British left-wing politics does not know what to think about mothers. In left-wing women’s movements, motherhood has been recognised as essential and difficult; necessary for future revolutions, not least in raising future revolutionaries. In less radical circles, it has been understood as a crucial contribution to the functioning of society, often forming the basis of women’s claims to citizenship and maternalist forms of politics. On the other hand, motherhood has been seen as a ‘natural’ function of women and a private responsibility, rather than a public good or a collective act which needs comprehensive state support. The family, in this reading, is a rather conservative force, better left to social reactionaries. Mothering has added additional hurdles to the gendered obstacles women already face in pursuing politics as activists or elected representatives. Perhaps because of this, many mothers in politics have sought to downplay or distance themselves from their roles as mothers, emphasising instead their contributions as workers and activists who can be fully committed to the left cause. Feminist historians have often followed their lead and have tended to write around political mothers’ maternal roles in their scholarship. This roundtable develops themes first explored in our November 2023 workshop, generously supported by the Royal Historical Society.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: To examine the individual and combined association between preoperative sleep disturbance (SD) and depression and 12-month disability, back pain, and leg pain after lumbar spine surgery (LSS). METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We analyzed prospectively collected multi-center registry data from 700 patients undergoing LSS (mean age=60.9 years, 37% female, 89% white). Preoperative SD and depression were assessed with PROMIS measures. Established thresholds defined patients with moderate/severe symptoms. Disability (Oswestry Disability Index) and back and leg pain (Numeric Rating Scales) were assessed preoperatively and at 12 months. We conducted separate regressions to examine the influence of SD and depression on each outcome. Regressions examined each factor with and without accounting for the other and in combination as a 4-level variable. Covariates included age, sex, race, education, insurance, body mass index, smoking status, preoperative opioid use, fusion status, revision status, and preoperative outcome score. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: One hundred thirteen (17%) patients reported moderate/severe SD alone, 70 (10%) reported moderate/severe depression alone, and 57 (8%) reported both moderate/severe SD and depression. In independent models, preoperative SD and depression were significantly associated with 12-month outcomes (all p’s<0.05). After accounting for depression, preoperative SD was only associated with disability, while preoperative depression adjusting for SD remained associated with all outcomes (all p’s<0.05). Patients reporting both moderate/severe SD and moderate/severe depression had 12.6 points higher disability (95%CI=7.4 to 17.8) and 1.5 points higher back (95%CI=0.8 to 2.3) and leg pain (95%CI=0.7 to 2.3) compared to patients with no/mild SD and no/mild depression. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Preoperative SD and depression are independent predictors of 12-month disability and pain when considered in isolation. The combination of SD and depression impacts postoperative outcomes considerably. The high-risk group of patients with moderate/severe SD and depression could benefit from targeted treatment strategies.

Climate change is resulting in global changes to sea level and wave climates, which in many locations significantly increase the probability of erosion, flooding and damage to coastal infrastructure and ecosystems. Therefore, there is a pressing societal need to be able to forecast the morphological evolution of our coastlines over a broad range of timescales, spanning days-to-decades, facilitating more focused, appropriate and cost-effective management interventions and data-informed planning to support the development of coastal environments. A wide range of modelling approaches have been used with varying degrees of success to assess both the detailed morphological evolution and/or simplified indicators of coastal erosion/accretion. This paper presents an overview of these modelling approaches, covering the full range of the complexity spectrum and summarising the advantages and disadvantages of each method. A focus is given to reduced-complexity modelling approaches, including models based on equilibrium concepts, which have emerged as a particularly promising methodology for the prediction of coastal change over multi-decadal timescales. The advantages of stable, computationally-efficient, reduced-complexity models must be balanced against the requirement for good generality and skill in diverse and complex coastal settings. Significant obstacles are also identified, limiting the generic application of models at regional and global scales. Challenges include the accurate long-term prediction of model forcing time-series in a changing climate, and accounting for processes that can largely be ignored in the shorter term but increase in importance in the long term. Further complications include coastal complexities, such as the accurate assessment of the impacts of headland bypassing. Additional complexities include complex structures and geology, mixed grain size, limited sediment supply, sources and sinks. It is concluded that with present computational resources, data availability limitations and process knowledge gaps, reduced-complexity modelling approaches currently offer the most promising solution to modelling shoreline evolution on daily-to-decadal timescales.

Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers continues to polarise public debate. The present study sought to investigate the factors that may influence an individual’s endorsement of deterrence-based government policies. Using the integrated threat theory of prejudice, the present study examined the role of perceived threat in shaping Australian voters’ political attitudes toward asylum seekers. A total of 255 Australian citizens completed an online questionnaire that assessed their support for aspects of government policy and their perceptions of asylum seekers as a threat. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to examine the combined and unique influences of perceived threat and sociodemographic factors on overall and individual government policy endorsement. Results indicated that various types of threat (realistic, symbolic, and negative stereotypes) were significant predictors of policy support. Practical implications regarding the development of anti-discriminatory strategies and directions for future research are discussed.

Treatment of dementia costs billions of dollars in long-term care and community services every year. Dementia also burdens the acute care system and may contribute to financial problems for hospitals serving large numbers of demented elderly. In a specialized geriatric medical unit devoted to acute care of the frail elderly, Alzheimer's disease and vascular and mixed dementias afflicted 63% of inpatients and were associated with excess consumption of nursing resources, complications of treatment, nosocomial infections, lengthy hospitalizations, and financial losses to the hospital. Due in part to the effects of dementia on mobility, continence, and nutrition, demented patients suffered more frequently from life-threatening infections, sepsis, iatrogenic disease, and prolonged hospital stays. Hospital losses were 75% higher for demented patients than for nondemented patients.

Dementia affected the majority of acute care patients in this study. However, it was rarely coded as an admitting diagnosis, even though it may have been the proximate cause of the medical morbidity which led to the acute hospitalization. In addition, despite the significant impact of dementia on the hospital course and costs, it was a factor in hospital reimbursement in less than one third of cases. The results indicate that dementia was not considered to be an acute diagnosis, nor was it recognized as a complex medical illness. The impact of dementia on acute hospitalization, including the mechanisms by which dementia prolongs the hospital stay, requires further investigation.

Nutrient manipulation experiments were conducted on a natural planktonic community in outdoor mesocosms. Inorganic nitrogen (N) and silicon (Si) were added to achieve N[ratio ]Si ratios of 1[ratio ]1 and 4[ratio ]1. Total particulate carbon (PC) biomass of the microbial assemblage was determined by elemental analysis. Cell volume measurements by microscope on individual components of the community (bacteria, diatoms, photosynthetic nanoflagellates, heterotrophic nanoflagellates, dinoflagellates and ciliates) were also made. We applied published C[ratio ]volume relationships to determine the volume estimated C content (CBV) of these microbial groups and hence of the total assemblage. The total CBV and total PC were compared to test the applicability of C[ratio ]volume relationships under different nutrient regimes both before and after nutrient exhaustion. For initial N[ratio ]Si ratios of 1[ratio ]1, prior to nutrient exhaustion, the relationship between CBV and PC was linear with a gradient of approximately 1, (0.99±0.06), indicating that the published C[ratio ]volume relationships accurately predicted the C content of the microbial assemblage. For N[ratio ]Si ratios of 4[ratio ]1, a linear relationship was again evident between CBV and PC (slope: 1.36±0.08). However, statistical comparison using a general linear model indicated that the gradient of this relationship differed significantly from that when the N[ratio ]Si ratio was 1[ratio ]1, and hence CBV overestimated elemental C. For both N[ratio ]Si ratios, subsequent to nutrient exhaustion (N or Si), and hence when the diatom fraction of the microbial assemblage was in yield-limited post-exponential phase, the two measures of biomass were not well correlated. This indicated that measured cytoplasmic cell volume was a poor indicator of C biomass within the microbial assemblage in nutrient-deplete conditions.