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The IP-Glasma initial condition has been highly successful in the phenomenology of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. The assumption of boost invariance, however, while good for collision energies probed at the LHC, limits the use of IP-Glasma to the transverse dynamics of heavy ion collision to near mid-rapidity. There is a wealth of physics to be explored and understood in the longitudinal dynamics of heavy ion collisions, and a full understanding of heavy ion collisions can only come from 3-dimensional studies. In particular, long range rapidity correlations are seeded in the initial collision and provide additional information on the high energy nuclear wave functions that has thus far been inaccessible to the IP-Glasma model. In this work, we introduce a way to extend the IP-Glasma model to 3+1-dimensions while preserving its key features., Comment: 15 pages, 17 figures

Previous efforts to estimate the burden of fatigue-related symptoms due to long COVID have a very high threshold for inclusion of cases, relative to the proposed definition from the World Health Organization. In practice this means that milder cases, that may be occurring very frequently, are not included in estimates of the burden of long COVID which will result in underestimation. A more comprehensive approach to modelling the disease burden from long COVID, in relation to fatigue, can ensure that we do not only focus on what is easiest to measure; which risks losing focus of less severe health states that may be more difficult to measure but are occurring very frequently. Our proposed approach provides a means to better understand the scale of challenge from long COVID, for consideration when preventative and mitigative action is being planned.

Previous efforts to estimate the burden of fatigue-related symptoms due to long COVID have a very high threshold for inclusion of cases, relative to the proposed definition from the World Health Organization. In practice this means that milder cases, that may be occurring very frequently, are not included in estimates of the burden of long COVID which will result in underestimation. A more comprehensive approach to modelling the disease burden from long COVID, in relation to fatigue, can ensure that we do not only focus on what is easiest to measure; which risks losing focus of less severe health states that may be more difficult to measure but are occurring very frequently. Our proposed approach provides a means to better understand the scale of challenge from long COVID, for consideration when preventative and mitigative action is being planned.

PR, IFPRI3; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; ISI, Foresight and Policy Modeling (FPM); Transformation Strategies

This systematic literature review aimed to provide an overview of the characteristics and methods used in studies applying the Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY) concept for infectious diseases within European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA)/European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries and the United Kingdom. Electronic databases and grey literature were searched for articles reporting the assessment of DALY and its components. We considered studies in which researchers performed DALY calculations using primary epidemiological data input sources. We screened 3,053 studies of which 2,948 were excluded and 105 studies met our inclusion criteria. Of these studies, 22 were multi-country and 83 were single-country studies, of which 46 were from the Netherlands. Food- and water-borne diseases were the most frequently studied infectious diseases. Between 2015 and 2022, the number of burden of infectious disease studies was 1.6 times higher compared to that published between 2000 and 2014. Almost all studies (97%) estimated DALYs based on the incidence- and pathogen-based approach and without social weighting functions; however, there was less methodological consensus with regards to the disability weights and life tables that were applied. The number of burden of infectious disease studies undertaken across Europe has increased over time. Development and use of guidelines will promote performing burden of infectious disease studies and facilitate comparability of the results.

This systematic literature review aimed to provide an overview of the characteristics and methods used in studies applying the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) concept for infectious diseases within European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA)/European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries and the United Kingdom. Electronic databases and grey literature were searched for articles reporting the assessment of DALY and its components. We considered studies in which researchers performed DALY calculations using primary epidemiological data input sources. We screened 3053 studies of which 2948 were excluded and 105 studies met our inclusion criteria. Of these studies, 22 were multi-country and 83 were single-country studies, of which 46 were from the Netherlands. Food- and water-borne diseases were the most frequently studied infectious diseases. Between 2015 and 2022, the number of burden of infectious disease studies was 1.6 times higher compared to that published between 2000 and 2014. Almost all studies (97%) estimated DALYs based on the incidence- and pathogen-based approach and without social weighting functions; however, there was less methodological consensus with regards to the disability weights and life tables that were applied. The number of burden of infectious disease studies undertaken across Europe has increased over time. Development and use of guidelines will promote performing burden of infectious disease studies and facilitate comparability of the results.

Objectives: Quantifying the combined impact of morbidity and mortality is a key enabler to assessing the impact of COVID-19 across countries and within countries relative to other diseases, regions, or demographics. Differences in methods, data sources, and definitions of mortality due to COVID-19 may hamper comparisons. We describe efforts to support countries in estimating the national-level burden of COVID-19 using disability-adjusted life years. Methods: The European Burden of Disease Network developed a consensus methodology, as well as a range of capacity-building activities to support burden of COVID-19 studies. These activities have supported 11 national studies so far, with study periods between January 2020 and December 2021. Results: National studies dealt with various data gaps and different assumptions were made to face knowledge gaps. Still, they delivered broadly comparable results that allow for interpretation of consistencies, as well as differences in the quantified direct health impact of the pandemic. Discussion: Harmonized efforts and methodologies have allowed for comparable estimates and communication of results. Future studies should evaluate the impact of interventions, and unravel the indirect health impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

Objectives: Quantifying the combined impact of morbidity and mortality is a key enabler to assessing the impact of COVID-19 across countries and within countries relative to other diseases, regions, or demographics. Differences in methods, data sources, and definitions of mortality due to COVID-19 may hamper comparisons. We describe efforts to support countries in estimating the national-level burden of COVID-19 using disability-adjusted life years. Methods: The European Burden of Disease Network developed a consensus methodology, as well as a range of capacity-building activities to support burden of COVID-19 studies. These activities have supported 11 national studies so far, with study periods between January 2020 and December 2021. Results: National studies dealt with various data gaps and different assumptions were made to face knowledge gaps. Still, they delivered broadly comparable results that allow for interpretation of consistencies, as well as differences in the quantified direct health impact of the pandemic. Discussion: Harmonized efforts and methodologies have allowed for comparable estimates and communication of results. Future studies should evaluate the impact of interventions, and unravel the indirect health impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

The US-Australia strategic relationship has evolved from more or less an adversarial position in the 19th century to an Australia largely dependent on the US during the Cold War to the interdependent partnership we see today. Strategic interdependence means that the US-Australia relationship is not merely a one-sided affair; that Australia has something of substance to offer the strategic relationship. Part of the reason that the relationship is strong is because of a shared language, similar social values, and compatible political-legal systems. Moreover, the relationship has been thoroughly institutionalised via intelligence cooperation, defence science collaboration, and extensive personal relationships. But what the US really seems to value is Australia’s reliability as an ally. I argue that Australia best demonstrates its reliability as an ally, however, when it follows US strategic decision-making for the right reasons. This sense of reliability is more akin to trustworthiness than it is to loyalty. History demonstrates that Australia has not always agreed with the US. But agreeing doesn’t matter so much when Australia has established a track record of consistently applying sound reasoning to its strategic decisions and it has made substantive contributions to jointly sought after strategic outcomes.

Background To date, most efforts to understand the comparative population health impact of COVID-19 have been made using mortality-based metrics [1,2]. This has intensified discussion over methodological choices; in particular, how we value the life-years prematurely lost due to COVID-19 [3]. So far, the direct impact of COVID-19 on population health has varied across countries, with wide variation in incidence and infection fatality rates [4]. Understanding and quantifying the combined impact of morbidity and mortality is a key step to standardizing comparisons across countries, and to quantify the within-country impact of COVID-19 relative to other causes of disease and injury, sub-national areas or demographics [5]. This can be achieved by estimating summary measures of population health like disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). The estimation of DALYs is useful to provide comprehensive and comparative public health intelligence to inform decision-making for the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly around the extent of direct and indirect consequences [6]. At present, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study has not integrated COVID-19. Some studies have already estimated DALYs due to COVID-19. The first published assessment was performed for Korea, up until the end of April 2020 [7]. An assessment, using a similar time frame, followed for Italy [8]. To date, published studies have only included one COVID-19 related health state, or disability weights were country-specific [7–9]. Aim Our paper provides a step-by-step guide to define COVID-19 as a cause of disease burden, which can be used to calculate DALYs. Additionally, we suggest pragmatic data inputs, reflecting that availability and quality of data inputs will vary by country. This paper builds on previous DALY calculation guides [10,11]. As our paper provides suggestions for different solutions, we recommend that users should be clear about their methodological choices to ai

We present a formulation of the initial state of heavy ion collisions that generalizes the 2+1D boost invariant IP-Glasma \cite{Schenke:2012wb} to 3+1D through JIMWLK rapidity evolution of the pre-collision Wilson lines. The rapidity dependence introduced by the JIMWLK evolution leads us to modify the initial condition for the gauge fields, and to solve Gauss' law iteratively in order to allow for temporal evolution on a 3-dimensional lattice. While the transverse physics of QGP has been studied nearly exhaustively, the effect of longitudinal fluctuations introduced by the JIMWLK evolution has yet to be studied in detail phenomenologically. Hence, we couple our 3+1D IP-Glasma model to MUSIC+UrQMD, for completely 3+1D simulations of heavy ion collisions. Specifically, we consider Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 2.76\, {\rm TeV}$ and study the rapidity dependence of the charged hadron $v_n(\eta)$ via the $\eta$-dependent flow factorization ratios $r_n(\eta_a,\eta_b)$ as measured by CMS \cite{Khachatryan:2015oea}, as well as the charged hadron multiplicity $dN_{ch}/d\eta$., Comment: Submitted as a proceeding for Quark Matter 2019, held in Wuhan, China. 4 pages, 3 figures

Egypt’s irrigation systems are inefficient; the use of water is profligate and soil salinity levels have risen. This has reduced agricultural yields and biased production patterns away from high value crops in favour of salt resistant crops. The need to improve irrigation water quality is accentuated by increasing demand for, and declining supplies of, water resources. This study uses a computable general equilibrium model, calibrated to an extended SAM and detailed satellite accounts for water quality, to assess the impacts of the huge investments needed to raise water quality. The results indicate strong positive economy-wide impacts in Egypt, which exceed the investment cost. Income increases by 4% and induce increases in the production of high-value crops; i.e., fruits (almost triple), seasonal vegetables (30-37%) and rice by (13%) with a 64% increase in rice exports. The study illustrates the importance of including water quality as a variable in the analyses of water systems.

Recent efforts to design and study Pre-service Science Teacher Education have focused on engaging future teachers in teaching practices. This focus on practices comes with an explicit intention to blend aspects of knowledge and doing that has been historically separate in other efforts to teach novice learners practical aspects of their profession. This intention brings particular challenges to EU preservice teacher preparation programs that need to reconsider how to incorporate aspects of practices into their science education courses. These challenges not only emerge from the novelty and interrelated nature of these practices, but also from lack of clear ways of articulating what these practices are and look like across international teacher educational contexts. This paper brings together four EU studies and an international discussant that explore possibilities to embrace and respond to these challenges and being a cross-contextual conversation about science teacher education.

We present a novel formulation of the IP-Glasma initial state model in 3+1D in which the 2+1D boost invariant IP-Glasma is generalized through JIMWLK rapidity evolution of the pre-collision Wilson lines \cite{Schenke:2016ksl}. In order to consistently accommodate a non-boost-invariant system, the initial conditions are generalized to 3+1D. By breaking boost invariance, the 3+1D model no longer trivially satisfies Gauss' law at the initial time, and we now enforce it locally. We compare the time evolution of the chromo-electric and chromo-magnetic fields as well as the transverse and longitudinal pressures in the 3+1D case with the boost invariant result., Comment: To be submitted to the conference proceedings for the XXVIIth International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Quark Matter 2018), held May 13-19, 2018 in Venice, Italy

We present a novel approach to the treatment of thermal fluctuations in the (3+1)-D viscous hydrodynamic simulation MUSIC. The phenomenological impact of thermal fluctuations on hadronic observables is investigated using the IP-Glasma + hydrodynamics + hadronic cascade hybrid approach. The anisotropic flow observed in heavy-ion collision experiments is mostly attributed to the hydrodynamic response to the event-by-event collision geometry and to the sub-nucleon quantum fluctuations. However, hydrodynamic fluctuations are present during the dynamical evolution of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) and are quantified by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. They can leave their imprint on final-state observables. By analyzing the thermal noise mode-by-mode, we provide a consistent scheme of treating these fluctuations as the source terms for hydrodynamic fields. These source terms are then evolved together with hydrodynamic equations of motion. Such a treatment captures the non-perturbative nature of the evolution for these thermal fluctuations., Comment: Proceedings for Quark Matter 2018

Evaluate the spectrum of neurodevelopmental outcome in a contemporary cohort of extremely preterm infants. We hypothesize that the rate of severe neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI) decreases over time. Retrospective analysis of neurodevelopmental outcome of preterm infants ≤27 weeks' gestational age (GA) from a Neonatal Research Network center that completed neurodevelopmental follow-up assessments between April 1, 2011, and January 1, 2015. The Bayley Scales of Infant Development-III (BSID III) and a standardized neurosensory examination were performed between 18 and 26 months' adjusted age. Outcome measures were neurologic examination diagnoses, BSID III cognitive and motor scores, sensory impairment, and the composite outcome of NDI, based on the BSID III cognitive score (analyzed by using a cutoff of <85 or <70), BSID III motor score of <70, moderate or severe cerebral palsy (CP), bilateral blindness, and hearing impairment. Two thousand one hundred and thirteen infants with a mean GA of 25.0 ± 1.0 weeks and mean birth weight of 760 ± 154 g were evaluated. The 11% lost to follow-up were less likely to have private insurance, late-onset sepsis, or severe intraventricular hemorrhage. Neurologic examination results were normal in 59%, suspect abnormal in 19%, and definitely abnormal in 22%. Severe CP decreased 43% whereas mild CP increased 13% during the study. The rate of moderate to severe NDI decreased from 21% to 16% when using the BSID III cognitive cutoff of <70 (P = .07) or from 34% to 31% when using the BSID III cognitive cutoff of <85 (P = .67). Extremely preterm children are at risk for NDI. Over time, the rate of moderate to severe NDI did not differ, but the rates of severe CP decreased, and mild CP increased.

OBJECTIVE:To determine the characteristics of term infants with persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PPHN) associated with moderate or severe hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). METHODS:We compared infants with and without PPHN enrolled in 2 randomized trials of therapeutic hypothermia: the induced hypothermia trial of cooling to 33.5°C for 72 hours vs normothermia, and the "usual-care" arm (33.5°C for 72 hours) of the optimizing cooling trial. RESULTS:Among 303 infants with HIE from these 2 studies, 67 (22%) had PPHN and 236 (78%) did not. We compared infants with PPHN with those without PPHN. The proportion of patients treated with therapeutic hypothermia was similar in PPHN and no-PPHN groups (66% vs 65%). Medication use during resuscitation (58% vs 44%), acidosis after birth (pH: 7.0 ± 0.2 vs 7.1 ± 0.2), severe HIE (43% vs 28%), meconium aspiration syndrome (39% vs 7%), pulmonary hemorrhage (12% vs 3%), culture-positive sepsis (12% vs 3%), systemic hypotension (65% vs 28%), inhaled nitric oxide therapy (64% vs 3%), and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (12% vs 0%) were more common in the PPHN group. Length of stay (26 ± 21 vs 16 ± 14 days) and mortality (27% vs 16%) were higher in the PPHN group. CONCLUSIONS:PPHN is common among infants with moderate/severe HIE and is associated with severe encephalopathy, lung disease, sepsis, systemic hypotension, and increased mortality. The prevalence of PPHN was not different between those infants receiving therapeutic hypothermia at 33.5°C in these 2 trials (44/197 = 22%) compared with infants receiving normothermia in the induced hypothermia trial (23/106 = 22%).

In this work we use the IP-Glasma+MUSIC+UrQMD framework to systematically study a wide range of hadronic flow observables at 2.76 TeV. In addition to the single particle spectra and anisotropic flow coefficients $v_n$ previously studied in \cite{1609.02958}, we consider event-plane correlations, non-linear response coefficients $\chi_{npq}$, and event shape engineering. Taken together, these observables provide a wealth of insight into the collective behavior of the QGP and initial state fluctuations. They shed light on flow fluctuations, flow at fixed system size but different initial geometries, as well as the non-linear hydrodynamic response to the initial state spatial eccentricities. By synthesizing this information we can gain further insight into the transport properties of the QGP as well as the fluctuation spectrum of the initial state., Comment: To be submitted to the conference proceedings for the XXVIth International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Quark Matter 2017), held Feb 5-11, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois, USA

In this work, we debut a new implementation of IP-Glasma and quantify the pre-equilibrium longitudinal flow in the IP-Glasma framework. The saturation physics based IP-Glasma model naturally provides a non-zero initial longitudinal flow through its pre-equilibrium Yang-Mills evolution. A hybrid IP-Glasma+MUSIC+UrQMD frame- work is employed to test this new implementation against experimental data and to make further predictions about hadronic flow observables in Pb+Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV. Finally, the non-zero pre-equilibrium longitudinal flow of the IP-Glasma model is quantified, and its origin is briefly discussed., Comment: Presentation given at the 8th International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions (Hard Probes 2016), September 23-27 2016, Wuhan, China

Predictions and comparisons of hadronic flow observables for Pb+Pb collisions at 2.76 A TeV and 5.02 A TeV are presented using a hydrodynamics + hadronic cascade hybrid approach. Initial conditions are generated via a new formulation of the IP-Glasma model and then evolved using relativistic viscous hydrodynamics and finally fed into transport cascade in the hadronic phase. The results of this work show excellent agreement with the recent charged hadron anisotropic flow measurements from the ALICE collaboration of Pb+Pb collisions at 5.02 A TeV. Event-by-event distributions of charged hadron v n , flow event-plane correlations, and flow factorization breaking ratios are compared with existing measurements at 2.76 A TeV, and are predicted at 5.02 A TeV. Further predictions of identified hadron observables (for both light and multi-strange hadrons), such as p T -spectra and anisotropic flow coefficients, are presented.

UNLABELLED: Liver mortality among individuals with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection is common, but the relative contribution of CHC per se versus adverse health behaviors is uncertain. We explored data on spontaneous resolvers of hepatitis C virus (HCV) as a benchmark group to uncover the independent contribution of CHC on liver mortality. Using national HCV diagnosis and mortality registers from Denmark and Scotland, we calculated the liver mortality rate (LMR) for persons diagnosed with CHC infection (LMRchronic ) and spontaneously resolved infection (LMRresolved ), according to subgroups defined by age, sex, and drug use. Through these mortality rates, we determined subgroup-specific attributable fractions (AFs), defined as (LMRchronic - LMRresolved )/LMRchronic , and then calculated the total attributable fraction (TAF) as a weighted average of these AFs. Thus, the TAF represents the overall fraction (where 0.00 = not attributable at all; and 1.00 = entirely attributable) of liver mortality attributable to CHC in the diagnosed population. Our cohort comprised 7,005 and 21,729 persons diagnosed with HCV antibodies in Denmark and Scotland, respectively. Mean follow-up duration was 6.3-6.9 years. The TAF increased stepwise with age. It was lowest for death occurring at <45 years of age (0.21 in Denmark; 0.26 in Scotland), higher for death occurring at 45-59 years (0.69 in Denmark; 0.69 in Scotland), and highest for death at 60+years (0.92 in Denmark; 0.75 in Scotland). Overall, the TAF was 0.66 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.55-0.78) in Denmark and 0.55 (95% CI: 0.44-0.66) in Scotland.CONCLUSIONS: In Denmark and Scotland, the majority of liver death in the CHC-diagnosed population can be attributed to CHC-nevertheless, an appreciable fraction cannot, cautioning that liver mortality in this population is a compound problem that can be reduced, but not solved, through antiviral therapy alone.

Objective To develop transparent and reproducible methods for imputing missing data on disease incidence at national-level for the year 2005. Methods We compared several models for imputing missing country-level incidence rates for two foodborne diseases – congenital toxoplasmosis and aflatoxin-related hepatocellular carcinoma. Missing values were assumed to be missing at random. Predictor variables were selected using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression. We compared the predictive performance of naive extrapolation approaches and Bayesian random and mixed-effects regression models. Leave-one-out cross-validation was used to evaluate model accuracy. Findings The predictive accuracy of the Bayesian mixed-effects models was significantly better than that of the naive extrapolation method for one of the two disease models. However, Bayesian mixed-effects models produced wider prediction intervals for both data sets. Conclusion Several approaches are available for imputing missing data at national level. Strengths of a hierarchical regression approach for this type of task are the ability to derive estimates from other similar countries, transparency, computational efficiency and ease of interpretation. The inclusion of informative covariates may improve model performance, but results should be appraised carefully

Background: The Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG) was established in 2007 by the World Health Organization to estimate the global burden of foodborne diseases (FBDs). This paper describes the methodological framework developed by FERG's Computational Task Force to transform epidemiological information into FBD burden estimates. Methods and Findings: The global and regional burden of 31 FBDs was quantified, along with limited estimates for 5 other FBDs, using Disability-Adjusted Life Years in a hazard- and incidence-based approach. To accomplish this task, the following workflow was defined: outline of disease models and collection of epidemiological data; design and completion of a database template; development of an imputation model; identification of disability weights; probabilistic burden assessment; and estimating the proportion of the disease burden by each hazard that is attributable to exposure by food (i.e., source attribution). All computations were performed in R and the different functions were compiled in the R package 'FERG'. Traceability and transparency were ensured by sharing results and methods in an interactive way with all FERG members throughout the process. Conclusions: We developed a comprehensive framework for estimating the global burden of FBDs, in which methodological simplicity and transparency were key elements. All the tools developed have been made available and can be translated into a user-friendly national toolkit for studying and monitoring food safety at the local level.

Background The Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG) was established in 2007 by the World Health Organization to estimate the global burden of foodborne diseases (FBDs). This paper describes the methodological framework developed by FERG's Computational Task Force to transform epidemiological information into FBD burden estimates. Methods and Findings The global and regional burden of 31 FBDs was quantified, along with limited estimates for 5 other FBDs, using Disability-Adjusted Life Years in a hazard- and incidence-based approach. To accomplish this task, the following workflow was defined: outline of disease models and collection of epidemiological data; design and completion of a database template; development of an imputation model; identification of disability weights; probabilistic burden assessment; and estimating the proportion of the disease burden by each hazard that is attributable to exposure by food (i.e., source attribution). All computations were performed in R and the different functions were compiled in the R package 'FERG'. Traceability and transparency were ensured by sharing results and methods in an interactive way with all FERG members throughout the process. Conclusions We developed a comprehensive framework for estimating the global burden of FBDs, in which methodological simplicity and transparency were key elements. All the tools developed have been made available and can be translated into a user-friendly national toolkit for studying and monitoring food safety at the local level.

Analysing agricultural and irrigation policy for Egypt within a CGE modelling framework has been constrained by lack of data. The available Egyptian SAMs do not provide adequate information on seasonal agricultural and irrigation activities. This paper describes the construction process for a SAM for Egypt (2008/2009). The SAM introduces irrigation water as a separate production factor. Furthermore, it provides detailed representation for the agricultural activities and factors across different irrigation seasons. This new SAM allows accurate assessment for a wide range of agricultural and irrigation policies within a CGE modelling framework.