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Paper Spray (PS) is an ambient ionisation technique that is conceptually simple, economical, direct and versatile. In its simplest form, the procedure for operation relies on the application of an electric potential to a triangular-shaped paper substrate with the addition of an extraction/spray solvent to generate charge droplets, without requiring any pneumatic assistance. Despite its promise and rapidly growing popularity, there are some practical challenges associated with PS implementation with scope to enhance its performance further. One such challenge relates to only a small fraction of the Taylor cone expansion being sampled at the MS inlet. In this work we propose a new arrangement for PS, which retains the inherent advantages of this popular technique without introducing additional variables, by using an ambient ion focusing lens that is held at the same potential as the paper substrate. A thorough investigation, consisting of visual spray inspection, electric field simulations and analytical evaluation, including analysis of paracetamol from saliva, shows that ambient ion focusing can provide up to a 50% improvement in spray stability, 60% increase in signal intensity and a 30% improvement in detection limits for routine paper spray mass spectrometry analysis.

Breastfeeding offers one of the most fundamental global health benefits for babies. Breastmilk is lifesaving, providing not only nutrition but immunologic benefits and as such is strongly supported by the World Health Organization and leading healthcare associations worldwide. When the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, the impact of the restrictions to prevent the spread of the disease created challenges and questions about provision of safe, quality care, including breastfeeding practices, in a new 'normal' environment. Mothers were temporarily separated from their babies where infection was present or suspected, parents were prevented from being present on neonatal units and vital breastfeeding support was prevented. This discussion paper provides an overview of essential areas of knowledge related to practice for neonatal nurses and midwives who care for breastfeeding mothers and babies, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the latest global guidance. Three areas will be discussed; the protective benefits of breastfeeding, keeping breastfeeding mothers and babies together and supporting mothers to breastfeed their babies. Finally, care recommendations are presented to serve as a summary of key points for application to practice for neonatal nurses and midwives.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents with sick or premature babies have faced challenges following admission to a neonatal unit due to the imposed lock-down restrictions on social contact, hospital visitation and the wearing of personal protective equipment. The negative short-term impact on neonatal care in relation to the prevention of close proximity, contact and bonding between parents and babies is potentially significant. However, an interesting finding has been reported of a reduction in premature birth admissions to the neonatal intensive care unit during the pandemic, raising important questions. Why was this? Was it related to the effect of the modifiable risk-factors for premature birth? This discussion paper focuses on an exploration of these factors in the light of the potential impact of COVID-19 restrictions on neonatal care. After contextualising both the effect of premature birth and the pandemic on neonatal and parental short-term outcomes, the discussion turns to the modifiable risk-factors for premature birth and makes recommendations relevant to the education, advice and care given to expectant mothers.

Summary: Introduction: Neglected tropical diseases control programmes run separately. For settings with more than one endemic disease, combined mass drug administration (MDA) has potential practical advantages compared with separate programmes but needs confirmation of safety. We assessed the safety of combined MDA for multiple neglected tropical diseases using ivermectin, diethylcarbamazine, albendazole (IDA) and azithromycin (AZI). Methods: We conducted an open-label, cluster-randomized trial involving individuals living in 34 wards (smaller administrative division) in two study sites, Namatanai District and Lihir Island, Papua New Guinea. We randomly assigned wards to the combined treatment arm (which received a single dose of the triple combination IDA and a single dose of AZI at the same visit) or the control arm (which received IDA separately followed by AZI separately one week after). All participants underwent safety assessments one day after drug administration. Methodology for collecting the adverse events (AEs) was a general question (in Namatanai) and individual questions about specific AEs (in Lihir). The primary endpoint was the prevalence of AEs. Safety of combined treatment was taken to be non-inferior to that of IDA if the upper limit of the two-sided CI for the difference in rates was equal or lower than 5%. Findings: The study enrolled 15,656 participants. Of those enrolled, 7,281 (46.3%) received the combined regimen and 8,375 (53.3%) received standard treatment with IDA for lymphatic filariasis between Nov 1, 2018, and Apr 15, 2019. Of the individuals in the control group, 4,228 (50.5%) attended a second visit one week apart to receive AZI for yaws. In Namatanai, the proportion of AEs was similar in the combined group (0.8%) compared to the IDA group (1.3%, difference 0.5% [95CI -2.5% to 1.4%]) or the AZI group (3.6%, d -2.8% [95CI -8.6% to 2.8%]). In Lihir, the proportion of AEs was higher in the combined group (23.0%) compared to the IDA group (12.2%, d 10.8% [95% CI 1.5% to 20.2%]) or the AZI group (11.1%, d 11.9% [95% CI 2.7% to 21.1%]).We observed 21 (0.3%) grade-2 AEs in the combined treatment group, 33 (0.4%) in the IDA separately group, and 18 (0.2%) in the AZI separately group. No participants required treatment for any AE. We observed no deaths, serious AEs, or AEs of special interest. Interpretation: In the largest trial so far involving coadministration of regimens based on IDA and AZI, the combination was safe and feasible in a population of more than 15,000 people. Combined MDA based on these two regimens opens up new potential for the control of neglected tropical diseases in the Western Pacific region. Funding: International Trachoma Initiative, “la Caixa” Foundation, Kern Pharma.

Background: The UK Government is considering the introduction of vaccine passports for domestic use and to facilitate international travel for UK residents. Although vaccine incentivisation has been cited as a motivating factor for vaccine passports, it is unclear whether vaccine passports are likely to increase inclination to accept a COVID-19 vaccine. Methods: We conducted a large-scale national survey in the UK of 17,611 adults between 9 and 27 April 2021. Bayesian multilevel regression and poststratification is used to provide unbiased national-level estimates of the impact of the introduction of vaccine passports on inclination to accept COVID-19 vaccines and identify the differential impact of passports on uptake inclination across socio-demographic groups. Findings: We find that a large minority of respondents report that vaccination passports for domestic use (46.5%) or international travel (42.0%) would make them no more or less inclined to accept a COVID-19 vaccine and a sizeable minority of respondents also state that they would 'definitely' accept a COVID-19 vaccine and that vaccine passports would make them more inclined to vaccinate (48.8% for domestic use and 42.9% for international travel). However, we find that the introduction of vaccine passports will likely lower inclination to accept a COVID-19 vaccine once baseline vaccination intent has been adjusted for. This decrease is larger if passports were required for domestic use rather than for facilitating international travel. Being male (OR 0.87, 0.76 to 0.99) and having degree qualifications (OR 0.84, 0.72 to 0.94) is associated with a decreased inclination to vaccinate if passports were required for domestic use (while accounting for baseline vaccination intent), while Christians (OR 1.23, 1.08 to 1.41) have an increased inclination over atheists or agnostics. Change in inclination is strongly connected to stated vaccination intent and will therefore unlikely shift attitudes among Black or Black British respondents, younger age groups, and non-English speakers. Interpretation: Our findings should be interpreted in light of sub-national trends in uptake rates across the UK, as our results suggest that passports may be viewed less positively among socio-demographic groups that cluster in large urban areas. We call for further evidence on the impact of vaccine certification and the potential fallout for routine immunization programmes in both the UK and in wider global settings, especially those with low overall trust in vaccinations. Funding: This survey was funded by the Merck Investigator Studies Program (MISP). (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Background: \ud Understanding trends in the incidence and outcomes of myocardial infarction and stroke, and how these are influenced by changes in cardiovascular risk factors can inform health policy and healthcare provision.\ud \ud Methods: \ud We identified all patients 30 years or older with myocardial infarction or stroke in Scotland. Risk factor levels were determined from national health surveys. Incidence, potential impact fractions and burden attributable to risk factor changes were calculated. Risk of subsequent fatal and non-fatal events (myocardial infarction, stroke, bleeding and heart failure hospitalization) were calculated with multi-state models.\ud \ud Findings: \ud From 1990 to 2014, there were 372,873 (71±13 years) myocardial infarctions and 290,927 (74±13 years) ischemic or hemorrhagic strokes. Age-standardized incidence per 100,000 fell from 1,069 (95% confidence interval, 1,024-1,116) to 276 (263-290) for myocardial infarction and from 608 (581-636) to 188 (178-197) for ischemic stroke. Systolic blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol decreased, but body-mass index increased, and diabetes prevalence doubled. Changes in risk factors accounted for a 74% (57-91%) reduction in myocardial infarction and 68% (55-83%) reduction in ischemic stroke. Following myocardial infarction, the risk of death decreased (30% to 20%), but non-fatal events increased (20% to 24%) whereas the risk of both death (47% to 34%) and non-fatal events (22% to 17%) decreased following stroke.\ud \ud Interpretation: \ud Over the last 25 years, substantial reductions in myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke incidence are attributable to major shifts in risk factor levels. Deaths following the index event decreased for both myocardial infarction and stroke, but rates remained substantially higher for stroke.\ud \ud Funding: \ud British heart foundation.

Intermittent water supplies (IWS) are routinely experienced by drinking water distribution systems around the world, either due to ongoing operational practices or due to one off interruptions. During IWS events changing conditions may impact the endemic biofilms leading to hydraulic mobilisation of organic and inorganic materials attached to pipes walls with a resulting degradation in water quality. To study the impact of IWS on the microbiological and physico-chemical characteristics of drinking water, an experimental full-scale chlorinated pipe facility was operated over 60 days under realistic hydraulic conditions to allow for biofilm growth and to investigate flow resumption behaviour post-IWS events of 6, 48 and 144 hours.\ud \ud \ud \ud Turbidity and metal concentrations showed significant responses to flow restarting, indicating biofilm changes, with events greater than 6 hours generating more turbidity responses and hence discolouration risk. The increase in pressure when the system was restarted showed a substantial increase in total cell counts, while the subsequent increases in flow led to elevated turbidity and metals concentrations. SUVA254 monitoring indicated that shorter times of non-water supply increased the risk of aromatic organic compounds and hence risk of disinfection-by-products formation. DNA sequencing indicated that increasing IWS times resulted in increased relative abundance of potential pathogenic microorganisms, such as Mycobacterium, Sphingomonas, and the fungi Penicillium and Cladosporium.\ud \ud \ud \ud Overall findings indicate that shorter IWS result in a higher proportion of aromatic organic compounds, which can potentially react with chlorine and increase risk of disinfection-by-products formation. However, by minimising IWS times, biofilm-associated impacts can be reduced, yet these are complex ecosystems and much remains to be understood about how microbial interactions can be managed to best ensure continued water safe supply.

Background Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare but life shortening disease, the diagnosis of which is often delayed, and requires an invasive right heart catheterisation. Identifying diagnostic biomarkers may improve screening to identify patients at risk of PAH earlier and provide new insights into disease pathogenesis. MicroRNAs are small, non-coding molecules of RNA, previously shown to be dysregulated in PAH, and contribute to the disease process in animal models. Methods Plasma from 64 treatment naive patients with PAH and 43 disease and healthy controls were profiled for microRNA expression by Agilent Microarray. Following quality control and normalisation, the cohort was split into training and validation sets. Four separate machine learning feature selection methods were applied to the training set, along with a univariate analysis. Findings 20 microRNAs were identified as putative biomarkers by consensus feature selection from all four methods. Two microRNAs (miR-636 and miR-187-5p) were selected by all methods and used to predict PAH diagnosis with high accuracy. Integrating microRNA expression profiles with their associated target mRNA revealed 61 differentially expressed genes verified in two independent, publicly available PAH lung tissue data sets. Two of seven potentially novel gene targets were validated as differentially expressed in vitro in human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. Interpretation This consensus of multiple machine learning approaches identified two miRNAs that were able to distinguish PAH from both disease and healthy controls. These circulating miRNA, and their target genes may provide insight into PAH pathogenesis and reveal novel regulators of disease and putative drug targets. Funding This work was supported by a National Institute for Health Research Rare Disease Translational Research Collaboration (R29065/CN500) and British Heart Foundation Project Grant (PG/11/116/29288).

COVID-19 has now spread to all the continents of the world with the possible exception of Antarctica. However, Africa appears different when compared with all the other continents. The absence of exponential growth and the low mortality rates contrary to that experienced in other continents, and contrary to the projections for Africa by various agencies, including the World Health Organization (WHO) has been a puzzle to many. Although Africa is the second most populous continent with an estimated 17.2% of the world's population, the continent accounts for only 5% of the total cases and 3% of the mortality. Mortality for the whole of Africa remains at a reported 19,726 as at August 01, 2020. The onset of the pandemic was later, the rate of rise has been slower and the severity of illness and case fatality rates have been lower in comparison to other continents. In addition, contrary to what had been documented in other continents, the occurrence of the renal complications in these patients also appeared to be much lower. This report documents the striking differences between the continents and within the continent of Africa itself and then attempts to explain the reasons for these differences. It is hoped that information presented in this review will help policymakers in the fight to contain the pandemic, particularly within Africa with its resource-constrained health care systems.

Background COVID-19 has placed unprecedented demands on infection control professionals (ICPs) and infectious disease (ID) physicians. This study examined their knowledge, preparedness, and experiences managing COVID-19 in the Australian healthcare settings. Methods A cross-sectional study of ICPs and ID physician members of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control (ACIPC) and the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID) was conducted using an online survey. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise and report data. Results A total of 103 survey responses were included in the analysis for ICPs and 45 for ID physicians. A majority of ICPs (78.7%) and ID physicians (77.8%) indicated having ‘very good' or ‘good' level of knowledge of COVID-19. Almost all ICPs (94.2%) relied on state or territory's department of health websites to source up-to-date information While most ID physicians (84.4%) used scientific literature and journals. A majority of ICPs (96%) and ID physicians (73.3%) reported feeling ‘moderately prepared' or ‘extremely prepared' for managing COVID-19. Most respondents had received specific training about COVID-19 within their workplace (ICPs: 75%; ID physicians: 66.7%), particularly training/certification in PPE use, which made them feel ‘mostly or entirely confident' in using it. Most ICPs (84.5%) and ID physicians (76.2%) reported having ‘considerably' or ‘moderately more' work added to their daily duties. Their biggest concerns included the uncertainties under a rapidly changing landscape, PPE availability, and the community's compliance. Conclusion Harmonised information, specific COVID-19 training and education, and adequate support for front-line workers are key to successfully managing COVID-19 and other future outbreaks.

Most of the recent studies indicated the prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTSS) are increasing after the COVID pandemic around the world. Bo et al. reported PTSS prevalence of 96.2% among the COVID-19-infected people. The sociocultural and individual vulnerability and protective factors may influence onset and maintenance of the symptoms. However, there is significant lack in understanding the risk factors and preventive factors that influence the maintenance of Post-Traumatic Stress symptoms that defines Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The digital technology gives us the unique opportunity to assess this risk, to monitor and track this evolution longitudinally. In this research project we aimed to design and develop a smartphone application for longitudinal data collection enabling to (1) predict and follow the evolution of PTSS toward PTSD, (2) assess the relative efficacy of several methods to prevent the evolution of PTSS right after exposure to trauma (1−24 h), (3) educate people about psychological effects that can occur during and after trauma, normalize acute distress and refer to professional help if a disorder is constituted. We hope that this research project will help to understand how to maximize the self help support during the acute phase (golden hours) after trauma to prevent the transition from PTSS to PTSD. A video abstract can be found on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZJehj3J8go&feature=emb_title

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has led to closures of non-essential businesses and buildings. The impact of such closures on automated external defibrillator (AED) accessibility compared to changes in foot traffic levels is unknown. Methods We identified all publicly available online AED registries in Canada last updated May 1, 2019 or later. We mapped AED locations to location types and classified each location type as completely inaccessible, partially inaccessible, or unaffected based on government-issued closure orders as of May 1, 2020. Using location and mobility data from Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports, we identified the change in foot traffic levels between February 15 – May 1, 2020 (excluding April 10–12) compared to the baseline of January 3 – February 1, 2020, and determined the discrepancy between foot traffic levels and AED accessibility. Results We identified four provincial and two municipal AED registries containing a total of 5,848 AEDs. Of those, we estimated that 69.9% were completely inaccessible, 18.8% were partially inaccessible, and 11.3% were unaffected. Parks, retail and recreation locations, and workplaces experienced the greatest reduction in AED accessibility. The greatest discrepancies between foot traffic levels and AED accessibility occurred in parks, retail and recreation locations, and transit stations. Conclusion A majority of AEDs became inaccessible during the COVID-19 pandemic due to government-mandated closures. In a substantial number of locations across Canada, the reduction in AED accessibility was far greater than the reduction in foot traffic.

Accurate prediction of dispersion curves for ultrasonic guided waves propagation in multi-layered composite laminates is crucial for the deployment of nondestructive testing procedures and structural health monitoring algorithms dedicated to aerospace composite materials. However, existing efforts mainly focused on finding ways to build complex-valued dispersion equations for guided waves (see transfer matrix method (TMM), global matrix method (GMM) and stiffness matrix method (SMM) for example) with little focus on developing efficient and stable numerical solving methods associated with the derived complex-valued equations. In this paper, the conditions under which complex-valued dispersion equations are either real- or purely imaginary-valued equations (termed as dichotomy property) are derived for both single- and multi-layered composite plates. With such a property, the complex-valued dispersion equations can be efficiently numerically solved within the real number field via the standard bisection method or the corrected phase change method. It is thus now possible to overcome numerical issues frequently reported in literature. Besides, a parallel computing technique is proposed in this paper to improve the computational efficiency of the traditional GMM. The proposed methodology provides a new standard framework to solve the dispersion equations which is stable, multipurpose, and numerically efficient. CSC Scholarship

Background: Longitudinal neuroimaging provides spatiotemporal brain data (STBD) measurement that can be utilised to understand dynamic changes in brain structure and/or function underpinning cognitive activities. Making sense of such highly interactive information is challenging, given that the features manifest intricate temporal, causal relations between the spatially distributed neural sources in the brain.\ud \ud Methods: The current paper argues for the advancement of deep learning algorithms in brain-inspired spiking neural networks (SNN), capable of modelling structural data across time (longitudinal measurement) and space (anatomical components). The paper proposes a methodology and a computational architecture based on SNN for building personalised predictive models from longitudinal brain data to accurately detect, understand, and predict the dynamics of an individual’s functional brain state. The methodology includes finding clusters of similar data to each individual, data interpolation, deep learning in a 3-dimensional brain-template structured SNN model, classification and prediction of individual outcome, visualisation of structural brain changes related to the predicted outcomes, interpretation of results, and individual and group predictive marker discovery. \ud \ud Results: To demonstrate the functionality of the proposed methodology, the paper presents experimental results on a longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) dataset derived from 175 older adults of the internationally recognised community-based cohort Sydney Memory and Ageing Study (MAS) spanning 6 years of follow-up.\ud \ud Significance: The models were able to accurately classify and predict 2 years ahead of cognitive decline, such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia with 95% and 91% accuracy, respectively. The proposed methodology also offers a 3-dimensional visualisation of the MRI models reflecting the dynamic patterns of regional changes in white matter hyperintensity (WMH) and brain volume over 6 years.\ud \ud Conclusion: The method is efficient for personalised predictive modelling on a wide range of neuroimaging longitudinal data, including also demographic, genetic, and clinical data. As a case study, it resulted in finding predictive markers for MCI and dementia as dynamic brain patterns using MRI data.

16 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, supplementary data https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2021.102659.-- Code and data availability: The experimental protocol in this paper has no code associated with it. Forcing data from CMIP5 used for the protocol, and the FishMIP model outputs presented in this paper are available on the ISIMIP servers (https://www.isimip.org/), Climate change is warming the ocean and impacting lower trophic level (LTL) organisms. Marine ecosystem models can provide estimates of how these changes will propagate to larger animals and impact societal services such as fisheries, but at present these estimates vary widely. A better understanding of what drives this inter-model variation will improve our ability to project fisheries and other ecosystem services into the future, while also helping to identify uncertainties in process understanding. Here, we explore the mechanisms that underlie the diversity of responses to changes in temperature and LTLs in eight global marine ecosystem models from the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP). Temperature and LTL impacts on total consumer biomass and ecosystem structure (defined as the relative change of small and large organism biomass) were isolated using a comparative experimental protocol. Total model biomass varied between −35% to +3% in response to warming, and -17% to +15% in response to LTL changes. There was little consensus about the spatial redistribution of biomass or changes in the balance between small and large organisms (ecosystem structure) in response to warming, an LTL impacts on total consumer biomass varied depending on the choice of LTL forcing terms. Overall, climate change impacts on consumer biomass and ecosystem structure are well approximated by the sum of temperature and LTL impacts, indicating an absence of nonlinear interaction between the models’ drivers. Our results highlight a lack of theoretical clarity about how to represent fundamental ecological mechanisms, most importantly how temperature impacts scale from individual to ecosystem level, and the need to better understand the two-way coupling between LTL organisms and consumers. We finish by identifying future research needs to strengthen global marine ecosystem modelling and improve projections of climate change impacts, JDE was funded by Australian Research Council Discovery Projects DP150102656 and DP190102293. MC, JS, NB and OM received financial support by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (Triatlas project). CH received funding from the Open Philanthropy Project. NB and OM also acknowledge the support of the French ANR project CIGOEF (grant ANR-17-CE32-0008-01). DPT acknowledges funding from the ISI-MIP project to support a workshop on this topic, and the Jarislowsky Foundation. EDG received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 682602, BIGSEA). RFH was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the Acciones de Programación Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). MC acknowledges the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S) to the Institute of Marine Science (ICM-CSIC). TDE acknowledges funding from the ISIMIP project to support a workshop on this topic and the Fisheries and Oceans Canada Atlantic Fisheries Fund. All authors declare no conflict of interest with respect to this study. JAFS received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 FutureMARES project (#869300).

Collaborative consumption in the fashion industry has been put forward as a way to overcome current challenges of the ‘take-make-use-dispose’ economic system that is currently dominating the market, and has gained interest from practitioners, academics, and policy-makers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the state of collaborative fashion consumption research across various disciplines by critically reviewing and synthesizing this fragmented body of work. To do so, this systematic literature review critically evaluates where, how, and what research has been conducted on collaborative consumption in the fashion context, by further outlining gaps and a future research agenda. The paper reviews publications between 2004 and 2020 within peer-reviewed journals written in English, focusing on product service systems, access-based consumption, and collaborative consumption as key words. The analysis demonstrates that scholarly work addresses issues of terminology, attitudes, and motivations, specific modalities of engagement and practices of use and disposal, as well as business models that can help facilitate collaborative fashion consumption. The review also highlights that various gaps remain that require further enquiries, arguing that a deeper and more critical research agenda is required in order to provide a coherent terminology, better understand motivations to uptake collaborative consumption practices, as well as more cross-country analysis.

To address the urgent environmental challenges of transportation related air pollution and energy shortage, hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and battery electric vehicles (BEV) with potential for higher energy efficiency are gaining in popularity and gradually replacing those conventional vehicles. Extended range electric vehicle (EREV) is a subset of these new energy vehicles aiming to gain benefits of both HEVs and BEVs and provide a solution to reducing tailpipe emissions whilst providing satisfactory driving-range compared with tradition internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle counterparts. This paper systematically introduces the current developments of EREV in terms of the powertrain structure, energy management and vehicle performance, while the two key focus areas of auxiliary power unit (APU) charging control and (hybrid) energy storage system ((H)ESS) power management. A case analysis on a typical EREV is presented to study the application potential. Comprehensive comparisons of popular APU control strategies and different energy storage dispositions are shared, several existing issues are also discussed in this paper. Furthermore, a general manufacturing cost analysis for different types of vehicles is presented, and the outlook of EREV for future research is presented.

Rural studies now has a well-established corpus of work exploring how rural spaces and practices become (re)presented within various media and how these representations serve to perpetuate the ‘cultural fantasy’ of the rural idyll. To date, however, there has been a dearth of studies which have considered the role that social media may play within representing rural spaces and activities. The following paper attends to this omission through a consideration of farmers' use of social media and an exploration of how it may be used to document and (re)present their everyday working lives and practices. Drawing on the communicative practice of “working out loud” (WOL) and through analysing 5000 farming tweets, the paper shows how social media may offer a more broadly sourced, grassroots, depiction of rural farming life and examines how farmers assemble a range of sources – including the non-human – in (re)presenting the countryside and revealing the nature of their work. The paper notes how social media might enable farmers to reveal the often-hidden aspects of farm work, share and document practices as well as express and reflect their perspectives in communicating to (and with) farming and non-farming audiences, and how such communicative practices might serve to (re)construct their farming identities.

The HCR-20, a widely used method of assessing and managing risk, relies on the structured professional judgement approach. This paper reports a narrative literature review of the HCR-20 studies to explore the applicability of the study results to the use of the HCR-20 in clinical practice. From a literature search using terms "HCR-20" and "HCR 20", 206 papers were included. Of studies using the HCR-20 version 2 (n = 191), 92% (n = 176) relied on variables based on scores derived by adding item scores, and 50% (n = 95) tested the HCR-20 using predictive validity methodology. Of the HCR-20 version 3 studies (n = 21), the "presence of risk factors" step was the most commonly examined (n = 18, 86%), but 2 of the 7 steps ("scenario planning" and "management") were not examined at all. Amongst those studies whose primary focus was on the HCR-20, 67% (n = 64/95) did so by assessing the predictive validity of the tool. Only one employed a design to test whether the use of the HCR-20 affected violence rates. The predominant study design provides support for the use of the HCR-20 as an actuarial tool, and there is limited empirical evidence in support of its effectiveness as a structured professional judgement approach to the assessment and management of the risk of violence.

Objectives\ud \ud (i) To undertake a comprehensive scoping review of the literature that addresses the research question ‘What is the current state of environmental sustainability in general dental practice?’ (ii) To provide an effective baseline of data that will consider general awareness, barriers and challenges for the implementation of sustainable practice.\ud \ud \ud Data & sources\ud \ud The scoping review was conducted for all published literature in the English language that addresses this topic up to the 31st April 2021. The method of the PRISMA-ScR (PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews) was followed. 128 papers included in this scoping review consisted of: Commentary [Letters, editorials, communication and opinion] (n = 39); Research (n = 60); Literature reviews (n = 25); Reports [Policy and legislation] (n = 4). Each included record was analysed for emerging themes that were further classified according to their general relevance. The scoping review is considered over two manuscripts, with this first paper focusing on awareness of the problem and barriers or challenges to the implementation of sustainable care.\ud \ud \ud Conclusions\ud \ud Eight diverse but closely interlinked themes that influence the sustainability of oral health provision were identified: Environmental impacts (CO2e, air and water); Reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink; Policy and guidelines; Biomedical waste management; Plastics (SUPs); Procurement; Research & Education; Materials. Barriers to implementation were identified as: Lack of professional and public awareness; carbon emissions arising from patient and staff commute; challenges associated with the recovery and recycling of biomedical waste with a focus on SUPs; lack of knowledge and education into sustainable healthcare provision and; the challenges from the manufacturing, use and disposal of dental materials.

Background and Objectives: The traditional pain measures are qualitative and inaccurate. Therefore, electroencephalography (EEG) signals have been recently used and analyzed to differentiate pain from no-pain state. The challenge is emerged when the accuracy of these classifiers is not enough for differentiating between different pain levels. In this paper, we demonstrate that EEG-based functional connectivity graph is remarkably changed by increasing the pain intensity and therefore, by deriving informative features from this graph at each pain level, we finely differentiate between five levels of pain. \ud \ud Methods: In this research, 23 subjects (mean age: 22 years, Std: 1.4) are voluntarily enrolled and their EEG signals are recorded via 29 electrodes, while they execute the cold pressure test. The signals are recorded two times from each case, while subjects press a button to annotate the EEGs into five pain levels. After denoising the EEGs, the brain connectivity graph in the Alpha band are estimated using partial directed coherence method in successive time frames. By observing the differences of connectivity graph features in different levels of pain, a bio-inspired decision tree (multilayer support vector machines) is proposed. Discriminant features are selected using sequential forward feature selection manner and the selected features are applied to the proposed decision tree. \ud \ud Results: Classification result for differentiating between the pain and no-pain states provides 92% accuracy (94% sensitivity and 91% specificity), while for the five classes of pain, the proposed scheme generates 86% accuracy (90% sensitivity and 82% specificity), which is slightly decreased compared to the two-class condition. Moreover, the results are evaluated in terms of robustness against noise in different signal to noise ratio levels. Comparison results with previous research imply the significant superiority of the proposed scheme. \ud \ud Conclusion: In this paper, we show that the elicited features from the filtered brain graph are able to significantly discriminate five different levels of pain. This is therefore the amount of co-activation between the brain regions (graph links) are significantly varied, as the pain feeling increases. Our observations are consistent with the physiological observations acquired from the images of functional magnetic resonance and magnetoencephalography.

Pre-print / Óritrýnd útgáfa greinar © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved., Glaciers have been an increasingly studied topic in the ecosystem services (ES) literature, with 6 multiple scientific studies affirming a critical and diverse contribution to human well-being. 7 However, the literature to date on glacier ES has lacked a systematic analysis of their type and 8 the various stages in the formation of glacier ES, including the linkages between biophysical 9 structures and ecological processes to human values, benefits and well-being. This paper begins 10 to fill this gap by (1) detailing the first Common International Classification for Ecosystem 11 Services classification of ecosystem services specific to glaciers; and (2) constructing an ES 12 cascade model specific to the ES of glaciers, integrating four main stages of co-production: 13 value attribution, mobilisation of ES potential, value appropriation, and commercialisation. In 14 both stages, examples from the academic and grey literature are highlighted. Based on a 15 systematic literature review, a total of 15 ES are identified, categorised as follows: provisioning 16 (2), regulation and maintenance (6), and cultural (7). Apart from abiotic regulation and 17 maintenance ES, it is evident that human interventions are necessary in order to mobilise, 18 appropriate and commercialise several glacier ES, including freshwater for drinking, 19 hydropower generation, recreation and education. Rapidly intensifying climate change has led 20 to intense focus on the initial co-production process of value attribution and identification of 21 dynamic ecosystem services potential, with a view to maximising commercial benefits in the 22 coming decades where this is possible, especially linked to hydropower generation from glacial 23 rivers. However, this study also finds that adaptive ecosystem management is a necessary pre24 requisite of resilience but may be insufficient in this context to address potential ecosystem 25 disservices and potentially catastrophic impacts to human well-being, such as from dangerous 26 glacier outburst floods., This paper has been funded by NordForsk (grant number 76654) via their financial support to 743 the Nordic Centre of Excellence ARCPATH (Arctic Climate Predictions – Pathways to 744 Resilient, Sustainable Communities).

Distributed solar plants are widely used in the power supply of the factories and the residences. To increase the power generation, it is inevitable to model the efficiency of the distributed solar plant and diagnose its efficiency performance. In this paper, a practical 3 MW distributed solar plant is taken as an example. The data analysis reveals the performance ratio (PR) of the plant is around 59%, which is much lower than the recommend value 75%. The efficiency diagnosis also shows that the conventional design method, which is used to determine the module quantity in a photovoltaic (PV) array, has its limitation. This method may lead to the voltage mismatch between the desired operation point of the PV array and the connected inverter, which degrades the performance of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of the PV system. In the conventional design, the tilted angle of the PV modules is chosen based on the maximum irradiation that the modules can reach. However, the maximum irradiation on PV modules does not necessarily means the maximum electricity yield. Therefore, a new design methodology that optimizes the module quantity and the tilted angle of PV modules in the solar plant is proposed in this paper. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The sharing economy has gained traction in several industry sectors by establishing ever-new platforms, with digital intermediation and peer-to-peer exchanges at the heart of the business model. Most research on the sharing economy concerns the phenomenon level or focuses on the operations of single platforms. This paper connects various sharing economy platforms by asking: How has the sharing economy spread to new platforms? The purpose of the paper is to explain the pattern of spread of the sharing economy business model. Findings point out a seamless, unobtrusive pattern echoing characteristics of the sharing economy business model across distant sectors to avoid competition while reproducing activities in ever-new resource settings. The paper continues the exploration of the sharing economy related to industrial marketing through moving from the individual platforms to the way they lead to new ones while acknowledging how the innovative model for new platforms is highly based on mandates created through acknowledging oneself as a role model successor. Such a spread mechanism redefines innovation newness, adaptation and diffusion, and raises new insights to understand how current business landscapes would be under the possible transition into a new logic of operations.

This paper is concerned with the modelling of punching shear failure at edge columns of flat slabs without shear reinforcement. Punching failure at edge columns is much less researched than at interior columns despite typical buildings having more edge than interior columns. The paper uses nonlinear finite element analysis (NLFEA) to study the influence on punching resistance of parameters including column aspect ratio and loading eccentricity. The NLFEA is carried out using both 3D solid elements and a Joint Shell Punching Model (JSPM) which combines nonlinear shell elements with nonlinear joint elements that incorporate the failure criterion of the Critical Shear Crack Theory (CSCT). Both constant and varying loading eccentricities are investigated since near failure eccentricity at edge column connections typically reduces below that calculated with elastic analysis due to moment being redistributed from the support to span. This reduction in eccentricity is beneficial since punching resistance is shown to depend on the final loading eccentricity. Consequently, designing for punching on the basis of elastic edge column moments is overly conservative.

Prompted by the urgency of climate change, this paper analyses the impediments for coal phase-out, by using the Greater Bay Region in China as a case study. Rather than factors specific to coal production, transport and consumption (e.g., subsidies, and vested interests), as suggested by existing literature, the analysis of this paper demonstrates that coal phase-out in the region has encountered a range of market (e.g., high gas price), infrastructure (such as, inadequate network), and regulatory (e.g., prolonged project approval) impediments; these impediments have hindered the effective deployment of alternative energy sources, raising concern about coal phase-out and its crippling impacts on the security of energy supply. Redressing these impediments is therefore a key priority for promoting a smooth coal phase-out in the region. This requires a mix of policies addressing two dimensions: 1) those aimed at squeezing out coal from the energy-mix to create room for alternative low-carbon energy sources; and 2) those aimed at supporting the uptake of these sources. Implementing these policies is however a challenging task as it relies on close-centre-local, and inter- and intra-regional cooperation, especially in a resource-poor region with a disperse energy endowment. Achieving this is difficult because the energy policy process of the country has long been characterised by fragmented authority and territorial administrative divisions with a proclivity for local governments to work in isolation from each other.

Understanding the effects of COVID-19 mitigation for persons in group living environments is of critical importance to limiting the spread of the virus. In the U.S., residential recovery homes for persons with alcohol and drug disorders are good examples of high-risk environments where virus mitigation procedures are essential. The National Alliance for Recovery Residences (NARR) has taken recommendations developed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and applied them to recovery home settings. This paper describes how COVID-19 mitigation efforts in recovery homes may be influenced by two factors. First, while some houses are licensed by states with rigorous health and safety standards, others are not licensed and are subject to less oversight. These homes may be more inconsistent in adhering to mitigation standards. Second, to varying degrees, recovery homes use a social model approach to recovery that contrasts with mitigation procedures such as social distancing and stay-at-home orders. This paper provides examples of ways recovery homes have been forced to adjust to the competing demands of mitigation efforts and social model recovery. The paper also identifies multiple questions that could be addressed by provider-researcher coalitions to inform how social model recovery can navigate forward during the era of COVID-19. As we move forward during the era of COVID-19, providers are encouraged to remember that recovery homes have a history of resilience facing adversity and in fact have their origins in grassroots responses to the challenges of their times.

Modelling audience size for televised football matches has utility for a number of stakeholders. In the short-term it can inform the choice of broadcasters as to which matches to show and decisions of firms regarding how much to bid for advertising slots during the game. For elite clubs and leagues, for which television rights is their principal source of revenue, it offers a means of understanding which match characteristics will draw the largest audience and this should inform long-term decisions on how to structure their competitions. The paper argues that previous modelling in this area has typically depended on an inappropriate measure of audience size and unsatisfactory metrics to capture important match characteristics such as the quality of the talent on show and the significance of the match for the championship or relegation. In contrast to this prior literature, the present paper draws on sport analytics to derive its measures of player talent and match significance. This makes a material difference to findings from modelling audience size for 790 English Premier League matches between 2013 and 2019. For example, it identifies elevated interest for matches potentially significant for end-of-season outcomes. This has implications when organisers consider the optimal structure of the competition and revenue sharing arrangements between member clubs of the league. For the wider television industry, we show that measurement of audience size (and some results from modelling) are sensitive to whether focus is on the whole programme or just its core content (in this case the match itself).

The current socio-economic climate is marked by an increased focus on corporate responsibility and the role of business in society. In this climate, megamarketing – efforts to develop and sustain an industry or market by gaining the cooperation and support of various stakeholders and publics – is an increasingly relevant approach. Current research in megamarketing focuses on understanding how various industry actors and stakeholders establish the legitimacy of a given industry by accommodating prevailing regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive structures. In contrast, this paper examines megamarketing efforts that go beyond such attempts to establish legitimacy towards establishing an industry as a virtuous entity displaying qualities that surpass minimal accepted standards and ‘business-as-usual.’ Inspired by work on virtue ethics in organisational studies, we develop the concept of industry aura: a ‘halo’ of unique and authentic virtues that characterise an industry. We explore the development of industry aura by surveying the discursive megamarketing tactics through which microfinance has been established as a virtuous industry. We conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses of 589 articles about microfinance appearing in five selected newspapers between 1986 and 2016. Our findings reveal three sets of megamarketing discursive tactics: 1) diagnostic framing and social mission framing, deployed to establish microfinance as a virtuous entity; 2) virtue anchoring and frame bridging, used to defend the industry’s aura in times of authenticity crisis; and 3) diagnostic and social-mission reframing aimed at recovering the tarnished aura of microfinance. Our paper enriches megamarketing research by charting relevant terrain that stretches beyond the established vectors of legitimacy theorizing and offers important implications for megamarketing practitioners.

This paper conducts a simulation study of low-speed Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), referred to as “pods”, platooning in shared urban environments. The proposed on-demand transport service can help solve the “last mile” challenge and improve mobility for non-drivers, elderly, and disabled people. To help the industry understands the dynamic system for deployment, this paper provides a practical prospect for pod platooning without prior planning. We designed a simulation system for the new transport. Non-homogenous Poisson processes were adopted to simulate arrivals of user requests. A three-density-zone map was designed from real-world city layouts. Practical time and location patterns of user demand were used. The supervision cost reduction as a benefit of platooning was estimated. System performance and user experience were evaluated. We identified how deployment can influence platooning. We found that platooning can reduce supervision cost by approximately 20% and 14%, during peak times on weekdays and midday on weekends respectively.

Highlights • Child protection is deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. • A suggested ecological framework is discussed. • Risk and protective factors might vary across different cultures. • International discussion is essential during COVID-19., Background Child protection is and will be drastically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Comprehending this new reality and identifying research, practice and policy paths are urgent needs. Objective The current paper aims to suggest a framework for risk and protective factors that need to be considered in child protection in its various domains of research, policy, and practice during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Strategy From an international collaboration involving researchers and child protection professionals from eight countries, the current paper examines various factors that were identified as playing an important role in the child protection system. The initial suggested framework Through the use of an ecological framework, the current paper points to risk and protective factors that need further exploration. Key conclusions point to the urgent need to address the protection of children in this time of a worldwide pandemic. Discussion of risk and protective factors is significantly influenced by the societal context of various countries, which emphasizes the importance of international collaboration in protecting children, especially in the time of a worldwide pandemic. Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed the urgent need to advance both theory and practice in order to ensure children's rights to safety and security during any pandemic. The suggested framework has the potential to advance these efforts so that children will be better protected from maltreatment amidst a pandemic in the future.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of tacit knowledge transfer in a particular type of global manager - the inpatriate manager who is typically relocated from the MNC’s subsidiary to headquarter. To do so, we draw on social embeddedness theory. Our paper suggests that if an inpatriate manager becomes embedded within the MNCs headquarter, tacit knowledge transfer will occur resulting in innovative practices and a global mindset within the MNCs headquarters. This study takes the unique approach of studying the barriers that inpatriate managers face in the transfer of tacit knowledge and highlights the role of human resources in facilitating the transfer of knowledge across the MNC. The paper articulates the implications for policy and practice and a future research agenda.

The carbon dioxide variations generated by the socio-economic restrictions imposed by the management of the COVID-19 crisis are analysed in this paper for 23 European countries and 10 economic sectors. By considering the most up to date information on GDP and carbon intensity of production, this paper represents one of the first attempts to estimate the CO2 emissions change that have taken place in Europe during the first six months of 2020. Results show that more than 195,600 thousand tons of CO2 have been avoided between January and June 2020, compared to the same period of the previous year, representing a -12.1% emissions change. The largest reductions have taken place in the Manufacturing, Wholesale, Retail Trade, Transport, Accommodation and Food Service sectors, accounting for more than 93.7% of total CO2 change. Spain, Italy and France have been the most affected areas with -106,600 thousand tons emissions drop. In line with the results provided by previous studies, this paper highlights that the geographical and the sectoral distribution of the CO2 emissions change has been largely influenced by the magnitude of the COVID-19 impacts. In addition, the carbon intensity of production, characterizing the most affected economic activities, has been the main element of differentiation compared to the previous 2008 crisis. By providing preliminary estimation of the CO2 emissions change that have taken place across geographical and sectoral activities, this paper contributes to the existing climate policy debate and can support future estimation of CO2 variations both in a context of confinement release as well as in a context of reintroduced COVID-19 restrictions.

The paper uses newly released Small Business Pulse Survey data on small business’ response to questions about overall COVID-19 impact, federal aid request, federal aid receipt, and subsequent changes in revenue and employee hours to evaluate the efficacy of three federal aid programs: Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL), and Small Business Administration (SBA) loan forgiveness programs. The paper finds no evidence that the severity of COVID-19 impact is related to the application and approval rate of any of the SBA assistance programs, implying that the relief funds did not reach the firms that need the liquidity injection the most. But the firms that did receive the relief funds were less likely to report revenue decrease and employee hours decline during the subsequent weeks. This result provides preliminary support to the social insurance value of the relief programs in boosting small businesses’ economic activities during the COVID-19 crisis.

The hinge type of precast concrete arch culvert was introduced to Japan from France in the 1990s in consideration of the saving of labor, shortening of the construction period, and high quality control of the concrete members. However, due to the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake (March 11, 2011), the three-hinged precast arch culverts that had been constructed in Japan at the beginning of the period when precast arch culverts were firstly introduced, suffered damage, which spoiled their serviceability. According to the extent of the damage and the type of culverts that were damaged, the longitudinal structural connectivity of the culverts was assumed to be one of the possible reasons for the reported damage mechanism. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to clarify how strongly the longitudinal structural connectivity influenced the longitudinal seismic behavior of the three-hinged arch culverts. To achieve this objective, an elasto-plastic finite element analysis was conducted with an analytical model that could capture the characteristics of the damaged culverts. Simultaneously, a penalty method with the bi-linear spring model was applied as a solution to the contact-impact problems of the precast segmental arch members. As a result, it was found that the weaker longitudinal structural connectivity in the damaged culverts allowed the torsional displacements of the arch members to induce critical damage to the arch members, namely, edge defects in the arch crown and concrete foundation. The numerical results proved the unignorable influence of the longitudinal structural connection on the possible damage to three-hinged arch culverts.

Transitions research has often been unintentionally biased toward novelty and assumes incumbents as homogeneous groups that are “locked-in” to certain sociotechnical regimes. In reality, incumbents are heterogeneous at the company and industrial levels and thus have heterogeneous responses that can both accelerate and deter sustainability transitions. To fill the research gap, this paper explores the determinants of such heterogeneous responses and insights for sustainability transitions, taking China’s major incumbent power generators as its case study. The results are: first, incumbent companies respond heterogeneously if firm-specific, socioeconomic, and institutional factors give different opportunities and barriers. Policy feedback effects and development of complementarities in infrastructure, instruments, and organizational elements can increase heterogeneous responses. Second, their heterogeneous responses can accelerate sustainability transitions if they go beyond destabilization of regime, legitimization of alternative policy instruments, and development of infrastructure and institutions that trigger co-evolution with socioeconomic and institutional factors.

Blank wrinkling is the most frequently encountered material processing failure in spinning. Design of toolpath profiles and selection of process parameters are important in preventing wrinkling. Existing studies employ simplified toolpath profiles and rely on the calculation of maximum and critical stresses of the blank to determine the onset of wrinkling, often requiring time-consuming Finite Element simulations. To overcome these limitations, this paper develops an analytical wrinkling prediction model integrated with toolpath design in developing multi-pass conventional spinning. The toolpath design is parameterised for concave, convex and linear profiles and a wrinkling-wave function using a concave profile is developed to capture geometrical characteristics of a wrinkled blank. The forming depth is introduced as a critical variable in designing a toolpath profile to control wrinkling. Material plastic deformation is analysed by employing the Donnell-Mushtari-Vlasov theory and wrinkling initiation is predicted by the occurrence of the instability of the blank as a doubly-curved thin shell. Experimental tests of first-pass conventional spinning using concave, convex and linear toolpath profiles are performed to validate the developed wrinkling prediction model. The experimental validation confirms that the proposed critical forming depth of toolpath profile is an accurate and effective measure in predicting the onset of wrinkling. The results show the significant effect of the design of toolpath profile, blank thickness, spin ratio and feed ratio on the onset of the wrinkling. The wrinkling prediction model is capable of producing processing maps of these key parameters to prevent wrinkling for the spinning process development in practical applications.

s Amorphous calcium lignosulphonate (CaLS), a by-product of the paper industry, was evaluated as an adhesive to bind demineralised bituminous coal fines in various weight percentage ratios. Sequential acid (HCl, HF, HCl) leaching was used to reduce mineral matter content in the coal fines. The pyrolysis and gasification of the samples were investigated in laboratory-scale experiments to determine the effect of the CaLS addition on the pyrolysis and gasification reactivities. Coal-CaLS blends consisting of 5, 10, and 15% calcium lignosulphonate were prepared, compressed into pellets, and characterised using proximate, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray fluorescence analyses. An increase in binder concentration increases the mechanical strength of the pellets due to the increased interparticle contact area. The relative coal gasification reaction reactivity (1/Tmax and 0.5/T50), which was determined from the derivative thermogravimetry curves, increases with CaLS addition. The experimental results revealed that these wastes (coal fines and calcium lignosulphonate) could be utilised in thermochemical processes. Utilising these wastes will reduce the environmentally unfriendly volumes of amorphous calcium lignosulphonate and coal fines particles.

Debonding failures of FRP have been frequently observed in laboratory tests of reinforced concrete (RC) beams flexurally-strengthened with near-surface mounted (NSM) fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP). A number of numerical and theoretical studies have been carried out to predict debonding failures in NSM FRP-strengthened beams, and several strength models have also been proposed. The existing studies, however, were all based on the scenario of a simply supported beam tested under one or two-point loading, while the influence of load distribution has not yet been investigated. This paper presents the first ever study into the effect of load distribution on the behaviour of NSM FRP-strengthened RC beams. A series of large-scale RC beams flexurally-strengthened with NSM FRP strips were first tested under different load uniformities; then a finite element (FE) model, which can give close predictions to the behaviour of such strengthened beams, was developed; finally, the proposed FE model was utilized to investigate the influence of bond length of NSM FRP on the load uniformity effect. It was found that the load uniformity has a significant effect on the beam behaviour, and the degree of this effect varies with the bond length of NSM FRP.

The geology, mineralogy, and geochemistry of the Spetsugli high-germanium coal deposit in the Pavlovsk coalfield were studied. The deposit is characterized by the complex polyelemental composition of the ores and can be evaluated as a complex rare metal-coal deposit. The metal-bearing coals of the deposit are characterized by abnormally high, tens or even hundreds of times greater than the mean contents for brown coals of the world, for Ge, Sb, Hg, W, Li, Be, Cs, and As. Somewhat less anomalous are the levels of accumulation of U, Mo, Y, Rb, medium and heavy lanthanides, Zn, and Ga. Detailed mineralogical and geochemical characteristics of the germanium mineralization and associated anomalous concentrations of W, Sb, Hg, As Li, Be, Cs, U, Mo, Y, Rb, and HREE are described in the paper. The variations in concentrations were studied in vertical profiles and laterally. Complex mineralogical-geochemical and geological-structural analysis of the composition and structural features of the Spetsugli Ge-coal deposit allow us to revise the accepted hydrothermal model of the Ge mineralization formation in coals and substantiate the previously proposed hypergenic model for deposits of this type. The new data are in good agreement with the hydrogenic hypergenic model of the formation of complex Ge coal deposits where the source of metals is the basement rocks or the coal-bearing depression margins. The formation of the Ge and associated mineralization in the Spetsugli deposit was controlled by the weathering crust formation on hydrothermally altered rare metal granites of the Voznesenk Complex, broken through by the Late Permian dikes. The isotopic ages of the granites (448.2 Ma) and dikes (263.6 Ma) were determined and also the rhyolitic tuffs (25.1 Ma) which overlie the Eocene-Oligocene coal- bearing sediments in the basin. The isotopic age of the granites (448.2 Ma), dikes (263.6 Ma), and rhyolite tuffs overlapping the carbonaceous deposits (25.1 Ma) was determined. The rare metal mineralization is related to the basement protrusion in the centre of the deposit, forming a concentric-zone halo of Ge and associated elements around it. The basement protrusion granites were hydrothermally altered to form quartz-albite-microcline metasomatites and greisen containing the W-Mo and Hg-Sb-As mineralization. The metasomatically altered granites and dikes were transformed into a kaolin weathering crust as a result of late hypergenic alterations, with destruction of primary endogenous mineralization and removal of major elements to the surrounding paleopeatlands. Both types of endogenous mineralization in granites and dikes have anomalous accumulation of W, Mo, Sb, Hg, As, Li, Rb, Cs, Be, U, Y, lanthanides, Zn and Ga in the germanium-bearing coals during the Eocene- Oligocene time.

This paper evaluates and calculates the magnitude of greenhouse gases produced from the implementation of electric bus charging stations into existing bus depots concurrent with the transitioning of the commuter bus fleets into electrified powertrains. To achieve this, a comprehensive and in-depth emissions life cycle assessment is conducted and utilises the Australian based fleets as a case study, focusing particularly on Sydney city and Inner West regions. To define the scope and system boundary for this type of study, the authors have chosen bus routes that take into account city, suburban, and highway driving. The study conducts a life cycle assessment of electric bus charging stations that incorporates the greenhouse gas emissions produced from the production, transportation, installation, operations, and decommissioning phases. Additionally, three alternate scenarios are explored: time variance, high shares of renewables, and net-zero emissions by 2050. Results show that contributions from infrastructure development and the transition to electrified buses are substantially outweighed by operation emissions. The operations phase is heavily dependent on the electricity grid-mixes carbon intensity and contributes the most greenhouse gas emissions (98.8%), followed by production (0.69%), recycling and disposal (0.48%), installation (0.01%), and transportation (0.01%). The current Australian electricity grid-mix produces approximately 1.2 ∼ 1.4 times more greenhouse emissions than when combusting diesel fuel. Thus, net-zero emissions will not be achieved without substantial grid-mix decarbonisation. This study also finds that regional-specific parameters heavily influences the final life cycle emissions calculations. For the case-specific scenario, it is found that transitioning the existing transport bus fleet into electric powertrains has the potential to significantly reduce the impact on climate change compared to diesel buses. However, it can only be made possible if the electricity used to charge the electric buses is generated from low carbon-intensive sources, such as renewable energy.

SummaryBackgroundLatent Tuberculosis (LTBI) is one of the most prevalent infections globally and is key in development of active tuberculosis disease (TB). In many low-burden countries, LTBI is concentrated within migrant populations reflecting higher disease burden in some countries of origin; national programmes may consequently focus on screening and treating LTBI in migrants to prevent future TB cases. However, little is known about the extent to which migrants initiate treatment for LTBI when testing positive, and their treatment outcomes, which is urgently needed if we are to strengthen these programmes, improve migrant health, and meet TB elimination targets.MethodsWe did a systematic review and meta-analysis, following PRISMA guidelines and PROSPERO registered (CRD42019140338) to pool global data on LTBI initiation and completion amongst migrants (defined as foreign born), and secondary outcomes to explore the range of both personal and provider level factors associated with initiation and completion. We searched Embase, Medline and Global Health, and hand-searched grey literature (from Jan 1 2000 to Apr 21 2020). Inclusion criteria were primary research articles reporting on LTBI treatment initiation and/or completion amongst migrants; we excluded papers where data were not stratified by migrant status, or where the data related to outcomes prior to the year 2000. There were no geographical or language restrictions.Results39 publications were included from 13 countries, with treatment initiation and completion data for 31,598 LTBI positive migrants. Overall, 69% (95% CI⍰=⍰51–84%; I2⍰=⍰99.62%) of these initiated treatment; 74% (95% CI⍰=⍰66–81%; I2⍰=⍰99.19%) of migrants who initiated treatment, completed it; among studies with data on the complete pathway from screening positive to completing treatment, 52% (95% CI⍰=⍰40–64%; I2⍰=⍰98.90%) successfully completed treatment. Meta-regression showed that LTBI programmes are improving, with more recent reported data (2010-2020) associated with better rates of treatment initiation and completion. European studies also appeared to have more successful outcomes than those in the Americas and Western Pacific WHO regions.ConclusionsLTBI treatment initiation and completion amongst migrants have room for improvement. Though the data show improvements in the past decade, the delivery of these programmes will need further strengthening if we are to meet targets to eradicate TB in low-incidence countries. Greater focus will need to be placed on engaging migrants more effectively in the clinic and understanding the diverse barriers and facilitators to migrants initiating and completing treatment. Such efforts must be mindful of, and sensitive to the unique experiences individuals arriving in a new country.FundingThis study was funded by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) through a joint ESCMID Study Group for Infections in Travellers and Migrants (ESGITM) and ESCMID Study Group for Mycobacterial Infections (ESGMYC) Study Group Research grant, the Rosetrees Trust (PhD studentship grant M775), the NIHR (NIHR Advanced Fellowship NIHR300072), and the Academy of Medical Sciences (SBF005\1111).Panel: Research in ContextEvidence before this studyLatent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) is one of the most prevalent infections globally, affecting an estimated 25% of the population; re-activation of LTBI is a major driver of tuberculosis (TB) cases worldwide. In low-incidence TB countries, TB and LTBI are often disproportionately concentrated amongst foreign born individuals, with national programmes increasingly focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of LTBI in migrants and other high-risk groups to prevent future TB cases and meet global elimination targets. However, little is known about the success of these programmes in engaging migrants and ensuring treatment completion – a population who often face multiple barriers to accessing health care on arrival to the host country. Prior to this review we scoped the literature and found two relevant reviews on this topic (Sandgren et al., 2016 & Alsdurf et al., 2016) but which did not specifically focus on migrants and/or lacked formal meta-analyses, and one/both used earlier data pre 2000 that may be less relevant now to current policy. Other studies have reported on migrant-specific outcomes in LTBI programmes globally, but the focus is often on screening practices rather than outcomes and all evidence in this area has not yet been effectively consolidated.Added value of this studyThis is the first systematic review and meta-analysis specifically exploring LTBI treatment initiation and completion among migrant populations. We report LTBI treatment outcome data on 31,598 migrants from the year 2000 onwards within 13 low-incidence countries (Implications of all the available evidenceDelivery of LTBI programmes will need to be strengthened to improve outcomes in migrants and meet targets to eradicate TB in low-incidence countries. Greater focus will need to be placed on engaging migrants more effectively in the clinic, understanding the varied reasons for migrants’ declining treatment when testing positive, and ensuring treatment adherence using innovative approaches that are mindful of and sensitive to the unique experiences of this group on arrival to the host country.

The rapid uptake of renewable energy technologies in recent decades has increased the demand of energy researchers, policymakers and energy planners for reliable data on the spatial distribution of their costs and potentials. For onshore wind energy this has resulted in an active research field devoted to analysing these resources for regions, countries or globally. A particular thread of this research attempts to go beyond purely technical or spatial restrictions and determine the realistic, feasible or actual potential for wind energy. Motivated by these developments, this paper reviews methods and assumptions for analysing geographical, technical, economic and, finally, feasible onshore wind potentials. We address each of these potentials in turn, including aspects related to land eligibility criteria, energy meteorology, and technical developments of wind turbine characteristics such as power density, specific rotor power and spacing aspects. Economic aspects of potential assessments are central to future deployment and are discussed on a turbine and system level covering levelized costs depending on locations, and the system integration costs which are often overlooked in such analyses. Non-technical approaches include scenicness assessments of the landscape, constraints due to regulation or public opposition, expert and stakeholder workshops, willingness to pay/accept elicitations and socioeconomic cost-benefit studies. For each of these different potential estimations, the state of the art is critically discussed, with an attempt to derive best practice recommendations and highlight avenues for future research. ISSN:0960-1481 ISSN:1879-0682

Background The COVID virus epidemic has produced another era on the planet while we sort out the outcomes in various parts of our everyday life. The food industry and food supply chain do not incorporate an exception. Considering a food supply chain, the business activities and supply of various food products have been suspended due to restriction of demand, closing the food production facilities, financial restrictions. Scope and approach According to the spreadability of the pandemic, every nation must understand the seriousness of the circumstance. This work aims to discuss the effect of COVID-19 on socioeconomic implications and the impact of lockdown on the food supply chain and agri-business. The paper also summarizes the suggestions needed to control and deduce the impact of COVID-19. For now, the chance of transmission through the food area is viewed as immaterial, and following Covid in workspaces isn't considered as a need by public authorities. However, the unfriendly impacts on the climate, food frameworks and individuals along the food store network are obvious. Key findings and conclusion A food supply chain facilities should concentrate on facilities like maintenance of employees' safety and health, change of conditions in working. To prevent the increment of food prices, the protectionist policy should avoid. We have also suggested a PDS system to overcome food supply chain disruption. In conclusion, the supply chain should respond and overcome the challenging situation in the food supply chain.

This paper presents numerical treatments of elastoplasticity relations for a previously developed critical state two-surface plasticity model and its implementation into a bespoke finite element code as well as the commercial software Abaqus via the user defined subroutine, UMAT. The model is implemented with an efficient integration scheme based on the explicit modified Euler scheme with automatic substepping and error control. Validation of the implemented model is assessed through simulation of several laboratory tests comprising a variety of initial states and loading conditions followed by a study on the accuracy and efficiency of the integration scheme. Subsequently, the model is employed to analyse some sophisticated boundary value problems involving finite deformations, inertia effects, soil-structure interactions and saturated porous media. The constitutive model captures particular features of clay behaviour, such as the prediction of strain rate dependence, small-strain stiffness degradation, the development of residual strength at very large shear strains and stress anisotropy. The effects of these features on the behaviour of two important geotechnical problems – including pipe-seabed interaction under lateral motion and dynamically installed anchors – are specifically investigated using two advanced finite deformation schemes: one based on the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) method and another on the Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM). The study illustrates the robustness of the proposed integration scheme and successful application of the soil model, indicating that the use of such complex soil models may be useful for realistic analyses of geotechnical problems.

The constant presence and reminder of COVID-19, as well as persistent measures to control, test, measure or otherwise monitor this pandemic are taking an eroding psychological toll on the global population, even as select populations begin to receive a vaccine. This daily “presence” is exhausting humanity in ways akin to times of war or extreme financial strife, and its long-term impact on human mental health is referred to in this paper as CORONEX, or exhaustion caused by the coronavirus, in this case COVID-19. This term is based on broad observations, but not on clinical data. Prolonged fear, insecurities, and radical changes to lifestyles can erode psychological defenses while fortifying mental frailties. Particularly vulnerable to both health and mental health impacts of COVID-19 are older individuals, those with pre-existing conditions, minorities, and healthcare workers. Even with vaccines, COVID-19-induced fatigue (CORONEX) will likely continue in the foreseeable future as humanity learns to coexist with this pandemic. Suitable and robust economic, psycho-emotive and healthcare support structures are needed for those that survive, even more so for communities living in under-privileged conditions.

As the global response to COVID-19 continues, nurses will be tasked with appropriately triaging patients, responding to events of clinical deterioration, and developing family-centered plans of care within a healthcare system exceeding capacity. Predictive analytics monitoring, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based tool that translates streaming clinical data into a real-time visual estimation of patient risks, allows for evolving acuity assessments and detection of clinical deterioration while the patient is in pre-symptomatic states. While nurses are on the frontline for the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of AI-based predictive analytics monitoring may help cognitively complex clinical decision-making tasks and pave a pathway for early detection of patients at risk for decompensation. We must develop strategies and techniques to study the impact of AI-based technologies on patient care outcomes and the clinical workflow. This paper outlines key concepts for the intersection of nursing and precision predictive analytics monitoring.

With the increasing growth of gas-fired units and power-to-gas facilities, the power system and natural gas system become an integrated electricity and natural gas system (IENGS), which brings new opportunities to mitigate the associated environmental issues and deal with various uncertainties from electricity load, renewable energy generation, and gas load. Different geographical locations may have many IENGSs which are connected by electric or gas transmission lines, thus formulating multi-area IENGSs. These multi-area IENGSs are not simple addition of individual IENGSs, since renewable energy may distribute unequally between different IENGSs, and excess renewable energy needs to be transmitted from one area to another, but is limited by potential tie-line congestions. To solve these problems, this paper proposes an economic dispatch model for multi-area IENGSs considering tie-line congestion, maximum allowable emission bounds and hourly spinning reserve constraints. The considered multi-area IENGS consists of multiple single-area IENGSs, among which wind energy distribution varies considerably. The maximum allowable emission bounds of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxygen are separately set based on their different influences on the environment. The hourly spinning reserves are allocated for both the power system and the natural gas system, which are provided by fossil fuel-fired units, power-to-gas facilities, gas pipelines, and natural gas storage facilities. After that, the presented model is converted into a mixed-integer linear programming problem for higher computing efficiency. Case studies for integrated systems are analyzed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model.

This paper proposes a two-objective linearized resilient architecture (LRA) model for distribution networks to achieve a strictly resilient network during natural disasters like earthquakes and floods. To obtain this goal, the proposed LRA framework is based on the planning of the energy storage system (ESS), hardening and tie lines, and backup distributed generation (DG). Therefore, the proposed model minimizes the sum of planning and expected operation costs in the first objective function, and the total load shedding and repair costs originates from earthquakes and floods in the second objective function. Also, it constraints to the network planning model, linearized equations of the system operation, and system reconfiguration formulation. Moreover, stochastic programming models the uncertain availability of the network equipment during the natural disaster condition, the load and electricity price. In the next step, the e-constraint-based Pareto optimization is used to achieve an equivalent single-objective LRA model and obtain the best compromise solution. Finally, the proposed strategy is applied to a standard test distribution network. Numerical simulation confirms the capability of the proposed method in obtaining a resilient distribution network during natural disasters.

Detection of Li+ ions is vital due to their applications as therapeutic drugs in medicine. In addition, finding Li+ in geothermal brines is gaining interest because of its application in energy storage systems. Monitoring Li+ levels in an aqueous environment can be achieved using chemical sensors. Solid-contact sensors (SCS) have attracted significant attention because of their portability, high sensitivity and lack of requirement of calibration. However, most solid-contact sensors suffer from low stability, especially in the long term. As a result, ion-to-electron transducers have been utilized to mitigate this problem. Recently Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) have proven to be excellent candidates for use as ion-to-electron transducers in SCSs. In this study, we have used Ni-HAB MOF to produce a highly stable Li+ selective electrode. Increasing the thickness of the MOF to 3.28 µm enhanced the sensor's capacitance 100-fold leading to the lowest drift in Li+ SCSs reported in the literature, 1.15×10−6 mV/h with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 9.94×10−7M and a 57.6 mV/dec sensitivity. The sensor exhibited a linear output and a fast response time of less than 1 s. In addition, the sensor developed was used in a real brine to detect the concentration of Li+ ions, where the obtained results were in good agreement with the actual concentration of Li+ ions. This paper offers a solution for the persistent issues of solid-contact sensors such as drift, response time, and limit of detection and paves the way for the miniaturization of sensors to be used in real-life applications.