Digital Commons Network^™

Status Epilepticus A Risk Factor For Sudden Unexpected Death In Epilepsy (Sudep): A Scoping Review And Narrative Synthesis, Rohit Shankar, Zygimantas Puras, Saffron Richardson, Lance Watkins

Peninsula Medical School

Background: Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) is a leading cause of mortality among people withepilepsy (PWE). Risk factors such as increased seizure frequency, drug-resistant epilepsy, and early epilepsy onsetare well recognised. However, little evidence of the role of seizure severity, specifically Status Epilepticus (SE) onSUDEP risk exists.Objective: To identify mechanisms, risk factors and clinical characteristics overlap between SE and SUDEP.Methods: A scoping review using the PRISMA-ScR model was performed by two reviewers using suitable searchterms. The PubMed Advanced Search tool along with the ancestry method was utilised to identify suitable articles published between 06/1992 and 05/2023. Quantitative, qualitative and …

Self-Management Systems For Patients And Clinicians In Parkinson's Disease Care: A Scoping Review, Selina Boege, Madison Milne-Ives, Ananya Ananthakrishnan, Camille Carroll, Edward Meinert

Peninsula Medical School

Background: Digital self-management tools including mobile apps and wearables can enhance personalized care in Parkinson's disease, and incorporating patient and clinician feedback into their evaluation can empower users and nurture patient-clinician relationships, necessitating a review to assess the state of the art and refine their use. Objective: This review aimed to summarize the state of the art of self-management systems used in Parkinson's disease management, detailing the application of self-management techniques and the integration of clinicians. It also aimed to provide a concise synthesis on the acceptance and usability of these systems from the clinicians' standpoint, reflecting both patient engagement …

Biogenic Reef Creation And Biodiversity Enhancement By An Offshore Longline Mussel Farm, Llucia Mascorda-Cabre, Philip Hosegood, Martin Attrill, Emma Sheehan

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

As the mussel farming industry moves offshore, there is a need to fill evidence gaps on its ecological impacts. Over eight years, this research presents the results of a long-term monitoring study of the UK’s first large scale offshore mussel farm following a BACI (Before-After Control-Impact) approach to evaluate the temporal and spatial effects of the farm on benthic habitat and epibenthic species assemblages. Situated in historical fishing ground, the farm is located on a degraded seabed ecosystem dominated by soft sediment. After seven years of farming, damaged seabed increased its complexity, with biogenic reef being created (30 % increase). …

People With Dyslexia Or Dyscalculia Are Less Biased: Results Of A Preregistered Study From Over 450,000 People On The Implicit Association Test, Liam Cross, Gray Atherton, Roderick Nicolson

School of Psychology

The implicit association test (IAT) provides a sensitive measure of attitudes to social dimensions such as race, gender or disability using a response speed procedure. The automatisation deficit account of dyslexia attributes the reading (and broader) difficulties of dyslexic people to reduced speed and strength of stimulus–response habit formation and, therefore, predicts reduced implicit bias for individuals with dyslexia. This novel prediction was tested using the ‘Project Implicit’ IAT database on attitudes to disability. Data from over 460,000 respondents was analysed, including 22,747 with physical disability (PD), 14,700 with dyslexia, and 1721 with dyscalculia. The dyslexia group did indeed show …

Assessing Benthic Recovery Below The United Kingdom's First Large-Scale, Offshore, Longline Mussel Farm, Llucia Mascorda-Cabre, Philip Hosegood, Martin Attrill, Emma Sheehan

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

The recent expansion of the aquaculture industry into the offshore marine environment is perceived to have a comparatively low environmental impact coupled with a high growth potential as a sustainable, large-scale source of healthy protein. This study assessed changes in sediment characteristics and infauna assemblages following the development of the first large-scale offshore longline mussel farm in the United Kingdom. By evaluating the effects of the farm on the sediment ecosystem and by studying infaunal sediment environmental parameters along a distance gradient away from the farm, the first before-after control-impact (BACI) study of an offshore shellfish farm is presented. Sediment …

A Geospatial Approach To Landscape Gaze Using Social Media To Evaluate How People Value Landscapes In An Urban Context, Riley Bibaud, Eva Mcgrath, Zoe Sydenham, Richard Yarwood, Tom Mullier, Siân Rees

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Urban park management generally prioritises green spaces and activities within park boundaries, rather than landscape interactions. Understanding how people experience and connect with broader landscapes is essential for improving societal environmental, economic and wellbeing outcomes. A geospatial and discourse analysis of three urban parks was conducted in Plymouth, UK. The predominant landscape gaze at each park revealed strong social ties to blue spaces–namely the coast and sea–indicating an interconnectedness between parks and coastal spaces beyond park boundaries. Textual analysis emphasised the beauty of nature, the expanse of the ocean, and the health and wellbeing benefits of blue and green spaces. …

Feature Boosting With Efficient Attention For Scene Parsing, Vivek Singh, Shailza Sharma, Fabio Cuzzolin

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The complexity of scene parsing grows with the number of object and scene classes, which is higher in unrestricted open scenes. The biggest challenge is to model the spatial relation between scene elements while succeeding in identifying objects at smaller scales. This paper presents a novel feature-boosting network that gathers spatial context from multiple levels of feature extraction and computes the attention weights for each level of representation to generate the final class labels. A novel ‘channel attention module’ is designed to compute the attention weights, ensuring that features from the relevant extraction stages are boosted while the others are …

Mixing Between Flavor Singlets In Lattice Gauge Theories Coupled To Matter Fields In Multiple Representations, Ed Bennett, Niccolò Forzano, Deog Ki Hong, Ho Hsiao, Jong Wan Lee, C. J.David Lin, Biagio Lucini, Maurizio Piai, Davide Vadacchino, Fabian Zierler

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

We provide the first extensive, numerical study of the nontrivial problem of mixing between flavor-singlet composite states emerging in strongly coupled lattice field theories with matter field content consisting of fermions transforming in different representations of the gauge group. The theory of interest is the minimal candidate for a composite Higgs model that also accommodates a mechanism for top partial compositeness: the Sp(4) gauge theory coupled to two (Dirac) fermions transforming as the fundamental and three as the two-index antisymmetric representation of the gauge group, respectively. We apply an admixture of APE smearing and Wuppertal smearings, as well as the …

Primary Care Experiences Of Adults Reporting Learning Disability: A Probability Sample Survey, Rohit Shankar

Peninsula Medical School

BACKGROUND: Adults with learning disability face multiple adversities, but evidence on their needs and primary care experiences is limited.

AIM: To compare the characteristics and primary care experiences of adults reporting learning disability with those who did not.

DESIGN AND SETTING: This was an analysis of the 2022 General Practice Patient Survey, a national probability sample survey conducted in 2022 with people registered with NHS primary care in England.

METHOD: This analysis reports descriptive profiles, weighted and with 95% confidence intervals. Logistic regression models adjusting for gender, age, ethnicity, and area-level deprivation compared experiences of adults reporting learning disability with …

Understanding Students` Attitude And Intention Towards Vocational Education And Training (Vet) In The Sultanate Of Oman, Shweta Belwal, Fatma Rashid Al Moqbali, Rakesh Belwal

Plymouth Business School

The current study investigates the influence of attitudes, subjective norms (SN), and perceived behavioural control (PBC) in understanding the intentions of Grade 11 and Grade 12 (N = 376) students in Oman to join vocational education and training (VET) institutions. The study’s objectives were twofold: to assess secondary-school students’ attitudes toward vocational education and to investigate their intentions to join VET. A quantitative approach following the partial least square-based structural equation modelling was used. According to the findings, attitudes, PBC, and SNs, exhibit a significant favourable influence on students’ intention to join VET. However, some partial invariance to the relationship …

Evaluation Of Health Recommender Systems: A Scoping Review Protocol, Ananya Ananthakrishnan, Madison Milne-Ives, Rohit Shankar, Edward Meinert

Peninsula Medical School

Background People increasingly rely on online health information for their health-related decision-making. Given the overwhelming amount of information available, the risk of misinformation is high. Health recommender systems, which recommend personalised health-related information or interventions using intelligent algorithms, have the potential to address this issue. Many such systems have been developed and evaluated individually, but there is a need to synthesise the evaluation findings to identify gaps and ensure that future recommender systems are designed to have a positive impact on health or target behaviours.Objective The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the state of the …

Questionnaire-Based Subjective Evaluation And Analysis Of Factors Influencing The Effectiveness Of Treatment With The Vacuum Bell In Children With Pectus Excavatum: A Cross-Sectional Observational Study, Lihuan Zhou, Fang Deng, Yunfei Tian, Jiayi Lin, Guihong Yang, Yunfei Li, Jos M. Latour, Xicheng Deng

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Background: Vacuum bell (VB) is a technique to treat pectus excavatum in children. Its effectiveness and influencing factors, however, remain under investigated. The aim of this study was to examine the therapeutic effect and its influencing factors of VB in children with pectus excavatum. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted. Parents of children with pectus excavatum who underwent treatment with a VB between January 2018 and December 2019 were recruited. A survey was designed based on previously related studies and delivered to the parents in September–October 2021. The therapeutic effect was analyzed using subjective experiences by parents. Factors related …

The Biad Standards: Recommendations For Archaeological Data Publication And Insights From The Big Interdisciplinary Archaeological Database, Samantha S. Reiter, Robert Staniuk, Jan Kolář, Jelena Bulatović, Helene Agerskov Rose, Natalia E. Ryabogina, Claudia Speciale, Nicoline Schjerven, Bettina Schulz Paulsson, Victor Yan Kin Lee, Elisabetta Canteri, Alice Revill, Fredrik Dahlberg, Serena Sabatini, Karin M. Frei, Fernando Racimo, Maria Ivanova-Bieg, Wolfgang Traylor, Emily J. Kate, Eve Derenne, Lea Frank, Jessie Woodbridge, Ralph Fyfe, Stephen Shennan, Kristian Kristiansen, Mark G. Thomas, Adrian Timpson

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

This article presents a series of recommendations for the publication of archaeological data, to improve their usability. These 12 recommendations were formulated by archaeological data experts who mined thousands of publications for different data types (including funerary practices, accelerator mass spectrometry dating, stable isotopes, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany and pathologies) during the initial construction of the Big Interdisciplinary Archaeological Database (BIAD). We also include data harmonisation vocabularies utilised for the integration of data from different recording systems. The case studies we cite to illustrate the recommendations are grounded in examples from the published literature and are presented in a problem/solution format. Though …

The Role Of Ontologies And Knowledge In Explainable Ai, Roberto Confalonieri, Oliver Kutz, Diego Calvanese, Jose Maria Alonso-Moral, Shang-Ming Zhou

School of Nursing and Midwifery

No abstract provided.

A Scoping Review To Map The Implications Of Reusing Single-Use Endotracheal Suctioning Catheter Practices In Mechanically Ventilated Patients, Mohamed H. Eid, Kevin Hambridge, Patricia Schofield, Jos M. Latour

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Introduction: Currently there is limited evidence of the frequency of using endotracheal suctioning catheters. Due to limited resources, many low- and middle-income countries still reuse single-use suction catheters multiple times during the length of a nursing shift. This scoping review was conducted to map the impact of reusing single-use endotracheal suctioning catheters practices on mechanically ventilated patients’ outcomes. Methods: The scoping review was conducted in accordance with the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. Four databases systematically searched using predefined keywords (CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, GLOBAL HEALTH). Key electronic journals were hand searched, while reference lists of included documents and grey literature …

Technical Design Report For The Luxe Experiment, Luxe Collaboration, H. Abramowicz, M. Almanza Soto, M. Altarelli, R. Aßmann, A. Athanassiadis, G. Avoni, T. Behnke, M. Benettoni, Y. Benhammou, J. Bhatt, T. Blackburn, C. Blanch, S. Bonaldo, S. Boogert, O. Borysov, M. Borysova, V. Boudry, D. Breton, R. Brinkmann, M. Bruschi, F. Burkart, K. Büßer, N. Cavanagh, F. Dal Corso, W. Decking, M. Deniaud, O. Diner, U. Dosselli

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This Technical Design Report presents a detailed description of all aspects of the LUXE (Laser Und XFEL Experiment), an experiment that will combine the high-quality and high-energy electron beam of the European XFEL with a high-intensity laser, to explore the uncharted terrain of strong-field quantum electrodynamics characterised by both high energy and high intensity, reaching the Schwinger field and beyond. The further implications for the search of physics beyond the Standard Model are also discussed.

Illustrated Stories Of Severe Asthma: A Case Study., John Kilburn, Darren Aoki, Rupert Jones, Alice Inman, Isabel Keen, Devon Tipping, Danielle Glover, Joseph Lanario

School of Art, Design and Architecture

This is a critical account of a project in which Illustration and oral history students developed demonstration graphic medicine artworks in response to interviews with people with severe asthma. The people with severe asthma collaborated with the students to produce the illustrated narratives as comics. The graphic medicine outputs tell the stories of how two lives changed due to new medications. This paper uses the student projects as a case study to explore the novel methodological approach. The comics demonstrate a shift in narrative authority towards the interviewees and the reader, and away from the artists who had no medical …

Intertidal Seagrass Extent From Sentinel-2 Time-Series Show Distinct Trajectories In Western Europe, Bede Ffinian Rowe Davies, Simon Oiry, Philippe Rosa, Maria Laura Zoffoli, Ana I. Sousa, Oliver R. Thomas, Dan A. Smale, Melanie C. Austen, Lauren Biermann, Martin J. Attrill, Alejandro Roman, Gabriel Navarro, Anne Laure Barillé, Nicolas Harin, Daniel Clewley, Victor Martinez-Vicente, Pierre Gernez, Laurent Barillé

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Intertidal areas, which emerge during low tide, form a vital link between terrestrial and marine environments. Seagrasses, a well-studied intertidal habitat, provide a multitude of different ecosystem goods and services. However, owing to their relatively high exposure to anthropogenic impacts, seagrasss meadows and other intertidal habitats have seen extensive declines. Remote sensing methods that can capture the spatial and temporal variation of marine habitats are essential to best assess the trajectories of seagrass ecosystems. An advanced machine learning method has been developed to map intertidal vegetation from satellite-derived surface reflectance at a 12-band multispectral resolution and distinguish between similarly pigmented …

An Investigation Of Ransomware Incidents In The Maritime Industry: Exploring The Key Risk Factors, Ömer Söner, Gizem Kayisoglu, Pelin Bolat, Kimberly Tam

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Ransomware is a subset of malicious cyberattacks that aim to hold an organization’s data or critical infrastructure at ransom, compromising or blocking access. If the attack is public or made public after the initial attack, it can also severely jeopardize an organization’s reputation. Given the direct and immediate impact ransomware attacks can have and the lack of in-depth sharing, additional research is needed to analyze ransomware incidents in order to understand the underlying causes of incidents in addition to the detection and prevention methods. In this paper, 22 public ransomware incidents within the marine industry have been investigated to determine …

Interpregnancy Maternal Weight Change Is Not Associated With Offspring Weight And Obesity At Age 2 Years, Kate Maslin, Lieveke Ameye, Diederik Vancoppenolle, Anne Rochtus, Hanne Van Uytsel, Jill Shawe, Roland Devlieger, Annick Bogaerts

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Background: Weight retention between pregnancies is associated with increased risk of perinatal complications, but it is unclear whether there is an association with offspring weight status. This study aimed to determine whether maternal interpregnancy weight change is associated with offspring overweight/obesity, controlling for confounding variables. Subjects/methods: Routinely collected linked data from perinatal and child datasets, in Flanders, Belgium were used. Women having their first and second live births between 2009–2018 were included. The association between maternal interpregnancy weight change and overweight/obesity in the second child at 2 years was examined by logistical regression models. Results: A total of 33,172 women …

The Use Of Acupuncture To Manage Dry Mouth Post-Radiotherapy In Head And Neck Cancer Patients, Yen Ming Lin, Claire Forbes-Haley

Peninsula Dental School

At University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UK), patients with xerostomiaafter head and neck radiotherapy for whom local measures have not beensuccessful are referred to the acupuncture clinic. This has been offered for thelast ten years and preliminary data has shown that it can provide symptomaticrelief to patients. This article documents a service evaluation of 45 patientswho attended the acupuncture clinic from August 2020 to August 2021.Treatment was carried out at three points in each ear as well as a point on thedistal radial aspect of each index finger. Each session lasted for 30 minutesand sessions were carried out weekly for …

Tracking Implementation Of Shark-Related Measures And Actions In The Mediterranean Region In The Context Of International Law, Jason Lowther, Lydia Koehler

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

We present national implementation progress on international and regional legal obligations up to 2020 and discuss recent developments in shark conservation management in the region. This study provides insights into the complexity of implemented measures and actions related to shark conservation and fisheries management, governed by various legal instruments. Measures were primarily identified through regional fisheries management organisations (RFMO) reports, reports of Focal Point meetings under the Barcelona Convention, and national reports under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). A total of 208 implemented measures across different categories were found. The most common …

Consequences Of How Third Sector Organisations Are Commissioned In The Nhs And Local Authorities In England: A Mixed-Methods Study, Rod Sheaff, Angela Ellis Paine, Mark Exworthy, Alex Gibson, Joanna Stuart, Véronique Jochum, Pauline Allen, Jonathan Clark, Russell Mannion, Sheena Asthana

Peninsula Medical School

Background: As a matter of policy, voluntary, community and social enterprises contribute substantially to the English health and care system. Few studies explain how the National Health Service and local authorities commission them, what outputs result, what contexts influence these outcomes and what differentiates this kind of commissioning. Objectives: To explain how voluntary, community and social enterprises are commissioned, the consequences, what barriers both parties face and what absorptive capacities they need. Design: Observational mixed-methods realist analysis: exploratory scoping, cross-sectional analysis of National Health Service Clinical Commissioning Group spending on voluntary, community and social enterprises, systematic comparison of case studies, …

'How Far I'Ve Come': The Value Of Reviewing Past Written Reflections, Rachel Leyland, Miranda Heath, Tracey Collett, Elizabeth Drake, Hilary Neve

Peninsula Medical School

Promoting reflection on experience and developing students’ reflectiveskills is an important element of curricula across the health professions.Students often do not find reflection easy and educators usea range of approaches to facilitate this. This qualitative study analysedfinal year medical students’ written reflections about important anddifficult concepts they had encountered at medical school and personalchange. As part of this, students were expected to look back ontheir written reflections from earlier years of the undergraduate programme.An initial analysis identified ‘learning from past reflections’ asan important theme. Here we report an in-depth analysis of this theme.Thirty-six final year volunteer students’ reflections were analysed …

Harvesting Tacit Knowledge For Composites Workforce Development, John Summerscales

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Explicit knowledge can often be shared through textbooks, technical papers, instruction manuals, guides, and videos. It is normally objective, logical and technical. However, tacit (implicit) knowledge is any information or skills that arise from personal and professional experiences. It is often subjective, cognitive and experiential. When an individual leaves an organisation, they can take intellectual property with them that could compromise future operations, unless that knowledge is harvested. This brief review considers how transient knowledge might be retained in an organisation.

A Bee’S-Eye View Of Landscape Change: Differences In Diet Of 2 Andrena Species (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae) Between 1943 And 2021, Clare Boyes, Jennifer K Rowntree, Emma Coulthard

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Declines in pollinating insects have been linked to changes in land cover, affecting the availability of nesting sites and floral resources. Our study is the first analysis of changes in pollen load composition of 2 mining bees, Andrena barbilabris (Kirby) and Andrena flavipes (Panzer) (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae), at the same sites in central England, over 75 years. This provides a unique opportunity to remove spatial variation and review temporal changes in pollen diet within the context of landscape change. We analyzed modern-day pollen load composition for these species and compared it with historical data from the same sites. We then examined …

Developing Our Future Research Leaders, Lisa Burrows

South West Clinical School Journal

Editorial

Can Integrated Community Education Reduce The Risk Of Hypoglycaemia Associated With Glucose Lowering Medication In Older Persons Living With Diabetes And Frailty?, Catherine Ledbetter

South West Clinical School Journal

#400WORDS: KNOWLEDGE + ACTION

Contracture Prevention: Knowledge, Understanding, And Skills Of Community Occupational Therapists And Physiotherapists: A Survey, Jo Buck, Vincent Singh

South West Clinical School Journal

#400WORDS: KNOWLEDGE + ACTION

Patient Experience Of Therapeutic Engagement Within Mental Health Services: Findings From A Literature Review, Joby Plant

South West Clinical School Journal

#400WORDS: KNOWLEDGE + ACTION