28 research outputs found
Perspectives of ammunition users on the use of lead ammunition and its potential impacts on wildlife and humans
This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordData availability statement:
All data supporting the results in this paper are available from Zenodo (digital repository): https://zenodo.org/record/2653514#.XMbMXKbsZD8 (Newth et al., 2019).1. Recent national and international policy initiatives have aimed to reduce the exposure of humans and wildlife to lead from ammunition. Despite restrictions, in the
UK, lead ammunition remains the most widespread source of environmental lead
contamination to which wildlife may be exposed.
2. The risks arising from the use of lead ammunition and the measures taken to
mitigate these have prompted intense and sometimes acrimonious discussion between stakeholder groups, including those advancing the interests of shooting,
wildlife conservation, public health and animal welfare.
3. However, relatively little is known of the perspectives of individual ammunition
users, despite their role in adding lead to the environment and their pivotal place
in any potential changes to practice. Using Q‐methodology, we identified the perspectives of ammunition users in the UK on lead ammunition in an effort to bring
forward evidence from these key stakeholders.
4. Views were characterised by two statistically and qualitatively distinct perspectives: (a) Open to change—comprised ammunition users that refuted the view that
lead ammunition is not a major source of poisoning in wild birds, believed that
solutions to reduce the risks of poisoning are needed, were happy to use non‐lead
alternatives and did not feel that the phasing out of lead shot would lead to the
demise of shooting; and (b) Status quo—comprised ammunition users who did not
regard lead poisoning as a major welfare problem for wild birds, were ambivalent
about the need for solutions and felt that lead shot is better than steel at killing
and not wounding an animal. They believed opposition to lead ammunition was
driven more by a dislike of shooting than evidence of any harm.
5. Adherents to both perspectives agreed that lead is a toxic substance. There was
consensus that involvement of stakeholders from all sides of the debate was desirable and that to be taken seriously by shooters, information about lead poisoning
should come from the shooting community
The implausibility of ‘usual care’ in an open system: sedation and weaning practices in Paediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) in the United Kingdom (UK)
Background: The power of the randomised controlled trial depends upon its capacity to operate in a closed
system whereby the intervention is the only causal force acting upon the experimental group and absent in the
control group, permitting a valid assessment of intervention efficacy. Conversely, clinical arenas are open systems
where factors relating to context, resources, interpretation and actions of individuals will affect implementation and
effectiveness of interventions. Consequently, the comparator (usual care) can be difficult to define and variable in
multi-centre trials. Hence outcomes cannot be understood without considering usual care and factors that may
affect implementation and impact on the intervention.
Methods: Using a fieldwork approach, we describe PICU context, ‘usual’ practice in sedation and weaning from
mechanical ventilation, and factors affecting implementation prior to designing a trial involving a sedation and
ventilation weaning intervention. We collected data from 23 UK PICUs between June and November 2014 using
observation, individual and multi-disciplinary group interviews with staff.
Results: Pain and sedation practices were broadly similar in terms of drug usage and assessment tools. Sedation
protocols linking assessment to appropriate titration of sedatives and sedation holds were rarely used (9 % and 4 %
of PICUs respectively). Ventilator weaning was primarily a medical-led process with 39 % of PICUs engaging senior
nurses in the process: weaning protocols were rarely used (9 % of PICUs). Weaning methods were variably based
on clinician preference. No formal criteria or use of spontaneous breathing trials were used to test weaning
readiness. Seventeen PICUs (74 %) had prior engagement in multi-centre trials, but limited research nurse
availability. Barriers to previous trial implementation were intervention complexity, lack of belief in the evidence and
inadequate training. Facilitating factors were senior staff buy-in and dedicated research nurse provision.
Conclusions: We examined and identified contextual and organisational factors that may impact on the
implementation of our intervention. We found usual practice relating to sedation, analgesia and ventilator weaning
broadly similar, yet distinctively different from our proposed intervention, providing assurance in our ability to
evaluate intervention effects. The data will enable us to develop an implementation plan; considering these factors
we can more fully understand their impact on study outcomes
Critical dynamics in the evolution of stochastic strategies for the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma
The observed cooperation on the level of genes, cells, tissues, and
individuals has been the object of intense study by evolutionary biologists,
mainly because cooperation often flourishes in biological systems in apparent
contradiction to the selfish goal of survival inherent in Darwinian evolution.
In order to resolve this paradox, evolutionary game theory has focused on the
Prisoner's Dilemma (PD), which incorporates the essence of this conflict. Here,
we encode strategies for the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD) in terms of
conditional probabilities that represent the response of decision pathways
given previous plays. We find that if these stochastic strategies are encoded
as genes that undergo Darwinian evolution, the environmental conditions that
the strategies are adapting to determine the fixed point of the evolutionary
trajectory, which could be either cooperation or defection. A transition
between cooperative and defective attractors occurs as a function of different
parameters such a mutation rate, replacement rate, and memory, all of which
affect a player's ability to predict an opponent's behavior.Comment: 27 pages, including supplementary information. 5 figures, 4 suppl.
figures. Version accepted for publication in PLoS Comp. Bio
Respiratory inductance plethysmography calibration for pediatric upper airway obstruction: an animal model
Evaluating Risk Factors for Pediatric Post-extubation Upper Airway Obstruction Using a Physiology-based Tool
Evolution of the vertebrate jaw: comparative embryology and molecular developmental biology reveal the factors behind evolutionary novelty
It is generally believed that the jaw arose through the simple transformation of an ancestral rostral gill arch. The gnathostome jaw differentiates from Hox-free crest cells in the mandibular arch, and this is also apparent in the lamprey. The basic Hox code, including the Hox-free default state in the mandibular arch, may have been present in the common ancestor, and jaw patterning appears to have been secondarily constructed in the gnathostomes. The distribution of the cephalic neural crest cells is similar in the early pharyngula of gnathostomes and lampreys, but different cell subsets form the oral apparatus in each group through epithelial–mesenchymal interactions: and this heterotopy is likely to have been an important evolutionary change that permitted jaw differentiation. This theory implies that the premandibular crest cells differentiate into the upper lip, or the dorsal subdivision of the oral apparatus in the lamprey, whereas the equivalent cell population forms the trabecula of the skull base in gnathostomes. Because the gnathostome oral apparatus is derived exclusively from the mandibular arch, the concepts ‘oral’ and ‘mandibular’ must be dissociated. The ‘lamprey trabecula’ develops from mandibular mesoderm, and is not homologous with the gnathostome trabecula, which develops from premandibular crest cells. Thus the jaw evolved as an evolutionary novelty through tissue rearrangements and topographical changes in tissue interactions