How sharing can contribute to more sustainable cities

\ua9 2017 by the authors. Recently, much of the literature on sharing in cities has focused on the sharing economy, in which people use online platforms to share underutilized assets in the marketplace. This view of sharing is too narrow for cities, as it neglects the myriad of ways, reasons, and scales in which citizens share in urban environments. Research presented here by the Liveable Cities team in the form of participant workshops in Lancaster and Birmingham, UK, suggests that a broader approach to understanding sharing in cities is essential. The research also highlighted tools and methods that may be used to help to identify sharing in communities. The paper ends with advice to city stakeholders, such as policymakers, urban planners, and urban designers, who are considering how to enhance sustainability in cities through sharing

The urban futures methodology applied to urban regeneration

Making cities more sustainable is a top priority – for national governments, for cities and for the people who live, work and visit urban areas. The past decade has seen a concerted UK effort to develop, apply and assess sustainability solutions for the present and near future; however, little has been done to test urban regeneration solutions beyond that. This paper describes a methodology that has developed future scenarios for the year 2050 against which to test the robustness of current engineering solutions, thereby providing unique insights into the potential impacts of present urban planning and design decisions, and thus financial investments. If a proposed solution delivers a positive legacy, regardless of the future against which it is tested, then it can be adopted with confidence. When there are very different outcomes depending on the future, the solution can either be modified to create an improved outcome regardless of the future or implemented in the knowledge of the likely impacts if the future develops in different ways. The urban futures methodology has been applied to the Lancaster Luneside East regeneration site, for which contextual information is described along with a justification for its use as a case study to trial the methodology. </jats:p

Thigh-length compression stockings and DVT after stroke

Controversy exists as to whether neoadjuvant chemotherapy improves survival in patients with invasive bladder cancer, despite randomised controlled trials of more than 3000 patients. We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effect of such treatment on survival in patients with this disease

Traditional family and women's condition: The reciprocal perception of Turkish and Italians

Community psychology considers gender as a central organizing category for understanding power imbalances and directing social change. The geopolitical events of these last years are heightening the contraposition between Islamic and Western countries with significant effects on ethnic prejudices, including the perception of gender roles and women’s condition. The present study focused on two different Mediterranean countries, an Islamic and Eastern one, i.e., Turkey, and a Catholic and Western one, i.e., Italy. It aimed at investigating the reciprocal perception concerning family and the women’s condition in the two states. Participants were 400 university students, both Turkish (N=199) and Italians (N=201). We performed 2 (Italian vs. Turkish) x 2 (Italy vs. Turkey) mixed ANOVAs for repeated measures testing the significance of the differences between rater countries and rated countries. Findings demonstrated an interesting “mirror effect”: Turkish and Italians perceived their home country in similar way, and similarly different from the country of comparison. Implications are discussed.

Azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Background Azithromycin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 on the basis of its immunomodulatory actions. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Methods In this randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), several possible treatments were compared with usual care in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 in the UK. The trial is underway at 176 hospitals in the UK. Eligible and consenting patients were randomly allocated to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus azithromycin 500 mg once per day by mouth or intravenously for 10 days or until discharge (or allocation to one of the other RECOVERY treatment groups). Patients were assigned via web-based simple (unstratified) randomisation with allocation concealment and were twice as likely to be randomly assigned to usual care than to any of the active treatment groups. Participants and local study staff were not masked to the allocated treatment, but all others involved in the trial were masked to the outcome data during the trial. The primary outcome was 28-day all-cause mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treat population. The trial is registered with ISRCTN, 50189673, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04381936. Findings Between April 7 and Nov 27, 2020, of 16 442 patients enrolled in the RECOVERY trial, 9433 (57%) were eligible and 7763 were included in the assessment of azithromycin. The mean age of these study participants was 65·3 years (SD 15·7) and approximately a third were women (2944 [38%] of 7763). 2582 patients were randomly allocated to receive azithromycin and 5181 patients were randomly allocated to usual care alone. Overall, 561 (22%) patients allocated to azithromycin and 1162 (22%) patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days (rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·87–1·07; p=0·50). No significant difference was seen in duration of hospital stay (median 10 days [IQR 5 to >28] vs 11 days [5 to >28]) or the proportion of patients discharged from hospital alive within 28 days (rate ratio 1·04, 95% CI 0·98–1·10; p=0·19). Among those not on invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, no significant difference was seen in the proportion meeting the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilation or death (risk ratio 0·95, 95% CI 0·87–1·03; p=0·24). Interpretation In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, azithromycin did not improve survival or other prespecified clinical outcomes. Azithromycin use in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should be restricted to patients in whom there is a clear antimicrobial indication. Funding UK Research and Innovation (Medical Research Council) and National Institute of Health Research