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The UK state has been through many periods of perceived crisis, but the instability of the last decade has shaken some of the foundational institutions of British politics. Our main argument is that the rise of political instability relates to the failure of British politics to respond to structural inequality in society and politics. This includes growing economic and geographic disparities, as well as destabilizing divisions over long-standing social injustices. The infusion of these trends into the political process is the subject of the 'asymmetric power model (APM)', which acts as the theoretical underpinning of this paper and the special issue it introduces. In this editorial to the Parliamentary Affairs Special Issue on 'Instability and inequality in the British state', we elaborate these arguments and provide a brief overview of the eight papers in the issue, which cover the APM, the constitution, the UK Union, the Conservative Party, public policymaking, gender inequalities, intersectional inequalities, and geographical inequalities. Together, the papers identify the causes and features of the UK's troubling inequality-instability dialectic and offer various practical and theoretical ways forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an extensive analysis of the UK's largest bifacial photovoltaic (PV) power plant, located in North Yorkshire. Commissioned in January 2020, this trailblazing facility, with a total installed capacity of 34.7 MW, is a benchmark for the evaluation of bifacial solar technology within the region. This pioneering study provides a thorough comparative assessment of bifacial and monofacial PV systems through a methodical investigation of their energy production, degradation rates, and spectral responses over a 4-year operational period. Our findings reveal that bifacial PV modules, distributed across four segments of the power plant, demonstrate a remarkable average power gain ranging between 15.12% and 17.31% compared with monofacial modules. Despite experiencing marginally higher annual degradation rates—1.17% for bifacial compared with 0.91% for monofacial systems—bifacial modules show superior resilience and energy yield, particularly during winter months when albedo effects are pronounced due to snow coverage. The study also highlights the strategic importance of spectral response analysis in optimizing PV performance. Bifacial modules have shown greater efficiency in capturing infrared radiation—a property that could be exploited to enhance overall energy yield under specific environmental conditions. The empirical data indicate a consistent performance of bifacial modules with an average normalized energy output clustering around the expected efficiency level. Therefore, the results of this study are pivotal for understanding the practical implications of deploying bifacial PV technology on a large scale. They provide valuable data for stakeholders in the solar energy sector, guiding future installations and innovations in solar panel technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As border controls have spanned from the territorial border to the interior, outsourcing controls to non-state actors has become the integral technology in everyday bordering. Whilst the racialized consequences of deputizing controls have been illuminated, the governmentality and biopolitical implications of these outsourcing processes have been overlooked. This paper argues that as the architecture of migration controls has evolved, the targets of control have widened; that migration controls have transcended migrants and are also used as a way to control sovereign subjects. Taking the genealogy of UK immigration control policy as a case study, the paper shows how the processes of outsourcing immigration controls to corporations, public institutions, and the private sphere have inverted the target of control through a governmentality of coercive measures and incentive structures. I argue that in outsourcing controls to non-state actors, the taken-for-granted boundaries between who is subject to immigration control and who is not are blurred because as sovereign subjects become complicit in borderwork, they also become subject to state violence. The implication is that all subjects become subject to immigration control, provoking the question of who immigration controls serve and to what end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global shortages of critical equipment and supplies induced by COVID-19 forced countries to rapidly build and ramp up their indigenous testing and production capacities. However, the many ways in which institutional and organizational change occurred has not been sufficiently captured. Building domestic capacity requires the leveraging and repurposing of existing domestic scientific and technological capabilities, coupled with intensified global outreach to new and existing partners and suppliers. Using the framework of institutional variety, this paper looks at two facets of the UK's COVID emergency industrial response: (1) building its laboratory testing capabilities and (2) for increasing production of personal protective equipment; assessing the institutional capacities and relations that were leveraged in this regard. It uses these findings together with observations of 'innovation processes under emergency conditions' and the potential uses of a 'critical equipment policy' to sharpen some of the recommendations made in the UK's post-COVID Research and Development Roadmap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The Medical Certificate of Stillbirth (MCS) records data about a baby's death after 24 weeks of gestation but before birth. Major errors that could alter interpretation of the MCS were widespread in two UK-based regional studies. Methods A multicentre evaluation was conducted, examining MCS issued 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018 in 76 UK obstetric units. A systematic case-note review of stillbirths was conducted by Obstetric and Gynaecology trainees, generating individual 'ideal MCSs' and comparing these to the actual MCS issued. Anonymized central data analysis described rates and types of error, agreement and factors associated with major errors. Results There were 1120 MCSs suitable for assessment, with 126 additional submitted data sets unsuitable for accuracy analysis (total 1246 cases). Gestational age demonstrated 'substantial' agreement [K = 0.73 (95% CI 0.70–0.76)]. Primary cause of death (COD) showed 'fair' agreement [K = 0.26 (95% CI 0.24–0.29)]. Major errors [696/1120; 62.1% (95% CI 59.3–64.9%)] included certificates issued for fetal demise at <24 weeks' gestation [23/696; 3.3% (95% CI 2.2–4.9%)] or neonatal death [2/696; 0.3% (95% CI 0.1–1.1%)] or incorrect primary COD [667/696; 95.8% (95% CI 94.1–97.1%)]. Of 540/1246 [43.3% (95% CI 40.6–46.1%)] 'unexplained' stillbirths, only 119/540 [22.0% (95% CI 18.8–25.7%)] remained unexplained; the majority were redesignated as either fetal growth restriction [FGR: 195/540; 36.1% (95% CI 32.2–40.3%)] or placental insufficiency [184/540; 34.1% (95% CI 30.2–38.2)]. Overall, FGR [306/1246; 24.6% (95% CI 22.3–27.0%)] was the leading primary COD after review, yet only 53/306 [17.3% (95% CI 13.5–22.1%)] FGR cases were originally attributed correctly. Conclusion This study demonstrates widespread major errors in MCS completion across the UK. MCS should only be completed following structured case-note review, with particular attention on the fetal growth trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forum shows that I correctly diagnosed the place that 'people's war' has in the historiography of the Second World War; that, if anything, I underestimated the grip that the connected series of beliefs about 'people's war' have come to have over some historians of the British Second World War; and how difficult it is to start a conversation about framing assumptions and the nature of the historiography of the war. In this response I aim to get above the din of detail and try to understand the underlying positions being taken by the respondents. I will try to tease out their rather hidden assumptions, in order to clarify better what is at issue and at stake, thereby making a fresh attempt to take this discussion forward. I will also extend the discussion by considering works that have already rejected the conceptualisation of 'people's war' defended in this forum. I hope that my original paper and the forum itself will together make the case that we need fresh ways of thinking about the British Second World War, as well as suggest that new ways are already in being and that the concept of 'people's war' as currently used by many historians needs to be abandoned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims The literature review aimed to identify the barriers the Punjabi and/or Sikh community have in accessing support for alcohol addiction. Method A systematic review of the literature was undertaken of four scholarly databases, Google Scholar and grey literature on UK-based research conducted after 1980 into alcohol addiction in the Punjabi and/or Sikh community. Fourteen papers met the inclusion criteria outlined in the paper and were included in the review. Results Ten main barriers to accessing support were found; stigma, religion, lack of understanding of addiction, over reliance on a medical model of treatment and disregard of therapy, cultural implications of being a member of the Punjabi and/or Sikh community and the addiction community, gender and generational differences and a lack of government commitment to alcohol support for BME communities with a lack of culturally specific services. Conclusion Despite the many barriers explored, the role of stigma remained a powerful theme throughout often underpinning other barriers. A key recommendation across many papers was the need for culturally sensitive support services. Several areas for future research were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Surgical waiting lists have risen dramatically across the UK as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The effective use of operating theatres by optimal scheduling could help mitigate this, but this requires accurate case duration predictions. Current standards for predicting the duration of surgery are inaccurate. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers the potential for greater accuracy in predicting surgical case duration. This study aimed to investigate whether there is evidence to support that AI is more accurate than current industry standards at predicting surgical case duration, with a secondary aim of analysing whether the implementation of the models used produced efficiency savings. Method: PubMed, Embase, and MEDLINE libraries were searched through to July 2023 to identify appropriate articles. PRISMA extension for scoping reviews and the Arksey and O'Malley framework were followed. Study quality was assessed using a modified version of the reporting guidelines for surgical AI papers by Farrow et al. Algorithm performance was reported using evaluation metrics. Results: The search identified 2593 articles: 14 were suitable for inclusion and 13 reported on the accuracy of AI algorithms against industry standards, with seven demonstrating a statistically significant improvement in prediction accuracy (P < 0.05). The larger studies demonstrated the superiority of neural networks over other machine learning techniques. Efficiency savings were identified in a RCT. Significant methodological limitations were identified across most studies. Conclusion: The studies suggest that machine learning and deep learning models are more accurate at predicting the duration of surgery; however, further research is required to determine the best way to implement this technology. Waiting lists for elective surgeries are rising in the UK. We conducted a scoping review with the aim to understand if artificial intelligence has the potential to improve the utilization of operating theatre resources through improved scheduling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpellation, the production and hailing of subjectivities, is key to poststructuralist international relations (IR) theory and yet with some notable exceptions interpellation/hailing as an analytical concept remains somewhat undertheorized. This paper presents a Lacanian–Žižekian psychoanalytical theorization of interpellation in IR, while engaging with the ontology and epistemology of belonging. More specifically, this paper develops four major psychoanalytical concepts: void/lack, fantasy, jouissance, and desire, as it argues that void/lack at the subjective and objective levels renders interpellation possible and destabilises it, thus accounting for the im/possibility of belonging. This paper illustrates the psychoanalytical framework of interpellation by analyzing national-populism as manifested in the Brexit discourse in the UK as well as the interpellation in homonationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the co-evolution of product and industry architecture by drawing on a longitudinal study of the UK personal pensions industry between 2005 and 2020. It provides qualitative evidence for the way in which institutional structures, particularly regulation, entwine with firm strategic choices to shape the contours of an industry value chain (IVC). We draw upon modularity theory and the literature on industry architecture to consider how strategic bottlenecks emerged and how value shifted between layers of the IVC. Furthermore, we examine the interplay between the agendas of the regulator and firm strategic responses to unpack how firms (product providers) responded by pursuing integrative innovation and less specialization to mitigate the effects of value migration to strategic bottlenecks. Our findings extend recent work on product and industry architecture, highlighting how markets evolve toward less modular product configurations and less industry specialization in response to these dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit a U.K. government-sponsored product and provide evidence on shared equity mortgages. The analysis shows how the interaction of house price growth and leverage regulation promotes product adoption. Following an increase in the equity limit, households use the additional financing to buy more expensive properties rather than reduce leverage. Equity used as a complement to debt is likely less beneficial for financial stability than when used as a substitute. Equity borrowers are less likely to change lenders when refinancing their senior debt. Finally, we measure the equity provider returns, which are affected by selection and undervaluation at repayment. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business judgment rule (BJR) is a corporate law doctrine that protects a decision of directors from fairness review by a court of law unless there is sufficient evidence that the director has breached his fiduciary duties or that the decision-making process is tainted. Given that the BJR acts as a protective armor for directors as their personal liability is not engaged for a corporate decision irrespective of its outcomes provided that some requirements are satisfied, the purpose of this paper is to critically assess whether directors of Mauritian companies are sufficiently protected and encouraged in the exercise of their duties. To achieve the research objective, the black letter research method was adopted to collect secondary data and a comparative analysis with some other countries' rules on business judgment was conducted. A desk-based approach and content analysis were used to collect this information. The countries selected for the comparison are the United Kingdom and United States. Mauritian law does not afford protection to directors for decisions taken based on business judgment whereas this research has demonstrated that the laws of other countries being the United Kingdom and the United States as well as their judicial instances both recognize and apply the BJR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family group conferences (FGCs) in child welfare share decision-making with family members by bringing the immediate and wider family together to make a plan to meet a child's needs. This paper reports survey findings on FGC provision in the UK in 2022 and explores whether in England the presence of an FGC service and the rate of FGC provision is associated with the rate of children in care, entering care, in kinship foster care and leaving care. Seventy-nine per cent (n  = 167) of local authorities in the UK provided FGCs to families, and 14 per cent (n  = 29) did not. Services that were more established offered a more diverse range of FGCs. The introduction of FGCs in English local authorities was associated with a higher rate of children in care, but also higher rates of kinship foster care, a key goal of FGCs where it is not possible for children to stay with their parents. Higher rates of FGCs were associated with more children leaving care, possibly due to reunification with birth families. To understand in more detail, the circumstances of children in and leaving care in local authorities with FGCs, individual data linkage studies are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Left-behind places face linked economic and political problems that must be resolved jointly. This paper examines the potential contribution of basic income programs to that goal. Consisting of regular, no-strings-attached payments to citizens, basic income programs ensure resources and stability for poor and economically precarious households who comprise a significant share of left-behind places' populations. Advocacy for basic income emphasizes social and ethical commitment to individuals who have paid the price for economic decline. Thus, even though the goal of national and universal basic income remains distant in the UK, activism for basic income has succeeded in creating alternative paths for populist sentiments originating in the decline of left-behind places. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with advocates in the UK and elsewhere, I demonstrate that activism for basic income diverts potential support for ethno-nationalism and European withdrawal to alternate, place-contingent and variegated regional political paths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction to a previously published article titled "The U.K. as a Technological Follower: Higher Education Expansion and the College Wage Premium." The correction addresses a coding error that affected some of the descriptive trends in the article. The error specifically impacted Figure 2 and Figure 3 in the published paper, as well as 5 additional descriptive figures in the online appendix. The correction shows that the trend of the graduate wage premium is still flat over most of the sample period, with a small decline near the end of the period, particularly in the private sector. The error did not affect any regression tables or the main findings and conclusions of the article. [Extracted from the article]

The U.K. economy experienced significant macroeconomic adjustments following the 2016 referendum on its withdrawal from the European Union. To understand these adjustments, this paper presents empirical facts using novel U.K. macroeconomic data and estimates a small open economy model with tradable and non-tradable sectors. We demonstrate that the referendum outcome can be interpreted as news about a future decline in productivity growth in the tradable sector. An immediate fall in the relative price of non-tradable goods induces a temporary "sweet spot" for tradable producers. Economic activity in the tradable sector expands in the short run, while the non-tradable sector contracts. Aggregate output, consumption, and investment growth decelerate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflective supervision (RS) is a crucial component of social work practice but little is known about how RS works within the UK context and what the outcomes of RS are for social workers and their service users. A rapid literature review comprised searching four databases for academic and grey literature on the topic of social work RS. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool and the University College London's literature assessment method were employed in an expedited quality appraisal for all included papers. Twenty-seven papers were included. Findings suggest that a supportive, available manager or a peer-group enables reflective practice. Regularity of supervisory sessions and acknowledgement of a social worker's autonomy are seen as enablers of reflexivity. In contrast, task-oriented approach that is overly focused on accountability and hindered by the sparsity of resources proves problematic for both social workers and service users. Whilst theoretical papers were available, RS was not defined in a uniform fashion and there was limited evidence pertaining to supervisory practice. More research focusing on what works and what improvements are needed in RS, including adopting a participatory approach would help to bridge this gap and further inform policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent debates about the professions have noted the pervasive influence of organizations, less is known about how this plays out at the macro or occupational level. In this paper, we address this concern, focusing on corporate professionalism (CP) as an emergent form which appears to be shaped by organizational interests. Drawing on relational perspectives of professions, we focus on the strategies of two associations in the UK management consultancy field over a 50-year period. Our analysis of archival and interview data reveals how, over time, both associations substantially modified their strategies in response to shifting priorities of firms employing large numbers of consultants—abandoning early commitments to occupational professionalism in favor of a corporate form. A key contribution of the paper is to develop a process model for understanding how and why CP emerges. We also highlight the need to pay more attention to the often neglected role of employing organizations in accounts of professional formation in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Students must be proficient in surgical skills according to General Medical Council and Royal College of Surgeons of England guidelines. If these skills are not appropriately taught, there is a risk of an incoming junior workforce with inadequate surgical skills. This paper aimed to review the literature relating to undergraduate teaching of surgical skills in the UK and summarize future suggested training methods. Methods: The databases MEDLINE, Embase and SCOPUS were searched, and the existing literature relating to methodology of undergraduate teaching of surgical skills in the UK over the past 10 years was summarized. The Medical Education Research Quality Instrument was used to assess research quality. Results: A total of 19 papers were included. Cross-sectional evaluations and survey-based studies highlight a clear deficit in surgical skills teaching in the UK. Medical students are currently unable to fulfil their own learning needs and meet requirements set out by the General Medical Council. This lack of surgical teaching appears to negatively affect student desire to pursue a surgical career. The three main themes for improvement are extracurricular surgical skills days, near-peer teaching and simulation. Each method appeared to improve learning, although no studies utilized medium- to long-term follow-up to demonstrate efficacy and there lacks a clear consensus as to the 'standard' of undergraduate surgical skill education. There was also potential for selection bias and response shift bias in many of the studies assessing pre- and postintervention confidence and opinions. Conclusion: There is a concerning lack of surgical skills teaching that has resulted in medical students and junior doctors not having the necessary surgical skills as per General Medical Council guidance and students feel that their own learning needs are not met. This failure to address the learning deficit may be responsible for the fall in surgical competition ratios. While surgical skills teaching must be improved urgently, more robust evidence is required to evaluate the optimal ways of approaching this issue. Undergraduate medical students must be proficient in certain surgical skills as set out by General Medical Council and Royal College regulations. There appears a deficit in such teaching which we have discussed and attempted to address in terms of alternative methodology reported in the literature that can be used to teach these basic surgical skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some drivers behind substantial changes in tax policy in recent decades. Using existing theories and our definition of 'beneficial major tax reforms', we discuss three case studies: the US in the 1980s, the UK in the 1980s, and the UK's failed 'mini-budget' of 2022. Our analysis reveals that the US's TRA86 has, to some degree, improved efficiency, while the UK reforms may have exacerbated inequality with ambiguous effects on efficiency. Finally, we outline the potential for future reforms and conclude that political conditions are more likely to instigate major change than economic motivations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service user and carer involvement in social work education is well established in the UK and other countries. There has however been limited research on the outcomes of this for social work practice and its subsequent impact on service users and carers. This has been noted in a previous systematic review involving one of the current authors. The current review aimed to synthesise literature from the previous decade (2011–2020) and follows on from the earlier review. PRISMA scoping review guidelines were followed and twenty-eight papers met the inclusion criteria that were framed. Data were extracted and tabulated according to the framework for the evaluation of educational programmes used in the previous review and analysed using narrative synthesis. A ten-item critical appraisal checklist was used to assess the rigour of all papers. The findings were similar to the earlier review. Most studies were from the UK and few evaluated change in students' skills or subsequent practice; none evaluated subsequent outcomes for service users and carers. All stakeholders were positive about the perceived benefits of service user and care involvement. Future research needs to use more robust evaluation methodologies and evaluate skills development for students and outcomes for service users and carers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'As Low As Reasonably Achievable' (ALARA) principle is one of the three fundamental elements of radiation protection. Noting that ionising radiation is both encountered naturally in the environment as part of everyday life, and artificially as part of a range of practices, the ALARA principle aims to provide a means of optimising radiation exposures. Historically, the stakeholders involved in the application of the ALARA process have primarily been assumed to be internal to an organisation, except for regulatory 'buy in'. However, could there be instances when the public should be a key stakeholder? This paper explores the area of perceived risk with reference to a particular case study in which the dredging of non-hazardous sediment in the UK near a now decommissioned nuclear power station raised substantial public concern about radiological exposure. This turned what was a straightforward construction activity into a complex public engagement and reassurance task, at a significant cost disproportionate to the level of radiological risk. Learning from this case study is used to highlight the key lessons learnt and the importance of public engagement, and how perceived risk and the associated societal stress could be incorporated into the ALARA process. The paper also highlights the ongoing work and guidance produced by the Society for Radiological Protection in the UK on the development of Guidance for Practitioners to support the Communication of Radiation Risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) predict individuals' genetic risk of developing complex diseases. They summarize the effect of many variants discovered in genome-wide association studies (GWASs). However, to date, large GWASs exist primarily for the European population and the quality of PRS prediction declines when applied to other ethnicities. Genetic profiling of individuals in the discovery set (on which the GWAS was performed) and target set (on which the PRS is applied) is typically done by SNP arrays that genotype a fraction of common SNPs. Therefore, a key step in GWAS analysis and PRS calculation is imputing untyped SNPs using a panel of fully sequenced individuals. The imputation results depend on the ethnic composition of the imputation panel. Imputing genotypes with a panel of individuals of the same ethnicity as the genotyped individuals typically improves imputation accuracy. However, there has been no systematic investigation into the influence of the ethnic composition of imputation panels on the accuracy of PRS predictions when applied to ethnic groups that differ from the population used in the GWAS. Results We estimated the effect of imputation of the target set on prediction accuracy of PRS when the discovery and the target sets come from different ethnic groups. We analyzed binary phenotypes on ethnically distinct sets from the UK Biobank and other resources. We generated ethnically homogenous panels, imputed the target sets, and generated PRSs. Then, we assessed the prediction accuracy obtained from each imputation panel. Our analysis indicates that using an imputation panel matched to the ethnicity of the target population yields only a marginal improvement and only under specific conditions. Availability and implementation The source code used for executing the analyses is this paper is available at https://github.com/Shamir-Lab/PRS-imputation-panels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid escalating apprehensions surrounding content regulation, the USA has discreetly integrated provisions reminiscent of its Communications Decency Act Section 230 (CDA 230) into trade agreements, offering broad immunity. This scholarly analysis critically assesses this manoeuvre by juxtaposing such CDA 230-like provisions against the UK's established legal framework governing online content and freedom of expression. Utilizing a comparative legal methodology, the paper underscores the pronounced differences between the USA and UK stances on intermediary liability for third-party content, moulded by their unique constitutional foundations and jurisprudential interpretations of free speech rights. The insertion of CDA 230-aligned clauses into trade agreements poses a potential threat to the UK's nuanced equilibrium between safeguarding free speech and upholding other paramount interests, such as privacy and reputation. An scrutiny of UK defamation statutes and content regulation protocols reveals inherent challenges in transplanting CDA 230 provisions into trade contexts. In summation, the paper ardently supports a diversified approach to online content governance and cautions against standardizing intermediary liability laws via trade agreements, especially between nations with divergent foundational beliefs. It fervently endorses a cross-disciplinary discourse involving both trade and legal specialists to ensure the preservation of free expression while concurrently recognizing the intricacies of crafting universally applicable standards for online platforms and content regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Alcohol increases cancer risk, but less is known about public awareness of this link. This scoping review summarizes recent findings on the public awareness of alcohol as a cancer risk factor in European Union and UK. Methods Four databases (Web of Science, MEDLINE, PsycInfo, CINAHL) were searched for papers containing data on awareness of alcohol as cancer risk factor in EU or UK published between January 2017 and December 2022, and complemented with grey literature searches. Results In total, 45 studies were included covering 18 EU countries (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden) and UK, presenting data collected between 2009 and 2022. Studies covered general population (17 studied a nationally representative sample), women, health professionals, patients and young people. Awareness of alcohol causing cancer in general was higher and studied more often than awareness of alcohol's impact on specific cancers. Among the EU general population, awareness of the link between alcohol and breast cancer ranged between 10% and 20%, head and neck cancer 15–25%, colorectal and oesophagus cancer 15–45% and liver cancer 40%. Awareness was higher among young people and specialized health professions and lower among women (the latter specifically for the breast cancer). Conclusions While awareness rates varied depending on the exact question wording, many studies showed low awareness of the alcohol-cancer link, especially for specific types such as breast and colon cancer. Public should be better informed about alcohol consumption-related cancer risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK is, like its peers in the EU, just under 80% dependent on fossil fuels. This figure has come down just over 10% since the 1970s, a period when the UK had major energy-intensive industries, most of which are now gone. The government is committed to achieving net zero for the electricity sector by 2035 on the pathway to net zero for the whole economy by 2050.. The Labour opposition has set 2030 as its electricity target. Setting out the scale of this challenge, this paper demonstrates how implausible the 2035 target is. On present policies there is little prospect that the 2035 target will be met (and virtually none for the Labour 2030 target). This paper reviews the multiple current policies and the capacity objectives and explores what would have to happen to meet the target. It sets out some of the consequences of failure to deliver, and the expectation of that failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has become an impactful science superpower, but it is asserted that its influence provides it with disproportionate benefits that some national research policies have not thus far appreciated. To create context, Web of Science data are used to analyse research collaborations between the UK and China: trends in volume of output between 1981 and 2019; citation impact; and comparative performance across research fields. UK–China collaboration increased from fewer than 100 co-authored papers before 1990, to 750 per year in 2000, 3,324 in 2010, and 16,267 papers (10.9 per cent of UK output) in 2019. UK–China collaboration is concentrated in technology-based fields: in some (e.g. telecommunication), over 30 per cent of UK papers are in collaboration with Chinese-based researchers. The paper discusses the policy consequences to the UK of this indicative dependency, arguing that exiting from such collaborations is ill advised, provided the risks, perceived or real, are mapped, managed, and mitigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As people age they are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Understanding cardiovascular ageing is essential to preserving healthy ageing and preventing serious health outcomes. This collection of papers published in Age and Ageing since 2011 cover key themes in cardiovascular ageing, with a separate collection on stroke and atrial fibrillation planned. Treating high blood pressure remains important as people age and reduces strokes and heart attacks. That said, a more personalised approach to blood pressure may be even more important as people age to lower blood pressure to tight targets where appropriate but avoid overtreatment in vulnerable groups. As people age, more people experience blood pressure drops on standing (orthostatic hypotension), particularly as they become frail. This can predispose them to falls. The papers in this collection provide an insight into blood pressure and orthostatic hypotension. They highlight areas for further research to understand blood pressure changes and management in the ageing population. Inpatient clinical care of older people with heart attacks differs from younger people in UK national audit data. People aged over 80 had improved outcomes in survival after heart attack over time, but had lower rates of specialist input from cardiology compared with younger people. This may partly reflect different clinical presentations, with heart attacks occurring in the context of other health conditions, frailty and multimorbidity. The care and outcomes of acute and chronic cardiovascular disease are impacted by the frailty and health status of an individual at baseline. The research included in this collection reinforces the wide variations in the ageing population and the necessity to focus on the individual needs and priorities, and provide a person-centred multidisciplinary approach to care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in regional economic issues coupled with advances in administrative data is driving the creation of new regional economic data. Many of these data series could be useful for nowcasting regional economic activity, but they suffer from a short (albeit constantly expanding) time series which makes incorporating them into nowcasting models problematic. Regional nowcasting is already challenging because the release delay on regional data tends to be greater than that at the national level, and 'short' data imply a 'ragged edge' at both the beginning and the end of regional data sets, which adds a further complication. In this paper, via an application to the UK, we investigate various ways of including a wide range of short data into a regional mixed-frequency vector autoregression (MF-VAR) model. These short data include hitherto unexploited regional value-added tax turnover data. We address the problem of the two ragged edges by estimating regional factors using different missing data algorithms that we then incorporate into our MF-VAR model. We find that nowcasts of regional output growth are generally improved when we condition them on the factors, but only when the regional nowcasts are produced before the national (UK-wide) output growth data are published. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elites often use merit to explain, justify, and make sense of their advantaged positions. But what exactly do they mean by this? In this paper, we draw on 71 interviews with elites in Denmark and the UK to compare self-justifications of meritocratic legitimacy. Our results indicate that while elites in both countries are united by a common concern to frame their merits as spontaneously recognized by others (rather than strategically promoted by themselves), the package of attributes they foreground vary significantly. In the UK, elites tend to be "talent meritocrats" who foreground their unique capacity for ideational creativity or risk taking, innately good judgment, and "natural" aptitude, intelligence, or academic ability. In contrast, in Denmark, elites are more likely to be "hard work meritocrats" who emphasize their unusual work ethic, extensive experience (as a signal of accumulated hard work), and contributions outside of work, particularly in civil society. We tentatively argue that one explanation for this cross-national variation is the role that different channels of elite recruitment play in amplifying legitimate notions of merit. In the UK, for example, elite private schools act to nurture ideas of exceptionalism and natural talent, whereas in Denmark elite employers socialize the connection between hard work and success. These findings suggest that nationally specific understandings of merit can have quite different implications for the legitimation of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to describe the goals, activities, and methods of EUMOVE project in developing a set of resources targeting both primary and secondary schools that allow the entire educational community to promote healthy lifestyles (HL). The EUMOVE project is an Erasmus+ program based in the Creating Active Schools (CAS) framework. The project lasted 3 years and was developed by 14 academic and non-governmental institutions from Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and the UK. EUMOVE was divided into three phases. In the first phase, several work packages were carried out aimed to ensure the coordination/management of the project activities. In the second phase, seven educational resources strengthened by rigorous scientific research were developed to promote HL from schools. During the last phase, all the resources were disseminated through scientific seminars, workshops with families and teachers, and the online promotion by the non-governmental institutions of each country. The EUMOVE project developed and promoted a smartphone APP, video/activity repository of physically active lessons, active break virtual platform, learning units, and parent/teachers/school-leaders' guidelines to promote physical activity, active commuting, active school playgrounds, healthy diet, and sleep habits. To our knowledge, EUMOVE is the first European project to provide a set of practical tools based on scientific evidence to help schools or future school-wide interventions implement a paradigm shift based on the CAS framework for the promotion of HL. Future research will need to investigate the implementation, effectiveness, and scalability of this proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article connects changes in administrative and bureaucratic processes that historians associate with state formation in early modern Britain with overlooked developments in thinking about political accountability. It blends the social history of state administration with intellectual history, and involves synoptic analysis as well as striking case studies. It argues that innovative political thinking emerged from new forms of political practice, and from the experiences of humble officials in the localities. Such individuals were increasingly professionalized and specialized, and their work was increasingly described using the language of trust, public interest, and state's service. The mid-seventeenth century accentuated the process by which they came to be accountable to a centralized state, not least through the routinization and intensification of quotidian practices associated with enhanced communication between center and locality. Ultimately, the article argues that such processes, as well as more regular and direct interactions between political elites and humble officials, encouraged new kinds of political thinking. These were not quite unintended, but they may not have been fully anticipated either, and they involved innovative attempts to subject higher officials to oversight from "below," and to legitimize their accountability to an adjudicating public, in ways that may even have had a lasting effect on English political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Roman period saw the empire expand across Europe and the Mediterranean, including much of what is today Great Britain. While there is written evidence of high mobility into and out of Britain for administrators, traders, and the military, the impact of imperialism on local, rural population structure, kinship, and mobility is invisible in the textual record. The extent of genetic change that occurred in Britain during the Roman military occupation remains underexplored. Here, using genome-wide data from 52 ancient individuals from eight sites in Cambridgeshire covering the period of Roman occupation, we show low levels of genetic ancestry differentiation between Romano-British sites and indications of larger populations than in the Bronze Age and Neolithic. We find no evidence of long-distance migration from elsewhere in the Empire, though we do find one case of possible temporary mobility within a family unit during the Late Romano-British period. We also show that the present-day patterns of genetic ancestry composition in Britain emerged after the Roman period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Timely diagnosis remains a challenge in axial SpA (axSpA). In addition, data are scarce on the impact of diagnostic delay and disease progression in affected individuals. The British Axial Spondyloarthritis Inception Cohort (BAxSIC) study aims to investigate the impact of newly diagnosed axSpA, the natural history of the disease and the effect of diagnostic delay on disease outcomes. Methods BAxSIC is a prospective, multicentre, observational study. Eligible participants are adults (≥16 years of age), with a physician-confirmed diagnosis of axSpA in the 6 months prior to study entry, recruited from secondary and tertiary rheumatology centres in the UK. Participants will be followed up for 3 years, with in-person visits at baseline and 24 months. In addition, patient self-reported assessments will be recorded remotely via the online electronic case report form (eCRF) at 6, 12, 18, 30 and 36 months. Results The first patient was enrolled in BAxSIC in June 2023. Recruitment is currently ongoing and is planned to end in June 2026. Initial results will be available in 2027. Since opening, the trial has undergone two protocol amendments. Conclusion The BAxSIC study is the first inception cohort designed to investigate the impact of diagnostic delay on clinical presentation and long-term functional outcomes in patients with axSpA in the UK. With an innovative, patient-led virtual longitudinal data collection model, data generated from this study will help inform and improve the care of people newly diagnosed with axSpA. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov (http://clinicaltrials.gov), NCT05676775. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present the first Frequentist framework on signal region detection in high-resolution and high-order image regression problems. Image data and scalar-on-image regression are intensively studied in recent years. However, most existing studies on such topics focussed on outcome prediction, while the research on region detection is rather limited, even though the latter is often more important. In this paper, we develop a general framework named Sparse Kronecker Product Decomposition (SKPD) to tackle this issue. The SKPD framework is general in the sense that it works for both matrices and tensors represented image data. Our framework includes one-term, multi-term, and nonlinear SKPDs. We propose nonconvex optimization problems for one-term and multi-term SKPDs and develop path-following algorithms for the nonconvex optimization. Under a Restricted Isometric Property, the computed solutions of the path-following algorithm are guaranteed to converge to the truth with a particularly chosen initialization even though the optimization is nonconvex. Moreover, the region detection consistency could also be guaranteed. The nonlinear SKPD is highly connected to shallow convolutional neural networks (CNN), particularly to CNN with one convolutional layer and one fully-connected layer. Effectiveness of SKPD is validated by real brain imaging data in the UK Biobank database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops case studies of the UK and China to analyse divergent national financial regulatory approaches to FinTech as a novel political economy of platforms. Regulating with platforms is core to the approach taken in the UK, where start-up and early-career platforms are enrolled into an innovation-friendly financial regulation regime that promotes consumption and competition balanced with stability. In China, meanwhile, measures are being instituted to enhance rules and restrictions imposed on FinTech platforms. BigTech-led FinTech expansion was encouraged to expedite financial reforms to fuel economic growth and ensure authoritarian state control, but regulation is now shown to be working against the furtherance of platform power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Older people are often explicitly or implicitly excluded from research, in particular clinical trials. This means that study findings may not be applicable to them, or that older people may not be offered treatments due to an absence of evidence. Aims The aim of this work was to develop recommendations to guide all research relevant to older people. Methods A diverse stakeholder group identified barriers and solutions to including older people in research. In parallel, a rapid literature review of published papers was undertaken to identify existing papers on the inclusion of older people in research. The findings were synthesised and mapped onto a socio-ecological model. From the synthesis we identified themes that were developed into initial recommendations that were iteratively refined with the stakeholder group. Results A range of individual, interpersonal, organisational, community and policy factors impact on the inclusion of older people in research. A total of 14 recommendations were developed such as removing upper age limits and comorbidity exclusions, involving older people, advocates and health and social care professionals with expertise in ageing in designing the research, and considering flexible or alternative approaches to data collection to maximise opportunities for participation. We also developed four questions that may guide those developing, reviewing and funding research that is inclusive of older people. Conclusion Our recommendations provide up to date, practical advice on ways to improve the inclusion of older people in health and care research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a set of papers analysing the likely economic impact of Brexit across key aspects of the UK economy as the country comes to the end of its first full year outside the European Union. The Brexit vote in 2016 was not just a vote on the UK's relations with the institutions of the European Union but was also a referendum on the fractured state of the UK as a nation. The resulting conflation of Brexit with domestic economic policy debates is reflected in this issue. A first cluster of papers focuses on the consequences of choosing to abandon the 'four freedoms' enshrined in the Treaty of Europe, the free movement of goods, services, capital, and labour across the EU, and a second is concerned with the indirect effects of Brexit in those areas of domestic policy that have been opened up by the Brexit decision. The economic consequences of Brexit are only just emerging, but these papers provide an informed perspective on the state of debate, and the likely implications of Brexit across a range of policy areas, both international and domestic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large technical systems (LTS) are socially structuring, reconfiguring governance practices and social norms. In this article, socio-technical dynamics that influenced the emergence of UK urban tramways, as examples of local LTS, are investigated, considering the role of dominant discourses in normalizing new systems. It examines how the 1870 Tramways Act attempted to adjudicate between competing interests, which shaped the context for new tramway routes. The concept of system builders is used to explain how new projects recruit public support. This case identifies constraints faced by system builders and indicates that their interaction with prevailing socio-political contexts impacts the system development and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the contributions of industry leaders, smaller corporations, and independent inventors to the international technological specialization of Great Britain in the interwar years. For the first time, we compare directly the contribution of these sources and combine the Chandlerian and "sources of invention" perspectives. The analysis is based on a novel dataset of more than 8,000 patents granted in the USA to British inventions. Our findings show the extent to which Britain integrated inventions generated by independent inventors with those of corporate inventors, i.e., industry leaders and smaller corporations, in both engineering- and science-based fields. This research highlights specificities of a former leader's transition from the technological paradigm of the first phase of capitalism to that of the second phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Right to Buy', a large-scale natural experiment whereby incumbent tenants in public housing could buy properties at heavily subsidised prices, increased the United Kingdom homeownership rate by over 10 percentage points between its 1980 introduction and the 1990s. This paper studies the impact of this reform on crime by leveraging exogenous variation in eligibility for the policy. Results show that Right to Buy generated significant property crime reductions. Behavioural changes of incumbent tenants and renovation of public properties were the main drivers of this crime reduction. This is evidence of a novel means by which subsidised homeownership and housing policy can reduce criminality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of the 2016 Brexit referendum and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed by the United Kingdom and the EU in December 2020 on UK–EU trade in goods up to December 2021. The 2016 referendum introduced uncertainty, but new trade barriers between the United Kingdom and the EU were not put in place until the new agreement, the TCA, entered into force in January 2021. Using a set of different econometric techniques, and looking up to the end of the first year of the implementation of the TCA, we find no evidence that the 2016 referendum had any impact on aggregate UK–EU trade relative to comparator trade flows. On the other hand, our results show that the TCA reduced UK trade with the EU, but asymmetrically for exports and imports. After a sharp drop of around 41% in January 2021, UK exports to the EU quickly recovered in the following months. This pattern of recovery was not the case for UK imports from the EU, which were negatively impacted throughout 2021, with a cumulative loss over the first year of implementation between −24% and −28%. Asymmetric effects between exports and imports do not appear to be driven by difference in product composition of the two flows. Instead, we find evidence that a plausible explanation for these differential effects is the relative importance of the EU market for UK firms, in comparison to the importance of the UK market for EU firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently in the UK and Ireland, after a hip fracture most patients do not receive bone protection medication to reduce the risk of refracture. Yet randomised controlled trial data specifically examining patients with hip fracture have shown that intravenous zoledronate reduces refracture risk by a third. Despite this evidence, use of intravenous zoledronate is highly variable following a hip fracture; many hospitals are providing this treatment, whilst most are currently not. A range of clinical uncertainties, doubts over the evidence base and practical concerns are cited as reasons. This paper discusses these concerns and provides guidance from expert consensus, aiming to assist orthogeriatricians, pharmacists and health services managers establish local protocols to deliver this highly clinically and cost-effective treatment to patients before they leave hospital, in order to reduce costly re-fractures in this frail population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1962 and 1965, a broad definition of dependence allowed for the migration of Commonwealth Citizens to join working family members in Britain. This article investigates how the Home Office targeted male dependent youth as a category that could reduce unwanted immigration from the Commonwealth, particularly South Asia. Home Office officials obscured the stories of dependent migrants, constructed the figure of the 'bogus child', and denigrated male familial connections, which resulted in the denial of family reunion. Colonial assumptions about the mendacity of South Asians and the illegibility of South Asian family forms shaped British policy. The 1965 White Paper and the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act foreclosed the possibility of a broad definition of family and consolidated the legitimacy of the cisheterosexual family. Home Office discussions dovetailed with an emergent common sense circulated in newspapers and public debate about the illegitimacy of the South Asian family in Britain. This article interrogates the racist reasoning of the Home Office and this emergent common sense not only to show how immigration policy generates racialization but also to reveal the specificity of South Asian racialization in the post-imperial social formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the study of species' occurrence has benefited from the increased availability of large‐scale citizen‐science data. While abundance data from standardized monitoring schemes are biased toward well‐studied taxa and locations, opportunistic data are available for many taxonomic groups, from a large number of locations and across long timescales. Hence, these data provide opportunities to measure species' changes in occurrence, particularly through the use of occupancy models, which account for imperfect detection. These opportunistic datasets can be substantially large, numbering hundreds of thousands of sites, and hence present a challenge from a computational perspective, especially within a Bayesian framework. In this paper, we develop a unifying framework for Bayesian inference in occupancy models that account for both spatial and temporal autocorrelation. We make use of the Pólya‐Gamma scheme, which allows for fast inference, and incorporate spatio‐temporal random effects using Gaussian processes (GPs), for which we consider two efficient approximations: subset of regressors and nearest neighbor GPs. We apply our model to data on two UK butterfly species, one common and widespread and one rare, using records from the Butterflies for the New Millennium database, producing occupancy indices spanning 45 years. Our framework can be applied to a wide range of taxa, providing measures of variation in species' occurrence, which are used to assess biodiversity change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few decades, a small but growing group of people have worked remotely from their homes. With the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of people found themselves joining this group overnight. In this position paper, we examine the kinds of work that 'went remote' in response to the pandemic, and consider the ways in which this transition was influenced by (and in turn came to influence) contemporary trends in digital workplace measurement and evaluation. We see that employers appeared reluctant to let certain classes of employee work remotely. When the pandemic forced staff home, employers compensated by turning to digital surveillance tools, even though, as we argue, these tools seem unable to overcome the significant conceptual barriers to understanding how people are working. We also observed that, in the United Kingdom context, the pandemic didn't mean remote work for a significant proportion of the population. We assert that, to maximize its impact, 'future of work' research in human-centred computing must be more inclusive and representative of work, rather than focusing on the experiences of knowledge workers and those involved in new forms of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an increasing number of British universities are now requiring/encouraging mathematics applicants to have taken ‘extension papers’ such as the Mathematics Admissions Test (MAT), Advanced Extension Award (AEA) and Sixth Term Examination Paper (STEP), current students were asked how useful they were in preparation for their degree. The MAT was most commonly described as good preparation for undergraduate mathematics, whilst most participants who had taken the AEA were indifferent regarding its usefulness. Participants were positive about STEP, commending its similarity to undergraduate-style assessment and its challenging questions. The students’ views suggested that those wishing to be well prepared for tertiary mathematics should take one of these papers, preferably STEP. However, whilst universities may not necessarily wish to require applicants to pass extension papers, it may be beneficial for universities to recommend students to take them in order to improve their mathematical thinking and expectations of undergraduate mathematics study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether pricing algorithms present novel issues that existing merger control frameworks and practices are inadequate to address, particularly in relation to pre-merger disclosure of pricing algorithms and the suitability of current tests and remedies for addressing coordinated effects. Through a comparative and critical analysis of the merger control regimes and practices of the European Union, United Kingdom, and Australia, this paper finds that whilst such regimes and practices are broadly adequate for dealing with algorithmic transactions, there are nonetheless potential areas for improvement. Disclosure of a pricing algorithm may contravene prohibitions on the sharing of competitively sensitive information. As such, merger parties may need to rethink aspects of their usual due diligence procedures. Pricing algorithms may also increase the potential for coordinated effects to arise in some markets that would ordinarily have been considered too complex, asymmetric, opaque, or insufficiently concentrated for tacit coordination to occur, or be used to retaliate more effectively against deviations from a coordinated equilibrium, or to raise the height of barriers to entry. Competition authorities may therefore need to amend their standard approach to investigating and assessing coordinated effects, as well as their traditional approach to remedies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the literature on domestic abuse focuses on those in intimate partner relationships or ex-partners, however, in the UK the Home Office definition also includes those in familial relationships. The Domestic Abuse, Stalking, and Harassment and Honour-Based Violence Risk Assessment assumes homogeneous risk factors across all relationships. This paper therefore examines the risk factors for repeat victimization of domestic abuse by relationship type between the victim and perpetrator in a UK police force. Using police-recorded domestic abuse incident and crime data, a logistic regression model found that the most similar repeat victimization risk profiles for 14,519 victims were amongst partners and ex-partners, with both relationships demonstrating the greatest degree of gender asymmetry, compared with other familial relationships. Physical violence was the strongest predictor of repeat victimization and was a statistically significant predictor for ex-partners, partners, and all familial relationships. Coercive behaviour was also a significant predictor for all relationships apart from partners, but not at the same magnitude as physical abuse. Recognizing the difference in risk by relationship type may assist the police in deciding the most appropriate response and interventions to reduce the risk of further harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the question of how police-related AI projects and data projects in general are normatively assessed in the UK. After locating data ethics in relation to policing ethics, I shall consider the workings of perhaps the leading regional data ethics committee in the UK. I go on to consider the approach of another committee that might in the future provide national data ethics advice for the police. Finally, I summarize the normative ethics frameworks in use in the two committees and their heavy reliance on the concepts of necessity and proportionality. I suggest that these concepts may have to be supplemented by systematic thinking about varieties of harm and the way in which severe harm may generate obligations to prevent it, where prevention may be assisted by AI models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]