Socio-economic benefits of weather and climate services in Europe

There is a rising interest around the world for a better understanding of the economic and social value added of weather services. National hydro-meteorological services and international cooperative bodies in meteorology have ever more to justify their use of public budgets. Furthermore, the development of hydrological and meteorological services is to a large extent steered by expectations regarding the eventual benefits of the envisaged new developments. This article provides a compact overview of the impediments for uptake of socio-economic benefit (SEB) studies, methods and results of SEB studies to date. It also discusses some pitfalls and crucial steps to enhance a broader uptake of SEB studies

Toward Sustainable Use of Space : Economic, Technological, and Legal Perspectives

During the last few years, the amount of space debris has been frequently mentioned as a potential risk to current and future space operations. The purpose of this article was to describe the discussions held at the First Sustainable Space Economy Workshop held in Finland 2019. The workshop gathered together experts with economic, legal, regulatory, technological, and environmental backgrounds, with an aim of discussing the sustainable use of space from all these perspectives. As an outcome of these discussions, we find that two concepts, satellite sustainability footprint and orbital capacity, should be introduced at an international level. The satellite sustainability footprint measures how likely the satellite stays healthy and operating, without causing risks to self or others. The orbit capacity is essentially an integral of the footprint over an orbit, and it determines how many satellites of different footprints could be launched to the same orbit. In addition, in this article, we discuss how to realize such concepts within the current normative framework. The authors suggest both top-down and bottom-up approaches, necessitating negotiations within an intergovernmental framework and with the relevant space actors. The most important finding of the workshop and this article, however, is that different space-related fields and experts having diverse backgrounds should continuously discuss in a constructive and informal manner to realize the sustainable utilization of space in practice. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Socio-economic benefits of weather and climate services in Europe

There is a rising interest around the world for a better understanding of the economic and social value added of weather services. National hydro-meteorological services and international cooperative bodies in meteorology have ever more to justify their use of public budgets. Furthermore, the development of hydrological and meteorological services is to a large extent steered by expectations regarding the eventual benefits of the envisaged new developments. This article provides a compact overview of the impediments for uptake of socio-economic benefit (SEB) studies, methods and results of SEB studies to date. It also discusses some pitfalls and crucial steps to enhance a broader uptake of SEB studies

Dying comfortably in very old age with or without dementia in different care settings – a representative "older old" population study

Background Comfort is frequently ranked important for a good death. Although rising numbers of people are dying in very old age, many with dementia, little is known about symptom control for “older old” people or whether care in different settings enables them to die comfortably. This study aims to examine, in a population-representative sample, associations between factors potentially related to reported comfort during very old people’s final illness: physical and cognitive disability, place of care and transitions in their final illness, and place of death. Methods Retrospective analyses linked three data sources for n=180 deceased study participants (68% women) aged 79-107 in a representative population-based UK study, the Cambridge City over-75s Cohort (CC75C): i) prospective in-vivo dementia diagnoses and cognitive assessments, ii) certified place of death records, iii) data from interviews with relatives/close carers including symptoms and “How comfortable was he/she in his/her final illness?” Results In the last year of life 83% were disabled in basic activities, 37% had moderate/severe dementia and 45% minimal/mild dementia or cognitive impairment. Regardless of dementia/cognitive status, three-quarters died following a final illness lasting a week or longer. 37%, 44%, 13% and 7% of the deceased were described as having been “very comfortable”, “comfortable”, “fairly comfortable” or “uncomfortable” respectively during their final illness, but reported symptoms were common: distress, pain, depression and delirium or confusion each affected 40-50%. For only 10% were no symptoms reported. There were ≥4-fold increased odds of dying comfortably associated with being in a care home during the final illness, dying in a care home, and with staying in place (dying at what death certificates record as “usual address”), whether at home or care home, compared with hospital, but no significant association with disability or dementia/cognitive status, regardless of adjustment. Conclusions These findings are consistent with reports that care homes can provide care akin to hospice for the very old and support an approach of supporting residents to stay in their care home or own home if possible. Findings on reported high prevalence of multiple symptoms can inform policy and training to improve older old people’s end-of-life care in all settings.Funders We thank all the past CC75C sponsors for financial support spanning the decades since the Medical Research Council enabled the first follow-up survey (see study website for full list of project grants: http://www.cc75c.group.cam.ac.uk/pages/grant/default.htm). A BUPA Foundation Health and Care of Older People grant supported data collection for these analyses and we particularly thank our current funder Abbeyfield Research Foundation. CC75C was a member study of the National Institute for Health Research funded Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research & Care (CLAHRC) for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. No funder sponsor played any role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; or in the writing of the report and the decision to submit the article for publication. All researchers were independent from funders