Estimating the influence of different urban canopy cover types on atmospheric particulate matter (PM10) pollution abatement in London UK

In the urban environment atmospheric pollution by PM10 (particulate matter with a diameter less than 10 x 10-6 m) is a problem that can have adverse effects on human health, particularly increasing rates of respiratory disease. The main contributors to atmospheric PM10 in the urban environment are road traffic, industry and powerproduction. The urban tree canopy is a receptor for removing PM10s from the atmosphere due to the large surface areas generated by leaves and air turbulence created by the structure of the urban forest. In this context urban greening has long been known as a mechanism to contribute towards PM10 removal from the air, furthermore, tree canopy cover has a role in contributing towards a more sustainable urban environment.The work reported here has been carried out within the BRIDGE project (SustainaBle uRban plannIng Decision support accountinG for urban mEtabolism). The aim of this project is to assess the fluxes of energy, water, carbon dioxide and particulates within the urban environment and develope a DSS (Decision Support System) to aid urban planners in sustainable development. A combination of published urban canopy cover data from ground, airborne and satellite based surveys was used. For each of the 33 London boroughs the urban canopy was classified to three groups, urban woodland, street trees and garden trees and each group quantified in terms of ground cover. The total [PM10] for each borough was taken from the LAEI (London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory 2006) and the contribution to reducing [PM10] was assessed for each canopy type. Deposition to the urban canopy was assessed using the UFORE (Urban Forest Effects Model) approach. Deposition to the canopy, boundary layer height and percentage reduction of the [PM10] in the atmosphere was assessed using both hourly meterological data and [PM10] and seasonal data derived from annual models. Results from hourly and annual data were compared with measured values. The model was then applied to future predictions of annual [PM10] and future canopy cover scenarios for London. The contribution of each canopy type subjected to the different atmospheric [PM10] of the 33 London boroughs now and in the future will be discussed. Implementing these findings into a decision support system (DSS) for sustainable urban planning will also be discussed<br/

Disadvantaged by More Than Distance: A Systematic Literature Review of Injury in Rural Australia

Rural populations experience injury-related mortality and morbidity rates 1.5 times greater than metropolitan residents. Motivated by a call for stronger epidemiological evidence around rural injuries to inform prevention, a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature published between January 2010 and March 2021 was undertaken to explore the epidemiology of rural injury and associated risk factors in Australia. A subsequent aim was to explore definitions of rurality used in injury prevention studies. There were 151 papers included in the review, utilizing 23 unique definitions to describe rurality. People living in rural areas were more likely to be injured, for injuries to be more severe, and for injuries to have greater resulting morbidity than people in metropolitan areas. The increase in severity reflects the mechanism of rural injury, with rural injury events more likely to involve a higher energy exchange. Risk-taking behavior and alcohol consumption were significant risk factors for rural injury, along with rural cluster demographics such as age, sex, high socio-economic disadvantage, and health-related comorbidities. As injury in rural populations is multifactorial and nonhomogeneous, a wide variety of evidence-based strategies are needed. This requires funding, political leadership for policy formation and development, and implementation of evidence-based prevention interventions

Aquatic competencies and drowning prevention in children 2–4 years: a systematic review

Aquatic competencies have been proposed as a prevention strategy for children aged 2–4 years who are over-represented in drowning statistics. For this recommendation to be made, exploration of the connection between aquatic competencies and drowning is required. This review critically analyzed studies exploring aquatic competencies and their effect on drowning and/or injury severity in children 2–4 years. English language peer-reviewed literature up to 31 July 2019 was searched and the PRISMA process utilized. Data were extracted from twelve studies that fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Findings from this study included that aquatic competencies were not found to increase risk of drowning and demonstrated children aged 2–4 years are capable of developing age-appropriate aquatic competencies. Age-appropriate aquatic competencies extracted were propulsion/locomotion, flotation/buoyancy, water familiarization, submersion and water exits. The acquisition of these competencies holds benefit for the prevention of drowning. No evidence was found relating to injury severity. There was limited exploration of the relationship between aquatic competencies attainment and age-related developmental readiness. The review highlights the need for consistent measures of exposure, clarity around skills acquisition, better age-specific data (2 years vs. 3 years vs. 4 years), studies with larger sample sizes, further exploration of the dose–response relationship and consistent skill level testing across age groups. Further investigation is required to establish the efficacy of aquatic competencies as a drowning prevention intervention, as well as exploring the relationship between aquatic competencies and age-related developmental readiness. In conclusion, early evidence suggests aquatic competencies can help to reduce drowning

Pre-Existing Medical Conditions: A Systematic Literature Review of a Silent Contributor to Adult Drowning

Abstract: Medical conditions can increase drowning risk. No prior study has systematically reviewed the published evidence globally regarding medical conditions and drowning risk for adults. MEDLINE (Ovid), PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, PsycINFO (ProQuest) and SPORTDiscus databases were searched for original research published between 1 January 2005 and 31 October 2021 that reported adult (>=15 years) fatal or non-fatal drowning of all intents and pre-existing medical conditions. Conditions were grouped into the relevant International Classifications of Diseases (ICD) codes. Eighty-three studies were included (85.5% high-income countries; 38.6% East Asia and Pacific region; 75.9% evidence level III-3). Diseases of the nervous system (n = 32 studies; 38.6%), mental and behavioural conditions (n = 31; 37.3%) and diseases of the circulatory system (n = 25; 30.1%) were the most common categories of conditions. Epilepsy was found to increase the relative risk of drowning by 3.8 to 82 times, with suggested preventive approaches regarding supervised bathing or showering. Drowning is a common suicide method for those with schizophrenia, psychotic disorders and dementia. Review findings indicate people with pre-existing medical conditions drown, yet relatively few studies have documented the risk. There is a need for further population-level research to more accurately quantify drowning risk for pre-existing medical conditions in adults, as well as implementing and evaluating population-level attributable risk and prevention strategies

Fully Immersive Virtual Reality for Skull-base Surgery: Surgical Training and Beyond

Purpose: A virtual reality (VR) system, where surgeons can practice procedures on virtual anatomies, is a scalable and cost-effective alternative to cadaveric training. The fully digitized virtual surgeries can also be used to assess the surgeon's skills using measurements that are otherwise hard to collect in reality. Thus, we present the Fully Immersive Virtual Reality System (FIVRS) for skull-base surgery, which combines surgical simulation software with a high-fidelity hardware setup. Methods: FIVRS allows surgeons to follow normal clinical workflows inside the VR environment. FIVRS uses advanced rendering designs and drilling algorithms for realistic bone ablation. A head-mounted display with ergonomics similar to that of surgical microscopes is used to improve immersiveness. Extensive multi-modal data is recorded for post-analysis, including eye gaze, motion, force, and video of the surgery. A user-friendly interface is also designed to ease the learning curve of using FIVRS. Results: We present results from a user study involving surgeons with various levels of expertise. The preliminary data recorded by FIVRS differentiates between participants with different levels of expertise, promising future research on automatic skill assessment. Furthermore, informal feedback from the study participants about the system's intuitiveness and immersiveness was positive. Conclusion: We present FIVRS, a fully immersive VR system for skull-base surgery. FIVRS features a realistic software simulation coupled with modern hardware for improved realism. The system is completely open-source and provides feature-rich data in an industry-standard format.Comment: IPCAI/IJCARS 202

Factors that Influence the Decision to Get Vaccinated Against COVID-19

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the launch of the vaccine, healthcare workers have been encouraging people to get vaccinated to prevent the spread of the virus. However, there is a significant number of people who are vaccine hesitant, or uncertain about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine and its booster. Vaccine hesitancy represents a state of opportunity to make positive change; therefore, it is crucial for healthcare workers to identify those who are in this population. When factors contributing to the vaccine hesitancy, including gender, age, ethnicity, education level, and income were studied, it was found that women, those with less education, and African-Americans were more likely to initially decline the vaccine

Improving Surgical Situational Awareness with Signed Distance Field: A Pilot Study in Virtual Reality

The introduction of image-guided surgical navigation (IGSN) has greatly benefited technically demanding surgical procedures by providing real-time support and guidance to the surgeon during surgery. \hi{To develop effective IGSN, a careful selection of the surgical information and the medium to present this information to the surgeon is needed. However, this is not a trivial task due to the broad array of available options.} To address this problem, we have developed an open-source library that facilitates the development of multimodal navigation systems in a wide range of surgical procedures relying on medical imaging data. To provide guidance, our system calculates the minimum distance between the surgical instrument and the anatomy and then presents this information to the user through different mechanisms. The real-time performance of our approach is achieved by calculating Signed Distance Fields at initialization from segmented anatomical volumes. Using this framework, we developed a multimodal surgical navigation system to help surgeons navigate anatomical variability in a skull base surgery simulation environment. Three different feedback modalities were explored: visual, auditory, and haptic. To evaluate the proposed system, a pilot user study was conducted in which four clinicians performed mastoidectomy procedures with and without guidance. Each condition was assessed using objective performance and subjective workload metrics. This pilot user study showed improvements in procedural safety without additional time or workload. These results demonstrate our pipeline's successful use case in the context of mastoidectomy.Comment: First two authors contributed equally. 6 page

Gateway to offending behaviour: permission-giving thoughts of online users of child sexual exploitation material.

The endorsement of permission-giving thoughts, or so-called cognitive distortions, has been discussed as a contributing factor in sexually abusive behaviour. The current study set out to explore the thinking patterns of offenders who have used/downloaded child sexual exploitation material (CSEM), based on a survey of professionals. A thematic analysis elicited four overarching themes, namely the Perceived Nature of Children (perception of children portrayed in CSEM, as well as children in general), Non-sexual Engagement with CSEM (motivating factors that are not inherently sexual in nature), Denial of Harm (perception of the level of harm caused by CSEM), and Expression of a General Sexual Preference (general interest in deviant sexual behaviour). These themes aid to explore the differences and similarities between contact and non-contact offenders and to improve the understanding of the role of permission-giving thoughts in this offending. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical significance and future implications

Relaxation of the criteria for entry to the UK Clozapine Central Non-Rechallenge Database: a modelling study

Background Clozapine is uniquely effective in treatment-resistant psychosis. In the UK, patients must discontinue clozapine indefinitely if they are placed on the Central Non-Rechallenge Database (CNRD) after their haematological parameters fall below particular thresholds. Under exceptional circumstances, patients can be rechallenged on clozapine under an off-licence agreement. In the USA in 2015, restrictive practice was discontinued to allow greater flexibility for clozapine maintenance. The absolute neutrophil count leading to treatment interruption was lowered from less than 1·5 × 109/L to less than 1·0 × 109/L and platelet and white cell count monitoring were ceased. We aimed to investigate the implications of a similar policy change on clozapine use in the UK. Methods This was a modelling study of all patients registered on the UK CNRD. First, we determined the proportion of patients placed on the database in the UK who would have had to discontinue clozapine treatment under the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) criteria. Second, we compared the haematological characteristics of patients who did or did not meet FDA criteria for discontinuing clozapine, including the time to registration from clozapine initiation and the proportion of cases of severe neutropenia at registration. Third, we investigated the success rates of clozapine re-challenge for patients that had been placed on the CNRD. Successful rechallenge was defined as no recurrence of CNRD registration. Findings Between May 2, 2002 and March 1, 2021, 3731 patients were placed on the CNRD, with a mean age of 47 years (SD 15), including 1420 (38%) women and 2311 (62%) men, of whom 3089 (83%) were White, 360 (10%) were Black, 190 (5%) were Asian, and 92 (2%) were classified as other. 566 (15%) of 3731 patients met the equivalent criteria for clozapine discontinuation under the FDA guidelines. The median time to CNRD registration from clozapine initiation was 1·6 years (IQR 0·2–4·9). Data for 519 rechallenged patients were examined; 419 (81%) were successful. Clozapine rechallenge success rates were broadly similar between individuals who did not meet the US CNRD registration criteria (36 [78%] of 46) and those who did meet the criteria (383 [81%] of 473). Interpretation Implementing the revised FDA monitoring criteria in the UK would substantially reduce clozapine discontinuation for haematological reasons, which would greatly improve the mental health outcomes of these patients without having a major effect on their physical health

Growth impacts in a changing ocean: insights from two coral reef fishes in an extreme environment

Determining the life-history consequences for fishes living in extreme and variable environments will be vital in predicting the likely impacts of ongoing climate change on reef fish demography. Here, we compare size-at-age and maximum body size of two common reef fish species (Lutjanus ehrenbergii and Pomacanthus maculosus) between the environmentally extreme Arabian/Persian Gulf (‘Arabian Gulf’) and adjacent comparably benign Oman Sea. Additionally, we use otolith increment width profiles to investigate the influence of temperature, salinity and productivity on the individual growth rates. Individuals of both species showed smaller size-at-age and lower maximum size in the Arabian Gulf compared to conspecifics in the less extreme and less variable environment of the Oman Sea, suggesting a life-history trade-off between size and metabolic demands. Salinity was the best environmental predictor of interannual growth across species and regions, with low growth corresponding to more saline conditions. However, salinity had a weaker negative effect on interannual growth of fishes in the Arabian Gulf than in the Oman Sea, indicating Arabian Gulf populations may be better able to acclimate to changing environmental conditions. Temperature had a weak positive effect on the interannual growth of fishes in the Arabian Gulf, suggesting that these populations may still be living within their thermal windows. Our results highlight the potential importance of osmoregulatory cost in impacting growth, and the need to consider the effect of multiple stressors when investigating the consequences of future climate change on fish demography