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Background We aimed to elucidate household and community-level shedding and transmission of trivalent oral polio vaccine (tOPV) in communities with inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) routine immunization after tOPV is administered during a national health week (NHW). Methods We conducted a 3-arm, randomized trial with data collected at baseline through 10 weeks post-NHW in households with at least 1 child <5 years old in 3 semi-rural communities in Orizaba, Mexico. Selected communities were geographically isolated but socio-demographically similar. Each community was assigned an oral polio vaccine (OPV) immunization rate: 10, 30, or 70% of participating households. From 2653 households in the 3 communities, ~150 households per community were selected, for 466 in total. Households were randomized as vaccinated or unvaccinated, with only 1 child under 5 in the vaccinated household receiving OPV during the February 2015 NHW. No other community members received OPV during this NHW. Stool samples were collected up to 10 weeks post-vaccination for all members of the 466 study households and were analyzed for the presence of OPV serotypes using a multiplex polymerase chain reaction assay. Results We will report on the factors associated with, and incidence and duration of, household and community shedding and transmission of OPV. The secondary outcomes will characterize temporal and geospatial OPV serotype shedding patterns. Conclusions The current global polio eradication plan relies on transitioning away from OPV to IPV. This study contributes to understanding patterns of OPV shedding and transmission dynamics in communities with primary IPV immunity, in order to optimize the reduction of OPV transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation (NDT) established a more restrictive selection process for manuscripts submitted to the journal, reducing the acceptance rate from 25% (2008-2009) to currently about 12-15%. To achieve this goal, we decided to score the priority of manuscripts submitted to NDT and to reject more papers at triage than in the past. This new scoring system allows a rapid decision for the authors without external review. However, the risk of such a restrictive policy may be that the journal might fail to capture important studies that are eventually published in higher-ranked journals. To look into this problem, we analysed random samples of papers (~10%) rejected by NDT in 2012. Of the papers rejected at triage and those rejected after regular peer review, 59 and 61%, respectively, were accepted in other journals. A detailed analysis of these papers showed that only 4 out of 104 and 7 out of 93 of the triaged and rejected papers, respectively, were published in journals with an impact factor higher than that of NDT. Furthermore, for all these papers, independent assessors confirmed the evaluation made by the original reviewers. The number of citations of these papers was similar to that typically obtained by publications in the corresponding journals. Even though the analyses seem reassuring, previous observations made by leading journals warn that the risk of 'big misses', resulting from selective editorial policies, remains a real possibility. We will therefore continue to maintain a high degree of alertness and will periodically track the history of manuscripts rejected by NDT, particularly papers that are rejected at triage by our journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a discussion on the article 'A Theory of Statistical Models for Monte Carlo Integration,' by A. Kong, P. McCullagh, X.-L. Meng, D. Nicolae and Z. Tan, which formulated a task of estimating an integral by Monte Carlo methods as a statistical model using simulated observations as data. Most provocative part of the paper, according to Michael Evans; Criticism on the paper; Key aspect of the variance reduction by group averaging that is suggested in the paper.

A strong connection between schools and families is vital for student success and well-being. Previous studies on school–family relationships found that open communication between parties may aid in supporting students' needs and ability to attend school. In this paper, authors analyze how leveraging relationships to gain an increased understanding of a family's attendance barriers is more beneficial than relationships built on accountability. From interviews with 38 caregivers, 29 students, and 40 staff members in an urban school district with high rates of chronic absenteeism, authors found that efforts to build relationships with families focused on accountability and caregiver education about their children's attendance and the importance of attending school. Families sometimes perceived these efforts as superficial and ineffective. Authors discuss how school districts and key school personnel, such as social workers, can intentionally use the power of relationships to identify student and family needs and connect them with resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses papers by Forster and Smith and Clayton on methods of survey analysis. Features the papers have in common; A reanalysis of the five data sets by Clayton.

Background Two-sample Mendelian randomization (2SMR) is an increasingly popular epidemiological method that uses genetic variants as instruments for making causal inferences. Clear reporting of methods employed in such studies is important for evaluating their underlying quality. However, the quality of methodological reporting of 2SMR studies is currently unclear. We aimed to assess the reporting quality of studies that used MR-Base, one of the most popular platforms for implementing 2SMR analysis. Methods We created a bespoke reporting checklist to evaluate reporting quality of 2SMR studies. We then searched Web of Science Core Collection, PsycInfo, MEDLINE, EMBASE and Google Scholar citations of the MR-Base descriptor paper to identify published MR studies that used MR-Base for any component of the MR analysis. Study screening and data extraction were performed by at least two independent reviewers. Results In the primary analysis, 87 studies were included. Reporting quality was generally poor across studies, with a mean of 53% (SD = 14%) of items reported in each study. Many items required for evaluating the validity of key assumptions made in MR were poorly reported: only 44% of studies provided sufficient details for assessing if the genetic variant associates with the exposure ('relevance' assumption), 31% for assessing if there are any variant-outcome confounders ('independence' assumption), 89% for the assessing if the variant causes the outcome independently of the exposure ('exclusion restriction' assumption) and 32% for assumptions of falsification tests. We did not find evidence of a change in reporting quality over time or a difference in reporting quality between studies that used MR-Base and a random sample of MR studies that did not use this platform. Conclusions The quality of reporting of two-sample Mendelian randomization studies in our sample was generally poor. Journals and researchers should consider using the STROBE-MR guidelines to improve reporting quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses papers written by Firth and Bennett and Pfeffermann et al that center on surveying sampling inference. Their analysis of survey data and hierarchical linear models; Their extension of regression estimator of finite population totals.

When starting an N -body simulation of an isolated galaxy, it is desirable to select particles from a distribution function to ensure that the model is in equilibrium. Random sampling from a DF is widely used, but results in a set of particles that differs by shot noise from that intended. This paper presents a method to reduce sampling noise that has been developed by the author in a many collaborations over a number of years. The technique has been partly described in past papers, though the ideas have not previously been gathered together, nor have its advantages been clearly demonstrated in past work. Of course, sampling errors can also be reduced by a brute force increase in the number of particles, but methods to achieve the same effect with fewer particles have obvious advantages. Here we not only describe the method, but also present three sets of simulations to illustrate the practical advantages of reducing sampling error. The improvements are not dramatic, but are clearly worth having. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to empower cardiovascular (CV) researchers by promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) principles throughout the research cycle. It defines DE&I and introduces practical strategies for implementation in recruitment, retention, and team dynamics within CV research. Evidence-based approaches supporting underrepresented populations' participation are outlined for each research phase. Emphasizing the significance of inclusive research environments, the paper offers guidance and resources. We invite CV researchers to actively embrace DE&I principles, enhancing research relevance and addressing longstanding CV health disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exploratory nature of phase II trials makes it quite common to include heterogeneous patient subgroups with different prognoses in the same trial. Incorporating such patient heterogeneity or stratification into statistical calculation for sample size can improve efficiency and reduce sample sizes in single-arm phase II trials with binary outcomes. However, such consideration is lacking in randomized phase II trials. In this paper, we propose methods that can utilize some natural order constraints that may exist in stratified population to gain statistical efficiency for randomized phase II designs. For thoroughness and simplicity, we focus on the randomized phase II selection designs in this paper, although our method can be easily generalized to the randomized phase II screening designs. We consider both binary and time-to-event outcomes in our development. Compared with methods that do not use order constraints, our method is shown to improve the probabilities of correct selection or reduce sample size in our simulation and real examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to solve the incalculability caused by the issue of inconsistent objective functions in multi-agent deep reinforcement learning, the concept of Nash equilibrium is introduced. However, a Marko game may have multiple equilibriums, how to filter out a stable and optimal one is worth studying. Besides solution concept, how to keep the balance between exploration and exploitation is another key issue in reinforcement learning. On basis of the methods, which can converge to Nash equilibrium, this paper makes improvement through Pareto optimization. In order to alleviate the problem of over fitting caused by Pareto optimization and non-convergence caused by strategy change, we use stratified sampling in place of random sampling as assistance. What's more, our methods are trained through fictitious self-play to make full of self-learning experiences. By analyzing the experiment carried out on MAgent platform, the proposed methods are not only far better than traditional methods, but also reaching or even surpassing the state of art MADRL methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Gardening has the potential to enhance health and well-being, through increased physical activity and social connectedness. However, while much is known about the benefits of garden activities, less is known about the potential health implications of more passive forms of engagement with gardens, for example, viewing gardens. In addition, much garden research is undertaken in urban settings, leaving little known about potential health impacts for rural populations. The present study explored these research gaps by gaining an understanding of the experiences and perspectives of members of a gardening appreciation group in rural Australia: The Colac Horticultural and Marvellous Property Appreciation Society (CHAMPAS). A phenomenological, qualitative methodology was applied, using semi-structured interviews for data collection. Eleven participants were selected using purposive and snowball sampling and the data were analysed by applying interpretive, reflexive thematic analysis. Four main themes and supporting sub-themes were generated. The four main themes were: (i) motivations for maintaining participation in CHAMPAS; (ii) social connections and friendships, formed from membership; (iii) sense of community and structure of CHAMPAS and (iv) the perceived health and well-being benefits of continued involvement in this group. This study found that members perceived health and well-being benefits stemmed from CHAMPAS facilitation of social connectedness, function as a community group and a way for members to share a love for home gardening. This study provides insights into the perceived and potential health-promoting effects of garden appreciation groups for rural populations. Lay Summary: There are many health and well-being benefits of gardening. However, research is predominantly focused on the active practice of gardening in urban environments, and little is known about the passive activity of garden appreciation, nor about the benefits of this activity in rural areas. This paper explores the health promotion potential of garden appreciation groups through the experiences of members of a rural group called CHAMPAS. Eleven members of CHAMPAS were asked to talk about what kept them attending, and what health and well-being benefits the group provided them. The study found that CHAMPAS benefits stemmed from its function as a social group and a way for members to share a love for home gardening. The findings suggest that garden appreciation groups potentially provide health promotion benefits for people in rural areas. A recommendation of this paper is to undertake further research to map and analyse these benefits across rural Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is challenging to quantitatively measure the health vulnerability and risk factors of refugees and migrants residing outside of formal settlement settings. For hard-to-reach populations without available sampling frames, researchers have increasingly turned to novel sampling and statistical methods, like respondent-driven sampling (RDS). "Standard" RDS is typically conducted face-to-face at fixed sites. However, during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, face-to-face survey methods and recruitment approaches posed high potential risk of virus transmission and infection, making remote RDS approaches optimal. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of implementing telephone and Internet RDS strategies to assess challenges faced by Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the city of Bogotá, Colombia's capital, and the department of Norte de Santander, the main Venezuelan-Colombian border crossing site. We describe RDS assumptions, survey design, formative research, and the implementation of both strategies and present diagnostics for determining whether assumptions are met. Phone-based recruitment strategies in both locations and the Internet strategy in Bogotá achieved their calculated sample size; however, the Internet strategy in Norte de Santander did not. Most RDS assumptions were sufficiently met at sites where sample sizes were reached. These surveys provide valuable lessons for implementing innovative remote strategies with which to study hard-to-reach populations such as refugees and migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kronecker product covariance structure provides an efficient way to model the inter-correlations of matrix-variate data. In this paper, we propose test statistics for the Kronecker product covariance matrix based on linear spectral statistics of renormalized sample covariance matrices. A central limit theorem is proved for the linear spectral statistics, with explicit formulas for the mean and covariance functions, thereby filling a gap in the literature. We then show theoretically that the proposed test statistics have well-controlled size and high power. We further propose a bootstrap resampling algorithm to approximate the limiting distributions of the associated linear spectral statistics. Consistency of the bootstrap procedure is guaranteed under mild conditions. The proposed test procedure is also applicable to the Kronecker product covariance model with additional random noise. In our simulations, the empirical sizes of the proposed test procedure and its bootstrapped version are close to the corresponding theoretical values, while the power converges to |$1$| quickly as the dimension and sample size increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale databases are crucial for macroecology research, yet not entirely bias-free. Studying the biogeography of metazoan microfauna utilizing such databases is challenging, and added biases can further hinder them. Incidence data of tardigrade species from Central and South America are geographically biased, comprising mostly species erroneously considered cosmopolitan. The impact of these biases on macroecological studies is still unknown. This paper evaluates how biased distribution records affect understanding of non-marine tardigrade distribution patterns in the Neotropical region. Using two datasets (including and excluding dubious records of allegedly cosmopolitan species), we assess how well biogeographic regions are sampled, estimate tardigrade species' richness, and analyse whether including dubious records can alter our comprehension of their macroecology. We demonstrate how biogeographic regions are still not fully sampled, and that including unreliable records influences how many species remain to be discovered. Since records of 'false cosmopolitan species' represent most records, their removal increases uncertainty while yielding distribution patterns more likely to be accurate. Disregarding untrustworthy distribution records of 'false cosmopolitan species' is the first step to better understanding tardigrade macroecology in the Neotropics, and probably worldwide. However, additional, preferably systematic sampling is required before we can infer general tardigrade biodiversity patterns in under-sampled regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat diffusion processes have found wide applications in modelling dynamical systems over graphs. In this paper, we consider the recovery of a |$k$| -bandlimited graph signal that is an initial signal of a heat diffusion process from its space–time samples. We propose three random space–time sampling regimes, termed dynamical sampling techniques, that consist in selecting a small subset of space–time nodes at random according to some probability distribution. We show that the number of space–time samples required to ensure stable recovery for each regime depends on a parameter called the spectral graph weighted coherence, which depends on the interplay between the dynamics over the graphs and sampling probability distributions. In optimal scenarios, as little as |$\mathcal{O}(k \log (k))$| space–time samples are sufficient to ensure accurate and stable recovery of all |$k$| -bandlimited signals. Dynamical sampling typically requires much fewer spatial samples than the static case by leveraging the temporal information. Then, we propose a computationally efficient method to reconstruct |$k$| -bandlimited signals from their space–time samples. We prove that it yields accurate reconstructions and that it is also stable to noise. Finally, we test dynamical sampling techniques on a wide variety of graphs. The numerical results on synthetic and real climate datasets support our theoretical findings and demonstrate the efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child-protection social work is a stressful occupation that results in workforce concerns about poor levels of staff retention and high levels of inexperience. This paper presents results from a cross-sectional survey and reports findings from a sample of 162 Northern Irish social workers. The sample were measured for 'resilience' (acceptance of self and life and individual competence, RS14 Resilience Scale), 'burnout' (emotional exhaustion EE, depersonalisation DP, personal accomplishment PA, Maslach Burnout Inventory) and organisational subscales (work-load, community, values, equity and control, Area of Work Life Scale (AWLS)). Pearson zero-order correlations showed that higher resilience was associated with lower EE and higher PA. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to identify unique demographic and work-specific predictors of resilience in addition to the AWLS subscales of control and values. The final model significantly accounted for 27 per cent of the variance in resilience scores, providing increased knowledge about resilience enhancing factors. As resilience is not an apolitical concept, the wider debates and politics of resilience are acknowledged. Specifically, contextual concerns are addressed that relate to the organisational factors that impact on social workers. The paper concludes by calling for organisational interventions to support resilience in social workers and maintain expertise in child-protection services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ryans and Deutscher's rejoinder to our June 1974 JCR paper serves a useful function and is perhaps symbolic of the maturity which consumer research is achieving. As some noted researchers have remarked, "Backstopping the individual scientist is the critical reaction of his fellow scientists. Where he misses a plausible rival hypothesis, he can expect his colleagues to propose alternative interpretations." (Webb. Campbell. Schwartz and Sechrest. 1966. page 9). The rejoinder has accomplished this. We have responded to the rejoinder's procedural criticisms and demonstrated them to be unfounded. We have carried out most of the suggestions for further analysis and found the basic findings to be stable and sound. We are, of course, open to alternative hypothetical models such as the one proposed by Ryans and Deutscher, although we defend our own-and its central variables of Persuasive Intent and Assistive Intent- as being equally well reasoned and fairly well supported. We therefore feel the study represents a valid and useful contribution. Our original conclusions were. however, formulated as a set of propositions for further theory and re- search. Seen in this light, the present exchange of ideas is an encouraging indication that strong academic interest will continue to be taken in children's consumer behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives Ageism is oftentimes sugarcoated within humor. Paper birthday cards are 1 delivery approach in which ageist messages are perpetuated and reinforced through humor. Research Design and Methods A convenience sample of birthday cards (k = 227), all indicating a decade of age, were acquired from 7 national retail stores in Colorado Springs, CO. The decades sampled ranged from 21 to 100. With a predeveloped codebook, 3 raters coded the decade birthday cards on various variables, including age group, ageist tone, and humor. Results Birthday cards intended for age 30–60 contained significantly more ageist messages compared to cards intended for age 21 and age 70–100, which did not show a significant difference from each other. Additionally, birthday cards with humor showed more ageist messages than cards without humor. Characteristics of decade birthday cards were also explored. Discussion and Implications Consumers need to learn to evaluate these ageist messages in birthday cards to reduce the perpetuation of damaging stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The properties of the progenitors of gamma-ray bursts and of their environment are encoded in their luminosity function and cosmic formation rate. They are usually recovered from a flux-limited sample based on Lynden-Bell's |$c^{-}$| method. However, this method is based on the assumption that the luminosity is independent of the redshift. Observationally, if correlated, people use non-parametric |$\tau$| statistical method to remove this correlation through the transformation, |$L^{\prime }=L/g(z)$|⁠ , where z is the burst redshift, and |$g(z)=(1+z)^{k}$| parametrizes the underlying luminosity evolution. However, the application of this method to different observations could result in very different luminosity functions. By the means of Monte Carlo simulation, in this paper, we demonstrate that the origin of an observed correlation, measured by the |$\tau$| statistical method, is a complex combination of multiple factors when the underlying data are correlated. Thus, in this case, it is difficult to unbiasedly reconstruct the underlying population distribution from a truncated sample, unless the detailed information of the intrinsic correlation is accurately known in advance. In addition, we argue that an intrinsic correlation between luminosity function and formation rate is unlikely eliminated by a misconfigured transformation, and the |$g(z)$|⁠ , derived from a truncated sample with the |$\tau$| statistical method, does not necessarily represent its underlying luminosity evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to safe drinking water is critical in improving health and well-being. It is estimated that >40% of urban households in Ghana do not have access to safe drinking water. Although the willingness and ability of community members to collectively take local initiatives are essential to curtailing inequities in water access in Ghana, the determinant of collective action is less explored. This paper explores determinants of collective action in water-insecure neighbourhoods and examines how perceived inequities in access to water and trust mediate the relationship between lack of access to water and collective action in urban Ghana. The results show that the urban poor OR = 12.047 (p = 0.000) were more likely to participate in water-related collective action compared to wealthy individuals. Primary decision-makers were 1.696 times more likely to participate in collective (p = 0.02). We also found that perceived inequities OR = 0.381 (p = 0.00) significantly predict participation in collective action to address water insecurity. Water service providers should be subjected to a rigid state-level framework that ensures inclusivity, fairness and justice in their distribution systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The aim of this study is to determine the feasibility of implementing and evaluating the World Health Organization Package of Essential Non-communicable Disease Interventions (WHO PEN) approach in primary healthcare in the Republic of Moldova. Methods According to our published a priori methods, 20 primary care clinics were randomized to 10 intervention and 10 control clinics. The intervention consisted of implementation of adapted WHO PEN guidelines and structured training for health workers; the control clinics continued with usual care. Data were gathered from paper-based patient records in July 2017 and August 2018 resulting in a total of 1174 and 995 patients in intervention and control clinics at baseline and 1329 and 1256 at follow-up. Pre-defined indicators describing assessment of risk factors and total cardiovascular risk, prescribing medications and treatment outcomes were calculated. Differences between baseline and follow-up as well as between intervention and control clinics were calculated using logistic and linear regression models and by assessing interaction effects. Results Improvements were seen in recording smoking status, activity to measure HbA1c among diabetes patients and achieving control in hypertension treatment. Improvement was also seen in identification of patients with hypertension or diabetes. Less improvement or even deterioration was seen in assessing total risk or prescribing statins for high-risk patients. Conclusions It is feasible to evaluate the quality and management of patients with non-communicable diseases in low-resource settings from routine data. Modest improvements in risk factor identification and management can be achieved in a relatively short period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Hypothesis Impaired insight into one's illness is common in first episode psychosis (FEP), is associated with worse symptoms and functioning, and predicts a worse course of illness. Despite its importance, little research has examined the effects of early intervention services (EIS) on insight. Designs This paper evaluated the impact of EIS (NAVIGATE) on insight compared to usual community care (CC) in a large cluster randomized controlled trial. Assessments were conducted at baseline and every 6 months for 2 years. Results A multilevel regression model including all time points showed a significant time by treatment group interaction (P <.001), reflecting greater improvement in insight for NAVIGATE than CC participants. Impaired insight was related to less severe depression but worse other symptoms and functioning at baseline for the total sample. At 6 months, the same pattern was found within each group except insight was no longer associated with depression among NAVIGATE participants. Impaired insight was more strongly associated with worse interpersonal relationships at 6 months in NAVIGATE than in CC, and changes in insight from baseline to 6 months were more strongly correlated with changes in relationships in NAVIGATE than CC. Conclusions The NAVIGATE program improved insight significantly more than CC. Although greater awareness of illness has frequently been found to be associated with higher depression in schizophrenia, these findings suggest EIS programs can improve insight without worsening depression in FEP. The increased association between insight and social relationships in NAVIGATE suggests these 2 outcomes may synergistically interact to improve each other in treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explored training methods to improve the Theory of Mind levels of Chinese college students with hearing loss and investigated the transfer effect of training. Ninety Chinese college students with hearing loss were randomly divided into two groups: the ToM training group and the physical-conversation training group. The ToM training group received ToM training, and the physical-conversation training group as the control group received physical-conversation training. All the participants attended four separate 60-min lectures. The ToM Story Task and the False Belief Task were used to assess the training's effect, and the ToM animation task was adopted to investigate the transfer effect. Before training, the level of ToM of the two participant groups was similar. After training, the ToM level of Chinese college students with hearing loss who participated in ToM training was significantly higher than the students who underwent physical-conversation training. Moreover, the findings revealed that ToM training has long-term transfer effects. This study thus showed that ToM training can effectively improve the ToM level of Chinese college students with hearing loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bootstrap is a useful computational tool for statistical inference, but it may lead to erroneous analysis under complex survey sampling. In this paper, we propose a unified bootstrap method for stratified multi‐stage cluster sampling, Poisson sampling, simple random sampling without replacement and probability proportional to size sampling with replacement. In the proposed bootstrap method, we first generate bootstrap finite populations, apply the same sampling design to each bootstrap population to get a bootstrap sample, and then apply studentization. The second‐order accuracy of the proposed bootstrap method is established by the Edgeworth expansion. Simulation studies confirm that the proposed bootstrap method outperforms the commonly used Wald‐type method in terms of coverage, especially when the sample size is not large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linear regression is a classic method of data analysis. In recent years, sketching—a method of dimension reduction using random sampling, random projections or both—has gained popularity as an effective computational approximation when the number of observations greatly exceeds the number of variables. In this paper, we address the following question: how does sketching affect the statistical properties of the solution and key quantities derived from it? To answer this question, we present a projector-based approach to sketched linear regression that is exact and that requires minimal assumptions on the sketching matrix. Therefore, downstream analyses hold exactly and generally for all sketching schemes. Additionally, a projector-based approach enables derivation of key quantities from classic linear regression that account for the combined model- and algorithm-induced uncertainties. We demonstrate the usefulness of a projector-based approach in quantifying and enabling insight on excess uncertainties and bias-variance decompositions for sketched linear regression. Finally, we demonstrate how the insights from our projector-based analyses can be used to produce practical sketching diagnostics to aid the design of judicious sketching schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do public health advocates and practitioners encourage policy actors to address the social determinants of health? What strategies can be used to elevate healthy social policies onto government agendas? In this paper, we examine the case of Australia's first national paid parental leave scheme, announced in 2009 after decades of policy advocacy. This scheme provides job-protected leave and government-funded pay at the minimum wage for 18 weeks for eligible primary care givers on the birth of an infant, and has been shown to reduce health inequities. Drawing on documentary sources and interviews (n  = 25) with key policy actors, this paper traces the evolution of this landmark social policy in Australia, focusing on the role of actors, institutions and policy framings in setting the policy agenda. We find that advocates strategically deployed three different framings—for economy, gender equality and health—to drive paid parental leave onto the Government's agenda. They navigated barriers linked to power, gender ideology and cost, shifting tactics along the way by adopting different frames in various institutional settings and broadening their coalitions. Health arguments varied in different institutional settings and, at times, advocates selectively argued the economic or gender equality framing over health. The case illustrates the successful use of strategic pragmatism to provoke action, and raises broader lessons for advancing action on the social determinants of health. In particular, the case highlights the importance of adopting multiple synergistic policy framings to draw support from non-traditional allies and building coalitions to secure public policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent serendipitous discovery of a new population of short duration X-ray transients, thought to be associated with collisions of compact objects or stellar explosions in distant galaxies, has motivated efforts to build up statistical samples by mining X-ray telescope archives. Most searches to date, however, do not fully exploit recent developments in the signal and imaging processing research domains to optimize searches for short X-ray flashes. This paper addresses this issue by presenting a new source detection pipeline, STATiX (Space and Time Algorithm for Transients in X-rays), which directly operates on three-dimensional X-ray data cubes consisting of two spatial and one temporal dimension. The algorithm leverages wavelet transforms and the principles of sparsity to denoise X-ray observations and then detect source candidates on the denoised data cubes. The light curves of the detected sources are then characterized using the Bayesian blocks algorithm to identify flaring periods. We describe the implementation of STATiX in the case of XMM–Newton data, present extensive validation and performance verification tests based on simulations and also apply the pipeline to a small subset of seven XMM–Newton observations, which are known to contain transients sources. In addition to known flares in the selected fields, we report a previously unknown short duration transient found by our algorithm that is likely associated with a flaring Galactic star. This discovery demonstrates the potential of applying STATiX to the full XMM–Newton archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we advocate and expand upon a previously described monitoring strategy for efficient and robust estimation of disease prevalence and case numbers within closed and enumerated populations such as schools, workplaces, or retirement communities. The proposed design relies largely on voluntary testing, which is notoriously biased (e.g. in the case of coronavirus disease 2019) due to nonrepresentative sampling. The approach yields unbiased and comparatively precise estimates with no assumptions about factors underlying selection of individuals for voluntary testing, building on the strength of what can be a small random sampling component. This component enables the use of a recently proposed "anchor stream" estimator, a well-calibrated alternative to classical capture-recapture (CRC) estimators based on 2 data streams. We show that this estimator is equivalent to a direct standardization based on "capture," that is, selection (or not) by the voluntary testing program, made possible by means of a key parameter identified by design. This equivalency simultaneously allows for novel 2-stream CRC-like estimation of general mean values (e.g. means of continuous variables like antibody levels or biomarkers). For inference, we propose adaptations of Bayesian credible intervals when estimating case counts and bootstrapping when estimating means of continuous variables. We use simulations to demonstrate significant precision benefits relative to random sampling alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cervical cancer screening and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination are critical for those immunocompromised due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Health education programs, including text messaging, can effectively improve knowledge of cervical cancer and recommended screening. This paper describes the data-driven development of a 4-week text-messaging intervention to improve HPV and cervical cancer knowledge among women living with HIV (WLH). This study reports data from surveys (n  = 81; January 2020 to September 2021) and focus group discussions (FGDs, n  = 39; April–June 2020) conducted among WLH in the DC area. While most WLH revealed that their usual sources of health information were through in-person group sessions, they pointed out that these were impractical options due to the coronavirus 2019 pandemic. They noted that a text-messaging intervention was feasible and acceptable. FGD participants' responses structured around the Protection Motivation Theory constructs informed the text-messaging library, covering topics such as (I) understanding of cervical cancer and HPV, (II) cervical cancer prevention and (III) HPV self-sampling. The utilization of low-cost and easily accessible health education interventions, such as mobile-based text messaging, can effectively increase knowledge and awareness of cervical cancer in populations that have been historically difficult to access and during times when health services are disrupted such as during a global pandemic or public health emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many galaxies display clear bulges and discs, and understanding how these components form is a vital step towards understanding how the galaxy has evolved into what we see today. The BUDDI-MaNGA project aims to study galaxy evolution and morphological transformations through the star-formation histories of the bulges and discs. We have applied our buddi software to galaxies from the MaNGA Survey in the SDSS DR15 in order to isolate their bulge and disc spectra, from which we derived their stellar populations. To date, this work provides the largest sample of clean bulge and disc spectra extracted from IFU datacubes using the galaxies light profile information, and will form the basis for a series of papers aiming to answer open questions on how galaxies have formed and evolved, and the role of their individual structures. This paper presents an introduction to the project, including an overview of these fits, a characterization of the sample, and a series of tests on the fits to ensure reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Psychological factors are among the most suspected indicators which may cause atherosclerosis. Coping strategies modifying psychological stress may be significantly associated with health outcomes. However, little is known about the influence of adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies on major adverse cardiovascular disease (CVD) events. The purpose of this study is to examine this idea among a sample of adults. Design: cohort study. Methods and results The Isfahan cohort study (ICS) is a longitudinal population-based, prospective study. Participants (⁠ N = 6323 individuals aged 35 years or greater at baseline) were selected by multistage random sampling with 6-year intervals (i.e. 2001: 6323 individuals, 2007: 3296 individuals, and 2013: 1706 individuals). Adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies were evaluated by a multicomponent self-administered stress management paper-based questionnaire. All CVD events were confirmed by a blinded panel of experts and a marginal cox regression model was used to model the survival data. Adaptive coping strategies could be protective against CVD events with hazard ratios (95% confidence interval) [0.97 (0.95–0.99)] and maladaptive coping strategies seem to be a risk factor, 1.02 (1.01–1.04) in the whole population. Individuals younger than 60 showed similar results, with 0.96 (0.93–0.98) and 1.04 (1.01–1.07) for adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies, respectively. However, these findings were not replicated among seniors older than age 60. Conclusion Based on our results, coping strategies have an important role in cardiovascular events, particularly among young adults. According to the results, informing patients about adaptive stress management may promote primary prevention of CVD events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in differential privacy demonstrated that (sub)sampling can amplify the level of protection. For example, for ϵ -differential privacy and simple random sampling with sampling rate r , the actual privacy guarantee is approximately r ϵ ⁠ , if a value of ϵ is used to protect the output from the sample. In this paper, we study whether these amplification effects can be exploited systematically to improve the accuracy of the privatized estimate. Specifically, assuming the agency has information for the full population, we ask under which circumstances accuracy gains could be expected, if the privatized estimate would be computed on a random sample instead of the full population. We find that accuracy gains can be achieved for certain regimes. However, gains can typically only be expected, if the sensitivity of the output with respect to small changes in the database does not depend too strongly on the size of the database. We only focus on algorithms that achieve differential privacy by adding noise to the final output and illustrate the accuracy implications for two commonly used statistics: the mean and the median. We see our research as a first step toward understanding the conditions required for accuracy gains in practice and we hope that these findings will stimulate further research broadening the scope of differential privacy algorithms and outputs considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Within the European Union (EU), substantial efforts are being made to achieve economic and social cohesion, and the reduction of health inequalities between EU regions is integral to this process. This paper is the first to examine how self-reported conditions and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) vary spatially between and within countries. Methods: Using 2014 European Social Survey (ESS) data from 20 countries, this paper examines how regional inequalities in self-reported conditions and NCDs vary for men and women in 174 regions (levels 1 and 2 Nomenclature of Statistical Territorial Units, 'NUTS'). We document absolute and relative inequalities across Europe in the prevalence of eight conditions: general health, overweight/obesity, mental health, heart or circulation problems, high blood pressure, back, neck, muscular or joint pain, diabetes and cancer. Results: There is considerable inequality in self-reported conditions and NCDs between the regions of Europe, with rates highest in the regions of continental Europe, some Scandinavian regions and parts of the UK and lowest around regions bordering the Alps, in Ireland and France. However, for mental health and cancer, rates are highest in regions of Eastern European and lowest in some Nordic regions, Ireland and isolated regions in continental Europe. There are also widespread and consistent absolute and relative regional inequalities in all conditions within countries. These are largest in France, Germany and the UK, and smallest in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. There were higher inequalities amongst women. Conclusion: Using newly available harmonized morbidity data from across Europe, this paper shows that there are considerable regional inequalities within and between European countries in the distribution of self-reported conditions and NCDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suppose that we have a historical time series with samples taken at a slow rate, e.g. quarterly. The paper proposes a new method to answer the question: is it worth sampling the series at a faster rate, e.g. monthly? Our contention is that classical time series methods are designed to analyse a series at a single and given sampling rate with the consequence that analysts are not often encouraged to think carefully about what an appropriate sampling rate might be. To answer the sampling rate question we propose a novel Bayesian method that incorporates the historical series, cost information and small amounts of pilot data sampled at the faster rate. The heart of our method is a new Bayesian spectral estimation technique that is capable of coherently using data sampled at multiple rates and is demonstrated to have superior practical performance compared with alternatives. Additionally, we introduce a method for hindcasting historical data at the faster rate. A freeware R package, regspec, is available that implements our methods. We illustrate our work by using official statistics time series including the UK consumer price index and counts of UK residents travelling abroad, but our methods are general and apply to any situation where time series data are collected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically reflects on the Scottish Adult Support and Protection (ASP) study, a research project conducted at a time when ‘adult protection’ was understood in Scottish policies to be the professional response to ‘abuse’. During the course of analysing the ASP study data, it became apparent that practitioners themselves did not necessarily construct ‘abuse’ and ‘adult protection’ concerns as coterminous categories. Some examples are recounted to illustrate the potentially more partial, less linear relationship between these categories in practice than in policy constructions. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research into professionals' constructions of ‘adult protection’ concerns. It explains why such research would have continuing, if not greater, relevance in the context of recent Scottish policy moves to reconceptualise adult protection as a response not to ‘abuse’, but to ‘harm’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Local coalitions can advance public health initiative but have not been widely used or well-studied in low- and middle-income countries. This paper provides (i) an overview of an ongoing matched-pairs community-randomized controlled trial in 28 communities in Armenia and Georgia (N = 14/country) testing local coalitions to promote smoke-free policies/enforcement and (ii) characteristics of the communities involved. In July–August 2018, key informants (e.g. local public health center directors) were surveyed to compare their non-communicable disease (NCD) and tobacco-related activities across countries and across condition (intervention/control). More than half of the informants (50.0–57.1%) reported their communities had programs addressing hypertension, diabetes, cancer and human papilloma virus, with 85.7% involving community education and 32.1% patient education programs. Eleven communities (39.3%) addressed tobacco control, all of which were in Georgia. Of those, all included public/community education and the majority (72.7–81.8%) provided cessation counseling/classes, school/youth prevention programs, healthcare provider training or activities addressing smoke-free environments. Informants in Georgia versus Armenia perceived greater support for tobacco control from various sectors (e.g. government, community). No differences were found by condition assignment. This paper provides a foundation for presenting subsequent analyses of this ongoing trial. These analyses indicate wide variability regarding NCD-related activities and support across communities and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-based telephone surveys are often designed to make estimates at substate levels, such as county or county group. Under a traditional random-digit-dial design, the telephone exchange of a landline number could be used to accurately identify the county for which the associated household resides. However, initially, no good analogous data methods existed for the cellphone frame. This required survey methodologists to draw random samples of cellphone numbers from the entire state, making it difficult to target areas within a state. To overcome this shortcoming, sample vendors have used a cellphone number's rate center (where the number was activated) as a proxy estimate for the county where the cellphone owner resides. Our paper shows that county assignations that are based on rate center data may have classification error rates as high as 30%. These high classification error rates make it difficult to accurately devise a cellphone frame sample allocation using the rate center data. This paper proposes a new method—the Rate Center Plus method—which uses rate centers and an estimate of the classification probabilities to stratify and allocate the desired respondent sample to counties. The new method uses Bayes' rule to distribute a desired county-level sample allocation across rate center counties. We demonstrate how the Rate Center Plus method was applied to the 2015 Ohio Medicaid Assessment Survey and the resulting efficacy of the method. Finally, we evaluate whether the new approach is more efficient than the traditional statewide sample method. In addition, we look at four approaches to estimating the necessary classification probabilities. We found that the Rate Center Plus method can be more cost efficient than the statewide sample method when the classification probabilities are reasonably estimated, reducing data collection costs as much as 12.8%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Children's second-hand smoke (SHS) exposure in the home is highest in socio-economically disadvantaged areas. Personalized household air-quality measurements can promote changes in smoking that reduce SHS exposure. The 'First Steps 2 Smoke-free' (FS2SF) intervention is the first to trial this approach delivered as part of health professionals' routine work. This paper reports the findings of qualitative interviews with participants that explored their experiences of the intervention and why outcomes varied. Methods 120 women were recruited from the NHS First Steps Programme, which supports disadvantaged mothers. They received either personalized feedback on their home air quality and advice on reducing SHS or standard SHS advice. Qualitative interviews with 15 mothers were analyzed thematically using the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behaviour (COM-B) model. Results The intervention increased women's capability to change home-smoking behaviour, through increasing awareness and salience of SHS risks to their children, and motivation to act. However, taking effective action was constrained by their limited social and environmental opportunities, including others' smoking in the home. Conclusions The FS2SF intervention was ineffective as it was unable to fully address the precarious, complex life circumstances that make creating a smoke-free home particularly difficult for women experiencing intersecting dimensions of disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual-frame telephone surveys that sample from both landline and cell-phone frames have become common because the US population is increasingly abandoning landline phones. Designing a dual-frame telephone survey requires a decision on the sample allocation, and ultimately the allocation of respondents, from each of the two frames. The allocation of the sample to the two frames influences the unequal weighting effect (UWE), and consequently, the precision of estimates calculated from the survey data. The sample allocation also influences cost, since obtaining cell-phone respondents is often more expensive than obtaining landline respondents. In this paper, we present results that designers of dual-frame studies can use to determine an allocation of responders that optimizes the precision of the survey estimates for a given cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social work with adults with learning disabilities or intellectual disability may be organised as a discrete or specialist area of practice in the UK. Little is known about contemporary social work practitioners’ views of their work with adults with learning disabilities and whether these differ from those of social workers in practice with different user groups or working in other specialities. This paper reports findings from a national survey of UK social workers undertaken in 2015 that measured burnout using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, across three domains: Emotional Exhaustion (EE), depersonalisation and personal accomplishment. A total of 1,359 social workers responded to the invitation to participate, of whom seventy-seven reported predominantly working with adults with learning disabilities and 358 reported working in child protection social work. Comparisons are drawn between responses from social workers working in these distinct practice areas showing high levels of EE co-existing with high levels of personal accomplishment in both areas of practice. Other important distinctions and similarities are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In this paper, we propose a consistent U‐statistic test with good sampling properties to detect changes in volatility. We show that the test has a limiting standard normal distribution under the null hypothesis, and that it is powerful compared with various alternatives. A Monte Carlo experiment is conducted to highlight the merits of the proposed test relative to other popular tests for structural changes in volatility. An empirical example is examined to demonstrate the practical application of the proposed testing method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Atopic diseases are among the most common chronic conditions in childhood. Causes of allergies are manifold. The aim of this paper is to evaluate risk factors for atopic diseases and unremitting wheeze and to examine if there is an association between measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination and atopic dermatitis, asthma and unremitting wheeze in Bavarian pre-schoolers. Methods Parents filled out a questionnaire on children's health and environmental and socioeconomic factors. The questionnaire was administered within the Health Monitoring Units in a cross-sectional study in Bavaria, Germany (2014/2015). Data on vaccinations were obtained via the School Entrance Examination, a mandatory examination for pre-school children in Bavaria. Rates of influential factors of atopic diseases and wheeze, MMR and DTP (diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus) vaccination were calculated for all children stratified by health outcomes. To examine if there is an association between MMR vaccination and health outcomes, a multiple logistic regression analysis was performed. Results Data were available for 3237 individuals. Symptoms and diseases were more frequent in boys. Higher parental education was associated with a higher prevalence of atopic dermatitis. There were no significant associations between any of the health outcome groups and MMR vaccination in the multiple logistic regression models with adjustment for potential confounders. Conclusions The present study is in line with the current state of research that MMR vaccination is not associated with atopic diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since graph learning could preserve the structure information of the samples to improve the learning ability, it has been widely applied in both shallow learning and deep learning. However, the current graph learning methods still suffer from the issues such as outlier influence and model robustness. In this paper, we propose a new dynamic graph neural network (DGCN) method to conduct semi-supervised classification on multi-view data by jointly conducting the graph learning and the classification task in a unified framework. Specifically, our method investigates three strategies to improve the quality of the graph before feeding it into the GCN model: (i) employing robust statistics to consider the sample importance for reducing the outlier influence, i.e. assigning every sample with soft weights so that the important samples are with large weights and outliers are with small or even zero weights; (ii) learning the common representation across all views to improve the quality of the graph for every view; and (iii) learning the complementary information from all initial graphs on multi-view data to further improve the learning of the graph for every view. As a result, each of the strategies could improve the robustness of the DGCN model. Moreover, they are complementary for reducing outlier influence from different aspects, i.e. the sample importance reduces the weights of the outliers, both the common representation and the complementary information improve the quality of the graph for every view. Experimental result on real data sets demonstrates the effectiveness of our method, compared to the comparison methods, in terms of multi-class classification performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective.: To demonstrate proof of concept for a smart phone‐empowered community health worker (CHW) model of care for breast health promotion, clinical breast examination (CBE), and patient navigation in rural Bangladesh. Methods.: This study was a randomized controlled trial; July 1 to October 31, 2012, 30 CHWs conducted door‐to‐door interviews of women aged 25 and older in Khulna Division. Only women who disclosed a breast symptom were offered CBE. Arm A: smart phone with applications to guide interview, report data, show motivational video, and offer appointment for women with an abnormal CBE. Arm B: smart phone/applications identical to Arm A plus CHW had training in “patient navigation” to address potential barriers to seeking care. Arm C: control arm (no smart phone; same interview recorded on paper). Outcomes are presented as the “adherence” (to advice regarding a clinic appointment) for women with an abnormal CBE. This study was approved by Women's College Hospital Research Ethics Board (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and district government officials (Khulna, Bangladesh). Funded by Grand Challenges Canada. Results.: In 4 months, 22,337 women were interviewed; <1% declined participation, and 556 women had an abnormal CBE. Control group CHWs completed fewer interviews, had inferior data quality, and identified significantly fewer women with abnormal breast exams compared with CHWs in arms A and B. Arm B had the highest adherence. Conclusion.: CHWs guided by our smart phone applications were more efficient and effective in breast health promotion compared with the control group. CHW “navigators” were most effective in encouraging women with an abnormal breast examination to adhere to advice regarding clinic attendance. Community health workers (CHWs) used smart phones with and without patient navigation to promote breast health in rural Bangladesh and were compared with CHWs using paper‐and‐pencil methods only. Findings showed that CHWs who did not use the smart phone applications completed fewer interviews, had inferior data quality, and identified significantly fewer women with abnormal breast exams, indicating that smart phones can be used to promote breast health in rural areas. CHWs with smart phones and 1‐day training in patient navigation were more effective in encouraging women with abnormal breast exams to attend for proper care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has led to large proportions of the labour market moving to remote work, while others have become unemployed. Those still at their physical workplace likely face increased risk of infection, compared to other workers. The objective of this paper is to understand the relationship between working arrangements, infection control programs (ICP), and symptoms of anxiety and depression among Canadian workers, not specifically working in healthcare. Methods A convenience-based internet survey of Canadian non-healthcare workers was facilitated through various labour organizations between April 26 and June 6, 2020. A total of 5180 respondents started the survey, of which 3779 were assessed as employed in a full-time or part-time capacity on 2 March 2020 (prior to large-scale COVID-19 pandemic responses in Canada). Of this sample, 3305 (87.5%) had complete information on main exposures and outcomes. Anxiety symptoms were measured using the Generalised Anxiety Disorder screener (GAD-2), and depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire screener (PHQ-2). For workers at their physical workplace (site-based workers) we asked questions about the adequacy and implementation of 11 different types of ICP, and the adequacy and supply of eight different types of personal protective equipment (PPE). Respondents were classified as either: working remotely; site-based workers with 100% of their ICP/PPE needs met; site-based workers with 50–99% of ICP/PPE needs met; site-based workers with 1–49% of ICP/PPE needs met; site-based workers with none of ICP/PPE needs met; or no longer employed. Regression analyses examined the association between working arrangements and ICP/PPE adequacy and having GAD-2 and PHQ-2 scores of three and higher (a common screening point in both scales). Models were adjusted for a range of demographic, occupation, workplace, and COVID-19-specific factors. Results A total of 42.3% (95% CI: 40.6–44.0%) of the sample had GAD-2 scores of 3 and higher, and 34.6% (95% CI: 32.–36.2%) had PHQ-2 scores of 3 and higher. In initial analyses, symptoms of anxiety and depression were lowest among those working remotely (35.4 and 27.5%), compared to site-based workers (43.5 and 34.7%) and those who had lost their jobs (44.1 and 35.9%). When adequacy of ICP and PPE was taken into account, the lowest prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms was observed among site-based workers with all of their ICP needs being met (29.8% prevalence for GAD-2 scores of 3 and higher, and 23.0% prevalence for PHQ-2 scores of 3 and higher), while the highest prevalence was observed among site-based workers with none of their ICP needs being met (52.3% for GAD-2 scores of 3 and higher, and 45.8% for PHQ-2 scores of 3 and higher). Conclusion Our results suggest that the adequate design and implementation of employer-based ICP have implications for the mental health of site-based workers. As economies re-open the ongoing assessment of ICP and associated mental health outcomes among the workforce is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal networks are networks that edges evolve over time, hence link prediction in temporal networks aims at inferring new edges based on a sequence of network snapshots. In this paper, we propose a graph wavelet neural network (TT-GWNN) framework using topological and temporal features for link prediction in temporal networks. To capture topological and temporal features, we develope a second-order weighted random walk sampling algorithm. It combines network snapshots with both first-order and second-order weights into one weighted graph. Moreover, it incorporates a damping factor to assign greater weights to more recent snapshots. Next, we adopt graph wavelet neural networks to embed the vertices and use gated recurrent units for predicting new links. Extensive experiments demonstrate that TT-GWNN can effectively predict links on temporal networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper centres on a neglected area of social work with older people--the social inclusion of older lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults in long-term care environments. The translation of equality law into the delivery of adult care services is a challenging endeavour for organisations, even more so in the morally contested terrain of sexual well-being. In this paper, we report findings from a mixed-methods study into the provision of long-term care for older adults who identify as LGB. Herein we present findings from a survey of care workers and managers (n = 121) and from focus groups with equality and LGB stakeholder representatives (n = 20) in Wales. Focusing on the current knowledge and understanding of staff, we suggest that affirmative beliefs and practices with sexual minorities are evident amongst care workers and managers; however, the inclusion of LGB residents needs to be advanced systemically at structural, cultural and individual levels of provision. There is a need for enhancing awareness of the legacy of enduring discrimination for older LGB people, for cultural acceptance in care environments of older people's sexual desires and relationships, and for a more explicit implementation of equality legislation. Social workers in adult care can advance this agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extending choice and control to the users of publicly funded services is a cornerstone in the personalisation agenda. It is assumed that giving service users greater choice and control will promote users' independence. As service users are increasingly given the responsibility to determine their support, social work practitioners need to work differently with service users in order to provide personalised support in exercising choice. This requires practitioners having a nuanced understanding of people's concepts of independence, how people make choices about support services and how those choices can impact on their perceived independence in the longer term. This paper reports new findings from a longitudinal qualitative study of choice and control over the life course in England. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with fifty adults and older people experiencing fluctuating support needs and/or a sudden deterioration in health. The paper discusses the relationships between choice and independence as experienced by disabled and older people. The findings show that independence is not a fixed concept, but is relative and multidimensional. There are multiple relationships between the choices people make and the consequences of those choices for people's subjective views of their independence. The paper concludes by highlighting the implications of findings for the role of social work practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Survey research on refugee and migrant populations can provide invaluable information, but in order to generate this information it is necessary to confront a variety of methodological challenges. It has proved particularly difficult to generate representative samples of mobile populations in developing cities, where refugees and asylum seekers attempt to ‘hide’ from surveyors, and conventional sampling frames are confounded by intractable urban landscapes and a shortage of reliable baselines. This collection of papers addresses these problems by drawing on a decade of survey research in a city where these problems are especially acute: Johannesburg, South Africa. The contributors reflect on their field experiences, and associated successes and failures, in order to generate practical guidance and tips for researchers and practitioners working on similar issues elsewhere. In particular, the collection challenges the notion that representativity is an unachievable ideal in survey research on refugee populations, and thereby develops concepts and techniques to further refine sampling methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]