Report on user trials for a new BEI database

Purpose: This article sets out to describe part of the design process in the construction of a new search interface for academic users of The British Education Index and to make some recommendations for interface design and subsequent user support.Methodology: Data and experience from four user trials of a prototype version are reported and discussed in relation to a broadly constructivist conception of information literacy in practice.Findings: There were different purposes and different levels of skill and experience among the professional users in the study. Their actions, comments and suggestions during and following the user trials suggested that the diverse information literacy practices they demonstrated could be enhanced if on-screen clarity and consistency of terminology were improved. The results suggest general recommendations about improvements to the interface and subsequent support in help pages, the web context and training sessions. Such changes can be understood as positive attempts to support and enrich the information literacy practices of research professionals by providing a better search context.Originality and Practical Implications: The enquiry reported was a pragmatic exercise to increase the value of a planned service, informed by a theoretical assumption that the information literacy practices of the users were context-bound and specific to each individual and to the individual's purposes

Aquilegia, Vol. 17 No. 1, January-March 1993: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1066/thumbnail.jp

Best practice strategies for process studies designed to improve climate modeling

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101(10), (2020): E1842-E1850, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0263.1.Process studies are designed to improve our understanding of poorly described physical processes that are central to the behavior of the climate system. They typically include coordinated efforts of intensive field campaigns in the atmosphere and/or ocean to collect a carefully planned set of in situ observations. Ideally the observational portion of a process study is paired with numerical modeling efforts that lead to better representation of a poorly simulated or previously neglected physical process in operational and research models. This article provides a framework of best practices to help guide scientists in carrying out more productive, collaborative, and successful process studies. Topics include the planning and implementation of a process study and the associated web of logistical challenges; the development of focused science goals and testable hypotheses; and the importance of assembling an integrated and compatible team with a diversity of social identity, gender, career stage, and scientific background. Guidelines are also provided for scientific data management, dissemination, and stewardship. Above all, developing trust and continual communication within the science team during the field campaign and analysis phase are key for process studies. We consider a successful process study as one that ultimately will improve our quantitative understanding of the mechanisms responsible for climate variability and enhance our ability to represent them in climate models.We gratefully acknowledge U.S. CLIVAR for supporting the PSMI panel, as well as all the principal investigators that contributed to our PSMI panel webinars. JS was inspired by participation in the process studies funded by NASA NNH18ZDA001N-OSFC and NOAA NA17OAR4310257; GF was supported by base funds to NOAA/AOML’s Physical Oceanography Division; and HS was supported by NOAA NA19OAR4310376 and NA17OAR4310255.2021-04-0

Estimating the Need for Social Care Services for Adults with Disabilities in England 2012-2030

Executive summary The aim of the project was to estimate changes in the need for social care services for adults with disabilities in England between 2012 and 2030. The project built upon and extended our previous work on estimating future need for social care services among adults with learning disabilities. The latest update of our previous work suggested that there will be sustained growth in the need for social care services for adults with learning disabilities over the time period 2011-2030, with estimated average annual increases varying from 1.2% to 5.1% (average 3.2%). Our previous approach was, however, based on a number of assumptions, some of which we believe to be highly robust, some less so. The most critical source of uncertainty in the model was in the validity of our estimates of the likely eligibility for social care services for new entrants at different levels of ‘need’, especially for potential new entrants with less severe disabilities. In our previous work we used estimates developed through a process of consultation with relevant stakeholders (primarily disabled people’s organisations and field agencies). One of the key aims of the present project was to test out and refine these assumptions through field-based research. Other aims of the present project were to: • update the estimates based on revised information; • extend the model to other adults with disabilities. Our proposed primary research involved attempting to collect information on the assessed level of eligibility for samples of 50 children aged 14-16 identified as having SEN in 10 CASSRs. In order to compensate for potential drop out we initially recruited 18 CASSRs who all indicated a strong commitment to participating in the project. Unfortunately, the fieldwork took place during 2010/11, a period of unprecedented turmoil within CASSRs in England. Despite extending the period of data collection by several months, only six CASSRs were able to provide any data and only two CASSRs were able to provide data on the target sample of 50 children. As a result, we were only able to collect information on 223 young people (45% of the target sample). Given the difficulties we encountered in our field work, we agreed with NIHR SSCR that we would also undertake some exploratory analyses of the association between SEN and the experimental disability statistics collected by DfE in Spring 2011. The aim of these analyses was to explore the relationship between SEN and disability (as defined under the Equality Act 2010) and to determine whether this information could be used to strengthen the estimates of assessed level of need for adult social care services. Unfortunately, the results of these analyses suggested that the disability data collected by the DfE were subject to a number of serious biases associated with social exclusion and socio-economic position that made their use untenable in the present project. We were, however, able to use the new field-generated estimates of eligibility to: (1) update our previous work on estimating future need for adult social care services for people with learning disabilities; and (2) extend this work to estimating future need for adult social care services for people with physical disabilities (including sensory impairment) in the age range 19-30. To estimate future need beyond this age point would require making important assumptions about the annual age-specific incidence (onset) of serious physical and sensory impairments in adults. There is, at present, insufficient information to make these assumptions with any degree of confidence. However, such information will become available in the near future with the release of Wave 2 data from the Office for Disability Issues’ longitudinal Life Opportunities Survey.1 All of the scenarios included in our estimation procedures suggested sustained growth in the need for social care services for adults with physical or learning disabilities over the time period 2012-2030. • For younger adults with physical disabilities compound annual growth rates vary from 1.8% to 6.5%. A ‘no growth’ scenario in the number of users of adult social care services for young adults with physical disabilities could only be achieved by either cutting services to existing users or by rationing access to services to young adults with physical disabilities with ‘critical’ need and 61% of those with ‘substantial’ need. • For adults with learning disabilities compound annual growth rates vary from 2.0% to 2.7%. A ‘no growth’ scenario in the number of users of adult social care services for adults with learning disabilities could only be achieved by either cutting services to existing users or by rationing access to services to young people with learning disabilities with ‘critical’ need and just 25% of those with substantial need. As we have argued above, rationing social care to people with critical or substantial needs is inconsistent with the policy objective strongly emphasised in Putting People First2 of adopting a more preventative approach to social care.3-5 There are a number of factors that would have an impact on future need that we were not able to take into account. These included: • Effects due to international migration; • Changes in the incidence of disability over time; • Changes in mortality rates among people with disabilities over time. It must be stressed that our predictions are based on estimates of ‘need’ rather than ‘demand’. Changes in demand are likely to outstrip changes in need due to a variety of factors combining to reduce the capacity of informal support networks to provide care, networks that have primarily relied on the unpaid labour of women. These factors include: • Increases in lone parent families6 • Increasing rates of maternal employment6 • Increases in the percentage of older people with learning disabilities (whose parents are likely to have died or be very frail)7 8 • Changing expectations among families regarding the person’s right to an independent life

Extreme energetic electron fluxes in low Earth orbit: Analysis of POES E > 30, E > 100 and E > 300 keV electrons

Energetic electrons are an important space weather hazard. Electrons with energies less than about 100 keV cause surface charging while higher energy electrons can penetrate materials and cause internal charging. In this study we conduct an extreme value analysis of the maximum 3-hourly flux of E> 30 keV, E> 100 keV and E> 300 keV electrons in low Earth orbit as a function of L∗, for geomagnetic field lines that map to the outer radiation belt, using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) from July 1998 to June 2014. The 1 in 10 year flux of E> 30 keV electrons shows a general increasing trend with distance ranging from 1.8×107 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗ = 3.0 to 6.6×107 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗ = 8.0. The 1 in 10 year flux of E> 100 keV electrons peaks at L∗= 4.5 - 5.0 at 1.9×107 cm−2s−1sr−1 decreasing to minima of 7.1×106 and 8.7×106 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗ = 3.0 and 8.0 respectively. In contrast to the E> 30 keV electrons, the 1 in 10 year flux of E> 300 keV electrons shows a general decreasing trend with distance, ranging from 2.4×106 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗ = 3.0 to 1.2×105 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗= 8.0. Our analysis suggests that there is a limit to the E> 30 keV electrons with an upper bound in the range 5.1×107- 8.8×107 cm−2s−1sr−1. However, the results suggest that there is no upper bound for the E> 100 keV and E> 300 keV electrons

A large outbreak of COVID-19 in a UK prison, October 2020 to April 2021

Prisons are susceptible to outbreaks. Control measures focusing on isolation and cohorting negatively affect wellbeing. We present an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in a large male prison in Wales, UK, October 2020 to April 2021, and discuss control measures. We gathered case-information, including demographics, staff-residence postcode, resident cell number, work areas/dates, test results, staff interview dates/notes and resident prison-transfer dates. Epidemiological curves were mapped by prison location. Control measures included isolation (exclusion from work or cell-isolation), cohorting (new admissions and work-area groups), asymptomatic testing (case-finding), removal of communal dining and movement restrictions. Facemask use and enhanced hygiene were already in place. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and interviews determined the genetic relationship between cases plausibility of transmission. Of 453 cases, 53% (n = 242) were staff, most aged 25–34 years (11.5% females, 27.15% males) and symptomatic (64%). Crude attack-rate was higher in staff (29%, 95% CI 26–64%) than in residents (12%, 95% CI 9–15%). Whole-genome sequencing can help differentiate multiple introductions from person-to-person transmission in prisons. It should be introduced alongside asymptomatic testing as soon as possible to control prison outbreaks. Timely epidemiological investigation, including data visualisation, allowed dynamic risk assessment and proportionate control measures, minimising the reduction in resident welfare

Stress, ageing and their influence on functional, cellular and molecular aspects of the immune system

The immune response is essential for keeping an organism healthy and for defending it from different types of pathogens. It is a complex system that consists of a large number of components performing different functions. The adequate and controlled interaction between these components is necessary for a robust and strong immune response. There are, however, many factors that interfere with the way the immune response functions. Stress and ageing now consistently appear in the literature as factors that act upon the immune system in the way that is often damaging. This review focuses on the role of stress and ageing in altering the robustness of the immune response first separately, and then simultaneously, discussing the effects that emerge from their interplay. The special focus is on the psychological stress and the impact that it has at different levels, from the whole system to the individual molecules, resulting in consequences for physical health

Effect of Hydrocortisone on Mortality and Organ Support in Patients With Severe COVID-19: The REMAP-CAP COVID-19 Corticosteroid Domain Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Evidence regarding corticosteroid use for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is limited. Objective: To determine whether hydrocortisone improves outcome for patients with severe COVID-19. Design, Setting, and Participants: An ongoing adaptive platform trial testing multiple interventions within multiple therapeutic domains, for example, antiviral agents, corticosteroids, or immunoglobulin. Between March 9 and June 17, 2020, 614 adult patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 were enrolled and randomized within at least 1 domain following admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) for respiratory or cardiovascular organ support at 121 sites in 8 countries. Of these, 403 were randomized to open-label interventions within the corticosteroid domain. The domain was halted after results from another trial were released. Follow-up ended August 12, 2020. Interventions: The corticosteroid domain randomized participants to a fixed 7-day course of intravenous hydrocortisone (50 mg or 100 mg every 6 hours) (n = 143), a shock-dependent course (50 mg every 6 hours when shock was clinically evident) (n = 152), or no hydrocortisone (n = 108). Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary end point was organ support-free days (days alive and free of ICU-based respiratory or cardiovascular support) within 21 days, where patients who died were assigned -1 day. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model that included all patients enrolled with severe COVID-19, adjusting for age, sex, site, region, time, assignment to interventions within other domains, and domain and intervention eligibility. Superiority was defined as the posterior probability of an odds ratio greater than 1 (threshold for trial conclusion of superiority >99%). Results: After excluding 19 participants who withdrew consent, there were 384 patients (mean age, 60 years; 29% female) randomized to the fixed-dose (n = 137), shock-dependent (n = 146), and no (n = 101) hydrocortisone groups; 379 (99%) completed the study and were included in the analysis. The mean age for the 3 groups ranged between 59.5 and 60.4 years; most patients were male (range, 70.6%-71.5%); mean body mass index ranged between 29.7 and 30.9; and patients receiving mechanical ventilation ranged between 50.0% and 63.5%. For the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively, the median organ support-free days were 0 (IQR, -1 to 15), 0 (IQR, -1 to 13), and 0 (-1 to 11) days (composed of 30%, 26%, and 33% mortality rates and 11.5, 9.5, and 6 median organ support-free days among survivors). The median adjusted odds ratio and bayesian probability of superiority were 1.43 (95% credible interval, 0.91-2.27) and 93% for fixed-dose hydrocortisone, respectively, and were 1.22 (95% credible interval, 0.76-1.94) and 80% for shock-dependent hydrocortisone compared with no hydrocortisone. Serious adverse events were reported in 4 (3%), 5 (3%), and 1 (1%) patients in the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively. Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients with severe COVID-19, treatment with a 7-day fixed-dose course of hydrocortisone or shock-dependent dosing of hydrocortisone, compared with no hydrocortisone, resulted in 93% and 80% probabilities of superiority with regard to the odds of improvement in organ support-free days within 21 days. However, the trial was stopped early and no treatment strategy met prespecified criteria for statistical superiority, precluding definitive conclusions. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02735707