Attendant Benefits Research Articles

Criminology and Social Impact in The Age of Artificial Intelligence [AI

The use of technology has permeated all facets of life, and brought about both positive and negative effects. Criminology as a fields has not been left behind and criminologists are developing various technological tools, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) models to use in detecting, managing and preventing criminal activities. This is a significant step considering that criminals have also found it convenient to use technology as a tool for perpetuating their activities. This paper focused on the adoption of AI in criminology, exploring the attendant benefits of its adoption; the negative social impact of its use and interventions that should be put in place to curb the negative ramification. Some of the beneficial use discussed in the paper include predictive policing, and crime risk assessment, which aids in preventing occurrence of criminal activities. However, the use of these AI models, while beneficial to these criminological functions have presented significant social implications, which include bias and discrimination that perpetuate social stereotypes; privacy breach that lead to the victimization of innocent people; opaque decision making that lead to distrust in the output by the AI tool; and unfair distribution of employment opportunities. The paper concluded that the adoption of AI in criminology is inevitable considering the digital era in which we are currently living in. However, while the benefit of the use of these technologies are varied and welcome, there is a need for ensuring that the legal, social and ethical concerns are adequately addressed. The paper, therefore, recommended the establishment of robust regulatory framework that guide the use of the AI models by law enforcement agencies; the integration of the use of the AI tools with human oversight; the inclusion and transparency and accountability in the operationalization of the tools; collaboration amongst the stakeholders. This paper has used recent extant literature to examine the intersection between criminology and social impact with respect to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

“See You Sunday?” Effects of Attending a Specific Weekend Religious Service on Emotional Well‐Being: A State/Trait Analysis of the SoulPulse Study

AbstractMost studies of religious service attendance and emotional well‐being are only capable of evaluating “trait” aspects of religious attendance, or long‐term patterns and habits that form an attendance routine. Methodological limitations make it difficult to capture the immediate (i.e., “state”) effects of attending a specific religious worship service. Using the SoulPulse Study, a 2‐week microlongitudinal study consisting of two daily cell phone surveys, we move beyond this limitation by examining trait attendance, state attendance, and the interaction of the two on 10 emotional/affective outcome variables. We find that both state attendance and trait attendance are associated with well‐being, though state attendance performs more consistently across the 10 positive and negative emotion items. Leveraging Iannaccone's concept of “religious capital,” we present evidence in state × trait interaction models that only those who have high trait levels of attendance are able to capture the emotional benefit of state attendance. This study informs the broader literature on religious attendance and well‐being by providing evidence that religious attendance can be considered a “practice” that must first be internalized as a set of familiar routines prior to being activated for personal well‐being.

Facing the Emotional Barriers to Colorectal Cancer Screening. The Roles of Reappraisal and Situation Selection.

Disgust, embarrassment, and fear can hinder the attendance of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. However, individuals can respond to these emotions differently. The present study tested whether reappraising a negative stimulus versus avoiding a negative stimulus is associated with age; whether these two emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and situation selection) moderate the effects of disgust, embarrassment and fear on CRC screening intention; and the efficacy of a message based on participants' preferred emotion regulation strategy. We recruited 483 Italian participants (aged 40-84 years) through snowball sampling. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions differing for a message promoting CRC screening with an affective lever, a cognitive lever, both levers or none. Key variables included emotion regulation strategies, emotional barriers and intention to get screened. The preference for reappraisal over situation selection increased with age. Reappraisal neutralized the effect of disgust on CRC screening intention. The combined message with both affective and cognitive levers increased CRC screening intention (b = 0.27, β = 0.11, SE = 0.13 p = .049), whereas reading the message based only on the affective (b = 0.16, β = 0.06, SE = 0.14 p = .258) or the cognitive (b = 0.22, β = 0.09, SE = 0.14 p = .107) lever was not effective. Communication campaigns should support the activation of a reappraisal strategy of emotion control, and messages promoting CRC screening should highlight both the instrumental (i.e., early detection) and affective (i.e., peace of mind) benefits of attendance.

SISTEM INFORMASI ABSENSI MENGGUNAKAN ARDUINO BERBASIS SCANNER RFID DI SD NEGERI LANGENSARI 03

Attendance is a data collection activity to determine the number of people present at an event. Every activity always requires information about participant attendance. This also happens in the learning process. The benefit of attendance using an Arduino based RFID scanner is that it makes it easier for attendance officers to input practical data because they can retrieve and store attendance data from RFID tags directly. Research on the development of attendance to become more effective in the education sector. Every activity that requires information about participant attendance will definitely utilize the use of tools that are used as proof of participant attendance, while teacher attendance currently used is using fingerprints. When absent, problems often occur, namely the finger that will be used to do the fingerprinting. Based on the background above, the author created automatic attendance to make attendance easier while at the agency where the teacher teaches. Meanwhile, the barcode scanner is a faster data input process compared to the manual method. This input process can be done with a scanner to record the data contained in the barcode quickly, so it doesn't need to take a lot of time.

Benefits of Attending

Benefits of Attending

Pregled proizvodnje biodizela transesterifikacijom esterifikovanog ulja Carica Papaia (CSO)

As a result of global urbanization and modernization, the use of petroleum (fossil fuel) is on the increase and there are growing concerns among stakeholders in the oil and gas industry over the depletion rate of petroleum reserves and its rising cost. The conversion of readily available sources of biomass to produce different types of biofuels to address the future energy crisis is one of the preferred attractive choices. Biodiesel is generally produced by the transesterification reaction of vegetable oils, waste vegetable oil or animal fats in the presence of a suitable catalyst. The choice of biodiesel as a preferred renewable source of energy was based on its biodegradability, non-toxic, lower emissions, sulphur free, low levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their nitrated compounds. This alternative source of energy is environmentally friendly and could be used in the existing diesel engines with little or no modifications. This will reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels that are non-renewable with the attendant environmental benefits to mankind. However, the use of these edible vegetable oils will put pressure on the food uses of such oil which will result to fuel-food crisis in the future. This impending crisis can be readily averted by exploring non-edible crops/agricultural waste biomass that can be grown or harnessed domestically and capable of producing oils as valuable raw materials for the emerging industry. A free fatty acid (FFA) lower than 3% is necessary to carry out the base catalysed reaction to end. For biodiesel production, the higher the acid value of the oil, the lesser the conversion efficiency hence the need for esterification process. Papaya seed contains 27.3% to 28.3% protein, 28.2% to 30.7% lipids, and 19.1% to 22.6% crude fibers, it is not economically used. The majority of seeds are produced as residues and discarded as agricultural waste during fruit processing, generating environmental issues. Oil is abundant in papaya seeds (13.9% to 40.0%), which is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids and beneficial phytochemicals as tocopherol, carotene, and phenolics. This provides information on how to reduce pollution and make waste seeds lucrative. As a result, the CPSO is receiving an increasing amount of attention.

Determining the Frequency and Influential Factors Impacting Antenatal Care Service Utilization Among Pregnant Women in Attendance at Mutara Health Centre III, Mitooma District, Uganda

Antenatal care (ANC) plays a pivotal role in curbing maternal mortality rates. This investigation sought to gauge the prevalence of and factors influencing antenatal care service utilization among pregnant women visiting Mutara Health Centre III's antenatal care clinic. The study involved 200 pregnant women in a cross-sectional analysis, employing an interview questionnaire to assess ANC service utilization determinants. Statistical Package for Social Sciences software was utilized for data analysis. The prevalence was determined by comparing the actual ANC attendance (from mid-July 2022 to mid-August 2022) against the projected monthly ANC attendance (300). The resulting attendance rate of 66.67% was categorized as inadequate, falling below the globally recommended coverage of 80%. Demographic findings revealed that the majority (57.5%) were peasants, while 47.5% of their partners had primary education. Alarmingly, 62.5% lacked knowledge regarding the appropriate timing for seeking ANC. Key conclusions drawn were that the attendance rate for ANC was notably low, coupled with inadequate knowledge among pregnant women about ANC and a prevalence of low socioeconomic status. Recommendations included tailored education programs for expectant mothers on ANC services by healthcare personnel at Mutara Health Centre III, public awareness campaigns by the Mitooma district health officer emphasizing the benefits of ANC attendance, governmental strategies to improve the livelihoods of those served by the health center, and a proposed study to assess maternal mortality prevalence specifically at Mutara Health Centre III. Keywords: Antenatal care, Pregnant women, maternal mortality, Healthcare workers.

Sleep and Pain in Veterans with Chronic Pain: Effects of Psychological Pain Treatment and Temporal Associations.

Chronic pain is highly prevalent in US military Veterans. Non-opioid and non-pharmacologic treatments are recommended when clinically appropriate, but research on the mechanisms underlying benefits of these treatments is lacking. Here, we examined the role of sleep in the effects of three non-pharmacologic pain treatments in Veterans. Specifically, we investigated whether treatment effects on sleep predicted treatment effects on pain occurring later, or vice versa. Veterans enrolled in a randomized controlled trial were invited to participate in this supplementary sleep study. A total of 174 Veterans were randomized to one of three 8-session, in-person, group-based pain treatments: hypnosis, mindfulness meditation, or education control. Measurements included self-reported sleep disturbance, pain intensity, and pain catastrophizing; sleep duration was assessed with actigraphy. Sleep and pain measurements were obtained at baseline, posttreatment, and 3-month posttreatment follow-up. At baseline, average pain intensity was moderate (mean ± SD: 5.7 ± 1.7 on the 0-10 Numeric Rating Scale), pain catastrophizing was just below the clinically relevant threshold (mean ± SD: 28.6 ± 12.2 on the Pain Catastrophizing Scale), and subjective sleep disturbance exceeded the US population average (mean ± SD: 58.5 ± 8.1 on the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Sleep Disturbance - Short Form). By contrast, objective sleep duration was consistent with the recommended daily sleep amount of 7-8 h for adults (mean ± SD: 8.3 ± 1.4 h). Across treatment conditions, pain intensity, pain catastrophizing, and subjective sleep disturbance were significantly less at posttreatment and 3-month follow-up than at baseline (p < 0.001). Actigraphic sleep duration did not differ significantly as a function of time. There was a high degree of covariation among the measures of pain intensity, pain catastrophizing, and sleep disturbance (p < 0.05). However, self-reported sleep disturbance was not significantly correlated with actigraphic sleep duration (|r| <= 0.13, p > 0.05). Sleep and pain variables observed at prior assessments predicted these same variables at subsequent assessments. There was no significant evidence that changes in pain preceded changes in sleep or that changes in sleep preceded changes in pain (all p > 0.05). For this study's Veterans, treatment-related changes in sleep and pain appeared to occur in parallel. The concomitant changes in sleep and pain suggest that therapies improving pain in Veterans may yield attendant benefits for the treatment of sleep, and possibly vice versa.

Liquid organic fertilizer availability and utilization in Nigeria: A review

The word as in general has the responsibility to respond to the emerging food crisis to match the growing population. Africa and many other Low Income Countries under Stress [LICUS] will face a stiffer challenge. Africa and specifically Sub-Saharan Africa depends much on synthetic fertilizers with disease burden. The concept and awareness of Organic Fertilizer and its Utilization in Agro farming with attendant benefits in Nigeria is at its lowest ebb. This review highlighting availability, of Liquid Organic Fertilizer in Nigeria agro-allied market among farmers and the awareness/benefits in Organic farming reveals much on the scale of 10. 1-3 reliable fertilizers companies are visible with most emphasis on synthetic fertilizer blending only. 1-2 reliable fertilizer company manufactures urea and synthetic fertilizer from which other companies get involved in the distribution. 1-2 claimed that their fertilizers are purely organic in powdered sachet forms. 1-3 claimed to produce liquid organic fertilizer alongside synthetic fertilizer formulation. 1-2 notable liquid organic fertilizers available claimed foliar mode of application. 2 out of 10 makes use of solid human wastes for liquid organic fertilizer. 5 out of 10 liquid organic fertilizer were found to be compost in nature while 2 out of 10 claimed to be organic liquid in nature. 1 3 Liquid Organic Fertilizers encountered cannot be verified by literature on their composition, materials and process of production. The available liquid organic fertilizer in Nigeria is with mixed acceptance. Synthetic fertilizer manufacturers claimed that their products can be used as organic fertilizer. Droppings from animal waste claimed their products are manures and fertilizers. Other liquid organic fertilizer companies claimed use of sea weeds without clear mechanism of actions. Nevertheless, a liquid fertilizer company located in Kuje, Abuja has been identified to possess state of art product line facilities with purely organic materials as source.

Academic seminars as tool for clinical and translational science education and dissemination: Perceptions and priorities in the COVID-19 era.

Academic seminars are an important venue through which investigators in health services research (HSR) and other clinical and translational science disciplines can share their work, gather feedback, and connect with colleagues. However, the format and focus of these seminars shifted abruptly when the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic necessitated social distancing and underscored the salience of health equity. Little is known about how contemporary academic seminars are meeting the evolving needs of the HSR community. We surveyed 2021-2022 participants in a virtual HSR seminar series to understand experiences of and priorities for the seminars. We also compared results stratified by self-reported under-represented minority (URM) status. Of 45 respondents (including 26 faculty members, 8 trainees, 9 staff members, and 2 community partners), 38% self-identified as URM. Participants reported high satisfaction with seminar quality, diversity of topics, and audience participation (median ≥4 for all outcomes in Likert-scaled items where 5 = very satisfied). Knowledge acquisition, understanding of research methods, and collaboration were commonly cited as benefits of seminar attendance. Implementation science content and external collaboration were most often endorsed as priorities for future seminars. URM participants were over three times more likely than non-URM participants to cite learning about engaging community stakeholders and historically excluded populations as a benefit of seminar participation. Virtual academic seminars can be an effective modality for knowledge sharing and collaboration worth continuing after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Emphasizing equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) values in these seminars may hold potential for advancing academic departments' own EDI goals.

Chinese-driven Ghana rosewood trade: Actors and access dynamics

The growing demand for rosewood in China has led to systemic and rapid illegal exploitation in many forest-rich countries in tropical regions, especially in Africa. It is speculated that there is a 26-billion-dollar rosewood industry in China. West African countries contribute about 80% of rosewood to global trade. Ghana has been ranked second in Africa and fourth in the world among top suppliers of rosewood logs to China by volume. Drawing theoretical insights from access theory and based on original empirical research conducted in Ghana from April to August 2022, we analyze how a constellation of actors along the rosewood trade chain had access to that natural resource. In the same vein, we scrutinize the complexity of the related formal and informal network arrangements both between key actors and within state bureaucracies in Ghana. Our research broadly responds to the question of how Chinese investors got access to rosewood in Ghana and examines the different institutional arrangements which encouraged the Chinese-driven trade of rosewood in Ghana. Our findings reveal that there was no formalized agreement between Ghana and China’s rosewood trade as the related domestic market was sporadic and informally initiated in 2009 by a Chinese entrepreneur. The study reveals that different non-state and state institutions (including sectoral state bureaucracies and individuals) benefited from the rosewood trade without recourse to a formal governance structure. The study reveals an embedded informal system of national and community-level arrangements, which enabled access to rosewood and its attendant benefits. This research makes an empirical-based contribution to what drives access to and who benefits from the globalization of natural resources in African countries characterized by ‘political disorder’. From a China-Africa relations perspective, this work contributes to the politics of natural resources and the related sustainability challenges in the context of increasing global Chinese influence in Africa.

Carbon Border Adjustments, Climate Clubs, and Subsidy Races When Climate Policies Vary

Jurisdictions adopt climate policies that vary in terms of both ambition and policy approach, with some pricing carbon and others subsidizing clean production. We distinguish two types of policy spillovers from these diverse approaches. First, when countries have different levels of climate ambition, free-riders benefit at the expense of more committed countries. Second, when countries pursue different approaches, carbon-intensive producers within cost-imposing jurisdictions are at a relative competitive disadvantage compared with producers in subsidizing jurisdictions. Carbon border adjustments and climate clubs respond to these spillovers, but when countries have divergent approaches, one policy alone cannot address both spillovers. We also consider the policy dynamics arising from carbon border adjustments and climate clubs; both have the potential to encourage upward harmonization of climate policy, but come with risks. Further, the pressures of international competition may result in subsidy races, with attendant risks and benefits.

VA social workers identify factors predictive of enrollment and variability in Veterans’ access to aid and attendance benefits

ABSTRACT The Aid and Attendance (A&A) benefit is a cash entitlement for Veterans who served in the U.S. military to obtain personal care services. Our objective was to identify factors contributing to variation in A&A enrollment across VA Medical Centers (VAMCs). We used VA data to calculate the enrollment rate among older Veterans receiving a VA pension or compensation in 2015, then purposefully sampled social work leaders at 15 VAMCs with the highest (n = 7) and lowest (n = 8) enrollment rates for interviews. All respondents viewed A&A as an important benefit. Participants at high-enrollment sites indicated strong working relationships with Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) with onsite presence and education about A&A facilitate access. Participants at low-enrollment sites indicated they desired education around A&A eligibility criteria and collaboration with VBA/VSOs. VA and non-VA social workers would benefit from education about VBA’s benefits, and this requires collaboration with VBA representatives.

Provider experiences with relaxing restrictions on take-home medications for opioid use disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative systematic review.

Historical restrictions on take-home medications for opioid use disorder have generated considerable debate. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the perceived risks and benefits of daily clinic attendance and led to widespread policy reform, creating an unprecedented opportunity to explore the impact of more flexible prescribing. We conducted a qualitative systematic review to synthesize the evidence on providers' experiences with relaxing restrictions on take-home doses of medications prescribed for opioid use disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic. The protocol for this systematic review was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42022360589; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/). From Sept.-Nov. 2022, we searched Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Web of Science, the Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials, and the grey literature from 2020 onward. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they used qualitative methods to investigate providers' experiences with relaxed restrictions on take-home medications for opioid use disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic. We appraised study quality using the CASP qualitative checklist and used thematic synthesis and GRADE-CERQual to synthesize the results. We retrieved 13 articles representing 11 studies. Six were conducted in the United States and most focused on changes to methadone treatment. Providers' experiences with increased flexibilities around take-homes were broadly positive, despite widespread initial concern over client safety and the potential for medication misuse. For a small number of providers, concerns about diversion were a specific manifestation of more general unease with loss of control over clients and the treatment process. Most providers appreciated increased flexibilities and described them as enabling more individualized, person-centered care. Our findings support the continuation of flexibilities around take-homes and demonstrate that regulations and policies that reduce flexibility around take-homes conflict with person-centered approaches to care. Stronger guidance and support from professional regulatory agencies may help increase uptake of flexibilities around take-homes.

School Attendance Decisions for Children With Medical Complexity During COVID-19.

School attendance by children with medical complexity (CMC) may be influenced by parent perceptions of their child's risk for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The authors of this study aimed to quantify in-person school attendance and identify attendance predictors. From June to August 2021, surveys were collected from English- and Spanish-speaking parents of children aged 5 to 17 years with ≥1 complex chronic condition who received care at an academic tertiary children's hospital in the Midwestern United States and who attended school prepandemic. The outcome, in-person attendance, was defined dichotomously as any in-person attendance versus none. We evaluated parent-perceived school attendance benefits, barriers, motivation, and cues, COVID-19 severity and susceptibility using survey items derived from the health belief model (HBM). Latent HBM constructs were estimated with exploratory factor analysis. Associations between the outcome and the HBM were evaluated with multivariable logistic regression and structural equation models. Among 1330 families (response rate 45%), 19% of CMC were not attending in-person school. Few demographic and clinical variables predicted school attendance. In adjusted models, family-perceived barriers, motivation, and cues predicted in-person attendance, whereas benefits, susceptibility, and severity did not. The predicted probability (95% confidence interval) of attendance ranged from 80% (70% to 87%) for high perceived barriers to 99% (95% to 99%) for low perceived barriers. Younger age (P <.01) and previous COVID-19 infection (P = .02) also predicted school attendance. Overall, 1 in 5 CMC did not attend school at the end of the 2020 to 2021 academic year. Family perceptions of schools' mitigation policies and encouragement of attendance may be promising avenues to address this disparity.

Novel predictions of invasive breast cancer risk in mammography screening cohorts.

Mammography screening programs are aimed at reducing mortality due to breast cancer by detecting tumors at an early stage. There is currently interest in moving away from the age-based screening programs, and toward personalized screening based on individual risk factors. To accomplish this, risk prediction models for breast cancer are needed to determine who should be screened, and when. We develop a novel approach using a (random effects) continuous growth model, which we apply to a large population-based, Swedish screening cohort. Unlike existing breast cancer prediction models, this approach explicitly incorporates each woman's individual screening visits in the prediction. It jointly models invasive breast cancer tumor onset, tumor growth rate, symptomatic detection rate, and screening sensitivity. In addition to predicting the overall risk of invasive breast cancer, this model can make separate predictions regarding specific tumor sizes, and the mode of detection (eg, detected at screening, or through symptoms between screenings). It can also predict how these risks change depending on whether or not a woman will attend her next screening. In our study, we predict, given a future diagnosis, that the probability of having a tumor less than (as opposed to greater than) 10-mm diameter, at detection, will be, on average, 2.6 times higher if a woman in the cohort attends their next screening. This indicates that the model can be used to evaluate the short-term benefit of screening attendance, at an individual level.

Determinants of Subscription Renewal Behavior in Sport Spectatorship Services: A CHAID Decision Tree Modeling Approach

Abstract: Attempts were made to identify the prioritized determinants of season ticket holders’ (STHs) renewal behavior. Also, grounded in the lens of luxury fever, we explored how the determinants are differently weighed and processed across two types of STHs, including regular (R-STHs) vs. premium seat holders (P-STHs). Through a partnership with a Big Ten athletic department, the attendance data were obtained and analyzed. This study adapted a decision tree modeling approach to predict renewal/churning behavior by setting learning decision rules in the CHAID algorithm, a supervised learning algorithm family. Results of this study indicate that discounted tickets, affordability, and entertainment were important determinants for R-STHs. By contrast, tenure as a ticket holder, game outcomes, and business use were significantly weighed for P-STHs. Recent attendance and exclusive benefits were important branches for both decision trees. This research expands the understanding of the subscription-based services industry by applying a fresh data mining approach.

Making a Case for Faculty Advisor–Advisee Concordant Pairs

The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education Standards require schools and colleges of pharmacy to provide the needed resources for student success, including student advising. The faculty advisor’s role in schools and colleges of pharmacy can be varied and may include modeling professional behavior, serving as students’ advocate, and providing academic and professional guidance. This is especially important upon students entering pharmacy school when the risk of being overwhelmed has been documented. Various factors, including geographic distance from home, professional identity formation, and anxiety over career trajectory have been challenges to their perceived well-being. As in all human interactions, we believe that successful advisor/mentor-student relationships are more likely to develop if there is a deeper personal connection—some element(s) of shared demographic background—in addition to complementary professional, educational, or research backgrounds of the faculty advisor. Pharmacy students in Chinese and American universities and those in other health care disciplines have rated very highly their perceived value of the supporting role of the faculty advisor; hence, we postulated that using this criterion when matching faculty advisor–student pairs may produce better outcomes. In this commentary, we propose expanded criteria including demographics for producing faculty advisor–advisee concordant (or nearly so) pairs mindfully and strategically in a standardized stepwise process of advising aimed at facilitating success for students of all backgrounds, with the goal of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion and the ultimate attendant benefits to patient care.

'Post-Close' Femoral Arterial Haemostasis at Endovascular Aneurysm Repair using a Dedicated Large-Bore Vascular Closure Device: A Prospective Real-World Audit.

Percutaneous access for endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) is commonplace, with its attendant benefits. The combination of continued reduction in device profile and evolution of vascular closure device (VCD) design drives successful and safe percutaneous EVAR. A new such VCD is the MANTA Large-Bore Closure Device designed in two iterations for closure of arterial defects from 10 to 25F. We present a prospective audit of 131 large-bore femoral closures using an 'all-comers' approach to device selection. One hundred and thirty-one large-bore femoral arterial defects were analysed. Both 14F and 18F MANTA VCDs were deployed in this series as per instructions for use. Primary objectives were technical success, particularly successful deployment, and haemostasis achieved. Failures were denoted as failure to deploy; failure to achieve haemostasis was denoted as active bleeding, haematoma, or pseudoaneurysm formation requiring intervention. Later complications assessed were vessel occlusion/thrombosis or stenosis. Seventy-six patients (65 males and 11 females, age 75.2 ± 8.7years) underwent a range of procedures including EVAR (n = 66), TEVAR (n = 2), and reinterventions (n = 8) requiring large-bore percutaneous femoral arterial access in 131 groins. Of these, the 14F MANTA VCD was used in 61 closures (defects ranging from 12 to 18F) and the 18F in 70 closures (defects ranging from 16 to 24F). Deployments achieved successful haemostasis in 120 (91.6%), and failures occurred in 11(8.4%) groins. This study indicates that a post-close approach using the novel MANTA Large-Bore Closure Device can be undertaken successfully to close a range of large-bore femoral arterial defects at EVAR/TEVAR with an acceptable rate ofcomplications.

Randomized design evidence of the attendance benefits of the EPA School Bus Rebate Program

Approximately 25 million children ride buses to school in the United States. While school buses are the safest school transport from an accident perspective, older buses often expose students to high levels of diesel exhaust. Because these exposures can adversely impact health, which may lead to more missed school, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has spent millions of dollars to hasten the transition of school bus fleets to cleaner vehicles. Here, we leveraged the randomized allocation of the EPA’s 2012–2017 School Bus Rebate Program funding to causally assess the district attendance impacts of upgrading buses. Districts randomly selected for funding had greater attendance improvements after the lottery than unselected districts, resulting in over 350,000 estimated additional student days of attendance each year (95% confidence interval = −70,678 to 772,865) due to the use of EPA funds. Attendance improvements were greatest when the oldest buses were replaced and for districts with high ridership on applicant buses. Extrapolating our results nationwide, we expect that the replacement of all pre-2000 model year school buses would lead to more than 1.3 million additional student days of attendance per year (95% confidence interval = 247,443 to 2,406,511). Given the importance of attendance to educational success, we conclude that increasing the pace at which older, highly polluting buses are replaced positively impacts student attendance.