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Insights into knee post-traumatic osteoarthritis pathophysiology from the relationship of serum biomarkers to radiographic features in the ADVANCE cohort
Get PDFIntroduction: Post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) is a complex condition with multiple pathological processes at play. Molecular biomarkers can enable a better understanding of these processes, thus enhancing case endotyping, phenotyping, personalised care and drug discovery. The longitudinal ArmeD SerVices TrAuma and RehabilitatioN OutComE (ADVANCE) study offers the opportunity to develop insights into PTOA pathophysiology using a panel of extra-cellular matrix turnover, inflammatory and metabolic biomarkers and their cross-sectional (associative) and longitudinal (predictive) relationship to features of radiographic PTOA in a cohort of young, male, severely injured servicepersonnel. Methods: Using serum and radiographic data gathered in the baseline (8-years) and first follow-up visit (11-years) post-injury of ADVANCE (n = 1145), two analyses were undertaken. Firstly, cross-sectional univariate analysis between serum COMP, CTX-II, PIIANP, IL-1b, IL-17a, TNF-a, leptin and adiponectin and radiographic features (joint space narrowing (JSN), osteophytes and sclerosis), followed by the longitudinal prediction of new or progression of these three radiographic features using LASSO to select predictors. The area under a ROC curve (AUROC) was computed. Results: Complete radiographic and serum case data in n = 872 male British servicemen, aged 34.5 (5.5) at baseline and 38.3 (5.4) at follow-up were analysed. Those with JSN had significantly higher concentrations of leptin (FDR-corrected q-value, q = 0.04). COMP had an AUROC of 0.604 (0.543,0.664) for new cases of JSN, COMP, IL-1β and leptin had an AUROC 0.586 (0.524,0.646) for new osteophytes, and TNF-α, IL-1β and adiponectin had an AUROC 0.590 (0.520,0.659) for new sclerosis. Conclusion: This large, unique study suggests different pathological processes underpinning each radiographic feature of PTOA, including predominant unbalanced ECM-catabolism and inflammation contributing to JSN, ECM-catabolism and increased inflammation contributing to osteophyte development and an inflammation-predominant process contributing to subchondral sclerosis
Glitch environmentalism
Get PDFBirding is a form of wildlife recreation that often involves exclusive communities and spaces, where both access and practice are policed along hegemonic lines. This paper examines the experiences of birders from marginalised communities who, through online networks, were able to challenge birding's historical hegemonies during the COVID-19 lockdowns and beyond. Our research participants were members of the Self-Isolating Bird Club (SIBC), a grassroots birding group founded on social media in 2020, which challenged preconceptions concerning both who wildlife was for and how it could be enjoyed. We contextualise the SIBC alongside other digitally-empowered wildlife communities and theorise these practices as ‘glitches’ in contemporary environmentalism. We present glitches as generative fissures that dissent, dismantle, and disorient the status quo, yet their impacts are generally understood to be fleeting and momentary. Engaging Legacy Russell's manifesto, Glitch Feminism, and recent geographical scholarship on the glitch's political atmospheres, this paper examines the conditions in which the fleeting impact of glitches can gain duration and engender lasting social change. Informed by affirmative, qualitative accounts of female-identifying members of the SIBC, we outline the participatory work through which the disruptive effects of glitches can endure and note their implications for wildlife recreation spaces like bird hides, parks, and nature reserves, which have historically made non-conforming bodies and marginalised people feel unwelcome or unsafe. Accounting for such duration, we develop work on glitches in digital geography and digital ecologies by conceptualising ‘glitch environmentalism’
Handbook of Accessible Tourism
No full textThe Handbook of Accessible Tourism is a crucial resource addressing the need for accessibility in the tourism industry, offering insights, theoretical foundations, and practical strategies to make tourism more accessible.Combining conceptual and empirical work, the handbook spans various components of the tourism system, considers the experiences of people with different accessibility requirements, and covers a range of geographical settings. It identifies gaps in current knowledge and provides recommendations for future research and innovation, encouraging continuous improvement in accessible tourism.Featuring 35 chapters, the handbook is organised into three parts:Foundations of accessible tourism: explores the evolution of accessible tourism; integrates concepts like leisure constraints theory; covers institutional frameworks, sustainability, information and communications, functionality, disability mobilities, support for carers and friends, and human-animal relations.Accessible destinations and tourism experiences: examines practical aspects of making tourism accessible, emphasising interdisciplinary collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and universal design; includes case studies highlighting challenges, opportunities, and the role of technology.Designing for accessibility: focuses on making tourism accessible through universal design, transition design, cognitive work analysis, service design, technology, and stakeholder collaboration; addresses the needs of different groups, specific tourism sectors, and the importance of education and training.Crucial resource addressing the need for accessibility in the tourism industryOffers insights, theoretical foundations, and practical strategies to make tourism more accessibleCombines conceptual and empirical work that spans various components of the tourism systemConsiders the experiences of people with different accessibility requirements, and covers a range of geographical settingsIncludes case studies highlighting challenges, opportunities, and the role of technologyIdentifies gaps in current knowledge and provides recommendations for future research and innovation, encouraging continuous improvement in accessible touris
Alpha and beta oscillations mediate the effect of motivation on neural coding of cognitive flexibility
Get PDFCognitive flexibility is crucial for adaptive human behaviour. Prior studies have analysed the effect of reward on cognitive flexibility; however, the neural mechanisms underlying these effects remain largely unknown. This study explores how reward influences neural oscillations and how these changes impact behavioural performance. Using time-frequency decomposition, we examined electroencephalographic data from participants engaged in rule-guided task-switching with varying reward prospects. Higher anticipated rewards lead to greater desynchronisation of alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (20-30 Hz) oscillations, which in turn correlated with improved task performance. Both alpha power and event-related potential (ERP) coding of reward independently predicted reward-based performance improvements, suggesting distinct mechanisms supporting proactive control. These findings underscore the unique contributions of neural oscillations in mediating motivational effects on cognitive flexibility
Exploring Lay Understandings and Help-Seeking Pathways for Psychosis in the Sikh Community: A Qualitative Study in the UK
Get PDFBackground: Psychotic disorders are more prevalent among minority ethnic groups in the UK. However, there is no research on how the British Sikh community understands and seeks help for psychosis. The way in which a community understands the nature, causes and treatment of psychosis can impact their duration of untreated psychosis, treatment pathways, experience and engagement with mental health services, and outcomes.Objective: To explore the lay understandings of psychosis and associated help-seeking within the Sikh community in England, and how family, religion and culture influence these perspectivesDesign and setting: An exploratory qualitative design, consisting of online semistructured interviews across the UK.Participants: 30 participants, 11 men and 19 women, ages ranged from 19 to 69, who identified as Sikh.Results: Thematic analysis revealed several common themes, including a lack of awareness and knowledge of psychosis, variety of causal beliefs held about psychosis, professional help-seeking being encouraged, religious practices regarded as helpful coping mechanisms, supernatural beliefs influencing alternative help-seeking, strong negative perceptions towards psychosis and general mental illness, the significant role of family and community, and conflicting religious and cultural beliefs.Conclusion: Participants showed limited understanding of psychosis and mental illnesses, accompanied by widespread negative perceptions, potentially delaying help-seeking. Increasing awareness may prompt earlier help-seeking, enhancing outcomes and diminishing stigma
Cold storage systems for electricity management: Performance analysis in office and power plant applications
Get PDFIn hot seasons, residential areas consume significant amounts of electricity for refrigeration and air conditioning, leading to peak power consumption. This simultaneous increase in cooling load, combined with reduced performance of gas turbines, places considerable stress on the power grid, particularly during specific periods each year. Cold storage systems offer an effective solution by shifting electricity consumption from peak daytime hours to off-peak nighttime periods. This study evaluates and compares the economic and thermal performance of cold storage systems implemented in both power plants and office buildings for peak demand management. Tailored cold storage systems were designed for each application, with a focus on ensuring reliable performance during peak cooling demand based on load analysis. The study utilized real-world case studies, including modeling for an office building in Arak, Iran, and a nearby power plant, to understand the impact of different climatic conditions on system performance. The results indicate that, during peak hours, the turbine’s net power output improved by 15.98% and 17.97% with partial and full storage methods, respectively, compared to scenarios without cooling. Additionally, the economic analysis revealed substantial cost savings, with partial and full storage systems resulting in reductions of 97.36% and 95.54%, respectively, in power plant units compared to similar office buildings with equivalent power consumption. The analysis also highlights that full storage systems in both office and power plant contexts deliver better peak shaving performance but at a higher cost due to the larger size of tanks and equipment required for operation. These findings underscore the potential of cold storage systems as an effective strategy for enhancing electricity management and reducing operational costs
Developing generic clinical trial animated explainer videos in the UK: results of a survey and case study
Get PDFBACKGROUND: Animated short videos used to explain a concept or project are often called animated explainer videos (AEVs). AEVs can supplement or provide an alternative to participant information sheets as a means of giving information about clinical research to potential participants. Current use of AEVs tends to focus on the specifics of a particular trial, yet there are many common aspects of clinical research regardless of the interventions being investigated that can be poorly covered in current trial materials. The EXPLAIN initiative aimed to determine the top generic clinical trial topics considered most important by different UK trial stakeholders. The top three topics were then turned into AEVs and have been made freely available for use. METHOD: A list of generic clinical trial topics which often need explaining to potential trial participants when they are approached to take part in research was developed. Using a two-round Delphi survey of stakeholder groups (trial participants, patients, members of the public, site staff and clinical trials unit staff), the list of topics was expanded and prioritised to identify the topics most in need of clear explanation. The top three topics formed the basis of three AEVs, co-developed with patient and public partners. RESULTS: Two hundred twenty-eight responses were received to the first round of the Delphi survey, and 167 of these respondents also completed the second round of the survey. The three topics prioritised for creation of animated explainer videos were as follows: (1) What is consent? (2) Who decides what treatment I get/What is randomisation? (3) Is it safe to take part in a trial/How do you know a trial is safe? Following virtual meetings with patient and public partners recruited from the Delphi respondents, a script for each AEV was co-produced before being developed into an AEV by a company specialising in animated video production. CONCLUSION: There are a wide range of generic concepts in which the use of animated explainer videos could be useful to improve participant understanding of clinical research. Via consensus survey across multiple stakeholders, we have determined a hierarchy of the importance of explaining these concepts. We envisage that the three AEVs created from this project will form the basis of a readily accessible library of animations to be utilised by trialists
Decoding physical sensor signals to reveal chip formation and surface deformation: An example in machining nickel-based superalloys
Get PDFThe current research aims to provide a basic understanding of decoding sensor signals with chip formation and surface integrity during the machining of Ni-based superalloys. Force signal analysis provides cutting energy information, offering insight into chip formation and a limited understanding of surface integrity. Researchers have studied the correlation of acoustic emission (AE) signals with surface quality to address this limitation. However, there remains a fundamental gap in understanding how AE signal variations relate to sub-surface deformation in the machined region. The main complications of understanding the AE signal in milling are due to multiple tooth engagement, where one tooth cuts while others drag material and create flying chips. These actions result in cumulative AE signals, which makes it challenging to understand the fundamental relationship between material deformation and AE signals. To address these limitations, a pendulum-based cutting test methodology is proposed. This approach simplifies the milling process, isolating a single cutting-edge, and chip generation. In addition, the pendulum setup also allows for the analysis of a wide range of cutting speeds within a single test to obtain optimal cutting conditions. Furthermore, the study compares fine-edge and round-edge cutting tools. It reveals that fine-edge tools generate higher amplitude AE signals despite lower cutting forces. This indicates more aggressive cutting action and localised plastic deformation, leading to intense carbide cracking and subsurface damage. Conversely, round-edge tools produce lower amplitude AE signals, suggesting a more distributed stress pattern and reduced carbide cracking
Efficient post-selection in light cone correlations of monitored quantum circuits
Get PDFWe consider how to target evolution conditioned on atypical measurement outcomes in monitored quantum circuits, i.e., the post-selection problem. We show that for a simple class of measurement schemes, post-selected light cone dynamical correlation functions can be obtained efficiently from the averaged correlations of a different unitary circuit. This connects rare measurement outcomes in one circuit to typical outcomes in another one. We derive conditions for the existence of this rare-to-typical mapping in brickwork quantum circuits made of XYZ gates. We illustrate these general results with a model system that exhibits a dynamical crossover (a smoothed dynamical transition) in event statistics, and discuss extensions to more general dynamical correlations
Socioeconomic inequality in low-carbon technology adoption
No full textThe widespread adoption of low-carbon technologies (LCTs) by residential consumers is a cornerstone of net zero targets worldwide; however, LCT adoption may not be equally distributed across socioeconomic groups. Our paper contributes to the related literature by exploring socioeconomic inequality in LCT adoption and its underlying sources. We exploit nationally representative longitudinal data on the adoption of three key LCTs (solar photovoltaics, solar water heating, and electric vehicles) in the UK. We investigate the aggregate role of predetermined socioeconomic factors in determining socioeconomic inequalities in LCT adoption. We further contribute to the literature by employing Shapley-decomposition techniques to reveal the relative contribution of each individual socioeconomic factor to the total estimated socioeconomic inequality. Our results suggest that socioeconomic inequalities in LCT adoption have fallen over the last decade but remain prevalent, non-negligible in magnitude and highly statistically significant. Our analysis of longitudinal LCT adoption patterns shows that those consumers who have recently adopted LCTs, are contributing to the reduction in the observed socioeconomic inequalities over time. Policies targeting groups with the most disadvantaged socioeconomic background are crucial in order to mitigate the observed inequalities, potentially hindering a more rapid low-carbon transition
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