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This article addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with the development of new visual communication practices and outputs, using an example of such work conducted in a UK interdisciplinary applied health project. Reflecting on his role as co-researcher and practice as a visual ethnographer in the study, the author argues that new visual communication practices may emerge from ‘mess’ and even ugliness. In the case discussed, the author comes to terms with mess and elements of failure as potential phenomena of learning through a process of Sensemaking (see Weick’s Sensemaking in Organizations, 1995), by applying innovative visual methods to the approach. Through his version of visual Sensemaking, the author identifies a set of principles to inform innovation in collaborative, interdisciplinary visual communication.

As contributors to this special edition show in different ways, purity itself is a less stable concept than may first appear. This insight, however, is not always reflected in dominant theory on the topic. Contributions to this special edition are therefore placed in dialogue with a metanarrative regarding the role of purity in Western history, presented by the influential Harvard sociologist Barrington Moore Jr.. In effect, discussion of Moore’s narrative on purity is a way to expose it differently, allowing the reader to reconsider Moore’s claims. In turn, we hope that the special issue’s contributions will be exposed differently in light of work to refine and redefine Moore’s overarching thesis.

The context of education under scrutiny in this paper is the post-experience practitioner sector, concerning students of ethics in Business Administration at both Masters and Doctoral levels. Responsible leadership is examined as a core theme in business ethics research and education. The paper proposes that responsible leaders require a virtuous mind-set, underpinned by Aristotelian thinking. Responsible leadership and romanticised models of leadership are interwoven in a critique of the technical-rational predominance in leadership and ethics research. The development of reflective practice is tracked from Argyris and Schon’s reflection on and in action to reflexivity. The paper considers the essence of Aristotle’s virtue ethics in proposing an integrative framework of skill and behaviour acquisition in organisational ethical decision-making. Reflective leadership and reflexivity are examined in relation to practitioner learning and the concept of a reflexive practicum explored to provide a praxis dimension to ethics education practice.

Social Work is all about Sensemaking, but Sensemaking, as we currently know it, is not fit for purpose in Social Work. Developed by Karl E. Weick, Sensemaking describes the process of coming to understand and act in circumstances that are confusing or otherwise problematic. In this article, the author provides a creative and inventive response to the limitations of Sensemaking in Social Work through the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, and the use of artistic practices. In this article, he presents two stories; firstly, a story about overcoming ‘stuckness’ in a study of English Children’s Centre practitioners, and secondly, a bigger story about the limitations of Sensemaking in Social Work. These two stories are connected by Deleuze, and Art. The author responds to the opportunities presented by Deleuze by creating a series of visual Motifs, which act as idea-objects, used in his Sensemaking. He argues that whilst Social Workers do not need to be artists to make better sense of situations, they can use their own Motifs to better consider materiality, sense and affect in situations.

Public administration as a field of work and study offers a theoretically rich yet practical tool to enact student engagement and the ideal of students-as-partners: the principles of service co-creation. Public administration, as an interdisciplinary and applied field, promoting and reflecting democratic principles, is a good source of tools for practice. As such we expect it to be particularly suitable for curriculum co-design principles. Our research sets potential benefits and challenges in facilitating a co-designed curriculum for public administration programmes. In doing so we make the case for more co-design and co-production of teaching as a tool to achieve enhanced understanding of these concepts and greater student engagement.

The philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari opens up vast potential to disrupt and explore some of the confines of attachment theory when considering the development of enchantment, wishful, and magical thinking in childhood. Through connection with the use of the fairy-tale, the authors seek to illuminate and illustrate the lines of flight, which activate resistance against the universalism of attachment theory and linear process of child development. In using the classic tale of Peter Pan as metaphor, and by applying Deleuzian philosophy and mythology, we aim to expand current thinking about the nature of childhood. By translating text into visual meaning, thus creating a lens with which to view an alternative pathway for child development, the complexity of the spatio-temporality of relationships as a contemporary adjunct to attachment theory, is materialised to produce an affective picture of the non-linear dimension and process of development in children. This affective genre illuminates the embodied and sensory aspects of ‘becoming’ which challenges a reductionist view of relationships. In doing so, this allows a ‘state change’ that enables professionals and scholars to see see differently.

This article reviews a body of literature that relates to the use of aesthetic, specifically visual, methods in organizational research and management education. Visual methods are associated with a range of benefits for those studying management and organization, including the elicitation of emotional responses, support for reflection and self-reflexivity, making varied forms of knowledge explicit, and in supporting dialogue and collaborative learning. Key implications for management educators are outlined, which include the need to appreciate the nature of aesthetic-visual “knowing” and to evaluate methods with pedagogical criteria, to consider the type of visual “space” educators need to create, to build individuals’ capacities to use visual methods, and to facilitate visual encounters appropriately. A set of practical “starting points” are also identified for management educators, drawn from the author’s teaching practice.

The aim of this study was to understand the experience of Applied science undergraduate (UG) project supervision. The final year UG research project has been coined the pedagogy of the 21st century. The diversity of supervisory styles is a key strength of project modules but is a source of student perceived inequality of experience in a high stakes terminal assessment. This project engaged final year UG students in a collaboration designed with inclusivity and partnership in mind. Student ?researchers? were equal partners and project evolution was led through their involvement in all aspects; study design, methods, resource development and dissemination of the outputs. The overall goal and impact of the project was to provide structure and support to dissertation students and supervisors alike by developing research informed resources that are accessible, engaging and student centred. Three themes were regularly identified; education, practical and emotional support. A key finding was that the student-supervisor relationship strongly influences student experience, satisfaction and success. However, whilst 75 % of students strongly agreed that a good student/supervisor partnership positively affects the success of the final project, only 40 % felt strongly that they had managed to build a partnership with their supervisor. The team used the emergent themes to pull together a ?making supervision work? help guide, a visual model of how the student-supervisor partnership can support the development of skills and progression towards independence. To support this further, a list of discussion points were put together by student researchers aimed at making supervision more effective without making the process a prescriptive one. The answers are personal to each supervisor/student pair but the use of a standard set of questions provides parity, clarity and structure.This project is readily scalable and we strongly believe that this strategic collaboration will see improvements in the student/staff experience of UG supervision.

In this paper, we explore whether Legge’s classic 1970s criticism of human resource (HR) executives as ‘conformist innovators’ is still relevant. Drawing on institutional logics, we analyse HR managers’ rationales for choosing particular university business schools to provide senior executive development. Our mixed-methods study demonstrates that senior HR managers socially construct and enact business school reputations by drawing on strategic rationales. These rationales are embedded in societal, field and organizational logics, especially the extant reputational rankings of international business schools and an ‘ideal’ template of elite business schools. We find that these rationales, and the decisions they evince, tend to confirm the traditional picture of conformist innovation among HR executives. We discuss the implications for the reputation of HR as a profession, their employers and business schools.

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) has been the world's most successful single dish telescope at submillimetre wavelengths since it began operations in 1987. From the pioneering days of single-element photometers and mixers, through the first modest imaging arrays, leading to the state-of-the-art widefield camera SCUBA-2 and the spectrometer array HARP, the JCMT has been associated with a number of major scientific discoveries. Famous for the discovery of "SCUBA" galaxies, which are responsible for a large fraction of the far-infrared background, to the first images of huge discs of cool debris around nearby stars, possibly giving us clues to the evolution of planetary systems, the JCMT has pushed the sensitivity limits more than any other facility in this most difficult of wavebands in which to observe. Now approaching the 30th anniversary of the first observations the telescope continues to carry out unique and innovative science. In this review article we look back on just some of the scientific highlights from the past 30 years., 53 pages, 23 figures

PurposeThe paper discusses the “narrative practices” utilised by women leading in a small sample of Early Years services in the North East of England. These Early Years settings are presented as an alternative site for studying women's experiences of leadership. It examines the way in which these women use narrative strategies and approaches to work in collaborative, community based services for young children and their families.Design/methodology/approachThe study is drawn from a larger study into narratives of professional identity and their relation to interactional contexts. The study follows an interpretive paradigm, and used narrative and participative methodology and methods to work with a small number of participants purposively sampled from cohorts of the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL). Participants were involved in reflective conversations about their leadership supported by interactive, visual methods in five extended sessions over the course of twelve months. Data from the larger study which related to the theme of “narrative practices” was subsequently coded and interpreted to inform this study.FindingsData coded as “narrative practices” led to the establishment of three high level categories of narrative practice found in the study. These are summarised in the metaphors of “tent making” (creating and using symbolic and narrative space with others), “skilled dancing” (improvising, and remembering with others) and “orchestration” (reflexive attuning). Data suggests that women involved in the study drew on their experience and values to develop sophisticated narrative practices that were particularly adaptive, ethically sensitive and sustainable – often in spite of “official” masculine leadership cultures.Research limitations/implicationsThis specific study only draws on narrative accounts of three women leaders in Early Years services and as such is not intended to generate generalizable theory. The intention of the study is to conceptualise women's leadership as narrative practice, and in so doing to direct further study into these practices as aspects of effective leadership.Practical implicationsThe study develops new ways of conceptualising and interpreting women's leadership practices and opens up opportunities for further study in this field. Access to this material also provides individuals (including women leading in UK Early Years services) and opportunity for reflection on their own leadership practice.Originality/valueThis study is unique in using a form of highly participative, reflective methodology to consider women's use of narrative in leadership interactions in the UK Early Years sector. The study is the first in this sector to look at this specific topic using aspects of Ricoeur's (1984) narrative hermeneutics and in so doing generates new questions about women's narrative practices.

A good fraction of the Commission 55 (C55) Organizing Committee met in Beijing in August at the XXVIII IAU General Assembly, where C55 organized Special Session 14 (SpS14) entitled “Communicating Astronomy with the Public for Scientists.” During our C55 business meeting, and again during an impromptu gathering a few days later, we discussed changes in the IAU's organizational and programmatic structure and how these changes might affect C55. This report summarizes key points and offers some ideas about what we're calling “C55 v2.0.” For background and reference, see the C55 website at http://www.communicatingastronomy.org.

Ly-alpha blobs (LABs) offer insight into the complex interface between galaxies and their circumgalactic medium. Whilst some LABs have been found to contain luminous star-forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei that could potentially power the Ly-alpha emission, others appear not to be associated with obvious luminous galaxy counterparts. It has been speculated that LABs may be powered by cold gas streaming on to a central galaxy, providing an opportunity to directly observe the `cold accretion' mode of galaxy growth. Star-forming galaxies in LABs could be dust obscured and therefore detectable only at longer wavelengths. We stack deep SCUBA-2 observations of the SSA22 field to determine the average 850um flux density of 34 LABs. We measure S_850 = 0.6 +/- 0.2mJy for all LABs, but stacking the LABs by size indicates that only the largest third (area > 1794 kpc^2) have a mean detection, at 4.5 sigma, with S_850 = 1.4 +/- 0.3mJy. Only two LABs (1 and 18) have individual SCUBA-2 > 3.5 sigma detections at a depth of 1.1mJy/beam. We consider two possible mechanisms for powering the LABs and find that central star formation is likely to dominate the emission of Ly-alpha, with cold accretion playing a secondary role., Accepted MNRAS 16 May 2016

KMOS is a near-infrared multi-object integral-field spectrometer which is one of a suite of second-generation instruments under construction for the VLT. The instrument is being built by a consortium of UK and German institutes working in partnership with ESO and is now in the manufacture, integration and test phase. In this paper we present an overview of recent progress with the design and build of KMOS and present the first results from the subsystem test and integration. © 2010 Copyright SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering.

Within this article, the authors argue that intelligence management (IM) as a research area is critical for organisations. There is a need to focus on how conceptualisations of intelligence can be supported, especially when one considers the crucial role it plays in the highest echelons of most organisations. A conceptual view of IM is developed from the Problem Structuring Method, which provides a viable framework for addressing problems that are constituent of multiplicities in terms of not only actors, but also perspectives. Data are obtained for participation observation and action research. The study finds that organisations may need to concentrate on the human side of IM by embellishing the role of intelligence managers.

This paper examines the way that a major global organization manages organizational intelligence for competitive and strategic advantage. We demonstrate the full complexity of organizational intelligence management through a case observation. Earlier research has already established the fact that there is a direct relationship between good corporate intelligence and strategic change. The fact that businesses are operating within business environments that are even more complex and dynamic than before means that many firms are planning with less certainty than before. As we begin to explore possible competitive scenarios for the twenty-first century organization, a radical rethink on current organizational intelligence strategy needs to commence, especially as companies deal with more challenging and disruptive scenarios such as terrorism and industrial espionage. The research range will need to be expanded to ensure that its implications can be tested. The procurement of more systems and data centers will not necessarily provide that strategic edge organizations need. Instead, organizations need to focus on enhancing the role of the intelligence analyst and managers. A case study is used to support arguments that the twenty-first century organization cannot be solely reliant for its strategic planning process on systems without substantial investment in the human aspects of intelligence management. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Although this is a personal reflection of the rise of submillimetre and far-infrared astronomy I will attempt to cover all the major events and players. The review will be restricted to continuum techniques and will principally cover ground-based telescopes. Balloon-based platforms will also be discussed but airborne platforms will be covered by George Rieke. It is always important to remember that a telescope is only as good as the instrumentation it supports, and because there have been few true submillimetre telescopes constructed to date, this review will devote significant time to the instrumentation and technical developments that have been the underpinning of the submillimetre revolution.

Deep submillimeter (submm) continuum imaging observations of the starburst galaxy M82 are presented at 350, 450, 750 and 850 micron wavelengths, that were undertaken with the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. The presented maps include a co-addition of submm data mined from the SCUBA Data Archive. The co-added data produce the deepest submm continuum maps yet of M82, in which low-level 850 micron continuum has been detected out to 1.5kpc, at least 10% farther in radius than any previously published submm detections of this galaxy. The overall submm morphology and spatial spectral energy distribution of M82 have a general north-south asymmetry consistent with H-alpha and X-ray winds, supporting the association of the extended continuum with outflows of dust grains from the disk into the halo. The new data raise interesting points about the origin and structure of the submm emission in the inner disk of M82. In particular, SCUBA short wavelength evidence of submm continuum peaks that are asymmetrically distributed along the galactic disk suggests the inner-disk emission is re-radiation from dust concentrations along a bar (or perhaps a spiral) rather than edges of a dust torus, as is commonly assumed. Higher resolution submm interferometery data from the Smithsonian Submillimeter Array and later Atacama Large Millimeter Array should spatially resolve and further constrain the reported dust emission structures in M82., Accepted by the Astronomical Journal -- 28 pages and 14 figures

We present total and polarized intensity images of 15 active galactic nuclei obtained with the Very Long Baseline Array at 7 mm at 17 epochs from 1998 March to 2001 April. At some epochs the images are accompanied by nearly simultaneous polarization measurements at 3 mm, 1.35/0.85 mm, and optical wavelengths. Here we analyze the 7 mm images to define the properties of the jets of two radio galaxies, five BL Lac objects, and eight quasars on angular scales $\gtrsim 0.1$ milliarcseconds. We determine the apparent velocities of 106 features in the jets; for many of the features we derive Doppler factors using a new method based on comparison of timescale of decline in flux density with the light-travel time across the emitting region. This allows us to estimate the Lorentz factors, intrinsic brightness temperatures, and viewing angles of 73 superluminal knots, as well as the opening angle of the jet for each source. We analyze the derived physical parameters of the jets. In nine sources we detect statistically meaningful deviations from ballistic motion, with the majority of components accelerating with distance from the core. In six sources we identify jet features with characteristics of trailing shocks that form behind the primary strong perturbations in jet simulations. The apparent speeds of these components increase with distance from the core suggesting an acceleration of the underlying jet., Comment: 100 pages, 44 figures, accepted for publication in AJ. This version does not contain figures 1-15,17(sequences of the images) due to very large size of the figures. The complete version (7mm_ms.ps) can be found at the website: www.bu.edu/blazars/multi.html

PurposeTo show how measurement systems and the way they are implemented can have a critical impact in either encouraging or discouraging a culture of high performance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper outlines a “systems view” of organisations that assist in combining the knowledge of both measurement and psychology into a practical approach that encourages a culture of high performance. It outlines examples of measurement systems that have been specifically designed to change perceptions and behaviours. These implementations transformed performance levels within a matter of months.FindingsWhen measurement systems are designed using the appropriate psychological principles, there can be a rapid change in staff behaviour that automatically leads to improved performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe psychological conditions for improving performance can be readily reproduced, but more research evidence is required to ensure widespread acceptance and use of this approach to performance improvement.Practical implicationsMeasurement systems should be designed and implemented from a psychological and performance control perspective. When they are designed in this way, organisations can rapidly achieve substantial improvements in performance.Originality/valueThis paper shows how, by combining critical aspects of psychology with the knowledge of measurement within organisations, measurement systems can be designed and implemented to encourage a complete culture of high performance. The approach can assist all managers that want to change both the culture of their organisations whilst simultaneously improving overall performance.

We report on submillimetre observations of three high redshift (z>6) quasars, made using the SCUBA camera on the JCMT. Only one of the sample was detected at 850um-- SDSS J1148+5251 (z=6.43). It was also detected (>3 sigma significance) at 450um, one of the few z>4 quasars for which this is the case. In combination with existing millimetric data, the submm detections allow us to place limits on the temperature of the submm-emitting dust, hence on the mass of dust to be synthesized under the time constraint imposed by the quasar's redshift., Comment: 5 pages, MNRAS, in press

Submillimeter common user bolometer array (SCUBA)-2 is a wide field sub-mm bolometer camera designed to replace the existing SCUBA instrument on the JCMT in Hawaii. It will be many hundreds of times faster in large area mapping than SCUBA and will also go deeper in a single frame. It will enable the many discoveries of SCUBA to be followed up with deep systematic surveys and help act as a pathfinder for the ALMA interferometer. The key technologies for making the arrays have been demonstrated and will be put together to fabricate the first prototype later this year (2003). The wide field nature of the SCUBA-2 bolometer camera, combined with the diffraction limit at sub-mm wavelengths, leads to physically large focal planes where the issues of stray light control, magnetic shielding, and electrical, thermal and mechanical connection must be carefully addressed in order to realise a successful instrument. We describe the solutions we have adopted for these problem areas.

The U.K. government has extensively used target setting in its attempt to improve the performance of both central and local government. However, the results have been very mixed and mirror those problems experienced by many commercial organizations that also have attempted to use targets to improve performance. In this article, a practical method of overcoming these problems is outlined, using an approach that has evolved from complexity theory. This approach uses the concept of intelligent systems. It can be used to highlight the causes of poor performance, identify the changes required to improve that performance, and encourage the organizational behavior that will ensure that the organization has the practical means to create the desired future state.

KMOS is a multi-object near-infrared integral field spectrograph built by a consortium of UK and German institutes for the ESO Paranal Observatory. We report on the on-sky performance verification of KMOS measured during three commissioning runs on the ESO VLT in 2012/13 and some of the early science results.

As a result of several high profile food scares in recent years, the practices of key players in the UK food industry have been called into question on ethical grounds. These practices include a range of operational activities including those concerned with supply chain management which form the focus of this study. This paper utilises an interpretive methodology to examine the buyer‐supplier relationships in the food industry from the perspectives of manufacturing managers and food regulators. The paper utilises the transcripted data from 20 interviews with senior officials from the UK’s food regulation services and from marketing and quality managers working in the food processing and production industry. The study demonstrates the application of interpretive analysis and interview technique to establish the issues concerning the food industry network in the UK today. This is set against Craig Smith’s model of ethical stance and decision making which serves as the backdrop to explicating the respondents’ perspectives on the food industry of the UK. Reveals coercive practices at work in the supply chain and details how this manifests in the lives of regulators and manufacturing managers and in the operations of the companies they work with.

Public sector organizations in the UK, especially those responsible for tourism and leisure services, have embraced the private (business/commercial enterprise) sector paradigm apparently in order to improve efficiency, increase usage and provide higher levels of customer service. This paper presents the findings of an initial study of UK arts and leisure managers responsible for the marketing of their venues and services. Applying an interpretivist methodology, the study identifies perceptions and applications of marketing concepts to this highly sensitive area of cultural development and expression. Key marketing tools are identified and their suitability for use in achieving sponsor, provider and customer objectives evaluated, as is the impact of marketing activity. The rationale for (marketing) decision‐making is explored. The methodology developed and employed in this research is transportable to other marketing applications and is therefore significant in terms of research development. The ...

We present multiwavelength observations of AO 0235+164 made during a 5 mag outburst in 1997. Detection of the outburst at the observatory of the South Eastern Association for Research in Astronomy prompted a concerted effort by several observatories to monitor the source in the R band. We present V-, R-, and I-band photometry, as well as contemporaneous 850 μm and X-ray measurements. We also use radio measurements from the University of Michigan's World Wide Web site in our analysis. We find that the source varies nearly simultaneously over 6 decades in frequency during this outburst and examine the possibility that the outburst was a result of a microlensing event. The duration of the outburst was on the order of 800 days, and the maximum luminosity was approximately 9.86 × 1047 ergs s-1 (assuming no relativistic beaming). We also analyze the long-term optical light curve and find that, although there is still no evidence for periodicity, the variations are interesting: the timescales between pairs of outbursts are remarkably similar. We suggest that the multifrequency behavior of the 1997 outburst is consistent with microlensing scenarios, while observations of previous outbursts suggest they were not consistent with gravitational microlensing.

From a combination of high quality X-ray observations from the NASA Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), and infrared observations from the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) we show that the medium energy X-ray (3-20 keV) and near infrared fluxes in the quasar 3C273 are highly correlated. It is widely believed that the X-ray emission in quasars like 3C273 arises from Compton scattering of low energy seed photons and our observations provide the first reliable detection of correlated variations in 3C273 between the X-ray band and any lower energy band. For a realistic electron distribution we demonstrate that it is probable that each decade of the seed photon distribution from the mm to IR waveband contributes roughly equally to the medium energy X-ray flux. However the expected mm variations are too small to be detected above the noise, probably explaining the lack of success of previous searches for a correlation between X-ray and mm variations. In addition we show that the infrared leads the X-rays by 0.75+/-0.25 days. These observations rule out the `External Compton' emission process for the production of the X-rays., 7 pages, 5 figures. Uses mn style file and epsf. Accepted for publication in the MNRAS

This paper gives an overview of the global properties of Active Galactic Nuclei, introducing and putting into context those areas that will be more fully described later in this volume. For the new entrant into AGN research, a semi-historical description of how the field developed is also given; showing how far we have come in a relatively short time. The pioneering work is now done, the big picture of how AGNs work is understood, we now embark on the search for the precise details of the emission mechanisms and their interrelations.

Indirect detections of massive — presumably Jupiter-like — planets orbiting nearby Sun-like stars have recently been reported1,2. Rocky, Earth-like planets are much more difficult to detect, but clues to their possible existence can nevertheless be obtained from observations of the circumstellar debris disks of dust from which they form. The presence of such disks has been inferred3 from excess far-infrared emission but, with the exception of beta Pictoris4, it has proved difficult to image these structures directly as starlight dominates the faint light scattered by the dust5. A more promising approach is to attempt to image the thermal emission from the dust grains at submillimetre wavelengths6,7. Here we present images of such emission around Fomalhaut, beta Pictoris and Vega. For each star, dust emission is detected from regions comparable in size to the Sun's Kuiper belt of comets. The total dust mass surrounding each star is only a few lunar masses, so any Earth-like planets present must already have formed. The presence of the central cavity, approximately the size of Neptune's orbit, that we detect in the emission from Fomalhaut may indeed be the signature of such planets.

Objectives To investigate the use of oral anticoagulants (AC) and antiplatelet agents (AP) in the management of atrial fibrillation (AF) among patients in primary care in England. Design Epidemiological study. Setting 1857 general practices in England representing a practice population of 13.1 million registered patients. Patients 231 833 patients with a history of AF. Main outcome measures The primary outcome was AC and AP use by CHADS2 score and age groups 79 years. Results 231 833 patients with a history of AF were identified, giving a prevalence among uploading practices of 1.76%. Prevalence of AF varied markedly between practices, related to differing practice age profiles. The total number of patients with AF in a practice was strongly predicted by the number of patients aged 65 years and over in the practice. 57.0% of the AF population had a CHADS2 score ≥2 and 83.7%≥1. 114 212 (49.3%) patients received AC therapy. AC uptake increased with increasing CHADS2 score up to a score of 3, but thereafter reached a plateau. Among 132 099 patients with a CHADS2 score ≥2, 72 211 (54.7%) received an AC, 14 987(11.3%) were recorded as having a contraindication or having declined AC therapy, leaving 44 901 (34.0%) not on AC therapy and without a recorded contraindication or recorded refusal. Among patients not prescribed an AC, 79.9% were prescribed an AP. The use of AC declined in the elderly (for CHADS2≥2, 47.4% of patients ≥80 years, compared with 64.5% for patients aged