The process of assessing and reporting sustainability at universities: preparing the report of the University of Leeds

An increasing number of higher educational institutions have engaged in assessing and reporting their sustainability efforts. This paper presents the process undertaken to prepare the first draft of the University of Leeds sustainability report. The objective of the exercise was to provide a base and complement other sustainability initiatives taken at the University of Leeds. The process of developing the report was done in three stages: (1) collecting data; (2) populating the indicators; and (3) assessing the performance values from the information collected using the Graphical Assessment of Sustainability in Universities (GASU) tool. Although there were limited time and resources for the process, the results in indicator coverage and performance were higher than other the analysis of other HEIs that have published Global Reporting Initiative based reports. When preparing a sustainability report it is important to have a holistic perspective, addressing the different inter-relations between indicators, categories, and dimensions, as well as stakeholders throughout the university system.Peer Reviewe

Características de la profesión enfermera en el contexto español a partir de la experiencia de las enfermeras docentes

El objetivo general de esta investigación fué conocer, a partir del discurso de las enfermeras pioneras 'Ayudantes Técnicos Sanitarios' en impartir la asignatura de 'Enfermería Fundamental', cuáles son las características de la profesión enfermera en el contexto español actual. El diseño fué cualitativo y como estrategia metodológica se utilizó la Inducción analítica. El muestreo fué teórico y se utilizó como técnica de recogida de datos la entrevista en profundidad. Para el análisis de datos se utilizó la estrategia analítica propia de la teoría fundamentada. Se establecieron estrategias específicas para asegurar los criterios de rigor. El proyecto fue aprobado por una comisión de ética asistencial y se ha pasado consentimiento informado a las participantes estableciendo, además, un protocolo de seguridad, para asegurar la confidencialidad de los datos.El discurso de las cuatro docentes pioneras entrevistadas hace intuir que la profesión sigue teniendo un rol profesional basado en la técnica y no en el cuidado. La falta de confianza en el valor del cuidado, la falta de iniciativa que implica no querer asumir responsabilidades y la poca capacidad para la práctica reflexiva se establecen como principales carencias del colectivo. En cuanto al rol profesional ejercido en la práctica, según la opinión de las docentes de la asignatura fundamentos en enfermería, se destaca la clara preferencia del colectivo por el rol técnico vinculado al tratamiento en detrimento del rol vinculado al cuidado

Transfer of nurse education to universities under a model of person-centred care: A consequence of changes in Spanish society during the democratic transition.

Background. In Spain the transfer of nurse education to universities was accompanied by a shift towards a model of person-centred care. Aim. To explore whether the change in nurses' professional profile (from physician assistant to providers of person-centred care) was a response to changing needs in Spanish society. Design. Qualitative study. Methods. Theoretical sampling and in-depth interviews using an inductive analytical approach. Results. Four categories described the nursing profession in Spain prior to the introduction of university training: the era of medical assistants; technologisation of hospitals; personal care of the patient based on Christian values; professional socialisation differentiated by gender. Further analysis showed that these categories could be subsumed under a broader core category: the transfer of nurse education to universities as part of Spain's transition to democracy. Conclusion. The transfer of nurse education to universities was one of several changes occurring in Spanish society during the country's transition to democratic government. The redefined public health system required a highly skilled workforce, with improved employment rights being given to female health professionals, notably nurses

Professional responsibility and decision-making in the context of a disease-focused model of nursing care: The difficulties experienced by Spanish nurses

When, in 1977, nurse education in Spain was transferred to universities a more patient-centred, Anglo-American philosophy of care was introduced into a context in which nurses had traditionally prioritised their technical skills. This paper examines the characteristics of the nurse's professional role in Spain, where the model of nursing practice has historically placed them in a position akin to that of physician assistants. The study design was qualitative and used the method of analytic induction. Participants were selected by means of theoretical sampling and then underwent in-depth interviews. The resulting material was analysed using an approach based on the principles of grounded theory. Strategies were applied to ensure the credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability of the findings. The main conclusion is that nurses in Spain continue to work within a disease-focused model of care, making it difficult for them to take responsibility for decision making

Effectiveness and Supply Effects of High-Coverage Rent Control Policies

Concerns related to housing affordability are widespread in cities worldwide, and discussions about adopting rent control policies abound. This paper studies the effects of a rent control policy adopted in Catalonia in September 2020 that applies to some but not all municipalities. The policy virtually covers all the rental market and forces ads and tenancy agreements to specify the applicable rent cap to ensure enforcement. In order to identify the causal effect of the rent control regulation, we implement difference-in-differences regressions and event-study designs and analyze average rents and the number of tenancy agreements signed. Our results indicate that the regulation reduced average rents paid by about 6%. However, this price drop did not lead to a reduction in the supply of housing units in the rental market. We implement several robustness tests to address several identification concerns related to Covid-19. Our results suggest that rent control policies can be effective in reducing rental prices and do not necessarily shrink the rental market

Interaction strength in plant-pollinator networks : Are we using the right measure?

Understanding how ecological networks are assembled is important because network structure reflects ecosystem functioning and stability. Quantitative network analysis incorporates measures of interaction strength as an estimate of the magnitude of the effect of interaction partners on one another. Most plant-pollinator network studies use frequency of interaction between individual pollinators and individual plants (encounter) as a surrogate of interaction strength. However, the number of flowers visited per encounter may strongly vary among pollinator and plant species, and therefore not all encounters are quantitatively equivalent. We sampled plant-pollinator interactions in a Mediterranean scrubland and tested whether using a measure of interaction strength based on the number of flowers visited resulted in changes in species (species strength, interaction species asymmetry, specialization) and network descriptors (nestedness, H2', interaction evenness, plant generality, pollinator generality) compared to the encounter-based measure. Several species (including some of the most abundant ones) showed important changes in species descriptors, notably in specialization. These changes were especially important in plant species with large floral displays, which became less specialized with the visit-based measure of interaction strength. At the network level we found significant changes in all properties analysed. With the encounter-based approach plant generality was much higher than pollinator generality (high specialization asymmetry between trophic levels). However, with the visit-based approach plant generality was greatly reduced so that plants and pollinators had similar levels of generalization. Interaction evenness also decreased strongly with the visit-based approach. We conclude that accounting for the number of flowers visited per encounter provides a more ecologically relevant measure of interaction strength. Our results have important implications for the stability of pollination networks and the evolution of plant-pollinator interactions. The use of a visit-based approach is especially important in studies relating interaction network structure and ecosystem function (pollination and/or exploitation of floral resources)

Spatial variability of hosts, parasitoids and their interactions across a homogeneous landscape

Species assemblages and their interactions vary through space, generating diversity patterns at different spatial scales. Here, we study the local-scale spatial variation of a cavity-nesting bee and wasp community (hosts), their nest associates parasitoids), and the resulting antagonistic network over a continuous and homogeneous habitat. To obtain bee/wasp nests, we placed trap-nests at 25 sites over a 32 km2 area. We obtained 1,541 nests (4,954 cells) belonging to 40 host species and containing 27 parasitoid species. The most abundant host species tended to have higher parasitism rate. Community composition dissimilarity was relatively high for both hosts and parasitoids, and the main component of this variability was species turnover, with a very minor contribution of ordered species loss (nestedness). That is, local species richness tended to be similar across the study area and community composition tended to differ between sites. Interestingly, the spatial matching between host and parasitoid composition was low. Host β-diversity was weakly (positively) but significantly related to geographic distance. On the other hand, parasitoid and host-parasitoid interaction β-diversities were not significantly related to geographic distance. Interaction β-diversity was even higher than host and parasitoid β-diversity, and mostly due to species turnover. Interaction rewiring between plots and between local webs and the regional metaweb was very low. In sum, species composition was rather idiosyncratic to each site causing a relevant mismatch between hosts and parasitoid composition. However, pairs of host and parasitoid species tended to interact similarly wherever they co-occurred. Our results additionally show that interaction β-diversity is better explained by parasitoid than by host β-diversity. We discuss the importance of identifying the sources of variation to understand the drivers of the observed heterogeneity

Models and procedures for electric energy distribution planning. A review

Distribution system planning is a key component to accomplish the service in a fast growing demand market, both from a technical point of view and from the economic costs management. In the near future, electric companies will need faster and cheaper planning tools to evaluate different scenarios and their consequences for the rest of the system and provide their clients whit safe reliable and economic energy. The objective of this paper is to review different articles about this subject trying to continue the previous work from Gonen and Ramírez-Rosado in 1986 (Gönen,1986).Postprint (published version

Venetoclax in relapsed/refractory blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm with central nervous system involvement : a case report and review of the literature

Background: We describe a patient with blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm with central nervous system involvement and the outcome of venetoclax use in this setting. Case presentation: A 54-year-old Caucasian male was referred to the Haematology Unit with an enlarged inguinal lymph node which was diagnostic of a blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm. The staging revealed disseminated disease (skin, visceral, lymph nodes, and bone marrow). He received chemotherapy with an acute myeloid leukaemia-like regime. Afterwards, he underwent allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, though it was not successful, showing a relapse 14 months later with hepatic and central nervous system dissemination. Intrathecal chemotherapy was administered, and venetoclax (anti-bcl2 agent) was started in an off-label indication based on most recent literature. The disease halted its course for 3 months. In the end, the patient's disease progressed and so he succumbed due to infectious complications. Conclusions: Venetoclax monotherapy seems not enough to control the disease progression under CNS involvement and other treatments should be investigated