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Summer 2020 saw widespread protests under the banner Black Lives Matter. Coupled with the global pandemic that kept America’s children in the predominant care of their parents, we argue that the latter half of 2020 offers a unique moment to consider whites’ race-focused parenting practices. We use Google Trends data and posts on public parenting Facebook pages to show that the remarkable levels of protest activity in summer 2020 served as a focusing event that not only directed Americans’ attention to racial concepts but connected those concepts to parenting. Using a national survey of non-Hispanic white parents with white school-age children, we show that most white parents spoke with their children about race during this period and nearly three-quarters took actions to increase racial diversity in their children’s environment or introduce them to racial politics. But the data also show parenting practices to be rife with uncertainty and deep partisan, gender, and socioeconomic divisions. Drawing upon our findings, we call for a renewed focus on political socialization that considers how parenting choices are shaped by political events—including Black Lives Matter—and the possible long-term consequences of racial parenting practices on politics.
Over the last 25 years, radiowave detection of neutrino-generated signals, using cold polar ice as the neutrino target, has emerged as perhaps the most promising technique for detection of extragalactic ultra-high energy neutrinos (corresponding to neutrino energies in excess of 0.01 Joules, or 1017 electron volts). During the summer of 2021 and in tandem with the initial deployment of the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G), we conducted radioglaciological measurements at Summit Station, Greenland to refine our understanding of the ice target. We report the result of one such measurement, the radio-frequency electric field attenuation length $L_\alpha$. We find an approximately linear dependence of $L_\alpha$ on frequency with the best fit of the average field attenuation for the upper 1500 m of ice: $\langle L_\alpha \rangle = ( ( 1154 \pm 121) - ( 0.81 \pm 0.14) \, ( \nu /{\rm MHz}) ) \,{\rm m}$ for frequencies ν ∈ [145 − 350] MHz.
We describe the scientific goals and survey design of the First Large Absorption Survey in H i (FLASH), a wide field survey for 21-cm line absorption in neutral atomic hydrogen (H i) at intermediate cosmological redshifts. FLASH will be carried out with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope and is planned to cover the sky south of
$\delta \approx +40\,\deg$
at frequencies between 711.5 and 999.5 MHz. At redshifts between
$z = 0.4$
and
$1.0$
(look-back times of 4 – 8 Gyr), the H i content of the Universe has been poorly explored due to the difficulty of carrying out radio surveys for faint 21-cm line emission and, at ultra-violet wavelengths, space-borne searches for Damped Lyman-
$\alpha$
absorption in quasar spectra. The ASKAP wide field of view and large spectral bandwidth, in combination with a radio-quiet site, will enable a search for absorption lines in the radio spectra of bright continuum sources over 80% of the sky. This survey is expected to detect at least several hundred intervening 21-cm absorbers and will produce an H i-absorption-selected catalogue of galaxies rich in cool, star-forming gas, some of which may be concealed from optical surveys. Likewise, at least several hundred associated 21-cm absorbers are expected to be detected within the host galaxies of radio sources at
$0.4 < z < 1.0$
, providing valuable kinematical information for models of gas accretion and jet-driven feedback in radio-loud active galactic nuclei. FLASH will also detect OH 18-cm absorbers in diffuse molecular gas, megamaser OH emission, radio recombination lines, and stacked H i emission.
This paper investigates potential biodiversity valuation tools which actuaries could use in their work. It is an initial research paper into a selection of UK-based biodiversity valuation tools identified by the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs in its publication “Enabling a Natural Capital Approach Guidance”. The “Enabling a Natural Capital Approach Guidance” publication is seen as a comprehensive practical guide to natural capital and therefore is determined a sensible starting point on which to base this research. This research paper is not intended to be an exhaustive exploration of all biodiversity tools available, but rather is intended to identify a selection of tools which may be candidates for further research into their actuarial use case. We conclude that there are tools which merit additional research, and we recommend that these tools be further investigated to understand (i) the specific actuarial use case(s), (ii) whether the tools are applicable to direct infrastructure investments only or a broad range of asset classes, and (iii) whether their scope can be extended beyond the UK.
The Variables and Slow Transients Survey (VAST) on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is designed to detect highly variable and transient radio sources on timescales from 5 s to
$\sim\!5$
yr. In this paper, we present the survey description, observation strategy and initial results from the VAST Phase I Pilot Survey. This pilot survey consists of
$\sim\!162$
h of observations conducted at a central frequency of 888 MHz between 2019 August and 2020 August, with a typical rms sensitivity of
$0.24\ \mathrm{mJy\ beam}^{-1}$
and angular resolution of
$12-20$
arcseconds. There are 113 fields, each of which was observed for 12 min integration time, with between 5 and 13 repeats, with cadences between 1 day and 8 months. The total area of the pilot survey footprint is 5 131 square degrees, covering six distinct regions of the sky. An initial search of two of these regions, totalling 1 646 square degrees, revealed 28 highly variable and/or transient sources. Seven of these are known pulsars, including the millisecond pulsar J2039–5617. Another seven are stars, four of which have no previously reported radio detection (SCR J0533–4257, LEHPM 2-783, UCAC3 89–412162 and 2MASS J22414436–6119311). Of the remaining 14 sources, two are active galactic nuclei, six are associated with galaxies and the other six have no multi-wavelength counterparts and are yet to be identified.
We present the data and initial results from the first pilot survey of the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU), observed at 944 MHz with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. The survey covers
$270 \,\mathrm{deg}^2$
of an area covered by the Dark Energy Survey, reaching a depth of 25–30
$\mu\mathrm{Jy\ beam}^{-1}$
rms at a spatial resolution of
$\sim$
11–18 arcsec, resulting in a catalogue of
$\sim$
220 000 sources, of which
$\sim$
180 000 are single-component sources. Here we present the catalogue of single-component sources, together with (where available) optical and infrared cross-identifications, classifications, and redshifts. This survey explores a new region of parameter space compared to previous surveys. Specifically, the EMU Pilot Survey has a high density of sources, and also a high sensitivity to low surface brightness emission. These properties result in the detection of types of sources that were rarely seen in or absent from previous surveys. We present some of these new results here.
Repeated antigen testing of 12 severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)–positive nursing home residents using Abbott BinaxNOW identified 9 of 9 (100%) culture-positive specimens up to 6 days after initial positive test. Antigen positivity lasted 2–24 days. Antigen positivity might last beyond the infectious period, but it was reliable in residents with evidence of early infection.
Nosocomial transmission of influenza is a major concern for infection control. We aimed to dissect transmission dynamics of influenza, including asymptomatic transmission events, in acute care.
Design:
Prospective surveillance study during 2 influenza seasons.
Setting:
Tertiary-care hospital.
Participants:
Volunteer sample of inpatients on medical wards and healthcare workers (HCWs).
Methods:
Participants provided daily illness diaries and nasal swabs for influenza A and B detection and whole-genome sequencing for phylogenetic analyses. Contacts between study participants were tracked. Secondary influenza attack rates were calculated based on spatial and temporal proximity and phylogenetic evidence for transmission.
Results:
In total, 152 HCWs and 542 inpatients were included; 16 HCWs (10.5%) and 19 inpatients (3.5%) tested positive for influenza on 109 study days. Study participants had symptoms of disease on most of the days they tested positive for influenza (83.1% and 91.9% for HCWs and inpatients, respectively). Also, 11(15.5%) of 71 influenza-positive swabs among HCWs and 3 (7.9%) of 38 influenza-positive swabs among inpatients were collected on days without symptoms; 2 (12.5%) of 16 HCWs and 2 (10.5%) of 19 inpatients remained fully asymptomatic. The secondary attack rate was low: we recorded 1 transmission event over 159 contact days (0.6%) that originated from a symptomatic case. No transmission event occurred in 61 monitored days of contacts with asymptomatic influenza-positive individuals.
Conclusions:
Influenza in acute care is common, and individuals regularly shed influenza virus without harboring symptoms. Nevertheless, both symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission events proved rare. We suggest that healthcare-associated influenza prevention strategies that are based on preseason vaccination and barrier precautions for symptomatic individuals seem to be effective.
We examined parent- and adolescent-reported executive functioning (EF) behaviors following pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the context of Online Family Problem-Solving Therapy (OFPST) and moderators of change in EF behaviors.
Method:
In total, 274 families were randomized to OFPST or an internet resource comparison group. Parents and adolescents completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function at four time points. Mixed models were used to examine EF behaviors, assessing the effects of visit, treatment group, rater, TBI severity, age, socioeconomic status, and family functioning.
Results:
Parents rated their adolescents’ EF as poorer (F(3,1156) = 220.15, p < .001; M = 58.11, SE = 0.73) than adolescents rated themselves (M = 51.81, SE = 0.73). Across raters, EF behaviors were poorer for adolescents whose parents had less education (F(3,1156) = 8.60, p = .003; M = 56.76, SE = 0.98) than for those with more education (M = 53.16, SE = 0.88). Age at baseline interacted with visit (F(3,1156) = 5.05, p = .002), such that families of older adolescents reported improvement in EF behaviors over time. Family functioning also interacted with visit (F(3, 1156) = 2.61, p = .049), indicating more improvement in EF behaviors over time in higher functioning families. There were no effects of treatment or TBI severity.
Conclusion:
We identified a discrepancy between parent- and adolescent-reported EF, suggesting reduced awareness of deficits in adolescents with TBI. We also found that poorer family functioning and younger age were associated with poorer recovery after TBI, whereas adolescents of parents with less education were reported as having greater EF deficits across time points.
In this paper, we describe the system design and capabilities of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope at the conclusion of its construction project and commencement of science operations. ASKAP is one of the first radio telescopes to deploy phased array feed (PAF) technology on a large scale, giving it an instantaneous field of view that covers $31\,\textrm{deg}^{2}$ at $800\,\textrm{MHz}$. As a two-dimensional array of 36$\times$12 m antennas, with baselines ranging from 22 m to 6 km, ASKAP also has excellent snapshot imaging capability and 10 arcsec resolution. This, combined with 288 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth and a unique third axis of rotation on each antenna, gives ASKAP the capability to create high dynamic range images of large sky areas very quickly. It is an excellent telescope for surveys between 700 and $1800\,\textrm{MHz}$ and is expected to facilitate great advances in our understanding of galaxy formation, cosmology, and radio transients while opening new parameter space for discovery of the unknown.
The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) is the first large-area survey to be conducted with the full 36-antenna Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. RACS will provide a shallow model of the ASKAP sky that will aid the calibration of future deep ASKAP surveys. RACS will cover the whole sky visible from the ASKAP site in Western Australia and will cover the full ASKAP band of 700–1800 MHz. The RACS images are generally deeper than the existing NRAO VLA Sky Survey and Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey radio surveys and have better spatial resolution. All RACS survey products will be public, including radio images (with
$\sim$
15 arcsec resolution) and catalogues of about three million source components with spectral index and polarisation information. In this paper, we present a description of the RACS survey and the first data release of 903 images covering the sky south of declination
$+41^\circ$
made over a 288-MHz band centred at 887.5 MHz.
To assess influenza symptoms, adherence to mask use recommendations, absenteesm and presenteeism in acute care healthcare workers (HCWs) during influenza epidemics.
Methods:
The TransFLUas influenza transmission study in acute healthcare prospectively followed HCWs prospectively over 2 consecutive influenza seasons. Symptom diaries asking for respiratory symptoms and adherence with mask use recommendations were recorded on a daily basis, and study participants provided midturbinate nasal swabs for influenza testing.
Results:
In total, 152 HCWs (65.8% nurses and 13.2% physicians) were included: 89.1% of study participants reported at least 1 influenza symptom during their study season and 77.8% suffered from respiratory symptoms. Also, 28.3% of HCW missed at least 1 working day during the study period: 82.6% of these days were missed because of symptoms of influenza illness. Of all participating HCWs, 67.9% worked with symptoms of influenza infection on 8.8% of study days. On 0.3% of study days, symptomatic HCWs were shedding influenza virus while at work. Among HCWs with respiratory symptoms, 74.1% adhered to the policy to wear a mask at work on 59.1% of days with respiratory symptoms.
Conclusions:
Respiratory disease is frequent among HCWs and imposes a significant economic burden on hospitals due to the number of working days lost. Presenteesm with respiratory illness, including influenza, is also frequent and poses a risk for patients and staff.
This essay explores four key dimensions of political science literature on the U.S. criminal legal system, by way of introducing articles in the special issue on criminal justice featured in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Politics. We situate police as an institution of social control, rather than providing safety for people vulnerable to crime. The vast array of policy tools to surveil, track, and detain citizens, which lack commensurate restraints on their application, amount to a finely tuned carceral machine that can be deployed against groups newly identified as deviant. We therefore turn attention to this dynamic with our second theme: the criminalization of immigrants, the expansion of interior immigration enforcement, and the consequent targeting of Latinx people. We likewise discuss lessons for reform that can be drawn from research on representation and the political socialization that occurs as a consequence of involuntary contact with the system. We conclude with a brief discussion of directions for future research. The criminal legal system is a key force for persistent racial and class inequality. By turning attention to the politics of the criminal legal system, we forward a critical and understudied facet of American political life that intersects with all corners of the discipline.
In this prospective cohort of 1,012 Swiss hospital employees, 3 different assays were used to screen serum for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Seropositivity was 1%; the positive predictive values of the lateral-flow immunoassay were 64% (IgG) and 13% (IgM). History of fever and myalgia most effectively differentiated seropositive and seronegative participants.
To determine whether combinations of diagnosis and procedures codes can improve the detection of prosthetic hip and knee joint infections from administrative databases.
Design:
We performed a validation study of all readmissions from January 1, 2010, until December 31, 2016, following primary arthroplasty comparing the diagnosis and procedure codes obtained from an administrative database based upon the International Classification of Disease, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) to the reference standard of chart review.
Setting:
Four tertiary-care hospitals in Toronto, Canada, from 2010 to 2016.
Participants:
Individuals who had a primary arthroplasty were identified using procedure codes.
Intervention:
Chart review of readmissions identified the presence of a prosthetic joint infection and, if present, the surgical procedure performed.
Results:
Overall, 27,802 primary arthroplasties were performed. Among 8,844 readmissions over a median follow-up of 669 days (interquartile range, 256–1,249 days), a PJI was responsible for or present in 586 of 8,844 (6.6%). Diagnosis codes alone exhibited a sensitivity of 0.88 (95% CI, 0.85–0.92) and positive predictive value (PPV) of 0.78 (95% CI, 0.74–0.82) for detecting a PJI. Combining a PJI diagnosis code with procedure codes for an arthroplasty and the insertion of a peripherally inserted central catheter improved detection: sensitivity was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.88–0.94) and PPV was 0.78 (95% CI, 0.74–0.82). However, procedure codes were unable to identify the specific surgical approach to PJI treatment.
Conclusions:
Compared to PJI diagnosis codes, combinations of diagnosis and procedure codes improve the detection of a PJI in administrative databases.
We implemented universal inpatient Clostridioides difficile screening at an 800-bed hospital. Over 3 years, 2,010 of 47,048 screening tests (4.2%) were positive, with significantly higher rates of C. difficile colonization on transplant units than medical-surgical units: 5.4% (152 of 2,801) versus 4.3% (880 of 20,564), respectively (P = .005). Compliance with screening ranged from 79% to 96%.
To compare long-term survival of Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients with deep brain stimulation (DBS) to matched controls, and examine whether DBS was associated with differences in injurious falls, long-term care, and home care.
Methods:
Using administrative health data (Ontario, Canada), we examined DBS outcomes within a cohort of individuals diagnosed with PD between 1997 and 2012. Patients receiving DBS were matched with non-DBS controls by age, sex, PD diagnosis date, time with PD, and a propensity score. Survival between groups was compared using the log-rank test and marginal Cox proportional hazards regression. Cumulative incidence function curves and marginal subdistribution hazard models were used to assess effects of DBS on falls, long-term care admission, and home care use, with death as a competing risk.
Results:
There were 260 DBS recipients matched with 551 controls. Patients undergoing DBS did not experience a significant survival advantage compared to controls (log-rank test p = 0.50; HR: 0.89, 95% CI: 0.65–1.22). Among patients <65 years of age, DBS recipients had a significantly reduced risk of death (HR: 0.49, 95% CI: 0.28–0.84). Patients receiving DBS were more likely than controls to receive care for falls (HR: 1.56, 95% CI: 1.19–2.05) and home care (HR: 1.59, 95% CI: 1.32–1.90), while long-term care admission was similar between groups.
Conclusions:
Receiving DBS may increase survival for younger PD patients who undergo DBS. Future studies should examine whether survival benefits may be attributed to effects on PD or the absence of comorbidities that influence mortality.