Enabling Entanglements to Emerge

From October 5 to 10, 2020, Performance Curators Initiative (PCI),1 a network of artists, curators, performance-makers, cultural workers, educators, practitioners, and enthusiasts based in the Philippines, held their third conference online via Zoom and streamed it on YouTube. Entitled “Conversations on Curation and Performance in the Time of Halting and Transformation,” I participated in this conference that opened a digital space for curators and performers around the world to talk about the effects of the global pandemic on the live arts. Connections, conversations, creative research, collaborations—as PCI founder and conference organizer Roselle Pineda notes—are the main focus of the network, which seeks to look at the relationship between “[p]erformance and curation, the role of curation in performance and role of performativity in curatorial practice” (from the network’s website). Pineda had invited me to register for the conference, which was focused on the role of curator as one who activates enabling spaces.

Research Trends and Hotspots of Q Fever Research: A Bibliometric Analysis 1990-2019

Q fever is a worldwide distributed zoonosis caused by Coxiella burnetii, a Gram-negative bacterium. Despite existence of large amount of research data on the developments related to Q fever, no bibliometric analysis of this subject is available to our knowledge. Bibliometric studies are an essential resource to track scholarly trends and research output in a subject. This study is aimed at reporting a bibliometric analysis of publications related to Q fever (2,840 articles published in the period 1990-2019) retrieved from Science Citation Index Expanded, an online database of Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection. Data was retrieved using keywords “Q fever” or “Coxiella burnetii” in title, abstract, and author keywords to describe important research indicators such as the kind and language of articles, the most important publications, research journals and categories, authors, institutions, and the countries having the most significant contribution to this subject. Finally, the emerging areas in field of diagnosis, host range, and clinical presentation were identified. Word cluster analysis of research related to Q fever revealed that major focus of research has been on zoonosis, seroprevalence, laboratory diagnosis (mainly using ELISA and PCR), clinical manifestations (abortion and endocarditis), vectors (ticks), and hosts (sheep, goat, and cattle). This bibliometric study is intended to visualize the existing research landscape and future trends in Q fever to assist in future knowledge exchange and research collaborations.

Bacteria as an Efficient Bacteriosystem for the Synthesis of Nanoparticles: A Bibliometric Analysis

The growth trend of publications in the field of nanoparticles biosynthesis by bacteria was analyzed using bibliometric techniques to the identification of the areas with significant development and the orientations that have guided the research on bacteria. This study extracted data from the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus between 2000 and 2020 to compare results. The number of articles published annually, participating countries, resource growth rate, most used keywords and research collaborations were obtained from bibliometric analysis. The results showed that nanoparticle documents in materials science, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology have improved citation rates as the authors researched in multidisciplinary areas. Although these keywords have the most sites, they are not emerging keywords, and their most common use was in the years 2014–2018. The results showed the upward trend of articles published from 2000 to 2020, most of which were related to the last 10 years. The 5 countries that had the most articles published in this field were China, USA, India, Germany and Iran. The top sources that had the most published documents in this field had a similar scope to our research. The results of each section had a significant relationship with other sections of this study. VOS viewer program was used for quantitative analysis. It seems that bibliometric methods will complement meta-analysis and qualitative structured literature reviews as a method for reviewing and evaluating scientific literature. The advantage of the bibliographic analysis was the awareness of trends in a study area.

A Co-creation Centre for Accessible Rehabilitation Technology

Background: The prevalence of disabling conditions is increasing globally. Rehabilitation improves function and quality of life across many conditions, particularly when applied intensively. The limited workforce, however, cannot deliver evidence-based intensive rehabilitation. By providing individuals with the tools for self- rehabilitation, technology helps bridge the gap between evidence and practise. Few people, however, can access rehabilitation technology. Barriers such as cost, training, education, portability and poor design stand in the way of equitable access. Our group of engineers and researchers have established a centre dedicated to developing accessible technology through close, frequent engagement with users and industry.Methods: The centre employs a co-creation model, coupling engineering and science with user experience and industrial partnerships to develop accessible technology and associated processes. Due to the complexity and size of the challenge the initial focus is stroke. Recruited through a medical charity, participants, with a wide range of disabilities, use prototype and commercial technology during an 8-week rehabilitation programme with supervision from health professionals. The centre includes de-weighting systems, neurostimulation, virtual reality, treadmills, bespoke rehab games, communication apps, powered exercise equipment and gamified resistance equipment. Standard outcome measures (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) are recorded before, during, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention and used in combination with an interview to design the initial rehabilitation programme, which is reviewed fortnightly. Qualitative methods (surveys and interviews) are used to capture personal experiences of the programme and individual technology and an advisory group of stroke survivors help interpret outcomes to feed into the technology design process. Ethical approval has been granted for a pilot cohort study with stroke survivors, which is currently underway (01/09/2021–31/12/2021) investigating acceptability and feasibility, due to report findings in 2022.Discussion: Through partnerships, research collaborations and a co-creation model a new centre dedicated to the development of accessible rehabilitation technology has been launched and currently undergoing acceptability and feasibility testing with stroke survivors. The centre, through its close engagement with users and industry, has the potential to transform the way rehabilitation technology is developed and help revolutionise the way rehabilitation is delivered.

Bridging the Gap Between Science and Practice: Research Collaboration and the Perception of Research Findings

Research collaboration promises a useful approach to bridging the gap between research and practice and thus promoting evidence-informed education. This study examines whether information on research collaboration can influence the reception of research knowledge. We assume that the composition of experts from the field and scientists in a research team sends out signals that influence trust in as well as the relevance and applicability of the finding. In a survey experiment with practitioners from the field of adult education the influence of different research team compositions around an identical finding is tested. The results show overall high trust, relevance and applicability ratings with regard to the finding, regardless of the composition of the research team. We discuss the potential importance of additional information about research collaborations for effective knowledge translation and point out the need for more empirical research.

The soil science and archaeo-geophysics alliance (SAGA): Going beyond prospection

Archaeological sites can be discovered and recorded in a high-resolution and non-invasivemanner using geophysical methods. These measure the spatial variation of a range ofphysical properties of the soil which may be representative proxies of the subsurfacearchaeology. Less-invasive and cost-effective field procedures have become top-priority tomitigate the destructive effects on our cultural heritage from intensified land use, climatechange and the current conflict panorama. At a time when many organisations are investing in advanced geophysical equipment, amajor problem is that our ability to fully interpret the information available from geophysical datasets is still very limited. This deficiency prevents geophysical survey moving beyond basic prospection and becoming a significant tool for answering nuanced questions about archaeology and their host landscapes. This limitation arises from an incomplete understanding of the relationship between soil properties and geophysical measurements. Bridging this gap requires multi-disciplinary teams, testing novel methods, plus scholarly discussion to collate the outcomes of projects on this topic. Overcoming these challenges is a prerequisite for maximising the costeffectiveness of geophysical methods, realising the expected benefits of technological investment and allowing broader utility of geophysical methods in the cultural heritage sector. SAGA will build an international network of geophysicists, archaeologists, soil scientists and other experts to develop our capability to interpret geophysical data and promote research collaborations. Our vision is that after four years, SAGA will have created an environment within which emerging field procedures, enhanced data interpretation and a broader understanding of integrated geophysical methods can flourish.

Assessment of Food and Waterborne Viral Outbreaks by Using Field Epidemiologic, Modern Laboratory and Statistical Methods—Lessons Learnt from Seven Major Norovirus Outbreaks in Finland

Seven major food- and waterborne norovirus outbreaks in Western Finland during 2014–2018 were re-analysed. The aim was to assess the effectiveness of outbreak investigation tools and evaluate the Kaplan criteria. We summarised epidemiological and microbiological findings from seven outbreaks. To evaluate the Kaplan criteria, a one-stage meta-analysis of data from seven cohort studies was performed. The case was defined as a person attending an implicated function with diarrhoea, vomiting or two other symptoms. Altogether, 22% (386/1794) of persons met the case definition. Overall adjusted, 73% of norovirus patients were vomiting, the mean incubation period was 44 h (4 h to 4 days) and the median duration of illness was 46 h. As vomiting was a more common symptom in children (96%, 143/149) and diarrhoea among the elderly (92%, 24/26), symptom and age presentation should drive hypothesis formulation. The Kaplan criteria were useful in initial outbreak assessments prior to faecal results. Rapid food control inspections enabled evidence-based, public-health-driven risk assessments. This led to probability-based vehicle identification and aided in resolving the outbreak event mechanism rather than implementing potentially ineffective, large-scale public health actions such as the withdrawal of extensive food lots. Asymptomatic food handlers should be ideally withdrawn from high-risk work for five days instead of the current two days. Food and environmental samples often remain negative with norovirus, highlighting the importance of research collaborations. Electronic questionnaire and open-source novel statistical programmes provided time and resource savings. The public health approach proved useful within the environmental health area with shoe leather field epidemiology, combined with statistical analysis and mathematical reasoning.