Suchergebnisse

Few studies have examined the effect of varying unemployment benefit sanctions before application on jobseekers' behaviour. However, theory suggests this is the primary way sanctions operate. We examine the effect of increasing sanction values on future non-compliance using administrative data from the introduction of an Australian scheme with increasing sanctions for repeated non-compliance. Jobseekers with equivalent non-compliance histories have decreased hazards of non-compliance when the consequences are higher, even with small variation in sanction values. This suggests policies altering sanction values can effectively encourage compliance with benefit requirements, at least at the level imposed in Australia (low by international standards).

In resource-poor settings, like northern Uganda, a shortage of trained medical staff and reduced access to evidence-based education or guidelines often leads to an inconsistent approach to medical practice and prescription, and consequent poor patient outcomes. Within this context the application of clinical practice guidelines developed in high-income countries has variable success. Due to the impractical resource and skill requirements of internationally developed guidelines, clinicians in resource-poor contexts are often left depending on traditional practices that are not evidence-based. In this practice paper, we describe the integrated knowledge translation-informed approach to developing a context-specific synthesis of clinical practice guidelines in a northern Ugandan hospital. Using the Knowledge Creation element of the Knowledge to Action cycle as a guide, and strategies from the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change framework, we identified the most common conditions relevant to our health context and summarised the current best-practice guidelines for each. These recommendations were then further distilled through the context funnel of (1) health system resources, (2) clinician resources, (3) cultural implications, and (4) patient resources. This has resulted in a synthesis of clinical practice guidelines that are relevant to our context in terms of need and available resources and easy for clinicians to navigate during patient management. We wish to share this experience with clinicians and researchers working in similar resource-limited contexts, and provide a thinking framework for distilling best practice through the context funnel to develop pragmatic recommendations for low-middle income countries.

Analysis of a patient's genomics data is the first step toward precision medicine. Such analyses are performed on expensive enterprise-class server machines because input data sets are large, and the intermediate data structures are even larger (TB-size) and require random accesses. We present a general method to perform a specific genomics problem, mutation detection, on a cheap commodity personal computer (PC) with a small amount of DRAM. We construct and access large histograms of k-mers efficiently on external storage (SSDs) and apply our technique to a state-of-the-art referencefree genomics algorithm, SMUFIN, to create SMUFIN-F. We show that on two PCs, SMUFIN-F can achieve the same throughput at only one third (36%) the hardware cost and half (45%) the energy compared to SMUFIN on an enterprise-class server. To the best of our knowledge, SMUFIN-F is the first reference-free system that can detect somatic mutations on commodity PCs for whole human genomes. We believe our technique should apply to other k-mer or n-gram-based algorithms. ; This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreements No. 639595); the Ministry of Economy of Spain under contract TIN2015-65316-P and Generalitat de Catalunya under contract 2014SGR1051; the ICREA Academia program; the BSC-CNS Severo Ochoa program (SEV-2015-0493); MIT via the NSF grant (CCF1725303); and travel support was provided by the MIT-Spain la Caixa Foundation Seed Fund. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)

Over the last two decades, marine noise pollution has become increasingly recognized as an issue of major significance. The issue has become a primary focus of marine mammal research, but is also of concern to the public and policy makers. The result has been efforts involving a variety of disciplines, and relevant legislation and associated guidance are now in place in many parts of the world. Most current mitigation efforts are directed at reducing the risk of injury from exposure to intense noise, although the effectiveness of such mitigation measures in terms of risk reduction has rarely been quantified. Longer-term chronic impacts of noise including disturbance or masking of sounds critical for feeding and reproduction have received substantially less attention in management. New technologies are being developed for a number of activities which can substantially reduce noise inputs into the marine environment. As with other forms of pollution, reducing input at source is likely to be the most effective way of reducing impacts. We recommend as a priority the implementation of noise quieting technologies and the spatial and temporal exclusion of noise to minimize contact with marine life.

An unprecedented 85 harbour porpoises stranded freshly dead along approximately 100 km of Danish coastline from 7-15 April, 2005. This total is considerably above the mean weekly stranding rate for the whole of Denmark, both for any time of year, 1.23 animals/week (ranging from 0 to 20 during 2003-2008, excluding April 2005), and specifically in April, 0.65 animals/week (0 to 4, same period). Bycatch was established as the cause of death for most of the individuals through typical indications of fisheries interactions, including net markings in the skin and around the flippers, and loss of tail flukes. Local fishermen confirmed unusually large porpoise bycatch in nets set for lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) and the strandings were attributed to an early lumpfish season. However, lumpfish catches for 2005 were not unusual in terms of season onset, peak or total catch, when compared to 2003-2008. Consequently, human activity was combined with environmental factors and the variation in Danish fisheries landings (determined through a principal component analysis) in a two-part statistical model to assess the correlation of these factors with both the presence of fresh strandings and the numbers of strandings on the Danish west coast. The final statistical model (which was forward selected using Akaike information criterion; AIC) indicated that naval presence is correlated with higher rates of porpoise strandings, particularly in combination with certain fisheries, although it is not correlated with the actual presence of strandings. Military vessels from various countries were confirmed in the area from the 7th April, en route to the largest naval exercise in Danish waters to date (Loyal Mariner 2005, 11-28 April). Although sonar usage cannot be confirmed, it is likely that ships were testing various equipment prior to the main exercise. Thus naval activity cannot be ruled out as a possible contributing factor.

Context Researchers studying animals need to ensure that sampling procedures and the methods they use are as harmless and non-disruptive as possible, particularly when their focal species are threatened or protected. White sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) are Vulnerable under the IUCN Red List, protected globally, and are frequently studied by marine ecologists. Aims To assess white shark responses to research activities (i.e. tagging and biopsy procedures, and electric deterrent trials) conducted at the Neptune Islands Group Marine Park (South Australia, Australia). Methods Trends in shark residency following research activities were assessed by comparing shark abundance (number of sharks detected by acoustic receivers and sighted by cage-diving operators) before, during, and after scientific expeditions, and to natural fluctuations in the absence of research activities using 8 years (2013–2021) of acoustic tracking and daily sighting reports from a wildlife tourism industry. Key results Number of white sharks and residency decreased after sampling. However, changes observed following research activities were similar to natural fluctuations, suggesting that these changes reflected natural variations rather than being due to sharks responding negatively to the research activities. Conclusions Our study showed that external tagging, biopsies, or deterrent trials do not affect short- and long-term residency or abundance of white sharks, probably owing to the research activities being minimally intrusive and to sharks having efficient immune systems and remarkable ability to heal from injuries. Implications Re-evaluating study methods forms part of the researcher's responsibilities to ensure best practice and to abide by national and international codes for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes.