The Symptom Monitoring with Feedback Trial (SWIFT):protocol for a registry‑based cluster randomised controlled trial in haemodialysis

BACKGROUND: Kidney failure prevalence is increasing worldwide. Haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis or kidney transplantation are undertaken to extend life with kidney failure. People receiving haemodialysis commonly experience fatigue, pain, nausea, cramping, itching, sleeping difficulties, anxiety and depression. This symptom burden contributes to poor health-related quality of life (QOL) and is a major reason for treatment withdrawal and death. The Symptom monitoring WIth Feedback Trial (SWIFT) will test the hypothesis that regular symptom monitoring with feedback to people receiving haemodialysis and their treating clinical team can improve QOL. METHODS: We are conducting an Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant (ANZDATA) registry-based cluster randomised controlled trial to determine the clinical- and cost-effectiveness at 12 months, of 3-monthly symptom monitoring using the Integrated Palliative Outcome Scale-Renal (IPOS-Renal) survey with clinician feedback, compared with usual care among adults treated with haemodialysis. Participants complete symptom scoring using a tablet, which are provided to participants and to clinicians. The trial aims to recruit 143 satellite haemodialysis centres, (up to 2400 participants). The primary outcome is change in health-related QOL, as measured by EuroQol 5-Dimension, 5-Level (EQ-5D-5L) instrument. Secondary outcomes include overall survival, symptom severity (including haemodialysis-associated fatigue), healthcare utilisation and cost-effectiveness. DISCUSSION: SWIFT is the first registry-based trial in the Australian haemodialysis population to investigate whether regular symptom monitoring with feedback to participants and clinicians improves QOL. SWIFT is embedded in the ANZDATA Registry facilitating pragmatic recruitment from public and private dialysis clinics, throughout Australia. SWIFT will inform future collection, storage and reporting of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) within a clinical quality registry. As the first trial to rigorously estimate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of routine PROMs collection and reporting in haemodialysis units, SWIFT will provide invaluable information to health services, clinicians and researchers working to improve the lives of those with kidney failure. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12620001061921. Registered on 16 October 2020 SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13063-022-06355-0

Validity and Reliability of Agility Tests in Junior Australian Football Players

Young, W, Farrow, D, Pyne, D, McGregor, W, and Handke, T. Validity and reliability of agility tests in junior Australian football players. J Strength Cond Res 25(12): 3399–3403, 2011—The importance of sport-specific stimuli in reactive agility tests (RATs) compared to other agility tests is not known. The purpose of this research was to determine the validity and reliability of agility tests. Fifty junior Australian football players aged 15–17 years, members of either an elite junior squad (n = 35) or a secondary school team (n = 15), were assessed on a new RAT that involved a change of direction sprint in response to the movements of an attacking player projected in life size on a screen. These players also underwent the planned Australian Football League agility test, and a subgroup (n = 13) underwent a test requiring a change of direction in response to a left or right arrow stimulus. The elite players were significantly better than the school group players on the RAT (2.81 ± 0.08 seconds, 3.07 ± 0.12 seconds; difference 8.5%) but not in the arrow stimulus test or planned agility test. The data were log transformed and the reliability of the new RAT estimated using typical error (TE) expressed as a coefficient of variation. The TE for the RAT was 2.7% (2.0–4.3, 90% confidence interval) or 0.07 seconds (0.5–1.0), with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.33. For the test using the arrow stimulus, the TE was 3.4% (2.4–6.2), 0.09 (0.06–0.15) seconds, and ICC was 0.10. The sport-specific stimulus provided by the new RAT is a crucial component of an agility test; however, adoption of the new RAT for routine testing is likely to require more accessible equipment and several familiarization trials to improve its reliability

Digital Copying and the Supply of Sound Recordings

One concern with digitization in markets for information goods is that unauthorized, digital copying will reduce the number and quality of original works supplied. Despite a substantial literature on the effects of piracy on demand for recorded music, information on the supply-effects of digital copying is limited. This paper presents empirical evidence that digital copying has not reduced the supply of new, copyrighted sound recordings in Germany. Even with a strong reduction in sales of sound recordings that coincided with the diffusion of digital copying technology, the annual number of new titles released to the market continued to expand. Results indicate that the number of new titles released has not deviated significantly from a long-term upward trend. The paper also presents evidence that the amount of time listening to sound recordings has not fallen over this period, suggesting no strong decline in the quality of new work

Interlaboratory Comparison of Results of Susceptibility Testing with Caspofungin against Candida and Aspergillus Species

Seventeen laboratories participated in a study of interlaboratory reproducibility with caspofungin microdilution susceptibility testing against panels comprising 30 isolates of Candida spp. and 20 isolates of Aspergillus spp. The laboratories used materials supplied from a single source to determine the influence of growth medium (RPMI 1640 with or without glucose additions and antibiotic medium 3 [AM3]), the same incubation times (24 h and 48 h), and the same end point definition (partial or complete inhibition of growth) for the MIC of caspofungin. All tests were run in duplicate, and end points were determined both spectrophotometrically and visually. The results from almost all of the laboratories for quality control and reference Candida and Aspergillus isolates tested with fluconazole and itraconazole matched the NCCLS published values. However, considerable interlaboratory variability was seen in the results of the caspofungin tests. For Candida spp. the most consistent MIC data were generated with visual “prominent growth reduction” (MIC(2)) end points measured at 24 h in RPMI 1640, where 73.3% of results for the 30 isolates tested fell within a mode ± one dilution range across all 17 laboratories. MIC(2) at 24 h in RPMI 1640 or AM3 also gave the best interlaboratory separation of Candida isolates of known high and low susceptibility to caspofungin. Reproducibility of MIC data was problematic for caspofungin tests with Aspergillus spp. under all conditions, but the minimal effective concentration end point, defined as the lowest caspofungin concentration yielding conspicuously aberrant hyphal growth, gave excellent reproducibility for data from 14 of the 17 participating laboratories

Transnational Entanglements: Switzerland's Newly Emerging Literary Culture of the 1960s and the Anglophone World

In 1966, Emil Staiger, one of the most prominent literary scholars in literary studies of the postwar era, gave a talk on literature and the public. In his speech, which initiated what came to be known as the Zürcher Literaturstreit, Staiger developed a normative idea of literature as an agent of social cohesion. Around the same time, a new literary culture emerged in Switzerland, one which challenged Staiger's conception by exploring literature's critical potential. This article argues that this more modern direction taken by German Swiss literature was the result of transnational dynamics. Focusing on three examples of literature written by a new generation of Swiss authors (Walter, Federspiel, Bichsel), the article explores the various transnational alliances these authors built with modernist authors, mostly beyond the German‐speaking world, as a means of breaking with literary conventions. Leaving the logic of a national literary history behind, the article argues that seemingly local literary conflicts in 1960s Switzerland arose out of transnational dynamics