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An empirical study on the performance overhead of code instrumentation in containerised microservices
Get PDFCode instrumentation is vital for analysing software behaviour and facilitating cloud computing observability and monitoring, especially in microservices and containers. Despite its benefits, instrumentation introduces complexity and performance overhead, which may inadvertently slow down systems and cause unexpected or erratic behaviour. In this study, we examine the effect of automated code instrumentation on the performance of containerised microservices by comparing instrumented systems against a baseline without instrumentation. Our experimental framework is based on key performance metrics, including response time, latency, throughput, and error percentage. It is executed using a rigorous methodology with a warm-up strategy to mitigate cold-start effects. Over 5000 experiments were conducted on 70 microservice APIs drawn from two open-source applications hosted on AWS and Azure to compare the results with baseline data. The experimental analysis comprises three stages: a pilot study on AWS, a case study on AWS and Azure, and an outlier analysis of the experimental results. Overall throughput decreased by up to 8.40 %, with some individual cases experiencing up to a 30 % reduction compared to the baseline, and response time and latency dropped by 20–49 %. Moreover, the results show more outlier cases in instrumentation results than in the baseline. Additionally, the results reveal more outlier cases in the instrumentation results compared to the baseline. The instrumentation has led to unexpected or erratic behaviour, as indicated by higher variations in response time, latency, and throughput values, along with increased error rates and occasional outlier values that were not observed in the non-instrumented run. This indicates that the performance differences we observed are attributable to overhead introduced by instrumentation, rather than inherent inefficiencies within the APIs themselves. Furthermore, statistical analysis utilised the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test and mean ratios, with multiple approaches validating significant performance differences between instrumented and baseline conditions for both cloud services. A significance analysis using Cohen’s d indicates that the throughput and response time reductions in both platforms are not only statistically significant but also suggest considerable operational impact. These findings offer insights into automated code instrumentation's performance and impact on containerised microservices. It highlights the need to develop better and less impactful instrumentation techniques, and possibly towards the development of a new approach for large-scale software development and deployment in cloud environments that facilitates efficient instrumentation by design
What are the evidence-based medical management approaches for the concussed youth athlete? A scoping review
Get PDFBackground: Concussion management in youth sport relies on the experience of adults pitch-side as to injury recognition, removal, and management decisions. Little consensus exists on the consistency of pitch-side and medical pathway management approaches.Objectives: A scoping review was completed to identify and synthesise primary research as to the management of the concussed youth athlete.Methods: A systematic search was completed in Medline, CINAHL, PubMed, SPORTDiscus, OVID emcare, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Cochrane Library databases and Google Scholar from inception to 1st March 2025 according to PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Primary research studies that provided outcome data on management approaches for concussed youth athletes at all stages post-injury were included. Articles were synthesised and reported in themes.Results: 36 studies were included and four themes identified: Exercise, activity, and neuromuscular training interventions (n = 14), Pitch-side, sub-acute management and monitoring (n = 6), Novel treatment interventions (n = 5), and individual management in specific populations (n = 11).Conclusion: Published primary research for concussed youth athlete management approaches with outcome data supports early activity recommendations and sub-threshold exercise programmes. Few data exist for alternative management approaches. Case reports/ series saturated this review, with limited generalisable data reported on. Further transparency on concussion injury reporting and management, with outcome data, is warranted
patter: Particle algorithms for animal tracking in R and Julia
Get PDFState‐space models are a powerful modelling framework in movement ecology that represents individual movements and the processes connecting movements to observations. However, fitting state‐space models to animal‐tracking data can be difficult and computationally expensive. Here, we introduce patter, a package that provides particle filtering and smoothing algorithms that fit Bayesian state‐space models to tracking data, with a focus on data from aquatic animals in receiver arrays. patter is written in R, with a performant Julia backend. Package functionality supports data simulation, preparation, filtering, smoothing and mapping. In two examples, we demonstrate how to implement patter to reconstruct the movements of a tagged animal in an acoustic telemetry system from acoustic detections and ancillary observations. With perfect information, the particle filter reconstructs the true (unobserved) movement path (Example One). More generally, particle algorithms represent an individual's possible location probabilistically as a weighted series of samples (‘particles’). In our illustration, we resolve an individual's (unobserved) location every 2 min during 1 month and use particles to visualise movements, map space use and quantify residency (Example Two). patter facilitates robust, flexible and efficient analyses of animal‐tracking data. The methods are widely applicable and enable refined analyses of space use, home ranges and residency
Building primary care capacity to treat tobacco dependence: Lessons from evaluating a Teach the Teacher programme in low- and middle-income countries
Get PDFSmoking and other forms of tobacco use are prevalent in many middle and low-income countries and are a leading preventable cause of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Primary care is uniquely positioned to deliver support and services for tobacco cessation. However, despite being a cost-effective intervention and globally recognised and mandated by the World Health Organization, tobacco cessation services, such as Very Brief Advice (VBA) are currently underprovided. Scalable capacity building programmes are needed to strengthen the knowledge, confidence and competence of practising clinicians. The International Primary Care Respiratory Group designed and implemented a three-tiered “Teach the Teacher” (TtT) programme to build teaching capacity in treating tobacco dependence in Romania, Bulgaria. North Macedonia, and the Kyrgyz Republic. The TtT model engaged national educators in adapting a core VBA+ curriculum—designed to reflect limited access to pharmacotherapy and specialist services—and cascaded teaching through local networks of primary care professionals. Evaluation of the TtT model showed that while co-developing context-specific curricula for treating tobacco dependence is feasible and effective, sustained success requires structural reforms—such as improving access to cessation support, incentivising providers, and embedding tobacco dependence treatment into national education and policy frameworks. The TtT approach offers a replicable model for rapid capacity-building, but its full potential depends on alignment with broader health system priorities
Transfer Learning-based Automatic Sentiment Annotation of a Twitter-based Arabic Mental Illness (AMI) Dataset
Get PDFSentiment analysis, crucial for discerning emotional tones in text, relies on manual annotation to train machine learning models and is considered the gold standard for creating annotated corpora. However, this process is time-consuming, labour-intensive, and prone to biases. This paper proposes an automatic annotation approach for the Twitter-based Arabic Mental Illness (AMI) dataset, which encompasses both Modern Standard Arabic and Dialectal Arabic. The approach leverages transfer learning with existing manually annotated datasets and three advanced Arabic language models to automate annotation, thereby enriching Arabic as a low-resource language with labelled sentiment data. Validation was conducted by comparing the automatically generated annotations to manual annotation on the same dataset, achieving strong inter-annotator agreement with a Cohen's Kappa statistic of k = 0.8457. Additionally, various baseline models were evaluated on the AMI dataset, identifying AraBERT as the top performer with the highest F1 score and accuracy
Police Support Volunteers in the Covid-19 pandemic: reflections on volunteering during times of crisis
Get PDFThe Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns presented significant challenges for policing: changing patterns of criminal behaviour, frequently shifting emergency regulations, resourcing pressures, and new dynamics in how police and citizens interacted with each other. However, the impact of the pandemic on volunteers in policing—in England and Wales, a cohort estimated between 7,211 Police Support Volunteers (PSVs) to up to 500,000 ‘citizens in policing’ who regularly give time in some capacity to support the police—has been largely overlooked. This article draws on a national benchmarking survey of PSVs in England and Wales conducted in 2021 (n = 1,305) to reflect on volunteering experiences during the pandemic. It considers the contribution that PSVs can make during challenging times and the importance of flexible and innovative tasking to capitalize on the volunteer offer. The article underpins the centrality of an adequately resourced police volunteer infrastructure to effectively mobilize volunteer resources on both a ‘business as usual’ basis, and during times of crisis
Absurdity in our rules? To what extent should unorthodox assessment practices, such as ‘ungrading’, disrupt quality assurance practices in higher education?
Get PDFUngrading involves adopting a critical view on the purpose and value of assessment practices and working to shift the focus away from the awarding of grades to practices that instead focus more on feedback and activities that support learning. These practices are often deemed to be unorthodox and in tension with the policies and practices in place within our institutions intended to safeguard academic standards and quality. As ungrading is an emerging practice, the research base is currently limited; however, this paper draws upon the literature on student self-assessment to challenge the notion that summative assessment should always be marked by an academic ‘expert’. This paper advocates for greater practice which helps students to learn, and importantly to recognise and value that learning, even if it disrupts the status quo within the UK. However, given that any challenge should be evidence-led, the paper calls for more research studies to be conducted on ungrading practices
Promoting Neurodiversity-Affirming Care for Autistic Children: A Scoping Review
Get PDFHistorically, educational and clinical practice with autistic children centred on developing their ability to ‘fit in’ and achieve neurotypical milestones. The neurodiversity movement aims to shift the focus from normalising behaviours to acceptance of the autistic child and inclusion with neurotypical peers while acknowledging differences. However, a review of how educators, and service providers can practice in a neurodiversity-affirming manner has not been conducted. This scoping review collated and synthesised the current literature on neurodiversity-affirming approaches in education, health and social care for autistic children. The authors searched eight databases up to July 2023. Qualitative content analysis guided data synthesis. Twenty-six studies were included, with 1,151 participants across the included studies. Results indicate that educators and service providers can practice in a neurodiversity-affirming manner through adapting the environment and changing their approach to interventions. Environmental adaptations can include integration of topics of interest to the autistic child, supporting acceptance of autistic children to peers, educators, and service providers, and a flexible classroom and curriculum. Interventions for autistic children should focus on their quality of life, value autistic communication, appreciate autism as part of human variation, and eliminate goals relating to ‘masking’.Lay Abstract: Autistic children are commonly forced to ‘fit in’ to behave more like their neurotypical peers. This has been commonly seen in both education and clinical practice. For example, when autistic children go to the doctor, they will often be compared to their neurotypical peers to make sure milestones are being met, rather than seeing the autistic child as their own person. It is important that when professionals are providing any type of care for autistic children that they do so in a way that accepts their behaviours and supports the child to be their true self through inclusive strategies, such as changing the environment to meet the autistic child's interests, behaviours and needs. This is called neurodiversity-affirming care. The purpose of this article was to examine past research to better understand how neurodiversity-affirming care is being used or not being used in the areas of education, health and social care. This article describes ways that professionals can support neurodiversity-affirming care for autistic children such as through adapting the environment to include the interests of the autistic child, supporting neurotypical peers to interact with autistic children, and being flexible in how autistic children learn in classrooms. This article suggests that neurodiversity-affirming care interventions should include (1) focusing on the quality of life of the autistic child, (2) valuing autistic communication and (3) eliminating goals that are related to ‘masking’ autistic behaviours
No Problem (In) Here?: A scoping study of Catholics in Scottish Prisons
Get PDFThis report presents findings from a scoping study which explored a neglected issue within the Scottish criminal justice system: the overrepresentation of Catholics within prisons in Scotland and prison responses to this group.The primary purpose of this scoping exercise was:• to examine a range of sources to identify what is known in relation to this issue;• to consider themes previously raised in research;• and to identify needed data and future lines of inquiry to develop a richer understanding.Funding for this work was awarded from the Scottish Centre for Crime and JusticeResearch in January 2023, with additional funding to support the project provided by Edinburgh Napier University and University of Glasgow
Prescribing considerations in midwifery practice
No full textPrescribing considerations present specific challenges in midwifery practice in relation to the physiological changes that occur in pregnancy and the vulnerabilities of the fetal environment. There is a shortage of robust evidence on the safety of many medications in pregnancy and on the developing fetus. Additionally, pregnant women can be reluctant to take medications. As the number of midwives with an independent prescribing qualification increases, they need to be equipped to discuss the risks and benefits of treatment options. Building a therapeutic relationship is the cornerstone of shared decision-making, and the continuity model of midwifery care is ideally suited to support pregnant women and their families to make an informed choice. This article describes the management of two of the most common presentations in pregnancy: nausea and vomiting, and urinary tract infection. It also reviews relevant national and local frameworks for the use of appropriate pharmacological and non-pharmacological options
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