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Complementing the well-established evidence base on health inequalities experienced by migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the UK; we examined the extent to which their right to equal non-discriminatory access to health services (promotive, preventive, curative) was upheld during the COVID-19 pandemic. Arksey and O′Malley's scoping review framework. A comprehensive search was conducted on Medline, PubMed, and CINAHL using detailed MESH terms, for literature published between 01 January 2020 and 01 January 2024. The process was supported by a ten-page Google search and hand searching of reference lists. 42 records meeting the inclusion criteria were charted, coded inductively and analysed thematically in an integrated team-based approach. Dissonance between immigration regulation and health governance is illustrated in four themes: Health systems leveraged to (re)enforce the hostile environment; Dissonance between health rights on paper and in practice; Structural failures to overcome communication and digital exclusion; and COVID-19 vaccine (in)equity exacerbated fear, mistrust and exclusion. Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers encountered substantial individual, structural and policy-level barriers to accessing healthcare in the UK during COVID-19. Insecure immigration status, institutional mistrust, data-sharing and charging fears, communication challenges and digital exclusion impacted heavily on their ability to access healthcare in an equitable non-discriminatory manner. An inclusive and innovative health equity and rights-based responses reaching all migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are warranted if the National Health Service is to live up to its promise of ' leaving no one behind' in post-pandemic and future responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Insights into the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) management. • Developed a generic system dynamics model simulating the stock and flow of WEEE. • Applied the model to eleven WEEE categories in the United Kingdom. • Sensitivity and backcasting scenario analyses of landfilled WEEE targets. • Identified enhancing collection rates as the best way to reduce landfilled WEEE. Every year an estimated two million tonnes of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are discarded by householders and companies in the United Kingdom (UK). While the UK has left the European Union (EU), its waste-related policies still mirror those of the EU, including the WEEE-related policies. Motivated by the recent introduction the so-called 'Right to Repair' policy for electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) across the EU and UK, this paper aims to demonstrate that, depending on the commitment and behavioural changes by the consumers and the government, the future of the WEEE management of the UK will vary. To this end, focusing on landfilled WEEE reduction we develop a generic system dynamics model and apply it to eleven WEEE categories. They depict the flow of EEE and WEEE representing the interaction among the stakeholders (e.g., consumers and producers of EEE) and relevant government regulations of the UK. Our four scenario analyses find that longer use of EEE and better WEEE collection seem to be effective in reducing landfilled WEEE, while more reuse and more recycling and recovery have negligible impacts, despite excluding the additional generation of landfilled WEEE as a result of recycling and recovery. Comparing with the business-as-usual scenario, one year longer EEE use and 10% more of WEEE collection could at maximum reduce landfilled WEEE by 14.05% of monitoring and control instruments and 93.93% of display equipment respectively. Backcasting scenario analyses reveal that significant efforts are required to reduce the targeted amounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gardens are unique ecosystems with the potential to deliver an array of important environmental and health benefits, particularly for urban populations. A large body of research has established that contact with nature and activities within green spaces (including gardening) are beneficial for our physical, mental and social health. An adjacent body of research has explored whether and how pro-environmental behaviours are also linked to positive outcomes for human health and wellbeing. But published research has not yet established whether pro-environmental behaviour in the context of gardening ("sustainable horticulture") further increases the health and wellbeing benefits that gardeners derive. This paper uses evidence from a nationally representative UK survey (n=2086) conducted in August 2021 to explore this question. We used multiple regression analysis to quantitatively demonstrate that a positive association between gardening more sustainably and perceived health benefits from gardening exists at the population level amongst UK adults. This finding implies the possibility that promoting environmentally-minded gardening techniques may lead to an increase in the health and wellbeing benefits that gardeners can derive from their actions. The paper puts forth a range of potential mechanisms that could explain the identified positive association between sustainable gardening and perceived health benefits and identifies related policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the impact of news and sentiments related to covid-19 on United Kingdom (UK)'s stock returns from February 4, 2020 to December 7, 2020. Our results show that covid-19 daily cases exert a significant negative effect on stock returns whereas covid-19 daily deaths have a significant positive impact. These findings hold when covid-related news and sentiments indices are controlled with the 2nd wave data, and when the US policies and equity market volatilities from infectious diseases are used as controls. The magnitude of the effect of covid cases and deaths indicates that the pandemic is not very harmful to the UK stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 has had a major impact on public transport systems across the world. Public financial support has been needed to maintain services in the face of drastically reduced ridership and adjustment to the need for social distancing. This paper explores the challenge this poses to current methods of delivery of public transport services and argues that a simple return to the status quo is unlikely as public transport adjusts to a new normal of more home working and fear of crowded spaces. In turn this impacts most on the transport disadvantaged. The paper argues that this may spell the end of the prevailing model of a deregulated competitive public transport that has prevailed in the United Kingdom and require a major rethinking of the way to provide an efficient and effective transport system. Such a rethink will depend on understanding the interplay of private and social norms and building public trust. • Transport impacts of Covid-19. • Public transport. • Government funding. • Transport planning. • United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Digital foodscapes are increasingly populated by digital food influencers (DFIs). • Different digital platforms offer different affordances to talk about food. • DFIs create a series of good food grammars related to clean eating and lifestyle. • DFIs position good food within notions of how to be in life. • DFIs re-inscribe white, hetero-normative middle- and upper- class privilege. Drawing on recent debates around food, space and digital media, this paper introduces and develops the concepts of the digital foodscape and 'good' food grammars. Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of digital platforms, discourses and personas, we investigate the ways a key set of digital food influencers (DFIs) construct, curate and share the meanings of good food. We first explore who these influencers are, describe what platforms they inhabit, how the variable social media affordances work through these platforms and the notions of good food they construct. We then focus specifically on DFIs' communicative practices on Twitter to analyse the core discourses DFIs produce and those that are taken up by audiences through re-tweets and likes as well as the re-tweeted tweets of DFIs. Overall, our findings suggest that first, good food grammars are being constructed by rule setters beyond the already well-established food personalities and celebrity chefs of the UK's foodscape. Yet, these grammars also re-inscribe a form of white, hetero-normative middle- and upper- class privilege that produces particular grammars of good food. Second, different social media and digital platforms provide space for diverse good food grammars given their variable affordances. Twitter, in particular, is the place where the grammars of DFIs take on non-food themes such as self-empowerment, inspiration, charity campaigning and awareness raising. Third, the notions of good food in DFI grammars revolve around a range of constructions, with the most elevated related to 'clean' eating and/or 'clean' lifestyles that combined healthy, 'free from' diets with fitness regimes and expand DFI grammars – and ultimately their brands – into a more holistic lifestyle brand. This paper's initial empirical and conceptual foray into digital foodscapes and DFIs opens up space for further research on food and digital media within Geography and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All secondary schools in England have been required to teach Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) since 2019, which has raised particular challenges for – and confrontations with – religious minorities. This paper draws on ethnographic research to centre analysis on the fraught moral binds felt by Jewish parents and educators as they struggle to decide when and how to equip children with knowledge while needing to conform to institutional positions on what protection means. Bodily knowledge is redacted across religious/state models of education, which propagates the maintenance of social boundaries and definitions of sexual transgression, but do not stop the quests and questions that adolescents harbour during puberty and development. The paper draws attention to the use of bracketed words in feminist scholarship to convey how terms are projected as having universal meanings or connotations, which are, in reality, socially situated or at least used in socially sanctioned ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heating and cooling both make up a large part of the total energy demand in the UK; long-term seasonal thermal energy storage (STES) can address temporal imbalances between varying supply and demand of heat to buildings and processes. Underground thermal energy storage (UTES) can play a role in energy decarbonisation by storing waste heat from space cooling, refrigeration, data processing, industrial processes, harvested summer solar thermal energy or even heat generated by surplus renewable (solar or wind) electricity with fluctuating supply. This paper evaluates a range of UTES technologies in a UK context and addresses geological suitability, storage capacity, low-carbon heat sources, surface heat sources and demand. This review concludes that there is a significant potential for UTES in the UK for both aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) and borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) systems, coinciding with surface heat sources and demand. Therefore, uptake in UTES technology will help achieve net-zero carbon neutral targets by 2050. There is also scope to utilise UTES technologies within existing subsurface infrastructure. There are 464 oil and gas wells which could be repurposed upon end of life using different UTES technologies. However, the potential for repurposing needs further evaluation; deep single well BTES systems will have a high surface area to volume ratio for storage, reducing the efficiency of such systems and the potential for ATES is limited by issues associated with contaminants. 23,000 abandoned mines underlay ∼25 % of the UKs population and could be utilised for minewater thermal energy storage (MTES). • Review of UTES technology suitability for the UK. • First reporting of details of the Bodyheat BTES system. • Storage capacities for a typical UK BTES system have been calculated. • UTES has a high potential in decarbonising heat in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prison populations across the world are increasing. In the United Kingdom, numbers have doubled in the last two decades, and older prisoners now constitute the fastest growing section of the prison population. One key reason for this shifting prisoner demographic is the growing numbers of men convicted of ‘historic’ sexual offences, many of whom are imprisoned for the first time in old age, and housed in prisons not suited to their needs. These demographic changes have profound consequences, including increased demand for health and social care in prison, and rising numbers of anticipated deaths in custody. Using the findings from a recently completed study of palliative care in prison, this paper proposes that older prisoners face a ‘double burden’ when incarcerated. This double burden means that as well as being deprived of their liberty, older people experience additional suffering by not having their health and wellbeing needs met. For some, this double burden includes a ‘de facto life sentence’, whereby because of their advanced age and the likelihood that they will die in prison, they effectively receive a life sentence for a crime that would not normally carry a life sentence. There has been little popular or academic debate concerning the ethical and justice questions that this double burden raises. Drawing on the work of Wacquant and others, the paper proposes that these changes are best understood as unplanned but reasonably foreseeable consequences of neoliberal penal policies. Although the paper focuses on the UK (which by comparison with other European countries has high rates of imprisonment), many of the challenges discussed are emerging in other countries across the world. This paper illustrates starkly how neoliberal policies and discourses have shaped the expansion and composition of the prison population with its consequent implications for health and justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality-Adjusted Life-Years (QALYs) are central to healthcare decision-making in Britain and abroad, yet their history is poorly understood. In this paper, we argue that a more in-depth and political history of the QALY is needed to allow a critical evaluation of its current dominance. Exploiting rich data from archives and 44 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2015 and 2018, we employ Multiple Streams Analysis to construct a complex and dynamic picture of how the idea of QALYs emerged and was adopted within UK health policy. Through its historical and political approach, the paper illuminates the relative roles in the policy-making process of experts (especially economists) and politicians as ‘entrepreneurs’ in the development of new ideas; how these were influenced by negotiation within established and emerging institutional structures; and the role of serendipity and crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlled organ donation after circulatory death (DCD) has recently been revived in the UK, as part of attempts to increase organ donation rates. The re-introduction of DCD has subsequently become the focus of bioethical controversy, since it necessitates intervening in the care of dying patients to obtain quality donor organs. Transplant policy responses to these concerns have generated new legal and ethical guidelines to address uncertainties around DCD, producing claims that the UK has overcome’ the ethical challenge of DCD. In contrast, by drawing on Lynch's call to ‘respecify’ ethics, this paper argues that ethics in DCD cannot be reduced to abstract directives for practice, but, instead, are composed and dealt with as an organisational problem. To do this, I utilise data from an ethnographic study examining the production of the ‘minority ethnic organ donor’ within UK organ donation settings; in particular, the data pertains to a case hospital which was in the process of developing a DCD programme during the period of fieldwork. Findings show that the ethics of DCD are encountered as practical sets of problems, constructed in relation to particular institutional locales. I describe how these issues are worked-around by creating conditions to make DCD organisationally possible, and through the animation of standard procedures into acceptable forms of practice. I argue that ethics in DCD go far beyond normative bioethical principles, to encompass concerns around: the reputation of hospital Trusts, public perceptions of organ donation, the welfare of potential donor families, and challenges to the work of health professionals caring for dying patients. The paper enriches understanding of ethics in science and medicine by showing how ethics are assembled and negotiated as a practical-organisational concern, and calls for further examination of how DCD gets constructed as a potential problem and is made to happen in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than two decades, international healthcare crises and ensuing political debates have led to increasing professional governance and regulatory policy reform. Governance and policy reforms, commonly representing a shift from embodied trust in professionals to state enforceable trust, have challenged professional power and self-regulatory privileges. However, controversy remains as to whether such policies do actually shift the balance of power and what the resulting effects of policy introduction would be. This paper explores the roll-out and operationalisation of revalidation as medical regulatory reform within a United Kingdom National Health Service hospital from 2012 to 2013, and its impact upon professional power. Revalidation policy was subject to the existing governance and management structures of the organisation, resulting in the formal policy process being shaped at the local level. This paper explores how the disorganised nature of the organisation hindered rather than facilitated robust processes of professional governance and regulation, fostering formalistic rather than genuine professional engagement with the policy process. Formalistic engagement seemingly assisted the medical profession in retaining self-regulatory privileges whilst maintaining professional power over the policy process. The paper concludes by challenging the concept of state enforceable trust and the theorisation that professional groups are effectively regulated and controlled by means of national and organisational objectives, such as revalidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cancer-specific health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaire of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), the EORTC QLQ-C30, is a frequently applied questionnaire to assess cancer patients' self-reported health used as part of research and clinical practice. Normative data obtained from the general population can facilitate the interpretation of these data. Despite its frequent application, no detailed EORTC QLQ-C30 normative data have yet been published for the United Kingdom (UK). This study presents detailed EORTC QLQ-C30 normative data for the United Kingdom overall and by sex and age. The data are drawn from a larger published, international, cross-sectional online survey. For the recruitment, the sample was stratified by sex (males, females) and age in five age groups with a sample size of n = 100 per subgroup. A total of N = 1026 UK respondents completed the survey (n = 517 females, n = 509 males). There were no clear subgroup patterns by sex or age; however, older patients tended to show higher (i.e., better) scores in emotional and social functioning; they also reported some of the lowest (i.e., best) scores for symptoms, such as insomnia, appetite loss, diarrhoea, nausea/vomiting or financial difficulties. This paper provides EORTC QLQ-C30 general population normative data for the UK, further stratified by sex and age. These data will greatly support the interpretation of EORTC QLQ-C30 scale scores obtained from UK cancer patients, and also enable comparison with other detailed national normative datasets collected in the same project, across several other European countries and the US. • EORTC QLQ-C30 is a cancer quality of life (QoL) tool for functioning and symptoms. • Normative QoL data collected from 1026 respondents in UK general population. • No clear patterns, generally oldest had better functioning and fewer symptoms. • Look-up tables for EORTC QLQ-C30 scales for the UK general population. • Interpretation aid for data from individual and groups of UK cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Experiential knowledge’ is increasingly recognised as an important influence on reproductive decision-making. ‘Experiential knowledge of disability’ in particular is a significant resource within prenatal testing/screening contexts, enabling prospective parents to imagine and appraise future lives affected by disability. However, the concept of ‘experiential knowledge’ has been widely critiqued for its idiosyncrasy, its impermanence and consequently its perceived inferiority to (medical) knowledge. This paper explores some of these key critiques of experiential knowledge through an analysis of its constitution and uses in the context of reproductive decision-making. Seventeen UK-resident women with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), or with SMA in their family, took part in two in-depth interviews: one in 2007–9 and the other in 2013–4. By comparing and contrasting these women's accounts at two time points, this paper demonstrates the stark contrast between ‘lived experience’ of SMA (the visceral everyday realities of life with the condition) and the various way(s) this experience was transformed into, and presented as, ‘knowledge’ through the processes of making, and accounting, for reproductive decisions. The analysis highlights that multiple, distinct and sometimes competing experiential frameworks are used to conceptualise SMA across time and context. However, rather than evidence of its fallibility, this finding highlights that ‘knowledge’ is an inappropriate vessel with which to capture and transfer ‘experiential knowledge’. Rather, we need to consider how to value such insight in ways that harnesses its inherent strength without leaving it vulnerable to the epistemological critiques attracted by labelling it ‘knowledge’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of ‘brain training’ games is often regarded as relating to wider ideals of self-improvement and youthfulness. Hence, use is intertwined with discourses of ‘active’ ageing. This paper analyzes how the use and users of brain training games were configured in the UK media, from 2005 to 2015, and examines how notions of active ageing relate to these representations. Game users were rarely constructed solely as gamers, and were more often presented as prudent individuals focused on a serious goal. This configuration related to assumed and enjoined motivations for brain training; specifically, users were commonly framed as seeking to enhance cognition and limit/delay cognitive decline. Scientific evidence about brain training was often deployed to explain how games might work; sometimes, however, it was used to undermine the utility of games and assert the significance and cognitive health-benefits of other activities. A minority of texts explicitly critiqued ideals of self-improvement, arguing that game playing was important for its own sake. Yet, even the pleasure associated with gaming was occasionally instrumentalized as a mechanism for ensuring prudent life choices. The analysis casts fresh light on how debates around health, ageing, and science correspond to configurations of technology uses and users. It presents evidence of the widespread cultural circulation of enjoiners regarding self-care and healthy ageing within British society. However, the paper also provides indications of the limits to such imperatives: discourses of pleasure co-exist with and perhaps supplant logics of prudence in (accounts of) practices ostensibly aimed at ageing ‘well’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012 the UK media reported the results of a paper in the British Medical Journal Open, including the finding that hypnotics increase the risk of ‘premature death’. Taking this media coverage as a case study, the paper explores UK people's responses and assesses the implications for the debate about the (de)pharmaceuticalisation of sleep. Two hundred and fifty one posts to the websites of 6 UK newspapers were analysed thematically, along with 12 focus group discussions (n = 51) of newspaper coverage from one UK newspaper. Four thematic responses were identified: bad science/journalism, Hobson's choice, risk assessment and challenging pharmaceuticalisation. We found that most people claimed that the story did not worry them, even if they stated that they were using sleeping pills, and that focus group members generally appeared to respond in terms of their pre-existing views of hypnotics. The way in which lay expertise was drawn on in responding to the coverage was one of the most striking findings of the study. People referred to their own or others' experience of taking hypnotics to recognise the legitimacy of taking them or to weigh up the risks and benefits, as reflexive users. Overall, our case study cautions against making strong claims about the power of the media to legitimate de-pharmaceuticalisation. While the media may have such a role, this is in the main only for those who are receptive to such a message already. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the politics of scale in the context of youth citizenship. We propose the concept of ‘brands of youth citizenship’ to understand recent shifts in the state promotion of citizenship formations for young people, and demonstrate how scale is crucial to that agenda. As such, we push forward debates on the scaling of citizenship more broadly through an examination of the imaginative and institutional geographies of learning to be a citizen. The paper's empirical focus is a state-funded youth programme in the UK – National Citizen Service – launched in 2011 and now reaching tens of thousands of 15–17 year olds. We demonstrate the ‘branding’ of youth citizenship, cast here in terms of social action and designed to create a particular type of citizen-subject. Original research with key architects, delivery providers and young people demonstrates two key points of interest. First, that the scales of youth citizenship embedded in NCS promote engagement at the local scale, as part of a national collective, whilst the global scale is curiously absent. Second, that discourses of youth citizenship are increasingly mobilised alongside ideas of Britishness yet fractured by the geographies of devolution. Overall, the paper explores the scalar politics and performance of youth citizenship, the tensions therein, and the wider implications of this study for both political geographers and society more broadly at a time of heated debate about youthful politics in the United Kingdom and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen has been identified as a potential gamechanger and ambitious national targets have been announced by many governments around the world. However, the lack of clear policy signals at the country level remains a barrier and significant cost reduction progress is unlikely to be made unless the issue is addressed. The paper aims to assess whether current UK energy policies support an economic case for low-carbon and competitive H2 production. A financial model is developed for hypothetical H2 projects based in the UK. Price assumptions are assigned to a specific set of policies in combination with the key technical considerations for H2 production and estimated return. The study concludes that H2 development featuring electrolysers or carbon capture and storage cannot rely on market forces alone to reach full commercialisation and competitiveness in the UK. While policies improve the economic case for H2 in some key areas, existing frameworks are not ambitious enough to advance the transition to low carbon options such as Blue and Green H2. Moreover, current policies do not sufficiently disincentivise investments in emission-intensive alternatives. • Explore potential for power-to-gas and steam methane reforming H2 with CCS in the UK. • Consider how current energy policy impacts the economics of both H2 production types. • Power-to-gas H2 can profit from security of supply policies and market-based support. • Blue H2 represents high-risk investment due to depleting domestic gas resources. • Current carbon price is too low to stimulate investment in low-carbon H2 projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2011 the BBC Lab UK carried out a web-based survey on the causes of mental distress. The ‘Stress Test’ was launched on ‘All in the Mind’ a BBC Radio 4 programme and the test’s URL was publicised on radio and TV broadcasts, and made available via BBC web pages and social media. Given the large amount of data created, over 32,800 participants, with corresponding diagnosis, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics; the dataset are potentially an important source of data for population based research on depression and anxiety. However, as respondents self-selected to participate in the online survey, the survey may comprise a non-random sample. It may be only individuals that listen to BBC Radio 4 and/or use their website that participated in the survey. In this instance using the Stress Test data for wider population based research may create sample selection bias. Focusing on the depression component of the Stress Test, this paper presents an easy-to-use method, the Two Step Probit Selection Model, to detect and statistically correct selection bias in the Stress Test. Using a Two Step Probit Selection Model; this paper did not find a statistically significant selection on unobserved factors for participants of the Stress Test. That is, survey participants who accessed and completed an online survey are not systematically different from non-participants on the variables of substantive interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regenerative medicine (RM) is championed as a potential source of curative treatments for a variety of illnesses, and as a generator of economic wealth and prosperity. Alongside this optimism, however, is a sense of concern that the translation of basic science into useful RM therapies will be laboriously slow due to a range of challenges relating to live tissue handling and manufacturing, regulation, reimbursement and commissioning, and clinical adoption. This paper explores the attempts of stakeholders to overcome these innovation challenges and thus facilitate the emergence of useful RM therapies. The paper uses the notion of innovation niches as an analytical frame. Innovation niches are collectively constructed socio-technical spaces in which a novel technology can be tested and further developed, with the intention of enabling wider adoption. Drawing on primary and secondary data, we explore the motivation for, and the attempted construction of, niches in three domains which are central to the adoption of innovative technologies: the regulatory, the health economic, and the clinical. We illustrate that these niches are collectively constructed via both formal and informal initiatives, and we argue that they reflect wider socio-political trends in the social management of biomedical novelty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty academic psychologists and neuroscientists, with an interest in autism and based within the United Kingdom, were interviewed between 2012 and 2013 on a variety of topics related to the condition. Within these qualitative interviews researchers often argued that there had been a ‘turn to infancy’ since the beginning of the 21st century with focus moving away from the high functioning adolescent and towards the pre-diagnostic infant deemed to be ‘at risk’ of autism. The archetypal research of this type is the ‘infant sibs’ study whereby infants with an elder sibling already diagnosed with autism are subjected to a range of tests, the results of which are examined only once it becomes apparent whether that infant has autism. It is claimed in this paper that the turn to infancy has been facilitated by two phenomena; the autism epidemic of the 1990s and the emergence of various methodological techniques, largely although not exclusively based within neuroscience, which seek to examine social disorder in the absence of comprehension or engagement on the part of the participant: these are experiments done to participants rather than with them. Interviewees claimed that these novel methods allowed researchers to see a ‘real’ autism that lay ‘behind’ methodology. That claim is disputed here and instead it is argued that these emerging methodologies other various phenomena, reorienting the social abnormality believed typical of autism away from language and meaning and towards the body. The paper concludes by suggesting that an attempt to draw comparisons between the symptoms of autism in infant populations and adults with the condition inevitably leads to a somaticisation of autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a quantitative-based evaluation of the environmental impact of a proposed wind farm is presented using the Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM). The paper uses the revised Environmental Statement of the Grove Farm Wind Energy Project, which was rejected during the planning decision consent stage initially and upheld on appeal. The paper evaluates quantitatively the potential impact of an onshore wind farm at the construction and operation stages. Based on the RIAM evaluation conducted, the paper then goes on to apply a mathematical model to the results to determine the indicated potential level and nature of sustainability of the proposed wind farm. The results indicate that the Grove Farm project was deemed, as a whole, detrimental to the environment–human system, particularly in respect to impacts to visual amenity and cultural heritage. The application of the model to the RIAM indicated that in both the construction and operation stages, the project was considered as unsustainable. The results obtained raised legitimate questions as to the benefits of such projects as a major contributor to the UK׳s renewable and sustainable energy mix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the potential role of growth in inequality for forecasting real housing returns of the United Kingdom. In our forecasting exercise, we use linear and nonlinear models, as well as measures of absolute and relative consumption and income inequalities at quarterly frequency over the period 1975–2016. Our results indicate that, while nonlinearity in the data generating process of real housing returns is important, growth in inequality does not necessarily carry important information in forecasting the future path of housing prices in the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• 14.8 Mt/yr of basic rock production can yield ∼3.7 Mt/yr of waste fine for UK ERW. • Rock extraction for ERW in UK can have relatively low socio-environmental impact. • A significant spatial variation was found in CDR potential across the UK's croplands. Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), a technology based on amending soils with crushed calcium- and magnesium-rich silicate minerals has substantial CO 2 removal potential. Evaluation of the available resources of these minerals and current production capacity is crucial for early-stage deployment of this approach. A robust understanding of the potential limitations in exploiting these resources is also required to ensure the scalability of ERW. This paper provides a spatial inventory of basic silicate rock resources in the UK along with current production capacity and permitted reserves. We also integrate spatial data to assess the potential environmental and social impacts of current rock extraction. 68 active and 100 inactive quarries were identified within outcrops of basic silicate rocks which are mainly distributed in Northern Ireland and in the central belt of Scotland. 14.8 Mt yr−1 of basic silicate rock are estimated to be extracted from which up to 3.7 Mt yr−1 of basic silicate waste fines is estimated to be produced which may be available for ERW in the UK. 490 Mt of permitted reserves is associated with active and inactive queries. Spatial distribution of artificial alkaline minerals including Construction and Demolition Wastes (CDW) and legacy slags in the UK have also been included in the inventory. Transport distances are calculated between all resources and the UK's croplands where these materials may be applied for ERW. The relative appropriateness of the UK's croplands for CDR are also calculated based on their proximity to mineral resources and climate parameters controlling the rate of EW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity Market is structured to fund reliable electricity supply, meet the need of consumers, ensure the affordability of end-users, and support national economic development. In recent years, to meet challenging emission target set by Government, power system in the UK has a rapid increase of integration with various-scale Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) and Energy Storage Systems (ESSs), which pushes the electricity market reform to accommodate the changes, encourage renewable energy integration, adopt new technologies, stimulate consumers participation, and ensure the power system resilience. The paper reviews the history of UK electricity market evolution, driving factors of reform, and the trend of current electricity market reform. In history, the UK electricity wholesale market has experienced three significant reform stages, which are introducing the Electricity Pool of England & Wales (the Pool) in the 1980s, implementing the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA) in the 2000s, and performing the Electricity Market Reform (EMR) in 2013. To address the new emerging challenges in decarbonising power generation, the paper explains and analyses on-going electricity market changes and the trend for future electricity market reform. • Comprehensive review of UK electricity market mechanism and its history of evolution. • Explanation of the major UK electricity market reforms and the rational for all the reforms. • Clarification of the importance of electricity market in encouraging increases of renewable energy integration. • Analysis the trend for the future electricity market evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: ‘Offshore CO2 storage’ refers to the injection of liquefied CO2 into deep geological formations beneath the seabed (e.g. depleted oil and gas reservoirs, and saline aquifers) for the purpose of storing it there on a permanent basis. The storage in this manner of captured CO2 emissions from industrial installations and power plants has attracted considerable scientific and technical interest as a potential mitigation response to climate change. A key issue facing policymakers in several countries is how to reconcile policy commitments to develop offshore CO2 storage with other competing – and potentially conflicting – uses of the marine environment. With a view to informing policy responses to this issue, this paper presents a case study of legal and policy frameworks concerning offshore CO2 storage in United Kingdom. The paper maps key design features of the United Kingdom׳s framework for marine permitting and planning, appraising the extent to which they enable orderly development of offshore CO2 storage in a manner consistent with relevant high-level policy objectives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Drought has wide ranging impacts on all sectors. Despite much effort to identify the best drought indicator to represents the occurrence of drought impacts in a particular sector, there is still no consensus among the scientific community on this. Using a more detailed and extensive impact dataset than in previous studies, this paper assesses the regional relationship between drought impacts occurrence in British agriculture and two of the most commonly used drought indices (SPI and SPEI). The largest qualitative dataset on reported drought impacts on British agriculture for the period 1975–2012 spanning all major recent droughts was collated. Logistic regression using generalised additive models was applied to investigate the association between drought indices and reported impacts at the regional level. Results show that SPEI calculated for the preceding six months is the best indicator to predict the probability of drought impacts on agriculture in the UK, although the variation in the response to SPEI 6 differed between regions. However, this variation appears to result both from the method by which SPEI is derived, which means that similar values of the index equate to different soil moisture conditions in wet and dry regions, and from the variation in agriculture between regions. The study shows that SPEI alone has limited value as an indicator of agricultural droughts in heterogeneous areas and that such results cannot be usefully extrapolated between regions. However, given the drought sensitivity of agriculture, the integration of regional predictions within drought monitoring and forecasting would help to reduce the large on-farm economic damage of drought and increase the sector's resilience to future drought. • Compares indices and periods to predict agricultural drought impacts in the UK • Best is Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) for six months. • Regional differences are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Examination of policy debates associated with the UK smart meter rollout, making use of the sociology of expectation literature. • Content analysis of policy documents associated with the smart meter rollout over a 16-year period. • Even though the rollout has been highly contested, smart meter have maintained high policy relevance over time. • Expectations associated with smart meters haven been broadened out and safeguarded through connecting them to change energy policy goals. Socio-technical futures and associated expectations are acknowledged to play a crucial role in generating momentum for many science and technology innovations. Past research has mainly concentrated on studying the role of expectations within the early developments of innovations, formulated by technological developers and scientists, rather than looking at their role within policymaking. More recent work has started to address this gap, investigating the interrelations between expectations, the governance of innovations and policymaking. This paper examines the governance through expectations as formulated in policy documents and associated with the United Kingdom smart meter rollout over a 16-year period – between the policy consultation stage (2000–2008) and its more recent policy design stage (2009–2016). In doing so, it aims to contribute to the literatures on socio-technical futures, the sociology of expectations and smart meters by developing an understanding of how smart meters have been associated with a wider context of changing expectations within policy debates over time, and how policy has articulated, adjusted and attempted to stabilise expectations, whilst dealing with increasing scrutinisations of the rollout. We show that, even though the rollout has been highly contested, smart meters have maintained high policy relevance. This has been possible partly because expectations associated with smart meters have been broadened out and safeguarded by continually connecting them to the changing energy policy goals. Thus, smart meters and their future promises have been actively 'enacted'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In the literature, it is argued that the Fordist regime of accumulation has gradually been replaced by a finance-driven regime. We argue that the contemporary regime in the UK could be best characterized as a finance- and real estate-driven regime. Like Fordism, the new regime is thought to fuel the economy by propping up consumption, but unlike the Fordist regime it does not seek to do so through job creation or high and steady wages, but rather through private money creation and real estate price inflation. The reliance of the economy on private housing debt rather than public debt—'privatized Keynesianism' (Crouch, 2011)—is a key element of the new regime. The state has not simply facilitated the rise of the new regime but has put its faith in the financial and real estate sectors—both residential and commercial—to prop up the economy. Different layers of the UK government have favoured real estate development and investment, in part enabled by disintermediation and lobbying. For a while, the finance- and real estate-driven regime seemed to create economic growth. Although the regime appeared fragile during the financial crisis of 2007–2009, the neoliberal mode and its accompanying finance- and real estate-driven regime were saved and the dominance of finance and real estate have deepened. This paper is based on the analysis of publicly available statistics, policy and advocacy documents and 39 in-depth interviews with real estate professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following literature review sets out the state-of-the-art research relating to smart building principles and smart energy systems in UK higher education university campuses. The paper begins by discussing the carbon impact of the sector and the concept of 'smart campuses' applied to the sector in the context of decarbonisation. Opportunities and challenges associated with integrating smart energy systems at the university campus from a policy and technical perspective are then discussed. This is followed by a review of building and campus-scale frameworks supporting a transition to smart energy campuses using the BPIE' Smart Buildings' framework. The paper finds that the complexity of achieving net-zero carbon emissions for new and existing higher education buildings and energy systems can be addressed with the adoption of 'smart building principles' and integrating 'smartness' into their energy systems. Several universities in the UK and worldwide are integrating smart services and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in their operations following the smart campus premise. At the building level, existing frameworks often create conceptual roadmaps for the smart building premise or propose technical implementation and assessment methods. At university campus scale, implementation typically comes through single-vector interventions, and only few examples exist that propose a multi-vector approach. Comparisons of the drivers and the decision-making process are made, with carbon and cost reduction being the most prominent from leveraging distributed energy generation. Therefore, this study identified the need for a comprehensive technical or policy framework to drive the uptake of the smart energy campus, aiming to bring together the holistic value of smart energy campuses. • Systematic literature review of smart energy systems at university campus-scale. • UK Policy and technical pathways to smart energy integration. • A critical review of the existing building and university campus-scale frameworks. • A holistic decision-making framework for the integration of multi-vector smart energy system at university campus scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relatively little energy research has attended to justice considerations. The limited energy justice inquiry that exists focuses on justice in relation to impacts of energy production, consumption, and policies that either exacerbate or seek to mitigate distributive and procedural concerns. Programmes aimed at facilitating the so-called ‘energy transition’ have strong implications for energy justice. For example, efforts to reduce energy consumption and/or carbon emissions, policies to increase energy security, and programmes to increase energy access and affordability all address distributive concerns. Nevertheless, the costs associated with meeting such goals and running such programmes also have justice implications and should be viewed alongside the other aforementioned normative issues as an aspect of energy justice. Here, we examine public perceptions of who should fund programmes designed to ease the transition to a more sustainable and equitable energy system, finding most responsibility assigned to energy companies, and beliefs about procedural justice meaningfully shaping thoughts on who should pay. Our UK-based mixed methods inquiry reveals that whilst our respondents (survey) and participants (focus groups) accept some personal costs directed towards governmental programmes that could reduce energy injustices, acceptance is dependent on several factors, including perceived importance of distributive justice and whether the energy system exhibits procedural justice. The influence of normative factors on cost acceptance has implications for feasibility of polices to promote energy justice. We conducted a survey (N = 3,150), followed by five focus groups (N = 6–9 each) throughout Great Britain with survey respondents to explore further their answers and explain some of our quantitative findings. We conclude this paper with tangible policy recommendations for government, such as the amount (cost) and types of environmental and social levies that are viable, based on their public acceptance, and suggestions for other approaches to funding energy transitions, so as not to exceed the limits of public acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological studies of the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) occupations have documented the professionalisation strategies these groups use to establish boundaries between themselves and their competitors, including seeking educational accreditation and statutory regulation/licensure. Chiropractic has been particularly successful at professionalising and in Australia and the UK it is taught within public universities. Recent events have threatened chiropractic's university foothold, however, showing that professionalisation needs to be understood as an ongoing process of negotiation. Based on interviews with chiropractors in Australia and the UK, this paper examines the professionalisation strategies deployed by chiropractors within and outside of the university. Highly divergent strategies are identified across different sectors of the profession, relating to defining the chiropractic paradigm, directing education and constructing professional identity. In each domain, chiropractic academics tended to prioritise building the evidence base and becoming more aligned with medicine and other allied health professions. Although some practitioners supported this agenda, others strove to preserve chiropractic's vitalistic philosophy and professional distinction. Following Bourdieu, these intra-professional struggles are interpreted as occurring within a field in which chiropractors compete for different forms of capital, pulled by two opposing poles. The differing orientations and strategies pursued at the two poles of the field point to a number of possible futures for this CAM profession, including a potential split within the profession itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ventricular assist devices (VADs) are playing an increasing role in the management of heart failure. VADs are mechanical circulatory devices that support or replace the function of a failing heart. Currently, VADs are only offered in theUnited Kingdom (UK) to patients waiting for a heart transplant; however, the use of these devices is likely to increase in the near future. Presently, there is a dearth of literature exploring the day-to-day realities of living with a VAD, which will become increasingly important as the role of VADs is increased. This paper adopts an interpretive phenomenological approach to uncover the experience of ‘Being’ a VAD recipient. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 VAD recipients. The overarching theme is that life with a VAD is a liminal existence. This comprised four subthemes: the first examines how the VAD imposes limitations on recipients' lives that can precipitate a loss of identity; the second focuses on temporal disruptions, recipients' sense of time changes from authentic to inauthentic; the third explores how the VAD itself is liminal, it is positioned as temporary rather than as the ‘answer’ to the condition; and finally, we discuss VAD recipients' projections to the future and the possibility of an end to the experience of liminality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do children with lower test scores benefit more from breastfeeding than those with higher scores? In this paper, I examine the distributional effects of maternal breastfeeding on the cognitive test scores of 11,544 children who were born in 2000 and 2001 in the United Kingdom using a semiparametric quantile regression model. I find evidence that maternal breastfeeding has larger positive impacts on children with lower test scores. Effects for children below the 20th percentile are about 2–2.5 times greater than those for children above the 80 th percentile. I also find that these distributional effects are larger when the duration of breastfeeding is extended. One policy implication is that a public policy aims at promoting breastfeeding might narrow a disparity in children's cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the multiple ways experiences of pregnancy and early motherhood come to ‘rework’ the biographies of women living with epilepsy. Pregnancy is explored as a temporarily concurrent status alongside the long-term condition of epilepsy. Narrative interviews were conducted with 32 women from across the UK. Analysis of these narratives suggests that biographical disruption and continuity are both useful in the conceptualisation of women's diverse experiences of pregnancy and epilepsy. Such findings challenge the notion that the presence of a condition over a long period of time leads to the normalisation of illness. Participants' narratives demonstrate that, for some, pregnancy and early motherhood may be disruptive and can raise concerns regarding an ever present condition that may previously have been taken for granted. Findings also indicate the need for a greater consideration of gender and care responsibilities, as well explorations of concomitant conditions, in the theorising of biographies and chronic illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients are increasingly being asked for feedback about their healthcare experiences. However, healthcare staff often find it difficult to act on this feedback in order to make improvements to services. This paper draws upon notions of legitimacy and readiness to develop a conceptual framework (Patient Feedback Response Framework – PFRF) which outlines why staff may find it problematic to respond to patient feedback. A large qualitative study was conducted with 17 ward based teams between 2013 and 2014, across three hospital Trusts in the North of England. This was a process evaluation of a wider study where ward staff were encouraged to make action plans based on patient feedback. We focus on three methods here: i) examination of taped discussion between ward staff during action planning meetings ii) facilitators notes of these meetings iii) telephone interviews with staff focusing on whether action plans had been achieved six months later. Analysis employed an abductive approach. Through the development of the PFRF, we found that making changes based on patient feedback is a complex multi-tiered process and not something that ward staff can simply ‘do’. First, staff must exhibit normative legitimacy – the belief that listening to patients is a worthwhile exercise. Second, structural legitimacy has to be in place – ward teams need adequate autonomy, ownership and resource to enact change. Some ward teams are able to make improvements within their immediate control and environment. Third, for those staff who require interdepartmental co-operation or high level assistance to achieve change, organisational readiness must exist at the level of the hospital otherwise improvement will rarely be enacted. Case studies drawn from our empirical data demonstrate the above. It is only when appropriate levels of individual and organisational capacity to change exist, that patient feedback is likely to be acted upon to improve services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical innovations have created a future of survivorship for many groups of people with a variety of conditions that were previously untreatable or untreated. This has led not only to an expansion of medical activity in a whole variety of new areas but also to the emergence of new groups of individuals defined or defining themselves through their experiences, diagnosis and treatment. Through analysis of in-depth interviews with 27 of the now-adult survivors of the pioneer cohort of children receiving liver transplants in Britain in the early 1980s and 1990s, this paper presents how this group not only illustrate the capacities of modern medicine and healthcare to transform the survival prospects of a more diversified population, but also create new narratives of embodied identity. Specifically, we examine how childhood identities were shaped in three settings; home, hospital and school. At home, parents appeared to shape their child's identity through controlling tightly a daily medical regime focused on the concept of ‘body as machine’, celebrating their survival as a transplant recipient, yet at the same time socialising their child as a ‘normal’ child, albeit one who had a serious illness. The hospital appeared instrumental in shaping parents' focus on their child's body, and offered a way, through other patients with liver disease, for children to feel ‘normal’ in their difference. It was in school, through interaction with ‘healthy’ children and teachers, that corporeality and embodiment appeared most salient, and where social identity was negotiated and more often held in contention. Adult survivors of childhood liver transplant straddle the different discourses of normality and difference as their embodied experiences shape their narratives of identity and shed light on an underexplored aspect of the relationship between medicine and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As there is no one-and-only concept on how to precisely define and establish quality control (QC) or quality assurance (QA) in the making of environmental assessments (EA), this paper presents selected features of international approaches that address quality in EA systems in the USA, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Based on explanative case studies, we highlight the embedding of specific quality control features within the EA systems, the objectives and processes, and relevant transparency challenges. Such features of QC/QA approaches can be considered in cases where substantial quality control and assurance efforts are still missing. Yet further research needs to be conducted on the efficacy of these approaches, which remains beyond the scope of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a detailed review of the basis and prospects for United Kingdom (UK) proposals for the most ambitious mainstream social, economic, and environmental policy program of the 21st century: the Green New Deal (GND), providing critical reflection for its implementation at a local or regional level. Through a review of academic, policy and book publications we examine the key proposed features of a UK GND, identifying five core elements: financial reforms; green infrastructure investment; financing the GND; ownership structures; and economic, social and climate justice. We subsequently review these policy areas through the lens of multi-level governance (MLG) to understand what scales of policy action are required for these aims to be achieved. We find that, whilst core elements of a UK GND, such as reforms to the financial system, and expansionary fiscal and monetary policy require policy change at national and supra-national level, the majority of GND investments require implementation at the local level. We suggest that, in the context of contemporary UK MLG, there are challenges for fully funding and delivering a GND without a national programme, while highlighting emerging options for coordinating and implementing a GND by local government actors, in the absence of national support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the case of time-lapse imaging (TLI), this paper analyses how medical professionals negotiate the use of new 'add-on' fertility treatments in light of the limited evidence available. The data produced by TLI technologies is meant to help professionals identify the best embryo to be implanted. Embryo selection is essential in IVF practice for increasing pregnancy rates and reducing the negative effects of repeated failures. More than 5 years after the introduction of TLI in IVF labs, however, there has been no conclusive randomised control trial (RCT) evidence to show that the tools do indeed have a significant impact on pregnancy rates. Nonetheless, many public clinics in the UK have adopted such technologies. Consequently, our research asks: How is the use of TLI tools legitimised by professionals, in light of contradictory evidence? Focusing on 25 semi-structured staff interviews, we argue that professionals use several strategies to legitimise the use of TLI in the clinic without, however, challenging the tenets of evidence-based medicine (EBM) and the value it places on RCTs. Rather, professionals emphasise various advantages that TLI offers, including its use as a lab tool, its potential for knowledge production in embryology, and the role it plays in the management of patient expectations and course of treatment. This paper contributes to debates on the role of EBM in modern medicine and fertility care specifically – an area where this inter-relationship has been underexplored. We conclude by suggesting avenues towards a more nuanced understanding of EBM as it relates to IVF treatment and a rapidly changing biotechnology context. • Professional legitimation of time-lapse imaging in light of limited evidence. • Data on professional perspectives on the use of new fertility treatments. • Article connects IVF add-on debate to critiques of evidence-based medicine. • In-depth analysis of time-lapse imaging case in UK clinics. • Randomised control trials still considered gold standard in IVF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We welcome the comments by Harpur and Haddon (2020) on our paper on the typologies of social support and its associations with breastfeeding at two months in a UK sample. We share their concerns around the under-acknowledged costs of breastfeeding, and the need for a truly family-centred approach to breastfeeding support. However, they are mistaken to assume we do not view breastfeeding problems as an important cost of breastfeeding: We explicitly comment on breastfeeding challenges within our paper, and such challenges are theoretically incorporated into the "costs of breastfeeding" following an evolutionary anthropological framework. They are also incorrect in their statement that we recommend breastfeeding promotion messages to wider family members. In fact, we outline in our manuscript that breastfeeding promotional messages can have negative consequences for mothers, and are unlikely to be supportive. What we do suggest is a family-centred approach that recognises that women interact with, and may be supported by, a wide range of individuals (including fathers and grandmothers); and the importance of taking a nuanced approach to support without assuming that all types of support necessarily leads to "more breastfeeding." We hope our response is useful in clarifying the key points of our paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe palynological assemblages in the Middle Miocene (Serravallian) Kenslow Member of the Brassington Formation at Bees Nest Pit, near Brassington, Derbyshire, U.K., and infer vegetation types and their palaeoclimate implications. The limited lateral extent of the 1.33 m-thick succession of clay and lignite, and its position surrounding fragments of a large tree trunk, suggests that the succession may have accumulated within a tree throw hole or possibly within a shallow stagnant pond, although aquatic lacustrine palynomorphs have not been identified to confirm this latter hypothesis. The stratigraphical distribution of palynological assemblages, based on 58 samples allows reconstruction of a wetland succession. Two pollen zones were identified using CONISS cluster analysis, and a predominantly warm-temperate and mixed mesophytic forest biome was recognised with Tsuga conifer pollen-types being dominant (<42%) in both pollen zones. Changes in the make-up of this forested wetland were in response to local environmental changes rather than major climatic shifts. Wetland development culminated in the formation of a relatively open shrub and reed-dominated mire which produced the lignite-precursor peat. Applying the Co-existence Approach, Mean Annual Temperature was 15.6–21.7 °C and Mean Annual Precipitation was 703–1682 mm indicating a warm-temperate to subtropical palaeoclimate, and both parameters show no significant change through the section. Findings suggest that, following the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum, the Serravallian climate of the northwestern margin of Europe remained much wetter than Central Europe, where more arid climates have been reconstructed, and this difference may have been due to the influence of the proto-North Atlantic Current. • We present a fossil record using a lignite and clay unit from the Kenslow Member. • We present the first reconstruction of a wetlands in the UK Miocene reconstruction record. • Transition from a Tsuga -dominant mixed mesophytic forest to a wetland occurred. • Palaeoclimate variables varied little and suggested frost-free conditions. • High precipitation reconstructions were caused by the proto-North Atlantic Current. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities have become important drivers in promoting strategies for sustainable development. The primary objective of this article is to analyze the differences between public transportation in Newcastle upon Tyne, the city considered the most sustainable in the United Kingdom, and Florianópolis, a city with great potential for sustainable policies located in southern Brazil. This comparison may provide models, ideas and actions for the development of Florianópolis as a model of sustainability in South America. Therefore, a comparative analysis is provided: to observe changes, build models, and verify similarities and differences, while seeking to discover which behaviors govern political and social phenomena in the area of urban sustainability. This paper provides a comparative description of social and economic indicators: gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, inflation, employment, as well as the historical population evolution of the two cities. This work contrasts the sustainable transport model used by Newcastle and the reality of the transport needs of Florianópolis. This article is the first in a series to analyze the indicators for sustainable cities, focusing mainly on the reality of the South American city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The steel industry is the world's largest industrial source of CO 2 emissions. Recent UK economic policies have led to reduced domestic steel production giving an apparent reduction in national emissions. However, demand for goods made from steel has not reduced. Emissions have thus been transferred not reduced and implementation of UK climate policies may in future expand this ‘carbon leakage.’ This paper explores how future UK demand for goods made from steel might be supplied while satisfying national climate policies, and how this will influence global CO 2 emissions. Current flows and stocks of steel are estimated from existing databases. Evidence from other developed economies suggests that per capita stocks are tending towards a saturation level so future demand is forecast from population growth and the expected rate of replacement of a stable stock. The carbon intensities of five different steel-making routes are used to predict the allowed scale of future domestic steel production within the industrial emissions allowances set in four energy pathways defined by the UK Government. The remaining requirement for steel must be sourced offshore and the associated emissions are predicted, to give an estimate of the global emissions arising from final demand in the UK. The results show that current UK climate strategy may have a limited effect in reducing the CO 2 emissions of the global steel industry, unless the UK shifts towards producing more of its own steel products with domestic secondary steel-making. This option would also increase the security of UK supply and support an expansion of UK manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2021, the United Kingdom (UK) Government considered tripling the UK grid's performance-based incentive scheme's penalty for capacity non-delivery during a shortage. This paper proposes an insurance that a generator may buy to manage its risk exposure to the scheme's penalty. It also shows how to use readily available data to calculate the insurance's per MW premium. These findings suggest that the proposed insurance deserves consideration by generators and insurance sellers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the closure of the UK asylums, ‘the community’ has become short hand for describing a variety of disparate and complex spaces, in which service users manage their experiences of distress. An examination of such spaces here forms the basis of an analysis of the way in which service users move through and within space, to establish agency and dis/order while distressed. Seventeen participants, with various experiences of mental distress took part in a qualitative study, and a further textual analysis was conducted on eight published autobiographies. In the context of the interviews, participants presented drawings of the spaces they occupy during times of crisis, wellbeing and recovery. All texts were analysed using a thematic approach, informed by theories of embodiment and relational space. In this paper, the focus is directed towards two key patterns of movement, in order to explore ways in which participants experiencing various forms of mental health crisis used space in order to maintain and manage feelings of agency. Firstly, incidents where participants described moving towards fluid, outside spaces are explored, with agency being established through seeking, and utilising, greater possibilities for action and engaging others. In addition, the opposite pattern of movement is also explored, using incidents where participants described moving indoors, using the private space of the home to establish order and restore feelings of agency and strength, in contrast to overwhelming experiences in public space. Connections between these patterns of movement and particular forms of distress are discussed. It is argued that community and private spaces are integral to the ways in which selfhood, agency and action is experienced in mental distress, which in turn has implications for policy, treatment and community action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions of community are central to many research settings in the social sciences. Rabinow argued that, in the wake of the Human Genome Project, an increasingly important form of collectivity would be biosociality . Biosociality recognises a central role for biomedical knowledge in constructing genetic identities and producing and reproducing social relationships. Accordingly, it is often imagined as a new form of social solidarity. We draw on observations of parent-led conferences to explore the way in which biosociality is expressed at events organised around a particular genetic syndrome – 22q11 deletion syndrome. The parent-led conferences took place within the United Kingdom between 2007 and 2010 and were observed as part of a multi-sited ethnographic study. By bringing together a geographically dispersed group of people together within the same physical location, conferences offer an ideal platform to empirically examine sociality. Durkheim used the term collective effervescence to describe the collective expression of heightened emotion. We suggest that in the case of the 22q11 deletion syndrome activities discussed in this paper, collective effervescence is a mechanism through which individuals become a collective. We argue that parent-led conferences gather individuals in one location on the basis of common biological factors, but it is the shared emotional experience of being together that consolidates and renews the connection between members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Between late 2010 and mid 2011 there was a significant heroin shortage in the United Kingdom (UK), resulting in a rapid drop in street heroin purity and increase in price. The most well documented event of this kind is the 2000–2001 Australian heroin shortage, with little published research addressing the UK context. In this paper we draw on qualitative data to explore the impact of, and responses to, the 2010/2011 shortage among London-based heroin users. Methods Data collection comprised longitudinal life history and narrative interviews with 37 PWID in 2010–2011. The average age of participants was 40, with a 20-year average duration of injecting. Heroin was the drug of choice for the majority of participants (25), with 12 preferring to inject a crack-cocaine and heroin mix. Recruitment took place through London drug and alcohol services and peer networks. Results The majority of participants continued to source and inject heroin despite reported decline in purity and increased adulteration. Transitions to poly-drug use during the heroin shortage were also common, increasing vulnerability to overdose and other drug related harms. Participants enacted indigenous harm reduction strategies in attempting to manage changes in drug purity and availability, with variable success. Conclusion Epidemiological data gathered during periods of heroin shortage is often drawn on to emphasise the health benefits of reductions in supply. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the ways in which heroin shortages may increase, as well as reduce, harm. There is a need for enhanced service provision during periods of drug shortage as well as caution in regard to the posited benefits of supply-side drug law enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways in which inequality generates particular population health outcomes remains a major source of dispute within social epidemiology and medical sociology. Wilkinson and Pickett's The Spirit Level (2009), undoubtedly galvanised thinking across the disciplines, with its emphasis on how income inequality shapes the distribution of health and social problems. In this paper, we argue that their focus on income inequality, whilst important, understates the role of neoliberal discourses and practises in making sense of contemporary inequality and its health-related consequences. Many quantitative studies have demonstrated that more neoliberal countries have poorer health compared to less neoliberal countries, but there are few qualitative studies which explore how neoliberal discourses shape accounts and experiences and what protections and resources might be available to people. This article uses findings from a qualitative psycho-social study employing biographical-narrative interviews with women in Salford (England) to understand experiences of inequality as posited in The Spirit Level . We found evidence for the sorts of damages resulting from inequality as proposed in The Spirit Level . However, in addition to these, the most striking finding was the repeated articulation of a discourse which we have termed “ no legitimate dependency ”. This was something both painful and damaging, where dependency of almost any sort was disavowed and responsibility was assumed by the self or “othered” in various ways. No legitimate dependency , we propose, is a partial (and problematic) internalisation of neoliberal discourses which becomes naturalised and unquestioned at the individual level. We speculate that these sorts of discourses in conjunction with a destruction of protective resources (both material and discursive), lead to an increase in strain and account in part for well-known damages consequent on life in an unequal society. We conclude that integrating understandings of neoliberalism into theorising about inequality enriches sociological perspectives in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is an established and evolving technology for providing large-scale, long-term electricity storage that can aid electrical power systems achieve the goal of decarbonisation. CAES facilities often utilise large underground storage caverns to ensure high capacity systems. This results in the need of locations with suitable geological features to develop a CAES plant. This paper examines recent and ongoing large-scale CAES projects and presents candidate methods of storing high pressure air using underground features. An assessment of the overall potential for CAES in India is presented by examining its geological features and locations with the greatest potential for CAES plants are determined. This is combined with an analysis of the renewable electricity generation potential in India to identify candidate areas for renewable generation and CAES integrated systems. Up to 1.05% of Indian land area is deemed suitable for CAES plant development and if fully utilised would be sufficient to meet the energy storage needs of India, however, practically a very small fraction of the total suitable land that could be developed so other competing energy storage technologies should be considered. Conversely, the UK possesses a very good potential for CAES, enough to greatly exceed necessary energy storage, owing to the abundance of salt beds not present in India. For CAES to garner serious consideration in India, aquifer storage based CAES needs to be demonstrated. • A comparative assessment of the Indian and UK potential for CAES. • Methodology for linking CAES suitable regions and renewable electricity generation. • Comprehensive review of all major large-scale CAES projects. • Economic and geographic problems have led to the failure of many CAES projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]