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Thriving digital marketing firm shows apprenticeships are the way forward

Rob Goulding
Sun, 9 April 2023 

At the High Sheriff's Awards for Enterprise 2023, from left to right: Boodles chairman, Nicholas Wainwright MBE; High Sheriff of Cheshire, Jeannie France-Hayhurst; award-winner, Joe Worthington; award sponsor Barlow's representive, Paddy Moran (Image: David Goadby)

A NORTHWICH digital marketing firm is showing how investing in young talent is the way forward when growing a modern business.

David Goadby, creative and managing director of Authenticity Digital, had to make his own way in life from age 16, but thanks to an apprenticeship, found himself director of a digital marketing company in his mid-30s.

Handling contracts for prestige firms like Rolex, Fiat, and Wolverhampton Wonderers, David began to wonder why it was him putting-in the hours and his boss driving around in the Bentley.


In 2019, the 39-year-old took the plunge and started Authenticity in Northwich, and based on his own experience of apprenticeships, believed he could make it work for his business.

Northwich Guardian: David Goadby (left) and Joe Worthington (right) putting their heads together

David Goadby (left) and Joe Worthington (right) putting their heads together (Image: David Goadby)

Now David first apprentice, Joe Worthington, has been named runner-up Apprentice of the Year for Cheshire at the High Sheriff’s Awards for Enterprise.

David said: “I found Joe through a Linkedin post by his mum, saying he was looking for an opportunity in digital marketing.

“He ticked a few boxes for me, so we had a quick chat, and I brought him on board.

“That was still during Covid, so it was all a bit stop-start. He was in the office one day, then at home the next, which when you’re trying to pick-up projects and clients in a small business means you’ve got to have a lot of heart.

“Having the character to get through that was really impressive, and now Joe is an integral part of the business.

"If he leaves tomorrow for something bigger and better, so be it. That’s the way it goes, and if I’ve given him a start in a career, then that’s great.

“Apprenticeships work fantastically for me because I’ve got a lot of experience working with young developers, programmers, and designers over the years.

“Someone gave me a fantastic opportunity, so I’ve got to pay it forward.”

Northwich Guardian: Runner-up Cheshire apprentice of the year, Joe Worthington, hard at work

Runner-up Cheshire apprentice of the year, Joe Worthington, hard at work (Image: David Goadby)

The awards ceremony took place at the prestigious Churchill House, home of the University of Chester’s business school, on Friday, March 31.

It was attended by the High Sheriff, Jeannie France-Hayhurst, the Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire, Lady Alexis Redmond, and additional sparkle was provided by Nicholas Wainwright MBE, chairman of renowned fine jewellers, Boodles.

Award-winner Joe, 27, said: "I'm incredibly grateful for this recognition and proud to be among the top apprentices in Cheshire.

"Thanks to everyone who has supported me on this journey, and congratulations to the winner.

"I may not have won the top prize, but I was a runner-up, and I'm pretty sure this means I'm officially allowed to add ‘almost award-winning’ to my LinkedIn profile."

Bank that opened world's first ATM given heritage status

Dalya Alberge
Mon, 10 April 2023

Comedian Reg Varney examines a bank note as he officially opens the world's first ATM in June 1967 - Mirrorpix

Just as high street banks and cash machines are being closed across Britain to the despair of customers, one branch is literally being consigned to history - with an extraordinary heritage listing.

Historic England has added a Barclays bank in the London suburb of Enfield to its National Heritage List for England, a unique register of the country's most significant historic buildings and sites, it will be announced today.

The Grade II listing recognises that it was the first bank in the world to be fitted with an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), while also acknowledging the building’s architectural interest.


Although the branch is still trading, its customers may be concerned by a sentence on Historic England’s website about its register, which notes: “The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.”

As the Telegraph reported in January, Barclays have closed nearly a thousand branches since 2015. Having been a familiar sight on Britain’s high streets for centuries, it has shut more branches than any other bank.

Last September another report warned that more than 37,000 free-to-use machines were at risk of closure.

The bank, in Enfield, London, was built in 1897 and opened the world's first ATM 70 years later

 - Chris Redgrave/Historic England Archive

Heritage listing 'ironic'

Simon Fell, the Conservative MP for Barrow and Furness, and co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking, told the Telegraph: “We see bank branches closing all around us, so this heritage listing is somewhat ironic. Banks certainly are part of our heritage.

“Some of the most beautiful buildings in my own constituency are former banks, now transformed into wine bars and cafes. Regeneration is all well and good, but we need to maintain the link between the high street and access to finance.’

He added: “Not everyone can go online and deal with an AI chatbot to have their query answered, and certainly people in a rush who are concerned about their mortgages and loans should not have to wait in an endless phone queue to speak to a call centre overseas.”

Peter Dowd, Labour MP for Bootle and former shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “I’m concerned about bank closures and what banks collectively might do to protect the service on the high street. The heritage listing is recognition of that building’s significance to the community. That is the irony.”

Crowds gather to catch a glimpse of the cash machine in action following its grand unveiling - Mirrorpix

The ATM at the bank was officially first opened in 1967 by the comedian Reg Varney. The machine issued a £10-note on receipt of a special paper voucher inserted by the customer.

Although the prototype device has long been removed, a commemorative plaque marks its original location at the site, which is located at 20 The Town in Enfield.

Historic England said: “[This was] a major technological development in both banking practice and the general automation within modern society and is of worldwide significance.”

The listing also recognises the building’s “historic and architectural” significance.

William Gilbee Scott’s purpose-built bank won an 1896 competition held for the new branch of the London and Provincial Bank, and was once described as an “exuberant Flemish Renaissance” by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner.

Will ChatGPT replace computational materials scientists?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BEIJING INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PRESS CO., LTD

 

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS FROM ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY DISCUSSED THE POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS OF CHATGPT IN COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS SCIENCE view more 

CREDIT: [LIZHE HU & ZIJIAN HONG, ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY]

“ChatGPT is a very impressive tool,” said paper author Zijian Hong, professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, China. “As a computational materials scientist, I’m always eager to embrace new tools, in particular, new tools in computer science and AI. Since the born of the new ChatGPT, I’m just wondering whether such a tool can assist us in computational materials science”

Hong explained that for a computational materials task, there are three main steps: building a model or a structure, writing codes for specific scientific software, and preparing data visualization scripts. To test the capability of ChatGPT, he examined it from these aspects.

“ChatGPT can help us prepare scripts to build atomic structure, i.e., the cif file, scripts for running a DFT calculation, and scripts for data visualization”, Hong said. “At least it is trying to help us from chat, although the scripts are not working at all when I accessed on Feb. 20, 2023.”

“But what surprised me is the ability to evolve and learn from communications”, Hong added, “When I accessed 20 days later, it gives me different answers, towards the correct answer. And if I give more hints, such as the correct lattice structure, it can correct by itself, just like a human being.”

“It is still not perfect for sure. For example, it still makes simple mistakes, the consistency of the output is not guaranteed, and the ethical concerns are still there.” Hong said. “But change is really near the corner, for computational materials science. We should embrace it rather than avoid it.”

This work is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and a startup fund from Zhejiang University.

JOURNAL

Energy Material Advances

DOI

10.34133/energymatadv.0026 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

ChatGPT for Computational Materials Science: A Perspective

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2023

Japanese universities become latest to restrict use of ChatGPT

Vishwam Sankaran
Mon, 10 April 2023 

Japanese universities are curtailing students’ use of the OpenAI chatbot ChatGPT amid concerns about information leaks from the use of the artificial intelligence tool.

Tokyo’s Sophia University banned the use of the chatbot by students to write assignments such as essays, reports, and theses.

“The use of text, programme source code, calculation results generated by ChatGPT and other AI chatbots is not permitted on any assignments such as reaction papers, reports, essays and thesis, as they are not created by the student themselves,” the university noted in new guidelines published recently on its official website.

“If the use is confirmed by detection tools, etc, strict measures will be taken in accordance with the University’s Disciplinary Rules on Misconduct,” it added.

OpenAI released ChatGPT in November last year and the chatbot immediately gained prominence online with experts praising the AI tool’s ability to respond to user queries with human-like output.

The chatbot has demonstrated the ability to summarise research studies and answer logical questions and has also cracked business school and medical exams crucial for students to pass.

Citing some of these advances, several AI experts also have warned that there could be significant disruptions, especially in academia due to the breakthrough technology.

Others have also warned the AI’s nature to provide plausible-sounding but incorrect responses with glaring mistakes to some queries.

In areas where the AI does not have sufficient knowledge, experts have flagged that it may confidently provide incorrect answers that may mislead people, adding that its use may also result in copyright infringement.

Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of Science journals, had warned earlier this year that text generated by “ChatGPT (or any other AI tools) cannot be used in the work submitted to the outlets, adding that violation of the new policies may constitute “scientific misconduct” in the same league as plagiarism.

The University of Tokyo also published a new document on its internal website with updated guidelines on the use of AI chatbots which noted that “reports must be created by students themselves and cannot be created solely with the help of AI.”

In a set of instructions for teachers, Tohoku University noted that while it is “not realistic” to completely eliminate the use of tools like ChatGPT, “especially after class hours,” there can be major problems for students’ own learning if they use generative AI for compiling reports that may lead to “strict grade evaluation.”

“Assuming that many students will use it, we will take measures as necessary,” the university noted.

The university also warned its teachers that while using generation AI tools for assessing and translating unpublished research results, the data can be unintentionally leaked to the service provider, “partially or completely”.

“By using input to generation AI and translation sites as learning data, it is presented as an answer to other users, and there is also a concern that information will be leaked. Please be very careful,” Tohoku University said, adding that a similar scenario may play out for other confidential information.

“There is a risk that information that should not be leaked to the outside, such as information about the entrance examination and personal information of students and faculty members, will be transmitted to service providers through generation AI, etc, and there is a risk that it will be presented as an answer to other users,” it said.

The university also advised faculty to check “how AI will respond before assigning exercises and reports” to students.

Italy previously banned the use of ChatGPT last month with data protection authorities saying the AI service would be investigated over privacy concerns.

Authorities said the AI system does not have a proper legal basis to collect personal information about the people using it.

Last week Germany also said it is considering a ban of ChatGPT due to privacy concerns.

Other data regulators across Europe, including watchdogs in France and Ireland, are also reportedly in conversation with Italian authorities to understand the basis for their ban.

GEN-Z-CRYPTO CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

FTX bosses joked about losing millions of dollars, damning report claims

Oliver Gill
Mon, 10 April 2023 

SBF - David Dee Delgado/Reuters

FTX bosses joked about losing tens of millions of dollars and signed off expenses with emojis, according to a damning official filing into the crypto exchange's collapse.

Founder Sam Bankman-Fried and senior executives are accused of “hubris, incompetence, and greed” in a 39-page report published by FTX's restructuring experts.

A tight-knit group of individuals “stifled dissent, commingled and misused corporate and customer funds, lied to third parties about their business, joked internally about their tendency to lose track of millions of dollars in assets”, the report found.


It said that Mr Bankman-Fried claimed FTX's trading arm Alameda Research was “hilariously beyond any threshold of any auditor being able to even get partially through an audit”

According to the report, Mr Bankman-Fried said: “Alameda is unauditable. I don’t mean this in the sense of ‘a major accounting firm will have reservations about auditing it’; I mean this in the sense of ‘we are only able to ballpark what its balances are, let alone something like a comprehensive transaction history.’

“We sometimes find $50m of assets lying around that we lost track of; such is life.”

The report goes on to reveal that money transfers were not properly documented.

It said: “To make matters worse, Slack, Signal, and other informal methods of communication were frequently used to document approvals. Signal and Telegram were at times utilised in communications with both internal and external parties with “disappearing messages” enabled, rendering any historical review impossible.

“Expenses and invoices of the FTX Group were submitted on Slack and were approved by ‘emoji.’ These informal, ephemeral messaging systems were used to procure approvals for transfers in the tens of millions of dollars, leaving only informal records of such transfers, or no records at all.”

Veteran restructuring executive John J. Ray III, who ran the insolvency of Enron two decades ago, is overseeing FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Mr Ray’s “first interim report” includes the findings of more than one million company documents and 19 employee interviews.

Mr Ray said: “We are releasing the first report in the spirit of transparency that we promised since the beginning of the Chapter 11 process.”

FTX collapsed last November after analysts raised questions about its solvency.

As Mr Bankman-Fried’s empire imploded, further questions about alleged wrongdoing have been raised.

He has been charged with fraud and breaches of campaign-finance law and after pleading not guilty is due to face trial in November.

The debtors’ report found that FTX was operated at the most senior level by Mr Bankman-Fried, minority shareholder Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh, who joined from Alameda.

Mr Singh pleaded guilty in February to fraud as part of a cooperation deal with prosecutors.

Mr Wang and Caroline Ellison, Mr Bankman-Fried ex-girlfriend and former chief executive of Alameda, pleaded guilty last year to charges in connection to their roles at FTX and Alameda Research and are working with the US government.

David Attenborough’s online Wild Isles isn’t too hard-hitting for TV – it doesn’t go far enough

Dave Goulson
Mon, 10 April 2023 


It was with some trepidation that I began viewing the online-only episode of David Attenborough’s latest documentary series, Wild Isles. The episode, Saving Our Wild Isles, focuses on the threats facing British wildlife and those fighting to save it.

Rumours had abounded that the BBC dared not broadcast this final episode on television because it was too hard-hitting, with some suggesting it was too critical of government action or inaction. I braced myself, expecting images of rivers polluted with plastics, sewage and pesticides, tales of dwindling numbers of insects, birds and mammals, of ancient woodlands destroyed, overfished seas, mature urban trees felled, meadows ploughed, raptors such as golden eagles poisoned, the climate crisis running amok.

I need not have worried. Although there was passing mention of some awfully depressing statistics, the film is deliberately uplifting and overwhelmingly positive. It focuses on heartwarming projects that are restoring nature, from the London docklands to the arable fields of East Anglia, and north to the wilds of Cairngorm. These examples show that people benefit from and need nature, and that we can all get involved in protecting it.

I recommend that you watch it, but I worry.

We face an existential crisis. Those of us who have been on this planet for half a century or more have lived through the greatest loss of wildlife on our planet for 65m years, since a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs. Climate breakdown is accelerating. Our civilisation, our children’s health and wellbeing, and the future of much of the life that remains on our planet, hangs in the balance.

For at least 30 years it has been painfully obvious that we are heading for disaster, yet our response has been woefully inadequate. Successive governments have abjectly failed to grasp the importance of the threat we face. There have always been wonderful people swimming against the tide, defending the environment, but they are far too few.

Watching Saving Our Wild Isles, you might imagine that the tide is finally turning. It isn’t.

Recently, our government ignored the advice of its own scientific committee and granted a derogation allowing sugar beet farmers to use a banned neonicotinoid pesticide. Just last month it pushed back proposed bans on horticultural use of peat – a vital store of carbon that is extracted from a rare and biodiverse habitat – until 2030. Much needed reintroductions of missing species such as beavers are blocked or delayed.

The new farming subsidy known as environmental land management schemes (ELMs), which seemed quite promising when first announced, has been stalled, watered-down and botched in implementation such that most farmers have been left feeling bewildered and unsupported. Oil and gas exploration are being encouraged, and a new coalmine opened. Raw sewage is being dumped into England’s rivers on average 800 times a day. Environmental legislation inherited from Europe is being torched. Without support from government, the actions of a few individuals fighting for nature will never be enough.

Environmentalists have been saying “it is not yet too late” for a long time. In reality it is already too late to avoid much worse damage than we have already seen, and whatever we do now the climate crisis will continue to worsen.

Saving Our Wild Isles is charming, and perhaps it will inspire a few more people to do more for nature, but I was hoping for something different, something that might really wake us up to the dismal state of our country.

David Attenborough is a hero to many of us, and no one has done more to champion the wonders of our natural world. Perhaps he might yet persuade the BBC to commission the hard-hitting, kick-up-the-arse documentary we really need.

Dave Goulson is a professor of biology at the University of Sussex, where he specialises in bee ecology

UK spent almost £500,000 on unused support scheme for energy firms

Alex Lawson
THE GUARDIAN

Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

The Treasury spent almost half a million pounds on an unused emergency scheme for energy traders launched by Liz Truss that was quietly closed earlier this year.

The energy markets financing scheme (EMFS) was devised by the Treasury and the Bank of England as a £40bn government-guaranteed backstop fund to provide stability for energy and financial markets.

The scheme was designed to offer energy traders liquidity to deal with massive margin calls – demands from brokers to deposit further cash or securities to cover possible losses – but was shut in January as a sharp fall in wholesale gas prices earlier this year eased pressure on energy firms.

In response to a freedom of information request by the Guardian, the Treasury said it spent £465,000 on “external technical consultants to support the creation of the EMFS”.

It said that 11 commercial banks and 20 energy firms were invited to technical video calls with the Treasury relating to the scheme. Energy firms would have applied jointly with a bank but no applications were made during a window from October to late January.

FTI Consulting, the global management consultancy, received £400,000 for its advisory role, while the law firm Hogan Lovells received £65,000.

The government contract was originally worth up to £4.9m for FTI to provide market research and consultancy services, according to analysis by the data firm Tussell.

Truss announced the scheme in September as part of a package of measures to prevent the energy crisis causing further damage during the winter. The then prime minister also announced support for households and businesses, both of those schemes were later pared back to reduce the cost.

The Treasury said: “The scheme was introduced as part of a range of contingency measures to support the energy sector.

“Since the launch of the scheme prices in the wholesale gas markets have declined markedly and this has reduced some of the pressure facing eligible energy firms.”

It added: “Due to improvements in market conditions since the launch of the scheme, energy firms were able to access the necessary lines of credit from commercial lenders without the need for the government-backed guarantee.

“The EMFS was designed to supplement existing commercial financing where this alone was not sufficient with penal pricing and conditions upon drawdown set so it would only be used if commercial and competitively priced financing was unavailable on the market. It was not intended to replace commercial lending.”

The Bank of England refused to state how much it spent on its part in the creation of the EMFS.

Industry sources said that strict conditions preventing companies paying bonuses to executives or dividends to shareholders after using the scheme had also deterred energy companies.

The government’s spending on energy support schemes has been under intense scrutiny as households and businesses attempt to cope with the high bills inflated by the gas prices linked to the war in Ukraine.

In his budget, Jeremy Hunt made a U-turn on a plan to make household support less generous but has stuck with a cut in financial energy aid for businesses, which began on 1 April.

The support for firms has been labelled “scattergun” by business groups, which have warned that many are now considering closure in the face of unaffordable bills.

Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UKHospitality, which represents pubs, restaurants and hotels, said: “The significant reduction in energy support comes as a hammer blow to thousands of hospitality businesses that are already struggling with extortionate energy bills that are already double what they were a year ago.

“This could not come at a worse time as venues continue to also grapple with record food and drink price inflation, which is showing no signs of slowing down.”

Experts examine the safety of probiotics

Scientific group confirms probiotics are generally safe and provides comprehensive guidance on potential probiotic risks

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION FOR PROBIOTICS AND PREBIOTICS

Scientific evidence assessing the benefits and risks of probiotics continues to accumulate. With new types of probiotics being introduced on the market and healthcare professionals recommending probiotic use in populations other than generally healthy individuals, continual attention to probiotic safety is warranted.

A new review by experts in probiotic science considers if emerging evidence raises any new safety concerns for probiotics. The review provides a comprehensive list of potential probiotic risks, along with recommendations for assessing whether a given probiotic product is safe. The 17 experts, specialists in microbiology, food science, pediatrics, family medicine and related fields, were convened by the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP). The experts aimed to provide both scientists and healthcare professionals with guidance on how to assess probiotic safety—including for strains without a history of safe use.

Corresponding author Dr. Mary Ellen Sanders, PhD, says, “While traditional probiotics have a good safety record based on many published clinical trials and history of safe use, not all uses of probiotics are equally safe. This paper emphasizes that probiotics administered to at-risk populations must be fit-for-purpose, which in some cases requires additional safety scrutiny.”

The experts acknowledged in this paper the increased reporting of microbiome data in probiotic studies. A few isolated studies have suggested that certain probiotic preparations may adversely affect the microbiome, through reduction of diversity or hindering microbiome recovery after antibiotics. This review concludes that such observations, while interesting mechanistically, lack evidence of clinical or health-related impact, and therefore do not pose actionable safety concerns.

The authors provide recommendations for addressing possible probiotic risks, including issues specific to probiotic strains, quality of probiotic manufacture, and risks inherent to practices of probiotic administration.  Potential concerns about probiotic safety were considered from both acute and long-term safety perspectives.

First author Prof. Daniel Merenstein, MD, says, “Probiotics have been proven to have efficacy in several indications. But as is the case with every intervention, there is always the potential for harm. Human trials need to do a better job of assessing harm and we hope this article provides current perspective on how to properly do this. Existing literature demonstrates that probiotics have a very good acute safety record. However, like almost all interventions we use in medicine, the long term impact is understudied.”

The authors say for novel probiotics, analyzing the entire genetic makeup of a microorganism is a cornerstone for assessing its safety. Not only does this allow precise strain identification, but it can also illuminate any genes of concern, which may confer toxigenicity, pathogenicity or antibiotic resistance.

The review provides important guidance for healthcare professionals who currently recommend probiotics to their patients, and serves as a call for continued attention to probiotic safety in future scientific studies.

About ISAPP

ISAPP is a nonprofit organization founded in 2002 to advance the science of probiotics and prebiotics, and more recently synbiotics, postbiotics, and fermented foods. ISAPP communicates scientifically accurate information to healthcare providers, scientists, consumers, and regulatory bodies through its many resources. For more information about ISAPP, see www.ISAPPscience.org.

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JOURNAL

Gut Microbes

DOI

10.1080/19490976.2023.2185034 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

Why did the mpox (monkeypox) epidemic wane? Belgian researchers propose theory

Reports and Proceedings

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

**Note: the release below is from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2023, Copenhagen, 15-18 April). Please credit the conference if you use this story**

Did the recent mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) outbreak end because of “network immunity”?  That’s the theory being put forward by Belgian researchers at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Copenhagen, Denmark (15-18 April).

2022 saw a global outbreak of mpox, a viral infection that had not previously been documented as having sustained person-to-person transmission outside of Africa. There were more than 85,000 cases worldwide, with men who have sex with men at highest risk.

Cases rose rapidly from May 2022, before starting to decline a few months later. The reasons the outbreak waned are unclear.

Researcher Dr Christophe Van Dijck, of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium, says: “The rapid rise in cases in May 2022 was likely caused by efficient viral transmission during sexual contact between individuals with high partner turnover in a dense and geographically extended sexual network.

“Insufficient knowledge of the disease as well as asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission may have enhanced disease spreading. “

The subsequent decline in the epidemic after July 2022 remains insufficiently explained. Possible explanations include improved awareness and behavioural change in the population at risk and acquisition of vaccination- or infection-induced immunity.

“However, in most countries including Belgium, the decline in mpox cases had already started before a substantial proportion of the population at risk had been vaccinated.”

Thus, Dr Van Dijck and colleagues hypothesised that the epidemic waned due to a change in the behaviour of the population at risk.

To find out more, they used two sets of data collected at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in 2022. All participants provided informed consent.

The first set of data was from a questionnaire filled in at diagnosis by individuals with mpox.

Among the 155 individuals with mpox, 95.5% were gay and bisexual men who have sex with men (GBMSM) and the median number of sexual partners in the previous three weeks was two.

Individuals diagnosed with mpox at the beginning of the epidemic reported more partners than those later in the epidemic (decline of 0.86 partners per week).

The second set of data was from a questionnaire filled in by men who were attending a clinic at the Institute for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP, a drug that reduces the risk of getting HIV).

For the purposes of the analysis the PrEP users were divided into two groups, core PrEP-users (those with a history of syphilis infection) and non-core PrEP-users (no history of syphilis). A history of syphilis was used as a proxy for more risky sexual behaviour in the past: a person who had syphilis is probably more centrally located in the sexual network than someone who never had syphilis. 

Among 1,322 PrEP-users, 99.6% were GBMSM, of whom 55.9% visited the clinic repeatedly in 2022. At first visit, the median number of sexual partners in the previous three months was five. Core-group PrEP-users reported consistently more partners than non-core-group PrEP-users.

The number of partners in both the core and non-core-groups increased throughout 2022.

Dr Van Dijck says: “The decline in number of partners reported by individuals diagnosed with mpox towards the end of the epidemic suggests a change in behaviour of the population at risk. However, this was not corroborated by data from the PrEP population, where the overall number of sexual partners increased over time.

“Therefore, we propose an alternative hypothesis: core members of the sexual network were infected with mpox first, peripheral members later. Infection-induced immunity of the individuals at the core of the sexual network generated ‘network immunity’ which halted the epidemic.

“We are currently working on serological and modelling studies to establish whether this hypothesis is true.

“In the meantime, we need to be aware that future mpox outbreaks may occur if the ‘network immunity’ is disturbed, for example by waning immunity of infected or vaccinated persons or when previously uninfected, peripheral members of the sexual network become more sexually active.”

Notes to editors:

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

This press release is based on oral presentation MMK0602 at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) annual meeting. The material has been peer reviewed by the congress selection committee.  There is no full paper at this stage and, because this is an oral presentation, there isn’t a poster

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ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Apr-2023

The Lancet Public Health: Hearing aids may protect against a higher risk of dementia associated with hearing loss, study suggests

Peer-Reviewed Publication

THE LANCET

Peer-reviewed / Observational study / People

The Lancet Public Health: Hearing aids may protect against a higher risk of dementia associated with hearing loss, study suggests

• Study of 437,704 people suggests those experiencing hearing loss and not using hearing aids may have a higher risk of dementia than people without hearing loss. Those using hearing aids did not appear to be at an increased risk of dementia.
• After adjusting for other factors, study analysis suggests a 1.7% risk of dementia in people with hearing loss who are not using hearing aids, compared to 1.2% among those without hearing loss or who are experiencing hearing loss but using hearing aids. 
• Authors call for greater public awareness of the potential protective effects of hearing aids against dementia, increased accessibility to hearing aids by reducing cost and more support for primary care workers to screen for hearing impairment, raise awareness, and deliver treatment such as fitting hearing aids. 

People experiencing hearing loss who are not using a hearing aid may have a higher risk of dementia than people without hearing loss, suggests a new study published in The Lancet Public Health journal. However, using a hearing aid may reduce this risk to the same level as people without hearing loss.

Dementia and hearing loss are common conditions among older adults. The Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care, published in 2020, suggested that hearing loss may be linked to around 8% of worldwide dementia cases [1], therefore, addressing hearing impairment could be a crucial way to reduce the global burden of dementia.

“The evidence is building that hearing loss may be the most impactful modifiable risk factor for dementia in mid-life, but the effectiveness of hearing aid use on reducing the risk of dementia in the real world has remained unclear. Our study provides the best evidence to date to suggest that hearing aids could be a minimally invasive, cost-effective treatment to mitigate the potential impact of hearing loss on dementia,” says corresponding author Prof. Dongshan Zhu, Shandong University (China). [2]

The researchers looked at data from 437,704 people who were part of the UK Biobank database [3]. Information on the presence of hearing loss and use of hearing aids was collected via self-reported questionnaires, and dementia diagnoses were determined using hospital records and death register data. The average age of study participant at recruitment was 56 years old, and the average follow-up time was 12 years.

Around three-quarters of the participants (325,882/437,704) had no hearing loss, and the remaining one-quarter (111,822) had some level of hearing loss. Among those with hearing loss, 11.7% (13,092 / 111,822) used hearing aids.

After controlling for other factors, the study suggests that, compared to participants with normal hearing, people with hearing loss not using hearing aids had a 42% higher risk of all-cause dementia, while no increased risk was found in people with hearing loss who used hearing aids. 

This is approximately equivalent to a 1.7% risk of dementia in people with hearing loss who are not using hearing aids, compared to 1.2% among those without hearing loss or who are experiencing hearing loss but using hearing aids.

“Close to four-fifths of people experiencing hearing loss do not use hearing aids in the UK [4]. Hearing loss may begin early in one’s 40s, and there is evidence that gradual cognitive decline before a dementia diagnosis can last 20 to 25 years. Our findings highlight the urgent need for the early introduction of hearing aids when someone starts to experience hearing impairment. A group effort from across society is necessary, including raising awareness of hearing loss and the potential links with dementia, increasing accessibility to hearing aids by reducing cost, and more support for primary care workers to screen for hearing impairment, raise awareness, and deliver treatment such as fitting hearing aids,” says Dongshan Zhu. [2]

The researchers also analysed how other factors, including loneliness, social isolation, and depressive symptoms, might impact the association between hearing loss and dementia. The study analysis suggests that less than 8% of the association between hearing aid use and decreased dementia risk could be removed by improving psychosocial problems. The authors say this indicates the association between hearing aid use and protection from increased dementia is likely mostly due to direct effects from hearing aids rather than the investigated indirect causes.

“The underlying pathways which may link hearing aid use and reduced dementia risk are unclear. Further research is needed to establish a causal relationship and the presence of underlying pathways,” says study author Dr Fan Jiang, Shandong University (China). [2]

The authors acknowledge some limitations to the study, including that self-reporting is at risk of bias and that, as this study is observational, the association between hearing loss and dementia might be due to reverse causation through neurodegeneration or other shared mechanisms. Additionally, although many cofactors were accounted for, there might be unmeasured factors, such as those who used hearing aids potentially also taking more care of their health than those who did not. Lastly, most UK Biobank participants are white, and very few participants were born deaf or experienced hearing loss before acquiring spoken language, which may limit the generalisability of the findings to other ethnicities and people with limited hearing using sign language.

Writing in a Linked Comment, Prof Gill Livingston and Dr Sergi Costafreda, University College London, who were not involved in this research, said: “With the addition of Jiang and colleagues’ work, the evidence that hearing aids are a powerful tool to reduce the risk of dementia in people with hearing loss, is as good as possible without randomised controlled trials, which might not be practically possible or ethical because people with hearing loss should not be stopped from using effective treatments. Dementia is not only an illness that affects the individual and their family but can also be expensive. However, using hearing aids to prevent dementia has been found to be cost-effective and cost-saving. In the USA, hearing aids have become available to purchase over the counter, thus making them more accessible. The evidence is compelling that treating hearing loss is a promising way of reducing dementia risk. This is the time to increase awareness of and detection of hearing loss, as well as the acceptability and usability of hearing aids.”
 

NOTES TO EDITORS

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Shandong Province, Taishan Scholars Project, China Medical Board and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation. See the Article for a full list of author affiliations. 

The labels have been added to this press release as part of a project run by the Academy of Medical Sciences seeking to improve the communication of evidence. For more information, please see: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AMS-press-release-labelling-system-GUIDANCE.pdf if you have any questions or feedback, please contact The Lancet press office pressoffice@lancet.com 

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)30367-6/fulltext

[2] Quote direct from author and cannot be found in the text of the Article.

[3] https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/learn-more-about-uk-biobank/about-us 

[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30664127/ 

The labels have been added to this press release as part of a project run by the Academy of Medical Sciences seeking to improve the communication of evidence. For more information, please see: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AMS-press-release-labelling-system-GUIDANCE.pdf if you have any questions or feedback, please contact The Lancet press office pressoffice@lancet.com  

IF YOU WISH TO PROVIDE A LINK FOR YOUR READERS, PLEASE USE THE FOLLOWING, WHICH WILL GO LIVE AT THE TIME THE EMBARGO LIFTS: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(23)00048-8/fulltext 

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JOURNAL

The Lancet Public Health

DOI

10.1016/S2468-2667(23)00048-8 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Association between hearing aid use and all-cause and cause-specific dementia: an analysis of the UK Biobank cohort

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Apr-2023

COI STATEMENT

AO has received consulting fees from Medical Network Systems (MNES) and payment from Kyowa Kirin, outside the submitted work. All other authors declare no competing interests.

Sensor system could decrease fall risk 

for older adults

Lower health care costs, greater patient autonomy are goals of project

Reports and Proceedings

RICE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: (FROM LEFT) THREE SEASONS TEAM MEMBERS FADEEL KHAN, CHARLIE GORTON, VANESSA GARLEPP, AHALYA LETTENBERGER AND CHRIS HEUSER. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY BRANDON MARTIN/RICE UNIVERSITY

HOUSTON – (April 13, 2023) – Knowing how to avoid falls could help adults 65 and older fend off costly health care bills and live in their homes longer.

A team of Rice University engineering students designed a fall-risk assessment system that enables doctors to create personalized risk-management strategies for patients based on their individual movement patterns at home.

The Three Seasons team — “because with us, there is no fall,” said member Vanessa Garlepp — is one of more than 110 competing in this year’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen showcase April 13 at the Ion. Charlie Gorton, Chris Heuser, Fadeel Khan and Ahalya Lettenberger round out the team.

Falls are the leading cause of injury — and death caused by injury — for adults 65 and older, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . A quarter of the nearly 56 million adults over 65 in the U.S. experience a fall each year , and 1 in 5 falls results in serious injury such as a broken bone or head trauma.

With the population of older adults expected to reach over 85 million by 2050, the team’s fall-risk assessment system could have a significant impact in terms of reducing fall-associated health care costs and increasing patient autonomy.

The system includes a wearable device, a home-mapping and movement-monitoring component and an artificial intelligence-mediated data-processing element.

“Our wearable device tracks location with an ultrawideband sensor, it tracks movement with an accelerometer, it tracks time with a real-time clock and it has a user-input button that they can press if they are dizzy, for instance,” Garlepp said. “Lastly, everything is written to a micro SD card. That is all happening in the wearable itself. Then, the data is post-processed.”

Garlepp said she was drawn to the sensing aspect of the project: “To me, that was really cool — how the sensors would interface with each other and how everything would integrate together.

“This is also personal for me,” she added. “My grandfather actually passed away because of a fall. So I was also drawn to the project for that reason, as well as to just help prevent the same thing from happening to other families.”

The system includes a lidar scanner mounted on a tripod that can map the layout of a room, including the furniture.

“The lidar scanner sends out a signal and detects where the walls are,” Heuser said. “With the tripod, you can raise and lower it. For instance, I used it to scan my living room at different heights — 7 feet, 5 feet, 4 feet and 2 feet. And you can see features like my couch, which you can tell by the uneven line that is the cushions. Combined with the ultrawideband location sensing, this can provide physicians with a map of how a patient moves in their home and help them find the riskiest locations.”

“Our device is not only detecting falls in the home, but also detecting everything surrounding the fall ⎯ what they were doing before the fall, where they were in their home when they fell, etc.,” Lettenberger said.

“A lot of times when older people fall, they can't remember why they fell,” Gorton said. “This device gives the physician details about the fall event that a patient might otherwise forget.”

“When we spoke to our clients who are physicians, they said that most patients experience some form of either (pre-fall) activity or dizzy spell within a certain time period,” Khan said. “A patient would have to wear the device for that recommended time, because a shorter amount of time might not give you any meaningful data.”

The team’s mentors are Catherine Ambrose, a professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston and an adjunct associate professor in biomedical engineering at Rice; Dr. Nahid Rianon, a professor in family medicine and geriatric medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth; David Trevas, a mechanical engineering lecturer at Rice; Sabia Abidi, a bioengineering assistant teaching professor at Rice; and Kaira Lujan, a graduate student in Rice’s Global Medical Innovations program.

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The wearable device and integrated in-home monitoring system aim to help doctors identify fall risk factors for individual patients.

CREDIT

Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University

Video URL:
https://youtu.be/UCcuCCG8THM
(Video by Brandon Martin)

Image downloads:

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2023/04/230411_Three_Seasons_Team1_LG.jpg
CAPTION: (From left) Three Seasons team members Fadeel Khan, Charlie Gorton, Vanessa Garlepp, Ahalya Lettenberger and Chris Heuser. (Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2023/04/230411_Three_Seasons_Team2_LG.jpg
CAPTION: Chris Heuser (front) holds the wearable device developed together with his team, (from left) Fadeel Khan, Charlie Gorton, Vanessa Garlepp and Ahalya Lettenberger. (Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2023/04/230411_Three_Seasons_device_LG.jpg
CAPTION: The wearable device and integrated in-home monitoring system aim to help doctors identify fall risk factors for individual patients. (Photo by Brandon Martin/Rice University)

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 4,552 undergraduates and 3,998 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 1 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.