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Weeds pose a significant threat to Oregon field crops by reducing yields and compromising the quality of the harvested products. In fall 2024, Oregon stakeholders were surveyed to identify the key challenges and needs related to weed management in field crops. The survey consisted of eight questions, developed based on expert input and review of relevant literature, divided into three sections: respondent demographics, resource and support needs, and current weed management challenges and economic impacts. A total of 184 responses were collected statewide, with growers and crop consultants as the primary participants. Most respondents were from western Oregon, which may introduce a geographic bias to the findings. Respondents expressed particular interest in new herbicide technologies and herbicide resistance. Field days were the most preferred method for receiving weed management information. Annual bluegrass, Italian ryegrass, and roughstalk bluegrass were reported as the most problematic grass weeds, while wild carrot was the most problematic broadleaf weed. Most respondents reported an average weed control cost of US$125 to US$250 per hectare, and the majority indicated they were very concerned about herbicide resistance in their fields. The results from this survey will help guide future research and outreach efforts to improve weed management strategies in Oregon’s field crops.
Christianity is a religion of the book, and in particular of one book, the Bible. More precisely, it is a religion of a library of plural books (biblia) that eventually became one single book. It is possible to view the history of all Christian traditions, and not Protestantism alone, as a history of the canonical formation, liturgical and devotional use, cultural influence, contested theological interpretation and geographical diffusion of the Bible. In view of the magnitude of the subject, it is not surprising that very few historians have set out to encapsulate this grand narrative in a single volume. Bruce Gordon, the distinguished historian of early modern European Protestantism, has now made the attempt, and it is a valiant effort of stupendous chronological and geographical range, extending across the entire span of Christian history and covering all continents, though Australasia receives only a paragraph, oddly devoted to the New Hebrides. Not quite so rare are historians who have set out to chart the impact of one translation of the Bible on a single nation or family of nations – notably the role of the King James Bible of 1611 (the Authorised Version) in shaping the language and religious culture of English-speaking peoples, including those in the New World of North America.1
With more than 1 million children in the United States living with a heart defect or condition, it is important to identify interventions that may minimise the long-term impacts of repeated medical surveillance and care. Thus, the purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine relationships between facility dog intervention and young children’s anxiety during outpatient echocardiogram.
Methods:
Participants were seventy children aged 18 months to 8 years undergoing echocardiogram in a paediatric cardiology clinic. Child anxiety was scored by a trained nurse observer pre- and post-procedure using the modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale. Facility dog intervention included individualised play, positioning, therapeutic conversation and touch, and emotional support throughout to promote coping and compliance. Parents and staff completed a post-procedural perceptions survey about their experiences.
Results:
Paired samples t-tests demonstrated child anxiety levels were significantly lower post-procedure compared to pre-procedure (Z = −3.974, p < .001). This direction held for nearly all participants; however, those with prior echocardiogram history demonstrated significantly higher anxiety levels at the pre-procedural timepoint (z = −2.442, p = .015). Caregivers (97.2%) and staff (87.9%) agreed or strongly agreed that facility dog intervention was helpful in this context.
Conclusions:
Facility dog intervention was associated with a significant reduction in young children’s anxiety across procedural timepoints in outpatient echocardiography. The intervention was perceived as helpful by families and staff; no workflow changes or barriers were noted. Thus, facility dog intervention may be a well-received and promising care innovation for this vulnerable chronic population.
This cross-sectional study evaluated the nutritional composition and labelling of commercial foods in Canada targeted to infants up to 18 months of age. Front-of-package labelling requirements were assessed based on daily values identified by Health Canada for saturated fatty acids, sugars, and sodium for children aged one year and older. Infant commercial food products were identified from online and in-person records of retailers across Canada. A total of 1,010 products were identified. Products aimed at older infants (12–18 months) contained significantly more calories, macronutrients, sugars, saturated fat, and trans fat compared to those targeted at younger infants (<12 months). In addition, 40% of products for children aged 12–18 months required a ‘high in sugar’ front-of-package label, while less required a ‘high in saturated fats’ (13%) and ‘high in sodium’ (5%) label. Organic products had higher added sugar and fibre, while they were lower in calories, total fat, saturated fat, and protein. Plant-based products, including vegetarian/vegan products, contained fewer calories, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, and protein, but more fibre. Gluten-containing products had more calories, macronutrients, sugar, fibre, and saturated fat. Non-GMO labelled products had more calories, carbohydrates, and sugar, but less saturated fat. Significant differences were observed for vitamins and minerals across food categories (p < 0.05). Our findings offer valuable guidance for parents, caregivers, and healthcare professionals on infant nutrition, highlighting the importance of selecting foods that align with infants’ specific dietary needs.
Neonates with ductal-dependent CHD rely on the patency of the ductus arteriosus to maintain circulation. Alprostadil is utilised to maintain ductal patency, although optimal dosing has not been determined. This study aims to describe alprostadil dosing in neonates with ductal-dependent CHD.
Methods:
This is a single-centre retrospective study including neonatal patients with ductal-dependent CHD who received alprostadil from January 2015 to December 2015 (cohort 1) and January 2021 to December 2021 (cohort 2). The primary objective was to describe alprostadil dosing in the two study periods. Secondary objectives included clinical outcomes and adverse events associated with different alprostadil dosing strategies.
Results:
Sixty-five patients met eligibility for inclusion in this study: thirty-eight patients in cohort 1 and twenty-seven patient s in cohort 2. Baseline demographics were similar between cohorts. Initial alprostadil dosing in cohort 1 and cohort 2 was 0.006 mcg/kg/min and 0.025 mcg/kg/min (p = < 0.001), respectively. Patients in cohort 2 were found to have a higher incidence of apneic events, apneic events requiring respiratory support, and the incidence of fever ≥38 °C.
Conclusions:
In this single-centre study, we report that higher doses of alprostadil were associated with an increased risk of adverse events, which should be validated by prospective multicentre studies.
The Pain Recognition and Evaluation to Validate Effective Neck and back Treatment (PREVENT) study aims to identify cognitive, behavioral, and treatmentrelated predictors of chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) development following emergency department (ED) care for acute neck or back pain after trauma.
Background:
CMP is a leading cause of global disability, yet early risk factors for its development remain poorly characterized, particularly in ED settings. This prospective observational study will recruit 246 adult patients presenting with acute (≤ 4 weeks) neck or back pain after a recent trauma. Pain beliefs – measured using pain and attitude questionnaires – serve as the primary independent variable. Mediating variables include catastrophic thinking, fear-avoidance behaviors, low physical activity, poor recovery expectations, and low self-efficacy for pain management. Covariates include demographics, social determinants of health, mental health disorders, and high-risk substance use. The primary outcome is the presence of CMP at six months, defined as pain on most or every day for at least three months. Participants will complete follow-ups at 1, 3, and 6 months. Multivariable logistic regression, mediation analyses, and interaction testing will explore effects of pain beliefs on CMP development. As a secondary aim, a subset of participants will complete Think Aloud cognitive interviews to assess response process validity for the Neck Pain Attitudes Questionnaire (Neck-PAQ), a region-specific adaptation of the Back Pain Attitude Questionnaire, analyzed using a deductive content analysis framework.
Discussion:
This study is among the first to investigate the cognitive and behavioral predictors of pain chronification in the ED. Ethical approval has been obtained from The George Washington University Institutional Review Board. Findings will inform the design of targeted, ED-based screening and intervention strategies, including adaptation of a pain-specific Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) model. Results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conferences, and stakeholder engagement.
A reassessment of radiocarbon counting statistics in accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) at the Andre E. Lalonde National Facility revealed that the traditionally assumed Poisson distribution may not always apply. An extensive analysis of 2.5 years of 14C and 12C data was conducted on a MICADAS™ AMS. This study found that only 63% of results adhered to Poisson statistics, while 34.2% showed slight deviations, and 2.8% exhibited strong non-Poisson behavior. This finding challenges the classic assumption that radiocarbon AMS is inherently a Poisson process. This study recommends considering non-Poisson models, specifically quasi-Poisson and negative binomial models, to better account for internal error and improve the accuracy of the reported error. Integrating 12C current noise into error calculations is also suggested as it plays a significant role in measurement variability. We would like to ignite curiosity on other AMS laboratories to test the non-Poisson error framework with the broader aim of assessing its applicability in improving conventional statistical models, error expansion methods, and in ensuring more accurate and reliable 14C results.
This study examines the resolved Kennicutt-Schmidt (rK-S) relation, defined as the connection between the star formation rate surface density ($\Sigma_{SFR}$) and the molecular gas mass surface density ($\Sigma_{H_2}$) in the high-density central regions of three nearby barred spiral galaxies hosting AGN: NGC 1365, NGC 1433, and NGC 1566. Utilising high-resolution archival data from AstroSat/UVIT for UV imaging and Atacama Large Millimetere/submillimetre Array (ALMA) for CO(2-1) molecular gas mapping, we explore recent star formation and gas distribution with a spatial resolution of $\sim$120–132 pc. Our findings reveal a sublinear rK-S law, with slopes ranging from $\sim$0.17 to $\sim$0.71. Notably, NGC 1566 exhibits a robust rK-S relation consistent with previous studies, while NGC 1365 and NGC 1433 exhibit weaker correlations. These differences are likely due to the smaller number of identified star-forming regions in these galaxies compared to NGC 1566, as well as the central molecular gas concentrations and varying star formation activity in their bars and nuclear regions. These results also support the idea that the rK-S relation deviates from linearity in extreme environments, such as starburst galaxies and galactic centres. Additionally, we find a generally low median star formation efficiency (SFE) within the bars of these galaxies, suggesting that while bars may drive nuclear starbursts and contribute to bulge growth, they do not significantly increase SFE. Furthermore, a negative correlation between SFE and $\Sigma_{H_2}$ is observed across the sample, both within and outside the bar regions, suggesting that higher $\Sigma_{H_2}$ may lead to lower SFE in the central regions of these galaxies. Our findings highlight that $\Sigma_{H_2}$ plays a primary role in shaping the observed trends in SFE, rather than the presence of a bar itself.
Over the past decade, the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has spurred a wave of ambitious initiatives from leading technology giants, as well as significant policy responses from governments worldwide (Taeihagh, 2021). Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and OpenAI have invested heavily in AI research and development, aiming to push the boundaries of machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and other AI-driven innovations (Odhabi & Abi-Raad, 2024; van der Vlist et al., 2024). These advancements are not only transforming industries but are also reshaping workplace dynamics such as talent management (Vaiman et al., 2021) and organizational behavior (Mudunuri et al., 2025), creating new challenges and opportunities for industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology (see Asfahani, 2022 for a review). As AI technologies become increasingly integrated into various human resource (HR) practices and decision-making processes (Vrontis et al., 2022), I-O psychologists are uniquely positioned to address the implications of these changes for workforce development and organizational effectiveness.
This editorial introduces the special issue dedicated to commemorating the life and scholarly achievements of Professor Joan Rovira Forns, a distinguished health economist whose pioneering work continues to influence global health policy and research. We discuss why Professor Rovira was a prominent figure in the field and summarise some of his key contributions. Next, we highlight the collection of papers featured in this issue, explaining how they connect to his work and contribute to his lasting legacy by celebrating his interdisciplinary approach and dedication to societal impact.
In meta-analyses of survival rates, precision information (i.e., standard errors (SEs) or confidence intervals) are often missing in clinical studies. In current practice, such studies are often excluded from the synthesis analyses. However, the naïve deletion of these incomplete data can produce serious biases and loss of precision in pooled estimators. To address these issues, we developed a simple but effective method to impute precision information using commonly available statistics from individual studies, such as sample size, number of events, and risk set size at a time point of interest. By applying this new method, we can effectively circumvent the deletion of incomplete data, resultant biases, and losses of precision. Based on extensive simulation studies, the developed method markedly improves the accuracy and precision of the pooled estimators compared to those of naïve analyses that delete studies with missing precision. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed method was not significantly inferior to the ideal case, where there was no missing precision information. However, for studies for which the risk set size at the time of interest was not available, the proposed method runs the risk of overestimating the SE. Although the proposed method is a single-imputation method, the simulations show that there is no underestimation bias of the SE, even though the proposed method does not consider the uncertainty of missing values. To demonstrate the robustness of our proposed methods, they were applied in a systematic review of radiotherapy data. An R package was developed to implement the proposed procedure.
Comparative research documents substantial education- and income-based class gaps in parent spending on children’s education, with important repercussions for the perpetuation of intergenerational (dis)advantage. Spurred by higher levels of income inequality and associated economic transformations, some speculate these gaps may have widened, as parents feel intensified pressure to best position their children in increasingly competitive labour markets. We examine the size and evolution—over time and in response to higher inequality—of these class gaps in the Canadian provinces, a context where we propose competitive pressures may be muted by the country’s relatively unstratified post-secondary education system. Exploiting provincial and temporal variation in Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending (2006–2019), we show that more highly educated parents, and to a lesser extent high-income ones, place distinct emphasis on education spending. However, we find limited evidence of changes in these spending patterns in response to income inequality or over time.
We assessed implementation of a local intravenous-to-enteral antimicrobial transition protocol for pediatric hematology/oncology and bone marrow transplant patients with bacterial or candidal bloodstream infection and central line removal. Among 76 cases, 57 met protocol criteria. Enteral antimicrobials were used in 29 (50.8%) cases meeting eligibility criteria for conversion.
Zoonotic diseases caused by parasites of wildlife origin represent a global health problem. As a top mammalian predator, the brown bear (Ursus arctos) can spread various parasites, including those that are potentially hazardous to human health. However, data on brown bear parasite fauna in Europe, and especially its seasonal dynamics, are scarce. The aim of this study was to analyse brown bear gastrointestinal parasites (helminths and protozoa) and to investigate their seasonal dynamics. Brown bear scats were collected from the eastern part of Estonia during one year, from spring 2022 to spring 2023. At first, we performed genetic host identification and selected 148 scat samples for further analyses. Parasite eggs and oocysts were identified based on morphology. The results revealed that the endoparasite prevalence among brown bears of Estonia is one of the highest in Europe (FO = 75%). The most prevalent were nematodes (60%), followed by protozoa (16%), cestodes (7%), trematodes (4%), and a single finding of an acanthocephalan. Of all endoparasites, the bear nematode Baylisascaris transfuga had the highest prevalence (51%). Importantly, the prevalence of nematodes and protozoa was season-dependent: highest for nematodes in autumn and lowest in spring, whereas protozoa followed the opposite dynamics. The vast majority of identified parasite taxa were zoonotic and are thus potentially hazardous to humans. This highlights the importance of monitoring wildlife parasites as an essential part of the One Health approach.
We report experimental optical and thermodynamical studies of convection cooling for face cooling of laser amplifier disks. Amplifier maquettes are used to explore the flow regime in laser relevant conditions, and to measure heat exchange coefficients $h$. We thus benchmark analytical and numerical predictions, based on common models of turbulence. The ${y}^{+}$ model appears best suited to compute $h$ in the laminar regime, and the Reynolds-Average Navier–Stokes model in the weakly turbulent regime. By strioscopic imaging, we examine the optical properties of the flows, in particular the onset of a striation instability occurring well before the transition to turbulence. At higher Reynolds numbers, the unstable thermal layer is shown to be pushed back onto the surface, suppressing effectively the wavefront distortions from striations. This super-forced thermal regime may be of high interest for very high thermal loads.
The Practical Self offers a new and gripping account of the conditions on being self-conscious subjects. Gomes argues that self-conscious subjects are required to have faith in themselves as the agents of thinking, sustained and supported by worldly practices. I argue that that Gomes leaves open either theoretical or alternative practical grounds to justify being the agents of thinking and so does not motivate an appeal to faith as the mode of assent. And I ask whether we can make available an alternative account of the tight relation between communal practices and self-consciousness that preserves it, absent faith.
We report the introduction of Juxtacribrilina mutabilis, a nonindigenous marine encrusting bryozoan, to eastern Canada. Previously reported as a nonindigenous species (NIS) in Europe and Maine, USA, this species is of potential ecological concern due to its propensity to foul eelgrass (Zostera marina), an ecologically important habitat-forming coastal species. By compiling prior unpublished records, re-evaluating existing specimens, and collecting new records of J. mutabilis, we discovered that the species has a widespread distribution in eastern Canada. Specimen reclassification efforts in our study indicate that J. mutabilis has been present in eastern Canada since at least 2013, but the species largely escaped notice until 2024, likely due to its similarity to other encrusting bryozoan species and other factors inhibiting its detection. In light of the distributional and genetic data collected in this study, we reconstruct the possible invasion history of J. mutabilis in eastern Canada, including potential introduction mechanisms, timing, and source regions. We also discuss the ecology of J. mutabilis in eastern Canada, evaluating the factors influencing the morphology of the bryozoan, assessing its potential to detrimentally impact its eelgrass substrate, and estimating its environmental niche. Further research into the distribution, ecology, and potential impacts of J. mutabilis in eastern Canada is recommended. This case study highlights the importance of diversity in the habitats surveyed and methods used when monitoring for marine NIS, the need for horizon scanning to raise awareness of potential NIS, and the advantages of multi-party collaboration and citizen science for early detection of such species.