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The financial impact of pet ownership in rental properties
Get PDFReport URL: https://www.battersea.org.uk/about-us/publications / Online pdf: https://bdch.org.uk/files/The_Financial_Impact_Pet_Ownership_Rental_Properties.pdf .[Foreword]
At Battersea, we take in any dog or cat in need of our help, irrespective of age, condition or breed. In 2023 we directly helped nearly 5,000 animals, caring for dogs and cats who have either strayed and can’t get home or whose owners find themselves unable to look after them. Housing is one of the main reasons animals are given up by their owners into our care. This is why we first launched our Pet Friendly Properties campaign in 2018, working initially with the social rented sector where a number of partners have since made their policies more pet friendly. Landlord concerns about pets in their properties mean many owners have to make the traumatic choice between keeping their home or keeping their pet, while many more are denied the benefits of pet ownership because of the terms of their rental agreement. With 28% of all UK households now living in rented accommodation, and the Private Rented Sector only set to grow, landlord decisions about pets are affecting an ever-increasing number of animals and tenants. The positives of pet ownership are strong, showing health benefits for owners, social benefits for communities and economic benefits for the nation. Less attention has been given to the impact on landlords of accepting pets in their properties, and the link to the scarcity of pet-friendly properties. Many landlords are not opposed to pets. Indeed, many will own pets themselves. However, many hold legitimate concerns over the impact of pets on a property for which they may care deeply. For this reason, we decided to commission this high-quality study of the financial impact on landlords of allowing their tenants to keep a pet dog or cat. We recognised that the existing evidence was too anecdotal or methodologically weak to adequately test the conventional wisdom amongst some landlords that pet dogs and cats present an unacceptable financial risk. This question was important enough to warrant our investment in answering it. I hope that, upon seeing the myth-busting findings of this research, landlords will be reassured that accepting tenants with pets is financially viable and may not be the cost burden that they expect. There is less risk to their property than they may fear, while tenants are happier and stay longer in their home. This research is an important addition to the evidence base. I hope it will support and encourage decision-making that better balances the needs of animals, tenants and landlords, leading to more animals finding happy homes with a greater number of tenants and landlords enjoying greater peace of mind.Charity registered in England and Wales (charity no. 206394): Battersea Dogs & Cats Hom
The assessment of executive function abilities in healthy and neurodegenerative aging—A selective literature review.
Get PDFSupplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2024.1334309/full#supplementary-material .Numerous studies have examined executive function (EF) abilities in cognitively healthy older adults and those living with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Currently, there are no standard accepted protocols for testing specific EFs; thus, researchers have used their preferred tool, which leads to variability in assessments of decline in a particular ability across studies. Therefore, there is a need for guidance as to themost sensitive tests for assessing EF decline. A search of the most current literature published between 2000 and 2022 on EF studies assessing cognitively healthy older adults and individuals living with MCI and AD was conducted using PubMed/Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Emphasis was placed on the EF’s dual-tasking, inhibition, shifting or switching, and working memory updating. Many tasks and their outcomes were reviewed. Of particular importance was the dierence in outcomes for tasks applied to the same group of participants. These various EF assessment tools demonstrate dierences in eectively identifying decline in EF ability due to the aging process and neurodegenerative conditions, such as MCI and AD. This review identifies various factors to consider in using particular EF tasks in particular populations, including task demand and stimuli factors, and also when comparing diering results across studies.The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article
Riding waves to improve functioning: a quantitative evaluation of a Surf Week in individuals with chronic phase brain injury with six months follow-up
Get PDFSupplemental material is available online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09638288.2024.2320265#supplemental-material-section .Purpose:
Environmental enrichment seems to enable people in the chronic phase of acquired brain injury (ABI) to experience new functional abilities and motor/coping strategies and consequently to become more adaptable which might prevent/reverse functional decline. This study describes the influence of a five-days Surf Week program on participants on physical function, self-efficacy, functional balance performance and self-perceived recovery.
Materials and methods:
A multiple-baseline single-case design was used. Adults participating in the Surf Week in chronic phase of ABI were eligible to participate. Participants completed a battery of tests monitoring physical function, self-efficacy, functional balance performance and self-perceived recovery. This battery was repeated 5 times over a 1-year period, two times pre-Surf Week, three times post-Surf Week. Visual data inspection with two non-overlap methods were used to determine if patients showed sustained improvement in outcomes post-intervention.
Results:
A moderate to strong indication for improvements on physical function, functional balance performance and self-perceived recovery exists till six months follow-up. No indication was observed on self-efficacy till six months follow-up.
Conclusions:
A five-days Surf Week is a physically, cognitively and socially intensive stimulating activity that can positively challenge individuals after ABI and seems to improve physical functioning, functional balance performance and self-perceived recovery.Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Department of Health Innovation and Technology
A Pilot Study into the Use of Qualitative Methods to Improve the Awareness of Barriers to Sustainable Medical Waste Segregation within the United Kingdom’s National Health Service
Get PDFData Availability Statement:
The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.Within the United Kingdom, most medical waste is incorrectly classified as hazardous and disposed of via incineration or alternative treatment. Currently, no research has been conducted on why such a large quantity of medical waste is erroneously segregated. This pilot study explores the barriers to correct segregation with the aim to decrease the volume of incinerated waste by investigating why medical waste is wrongly identified as hazardous. No previous data are available to compare results, and so this study demonstrates the significance of using qualitative methods (questionnaires and focus groups) to bring awareness to issues faced within medical facilities when segregating waste. The low availability of different bins as well as lack of space and the healthcare workers’ busy schedules were identified as main reasons for poor segregation. Bins were sparsely placed, and staff lacked time to find the appropriate one leading to incorrect segregation of non-hazardous waste. Lack of information around whether a material was recyclable or not led to less recycled waste. When ways to engage with this issue were discussed, most medical staff favoured quick forms of information provision, such as posters, whereas a participant proclaimed longer hands-on style sessions as more effective. The findings of this study provide evidence that governmental strategies focused on sustainable medical waste management should direct their attention to the placement and availability of bins, whilst including ‘on-the-ground’ personnel in their decision making. This pilot study showed the value in using qualitative methods when current data are lacking and can be repeated by other healthcare facilities to collectively grow a greater awareness of the sustainability issues faced by the UK healthcare waste management system.This research was undertaken whilst receiving a studentship by a UK medical device manufacturer
Measuring persistence of the world population: a fractional integration approach
Get PDFJEL Classification: C22; C40, J11.This paper uses fractional integration to measure the degree of persistence in historical annual data on the world population over the period 1800-2016. e analysis is carried out for the original series, and for its log transformation and its growth rate. e results indicate that the series are highly persistent; the estimated values of the diencing parameter are above 1, which implies that shocks have permanent e ects. Endogenous break tests detect one main break shortly a er WWII. e evidence based on the corresponding sub-sample estimation indicates a sharp fall in the degree of dependence between the observations in the second sub-sample. Although the original data and their log transformation still exhibit explosive behaviour in that sub-sample, the growth rates are meanreverting, and thus shocks will only have transitory effects; moreover, there is a negative time trend. is has implications for the design of policies aimed at containing population growth.Luis A. Gil-Alana gratefully acknowledges financial support from the MINEIC-AEI-FEDER PID2020-113691RB-I00 project from ‘Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad’ (MINEIC), `Agencia Estatal de Investigación' (AEI) Spain and `Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional' (FEDER). An internal Project from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria is also acknowledged
Higher-order moments of the elliptic flow distribution in PbPb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV
Get PDFA preprint version of the article is available at arXiv:2311.11370v2 [nucl-ex], https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.11370 .
Comments: Replaced with the published version. Added the journal reference and the DOI. All the figures and tables can be found at https://cms-results.web.cern.ch/cms-results/public-results/publications/HIN-21-010 (CMS Public Pages).The hydrodynamic flow-like behavior of charged hadrons in high-energy lead-lead collisions is studied through multiparticle correlations. The elliptic anisotropy values based on different orders of multiparticle cumulants, v2{2k}, are measured up to the tenth order (k = 5) as functions of the collision centrality at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of √sNN = 5.02 TeV. The data were recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 0.607 nb−1. A hierarchy is observed between the coefficients, with v2{2}>v2{4}≳v2{6}≳v2{8}≳v2{10}. Based on these results, centrality-dependent moments for the fluctuation-driven event-by-event v2 distribution are determined, including the skewness, kurtosis and, for the first time, superskewness. Assuming a hydrodynamic expansion of the produced medium, these moments directly probe the initial-state geometry in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions.SCOAP3
Holoscopic Elemental-Image-Based Disparity Estimation Using Multi-Scale, Multi-Window Semi-Global Block Matching
Get PDFData Availability Statement:
The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author, Bodor Almatrouk, at [email protected]. The data are not publicly available due to commercial privacy.In Holoscopic imaging, a single aperture is used to acquire full-colour spatial images like a fly’s eye by gently altering angles between nearby lenses with a micro-lens array. Due to its simple data collection and visualisation methods, which provide robust and scalable spatial information, and its motion parallax, binocular disparity, and convergence, this technique may be able to overcome traditional 2D imaging issues like depth, scalability, and multi-perspective problems. A novel disparity-map-generating method uses angular information from a single Holoscopic image’s micro-images, or Elemental Images (EIs), to create a scene’s disparity map. Not much research has used EIs instead of Viewpoint Images (VPIs) for disparity estimation. This study investigates whether angular perspective data may replace spatial orthographic data. Using noise reduction and contrast enhancement, EIs with a low resolution and lack of texture are pre-processed to calculate the disparity. The Semi-Global Block Matching (SGBM) technique is used to calculate the disparity between EI pixels. A multi-resolution approach overcomes EIs’ resolution constraints, and a content-aware analysis dynamically modifies the SGBM window size settings to generate disparities across different texture and complexity levels. A background mask and nearby EIs with accurate backgrounds detect and rectify EIs with erroneous backgrounds. Our method generates disparity maps that outperform two state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms and VPIs in real images.This research received no external funding
Demystifying Open Science in Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine: A Practical Guide to Registered Reports and Data Notes
Get PDFConflict of interest statement:
All authors are committee members of the European Health Psychology Society's (EHPS) Open Science Special Interest Group. Emma Norris, Elaine Toomey and James Green are Associate Editors of Health Psychology & Behavioral Medicine.Data availability statement:
No data is associated with this paper.Open Science practices are integral to increasing transparency, reproducibility, and accessibility of research in health psychology and behavioral medicine. Drives to facilitate Open Science practices are becoming increasingly evident in journal editorial policies, including the establishment of new paper formats such as Registered Reports and Data Notes. This paper provides: (i) an overview of the current state of Open Science policies within health psychology and behavioral medicine, (ii) a call for submissions to an Article Collection of Registered Reports and Data Notes as new paper formats within the journal of Health Psychology & Behavioral Medicine, (iii) an overview of Registered Reports and Data Notes, and (iv) practical considerations for authors and reviewers of Registered Reports and Data Notes.No funding is associated with this paper
Convex optimization-based high-speed and security joint optimization scheme in optical access networks
Get PDFData availability:
Data underlying the results presented in this paper are not publicly available at this time but may be obtained from the authors upon reasonable request.Data rate and security are essential performance metrics for passive optical networks (PON). However, existing optical access networks lack standardized metrics to evaluate rate and security performance uniformly. This paper introduces a high-speed and security joint optimization scheme for optical access networks using convex optimization. Evaluation metrics for data rate and security performance in PON are established. According to the evaluation metrics, the security optimization objective function Us, high-speed optimization objective function GMI, and high-speed security joint-optimization objective function Hs are established. An optimization problem is formulated to maximize weighted rate and security indicators, factoring in constraints such as maximum power, probability, amplifier capacity, normalized mutual information, and key and frame lengths. An alternating optimization method is applied to iteratively address sub-problems by exploiting successive convex approximations and differences of convex functions. This transforms non-convex sub-problems into convex optimizations. Experimental results highlight notable improvements in objective function values, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed high-speed security optimization algorithm for optical access networks.Chongqing Postdoctoral Funding Project (2112012727685993); China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M700563); Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (CXQT21019, KJQN202100643); National Natural Science Foundation of China (62025105, 62071076, 62205043)
The environmental impact of beef and ultra-processed food consumption in Brazil
Get PDFCopyright © The Author(s), 2024. Objective:
This study evaluated the independent and combined environmental impacts of the consumption of beef and ultra-processed foods in Brazil.
Design:
Cross-sectional study.
Setting:
Brazil.
Participants:
We used food purchases data from a national household budget survey conducted between July 2017 and July 2018, representing all Brazilian households. Food purchases were converted into energy, carbon footprints and water footprints. Multiple linear regression models were used to assess the association between quintiles of beef and ultra-processed foods in total energy purchases and the environmental footprints, controlling for sociodemographic variables.
Results:
Both beef and ultra-processed foods had a significant linear association with carbon and water footprints (P < 0·01) in crude and adjusted models. In the crude upper quintile of beef purchases, carbon and water footprints were 47·7 % and 30·8 % higher, respectively, compared to the lower quintile. The upper quintile of ultra-processed food purchases showed carbon and water footprints 14·4 % and 22·8 % higher, respectively, than the lower quintile. The greatest reduction in environmental footprints would occur when both beef and ultra-processed food purchases are decreased, resulting in a 21·1 % reduction in carbon footprint and a 20·0 % reduction in water footprint.
Conclusions:
Although the environmental footprints associated with beef consumption are higher, dietary patterns with lower consumption of beef and ultra-processed foods combined showed the greatest reduction in carbon and water footprints in Brazil. The high consumption of beef and ultra-processed foods is harmful to human health, as well as to the environment; thus, their reduction is beneficial to both.Science and Technology Facilities Council Global Challenges Research Fund; the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo – FAPESP (G.L.C., grant number (2022/11009-8)), and F.R. is a beneficiary of a research fellowship of the World Cancer Research Fund
Data sources:
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