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Item type: Publication , Access status: Metadata only , Long-Term Effectiveness of Baricitinib and Other b/tsDMARDs in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis with Early Low Disease Activity or Remission: 2-Year Data from the RA-BE-REAL Study(2026) Alten, Rieke; Östör, Andrew; Edwards, Christopher J.; Smolen, Josef S.; Haladyj, Ewa; Ng, Khai Jing; Ogwu, Samuel; Kaneko, YukoIntroduction: Treat-to-target strategies for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) aim for remission or low disease activity (LDA) and improve long-term outcomes. The objective of this analysis is to report early achievement of remission or LDA at 3 months (M) in a real-world RA population and explore the long-term (2 years) outcomes of achieving early remission/LDA. Methods: RA-BE-REAL is a 3-year, multinational, prospective, observational study of adult patients with RA. Patients initiated treatment with baricitinib (cohort A) or any biologic (b) disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD) or any other targeted synthetic (ts) (cohort B) for the first time. This analysis covers data from a European subpopulation of RA-BE-REAL. Effectiveness data at 3 months (early remission), and 24 months were presented descriptively. Logistic regression was used to determine associations between baseline characteristics and achievement of remission/LDA at 3 months and also associations between early remission/LDA and subsequent achievement of long-term remission/LDA at 24 months. Results: At 3 months, high proportions of patients in both cohorts (cohort A: 59.4%, cohort B: 49.3%) reached remission or LDA. Patients achieving early remission or LDA had greater improvement in short- and long-term pain, functioning (HAQ-DI), and quality of life (EQ-5D-5L) than those who did not. Logistic regression found that previous experience with ≥ 2 previous b/tsDMARDs, higher Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) scores, and lower EQ-5D-5L scores at baseline were negative predictors for the achievement of early remission or LDA. Furthermore, achievement of remission or LDA at 3 months was associated with remission or LDA at 24 months. Conclusions: In a routine clinical practice population, achieving early remission/LDA was associated with maintained remission/LDA at 2 years as well as long-term improvement in pain, physical function, and quality of life in both cohorts.Item type: Publication , Access status: Metadata only , COVID-19 restrictions limited interactions of people and resulted in lowered E. coli antimicrobial resistance rates(2024-08-01) Collignon, Peter; Beggs, John; Robson, JenniferBackground: Antibiotic resistance is rising globally and is a major One Health problem. How much person-to-person transmission or 'contagion' contributes to the spread of resistant strains compared with antibiotic usage remains unclear. As part of its COVID-19 response, Australia introduced strict people movement restrictions in early 2020. Along with internal lockdown measures, movement of people into Australia from overseas was severely restricted. These circumstances provided a unique opportunity to examine the association of people movements with changes in resistance rates. Methods: Monthly resistance data on over 646 000 Escherichia coli urine isolates from 2016 till 2023 were modelled for statistical changes in resistance trends during pre-lockdown, lockdown and post-lockdown periods. Data were available for three clinical contexts (community, hospital and aged-care facilities). Data were also available for antibiotic usage volumes and movements of people into Australia. Results: In 2020, arrivals into Australia decreased by >95%. Antibiotic community use fell by >20%. There were sharp falls in trend rates of resistance for all antibiotics examined after restrictions were instituted. This fall in trend rates of resistance persisted during restrictions. Notably, trend rates of resistance fell in all three clinical contexts. After removal of restrictions, an upsurge in trend rates of resistance was seen for nearly all antibiotics but with no matching upsurge in antibiotic use. Conclusions: Restricting the movement of people appeared to have a dramatic effect on resistance rates in E. coli. The resulting reduced person-to-person interactions seems more closely associated with changes in antibiotic resistance than antibiotic usage patterns.Item type: Publication , Access status: Metadata only , View Consistent Purification for Accurate Cross-View Localization(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2023) Wang, Shan; Zhang, Yanhao; Perincherry, Akhil; Vora, Ankit; Li, HongdongThis paper proposes a fine-grained self-localization method for outdoor robotics that utilizes a flexible number of onboard cameras and readily accessible satellite images. The proposed method addresses limitations in existing cross-view localization methods that struggle to handle noise sources such as moving objects and seasonal variations. It is the first sparse visual-only method that enhances perception in dynamic environments by detecting view-consistent key points and their corresponding deep features from ground and satellite views, while removing off-the-ground objects and establishing homography transformation between the two views. Moreover, the proposed method incorporates a spatial embedding approach that leverages camera intrinsic and extrinsic information to reduce the ambiguity of purely visual matching, leading to improved feature matching and overall pose estimation accuracy. The method exhibits strong generalization and is robust to environmental changes, requiring only geo-poses as ground truth. Extensive experiments on the KITTI and Ford Multi-AV Seasonal datasets demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods, achieving median spatial accuracy errors below 0.5 meters along the lateral and longitudinal directions, and a median orientation accuracy error below 2° Our project page is https://shanwang-shan.github.io/PureACLwebsite/.Item type: Publication , Access status: Metadata only , Qualitative Assessment of One Health Operationalization at the Central Level and in Two Border Districts of Sierra Leone(2026-08-12) Anderson Bunting-Graden, Joseph; Sawaneh, Fatmata; Mayei, Alhassan; Konneh, Monya; Fatoma, Patrick; Komba Finoh, Emmanuel; Kainwo, Lily; Konteh, Wesen; Kenneth Fahnbulleh, Mukeh; Heyden, Klaere; Alex Vandi, Mohamed; Sahr, Foday; Hussein Elduma Abdalla, Adel; Ansumana, Rashid; Wangdi, Kinley; Mshelbwala, Philip P.Zoonotic diseases with epidemic potential pose a serious public health threat in Sierra Leone, where the One Health (OH) approach has been adopted to strengthen multi-sectoral preparedness and response. This study assessed the operationalization of OH in responding to such diseases at the central level and in two districts, Kambia and Kailahun, using content analysis of semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and key documents. Manifest and latent analysis generated themes, including coordination and collaboration, surveillance and reporting, human resource capacity, communication, funding, and community engagement and awareness. Our study found that at the central level, OH sectors showed strong coordination, a functional surveillance system, established communication platforms and relatively strong capacity. District and community levels, by contrast, showed weak coordination, fragmented surveillance and limited communication, along with low animal health (AH) workforce capacity and OH awareness. Community level AH workers lacked an integrated approach to preventing, detecting and reporting zoonotic disease risks. Across all levels, OH activities lacked dedicated funding and relied solely on partner support, with the AH sector facing notable workforce shortages. OH, implementation was markedly weaker at district and community levels than at the central level, a disparity largely attributable to the absence of dedicated funding. Despite these gaps, the OH approach holds considerable potential for mitigating and managing zoonotic disease risks in Sierra Leone.Item type: Publication , Access status: Metadata only , A governance and management framework for addressing modern slavery risk in multi-tier supply chains(2026) Christ, Katherine Leanne; Burritt, Roger LeonardBetter governance of modern slavery risk represents a key challenge that needs to be addressed if sustainability in global supply chains is to be realised in line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8.7. This conceptual paper develops and presents a multidimensional twin-track framework aimed at improving responsible focal company governance and the management of modern slavery risk in multi-tier supply chains. The study draws on existing literature and examples from practice to advance a normative argument as for integrating top-down transparency and due diligence mechanisms with direct and indirect bottom-up human rights approaches. It explains why such alignment is necessary if meaningful progress towards ending modern slavery is to be realised. The paper introduces, explores and differentiates between direct and indirect bottom-up supply chain initiatives, which have not previously been addressed in an explicit or systematic way in the literature. An agenda for future researchers is presented in line with the seven emerging themes identified. Limitations are acknowledged and how these might be addressed in future research.