125 research outputs found

    Improving access to service charities for female veterans.

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    To date, considerations of improving access to and quality of care for veterans often emphasise male perspectives. This may not reflect the needs of female veterans, nor anticipate the needs of the increasing numbers of female service personnel as they leave service. In the work reported here we aimed to investigate public and charitable sector (service and nonservice) perspectives on the challenges and enablers female veterans face in accessing service charities, to inform and prioritise recommendations for tangible improvements in access to veteran specific services for female veterans. We achieved this aim by conducting a literature review, followed by a qualitative research study. This qualitative study comprised profiling the evolution of conditions for military service for females in UK Armed Forces, 38 stakeholder interviews, and website analysis. Findings and recommendations were discussed with an expert panel and the Project Advisory Group, and disseminated to a range of stakeholders over the course of the project. This report presents the findings of this research, discusses them in the context of previous work, and makes recommendations for service provision, policy and research

    Not a Needy Person Among Them: A Network Analysis of Prosocial and Religious Behaviors

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    We used a network analysis of prosocial and religious behaviors to identify facilitating hub items that might drive broad prosocial behaviors among church members. We identified four hub items that suggest that intentional involvement of church members in service to the church and community might serve to drive further prosociality

    The physiological and clinical importance of cardiorespiratory fitness in people with abdominal aortic aneurysm

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    NEW FINDINGS: What is the topic of this review? This review focuses on the physiological impact of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) on cardiorespiratory fitness and the negative consequences of low fitness on clinical outcomes in AAA. We also discuss the efficacy of exercise training for improving cardiorespiratory fitness in AAA. What advances does it highlight? We demonstrate the negative impact of low fitness on disease progression and clinical outcomes in AAA. We highlight potential mechanistic determinants of low fitness in AAA and present evidence that exercise training can be an effective treatment strategy for improving cardiorespiratory fitness, postoperative mortality and disease progression. ABSTRACT: An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is an abnormal enlargement of the aorta, below the level of the renal arteries, where the aorta diameter increases by >50%. As an aneurysm increases in size, there is a progressive increase in the risk of rupture, which ranges from 25 to 40% for aneurysms >5.5 cm in diameter. People with AAA are also at a heightened risk of cardiovascular events and associated mortality. Cardiorespiratory fitness is impaired in people with AAA and is associated with poor (postoperative) clinical outcomes, including increased length of hospital stay and postoperative mortality after open surgical or endovascular AAA repair. Although cardiorespiratory fitness is a well‐recognized prognostic marker of cardiovascular health and mortality, it is not assessed routinely, nor is it included in current clinical practice guidelines for the management of people with AAA. In this review, we discuss the physiological impact of AAA on cardiorespiratory fitness, in addition to the consequences of low cardiorespiratory fitness on clinical outcomes in people with AAA. Finally, we summarize current evidence for the effect of exercise training interventions on cardiorespiratory fitness in people with AAA, including the associated improvements in postoperative mortality, AAA growth and cardiovascular risk. Based on this review, we propose that cardiorespiratory fitness should be considered as part of the routine risk assessment and monitoring of people with AAA and that targeting improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness with exercise training might represent a viable adjunct treatment strategy for reducing postoperative mortality and disease progression

    Navigating Social and Emotional Learning from the Inside Out: ?????????????????????Looking Inside and Across 33 leading SEL Programs: A Practical Resource for Schools and OST Providers

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    The field of social and emotional learning (SEL) is rapidly expanding, as educators bring a sharper focus to helping children build skills beyond academic knowledge. School climate initiatives, anti-bullying work, positive behavior supports and other SEL efforts are now steering programs in schools and out-of-school-time (OST) settings across the country. Building children's SEL skills has taken on even more urgency in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.This updated and expanded guide to evidence-based SEL programs offers detailed information on 33 pre-K through elementary school programs, encompassing curricular content and program highlights. Practitioners from schools, early childhood education (ECE) providers and out-of-school time (OST) can use this resource to look "inside and across" programs to better understand program content and assess program fit with their district or community needs.New chapters in the 2021 edition include recommendations for achieving equitable SEL (including common barriers and best practices) and guidance on trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive approaches to SEL, which includes principles, practices and recommendations for integrating SEL into regular practice

    Development of a core outcome set for orthodontic trials using a mixed-methods approach: Protocol for a multicentre study

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    © 2017 The Author(s). Background: Orthodontic treatment is commonly undertaken in young people, with over 40% of children in the UK needing treatment and currently one third having treatment, at a cost to the National Health Service in England and Wales of £273 million each year. Most current research about orthodontic care does not consider what patients truly feel about, or want, from treatment, and a diverse range of outcomes is being used with little consistency between studies. This study aims to address these problems, using established methodology to develop a core outcome set for use in future clinical trials of orthodontic interventions in children and young people. Methods/design: This is a mixed-methods study incorporating four distinct stages. The first stage will include a scoping review of the scientific literature to identify primary and secondary outcome measures that have been used in previous orthodontic clinical trials. The second stage will involve qualitative interviews and focus groups with orthodontic patients aged 10 to 16 years to determine what outcomes are important to them. The outcomes elicited from these two stages will inform the third stage of the study in which a long-list of outcomes will be ranked in terms of importance using electronic Delphi surveys involving clinicians and patients. The final stage of the study will involve face-to-face consensus meetings with all stakeholders to discuss and agree on the outcome measures that should be included in the final core outcome set. Discussion: This research will help to inform patients, parents, clinicians and commissioners about outcomes that are important to young people undergoing orthodontic treatment. Adoption of the core outcome set in future clinical trials of orthodontic treatment will make it easier for results to be compared, contrasted and combined. This should translate into improved decision-making by all stakeholders involved. Trial registration: The project has been registered on the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) website, January 2016

    Leads in Arctic pack ice enable early phytoplankton blooms below snow-covered sea ice

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    © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Scientific Reports 7 (2017): 40850, doi:10.1038/srep40850.The Arctic icescape is rapidly transforming from a thicker multiyear ice cover to a thinner and largely seasonal first-year ice cover with significant consequences for Arctic primary production. One critical challenge is to understand how productivity will change within the next decades. Recent studies have reported extensive phytoplankton blooms beneath ponded sea ice during summer, indicating that satellite-based Arctic annual primary production estimates may be significantly underestimated. Here we present a unique time-series of a phytoplankton spring bloom observed beneath snow-covered Arctic pack ice. The bloom, dominated by the haptophyte algae Phaeocystis pouchetii, caused near depletion of the surface nitrate inventory and a decline in dissolved inorganic carbon by 16 ± 6 g C m−2. Ocean circulation characteristics in the area indicated that the bloom developed in situ despite the snow-covered sea ice. Leads in the dynamic ice cover provided added sunlight necessary to initiate and sustain the bloom. Phytoplankton blooms beneath snow-covered ice might become more common and widespread in the future Arctic Ocean with frequent lead formation due to thinner and more dynamic sea ice despite projected increases in high-Arctic snowfall. This could alter productivity, marine food webs and carbon sequestration in the Arctic Ocean.This study was supported by the Centre for Ice, Climate and Ecosystems (ICE) at the Norwegian Polar Institute, the Ministry of Climate and Environment, Norway, the Research Council of Norway (projects Boom or Bust no. 244646, STASIS no. 221961, CORESAT no. 222681, CIRFA no. 237906 and AMOS CeO no. 223254), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway (project ID Arctic), the ICE-ARC program of the European Union 7th Framework Program (grant number 603887), the Polish-Norwegian Research Program operated by the National Centre for Research and Development under the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2009–2014 in the frame of Project Contract Pol-Nor/197511/40/2013, CDOM-HEAT, and the Ocean Acidification Flagship program within the FRAM- High North Research Centre for Climate and the Environment, Norway

    Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

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    Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

    Light Variability Illuminates Niche-Partitioning among Marine Picocyanobacteria

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    Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus picocyanobacteria are dominant contributors to marine primary production over large areas of the ocean. Phytoplankton cells are entrained in the water column and are thus often exposed to rapid changes in irradiance within the upper mixed layer of the ocean. An upward fluctuation in irradiance can result in photosystem II photoinactivation exceeding counteracting repair rates through protein turnover, thereby leading to net photoinhibition of primary productivity, and potentially cell death. Here we show that the effective cross-section for photosystem II photoinactivation is conserved across the picocyanobacteria, but that their photosystem II repair capacity and protein-specific photosystem II light capture are negatively correlated and vary widely across the strains. The differences in repair rate correspond to the light and nutrient conditions that characterize the site of origin of the Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus isolates, and determine the upward fluctuation in irradiance they can tolerate, indicating that photoinhibition due to transient high-light exposure influences their distribution in the ocean
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