Perspectives on financial incentives to health service providers for increasing breast feeding and smoking quit rates during pregnancy: a mixed methods study

Objective: To explore the acceptability, mechanisms and consequences of provider incentives for smoking cessation and breast feeding as part of the Benefits of Incentives for Breastfeeding and Smoking cessation in pregnancy (BIBS) study. Design: Cross-sectional survey and qualitative interviews. Setting: Scotland and North West England. Participants: Early years professionals: 497 survey respondents included 156 doctors; 197 health visitors/maternity staff; 144 other health staff. Qualitative interviews or focus groups were conducted with 68 pregnant/postnatal women/family members; 32 service providers; 22 experts/decision-makers; 63 conference attendees. Methods: Early years professionals were surveyed via email about the acceptability of payments to local health services for reaching smoking cessation in pregnancy and breastfeeding targets. Agreement was measured on a 5-point scale using multivariable ordered logit models. A framework approach was used to analyse free-text survey responses and qualitative data. Results: Health professional net agreement for provider incentives for smoking cessation targets was 52.9% (263/497); net disagreement was 28.6% (142/497). Health visitors/maternity staff were more likely than doctors to agree: OR 2.35 (95% CI 1.51 to 3.64; p<0.001). Net agreement for provider incentives for breastfeeding targets was 44.1% (219/497) and net disagreement was 38.6% (192/497). Agreement was more likely for women (compared with men): OR 1.81 (1.09 to 3.00; p=0.023) and health visitors/maternity staff (compared with doctors): OR 2.54 (95% CI 1.65 to 3.91; p<0.001). Key emergent themes were 'moral tensions around acceptability', 'need for incentives', 'goals', 'collective or divisive action' and 'monitoring and proof'. While provider incentives can focus action and resources, tensions around the impact on relationships raised concerns. Pressure, burden of proof, gaming, box-ticking bureaucracies and health inequalities were counterbalances to potential benefits. Conclusions: Provider incentives are favoured by non-medical staff. Solutions which increase trust and collaboration towards shared goals, without negatively impacting on relationships or increasing bureaucracy are required

Stock assessment of the Queensland and New South Wales pearl perch (Glaucosoma scapulare) fishery

Pearl perch (Glaucosoma scapulare) are found commonly in sub-tropical offshore-waters along the east coast of Australia and are a valuable table fish popular with commercial and recreational fishers. The species is long-lived, up to 30 years of age, and reaches sexual maturity at between 25 and 35 cm total length. Pearl perch are predominantly line-caught and fishing is managed separately by New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland. Historical fishing data indicate that pearl perch harvests have been consistently higher from Queensland waters with 73% of the total catch landed in Queensland in 2013. Approximately 52% of the Queensland catch is taken by recreational fishers compared with 42% in NSW. In Queensland, the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) recently classified the stock status of pearl perch as “transitional depleting” (DAF Stock Status 2015). The status raised concern in both Queensland and NSW as to whether current management arrangements are adequate to protect the sustainability of pearl perch fishery. This stock assessment incorporates data from both jurisdictions and assesses at the whole of stock level; establishes current stock status reference points including biomass and fishing pressure levels for pearl perch; and provides advice on whether additional management measures are required to reduce fishing pressure and rebuild fish stocks

Effect of long-term application of manure and P fertilizer on some physical, chemical, and biological properties of a Black Chernozem

Non-Peer Reviewe

Non-Linear N-Parameter Spacetime Perturbations: Gauge Transformations

We introduce N-parameter perturbation theory as a new tool for the study of non-linear relativistic phenomena. The main ingredient in this formulation is the use of the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula. The associated machinery allows us to prove the main results concerning the consistency of the scheme to any perturbative order. Gauge transformations and conditions for gauge invariance at any required order can then be derived from a generating exponential formula via a simple Taylor expansion. We outline the relation between our novel formulation and previous developments.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, RevTeX 4.0. Revised version to match version published in PR

Inferring Mobility of Care Travel Behavior From Transit Origin-Destination Data

There are substantial differences in travel behavior by gender on public transit. Studies have concluded that these differences are largely attributable to household responsibilities typically falling disproportionately on women, leading to women being more likely to utilize transit for purposes referred to by the umbrella concept of "mobility of care". In contrast to past studies that have quantified the impact of gender using survey and qualitative data, we propose a novel data-driven workflow utilizing a combination of previously developed origin, destination, and transfer inference (ODX) based on individual transit fare card transactions, name-based gender inference, and geospatial analysis as a framework to identify mobility of care trip making. We apply this framework to data from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Analyzing data from millions of journeys conducted in the first quarter of 2019, the results of this study show that our proposed workflow can identify mobility of care travel behavior, detecting times and places of interest where the share of women travelers in an equally-sampled subset (on basis of inferred gender) of transit users is 10% - 15% higher than that of men. The workflow presented in this study provides a blueprint for combining transit origin-destination data, inferred customer demographics, and geospatial analyses enabling public transit agencies to assess, at the fare card level, the gendered impacts of different policy and operational decisions.Comment: Updated reference formatting and discussion point

Charged black holes in effective string theory

We investigate the qualitative new features of charged dilatonic black holes which emerge when both the Yang-Mills and Gauss-Bonnet curvature corrections are included in the effective action. We consider perturbative effects by an expansion up to second order in the inverse string tension on the four dimensional Schwarzschild background and determine the backreaction. We calculate the thermodynamical functions and show that for magnetic charge above a critical value, the temperature of the black hole has a maximum and goes to zero for a finite value of the mass. This indicates that the conventional Hawking evaporation law is modified by string theory at a classical level.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures not included, plain Te

A comparative study of magnetic behaviors in TbNi2, TbMn2 and TbNi2Mn

All TbNi2, TbMn2, and TbNi2Mn compounds exhibit the cubic Laves phase with AB2-type structure in spite of the fact that the ratio of the Tb to transition-metal components in TbNi2Mn is 1:3. Rietveld refinement indicates that in TbNi2Mn the Mn atoms are distributed on both the A (8a) and B (16d) sites. The values of the lattice constants were measured to be a = 14.348 Å (space group F-43 m), 7.618 Å, and 7.158 Å (space group Fd-3 m) for TbNi2, TbMn2, and TbNi2Mn, respectively. The magnetic transition temperatures TC were found to be TC = 38 K and TC = 148 K for TbNi2 and TbNi2Mn, respectively, while two magnetic phase transitions are detected for TbMn2 at T1 = 20 K and T2 = 49 K. Clear magnetic history effects in a low magnetic field are observed in TbMn2 and TbNi2Mn. The magnetic entropy changes have been obtained

Next-to-leading order predictions for Z gamma+jet and Z gamma gamma final states at the LHC

We present next-to-leading order predictions for final states containing leptons produced through the decay of a Z boson in association with either a photon and a jet, or a pair of photons. The effect of photon radiation from the final state leptons is included and we also allow for contributions arising from fragmentation processes. Phenomenological studies are presented for the LHC in the case of final states containing charged leptons and in the case of neutrinos. We also use the procedure introduced by Stewart and Tackmann to provide a reliable estimate of the scale uncertainty inherent in our theoretical calculations of jet-binned Z gamma cross sections. These computations have been implemented in the public code MCFM.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure

Effect of Behavioural Practice Targeted at the Motor Action Selection Network After Stroke

Motor action selection engages a network of frontal and parietal brain regions. After stroke, individuals activate a similar network, however, activation is higher, especially in the contralesional hemisphere. The current study examined the effect of practice on action selection performance and brain activation after stroke. Sixteen individuals with chronic stroke (Upper Extremity Fugl–Meyer motor score range: 18–61) moved a joystick with the more-impaired hand in two conditions: Select (externally cued choice; move right or left based on an abstract rule) and Execute (simple response; move same direction every trial). On Day 1, reaction time (RT) was longer in Select compared to Execute, which corresponded to increased activation primarily in regions in the contralesional action selection network including dorsal premotor, supplementary motor, anterior cingulate and parietal cortices. After 4 days of practice, behavioural performance improved (decreased RT), and only contralesional parietal cortex significantly increased during Select. Higher brain activation on Day 1 in the bilateral action selection network, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and contralesional sensory cortex predicted better performance on Day 4. Overall, practice led to improved action selection performance and reduced brain activation. Systematic changes in practice conditions may allow the targeting of specific components of the motor network during rehabilitation after stroke