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Continental European Books in Early Modern England, 1500-1640: datasets, data model diagrams, and documentation
No full textDatasets, data model diagrams, and documentation of AHRC-funded project Continental European Books in Early Modern England, 1500-1640: A New Approach Using Bibliographic Data Science (CEBEME).The CEBEME project set out to expand our knowledge and understanding of the depth, scope, and significance of early modern England’s transnational literary connections by creating the largest dataset to date on foreign books in England between 1500 and 1640, covering all key aspects of the translation, importation, sale, and ownership of books printed in Continental Europe in England.The project addressed the following research questions:What foreign-language books printed abroad were available early modern England? Which subjects, authors, and works were most popular? In which languages? Where had imported or translated books been printed?Who had access to foreign books in early modern England? How did the circulation of imported or translated books vary depending on the location and social background of readers?The project drew on Bibliographic Data Science to harmonize the following five source datasets as Linked Open Data:Renaissance Cultural Crossroads Catalogue (https://www.dhi.ac.uk/data/rcc).Private Libraries in Renaissance England (https://plre.folger.edu/).Provincial Booksellers (from the Appendix to Jennifer Winters, ‘The English Provincial Book Trade: Bookseller Stock-Lists, c.1520-1640’ (PhD thesis, University of St Andrews, 2012), available for download at https://hdl.handle.net/10023/3449).Plantin Sales (ZvL) (Excel spreadsheet with sales of Christophe Plantin to English buyers (1558–89) produced by Zanna van Loon, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp).Plantin Sales (CEBEME) (dataset produced by project based on records of sales by Officina Plantiniana to English buyers, 1590-1610).Users should refer to the documentation included for detailed information on what is included in the project database and the technical specifications. The database can be accessed via a user interface on the web at https://cebeme.manchester.ac.uk/
Institutions and Social Entrepreneurship:A Hierarchy of Institutions to Revisit Institutional Voids, Support, and Configurations
Get PDFIn this retrospective, we expand on theorizing about institutions and social entrepreneurship (SE) as presented in our Decade Award-winning 2015 article. Our 2015 paper developed the institutional configuration perspective, which considers joint and interaction effects of formal and informal institutions. It organized disagreement about how formal institutions shape SE, contrasting the institutional voids and institutional support perspectives. In this retrospective, we introduce a revised hierarchy of institutions as a ‘middle-ground’ approach to advance research on institutions in international business and entrepreneurship. This hierarchy integrates insights from different disciplines (institutional economics, sociology, political science, and cultural theory). It explicates the macro-level economic and microfoundational psychological effects of four layers of formal (government activism and constitutional institutions/rule of law) and informal institutions (cultural values and norms). The hierarchy progresses research on institutional voids by distinguishing four types of formal and informal institutional voids. It advances research on institutional configurations by highlighting new synergistic and compensatory configurations. It also offers new insights into institutional change. Finally, we advance research on institutions and SE by theorizing a new institutional paradox for SE that reconciles the institutional void versus support debate and by charting opportunities for how institutions shape the SE process from entry to exit.</p
Digital twins to evaluate the risk of ventilator induced lung injury during airway pressure release ventilation compared to pressure-controlled ventilation.
Get PDFA qualitative exploration of women's experiences of food insecurity around pregnancy aligned with the socio-ecological model
No full textPregnancy, postpartum, and infancy are pivotal periods when food insecurity (FI), defined as inconsistent access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food, can adversely impact maternal and child health. Despite high FI rates in the UK, little is known about women's experiences during this time. This study explores FI during pregnancy and postpartum amongst a multi-ethnic group of women. Between October 2023 and February 2024 semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposively sampled food-insecure individuals (>18 years, pregnant or postpartum <12 months, residing in South London with recourse to public funds). Demographics were analysed with SPSS, and interviews using Reflexive Thematic Analysis in NVivo. Findings were discussed in alignment with the socio-ecological model. Three key themes were generated from eleven interviews. 1) Societal systems failure and its nutritional impact, 2) System 'soothers' mitigating FI, and 3) Creating Coordinated Care. Theme one describes the structural drivers' influencing maternal food strategies, eating and feeding behaviours. Theme two explores factors protecting or inhibiting women access to support. Theme three discusses the benefits and opportunities for improved health and social care coordination to address FI during pregnancy. This study emphasizes how structural determinants exacerbate FI during pregnancy and postpartum, with unique structural drivers to this life course period worsening its impact. FI influences health eating despite resourceful cooking and food management strategies. Greater coordinated care is urgently needed to address FI, promote healthy diets, and improve access.</p
Raw acoustic-articulatory multimodal dysarthric speech recognition
Get PDFAutomatic speech recognition (ASR) for dysarthric speech is challenging. The acoustic characteristics of dysarthric speech are highly variable and there are often fewer distinguishing cues between phonetic tokens. Multimodal ASR utilises the data from other modalities to facilitate the task when a single acoustic modality proves insufficient. Articulatory information, which encapsulates knowledge about the speech production process, may constitute such a complementary modality. Although multimodal acoustic-articulatory ASR has received increasing attention recently, incorporating real articula- tory data is under-explored for dysarthric speech recognition. This paper investigates the effectiveness of multimodal acoustic modelling using real dysarthric speech articulatory information in combination with acoustic fea- tures, especially raw signal representations which are more informative than classic features, leading to learning representations tailored to dysarthric ASR. In particular, various raw acoustic-articulatory multimodal dysarthric speech recognition systems are developed and compared with similar systems with hand-crafted features. Furthermore, the difference between dysarthric and typical speech in terms of articulatory information is systematically anal- ysed by using a statistical space distribution indicator called Maximum Ar- ticulator Motion Range (MAMR). Additionally, we used mutual information analysis to investigate the robustness and phonetic information content of the articulatory features, offering insights that support feature selection and the ASR results. Experimental results on the widely used TORGO dysarthric speech dataset show that combining the articulatory and raw acoustic fea- tures at the empirically found optimal fusion level achieves a notable perfor- mance gain, leading to up to 7.6% and 12.8% relative word error rate (WER) reduction for dysarthric and typical speech, respectively
Patient and public involvement in the management and prevention of cardiovascular disease. A statement of the Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions of the ESC and the ESC Patient Forum
No full textExternal Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation in youth with ADHD:a randomized, sham-controlled, phase 2b trial
Get PDFExternal trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS) received US Food and Drug Administration clearance in 2019 as the first device-based, non-pharmacological treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), based on a small pilot sham-controlled randomized controlled trial (RCT) that reported symptom improvement in 62 children with ADHD. Here we conducted a confirmatory multicenter, double-blind, randomized, sham-controlled, parallel-group, phase 2b RCT to investigate short-term and long-term efficacy (6 months) of real versus sham TNS in 150 children and adolescents with ADHD. Participants were randomized to receive real TNS (n = 75, mean age (s.d.) = 12.6 (2.8) years) or sham TNS (n = 75, mean age (s.d.) = 12.6 (2.8) years) nightly for approximately 9 hours for 4 weeks. Bilateral stimulation targeted V1 trigeminal branches using battery-powered electrodes applied to the forehead. Sham TNS delivered 30 seconds of stimulation per hour at lower frequency and pulse width. Intention-to-treat analysis showed no significant differential treatment effects on ADHD symptoms (primary outcome) (estimated adjusted mean difference = 0.83; 95% confidence interval: -2.47 to 4.13; P = 0.622; Cohen's d = 0.09). No serious adverse events were reported, and side effects did not differ between groups. In conclusion, TNS is a safe intervention but does not demonstrate clinical efficacy for pediatric ADHD. Trial registration: ISRCTN82129325 .</p
Omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation did not reduce inflammation to improve iron absorption in South African women living with overweight or obesity
Get PDFBackground: Young South African women face a double-burden of overweight or obesity and iron deficiency, with the former predicting the latter. Omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCPUFA) supplementation can reduce inflammation. It is uncertain if this effect extends to adiposity-related inflammation, thereby reducing hepcidin secretion and improving iron absorption. Objectives: Using stable iron isotopes, we determined the effect of omega-3 LCPUFA supplementation on fractional iron absorption (FIA) from a meal containing iron as ferrous sulfate without and with ascorbic acid (AA). Methods: In this single-blind, uncontrolled, before–after intervention stable isotope study, 30 South African women aged 18–35 y with body mass index ≥28 kg/m 2, systemic inflammation, and a low omega-3 LCPUFA status, consumed a noninhibitory meal containing 6 mg iron, without and with AA, before and after 3 mo of daily supplementation with 2.1 g omega-3 LCPUFA. At baseline and endpoint, we measured FIA 14 d after consumption of the second meal, iron and inflammation markers, hepcidin, and omega-3 index. Results: At baseline and endpoint, addition of AA significantly improved FIA from the meal. Median (IQR) FIA before compared with after supplementation was not different for the meal without AA [9.7 (4.3–24.6)% compared with 11.8 (2.8–22.3)%; P = 0.962] nor the meal with AA [27.5 (10.6–43.8)% compared with 30.8 (9.6–60.9)%; P = 0.249]. Supplementation increased the omega-3 index from 4.61 (4.10–5.11)% to 5.97 (5.48–8.16)% (P < 0.001), but did not reduce hepcidin or improve the inflammation and iron status markers. In multiple linear regression analyses, hepcidin was a stronger predictor of FIA than AA. Conclusions: Addition of AA to the test meal, rather than omega-3 LCPUFA supplementation, improved iron absorption in South African women with overweight or obesity. Despite an increase in omega-3 index after omega-3 LCPUFA supplementation, it remained suboptimal, possibly explaining the lack of reduction in inflammation and hepcidin concentrations. This study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT05220735 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05220735?cond=obesity&term=iron%20absorption&rank=4).</p
Investigating the influence of maternal prenatal BMI and perinatal depressive symptoms on neonatal brain network dynamics
Get PDFBackgroundElevated pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and perinatal depressive symptoms have been linked to neonatal alterations in brain structure and function. This study examined associations between neonatal functional brain dynamics, maternal BMI, and perinatal depressive symptoms measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) in a community-based, largely low-risk cohort. MethodsFuncitonal MRI and Leading Eigenvector Analysis (LEiDA) were applied in a neonatal cohort (N = 437; 236 males; mean gestational age 39.6 weeks) from the developing Human Connectome Project. We assessed whether neonatal brain-state probabilities related to maternal BMI and EPDS scores (M = 5.6, SD = 4.3), testing main effects and, separately, their interaction. The sample included 291 healthy-weight (BMI < 25), 98 overweight (25 BMI < 30), and 48 obese (BMI 30) mothers. ResultsEPDS scores were low in this cohort and did not demonstrate associations with brain states or a significant BMI × EPDS interaction. Higher maternal pre-pregnancy BMI was negatively associated with the stability of a functional network encompassing superior frontal, superior parietal, and temporal regions (ß = −0.129, p = 0.006). ConclusionAs this network is normally recruited more with age, reduced stability suggests slowed maturation of fronto-parieto-temporal systems and may signal early risk for later behavioral challenges. Impact: Higher maternal pre-pregnancy BMI is associated with reduced stability in a neonatal frontoparietal brain state, characterized by coordinated activity in frontal, parietal, and temporal regions. This state is one of six distinct dynamic connectivity patterns identified, reflecting core neonatal resting-state networks. The association was robust across multiple analytic models and clustering solutions. No significant effects were found for maternal depressive symptoms. These findings underscore the selective impact of maternal metabolic health on early brain organization, suggesting prenatal influences on the functional architecture of the newborn brain that may shape long-term neurodevelopmental trajectories.</p