bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Exploring the needs and uses for drones in medical emergencies in England and Scotland: a survey of emergency healthcare workers
Authors: Théorêt Olivia , Barrack Sophie , Morgan Heather May 
Published: October 2022

AbstractBackgroundThe application of drones in healthcare is a new concept being introduced in various countries to fly medical supplies. Public perceptions have been investigated but the perceptions of healthcare professionals on the frontline have not been explored. This study examined the perceptions of emergency care providers in England and Scotland to determine how they believe drones could be used when providing emergency care.MethodsFrontline healthcare professionals were surveyed regarding their perceptions of drones in emergency medical scenarios. A survey with 27 questions built on SNAP 11 was published on social media for participant recruitment.ResultsThematic analysis yielded insights into what healthcare professionals believe should be flown in an emergency notably: blood, defibrillators, and medication. Drones are perceived to be beneficial for life-threatening scenarios (high-risk, time-critical, trauma, search, and rescue applications) and routine medical care such as delivery of medical supplies and minor interventions. 100% of participants believed that providing medical care could benefit from a drone flying to a remote area or directly to a patient. 76% believed that having a drone fly key medical equipment faster could change the outcome of a patient. Scepticism regarding regulations and logistics involved, as well as concern for drone-based medical care, were identified by participants.ConclusionDrone use in healthcare remains an immature field and this study confirms that this domain warrants further research. It is key to remember that the perspectives of those impacted by the integration of drones will have to be explored to guide the application.
Impact of a vaccine passport on first-dose COVID-19 vaccine coverage by age and area-level social determinants in the Canadian provinces of Québec and Ontario: an interrupted time series analysis
Authors: Flores Anato Jorge Luis , Ma Huiting , Hamilton Mackenzie A. , Xia Yiqing , Harper Sam , Buckeridge David , Brisson Marc , Hillmer Michael P. , Malikov Kamil , Kerem Aidin , Beall Reed , Baral Stefan , Dubé Ève , Mishra Sharmistha , Maheu-Giroux Mathieu 
Published: October 2022

AbstractBackgroundIn Canada, all provinces implemented vaccine passports in 2021 to increase vaccine uptake and reduce transmission in non-essential indoor spaces. We evaluate the impact of vaccine passport policies on first-dose COVID-19 vaccination coverage by age, area-level income and proportion racialized.MethodsWe performed interrupted time-series analyses using vaccine registry data linked to census information in Québec and Ontario (20.5 million people ≥12 years; unit of analysis: dissemination area). We fit negative binomial regressions to weekly first-dose vaccination, using a natural spline to capture pre-announcement trends, adjusting for baseline vaccination coverage (start: July 3rd; end: October 23rdQuébec, November 13thOntario). We obtain counterfactual vaccination rates and coverage, and estimated vaccine passports’ impact on vaccination coverage (absolute) and new vaccinations (relative).ResultsIn both provinces, pre-announcement first-dose vaccination coverage was 82% (≥12 years). The announcement resulted in estimated increases in vaccination coverage of 0.9 percentage points (p.p.;95%CI:0.4-1.2) in Québec and 0.7 p.p. (95%CI:0.5-0.8) in Ontario. In relative terms, these increases correspond to 23% (95%CI:10-36%) and 19% (95%CI:15-22%) more vaccinations. The impact was larger among people aged 12-39 (1-2 p.p.). There was little variability in the absolute impact by area-level income or proportion racialized in either province.ConclusionsIn the context of high baseline vaccine coverage across two provinces, the announcement of vaccine passports led to a small impact on first-dose coverage, with little impact on reducing economic and racial inequities in vaccine coverage. Findings suggest the need for other policies to further increase vaccination coverage among lower-income and more racialized neighbourhoods and communities.Key messagesVaccine passport policies increased COVID-19 vaccination coverage by approximately 1 percentage point (19 to 23% increase in vaccinations) in Québec and Ontario, Canada.Although vaccine passport policies increased vaccination coverage, absolute gains were limited in the context of high prior vaccine coverage.Vaccine passports had little impact on reducing economic and racial inequities in vaccine coverage.
Identifying vaccine-mechanism bias in mathematical models of vaccine impact: the case of tuberculosis
Authors: Tovar M. , Moreno Y. , Sanz J. 
Published: October 2022

AbstractIn the development of vaccines against tuberculosis (TB), a number of factors represent burdensome difficulties for the design and interpretation of randomized control trials (RCTs) of vaccine efficacy. Among them, the complexity of the transmission chain of TB allows the co-existence of several routes to disease that can be observed within the populations from where vaccine efficacy trial participants are sampled. This makes it difficult to link trial-derived readouts of vaccine efficacy to specific vaccine mechanistic descriptions, since, intuitively, the same efficacy readouts may lean on the ability of a vaccine to arrest only some, but not all, the possible routes to disease. This increases uncertainty in evaluations of vaccine impact based on transmission models, since different vaccine descriptions of the same efficacy readout typically lead to different impact forecasts. In this work, we develop a Bayesian framework to evaluate the relative compatibility of different vaccine descriptions with the observations emanating from a randomized clinical trial (RCT) of vaccine efficacy, offering an unbiased framework to estimate vaccine impact even when the specific mechanisms of action of the given vaccine are not explicitly known. The type of RCTs considered here, conducted on IGRA+ individuals, emerged as a promising design architecture after the encouraging results reported for the vaccine M72/AS01Eclinical trial, which we use here as a case study.Authors summaryHere, we focus on a problem that is pervasive in mathematical modeling of vaccines’ impact, consisting of the existence of a multiplicity of vaccine parametrizations that are compatible with the result of a given clinical trial of vaccine efficacy. However, focusing on tuberculosis vaccines, we find that it is possible to use computational simulations and Bayesian statistics to assign these models with posterior probabilities measuring their relative compatibility with the results of a real clinical trial under analysis. The framework presented unlocks the production of unbiased, mechanism-agnostic impact forecasts for vaccines against tuberculosis, and can be extended to the study of vaccines against other communicable diseases with a complex infectious cycle.
Persistence of spore-formingClostridium(Clostridioides)difficilethrough wastewater treatment plants in Western Australia
Authors: Chisholm Jessica M. , Putsathit Papanin , Riley Thomas V. , Lim Su-Chen 
Published: October 2022

ABSTRACTThere is growing evidence that showsClostridium(Clostridioides)difficileis a pathogen of One Health importance with a complex dissemination pathway involving animals, humans and the environment. Thus, environmental discharge and agricultural recycling of human and animal waste have been suspected as factors behind the dissemination ofC. difficilein the community. Here, the presence ofC. difficilein 12 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Western Australia was investigated. Overall,C. difficilewas found in 90.5% (114/126) of raw sewage influent, 48.1% (50/104) of treated effluent, 40% (2/5) of reclaimed irrigation water, 100% (38/38) of untreated biosolids, 95.2% (20/21) of anaerobically digested biosolids and 72.7% (8/11) of lime-amended biosolids. Over half the isolates (55.3%, 157/284) were toxigenic and 97C. difficileribotypes (RTs) were identified with RT014/020 the most common (14.8%, 42/284). ThirteenC. difficileisolates with the toxin profile A+B+CDT+ were found, including the hypervirulent RT078 strain. Resistance to the antimicrobials fidaxomicin, vancomycin, metronidazole, rifaximin, amoxicillin/clavulanate, meropenem and moxifloxacin was uncommon, however, resistance to clindamycin, erythromycin and tetracycline was relatively frequent at 56.7% (161/284), 14.4% (41/284) and 13.7% (39/284), respectively. This study revealed that toxigenicC. difficilewas commonly encountered in WWTPs and being released into the environment. This raises concern about the possible spill-over ofC. difficileinto animal and/or human populations via land receiving the treated waste. In Western Australia, stringent measures are in place to mitigate the health and environmental risk of recycling human waste, however, further studies are needed to elucidate the public health significance ofC. difficilesurviving the treatment processes at WWTPs.IMPORTANCEClostridium difficileinfection (CDI) is a leading cause of antimicrobial-associated diarrhoea in healthcare facilities. Extended hospital stays and recurrences increase the cost of treatment, and morbidity and mortality. Community-associated CDI (CA-CDI) cases, with no history of antimicrobial use or exposure to healthcare settings, are increasing. The isolation of clinically importantC. difficilestrains from animals, rivers, soil, meat, vegetables, compost, treated wastewater and biosolids has been reported. The objective of this study was to characteriseC. difficilein wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Australia. We found thatC. difficilecan persist through the treatment processes of WWTPs and toxigenicC. difficilewas being released into the environment becoming a potential source/reservoir for CA-CDI.
Disentangling the dynamics of energy allocation to provide a proxy of robustness in fattening pigs
Authors: Lenoir Guillaume , Flatres-Grall Loïc , Muñoz-Tamayo Rafael , David Ingrid , Friggens Nicolas C. 
Published: October 2022

AbstractBackgroundThere is a growing need to improve robustness characteristics in fattening pigs, but this trait is difficult to phenotype. Our first objective was to develop a robustness proxy on the basis of modelling of longitudinal energetic allocation coefficient to growth for fattening pigs. Consequently, the environmental variance of this allocation coefficient was considered as a proxy of robustness. The second objective was to estimate its genetic parameters and correlation with traits under selection as well with phenotypes routinely collected on farms. A total of 5848 pigs, from Piétrain NN paternal line, were tested at the AXIOM boar testing station (Azay-sur-Indre, France) from 2015 to 2022. This farm was equipped with automatic feeding system, recording individual weight and feed intake at each visit. We used a dynamic linear regression model to characterize the evolution of the allocation coefficient between cumulative net energy available, estimated from feed intake, and cumulative weight gain during fattening period. Longitudinal energetic allocation coefficients were analysed using a two-step approach, to estimate both its genetic variance and the genetic variance in the residual variance, trait LSR.ResultsThe LSR trait, that could be interpreted as an indicator of the response of the animal to perturbations/stress, showed low heritability (0.05±0.01). The trait LSR had high favourable genetic correlations with average daily growth (−0.71±0.06) and unfavourable with feed conversion ratio (−0.76±0.06) and residual feed intake (−0.83±0.06). The analysis of the relationship between estimated breeding values (EBV) LSR quartiles and phenotypes routinely collected on farms shows the most favourable situation for animals from quartile with the weakest EBV LSR,i.e., the most robust.ConclusionsThese results show that selection for robustness based on deviation from energetic allocation coefficient to growth can be considered in breeding programs for fattening pigs.
How Cerebellar Architecture and Dense Activation Patterns Facilitate Online Learning in Dynamic Tasks
Authors: Perez Rotondo Adriana , Raman Dhruva V. , O’Leary Timothy 
Published: October 2022

SummaryThe cerebellum has a distinctive architecture in which inputs undergo a massive size expansion in dimensionality in early layers. Marr and Albus’s classic codon theory and more recent extensions1–4argue that this architecture facilitates learning via pattern separation. The essence of this idea is that sparsely active clusters —‘codons’— of inputs are more easily separable in a higher dimensional representation. However, recent physiological data indicate that cerebellar activity is not sparse in the way anticipated by codon theory. Moreover, there is a conceptual gap between static pattern separation and the critical role of the cerebellum in dynamic tasks such as motor learning. We use mathematical analysis and simulations of cerebellar learning to identify specific difficulties inherent to online learning of dynamic tasks. We find that size expansions directly mitigate these difficulties, and that this benefit is maximised when granule cell activity is dense.
Myelination and excitation-inhibition balance synergistically shape structure-function coupling across the human cortex
Authors: Fotiadis Panagiotis , Cieslak Matthew , He Xiaosong , Caciagli Lorenzo , Ouellet Mathieu , Satterthwaite Theodore D. , Shinohara Russell T. , Bassett Dani S. 
Published: October 2022

ABSTRACTRecent work has demonstrated that the relationship between structural and functional connectivity varies regionally across the human brain, with reduced coupling emerging along the sensory-association cortical hierarchy. The biological underpinnings driving this expression, however, remain largely unknown. Here, we postulated that intracortical myelination and excitation-inhibition (EI) balance mediate the heterogeneous expression of structure-function coupling (SFC) and its temporal variance across the cortical hierarchy. We employed atlas-and voxel-based connectivity approaches to analyze neuroimaging data acquired from two groups of healthy participants. Our findings were consistent across processing pipelines: 1) increased myelination and lower EI-ratio associated with more rigid SFC and restricted moment-to-moment SFC fluctuations; 2) a gradual shift from EI-ratio to myelination as the principal predictor of SFC occurred when traversing from granular to agranular cortical regions. Collectively, our work delivers a novel framework to conceptualize structure-function relationships in the human brain, paving the way for an improved understanding of how demyelination and/or EI-imbalances induce reorganization in brain disorders.
Streptococcus agalactiae npxis required for survival in human placental macrophages and full virulence in a model of ascending vaginal infection during pregnancy
Authors: Lu Jacky , Moore Rebecca E. , Spicer Sabrina K. , Doster Ryan S. , Guevara Miriam A. , Francis Jamisha D. , Noble Kristen N. , Rogers Lisa M. , Talbert Julie A. , Korir Michelle L. , Townsend Steven D. , Aronoff David M. , Manning Shannon D. , Gaddy Jennifer A. 
Published: October 2022

AbstractStreptococcus agalactiae, also known as Group BStreptococcus(GBS), is a Gram- positive encapsulated bacterium that colonizes the gastrointestinal tract of 30-50% of humans. GBS causes invasive infection during pregnancy that can lead to chorioamnionitis, funisitis, preterm prelabor rupture of membranes (PPROM), preterm birth, neonatal sepsis, and maternal and fetal demise. Upon infecting the host, GBS encounters sentinel innate immune cells, such as macrophages, within reproductive tissues. Once phagocytosed by macrophages, GBS upregulates expression of the gene,npx, which encodes a NADH peroxidase. GBS mutants with anpxdeletion (Δnpx) are exquisitely sensitive to reactive oxygen stress. Furthermore, we have shown thatnpxis required for GBS survival in both THP-1 and placental macrophages. In anin vivomurine model of ascending GBS vaginal infection during pregnancy,npxis required for invasion of reproductive tissues and is critical for inducing disease progression including PPROM and preterm birth. Reproductive tissue cytokine production was also significantly diminished in Δnpxinfected animals compared to those infected with wild type (WT)-GBS. Complementationin transreversed this phenotype, indicatingnpxis critical for GBS survival and initiation of proinflammatory signaling in the gravid host.
Digitalization adoption for digital economy: an examination of Malaysian small medium-sized enterprises through the technology–organization–environment framework
Authors: Low Mei Peng , Seah Choon Sen , Cham Tat-Huei , Teoh Sian Hoon 
Published: October 2022

PurposeThis research is set to assess the achievement of digital economy through digitalization adoption (DA) among Small Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). For more insightful findings, a comparison between the service-based and non-service-based industries was performed. Besides, it endeavours to identify the important and performing dimension of the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative approach through purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from the SMEs. Variance-based structural equation modeling was adopted to assess the model and multi-group analysis (MGA) was executed to examine the difference between the two classified industries. For the identification of the dimension, Importance-Performance Map Aanalysis (IPMA) was carried out.FindingsTechnology and organization recorded significant positive influence on digitalization adoption but not environment. Digitalization adoption between the two classified industries shows divergent results. IPMA concur the importance and performance of the technology and organization dimension, in which SMEs shall focus on for digitalization adoption.Research limitations/implicationsThis is cross sectional research and data were collected at a single time frame. Hence, the result is a state-or-art finding. Assuming that if there are changes in government policies, the results may differ. Besides, there are other possible groupings that could affect the results in which is not covered in the present research.Practical implicationsThe findings imply that the DA amongst SMEs has yet to achieve its full spectrum, which indicates Malaysia has yet to fully embrace digital economy. Nevertheless, DA is the fundamental for a successful digital economy.Social implicationsThis research provides the general public an overview that SMEs are adopting digitalization with various degree. This specifies that the society is paving towards digitalization with the SMEs actively adopting more digital technologies.Originality/valueThe novelty of this research arises from the utilization of the TOE framework to link to the achievement of the national digital economy. Additionally, current research adopted a rigorous approach to investigate the issue by using MGA, the hierarchical component model (HCM) and IPMA for holistic findings.
Transforming self-perceived self-employability and entrepreneurship among mothers through mobile digital sharing economy platforms: an exploratory case study
Authors: Seet Pi-Shen , Jogulu Uma , Cripps Helen , Nejati Mehran 
Published: October 2022

PurposeThis research focuses on the extent sharing economy transforms employability for women impacted by domestic and reproductive work. The authors explore the experience of mothers, of how digital peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms can affect their self-perceived employability and skills deterioration by unlocking human capital through technology acceptance.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a pragmatism-based approach incorporating using a single-case study research design with the Gioia methodology. It utilised a semi-structured telephone survey to collect data to explore the decisions around usage of a newly developed mobile P2P app, aiming to support employability among mothers. Analysis was conducted inductively using thematic analysis and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe study finds that mothers experience high rates of continued labour market attachment on a casual or part-time basis, difficulty in juggling family and work, and high levels of concern both about future employment/entrepreneurial opportunities and expected stress in balancing dual roles of carer and earner. While mothers are interested in using new sharing economy technologies to reduce skills deterioration and improve signalling, the authors find that there were both technology and non-technology related barriers. These included trust and security, life-stage mismatch, time poverty and limitation of service offerings.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was limited to mothers in one state in Australia and by the case study research design, the measurement model and the self-report nature of the data collection. Hence, the findings may lack generalisability in other contexts. It also limits the ability to make conclusions regarding causality.Originality/valueThis exploratory study contributes to research in the intersection between human resources (HR) and entrepreneurship by illustrating how sharing economy platforms can offer women a means to overcome the issues of signalling and skills deterioration in relation to aspects of human capital theory by developing new skills that may act as positive signals signal to potential employers or investors. Additionally, the social interactions between mothers, through technology adoption, can provide a basis for improving future self-employment or entrepreneurship and employability.
Conclusion: how could rural tourism provide better support for well-being and socioeconomic development?
Authors: Singh Ardhendu Shekhar , Parahoo Sanjai K. , Ayyagari Madhavi , Juwaheer Thanika Devi 
Published: October 2022

PurposeThis concluding paper summarizes the articles presented in this issue and the significant themes that emerged from the authors' contributions. The main objective of this theme issue on rural tourism is to examine different facets of rural tourism that are critical to short-term recovery as well as long-term sustainable development.Design/methodology/approachThis article draws on the findings of the papers and revisits the question: how could rural tourism provide better support for well-being and socioeconomic development?FindingsThe papers in this issue can be classified into one of three clusters: (1) cultural traditions; (2) support for rural tourism service providers and (3) embracing new technologies. In addition to classifying these papers, the authors propose a conceptual framework to achieve sustainable rural tourism and development comprising four critical success factors for sustainable rural tourism and development.Originality/valueThe main objective of this theme issue is to examine different facets of rural tourism that are critical to short-term recovery as well as long-term sustainable development. Here the authors summarize the findings and propose a conceptual model for the benefit of managers. The authors think that the model could be helpful in designing a strategy for developing sustainable rural tourism projects. It includes reference to (1) stakeholder engagement and support for capacity-building, (2) gradual and organic growth processes, (3) valorization of sociocultural traditions and preservation of cultural heritage and (4) leveraging digital technology in marketing strategy.