Associations between abundances of free-roaming gamebirds and common buzzards Buteo buteo are not driven by consumption of gamebirds in the buzzard breeding season

Releasing gamebirds in large numbers for sport shooting may directly or indirectly influence the abundance, distribution and population dynamics of native wildlife. The abundances of generalist predators have been positively associated with the abundance of gamebirds. These relationships have implications for prey populations, with the potential for indirect impacts of gamebird releases on wider biodiversity. To understand the basis of these associations, we investigated variation in territory size, prey provisioning to chicks, and breeding success of common buzzards Buteo buteo, and associations with variation in the abundances of free- roaming gamebirds, primarily pheasants Phasianus colchicus, and of rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus and field voles Microtus agrestis, as important prey for buzzards. The relative abundance of game-birds, but not those of rabbits or voles, was weakly but positively correlated with our index of buzzard territory size. Gamebirds were rarely brought to the nest. Rabbits and voles, and not gamebirds, were provisioned to chicks in proportion to their relative abundance. The number of buzzard chicks increased with provisioning rates of rabbits, in terms of both provisioning frequency and biomass, but not with provisioning rates for gamebirds or voles. Associations between the abundances of buzzards and gamebirds may not be a consequence of the greater availability of gamebirds as prey during the buzzard breeding season. Instead, the association may arise either from habitat or predator management leading to higher densities of alternative prey (in this instance, rabbits), or from greater availability of gamebirds as prey or carrion during the autumn and winter shooting season. The interactions between gamebird releases and associated practices of predator control and shooting itself require better understanding to more effectively intervene in any one aspect of this complex social-ecological system

Time to negative throat culture following initiation of antibiotics for pharyngeal group A Streptococcus: a systematic review and meta-analysis up to October 2021 to inform public health control measures

Background: Public health guidance recommending isolation of individuals with group A streptococcal (GAS) infection or carriage for 12–24 h from antibiotic initiation to prevent onward transmission requires a strong evidence base. Aim: To estimate the pooled proportion of individuals who remain GAS culture-positive at set intervals after initiation of antibiotics through a systematic literature review (PROSPERO CRD42021290364) and meta-analysis. Methods: We searched Ovid MEDLINE (1946–), EMBASE (1974–) and Cochrane library. We included interventional or observational studies with ≥ 10 participants reporting rates of GAS throat culture positivity during antibiotic treatment for culture-confirmed GAS pharyngitis, scarlet fever and asymptomatic pharyngeal GAS carriage. We did not apply age, language or geographical restrictions. Results: Of 5,058 unique records, 43 were included (37 randomised controlled studies, three non-randomised controlled trials and three before-and-after studies). The proportion of individuals remaining culture-positive on day 1, day 2 and days 3–9 were 6.9% (95% CI: 2.7–16.8%), 5.4% (95% CI: 2.1–13.3%) and 2.6% (95% CI: 1.6–4.2%). For penicillins and cephalosporins, day 1 positivity was 6.5% (95% CI: 2.5–16.1%) and 1.6% (95% CI: 0.04–42.9%), respectively. Overall, for 9.1% (95% CI: 7.3–11.3), throat swabs collected after completion of therapy were GAS culture-positive. Only six studies had low risk of bias. Conclusions: Our review provides evidence that antibiotics for pharyngeal GAS achieve a high rate of culture conversion within 24 h but highlights the need for further research given methodological limitations of published studies and imprecision of pooled estimates. Further evidence is needed for non-beta-lactam antibiotics and asymptomatic individuals

Copper reduces the virulence of bacterial communities at environmentally relevant concentrations

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData availability: All data and R code used in the analysis is available on GitHub (https://github.com/LukeLear/Lear_et_al_2023_Environment_International.git).Increasing environmental concentrations of metals as a result of anthropogenic pollution are significantly changing many microbial communities. While there is evidence metal pollution can result in increased antibiotic resistance, the effects of metal pollution on the virulence of bacterial communities remains largely undetermined. Here, we experimentally test whether metal stress alters the virulence of bacterial communities. We do this by incubating three wastewater influent communities under different environmentally relevant copper concentrations for three days. We then quantify the virulence of the community phenotypically using the Galleria mellonella infection model, and test if differences are due to changes in the rate of biomass accumulation (productivity), copper resistance, or community composition (quantified using 16S amplicon sequencing). The virulence of the communities was found to be reduced by the highest copper concentration, but not to be affected by the lower concentration. As well as reduced virulence, communities exposed to the highest copper concentration were less diverse and had lower productivity. This work highlights that metal pollution may decrease virulence in bacterial communities, but at a cost to diversity and productivity.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)UKR

The effects of social service contact on teenagers in England

Objective: This study investigated outcomes of social service contact during teenage years. Method: Secondary analysis was conducted of the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England (N = 15,770), using data on reported contact with social services resulting from teenagers’ behavior. Outcomes considered were educational achievement and aspiration, mental health, and locus of control. Inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment was used to estimate the effect of social service contact. Results: There was no significant difference between those who received social service contact and those who did not for mental health outcome or aspiration to apply to university. Those with contact had lower odds of achieving good exam results or of being confident in university acceptance if sought. Results for locus of control were mixed. Conclusions: Attention is needed to the role of social services in supporting the education of young people in difficulty. Further research is needed on the outcomes of social services contact

Empowering reuse of digital cultural heritage in context-aware crosscuts of European history

The paper presents the H2020 CrossCult project, providing a short overview, a summary of the platform developed by the project, a description of the consortium, lessons learnt in three main dimensions (humanities, technology and business), the open challenges and the main tools developed by the project

CrossCult: Empowering reuse of digital cultural heritage in context-aware crosscuts of European history

The paper presents the H2020 CrossCult project, providing a short overview, a summary of the platform developed by the project, a description of the consortium, lessons learnt in three main dimensions (humanities, technology and business), the open challenges and the main tools developed by the project

Assessment of algorithms for mitosis detection in breast cancer histopathology images

The proliferative activity of breast tumors, which is routinely estimated by counting of mitotic figures in hematoxylin and eosin stained histology sections, is considered to be one of the most important prognostic markers. However, mitosis counting is laborious, subjective and may suffer from low inter-observer agreement. With the wider acceptance of whole slide images in pathology labs, automatic image analysis has been proposed as a potential solution for these issues. In this paper, the results from the Assessment of Mitosis Detection Algorithms 2013 (AMIDA13) challenge are described. The challenge was based on a data set consisting of 12 training and 11 testing subjects, with more than one thousand annotated mitotic figures by multiple observers. Short descriptions and results from the evaluation of eleven methods are presented. The top performing method has an error rate that is comparable to the inter-observer agreement among pathologists

Rehabilitation Exercise and psycholoGical support After covid-19 InfectioN' (REGAIN):a structured summary of a study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

OBJECTIVES The primary objective is to determine which of two interventions: 1) an eight week, online, home-based, supervised, group rehabilitation programme (REGAIN); or 2) a single online session of advice (best-practice usual care); is the most clinically and cost-effective treatment for people with ongoing COVID-19 sequelae more than three months after hospital discharge. TRIAL DESIGN Multi-centre, 2-arm (1:1 ratio) parallel group, randomised controlled trial with embedded process evaluation and health economic evaluation. PARTICIPANTS Adults with ongoing COVID-19 sequelae more than three months after hospital discharge Inclusion criteria: 1) Adults ≥18 years; 2) ≥ 3 months after any hospital discharge related to COVID-19 infection, regardless of need for critical care or ventilatory support; 3) substantial (as defined by the participant) COVID-19 related physical and/or mental health problems; 4) access to, and able/supported to use email and internet audio/video; 4) able to provide informed consent; 5) able to understand spoken and written English, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu, Punjabi or Mandarin, themselves or supported by family/friends. EXCLUSION CRITERIA 1) exercise contraindicated; 2) severe mental health problems preventing engagement; 3) previous randomisation in the present study; 4) already engaged in, or planning to engage in an alternative NHS rehabilitation programme in the next 12 weeks; 5) a member of the same household previously randomised in the present study. INTERVENTION AND COMPARATOR Intervention 1: The Rehabilitation Exercise and psycholoGical support After covid-19 InfectioN (REGAIN) programme: an eight week, online, home-based, supervised, group rehabilitation programme. Intervention 2: A thirty-minute, on-line, one-to-one consultation with a REGAIN practitioner (best-practice usual care). MAIN OUTCOMES The primary outcome is health-related quality of life (HRQoL) - PROMIS® 29+2 Profile v2.1 (PROPr) - measured at three months post-randomisation. Secondary outcomes include dyspnoea, cognitive function, health utility, physical activity participation, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity, depressive and anxiety symptoms, work status, health and social care resource use, death - measured at three, six and 12 months post-randomisation. RANDOMISATION Participants will be randomised to best practice usual care or the REGAIN programme on a 1:1.03 basis using a computer-generated randomisation sequence, performed by minimisation and stratified by age, level of hospital care, and case level mental health symptomatology. Once consent and baseline questionnaires have been completed by the participant online at home, randomisation will be performed automatically by a bespoke web-based system. BLINDING (MASKING) To ensure allocation concealment from both participant and REGAIN practitioner at baseline, randomisation will be performed only after the baseline questionnaires have been completed online at home by the participant. After randomisation has been performed, participants and REGAIN practitioners cannot be blind to group allocation. Follow-up outcome assessments will be completed by participants online at home. NUMBERS TO BE RANDOMISED (SAMPLE SIZE) A total of 535 participants will be randomised: 263 to the best-practice usual care arm, and 272 participants to the REGAIN programme arm. TRIAL STATUS Current protocol: Version 3.0 (27th October 2020) Recruitment will begin in December 2020 and is anticipated to complete by September 2021. TRIAL REGISTRATION ISRCTN:11466448 , 23rd November 2020 FULL PROTOCOL: The full protocol Version 3.0 (27th October 2020) is attached as an additional file, accessible from the Trials website (Additional file 1). In the interests of expediting dissemination of this material, the familiar formatting has been eliminated; this Letter serves as a summary of the key elements of the full protocol. The study protocol has been reported in accordance with the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Clinical Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines

CrossCult D2.5 Upper-level Cultural Heritage Ontology

This paper presents the Upper-level Ontology and the other ontological schemas and vocabularies that we used to model the semantics of the “world” of CrossCult and its four pilots. It consists of two documents: a report describing the rationale and structure of the ontology and a PDF file containing the definitions of the classes and properties of the CrossCult ontologies in the syntax of Description Logics

Non-pharmacological educational and self-management interventions for people with chronic headache: the CHESS research programme including a RCT

Background: Headaches are a leading cause of years lived with disability. For some people, headaches become chronic and disabling, with treatment options being primarily pharmaceutical. Non-pharmacological alternative treatment approaches are worthy of exploration. Aim: To develop and test an educational and supportive self-management intervention for people with chronic headaches. Objectives: To develop and evaluate a brief diagnostic interview to support diagnosis for people with chronic headaches, and then to develop and pilot an education and self-management support intervention for the management of common chronic headache disorders (the CHESS intervention). To select the most appropriate outcome measures for a randomised controlled trial of the CHESS intervention, and then to conduct a randomised controlled trial and economic evaluation of the CHESS intervention with an embedded process evaluation. Design: Developmental and feasibility studies followed by a randomised controlled trial. Setting: General practice and community settings in the Midlands and London, UK. Participants: For our feasibility work, 14 general practices recruited 131 people with chronic headaches (headaches on ≥15 days per month for >3 months). People with chronic headaches and expert clinicians developed a telephone classification interview for chronic headache that we validated with 107 feasibility study participants. We piloted the CHESS intervention with 13 participants and refined the content and structure based on their feedback. People with chronic headaches contributed to the decisions about our primary outcome and a core outcome set for chronic and episodic migraine. For the randomised controlled trial, we recruited adults with chronic migraine or chronic tension-type headache and episodic migraine, with or without medication overuse headache, from general practices and via self-referral. Our main analyses were on people with migraine. Interventions: The CHESS intervention consisted of two 1-day group sessions focused on education and self-management to promote behaviour change and support learning strategies to manage chronic headaches. This was followed by a one-to-one nurse consultation and telephone support. The control intervention consisted of feedback from classification interviews, headache management leaflet and a relaxation compact disc. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was headache-related quality of life measured using the Headache Impact Test-6 at 12 months. The secondary outcomes included the Chronic Headache Quality of Life Questionnaire; headache days, duration and severity; EuroQol-5 Dimensions, five-level version; Short Form Questionnaire-12 items; Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; and Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire scores. We followed up participants at 4, 8 and 12 months. Results: Between April 2017 and March 2019, we randomised 736 participants from 164 general practices. Nine participants (1%) had chronic tension-type headache only. Our main analyses were on the remaining 727 participants with migraine (376 in the intervention arm and 351 in the usual-care arm). Baseline characteristics were well matched. For the primary outcome we had analysable data from 579 participants (80%) at 12 months. There was no between-group difference in the Headache Impact Test-6 at 12 months, (adjusted mean difference –0.3, 95% confidence interval –1.23 to 0.67; p = 0.56). The limits of the 95% confidence interval effectively exclude the possibility of the intervention having a worthwhile benefit. At 4 months there was a difference favouring the CHESS self-management programme on the Headache Impact Test-6 (adjusted mean difference –1.0, 95% confidence interval –1.91 to –0.006; p = 0.049). However, the self-management group also reported 1.5 (95% confidence interval 0.48 to 2.56) more headache days in the previous 28 days. Apart from improved pain self-efficacy at 4 and 12 months, there were few other statistically significant between-group differences in the secondary outcomes. The CHESS intervention generated 0.031 (95% confidence interval –0.005 to 0.063) additional quality-adjusted life-years and increased NHS and Personal Social Services costs by £268 (95% confidence interval £176 to £377), on average, generating an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of £8617 with an 83% chance of being cost-effective at a willingness-to-pay threshold of £20,000 per quality-adjusted life-year. The CHESS intervention was well received and fidelity was good. No process-related issues were identified that would explain why the intervention was ineffective. Limitations: Only 288 out of 376 (77%) of those randomised to the CHESS intervention attended one or more of the intervention sessions. Conclusions: This short, non-pharmacological, educational self-management intervention is unlikely to be effective for the treatment of people with chronic headaches and migraine. Future work: There is a need to develop and test more sustained non-pharmacological interventions for people with chronic headache disorders. Patient and public involvement: Substantial patient and public involvement went into the design, conduct and interpretation of the CHESS programme. This helped direct the research and ensured that the patient voice was embedded in our work. Trial registration: This trial is registered as ISRCTN79708100. Funding: This project was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Programme Grants for Applied Research programme and will be published in full in Programme Grants for Applied Research; Vol. 11, No. 2. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further information