26729 research outputs found
Sort by
Food Alert Podcast: Episode 1: Allergen Management
No full textYou’re probably always thinking about allergens – there’s always cases in the news and it can be pretty bad if your allergen control isn’t on point.
So to help you out, we’ve dedicated the first episode of our podcast to allergen management. Join our Technical Director Julia Wilson as she discusses operators’ legal responsibilities, how to prevent allergy incidents and practical steps for allergen control that you can use in your business
Analytical dilemmas in lupus anticoagulant detection
Get PDFAccurate lupus anticoagulant (LA) detection is crucial to antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) diagnosis. Detection is based on LA functional behavior in coagulation assays irrespective of epitope specificity. LA screening tests employ dilute phospholipids to accentuate in vitro inhibition by LAs, although they are not LA-specific and can be elevated by other coagulation abnormalities. Elevated screening tests are reflexed to mixing tests to distinguish between factor deficiency and inhibition. Confirmatory tests with high phospholipid concentration swamp LA to generate shorter clotting times than screening tests, whilst prolongation persists with non-phospholipid-dependent inhibitors. LA heterogeneity means that no single screening test detects every LA and the screen/mix/confirm medley must be applied to at least two assay types, usually dilute Russell’s viper venom time (dRVVT) and an LA-sensitive activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT). Most laboratories restrict LA testing to these two assays, yet others, such as dilute prothrombin time (dPT), can perform with equal diagnostic efficacy, and additionally detect LA unreactive with dRVVT and aPTT. Converting clotting times to normalized ratios improves assay performance, and practitioners must choose between normal pooled plasma (NPP) clotting time denominators to reflect on-the-day assay performance, or reference interval (RI) mean clotting times to negate the effects of NPP variation. Cut-offs can be generated parametrically from normally distributed data, or different percentiles applied depending on the preferred balance between sensitivity and specificity. Sourcing sufficient donors for accurate cut-off estimations is problematic and transference exercises can be undertaken on low donor numbers. Analytical limitations of mixing tests have led to the adoption of alternative algorithms to the screen/mix/confirm test order, whilst some continue to rigidly apply the latter despite those limitations. Strategies to reduce or eliminate the effects of therapeutic anticoagulation have limitations, whilst the Taipan snake venom time (TSVT) screening test with an ecarin time (ET) confirmatory test is insensitive to vitamin K antagonist (VKA) and direct activated factor X anticoagulation
The many shades of violence against women: a call to action
Get PDFConfronting gender-based violence is a key area of concern and one that calls for urgent action. These debates have become particularly relevant in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the unveiling of underlying inequalities. Amongst the many unintended consequences of the pandemic lies the increased risk of domestic violence for vulnerable women who have been required to self-isolate. There is increasing evidence that we are facing more than one pandemic with quite worrying and widespread problems in global systems, whether they relate to public health or to human rights. As academics, we can contribute by theorizing with intersectionalities, translating research into practice, engaging with our local communities and creating non-stigmatized environment. But most of all, we can advocate for victims
The effect of waiters’ occupational identity on employee turnover within the context of Michelin-starred restaurants
Get PDFAlthough restaurants employ a high number of employees across the UK, accounting for 4.5% of total UK employment, this figure masks the relatively high degree of employee turnover. There is limited information about work engagement and turnover amongst waitering staff (servers). This study analyzed which antecedents (e.g., employer brand, extraversion and stereotype) impact servers’ occupational identity, and how this relationship affects work engagement and employee turnover within a theoretically-informed conceptual framework. A sample of servers in London based Michelin-starred restaurants was used (N=398). Although extraversion and stereotype reactance were not found to be relevant to occupational identity, employer brand was. The notion that the construction of occupational identity has consequences for work engagement and employee turnover was supported, as positive relationships were found. This research has practical implications for restaurant management strategy, and informs further investigations within the field
Exploring how perceived tourism impacts evolve over time (2009-2019) in an era of uncertainty: economic crisis, host-guest interactions, and Airbnb
Get PDFCross sectional studies focusing on a single setting are typically not sufficient in explaining how/why residents arrive at certain perceptions of impacts and attitudes towards tourism. This study aims to explore how the impacts of tourism are perceived by local residents over time (2009 - 2019), potentially shaped by the transient global and local contexts (economic crisis, Airbnb expansion); and frequency of exposure to tourists, explained via the Mere Exposure Theory (MET). MET suggests that repeated exposure to a stimulus or people, is a condition for the enhancement of the attitude towards it. Targeting Kavala residents in Greece, survey data were collected in three different points in time (2009, 2011, 2019), coupled with 21 in-depth interviews with local residents conducted in 2019. Results revealed that residents’ perceptions of tourism impacts are dynamic and fluid, greatly affected by the macro and micro economic environment; the rapid expansion of Airbnb in residents’ living areas; and the subsequent increasing interaction with tourists. Implications for theory and practice along with limitations and future research directions are also discussed
From Black Wednesday to Brexit: Macroeconomic shocks and correlations of equity returns in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom
Get PDFThis paper investigates whether macroeconomic shocks, such as the UK's referendum decision to leave the European Union (“Brexit”), the 2008 Financial Crisis, the 1992 ERM Crisis (“Black Wednesday”), and the 1987 stock market crash (“Black Monday”), had a positive impact on portfolio risk diversification. We estimate weekly dynamic conditional correlations and then optimal sectoral portfolio allocations between 1973 and 2019. Our results show that correlations of equity returns increased as a consequence of economic integration among European countries from the mid-1980s until the late 2000s, and decreased in the United Kingdom after Black Wednesday and the Brexit referendum. We tested the existence of a correlation change-point on June 27, 2016 by applying Wied et al. (2012)'s [Econometric Theory, 28(3), 570–589] correlation structural break test, which we modified to account for dynamic conditional correlations. Application of this test confirms that the referendum date was a break-point in nearly all UK manufacturing industries. The failure of Lehman Brothers and the 1987 stock market crash were also identified as structural breaks in equity correlations. Moreover, our findings suggest that the Brexit vote may constitute a long-term trend reversal of the convergence of equity return correlations in European markets, akin to Black Wednesday, rather than a shock like the 1987 and 2008 financial crises, which merely intensified a historical upward trend in correlations of European equity returns
Non-invasive screening of breast cancer from fingertip smears—a proof of concept study
Get PDFBreast cancer is a global health issue affecting 2.3 million women per year, causing death in over 600,000. Mammography (and biopsy) is the gold standard for screening and diagnosis. Whilst effective, this test exposes individuals to radiation, has limitations to its sensitivity and specificity and may cause moderate to severe discomfort. Some women may also find this test culturally unacceptable. This proof-of-concept study, combining bottom-up proteomics with Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (MALDI MS) detection, explores the potential for a non-invasive technique for the early detection of breast cancer from fingertip smears. A cohort of 15 women with either benign breast disease (n = 5), early breast cancer (n = 5) or metastatic breast cancer (n = 5) were recruited from a single UK breast unit. Fingertips smears were taken from each patient and from each of the ten digits, either at the time of diagnosis or, for metastatic patients, during active treatment. A number of statistical analyses and machine learning approaches were investigated and applied to the resulting mass spectral dataset. The highest performing predictive method, a 3-class Multilayer Perceptron neural network, yielded an accuracy score of 97.8% when categorising unseen MALDI MS spectra as either the benign, early or metastatic cancer classes. These findings support the need for further research into the use of sweat deposits (in the form of fingertip smears or fingerprints) for non-invasive screening of breast cancer
Wastewater monitoring for detection of public health markers during the COVID-19 pandemic: Near-source monitoring of schools in England over an academic year
Get PDFBackground
Schools are high-risk settings for infectious disease transmission. Wastewater monitoring for infectious diseases has been used to identify and mitigate outbreaks in many near-source settings during the COVID-19 pandemic, including universities and hospitals but less is known about the technology when applied for school health protection. This study aimed to implement a wastewater surveillance system to detect SARS-CoV-2 and other public health markers from wastewater in schools in England.
Methods
A total of 855 wastewater samples were collected from 16 schools (10 primary, 5 secondary and 1 post-16 and further education) over 10 months of school term time. Wastewater was analysed for SARS-CoV-2 genomic copies of N1 and E genes by RT-qPCR. A subset of wastewater samples was sent for genomic sequencing, enabling determination of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 and emergence of variant(s) contributing to COVID-19 infections within schools. In total, >280 microbial pathogens and >1200 AMR genes were screened using RT-qPCR and metagenomics to consider the utility of these additional targets to further inform on health threats within the schools.
Results
We report on wastewater-based surveillance for COVID-19 within English primary, secondary and further education schools over a full academic year (October 2020 to July 2021). The highest positivity rate (80.4%) was observed in the week commencing 30th November 2020 during the emergence of the Alpha variant, indicating most schools contained people who were shedding the virus. There was high SARS-CoV-2 amplicon concentration (up to 9.2x106 GC/L) detected over the summer term (8th June - 6th July 2021) during Delta variant prevalence. The summer increase of SARS-CoV-2 in school wastewater was reflected in age-specific clinical COVID-19 cases. Alpha variant and Delta variant were identified in the wastewater by sequencing of samples collected from December to March and June to July, respectively. Lead/lag analysis between SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in school and WWTP data sets show a maximum correlation between the two-time series when school data are lagged by two weeks. Furthermore, wastewater sample enrichment coupled with metagenomic sequencing and rapid informatics enabled the detection of other clinically relevant viral and bacterial pathogens and AMR.
Conclusions
Passive wastewater monitoring surveillance in schools can identify cases of COVID-19. Samples can be sequenced to monitor for emerging and current variants of concern at the resolution of school catchments. Wastewater based monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 is a useful tool for SARS-CoV-2 passive surveillance and could be applied for case identification and containment, and mitigation in schools and other congregate settings with high risks of transmission. Wastewater monitoring enables public health authorities to develop targeted prevention and education programmes for hygiene measures within undertested communities across a broad range of use cases
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence as philosophy: machine consciousness and intelligence
Get PDFA.I.: Artificial Intelligence tells the story of a robot boy who has been engineered to love his human owner. He is abandoned by his owner and pursues a tragic quest to become a real boy so that he can be loved by her again. This chapter explores the philosophical, psychological, and scientific questions that are asked by A.I. It starts with A.I.’s representation of artificial intelligence and then covers the consciousness of robots, which is closely linked to ethical concerns about the treatment of AIs in the film. There is a discussion about how A.I.’s interpretation of artificial love relates to scientific work on emotion, and the chapter also examines connections between the technology portrayed in A.I. and current research on robotics
LILAC 2023: An audio-visual report
Get PDFThe authors work together at Middlesex University as subject liaison librarians and what follows is a report on the LILAC 2023 conference at the University of Cambridge. The authors chose to combine their reflections in a collaborative report, and when considering a focus for this, it was noted that a number of sessions incorporating non-traditional methods and formats, such as podcasting, cartooning and audiobooks, had attracted the attention of the authors. Therefore, the theme of audio-visual learning is the focus for this conference report. Moreover, the authors were keen for the format of the output to align with the content, so rather than submitting a written report, what follows is an audio-visual report comprising a discussion of conference experiences, a photo diary and an artwork, where the authors reflect on their impressions, highlights and key takeaways from the event