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Found in the Seams Where the Past and Present Meet
No full textThe pieces in this book are inspired by the Nottingham Oral History Collection which is made up of over one hundred interviews with people from Nottingham who share their experiences of living and working in the city. The interviews in the collection were originally recorded on cassette tape in the 1980s and were digitised in recent years as part of the British Library’s Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project. They are looked after by Nottingham Central Library.I encountered all aspects of life listening to the narrators in the collection. These were people born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Victorians and Edwardians.I took extracts from the recordings back to the places that inspired them by making a series of journeys through the city. I went to the Broad and Narrow Marshes, once slums and still slums in the memories of our narrators, replaced by a brutalist shopping centre in the 1970s and now undergoing redevelopment again. Along the waterways of the Leen and the canal where children learnt to swim to the wilder edges of the River Trent at Clifton Grove. Across the Meadows, an area home to my own family four generations ago and where people were blasted by a Zeppelin raid during the First World War. Out to the mining town of Kimberley, birthplace of my grandmother, where the General Strike hit hard in the 1920s.And finally to the burial ground of the Nottingham General Cemetery and its rows of long forgotten graves.Along the way I paused in public spaces and community cafes, sharing recordings from the archive and chatting to people who generously shared their own stories of the city with me.This selection of creative responses draws on some of the words spoken by the narrators in the oral history collection, on fragments of stories found on my journeys, and my own lived experiences and family history. Shaped into forms for the page, these pieces tell some of the hard to hear tales tucked away in the archive: wartime destruction, grinding poverty, back street abortion, industrial unrest. Alongside the complexities and divisions of politics and human relationships, there are also joys found in the lives of our narrators, in their childhood adventures and in the magic of seeing silent cinema for the very first time.This project was made possible by an Artist Residency as part of the British Library’s Sharing Our Sounds initiative, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and hosted by the East Midlands Oral History Archive at the University of Leicester’s Archives and Special Collections.</p
Contemporary review of stress echocardiography workforce within the UK: An EVAREST/BSE NSTEP study.
No full textBackgroundStress echocardiography is a key imaging modality for assessing coronary artery disease in the UK. Traditionally, stress echo services were led by consultant cardiologists, but evolving workforce models have increased the involvement of cardiac physiologists and scientists. This study, as part of the National Review of Stress Echocardiography Practice (BSE N-STEP), aimed to evaluate current stress echo workforce structures and test outcomes across a group of UK hospitals to inform future workforce planning.ResultsData were analysed from 8506 stress echocardiograms, conducted between September 2020 and June 2023 across 34 UK hospitals. Based on the supervising workforce, stress echocardiograms were allocated into either a doctor-led (DL) or cardiac physiologist/scientist and nurse-led (CNL) model. 56.9% of stress echocardiograms were DL, while 42.7% were conducted under a CNL model. Physiologists/scientists were the most frequently involved staff (81.9%). The primary indication for stress echocardiography was ischaemia evaluation (89.4%). Dobutamine stress echocardiography was more common in DL services (63.0 vs. 56.3%, p ConclusionsThis study provides a contemporary overview of stress echocardiography workforce models in the UK, highlighting the increasing role of cardiac physiologists and scientists in supervising and reporting stress echocardiography. Despite these shifts, consultant cardiologists remain central to stress echo reporting. The findings support the integration of multidisciplinary workforce models to enhance service efficiency. These insights will aid in future workforce planning and training strategies to optimise stress echocardiography service provision across the NHS.</p
Benefits and risks of walking football for healthy ageing: a narrative review
No full textThe global ageing population necessitates public health strategies to address age-related health decline. While physical activity is widely recognised as beneficial, exercise referral schemes often struggle to sustain participation. Walking football, an adapted version of traditional football designed for middle-aged and older adults, offers a unique alternative by harnessing intrinsic motivators such as enjoyment and social interaction to encourage long-term engagement. This narrative review examines walking football’s potential as a public health intervention, focusing on its safety and physical and mental health effects. The results reveal that walking football’s slower pace and reduced physical contact make it accessible and safe for individuals with various chronic conditions. However, limited evidence on injury rates and the lack of standardised injury surveillance highlight the need for consistent data collection to evaluate long-term safety. Emerging research indicates modest improvements in cardiovascular health and body composition, though findings are constrained by small, predominantly male samples, limiting generalisability. Qualitative studies highlight positive mental health impacts for individuals with mental health conditions, including enhanced social connections, self-confidence and purpose in life. Nonetheless, quantitative evidence on mental health outcomes remains sparse, emphasising the need for robust studies with validated pre-post intervention measures. Overall, walking football shows promise as a safe strategy to promote physical and mental health among diverse populations. Further research is crucial to better understand its benefits, limitations and safety profile, enabling its effective integration into exercise referral schemes and social prescribing initiatives aimed at increasing physical activity and well-being in middle-aged and older adults.</p
On changepoint detection in functional data using empirical energy distance
No full textWe propose a novel family of test statistics to detect the presence of changepoints in a sequence of dependent, possibly multivariate, functional-valued observations. Our approach allows to test for a very general class of changepoints, including the “classical” case of changes in the mean, and even changes in the whole distribution. Our statistics are based on a generalisation of the empirical energy distance; we propose weighted functionals of the energy distance process, which are designed in order to enhance the ability to detect breaks occurring at sample endpoints. The limiting distribution of the maximally selected version of our statistics requires only the computation of the eigenvalues of the covariance function, thus being readily implementable in the most commonly employed packages, e.g. R. We show that, under the alternative, our statistics are able to detect changepoints occurring even very close to the beginning/end of the sample. In the presence of multiple changepoints, we propose a binary segmentation algorithm to estimate the number of breaks and the locations thereof. Simulations show that our procedures work very well in finite samples. We complement our theory with applications to financial and temperature data.</p
Two-Year Outcomes After Selective Early Treatment of Patent Ductus Arteriosus with Ibuprofen in Preterm Babies: Follow-Up of Baby-OSCAR - A Randomised Controlled Trial
No full textBackgroundChildren born extremely preterm are at increased risk of developmental problems and respiratory morbidity due to patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). The objective of this study was to evaluate whether early treatment of a PDA ≥1.5 mm with ibuprofen improved neurodevelopmental and respiratory outcomes at 24 months of age, corrected for prematurity.MethodsBaby-OSCAR was a UK multi-center placebo-controlled masked randomized clinical trial in infants born 23+0–28+6 weeks' gestation. The main long-term outcome was survival without moderate or severe neurodevelopmental impairment at 24 months’ corrected age, assessed using parent report primarily or classified by blinded end-point review committee where parent-reported data were not available. Other secondary outcomes included survival without respiratory morbidity and duration of oxygen supplementation. (ISRCTN Registry number ISRCTN84264977).FindingsFrom July 2015 through December 2020, 653 infants underwent randomization. At 24 months’ corrected age, outcome data were available for 537 children: 263 in the ibuprofen group and 274 in the placebo group. Survival without moderate to severe neurodevelopmental impairment in the ibuprofen and placebo groups was 131/248 (53.0%) and 134/259 (51.9%) respectively; adjusted risk ratio 1.01 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.86–1.18); p = 0.901. Survival without respiratory morbidity was 66/220 (30%) and 74/225 (32.9%) respectively; adjusted risk ratio 0.89 (95% CI 0.68–1.18). Median duration of oxygen supplementation from randomization was 76.0 and 78.0 days, respectively; adjusted median difference −1.5 (−13.8 to 10.9).InterpretationWe found no evidence of an improvement in neurodevelopmental and respiratory outcomes at 24 months’ corrected age, after selective early treatment of a PDA ≥1.5 mm with ibuprofen in children born extremely preterm.FundingThis study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme (11/92/15).</p
New inequality indicators for team ranking in multi-stage female professional cyclist races
No full textCycling competition is highly interesting since the team ranking is based on the best performance of some subset of team members. The paper develops new inequality indicators, a methodology to construct them, and numerical illustrations allowing to provide operative arguments in their favor. The numerical illustrations subsequently deal with hierarchical ranking indicators of (female) cyclist teams, competing in multi-stage races. For the illustration, the 2023 editions of the most famous long races for females are considered: 34th Giro d’Italia Donne, 2nd Tour de France Femmes, 9th Vuelta Femenina. Several classical ranking indicators are recalled and adapted to the study cases. The most usual indicator, , is based on the riders arriving time for the various stages, i.e., according to Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) standard rules. One also uses another indicator, , which requires that the riders finish the race, whence each stage, in order to define the race best team. Another contribution of the paper derives from specific developments of these indicators, thereby leading to new measures: the “leadership gap” based on , and the “competition temperature”, based on entropy. It is argued that the numerical values point to differences in team strategy based on rider skill levels. The ranking of contributions to indicators allow to observe the “crucial core” made of the most competitive teams.</p
Do predictors of life satisfaction change in the last years leading up to retirement? The case of job satisfaction and leisure satisfaction
No full textBackgroundPredictors of life satisfaction vary between people of different ages, but little is known about the role of specific life phases. We focused on the last years of work before retirement when it is often assumed that workers become less attached to their workplace and focus on other areas of life instead, such as leisure activity. Our aim was to test if the associations between domain satisfaction (job and leisure) and overall life satisfaction change in the years before retirement.MethodsWe applied a time-to-retirement metric in a latent growth curve analysis to longitudinal data from the German Socioeconomic Panel Study (n = 2520) to investigate whether the within-person associations between (1) job and overall life satisfaction and (2) leisure and overall life satisfaction change in the 10 years preceding retirement.ResultsWe found that job satisfaction was positively associated with life satisfaction at the between-and within-person level, but the within-person association weakened as workers approached retirement. The positive within-person association between leisure and life satisfaction did not change significantly on the lead up to retirement.ConclusionsWe interpret the results as evidence for a potential preretirement work disengagement, either to support postretirement adjustment or to protect from negative work experiences, in line with lifespan theories on self-regulation.</p
Improved leaf area index reconstruction in heavily cloudy areas: A novel deep learning approach for SAR-Optical fusion integrating spatiotemporal features
No full textThe Leaf Area Index (LAI) is an essential parameter for assessing vegetation growth. LAI derived from optical data can suffer from gaps caused by cloud cover. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) presents a solution with its all-weather observation capability. To address these issues, this study proposes a new deep learning approach for reconstructing time series LAI using SAR and optical data in two steps. Firstly, the two-dimensional Convolutional Neural Network-Transformer (2D CNN-Transformer) is applied to bridge SAR and optical data. Secondly, the 2D CNN-Transformer predicted LAI and the Sentinel-2 LAI are input into the Enhanced Deep Convolutional Model for Spatiotemporal Image Fusion (EDCSTFN) model to further improve the accuracy. The novelty lies in a two-step framework combining a 2D CNN-Transformer for spatiotemporal feature extraction and a deep learning fusion algorithm refining accurate LAI reconstruction. Results showed that the 2D CNN-Transformer achieved a higher accuracy (R2 = 0.64, RMSE = 0.38 m2/m2) in establishing a relationship between SAR and optical data, compared to 1D CNN, 2D CNN-LSTM, and 1D CNN-Transformer. In the second step, the EDCSTFN reconstructed LAI achieved the highest accuracy of an R2 of 0.81 and an RMSE of 0.22 m2/m2, with an average R2 of 0.61 and RMSE of 0.37 m2/m2 across croplands and forests in millions of pixels, further improving the accuracy based on the first step. The approach effectively fills gaps in spatial details and achieves a more continuous spatial distribution. The proposed approach demonstrates good generalizability in millions of pixels under frequent cloud cover and complex surface conditions and provides a new strategy for the fusion of optical and SAR data.</p
Bank Capital and Misconduct Incentives
No full textThis paper studies large banks' incentives to engage in misconduct by abusing their dominant position in the market for loans and by mis-selling an add-on financial product to depositors. We draw new connections between stability-focused prudential regulation and misconduct by studying the impact of higher capital requirements on misconduct incentives. Higher capital requirements are more likely to increase misconduct incentives when incumbents enjoy a significant equity funding cost advantage over challenger banks. These results highlight the importance of regulatory coordination in the areas of bank conduct and financial stability.</p
A study of the potential use of digitally recorded heart soundsto screen for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction andoptimize response to cardiac resynchronization therapy
No full textHeart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is a leading cause of cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. Diagnosis of heart failure requires clinical assessment of a patient and the use of echocardiography or other clinical tools that are not immediately accessible to patients at the bedside. This thesis aimed to study the potential use of externally recorded heart sounds recorded with an electronic stethoscope (estethoscope) to screen for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction and optimise response to cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) as treatment for HFrEF. Based on recording of heart sounds with an e-stethoscope from 37 subjects without diagnosis of HFrEF and 59 subjects with HFrEF, differences in acoustic features of heart sounds in the frequency domain were found between presence and absence of HFrEF. 53 subjects with HFrEF were indicated for implantation of CRT. Heart sounds were recorded along with recording of ECG, non-invasive haemodynamics and echocardiographic measurements before CRT implant and at 4 to 6 months and 10 to 12 months after implantation of CRT. Response to CRT was assessed using a combination of subjective and objective clinical parameters including NYHA class, 6- minute walk test and Minnesota Living with Heart Failure score. A frequency-based acoustic parameter was found to increase from baseline in responders to CRT but not in non-responders to CRT or in patients with undetermined response to CRT. In 11 patients who underwent echocardiography-guided optimisation of paced atrioventricular delay (PAVD) of CRT devices, heart sounds were recorded simultaneously with an estethoscope. It was found that the optimal PAVD obtained from a frequency-based acoustic feature of heart sounds differed from those obtained from conventional Doppler echocardiography methods but the differences in mitral inflow duration and aortic valve velocity time integral were unlikely to be clinically significant. Therefore, the acoustic feature may still have some potential to predict the optimal PAVD. Digitally recorded heart sounds with an e-stethoscope have potential clinical applications in screening for HFrEF, monitoring response to treatment with CRT and optimisation of CRT.</p