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Social learning and expectational stability
No full textStability features of social learning (SL) dynamics are examined. We show SL can be formulated as a stochastic recursive algorithm, making it possible to analyze asymptotics using the familiar differential-equation approach. For a simple univariate model, this approach reduces to the E-stability principle, though in prominent instability cases divergence is exceedingly slow compared to adaptive learning (AL). We locate differing fitness criteria as the source of the slower evolution rates of SL compared to AL. Modifed AL and SL learning dynamics models are developed and used to illustrate the different implications of policy change in a standard New Keynesian model. We anticipate that the central question going forward will be how best to combine the two approaches when modeling adaptation to structural change.Peer reviewe
Towards TB elimination in Malawi : a 5-year analysis of key indicators for TB control using surveillance data
No full textFunding: This work was supported by The Global Fund through the Partnership to Enhance Technical Support for Analytical Capacity and Data Use in East and Southern Africa (PERSUADE) project (Global Fund Grant Number 2022-000076) and the Establishment and operationalization of regional community of practice for peer learning and knowledge sharing in integrated digital health analytics and data use (Global Fund Grant Number 2025-003179).Background: Malawi's TB Control Programme emphasises data-driven approaches for monitoring TB control efforts, but programmatic indicators have never been systematically evaluated. This study evaluates the performance of Malawi's TB Control Programme, providing insights into national trends, geographical distributions, and programmatic gaps in TB care. Methods: Aggregate TB data collected through Malawi's District Health Information System from 2018 to 2022 were analysed cross-sectionally. We analysed trends in TB incidence and case notification rates (CNRs), calculated performance indicators, and assessed district-level variations using time-series plots and statistical comparisons. Population estimates were derived from the 2018 census and adjusted for annual growth. Findings: Malawi reported 18,025 new persons with TB in 2022. From 2005 to 2018, TB incidence and CNRs declined by 68.6% and 54.5%, respectively. The highest CNRs were recorded among men aged 35-64 years. Treatment success rates improved overall, reaching 89.2% in 2022, though disparities persisted for HIV-positive patients and those treated at tertiary facilities. Conclusion: Challenges remain in Malawi's TB control efforts, particularly in addressing case detection gaps in high-burden districts and improving outcomes for vulnerable populations. Strengthening active case finding, enhancing diagnostic capacity, and addressing socio-economic determinants of health are essential for sustaining progress and achieving END-TB Strategy goals.Peer reviewe
Male mating behaviour is shaped by previous experience of both conspecific and heterospecific females in the seed bug Lygaeus simulans
No full textFunding: This work was supported by the University of St Andrews.Mating decisions are often context-dependent. For example, choosy individuals may benefit from relaxing mate preferences if conspecific mates are scarce. However, prior experience of heterospecifics can also alter mating decisions, and this can influence the strength of species discrimination and/or sexual selection. Here, we investigate the effect of previous mating opportunities on the subsequent mating decisions of male Lygaeus simulans seed bugs, a species known both to experience reproductive interference (reproductive interactions with heterospecifics that are costly) and also male mate choice for larger females. We used a nested, hierarchical design whereby focal males were: (1) paired with a conspecific female or remained unpaired on day 1; (2) paired with a conspecific female, a heterospecific female, or were unpaired on day 6; (3) paired with a conspecific female or a heterospecific female on day 8. The sister species L. equestris provided the heterospecific partners. We found that males were less likely to mate with heterospecific L. equestris females if they had previously encountered a heterospecific, but only if copulation had not occurred during that encounter. Additionally, the willingness of males to copulate with conspecifics increased when males had prior conspecific experience, and decreased with prior heterospecific experience, suggesting that male pre-copulatory mating decisions are plastic and can be influenced by experience of both con- and heterospecifics.Peer reviewe
Step 1: the Scottish Trauma & Orthopaedics Equality Project : demographics and working patterns of a national workforce
No full textAims: Trauma & Orthopaedic (T&O) surgery has come under scrutiny for lagging behind other medical specialties in promoting gender and cultural equity and diversity within their workforce. The proportions of female, ethnic minority, and sexual and gender minority individuals within orthopaedic membership bodies are disproportionate to the populations they serve. The aim of this study is to report the findings of a national workforce survey of demographics and working patterns within T&O in Scotland. Methods: A questionnaire devised by a working group was delivered by the Client Analyst and Relationship Development (CARD) group. Utilizing a secure third party ensured anonymity for all respondents. Data were recorded and analyzed by the CARD group. Results: A total of 353 responses were recorded, representing 71% of the known workforce. Overall, 261 respondents (74%) identified as male, 85 (24%) female, and seven (2%) preferred not to say. For specialist trainee (ST)3 to ST6, 148 (42%) were female, and for ST7 to ST8, 131 (37%) were female. In total, 226 of all respondents (64%) were white-British, 35 (10%) were white-European, and 92 (26%) were of an ethnic minority background. A total of 321 of respondents (91%) identified as heterosexual, 14 (4%) preferred not to say, and 18 (5%) identified as LGBTQ+ or preferred to self-describe. Conclusion: This is the largest national workforce survey in contemporary surgical literature. The findings demonstrate a greater proportion of female surgeons overall compared to other studies in T&O. This proportion of females was highest among more junior trainees. The Scottish T&O workforce is more ethnically diverse than the demographics of the population it serves. This study suggests that T&O in Scotland is an evolving speciality in terms of equality and diversity, and is making positive progress.Peer reviewe
Insulin levels early in perimenopause inform vasomotor symptom incidence across the menopausal transition
No full textTempleman Lab research is supported by funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (PJT—183618). N.M.T. is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Metabolic Determinants of Reproduction and Aging, and a Michael Smith Health Research BC Scholar. This study uses publicly available data from SWAN, which has had grant support through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Nursing Research, and the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health.Context: Metabolic health impacts the menopausal transition. Metabolic characteristics like body mass index (BMI) affect vasomotor syndrome incidence, but the role of elevated insulin, an early marker of metabolic dysfunction, remains understudied. Objective: To determine whether midlife insulin levels are associated with vasomotor symptom incidence or reproductive hormone trajectories. Methods: Longitudinal analyses of community-based data from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) were conducted. We analyzed the 704 SWAN participants (of 3302) without oophorectomy or hysterectomy who had metabolic data for age 47 and did not take insulin/medications for hyperglycemia. Mean fasting insulin at 47 was 10.117 µIU/mL (SD = 6.711), with 27.0 kg/m2 BMI (SD = 6.6); mean age of final menstrual period for these participants was 51.0 years (SD = 2.3). Main outcome measures included vasomotor symptom timings and durations, and trajectories of estradiol, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and testosterone across the menopausal transition. Results: Higher insulin at 47 predicted younger onsets of hot flashes and night sweats, longer durations of hot flashes and cold sweats, and greater testosterone rise. BMI associations with vasomotor symptoms paralleled those of insulin, but BMI appeared more closely linked to slower estradiol decline and blunted FSH rise. In Cox proportional hazards models, elevated age-47 insulin was associated with increased likelihood of hot flashes; this remained significant with BMI and glucose as covariates. Conclusions: Perimenopausal fasting insulin and BMI show complementary but distinct associations with menopausal changes. Elevated insulin predicts earlier and prolonged vasomotor symptoms, and is associated with higher testosterone.Peer reviewe
A laboratory-focussed desk review of health systems in Uganda, Kenya, and the UK to respond to current and future pandemics
No full textFunding: We acknowledge funding from the Scottish Funding Council/Global Challenges Research Fund grant (SM-DO-XFC119) and the School of Medicine University of St Andrews that funded WM’s PhD project.Background Laboratory systems play a crucial role in managing diseases effectively, and the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a prime example. The pandemic underscored the need to make laboratory health systems more resilient and robust to respond to future pandemics. Methods We conducted a desk review guided by the six World Health Organization health system building blocks (health service delivery, health financing, medical products, vaccines, and technologies, human resources for health, governance, and health information systems). Results The three countries’ strengths include health information systems, well-established reference laboratories, mobile and community-level testing, a vibrant private laboratory sector in Uganda and Kenya, and a growing private sector in the UK. In Uganda and Kenya, there are laboratory connectivity solutions for molecular diagnostics, multi-disease testing platforms and specimen referral systems, while in the UK, there are hub-and-spoke networks. Weaknesses in Uganda and Kenya include vertical laboratory systems strengthening, ill-equipped laboratories, constrained and inequitable distribution of laboratory human resources, and limited data use. In the UK, there is chronic underfunding and undervaluing of disciplines supporting infection testing, microbiology and virology. Conclusions The growing contribution of the private sector in the three countries and the deployment of multi-disease testing platforms should be supported, given the advantage of shared financial costs in the face of chronic underfunding for laboratory systems.Peer reviewe
Increasing confidence in dependently typed programs
No full textThere exist numerous methods for testing and verifying software, including property based testing, automatic code generation, model checking, and proof assistants. Although these tools help ensure that software behaves according to its specification, they are typically deployed in isolation rather than as reinforcements for one another. As software complexity grows, so does the complexity of modelling and checking the system. While rigorous approaches such as model checking and formal proofs provide strong correctness guarantees, these have difficulty scaling and often require reimplementing the code in a separate verification language. This risks the semantics being lost in translation, as there is no guarantee that the verified model behaves the same as the deployed code. Programming languages with dependent types – such as Idris2 – present novel ways to enforce correctness through dependently typed terms. However, the complexity of the dependent types also grows with the complexity of the system. This raises the question: "How does one know that the typed model used for checking matches the specification?" Since dependent types are effectively type-level programs, how might one try to ensure that they accurately model the problem and do not themselves contain errors?
This thesis explores several approaches to this problem. It presents a tool for generating types and code from diagrams, leveraging human strengths in visual reasoning. Additionally, a type-level property based testing framework is presented, allowing dependently typed stateful models to be tested. Both approaches are evaluated over stateful systems of increasing complexity, with even small systems giving rise to subtle bugs in a dependently typed model. These results demonstrate the value of the tools presented, which combine multiple degrees of verification into a single system and reduce the expertise required to increase the confidence in dependently typed programs while strengthening the relation between the checked model and the implementation."This work was supported by a Doctoral Training Grant from the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews, awarded in 2020 by the Head of School at the time: Professor Simon Dobson. I am forever grateful.
Parts of the work were also supported by EPSRC grant EP/T007265/1."--Fundin
The isolation and nutritive value of leaf components
No full textThe aim of this work has been to investigate methods of disintegrating leaf material and to examine some of the products thereby liberated. The protein components of leaf cells have been examined with special reference to their Biological Value. Some attention has also been given to the seasonal variation in the protein and chlorophyll contents of some of the more common forage crops. Initial studies have also been carried out on the distribution of lipoids (including carotenoids) in leaves.
The work has been extended by others, and it has been found possible to isolate proteins and carotenoids in amount and condition likely to make a significant contribution to the feeding of animals
Vivarium
No full textMonsters and folklore are vital components of making and unmaking within the creative and non-creative ecosystem. Their significance not only lies in what they reveal to us about our culture, but also enact as a mode in which narrative is challenged and structured. They are more importantly tied to the primordial innovation that is our imagination, which composites fact and fiction within the same space. This poetry collection seeks to demonstrate how monstrosity, folklore, and the fantastical are still prevalent within our society today. From poems based on research about body brokers, de-extinction projects, and “cybrothels” to gender, language, diaspora, and form, Vivarium demonstrates how monsters influence our socio-cultural and socio-political landscapes, and the importance of questioning, complicating, and reflecting on boundaries. It presents odd associations where the horrific and strange is both beautiful and terrifying, and relies on elements of weird fiction and prose poetry as a means to demonstrate poetic monstrosity. The research presented in this collection justifies the significance of monster theory within academic and creative pursuits, and asks readers to contemplate on the power of narrative
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