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There is concern amongst the public, equestrians, animal welfare organisations, and horse-sport governing bodies regarding the welfare of performance horses, but equestrian culture appears slow to change. The present study seeks to increase our understanding of human factors underlying the persistence of welfare-compromising management and training practices within the performance horse world. Individual, semi-structured interviews focused on equestrians’ attitudes were conducted with 22 equestrians from classical equestrian disciplines in the US, Canada, and the UK. Interview transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Five main themes were identified: perception of welfare issues; conflicting conceptions of a good life; objectification of the horse; instrumentalisation of horse care; and enculturation. Participants perceived and were concerned about horse welfare, but expressed dissonance-reducing strategies, including trivialisation, reframing and justification. Participants shared conflicting conceptions of a good life and described how equestrian activities may infringe upon horse welfare. Objectification of horses was among the attitudinal factors identified that may permit persistence of harmful practices, while the instrumentalisation of care theme showed how management practices often focused on performance and the horse’s job more than care about the horse. Finally, enculturation (the process of adopting attitudes and behaviours of a culture) in equestrianism may be fundamental to maintaining practices and attitudes that compromise horse welfare. These findings provide an enhanced understanding of why horse welfare issues persist in classical equestrian disciplines and may inform future human behaviour change strategies to promote improved horse welfare.
To investigate the source and transmission dynamics of an endoscope-associated New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase-producing Klebsiella pneumonia (NDM-KP) outbreak.
Design:
Epidemiological and genomic investigation.
Setting:
Academic acute care hospital in New Jersey.
Patients:
Five patients with active NDM-KP infection identified on clinical isolates, and four NDM-KP colonized patients identified via rectal swab screening.
Results:
Over a twelve-month period, nine patients were identified with NDM-KP infection or colonization. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) revealed that all of the identified cases were related by 25 mutational events or less. Seven of the cases were linked to gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures (four clinical cases and three positive screens among patients exposed to endoscopes suspected of transmission). Two cases demonstrated delayed transmission that occurred five months after the initial outbreak, likely through shared usage of a non-therapeutic gastroscope without an elevator channel.
Conclusions:
Although all endoscope cultures in our investigation were negative, the epidemiological link to gastrointestinal endoscopes, the high degree of relatedness via WGS, and the identification of asymptomatic NDM-KP colonization among patients exposed to shared endoscopes make the endoscopic mode of transmission most likely. This investigation highlights the probable transmission of NDM-KP via a gastroscope without an elevator channel, observed several months after an initial outbreak. We hypothesize that persistent mechanical defects may have contributed to the delayed device-related transmission of NDM-KP.
We propose that IAM and déjà vu may not share a placement on the same gradient, per se, but the mechanism of cue familiarity detection, and a major differentiating factor between the two metacognitive experiences is whether the resulting inward directed search of memory yields retrieved content or not. Déjà vu may manifest when contentless familiarity detection is inexplicable by the experiencer.
Loneliness and physical activity are important targets for research into the impact of COVID-19 because they have established links with mental health, could be exacerbated by social distancing policies, and are potentially modifiable. In this study, we aimed to identify whether loneliness and physical activity were associated with worse mental health during a period of mandatory social distancing in the UK.
Design:
Population-based observational cohort study.
Setting:
Mental health data collected online during COVID-19 from an existing sample of adults aged 50 and over taking part in a longitudinal study of aging. All had comparable annual data collected between 2015 and 2019.
Participants:
Three-thousand two-hundred and eighty-one participants aged 50 and over.
Measurements:
Trajectories of depression (measured by PHQ-9) and anxiety (measured by GAD-7) between 2015 and 2020 were analyzed with respect to loneliness, physical activity levels, and a number of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics using zero-inflated negative binomial regression.
Results:
In 2020, PHQ-9 score for loneliness, adjusted for covariates, was 3.23 (95% CI: 3.01–3.44), an increase of around 1 point on all previous years in this group and 2 points higher than people not rated lonely, whose score did not change in 2020 (1.22, 95% CI: 1.12–1.32). PHQ-9 was 2.60 (95% CI: 2.43–2.78) in people with decreased physical activity, an increase of .5 on previous years. In contrast, PHQ-9 in 2020 for people whose physical activity had not decreased was 1.66, 95% CI: 1.56−1.75, similar to previous years. A similar relationship was observed for GAD-7 though the absolute burden of symptoms lower.
Conclusion:
After accounting for pre-COVID-19 trends, we show that experiencing loneliness and decreased physical activity are risk factors for worsening mental health during the pandemic. Our findings highlight the need to examine policies which target these potentially modifiable risk factors.
Previous research has identified a lack of clarification regarding paramedic professional obligation to work. Understanding community expectations of paramedics will provide some clarity around this issue. The objective of this research was to explore the expectations of a sample of Australian community members regarding the professional obligation of paramedics to respond during pandemics.
Methods:
The authors used qualitative methods to gather Australian community member perspectives immediately before the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Focus groups were used for data collection, and a thematic analysis was conducted.
Results:
The findings revealed 9 key themes: context of obligation (normal operations versus crisis situation), hierarchy of obligation (individual versus organizational obligation), risk acceptability, acceptable occupational risk (it’s part of the job), access to personal protective equipment, legal and ethical guidelines, education and training, safety, and acceptable limitations to obligation. The factors identified as being acceptable limitations to professional obligation are presented as further sub-themes: physical health, mental health, and competing personal obligations.
Conclusions:
The issue of professional obligation must be addressed by ambulance services as a matter of urgency, especially in light of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Further research is recommended to understand how community member expectations evolve during and after the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Wind-driven snow redistribution can increase the spatial heterogeneity of snow accumulation on ice caps and ice sheets, and may prove crucial for the initiation and survival of glaciers in areas of marginal glaciation. We present a snowdrift model (Snow_Blow), which extends and improves the model of Purves, Mackaness and Sugden (1999, Journal of Quaternary Science 14, 313–321). The model calculates spatial variations in relative snow accumulation that result from variations in topography, using a digital elevation model (DEM) and wind direction as inputs. Improvements include snow redistribution using a flux routing algorithm, DEM resolution independence and the addition of a slope curvature component. This paper tests Snow_Blow in Antarctica (a modern environment) and reveals its potential for application in palaeoenvironmental settings, where input meteorological data are unavailable and difficult to estimate. Specifically, Snow_Blow is applied to the Ellsworth Mountains in West Antarctica where ablation is considered to be predominantly related to wind erosion processes. We find that Snow_Blow is able to replicate well the existing distribution of accumulating snow and snow erosion as recorded in and around Blue Ice Areas. Lastly, a variety of model parameters are tested, including depositional distance and erosion vs wind speed, to provide the most likely input parameters for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions.
Miner et al. (2018) do an excellent job of bringing the issue of gender disparity within STEM to the forefront of I-O psychology. However, we believe the focus on STEM is woefully inadequate and urge I-O psychologists to think bigger, better, and broader. There are clear problems with the way women are viewed and treated within the workforce, within the United States, and globally. In narrowing the discussion of the problem to target only STEM, we dramatically limit our understanding of and potential impact on the multifaceted and complex gender disparity problem in the world of work. Furthermore, we assert there are additional legitimizing myths that must be addressed in order to yield a more complete picture of the dilemma and allow us to move forward to make an impact.
The study objective was to determine the relative validity and reproducibility of a modified FFQ for ranking the nutrient intakes of New Zealand toddlers aged 12–24 months.
Design
Cross-sectional study.
Setting
Dunedin, New Zealand.
Subjects
One hundred and fifty-two participants completed a ninety-five-item FFQ twice, and five days of weighed diet recording (WDR), over one month. Validity and reproducibility were assessed for crude data and for data that were weighted for total fruit and vegetable intake (FV-adjusted).
Results
De-attenuated correlations between FV-adjusted FFQ data and WDR data ranged from 0·45 (Zn) to 0·77 (Ca). The percentage classified to the correct WDR quartile by the FV-adjusted FFQ data ranged from 34·6 % (total fat, Zn) to 50·3 % (Fe). Average gross misclassification was 3 %. Bland–Altman statistics showed crude data had a range of 128–178 % agreement with the WDR and mean FV-adjusted intakes had 112–160 % agreement. FV-adjusted intra-class correlations, assessing reproducibility, ranged from 0·65 (vitamin C) to 0·75 (Ca).
Conclusions
The Eating Assessment in Toddlers (EAT) FFQ showed acceptable to good relative validity, and good reproducibility, for ranking participants’ nutrient intake and is able to identify toddlers at extremes of the nutrient intake distribution. It will be a useful tool for investigating toddlers’ nutrient intakes in studies that require a method of dietary assessment with low respondent burden.
The 2008 campaign marked the first time that a candidate's speech was set to music performed by popular musicians. Will.i.am, lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas, produced a YouTube music video of Barack Obama's “Yes We Can” speech. The “Yes We Can” video received more than 7 million views (January 2011), and Obama's words reached American youth in a way that had never been done. In short order, all of the candidates adopted the Internet as a platform for advertising, making 2008 the first YouTube presidential campaign. Candidates posted their television ads to YouTube as well as ads produced just for the new platform.
This is not the first time that candidates have adopted new technologies to reach voters. Historically, candidates have quickly embraced tools that expanded their access to voters – from Al Smith's first use of television to air an acceptance speech (1928), to Dwight Eisenhower's television ad campaign (1952), to Howard Dean's web-based credit card donation (2004). Now, YouTube, launched on February 14, 2005, has become one of the top three most-visited websites since at least 2008 (Alexa 2011). YouTube's popularity and its potential to reach voters were not lost on candidates.
By
Anne Mills, Professor of Health Economics and Policy London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine,
Sam Shillcutt, Research Fellow Health Economics and Financing Programme, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
The second half of the twentieth century saw enormous improvements in health across the whole world. Indeed, life expectancy in developing countries has increased faster than in the industrialized world, albeit from a lower baseline. People in many developing countries have life expectancies close to those in more advanced economies, but there is now a big gap between them and another group of countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where high mortality persists.
In 2002, there were 57 million deaths worldwide. Of these, 20% were children under five, and 98% of these childhood deaths occurred in developing countries. Communicable diseases represent seven out of the top 10 causes of child deaths in developing countries, and account for around 60% of all such deaths: more than 6 million deaths annually. A further problem in developing countries is premature mortality of adults (15–59), which represents 30% of all deaths, compared to only 20% in developed economies. As ever, it is the poorest in these countries who suffer disproportionately.
Non-smokers in the richest countries have a lower risk of dying throughout their life than other population categories. Deaths in excess of the rate in this category can be considered avoidable, and certain sectors of developing country societies, particularly infants and young women, are disproportionately affected. Around 90% of these avoidable deaths are caused by communicable diseases.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of a class-based exercise program supplementing a home-based program when compared with a home-based program alone. In addition, we estimated the probability that the supplementary class program is cost-effective over a range of values of a decision maker's willingness to pay for an additional quality-adjusted life-year (QALY).
Methods: The resource use and effectiveness data were collected as part of the clinical trial detailed elsewhere. Unit costs were estimated from published sources. The net benefit approach to cost-effectiveness analysis is used to estimate the probability of the intervention being cost-effective.
Results: The addition of a supplementary class-based group results in an increase in QALYs and lower costs. For all plausible values of a decision maker's willingness to pay for a QALY, the supplementary class group is likely to be cost-effective.
Conclusions: The addition of a class-based exercise program is likely to be cost-effective and, on current evidence, should be implemented.
Vesicomyid clam species are abundant in many deep-sea chemosynthetic communities, including cold seeps. They rely primarily on thiotrophic (sulphide-oxidizing) gill symbionts for nutrition and thus require sulphide-rich environments. Submersible surveys of megafaunal distributions at the Blake Ridge Diapir, a deep-sea methane-hydrate seep located ∼200 miles off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, documented massive mortalities of vesicomyid clams. The cause of these mortalities is unknown, but sulphide deprivation, sulphide toxicity, and disease are possible agents of mortality in this system. Similar redox profiles in sediment cores from live and dead clam beds do not support the hypothesis that there has been a transient shift in the flux of sulphide. To address the potential for disease as a cause of mortality, we undertook a histological survey of microparasites and other indications of disease in clam tissues. Six morphological types of parasites were identified using light microscopy, including two viral-like inclusions, Rickettsia-like gill inclusions, possible bacterial gut inclusions, bacterial gill infections, and a protistan inclusion. Of these parasites, two were pathogenic: viral-like inclusions in mantle tissues caused tissue degradation; bacterial gill infections resulted in localized disruption and degradation of gill filaments. Infection prevalence and densities were low for all parasites observed. The majority of clams examined showed intense haemocytic responses in the absence of any obvious etiologic agent, suggesting the presence of parasites not detectable by our methods. Our findings indicate that the clam population at the Blake Ridge seep was in relatively good health at the time of sampling.