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Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) affects up to 2% of the UK population. AF is a potentially long-term condition that needs management, and as such primary care pharmacists may have a substantial role in supporting the management of AF. Objectives: This study aims to explore the role of primary care pharmacists, working in community pharmacies and general practices (GPs), in supporting the management of AF. Furthermore, this study investigates pharmacists' confidence in their knowledge and their attitudes towards incorporating AF-associated mobile apps use into their current practice. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted, using one-to-one semi-structured, audio-recorded interviews with primary care pharmacists. The topic guide was developed based on pharmacy visits and included the most relevant constructs from the 'consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR)'. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed until saturation was achieved, guided by Braun and Clarke's 6-step research method. This study was given a favourable opinion on 5 September 2019 by the University of Birmingham (UOB) Research Ethics Committee (Reference ERN_19-0908). Results: Thematic saturation was achieved after 11 interviews with primary care pharmacists (seven community pharmacists, and four GP pharmacists). Three main themes emerged relating to (1) the clinical role of pharmacists in the management of AF; (2) knowledge and awareness; and (3) prioritisation of resources. The first highlighted that primary care pharmacists were an underutilised resource within AF management. The second demonstrated that pharmacists, especially those based in the community, felt a lack of confidence in their knowledge of AF and its management, mainly community pharmacists due to other roles taking precedence over clinical roles. Both community and GP pharmacists expressed the need to have further training in this therapeutic area to be able to effectively support patients with AF. The third shed light on the pharmacists' views relating to the technological revolution in healthcare. Pharmacists expressed an interest in using apps to support their current practice. Conclusions: Primary care pharmacists supported an extended care to AF management from screening to consultations, yet the provision of such services remains limited and inconsistent. Future research should focus on understanding the ways in which pharmacists' role can be adapted toward greater involvement in clinical care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second quantum revolution has been producing groundbreaking scientific and technological outputs since the early 2000s; however, the scientific literature on the impact of this revolution on the industry, specifically on start-ups, is limited. In this paper, we present a landscaping study with a gathered dataset of 441 companies from 42 countries that we identify as quantum start-ups, meaning that they mainly focus on quantum technologies (QT) as their primary priority business. We answer the following questions: (1) What are the temporal and geographical distributions of the quantum start-ups? (2) How can we categorize them, and how are these categories populated? (3) Are there any patterns that we can derive from empirical data on trends? We found that more than 92% of these companies have been founded within the last 10 years, and more than 50% of them are located in the US, the UK, and Canada. We categorized the QT start-ups into six fields: (i) complementary technologies, (ii) quantum computing (hardware), (iii) quantum computing (software/application/simulation), (iv) quantum cryptography/communication, (v) quantum sensing and metrology, and (vi) supporting companies, and analyzed the population of each field both for countries, and temporally. Finally, we argue that low levels of quantum start-up activity in a country might be an indicator of a national initiative to be adopted afterwards, which later sees both an increase in the number of start-ups, and a diversification of activity in different QT fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Actually, COVID-19 and its variants present a big challenge for the public health security. COVID-19 is a new form of the coronaviruses characterized by a set of symptoms like laboratory and radiological symptoms, when the first case has confirmed in December 2019 in Wuhan City, as well as a new variant of this form has appeared in December 2020 in the United Kingdom. Internet of things (IoT) is a technological revolution employed in different areas in the aim to serve the asked purposes. The implementation of IoT solutions in healthcare area has several benefits such as reducing the cost of services and improving treatment results. In this paper, we present a review on the impact of IoT on this new health challenge (COVID-19 and its variants), we will focus this study on the impact of the use of IoT devices to reduce transmissions of COVID-19 and its variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how regional entrepreneurial ecosystems have adapted to the information revolution as a techno-economic paradigm since the 1960s. Particularly, we look at how the organisation of firms and labour has changed in the automotive and ICT sectors in, respectively, the UK and Bulgaria. Findings show that, in both countries, it was the degree of cooperation between the local enterprises, research institutions and the government that enabled successful innovation in the regional clusters of the West Midlands and Sofia. The resulting ecosystems allowed, on the one hand, the already mature automotive sector in the UK to survive and, on the other hand, the newly developed ICT sector to be installed successfully in Bulgaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major technological innovations are not sufficient to enable socio-economic progress without governments creating the institutional framework – in particular via education, welfare and training programs - required for the absorption of the new technical possibilities these innovations create. To support this claim, we provide a comparative historical view of how four different countries tackled the challenge of adapting to three successive technological revolutions, with varying degrees of success. We look at the relationship between the welfare, education and training policies implemented by the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and Sweden and their socio-economic results. The historical period studied spans from 1830 to 1970. This, according to the neo-Schumpeterian view we follow, covers the second, third and fourth technological revolutions, namely, the Age of Iron, Coal, and Railways, the Age of Steel and Heavy Engineering, and the Age of the Automobile and Mass Production; the current Age of Information and Telecommunications being the fifth. • The duration and success of each technological revolution highly depends on governments' attitude towards reskilling. • Techno-economic paradigms lead to social change only insofar governments proactively guarantee welfare. • The UK failed to institutionalise technical education in favour of scientific professions since the Age of Engineering. • The US and Germany provided education tailored to industrial needs since the 2nd Technological Revolution. • Characteristics of the current Age Information and Telecommunications are to be found in previous technological revolutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about the fear of job loss secondary to increased technology in the workplace and the modern Luddite philosophy. Topics include the Luddite uprising in British textile factories two centuries ago, media hyperbole depicting worker displacement due to the rapid advance of technology, and the shift to an information economy and the "Internet Age." Other topics include robotics and automated production machinery and their role in the "end of work" and Luddite fallacies.

The article offers information on the issues and regulation of Beaming technology, a form of presence technology which can enable Internet users to feel that they have travelled from one place to another. Topics discussed include legal issues that might be raised with the technology in Great Britain and European Union (EU), criminal justice implications, and issues related to liability and product safety.

Abstract: In all developed countries, once it emerged from the amateur era, Space (and especially rocketry) moved on the public agenda because of its potential significance for both the civil and military policies of governments (coupled with its appetite for new money). In the UK the policy treatment of Space broadly paralleled that in other countries until the post-Empire trauma, the burn-out of the White-Hot Technological revolution of Harold Wilson, and the financial crises of the 1970s exhausted the public appetite for large scale publicly funded projects in high technology. The culmination for Space of these pressures came in 1986–1987 when the UK rejected the emerging international consensus and, almost alone, stayed outside the manned space commitments which developed into the International Space Station. In this paper, Colin Hicks will review the UK political developments which led up to the 1986–1987 decision and how the politics and organisation of UK space activity have developed since then to the point where in 2008 a major government review of the UK involvement in manned space was commissioned. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Food waste going to landfill is a significant environmental issue with 33% of all food we buy simply being thrown away. Not only is this extremely wasteful but rotting food produces gases that are harmful to the environment and contributes to global warming. The UK government is committed to reducing the amount of household waste directly being disposed of at landfills by 10.1 million tonnes tonnes over 20 years from 2000 (Waste Composition Analysis: Guidance for Local Authorities, Defra, 2004). As part of this the Waste Reduction Action Programme was set up to fund and facilitate innovative solutions to reduce waste to landfill. Part of that process was to assess bids by solution providers with regards the effectiveness of the technologies that they were offering. This was found to be a non-trivial task, with multiple input parameters and large variations in data. Establishing which parameters have the greatest effect on food waste estimation was therefore essential in any decision-making process. However, the large number of unknowns, assumptions and parameters makes this understanding both difficult and time consuming. A branch of mathematics known as uncertainty analysis can be used to analyse these types of situations quickly and effectively and is easily adapted to understanding of food waste estimation. This paper outlines the techniques used to develop an internet-based decision-making tool and demonstrates the methodology used with simple case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers in Great Britain is presented. Topics include network and project management of New York City bridges, application of sustainability indicators in decision-making processes for urban regeneration projects, creating a transport policy for the West Midlands, and improving and optimising road pricing proposals for Copenhagen. The proceeding features several people including D.R. Lombardi, B. Yanev, and D.V. Hunt.

Waves represent a vast but largely untapped energy resource. The paper presents a novel wave machine, the Searaser, designed to tap wave energy for electricity generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on economic historian Walt W. Rostow and his contributions to the historiography of industrialization and economic growth. He was born in 1916 and educated at Yale University. Three of his essential features of economic growth were, the propensity to develop fundamental science, the propensity to apply science to economic ends, and the propensity to accept innovations. Moreover, Rostow identified Great Britain as the first and subsequent model of industrial change. In addition, several arguments on the role of science, technology and industry are also offered.

This article examines the eighteenth-century English Enlightenment in the setting of Birmingham and the west midlands. It responds to an argument made first by the economist and historian Joel Mokyr to the effect that industrialisation was driven, in large part, by the accumulation of scientific knowledge and its conversion into technological 'know how'. Joel Mokyr labels this process 'Industrial Enlightenment', and he points to the social dynamics and cultural practices of England's Enlightenment as perhaps the most favourable context for the industrial application of useful knowledge. The article suggests that Birmingham, and more especially the Soho Manufactory of Matthew Boulton, provides an example of Industrial Enlightenment in action. As such, it offers a practical demonstration of the mechanisms outlined in Mokyr's formulation. However, this case study also makes use of the archives of Soho to explore the question of knowledge dissemination on a broader front. It proposes ways in which the core hypothesis of an eighteenth-century knowledge economy might be refined to provide an even better account of the reality of Industrial Enlightenment as experienced in Birmingham and the Black Country between 1765 and 1820. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the interrelationship between technological progress and the formation of industry-specific skills by analysing the evolution of the video-game industry in three countries: Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. We argue that the cross-sectoral transfer of skills occurs differently depending on national contexts, such as the social legitimacy and strength of preexisting industries, the socioeconomic status of entrepreneurs or pioneer firms in an emerging industry, and the sociocultural cohesiveness between the preexisting and emerging industries. Each country draws on a different set of creative resources, which results in a unique trajectory. Whereas Japan's video-game industry emerged out of corporate sponsorships in arcades, toys, and consumer electronics industries and drew skills from the comic book and animated-film sectors, the video-game industry in the United States evolved from arcades and personal computers. In the United Kingdom the video-game industry developed bottom-up, through a process of skills formation in the youth culture of `bedroom coders' that nurtured self-taught programmers in their teens throughout the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the changing patterns of work in the textile industry in Great Britain. This paper is based on evidence collected as part of the Social Change and Economic Life Research Initiative of ESRC. Most of the textile firms studied were involved in an increasingly competitive market situation and technological change was central to most of the firms' competitive strategy. It was found that neither of the two dominant images of modern work and employment were useful in understanding such within the textile mills.

This article suggests the reasons behind the difference in views of English historians and social scientists in the U.S. on crime and the industrial revolution and outlines the types of opportunities would entail for the understanding of the past. The period of the industrial revolution remains in a lot of ways a subject for debate for British scholarship. The British version of the relationship between the industrial revolution and social behavior has attractive advantages.

The article provides information concerning the Fastap™ keypad invented by David Levy in Great Britain. Levy describes it as the smooth transition from three-dimensional (3D) digital modelling to machined prototype enabled him to move freely between designing as seeing to designing as feeling. The keypad provides a complete intuitive and easy-to-use computer interface in an area one-third the size of a business card.

The UK's new toddler technology scheme makes Vitali Vitaliev wary of other infantile projects engineered by seemingly responsible adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a commentary on the present and past studies on smoking which are presented in this issue. How little has changed in the almost 50 years of medical studies covered by the articles; Listing of many of the technological advances over the past half century which leads the author to suspect that medical research may be suffering from a lack of imagination; Comparison of the two studies on style and content.