Diets low in diverse fibre-rich plant foods contribute to the rise of chronic disease. The BIOME study (NCT06231706; 6-week parallel randomised controlled trial) in 399 adults (35–65 years; BMI 18·5–40 kg/m2; fibre intake < 20 g/d) investigated a whole-food plant blend containing > 30 ingredients, rich in (poly)phenols, fibre and micronutrients. Participants were randomised (1:1:1) to the blend (30 g/d), an isoenergetic control (bread croutons, 28 g/d) or probiotic (Lactobacillus rhamnosus, 15bn CFU/d). Analysts were blinded to allocation. The primary outcome was change in ‘favourable’ and ‘unfavourable’ gut microbiome species (ZOE Microbiome Health Ranking 2025); secondary outcomes included blood metabolites, symptoms, stool output, anthropometry, hunger, sleep, energy and mood. A crossover sub-study explored postprandial glucose, hunger and mood. Of 349 participants analysed (fifty excluded), self-reported adherence was > 98 %. The 30+ plant blend resulted in more species changing relative abundance at 6 weeks v. control (57 v. 14 species-level genome bins (SGB), P < 0·001) and probiotic (57 v. 4 SGB, P < 0·001). There were no significant between-group differences in microbiome health ranks of significantly changing species (increasing or decreasing). Blend participants self-reported reduced indigestion, constipation, heartburn and flatulence and increased energy v. control (all P < 0·05). Six related but no serious adverse events occurred. In the sub-study, adding the blend to a high-carbohydrate meal (v. meal alone) reduced hunger, increased fullness and energy (3-h incremental AUC, all P < 0·05), with no effect on postprandial glucose. This 30+ plant blend represents a simple strategy to modify gut microbiome composition and benefit gastrointestinal symptoms in healthy adults.

The American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology convened a 45-member international expert task force to identify circumstances supporting the deprescribing of core psychotropic medications for major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorders. Three Delphi survey rounds plus a selective literature review identified points of consensus (predefined as ≥75% agreement) about when antidepressant, antipsychotic, mood stabiliser and sedative-hypnotic deprescribing is warranted. Twenty out of 32 statements (63%) achieved consensus across seven thematic areas. In MDD, panellists favoured discontinuing antidepressants when mechanisms of action are duplicative, adequate trials produce ≤25% improvement or loss of prior efficacy cannot be regained through dose increases or augmentations. Indefinite antidepressant maintenance in MDD was favoured after three or more lifetime episodes. In bipolar disorder, antidepressant deprescribing was favoured in the setting of rapid cycling, mixed features or emerging mania/hypomania symptoms; and discouraged if prior antidepressant cessation led to relapse. In nonpsychotic mood disorders, panellists favoured deprescribing antipsychotics that caused significant weight gain or tardive dyskinesia over adding pharmacological antidotes. Deprescribing to achieve an eventual medication-free status was considered inappropriate, in bipolar type 1, but not necessarily bipolar type 2 disorder. Although individualised circumstances necessarily inform psychopharmacology management, clinical presentations that misalign with existing pharmacotherapies may signal the desirability of cautious deprescribing.

Over the past 5 years, the policy constraint posed by the sovereign bond market has strengthened. Across the G7, governments have been forced into rapid policy reversals, often due to sharp and unexpected rises in bond yields. The fact that the bond market acts as a constraint on policy—particularly on long-term investment—is well known. What has become apparent is that this market constraint has sharpened and now shapes G7 policymaking outside periods of acute crisis. This paper examines the bond market constraint, and how it has evolved in recent years. The past 5 years have seen a striking evolution, with record levels of G7 debt issued. Focusing on the United States and the United Kingdom, we outline two key empirical puzzles: first, for both, bond yields appear higher than justified by benchmark models; second, in the United Kingdom, yields have become highly (and surprisingly) volatile. We then review candidate explanations for these changes. We posit and examine new forces—demographic shocks, news coverage of fiscal watchdogs, the role of hedge funds and stablecoins. Finally, we use a simple econometric framework to provide a first test of whether these forces may explain bond yields. We find indicative evidence that they do. However, much remains unexplained, suggesting the importance of further work to understand the implications of the higher debt costs across the G7. As part of this analysis, we introduce a new dataset of fiscal watchdog media salience and publication patterns, which we make available to support future research.

This article joins two public policy approaches often employed separately: the analysis of changes in programme expenditure, and of organizational change. The first section reviews a series of alternative propositions about their relationship: organizations constricting programme innovation, or promoting efficiency or inefficiency; programme changes causing fission or fusion in organizations; increasing programme expenditure by replicating service delivery units rather than re-organization; and the place of symbolic and ad hoc political priorities. After considering problems of analyzing programme and organizational changes empirically, the article examines changes since 1945 in two major policy areas of British government, health and social security, and trade and industry. The empirical evidence emphasizes the dominance of political priorities, symbolic as well as programmatic: the capacity of organizations to grow at the base, by replicating service delivery units while formally remaining unchanged at the top, and of organizations growing at the top, by formal re-organization, while programme budgets and service delivery units are unaffected by symbolic reshuffling.

Gorstian sediments in south-central Wales preserve an asymmetric, compound mixed-process delta system north of the Carreg Cennen Disturbance and east of the Golden Grove Axis. The 30 km SW-NE outcrop, extending from the Cennen Valley to Y Pigwn, is oblique to the NNE delta progradation direction. The Hafod Fawr Formation comprises subaqueous delta slope deposits. Sandstone bed amalgamation indicates shoaling and wave/storm influence within the overlying subaqueous delta platform deposits of the Cwar Glas Member. The succeeding Mynydd Myddfai Sandstone Formation contains shoreline delta lithofacies within three geographical tracts. An embryonic Golden Grove Axis shed shoal water shoreline fan-delta and alluvial fan lithofacies (of the Trichrug Formation) in the Cennen Valley Tract. The SW Tract (Cilmaenllwyd to Banc Celynog) was deposited on the updrift flank of the asymmetric delta, with longshore drift to the NE. Amalgamated sandstone bedsets dominate in the mouth bar and terminal distributary channel lithofacies. Pen y Bicws preserves the axial gravel bed distributary channel lithofacies, which created a headland and palaeogeographic divide between the SW and NE tracts. The latter (Sawdde Gorge to Y Pigwn) records deposition in a low-energy bay that hosted cycles of heterolithic lithofacies. Collectively, these tracts occupied part of a sediment supply route to deeper facies of the subsidence-prone Clun Forest Sub-Basin. Emergent delta plain deposits become dominant within the overlying Trichrug Formation. Thin, locally preserved deposits of the Cribyn Du Member record delta abandonment and transgression during the Ludfordian associated with basin reconfiguration and expansion of the Caer’r mynach Seaway.

Objectives: People with dementia live with unmet needs due to dementia and other conditions. The EMBED-Care Framework is a co-designed app-delivered intervention involving holistic assessment, evidence-based decision- support tools and resources to support its use. Its intention is to empower people with dementia, family and practitioners to assess, monitor and manage needs. We aimed to explore the feasibility and acceptability of the EMBED-Care Framework and develop its underpinning programme theory.

Methods: A six-month single arm mixed-Methods feasibility and process evaluation, underpinned by an initial programme theory which was iteratively developed from previous studies. The settings were two community teams and two long term care facilities (LTCFs). People with dementia and family were recruited to receive the intervention for 12 weeks. Practitioners were recruited to deliver the intervention for six months. Quantitative data included candidate process and outcome measures. Qualitative data comprised interviews, focus groups and observations with people with dementia, family and practitioners. Qualitative and quantitative data were analysed separately and triangulated at the interpretation phase.

Results: Twenty-six people with dementia, 25 family members and 40 practitioners were recruited. Practitioners in both settings recognized the potential benefit for improving care and outcomes for people with dementia, and to themselves in supporting care provision. Family in both settings perceived a role in informing assessment and decisions about care. Family was integral to the intervention in community teams but had limited involvement in LTCFs. In both settings, embedding the intervention into routine care processes was essential to support its use. In community teams, this required aligning app functionality with care processes, establishing processes to monitor alerts, and clarifying team responsibilities. In LTCFs, duplication of care processes and limited time to integrate the intervention into routine care processes, affected its acceptability.

Conclusions: A theoretically informed co-designed digital intervention has potential to improve care processes and outcomes for people with dementia and family, and is acceptable to practitioners in community teams. Further work is required to strengthen the intervention in LTCFs to support integration into care processes and support family involvement. The programme theory detailing key mechanisms and likely outcomes of the EMBED-Care Framework is presented.

Since early 2021, food prices in Britain have increased by 30%. Using monthly microdata, researchers have found that frictions in the UK’s new trade relationship with the European Union (EU) play an important part in this inflation. The trade relationship is evolving, with further changes expected in 2024. This article establishes a framework for identifying trade-related inflation in close to real time. Using programming techniques, we collect daily prices of over 100,000 supermarket items, covering 80% of the UK grocery market. We identify 1,200 products from 12 countries with a protected designation of origin (PDO). This allows us to link price changes to individual EU economies. Addressing the predominance of EU PDOs, we employ a large language model to discern product origins from additional web-scraped data, thus broadening our analysis to cover over 67,000 products. Since August 2023, we find that prices for EU-originating food products have increased at a rate of 50% higher than domestically sourced products. This study presents a unique methodological approach to dissecting food sector inflation, which is well-positioned to be used in a policy setting, allowing us to assess the possible impact of impending nontariff barriers at the GB-EU border in 2024.

Lithofacies and biostratigraphical analysis has enabled the establishment of a stratigraphic event framework for Ludfordian and Pridoli strata in south Wales and the Welsh Borderland. In SW Wales, the Golden Grove Axis acted as a structural hinge separating the shallow marine storm-influenced Cae’r mynach Seaway from a pediment surface above which Ludfordian colluvium (Abercyfor Formation) was deposited. The Axis seeded four NW-derived river-influenced delta progrades of Leintwardinian to early Pridoli age (Tilestones Formation). A NE-sourced early Pridoli wave-influenced delta deposited the Downton Castle Sandstone Formation (DCSF), coeval to the youngest Tilestones prograde, with a lateral interface existing between Mynydd Epynt and the Clun Forest area. Except for the Malverns area, the DCSF is no longer recognized south of the Neath Disturbance. Early Pridoli forced regression promoted widespread subaerial exposure north of the Neath Disturbance, with incision into tracts close to the Welsh Borderland Fault System. The basinward-shift in facies belts resulted in marine erosion and deposition of a phosphatic ravinement pebble lag. The wave-influenced Clifford’s Mesne Sandstone Formation delta subsequently seeded on the Gorsley Axis with tidally influenced Rushall Formation accumulating in a back-barrier setting. The Pwll-Mawr Formation records the easterly advance of coeval coastal deposits on the western side of the remnant Cae’r mynach Seaway. Behind migrating delta coastlines, green muds accumulated on coastal plains (Temeside Mudstone Formation) with better drained red dryland alluvium (Moor Cliffs Formation) charting expansion of Old Red Sandstone lithofacies. Mid-Pridoli incision preserves the Pont ar Llechau Formation estuarine valley fill.

The rapid growth of cultural evolutionary science, its expansion into numerous fields, its use of diverse methods, and several conceptual problems have outpaced corollary developments in theory and philosophy of science. This has led to concern, exemplified in results from a recent survey conducted with members of the Cultural Evolution Society, that the field lacks ‘knowledge synthesis’, is poorly supported by ‘theory’, has an ambiguous relation to biological evolution and uses key terms (e.g. ‘culture’, ‘social learning’, ‘cumulative culture’) in ways that hamper operationalization in models, experiments and field studies. Although numerous review papers in the field represent and categorize its empirical findings, the field's theoretical challenges receive less critical attention even though challenges of a theoretical or conceptual nature underlie most of the problems identified by Cultural Evolution Society members. Guided by the heterogeneous ‘grand challenges’ emergent in this survey, this paper restates those challenges and adopts an organizational style requisite to discussion of them. The paper's goal is to contribute to increasing conceptual clarity and theoretical discernment around the most pressing challenges facing the field of cultural evolutionary science. It will be of most interest to cultural evolutionary scientists, theoreticians, philosophers of science and interdisciplinary researchers.

This paper contributes to an increasingly critical assessment of a policy framing of ‘financial resilience’ that focuses on individual responsibility and financial capability. Using a participatory research and design process, we construct a ground-up understanding of financial resilience that acknowledges not only an individual’s actions, but the contextual environment in which they are situated, and how those relate to one another. We inductively identify four inter-connected dimensions of relational financial resilience: infrastructure (housing, health, and childcare), financial and economic factors (income, expenses, and financial services and strategies), social factors (motivation and community and family), and the institutional environment (policy and local community groups, support and advice services). Consequently, we recommend that social policies conceptualise financial resilience in relational terms, as a cross-cutting policy priority, rather than being solely a facet of individual financial capability.