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Widening access to penicillin allergy assessment in the United Kingdom—a proposed implementation plan for the National Health Service (NHS)
Get PDFGlobally, there is increasing evidence that incorrect penicillin allergy labels negatively affect patient outcomes, antibiotic prescribing and antimicrobial resistance, leading to growing concern about this patient safety issue and how to resolve it. While many millions of patients worldwide have incorrect penicillin allergy labels, there are too few specialist allergists and a lack of ‘point-of-care’ tests to address this problem. Numerous research studies now provide evidence of the feasibility and importance of widening access to penicillin allergy assessment. Researchers from two UK-based studies (SPACE and ALABAMA), in collaboration with key stakeholders including patient representatives, gave their views to shape a high-level implementation plan to facilitate widening access to penicillin allergy assessment in the UK. This Viewpoint describes the basis of the implementation plan and summarizes the key actions required for successful delivery. While the plan is intended for the UK, we hope to promote international shared learning and collaboration to address this global problem informed by the UK context
Recusants before recusancy: reassessing the chronology of post-Reformation English Catholicism
No full textEFX allocations on graphs
Get PDFWe study envy-freeness up to any good (EFX) in settings where valuations can be represented via a graph of arbitrary size where vertices correspond to agents and edges to items. An item (edge) has zero marginal value to all agents (vertices) not incident to the edge. Each vertex may have an arbitrary monotone valuation on the set of incident edges. We first consider allocations that correspond to orientations of the edges, where we show that EFX does not always exist, and furthermore that it is NP-complete to decide whether an EFX orientation exists. Our main result is that (EFX) allocations exist for this setting. This is one of the few cases where EFX allocations are known to exist for more than 3 agents
Coupled thermo-chemo-mechanical phase field-based modelling of hydrogen-assisted cracking in girth welds
Get PDFA new computational framework is presented to predict the structural integrity of welds in hydrogen transmission pipelines. The framework combines: (i) a thermo-mechanical weld process model, and (ii) a coupled deformation-diffusion-fracture phase field-based model that accounts for plasticity and hydrogen trapping, considering multiple trap types, with stationary and evolving trap densities. This enables capturing, for the first time, the interplay between residual stresses, trap creation, hydrogen transport, and fracture. The computational framework is particularised and applied to the study of weld integrity in X80 pipeline steel. The focus is on girth welds, as they are more complex due to their multi-pass nature. The weld process model enables identifying the dimensions and characteristics of the three weld regions: base metal, heat-affected zone, and weld metal, and these are treated distinctively. This is followed by virtual fracture experiments, which reveal a very good agreement with laboratory studies. Then, weld pipeline integrity is assessed, estimating critical failure pressures for a wide range of scenarios. Of particular interest is to assess the structural integrity implications of welding defects present in existing natural gas pipelines under consideration for hydrogen transport: pores, lack of penetration, imperfections, lack of fusion, root contraction, and undercutting. The results obtained in hydrogen-containing environments reveal an important role of the weld microstructure and the detrimental effect of weld defects that are likely to be present in existing natural gas pipelines, as they are considered safe in gas pipeline standards
Who is a man and who is a woman? Implications of the UK Supreme Court decision
Get PDFOn 16 April 2025, the Supreme Court of the UK ruled that when interpreting the UK’s Equality Act (2010)—the Act of the UK Parliament that details protections against unlawful discrimination—the terms ‘man’, ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ pick out ‘biological sex’ (defined in the Court’s ruling as ‘the sex of a person at birth’) and not also ‘certificated sex’ (defined in the Court’s ruling as ‘the sex attained by the acquisition of a Gender Recognition Certificate’). Some have argued that the Court’s decision represents a significant setback for trans people, while others have welcomed the perceived clarity the decision has provided. The decision has had, and will continue to have, wide impact, such as on the lawful operation of single-sex spaces and services in the UK. Scrutiny of the Court’s judgement is therefore warranted. The judgement was based on an interpretation of what Parliament intended in the Equality Act, but there are unresolved questions: (1) Is the Court’s interpretation of what Parliament intended the terms ‘man’, ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ to refer to correct? (2) Was the Court’s ruling made in a sufficiently just way? With these questions in mind, this article has two main aims. First, to summarise the Court’s recent decision and its social impacts. Second, to stress the importance of procedural justice in evaluating this verdict. This article thereby presents a preliminary case for the adequate consultation of all relevant stakeholders in potentially contentious legal decisions—especially where significant practical consequences for different social groups are likely
Water Versus Land on Temperate Rocky Planets
Get PDFWater and land surfaces on a planet interact in particular ways with gases in the atmosphere and with radiation from the star. These interactions define the environments that prevail on the planet, some of which may be more amenable to prebiotic chemistry, some to the evolution of more complex life. This review article covers (i) the physical conditions that determine the ratio of land to sea on a rocky planet, (ii) how this ratio would affect climatic and biologic processes, and (iii) whether future astronomical observations might constrain this ratio on exoplanets. Water can be delivered in multiple ways to a growing rocky planet — and although we may not agree on the contribution of different mechanism(s) to Earth’s bulk water, hydrated building blocks and nebular ingassing could at least in principle supply several oceans’ worth. The water that planets can sequester over eons in their solid deep mantles is limited by the water concentration at water saturation of nominally anhydrous mantle minerals, being in sum likely less than 2000 ppm of the planet mass. Water is cycled between mantle and surface through outgassing and ingassing mechanisms that, while tightly linked to tectonics, do not necessarily require plate tectonics in every case. The actual water/land ratio at a given time then emerges from the balance between the volume of surface water on the one hand, and on the other hand, the shape of the planet (its ocean basin volume) that is carved out by dynamic topography, the petrologic evolution of continents, impact cratering, and other surface-sculpting processes. By leveraging the contrast in reflectance properties of water and land surfaces, spatially resolved 2D maps of Earth-as-an-exoplanet have been retrieved from models using real Earth observations, demonstrating that water/land ratios of rocky exoplanets may be determined from data delivered by large-aperture, high-contrast imaging telescopes in the future
Mathematics anxiety: effects of age, gender and culture
Get PDFMany studies have indicated that mathematics anxiety is a significant problem for many people and is an important topic for research. Mathematics anxiety is multidimensional. In particular, it is important to distinguish between worry and emotionality components, and between trait and state anxiety. Much research shows a reciprocal relationship between mathematics anxiety and performance adding to the importance of gaining a greater understanding of the factors involved in mathematics anxiety. This paper reviews some studies of factors that have often been found to be associated with mathematics anxiety: age, gender, and culture. Most studies suggest that mathematics anxiety increases with age, and that the relationship between mathematics performance and at least some aspects of mathematics anxiety increase with age. Most, though not all, studies, indicate that females experience more mathematics anxiety than males, and some suggest that there are gender differences in the relationship between mathematics anxiety and performance. Most studies show cultural differences in mathematics anxiety, while also suggesting that the relationship between mathematics anxiety and performance is fairly uniform across cultures. Cross-cultural studies in this area are. however, somewhat limited by the fact that culture is usually confounded with nationality. Moreover, there are studies of all these factors that give somewhat conflicting results, and more research needs to be done in order to gain clearer answers. The paper concludes a discussion of the practical implications of the findings so far about the influences of age, gender and culture on mathematics anxiety
The political economy of private sector-led edtech production and its implication for education futures in Nigeria
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic and associated disruption of education has inspired an increased public discourse on the ‘digital transformation’ of education, and the potential of education technology to democratise access to education in Nigeria. On one hand, the federal and state governments are attempting to introduce new national digital education strategies and intervention programmes. On the other hand, is an increase in private sector led edtech investment and product development which has coincided with the increased use of educational technologies (edtech) and a growing market of education technology in the country. While there is also a growing body of literature investigating the politics of edtech and the rise of private edtech companies and investors, the majority of these studies are conducted outside the Sub-Saharan African region. This implies that the growing activities of private sector edtech companies and actors within Sub-Saharan African countries like Nigeria remain under-researched. To bridge this gap, this study investigates the political economy of private sector led edtech production in Nigeria and its implication on the imaginaries of education futures in the country. Using a qualitative case study research design, the study examines the discursive constructions of edtech promoted by private edtech startups in Nigeria and the imaginaries of education futures embedded in such discourses. Through a purposeful sampling that locates the top performing edtech companies in Nigeria based on industry insight, this study engaged the founders of ten edtech companies in Nigeria as research participants. Qualitative data were collected through online semi-structured interviews and analysed using critical discourse analysis. The study identifies and discusses the 'technical fix' narrative about edtech and the 'neoliberal utopian blueprint' of education futures promoted by edtech startups, both of which were found to be consistent with emerging evidence in critical edtech research (Van Dermijnsbrugge & Chatelier, 2022). The study concludes by emphasising the need for the Nigerian education community – policymakers, administrators, teachers, academics as well as private actors – to engage in constructing alternative education futures that can challenge the neoliberal education agenda emerging from the burgeoning edtech industry in Nigeria
Ghosts in the machine: famines and the afterlives of empire
No full textWhat did ‘afterlife’ mean to the rulers, agents and subjects of modern empires? Why did ‘afterlife’ emerge as a key narrative device in their attempts to make sense of how empire worked? My suggestion here is that ‘afterlife’ was a heuristic that both confirmed and contested the ‘scientific’ rules of modern empires. It became a staple of a wide range of literary and cultural genres – from gothic and ‘sensation’ fiction to memoirs, romances, histories and scientific and medical treatise – to the extent that we might think of it being a crucial component of the imperial life-world itself
Biological NMR: probing biomolecular condensates, exploration of a disordered virus capsid protein and reducing molecular size limitations
Get PDFSolution-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is capable of characterising atom-specific structural and dynamical information of biomolecules. NMR excels in studying dynamical and liquid-state systems; however, its use in slowly tumbling biomolecules is restricted, due to signal intensity and resolution limitations. In this thesis, NMR was used to characterise biomolecular condensates and a disordered virus capsid protein. This was followed by an exploration of methods to enhance NMR spectral quality for slowly tumbling biomolecules. Biomolecular condensates are formed through liquid-liquid phase separation and provide cellular compartmentalisation without a phospholipid membrane. The ability of condensates to partition metabolites was determined using an NMR-based method, which showed trends similar to “like-dissolves-like”, used extensively to predict partitioning into organic solvents. Additionally, NMR revealed a significant change in the dynamical and chemical properties of water inside condensates. These measurements support the growing evidence that biomolecular condensates act as distinct solvents. Secondly, the properties of an adenovirus capsid protein, N-terminal truncated protein VI (∆54-pVI), were explored using NMR. Adenoviruses can cause common respiratory illnesses and are exploited as viral vectors for vaccination. Protein VI is essential for membrane disruption and endosomal escape into a host cell, crucial for adenoviral infectivity. Diffusion NMR showed the highly disordered nature of ∆54-pVI; however, the assignment of chemical shifts revealed regions with amphipathic α-helical propensity, which is thought to enhance interactions with membranes. Finally, a review of methodologies to combat size limitations in NMR is provided through simulations. The benefits of 13CF3 labelling on slowly tumbling biomolecules were also assessed. Experimental measurements on a 395 kilodalton protein showed the 13CF3 spin system had favourable relaxation properties. Simulations predicted that the relaxation rate of the slowest relaxing coherence would be largely independent of molecular tumbling. Therefore, 13CF3 labelling schemes could extend the applications of NMR in slower-tumbling biomolecules