Employment experiences of Polish migrant workers in the UK hospitality sector.

2010-2011 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journa

Woody biomass energy crops : possibilities for physical and biological carbon sequestration

Bioenergy through short rotation forestry could hold potential for fossil fuel displacement mitigating enhanced climate change by using various combustion, carbon capture technologies, and sequestration technologies. Two routes, gasification and pyrolysis, show potential for enabling bioenergy to become carbon negative rather than carbon neutral. One further relatively unexplored route is biochar, a naturally occurring material that may offer a unique link between bioenergy and sequestration that is both simple and energy bearing.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

In vitro fermentation of carbohydrates by porcine faecal inocula and their influence on Salmonella Typhimurium growth in batch culture systems

The aim of this study was to evaluate in vitro the influence of fermentable carbohydrates on the activity of porcine microbiota and survival of Salmonella Typhimurium in a batch culture system simulating the porcine hindgut. The carbohydrates tested were xylooligosaccharides, a mixture of fructooligosaccharides/inulin (FIN), fructooligosaccharides (FOS), gentiooligosaccharides (GEO) and lactulose (LAC). These ingredients stimulated the growth of selected Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus species in pure cultures. In batch cultures, the carbohydrates influenced some fermentation parameters. For example, GEO and FIN significantly increased lactic acids compared with the control (no added carbohydrate). With the exception of LAC, the test carbohydrates increased the production of short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) and modified SCFA profiles. Quantitative analysis of bacterial populations by FISH revealed increased counts of the Bifidobacterium group compared with control and, with exception of FOS, increased Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc and Weissella spp. counts. Salmonella numbers were the lowest during the fermentation of LAC. This work has looked at carbohydrate metabolism by porcine microbiota in a pH-controlled batch fermentation system. It provides an initial model to analyse interactions with pathogens

Antibiotic Review Kit for Hospitals (ARK-Hospital): a stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial

Background: Strategies to reduce antibiotic overuse in hospitals depend on prescribers taking decisions to stop unnecessary antibiotics. There is limited evidence on how to support this. We evaluated a multifaceted behaviour change intervention (ARK) designed to reduce antibiotic use among adult acute/medical inpatients by increasing appropriate decisions to stop antibiotics at clinical review. Methods: We performed a stepped-wedge, cluster (hospital)-randomised controlled trial using computer-generated sequence randomisation of 39 hospitals in 7 calendar-time blocks in the United Kingdom (25/September/2017-01/July/2019). Randomised implementation date was concealed until 12 weeks before implementation, when local preparations were designed to start. Co-primary outcomes were monthly antibiotic defined-daily-doses (DDD) per adult acute/medical admission (hospital-level, superiority) and all-cause 30-day mortality (patient level, non-inferiority, margin 5%). Sites were eligible if they admitted non-elective medical patients, could identify an intervention “champion”, and provide study data. Sites werefollowed for at least 14 months. Intervention effects were assessed using interrupted timeseries analyses within each site, estimating overall effects through random-effects meta analysis, with heterogeneity across prespecified potential modifiers assessed using meta regression.Trial registration: ISRCTN12674243.Findings: Adjusted estimates showed reductions in total antibiotic DDDs per acute/medicaladmission (-4.8% per year, 95% CI: -9.1%,-0.2%) following the intervention. Among7,160,421 acute/medical admissions, there were trends towards -2.7% (95% CI: -5.7%,+0.3%) immediate and +3.0% (95% CI: -0.1%,+6.2%) sustained changes in adjusted30-day mortality. Site-specific mortality trends were unrelated to the site-specific magnitudeof antibiotic reduction (Spearman’s ρ=0.011, p=0.949). Whilst 90-day mortality oddsappeared to increase (+3.9%, 95% CI: +0.5%,+7.4%), this was attenuated excludingadmissions after COVID-19 onset (+3.2%, 95% CI:-1.5%,+8.2%). There was no evidence ofintervention effects on length-of-stay (p>0.4).Interpretation: The weak, inconsistent intervention effects on mortality are likely explained by the post-implementation onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ARK intervention resulted in sustained, safe reductions in antibiotic use among adult acute/medical inpatients. Funding: NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research, RP-PG-0514-20015