Unemployment benefits

This report summarizes key aspects of unemployment benefit schemes across the world and presents information on their characteristics in a cross-country comparative context. Unemployment benefit schemes can be of insurance type (paid from employer/worker contributions to provide insurance against"the risk of becoming unemployed") or assistance type (means tested paid to the unemployed poor). Their characteristics include coverage, eligibility conditions, source of funds, and benefit levels and administration. These characteristics differ not only across economies but also over time in the same country as governments strive to tune unemployment policies to macro and labor conditions. Therefore, the reader should consider the information in this report as approximately correct at the time of publishing and should refer to the indicated sources for greater reliability.Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Insurance Law,Banks&Banking Reform

Family allowances

This paper summarizes key aspects of family allowances programs across the world and presents information on their characteristics in a cross-country comparative context. Family allowances can be universal (paid to all resident families with a specified number of children) or employment-based (whereby workers receive additional pay depending on the size/composition of their family). Their characteristics include eligibility conditions, source of funds, benefit levels, and administration. These characteristics differ not only across economies but also over time in the same country as governments strive to tune unemployment policies to macroeconomic and labor conditions.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Youth and Governance,Gender and Law,Street Children,Population&Development

Knowledge and the artefact

This paper discusses ways that knowledge may be found in or through artefacts. One purpose is to suggest situations where artefacts might be central to a narrative, rather than secondary to a text. A second purpose is to suggest ways that design and production of artefacts might be instrumental in eliciting knowledge. Four general situations are proposed: (1) Simple Forms - an artefact demonstrates or describes a principle or technique. (2) Communication of Process - artefacts arising from a process make the process explicit. (3) Artefacts Within the Research - artefacts are instrumental in advancing the research by communicating ideas or information. (4) Knowledge Elicited by Artefacts - artefacts provide a stimulus or context which enables information to be uncovered. .</p

Acquiring knowledge prior to diagnosis: a grounded theory of patients’ experiences

© 2019 The Authors. Published by Patient Experience Journal. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.35680/2372-0247.1317This paper will specifically consider one of the major findings of a wider study (previously reported in Roddis, Holloway, Bond and Galvin1), concerning how patients acquired knowledge and information about their condition before being formally diagnosed. The overall purpose of this research was to explore and explain how people make sense of long-term health conditions. Through the use of both purposive and theoretical sampling within a grounded theory design, experiences of individuals with thrombophilia and asthma were explored

The role of community acceptance in planning outcomes for onshore wind and solar farms: An energy justice analysis

The deployment of renewable technologies as part of climate mitigation strategies have provoked a range of responses from various actors, bringing public acceptance to the forefront of energy debates. A key example is the reaction of communities when renewable projects are proposed in their local areas. This paper analyses the effect that community acceptance has had on planning applications for onshore wind and solar farms in Great Britain between 1990 and 2017. It does this by compiling a set of indicators for community acceptance and testing their association with planning outcomes using binomial logistic regression. It identifies 12 variables with statistically significant effects: 4 for onshore wind, 4 for solar farms, and 4 spanning both. For both technologies, the visibility of a project, its installed capacity, the social deprivation of the area, and the year of the application are significant. The paper draws conclusions from these results for community acceptance and energy justice, and discusses the implications for energy decision-making

Incorporating the patient experience into clinical guidelines: recommendations for researchers and guideline developers

Focusing on a specific example from community care, this article argues that clinical guidelines will be better and more usable if they incorporate the findings of high-quality, qualitative research. We suggest the development and adoption of guidelines which take a holistic approach to the individual and their circumstances. These should take account of the best available evidence in terms of which treatments, devices or lifestyle changes are most effective in a particular instance, and how these are affected by the day-to-day life of patients. In so doing, clinical guidelines will become representative of the patient population to whom they relate and thus truly evidence based. We offer below one particular example of where the incorporation of qualitative evidence will improve the usability of clinical guidelines

The change in children’s and adolescents’ physical activity levels and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in Wales

Introduction: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19)-related lockdowns and restrictions took away children’s primary source of structure, routine and physical activity, creating an environment that encouraged sedentary behaviour. The aim of the study was to determine the change in children’s and adolescents’ physical activity and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: 4,885 children aged 8-18 years old living in Wales answered an online questionnaire over the course of four time-points (January 2021 to March 2022). At each time-point, a sub-sample of 800 participants was randomly selected stratified by age, sex, and socio-economic status to wear an Axivity AX3 accelerometer for seven consecutive days. Linear mixed models were used to assess the influence of PA metrics, time-point, age group, sex, socioeconomic status and well-being. Results: All PA metrics significantly increased (MVPA β=20.83, 95% CI:14.18-27.47, P<0.001; LPA β=41.81 CI:26.11-57.50 P<0.001) and sedentary time (β=-73.78, 95% CI:-113.48—34.08 p<0.05) decreased after lockdown (first time-point) whilst well-being significantly increased at the second (2.05 ± 0.72; p=0.005) and third time-point (4.89 ± 1.80; p= 0.007). There was no significant sex difference in moderate-to-vigorous PA during lockdown (p=0.327) but at all other time points boys engaged in significantly more MVPA than their female counterparts (2nd time-point 24.33, p<0.001; 3rd time-point 23.25, p<0.001; 4th time-point 17.66, p<0.001). Furthermore, there was a significant relationship between well-being and MVPA across all time-points (β=0.28; 95% CI:0.01-0.49; p=0.008). Conclusion: Despite boys and primary school children having the greatest change in their MVPA during the period of COVID-19 restrictions, girls and secondary school children’s PA levels remained concerningly low. As with prior to the COVID-19 pandemic girls and secondary school children should be targeted with interventions to increase their PA levels

In-vehicle nitrogen dioxide concentrations in road tunnels

There is a lack of knowledge regarding in-vehicle concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO) during transit through road tunnels in urban environments. Furthermore, previous studies have tended to involve a single vehicle and the range of in-vehicle NO concentrations that vehicle occupants may be exposed to is not well defined. This study describes simultaneous measurements of in-vehicle and outside-vehicle NO concentrations on a route through Sydney, Australia that included several major tunnels, minor tunnels and busy surface roads. Tests were conducted on nine passenger vehicles to assess how vehicle characteristics and ventilation settings affected in-vehicle NO concentrations and the in-vehicle-to-outside vehicle (I/O) concentration ratio. NO was measured directly using a cavity attenuated phase shift (CAPS) technique that gave a high temporal and spatial resolution. In the major tunnels, transit-average in-vehicle NO concentrations were lower than outside-vehicle concentrations for all vehicles with cabin air recirculation either on or off. However, markedly lower I/O ratios were obtained with recirculation on (0.08–0.36), suggesting that vehicle occupants can significantly lower their exposure to NO in tunnels by switching recirculation on. The highest mean I/O ratios for NO were measured in older vehicles (0.35–0.36), which is attributed to older vehicles having higher air exchange rates. The results from this study can be used to inform the design and operation of future road tunnels and modelling of personal exposure to NO

Thermal susceptibility of the Planck-LFI receivers

This paper is part of the Prelaunch status LFI papers published on JINST: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.proc5/jinst . This paper describes the impact of the Planck Low Frequency Instrument front end physical temperature fluctuations on the output signal. The origin of thermal instabilities in the instrument are discussed, and an analytical model of their propagation and impact on the receivers signal is described. The experimental test setup dedicated to evaluate these effects during the instrument ground calibration is reported together with data analysis methods. Finally, main results obtained are discussed and compared to the requirements.Comment: This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Instrumentation. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The definitive publisher authenticated version is available online at 10.1088/1748-0221/4/12/T1201