Perspectives on demand side barriers and facilitators to the employment of people with disability: qualitative interviews with hospitality employers.

Purpose: This study sought to identify barriers and facilitators to the employment of people with disabilities in small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in hospitality.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with hospitality employers ( = 35). Purposive sampling was used to recruit employers with varied experiences of employing people with disability.

Cognitive interviewing for assessing the content validity of older-person specific outcome measures for quality assessment and economic evaluation: a scoping review.

Purpose: Older people (aged ≥ 65 years) are significant users of health and social care systems. However, many outcome measures for quality assessment and economic evaluation lack content validation for this population. Cognitive interviews are a key approach for generating content validity evidence.

Enzyme Activity Inhibition of α-Amylase Using Molecularly Imprinted Polymer (MIP) Hydrogel Microparticles.

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are a class of synthetic recognition materials that offer a cost-effective and robust alternative to antibodies. While MIPs have found predominant use in biosensing and diagnostic applications, their potential for alternative uses, such as enzyme inhibition, remains unexplored. In this work, we synthesized a range of acrylamide-based hydrogel MIP microparticles (35 μm) specific for the recognition of α-amylase.

What do people with intellectual disabilities, their family members and paid carers understand about psychotropic medication? A rapid review.

Background: People with intellectual disabilities are more likely to be prescribed psychotropic medication than the general population and are frequently prescribed multiple medications. Understanding people with intellectual disabilities and carer perspectives is essential to improving the quality of psychotropic medication prescribing and usage.

Method: A rapid review explored people with intellectual disabilities' understanding of psychotropic medications, as well as family members and paid carers, and how this understanding can be improved.

The Caring Life Course Theory: Opening new frontiers in care-A cardiac rehabilitation example.

Aim(s): To operationalize the Caring Life Course Theory (CLCT) as a framework for improving cardiac rehabilitation (CR) engagement and informing ways to address disparities in rural, low socio-economic areas.

Methods: A secondary analysis of data collected from 15 CR programmes to identify CR patterns through the CLCT lens using a mixed-methods approach. All analytical processes were conducted in NVivo, coding qualitative data through thematic analysis based on CLCT constructs.

What is the economic and social return on investment for telephone cancer information and support services in Australia? An evaluative social return on investment study protocol.

Introduction: Over 50% of people affected by cancer report unmet support needs. To address unmet information and psychological needs, non-government organisations such as Cancer Councils (Australia) have developed state-based telephone cancer information and support services. Due to competing demands, evidence of the value of these services is needed to ensure that future investment makes the best use of scarce resources.

Calculating the social impact of home automation for people with disability: A social return on investment study.

Introduction: Home automation can deliver important outcomes for people with disabilities, including enhanced independence. Despite the millions of dollars spent on home automation in Australia and other developed nations, to date, there has been no economic evaluation of this type of assistive technology.

Method: A social return on investment analysis of home automation study was undertaken.

Reliability of the quality of life-aged care consumers (QOL-ACC) and EQ-5D-5L among older people using aged care services at home.

Purpose: The Quality of Life-Aged Care Consumers (QOL-ACC), a valid preference-based instrument, has been rolled out in Australia as part of the National Quality Indicator (QI) program since April 2023 to monitor and benchmark the quality of life of aged care recipients. As the QOL-ACC is being used to collect quality of life data longitudinally as one of the key aged care QI indicators, it is imperative to establish the reliability of the QOL-ACC in aged care settings. Therefore, we aimed to assess the reliability of the QOL-ACC and compare its performance with the EQ-5D-5L.

Further Evidence of Feasibility, Validity, and Reliability of Quality of Life-Aged Care Consumers: Evidence From Home-Based Care Settings.

Objectives: The Quality of Life-Aged Care Consumers (QOL-ACC) is an aged-care-specific preference-based instrument currently being rolled out in residential care across Australia as part of the aged care Quality Indicator program. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the feasibility, reliability, and construct validity of the QOL-ACC in a large national sample of older adults receiving aged care services at home.

Methods: Older adults receiving in-home aged care services completed a survey including the QOL-ACC, Quality of Care Experience-ACC, adult social care outcome tool, EQ-5D-5L, and 2 global single item measures of health and quality of life.

The process of co-designing a model of social prescribing: An Australian case study.

Introduction: Social needs such as housing, employment, food, income and social isolation are having a significant impact on individuals, families and communities. Individuals are increasingly presenting to health settings with social needs, which are ill-equipped to address nonmedical needs. Social prescribing is a systematic approach connecting the health, social and community sectors to better address social needs and improve health and wellbeing.

Age-related differences in saccadic indices of top-down guidance via short-term memory during visual search.

Aging has been associated with significant declines in the speed and accuracy of visual search. These effects have been attributed partly to low-level (bottom-up) factors including reductions in sensory acuity and general processing speed. Aging is also associated with changes in top-down attentional control, but the impact of these on search is less well-understood.

Reframing reentry: Understanding how reentry programming affects the well-being and quality of life of returning citizens.

This study examined the experiences returning citizens (RCs) have in participating in different reentry programs and how these experiences may lead to improved well-being and quality of life (QOL). We conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with RCs participating in employment-oriented reentry programs. The interviews focused on participants' reentry programming experience and areas affecting their well-being (e.

Ectomycorrhizal fungi alter soil food webs and the functional potential of bacterial communities.

Most of Earth's trees rely on critical soil nutrients that ectomycorrhizal fungi (EcMF) liberate and provide, and all of Earth's land plants associate with bacteria that help them survive in nature. Yet, our understanding of how the presence of EcMF modifies soil bacterial communities, soil food webs, and root chemistry requires direct experimental evidence to comprehend the effects that EcMF may generate in the belowground plant microbiome. To this end, we grew plants in soils that were either inoculated with EcMF and native forest bacterial communities or only native bacterial communities.

Clinical effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation and barriers to completion in patients of low socioeconomic status in rural areas: A mixed-methods study.

Objective: To investigate cardiac rehabilitation utilisation and effectiveness, factors, needs and barriers associated with non-completion.

Design: We used the mixed-methods design with concurrent triangulation of a retrospective cohort and a qualitative study.

Setting: Economically disadvantaged areas in rural Australia.

Examining interrater agreement between self-report and proxy-report responses for the quality of life-aged care consumers (QOL-ACC) instrument.

Background: Quality of life is an important quality indicator for health and aged care sectors. However, self-reporting of quality of life is not always possible given the relatively high prevalence of cognitive impairment amongst older people, hence proxy reporting is often utilised as the default option. Internationally, there is little evidence on the impact of proxy perspective on interrater agreement between self and proxy report.

Changes in lumbar muscle diffusion tensor indices with age.

Objective: To investigate differences in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters and proton density fat fraction (PDFF) in the spinal muscles of younger and older adult males.

Methods: Twelve younger (19-30 years) and 12 older (61-81years) healthy, physically active male participants underwent T1, T2, Dixon and DTI of the lumbar spine. The eigenvalues (, , and ), fractional anisotropy (FA), and mean diffusivity (MD) from the DTI together with the PDFF were determined in the multifidus, medial and lateral erector spinae (ESmed, ESlat), and quadratus lumborum (QL) muscles.

Postmortem imaging of fetuses at early gestations: A comparison of microfocus computed tomography with postmortem magnetic resonance at 9.4 T and postmortem ultrasound.

Objective: To compare the diagnostic performance of postmortem ultrasound (PMUS), 9.4 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and microfocus computed tomography (micro-CT) for the examination of early gestation fetuses.

Method: Eight unselected fetuses (10-15 weeks gestational age) underwent at least 2 of the 3 listed imaging examinations.

Manufacturing of high strength and high conductivity copper with laser powder bed fusion.

Additive manufacturing (AM), known as 3D printing, enables rapid fabrication of geometrically complex copper (Cu) components for electrical conduction and heat management applications. However, pure Cu or Cu alloys produced by 3D printing often suffer from either low strength or low conductivity at room and elevated temperatures. Here, we demonstrate a design strategy for 3D printing of high strength, high conductivity Cu by uniformly dispersing a minor portion of lanthanum hexaboride (LaB) nanoparticles in pure Cu through laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF).

hnRNP A1 dysfunction alters RNA splicing and drives neurodegeneration in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Neurodegeneration is the primary driver of disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS) resulting in permanent disability, creating an urgent need to discover its underlying mechanisms. Herein, we establish that dysfunction of the RNA binding protein heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 (hnRNP A1) results in differential of binding to RNA targets causing alternative RNA splicing, which contributes to neurodegeneration in MS and its models. Using RNAseq of MS brains, we discovered differential expression and aberrant splicing of hnRNP A1 target RNAs involved in neuronal function and RNA homeostasis.

Exploring older people's understanding of the QOL-ACC, a new preference-based quality-of-life measure, for quality assessment and economic evaluation in aged care: the impact of cognitive impairment and dementia.

Background: Quality-of-life is an essential outcome for quality assessment and economic evaluation in health and social care. The-Quality-of-Life - Aged Care Consumers (QOL-ACC) is a new preference-based quality-of-life measure, psychometrically validated with older people in aged care. More evidence is needed to inform the self-report reliability of the QOL-ACC in older people with varying levels of cognitive impairment and dementia.

Patient Reidentification from Chest Radiographs: An Interpretable Deep Metric Learning Approach and Its Applications.

Purpose: To train an explainable deep learning model for patient reidentification in chest radiograph datasets and assess changes in model-perceived patient identity as a marker for emerging radiologic abnormalities in longitudinal image sets.

Materials And Methods: This retrospective study used a set of 1 094 537 frontal chest radiographs and free-text reports from 259 152 patients obtained from six hospitals between 2006 and 2019, with validation on the public ChestX-ray14, CheXpert, and MIMIC-CXR datasets. A deep learning model was trained for patient reidentification and assessed on patient identity confirmation, retrieval of patient images from a database based on a query image, and radiologic abnormality prediction in longitudinal image sets.

Development and validation of open-source deep neural networks for comprehensive chest x-ray reading: a retrospective, multicentre study.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) systems for automated chest x-ray interpretation hold promise for standardising reporting and reducing delays in health systems with shortages of trained radiologists. Yet, there are few freely accessible AI systems trained on large datasets for practitioners to use with their own data with a view to accelerating clinical deployment of AI systems in radiology. We aimed to contribute an AI system for comprehensive chest x-ray abnormality detection.