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This paper analyses the working practices of several feminist creative and cultural enterprises in London (which I term 'feminist CCIs'). In particular, it shows how pandemic precarity has driven feminist CCIs towards more entrepreneurial, self-promotional, and self-branding practices in order to sustain their work. Drawing on both digital ethnographic material and interviews with 12 workers in feminist CCIs conducted online between 2020 and 2022, the article provides insights into the landscape and contemporary realities of arts and cultural funding within these fields. It considers how decades of austerity measures and cuts have forced some feminist CCIs to operate independently outside of the UK public sector funding models. Survival tactics include adopting corporate funding models, subscription and membership schemes, platformisation and digitalisation. Focusing on funding, money and subjectivity, it unpacks the contradictions these imperatives bring to feminist politics: tensions about which some feminist CCI workers themselves are aware of and critical of. In the process, this paper considers how activism, feminism, entrepreneurialism, and precarity are fused together and negotiated in this form of 'freelance feminism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the gap between people and rule (demos and kratos) in democratic societies by exploring the history and practice of broad-based community organising, as applied by London Citizens, United Kingdom (UK). The paper outlines the origins of this model of politics and how it has been translated from the United States to London and the UK. The paper highlights the power of mobilising the demos to put pressure on the decision-making governance structures that determine the kratos. While London Citizens does this through kratos-at-a-distance, the article goes on to explore how hyper-local, neighbourhood-scaled governance structures—'community councils'—could provide a powerful tool to further connect demos to kratos. Such councils could underpin a democratic revival that combines representation and participation at the scale at which people still live their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people arriving alone in the UK due to forced migration face significant hardships including, but not limited to, their history of experiences, current and future uncertainties, and cultural differences. This paper took a critical perspective of current dominant theories of refugee youth through in-depth exploration of lived experiences of coping. Following the authors' involvement in a community youth project and consultation, five young people took part in individual interviews. The participants were living in semi-independent accommodation in or near London, and were all male, while four identified as Muslim and one as Christian. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), a culturally relative understanding of coping was developed. These young people were found to be taking active roles in managing their lives in the context of extensive loss, and gaining independence through connection to others. Religious practices were important, with young people making sense of their experiences through worldviews shaped by religious beliefs. While religion was described predominantly in a positive and beneficial light, an area for further investigation is the experience of religious struggle, and how this may impact experiences and coping. Implications for support for young people both from services and in communities are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are objections to the definition of Islamophobia as a form of racism. Objections center around two main themes of Islamophobia: “Islam” and “Muslims”. Some detractors argue that the former should not be given protection against various debates and criticisms that should be considered legitimate within the scope of freedom of expression. For others, the latter cannot be considered a racial minority because being a Muslim is a religious identity that is seen as being voluntarily chosen. This paper argues that definitions other than racism would miss a vital issue, one that helps capture and understand how Muslims and those who are simply perceived as being Muslim are excluded, subordinated, and exploited with reference to phenotypical and cultural differences. This is the issue of racialization of Muslims. This study aims to explore the following questions: What should be the legal limit of freedom of expression? Is it possible to distinguish Islamophobia from reasonable criticism of Muslims and Islam? Does racism really depend on the actual existence of races? If the hostility to Islam and Muslims can be regarded as a form of racism, then, what kind of racism might it be? What are its specific qualities, how does it function? How have Muslims been racialized? To answer these questions, this paper draws on a study of Islamophobia experiences of thirty-nine first and second-generation young Turks aged between 18-35 in London in 2019. This study has made clear that Muslims are racialized not based on biological or phenotypical features, but also ethnic and cultural features. I argue that making sweeping generalizations is more likely to be Islamophobic. One should have the right to critique ideologies and religions, but the manner and decorum in which individuals express themselves are vital. The speech should not intentionally demonize a religion, or humiliate, devalue, or stigmatize a diverse group of people. Moreover, being Muslim is not a racial identity reflects the idea that race is the pre-condition for racism and confines racism to a narrow understanding. Regardless of physical appearance, nationality, ethnicity, or economic situation, Muslims are homogenized, humiliated, and marginalized through Islamophobic discourse and practices in their daily lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With analysis occurring during a heightened concern with the Black Lives Matter movement and knife crime in the U.K., this paper aims to delineate the characteristics of a street code, constituting a specific dominant and often hegemonic form of 'street masculinity' found on an inner-city housing estate in London called Maxwell. The fieldwork ran over nine months in 2019, involving 48 Black, Asian, and minority ethnic men aged 18–22. Using an ethnographic methodology, the principal methods of data generation were observations, interviews and informal conversations. The main theories this study draws on to understand 'street masculinity' were Connell's and Messerschmidt's dominant, hegemonic, subordinate and complicit masculinity forms. Findings centre on data from two young men who exemplify different patterns of masculinity performing the street code. Findings are presented under a series of characteristics that make up the game of the 'on-road' street masculinity and include (1) authenticity, 'swagger' and not being 'pussy'; (2) a preparedness for violence; (3) knife-carrying; (4) a presence on the digital street. Although this way of living drove a desire for respect and group status, there was also an underlying and pervasive sense of vulnerability derived from risk-taking and anticipation of danger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Church of England's historic buildings represent the single largest group of heritage sites in the UK, playing a key public-facing role in the church's 'cultural witness'. However, they are complex historic environments implicated in the recent focus on 'contested heritage' and imperial legacies. The wider heritage sector's answer to the adversarial nature of this debate has been to turn contested histories into dialogical opportunities; participatory and collaborative approaches to interpretation and curation have become an important feature of much recent secular heritage work. Yet, the CofE has not yet articulated or embraced the value of similar initiatives for its own collections, with guidance at the institutional level aimed primarily at conservation and protection. This paper initiates a discussion about how engagement with sensitive memories enhances the importance of CofE's cultural heritage. It offers a preliminary report of a research project led by the author titled 'Inclusive Interpretations of Christian Heritage', carried out between 2021 and 2022 at iconic churches in central London. After discussing the theoretical context, project rationale, and method, the paper discusses the connections which Christians from ethnic minority or immigrant backgrounds have to ecclesiastical spaces usually associated with national history. The perspectives of previously unrepresented groups can supplement expert assessments concerning a site's significance, revealing important areas in which the CofE's cultural assets hold meaning beyond national or aesthetic importance. The paper argues that widening community engagement represents a crucial task for accentuating the social and civic importance of the CofE's cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will chart the multiple ways that regulated tenants in my family home of Webb Place, a tenement building in Kensington, London, experience gentrification-induced displacement. I then discuss how community and creativity play a part in their resistance and survival. Landlords and property management companies have subjected regulated tenants, in this specific context, to a long process of 'slow violence' and displacement that has included negligence and harassment intended to stress, harm, anger, and ultimately push out residents. Not only does this 'slow violence' occur behind the closed door of the building but so does resistance to it. Communal interaction and creativity have helped regulated tenants to mock power structures and repurpose space while also trying to survive the gentrification of their home. While this displacement is not unique to regulated tenants, this paper adds to much-needed theoretical work that centres on regulated tenants—indeed, in-depth analysis of gentrification and displacement among this subfield is essentially non-existent in the UK, until now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scope of this paper is to give an insight into one of the main deep-sea ports in the United Kingdom, the London Gateway, which is a part of the Thames Gateway project and to indicate how, through becoming more rail focussed, it is possible for both output and efficiency to increase. The aim of this study is ultimately to highlight how gradually shifting the reliance of moving freight to rail from road can enhance the overall throughput and output of a port, while also improving the nation’s overall carbon emissions. However, as the results from this simulation show, there is not always the option to solely rely upon rail freight, this is because an over dependency upon one form instead of the other can ultimately have detrimental consequences upon both throughput and output, as well as questions over whether the current rail infrastructure of the United Kingdom has the capacity and ability to handle longer freight trains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tracks how a trope of middle-class household thrift, grounded on the autarchic Aristotelian oikos, has long fueled derogatory discourses in Britain aimed at low-income urban residents who practice quite different forms of thrift. Since the 1970s this trope has migrated across scales, proving a potent metaphor for national economic policy and planetary care alike, and morally and economically justifying both neoliberal welfare retraction compounded by austerity policies and national responses to excessive resource extraction and waste production. Both austerity and formal recycling schemes shift responsibility onto consumer citizens, regardless of capacity. Further, this model of thrift eclipses the thriftiness of low-income urban households, which emerges at the nexus of kin and waged labor, sharing, welfare, debt, conserving material resources through remaking and repair and, crucially, the fundamental need for decency expressed through kin care. Through a historicized ethnography of a London social housing estate and its residents, this paper excavates what happens as these different forms and scales of household thrift coexist, change over time, and clash. Ultimately, neoliberal policy centered on an inimical idiom of thrift delegitimizes and disentitles low-income urban households and undermines their ability to enact livelihood practices of sustainability and projects of dignity across generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Distinguishing what employers in different areas of Great Britain need to pay to attract and retain labour has been a central component of public-sector resource allocation decisions. This paper examines how changes in the pattern of spatial wage differentials following the global financial crisis have impacted on the formulae which allocate government funding to local government and health providers in the NHS. Design/methodology/approach: Using employer-reported data on earnings, we examine spatial patterns of private-sector wages in Great Britain between 2007 and 2017. The method permits the analysis of finely defined geographical areas and controls for differences in industry and workforce composition to distinguish those differences that are attributable from unmeasured characteristics, such as differences between areas in the cost of living and amenities. These standardised spatial wage differentials (SSWDs) underpin the funding allocation formulae. Findings: The analysis shows that since 2007 private-sector wage dispersion, both within and between regions, has reduced: lower paid areas have experienced a relative increase in wages and higher paid a relative decline. Over the period, there was a significant reduction in the London wage premium. Originality/value: This paper demonstrates the importance of ensuring established policies are applied using contemporary data. The SSWDs used to distribute government funds have not been re-estimated for some time. As a result, the current resource allocation model has overcompensated the London region and undercompensated others during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the negative effects of motorised road traffic on the travel and walking behaviour of local residents in Great Britain and the cost of the wider negative impacts on local economic activity, external effects of motorised transport, social exclusion, neighbourhood social capital, self-rated health, and subjective wellbeing. We use the results of a survey (n = 3038) and models linking the characteristics of roads and pedestrian crossing facilities in each participant's local area, travel and walking behaviour, and the level and monetary value of the wider impacts of travel behaviour. The costs of road traffic borne by local communities were estimated as £31.9 billion per year, i.e. 1.6% of the Gross Domestic Product, or £631 per person. This value varies within the interval £569-£698/person/year, depending on the assumptions made. The highest estimated costs of motorised road traffic are reduced neighbourhood social capital (£236) and reduced subjective wellbeing (£196/person/year). The costs for some population segments, such as London residents, city residents, and people aged 25–34 are higher than the average. The characteristic of roads causing the highest costs is volume of motorised traffic above low (£264/person/year), followed by multiple lanes (£148), traffic speeds above low (£119), and absence of a median strip (£60). By quantifying for the first time, at the national level, the costs of the negative community effects of motor vehicles, this study provides evidence supporting policies to reduce traffic volumes and speeds and reallocate roadspace to pedestrians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Researchers conducting cohort studies may wish to investigate the effect of episodes of COVID-19 illness on participants. A definitive diagnosis of COVID-19 is not always available, so studies have to rely on proxy indicators. This paper seeks to contribute evidence that may assist the use and interpretation of these COVID-indicators.Methods: We described five potential COVID-indicators: self-reported core symptoms, a symptom algorithm; self-reported suspicion of COVID-19; self-reported external results; and home antibody testing based on a 'lateral flow' antibody (IgG/IgM) test cassette. Included were staff and postgraduate research students at a large London university who volunteered for the study and were living in the UK in June 2020. Excluded were those who did not return a valid antibody test result. We provide descriptive statistics of prevalence and overlap of the five indicators.Results: Core symptoms were the most common COVID-indicator (770/1882 participants positive, 41%), followed by suspicion of COVID-19 (n = 509/1882, 27%), a positive symptom algorithm (n = 298/1882, 16%), study antibody lateral flow positive (n = 124/1882, 7%) and a positive external test result (n = 39/1882, 2%), thus a 20-fold difference between least and most common. Meeting any one indicator increased the likelihood of all others, with concordance between 65 and 94%. Report of a low suspicion of having had COVID-19 predicted a negative antibody test in 98%, but positive suspicion predicted a positive antibody test in only 20%. Those who reported previous external antibody tests were more likely to have received a positive result from the external test (24%) than the study test (15%).Conclusions: Our results support the use of proxy indicators of past COVID-19, with the caveat that none is perfect. Differences from previous antibody studies, most significantly in lower proportions of participants positive for antibodies, may be partly due to a decline in antibody detection over time. Subsequent to our study, vaccination may have further complicated the interpretation of COVID-indicators, only strengthening the need to critically evaluate what criteria should be used to define COVID-19 cases when designing studies and interpreting study results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a facet of wider Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) research that explores the collective behaviour of individual 'agents', and the implications that their behaviour and interactions have for wider systemic behaviour. The method has been shown to hold considerable value in exploring and understanding human societies, but is still largely confined to use in academia. This is particularly evident in the field of Urban Analytics; one that is characterised by the use of new forms of data in combination with computational approaches to gain insight into urban processes. In Urban Analytics, ABM is gaining popularity as a valuable method for understanding the low-level interactions that ultimately drive cities, but as yet is rarely used by stakeholders (planners, governments, etc.) to address real policy problems. This paper presents the state-of-the-art in the application of ABM at the interface of MAS and Urban Analytics by a group of ABM researchers who are affiliated with the Urban Analytics programme of the Alan Turing Institute in London (UK). It addresses issues around modelling behaviour, the use of new forms of data, the calibration of models under high uncertainty, real-time modelling, the use of AI techniques, large-scale models, and the implications for modelling policy. The discussion also contextualises current research in wider debates around Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and MAS more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, produced by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis and the Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, Imperial College, London, was presented to the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O), and then to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and considered at its 9th meeting on 20th February 2020. Published on Friday 12 June 2020. This paper demonstrated how little was known abut the effects of the pandemic at this time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As regulatory constraints limit energy communities' (ECs) participation in wholesale markets, these might rely on retailers' supply when local generation falls short. As balancing responsible parties, retailers are financially responsible for matching the volumes traded in the market with customers' actual needs. However, inadequate information about ECs' operations may complicate this task. This paper explores the interactions and financial implications for retailers under contractual agreements with ECs. We design a novel modelling framework, consisting of: (1) a stochastic model of a strategic retailer participating in the day ahead market considering imbalance costs, (2) a community model optimising its operations based on the agreed tariff subscription with the retailer, and (3) a simulation of the imbalance settlement process. The frameworks' applicability is demonstrated via a case study in London (UK). Results indicate that retailers' primary source of profit loss arises from the increased self-sufficiency of customers belonging to EC. On the other hand, deviations from the market commitments exerts limited effects on retailers financial outcomes. This is explained by the earnings obtained by providing passive balancing services to system operators. Also, the paper underscores retailers' need to reassess their business models, looking beyond merely establishing operational data exchange with ECs. • A unique modelling framework representing retailers and Energy Communities (ECs) interactions. • EC increase in self-sufficiency is the main driver for retailers' loss of profits. • The single imbalance price mechanism reduces retailers' loss of profits. • Retailers' information on EC operations does not lead to substantial cost savings. • Retailers might rethink their business strategies with ECs to keep their profit level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1997, over 50,000 homes have been demolished to allow for the "renewal" of council estates in London. This has involved the "decanting" of short and long-term tenants, as well as those leaseholders who bought their homes under "right to buy" legislation. Often described as "social cleansing", the racialized dimensions of these displacements remain under-explored despite asizable literature documenting the connections between race, place and state-subsidized housing in Britain. Drawing on interviews with Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic estate residents– including many active in housing movements– this paper shows that this displacement is understood in relation to histories of racial discrimination, the destruction of ethno-cultural infrastructures, and long-standing racialized inequalities. These themes resonate with apolitics of resistance grounded in aracialized class consciousness that seeks to intervene more broadly in the politics of capital and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing visibility of sexualities beyond heterosexual, gay/lesbian, and bisexual is often associated with progressive politics and the questioning of heteronormativity. Yet non‐majoritarian sexualities can also include self‐identifications premised upon an opposition to LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion, including those who identify as "ex‐gay." Drawing on fieldwork with evangelical Christian activists in London, UK, this paper uses a court case in which the "legality" of ex‐gay sexuality was contested to discuss the law's simultaneous desire and inability to render contested identities legally legible. In seeking recognition as a sexual minority, self‐described ex‐gay evangelicals reveal the inadequacy of modern law's efforts to regulate difference as either "innate" or "chosen," thus upsetting the terms of the hetero‐secular legal gaze even as they embrace heterosexual supremacy. As such, this activism, which is typically analyzed in terms of evangelicalism's commitment to heteronormativity, works to denaturalize the concept of sexual orientation(s)—including, I argue, the heterosexuality ex‐gay Christians pursue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, driving strategy optimization for a track is proposed for an energy efficient battery electric vehicle dedicated to the Shell Eco-marathon. A measurement-based mathematical vehicle model was developed to simulate the behavior of the vehicle. The model contains complicated elements such as the vehicle's cornering resistance and the efficiency field of the entire powertrain. The validation of the model was presented by using the collected telemetry data from the 2019 Shell Eco-marathon competition in London (UK). The evaluation of applicable powertrains was carried out before the driving strategy optimization. The optimal acceleration curve for each investigated powertrain was defined. Using the proper powertrain is a crucial part of energy efficiency, as the drive has the most significant energy demand among all components. Two tracks with different characteristics were analyzed to show the efficiency of the proposed optimization method. The optimization results are compared to the reference method from the literature. The results of this study provide an applicable vehicle modelling methodology with efficient optimization framework, which demonstrates 5.5% improvement in energy consumption compared to the reference optimization theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a relatively rare condition which has a profound impact not only on the patient but also on those around them. There is no cure for TN, and the management of the condition is complex. The most effective forms of treatment are either through medication, neurosurgery, or combination of the two. Each option has risks and implications for the patient. As with all clinical decisions, it is important for patients to understand and be fully informed of the treatments available to them. A London UK unit adopted a joint-consultation clinic approach where the patient meets with both physician and neurosurgeon at the same time to discuss treatment options. The purpose of this evaluation is to understand patients' level of satisfaction with the joint-consultation clinic and evaluate utilisation of a clinical decision-making tool. Method: Patients who had attended the joint-consultation clinic over a period of 12 months were invited to participate in a telephone or paper survey (N = 55). Responses were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Results: Forty-one patients (77% response rate) participated in the survey, and the results were overwhelmingly positive for the joint-consultation clinic regarding satisfaction. The benefits were broad ranging including increased understanding, collaboration and confidence in decision-making. Conclusions: A joint-consultation clinic comprising a neurosurgeon and a physician for the treatment of TN is valued by patients who become better informed and able to make decisions about their care. Positive application of clinical decision-making aids in this situation offers potential across specialities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literary production of politically engaged British authors of colonial descent play a decisive cultural role in subverting the neoliberal hegemony, marrying literary aesthetics to wider social concerns. This role is often enacted through their depiction of the hierarchical postcolonial cityscape, such as the segregation of spaces into the ghettoized South London and affluent neighbourhoods of North London, and the divisions that run through the Edwardian villas of the moneyed classes and the council estates occupied by the working classes, often the immigrants. Such portrayals of space challenge the British neoliberal propaganda of contemporary Britain as a post-race and post-class society. In line with this, London's spaces are interpreted in this paper as places radically altered by the subjects that occupy them, bending them to their needs, just as the spaces in return shape their inhabitants. It is at the margins of a society where the social power dynamics are refracted and most acutely felt, which makes the work of Hanif Kureishi, an acclaimed novelist, playwright and film director, an ideal guide through the British neoliberal landscape, from neoliberal origins in Thatcherism in the 1980s, down to the present day, with the acting right-wing elite's proclamation of the failure of multiculturalism. The race- and class-inflected topography of London during the Thatcher years is the topic of both works considered in this paper - Kureishi's 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia and the critically acclaimed 1985 motion picture My Beautiful Laundrette for which Kureishi wrote the script. These texts counter the Thatcherite vision of 1980s Britain as a unified, homogenous nation by depicting deep social rifts among social subjects and diversity of identity, both of which were aided by the neoliberal tenet of individualism and the resulting crumbling solidarity among the dispossesed classes. The objective of this paper therefore is to show that Kureishi's ambivalent attitude toward neoliberalism stems from the author's intention to expose the neoliberal ideology as capable of appropriating intimate spaces and of granting its subjects libidinal pleasure exactly at those places where business is conducted and where the profit is made. In this way, late capitalism blurs the boundaries between the private and the professional spheres of human existence, and consequently neutralizes social dissent and the subjects' awareness of ongoing exploitation. To put it differently, Thatcher's neoliberal variety characterized by the cultivation of entrepreneurship, individualism and fluid identities, both in the novel and the film, manifests the ability of neoliberalism to forge a strong nexus between the business and the private relations among the characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literary production of politically engaged British authors of colonial descent play a decisive cultural role in subverting the neoliberal hegemony, marrying literary aesthetics to wider social concerns. This role is often enacted through their depiction of the hierarchical postcolonial cityscape, such as the segregation of spaces into the ghettoized South London and affluent neighbourhoods of North London, and the divisions that run through the Edwardian villas of the moneyed classes and the council estates occupied by the working classes, often the immigrants. Such portrayals of space challenge the British neoliberal propaganda of contemporary Britain as a post-race and post-class society. In line with this, London's spaces are interpreted in this paper as places radically altered by the subjects that occupy them, bending them to their needs, just as the spaces in return shape their inhabitants. It is at the margins of a society where the social power dynamics are refracted and most acutely felt, which makes the work of Hanif Kureishi, an acclaimed novelist, playwright and film director, an ideal guide through the British neoliberal landscape, from neoliberal origins in Thatcherism in the 1980s, down to the present day, with the acting right-wing elite's proclamation of the failure of multiculturalism. The race- and classinflected topography of London during the Thatcher years is the topic of both works considered in this paper - Kureishi's 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia and the critically acclaimed 1985 motion picture My Beautiful Laundrette for which Kureishi wrote the script. These texts counter the Thatcherite vision of 1980s Britain as a unified, homogenous nation by depicting deep social rifts among social subjects and diversity of identity, both of which were aided by the neoliberal tenet of individualism and the resulting crumbling solidarity among the dispossesed classes. The objective of this paper therefore is to show that Kureishi's ambivalent attitude toward neoliberalism stems from the author's intention to expose the neoliberal ideology as capable of appropriating intimate spaces and of granting its subjects libidinal pleasure exactly at those places where business is conducted and where the profit is made. In this way, late capitalism blurs the boundaries between the private and the professional spheres of human existence, and consequently neutralizes social dissent and the subjects' awareness of ongoing exploitation. To put it differently, Thatcher's neoliberal variety characterized by the cultivation of entrepreneurship, individualism and fluid identities, both in the novel and the film, manifests the ability of neoliberalism to forge a strong nexus between the business and the private relations among the characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate projections suggest that the UK will be increasingly affected by climate-induced hazards in the future, exacerbating the potential for multihazard events to occur. This paper explores the extent to which climate resilience is being embedded in current and future rail transport infrastructure projects in London through use of a multihazard approach. It concludes that a multihazard approach is a relatively new concept and is therefore not currently being considered widely. However, opportunities for decision makers to explore its value to mitigate climate risks through collaborative working and further research exist – this paper recommends that two main stages are required to achieve this. Route 1 requires climate/hazard experts to identify and characterise the different hazard interactions that could occur, including their impact on the UK/London. Following this, route 2 involves the creation of multidisciplinary workshops to identify any multihazard vulnerabilities associated with different rail assets – potentially highlighting areas where further research is required. The paper concludes that although a London rail context has been adopted in order to understand the relevance of a multihazard approach, there is opportunity for it to be considered across many different sectors in the UK and the wider civil engineering industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the idea of "place‐based diversity" to examine the nature of undergraduate Geography students' attainment and progression with a specific focus on gender, ethnicity and socio‐economic status. In addressing the empirical neglect of progression when assessing inequalities in achievements among Geography students in general and the specific lack of research at the departmental level, the paper contributes to debates on challenging intersectional exclusion within the discipline at a university in London. While it shows that undergraduate Geography no longer privileges male, middle‐class students in terms of attainment, those from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds perform less well. While this is partly addressed by encouraging patterns of higher progression rates among BME students, much more needs to be done. Contributing to existing Bourdieusian analyses of student experiences as well as the role of the university in society, this requires exploration of students' identities and agency, especially their "dutiful aspirational capital," together with the "institutional habitus" of departments and universities and where they are situated geographically. While departmental support mechanisms have helped in facilitating progression for the disadvantaged, this must be combined with developing more positive diverse role models, curriculum change and targeted support practices that avoid the "black deficit model" which assumes that BME students are "lacking." This paper challenges assumptions about undergraduate geography students as white, male and middle‐class based on research within a department of Geography in the east of London in the United Kingdom (UK). In arguing that progression must be taken as seriously as attainment, it shows that while female undergraduates and those from less advantaged socio‐economic backgrounds are not necessarily hindered, ethnicity remains an issue. In explaining these patterns, the notion of "place‐based diversity" is useful in capturing the structures of institutions that are situating within specific localities and policy environments as well as the agency of departments to create conditions that are conducive to celebrating diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most analysts, Brexit reveals the highly contingent power of finance and the clear limits to its ability to influence crucial policymaking outcomes. By contrast, I contend that UK-EU negotiations demonstrate the unique capacity of finance to secure substantial commercial protections relative to all other business sectors and that the structural sources of the City's political power remain exceptionally robust. Elaborating a notion of 'structural interdependence', the paper demonstrates how policy officials on both sides came to perceive that the future prosperity and stability of their economies relied upon maintaining open trading relations in financial services. This necessitated broad continuity in access to London's deep financial markets for EU firms and preservation of the City's leading role in the UK growth regime. In establishing these claims empirically, I document an extensive range of contingency measures designed throughout December 2018-April 2019 that would function to protect the financial industry from economic disruption in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The outcome illustrates how finance benefits from a form of structural power that does not require instrumental mobilisation, but rather shapes policy decisions on the basis of deeply entrenched and commercially vital cross-border financial entanglements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines narratives of learning and occupational advancement amongst migrants employed in 'low-skilled' jobs, based on in-depth interviews with secondary-educated East and South Europeans living in the London region. Our findings indicate that many achieved varying degrees of professional gratification, progress, and skills development within occupational sectors typically associated with unattractive conditions, limited benefits or opportunities to get ahead. Participants' narratives of achievement expand the relatively limited literature that challenges common perceptions of occupational mobility and professional development as the terrain of the 'highly skilled'. Furthermore, we examine how migrants made sense of their career opportunities and success. We discuss two discourses, centred on 'hard work' and 'creativity' respectively, through which participants challenged and reconfigured traditional 'high'-'low-skilled' divides. Our findings contribute to critiques of traditional understandings of migrant human capital and simplistic 'high'-'low-skilled' distinctions in two ways: by documenting the less visible experiences of learning and career progress amongst secondary-educated European youth who enter 'low-skilled' employment abroad, and by calling attention to subjective understandings of occupational mobility and the new 'symbolic boundaries' around skills, broadly construed, that migrants redrew in their reflections on career progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New business models, such as that of Airbnb, have led to a rise in the use of residential properties as short-term lets. In this paper, the writer considers the social efficiency of the use of the public town planning system and alternative private law systems, to regulate the activity. Specifically, the paper considers the use of these in order to tackle spill-over amenity effects upon neighbouring properties. The writer applies the general framework of Ellickson (1973) in performing a comparative economic analysis of the systems. This includes an analysis of the "90-nights" rule of UK planning law, which applies to London. The writer argues that in the specific case of short-term lets, the private law systems disclose relatively low transaction costs. This, in conjunction with their allocative efficiencies, makes them preferred to town planning. Taking into account the problem of nonconvexities, it is concluded that the "90-nights" rule, and the requirement for planning permission for shortterm lets, should be repealed. This conclusion encloses an understanding that the amenity effects considered here involve little uncertainty. The courts, if equipped with private information from litigants and public information from development plans, are well placed to regulate this activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper frames a critical evaluation of the progressive aspirations of localism partnerships by conceptualising them as informal associations. I show how the selective limitations and affordances of the Localism Act and its related policies necessitated and enabled direct, deliberative encounters, and pragmatic working between the Rural Urban Synthesis Society and its local authority, Lewisham Council. These practices allowed them to co‐produce a precedent for community‐led affordable housing development in London, as well as contribute to the growth of the sector. Informal associations are thus both means and end. They enable innovative articulations of localism and underpin a broader, ongoing project of progressive localism. They also form the conceptual basis for future research to delve more deeply and widely into analyses of localism partnerships and their relationalities to the institutions in which they are embedded. Within the vagarious and incoherent institutional landscape of austerity, informal associations invoke a local politics which embraces collaborative, direct experimentation between state agents and societal actors, working with uncertainty in planning to achieve progressive developmental and governance outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates and expands understandings of millennial economic insecurity by focusing on the experiences of three people living in socially rented accommodation with their families of origin in Hackney, London. Taking into account the legacies of state violence that racialise Britain's political economy, I argue that millennial precarity requires theorisation across multiple temporalities in order to account for cumulative, intergenerational experience as well as intergenerational dissonance. This article focuses on the affective work required to mediate cumulative precarity with familial relationships, with an emphasis on the ways that participants arduously—yet artfully—weave between multiple temporal scales of experience within concentrated shared space in order to care for and communicate with their family members. Through synthesising geographical scholarship on generational experience, everyday experiences of policy and the spaces of precarious labour, this paper contributes to expanding economic geography's engagement with ongoing histories of coloniality in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a large UK cohort to investigate the impact of early-life pollution exposure on individuals' human capital and health outcomes in older age. We compare individuals who were exposed to the London smog in December 1952 whilst in utero or in infancy to those born after the smog and those born at the same time but in unaffected areas. We find that those exposed to the smog have substantially lower fluid intelligence and worse respiratory health, with some evidence of a reduction in years of schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health economic analysis incorporating effects on labour outcomes, households, environment, and inequalities (HEALTHEI) explores which food taxes would have greatest benefits to health, labour, and work outcomes; household expenditure; environmental sustainability; and inequalities within the UK food system. Work package 1 includes a rapid review and workshops, aiming to explore the effects of price increases in food and non-alcoholic beverages to facilitate the specification of food taxes and research design. In this mixed-methods study, we first did a rapid review to examine relevant published evidence. A preplanned framework ensured a systematic approach, in which we searched PubMed, HMIC, Scopus, Google, Mintel/Mintel Food and Drink, and Business Source Ultimate for papers published in English from Jan 1, 2010, to Nov 2, 2022. This review was followed by three online workshops (in March, 2023), which used interactive padlets to explore food systems, food taxation policy, tax rationales, and a rapid review infographic. 14 stakeholders from non-governmental organisations (n=10), academia (n=2), the Civil Service (n=1), and a local authority (n=1) took part (gender or ethnicity were not recorded). A stakeholder recruitment grid was developed to ensure representation across public sectors and disciplines of public health, nutrition, environment, and economics. The rapid review identified six tax options with a broadly positive impact on consumption and health (high fat, high sugar, high salt, "junk food", sugar-sweetened-beverages, and meats plus sugar-sweetened beverages). It generated five core rationales for a food tax: change consumption, reduce or prevent harm, change product affordability, raise revenue, and industry impact. Using the workshop feedback, health inequalities, economics, ease of implementation and animal welfare were additional key areas for a so-called real-world application of tax. Stakeholders questioned the taxes in the current economic and political climate. The work highlights the need to develop an impactful food tax option that encompasses the five core rationales identified in the findings. The workshops identified key areas to explore further to understand the feasibility, impact, and logistics of implementing future food taxes. Being unable to deliver workshops in person due to difficulties of participants travelling to London was a limitation. However, switching online allowed for varied and well attended workshops. National Institute of Health Research (Ref: NIHR133927). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plaster ceilings are an intrinsic feature of historic buildings, from high-status palaces and public buildings with elaborate decorative ceilings to vernacular domestic interiors with plain flatwork. An appreciation of the stylistic development is the first visual evidence for assessing their cultural significance and intrinsic value. Periodic campaigns of decoration coupled with repair and restoration often serve to mask original materials, methods and condition, misleading the unwary and inexperienced observer. A comprehensive understanding of the materials and methods used for fabrication is essential in helping to form an appropriate conservation approach to minimise intervention and loss of original fabric in remedial works that may be necessitated by decay and deterioration, or even loss. The partial collapse of the Apollo Theatre auditorium ceiling in London in 2013 particularly highlighted and focused attention on the inspection and certification of historic plaster ceilings throughout the UK. This paper outlines some of the key materials, fabrication methods, agents of decay, investigation, and approaches to repair and conservation of historic plaster ceilings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cellular network deployment with three sectors per site and a frequency reuse factor of one is key to supporting high data rate applications in LTE Advanced Networks. However, such configurations result in increased inter-cell interference. In this paper we model the effects of inter-cell interference on an LTE-Advanced network at two carrier frequencies. We consider two urban environments and four cell ranges. The effects of inter-cell interference are separated into inter-site interference and inter-sector interference. A site-specific 3D ray-tracing tool is used to model the communication channel between the base stations (serving and interfering links) and the user equipment terminals. The inter-site interference is first modelled in terms of its dominant interference proportion and then validated using previously reported field measurements recorded in London (U.K.). Secondly, the inter-site and inter-sector interference components are modelled as a function of user equipment relative position from the serving base stations. Our approach is compatible with the standardized ITU-R model and our proposal can easily be added to these international models. Our model requires no system layout for the interferers and reduces the required channel generation time by a factor of 12 compared with the system layout method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legacy promises from London 2012 meant that those working in sport in local, non-host areas in Britain were expected to facilitate more sporting opportunities for local citizens. Legacy preparations occurred in the context of many other constraints that stemmed from Government budget cuts and provision of leisure-time sport and other leisure activities. This paper presents new evidence on a significantly under-researched area of leisure studies, namely: the experiences of those delivering leisure-sport opportunities in a non-host city and how they responded to national legacy promises. Using Elias's concept of the double-bind, we explain the 'crisis situation' in which some local sports workers were enmeshed and how their acceptance of 'fantasy-laden beliefs' of expected demonstration effects from mega-events exacerbated their 'crisis'. We also draw upon participants' post-Games reflections to consider how future host nations may wish to leverage greater leisure-sporting legacies from a mega-event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses conflicts associated with policies to protect the built heritage. Such conflicts relate to a host of tensions between private and public concerns and specifically between pro-development and pro-conservation approaches. To examine these cleavages, the paper operationalises private and public concerns over heritage by asking if there is a recognisable set of justifications that policy-makers use for supporting a pro-conservation or alternatively a pro-development approach? To do this, the paper looks at appeals decided by Her Majesty’s Planning Inspectors in London. The findings show that although they are not dichotomous, public and private interests in heritage development can be factually recognised in the setting of appeals. Moreover, the paper finds that Planning Inspectors often channel conflicts through the prism of certain public interests, namely, protecting architectural and physical attributes of the building and its surroundings. Although inspectors are instructed to actively weigh in other (potentially overriding) considerations in heritage appeals, such as socio-economic and proprietary issues, these considerations do not appear to have the same standing within the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the politics of diversity planning in one of Europe’s most socially and economically divided and globally oriented cities: London. The analysis draws on Latour’s writings on modes of politicisation to examine the processes and practices that shape contemporary urban governance. It uses the example of diversity planning to examine the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of urban politics. It shows that on the one hand diversity is represented in pragmatic, consensual and celebratory terms. Under prevailing conditions of contemporary global capitalism, the ‘what’ of diversity has been politicised into an agenda for labour market-building and the attraction of ‘talented’ individuals and foreign investment. However, at the same time this celebratory rhetoric represents part of a wider effort to deflect political attention away from the socially and economically divisive impacts of global models of economic growth and physical development. There is little discussion of the ways in which planning frameworks, the ‘how’ of diversity policy, are helping to generate new separations in and beyond the city. Moreover, despite claiming that policy is pragmatic and non-ideological, the paper shows how diversity narratives have become an integral part of broader political projects to orientate the city’s economy towards the needs of a relatively small cluster of powerful economic sectors. The paper concludes with reflections on the recent impacts of the vote for Brexit and the election of an openly Muslim London Mayor. It also assesses the broader relevance of a Latourian framework for the analysis of contemporary urban politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many clay railway embankments in the UK are well over 100 years old, and now suffer from a range of stability and serviceability problems. A common means of remediating earthworks that have either suffered, or are assessed as being at risk of, deep-seated slope failure is to install a row of discrete piles along the mid-slope. This paper presents field data from a 9 m high, pile-stabilised embankment at Mill Hill, north London. Initial pore water pressure measurements had shown that the trees present on the earthwork maintained low pore water pressures during winter; thus the trees were left in place after piling to aid stability. The piles initially bent upslope, as a result of inward shrinkage of the embankment over a period of dry weather, before then being loaded by shallower downslope movements of the clay. Later cycles of seasonal movement caused a small but gradual ratcheting upward of pile bending moments. The largest bending moments measured over 6 years of monitoring were those resulting from the initial inward shrinkage of embankment, which reached about 25% of the design capacity of the piles. At the end of the monitoring period, the measured bending moments resulting from shallower downslope ground movements were about 20% of the pile design capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationship between early anarchism and republican/nationalist ideas. We will focus on the case of British‐based activists grouped around the journal Freedom and their engagement with Irish nationalism during the Age of the Empire. Freedom, founded in 1886, was the most important anarchist journal of the English‐speaking anarchist–communist networks at the time and was the main editorial reference for the worldwide community of anarchist activists, mostly exiled, who resided in London at that time. Extending current interdisciplinary literature on transnational anarchism, we argue that anarchist views of nations, while rejecting the novel notion of the nation‐state, were associated with anti‐colonial struggles and with republican anti‐monarchical and egalitarian notions. Based on primary sources, we discuss the intersections between these Britain‐based anarchists and anti‐colonial Irish radicals, by engaging both with their writings and their international networks of solidarity, thus exploring the complex intermingling of anarchism, anti‐colonialism, and republicanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The United Kingdom is experiencing an increase in drug-related deaths and serious bacterial infections among its most vulnerable citizens. Cuts to essential services, coupled with a growing homeless population, create a challenging environment to tackle this public health crisis. In this paper, we highlight an underexplored environmental constraint faced by people living and injecting drugs on the streets. Access to water for injection is restricted in the UK, due to legislative and financial barriers. Austerity measures, such as public toilet closures, further restrict the ability of people made homeless to access clean water and protect themselves from health harms. Methods: We generated questionnaire (n = 455) and in-depth qualitative interview (n = 32) data with people who inject drugs in London for the Care and Prevent study. Participants provided detail on their life history; drug use, injecting and living environments; health conditions and care seeking practices. Findings: A high proportion of the survey sample reported lifetime history of street homelessness (78%), bacterial infections (65%) and related hospitalisation (30%). Qualitative accounts highlight unsafe, potentially dangerous, injection practices in semi-public spaces. Multiple constraints to sourcing sterile water for injection preparation were reported. Alternatives to sterile water included puddle water, toilet cistern water, whisky, cola soda and saliva. Participants who injected heroin and crack cocaine together unanimously reported adding water at two stages during injection preparation: first, adding water as a vehicle for heroin (which was then heated); second, adding cold water to the heroin mixture prior to adding the crack cocaine. This new finding of a stage addition of solvent may represent an additional risk of infection. Conclusion: Currently, harm reduction equipment and resources for safe injecting are not meeting the needs of people who inject drugs who are street homeless or unstably housed. Preparation of injections with non-sterile water sources could precipitate bacterial and fungal infections, particularly when used without the application of heat. It is crucial that water for injection, also skin cleaning, is made available for the unstably housed and that harm reduction messaging is tailored to speak to the everyday realities of people who prepare and inject drugs in public spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British cities and residential suburbs were originally developed under a modernist growth logic: separating home from work, with little concern for energy use. But recent political and social priorities such as climate change and energy security have created an imperative to reduce domestic energy use, with many existing dwellings rendered "obsolete" on account of their poor energy efficiency. This precipitated a need to develop domestic retrofit – the modification of building fabrics and systems to improve their energy efficiency – as an urban infrastructure. The UK Government responded in 2011 with policies such as the "Green Deal", through which coalitions of actors in cities including local authorities, voluntary sector organisations and private businesses were encouraged to experiment with place-based retrofit. This paper examines the challenges and effects of developing a domestic retrofit infrastructure in a North London borough under particularly challenging policy conditions. We develop a hybrid framework for understanding the process and product of this place-based experimentation and through this we ask two questions: 1. How did both local and national conditions enable and limit the development of this infrastructure? 2. Was the emerging urban infrastructure functional and equitable? In Haringey's case, a strong local political agenda positioned retrofit as a development opportunity and vehicle for reducing inequality, but national priorities around market-making and technological fixes dominated emerging responses. Whilst Haringey's efforts in a difficult policy context did result in retrofits and improvements to around a thousand properties, the emerging infrastructure of retrofit services was incomplete, inequitable and temporary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the question of how domestic elite preferences drive states' foreign policies by studying British efforts to suppress maritime piracy in the South China Sea in the 1920s and 1930s. The archival record shows that the British conducted military interventions, which included destroying entire Chinese villages, principally to serve the private aims of London business elites. Absent these parochial interests Britain ignored pirate attacks, including attacks on British-flagged ships. This finding challenges the standard structural explanation, put forward by global public goods scholars, that powerful maritime states suppress piracy to protect universal access to the global maritime commons. It does so through a detailed examination of the principal example cited by this argument's supporters: historical British counter-piracy efforts. Understanding why states pursue their foreign policies also provides a greater understanding of why powerful states choose to serve as global public goods providers in some instances but not in others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant entrepreneurship is recognized as an essential economic driver for host and home countries. However, Eastern European entrepreneurs' social initiatives and contributions are rarely acknowledged, shadowed by their image of precarity and economic survival in host countries. This Interpretative Phenomenological Study (IPA) challenges this paucity by investigating how 18 London-based Romanian migrant entrepreneurs interviewed (LRMEs) enable transformational entrepreneurial practices transcending their "individual subsistence to create jobs and income for others" (Schoar, 2010, p.5) and contributing positively to Britain's social fiber. Specifically, this interdisciplinary study draws on Berry's acculturation model (1997, 2003, 2005) and social learning and self-efficacy theories (Bandura, 1971, 1977). This article contributes to the nascent transformational entrepreneurship scholarship and practice (TE) and policy. Specifically, it demonstrates how these Romanian migrant entrepreneurs enable acculturative belonging for themselves and other stakeholders as they enact through their everyday transformational entrepreneurship practices of role modelling, encouraging other migrants to pursue a socialeconomic entrepreneurial path and acculturative mentoring, supporting them to become custodians of bicultural values and customs, empowered to address social injustice and discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a project exploring the friendships of children and adults in ‘super-diverse’ (Vertovec, 2007) localities in London, England, examining whether and how friendships are made and maintained across ethnic and social class differences. The aim is to identify what friendships reveal about the nature and extent of ethnic and social divisions in contemporary multicultural society. Drawing on interviews with children and their parents, this paper analyses affective parental responses to their children’s friendships, identifying instances where parents seek to manage these friendships. We identify the importance of the ‘ease of similarity’ for many parents concerning their children’s friendships, and the relative lack of concrete practices amongst parents to support their children’s friendships across difference. However, we also note parental support for living in super-diverse localities and children attending schools therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how literary and cinematic constructions of Essex noir expose the darker, chaotic sides to working-class embourgeoisement: initially via post-War suburbanisation and later, via Margaret Thatcher's attempt to encourage competitive individualism and entrepreneurship. Noir angles a 'dark mirror' to suburban Essex and develops a distinctive aesthetics of social and cultural change, while also puncturing myths of social mobility and suburban security. The paper points to both affinities and breaks between noir's bleak pessimism and Walter Benjamin's understanding of history as overcoming the concept of progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 300th Faraday discussion on hot electron processes in plasmonics and catalysis brought together a wide spectrum of delegates from across the globe. Scientists from across multiple disciplines, with a broad spectrum of experience and expertise, joined together in hope of identifying and answering the latest problems within the ever growing hot electron science community. In this paper we present a brief overview of the themes and topics presented at this meeting, highlighting the major findings of each presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]