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Since 2017, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has incorporated human rights risk assessments into its bidding requirements for major events, beginning with the competition to host the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.1 This process began at a time of increased scrutiny on the impact of major events and greater focus on the applicability of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) to sport. In 2014, the Centre for Sport and Human Rights’ founding Chair Mary Robinson, together with John Ruggie (author of the UNGPs), wrote to FIFA in their respective capacities as Patron and Chair of the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) to stress the need for ‘sustained due diligence […] with respect to decisions about host nations and how major sporting events are planned and implemented’.2 Following recommendations set forth in the letter, expanded upon in Ruggie’s 2016 report ‘For the Game, For the World’, FIFA introduced robust bidding requirements that any country or region wishing to bid to host a World Cup will have to conduct a human rights risk assessment and outline how they intend to mitigate each of the risks identified.3 These requirements are designed to align the World Cup bidding process with the UNGPs.
Several Miscanthus species are cultivated in the Midwest and Northeast US and feral populations can displace the native plant community and potentially negatively affect ecosystem processes. The monetary cost of eradicating feral Miscanthus populations is unknown, but quantifying eradication costs will inform decisions on whether eradication is a feasible goal and should be considered when totaling the economic damage of invasive species. We managed experimental populations of Miscanthus sinensis and Miscanthus × giganteus in three floodplain forest and three old field sites in central Illinois with the goal of eradication. We recorded the time invested in eradication efforts and tracked survival of Miscanthus plants over a five-year period, then estimated the costs associated with eradicating these Miscanthus populations. Finally, we used these estimates to predict the total monetary costs of eradicating existing M. sinensis populations reported on EDDMapS. Miscanthus populations in the old field sites were harder to eradicate, resulting in an average of 290% greater estimated eradication costs compared to the floodplain forest sites. However, the cost and time needed to eradicate Miscanthus populations was similar between Miscanthus species. On-site eradication costs ranged from $390 to $3316 per site (or $1.3 to $11 m-2) in the old field sites, compared to only $85 to $547 (or $0.92 to $1.82 m-2) with labor comprising the largest share of these costs. Using our M. sinensis eradication cost estimates in Illinois, we predict that the potential costs to eradicate populations reported on EDDMapS would range from $10 to $37 million dollars, with a median predicted cost of $22 million. The monetary costs of eradicating feral Miscanthus populations should be weighed against the benefits of cultivating these species; ultimately providing a comprehensive picture of the relative costs and benefits of adding these species to our landscapes.
Racial/ethnic differences in mental health outcomes after a traumatic event have been reported. Less is known about factors that explain these differences. We examined whether pre-, peri-, and post-trauma risk factors explained racial/ethnic differences in acute and longer-term posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety symptoms in patients hospitalized following traumatic injury or illness.
Methods
PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms were assessed during hospitalization and 2 and 6 months later among 1310 adult patients (6.95% Asian, 14.96% Latinx, 23.66% Black, 4.58% multiracial, and 49.85% White). Individual growth curve models examined racial/ethnic differences in PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms at each time point and in their rate of change over time, and whether pre-, peri-, and post-trauma risk factors explained these differences.
Results
Latinx, Black, and multiracial patients had higher acute PTSD symptoms than White patients, which remained higher 2 and 6 months post-hospitalization for Black and multiracial patients. PTSD symptoms were also found to improve faster among Latinx than White patients. Risk factors accounted for most racial/ethnic differences, although Latinx patients showed lower 6-month PTSD symptoms and Black patients lower acute and 2-month depression and anxiety symptoms after accounting for risk factors. Everyday discrimination, financial stress, past mental health problems, and social constraints were related to these differences.
Conclusion
Racial/ethnic differences in risk factors explained most differences in acute and longer-term PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms. Understanding how these risk factors relate to posttraumatic symptoms could help reduce disparities by facilitating early identification of patients at risk for mental health problems.
The rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) required swift preparation to protect healthcare personnel (HCP) and patients, especially in light of personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages. Due to a lack of a pre-existing bio-containment unit, we needed to develop a novel approach to cohort patients while working with the pre-existing physical space.
OBJECTIVE:
Prevent disease transmission to non-COVID-19 patients and HCP caring for COVID-19 patients, optimize PPE usage, and provide a comfortable and safe working environment.
METHODS:
An interdisciplinary workgroup developed a combination of approaches to convert existing spaces into COVID-19 containment units with high-risk zones (HRZs). We developed standard workflow and visual management in conjunction with updated staff training and workflows. Infection Prevention created PPE standard practices for ease of use, conservation, and staff safety.
RESULTS:
The interventions resulted in one possible case of patient-to-HCP transmission and zero cases of patient-to-patient transmission. PPE usage decreased with the HRZ model while maintaining a safe environment of care. COVID-19 unit staff were extremely satisfied with PPE availability (76.7%) and efforts to protect them from COVID-19 (72.7%). Approximately half of COVID-19 unit HCP agreed (54.8%) that PPE monitors played an essential role in staff safety.
CONCLUSIONS:
The HRZ model of containment unit is an effective method to prevent the spread of COVID-19 with several benefits. It is easily implemented and scaled to account for census changes. Our experience suggests that other institutions do not need to modify existing physical structures to create similarly protective spaces.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in millions of deaths worldwide and is considered a significant mass-casualty disaster (MCD). The surge of patients and scarcity of resources negatively impacted hospitals, patients and medical practice. We hypothesized ICUs during this MCD had a higher acuity of illness, and subsequently had increased lengths of stay (LOS), complication rates, death rates and costs of care. The purpose of this study was to investigate those outcomes.
Methods:
This was a multicenter, retrospective study that compared intensive care admissions in 2020 to those in 2019 to evaluate patient outcomes and cost of care. Data were obtained from the Vizient Clinical Data Base/Resource Manager (Vizient Inc., Irvine, Texas, USA).
Results:
Data included the number of ICU admissions, patient outcomes, case mix index and summary of cost reports. Quality outcomes were also collected, and a total of 1304981 patients from 333 hospitals were included. For all medical centers, there was a significant increase in LOS index, ICU LOS, complication rate, case mix index, total cost, and direct cost index.
Conclusion:
The MCD caused by COVID-19 was associated with increased adverse outcomes and cost-of-care for ICU patients.
Background: Incidence of methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) bloodstream infections (BSIs) in the United States during 2012–2017 has been reported to have been stable for hospital-onset BSIs and to have increased 3.9% per year for community-onset BSIs. We sought to determine whether these trends continued in more recent years and whether there were further differences within subgroups of community-onset BSIs. Methods: We analyzed CDC Emerging Infections Program active, population- and laboratory-based surveillance data during 2016–2019 for MSSA BSIs from 8 counties in 5 states. BSI cases were defined as isolation of MSSA from blood in a surveillance area resident. Cases were considered hospital onset (HO) if culture was obtained >3 days after hospital admission and healthcare-associated community-onset (HACO) if culture was obtained on or after day 3 of hospitalization and was associated with dialysis, hospitalization, surgery, or long-term care facility residence within 1 year prior or if a central venous catheter was present ≤2 days prior. Cases were otherwise considered community-associated (CA). Annual rates per 100,000 census population were calculated for each epidemiologic classification; rates of HACO cases among chronic dialysis patients per 100,000 dialysis patients were calculated using US Renal Data System data. Annual increases were modeled using negative binomial or Poisson regression and accounting for changes in the overall population age group, and sex. Descriptive analyses were performed. Results: Overall, 8,344 MSSA BSI cases were reported. From 2016–2019 total MSSA BSI rates increased from 23.9 per 100,000 to 28.5 per 100,000 (6.6% per year; P < .01). MSSA BSI rates also increased significantly among all epidemiologic classes. HO cases increased from 2.5 per 100,000 to 3.2 per 100,000 (7.9% per year; P = .01). HACO cases increased from 12.7 per 100,000 to 14.7 per 100,000 (7.0% per year; P = .01). CA cases increased from 8.4 per 100,000 to 10.4 per 100,000 (6.7% per year; P < .01) (Fig. 1). Significant increases in MSSA BSI rates were also observed for nondialysis HACO cases (9.3 per 100,000 to 11.1 per 100,000; 7.8% per year; P < .01) but not dialysis HACO cases (1,823.2 per 100,000 to 1,857.4 per 100,000; 1.4% per year; P = .59). Healthcare risk factors for HACO cases were hospitalization in the previous year (82%), surgery (31%), dialysis (27%), and long-term care facility residence (19%). Conclusions: MSSA BSI rates increased from 2016–2019 overall, among all epidemiologic classes, and among nondialysis HACO cases. Efforts to prevent MSSA BSIs among individuals with healthcare risk factors, particularly those related to hospitalization, might have an impact on MSSA BSI rates.
Higher inflammation has been linked to poor physical and mental health outcomes, and mortality, but few studies have rigorously examined whether changes in perceived stress and depressive symptoms are associated with increased inflammation within family caregivers and non-caregivers in a longitudinal design.
Design:
Longitudinal Study.
Setting:
REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke cohort study.
Participants:
Participants included 239 individuals who were not caregivers at baseline but transitioned to providing substantial and sustained caregiving over time. They were initially matched to 241 non-caregiver comparisons on age, sex, race, education, marital status, self-rated health, and history of cardiovascular disease. Blood was drawn at baseline and approximately 9.3 years at follow-up for both groups.
Measurements:
Perceived Stress Scale, Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression, inflammatory biomarkers, including high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, D dimer, tumor necrosis factor alpha receptor 1, interleukin (IL)-2, IL-6, and IL-10 taken at baseline and follow-up.
Results:
Although at follow-up, caregivers showed significantly greater worsening in perceived stress and depressive symptoms compared to non-caregivers, there were few significant associations between depressive symptoms or perceived stress on inflammation for either group. Inflammation, however, was associated with multiple demographic and health variables, including age, race, obesity, and use of medications for hypertension and diabetes for caregivers and non-caregivers.
Conclusions:
These findings illustrate the complexity of studying the associations between stress, depressive symptoms, and inflammation in older adults, where these associations may depend on demographic, disease, and medication effects. Future studies should examine whether resilience factors may prevent increased inflammation in older caregivers.
We propose here a method to experimentally quantify unsteady leading-edge flow separation on aerofoils with finite thickness. The methodology relies on the computation of a leading-edge suction parameter based on measured values of the partial circulation around the leading edge and the stagnation point location. We validate the computation of the leading-edge suction parameter for both numerical and experimental data under steady and unsteady flow conditions. The leading-order approximation of the definition of the leading-edge suction parameter is proven to be sufficiently accurate for the application to thin aerofoils such as the NACA0009 without a priori knowledge of the stagnation point location. The higher-order terms including the stagnation point location are required to reliably compute the leading-edge suction parameter on thicker aerofoils such as the NACA0015. The computation of the leading-edge suction parameter from inviscid flow theory does not assume the Kutta condition to be valid at the trailing edge which allows us to compute its value for separated flows. The relation between the leading-edge suction parameter and the evolution of the shear layer height is studied in two different unsteady flow conditions, a fixed aerofoil in a fluctuating free-stream velocity and a pitching aerofoil in a steady free stream. We demonstrate here that the instantaneous value of the leading-edge suction parameter based on the partial circulation around the leading edge is unambiguously defined for a given flow field and can serve as a directly quantitative measure of the degree of unsteady flow separation at the leading edge.
Microfoundations allow the unpacking of processes by which dynamic capabilities are created. Along this line, managerial cognition has been proposed as a variable related to the dynamic capabilities. However, the high number of cognitive variables reported hinders the theoretical contributions. Thus, this study classifies the managerial cognitive variables of chief executive officers (CEOs) into three types of dynamic managerial capabilities: (1) managerial sensing, (2) managerial seizing, and (3) managerial reconfiguration. We estimate the correlation of these managerial capabilities with firms' dynamic capabilities. We use a three-level random effects model to synthesize 101 correlations reported from 2007 to 2021, representing 6,153 CEOs around the world. This meta-analysis reveals a positive relationship between CEOs' managerial cognition and dynamic capabilities, especially with respect to those cognitive variables that support managerial sensing as the perception of opportunities and entrepreneurial alertness.
Disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) are heterogeneous at the clinical and the biological level. Therefore, the aims were to dissect the heterogeneous neurodevelopmental deviations of the affective brain circuitry and provide an integration of these differences across modalities.
Methods
We combined two novel approaches. First, normative modeling to map deviations from the typical age-related pattern at the level of the individual of (i) activity during emotion matching and (ii) of anatomical images derived from DBD cases (n = 77) and controls (n = 52) aged 8–18 years from the EU-funded Aggressotype and MATRICS consortia. Second, linked independent component analysis to integrate subject-specific deviations from both modalities.
Results
While cases exhibited on average a higher activity than would be expected for their age during face processing in regions such as the amygdala when compared to controls these positive deviations were widespread at the individual level. A multimodal integration of all functional and anatomical deviations explained 23% of the variance in the clinical DBD phenotype. Most notably, the top marker, encompassing the default mode network (DMN) and subcortical regions such as the amygdala and the striatum, was related to aggression across the whole sample.
Conclusions
Overall increased age-related deviations in the amygdala in DBD suggest a maturational delay, which has to be further validated in future studies. Further, the integration of individual deviation patterns from multiple imaging modalities allowed to dissect some of the heterogeneity of DBD and identified the DMN, the striatum and the amygdala as neural signatures that were associated with aggression.
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and resource utilization. Drug interactions (DDIs) are among the most common causes of ADRs, and estimates have cited that up to 22% of patients take interacting medications. DDIs are often due to the propensity for agents to induce or inhibit enzymes responsible for the metabolism of concomitantly administered drugs. However, this phenomenon is further complicated by genetic variants of such enzymes. The aim of this study is to quantify and describe potential drug-drug, drug-gene, and drug-drug-gene interactions in a community-based patient population.
Methods
A regional pharmacy with retail outlets in Arkansas provided deidentified prescription data from March 2020 for 4761 individuals. Drug-drug and drug-drug-gene interactions were assessed utilizing the logic incorporated into GenMedPro, a commercially available digital gene-drug interaction software program that incorporates variants of 9 pharmacokinetic (PK) and 2 pharmacodynamic (PD) genes to evaluate DDIs and drug-gene interactions. The data were first assessed for composite drug-drug interaction risk, and each individual was stratified to a risk category using the logic incorporated in GenMedPro. To calculate the frequency of potential drug-gene interactions, genotypes were imputed and allocated to the cohort according to each gene’s frequency in the general population. Potential genotypes were randomly allocated to the population 100 times in a Monte Carlo simulation. Potential drug-drug, gene-drug, or gene-drug-drug interaction risk was characterized as minor, moderate, or major.
Results
Based on prescription data only, the probability of a DDI of any impact (mild, moderate, or major) was 26% [95% CI: 0.248-0.272] in the population. This probability increased to 49.6% [95% CI: 0.484-0.507] when simulated genetic polymorphisms were additionally assessed. When assessing only major impact interactions, there was a 7.8% [95% CI: 0.070-0.085] probability of drug-drug interactions and 10.1% [95% CI: 0.095-0.108] probability with the addition of genetic contributions. The probability of drug-drug-gene interactions of any impact was correlated with the number of prescribed medications, with an approximate probability of 77%, 85%, and 94% in patients prescribed 5, 6, or 7+ medications, respectively. When stratified by specific drug class, antidepressants (19.5%), antiemetics (21.4%), analgesics (16%), antipsychotics (15.6%), and antiparasitics (49.7%) had the highest probability of major drug-drug-gene interaction.
Conclusions
In a community-based population of outpatients, the probability of drug-drug interaction risk increases when genetic polymorphisms are attributed to the population. These data suggest that pharmacogenetic testing may be useful in predicting drug interactions, drug-gene interactions, and severity of interactions when proactively evaluating patient medication profiles.
The dwarf planet Ceres has unique geomorphology, different from airless silicate objects like the Moon or asteroid Vesta, but also different from the icy outer planet satellites. All four primary planetary geologic processes [impact cratering, tectonism, volcanism, and gradation (weathering, erosion, and deposition of loose material)] are visible on Ceres’ surface. Ceres’ low albedo, heavily cratered surface displays craters <300 km in diameter, in which the lack of larger, multi-ring basins suggests resurfacing event(s) early in the dwarf planet’s history. Ejecta blankets in the youngest craters display bluish ejecta and rays, and lobate deposits in and around craters suggest impact slurries, ice-rich landslides, or cryovolcanic flows. Some landslides have exposed water ice, in less than a dozen locations on the surface. Tectonic features include impact-induced secondary crater chains and non-impact-related pit chains and fractures. Several impact craters have heavily fractured floors akin to those on the Moon. The distinctive mountain Ahuna Mons appears to be a cryovolcanic edifice, composed of a viscous, salt-rich, carbonate-bearing material. Ceres distinctive bright spots, Cerealia and Vinalia Faculae within Occator crater, are composed of salt-rich liquids containing carbonates, and were likely emplaced by some combination of deep brines extrusion and hydrothermal (shallow brines) processes.