Other Eyes: Choose your own digital archaeology paradata adventure

A text-based game is a type of video games that primarily uses writing and text characters to engage players with minimal to no graphics. With the availability of smartphones and tablets, text-based games have been seeing a resurgence in popularity. At the same time, most youths nowadays prefer using their smartphones rather than reading books. In this paper we will discuss the possibility of using text-based games to motivate and/or develop a reading habit for youths.

The UK's research and innovation system has been through a decade of almost constant change, thanks in part to a combination of austerity, Brexit and COVID-19. With light now appearing at the end of the pandemic tunnel, and the first stages of the Brexit process complete, what are the prospects for UK science, technology and innovation over the next five to ten years? Ranging across R&D investment, structural reform of the funding system, international collaboration, and thematic priorities, this report provides a snapshot of recent developments, persistent uncertainties and future pathways, as the government seeks to make post-Brexit Britain “a science superpower.” The report is published by the UK's Foundation for Science and Technology, and was commissioned by the Embassy of Japan in the UK.

The UK Conservative Government 2017–2019 has taken steps to promote Engagement as a means of Knowledge Exchange (KE). In 2019/2020, a Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) will be introduced alongside the existing Research (REF) and Teaching (TEF) evaluations. Indeed, the OfS (Office for Students) and UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) [2018. Collaboration Agreement between the Office for Students (OfS) and UK Research and Innovation. London: OfS, 1] regard each of these evaluations as ‘mutually reinforcing’. Given that the KEF is likely to take place in full for the first time in 2020, it is essential that colleagues understand both the nature of the Engagement agenda, the reasons for its emergence, the possibilities it offers and means by which to reduce opportunity cost. In this article, I draw upon a range of resources to present a clear overview of these factors and argue that KEF can be harnessed effectively for a number of, often socially valuable, ends and that its most onerous implications can be mitigated efficiently.

Background: The global COVID-19 pandemic and response has focused on prevention, detection, and response. Beyond morbidity and mortality of those infected, pandemics carry secondary impacts, such as children orphaned or bereft of their caregivers. Such children often face adverse consequences, including poverty, abuse, delayed development, and institutionalization. We provide estimates for the magnitude of this problem resulting from COVID-19 and describe the need for resource allocation.Methods: We use mortality and fertility data to model rates of COVID-19-associated orphanhood and caregiver deaths for 18 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and extrapolate global estimates of COVID-associated deaths of parents and grandparent caregivers.Results: We estimate that globally, >1 million children were orphaned or lost a caregiver due to COVID-19-associated deaths during March–December 2020. Countries with higher rates of caregiver deaths included Peru, South Africa, Mexico, Russian Federation, Colombia, Brazil, Islamic Republic of Iran, Argentina, U.S.A., and Spain (range, 1·1–9·8/1000). For most countries, numbers of children orphaned were greater than deaths among those aged 15–44 years; 2–5 times more children had deceased fathers than deceased mothers.Conclusions: Orphanhood and caregiver deaths are a shadow pandemic resulting from COVID-19-associated deaths: we find that over one million children worldwide have lost a parent or caregiver in just ten months. Accelerating equitable vaccine delivery is key to prevention. Psychosocial and economic support can help families nurture children bereft of caregivers and promote their recovery. Strengthening family-based care can help ensure that institutionalization of these children is avoided. These data demonstrate the need for an additional pillar of our response: prevent, detect, respond, and care for children.Funding: UK Research and Innovation (Global Challenges Research Fund (GCR), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Medical Research Council), UK National Institute for Health Research, U.S. National Institutes of Health, Imperial College.Declaration of Interests: Dr. Donnelly reports grants from UK Medical Research Council and grants from NIHR during the conduct of the study. Dr. Cluver reports grants from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund, during the conduct of the study. All other authors report nothing to disclose.Ethics: We used modeled aggregate data and publicly available de-identified survey metadata.

Cancer research collaboration between the UK and the USA: reflections on the 2021 G20 Summit announcement.

Longitudinal association between dysmenorrhoea in adolescence and chronic pain in adulthood: a UK population-based study.

Text-adventure games were one of the first types of games to be developed. They were referred to as multi-user dungeons or MUD. With improvement in graphics, MUDs were mostly replaced by video games but still retained selected fan groups. The idea behind this work utilizes the benefits of a text-adventure or a text-based game to help players improve their reading as well as their writing skills. The game is played by navigating through text-based commands and forces the player to read, understand the concept and then respond by writing correctly. Building on the affinity to chats, this interface can help students to both learn a language or practice correct orthography. In a first phase of building a successful interactive game, the goal is to adapt the experience to the player type by changing the interaction style and theme. The work presented here concentrates on identifying and catering to Achiever and Explorer according to Bartle’s Taxonomy. The resulting game and prediction is evaluated with 35 students in order to fine-tune the classification system and 15 new students for testing the final system. Additionally, user feedback regarding language learning use and age-appropriateness of the task was collected.

Underweight and obesity are associated with adverse health outcomes throughout the life course. We estimated the individual and combined prevalence of underweight or thinness and obesity, and their changes, from 1990 to 2022 for adults and school-aged children and adolescents in 200 countries and territories. We used data from 3663 population-based studies with 222 million participants that measured height and weight in representative samples of the general population. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in the prevalence of different BMI categories, separately for adults (age ≥20 years) and school-aged children and adolescents (age 5-19 years), from 1990 to 2022 for 200 countries and territories. For adults, we report the individual and combined prevalence of underweight (BMI <18·5 kg/m2) and obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2). For school-aged children and adolescents, we report thinness (BMI <2 SD below the median of the WHO growth reference) and obesity (BMI >2 SD above the median). From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity in adults decreased in 11 countries (6%) for women and 17 (9%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 that the observed changes were true decreases. The combined prevalence increased in 162 countries (81%) for women and 140 countries (70%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. In 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity was highest in island nations in the Caribbean and Polynesia and Micronesia, and countries in the Middle East and north Africa. Obesity prevalence was higher than underweight with posterior probability of at least 0·80 in 177 countries (89%) for women and 145 (73%) for men in 2022, whereas the converse was true in 16 countries (8%) for women, and 39 (20%) for men. From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of thinness and obesity decreased among girls in five countries (3%) and among boys in 15 countries (8%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80, and increased among girls in 140 countries (70%) and boys in 137 countries (69%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. The countries with highest combined prevalence of thinness and obesity in school-aged children and adolescents in 2022 were in Polynesia and Micronesia and the Caribbean for both sexes, and Chile and Qatar for boys. Combined prevalence was also high in some countries in south Asia, such as India and Pakistan, where thinness remained prevalent despite having declined. In 2022, obesity in school-aged children and adolescents was more prevalent than thinness with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 among girls in 133 countries (67%) and boys in 125 countries (63%), whereas the converse was true in 35 countries (18%) and 42 countries (21%), respectively. In almost all countries for both adults and school-aged children and adolescents, the increases in double burden were driven by increases in obesity, and decreases in double burden by declining underweight or thinness. The combined burden of underweight and obesity has increased in most countries, driven by an increase in obesity, while underweight and thinness remain prevalent in south Asia and parts of Africa. A healthy nutrition transition that enhances access to nutritious foods is needed to address the remaining burden of underweight while curbing and reversing the increase in obesity. UK Medical Research Council, UK Research and Innovation (Research England), UK Research and Innovation (Innovate UK), and European Union.

THIS time last year, the UK's electorate was gearing up to vote in a referendum to decide on the country's future in the European Union. This week, the electorate is...

We identify amino acid variants within dominant SARS-CoV-2 T-cell epitopes by interrogating global sequence data. Several variants within nucleocapsid and ORF3a epitopes have arisen independently in multiple lineages and result in loss of recognition by epitope-specific T-cells assessed by IFN-γ and cytotoxic killing assays. These data demonstrate the potential for T-cell evasion and highlight the need for ongoing surveillance for variants capable of escaping T-cell as well as humoral immunity.Funding: This work is supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC); Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS), China; National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)/NIHR through the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium (UK-CIC). Sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 samples and collation of data was undertaken by the COG-UK CONSORTIUM. COG-UK is supported by funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and Genome Research Limited, operating as the Wellcome Sanger Institute. TIdS is supported by a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellowship (110058/Z/15/Z). MDP is funded by the NIHR Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre (BRC – IS-BRC-1215-20017). JCK is a Wellcome Investigator (WT204969/Z/16/Z) and supported by NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and CIFMS. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, or MRC.Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no competing interests.Ethical Approval: Cryopreserved PBMCs were used from SARS-CoV-2 recovered donors recruited into the Sepsis Immunomics study with ethical approval from the South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee in England (Ref 13/SC/0149).

Background: A new variant of SARS-CoV-2, B.1.1.7, emerged as the dominant cause of COVID-19infection in the United Kingdom from November 2020 with a transmission advantage over the previous variants of the virus. Here we report efficacy of the adenoviral vector vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, against this variant in comparison with non-B.1.1.7 lineages.Methods: Volunteers enrolled in phase II/III vaccine efficacy studies in the United Kingdom and randomised 1:1 to receive ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 or a MenACWY control vaccine, providedupper airway swabs every week during the trial and also if they developed possible symptomatic COVID-19 infection. Swabs were tested by nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) for SARS-CoV-2, and positive samples were sequenced through the COVID-19Genomics UK consortium (COG UK). NAAT data were used to assess the duration ofdetectable viral RNA in diagnostic specimens and the viral load. Anti-spike IgG wasmeasured by ELISA at baseline, 14 and 28 days after prime and 28 days after boostervaccination. Neutralising antibody responses were measured using a live virus neutralisation assay against the B.1.1.7 and Victoria lineages of the virus. The efficacy analysis included symptomatic COVID-19 in seronegative participants with a NAAT positive swab more than 14 days after a second dose of vaccine. Participants were analysed according to treatment received, with data cut-off on Jan 14, 2021. Vaccine efficacy was calculated as 1 − relative risk derived from a robust Poisson regression model. This study is ongoing and is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04400838 and ISRCTN 15281137.5Findings: Between 1st October 2020 and 14th January 2021, 499 participants developed Covid-19infection. 1524 NAAT positive nose/throat swabs were collected from these participants during the trial. Of these, 323 swabs from 256 participants were successfully sequenced.ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 recipients had a significantly lower viral load as represented byminimum PCR Ct value (pInterpretation: Efficacy of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 against the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 is similar to the efficacy of the vaccine against other lineages. Furthermore, vaccination with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 results in a reduction in the duration of shedding and viral load, which may translate into a material impact on transmission of disease.Trial Registration Number: This study is ongoing and is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04400838 and ISRCTN 15281137.Funding: The clinical trial was funded by UK Research and Innovation, National Institutes for Health Research (NIHR), Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, NIHR OxfordBiomedical Research Centre, Thames Valley and South Midlands NIHR Clinical Research Network, and AstraZeneca. COG-UK is supported by funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and Genome Research Limited, operating as the Wellcome SangerInstitute. Computational work was supported by the Wellcome Trust Core Award Grant Number 203141/Z/16/Z with funding from the NIHR Oxford BRC.Conflict of Interest: Oxford University has entered into a partnership with AstraZeneca for further development of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. AstraZeneca reviewed the data from the study and the final manuscript before submission, but the authors retained editorial control. SCG is cofounder of Vaccitech (collaborators in the early development of this vaccine candidate) and named as an inventor on a patent covering use of ChAdOx1-vectored vaccines (PCT/GB2012/000467) and a patent application covering this SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. TL is named as an inventor on a patentapplication covering this SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and was consultant to Vaccitech. PMF is a consultant to Vaccitech. AJP is Chair of the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s JCVI, but does not participate in policy advice on coronavirus vaccines, and is a member of the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE). AJP and SNF are NIHR SeniorInvestigators. AVSH is a cofounder of and consultant to Vaccitech and is named as aninventor on a patent covering design and use of ChAdOx1-vectored vaccines(PCT/GB2012/000467). MDS reports grants from Janssen, GlaxoSmithKline, Medimmune,Novavax, and MCM Vaccine and grants and non-financial support from Pfizer outside of the submitted work. CG reports personal fees from the Duke Human Vaccine Institute outside of the submitted work. ADD reports grants and personal fees from AstraZeneca outside of the submitted work. SNF reports grants from Janssen and Valneva, outside the submitted work.TLV and JV are employees of AstraZeneca. All other authors declare no competing interests.The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Institute for Health Research or the Department of Health and Social Care.Ethical Approval: The study was sponsored by the University of Oxford (Oxford, UK) and approved in the UK by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) reference 21584/0428/001-0001 and the South-Central Berkshire Research Ethics Committee reference 20/SC/0179.

An expert guide for early career researchers to UK Research and Innovation, the UK's new central funding agency. An expert guide for early career researchers to UK Research and Innovation, the UK's new central funding agency.

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Wellcome/EPSRC Centre for Medical Engineering at King’s College London (WT 203148/Z/16/Z), the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Cardiovascular MedTech Co-operative award to the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and the London AI Center, funded through the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Office of Life Sciences, delivered through Innovate UK. Background Right ventricular (RV) function is an important prognostic marker in assessment of cardiovascular disease. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based quantification of RV function has been validated against ground truth metrics however their relationship to outcomes is not yet well defined. Purpose To evaluate the relationship between RV biomarkers obtained using our validated AI tool, AI-CMRQC with all-cause mortality in patients who underwent routine cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR). Methods 3,108 routine clinical CMR scans, performed between 2016 and 2020 were retrospectively analysed using AI-CMRQC (1) to obtain RV function parameters of end-diastolic volume (EDV), end-systolic volume (ESV), stroke volume (SV) and ejection fraction (EF). All-cause mortality and date of death were obtained from hospital electronic records and Personal Demographics Service from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Cox proportional hazard risk models were used to derive hazard ratios for measuring association between RV function and all-cause mortality. All variables were stratified based on upper or lower limits of reference values (2), RVEF &amp;lt;50% or &amp;gt;50%, EDV &amp;gt;217ml males, &amp;gt;175ml females, ESV &amp;gt;91ml males, &amp;gt;75ml females, SV &amp;lt;71ml males, &amp;lt;56ml females. Results The distribution of mean values (±SD) of RV parameters were EDV 166.14 ± 0.83ml, ESV 77.83 ± 0.57ml, SV 88.3 ± 0.45ml and EF 55.9 ± 0.17%. The median follow up duration was 3.4 years. On univariate analysis, ejection fraction [Hazard Ratio (HR) 2.903 (95% Confidence Interval [CI] 2.197 to 3.834] and stroke volume [HR 3.385 (95% CI 2.534 to 4.522)] were significant predictors of mortality. After adjustment for covariates of left ventricular function (LVEF, LVEDV, LVESV) RVEF remained an independent predictor of mortality. Conclusions Automated RV ejection fraction is significantly associated with all-cause mortality in patients undergoing routine CMR.

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Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Innovate UK has funded this research under the UK Research and Innovation Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. Acknowledgements We are grateful to Friends of Anchor for supplying single-use pens for participants to complete the questionnaires. We would also like to thank the participants and staff at the breast screening unit in NHS Grampian.