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The European Union (EU) aims to promote peace. This research investigates the saliency of a European identity for children from majority and minority groups in four conflict-affected societies in Europe (Croatia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland (NI), and Republic of North Macedonia (RNM)). These sites represent a range of relations with the EU (e.g., leaving the EU, an EU member, wanting to join the EU). Participants included 442 children aged 7 to 11 years, evenly split by gender and group status (Croatia n = 90; Kosovo n = 107; NI n = 60; RNM n = 185). After a draw-and-tell task to prime European identity (vs. ingroup or control condition), we measured children's identification with Europe, outgroup attitudes and prosociality. Although the European identity prime was not effective, children's strength of European identity varied by site and group status and related to more positive attitudes and prosociality towards the conflict-rival outgroup. Implications for the future of the European project are discussed.

The spread of nonindigenous species by shipping is a large and growing global problem that harms coastal ecosystems and economies and may blur coastal biogeographical patterns. This study coupled eukaryotic environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding with dissimilarity regression to test the hypothesis that ship‐borne species spread homogenizes port communities. We first collected and metabarcoded water samples from ports in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. We then calculated community dissimilarities between port pairs and tested for effects of environmental dissimilarity, biogeographical region and four alternative measures of ship‐borne species transport risk. We predicted that higher shipping between ports would decrease community dissimilarity, that the effect of shipping would be small compared to that of environment dissimilarity and shared biogeography, and that more complex shipping risk metrics (which account for ballast water and stepping‐stone spread) would perform better. Consistent with our hypotheses, community dissimilarities increased significantly with environmental dissimilarity and, to a lesser extent, decreased with ship‐borne species transport risks, particularly if the ports had similar environments and stepping‐stone risks were considered. Unexpectedly, we found no clear effect of shared biogeography, and that risk metrics incorporating estimates of ballast discharge did not offer more explanatory power than simpler traffic‐based risks. Overall, we found that shipping homogenizes eukaryotic communities between ports in predictable ways, which could inform improvements in invasive species policy and management. We demonstrated the usefulness of eDNA metabarcoding and dissimilarity regression for disentangling the drivers of large‐scale biodiversity patterns. We conclude by outlining logistical considerations and recommendations for future studies using this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous studies have described the clinical impact of infection in alcoholic hepatitis (AH) but none have comprehensively explored the aetiopathogenesis of infection in this setting. We examined the causes, consequences and treatment of infection in a cohort of patients with AH.Methods: We undertook a retrospective cohort study of patients with AH admitted between 2009 and 2014 to seven centres in Europe and the USA. Clinical and microbiological data were extracted from medical records. Survival was analysed with Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards analysis to control the data for competing factors. Propensity score matching was used to examine the efficacy of prophylactic antibiotics administered in the absence of infection.Results: We identified 404 patients with AH. Of these, 199 (49%) showed clinical or culture evidence of infection. Gut commensal bacteria, particularly Escherichia coli and Enterobacter species, were most commonly isolated in culture. Fungal infection was rarely seen. Cultured organisms and antibiotic resistance differed markedly between centres. Infection was an independent risk factor for death (hazard ratio for death at 90 days 2.33, 95% confidence interval 1.63-3.35, p < 0.001). Initiation of antibiotic therapy on admission in the absence of infection did not reduce mortality or alter the incidence of subsequent infections. Corticosteroid use increased the incidence of infection but this did not impact on survival.Conclusions: In this large real-world cohort of patients with AH, infection was common and was associated with reduced short-term survival. Gram-negative, gut commensal bacteria were the predominant infective organisms, consistent with increased translocation of gut bacteria in AH; however, the characteristics of infection differ between centres. Infection should be actively sought and treated, but we saw no benefits of prophylactic antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite a steady stream of headlines suggesting they will transform the future of healthcare, high-tech regenerative medicines have, to date, been quite inaccessible to patients, with only eight having been granted an EU marketing licence in the last 7 years. Here, we outline some of the historical reasons for this paucity of licensed innovative regenerative medicines. We discuss the challenges to be overcome to expedite the development of this complex and rapidly changing area of medicine, together with possible reasons to be more optimistic for the future.Discussion: Several factors have contributed to the scarcity of cutting-edge regenerative medicines in clinical practice. These include the great expense and difficulties involved in planning how individual therapies will be developed, manufactured to commercial levels and ultimately successfully delivered to patients. Specific challenges also exist when evaluating the safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of these therapies. Furthermore, many treatments are used without a licence from the European Medicines Agency, under "Hospital Exemption" from the EC legislation. For products which are licensed, alternative financing approaches by healthcare providers may be needed, since many therapies will have significant up-front costs but uncertain benefits and harms in the long-term. However, increasing political interest and more flexible mechanisms for licensing and financing of therapies are now evident; these could be key to the future growth and development of regenerative medicine in clinical practice.Conclusions: Recent developments in regulatory processes, coupled with increasing political interest, may offer some hope for improvements to the long and often difficult routes from laboratory to marketplace for leading-edge cell or tissue therapies. Collaboration between publicly-funded researchers and the pharmaceutical industry could be key to the future development of regenerative medicine in clinical practice; such collaborations might also offer a possible antidote to the innovation crisis in the pharmaceutical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 2010 the Constitutional Council of France approved a law banning the burqa and niqab from all public places. Joining the ongoing scholarly discussion on veiling, this study seeks to understand the role the French press played in legitimating the ban, the first of its kind to be implemented in Europe. This media narrative legitimated the legislation by presenting the veil as intolerable and "against public social order." Made necessary by rapidly shifting demographics in contemporary France, this discourse was couched in a defensive employment of laïcité. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it still right to classify European elections as 'second-order elections'? There are some reasons used to justify such a classification that are changing or evolving, while others are not. A neat and tidy first-/second-order division may not be appropriate. But is the 'lead candidate' ( Spitzenkandidat) development one of the reasons to re-evaluate? In most Member States, it had little impact on the election campaign and, at the time of writing, the effect on the final choice of Commission President is not definitively settled, but it looks as though it has changed the expectations of many politicians involved in that choice. Its longer term evolution remains to be seen and could well become more important for political actors, but the jury is still out as to how far this might eventually impact on the wider public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study conducted to investigate the danger posed to dialysis patients by travel and ways to minimize the risk. The results of the study revealed that temporary haemodialysis away from base (TDAFB) exposes patients to heightened risk of infection due to contact with different pathogens. It refers to a document "Minimising the risk of transmission of blood borne viruses among adults with chronic or end-stage kidney disease" which describes the tests and precautions that are needed before and after episodes of TDAFB. It highlights that nurses who provide patients with haemodialysis via a central venous catheter (CVC) are responsible for risk management and to assess effectiveness of relevant practices and policies.

How effective is EU cooperation in higher education? This article treats the issue as one of effectiveness in policy-making. What are the policy ideas which the EU wishes to feed into a policy domain where it has to operate largely through political cooperation and a modest degree of incentive funding? What outcomes are possible? The question is of interest since Europe has two processes which aim for a better regional integration of higher education in order to boost the quality of European higher education and to make a global impact. These are the world- famous Bologna Process and the EU process to drive Europe's universities to make better use of their interlinked roles of education, research and innovation, part of a larger strategy (EU 2020, Lisbon) for European Union growth to support employment, productivity and social cohesion. Building on the theoretical insights of an institutionalist literature concerned with the dynamics of European policy-making in the knowledge domain (Maassen & Olsen, 2007; Gornitzka, 2006, 2010) and complementary theories of historical institutionalism (Pierson, 2003, Thelen, 2003) and agenda setting (Kingdon, 1995), this article examines policy-making on higher education cooperation in the European arena since the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. It seeks answers to two questions. Why did the Bologna Process dominate the agenda from 1999 to 2004? How did the European Commission acquire the power to shape the issue of European higher education cooperation? Rejecting simple spillover explanations, it theorises in terms of policy entrepreneurship why the EU has latterly been effective in shaping European cooperation in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In interventional cardiac procedures, staff operates near the patient in a non-uniformly scattered radiation field. Consequently, workers may receive, over a period, relatively high radiation doses. The measurement of individual doses to personnel becomes critical due to the use of protective devices and, as a consequence of the large number of methods proposed to assess the effective dose, great variability in monitoring programmes is expected among European countries. SENTINEL consortium has conducted a survey on staff dosimetry methods and on the level of staff exposure in 12 European cardiac centres demonstrating the urgent need to harmonise dosimetry methods. From the dosimetry survey, constraint annual effective dose of 1.4 mSv and Hp(0.07) over the protective apron of 14 mSv are proposed for the optimisation the exposure the most-exposed operator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ISO 9000 series of quality management systems standards is widely diffused, with more than 560,000 sites certified in 152 countries as of December 2003. Anecdotal evidence suggests that global supply chains contributed to this diffusion, in the following sense. Firms in Europe were the first to seek ISO 9000 certification in large numbers. They then required their suppliers, including those abroad, to do likewise. Once the standard had thus entered other countries, it spread beyond those firms immediately exporting to Europe to be adopted by many other firms in those same countries. This paper empirically examines the validity of this view of the role of supply chains in global diffusion of ISO 9000. To do so, we decompose the statement "supply chains contributed to the global diffusion of ISO 9000" into a series of four requirements that must be met for the original statement to be supported. We then use firm-level data from a global survey of more than 5,000 firms in nine countries to test the hypotheses that correspond to these requirements. Our findings are consistent with the view that part of the global diffusion of ISO 9000 did move upstream in global supply chains. In short, this means that firms that export goods or services to a particular country may simultaneously be importing that country's management practices. We conclude by suggesting how these findings might form the basis for future research on the environmental management systems standard ISO 14000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the European Community (EC) policy-making in education and the conceptualization of policy processes in the creation and development of EC policy activity in higher education. Changes and development in EC Higher Education Policy from 1955-1987; Impact of the agreement between France and Italy on the principle of EC educational cooperation and on the European University issue; Development in the policy design for EC education from 1973-1976; Characteristics of the process launched by the EC at the meeting in Lisbon, Portugal in 2000.

The article provides information on the different critics regarding the debated article "Legislative Politics in the European Union" in Europe. The author stated that the European Parliament (EP) has been claimed to have more influence over legislation under the cooperation procedure than it has under the original version of codecision. He added that Christophe Crombez has criticized the cooperation procedure model since it focuses on only the last stage of the legislative procedure. Moreover, Crombez aims to make simple and clear models that lead to specific predictions.

The author reflects on the symposium called Understanding the European legislative process and Political Scientist's and Practiioner's perspectives in Europe. He argues that though the European Union is moving towards bicameralism, they still have different opinions about the consequences of the procedural reforms. He implies that they only consider the SEA and the Amsterdam Treaty as the principal steps towards a more powerful Parliament.

Discusses the way by which the European Parliament has made use of the political procedures introduced by the Single European Act. Provisions of the act; Impact of the assent and the co-operation procedures on the political structure of the region.

Objectives To establish the mortality risk and adverse events associated with the use of atypical antipsychotic medications in people with Parkinson disease psychosis (PDP) in a clinically defined trial cohort. Design Post hoc analysis of data from a multicenter, open-label extension study of pimavanserin comparing people taking and not taking current antipsychotics. Setting Primary and secondary care medical centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and India. Participants A total of 459 people with PDP enrolled in the extension study. Participants were between ages 30 and 80 years, and had an established diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson disease and moderate to severe psychosis. Interventions Participants were categorized into 2 groups: those receiving concomitant antipsychotic medications (“concurrent APD”) and those who did not take antipsychotic medications at any time during the study (“no APD”). Participants were receiving 40 mg pimavanserin daily in addition to concurrent antipsychotics and Parkinson disease medications. Main Outcome Measures Safety assessments at 2 weeks; 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months; and every 6 months thereafter, including evaluation of adverse events (AEs), vital signs, weight, physical examinations, 12-lead electrocardiograms, clinical laboratory tests (serum chemistry, hematology, and urinalysis), and the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Parts II and III (UPDRS-II+III, activities of daily living and motor impairment, respectively). Differences between participants taking and not taking current antipsychotics were evaluated using incidence rate ratios (IRRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results There was significant increase in the mortality rate for participants taking concurrent antipsychotics compared with the group not taking antipsychotic medications (IRR 4.20, 95% CI 2.13–7.96). Participants who received a concurrent antipsychotic were also significantly more likely to experience overall a serious AE (IRR 2.95, 95% CI 2.02–4.24), any antipsychotic-related event (IRR 1.66, 95% CI 1.18–2.29), cognition-related events (IRR 2.70, 95% CI 1.19–5.58), infections (IRR 1.97, 95% CI 1.17–3.16), and edema (IRR 2.61, 95% CI 1.09–5.59). The risk of falls, stroke, sedation, orthostatic hypotension, and thromboembolic events was also increased in these individuals but this was not significant. Conclusions This study highlights a significant risk of mortality, and severe AEs in patients with Parkinson disease receiving atypical antipsychotics. This is similar to or greater than the risks seen in people with Alzheimer disease, although with a less clear-cut risk of stroke and a longer delay to increased mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The invasive hornet Vespa velutina nigrithorax is a rapidly proliferating threat to pollinators in Europe and East Asia. To effectively limit its spread, colonies must be detected and destroyed early in the invasion curve, however the current reliance upon visual alerts by the public yields low accuracy. Advances in deep learning offer a potential solution to this, but the application of such technology remains challenging. Here we present VespAI, an automated system for the rapid detection of V. velutina. We leverage a hardware-assisted AI approach, combining a standardised monitoring station with deep YOLOv5s architecture and a ResNet backbone, trained on a bespoke end-to-end pipeline. This enables the system to detect hornets in real-time-achieving a mean precision-recall score of ≥0.99-and send associated image alerts via a compact remote processor. We demonstrate the successful operation of a prototype system in the field, and confirm its suitability for large-scale deployment in future use cases. As such, VespAI has the potential to transform the way that invasive hornets are managed, providing a robust early warning system to prevent ingressions into new regions., (© 2024. The Author(s).)