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Understanding how parents' cognitive and non-cognitive skills influence offspring education is essential for educational, family and economic policy. We use genetics (GWAS-by-subtraction) to assess a latent, broad non-cognitive skills dimension. To index parental effects controlling for genetic transmission, we estimate indirect parental genetic effects of polygenic scores on childhood and adulthood educational outcomes, using siblings (N = 47,459), adoptees (N = 6407), and parent-offspring trios (N = 2534) in three UK and Dutch cohorts. We find that parental cognitive and non-cognitive skills affect offspring education through their environment: on average across cohorts and designs, indirect genetic effects explain 36–40% of population polygenic score associations. However, indirect genetic effects are lower for achievement in the Dutch cohort, and for the adoption design. We identify potential causes of higher sibling- and trio-based estimates: prenatal indirect genetic effects, population stratification, and assortative mating. Our phenotype-agnostic, genetically sensitive approach has established overall environmental effects of parents' skills, facilitating future mechanistic work. Understanding how parents' cognitive and non-cognitive skills influence their children's educational trajectories is important for educational, family and economic policy. Here, the authors investigate parental influence on children's education using genetic approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research on the differences of understandings of suicide and help-seeking behavior among Turkish-speaking lay people and professional migrants in Great Britain and the Netherlands. The study analyzed participants' perception of suicide as an escape from failure and failure of responsibilities towards the family and community and explored the acculturation orientation, parenting style, shame and stigma among the Turkish migrants.

The large thickness of Upper Carboniferous strata found in the Netherlands suggests that the area was subject to long-term subsidence. However, the mechanisms responsible for subsidence are not quantified and are poorly known. In the area north of the London Brabant Massif, onshore United Kingdom, subsidence during the Namurian–Westphalian B has been explained by Dinantian rifting, followed by thermal subsidence. In contrast, south and east of the Netherlands, along the southern margin of the Northwest European Carboniferous Basin, flexural subsidence caused the development of a foreland basin. It has been proposed that foreland flexure due to Variscan orogenic loading was also responsible for Late Carboniferous subsidence in the Netherlands. In the first part of this paper, we present a series of modelling results in which the geometry and location of the Variscan foreland basin was calculated on the basis of kinematic reconstructions of the Variscan thrust system. Although several uncertainties exist, it is concluded that most subsidence calculated from well data in the Netherlands cannot be explained by flexural subsidence alone. Therefore, we investigated whether a Dinantian rifting event could adequately explain the observed subsidence by inverse modelling. The results show that if only a Dinantian rifting event is assumed, such as is found in the United Kingdom, a very high palaeowater depth at the end of the Dinantian is required to accommodate the Namurian–Westphalian B sedimentary sequence. To better explain the observed subsidence curves, we propose (1) an additional stretching event during the Namurian and (2) a model incorporating an extra dynamic component, which might well explain the very high wavelength of the observed subsidence compared with the wavelength of the predicted flexural foreland basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors comment on the legacy of disability left by the World War 1. They compare the responses of the German and British governments to the demands of the war disabled, the gaps in support for the war disabled in Great Britain, and the moral obligation of the state to its armed forces articulated by the British Armed Forces Covenant. INSET: UK veterans' support services.

Focuses on a workshop sponsored by the Ancient Biomolecule Initiative of the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council, which dealt with issues related to biomacromolecules, lipids and polymers. Number of presentations made at the workshop; Other issues addressed at the workshop.