Education Reform in Kentucky: Just What the Court Ordered

This chapter discusses primary- and secondary- education policy in Kentucky and the political and environmental forces that have led to significant policy changes over the years. The primary emphasis of our policy coverage is, first, an analysis of the political decision making that led to sweeping policy changes called for in the 1989 Kentucky Supreme Court decision in Rose v. Council for Better Education and implemented through the subsequent education- reform legislation, the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA)

Validity and repeatability of a simple index derived from the short physical activity questionnaire used in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study

Original article can be found at: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=PHN Copyright The Authors. DOI: 10.1079/PHN2002439Peer reviewe

Botany meets archaeology: people and plants in the past

Abstract This paper explores the close links between botany and archaeology, using case studies from the ancient Mediterranean. It explains the kinds of palaeobotanical remains that archaeologists can recover and the methods used to analyse them. The importance of iconographic and textual evidence is also underlined. Examples of key research areas that focus on ancient plants are discussed: diet and palaeoeconomy; medicines, poisons, and psychotropics; perfumes, cosmetics, and dyes; and prestige

Flower Lovers? Reconsidering the Gardens of Minoan Crete

Traditionnellement, on a interprété la civilisation de l’Age du Bronze dans la Crète dite “minoenne” comme une société paisible qui aimait bien la nature. Des céramiques ornées de fleurs et des fresques pleines de plantes ont encouragé cette idée. De plus, la plupart des préhistoriens ont accepté sans se poser de question l’hypothèse que les Minoens cultivaient des jardins. Cependant, il n’y en avait jusqu’ici aucune preuve. Cet article examine les localités proposées comme jardins minoens, et les regroupe en deux catégories: des jardins ornant une cour, et des jardins plus grands qui sont contigus à des constructions des élites. De tels jardins, souvent pleins de plantes importées, sont caractéristiques de beaucoup de sociétés partout dans la Méditerranée antique et jouent des rôles importants dans la différenciation sociale. On propose ici une fonction pareille pour les jardins minoens

The Genetics of Parkinson’s Disease and Implications for Clinical Practice

The genetic landscape of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterised by rare high penetrance pathogenic variants causing familial disease, genetic risk factor variants driving PD risk in a significant minority in PD cases and high frequency, low penetrance variants, which contribute a small increase of the risk of developing sporadic PD. This knowledge has the potential to have a major impact in the clinical care of people with PD. We summarise these genetic influences and discuss the implications for therapeutics and clinical trial design.</jats:p

Bridging the second gap in translation:A case study of barriers and facilitators to implementing Patient-initiated Clinics into secondary care

Abstract Rationale: Patient-initiated clinics (PIC) have been found to be safe and have patient and service benefits in terms of satisfaction and cost. This paper reports our experiences of implementing PIC and the practical challenges of translating research into practice. Methods: The Knowledge to Action framework was used to inform the design of implementation plans in three different departments in one secondary health care organisation. A focused ethnographic approach was utilised to collect data on barriers and facilitators to implementation which were analysed using iterative qualitative analytic techniques. The Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services framework was used to develop the analysis and data presentation. Results: The success of implementation was mixed across the three departments. Despite evidence of effectiveness, contextual issues at a department level, such as empowered leadership and team members, trust in colleagues and patients and capacity to make changes, impacted on the progress of implementation. Discussion: Patient Initiated Clinics can offer a useful and feasible alternative for follow-up care of some groups of patients with long-term conditions in secondary care, and can be implemented through strong leadership and teamwork and a positive attitude to change. Although Implementation Science as an emerging field offers useful tools and theoretical support, its complexity may create additional challenges to implementation of specific interventions, and so further contribute to the second gap in translation.This research was funded by the South West Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South West Peninsula. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. The AHSN and the NIHR had no involvement in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication

Challenges of Incorporating Digital Health Technology Outcomes in a Clinical Trial: Experiences from PD STAT.

Digital health technologies (DHTs) have great potential for use as clinical trial outcomes; however, practical issues need to be addressed in order to maximise their benefit. We describe our experience of incorporating two DHTs as secondary/exploratory outcome measures in PD STAT, a randomised clinical trial of simvastatin in people with Parkinson's disease. We found much higher rates of missing data in the DHTs than the traditional outcome measures, in particular due to technical and software difficulties. We discuss methods to address these obstacles in terms of protocol design, workforce training and data management

Challenges of Incorporating Digital Health Technology Outcomes in a Clinical Trial: Experiences from PD STAT

\ua9 2022 - The authors. Published by IOS Press.Digital health technologies (DHTs) have great potential for use as clinical trial outcomes; however, practical issues need to be addressed in order to maximise their benefit. We describe our experience of incorporating two DHTs as secondary/exploratory outcome measures in PD STAT, a randomised clinical trial of simvastatin in people with Parkinson\u27s disease. We found much higher rates of missing data in the DHTs than the traditional outcome measures, in particular due to technical and software difficulties. We discuss methods to address these obstacles in terms of protocol design, workforce training and data management