A between-subjects experiment examines the effects of different warning types and modified risk e-cigarette ad claims on adolescent e-cigarette craving and future e-cigarette susceptibility for two ...different themes. One theme focuses on nicotine and addiction, and the other on the effects of potentially harmful constituents (eg, flavored chemicals and lung disease).
The effects of warning type (control, text-only, graphic health warning GHW and text) and modified risk e-cigarette ad claims (control, exposure reduction, risk reduction) are tested experimentally with two different arms (themes) for a sample of 1011 adolescents who had tried either e-cigarettes or cigarettes.
For addiction, the text-only warning led to significantly less e-cigarette susceptibility than the no warning control condition. As expected, there were no differences between the GHW + text condition and text-only or control conditions for e-cigarette craving. An interaction between warning type and modified risk claims revealed significantly fewer e-cigarette cravings and less susceptibility for the text-only warning and no claim (control) condition than for any other condition. For fatal lung disease, the GHW + text condition led to fewer e-cigarette cravings and less susceptibility than the text-only warning and no warning (control) conditions.
Warning type effects can be very different under different themes (eg, addiction, fatal lung disease). In general, our results point to the effectiveness of the text-only warning for addiction and GHW + text for fatal lung disease. Relative exposure and risk modification claims (eg, less nicotine; less addicting) tend to undercut addiction warnings.
More than one type of e-cigarette warning may be necessary as e-cigarette research evolves. Our results show different warning type effects (eg, text-only; GHW + text) on e-cigarette craving and future susceptibility for adolescent experimenters depending on the risk theme (eg, addiction; lung disease) and presence of ad claims (eg, exposure and risk reduction). As research emerges on risks associated with e-cigarette use, it is important to first know what at-risk populations (eg, adolescents) believe about such risks. Such research will aid our understanding of what types of warnings might be most effective, especially in the presence of ad claims.
Humans rely increasingly on sensors to address grand challenges and to improve quality of life in the era of digitalization and big data. For ubiquitous sensing, flexible sensors are developed to ...overcome the limitations of conventional rigid counterparts. Despite rapid advancement in bench-side research over the last decade, the market adoption of flexible sensors remains limited. To ease and to expedite their deployment, here, we identify bottlenecks hindering the maturation of flexible sensors and propose promising solutions. We first analyze challenges in achieving satisfactory sensing performance for real-world applications and then summarize issues in compatible sensor-biology interfaces, followed by brief discussions on powering and connecting sensor networks. Issues en route to commercialization and for sustainable growth of the sector are also analyzed, highlighting environmental concerns and emphasizing nontechnical issues such as business, regulatory, and ethical considerations. Additionally, we look at future intelligent flexible sensors. In proposing a comprehensive roadmap, we hope to steer research efforts towards common goals and to guide coordinated development strategies from disparate communities. Through such collaborative efforts, scientific breakthroughs can be made sooner and capitalized for the betterment of humanity.
Combining simple amines with the bench‐stable sulfinylamine Tr‐NSO allows in situ preparation of reactive alkyl sulfinylamines, which when combined with alkyl radicals generated by photocatalytic ...decarboxylation, provides N‐alkyl sulfinamides. The reactions are broad in scope and tolerate a wide variety of functional groups on both the acid and amine components. The sulfinamide products are used to prepare a selection of challenging S(VI) products. The method provides a convenient way to use reactive and unstable alkyl sulfinylamines.
Researchers are increasingly encouraged to co-produce research, involving members of the public, service users, policy makers and practitioners in more equal relationships throughout a research ...project. The sharing of power is often highlighted as a key principle when co-producing research. However, health and social care research, as with many other academic disciplines, is carried out within embedded hierarchies and structural inequalities in universities, public service institutions, and research funding systems—as well as in society more broadly. This poses significant challenges to ambitions for co-production. This article explores the difficulties that are faced when trying to put ideal co-production principles into practice. A reflective account is provided of an interdisciplinary project that aimed to better understand how to reduce power differentials within co-produced research. The project facilitated five workshops, involving researchers from different disciplines, health, social care and community development staff and public contributors, who all had experience in co-production within research. In the workshops, people discussed how they had attempted to enable more equal relationships and shared ideas that supported more effective and equitable co-produced research. Shared interdisciplinary learning helped the project team to iteratively develop a training course, a map of resources and reflective questions to support co-produced research. The gap between co-production principles and practice is challenging. The article examines the constraints that exist when trying to share power, informed by multidisciplinary theories of power. To bring co-production principles into practice, changes are needed within research practices, cultures and structures; in understandings of what knowledge is and how different forms of knowledge are valued. The article outlines challenges and tensions when co-producing research and describes potential ideas and resources that may help to put co-production principles into practice. We highlight that trying to maintain all principles of co-production within the real-world of structural inequalities and uneven distribution of resources is a constant challenge, often remaining for now in the realm of aspiration.
Giardiasis is a common diarrhoeal disease caused by the protozoan Giardia duodenalis. It is prevalent in low-income countries in the context of inadequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene ...(WASH), and is frequently co-endemic with neglected tropical diseases such as soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections. Large-scale periodic deworming programmes are often implemented in these settings; however, there is limited evidence for the impact of regular anthelminthic treatment on G. duodenalis infection. Additionally, few studies have examined the impact of WASH interventions on G. duodenalis.
The WASH for WORMS cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted in remote communities in Manufahi municipality, Timor-Leste, between 2012 and 2016. All study communities received four rounds of deworming with albendazole at six-monthly intervals. Half were randomised to additionally receive a community-level WASH intervention following study baseline. We measured G. duodenalis infection in study participants every six months for two years, immediately prior to deworming, as a pre-specified secondary outcome of the trial. WASH access and behaviours were measured using questionnaires.
There was no significant change in G. duodenalis prevalence in either study arm between baseline and the final study follow-up. We found no additional benefit of the community-level WASH intervention on G. duodenalis infection (relative risk: 1.05, 95% CI: 0.72-1.54). Risk factors for G. duodenalis infection included living in a household with a child under five years of age (adjusted odds ratio, aOR: 1.35, 95% CI: 1.04-1.75), living in a household with more than six people (aOR: 1.32, 95% CI: 1.02-1.72), and sampling during the rainy season (aOR: 1.23, 95% CI: 1.04-1.45). Individuals infected with the hookworm Necator americanus were less likely to have G. duodenalis infection (aOR: 0.71, 95% CI: 0.57-0.88).
Prevalence of G. duodenalis was not affected by a community WASH intervention or by two years of regular deworming with albendazole. Direct household contacts appear to play a dominant role in driving transmission. We found evidence of antagonistic effects between G. duodenalis and hookworm infection, which warrants further investigation in the context of global deworming efforts. Trial registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12614000680662. Registered 27 June 2014, retrospectively registered. https://anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=366540 .
The educational experiences and attainment of looked‐after children and young people (LACYP) remains an issue of widespread international concern. Within the UK, children and young people in care ...achieve poorer educational outcomes compared to individuals not in care. Despite proliferation of research documenting the reasons for educational disadvantage amongst this population, there remains limited empirical consideration of the lived experiences of the educational system, as perceived by LACYP themselves. This paper draws upon qualitative research with 67 care‐experienced children and young people in Wales. The sample was aged 6–27 years, and comprised 27 females and 40 males. Participants had experienced a range of care placements. Findings focus on how educational policies and practices alienate LACYP from dominant discourses of educational achievement through assignment of the ‘supported’ subject position, where children and young people are permitted and even encouraged not to succeed academically due to their complex and disrupted home circumstances. However, such diminished expectations are rejected by LACYP, who want to be pushed and challenged in the realisation of their potential. The paper argues that more differentiated understandings of LACYP's aspirations and capabilities need to be embedded into everyday practices, to ensure that effective educational support systems are developed.
The northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) is one of the most intensively studied raptors in the world; however, little is known about the impacts of wildfire on the subspecies and how ...they use recently burned areas. Three large-scale wildfires in southwest Oregon provided an opportunity to investigate the short-term impacts of wildfire and salvage logging on site occupancy of spotted owls. We used Program MARK to develop single-species, multiple-season models of site occupancy using data collected during demographic surveys of spotted owl territories. In our first analysis, we compared occupancy dynamics of spotted owl nesting territories before (1992—2002). and after the Timbered Rock burn (2003—2006) to a reference area in the south Cascade Mountains that was not affected recently by wildfire. We found that the South Cascades had greater colonization probabilities than Timbered Rock before and after wildfire (β̂ = 1.31, 95% CI = 0.60−2.03), and colonization probabilities declined over time at both areas (β̂ = −0.06, 95% CI = −0.12 to 0.00). Extinction probabilities were greater at South Cascades than at Timbered Rock prior to the burn (β̂ = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.23−2.62); however, Timbered Rock had greater extinction probabilities following wildfire (β̂ = 1.46, 95% CI = 0.29−2.62). The Timbered Rock and South Cascades study areas had similar patterns in site occupancy prior to the Timbered Rock burn (1992—2001). Furthermore, Timbered Rock had a 64% reduction in site occupancy following wildfire (2003—2006) in contrast to a 25% reduction in site occupancy at South Cascades during the same time period. This suggested that the combined effects of habitat disturbances due to wildfire and subsequent salvage logging on private lands negatively affected site occupancy by spotted owls. In our second analysis, we investigated the relationship between wildfire, salvage logging, and occupancy of spotted owl territories at the Biscuit, Quartz, and Timbered Rock burns from 2003 to 2006. Extinction probabilities increased as the combined area of early seral forests, high severity burn, and salvage logging increased within the core nesting areas (β̂ = 1.88, 95% CI = 0.10−3.66). We were unable to identify any relationships between initial occupancy or colonization probabilities and the habitat covariates that we considered in our analysis where the β coefficient did not overlap zero. We concluded that site occupancy of spotted owl nesting territories declined in the short-term following wildfire, and habitat modification and loss due to past timber harvest, high severity fire, and salvage logging jointly contributed to declines in site occupancy.
δ¹⁸O values of mollusks recovered from near-shore marine cores in northwest Iceland quantify significant variation in seasonal temperature over the period from ~360 B.C. to ~A.D. 1660. Twenty-six ...aragonitic bivalve specimens were selected to represent intervals of climatic interest by using core sedimentological characteristics. Carbonate powder was sequentially micromilled from shell surfaces concordant with growth banding and analyzed for stable oxygen (δ¹⁸O) and carbon (δ¹³C) isotope values. Because δ¹⁸O values record subseasonal temperature variation over the lifetime of the bivalves, these data provide the first 2,000-year secular record of North Atlantic seasonality from ca. 360 cal yr B.C. to cal yr A.D. 1660. Notable cold periods (360 B.C. to 240 B.C.; A.D. 410; and A.D. 1380 to 1420) and warm periods (230 B.C. to A.D. 140 and A.D. 640 to 760) are resolved in terms of contrast between summer and winter temperatures and seasonal temperature variability. Literature from the Viking Age (ca. 790 to 1070) during the establishment of Norse colonies (and later) in Iceland and Greenland permits comparisons between the δ¹⁸O temperature record and historical records, thereby demonstrating the impact of seasonal climatic extremes on the establishment, development, and, in some cases, collapse of societies in the North Atlantic.
Estimates of species' vital rates and an understanding of the factors affecting those parameters over time and space can provide crucial information for management and conservation. We used ...mark–recapture, reproductive output, and territory occupancy data collected during 1985–2013 to evaluate population processes of Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) in 11 study areas in Washington, Oregon, and northern California, USA. We estimated apparent survival, fecundity, recruitment, rate of population change, and local extinction and colonization rates, and investigated relationships between these parameters and the amount of suitable habitat, local and regional variation in meteorological conditions, and competition with Barred Owls (Strix varia). Data were analyzed for each area separately and in a meta-analysis of all areas combined, following a strict protocol for data collection, preparation, and analysis. We used mixed effects linear models for analyses of fecundity, Cormack-Jolly-Seber open population models for analyses of apparent annual survival (φ), and a reparameterization of the Jolly-Seber capture–recapture model (i.e. reverse Jolly-Seber; RJS) to estimate annual rates of population change (λRJS) and recruitment. We also modeled territory occupancy dynamics of Northern Spotted Owls and Barred Owls in each study area using 2-species occupancy models. Estimated mean annual rates of population change (λ) suggested that Spotted Owl populations declined from 1.2% to 8.4% per year depending on the study area. The weighted mean estimate of λ for all study areas was 0.962 (± 0.019 SE; 95% CI: 0.925–0.999), indicating an estimated range-wide decline of 3.8% per year from 1985 to 2013. Variation in recruitment rates across the range of the Spotted Owl was best explained by an interaction between total winter precipitation and mean minimum winter temperature. Thus, recruitment rates were highest when both total precipitation (29 cm) and minimum winter temperature (−9.5°C) were lowest. Barred Owl presence was associated with increased local extinction rates of Spotted Owl pairs for all 11 study areas. Habitat covariates were related to extinction rates for Spotted Owl pairs in 8 of 11 study areas, and a greater amount of suitable owl habitat was generally associated with decreased extinction rates. We observed negative effects of Barred Owl presence on colonization rates of Spotted Owl pairs in 5 of 11 study areas. The total amount of suitable Spotted Owl habitat was positively associated with colonization rates in 5 areas, and more habitat disturbance was associated with lower colonization rates in 2 areas. We observed strong declines in derived estimates of occupancy in all study areas. Mean fecundity of females was highest for adults (0.309 ± 0.027 SE), intermediate for 2-yr-olds (0.179 ± 0.040 SE), and lowest for 1-yr-olds (0.065 ± 0.022 SE). The presence of Barred Owls and habitat covariates explained little of the temporal variation in fecundity in most study areas. Climate covariates occurred in competitive fecundity models in 8 of 11 study areas, but support for these relationships was generally weak. The fecundity meta-analysis resulted in 6 competitive models, all of which included the additive effects of geographic region and annual time variation. The 2 top-ranked models also weakly supported the additive negative effects of the amount of suitable core area habitat, Barred Owl presence, and the amount of edge habitat on fecundity. We found strong support for a negative effect of Barred Owl presence on apparent survival of Spotted Owls in 10 of 11 study areas, but found few strong effects of habitat on survival at the study area scale. Climate covariates occurred in top or competitive survival models for 10 of 11 study areas, and in most cases the relationships were as predicted; however, there was little consistency among areas regarding the relative importance of specific climate covariates. In contrast, meta-analysis results suggested that Spotted Owl survival was higher across all study areas when the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) was in a warming phase and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) was negative, with a strongly negative SOI indicative of El Niño events. The best model that included the Barred Owl covariate (BO) was ranked 4th and also included the PDO covariate, but the BO effect was strongly negative. Our results indicated that Northern Spotted Owl populations were declining throughout the range of the subspecies and that annual rates of decline were accelerating in many areas. We observed strong evidence that Barred Owls negatively affected Spotted Owl populations, primarily by decreasing apparent survival and increasing local territory extinction rates. However, the amount of suitable owl habitat, local weather, and regional climatic patterns also were related to survival, occupancy (via colonization rate), recruitment, and, to a lesser extent, fecundity, although there was inconsistency in regard to which covariates were important for particular demographic parameters or across study areas. In the study areas where habitat was an important source of variation for Spotted Owl demographics, vital rates were generally positively associated with a greater amount of suitable owl habitat. However, Barred Owl densities may now be high enough across the range of the Northern Spotted Owl that, despite the continued management and conservation of suitable owl habitat on federal lands, the long-term prognosis for the persistence of Northern Spotted Owls may be in question without additional management intervention. Based on our study, the removal of Barred Owls from the Green Diamond Resources (GDR) study area had rapid, positive effects on Northern Spotted Owl survival and the rate of population change, supporting the hypothesis that, along with habitat conservation and management, Barred Owl removal may be able to slow or reverse Northern Spotted Owl population declines on at least a localized scale.
Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions have been proposed as an important complement to deworming programs for sustainable control of soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections. We aimed ...to determine whether a community-based WASH program had additional benefits in reducing STH infections compared with community deworming alone. We conducted the WASH for WORMS cluster-randomized controlled trial in 18 rural communities in Timor-Leste. Intervention communities received a WASH intervention that provided access to an improved water source, promoted improved household sanitation, and encouraged handwashing with soap. All eligible community members in intervention and control arms received albendazole every 6 months for 2 years. The primary outcomes were infection with each STH, measured using multiplex real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We compared outcomes between study arms using generalized linear mixed models, accounting for clustering at community, household, and individual levels. At study completion, the integrated WASH and deworming intervention did not have an effect on infection with
spp. (relative risk RR 2.87, 95% confidence interval CI: 0.66-12.48,
= 0.159) or
(RR 0.99, 95% CI: 0.52-1.89,
= 0.987), compared with deworming alone. At the last follow-up, open defecation was practiced by 66.1% (95% CI: 54.2-80.2) of respondents in the control arm versus 40.2% (95% CI: 25.3-52.6) of respondents in the intervention arm (
= 0.005). We found no evidence that the WASH intervention resulted in additional reductions in STH infections beyond that achieved with deworming alone over the 2-year trial period. The role of WASH on STH infections over a longer period of time and in the absence of deworming remains to be determined.
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