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Early career researchers have unique demands, many of which contribute to increased stress, decreased professional fulfillment, and burnout. Consequently, academic institutions and government organizations, such as the National Institutes of Health, are beginning to embrace structured coaching as a tool to support physician wellbeing. To date, such coaching programs have demonstrated promising results, but little is known about whether early career research faculty find coaching feasible, accessible, or helpful. To explore this question further, we developed a novel group coaching intervention for clinician researchers and scientific faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center based on the concept of appreciative inquiry, grounding the program in a positive and hopeful approach to the challenges faced by clinicians and researchers. Results from our program indicate this intervention is feasible, satisfactory, and helpful, with participants reporting enhanced self-reflection and empowerment. Effective for a wide array of research faculty, our program brought together diverse faculty, fostered connections, and encouraged future collaborations among this translational group. This suggests that our program provides a foundational blueprint that can be used by other academic medical centers who aim to develop group coaching efforts.
Based on present knowledge of atmospheric composition, a mechanism for the natural formation of vesicles in the lakes of Titan is proposed. It involves precipitation-induced spray droplets coated by a monolayer of amphiphiles. On interaction with the monolayer on the lake’s surface, bilayer membranes are being formed that encapsulate the liquid phase of the original droplet. The resulting vesicles develop thermodynamic stability by continuous compositional selection of various types of amphiphiles in a dynamic equilibrium, leading to an optimized vesicle stability. Different populations of stable vesicles may compete, initiating a long-term evolution process that could eventually result in primitive protocells. The existence of any type of vesicles on Titan would prove that early steps towards increasing order and complexity have taken place, which represent the necessary precondition for abiogenesis. A valid analytical approach could involve a laser device with combined light scattering analysis and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. It would allow for very sensitive detection of amphiphiles as well as for the observation of dispersed vesicles.
This article explores the role of representative assemblies in the diverse territories of the early modern Spanish and Portuguese empires spanning the Americas, parts of Asia, and Africa. It begins with a concise overview of the Portuguese and Spanish representative assemblies, commonly referred to as the Cortes. The second section raises some preliminary questions about how the parliamentary culture brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to their overseas possessions shaped, and was shaped by, local understandings of political participation in institutions with a representational character. The third section examines the complex debate over the integration of representatives from overseas municipalities into the Castilian and Portuguese Cortes. The fourth and final section analyses the interaction between Iberian parliamentary culture and a range of Asian, Indigenous American, and African perspectives on participation in representative gatherings. The principal argument is that representative assemblies, the debates they generated, and their varying degrees of prominence, reflect the fundamental changes observed in the political and legal structure of the Portuguese and Spanish empires.
Network meta-analysis (NMA) is becoming increasingly important, especially in the field of medicine, as it allows for comparisons across multiple trials with different interventions. For time-to-event data, that is, survival data, traditional NMA based on the proportional hazards (PH) assumption simply synthesizes reported hazard ratios (HRs). Novel methods for NMA based on the non-PH assumption have been proposed and implemented using R software. However, these methods often involve complex methodologies and require advanced programming skills, creating a barrier for many researchers. Therefore, we developed an R Shiny tool, NMAsurv (https://psurvivala.shinyapps.io/NMAsurv/). NMAsurv allows users with little or zero background in R to conduct survival-data-based NMA effortlessly. The tool supports various functions such as drawing network plots, testing the PH assumption, and building NMA models. Users can input either reconstructed pseudo-individual participant data or aggregated data. NMAsurv offers a user-friendly interface for extracting parameter estimations from various NMA models, including fractional polynomial, piecewise exponential models, parametric survival models, Cox PH model, and generalized gamma model. Additionally, it enables users to effortlessly create survival and HR plots. All operations can be performed by an intuitive “point-and-click” interface. In this study, we introduce all the functionalities and features of NMAsurv and demonstrate its application using a real-world NMA example.
We construct explicit generating series of arithmetic extensions of Kudla’s special divisors on integral models of unitary Shimura varieties over CM fields with arbitrary split levels and prove that they are modular forms valued in the arithmetic Chow groups. This provides a partial solution to Kudla’s modularity problem. The main ingredient in our construction is S. Zhang’s theory of admissible arithmetic divisors. The main ingredient in the proof is an arithmetic mixed Siegel-Weil formula.
Health economic evaluations are important for healthcare resource allocation. Reviews of health economic evaluations for medical devices have highlighted concerns about the quality of these studies. The complexity of medical devices, including learning curve effects, organizational impact, dynamic pricing, low evidence, and incremental innovation presents unique challenges compared with pharmaceuticals. To support developing a methodological quality assessment instrument for medical device economic evaluations, we conducted a systematic review to identify and evaluate existing economic evaluation quality assessment instruments for suitability in medical device evaluations.
Methods
A comprehensive search of databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, EconLit, CINAHL, and Web of Science) and grey literature was conducted. Two reviewers screened titles and abstracts. Full-text, peer-reviewed primary studies introducing original instruments were included. Only methodological quality assessment instruments were considered for data extraction. Each item was assessed for its suitability in evaluating medical device economic evaluations and inclusion of medical device-specific features.
Results
The search identified 4203 citations and 77 grey literature sources. Fifteen results underwent full-text assessment, with five relevant instruments identified. A previous systematic review identified 10 additional instruments, which we also considered. Of these 25 articles, 13 were included in the review. These instruments lack specificity for medical devices, particularly in addressing features like learning curve effects, organizational impact, and incremental innovation. Instruments should include items specific to these unique characteristics.
Conclusions
Existing instruments contain general items related to health economic evaluation studies, highlighting the need for an instrument specifically tailored to evaluate the methodological quality of medical device economic evaluation studies.
Solar radiation modification (SRM) presents important challenges to risk regulation and governance, arising from the array of multiple risks that SRM may influence. SRM would not simply reverse climate change, but could pose further ancillary impacts, depending on the method of SRM, such as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), marine cloud brightening (MCB), or a space-based planetary sunshade system (PSS). We identify multiple risks that SRM may influence, both biophysical and sociopolitical, to be compared to the multiple risks that may be affected by greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and climate adaptation. This multi-risk framework helps analysts and decision makers identify, evaluate, and compare multiple risks holistically; helps identify affected groups to overcome problems of disregard and omitted voice; helps compare policy options and map the array of risks to corresponding (or missing) governance mechanisms; and seeks risk-superior policies that would reduce multiple risks in concert. We then examine governance frameworks: uncoordinated, coordinated and comprehensive. We suggest two key mechanisms that can help build up from uncoordinated toward more coordinated or even comprehensive approaches, and that can gain support from SRM advocates, observers and critics alike: a series of international assessments of SRM, and a transparent international monitoring system for SRM.
The Corn Belt is famously responsible for the bulk of U.S. corn production, and over half of its production comes from counties that rely on artificial drainage. We trace the history of this extensive investment in farmland and document the importance of a key institutional innovation, the drainage management district, which increased the land value of naturally wet eastern U.S. counties by 20–37 percent ($16.8–18.7 billion in 2020 dollars). While dramatically increasing agricultural productivity, drainage converted more than half of the 215 million acres of wetlands estimated to have existed in the United States at the time of colonization to agriculture.
The Galapagos sea lion (Zalophus wollebaeki) is an endemic and endangered species that plays a vital role in the ecosystem dynamics of the archipelago. In recent decades, they have faced a significant population decline, related to the effects of climate variability and anthropogenic influences. Thus, the co-occurrence of sea lion resting areas with mosquito breeding sites and the presence of free-roaming domestic dogs present significant health risks related to parasite transmission. This research demonstrates the occurrence of Dirofilaria immitis (canine heartworm) in Z. wollebaeki, indicating their possible function as a definitive host for this parasite. Blood samples collected in August 2023 from 50 individuals (juveniles and adults) in 2 rookeries of San Cristóbal Island, revealed a 2% prevalence of D. immitis in juvenile females, as confirmed by Knott’s test and polymerase chain reaction analysis. Results of this work emphasize the critical necessity for effective monitoring and conservation strategies to address the threat posed by D. immitis and to safeguard this endangered species.
The transition from primary to secondary school, encompassing the pre-, during-, and post-transition stages, often poses significant challenges for students on the autism spectrum. This critical period has garnered growing research attention; however, the perspectives of Australian parents on the support their autistic children receive post-transition remain largely unexplored. Underpinned by a transcendental phenomenological epistemology and Kohler’s Taxonomy for Transition Programming, we explored Australian parents’ perspectives on the support being provided to their children on the autism spectrum and how these students experience this post-transition period. Four parents of high-school-aged children on the autism spectrum participated in interviews, conducted online via Zoom. A deductive content analysis of parents’ insights revealed overwhelming dissatisfaction with the post-transition support provided to their children on the autism spectrum, particularly surrounding home–school collaboration practices and the utilisation of personalised learning. The findings contribute a much-needed Australian perspective to the limited body of research focused on sustaining support for students on the autism spectrum beyond the initial transition to secondary school.
Let $\mathcal {D}$ be a Hom-finite, Krull-Schmidt, 2-Calabi-Yau triangulated category with a rigid object R. Let $\Lambda =\operatorname {End}_{\mathcal {D}}R$ be the endomorphism algebra of R. We introduce the notion of mutation of maximal rigid objects in the two-term subcategory $R\ast R[1]$ via exchange triangles, which is shown to be compatible with the mutation of support $\tau $-tilting $\Lambda $-modules. In the case that $\mathcal {D}$ is the cluster category arising from a punctured marked surface, it is shown that the graph of mutations of support $\tau $-tilting $\Lambda $-modules is isomorphic to the graph of flips of certain collections of tagged arcs on the surface, which is moreover proved to be connected. Consequently, the mutation graph of support $\tau $-tilting modules over a skew-gentle algebra is connected. This generalizes one main result in [49].
Putnam’s Twin-Earth thought experiment has been hugely influential as an argument in favor of semantic externalism. In this article, I argue that the Twin-Earth thought experiment relies on some previously unnoticed metaphysical assumptions about how to individuate words. My aim is not to argue that semantic externalism is false. Rather I aim to show that Putnam’s thought experiment is only effective as an argument for semantic externalism if we also are committed to certain additional highly controversial and/or implausible claims within the metaphysics of words. I close by arguing that a similar argument for semantic externalism by Burge also relies on unnoticed metaphysical assumptions in the metaphysics of words.
Modeling detailed chemical kinetics is a primary challenge in combustion simulations. We present a novel framework to enforce physical constraints, specifically total mass and elemental conservation, during the reaction of ML models’ training for the reduced composition space chemical kinetics of large chemical mechanisms in combustion. In these models, the transport equations for a subset of representative species are solved with the ML approaches, while the remaining nonrepresentative species are “recovered” with a separate artificial neural network trained on data. Given the strong correlation between full and reduced solution vectors, our method utilizes a small neural network to establish an accurate and physically consistent mapping. By leveraging this mapping, we enforce physical constraints in the training process of the ML model for reduced composition space chemical kinetics. The framework is demonstrated here for methane, CH4, and oxidation. The resulting solution vectors from our deep operator networks (DeepONet)-based approach are accurate and align more consistently with physical laws.
Chapter 6, Branding Birth Control, examines how birth-controllers used claims about medical works’ vulnerability to destruction under the Hicklin test to distance contraception from immorality, frame its advocacy as a free speech issue, and generate publicity for the cause. Contraception pamphlets first published by radicals in the 1820s and 1830s had long been sold by both social reformers and pornographers. In 1876, a figure with feet in both domains was arrested for selling Charles Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy (1832). The following year, Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh engineered their own arrest for selling it. The chapter examines the selective publication history that Bradlaugh and Besant constructed to divorce Fruits from its associations with promoscuity and promote contraception advocacy as a respectable, progressive cause, and shows that birth-controllers went on to sell huge volumes of literature on contraception. Although they encountered relatively little legal opposition, they often claimed that selling such works was very risky. These claims operated as a way of generating further publicity for the cause, and branding it as brave, modern, and progressive.
This study investigates the integration of literal completions of idiomatic multiword expressions (MWEs) into two linguistic contexts: one promoting a literal interpretation and the other a figurative one, requiring reinterpretation to align with figurative bias. Sixteen Italian idioms were distributed in two groups by their Potential Idiomatic Ambiguity (PIA) score, an index of literal plausibility, decomposability and transparency. Using experimental dialogues, the study tested whether high-PIA idioms receive higher acceptability ratings across both contexts than low-PIA idioms. Eighty-four Italian-speaking participants rated idiom literal completions within literal and figurative contexts. Results show that literal completions of high-PIA idioms integrate better across contexts, while those of low-PIA idioms receive lower ratings and have longer combined reading and rating times. This supports hybrid models of idiom processing, emphasizing the role of idiomatic features and context in balancing figurative and compositional interpretations. This study also marks an initial effort to experimentally trace systematicity within idiomatic wordplay, challenging the idea that it lacks relevance for linguistic research while outlining limitations and directions for future work.
To examine how aligned the UK food supply is with the Eatwell Guide and identify discrepancies that should be addressed to support the availability of healthy diets for the population.
Design:
A dietary gap assessment was carried out on the 2022 UK food supply with FAOSTAT Food Balance Sheets (FAO-FBS) data, including domestic production, imports and exports and excluding animal feed, seeds and non-food uses. Foods were grouped into potatoes and cereals, oils and spreads, dairy products, protein, fruit and vegetables and sugar. The percentage contribution of each food group to the food supply was compared with the Eatwell Guide. An overview of the food supply from 2010 to 2022 was also created. To triangulate the data, FAO-FBS data were compared with the 2022 data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
Setting:
UK, 2010–2022
Participants:
N/A
Results:
The proportion of fruit and vegetables, potatoes and cereals in the UK food supply was lower than the Eatwell Guide, while dairy products and oil were higher. Only 7 % of the food produced in the UK in 2022 was fruit and vegetables. This was the second smallest proportion, after oils and spreads (6 %), and about half the amount of sugar beet produced (13 %).
Conclusion:
Although the relationship between food supply and consumption is complex, taking a more coherent approach by integrating dietary recommendations with the food supply could help increase the availability of the recommended healthy diet. Going forward, DEFRA should include dietary gap assessments in future Food Security Reports.