadership, societal pressures), within (teachers’ values, identity, and purpose), and below (learner engagement and feedback). Strategies include recognising multi-level influences, involving teachers in curricular design, protecting time, reducing hindrance job demands, investing in professional development, affirming meaning and purpose, fostering continuity, engaging learners as partners, ensuring fair evaluation, and tailoring support to diverse motivational profiles. Collectively, these approaches create conditions that support autonomy, competence, and relatedness, enhancing teacher engagement, satisfaction, and sustainability
Movement fluency metrics during multi-phase sit-to-walk and reach-to-grasp: Test-retest reliability and agreement between laboratory-based and portable 3D motion analysis systems
No full textBackground: International consensus recommends use of kinematic metrics of movement during standardized functional tasks after stroke to ascertain whether rehabilitation is driving behavioral restitution or compensation. Quality of human movement can be characterized by fluency metrics including smoothness and hesitation. Before using these metrics in stroke rehabilitation it is important to find whether ‘reference values’, from healthy adults, are repeatable. Research question: Do kinematic metrics of smoothness and hesitation have test-retest reliability during standardized functional tasks performed by healthy adults? Methods: a correlational agreement study. Testing sessions separated by 1–4 weeks. Participants, 75 adults reporting no neurological or musculoskeletal diagnosis, performed standardized multi-phase sit-to-walk and reach-to-grasp with kinematic data collected simultaneously by optokinetic and video-based 3D motion analysis systems. Smoothness was derived using the Spectral Arc Length method. Hesitation was the maximum decrease in thorax forward velocity as percentage of peak value. Analysis used the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) with 95 % confidence intervals [95 % CI]. The clinically acceptable level of test-retest reliability was set as, ICC 0.75 [lower 95 % CI 0.70 or above]. Findings: of the 75 participants, 72 completed both sessions. Neither smoothness nor hesitation kinematic metrics reached clinically acceptable test-retest reliability for either motion analysis system. Intra-participant variability was observed within sessions, e.g., mean coefficients of variation for sit-to-walk hesitation ranged from 13 % to 22 %. Significance: Test-retest reliability of smoothness and hesitation kinematic metrics was clinically unacceptable for multi-phase tasks. Intra-participant within-session variation was observed. This intra-participant variation could hamper establishment of reference values for use in stroke rehabilitation
Twisted products of monoids
Get PDFA twisting of a monoid S is a map Φ : S × S → N satisfying the identity Φ(a, b) + Φ(ab, c) = Φ(a, bc) + Φ(b, c). Together with an additive commutative monoid M, and a fixed q ∈ M, this gives rise a so-called twisted product M × q Φ S, which has underlying set M × S and multiplication (i, a)(j, b) = (i + j + Φ(a, b)q, ab). This construction has appeared in the special cases where M is N or Z under addition, S is a diagram monoid (e.g. partition, Brauer or Temperley-Lieb), and Φ counts components in concatenated diagrams. In this paper we identify a special kind of ‘tight’ twisting, and give a thorough structural description of the resulting twisted products. This involves characterising Green’s relations, (von Neumann) regular elements, idempotents, biordered sets, maximal subgroups, Schützenberger groups, and more. We also a number of examples, including several apparently new ones, which take as their starting point certain generalisations of Sylvester’s rank inequality from linear algebra
Electrophysiological evidence of infants’ understanding of verbs
Get PDFWhen do infants first begin grasping the meaning of verbs? To learn verbs – words that describe actions and events – theorists suggest that infants must employ word segmentation, event processing, and verb-to-action mapping skills. Prior research suggests that many of these skills emerge by approximately 10 months. In the current study, we examined whether 10-month-old infants understand several early verbs. In a novel action-verb pairing paradigm, infants saw videos of everyday actions while hearing matching or mismatching verbs. We tested adults on the same paradigm to verify that action-verb pairs reliably evoked an N400 mismatch effect. Adults showed an N400-like effect over frontal and centroparietal regions. Infants also showed ERP differences between mismatched and matched action-verb pairs, although the pattern differed from adults, with variation in topography and directionality. Infants’ ERP response was not related to their receptive or productive vocabulary size. These findings indicate that infants were sensitive to co-occurrences between actions and verbs, reflecting emerging verb understanding and suggesting nascent semantic knowledge. We further consider alternative explanations, including the possibility that the observed ERP differences reflect early action-verb associations that may serve as building blocks for later semantic verb knowledge. These results expand our understanding of infant language acquisition by demonstrating that, by 10 months, infants are sensitive to mismatches between everyday actions and verbs
A systematic review of team formulations in multidisciplinary teams: Staff views and opinions
Get PDFBackground: Formulation and working psychologically with teams is considered a fundamental part of the role of a clinical psychologist. Quantitative studies have found staff find team formulations a positive, useful experience. Aims: This review aims to utilize a Thematic Synthesis to combine qualitative studies on staff experiences of participating in team formulations and explore what benefits staff perceive from the process. The review also aims to provide a thorough quality appraisal of the included research. Method: A Thematic Synthesis was completed on qualitative studies which met the required inclusion criteria. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme qualitative checklist was used to appraise the included research. Results: The studies included in the review were of a mixed quality, and in some instances there was an insufficient amount of detail to complete an accurate assessment. Overall, seven themes were identified across the studies. Conclusions: The current review highlights the importance of team formulation in general practice for both enhancing staff understanding of service users but also improving professional confidence and validation. The review also highlighted some of the barriers to staff practicing team formulations
Co-creation in health professions education: Triangulating perspectives and processes for deeper insights
No full textCo-creation in health professions education (HPE) is gaining momentum as a vital approach to enhancing educational practices and outcomes. As the healthcare landscape evolves, the need for innovative educational models that actively involve learners and other stakeholders in educational design has become increasingly important. This innovative approach promotes learner engagement and ensures that educational programs are more aligned with the realities of contemporary healthcare delivery. Integrating diverse perspectives in co-creation initiatives aims to enrich the educational experience by harnessing the unique insights and experiences of all participants—learners, educators, and healthcare professionals. Though co-creation offers numerous benefits, its success depends on effective partnership dynamics. By considering the insights of participants, moderators, and organizers (also known as triangulation approach), we can identify facilitators, challenges, and opportunities for improvement. Triangulation refers to the process of using multiple sources or methods to gather data and insights. This comprehensive approach will help optimize co-creation initiatives and maximize their benefits for learners and educators alike. This commentary emphasizes the importance of integrating diverse perspectives to enhance our understanding of the co-creation process