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Age structure and age heaping: solving Ireland’s post-Famine digit preference puzzle
Get PDFThe quality of age reporting in Ireland worsened in the years after the 1845–1852 Great Irish Famine, even as measures of educational attainment improved. We show how Ireland’s age structure partly accounts for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23–32-year-olds) used in conventional indices of age heaping. Any quantification of age heaping patterns must therefore be interpreted considering an older underlying population which is inherently more likely to heap. We demonstrate how age heaping indices can adjust for such demographic change by introducing age standardization
Disabled people’s experiences of English football fandom: Inclusion, exclusion and discrimination
Get PDFThis article employs a novel theoretical framework, rooted in the social relational model of disability alongside the concept of ableism, to critically analyse disabled football supporters lived experiences of inclusion and exclusion in English Football. In seeking to shed light on this hitherto neglected field, this study utilised a dual-phased qualitative approach comprised of two complementary netnographic methods, specifically online observations of fan message boards and online semi-structured interviews with 33 disabled football supporters of clubs in the English Football League and National League. We demonstrate that while some clubs provide inclusive spectator environments where disabled people experience moments of inclusion and belonging, they nonetheless face structural, social and psychological barriers before, during and after the matchday which create conditions that exclude, oppress and constrain full participation in football fandom. In doing so, this paper offers new insights into how the disabling nature of contemporary capitalist society continues to systematically exclude disabled people from areas of mainstream society – such as football fandom – to which they have a right
HARMamba: Efficient and Lightweight Wearable Sensor Human Activity Recognition Based on Bidirectional Mamba
Get PDFWearable sensor-based human activity recognition (HAR) is a critical research domain in activity perception. However, achieving high efficiency and long sequence recognition remains a challenge. Despite the extensive investigation of temporal deep learning models, such as convolutional neural networks, RNNs, and transformers, their extensive parameters often pose significant computational and memory constraints, rendering them less suitable for resource-constrained mobile health applications. This study introduces HARMamba, an innovative lightweight and versatile HAR architecture that combines selective bidirectional state-space model and hardware-aware design. To optimize real-time resource consumption in practical scenarios, HARMamba employs linear recursive mechanisms and parameter discretization, allowing it to selectively focus on relevant input sequences while efficiently fusing scan and recompute operations. The model employs independent channels to process sensor data streams, dividing each channel into patches and appending classification tokens to the end of the sequence. It utilizes position embedding to represent the sequence order. The patch sequence is subsequently processed by HARMamba Block, and the classification head finally outputs the activity category. The HARMamba Block serves as the fundamental component of the HARMamba architecture, enabling the effective capture of more discriminative activity sequence features. HARMamba outperforms contemporary state-of-the-art frameworks, delivering comparable or better accuracy with significantly reducing computational and memory demands. Its effectiveness has been extensively validated on four publicly available data sets, namely, PAMAP2, WISDM, UNIMIB SHAR, and UCI. The F1 scores of HARMamba on the four data sets are 99.74%, 99.20%, 88.23%, and 97.01%, respectively.</p
Potential pathways to the onset and development of eating disorders in people with overweight and obesity: A scoping review
Get PDFObjective: To describe pathways to eating disorder (ED) development that have been evaluated in people with overweight and obesity. Methods: Four databases were searched to identify studies testing ED development models in adolescents (10–19 years) or adults (>19 years) with overweight and obesity. Explanatory variables were thematically grouped into constructs to describe pathways to each ED outcome. Results: Of 2226 studies screened, 46 (10 adolescent; 36 adult) were included. Study samples were predominantly female, ranging from 22 to 2236 participants and mean age 12.3 to 56.0 years. In total, 207 explanatory variables were grouped into 18 constructs to summarize 107 pathways that were identified. The most common ED outcome was binge eating (n = 24 studies), followed by global ED psychopathology (n = 10 studies). Across pathways to ED development, negative affect was the most proposed construct, followed by preoccupation with weight/shape and weight stigma. Conclusion: Pathways to ED development in people with overweight and obesity are complex and may include more than 18 different explanatory factors of which negative affect, preoccupation with weight/shape, and weight stigma are the most common. More research on adolescents, males, and the spectrum of ED in diverse populations is required for early identification and intervention.</p
Doctoral Students’ Well-Being through the Lens of Social Practice Theory: An Auto-Photography Study
Get PDFThe aim of this study is to explore doctoral students' (DS) perceptions of social practices that contribute to their well-being. Utilising social practice theory, specifically the framework of social practices as an interplay of ‘materials’, ‘meanings’ and ‘competences’, we examine which social practices enhance DS well-being and the contexts in which these practices occur. We employ an auto-photography methodology. Twelve UK-based DS took photographs of places that relate to their well-being and participated in interviews to explain their photos. On completing a three-stage data analytic procedure, our findings show that DS well-being is shaped by social practices shared between students and supervisors, where informal settings and the significance of place play a crucial role. We demonstrate that such settings, both on and off campus, act as facilitators for the performance of well-being-enhancing practices. Instead of solely attributing DS well-being to micro-level individual choices or macro-level institutional factors, as is often conceptualised, we propose that scholars must focus on the dynamic interplay of social practices that shape DS well-being. By demonstrating how social practices connect micro-level experiences with macro-level structures, we provide a deeper understanding of what shapes well-being and highlight the essential role of place. Understanding these practices can inform targeted interventions and policies, ultimately enhancing well-being among doctoral students
Achieving Multi-unit Turns: The Versatile Token Khob in Persian Extended Tellings
Get PDFThis paper provides a conversation analytical and multimodal examination of a highly ubiquitous Persian token, khob, in everyday Persian multi-unit tellings. Based upon corpora of daily interactions between family members and friends over phone and face-to-face, three functions of khob are identified: (a) khob can be used by the recipient to a telling as a response functioning as a continuer and acknowledgement token, passing the opportunity for speakership, prompting the next unit of telling, and acknowledging the delivered prior turn. In this function, khob can carry a rising or falling final pitch movement; (b) the token can also be used as a tag by the speaker of a telling to elicit recipiency and check the recipient’s understanding of the turn so far. As a tag, khob may or may not solicit a response. Response soliciting and non-soliciting khobs differ in terms of the participants’ gaze behaviour and the coparticipants’ level of engagement in the storytelling, but both types only appear with a final rise in our corpora. Finally, (c) khob can be used as a resumption marker, managing a return to storytelling after it is suspended with an intervening action. Interactions were recorded in Iran
Quantitative Data Quality Assurance, Analysis and Presentation
Get PDFQuantitative data quality assurance is the systematic process and procedures used to ensure the accuracy, consistency, reliability, and integrity of data throughout the research process. Effective quality assurance helps identify and correct errors, reduce biases, and ensure the data meets the standards needed for analysis and reporting. This paper provides an overview of key issues to consider when working with data and reporting findings
Reconsidering Waterfront Regeneration and Cruise Tourism in Hamburg, Germany
Get PDFWritten accounts of cultural festivals often deal with the various activities that comprise those types of events. There is a paucity of analyses that discuss how festivals encourage the status quo of consumption practices, while conjuring their hidden costs on society. This paper analyses how the Hamburg Cruise Days Festival attempted to perpetuate the status quo of the cruising industry. The research answers the following question: What would it take to help change the current “cobalt” color promoted by the organizers of the Hamburg’s Waterfront Cruise Days Festival to a “True Blue”, a symbol of the cleanest sky and harbor waters in Germany, and the best example of sustainable Green and Blue Infrastructure in Europe? The research methods comprised in loco fieldwork participant observation in the tradition of participatory action research. It is argued that, from a governance perspective, festival organizers ought to be required to disclaim, in the fashion of “truth in advertising”, the ecological impacts and sponsors’ progress toward reaching existing environmental standards to eradicate costly social and environmental injustices. Said practice will increase our individual and collective awareness of the invaluable richness of the world’s land- and water-based environment before it is irreplaceably exhausted. The article suggests extending events’ emphasis on sustainable tourism to also encompass three additional measures: (i) the socio-ecological performance of the cruise (and shipping) industry; (ii) in the fashion of a Solomonic approach to justice; and (iii) within a formalized Porto of Call Sister Cities Network
Is there a causal link between folate status and schizophrenia? Evidence from genetic association studies
Get PDFFolate and vitamin B 12 status, through their critical involvement in DNA synthesis and methylation, may be causally related to the risk of schizophrenia. However, associations with blood status measures may reflect reverse causation or inadequate control for confounders. We aimed to synthesize evidence on the possible causal link between folate/vitamin B 12 status and schizophrenia using genetic variants as instrumental variables. MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews were searched for Mendelian Randomization studies that investigated a causal relationship between genetic instruments for folate/vitamin B 12 status and schizophrenia onset or progression. We assessed the risk of bias using the Newcastle Ottawa Scale. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated using random effects models. We found 34 case–control studies. None used a formal instrumental variable analysis. Most of the studies had high methodological quality for assessing genetic association. The methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) polymorphisms (C677T, A1298C) were most studied and homozygosity for the variants showed significant positive associations with the risk of schizophrenia (OR 677TT vs 677CC= 1.26 (1.03, 1.55) and OR 1298CC vs 1298AA= 1.58 (1.17, 2.13)). Heterozygosity for the variants showed attenuated associations in the same direction as homozygosity. Subgroups of age, sex, ethnicity, and folic acid fortification implementation were mostly underpowered to detect effects with precision. Evidence on the association of MTHFR polymorphisms with schizophrenia symptoms or the relationship between other gene polymorphisms and the risk of schizophrenia was severely limited. We identified significant associations between the MTHFR C677T and A1298C polymorphisms and the risk of schizophrenia at an aggregate level.</p
Continued Treatment with Nintedanib in Patients with Progressive Pulmonary Fibrosis: Data from INBUILD-ON
Get PDFPurposeIn the INBUILD trial in patients with progressive pulmonary fibrosis (PPF), nintedanib slowed the decline in forced vital capacity (FVC) versus placebo, with a safety profile characterised mainly by gastrointestinal events. INBUILD-ON, the open-label extension of INBUILD, assessed the safety of nintedanib during longer-term treatment. Data on FVC were collected.Study design and methodsAdverse events and changes in FVC in INBUILD-ON were assessed descriptively in all patients and in two subgroups: patients who received nintedanib in INBUILD and continued nintedanib in INBUILD-ON ("continued nintedanib" group) (n = 212) and patients who received placebo in INBUILD and initiated nintedanib in INBUILD-ON ("initiated nintedanib" group) (n = 222). Changes in FVC were based on observed values.ResultsMedian exposure to nintedanib in INBUILD-ON was 22.0 months. Diarrhoea was the most frequent adverse event. Amongst patients who had diarrhoea, 90.0% experienced only events of mild or moderate severity. Adverse events led to discontinuation of nintedanib at a rate of 16.7 per 100 patient-years. Serious and fatal adverse events were reported at rates of 37.2 and 9.5 per 100 patient-years. Mean (SE) changes in FVC from baseline to week 48 were - 71.6 (16.1) mL [- 128.5 (25.5) mL in continued nintedanib group (n = 106), - 14.8 (18.2) mL in initiated nintedanib group (n = 106)].ConclusionThe safety profile of nintedanib in INBUILD-ON was consistent with that in INBUILD. Change in FVC in INBUILD-ON was consistent with decline in FVC in the nintedanib group of INBUILD. These results support the use of nintedanib in the long-term treatment of PPF.Clinical trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov; NCT03820726; registered January 29, 2019