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Good social connections are proposed to positively influence the course of cognitive decline by stimulating cognitive reserve and buffering harmful stress-related health effects. Prior meta-analytic research has uncovered links between social connections and the risk of poor health outcomes such as mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and mortality. These studies have primarily used aggregate data from North America and Europe with limited markers of social connections. Further research is required to explore these associations longitudinally across a wider range of social connection markers in a global setting.
Research Objective:
We examined the associations between social connection structure, function, and quality and the risk of our primary outcomes (mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and mortality).
Method:
Individual participant-level data were obtained from 13 longitudinal studies of ageing from across the globe. We conducted survival analysis using Cox regression models and combined estimates from each study using two-stage meta-analysis. We examined three social constructs: connection structure (living situation, relationship status, interactions with friends/family, community group engagement), function (social support, having a confidante) and quality (relationship satisfaction, loneliness) in relation to the risks of three primary outcomes (mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and mortality). In our partially adjusted models, we included age, sex, and education and in fully adjusted models used these variables as well as diabetes, hypertension, smoking, cardiovascular risk, and depression.
Preliminary results of the ongoing study:
In our fully adjusted models we observed: a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment was associated with being married/in a relationship (vs. being single), weekly community group engagement (vs. no engagement), weekly family/friend interactions (vs. not interacting), and never feeling lonely (vs. often feeling lonely); a lower risk of dementia was associated with monthly/weekly family/friend interactions and having a confidante (vs. no confidante); a lower risk of mortality was associated with living with others (vs. living alone), yearly/monthly/weekly community group engagement, and having a confidante.
Conclusion:
Good social connection structure, function, and quality are associated with reduced risk of incident MCI, dementia, and mortality. Our results provide actionable evidence that social connections are required for healthy ageing.
We summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding about the remaining options to achieve the Paris Agreement goals, through overcoming political barriers to carbon pricing, taking into account non-CO2 factors, a well-designed implementation of demand-side and nature-based solutions, resilience building of ecosystems and the recognition that climate change mitigation costs can be justified by benefits to the health of humans and nature alone. We consider new insights about what to expect if we fail to include a new dimension of fire extremes and the prospect of cascading climate tipping elements.
Technical summary
A synthesis is made of 10 topics within climate research, where there have been significant advances since January 2020. The insights are based on input from an international open call with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) the options to still keep global warming below 1.5 °C; (2) the impact of non-CO2 factors in global warming; (3) a new dimension of fire extremes forced by climate change; (4) the increasing pressure on interconnected climate tipping elements; (5) the dimensions of climate justice; (6) political challenges impeding the effectiveness of carbon pricing; (7) demand-side solutions as vehicles of climate mitigation; (8) the potentials and caveats of nature-based solutions; (9) how building resilience of marine ecosystems is possible; and (10) that the costs of climate change mitigation policies can be more than justified by the benefits to the health of humans and nature.
Social media summary
How do we limit global warming to 1.5 °C and why is it crucial? See highlights of latest climate science.
Classical results about peaking from complex interpolation theory are extended to polynomials on a closed disk, and on the complement of its interior. New results are obtained concerning interpolation by univalent polynomials on a Jordan domain whose boundary satisfies certain smoothness conditions.
Suppose that the function $f$ is analytic in the open unit disk $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5}$ in the complex plane. For each $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}>0$ a function $f^{[\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}]}$ is defined as the Hadamard product of $f$ with a certain power function. The function $f^{[\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}]}$ compares with the fractional derivative of $f$ of order $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$. Suppose that $f^{[\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}]}$ has a limit at some point $z_{0}$ on the boundary of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5}$. Then $w_{0}=\lim _{z\rightarrow z_{0}}f(z)$ exists. Suppose that $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}$ is analytic in $f(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E5})$ and at $w_{0}$. We show that if $g=\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}(f)$ then $g^{[\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}]}$ has a limit at $z_{0}$.
All societies require energy services to meet basic human needs (e.g., lighting, cooking, space comfort, mobility, communication) and to serve productive processes. For development to be sustainable, delivery of energy services needs to be secure and have low environmental impacts. Sustainable social and economic development requires assured and affordable access to the energy resources necessary to provide essential and sustainable energy services. This may mean the application of different strategies at different stages of economic development. To be environmentally benign, energy services must be provided with low environmental impacts and low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, 85% of current primary energy driving global economies comes from the combustion of fossil fuels and consumption of fossil fuels accounts for 56.6% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions.
Renewable energy sources play a role in providing energy services in a sustainable manner and, in particular, in mitigating climate change. This Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation explores the current contribution and potential of renewable energy (RE) sources to provide energy services for a sustainable social and economic development path. It includes assessments of available RE resources and technologies, costs and co-benefits, barriers to up-scaling and integration requirements, future scenarios and policy options.
GHG emissions associated with the provision of energy services are a major cause of climate change. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) concluded that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”
Solar energy is abundant and offers significant potential for near-term (2020) and long-term (2050) climate change mitigation. There are a wide variety of solar technologies of varying maturities that can, in most regions of the world, contribute to a suite of energy services. Even though solar energy generation still only represents a small fraction of total energy consumption, markets for solar technologies are growing rapidly. Much of the desirability of solar technology is its inherently smaller environmental burden and the opportunity it offers for positive social impacts. The cost of solar technologies has been reduced significantly over the past 30 years and technical advances and supportive public policies continue to offer the potential for additional cost reductions. Potential deployment scenarios range widely—from a marginal role of direct solar energy in 2050 to one of the major sources of energy supply. The actual deployment achieved will depend on the degree of continued innovation, cost reductions and supportive public policies.
Solar energy is the most abundant of all energy resources. Indeed, the rate at which solar energy is intercepted by the Earth is about 10,000 times greater than the rate at which humankind consumes energy. Although not all countries are equally endowed with solar energy, a significant contribution to the energy mix from direct solar energy is possible for almost every country. Currently, there is no evidence indicating a substantial impact of climate change on regional solar resources.
To determine the effect of a bundle of infection control interventions on the horizontal transmission of Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC)-producing K. pneumoniae during an outbreak.
Design.
Quasi-experimental study.
Setting.
Long-term acute care hospital.
Intervention.
On July 23,2008, a bundled intervention was implemented: daily 2% Chlorhexidine gluconate baths for patients, enhanced environmental cleaning, surveillance cultures at admission, serial point prevalence surveillance (PPS), isolation precautions, and training of personnel. Baseline PPS was performed before the intervention was implemented. Any gram-negative rod isolate suspected of KPC production underwent a modified Hodge test and, if results were positive, confirmatory polymerase chain reaction testing. Clinical cases were defined to occur for patients whose samples yielded KPC-positive gram-negative rods in clinical cultures.
Results.
Baseline PPS performed on June 17, 2008, showed a prevalence of colonization with KPC-producing isolates of 21% (8 of 39 patients screened). After implementation of the intervention, monthly PPS was performed 5 times, which showed prevalences of colonization with KPC-producing isolates of 12%, 5%, 3%, 0%, and 0% (P < .001). From January 1, 2008, until the intervention, 8 KPC-positive clinical cases—suspected to be due to horizontal transmission—were detected. From implementation of the intervention through December 31, 2008, only 2 KPC-positive clinical cases, both in August 2008, were detected. From January 1 through December 31, 2008, 8 patients were detected as carriers of KPC-producing isolates at admission to the institution, 4 patients before and 4 patients after the intervention.
Conclusion.
A bundled intervention was successful in preventing horizontal spread of KPC-producing gram-negative rods in a long-term acute care hospital, despite ongoing admission of patients colonized with KPC producers.
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