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Presents a call for contributions on research papers in chemistry for the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry's 8th Summer Symposium at the Hatfield College of the University of Durham in Great Britain in August 2004. Submission requirements; Contact information; Deadline for submissions.

Challenging others who post misinformation is a type of social correction that complements algorithm-based approaches. However, participation rates in such social acts remain limited. In this paper, we study design techniques that leverage principles of persuasive system design and communication theories to foster such prosocial behaviour across two distinct cultural contexts: the British and the Arab. A total of 462 participants completed an online survey (250 UK, 212 Arabs). The study compared the two cultural contexts regarding willingness to challenge misinformation and the persuasiveness of seven design techniques to increase that willingness, namely predefined question stickers, thinking face reaction, sentence openers, fact checker badge, social norm messages, tone detector, and private commenting. Moreover, it explores the impact of individuals' characteristics on their perception of the techniques as being more or less persuasive than a standard comment box. The study found that the willingness to challenge misinformation was significantly higher in the Arab context than in the UK context. Moreover, except for the private commenting, all techniques were more impactful in the Arab context than in the UK context. Some techniques, such as predefined question stickers, were more effective in both cultures compared to the standard comment box, while others, like the fact checker badge, were more effective only in the Arab context. However, in the UK, sentence openers had a lower impact. Furthermore, personality traits, age, and perspective-taking showed the potential but also the varying impacts on the persuasiveness of the techniques on users' correction of misinformation across both cultural contexts while pointing to the need for considering both personal and cultural factors in designing social-correction-based solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that, in mental healthcare, empathy and active listening skills play a fundamental role in the therapeutic relationship. Despite this, clinicians receive little training in cultivating these qualities, and there is a dearth of training in therapeutic relationships and relational care in this field more generally. In response to this paucity of training, a new intensive three-day training programme has been developed called Compassionate and Relational Enquiry (CARE). The CARE training programme has recently been delivered to a number of mental health teams in different boroughs of an NHS Trust and has undergone several rounds of redevelopment. This paper outlines the CARE training programme's objectives and mode of delivery, and subsequently presents questionnaire results from recent CARE trainees regarding their experience of the nature and utility of the training. Four main themes emerged from responses to the question of the utility of the training, these were 'A shift towards more person-centred care', 'Strengthens the therapeutic relationship', 'Facilitates more collaborative care with patients and their families' and 'Development of new skills and therapeutic techniques'. The paper concludes by discussing the potential of this training to help forge a substantial shift in the culture of mental health services in a systemic way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brundtland report has significantly influenced and guided sustainable development since its publication. There is abundant literature on how and to what degree the report and its incarnations (e.g. Agenda 21, Millennium Development Goals, Sustainable Development Goals) have been implemented at all spatial and governance scales. However, there is lesser literature on a quantitative determination and evaluation of the sustainability outcomes of implementing the report at a specified spatial–temporal scale. Therefore, this paper seeks to contribute towards remedying this, by determining and evaluating the indicated levels, nature, and dynamics of sustainability of the UK, for the period 2000–2018 from a Brundtland perspective. This is achieved by the application of the Sustainability Dynamics Framework to the results of the Sustainable Society Index. The results indicate that the sustainability of the UK improved from very weak to weak sustainability over the period. This was due to improvements in energy-related indicators which had a significant positive influence and impact upon sustainability outcomes. However, both the indicators of Population Growth and Public Debt were indicated as having a significant negative influence and impact upon the obtained levels and nature of sustainability. Furthermore, the Consumption indicator levels also had a significant detrimental influence upon the other indicators and sustainability over the period. The dynamics of sustainability occurring in the UK indicates the development of a more disturbed cycle of impacts upon the nature of the environment–human system and relationship. Therefore, unless corrective measures are taken through a fundamental transformational shift, then there is the realistic possibility of a systemic crisis occurring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK has a long history of providing and managing urban parks. The formal park and garden, developed as a morally improving 'place apart' in the city, can inform people's idea of what a park is. This paper aims to explore the legacy of this conceptualisation of the park through an extensive review of literature and policy documents. This paper examines prevailing discourses by locating them more accurately within its political, economic and social context of the times. The paper also examines why, despite being described as 'treasured assets' by national government today, UK urban parks continue to be undervalued and taken for granted? Why does the lamenting of the fate of UK urban parks sector persist in the twenty-first century? To answer this question, the paper will focus on the formal urban park by applying the analytical framework of place-keeping as a conceptualisation of long-term green space management and stewardship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation intermediaries (IIs) have gained more attention in both industry and academia since they are recognized as crucial actors that can facilitate the innovation process. This paper presents a systemic review of the academic research on IIs and suggests future research directions. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of 556 documents from the Web of Science with Bibliometrix. The results show that IIs have experienced a surge of publications over the past three decades, with the UK and the US leading in productivity and influence. Although research on IIs occurs globally, cross-national collaboration is lacking, especially between authors of developed and developing countries. Our keyword co-occurrence analysis identified three major research clusters represented by innovation performance, knowledge networks, and technology transfer, which are also reflected in different stages of thematic evolution. Furthermore, we conducted a content analysis of the most influential articles across multiple disciplines and different time slices to identify the key discipline interests and provide a comprehensive picture of research themes over the years. We conclude by suggesting four potential avenues for future research. Our work provides an essential overview for understanding this critical field and serves as a valuable resource for policymakers and practitioners interested in IIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between neighbourhood level density of civil society organisations (CSOs), diversity, and deprivation. We compare the UK and Sweden, two countries with different civil society traditions and welfare state regimes. We use data on formal civil society organisations to examine whether diverse neighbourhoods have lower levels of civil society infrastructure. In the UK, contrary to what could be expected from Putnam's assertion that diversity has a negative effect on trust, thus limiting civil society activities at the neighbourhood level, we observe a positive relationship between the density of CSOs and diversity. In Sweden, we find different patterns. First, we observe a negative correlation between CSO density and diversity. Second, we find lower density of formal CSOs in areas with high diversity and high economic disadvantage and higher density in areas characterised by low diversity and high disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to social protection in old age is crucial and yet contingent upon negotiations between the social structures of the welfare states and the personal networks within which individuals are embedded. International migration, changing family dynamics, and the transformation of care and other welfare policies in the global North make it challenging for older migrants to negotiate social protection. Drawing on 45 semi-structured interviews with first-generation older Turkish migrants in London and 13 semi-structured interviews with professional service providers for the community, the paper aims to investigate the assemblages of formal and informal social protection in the lives of older migrants. Findings indicate the complexity in accessing informal social protection and the navigation of formal care support in the UK for first generation older Turkish migrants and the contingency of access to formal care services on informal support networks for participants. It has been demonstrated that built infrastructure and policies aimed at older adults have great influence on assemblages of care, highlighting the need for more age-friendly and integrated policies to facilitate access to social protection for diverse groups of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender wage gap and the gender work gap are sizable, persistent and well documented for many countries. The result of the gender wage and gender work gap combined is an income gap between men and women. A small literature has begun to examine how the tax-benefit system contributes to closing gender income gaps by redistributing between men and women. In this paper, we study the effect of tax-benefit policy on gender differences in income in the EU27 countries and the UK. We use microsimulation models linked to survey data to estimate gender gaps in market income (before taxes and transfers) and disposable income (after taxes and transfers) for each country. We then decompose the difference between the gender gap in market income and the gender gap in disposable income into the relative contribution of taxes and benefits in each country. We also isolate the relative contributions of the gender wage gap and the gender work gap to the overall gap in income between men and women in two of these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have studied political ideology and polarization in many different contexts since their effects are usually closely related to aspects and actions of individuals and societies. Hence, being able to estimate and measure the changes in political ideology and polarization is crucial for researchers, stakeholders, and the general public. In this paper, we model the ideology and polarization of 28 countries (the 27 EU member states plus the UK) using Facebook public posts from political parties' Facebook pages. We collected a three-year dataset from 2019 to 2021 with information from 234 political parties' Facebook pages and took advantage of the EU parliament elections of May 2019 to create our models. Our methodology works across 28 countries and benefits from being a low-cost running process that measures ideology and polarization at a high-resolution time scale. The results show our models are pretty accurate when validating them against 19 individual countries' elections as ground truth. Moreover, to make our results available to the research community, stakeholders, and individuals interested in politics, the last contribution of our paper is a website including detailed information about the political parties in our dataset. It also includes the temporal evolution of our ideology and polarization estimations. Therefore, our work delivers a novel tool that uses Facebook public data to create country metrics useful for different purposes. To the best of our knowledge, there is no prior work in the literature offering a solution that measures the ideology and polarization of all EU + UK countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the possible relationship between religious education and social justice. A consideration of what it is that education in the public sphere should seek to achieve, in a normative sense, is followed by an explanation of how we conceptualise social justice in this paper. This leads us to be able to explain why the relationship between teacher and child or young person is significant and why it is insufficient to conceptualise religious education only in terms of knowledge. Instead, we propose that the teacher's first responsibility when beginning any course of study is to bring the child to attend to their experience and that of their wider community. We argue that curriculum cannot be made in isolation of the context of the child and that education is not something that takes place in abstraction. Rather, it requires the teacher to be attentive to this particular child, the one who is here now, and in this particular place. Having begun to set out the educational position of our argument, we show how this is working practically guided by a Locally Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education: Living Difference IV, in religious education taught in a school in an area of high deprivation in the southeast of Hampshire. UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of remote measurement technologies (RMTs) across mobile health (mHealth) studies is becoming popular, given their potential for providing rich data on symptom change and indicators of future state in recurrent conditions such as major depressive disorder (MDD). Understanding recruitment into RMT research is fundamental for improving historically small sample sizes, reducing loss of statistical power, and ultimately producing results worthy of clinical implementation. There is a need for the standardisation of best practices for successful recruitment into RMT research. The current paper reviews lessons learned from recruitment into the Remote Assessment of Disease and Relapse- Major Depressive Disorder (RADAR-MDD) study, a large-scale, multi-site prospective cohort study using RMT to explore the clinical course of people with depression across the UK, the Netherlands, and Spain. More specifically, the paper reflects on key experiences from the UK site and consolidates these into four key recruitment strategies, alongside a review of barriers to recruitment. Finally, the strategies and barriers outlined are combined into a model of lessons learned. This work provides a foundation for future RMT study design, recruitment and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on almost all aspects of society. Cultural heritage sites, which are deeply intertwined with the tourism industry, are no exception. The direct impacts of the virus on the population, as well as indirect impacts, such as government-mandated measures including social distancing, face coverings, and frequent temporary closures of sites, have greatly impacted visitor experiences at heritage sites. To quantitatively evaluate the impact of these measures from the perspective of visitors, we collected 1.4 millions visitor reviews from the Google Maps platform for 775 heritage sites. We analyzed visiting rates using the number of online reviews as a proxy and adopt state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques to more deeply understand visitor perception of preventive measures put in place to control the spread of COVID-19. Our findings reveal that even if visitor focus on COVID-19 has significantly decreased, there may still be notable difference between actual and expected number of reviews, suggesting that visitor involvement (e.g., number of visitors) for cultural heritage sites, especially urban indoor sites, needs more time to recover. Our findings further show that most comments by visitors to sites were associated with negative sentiment toward restricted access, but recognized the necessity of other safeguarding measures (e.g., social distancing and the requirement for face coverings). Moreover, they exhibited negative sentiment towards staff or other visitors who did not adhere to these measures. We make specific recommendations for heritage sites to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and a more general observation that the method used to gather information from online reviews in this paper will be effective in measuring visitor perceptions towards specific aspects of heritage sites, particularly in capturing changes in perception before and after unexpected or disruptive events at heritage sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-movement in different regional housing markets has implications for portfolio management, as well as the effectiveness of monetary and other policies. Such co-movement has thus been the subject of several previous studies. Research on regional house price cohesion has tended to focus either on long-run convergence to a common level or on business cycle synchronization. While the extent of both types of relationships is important, research on national housing, credit and equities has established the salience of co-movement at the intermediate frequency, or of medium cycles. Indeed, at the national level, medium cycles in housing and credit together have been shown to characterize the financial cycle. Research on the UK has found that regional house price co-movement is different at business versus medium cycle frequencies. In this paper, we examine co-movement of house prices across the regions of the USA. We compare co-movement at the business and medium cycle frequencies. We find that medium cycles are more volatile than short-term fluctuations, making medium-term movements more important for housing. Moreover, house price synchronization across regions is for the most part greater at the medium than the short-term frequency. There did appear to be an increase in co-movement around the time of the early 1990s recession, although this was not sustained for all regions or all frequencies. Lastly, while short-term synchronization has been declining among the regions of the US housing market, medium co-movement appears to be rising over the last several decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-conferences like COP26 in Glasgow (UK) in 2021 have brought the debate on energy consumption and climate change to the fore. Given that a third of the energy produced worldwide is consumed in the home, it is pertinent to investigate how households use emerging technologies that allow households to monitor their energy consumption. This paper investigates how Danish households use green IT to monitor and manage their energy use and studies the related meaning householders attach to the green IT. We present qualitative data collected through interviews with 14 households, electric car owners mostly, who have adopted an application to monitor green energy availability – and its derived consumption. The paper highlights these householders' green energy monitoring practices with an emphasis on the meaning they make of the green IT application they used. Our study found that households can use more green energy without interacting continuously with the green IT application. This contrasts with a common assumption in the field of green IT design that consumers must continuously engage with the green IT to consume more green energy. We also posit that including householders in future green IT design is paramount for designing successful green IT applications. Finally, this paper calls for household energy consumption studies to view energy consumption as a service where specific practices are matched to energy sources – rather than viewing energy availability as a solitary incident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses papers presented at the Wellcome Trust Strategic Programme on the Human Body: Its Scope, Limits and Future workshop in April 2014. It notes that there is a close relationship between pursuit of improvement and reinforcement of particular ethical human body norms. The article also states that the papers collectively uphold a multi-disciplinary approach to better grasp how technology, law, policy, and society are interacting to reinvent the understanding of the human body.

Reports on Great Britain's 1993 white paper `Realizing Our Potential.' Research reforms proposed in the white paper; Threat on the medical Research Council's institutes; Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council's funding of basic research; Privatization of public research laboratories.

Talks about the criticism by the House of Commons on Britain's White Paper on science and technology. Failure to switch from military to civilian research; White Paper's alleged shortcomings; Reply to criticisms; Concern of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and the Institution of Chemical Engineers on biological organic chemistry; Setting up of Britain's new Council for Science and Technology.

Today many parties interact with members and supporters outside their national borders. One way parties do so is by establishing transnational party branches. However so far, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical research exploring this transnational aspect of party activity. This paper provides a first insight into why parties develop transnational branches, and how it affects their organization. It argues that the development of party branches abroad differs across countries due to the incentives provided by the national legal framework on voting and donations from abroad. In turn, the role and functions of the transnational branches vary depending on this legal framework. Looking at the two transnational branches of the two mainstream parties in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, this paper first briefly outlines the different national legal frameworks and the scope and size of transnational party branches. It then focuses on how they are organized, their role and function, and how this shapes their relationship to their homeland party. This explorative research is mainly based on legal and secondary data. The paper finds that the parties studied differ substantially in location, number and membership size for their transnational branches. Furthermore, the organizational links and the control by the national party over transnational party branches is the highest where parties have the most to gain in terms of votes in national elections and donations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adhesion contracts have a strong likelihood of being unconscionable. The laws and principles are further complicated by the introduction of electronic contracts, specifically electronic consumer contracts. The paper touches upon the duty to read doctrine in contracts and electronic contracts. While the doctrine of unconscionability has evolved it has been playing catch up with the demands of consumers. This paper compares the application of this doctrine in the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and India. The paper also proposes recommendations for consumers and the development of laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did Britons view China in 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic? This paper presents new, detailed evidence of the negative and worsening perceptions of China in the UK across three domains: public opinion (based on survey data collected in autumn 2020), political elites in parliament, and the media. The worsening of perceptions of China emerged in the context of a changing and more contested China policy from the UK government and a greater level of public debate about China, partly a consequence of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper places analysis of these perceptions in the context of the development of relations between the UK and China. Together with deteriorating Chinese views of the UK's China policy and controversy over a number of developments in China, widespread negative views about China among the British public and in political circles will constrain UK-China relations from developing in a more positive direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition a paper that was being published at the same time by a highly respected European laboratory, EFECTIS, authored by Eric Guilluame directly supports the results we obtained.[3] Babrauskus goes on to criticize the study by claiming that it does not accurately reflect the real environment. The corresponding author of the letter has questioned the independence and ethics of the testing laboratory and authors. [Extracted from the article]

The paper draws on network theory to employ concepts of homophily and heterophily to investigate whether the presence of familiar, unfamiliar or a mix of actors in an entrepreneurial ecosystem is related to start-up rates. The empirical focus of this study is on 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems and their outputs in terms of academic spinoff companies. The paper finds that university entrepreneurial ecosystems with access to actors of predominantly heterophilious character are associated with higher spinoff start-up rates. It is concluded that in stimulating the development of successful entrepreneurial ecosystems there is a clear need to focus on their openness to heterophilious actors, inclusive of other ecosystems. This is especially important in the context of network lock-in that may arise from dependence on homophilious ties. Plain English Summary: Entrepreneurial ecosystems characterised by openness to diverse actors generate more firms, as shown in a study focusing on 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems. The paper studies network character of actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems and whether this character is associated with start-up rates. Specifically, it focuses on the familiarity of actors, inspecting whether it is related to greater venture formations. In so doing, the study examines 81 UK university entrepreneurial ecosystems. It finds that university entrepreneurial ecosystems that generate more ventures are associated with having a presence of actors of unfamiliar character, drawing attention to the openness of ecosystems' networks. The key implication of the study is in recognising the link between the ecosystem's openness to diverse actors and its entrepreneurial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main issues in the debate on urban constitutionalism is how constitutions can recognize the increasingly important role of cities in relation to the nation-state. This paper examines what we talk about when we talk about city autonomy. This is a pressing question, particularly in the context of European unitary states. This paper pays special attention to the context of two of such states, namely the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (especially England). First, it explores the notion of subsidiarity, which implies that consideration should be given to the distinctiveness of the city as regards the allocation of power to the central and regional levels respectively. However, this idea in itself cannot justify the case for city autonomy, as the claim that the attribution of autonomous powers to cities may improve the quality of decision-making in the state as a whole needs additional empirical evidence. Second, it investigates the concept of city autonomy by exploring the fuzziness of the notion of the city. In addition, it introduces the concept of 'spatial identities' in order to explain the interdependence of (large) cities and their surrounding (rural) areas. Lastly, it concludes that if the importance of cities as constitutional actors is to be increased, it should be done so in an informal way rather than by the introduction of formal constitutional arrangements both from a pragmatic and a normative perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Action research is the predominant approach for organisational inquiry, but it comes in many guises and in some cases ends up as all action and no research. A common feature of all action research is the necessity to meet stakeholders in person in order to gain an understanding 'from within', this is particularly the case where 'soft' action research is the basis of the inquiry. In this paper first, we reflect, briefly, upon the history of action research and second, upon the lessons leant from the outcomes from two projects. The first project was conducted 'virtually', between a college in the USA and one in the UK and the second undertaken during the disruption caused by the restrictions arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. The experiences gained from these two 'virtual' action research projects and the lessons learnt are of interest to both the 'traditional' and 'soft' action research community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aerial image data are becoming more widely available, and analysis techniques based on supervised learning are advancing their use in a wide variety of remote sensing contexts. However, supervised learning requires training datasets which are not always available or easy to construct with aerial imagery. In this respect, unsupervised machine learning techniques present important advantages. This work presents a novel pipeline to demonstrate how available aerial imagery can be used to better the provision of services related to the built environment, using the case study of road traffic collisions (RTCs) across three cities in the UK. In this paper, we show how aerial imagery can be leveraged to extract latent features of the built environment from the purely visual representation of top-down images. With these latent image features in hand to represent the urban structure, this work then demonstrates how hazardous road segments can be clustered to provide a data-augmented aid for road safety experts to enhance their nuanced understanding of how and where different types of RTCs occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests whether visual nudges help direct attention towards existing instructions designed to increase waste sorting accuracy. The study was conducted in a quasi-experimental setting over a period of 9 weeks in two buildings of a large UK university campus. Two treatments on recycling behaviour were tested against a control group: one considered the impact of visual nudges in the form of human eyes; the other one combined human eye with pre-existing sorting instructions. Results show that for mixed recycling the combination of visual and information nudges decreased sorting errors by 7 percentage points. In contrast, visual nudges alone increased sorting errors by 4.5 percentage points. These findings indicate that, when combined, information and a visual nudge are cost-effective tools to significantly improve waste sorting behaviour. This paper adds to existing experimental evidence based on neuroscientific theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few sectors are more ethically contentious than dairy, with debates tending to be polarised between "intensification" and "abolitionist" narratives which often drown out alternative voices operating in-between. This paper examines the marginal spaces occupied by a group of farmers in the United Kingdom who are attempting to move towards what they see as "more ethical" dairying. Drawing on findings from ethnographic research on five farms which have adopted "cow-calf contact rearing"—which focuses on keeping calves with their mothers longer, in opposition to conventional practices of removing them shortly after birth—it asks what values underpin this alternative approach, and how and why "ethical" dairies seek to dairy ethically. To do this, it draws on a feminist epistemology and methodology that sees ethics as situated and contextual, and finds an "ethics of care" to be central to changing entanglements between humans and nonhuman animals. Instead of casting dairy as either "good" or "bad", it explores the activities of farms which are trying to move towards what they perceive to be "better", and draws three conclusions: (a) "ethical" dairying demonstrates a heterogeneity of dairy practices which are grounded in "care" and are happening between narrative extremes of intensification versus abolition; (b) although this practice may be, and could be, commodified, farmers are primarily guided by strong ideological principles and influenced by affective and empathetic "entanglements" with cows and calves, the agency of bovines themselves, and their social and ecological environment; and (c) "cow-calf contact rearing" represents a significant shift from a focus on the broader welfare environment towards centring the quality of individual cows' lives. Ultimately, the paper argues that we should pay greater attention to alternative economies built on an "ethics of care" when envisaging new sustainable food and agricultural systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2020, the UK was placed in lockdown following the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Just as legitimate workplaces made changes to enable their employees to work from home, the illicit drugs trade also made alternative arrangements, adapting its supply models to ensure continuity of operations. Based upon qualitative interviews with 46 practitioners, this paper assesses how front-line professionals have experienced and perceived the impact of Covid-19 on child criminal exploitation and County Lines drug supply in the UK. Throughout the paper, we highlight perceived adaptations to the County Lines supply model, the impact of lockdown restrictions on detection and law enforcement activities aimed at County Lines, and on efforts to safeguard children and young people from criminal exploitation. Our participants generally believed that the pandemic had induced shifts to County Lines that reflected an ongoing evolution of the drug supply model and changes in understanding or attention because of Covid-19 restrictions, rather than a complete reconstitution of the model itself. Practitioners perceived that Covid-19 has had, and continues to have, a significant impact on some young people's vulnerability to exploitation, on the way in which police and frontline practitioners respond to County Lines and child criminal exploitation, and on the way illegal drugs are being moved and sold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the political polarization in the UK and analyzes its socioeconomic correlates based on detailed county-level panel data constructed from the British Household Panel Survey. Three different polarization measures, computed following different strands of the literature, are highly correlated and characterized by similar statistical properties, which implies they can be used interchangeably in the quantitative analysis. The empirical evaluation of the determinants of political polarization suggests that regional political polarization in the UK is positively associated with the variability of job status and negatively associated with an increase in the employment rate and an increase in the share of natives in the region. The findings of this paper fill the gaps in understanding the political polarization in the UK by clarifying its measurement, correlates, and trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies intergenerational links in home ownership, an increasingly important wealth marker and a measure of economic status in itself. Repeated cross sectional UK data show that home ownership rates have fallen rapidly over time, most markedly amongst younger people in more recent birth cohorts. Evidence from British birth cohorts data supplemented by the Wealth and Assets Survey show a significant rise through time in the intergenerational persistence of home ownership, as home ownership rates shrank disproportionately among those whose parents did not own their own home. Given the close connection between home ownership and wealth, these results on strengthening intergenerational persistence in home ownership are therefore also suggestive of a fall in intergenerational housing wealth mobility over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses reaction to the British government's White Paper (policy statement) on the organization of science and technology, `Realising our Potential,' published last week in London, England. The lack of radical change; Additional information. INSETS: Waldegrave gets help, by D.D.;A global search, by D.D..

The article discusses postage stamps that have been issued by Britain’s Royal Mail throughout the years and examines the latest set, which commemorates the founding of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, England. This set belongs to the Action for Species series, which depicts threatened species in Great Britain. Other sets of stamps have featured evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and England’s Queen Elizabeth II.

The article discusses the study carried out by researcher Sanjev Gupta and his colleagues of the Imperial College London concerning on how Great Britain became an island. It states that Gupta's team has utilized the map of the English Channel to gather relevant data. It was found that islands existed on the valley's bed rock floor where the channel is divided into two that resulted to the formation of land in between. Also, the occurrence of flood contributed to the existence of lakes.

Aims Recent UK legislation allows dental therapists or jointly-qualified dental hygienist-therapists to work in the general dental service. This study aimed to investigate the extent of dentists' knowledge of the clinical remit of jointly qualified hygienist-therapists, their willingness to consider employing such a professional, and factors associated with these two measures.Materials and methods A postal questionnaire was sent to 616 NHS-registered dentists in South-East Scotland. Analysis and classification of responses to open-ended questions used standard non-parametric statistical tests and quantitative techniques.Results Following two mailings, a 50% (n = 310) response rate was obtained. A total of 65% of dentists worked in a practice employing a dental hygienist, while only 2% employed a dental therapist. Hygienists tended to work in larger practices. Dentists' knowledge of the clinical remit of the dually-qualified hygienist-therapist was found to be limited, reflecting a restricted and inaccurate view of the professional remit of a hygienist-therapist. The majority (64%) said they would consider employing a hygienist-therapist in their practice, rising to 72% amongst dentists already working with a hygienist. Reasons given by dentists who were negative about this prospect were sought. Those who worked with a hygienist tended to refer to lack of physical space, whilst those who did not tended to cite reservations on clinical skills, competence and responsibilities, or on the costs involved.Conclusions This study identified considerable ignorance and negativity among dentists about the nature and clinical remit of this group of professionals. Dually-qualified hygienist-therapists will be in a position to treat much of the routine disease that exists within the population, and dentists may benefit from education in relation to the substantial contribution these individuals could potentially make to patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the request of government for public comment on the benefits and culling badgers to control tuberculosis infection among cattle in Great Britain. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has campaigned to protect the badgers in response to the open consultation.

Focuses on the work of Alison Smith, a plant scientist at the University of Cambridge in Great Britain, in exploring the idea that seaweed make Vitamin B12. Collaboration made with her constant collaborator Martin Warren to initiate the experiment; Inquiry made on the genomic sequences of the three types of algae; Examination on the mechanism by which the algae get the vitamin from the bacteria and also what the bacteria get from the transaction.

Comments on the article by Michael Shanks about the stakeholder concept and its implications for consumer organizations in Great Britain, published in the 1983 issue of the periodical 'Journal of Consumer Policy.' Loss of independence of the movement; Performance of governments in their attempts to regulate business activity; Factors that consumer movements should consider in the prospect of powersharing.

This paper aims to probe how leaders of Brexit (Nigel Farage) and Bremain (David Cameron) camps communicated with the UK public via Facebook fan pages. This study employed two different types of data analysis (social network analysis and semantic network analysis) for exploring the structure and the contents of information diffusion process. These analyses yielded the opposite results. For social network analysis, Bremain Camp showed a preponderance regarding the numbers of commentators, their relationships and network distance. Conversely, for the semantic network analysis, the results suggested that Brexit-related framings were salient in both leaders' Facebook fan pages. In other words, even though these two leaders have different perspectives and opinions to the Brexit, both Facebook fan pages eventually promoted Brexit campaigns to their followers. In addition, this study was able to find out Brexiters strategically approached and effectively persuaded a substantial pool of Bremainers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research emanates from an anti-sexual violence bystander programme delivered at an English university. Fifteen students were identified through purposive and convenience sampling to take part in focus groups. Discussions emerged regarding atypical sexual harassment. There is a gap in the literature exploring sexual harassment outside of the male perpetrator and female victim narrative which this paper contributes to. This paper considers four conversational themes: 'unwanted touching: women to men', 'sexual banter: women to men', 'sexual stereotypes: women and men', and 'developing stronger ethical subjectivity'. This paper recognises most sexual harassment occurs from men to women, and acknowledges criticism of focussing otherwise when resources are limited, noting this risks obscuring the enduring power differentials between the sexes. It contends that exploring a controversial issue, such as male experience of sexual harassment, might help bystander programmes by developing ethical subjectivity in undergraduate students. Exploring sexual behaviour as a spectrum may lead to counter hegemonic discourses to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much work has focused on pedagogical innovation processes within universities, less has been said of the processes and cultures which foster and give rise to creativity within higher education and the ways in which faculty members are encouraged to develop their pedagogy across disciplines and within their departments. This paper examines the ways campus spaces at a UK university are utilised by staff for peer learning and the barriers and affordances for innovation and creativity in educational practice. Utilising an interdisciplinary design, this paper suggests that the various spaces available to university teaching staff are able to be further utilised to support creative practice and peer learning, presented as four design principles: innovation happens in everyday spaces, communal spaces need social functions, forums have different scales, and collaborative spaces require a collective culture. The normalising of a culture of innovation requires both physical and behavioural adjustments to the use of space, suggesting that both faculty and institutions need to work together to reimagine spaces for faculty peer learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is known that researchers need to contend with increasing demands in the evolving landscape of higher education in the UK, few studies have examined how academic researchers discursively construct their struggles. This paper explores the valuation discourses that academic researchers draw upon to construct and account for their struggles in the process of establishing themselves as academics. It strives to answer the question: What kinds of struggles do academics face when positioning themselves and their research in relation to disciplines? What kinds of valuation discourses do academic researchers draw upon to position themselves as academics working in certain disciplines? The data comes from my PhD research, where I conducted 30 qualitative interviews with academic researchers ranging from PhD students, early career researchers to Professors Emeriti, who work in applied linguistics and language-related fields in UK universities. This paper focuses on two case studies of academics who positioned themselves as "mavericks" or who resist being pigeonholed in one discipline. In order to provide some comparative basis, the two case studies come from two ends of the academic career spectrum. I examine how they constructed their struggles with positioning themselves in relation to disciplines, and the kinds of valuation discourses evoked in the process. The paper proposes a model that conceptualizes how disciplinary positioning struggles are constructed by discursive acts and in the process, produce and reinforce valuation discourses about academic disciplines. Embedded in these disciplinary positioning struggles, researchers employed academic categories (Angermuller, 2017. High Educ 73(6):963–980) and evoked valuation discourses. The paper illustrates how academics hold valuation discourses about the kinds of disciplinary positioning practices that are valued, which may sometimes differ from the valuation discourses of fellow researchers, institutions and other stakeholders in higher education. The paper argues that such incongruence in valuation discourses between the individual and others result in positioning struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes recent developments in the British and European government bond markets with reference to the UK's decision to leave the European Union. The two main goals of the study are, firstly, to examine whether the Brexit referendum result has affected the risk premium and, secondly, whether there are any changes in risk pricing following the referendum. The paper finds a significant impact of the Brexit referendum on the risk premium in selected economies. Furthermore, the results suggest that there is a considerable change in risk pricing after the announcement of the referendum result. Credit default risk and the risk aversion play a much important role in the post-referendum period than they did prior to the vote, particularly in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies—including our own—find a mid-life dip in well-being. Yet several papers in the psychology literature claim that the evidence of a U-shape is "overblown" and if there is such a thing that any such decline is "trivial". Others have claimed that the evidence of a U-shape "is not as robust and generalizable as is often assumed," or simply "wrong." We identify 409 studies, mostly published in peer reviewed journals that find U-shapes that these researchers apparently were unaware of. We use data for Europe from the Eurobarometer Surveys (EB), 1980–2019; the Gallup World Poll (GWP), 2005–2019 and the UK's Annual Population Survey, 2016–2019 and the Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey of August 2021, to examine U-shapes in age in well-being. We find remarkably strong and consistent evidence across countries of statistically significant and non-trivial U-shapes in age with and without socio-economic controls. We show that studies cited by psychologists claiming there are no U-shapes are in error; we reexamine their data and find differently. The effects of the mid-life dip we find are comparable to major life events such as losing a spouse or becoming unemployed. This decline is comparable to half of the unprecedented fall in well-being observed in the UK in 2020 and 2021, during the Covid19 pandemic and lockdown, which is hardly "inconsequential" as claimed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the behaviour of the ubiquitous twisted pairs at high frequencies and wideband excitation of twisted pairs up to 12 GHz. Higher carrier frequencies on twisted pairs can enable the data rates required by the future communication networks; hence, the existing copper infrastructure can be utilised on the last mile complementing the fibre networks. In this paper, we show a fundamental limit on the operating frequency of twisted pairs beyond which twisted pairs start to radiate and behave like an antenna. To validate our theoretical derivations through measurements, we designed a microstrip balun to excite the differential mode on the twisted pairs. At the end, we demonstrate that the standard twisted pairs used in the UK can be used up to 5 GHz carrier frequency without any radiation effect and this upper-bound can be moved to higher frequencies by decreasing the twist lengths. This paper establishes a physical limit on the ability of the ubiquitous twisted pairs to support high speed internet. This limit due to radiation from the wire is theoretically explained as well as numerically simulated and experimentally measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seafood fraud is commonly reported on food fraud databases and deceptive practices are highlighted by numerous studies, with impacts on the economy, health and marine conservation. Food fraud assessments are a widely accepted fraud mitigation and prevention activity undertaken to identify possible points of deception within a supply chain. This study aims to understand the food fraud vulnerability of post-harvest seafood supply chains in the UK and determine if there are differences according to commodity, supply chain node, business size and certification status. The SSAFE food fraud vulnerability assessment tool was used to assess 48 fraud factors relating to opportunities, motivations and controls. The analysis found seafood supply chains to have a medium vulnerability to food fraud, with the highest perceived vulnerability in technical opportunities. Certification status was a stronger determinant of vulnerability than any other factor, particularly in the level of controls, a factor that also indicated a higher perceived level of vulnerability in smaller companies and the food service industry. This paper also reviews historic food fraud trends in the sector to provide additional insights and the analysis indicates that certain areas of the supply chain, including uncertified prawn supply chains, salmon supply chains and food service companies, may be at higher risk of food fraud. This study conducts an in-depth examination of food fraud vulnerability relating to the UK and for seafood supply chains and contributes to a growing body of literature identifying areas of vulnerability and resilience to food related criminality within the global food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical agency (CA) refers to an individual's feeling of power in relation to social inequalities. Research has demonstrated that high CA is associated with positive adolescent outcomes, however, less is known about what supports are important for its development. Moreover, a large majority of the literature is based on studies from the US and various countries in Africa; although the UK is saturated with inequalities there is little research within a UK context. In this paper we examine (a) the validity of using an existing measure of CA with a sample of UK adolescents and (b) the extent to which resilience supports account for variance in CA. Our analysis identified two distinct factors of CA: justice-oriented and community-oriented. High CA in both factors was explained by resilience supports associated with peer relationships (p < 0.01). Our findings push us towards new relational, ecological ways of understanding adolescent CA. We close by instantiating a translational framework for those devising policies in support of youth resilience and CA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first microbial culture collection was established in 1890, and subsequently, over the course of the twentieth century, the number of culture collections grew substantially. One such collection was the CABI-IMI Genetic Resources Collection, informally initiated at the origins of the Commonwealth Mycological Institute in 1920 and established as a UK National Collection in 1947. Its holdings reflect the activities of CABI in agriculture and the environment. Like many collections, it was originally established as a taxonomic reference resource. Over the years, deposits have included strains isolated from disease outbreaks in major crops from all parts of the world. Recent developments in genome sequencing technology and bioinformatic analysis have opened up the potential to characterise historic strains to shed more insights on their biology and evolution. In this paper we describe how the resources held within the CABI-IMI culture collection have helped track the emergence and divergence of Fusarium xylarioides, the coffee wilt pathogen, with a specific focus on the evolution of pathogenicity. Such studies illustrate the value held within the world's culture collections—their importance in underpinning science and developing our understanding and evolution of plant diseases as well as how the impact of disease can be mitigated in response to climate change, in order to increase yields and feed the world's burgeoning population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental illnesses are the leading cause of disease burden among children and young people (CYP) globally. Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are disproportionately affected. Enhancing mental health literacy (MHL) is one way to combat low levels of help-seeking and effective treatment receipt. We aimed to synthesis evidence about knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of CYP in LMICs about mental illnesses, their treatments and outcomes, evaluating factors that can enhance or impede help-seeking to inform context-specific and developmentally appropriate understandings of MHL. Eight bibliographic databases were searched from inception to July 2020: PsycInfo, EMBASE, Medline (OVID), Scopus, ASSIA (ProQuest), SSCI, SCI (Web of Science) CINAHL PLUS, Social Sciences full text (EBSCO). 58 papers (41 quantitative, 13 qualitative, 4 mixed methods) representing 52 separate studies comprising 36,429 participants with a mean age of 15.3 [10.4–17.4], were appraised and synthesized using narrative synthesis methods. Low levels of recognition and knowledge about mental health problems and illnesses, pervasive levels of stigma and low confidence in professional healthcare services, even when considered a valid treatment option were dominant themes. CYP cited the value of traditional healers and social networks for seeking help. Several important areas were under-researched including the link between specific stigma types and active help-seeking and research is needed to understand more fully the interplay between knowledge, beliefs and attitudes across varied cultural settings. Greater exploration of social networks and the value of collaboration with traditional healers is consistent with promising, yet understudied, areas of community-based MHL interventions combining education and social contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficiently allocating scarce healthcare resources requires nuanced understanding of individual and collective interests as well as relative concerns, which may overlap or conflict. This paper is the first to empirically investigate whether and to what extent self-interest (SI), positional concerns (PC) and distributional considerations (DC) simultaneously explain individual decision making related to access to healthcare services. Our investigation is based on a stated choice experiment conducted in two countries with different healthcare systems, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). The choice experiment is on allocation of medical treatment waiting times for a hypothetical disease. We carry out the investigation under two different perspectives: (i) in a socially inclusive personal perspective decision makers were asked to choose between waiting time distributions for themselves and (ii) in a social perspective decision makers were asked to make similar choices for a close relative or friend of opposite gender. The results obtained by estimating a variety of advanced choice models indicate that DC, SI and PC, in this order of importance, are significant drivers of choice behaviour in our empirical context. These findings are consistent regardless of the choice perspective and the country where decision makers live. Comparing the results from different choice perspectives, we find that US respondents who chose for their close relative or friend attach significantly larger weight to their close relative's or friend's waiting times as well as to the overall distribution of waiting times than US respondents who chose for themselves. Looking at differences between countries, our results show that UK respondents who made choices for themselves placed significantly larger weight on SI and DC than US respondents, while US respondents, in turn, displayed relatively stronger but not significantly different positional concerns than UK respondents. In addition, we observe that UK respondents who chose for their close relative or friend put a larger weight on DC than their US counterparts. We conclude that the methodological (data collection and analysis) approach allows for disentangling the relative importance of the three motivations and discusses the potential implications of these findings for healthcare decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]