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In her book The Unwomanly Face of the War, among the women Svetlana Alexievich (2017) interviewed, one of the former Soviet soldiers had an unusual answer for her question about the most frightenin...

The controversy over vaccines, which has recently intensified following the COVID-19 pandemic, provokes heated debates, with both advocates and opponents raising allegations of bias and fraud in re...

Chronic or refractory breathlessness adversely affects quality of life. Current treatment strategies for managing breathlessness are often inadequate in providing complete relief. Kinesiology taping is generally used in musculoskeletal practice for preventive and rehabilitative purposes. Recently, our attention was drawn to the plausible mechanism(s) and indication for use of kinesiology taping for managing chronic breathlessness. We present a brief review of the scientific rationale and efficacy of kinesiology taping for respiratory function-related outcomes. Through this publication, we hope to catalyse discussions amongst palliative care professionals and researchers on the potential use of kinesiology taping in the management of chronic breathlessness.

While Helmut Schmidt has often been depicted as a ‘reluctant European’ who only came to embrace European integration because of US policy under Carter, this article shows that Schmidt's conceptions of Europe have remained largely consistent since the late 1940s. Using rare materials from his private archive, it analyses how Schmidt utilised the EC in dealing with the multiple crises of the 1970s, regarding European and transatlantic cooperation not as antagonistic but as complementary processes. With the reheating of the Cold War from the late 1970s onwards, however, the international and domestic preconditions of Schmidt's two-pillar foreign policy gradually began to erode.

Since 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) member states have been annually reporting vaccine hesitancy reasons, using the WHO/UNICEF Joint Reporting Form (JRF). The Vaccine Hesitancy Matrix (VHM), developed by a WHO strategic advisory group of experts, can serve as an important tool to categorize vaccine hesitancy reasons reported in the JRF. We aimed to describe the reasons for vaccine hesitancy reported globally from 2014 to 2017 to ascertain trends over time and understand the comparability of using the VHM to classify hesitancy reasons from 2014 to 2016 based on previously published literature. We conducted a quantitative content analysis to code and categorize vaccine hesitancy reasons reported in the JRF from 2014 to 2017. Vaccine hesitancy trends were consistent from 2014 to 2017, where vaccine hesitancy reasons were mainly related to “individual and group level influences” (59%) followed by “contextual influences” (25%), and “vaccine- or vaccination-specific issues” (16%). Comparability of our approach to categorize vaccine hesitancy to the previously published JRF data showed that results were mostly but not entirely consistent. Major differences in categorizing vaccine hesitancy were noted between two specific reasons – “experience with past vaccination” (under “individual and group influences”) and “risk/benefit- scientific evidence” (under “vaccine and vaccination-specific issues”); this was usually due to lack of clear definitions in some sub-categories and generic responses reported in the JRF. The JRF hesitancy module may benefit from modifications to improve the data quality. Understanding global vaccine hesitancy is crucial and JRF can serve as an important tool, especially with the potential introduction of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Background: A safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19 has become a public health priority. However, little is known about the public willingness to accept a future COVID-19 vaccine in China. This study aimed to understand the willingness and determinants for the acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine among Chinese adults. Methods: A cross-sectional survey using an online questionnaire was conducted in an adult population in China. Chi-square tests were used to identify differences for various intentions regarding COVID-19 vaccination. The t test was used to identify differences among vaccine hesitancy scores. Multivariable logistic regression was used to analyze the predicated factors associated with the willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Results: Of the 3195 eligible participants, 83.8% were willing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, and 76.6% believed the vaccine would be beneficial to their health; however, 74.9% expressed concerns or a neutral attitude regarding its potential adverse effects. Of the participants, 76.5% preferred domestically manufactured vaccines and were more willing to be vaccinated than those who preferred imported vaccines. Multivariable logistic regression indicated that lack of confidence, complacency in regard to health, risk of the vaccine, and attention frequency were the main factors affecting the intention to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Conclusion: Our study indicated that the respondents in China had a high willingness to accept a COVID-19 vaccine, but some participants also worried about its adverse effects. Information regarding the efficacy and safety of an upcoming COVID-19 vaccine should be disseminated to ensure its acceptance and coverage.

In the prevailing covid times, scientific community is busy in developing vaccine against COVID-19. Under such fascination this article describes the possible role of nitric oxide (NO) releasers in aiding the immune system of a human body against this dreadful pandemic disease. Despite some prodrug antiviral compounds are in practice to recover the patients suffering from covid-19, however, co-morbidity deaths are highest among the total deaths happened so far. This concurrence of a number of diseases in a patient along with this viral infection is indicative of the poor immunity. Literature background supports the use of NO as immunity boosting agent and hence, the nitric oxide releasing compounds could act as lucrative in this context. Some dietary suggestions of NO-containing food items have also been introduced in this article. Also, the profound effect of NO in relieving symptomatic severity of covid-19 has been opined in this work. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma, Graphical Abstract

Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals are thought to play major roles in virus transmission. This study aimed to analyze the characteristics of asymptomatic carriers with COVID-19 to control the spread of the virus. We retrospectively investigated the clinical characteristics of 648 consecutive subjects who were enrolled in the study and were divided into asymptomatic carriers, mild cases, ordinary cases, severe or critical cases, and evaluated their impact on disease severity by means of Spearman correlation and multiple regression analyses. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was conducted to determine the optimum cutoff levels of laboratory findings for diagnostic predictors of asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19. In our study, a total of 648 subjects on admission with a mean age of 45.61 y including 345 males and 303 females were enrolled in our study. The leukocyte, lymphocyte, eosinophil, platelet, C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, CD3+, CD4+, and CD8 + T lymphocyte levels, and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate differed significantly among the groups (all p ≤ 0.05). Disease severity was negatively associated with the CD3+ (r = −0.340; p

The Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, is a mollusk bivalve commercially important as a food source. Pacific oysters are subjected to stress and diseases during culture. The autophagy pathway is involved in numerous cellular processes, including responses to starvation, cell death, and microorganism elimination. Autophagy also exists in C. gigas, and plays a role in the immune response against infections. Although this process is well-documented and conserved in most animals, it is still poorly understood in mollusks. To date, no study has provided a complete overview of the molecular mechanism of autophagy in mollusk bivalves. In this study, human and yeast ATG protein sequences and public databases (Uniprot and NCBI) were used to identify protein members of the C. gigas autophagy pathway. A total of 35 autophagy related proteins were found in the Pacific oyster. RACE-PCR was performed on several genes. Using molecular (real-time PCR) and protein-based (western blot and immunohistochemistry) approaches, the expression and localization of ATG12, ATG9, BECN1, MAP1LC3, MTOR, and SQSTM1, was investigated in different tissues of the Pacific oyster. Comparison with human and yeast counterparts demonstrated a high homology with the human autophagy pathway. The results also demonstrated that the key autophagy genes and their protein products were expressed in all the analyzed tissues of C. gigas. This study allows the characterization of the complete C. gigas autophagy pathway for the first time. Abbreviations: ATG: autophagy related; Atg1/ULK: unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase; ATG7: autophagy related 7; ATG9: autophagy related 9; ATG12: autophagy related 12; BECN1: beclin 1; BSA: bovine serum albumin; cDNA: complementary deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid; GABARAP: GABA type A receptor-associated protein; IHC: immunohistochemistry; MAP1LC3/LC3/Atg8: microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3; MTOR: mechanistic target of rapamycin kinase; NCBI: national center for biotechnology information; ORF: open reading frame; PBS: phosphate-buffered saline; PCR: polymerase chain reaction; PtdIns3K: class III phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase; RACE-PCR: rapid amplification of cDNA-ends by polymerase chain reaction; RNA: ribonucleic acid; SQSTM1: sequestosome 1; Uniprot: universal protein resource; WIPI: WD repeat domain, phosphoinositide interacting.

Outbreaks of infectious diseases cause great fear and a desire to avoid infection. One of the most effective outbreak containment methods is vaccination. However, in order for this strategy to be effective, a majority of the susceptible population should be vaccinated in a short time. This may require changing the practice of immunization execution and changing attitudes toward vaccination. In the survey on the attitudes of Polish parents and guardians toward vaccinations, we asked about the acceptance of vaccination in places other than health-care facilities in both non-epidemic and epidemic conditions. The study was conducted using an anonymous questionnaire in two Warsaw hospitals between August 2018 and February 2019 and was addressed to parents and legal guardians of children. At the time of the survey, “epidemic” was a hypothetical term. Two hundred fifty respondents participated in the study. The pharmacy was the most accepted non-healthcare facility vaccination location, both normally and during an outbreak, with 54.4% (123/226) and 75.2% (170/226) of respondents finding pharmacies an acceptable location, respectively. A gas station had the lowest acceptance: 5.8% (13/226) and 28.8% (65/226), respectively. The only statistically significant demographic factors affecting acceptance of each vaccination location were male sex (p = .001) and higher education level (p = .001). Of those surveyed, 58.5% (131/224) would approve of vaccination in front of a hospital or outpatient clinic during an outbreak; 70.5% (43/61) of men versus 54.0% (88/163) of women, p = .026. In conclusion, during an outbreak, people would be more likely to accept vaccination at locations other than a health-care facility.

Introduction Lopinavir in combination with ritonavir is approved for the treatment of HIV and has recently been subject to a clinical trial in severe COVID-19. Areas covered This evaluation is of LOTUS China (the Lopinavir Trial for Suppression of SARS-Cov-2 in China), which was a randomized trial in hospitalized subjects with COVID-9 in a respiratory sample and pneumonia. As, in severe COVID-19, lopinavir/ritonavir had no beneficial effects but increased gastrointestinal adverse effects, this combination should not be used at this stage of COVID-19. Expert opinion In my opinion, the rationale for undertaking a trial of lopinavir/ritonavir in COVID-19 was poor. The analysis of a modified intention to treat group analysis in LOTUS China may have introduced bias. After LOTUS China, there is probably no future for lopinavir in the treatment of severe COVID-19, but some clinical trials for prevention or in various stages of COVID-19 have recently started or are ongoing. The major limitation of these trials is that as lopinavir does not inhibit COVID-19, it is unlikely to prevent infection, reduce viral load, or reduce the severity. However, these trials may be worthwhile in finally determining whether lopinavir has any role in preventing or treating COVID-19.

Background In South Korea, the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases has declined rapidly and much sooner than in other countries. South Korea is one of the most digitalized countries in the world, and YouTube may have served as a rapid delivery mechanism for increasing public awareness of COVID-19. Thus, the platform may have helped the South Korean public fight the spread of the disease. Objective The aim of this study is to compare the reliability, overall quality, title–content consistency, and content coverage of Korean-language YouTube videos on COVID-19, which have been uploaded by different sources. Methods A total of 200 of the most viewed YouTube videos from January 1, 2020, to April 30, 2020, were screened, searching in Korean for the terms “Coronavirus,” “COVID,” “Corona,” “Wuhan virus,” and “Wuhan pneumonia.” Non-Korean videos and videos that were duplicated, irrelevant, or livestreamed were excluded. Source and video metrics were collected. The videos were scored based on the following criteria: modified DISCERN index, Journal of the American Medical Association Score (JAMAS) benchmark criteria, global quality score (GQS), title–content consistency index (TCCI), and medical information and content index (MICI). Results Of the 105 total videos, 37.14% (39/105) contained misleading information; independent user–generated videos showed the highest proportion of misleading information at 68.09% (32/47), while all of the government-generated videos were useful. Government agency–generated videos achieved the highest median score of DISCERN (5.0, IQR 5.0-5.0), JAMAS (4.0, IQR 4.0-4.0), GQS (4.0, IQR 3.0-4.5), and TCCI (5.0, IQR 5.0-5.0), while independent user–generated videos achieved the lowest median score of DISCERN (2.0, IQR 1.0-3.0), JAMAS (2.0, IQR 1.5-2.0), GQS (2.0, IQR 1.5-2.0), and TCCI (3.0, IQR 3.0-4.0). However, the total MICI was not significantly different among sources. “Transmission and precautionary measures” were the most commonly covered content by government agencies, news agencies, and independent users. In contrast, the most mentioned content by news agencies was “prevalence,” followed by “transmission and precautionary measures.” Conclusions Misleading videos had more likes, fewer comments, and longer running times than useful videos. Korean-language YouTube videos on COVID-19 uploaded by different sources varied significantly in terms of reliability, overall quality, and title–content consistency, but the content coverage was not significantly different. Government-generated videos had higher reliability, overall quality, and title–content consistency than independent user–generated videos.

© 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Infection with Helicobacter pylori causes chronic inflammation and is a risk factor for gastric cancer. Antibiotic treatment or increased dietary folate prevents gastric carcinogenesis in male INS-GAS mice. To determine potential synergistic effects, H. pylori-infected male INS-GAS mice were fed an amino acid defined (AAD) diet with increased folate and were treated with antibiotics after 18 weeks of H. pylori infection. Antibiotic therapy decreased gastric pathology, but dietary folate had no effect. However, the combination of antibiotics and the AAD diet induced anemia, gastric hemorrhage, and mortality. Clinical presentation suggested hypovitaminosis K potentially caused by dietary deficiency and dysbiosis. Based on current dietary guidelines, the AAD diet was deficient in vitamin K. Phylloquinone administered subcutaneously and via a reformulated diet led to clinical improvement with no subsequent mortalities and increased hepatic vitamin K levels. We characterized the microbiome and menaquinone profiles of antibiotic-treated and antibiotic-free mice. Antibiotic treatment decreased the abundance of menaquinone producers within orders Bacteroidales and Verrucomicrobiales. PICRUSt predicted decreases in canonical menaquinone biosynthesis genes, menA and menD. Reduction of menA from Akkermansia muciniphila, Bacteroides uniformis, and Muribaculum intestinale were confirmed in antibiotic-treated mice. The fecal menaquinone profile of antibiotic-treated mice had reduced MK5 and MK6 and increased MK7 and MK11 compared to antibiotic-free mice. Loss of menaquinone-producing microbes due to antibiotics altered the enteric production of vitamin K. This study highlights the role of diet and the microbiome in maintaining vitamin K homeostasis.

International audience; Gut microbes are considered as major factors contributing to human health. Nowadays, the vast majority of the data available in the literature are mostly exhibiting negative or positive correlations between specific bacteria and metabolic parameters. From these observations, putative detrimental or beneficial effects are then inferred. Akkermansia muciniphila is one of the unique examples for which the correlations with health benefits have been causally validated in vivo in rodents and humans.In this study, based on available metagenomic data in overweight/obese population and clinical variables that we obtained from two cohorts of individuals (n = 108) we identified several metagenomic species (MGS) strongly associated with A. muciniphila with one standing out: Subdoligranulum. By analyzing both qPCR and shotgun metagenomic data, we discovered that the abundance of Subdoligranulum was correlated positively with microbial richness and HDL-cholesterol levels and negatively correlated with fat mass, adipocyte diameter, insulin resistance, levels of leptin, insulin, CRP, and IL6 in humans.Therefore, to further explore whether these strong correlations could be translated into causation, we investigated the effects of the unique cultivated strain of Subdoligranulum (Subdoligranulum variabile DSM 15176 T) in obese and diabetic mice as a proof-of-concept. Strikingly, there were no significant difference in any of the hallmarks of obesity and diabetes measured (e.g., body weight gain, fat mass gain, glucose tolerance, liver weight, plasma lipids) at the end of the 8 weeks of treatment. Therefore, the absence of effect following the supplementation with S. variabile indicates that increasing the intestinal abundance of this bacterium is not translated into beneficial effects in mice.In conclusion, we demonstrated that despite the fact that numerous strong correlations exist between a given bacteria and health, proof-of-concept experiments are required to be further validated or not in vivo. Hence, an urgent need for causality studies is warranted to move from human observations to preclinical validations

Targeted cancer therapy has become one of the high potential cancer treatments. Human topoisomerase II (hTopoII), which catalyzes the cleavage and rejoining of double-stranded DNA, is an important molecular target for the development of novel cancer therapeutics. In order to diversify the pharmacological activity of chalcones and to extend the scaffold of topoisomerase inhibitors, a series of chalcones was screened against hTopoIIα by computational techniques, and subsequently tested for their in vitro cytotoxicity. From the experimental IC50 values, chalcone 3d showed a high cytotoxicity with IC50 values of 10.8, 3.2 and 21.1 µM against the HT-1376, HeLa and MCF-7 cancer-derived cell lines, respectively, and also exhibited an inhibitory activity against hTopoIIα-ATPase that was better than the known inhibitor, salvicine. The observed ligand–protein interactions from a molecular dynamics study affirmed that 3d strongly interacts with the ATP-binding pocket residues. Altogether, the newly synthesised chalcone 3d has a high potential to serve as a lead compound for topoisomerase inhibitors.

Recent research on Émile Zola’s involvement with the French press of the late Second Empire and early Third Republic has clarified the shape of this history of his engagement with journalism, including a supposed absence from the fray between 1881 and 1895. This article, however, identifies in the period 1888 to 1892 , between the idealism of $\textit{Le Rêve}$ and the reflexivity of $\textit{Le Docteur Pascal}$, a period of particular reflection on the press by Zola which illuminates ‘le retour du reel et de l’actualité’ in his novels: $\textit{La Bête humaine}$, $\textit{L’Argent}$ and $\textit{La Débâcle}$.

This paper is an ethnography of a four-year, multi-disciplinary adolescent sexual and reproductive health intervention in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador. An important goal of the intervention - and of the larger global field of adolescent sexual and reproductive health - is to create more open parent-to-teen communication. This paper analyzes the project's efforts to foster such communication and how social actors variously interpreted, responded to, and repurposed the intervention's language and practices. While the intervention emphasized the goal of open communication, its participants more often used the term confianza (trust). This norm was defined in ways that might - or might not - include revealing information about sexual activity. Questioning public health assumptions about parent-teen communication on sex, in and of itself, is key to healthy sexual behavior, the paper explores a pragmatics of communication on sex that includes silence, implied expectations, gendered conflicts, and temporally delayed knowledge. © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.

How can one explain the emergence of new accounting techniques? This question has been discussed from the early days of accounting history, particularly with respect to the ‘invention’ of double-en...

To detect rare epigenetic effects associated with assisted reproduction, it is necessary to monitor methylation patterns of developmentally important genes in a few germ cells and individual embryos. Bisulfite treatment degrades DNA and reduces its complexity, rendering methylation analysis from small amounts of DNA extremely challenging. Here we describe a simple approach that allows determining the parent-specific methylation patterns of multiple genes in individual early embryos. Limiting dilution (LD) of bisulfite-treated DNA is combined with independent multiplex PCRs of single DNA target molecules to avoid amplification bias. Using this approach, we compared the methylation status of three imprinted (H19, Snrpn and Igf2r) and one pluripotency-related gene (Oct4) in three different groups of single mouse two-cell embryos. Standard in vitro fertilization of superovulated oocytes and the use of in vitro matured oocytes were not associated with significantly increased rates of stochastic single CpG methylation errors and epimutations (allele methylation errors), when compared with the in vivo produced controls. Similarly, we compared the methylation patterns of two imprinted genes (H19 and Snrpn) in individual mouse 16-cell embryos produced in vivo from superovulated and non-superovulated oocytes and did not observe major between-group differences. Using bovine oocytes and polar bodies as a model, we demonstrate that LD even allows the methylation analysis of multiple genes in single cells.

The COVID19 global pandemic has seriously disturbed Fiji, its people and the economy. Consequently, crisis management has been highly challenging in this small and vulnerable economy. Although the number of positive cases was low, the economic impact of COVID19 has been significant. In this paper, we identify several crisis management issues to better deal with the pandemic. These discussions can potentially improve Fiji’s response strategies and initiatives to safeguard public health and economic activity. Our evaluation indicates room for learning and innovation in Fiji’s health care services to ensure resilience and effective response mechanisms. The suggestions are not only useful for Fiji but also for other similar economies in the region. These suggestive strategies can work as proactive measures to combat second wave impact yet to come.

This paper considers the steel reheating process, in which cold slabs are reheated to a temperature suitable for hot rolling operations. Temperature uniformity within the slab is very important during reheating, as non-uniformities often lead to quality concerns in the later stages of the production process. Attaining slab temperature uniformity is quite challenging, therefore, a thorough understanding of the reheating process becomes very important. Due to the extreme conditions inside the furnace, numerical tools like computational fluid dynamics are necessary for such situations. However, when applied to these complex installations, it often leads to very lengthy computational times. This paper develops a computationally efficient transient model to simulate the environment around a slab. This Truncated Transient Slab Model is a coupled model: it uses the temperature and flow profiles from a full-scale steady-state simulation and imposes those on a smaller domain that represents the immediate environment around the slab. The efficiency of the model is compared to the state of the art. With the simulations available in the literature, it was found that the proposed model can simulate a furnace seven times larger (grid size), with much higher grid and time resolutions, using only a third of the computational resources.

Concerns about racism and race equality have been widely reported in the first decades of the 21st century, following the Black Lives Matter protests and campaigns such as ‘Rhodes Must Fall’. Yet ‘race’ remains largely absent from policy debate and research concerning further education colleges in the four countries of the UK, particularly in relationship to leadership and governance. The focus of this paper is on who governs and why it matters. Governors and trustees play an increasingly visible and significant role in public, private and charity sector organisations, but diversity on governing bodies of further education across the UK remains patchy and is seen as a major challenge. The paper reports on what is known about the composition of governing bodies and what this tells us about the involvement of governors from black and minority ethnic backgrounds at the present time, drawing on a three-year project which examined the processes and practices of governing in the four countries of the UK. The findings highlight the continuing absence of governors from black and minority ethnic backgrounds on college governing boards and suggest that normative, invisible assumptions of how governing gets done persist, with black and minority ethnic governors often little more than a token gesture of adding diversity to the faces on the board.

The heritagization of religious sites has been increasingly studied in recent decades, with the focus shifting from the impact of mass tourism to considering the appropriation and commodification of religious sites as processes characterised by institutional dynamics and conflicting values. Drawing on an integrative-synthetic review as its methodological backbone, through critical heritage theory, advocating an epistemological turn towards post-secular strategies, this conceptual paper explores how the complex relationship between heritage, religion and tourism has been discussed and problematised by a growing literature addressing the heritagization of religious sites. Findings show that previous work has been limited to examining issues of commodification and living religion highlighting a hybrid sacred/secular space, while few researchers have addressed issues of conservation and authenticity. This is evident in the lack of qualitative studies examining the impact of gentrification, restoration and curatorial strategies in the way religious sites are experienced. Thus, the agency of visitors to construct alternative narratives is concealed, while there remains uncertainty regarding the multiplicity of institutional mechanisms influencing conservation assemblages. The paper concludes that research needs to further engage with the dialectics that underpin religious heritage planning assemblages and critically examine the epistemological assumptions under which religious heritage consumption have been considered.

The suspension of certain civil liberties and the extension of police powers to combat the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic has provoked concerns about the longer-term implications of the pandemic on police legitimacy. Drawing upon pathways to police legitimacy identified within the literature, this paper examines police officers’ perceptions of the impacts on, and potential challenges to, police legitimacy arising from the pandemic. Qualitative interviews, video diaries and focus groups were conducted with police officers in one police force area in England, captured over a five month period in winter 2020/21. The experience of policing Covid-19 left many police officers concerned about the possible consequences for the relationship with the public. The paper cautions that any gains in public perceptions of procedural justice through using enforcement measures only as a last resort, may be offset by losses in other pathways to legitimacy. Expectations of enforcement and increased visibility plus prolonged changes to deployment practices have all heightened a focus on the more instrumental aspects of police legitimacy. Concerns were also voiced that the policing of Covid-19 has accentuated divisions in society, exacerbating the sense of multiple publics to police, with different and often competing expectations of – and beliefs about – the police. Enforcement falling more heavily within some groups and locations risks exacerbating long-standing concerns about distributive fairness. As agents of social control with unique powers to exercise force and compulsion, the pandemic will require the police to exercise continued vigilance on the means by which public consent and support are sustained.

The Continuous Galerkin Virtual Element Method (CG-VEM) is a recent innovation in spatial discretization methods that can solve partial differential equations (PDEs) using polygonal (2D) and polyhedral (3D) meshes. Recently, a new formulation of CG-VEM was introduced which can construct VEM spaces on polygons with curvilinear edges. This paper presents the application of the curved VEM to the multigroup neutron diffusion equation and demonstrates its benefits over the conventional straight-sided VEM for a number of benchmark verification test cases with curvilinear domains. These domains were constructed using a topological data-structure developed as part of this paper, based on the doubly-connected edge list, with curves and surfaces both represented using non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS). This data-structure is used both to specify the geometry of the reactor and to represent the curvilinear polygonal mesh. We also present two separate methods of performing integrations on curvilinear polygons, one for homogeneous functions and one for non-homogeneous functions.

Little attention has been paid to the experiences of disabled young people of school playgrounds and toilets in mainstream settings. Drawing on the qualitative, first-hand accounts of 19 young people with dwarfism, this paper explores how they make sense and navigate school playgrounds and toilets during their secondary education from a Critical Disability Studies perspective. The findings suggest that playgrounds are experienced as inaccessible, hierarchical, panoptic and unsafe. Moreover, several factors affect the choice of school toilet – disabled or gender-binary – including the in/accessibility of toilets, the regulation of access to disabled toilets, and the social meanings attached to them. I argue such experiences are the outcome of both spaces being dis/ableist, designed for and with the ‘normatively developing’ body in mind. Participants’ stories also illustrate how they are aware of and resist the spatial scripts of these spaces – how they are meant to be used and who is allowed to inhabit them. This paper concludes with the need to listen to and engage with disabled young people for inclusive spaces to be achieved.

This paper explores a contingent sub-public sphere promoted by a group of former critical journalists in China during the coronavirus outbreak at the beginning of 2020. During the initial outbreak of coronavirus in China, the observed former journalists, who left the field of critical journalism during the re-structure of Chinese news industries under Xi Jinping’s leadership, drew on their knowledge of Chinese politics and censorship to contest information cover-up by the state, online censorship, and the state’s discourses of China as a successful model of combating the virus. Their activities effectively engaged mass participation of Chinese people and promoted critical opinions of the public. The paper bears the primary aim to deepen the understanding of the episodic formation of elite-driven public spheres in China by investigating the nuances of each case. I therefore, in this particular case study, explore concepts of habitus and capital from Bourdieu’s field theory as analytical tools in the investigation of the persistence of political participation and government scrutiny by former critical journalists on social media after leaving the field of critical journalism. The empirical research combines materials collected through 15 former critical journalists’ WeChat accounts between January and May 2020, along with in-depth interviews.

The paper uses illustrations from rural India and Bangladesh to develop a critical analysis of practices and experiences of poverty often overlooked in development policies. It challenges the principle measurement, calculative rationality and static representation in anti-poverty interventions that present poverty as a ‘problem’ to be resolved. It draws on poststructuralist ideas to express poverty differently and shift from problem-solving to problematisation. Drawing on the concept of ‘rhizome’ it highlights the connectivity, heterogeneity and multiplicity of poverty. Examples from interviews and photo diaries illustrate manifold poverty as a combination of heterogeneous activities, objects and affects that complicate development ethics and challenge the logic of reason in existing policies. The paper explores improvisation, experimentation, hope and repetition as mechanisms for critically evaluating aquaculture-led development and attending to overlooked objects, uncertain outcomes and untold stories of disadvantage.

Background: Publications documenting how teaching is typically undertaken in highly cis-normative school spaces are beginning to increase in popularity. Scholars highlight how school Physical Education (PE) departments operate as highly gendered, and exclusive spaces which are typically ruled by gender-binarised discourses. This ideology is heavily manifested in everyday practices such as male/female-divided changing rooms, PE uniforms, and curriculums. However, the experiences of non-binary PE teachers working in these spaces remains mostly non-existent. Purpose: The research questions for this study were to explore the experiences of a non-binary PE teacher and disrupt the inequalities of power in PE spaces where cisgender teachers are deemed the ‘norm’, and anything outside of this is positioned as the ‘other’. This paper highlights the stories of one non-binary PE teacher’s everyday experiences. Context: The participant, who will be referred to as Seb, was in the 25–35 age group and worked in a state-funded school in a rural area in the northwest of England. Design and Analysis: This study employed a qualitative, single-participant case study method to analyse the experiences of the teacher. Data consists of a participant’s narrative account via online interviews. The participant was encouraged to tell uninterrupted stories of their career, achieved through accessing their own ideas and thoughts in their own words. The interviews were audio-recorded and then transcribed. The researchers analysed the data using deductive and latent coding processes. Conclusion: The paper will conclude by highlighting the main findings, limitations of the study, and opportunities for further research. Practice recommendations will be suggested, focussing on practices that infuse cultural humility such as encouraging a personalised, socially-nuanced pedagogical approach towards including and affirming the identities of gender diverse PE teachers in schools.

Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) schemes typically involve student volunteers (PAL Leaders) designing and delivering sessions that support groups of students in lower years with their studies. This paper discusses three different PAL schemes, within Mathematics degrees at Sheffield Hallam University (a Post-92 University) and The University of York (a Russell Group University), which took place entirely remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this paper, we explore the challenges and benefits of remote PAL schemes via the three case studies, from both staff and student perspectives. There are aspects of PAL in a pandemic that we would (or would not) take forward to a blended or in-person approach in the future. In particular, we found that, while students and staff alike are looking forward to in-person contact to provide them with interactions and easier methods of communication, the remote provision for peer support has real value in terms of accessibility and inclusivity. Furthermore, integrating technology enhanced learning into in-person sessions can provide added value.

With the collapse of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, international governments are scrambling to understand the process of leaving violent networks as large numbers of former fighters return to their home countries. Studies of foreign fighters have tended to emphasize the importance of ideology or trans-national identity in explaining the desire to travel across borders to participate in war. This paper looks to move beyond these accounts and investigates how embodied attachments to militarism shapes foreign fighters enduring involvement in jihadi networks. Feminist studies of militarism and armed violence have emphasized the importance of gendered forms of attachment and desire in making war possible. While this research has paid increasing attention to attachment and embodiment in shaping military personnel’s identities, far less attention has been paid to those involved in foreign fighter networks. Based on life-history research with three generations of former foreign fighters from Java (Afghanistan 1980s, Philippines 2000s, Syria/Iraq 2014-ongoing) this paper explores the complex and contradictory forms of attachment that shape their attempted transition to in civilian life. Focusing on the embodied practices of these former fighters, the article highlights the role of structural factors play in recrafting attachment and belonging.

This paper offers a first step to analysing sub-sector variation in firms’ learning and the types of leads or lag in industrial regulation in the Indian health industry, one of the world’s largest and broadest suppliers in critical generics, vaccines, and diagnostics. Sub-sector variation in an industry’s learning and regulation trajectory has received relatively little attention in economic development literature and has potentially important consequences for the design of the industrial policy. Our argument rests on the transfer of complexity of learning in a sub-sector to generic industrial regulations. The paper appeals to evolutionary and institutional (E-I) approaches in economics, which have made significant contributions in improving the understanding of how firms learn, and applies a qualitative heuristic focused on co-evolving institutional domains to extract some insights from the dynamics of the diagnostics and devices sector. The paper finds that although firms continue to learn and innovate, persistent regulatory challenges to firms are generated by the misapplication of industrial policies to diagnostics and devices that were intended for pharmaceuticals and vaccines. Our findings suggest sub-sector specific changes are needed on value priorities for policy design, use, and regulation of diagnostics and devices in healthcare.

In investigating Keynes–Smith relationships, this paper discusses Smith and the parallels between the mature contributions of these two philosopher-economists. It begins by carefully examining Smith’s economic theory and policy, summarising his core argument in a clarifying syllogism, and exploring his invisible hand remarks. It then turns to the largely unexplored parallels between their major economic works. In theoretical terms, their core arguments have similar structures and analytical characteristics. In policy terms, both proposed new institution-based systems serving individual and social interests, considerable socio-economic restructuring and non-minimalist roles for the state. The paper concludes with a syllogism summarising Keynes’s parallel position, and comparative comments on some recent analyses of Smith’s thought.

In this paper, I propose “A/autisms” as an organizing concept for considering the complex intersection of Autistic identity, autistic disability, and the contingency of the diagnosis “autism” in educational research. I draw from Neuroqueer(ing) Noise—my doctoral research-creation project in an integrated, mainstream early childhood classroom—to consider how this intersection might help us orient towards A/autisms as artists, researchers, and teachers. Moreover, I suggest that A/autisms might be understood as a methodology for reorienting toward the human subject in the ontological turn. This paper is of relevance to researchers in the field of critical autism studies, as well as educational researchers interested in “post”-humanism, feminist materialisms, and arts-based research.

The term ‘smart city’ has become synonymous with a technologically cultivated utopia, where urban problems can be solved computationally. This approach to urban development has been promoted as a method of enabling city administrations to become more proactive when dealing with issues including pollution, traffic flow and congestion, public safety, energy use, and urban planning. This trend towards using technology in urban management and planning has sparked research and development initiatives across the planet. In the UK, the #PlanTech trend is a governmental initiative that aims to improve engagement between various actors in the planning system, including local authorities and central government, with tech start-ups and digital entrepreneurs who can design solutions to the problems currently experienced by planners, developers, and citizens alike. Despite the significant opportunities that technologies offer city council planning departments in terms of productivity, existing governance models can be shown to represent a significant obstacle to implementation. This paper uses case study research conducted at two English city councils – Coventry and Leeds – to examine the implications of planning reforms and digital transformation of public services on urban planning governance. Utilizing the information gained from a combination of semi-structured interviews and stakeholder engagement exercises, it examines the growing emphasis on technology in planning practice within the public sector and discusses the potential implications that it may have for current governance arrangements. Finally, it suggests what a framework for future urban planning governance within an English political context, in the era of the smart city might require. The paper overall offers a critical view of how current urban planning practice and governance procedures are being quickly subsumed by digital technologies which offer novel and effective methods for professional planners yet are undermined, or are inhibited, by current governance arrangements.\ud \ud

In this paper, we investigate the contribution of interest rate structured bonds to portfolios of risk-averse retail investors. We conduct our analysis by simulating the term structure according to a multifactor no-arbitrage interest rate model and comparing the performance of a portfolio consisting of basic products (zero-coupon bonds, coupon bonds and floating rate notes) with a portfolio containing more sophisticated exotic products (like constant maturity swaps, collars, spread and volatility notes). Our analysis, performed under different market environments, as well as volatility and correlation levels, takes into account the combined effects of risk premiums required by investors and fees that they have to pay. Our results show that capital protected interest rate structured products allow investors to improve risk–return trade-off if no fees are considered. With fees, our simulations show that structured products add value to the basic portfolio in a very limited number of cases. We believe our paper contributes to understanding the role of structured products in investors portfolios also in light of the current regulatory debate on the use of complex financial products by retail investors.

As occupation-focused discussions and applications of critical theoretical perspectives increase, attention must also be paid to how different spaces of knowledge dissemination, exchange, and production support critically informed learning and knowing about occupation. This paper presents the reflections of a group of international scholars and lecturers whose shared interest in critical theoretical perspectives prompted the incremental co-development of a series of conference engagements. We describe how our group came together, what kinds of learning experiences we developed to promote and support engagement with critical theoretical perspectives, and what understandings we gained through ongoing critical reflexivity about those learning experiences. Our discussion addresses two problematics related to conferences as learning spaces: inclusion, and sustained engagement with epistemic communities and ideas that may form through critically oriented conference sessions. We also discuss how enacting critical pedagogies and principles of ‘unconferencing’ may better promote critically informed ways of learning and knowing occupation than typical conference structures. The paper ends with a call for continued integration of varied critically informed teaching and learning opportunities at conferences, as a means of further encouraging diverse types of knowledge production, sharing, and learning about occupation.

This paper explores the interpretation and presentation of the transatlantic slave trade in Nigerian museums. It focuses on two contrasting case studies, namely the government-funded Slave History Museum (Calabar) and the privately run Seriki Faremi Williams Abass Slave Museum (Badagry). To investigate the complex and conflicting national and local narrative frameworks by which the slave trade and enslavement are presented to the public, this study focuses on qualitative content analysis of museum displays in addition to visitor observations. Comparative analysis of these museums suggests that this historically complex and emotional heritage cannot be understood in isolation from wider local, national, or global narratives. The paper explores the importance of taking a humanizing and empathetic approach to the presentation of the transatlantic slave trade in museums. I also consider how future practice might include ideas of localization and personalization to decolonize “official” slave trade heritage narratives in Nigeria and beyond.

This paper draws on anthropological research exploring women's changing sexuality within an urban context of Tanzania. The women involved were participating in an HIV prevention trial and worked in bars, restaurants, hotels and nightclubs, or sold local beer or food in Mwanza city. In ethnographic fieldwork and interviews and group discussions with women, narratives about sexuality focused on gendered and moral discourses of sexuality, the commodification of sexuality, and emotions and intimacy in relationships. This paper discusses how women's sexual subjectivies are shaped by a city where social, structural and economic changes over an era of neoliberalism and AIDS has created both disciplinary and liberalising spaces in which gendered and moral discourses of sexuality have emerged.

Despite the steady growth of authoritarianism, image activism is persistent and vibrant in Turkey. This paper examines how activists/artists used the production and circulation of political images to combat the institutional exclusion of oppositional voices following the Gezi protests (2013) and the attempted coup (2016). Using visual rhetorical analysis of images and in-depth interviews with courtroom painters, the paper focuses on ‘political’ drawings produced in enclaves of courtrooms and the strategies of image activists in visually narrating the political prisoners and/or detainees for wider networks, forming intersectional communities and creating spatial and digital visibility. In the context of the image activism in the post-Occupy Turkey, the passage from the digital to post-digital is based on, first, the top-down restrictive regulations in public and semi-public spaces and increasing police presence in places where activists previously met, and second, rising surveillance of the digital platforms, including the troll armies of the AKP government.

Background: In this paper, we explore physical education from a relational worldview. Theoretically guided by an ecological dynamics framework, this perspective calls us to conceptualise ‘education’ in its etymological roots – ex-ducere – meaning ‘to lead’ an individual ‘out’ into the world. In doing so, an educator would employ a ‘softer’ pedagogy, seeking to guide the attention and encourage exploration of a less experienced individual toward the perception of things that can support, or regulate, their behaviours. This pedagogical approach could help learners to self regulate in the environment, becoming more responsive to emergent opportunities for action available. Theory: This is a pedagogy of exploration, search, discovery, invention and adaptation that is devised from three of the contributing theories to ecological dynamics: ecological psychology, dynamical systems theory and complexity sciences. Throughout this paper we show that this progressive view contrasts with the more traditional perspectives of physical education, grounded in established pedagogical approaches that are often pre-occupied with instilling idealised ways of moving in learners, typically at the expense of appreciating how the environment reciprocally shapes behaviour. Practical Implications: In an effort to support educators with integrating an ecological conceptualisation of PE into their practice we outline three cornerstones. We bring these ideas to life by concluding the paper with the presentation of three practical examples that transcends the physical educational journey from primary/elementary school through to secondary/ high schools. We exemplify how an ecological approach to PE can move us closer to achieving the aim of enabling children to lead a physically active life beyond the school gates.

This paper offers an approach to understanding dramatic social change, entwined with belief revision and shifting knowledge. It explores the interplay between rapidly changing material and ideological conditions through the concept of a rupture. Ruptures are breakdowns in existing social and epistemic practices and relations: periods which call into question what is normalized, such that something else can grow through the cracks. Ruptures do not guarantee any particular replacement, but rather facilitate the emergence of new practices and understandings of the world. Ruptures thus create conditions of possibility for people to explore new social relations and ideas. To develop this idea, this paper draws on Franz Fanon’s writings on the Algerian anti-colonial revolution (1954–1962), as a paradigmatic rupture, as well as two smaller-scale ruptures: the student-worker movements over 2015–2016 in South Africa (#FeesMustFall) and Brazil (the primavera secundarista). In their respective contexts, each movement has substantively challenged prevailing practices and understandings that had been hegemonic.

Recently, as a result of international treaties and domestic legislation, children’s rights have moved to centre stage. In Scotland, under the terms of the Education (Scotland) Act 2016, those with additional support needs and disabilities (ASND) enjoy enhanced and legally enforceable rights, described by the Scottish Government as the most progressive children’s rights regime in Europe. This paper assesses the extent to which children’s rights have been prioritised during the COVID-19 crisis. Evidence is drawn from a qualitative study of the experiences of 16 families including a child with ASND during June and July 2020. We conclude that, particularly in the early days of the lockdown, scant regard was paid to the rights of children with ASND as education and care services were suddenly withdrawn. Existing inequalities were exacerbated, such as unequal access to IT, varying levels of support and differences in family resources. Families also reported some positive experiences, such as enjoying more time together and a release from school-generated stress. The paper concludes by arguing that the hiatus in educational provision is likely to have a negative impact on the educational progress and wellbeing of children with ASND, which will take determined efforts to rectify in the future.

The Covid-19 Level 4 lockdown represented an unprecedented and sudden shock to the New Zealand labour market. Using unique data collected during lockdown (n = 2002), this study examined the work circumstances of individuals and the economic shock in terms of income and job loss to both individuals and households. We found that the unemployment effectively doubled rising from 5.2% just prior to lockdown to 10.5% by week 3 of lockdown. Close to 44% of individuals lived in a household where members experienced job and/or income loss. While economic loss was widespread, some groups were harder hit, particularly those with lower incomes.

In this research note, we document the decrease in victimisation rates during the COVID-19 lockdown period in New Zealand. We show that the changes in mobility patterns in the same period are signi...

This paper explores the impact of domestic and international cash transfers on poverty and household resilience in Togo from a comparative perspective. The paper uses data from two household survey...

The abrupt outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic sent unprecedented shockwaves across the globe, creating an unparalleled crisis in terms of our health, severely impacting the way we live and work. Measures such as social distancing and travel restrictions, have disrupted production and supply chains, reinforcing a demand shock. In the midst of this pandemic, however, there are leaders of resilient firms that are effectively responding to these changing times. Using a multiple-case inductive enquiry, the paper analyses how leaders activate resilience in small businesses. Employing a process framework, which focuses on sequences of activities and their interrelations which we analyse to uncover how these leaders activated this resilience and explicitly integrated the literature of resilience with that of sensemaking. Resilience emerges when cognition and behaviour work in conjunction, with businesses adapting to combat the crisis. When it comes to global disruptive crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, extant literature provides us with little guidance. The study not only makes a number of contributions to extant literatures but also provides valuable insights and tools to help leaders effectively navigate and respond to this crisis. By doing fast research in real time the paper provides novel and original insights.

The twentieth century was marked by an assimilationist policy for indigenous languages, which were subsumed under a transitional model of bilingualism with a focus on the acquisition of Spanish or another dominant language. In that sense, the speakers of indigenous languages became bilingual with Spanish in many Latin American countries by virtue of educational policies and their practices either in primary schools or in universities. This was due to the social discrimination towards indigenous languages undervalued as “vernacular,” while Spanish was overvalued. This diglossic fact produced the semantic shift of several Aymara terms, when they were used by Spanish speakers in urban contexts. In contrast, in the twenty-first century we witness the revaluation of indigenous languages, more on paper than in actual practice. The complex diversity of indigenous languages has led some countries to recognize them both politically and legally as language communities according to the territorial principle. In that sense, the objective of this paper is to analyze both Aymara and Quechua languages in a changing context from diglossia and societoglossia to plurilingualism in the Plurinational State of Bolivia. We call this recognition of language diversity linked to territory plurilingualism.

Identifying suitable parameter sets for use in catchment modelling remains a critical issue in hydrology. This paper describes an early stopping technique (EST) for use during calibration of a multi-parameter urban catchment modelling system. The proposed method takes advantage of MODE and lower confidence limit (LCL) functions in statistical analysis of spanning set of objective function values. The paper also introduces a monitoring process and regularization techniques to avoid under/overfitting during the calibration and to enhance generalisation performance. The methodology is assessed using SWMM and linked with a Genetic Algorithm for calibration of a Powells Creek catchment model in Sydney, Australia. Results demonstrate that the statistical spanning set analysis approach overcomes issues of poor interpretation and deterioration in the model’s generalisation properties. By stopping early, the calibration process avoided overfitting; this was indicated by too closely fitting to the calibration dataset and a failure to fit to the monitoring dataset.

\ud Purpose: To systematically review and synthesise the qualitative literature on experiences that challenge self-identity following traumatic brain injury (TBI).\ud \ud Method: Four electronic databases were searched systematically for qualitative research published between 1965 and August 2017, investigating subjective experiences of identity change following TBI. Papers which met the inclusion criteria were evaluated using the Critical Skills Appraisal Programme (CASP) tool and synthesised using guidelines by Thomas and Harden (2008).\ud \ud Results: Of the 1965 papers retrieved, 36 met inclusion and quality criteria. Synthesis resulted in six themes: (1) awareness of change in physical, cognitive, emotional and social functioning; (2) autobiographical memory loss; (3) responses of other people that highlight change; (4) loss of autonomy; (5) comparing old me and new me–loss of valued roles and activities; (6) social rejection and stigma.\ud \ud Conclusions: An in-depth understanding of the experiences that challenge self-identity after TBI can inform rehabilitation to support individuals to negotiate these processes with less distress and more successfully.\ud \ud Implications for Rehabilitation\ud After a traumatic brain injury some people perceive catastrophic changes in their self-identity, and this can have a substantial negative impact on their psychological well-being.\ud \ud Circumstances and events that can trigger such appraisals include developing awareness of loss of ability and function; gaps in autobiographical memory; when others highlight loss and change; the loss of valued roles and activities; and social stigma and rejection.\ud \ud Clinicians should be aware of these triggers and their potential impact so that they can support people to negotiate them more effectively, with less damage to self-identity and psychological well-being.