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Hospital Discharge Practices and Housing Support Schemes: An Explication of the Ruling Relations of Discharge and Home Care Work
Get PDFThe Virtual Irie Homes Toolbox: Adaptation and remote delivery of an early childhood, violence prevention, parenting program in Jamaica
Get PDFIn response to the global pandemic, we adapted a Jamaican early childhood, violence-prevention, parenting program (the Irie Homes Toolbox (IHT)) for virtual delivery. The resultant virtual IHT (vIHT) is a 10-week program that consists of weekly, one-hour, virtual group parenting sessions and e-summary sent via WhatsApp, three SMS messages/week and access to a data-free app. The vIHT was implemented with 557 Jamaican caregivers of children aged two-to-six years with virtual groups conducted by government officers. We conducted an ongoing process evaluation to identify enablers and barriers to implementation. Key enablers included high compliance by government officers in conducting virtual sessions, sessions were implemented with adequate levels of quality, 90% participants read the SMS/WhatsApp messages and 79% attended at least one virtual group with 52% attending five or more. Barriers included poor internet connectivity, difficulty navigating the online environment, low usage of the App and inconsistent caregiver attendance at virtual sessions
Using opportunistic data to study the distribution and abundance of a warm water elasmobranch at the northern edge of its range
Get PDFDetecting changes in the distribution and abundance of marine species that are cryptic or occurring in very low abundances is difficult, but essential for assessing their status and informing management. One way of quantifying these changes is through the collation of opportunistic records. We reconstruct the population trajectory and distribution of the common stingray Dasyatis pastinaca around Great Britain, using opportunistic records, mostly obtained by recreational anglers. We tested if D. pastinaca declined in abundance and body size in response to fishing and if their distribution has shifted northwards in response to warming seas. We obtained 518 records covering the period 1838-2020. After correcting for observation effort, D. pastinaca catches reported by anglers showed no long-term trend over 50 years, but with a decrease from 1970-1995 and an increase in abundance since 1995. While records of species occurrence were found around much of Great Britain, nearly all were from south of 54° latitude, and records have contracted southwards since 2000. No trend in maximum size through time was detected. In conclusion, we did not find support for the hypothesized declines in abundance and body size or a northward shift in distribution of D. pastinaca and instead found a southward contraction
Prognostic factors for a change in eye health or vision: A rapid review
Get PDFThe general public are advised to have regular routine eye examinations to check their vision and ocular health; however current UK guidance on how often to have eye examinations is not evidence-based and was issued in 2002.This Rapid Review aims to provide an evidence base that stakeholders can use to form updated guidance for Wales by asking the question ‘What are the prognostic factors for a change in ocular status in the general population attending routine eye examinations?’The review included evidence available from January 2009 up until August 2023. Evidence was included from 2011 up until 2023. 19 studies were included: two systematic reviews; nine prospective cohort studies; three retrospective cohort studies; two longitudinal studies; two case-control studies; and one cross-sectional study were included.<br/
Photonic Hook-Assisted Contrast-Enhanced Super-Resolution Imaging Using Janus Microspheres
Get PDFMicrosphere-assisted imaging is a promising label- free super-resolution imaging technique. Its performance is sig- nificantly affected by the photonic nanojet (PNJ) of microspheres. Recently, a new type of curved PNJ, i.e. the photonic hook (PH), was discovered, which shows promising potential for various applications. This Letter presented a contrast-enhanced super- resolution imaging technique utilizing the PHs generated by Janus microspheres. We demonstrated that the Janus micro- spheres can be fabricated using a one-step deposition process, they exhibit superior imaging performance to pristine micro- spheres, and their field-of-view and imaging contrast can be easily adjusted by changing the coating thickness. In addition, we demonstrated that the imaging contrast of Janus microspheres can be further enhanced by using polarized illumination
Is Native Naïve? Comparing Native Game Engines and WebXR as Immersive Analytics Development Platforms
Get PDFNative game engines have long been the 3D development platform of choice for research in mixed and augmented reality. For this reason they have also been adopted in many immersive visualization and immersive analytics systems and toolkits. However, with the rapid improvements of WebXR and related open technologies, this choice may not always be optimal for future visualization research. In this paper, we investigate common assumptions about native game engines vs. WebXR and find that while native engines still have an advantage in many areas, WebXR is rapidly catching up and is superior for many immersive analytics applications
Overlapping Neural Correlates Underpin Theory of Mind and Semantic Cognition: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis of 344 Functional Neuroimaging Studies
Get PDFKey unanswered questions for cognitive neuroscience include whether social cognition is underpinned by specialised brain regions and to what extent it simultaneously depends on more domain-general systems. Until we glean a better understanding of the full set of contributions made by various systems, theories of social cognition will remain fundamentally limited. In the present study, we evaluate a recent proposal that semantic cognition plays a crucial role in supporting social cognition. While previous brain-based investigations have focused on dissociating these two systems, our primary aim was to assess the degree to which the neural correlates are overlapping, particularly within two key regions, the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ). We focus on activation associated with theory of mind (ToM) and adopt a meta-analytic activation likelihood approach to synthesise a large set of functional neuroimaging studies and compare their results with studies of semantic cognition. As a key consideration, we sought to account for methodological differences across the two sets of studies, including the fact that ToM studies tend to use nonverbal stimuli while the semantics literature is dominated by language-based tasks. Overall, we observed consistent overlap between the two sets of brain regions, especially in the ATL and TPJ. This supports the claim that tasks involving ToM draw upon more general semantic retrieval processes. We also identified activation specific to ToM in the right TPJ, bilateral anterior mPFC, and right precuneus. This is consistent with the view that, nested amongst more domain-general systems, there is specialised circuitry that is tuned to social processes
Improving the prediction of firm performance using nonfinancial disclosures: A machine learning approach
Get PDFPurpose: The purpose of this study is to test whether the prediction of firm performance can be enhanced by incorporating nonfinancial disclosures, such as narrative disclosure tone and corporate governance indicators, into financial predictive models. Design/Methodology/Approach: Three predictive models are developed, each with a different set of predictors. This study utilises two machine learning techniques, random forest and stochastic gradient boosting, for prediction via the three models. The data are collected from a sample of 1250 annual reports of 125 nonfinancial firms in Pakistan for the period 2011-2020. Findings: Our results indicate that both narrative disclosure tone and corporate governance indicators significantly add to the accuracy of financial predictive models of firm performance.Practical implications: Our results offer implications for the restoration of investor confidence in the highly uncertain Pakistani market by establishing nonfinancial disclosures as reliable predictors of future firm performance. Accordingly, they encourage investors to pay more attention to these disclosures while making investment decisions. In addition, they urge regulators to promote and strengthen the reporting of such nonfinancial information. Originality: This study addresses the neglect of nonfinancial disclosures in the prediction of firm performance and the scarcity of corporate governance literature relevant to the use of machine learning techniques. <br/
