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Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae clone reemergence in association with a multi-year mass mortality event in high Arctic muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus)
Get PDFWe investigated a multi-year mass mortality event in muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) on Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Islands, Nunavut, Canada and linked the deaths with the “Arctic clone” of the bacterium Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae (Er), making this the third reported independent mass mortality event in muskoxen associated with this bacterial strain. Between 2021 and 2024, we collected and analyzed samples from 139 unique muskox carcass sites using gross and microscopic pathology, bacterial culture, and molecular methods. Er Arctic clone was found in association with > 70% of sampled carcasses. Our results underscore the geographic expanse over which this unique clonal lineage of Er has now spread, its apparently high virulence in muskoxen, and its ongoing importance as a consideration in conservation and monitoring efforts related to this species
“Availability is the poor cousin of marketing and pricing”: qualitative study of stakeholders’ views on policy priorities around tobacco and alcohol availability
Get PDFBackground:
Reducing alcohol and tobacco availability is one potential way to reduce harm from these unhealthy commodities. This study explores key stakeholders’ views in relation to policy priorities and considerations for both alcohol and tobacco availability.
Methods:
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 stakeholders from alcohol and/or tobacco third sector organizations, government, public health and licensing in Scotland. Interviews explored their views on alcohol/tobacco availability, including its place in the policy landscape and experiences in gaining support for policies. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results:
Stakeholders believed that alcohol and tobacco availability have not received as much policy attention as pricing and marketing. Stakeholders highlighted the importance of public support and having sufficient evidence to inform policy. Key considerations for future policies include: drawing on lessons from tobacco control policies to address alcohol availability, considering different aspects of availability (especially online availability), ensuring policies reflect their local context, considering the impact of policies on children, and managing retailers’ involvement in the policy process.
Conclusion:
This study highlights key considerations for policies to address alcohol and tobacco availability. There is a need for more research to consider retailers’ views and provide greater detail on specific policy suggestions
Banks, financial markets, and income inequality
Get PDFWhile financial development is often found to raise income inequality, it remains unclear whether the composition of the financial system makes a difference. In our sample of 99 countries over the period 1975–2020, increased activity of banks relative to markets in the provision of financial services is robustly associated with less inequality in the developing world yet with more inequality in developed economies. Accounting for redistribution systems does not alter this finding; banking sector concentration amplifies the effects. Results suggest that banks work at the extensive margin at earlier stages of economic development yet shift to the intensive margin at higher levels of development, where they increasingly serve the interests of the rich. Higher market power enables banks to better pursue their objectives at each of the margins
Prevalence and correlates of fearing a partner during the COVID-19 pandemic in Britain: findings from Natsal-COVID
Get PDFPurpose
The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions introduced personal and relationship stressors that potentially increased the risk of intimate partner violence (IPV) for some. We estimated the population prevalence and correlates of fearing a partner in the first year of the pandemic in Britain.
Method
We used data from Natsal-COVID Wave 2—a web-panel survey undertaken one year after the initial British lockdown from 23 March 2020. Quotas and weighting were used to achieve a quasi-representative sample of the general population. Participants were asked about fearing a partner, which is a simple and valid screening tool to identify IPV experiences.
Results
In our sample (unweighted n = 6302, aged 18–59), 9.0% of women and 8.7% of men reported fearing a partner in the first year of the pandemic. Women (73.3%) were more likely than men (49.9%) to indicate that fearing a partner made them feel anxious or depressed; men were more likely to report increased substance use (30.8% vs. 18.4%) and affected work/studies (30.0% vs. 20.0%). For both women and men, fearing a partner during the first year of the pandemic was associated with established health and wellbeing outcomes like anxiety/depression, alcohol use, accessing sexual/reproductive health services, and relationship dissolution as well as feeling that the “pandemic made things worse” across various life domains.
Conclusions
Population-level estimates of IPV during the COVID-19 pandemic highlight harmful experiences that occurred alongside other wide-ranging hardships, and the associations presented identify key populations with potential ongoing need. We make recommendations for primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of IPV
Easy practical knowledge
No full textWe explore new connections between the epistemologies of mental rehearsal and suppositional reasoning to offer a novel perspective on skilled behavior and its relationship to practical knowledge. We argue that practical knowledge is “easy” in the sense that, by manifesting one’s skills, one has a priori propositional justification for certain beliefs about what one is doing as one does it. This proposal has wider consequences for debates about intentional action and knowledge: first, because agents sometimes act intentionally in epistemically hazardous environments, these justified beliefs do not always rise to the level of (practical) knowledge. Second, practical knowledge is more intimately related to basic knowledge than has been appreciated. Third, an attractive “middle way” opens between the Anscombian tradition of defending a necessary connection between intentional action and practical knowledge and the more recent tradition of explaining away substantive epistemic conditions on intentional action
Generations Active Together: an example of using physical activity promotion and digital technology to bring together adolescents and older people in Stirling, Scotland
Get PDFThe Generations Active Together (GAT) program, delivered by Active Stirling in central Scotland, is an intergenerational physical activity (PA) program for adolescents in high school and older adults in care homes and community groups. The Generating Older Active Lives Digitally (GOALD) Research Team sought to use GAT to examine how digital technology developed for the purpose of PA and sports-based reminiscence can be used to improve social connectedness for older adults. This paper details the challenges and successes of delivering the GAT program and describes the differences between in-person pre-pandemic delivery of GAT with the attempted digital delivery during the pandemic. The transferable lessons learned from GAT delivery to GOALD project planning and implementation included, but are not limited to, the importance of in-person activities for both generations and using digital technology as a complementary, rather than a replacement tool for PA delivery.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE FIELD
Intergenerational activities focusing on PA involving adolescents and older adults is possible with attention to reciprocal inputs and benefits for all generations and are potentially more effective and easier to deliver in person.
Where in-person PA delivery is impossible, digital-only PA is arguably better than no interaction but requires support in setting up technology to deliver PA effectively.
Digital technology is likely to be more effective in supporting intergenerational PA when complemented by in-person interactions.
Adolescents and older adults in care homes can engage in beneficial interaction, but attention should be paid to school commitments at this age and stage, as well as the practical aspects of travel and scheduling of this kind of contact
Transparency and citizen support for public agencies: the case of foreign aid
Get PDFCan public agencies boost support for their mandate by being more transparent? We examine this important question in the context of foreign aid. Skepticism about foreign aid spending is common among citizens. This article argues that bilateral aid agencies can increase support for foreign aid by enhancing transparency. The article presents findings from three survey experiments involving a representative sample of 2058 British citizens, as well as observational data at the cross-national level. The results suggest that transparency reforms are among the most effective institutional interventions for increasing public support. They also suggest that transparency is most effective at increasing public support amongst those who are initially more skeptical of aid and the civil service. Finally, they suggest that citizens do not have strong preferences about the type of information disclosed. They reward all types of transparency
Problematizing the use of interview data in research for educational policy and practice: beyond incorrigibility and ideology
No full textThe birth of a new literary subgenre in Spain: La reina del país misterioso (1929) as an early Weird Western
No full textThe final year of the 1920s experienced the metamorphosis of the traditional Western in Spain, which resulted in the birth of the hybrid subgenre known as Weird Western in the Iberian Peninsula. This article introduces and explains the context that gave birth to the original Weird Western collection of El sheriff (Prensa Moderna 1929-1932; editorial Fénix 1932-1934), and offers a sample of the whole by locating and scrutinizing some of the weirding elements in La reina del país misterioso (no. 12, 1929). The aim is also to make some fundamental information about El sheriff available to a global readership, including an appendix that reconstructs, for the first time, a tentative bibliography of the original collection of El sheriff, the spin-off Pete (Prensa Moderna 1934-1935), and the inconsecutive reprints of the original volumes by Ediciones Tesoro (1943-1944). This author hopes that the article will offer a strong foundation for any future work on El sheriff, with the aspiration of starting and stimulating a transnational discussion
Empagliflozin lowers serum uric acid in chronic kidney disease: exploratory analyses from the EMPA-KIDNEY trial
Get PDFBackground:
Hyperuricaemia and gout are common in chronic kidney disease (CKD). We aimed to assess the effects of sodium–glucose co-transporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibition on uric acid (urate) and gout in patients with CKD.
Methods:
The EMPA-KIDNEY trial randomised 6609 patients with CKD to receive either empagliflozin 10 mg daily or matching placebo over a median of 2 years of follow-up. Serum uric acid was measured at randomisation then at 2 and 18 months of follow-up and the effects of empagliflozin were analysed using a pre-specified mixed model repeated measures approach. Participant-reported gout events were analysed in Cox regression models (first events) with the Andersen–Gill extension (total events). A post hoc composite outcome included new initiation of uric acid–lowering therapy or colchicine. EMPA-KIDNEY primary and kidney disease progression outcomes were also assessed in subgroups of baseline serum uric acid.
Results:
Baseline mean ± standard deviation serum uric acid concentration was 431 ± 114 µmol/l. Allocation to empagliflozin resulted in a study-average between-group difference in serum uric acid of −25.6 µmol/l [95% confidence interval (CI) −30.3 to −21.0], with larger effects in those with higher eGFR (trend P < .001) and without diabetes (heterogeneity P < .001). Compared with placebo, empagliflozin did not significantly reduce first or total gout events [hazard ratio 0.87 (95% CI 0.74–1.02) for the 595 first events and 0.86 (0.72–1.03) for the 869 total events] with similar hazard ratios for the post hoc composite and across subgroups, including by diabetes and eGFR. The effect of empagliflozin on the primary outcome and kidney disease progression outcomes were similar irrespective of the baseline level of uric acid.
Conclusions:
SGLT2 inhibition reduces serum uric acid in patients with CKD, with larger effects at higher eGFR and in the absence of diabetes. However, the effect on uric acid is modest and did not translate into reduced risk of gout in EMPA-KIDNEY
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