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High‐resolution models have brought about capabilities in forecasting that could barely have been envisaged decades ago. The same advances in computer power and atmospheric science that enabled successful high‐resolution modelling have also led to useful forecasts further into the medium range and beyond. However, there remain problems forecasting at very short range, in particular concerning convection, for which new products and techniques are being trialled at the Met Office. We examine how these latest developments present the forecaster not only with exciting opportunities, but also fresh challenges, in particular, interpreting the plethora of output now available, whilst adhering to tight operational deadlines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic presented what, on both global and national levels, has arguably so far been the most extensive health, economic and social challenge of the 21st century. Responding to this challenge, it soon became clear that, while having a vital role in the contextual provision of necessary services, public authorities also needed to engage with organizations in the voluntary, community sector, including Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs). This article presents and discusses and analyzes a digest of research and resource evidence from the beginning of 2020–to the end of 2023 concerning the organizational, financial and human contributions of and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on, in particular, Christian FBOs in Great Britain. It goes on to analyze these contributions and impacts within the analytical framework of what it calls a wider "Christian ecology" as the context within which such FBOs live, to which they contribute, and, as argued by this review, apart from which they cannot be properly understood. Finally, in exploring some of the lessons to be learned from the evidence and analysis presented, the article identifies and considers some key opportunities and issues that arise at the interface between the work of (especially, but not only, Christian) FBOs and the structures and processes of the governmental powers-that-be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrochemistry education of future researchers is crucial if we are to decarbonise economies and reach targets for net zero, and this arguably begins with education in electrochemistry within undergraduate degrees. This paper reviews the teaching of electrochemistry in UK universities at the undergraduate degree level. We review where and how electrochemical concepts are introduced into chemistry, chemical engineering and materials science programmes. We provide some motivation for this review, which was stimulated by discussions from a workshop on the 'Future of Fundamental Electrochemistry Research in the UK', held in 2022. We summarise briefly how consensus on UK degree programme course content has been reached and inconsistencies that remain. Electrochemistry curriculum content from a convenience sample of UK universities, and disciplines, has been collected and is summarised, with a reflection on some trends. Finally, we present some implications for policy. A roadmap is suggested to ensure that the teaching of electrochemical fundamentals is addressed in the curriculum at an appropriate level to underpin the many technically relevant applications of electrochemistry that graduates will encounter in their further education or employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of inclusivity in teaching and learning modern British history in UK higher education. It explores how the idea of inclusivity has shaped research, teaching, and learning in the field, with a focus on new approaches to storytelling, pedagogical debates, and considerations of who learns this history. The article also highlights the challenges faced by historians in the current political climate, including attacks on critical approaches to studying Britain's history and concerns about access to education for socio-economic elites. The Open University is presented as an institution that plays a major role in widening access to studying modern British history, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The article discusses the OU's distance learning model and the use of technology to create inclusive learning environments. It also acknowledges the limitations and barriers faced by certain groups of students, such as those in prison. The OU's curriculum design is described as an opportunity to teach a genuinely 'British' history that reflects the diverse identities and cultures of its students across the UK. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of inclusive teaching and learning in building a more inclusive future for the field of modern British history. [Extracted from the article]

Met Office guidance forecasters continue to add value to NWP products, but in ways that could scarcely have been imagined half a century ago. We focus on how technological advances including 'Field Modification' have facilitated the creation of forecast products and new forms of graphical guidance to assist in the communication of the preferred weather story. We also describe a new impact‐based severe weather warnings service. This involves the interpretation of forecast outputs, including ensembles, and collaboration with other agencies to assess risks and impacts, thus enabling appropriate mitigating action to be taken in support of local and national resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impartiality has been a core principle of public service broadcasting (PSB) in the UK for 100 years. However, it is under growing pressure as audiences increasingly rely on more opinion led content on television and especially online. The hostility towards PSB has been fuelled by politicians and commercial media undermining the value of regulation in the twenty‐first century. The UK regulator, Ofcom, has offered a flexible approach to oversight which the authors argue may have contributed to further confusion over what impartiality is, and its value in a competitive media environment. Greater independence, accountability and transparency—for both broadcasters and regulator—are suggested to be vital to maintaining the value of impartiality in PSB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholarly literature on US–UK relations has been marked by recurrent debate over the health and utility of the special relationship, recently enlivened by the policy tensions and political turbulence of the Trump presidency. The literature has also seen a social and cultural 'turn', with a growing focus on the broader linkages between the two countries' societies and cultures. However, there has been limited analysis of public opinion in Britain in recent scholarly research. This article examines the 'image of America' in British public opinion in the twenty-first century, across recent Republican and Democratic presidencies. It uses data from the annual Pew Global Attitudes survey series and Transatlantic Trends survey series to undertake systematic analysis of these quantitative data sources. It examines the following areas: the performance and policies of presidents from Bush to Biden, the US and its people, the state of bilateral relations, and NATO. It examines aggregate-level opinion and also pays close attention to views across different societal groups, based on demographic characteristics, party support and left–right ideology. The paper makes a significant and distinctive contribution to scholarly research into US–UK relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how deportability structures the experiences of lesbian refugees and asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. The first part of the article considers the racial and gendered processes through which the UK asylum system transforms lesbian migrants into detainable and deportable subjects. Part two then examines lesbian migrant protests that are emerging to contest the United Kingdom's participation in the global deportation regime. The final part of the article discusses how deportation has become absorbed into the cycle of lesbian migration and asylum. The article concludes by calling for a feminist, queer, and anti-racist understanding of the processes through which lesbian migrant deportability is produced and experienced in 21st century Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture faces potentially competing societal demands to produce food, fiber and fuel while reducing negative environmental impacts and delivering regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services. This necessitates a new generation of long-term agricultural field experiments designed to study the behavior of contrasting cropping systems in terms of multiple outcomes. We document the principles and practices of a new long-term experiment of this type at Rothamsted, established at two contrasting sites in 2017 and 2018, and report initial yield data at the crop and system level. The objective of the Large-Scale Rotation Experiment was to establish gradients of system properties and outcomes to improve our fundamental understanding of UK cropping systems. It is composed of four management factors—phased rotations, cultivation (conventional vs reduced tillage), nutrition (additional organic amendment vs standard mineral fertilization) and crop protection (conventional vs smart crop protection). These factors were combined in a balanced design resulting in 24 emergent cropping systems at each site and can be analyzed at the level of the system or component management factors. We observed interactions between management factors and with the environment on crop yields, justifying the systems level, multi-site approach. Reduced tillage resulted in lower wheat yields but the effect varied with rotation, previous-crop and site. Organic amendments significantly increased spring barley yield by 8% on average though the effect again varied with site. The plowed cropping systems tended to produce higher caloric yield overall than systems under reduced tillage. Additional response variables are being monitored to study synergies and trade-offs with outcomes other than yield at the cropping system level. The experiment has been established as a long-term resource for inter-disciplinary research. By documenting the design process, we aim to facilitate the adoption of similar approaches to system-scale agricultural experimentation to inform the transition to more sustainable cropping systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 21st-century Ireland, Canada and the Great Britain, significant changes to sexual and gender legislation, abortion access and associated social and cultural life include the legalisation of same-sex marriage, employment rights, access to abortion and self-identification/gender recognition. This paper draws on interviews from the Beyond Opposition research to explore the experiences of those who are concerned about and/or actively oppose these socio-legal changes. We consider participants understandings of themselves as losing power within social relations and the ways in which their positionings can be seen as excluded or marginalised in public spaces. Examining their experiences of public space offers insights into experiences of new power relations, including state sanctions, that contest binaries of marginalisation/privilege. These positions between marginalisation/privilege, illustrate the effectiveness and limitations of framing these views as 'unacceptable' in public arenas. Operating between marginal/privileged requires a reworking of these 20th Century paradigms for 21st Century social divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Early Language Policy in the 21st Century. An International Perspective" by Zein, Subhan, and Coady, Maria R. deals with the framework conditions for foreign language teaching in primary education. A total of 14 chapters are dedicated to foreign language teaching in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese on all continents. The focus is on the situation of German language teaching in Great Britain, which is described as sobering. German ranks third among foreign language learners there, while Chinese as a foreign language is gaining momentum. The book shows that foreign languages are a political football and do not align with the needs of teachers or learners. [Extracted from the article]

Defence procurement in the UK has drawn a large degree of political and academic attention due to large-scale projects regularly being delayed and costing significantly more than the original estimate. The focus on contemporary defence procurement, however, suffers from one major drawback: a lack of historical contexualistation. This article redresses this imbalance between the focus on contemporary defence procurement and the problems faced purchasing military equipment in the past. The defence industry most representative of the contemporary procurement environment is the British aircraft industry in the inter-war period. This was an industry that was not publicly owned and presented dynamics that are comparable to today. This article explores the problems associated with twenty-first century defence procurement through this historical lens, demonstrating that many of the problems faced, and solutions proposed are not necessarily as new or innovative as has been claimed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the3million—a major organisation that was formed after the 2016 Brexit Referendum to represent EU citizens in the UK, this article explores the role of online communication in supporting civic actors' lobbying and mobilisation strategies at local, national and international levels. Apart from multi-scalar dimensions of these civic organisations' work and of the way EU citizens themselves engage, we identify different strategies of impact. These are inter-linked and performed in a nonlinear fashion and include: emotionalising; politicising; channelling; contesting. These findings elaborate on the way multinational diaspora formation and mobilisation in the 21st century should be conceptualised, and their importance for stakeholder empowerment. We argue that contextual factors—both in terms of the socio-political capital of the people engaged in mobilisation and the features and dynamics of opportunity structures in a particular country and historical moment—are important in understanding why civic actors emerge, how they mobilise and the way their status and focus of their work transforms over time. The article significantly contributes to research studying the use of digital communications and especially e-newsletters and e-mails by non-state actors for mobilising and lobbying purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines two major rituals of contemporary national life in the UK: association football and military commemoration. It explores the ways in which remembering is enacted and performed within UK football and how these processes are related to issues of power, agency and identity in Britain today. Employing the concepts of collective memory and spectacle, this article argues that 'memory entrepreneurs' have sought to embed football as 'site of memory' in the performance of military commemoration. It concludes that this has contributed to the transformation of military commemoration, from a ritual that is observed to a spectacle that is consumed. This paper thus contributes to emergent debates on the militarization of civilian space, the shifting nature of civil–military relations in the twenty-first century, and the role of military remembrance in the reproduction of Britishness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the economic dimensions of war. It considers empirical literature through structure review to explore the different effects of war on businesses. The scope of the study covers all geographical areas and studies dealing with any respective event in the 20th and 21st centuries. However, the study caters for quality, relevance, and recentness in publications. Hence, publications in 4*, 4, and 3 stars journals that are placed in Association of Business Schools of UK Guidelines in 2015 are reviewed. The study with its extant literature presents an important realization that against the stereo‐typed opinion about war being devastating to businesses indicates that war affects in various dimensions, that is, positive, negative, or even no effects depending on the nature and place of business. Whereas businesses, in general, may be negatively affected in wartime, businesses critical to war may get an unprecedented boost. The study also indicates a dire need of developing a framework for investigating this important relationship on sound footings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eightieth anniversary of the Beveridge inquiry is a timely moment to consider how the landmark report is used within contemporary UK politics. Calls for a 'new Beveridge' reflect a desire for a rupture with the past and the creation of a radical new welfare consensus. But this reflects a misunderstanding: Beveridge's approach was organic in nature, building on decades of experimentation, politically contested rather than consensual, and intellectually pluralist rather than moored to a single ideological worldview. The real insight Beveridge offers us today flows not from his substantive agenda—which was rooted in a particular set of historic circumstances—but as an approach to securing social reform. Successful welfare advances over the last generation have drawn on these 'Beveridgean instincts'. Rather than calling for a new twenty‐first century blueprint to be handed down from above, reformers should build on experimentation and successful incremental change, from within the UK and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To add to the engineer's toolkit for the twenty-first century challenges, we demonstrate a novel systems model for understanding urban impacts. The model captures interdependencies between different interconnected systems (or sectors, e.g. recreational services or public healthcare) in cities, from the tangible (e.g. resources such as roads) to the more intangible (e.g. outcomes such as the sustainable economy). The model is hazard-agnostic in that it can be modified to capture the impacts of different shocks on tangible parts of the system and how these cascade through to more abstract and high-level city tasks and outcomes. This paper demonstrates three hypothetical scenarios (a flood, drought, and pandemic) and their impacts on a generic UK city. Using the network analysis, impacts can be tracked and interpreted to help prioritise requirements for resilience-building. We propose this new tool be taken up and tested by others working to address global challenges such as the Sustainable Development Goals and grappling with the interconnectedness of urban systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The twenty first century has witnessed a heightened interest in Muslim settlers in western democracies. In Britain, following the suicide bombings of 9/11 and particularly in the aftermath of the 7th July 2005 bombings in London, much of this focus has been on the threat of terror attacks emanating from radicalised Muslims. It is clearly the case that the same focus also applies to other west European countries which have witnessed similar attacks. The question arises as to the kind of milieu in which domestic jihadist perpetrators have been raised and live. In most cases—though not all—an upbringing in segregated Muslim neighbourhoods is a recurring theme. These can be deemed 'closed communities', yet they are situated in open societies underpinned by a secular, liberal democratic polity. This paper provides reasons and evidence for the epithet of closed communities with respect to Muslims in Britain and explores how these—in many significant respects—differ from mainstream, liberal, secular society. The tensions that inevitably arise are considered together with their implications. The inspiration for this paper stems from Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project Metamorphosis. Titian 2012 was part of the Cultural Olympiad organized in Great Britain for the 2012 Olympic Games. With the purpose of showing the world the works of the national artists of all disciplines, Titian's Diana and Callisto (1556-1559), Diana and Actaeon (1556-1559) and The Death of Actaeon (ca. 1559-1575) were exhibited for the first time since the eighteenth century alongside the responses of a heterogeneous constellation of contemporary artists commissioned for the event. In this article, I look at the collection of poems published for Metamorphosis. Titian 2012 through the lens of the aesthetic and poetical transformations of the female body. The theoretical framework which supports my discussion is Mieke Bal's perception of framing as a travelling concept in her interdisciplinary theoretical travelling across the humanities. The article demonstrates how the general project of Metamorphosis. Titian 2012 and the poems under analysis resemantize Titian's Poesies and its main classical source, Ovid's Metamorphoses, under a literary, cultural, and political perspective which reflects a particular reception of the artist, and his Ovidian source in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While foodwork (tasks required to access food, including home food preparation) in the UK declined toward the end of the 20th century, it is not known whether this trend has continued into the 21st century. While evidence suggests many people feel they lack the time to cook, it is not known whether this is attributable to increasing demands on their time.Methods: Analysis of repeat cross-sectional data from three UK time use surveys: 1983, 2000 and 2014; participants aged 19+ (N = 14,810). We analysed changes in foodwork participation across survey years using linear regression, adding interaction terms to determine whether trends varied between different socio-demographic groups. We categorized time use over 24 h into eight parts, forming a composition: (1) personal care; (2) sleep; (3) eating; (4) physical activity; (5) leisure screen time; (6) work (paid and unpaid); (7) socialising and hobbies; and (8) foodwork. We examined whether the time-use composition varied across survey years, testing for interactions with socio-demographic characteristics.Results: Foodwork declined significantly between 1983 and 2014. However, a concurrent increase in time spent on work was not observed. Instead, time spent on sleep and screen time increased significantly. The decline in foodwork was significant among women but not among men.Conclusion: While many people in the UK continue to allocate time to foodwork on a daily basis, foodwork has continued to decline into the 21st century, though there was no concurrent increase in time being allocated to work, suggesting external and non-discretionary demands on time have not increased. Practitioners seeking to address a lack of time as a barrier to foodwork may wish to accommodate a broad definition of what this could mean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]