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Morbidity and patient characteristics on acute presentation with sore throat: a multi-center national audit
Get PDFIntroduction:
Sore throat is one of the most common reasons for an acute ear, nose and throat (ENT) admission. Recurrent tonsillitis can be treated definitively by tonsillectomy, but patients must fulfil Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN) guidelines to be eligible. The aim of this audit was to assess the throat morbidity of patients admitted with ‘sore throat’ to ENT wards across Scotland.
Methods:
A multicentre prospective audit was conducted across six Scottish ENT units over 4 months to assess demographics, risk factors and episode history in patients admitted with sore throat.
Results:
Some 279 patients were included: 63.9% were for admitted for tonsillitis, 35.7% for quinsy and 0.4% for deep neck infection. The mean age was 30.1 years (range 6–73 years). Most had reported 0–1 episodes of tonsillitis in the previous 4 years (58.5%–76.6%), with 41.3%–66.2% reporting no antibiotic treatment for sore throats in that time. Prior to admission, 48.7% had been prescribed antibiotics by a general practitioner (GP), and 16.1% had a history of hospital admission for tonsillitis. Only 25.6% of tonsillitis admissions met SIGN tonsillectomy criteria.
Conclusions:
Most patients admitted with sore throat in Scotland had low numbers of previous throat complaints. Fewer than half had received antibiotics from a GP before admission. One-quarter met SIGN criteria for tonsillectomy
Progressive increases in adiposity and ectopic fat surrogates across glycemic states highlight weight reduction as a key target for type 2 diabetes prevention, especially in younger people
No full textAims:
To determine whether there are progressive changes in weight and ectopic fat surrogates in individuals comparing normoglycaemia, prediabetes and undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, and whether these increments differ by age.
Materials and Methods:
Cross-sectional analysis of UK Biobank White participants without baseline cardiovascular disease or known diabetes (n = 287 987). Participants were classified based on glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c): normal (<5.7% [38.9 mmol/mol]), prediabetes1 (5.7–5.9% [39.0–41.9 mmol/mol]), prediabetes2 (6%–6.2% [42.0–44.9 mmol/mol]), prediabetes3 (6.3%–6.4% [45–47.9 mmol/mol]) and undiagnosed diabetes (6.5%–9% [48–75 mmol/mol]). Ordered logistic and linear regressions were used to test associations between HbA1c groups and differences in body mass index (BMI), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), alanine aminotransferase (ALT; a surrogate of liver fat with known limitations) and triglycerides (circulating fat), adjusting for age, sex, deprivation status and statin use. The impact of age was also considered.
Results:
BMI exhibited a stepwise increase across groups with the prediabetes1, prediabetes2, prediabetes3 and undiagnosed diabetes groups having 1.47, 2.86, 3.82 and 4.09 kg/m2 higher BMI, respectively, compared to the normal group; WHtR followed a similar trend, rising by 0.024, 0.047, 0.062 and 0.065 across groups, as did ALT levels by 2.45, 4.05, 6.11 and 10.28 U/L and triglycerides by 0.25, 0.42, 0.50 and 0.67 mmol/L, respectively. Such increments were greater in younger versus older people.
Conclusions:
Deteriorating glycaemic status was marked by progressively higher levels of adiposity and circulating and hepatic ectopic fat markers. Findings were more pronounced in younger individuals, suggesting a greater role for ectopic fat in their diabetes and reinforcing the importance of weight intervention for preventing the progression from normoglycaemia to prediabetes to frank diabetes
Assessing public transport infrastructure: the role of employment matching in spatial accessibility measures
No full textThe definition of accessibility encompasses the role of opportunities at potential destinations that people consider valuable. This study revises the common assumption in empirical studies that residents are equally attracted to all types of employment and examines its implications for public transport evaluation from a social equity perspective. Additionally, the role of the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) is also explored in this relationship. The study draws on the case of Greater Mexico City over a ten-year period, in which seven temporal stages of the main public transport network are examined. The key results highlight a significant difference between accessibility measures that account for employment matching and those that do not, though these distinctions diminish when lower spatial resolutions are used. The spatial analysis also shows that the differences are consistently larger for lower-educated populations. In terms of public transport infrastructure evaluation over time, the study confirms that relying on simple measures, such as the global average, may overlook critical transport equity insights. Additionally, the impact of including employment matching in equity analyses varies, with outcomes differing case by case. Depending on the accessibility measure, the analyses show that a transport improvement might have progressive effects with one measure, while another measure may indicate regressive effects, or both measures can sometimes align. Overall, the comparisons between measures suggest their complementarity in equity evaluations. The findings have implications for researchers and policy analysts, given the systematic differences in how transport projects tend to affect less-educated populations and the heterogeneity in the type of population impacted by specific transport projects on a case-by-case basis
Deciphering exterior: building energy efficiency prediction with emerging urban big data
Get PDFIn the UK, 28 million households consume 25% of the total energy and contribute to 25% of the carbon emissions. It is vital to focus on sustainability and energy efficiency within the building sector for decarbonizing purposes. However, traditional methods such as simulations or on-site inspections are time-consuming and labor-intensive. In this research, we propose a novel methodology framework for estimating building energy efficiency using only external and widely existing data. We have designed and trained an end-to-end multi-channel deep learning model utilizing high-resolution thermal infrared and optical remotely sensed images, street view images, socio-economic indicators, and building morphological data. Validated in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the model achieved F1 scores of 0.64 and 0.69. Further analyses surprisingly suggest that more deprived neighborhoods tend to have better building energy efficiency. The study highlights how widely available data and AI can provide scalable, global solutions for advancing the net-zero agenda
A community-codesigned LLM-powered chatbot for primary care: a randomized controlled trial
Get PDFWith a global shortage of primary healthcare physicians—particularly in resource-limited settings—large language models (LLMs) have the potential to support and enhance patients’ health awareness. Here we developed P&P Care (Population Medicine and Public Health), an LLM-powered primary care chatbot using a dual-track role-play codesign framework where community stakeholders and researchers simulated each another’s perspectives across four phases: contextual understanding; cocreation; testing and refinement; and implementation and evolution. The codesigned chatbot was integrated with e-learning modules and tested in a randomized controlled trial. The trial included 2,113 participants (1,052 women and 1,061 men) from urban and rural areas across 11 Chinese provinces who were randomly assigned to receive a consultation either with preparatory e-learning via the P&P Care or without. The study met its primary endpoint with the e-learning group showing significantly higher objective health awareness (mean score 2.95 ± 1.22) compared with the consultation-only group (mean score 2.34 ± 1.02; P < 0.001). Codesign offers a scalable solution for deploying LLMs in resource-limited settings
Data-driven psychophysical methods to diversify SIAs and address bias
Get PDFTo realize their full potential, Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs) must effectively engage with human users from diverse individual, social, and cultural backgrounds. However, most current SIAs are grounded in White- and Western-centric assumptions, limiting their ability to express and interpret social cues appropriately across cultures. Here, we demonstrate how the data-driven psychophysical method of reverse correlation can help address these limitations by modeling users’ perceptual expectations, preferences, and sociocultural norms and strategically integrating these insights into SIA design. Drawing on examples from our research group, we show how this method could enable SIAs to exhibit social signals that are psychologically grounded, culturally adaptive, and ethnically inclusive. By informing the design of SIA appearance and expressive behavior with empirically derived user models, our approach aims to improve user engagement and trust while contributing to broader efforts to mitigate algorithmic bias, reduce access inequality, and challenge real-world prejudice in both human-AI and human–human interaction contexts
Anti-perovskite nitrides as efficient and durable electrocatalysts for industrially relevant hydrogen evolution
No full textPhase-pure antiperovskite nitrides (A3XN; A = Co, Ni; X = Zn, In, Sn) synthesized via a melamine method were evaluated as cost-effective, high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts. Initial tests in 1 M NaOH electrolyte revealed limited activity, significantly enhanced by reductive electrochemical cycling, attributed to the in situ formation of catalytically active zero-valent Co0 and Ni0 surface species. Comparative studies of isostructural Fe-based nitrides confirmed that these metallic A-site species constitute the active sites. Accelerated stability tests (95 °C, 10 M NaOH) identified Co3ZnN and Ni3ZnN as particularly robust, maintaining intact antiperovskite structures and high catalytic activity (>70 mA cm–2 after 210 h). Partial substitution (Zn for In) further improved stability, notably for Ni3Zn0.25In0.75N. This study highlights the crucial role of compositional tuning and surface activation in optimizing HER performance, emphasizing that systematic stability assessments under industrially relevant conditions (high temperature, concentrated electrolyte) are essential. Antiperovskite nitrides thus offer promising avenues for scalable, green hydrogen production technologies
Urban imaginaries between Dubai and Kochi: from cinematic to smart cities
Get PDFNo abstract available
Serious Play: Board Games as Pedagogical Tools (1)- Tammany Hall
No full textIn this new blog series Drs. Michael Toomey, Andrew Judge, and Jenny Morrison (all University of Glasgow) explore how board games can be used as effective pedagogical tools to bring abstract concepts to life in the classroom. Each entry focuses on a specific game, outlining its mechanics, practical classroom applications, and any possible adaptions or limitations to its use within a standard seminar set up. In examining individual games, they aim to provide a support resource for educators seeking to experiment with games as part of their classroom activities, as well as engage critically with when and why we might use games within teaching. This month, we begin with Michael Toomey’s review of Tammany Hall, a political boardgame about power, patronage, and competition
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