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This compedium is a detailed and comprehensive portrayal of the best and newest interior projects from accross the globe. From the pragmatism of North America and the minimalism of Northern Europe to the regionalism of Asian design and lavish Mediterranean interiors, a global diversity of styles are on show. Moreover, this volume will act as inspiration for designers seeking a balance between globalized trends and personalised projects. Readers are offered a visual feast with a collection of 500 masterpieces of interior design, separated into typological categories. Atlas of World Interior Design will serve as a source of pleasure and inspiration to all its readers. -- Product Description.

Cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue to spread around the world even one year after the declaration of a global pandemic. Those with weakened immune systems, due to immunosuppressive medications or disease, may be at higher risk of COVID-19. This includes individuals with autoimmune diseases, cancer, transplants, and dialysis patients. Assessing the risk and outcomes of COVID-19 in this population has been challenging. While administrative databases provide data with minimal selection and recall bias, clinical and behavioral data is lacking. To address this, we are collecting self-reported survey data from a randomly selected subsample with and without COVID-19, which will be linked to administrative health data, to better quantify the risk of COVID-19 infection associated with immunosuppression. Using administrative and laboratory data from British Columbia (BC), Canada, we established a population-based case-control study of all individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Each case was matched to 40 randomly selected individuals from two control groups: individuals who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 (i.e., negative controls) and untested individuals from the general population (i.e., untested controls). We will contact 1000 individuals from each group to complete a survey co-designed with patient partners. A conditional logistic regression model will adjust for potential confounders and effect modifiers. We will examine the odds of COVID-19 infection according to immunosuppressive medication or disease type. To adjust for relevant confounders and effect modifiers not available in administrative data, the survey will include questions on behavioural variables that influence probability of being tested, acquiring COVID-19, and experiencing severe outcomes. This study has received approval from the University of British Columbia Clinical Research Ethics Board [H20-01914]. Findings will be disseminated through scientific conferences, open access peer-reviewed journals, COVID-19 research repositories and dissemination channels used by our patient partners.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health measures such as isolation, quarantine, and social distancing are needed. Some of these measures can adversely affect mental health. Activities that can be performed at home may mitigate these consequences and improve overall mental well-being. In this study, home-based activities that have potential beneficial effects on mental health were examined. A rapid review was conducted based on a search of the following databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PyscINFO, Global Health, epistemonikos.org, covid19reviews.org, and eppi.ioe.ac.uk/covid19_map_v13.html. Eligible studies include randomized controlled trials and non-randomized studies published between 1/1/2000 and 28/05/2020 and that examined the impact of various activities on mental health outcomes in low-resource settings and contexts that lead to social isolation. Studies of activities that require mental health professionals or that could not be done at home were excluded. Two review authors performed title/abstract screening. At the full-text review stage, 25% of the potentially eligible studies were reviewed in full by two review authors; the rest were reviewed by one review author. Risk of bias assessment and data extraction were performed by one review author and checked by a second review author. The main outcome assessed was change or differences in mental health as expressed in Cohen's d; analysis was conducted following the synthesis without meta-analysis guidelines (SWiM). PROSPERO registration: CRD42020186082. Of 1,236 unique records identified, 160 were reviewed in full, resulting in 16 included studies. The included studies reported on the beneficial effects of exercise, yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, and listening to relaxing music. One study reported on the association between solitary religious activities and post traumatic stress disorder symptoms. While most of the included studies examined activities in group settings, particularly among individuals in prisons, the activities were described as something that can be performed at home and alone. All included studies were assessed to be at risk of bias in one or more of the bias domains examined. There is some evidence that certain home-based activities can promote mental wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Guidelines are needed to help optimize benefits while minimizing potential risks when performing these activities.

Background Thrombotic events, such as venous thromboembolism (VTE) are a major health complication linked to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the risk of VTE, including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), in adults with RA compared to the general population. Methods MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched from inception to April 2022 to identify publications meeting the following criteria: (1) prospective and retrospective original data from cohort or case-control studies; (2) pre-specified RA definition; (3) clearly defined VTE outcomes; (4) reported risk estimate and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs); (5) at least sex- and age-matched to comparison group; and (6) English language. Of 372 studies screened, 14 were included (602,760 RA patients, 123,076 VTE events) and their quality was assessed by an adaptation of the STROBE quality scoring scale. Results The pooled risk ratios of VTE, DVT and PE in patients with RA were 1.57 (95% CI 1.41–1.76), 1.58 (95% CI 1.26–1.97) and 1.57 (95% CI 1.30–1.88), respectively. The I 2 value of 92%, 94% and 92% for VTE, DVT and PE analyses, suggesting considerable heterogeneity. There were no significant differences in risk estimates among the five subgroup analyses: quality score ( P  = 0.35, I 2  = 0%); sex ( P  = 0.31, I 2  = 1.7%); study year ( P  = 0.81, I 2  = 0%); population source ( P  = 0.35, I 2  = 0%); study design ( P  = 0.62, I 2  = 0%). Conclusions Results show that patients with RA are at a higher risk of VTE, DVT and PE compared to the general population.

This paper presents the Stars2 corpus of definite descriptions for referring expression generation (REG). The corpus was produced in collaborative communication involving speaker-hearer pairs, and includes situations of reference that are arguably under-represented in similar work. Stars2 is intended as an incremental contribution to the research in REG and related fields, and it may be used both as training/test data for algorithms of this kind, and also to gain further insights into reference phenomena in general, with a particular focus on the issue of attribute choice in referential overspecification.

IntroductionCases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continue to spread around the world even one year after the declaration of a global pandemic. Those with weakened immune systems, due to immunosuppressive medications or disease, may be at higher risk of COVID-19. This includes individuals with autoimmune diseases, cancer, transplants, and dialysis patients. Assessing the risk and outcomes of COVID-19 in this population has been challenging. While administrative databases provide data with minimal selection and recall bias, clinical and behavioral data is lacking. To address this, we are collecting self-reported survey data from a randomly selected subsample with and without COVID-19, which will be linked to administrative health data, to better quantify the risk of COVID-19 infection associated with immunosuppression.Methods and analysisUsing administrative and laboratory data from British Columbia (BC), Canada, we established a population-based case-control study of all individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Each case was matched to 40 randomly selected individuals from two control groups: individuals who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 (i.e., negative controls) and untested individuals from the general population (i.e., untested controls). We will contact 1000 individuals from each group to complete a survey co-designed with patient partners. A conditional logistic regression model will adjust for potential confounders and effect modifiers. We will examine the odds of COVID-19 infection according to immunosuppressive medication or disease type. To adjust for relevant confounders and effect modifiers not available in administrative data, the survey will include questions on behavioural variables that influence probability of being tested, acquiring COVID-19, and experiencing severe outcomes.Ethics and disseminationThis study has received approval from the University of British Columbia Clinical Research Ethics Board [H20-01914]. Findings will be disseminated through scientific conferences, open access peer-reviewed journals, COVID-19 research repositories and dissemination channels used by our patient partners.

Everyone seems to be calling for educational reform in Texas public schools, specifically school finance reform. Education policy advocates and newspaper editorials long have lobbied the legislature for such reform. Although educational reform is a prevalent phrase in the public policy arena, all parties involved in the policy-making process may not agree on the opportunities for, encouraging factors for, and factors that prevent school finance reform in the Texas legislature. As public education stakeholders gather to define, refine, and create school finance reform through policy initiatives, it is imperative that all parties understand each other's perceptions of the need, definition, and purpose of reform. Despite research focused on the limitations in governmental reform and political change, little research has examined the perspectives of various stakeholders about the barriers to education reform as well as a dearth of research about the barriers specific to school finance reform in Texas. Therefore, this qualitative research involved 34 interviews of 6 elected officials, 15 state agency employees, 10 educational advocates, and 3 high-level staff of elected officials. The research sought to determine key stakeholders' perceptions about public school finance reform, the issues or activities are identified as barriers to achieving such reform, the policy and political implications of such barriers, and how the experiences of these individuals impacted their perceptions of the possibilities for school finance reform. One general theme emerged: perception. From the perspectives of the research participants, the presence, or lack, of perception governs the dynamics of the legislative process and the efforts to reform school finance policy through that process. Unifying the central theme of perspective are the following three factors: (a) political, (b) interest group, and (c) external factors. Six subthemes emerged regarding political factors: (a) perceived lack of leadership, (b) political turnover, (c) the 2003 power shift, (d) political pressure, (e) staff turnover, and (f) loss of institutional memory. Three interest group communities emerged as well: (a) the business community, (b) the education community, and (c) the public. Finally, external factors included population, time, voter apathy, lack of participation, taxes, the economy, and the nature of the problem.

Understanding patterns of pelagic larval dispersal as a primary means of biological connectivity among populations is one of the great challenges in marine ecology. This dissertation developed novel approaches using population genetic tools to describe larval connections across different spatial and temporal scales. Chapter 1 presents a coupled oceanographic-genetic simulation model that predicts the genetic patterns expected to build up over evolutionary time if larval dispersal is directed by ocean currents. An application of this model in the Caribbean Sea successfully predicted regional-scale genetic patterns based on comparisons to empirical datasets. Chapters 2 and 3 used empirical approaches to estimate larval dispersal in ecological timeframes for the intertidal barnacle, Balanus glandula, living along the central California coast. The first of these chapters used a cohort genetics approach to detect potential changes in the genetic signature of larval cohorts settling in southern Monterey Bay across three settlement seasons (2004-2006). The genetic signature of the cohorts remained relatively stable across the three seasons and we were able to define the geographic scale from which most of the larvae in a cohort settling in southern Monterey Bay were drawn. Chapter 3 took an even closer look at the relative contributions of potential larval sources to B. glandula cohorts settling in Monterey Bay by using individual, multi-locus genotype analyses. The results of these analyses allowed us to create \"arrival kernels\" that provide the first direct evidence for long-distance larval dispersal from both north and south of Monterey Bay, in addition to a signature of local retention. Chapter 4 describes a pilot study using a survey-based approach to assess the conceptual models of marine population connectivity held by members of the public and how these models might relate to their opinions about marine policies. The results of this study indicate that most people do not have a readily formed model about this topic, but can create one given a few key pieces of information. Together, these chapters present new tools for using population genetics to study marine larval dispersal and guidelines about how to effectively communicate related research results outside the scientific community.

The abundant small taxa on hard substrates in deep-sea environments remain understudied and therefore poorly understood. Abundant seepage, tectonic activity, upwelling, and high productivity generate a diverse array of hard substrates including basalts, carbonate rocks, phosphorites, ferromanganese crusts, and sedimentary rocks throughout the Southern California Borderland (SCB), and wood falls are common given the region's proximity to land. A comparative experimental approach was used to examine the influence of hard substrate type on patterns of macrofaunal colonization under different environmental conditions, and particularly revealed the outsized influence of the wood-boring bivalve Xylophaga on macrofaunal colonization both on and near wood substrates. The experimental substrates--wood (to assess the influence of organic falls), carbonate rock (to assess faunal affinities for seep-related substrates outside of a seep environment), and other rocks (ferromanganese, phosphorites, and sedimentary rocks, which are common throughout the SCB)--were deployed for ten months at two sites (San Juan Seamount, 40-Mile Bank), each at two water depths (~700 m, ~ 1100 m) in the SCB. The settlement of juvenile Xylophaga on wood and nearby substrates drove overall density trends and contributed to the distinct community composition observed among substrate types. Experimental substrates exhibited significantly higher densities than natural rocks, possibly representing the influence of different substrate or earlier successional stages. Diversity was highest on natural rock substrates and lowest on experimental wood substrates, which also exhibited the lowest evenness due to dominance by wood specialists such as Xylophaga, dorvilleid polychaetes, and the ampharetid polychaete Decemunciger sp. Juvenile Xylophaga were found on both experimental wood substrates and nearby rock substrates, and likely provided other species with food, and on wood, with modified (engineered) habitat. These findings suggest that natural wood falls could have a shadow effect on macrofauna of adjacent hard substrates in this region, which merits future study.

The nuclear receptor ligand-binding domain (LBD) is a highly dynamic entity. Crystal structures have defined multiple low-energy LBD structural conformations of the activation function-2 (AF-2) co-regulator-binding surface, yet it remains unclear how ligand binding influences the number and population of conformations within the AF-2 structural ensemble. Here, we present a nuclear receptor co-regulator-binding surface structural ensemble in solution, viewed through the lens of fluorine-19 ( 19 F) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and molecular simulations, and the response of this ensemble to ligands, co-regulator peptides and heterodimerization. We correlate the composition of this ensemble with function in peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPARγ) utilizing ligands of diverse efficacy in co-regulator recruitment. While the co-regulator surface of apo PPARγ and partial-agonist-bound PPARγ is characterized by multiple thermodynamically accessible conformations, the full and inverse-agonist-bound PPARγ co-regulator surface is restricted to a few conformations which favor coactivator or corepressor binding, respectively. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is a nuclear receptor. Here the authors provide insights into PPARγ activation by combining fluorine ( 19 F) NMR and molecular dynamics simulations to characterize the nuclear receptor conformational ensemble in solution and the response of this ensemble to ligand and coregulatory peptide binding.