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Community Sentence Treatment Requirement Multisite Report July 2020 – January 2023
Full text linkThis report presents analysis from the Community Sentence Treatment Requirement Multisite Evaluation, completed by the Institute for Public Safety, Crime and Justice
The effect of a novel, digital physical activity and emotional well-being intervention on health-related quality of life in people with chronic kidney disease: trial design and baseline data from a multicentre prospective, wait-list randomised controlled trial (Kidney BEAM)
Full text linkBackground: Physical activity has the potential to enhance health-related quality of life (HRQoL), but few people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have access to physical activity resources and support. The Kidney BEAM trial aims to evaluate whether an evidence-based physical activity and emotional wellbeing self-management programme (Kidney BEAM) leads to improvements in HRQoL in people with CKD. Methods: This was a prospective, multicentre, randomised waitlist-controlled trial, with health economic analysis and nested qualitative studies. In total, three haundred and four adults with established CKD were recruited from 11 UK kidney units. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (Kidney BEAM) or a wait list control group (1:1). The primary outcome was between-group difference in Kidney Disease Quality of Life (KDQoL) mental component summary score (MCS) at 12 weeks. Secondary outcomes included KDQoL physical component summary score, kidney-specific scores, fatigue, life participation, depression and anxiety, physical function, clinical chemistry, healthcare utilisation and harms. All outcomes were measured at baseline and 12 weeks, with long-term HRQoL and adherence also collected at six months follow-up. A nested qualitative study explored experience and impact of using Kidney BEAM. Results: 340 participants were randomised to Kidney BEAM (n=173) and waiting list (n=167) groups. There were 96 (55%) and 89 (53%) males in the intervention and waiting list groups respectively, and the mean (SD) age was 53 (14) years in both groups. Ethnicity, body mass, CKD stage, and history of diabetes and hypertension were comparable across groups. The mean (SD) of the MCS was similar in both groups, 44.7 (10.8) and 45.9 (10.6) in the intervention and waiting list groups respectively. Conclusion: Results from this trial will establish whether the Kidney BEAM self management programme is a cost-effective method of enhancing mental and physical wellbeing of people with CKD
Prevalence of Hookah Smoking and Its Associated Factors among Undergraduate Engineering Students of Khwopa College of Engineering, Nepal
Full text linkBackground: Hookah smoking, also known as water pipe smoking, is an emerging trend that is gaining popularity globally, especially among youth and college students. It has been referred to as a global tobacco epidemic by public health officials and identified as an emerging threat to public health. Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study with systematic sampling was conducted. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Collected data were entered, and analysis was done using SPSS IBM version 26. Results: The overall prevalence of hookah smoking was found to be 38.7%, with a mean age of 17.92 years. The analysis indicated that sex and faculty of respondents were significantly associated with hookah smoking. In this study, male participants were 2.44 times more likely to be involved in hookah smoking compared to female participants (OR=2.449, 95% CI=1.026–0.848). Participants in the electrical engineering faculty were 4.84 times more likely to smoke hookah than participants in the computer engineering faculty (OR=4.844, 95% CI), and participants in the civil engineering faculty were 2.58 times more likely to smoke hookah than participants in the computer engineering (OR=2.583, 95% CI). Conclusion: The cross-sectional study with systematic sampling conducted among undergraduate engineering students at Khowpa College of Engineering revealed that hookah smoking was more prevalent among male participants than female participants. Hence, an awareness program is needed to be planned and implemented among engineering students, with a special focus on male students
Spinal disinhibition: evidence for a hyperpathia phenotype in painful diabetic neuropathy
Full text linkThe dominant sensory phenotype in patients with diabetic polyneuropathy and neuropathic pain is a loss of function. This raises questions as to which mechanisms underlie pain generation in the face of potentially reduced afferent input. One potential mechanism is spinal disinhibition, whereby a loss of spinal inhibition leads to increased ascending nociceptive drive due to amplification of, or a failure to suppress, incoming signals from the periphery. We aimed to determine whether a putative biomarker of spinal disinhibition, impaired rate dependent depression of the Hoffmann-reflex, is associated with a mechanistically appropriate and distinct pain phenotype in patients with painful diabetic neuropathy. In this cross-sectional study, ninety-three patients with diabetic neuropathy underwent testing of H-reflex rate dependent depression and detailed clinical and sensory phenotyping, including quantitative sensory testing. Compared to neuropathic patients without pain, patients with painful diabetic neuropathy had impaired H-reflex rate dependent depression at 1, 2 and 3Hz (p=These findings support the hypothesis that spinal disinhibition is an important centrally mediated pain amplification mechanism in painful diabetic neuropathy and that abnormal H-reflex rate dependent depression is associated with a distinct phenotype, arguably akin to hyperpathia, with combined loss and relative gain of function leading to increasing nociceptive drive
Improvising Language Capability : The British Army’s Corps of Interpreters, 1914-1915
Full text linkThis article examines the British army’s short-lived Corps of Interpreters on the Western Front during the early stages of the First World War. It begins by establishing a benchmark for the regular army’s French language capability in 1914. It then explores the interpreters’ recruitment process, employment, and the corps’ subsequent dissolution. Further insight into their motivation and suitability is then determined through a prosopographical analysis of their backgrounds and accounts of their employment. Overall, the article provides an important case study of the pitfalls of improvising military language capability during a crisis
Executive protocol designed for new review study called: systematic review and artificial intelligence network meta-analysis (RAIN) with the first application for COVID-19
Full text linkArtificial intelligence (AI) as a suite of technologies can complement systematic review and meta-analysis studies and answer questions that cannot be typically answered using traditional review protocols and reporting methods. The purpose of this protocol is to introduce a new protocol to complete systematic review and meta-analysis studies. In this work, systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-analysis network based on selected AI technique, and for P < 0.05 are followed, with a view to responding to questions and challenges that the global population is facing in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, it is expected that conducting reviews by following the proposed protocol can provide suitable answers to some of the research questions raised due to COVID-19
Using automated active infrared counters to estimate footfall on urban park footpaths: behavioural stability and validity testing
Full text linkBackground: Using infrared counters is a promising unobtrusive method of assessing footfall in urban parks. However, infrared counters are susceptible to reliability and validity issues, and there is limited guidance for their use. The aims of this study were to (1) determine how many weeks of automated active infrared count data would provide behaviourally stable estimates of urban park footfall for each meteorological season, and (2) determine the validity of automated active infrared count estimates of footfall in comparison to direct manual observation counts. Methods: Three automated active infrared counters collected daily footfall counts for 365 days on three footpaths in an urban park within Northampton, England, between May 2021 – May 2022. Intraclass correlation coefficients were used to compare the behavioural stability of abbreviated data collection schedules with total median footfall within each meteorological season (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter). Public holidays, events, and extreme outliers were removed. Ten one-hour manual observations were conducted at the site of an infrared counter to determine the validity of the infrared counter. Results: At least four-weeks (28 days) of infrared counts are required to provide ‘good’ to ‘excellent’ (Intraclass correlation > 0.75, > 0.9, respectively) estimates of median daily footfall per meteorological season in an urban park. Infrared counters had, on average, -4.65 counts per hour (95% LoA -12.4, 3.14; Mean absolute percentage error 13.7%) lower counts compared to manual observation counts during one-hour observation periods (23.2 ± 15.6, 27.9 ± 18.9 counts per hour, respectively). Infrared counts explained 98% of the variance in manual observation counts. The number of groups during an observation period explained 78% of the variance in the difference between infrared and manual counts. Conclusions: Abbreviated data collection schedules can still obtain estimates of urban park footfall. Automated active infrared counts are strongly associated with manual counts; however, they tend to underestimate footfall, often due to people in groups. Methodological and practical recommendations are provided
Advanced Sentiment Analysis for Managing and Improving Patient Experience: Application for General Practitioner (GP) Classification in Northamptonshire : Application for General Practitioner (GP) Classification in Northamptonshire
Full text linkThis paper presents a novel analytical approach for improving patients' experience in healthcare settings. The analytical tool uses a classifier and a recommend management approach to facilitate decision making in a timely manner. The designed methodology comprises of 4 key stages, which include developing a bot to scrap web data while performing sentiment analysis and extracting keywords from National Health Service (NHS) rate and review webpages, building a classifier with Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA), analyzing speech with Python, and using Microsoft Excel for analysis. In the selected context, a total of 178 reviews were extracted from General Practitioners (GP) websites within Northamptonshire County, UK. Accordingly, 4764 keywords such as "kind", "exactly", "discharged", "long waits", "impolite staff", "worse", "problem", "happy", "late" and "excellent" were selected. In addition, 178 reviews were analyzed to highlight trends and patterns. The classifier model grouped GPs into gold, silver, and bronze categories. The outlined analytical approach complements the current patient feedback analysis approaches by GPs. This paper solely relied upon the feedback available on the NHS' rate and review webpages. The contribution of the paper is to highlight the integration of easily available tools to perform higher level of analysis that provides understanding about patients' experience. The context and tools used in this study for ranking services within the healthcare domain is novel in nature, since it involves extracting useful insights from the provided feedback
Shifting Landscapes in Early Childhood Education
Full text linkChange occurs in young children’s lives as a matter of course. Healthy children grow and develop (Berk, 2012). They make multiple horizontal transitions daily, for example moving from mealtime to play, and navigate major vertical transitions, such as starting school (Kagan and Neuman, 1998). Children experience changes to their routines at home when their parents make adaptations to working practices (Kim, 2020; Snyder, Rech, Masuda and Dinkel, 2021), and they experience new approaches to curriculum and pedagogy at first hand in their settings (Manning, Thirumurthy and Field, 2012; Murray, 2017; Yang, Xu, Liu and Li, 2022). When educators leave early childhood education (ECE) settings, it is children who must adjust to new educators. Whilst ECE educators may move to new settings for their professional development in strong workforce systems, in weaker systems educators’ dissatisfaction results in the ECE workforce attrition that results in change for children (Nutbrown, 2021). War wreaks havoc in children’s lives, often displacing them from their homes and the carers and educators they know (Korp and Stretmo, 2020). In recent decades, the pace and variety of change in young children’s environments, including their experiences of ECE, have increased exponentially, affecting young children’s lives in many different ways (Clark, 2022). While young children appreciate novel experiences (Murray, 2022), they also thrive on continuity and routine (Clark, 2022; Zigler and Kagan, 1982); balance may therefore be important. In this short critique of some of the shifting landscapes in ECE, I discuss ways the field is transforming at the macro-policy level, before considering some of the changes experienced by children and adults who care for them
Zeolites as Sustainable Alternatives to Traditional Tanning Chemistries
Full text linkCollagen-based composite materials are extensively studied and used in different fields, including tissue engineering, food applications and leather manufacture. Leather is the largest application of collagen where typical tanning chemistries include metal salts, polyphenolics and aldehydes. A new type of material that is gaining industrial significance is based on a composite of collagen and zeolite in the area of sustainable leather manufacture. This approach utilises simple, abundant, and benign chemistry, which provides leather with the physical properties needed for a range of possible applications. However, the stabilising interactions between collagen and zeolite are not yet known and would benefit from deeper understanding of the interactions and the impact on environmental parameters. The composite material reported here is made by treating animal hide collagen with zeolite using established processing technologies, commonly used in leather tanning processes, without the need for further specialised apparatus. The interaction between collagen and zeolite has been characterised by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), infrared spectroscopy (IR), solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and zeta potential. SAXS shows unique changes in the scattering profile revealing zeolite and collagen interactions, which relate to a combination of covalent and electrostatic mechanisms. The zeolite forms a 3D network structure covering collagen fibres, improving protein stability against hydrothermal denaturation and creating material strength. The environmental and industrial impact has been evaluated based on reaction uptake, waste stream assessment and biodegradability. Zeolite tanning shows a positive influence on reaction uptakes, similar to industry best practice, waste water impact and positive biodegradability results. Through the deeper understanding of the van der Waals interactions between collagen and zeolite, and the positive environmental assessment, this work demonstrates the merits of this new stabilisation approach with the possibility of further expansion into other applications
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