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Following the 1st International Workshop on Waves, Storm Surges and Coastal Hazards, which incorporated the 15th session of the long-standing the International Workshop on Wave Hindcasting and Forecasting, in September 2017 in Liverpool, United Kingdom, a topical collection has appeared in recent issues of Ocean Dynamics. Here, we give a brief overview of the 15 papers published in this topical collection as well as an overview of the widening scope of the conference in recent years. The continuing trend towards closer integration between the wave and ocean modeling communities is reflected in this workshop, culminating in the renaming of the workshop, while maintaining the connection with the three-decade long history of the wave workshop. This is also seen in this topical collection, with several papers exploring wave-generated storm surge, wave-tide contributions to coastal flooding, forcing a global ocean model with fluxes from a wave model and interaction between surface waves and sea ice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioinformatics - the so-called shotgun marriage between biology and computer science - is an interdiscipline. Despite interdisciplinarity being seen as a virtue, for having the capacity to solve complex problems and foster innovation, it has the potential to place projects and people in anomalous categories. For example, valorised 'outputs' in academia are often defined and rewarded by discipline. Bioinformatics, as an interdisciplinary bricolage, incorporates experts from various disciplinary cultures with their own distinct ways of working. Perceived problems of interdisciplinarity include difficulties of making explicit knowledge that is practical, theoretical, or cognitive. But successful interdisciplinary research also depends on an understanding of disciplinary cultures and value systems, often only tacitly understood by members of the communities in question. In bioinformatics, the 'parent' disciplines have different value systems; for example, what is considered worthwhile research by computer scientists can be thought of as trivial by biologists, and vice versa. This paper concentrates on the problems of reward and recognition described by scientists working in academic bioinformatics in the United Kingdom. We highlight problems that are a consequence of its cross-cultural make-up, recognising that the mismatches in knowledge in this borderland take place not just at the level of the practical, theoretical, or epistemological, but also at the cultural level too. The trend in big, interdisciplinary science is towards multiple authors on a single paper; in bioinformatics this has created hybrid or fractional scientists who find they are being positioned not just in-between established disciplines but also in-between as middle authors or, worse still, left off papers altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a rise in claims of LGBTI youth in schools generally across the UK with a surge in young people self-identifying. This is a 'theme' or 'matter' or 'question' that has been insufficiently ventilated in relation to the Catholic school. It is shrouded in inhibition, confusion, evasion or fear. Burying our heads in the sand is not helping us move forward and there is a potential political threat to the mission of Catholic schools from failing to engage. A key driver of this paper is the rapidly changing climate of opinion and activism around LGBTI experiences in schools and society. From an essentially rights based perspective, and supported by powerful equality legislation, people are campaigning vigorously through formal and informal groups for what they perceive as a redress of longstanding exclusion and discrimination. The concern in particular for LGBTI rights and recognition for under 18s has inevitably drawn schools into these national debates. Three narratives are worthy of discussion around this theme and are inextricably linked: the legal, theological and pastoral narratives. This paper will consider these and suggest the impact that developments are having on the Catholic school sector, and in particular, the teaching of Religious education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education systems are caught between two dynamic processes, one referring to economic value and the other to status value. Although these political rationalities are presented as part of a coherent programme of reform and 'modernization', they pull higher education systems and the actors within them in contradictory directions. Their impact can collectively be referred to as research selectivity, since these rationalities encompass both research performativity and institutional practices of recognition and reward and subjective strategies. In this paper, we first aim to map the dominant orientations of higher education studies research and how they reflect the relationship between neoliberalism and the restructuring of higher education systems and research infrastructure. Our reading shows that this is a significant context for inquiring into research selectivity as it is enacted and, at the same time, suggests that we need to pay attention to the privileging of existing centres of higher education research and the relative absence of sustained focus on research selectivity in the non-core regions of Europe. Secondly, the paper puts forward the case for a sustained research agenda that focuses specifically on the identification of the differential impact of processes of research selectivity in non-core regions of Europe, organized around three intersecting themes – linguistic, epistemological, and disciplinary impact. Arguing for the importance and relevance of this research agenda for empirical research in Europe and globally, the paper emphasizes that its main objective is to create a critical space within which we can, collectively, think higher education otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective public health surveillance requires consistent monitoring of disease signals such that researchers and decision-makers can react dynamically to changes in disease occurrence. However, whilst surveillance initiatives exist in production animal veterinary medicine, comparable frameworks for companion animals are lacking. First-opinion veterinary electronic health records (EHRs) have the potential to reveal disease signals and often represent the initial reporting of clinical syndromes in animals presenting for medical attention, highlighting their possible significance in early disease detection. Yet despite their availability, there are limitations surrounding their free text-based nature, inhibiting the ability for national-level mortality and morbidity statistics to occur. This paper presents PetBERT, a large language model trained on over 500 million words from 5.1 million EHRs across the UK. PetBERT-ICD is the additional training of PetBERT as a multi-label classifier for the automated coding of veterinary clinical EHRs with the International Classification of Disease 11 framework, achieving F1 scores exceeding 83% across 20 disease codings with minimal annotations. PetBERT-ICD effectively identifies disease outbreaks, outperforming current clinician-assigned point-of-care labelling strategies up to 3 weeks earlier. The potential for PetBERT-ICD to enhance disease surveillance in veterinary medicine represents a promising avenue for advancing animal health and improving public health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Mental health problems are a leading and increasing cause of health-related burden in children across the world. Peer support interventions are increasingly used to meet this need using the lived experience of people with a history of mental health problems. However, much of the research underpinning this work has focused on adults, leaving a gap in knowledge about how these complex interventions may work for different children in different circumstances. Realist research may help us to understand how such complex interventions may trigger different mechanisms to produce different outcomes in children. This paper reports on an important first step in realist research, namely the construction of an embryonic initial programme theory to help 'focus' realist evaluation exploring how children's peer support services work in different contexts to produce different outcomes in the West Midlands (UK). Methods: A survey and preliminary semi-structured realist interviews were conducted with 10 people involved in the delivery of peer support services. Realist analysis was carried out to produce context-mechanism-outcome configurations (CMOC). Results: Analysis produced an initial programme theory of peer support for children's mental health. This included 12 CMOCs. Important outcomes identified by peer support staff included hope, service engagement, wellbeing, resilience, and confidence; each generated by different mechanisms including contextualisation of psychoeducation, navigating barriers to accessing services, validation, skill development, therapeutic relationship, empowerment, and reducing stigma. Conclusion: These data lay the groundwork for designing youth mental health realist research to evaluate with nuance the complexities of what components of peer support work for whom in varying circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in the nature and possible extent of de-globalization. This paper explores the impact that protectionist measures have on multinational enterprise (MNE) reshoring back to the UK. Besides taking into account the global trends indicating a return to protectionism, the existing literature highlights various firm-level and structural country-level determinants of reshoring decisions. We test a conceptual model with parent-subsidiary firm-level data for the period 2009 to 2017. We conclude that firms that are more sensitive to wage costs in their overseas subsidiaries were more likely to reshore. We did not find that more capital-intensive firms had a higher propensity to reshore. We find that our results are mostly driven from UK MNEs with subsidiaries in EU. This result has clear implications for a potential Brexit effect. Theoretically, we base our findings in transactional cost economics to help explain why different types of firms behave in the way they do, and why different types of firms may respond in quite different ways to the same mix of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cornerstone of well-being research is that the resource-rich are happier with their lives than the resource-poor and better positioned to cope with stressful life events. This paper addresses the role of various resources—human, economic, social, and psychological capital—in life satisfaction during the coronavirus pandemic, using panel data from Germany and the United Kingdom for 2020 and 2021. Cross-sectionally, we find life satisfaction to be clearly related to all these forms of capital, with psychological capital being the strongest predictor of life satisfaction. Longitudinally, the capital endowments in 2020 did not predict changes in life satisfaction within individuals from 2020 to 2021, except for psychological capital. Our results suggest two things: first, the unfolding pandemic did not heighten well-being inequalities; and second, weathering the pandemic required psychological resources in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The illicit market in veterinary medicines is an overlooked issue despite threatening the health of non-human and human animals. It is thought to be increasing within the major markets of the global North due to the growth of e-commerce and social media sites. This paper examines the online market in illicit veterinary medicines through an exploratory study of the public's online experiences as pet owners in the UK. To this end, we collected data through literature-based research and an online survey. Drawing on Passas' criminogenic asymmetries framework, the research found that the confluence of legal, political, cultural, economic and knowledge asymmetries likely facilitate the market in illicit veterinary medicines in the UK. Our research concludes that, while previous reports suggest the illicit market is dominated by medicines to treat pets, it increasingly consists of medicines for farmed animals. This brings its own set of challenges and risks, and a pressing need for further research on the market's dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines inter-organisational behaviours in what we call 'migrant support ecologies' – shared physical and abstract spaces where multiple organisations work to help migrants access and transition within the labour market. Drawing on composite data generated through studies conducted in the UK and Brazil, we argue that actors and organisations in such environments operate in 'common goal domains', in which objectives are related but not necessarily integrated or coordinated, and they consequently adopt diverse interactional practices. We distinguish between four ideal types of migrant support organisation based on their activity scope and stakeholder focus before outlining how different organisations and their constituent actors engage in tactical and strategic coupling practices, reflecting shorter and more episodic interactions alongside complex, multithreaded ones. The findings show how different forms of cooperative arrangements may be pursued based on organisations' capacities, focus and the types of value they seek to create for organisations, migrants and wider societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020, most countries took measures to prevent international human mobility. While the economic consequences of the pandemic significantly reduced remittances sent by migrants through formal channels, restrictions on human mobility almost halted the cross-border movements of remittances through informal channels. Policy measures related to the labour market and social welfare practices have also played determining roles in remittance transfers. This paper aims to examine how the labour-market participation of migrants and pandemic-induced financial support affect remittances sent migrants to their home countries during the COVID-19 outbreak. The author used an inductive approach and analysed qualitative data from two groups of Turkish migrants with different status in the UK labour market. The findings demonstrate that during the COVID-19 pandemic measures to restrict human mobility, migrants' income/job losses, and dependence on tightly regulated financial support can have devastating effects on remittances sent from the UK to Turkey through both formal and informal channels. This study contributes to remittance literature by evincing the vicious cycle of irregularity in the relationships among remittances, labour markets, and welfare regulations in host countries. In countries with a tight regulatory system, irregularity in the labour market brings about irregularities in money transfers. In possible future events where there is a high probability of an economic downturn and travel restrictions, such as pandemic, natural disasters, armed conflicts and so on, especially for migrants, it is important to set a minimum base wage which can be referred to as 'Temporary Basic Income Support'. This policy proposal is important as measures that facilitate remittance transfers through formal channels, are one of the most important means of reducing global inequalities and disadvantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper examines implementation fidelity (IF) and the underpinning conceptual framework drawing on the evaluation of a UK-wide, manualized child abuse and neglect prevention program for elementary schools. We describe and assess our approach to assessing IF and consider how IF can inform program development. Method: We drew on the literature on program fidelity and critical components of the program evaluated to identify three dimensions of IF: Coverage, Quality and Context. Data was collected through external observations using systemized observation schedules which were extracted to be scored using scoring protocols for each intervention type. Scores were calculated by two researchers with a random sample cross-checked by a third member of the research team. Results: Observation analysis demonstrated consistency in the coverage of content when delivering assemblies for both younger and older children with at least 76% coverage of content across the assemblies. However, observation analysis revealed greater levels of variability in the delivery of workshops. Material on sexual abuse was less fully covered and children reported that some facilitators lacked confidence and clarity in delivering this material (Stanley et al., 2023). Conclusion: Our results indicate the usefulness of systemized observations in capturing coverage of content, these findings underscore the importance of developing scoring protocols and training observers prior to evaluating program delivery. We highlight the significance of integrating implementation fidelity training for program facilitators and implementers to both assist with monitoring and to maintain quality, despite variations in the actual delivery and setting of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a new methodology to investigate the degree of persistence in firm growth dynamics, based on Conditional Quantile Transition Probability Matrices (CQTPMs) and exact inferential tests derived from two well-known mobility indexes. We apply the methodology to study manufacturing firms in the UK and four major European economies over the period 2010–2017. We find that CQTPMs display more persistence than under a fully independent firm growth process, albeit considerable turbulence and significant bouncing effects are detected. Exploiting the inferential statistics within a regression framework, we show that productivity, openness to trade, and business dynamism are the primary sources of firm growth persistence across sectors, while country-specific and time-specific factors play a second-order role. Plain English Summary: Use mobility indexes from CQTPMs to make precise inference about persistence in firm growth performance! This paper proposes a new method to measure the degree of persistence in the growth process of firms. Improving upon previous studies, we provide exact statistical inference and control for possible confounding factors. Application of our method to firm-level data on the UK and four major European economies, reveals a statistically significant, albeit small tendency of firms to repeat their past growth. However, we also observe considerable turbulence in the growth rates distribution over time. Persistence in growth is more strongly associated with sectoral characteristics such as productivity, business dynamism and trade openness, than with country-specific or time-specific factors. These findings pose interesting challenges to the theory. They also imply that policies addressed to foster growth in a specific group of firms are likely to have a volatile and transient effect. Our approach is flexible and suited for wide applicability in other domains of firm-level analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An estimated 55% of the global population live in cities, with this expected to increase to 70% by 2050. Thus, the strain from urbanisation generates issues like water pollution and land degradation leading to further social and environmental problems. Smart sustainable cities have been proposed as a possible solution but are a relatively new concept and are theoretically underdeveloped, and implementation applicability continues to be understudied. Despite the uncertainty around the idea, many cities globally have created distinctive visions of a smart, sustainable city. This paper developed a measurement instrument based upon a prior conceptualisation that embraced the subjective nature of the citizenry's perceptions of a smart sustainable city. The measurement instrument was initially refined from a large statement list of 80 from the initial conceptualisation before statistically honing this instrument through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory composite analysis. This is before applying the tool in the real-world context in various cities in Malaysia and UK. Known group validity was additionally used to verify the instrument, comparing between Malaysian and UK participants and between four different cities. A twenty-item measurement instrument consisting of four factors, Planning, Environment, Social and Smart, was developed from this study. These results support current theoretical perspectives with only minor variations from the core theory; however, this better reflects the dynamics of the smart sustainable city phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores changes in age-specific mortality risk across periods and cohorts during the twentieth century in the developed world. We use and compare two approaches—one graphical (Lexis plots) and one statistical (an adapted Hierarchical age-period-cohort model)—that control out overall trends in mortality, to focus on discrete changes associated with specific events. Our analyses point to a number of key global and local events in the Twentieth Century associated with period and/or cohort effects, including the World Wars and the influenza pandemic of 1918–19. We focus particularly on the UK but look at other countries where results are particularly noteworthy, either substantively or methodologically. We also find a decline in mortality in many western countries, specifically in the 1948 birth cohort, which may be associated with the development of post-war social welfare policies, the economic investment in Europe by the United States, the accessibility of antibiotics such as penicillin, and, in the UK, the founding of the NHS. We finish by considering the advantages and disadvantages of using the two methods with different sorts of data and research questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a hybrid agent-based stock-flow-consistent model featuring heterogeneous banks, purposely built to examine the effects of variations in banks' expectations formation and forecasting behaviour and to conduct policy experiments with a focus on monetary and prudential policy. The model is initialised to a deterministic stationary state and a subset of its free parameters are calibrated empirically in order to reproduce characteristics of UK macro-time-series data. Experiments carried out on the baseline focus on the expectations formation and forecasting behaviour of banks through allowing banks to switch between forecasting strategies and having them engage in least-squares learning. Overall, simple heuristics are remarkably robust in the model. In the baseline, which represents a relatively stable environment, the use of arguably more sophisticated expectations formation mechanisms makes little difference to simulation results. In a modified version of the baseline representing a less stable environment alternative heuristics may in fact be destabilising. To conclude the paper, a range of policy experiments is conducted, showing that an appropriate mix of monetary and prudential policy can considerably attenuate the macroeconomic volatility produced by the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK introduced carbon budgets in 2008, with an aim to reduce greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 compared with the 1990 levels. It has been argued that the 2015 Paris Agreement on limiting the global average temperature rise to 'well below 2° C' requires deeper and more rapid emission reductions than the current UK targets. Household energy consumption accounts for almost a third of total UK CO2 emissions in recent years. This paper explores drivers of high energy consumption in domestic buildings from a sociological practice perspective and through a lens of dominant meanings of 'home'. Whilst the practice approach and meanings of home have been explored separately in the literature to understand household energy consumption, this paper adds new findings on the interaction between the meanings of home and the elements of practices. Results show the dominant meaning of home differs between householders; this in turn affects the materials and procedures of energy-consuming practices. For instance, if 'home' means 'hospitality', this changes the standard of comfort and convenience people perceive at home. Understanding how practices and meanings of the home intersect, provides new, much needed insights that could support policy change commensurate with more rapidly reducing CO2 emissions from domestic energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Point of care ultrasound (PoCUS) has the potential to provide a step change in the management of patients across a range of healthcare settings. Increasingly, healthcare practitioners who are not medical doctors are incorporating PoCUS into their clinical practice. However, the professional, educational and regulatory environment in which this occurs is poorly developed, leaving clinicians, managers and patients at risk. Main body: Drawing upon existing medical and non-medical literature, the authors present a proposed framework for the use of PoCUS. Throughout, mechanisms for applying the principles to other professionals and healthcare settings are signposted. Application of the framework is illustrated via one such group of healthcare practitioners and in a particular healthcare setting: respiratory physiotherapists in the UK. In defining the point of care LUS scope of practice we detail what structures are imaged, differentials reported upon and clinical decisions informed by their imaging. This is used to outline the educational and competency requirements for respiratory physiotherapists to safely and effectively use the modality. Together, these are aligned with the regulatory (professional, legal and insurance) arrangements for this professional group in the UK. In so doing, a comprehensive approach for respiratory physiotherapists to consolidate and expand their use of point of care LUS is presented. This provides clarity for clinicians as to the boundaries of their practice and how to train in the modality; it supports educators with the design of courses and alignment of competency assessments; it supports managers with the staffing of existing and new care pathways. Ultimately it provides greater accessibility for patients to safe and effective point of care lung ultrasound. For clinicians who are not respiratory physiotherapists and/or are not based in the UK, the framework can be adapted to other professional groups using point of care LUS as well as other point of care ultrasound (PoCUS) applications, thereby providing a comprehensive and sustainable foundation for PoCUS consolidation and expansion. Conclusion: This paper presents a comprehensive framework to support the use of point of care LUS by respiratory physiotherapists in the UK. Mechanisms to adapt the model to support a wide range of other PoCUS users are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on data from one strand of a six-strand, exploratory study on end of life care for adults using substances (AUS). It presents data from the key informant (KI) strand of the study that aimed to identify models of practice in the UK. Participant recruitment was purposive and used snowball sampling to recruit KIs from a range of health and social care, policy and practice backgrounds. Data were collected in 2016–2017 from 20 KIs using a semi-structured interview approach. The data were analysed using template analysis as discussed by King (2012). This paper focusses on two of seven resulting themes, namely "Definitions and perceptions of key terms" in end of life care and substance use sectors, and "Service commissioning and delivery." The KIs demonstrated dedicated individual practice, but were critical of the systemic failure to provide adequate direction and resources to support people using substances at the end of their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there are many different frameworks seeking to identify what benefits young people might derive from participation in informal STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning (ISL), this paper argues that the sector would benefit from an approach that foregrounds equity and social justice outcomes. We propose a new model for reflecting on equitable youth outcomes from ISL that identifies five key areas: (1) Grounded fun; (2) STEM capital; (3) STEM trajectories; (4) STEM identity work; and (5) Agency+. The model is applied to empirical data (interviews, observations and youth portfolios) collected over one year in four UK-based ISL settings with 33 young people (aged 11–14), largely from communities that are traditionally under-represented in STEM. Analysis considers the extent to which participating youth experienced equitable outcomes, or not, in relation to the five areas. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for ISL and how the model might support ongoing efforts to reimagine ISL as vehicle for social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring, analyzing, and evaluating social, environmental, and economic impact is crucial to aligning the sustainable development strategies of international organizations, governments, and businesses. In this sense, society has been a determining factor exerting pressure for urgent solutions. The main objective of this paper is to provide an exhaustive analysis of the literature about the tools for measuring social impact and their evolution over the last 50 years. The search was conducted in the main academic databases (Scopus and Web of Science), where 924 articles were found from 1969 to 2020 related to the topic. The results of the quantitative analysis show that 71% of the publications were in the last ten years and the most productive countries were the USA and the United Kingdom. The relational analysis identifies 4 large clusters that fragment the literature into different subfields. The most used keywords are linked to the term "Social" in measurement methods, new concepts, and participants. This article contributes to the literature by giving the researcher an insight into the current state of art, trends, categories within the field, and future lines of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploiting changes in the geography of economic integration in Europe, this paper quantifies the effects of Brexit from ex post to ex ante using structural gravity. By isolating the directional treatment effects of EU agreements for the UK, the analysis reveals important heterogeneity across agreements, sectors, and within pairs. We find that these directional effects matter for the size and distribution of the welfare effects of Brexit—the withdrawal of the UK from EU agreements resulting into a return of trade costs to the situation quo ante. We make this point with the help of a modern multi-sector trade model that is able to capture inter- and intranational production networks. In line with other papers, the welfare costs of Brexit are higher in the UK than in most other EU countries. However, heterogeneity tends to attenuate overall costs while giving rise to substantial heterogeneity between EU27 members and sectors. A scenario that could shift bargaining power eliminates asymmetries in the costs of Brexit as soon as the UK fully liberalizes its market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the economic conditions (the "shocks") behind currency movements and show how that analysis can help address a range of questions, focussing on exchange rate pass-through to prices. We build on a methodology previously developed for the UK and adapt this framework so that it can be applied to a diverse sample of countries using widely available data. The paper provides three examples of how this enriched methodology can be used to provide insights into pass-through and other questions. First, it shows that exchange rate movements caused by monetary policy shocks consistently correspond to significantly higher pass-through than those caused by demand shocks in a cross-section of countries, confirming earlier results for the UK. Second, it shows that the underlying shocks (especially monetary policy shocks) are particularly important for understanding the time-series dimension of pass-through, while the standard structural variables highlighted in the previous literature are most important for the cross-section dimension. Finally, the paper explores how the methodology can be used to shed light on the effects of monetary policy and the debate on "currency wars": it shows that the role of monetary policy shocks in driving the exchange rate has increased moderately since the global financial crisis in advanced economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now no doubt that current global production-consumption-disposal systems are threatening the fundamental conditions of existence on this planet. In response, the pressing need for total system transformation has gained civic and political traction, feeding into long-standing debates and interventions that are aimed at recalibrating prevailing economic and social practices. One such debate and intervention is that of the circular economy (CE). Here, advocates argue that current linear resource and energy use systems must be reconfigured into loops of re-use, repair, refurbishment, and recycling, displacing primary production and lessening greenhouse gas emissions in the process. This agenda has potentially profound implications for aspects of daily social practices. Yet, to date, little attention has been paid (politically and in research) to how the CE does and will interact with everyday habits, norms, and meanings. In response, this paper explores some of the conceptual assumptions underlying the CE 'consumer'. It argues that mainstream CE debates are underscored by an impoverished view of our relationships with complex material cultures, which in turn is creating barriers to transformation. Drawing on empirical research into responses to the CE in the UK and the Netherlands, this paper contrasts the challenges of inciting consumers to take up new, resource-efficient business models in contexts of hyper-consumerism, with a more hopeful 'small story' of overt, small-scale circular spaces, that nevertheless embed the CE and its underlying impetuses more clearly into the everyday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interfaces a specific theory of socialisation, derived from Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann's influential book The Social Construction of Reality, with the empirical story of Muslim settlement in Britain. It makes a key distinction between the primary socialisation experiences of immigrants, which unfolded in their countries of origin, and that of their diaspora-born offspring whose identity is forged between an inherited ethno-religious culture and the wider British collective conscience. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the Islamic revivalist movement Tablighi Jama'at, the paper explores the cultural embodiments of religion as it evolves over generations through an examination of identity markers such as language, dress and food. The analysis triangulates Berger and Luckmann's concepts of primary and secondary socialisation with a tripartite model of British Muslim identity developed by Ron Geaves. It further argues, in light of Kwame Gyekye's theory of nation-building, that recent government efforts to promulgate a set of fundamental British values in schools represent an essentially Durkheimian attempt to supply the 'social glue' that binds citizens together. While the article acknowledges the increasing salience of religion for many British-born Muslims, it argues for the ongoing influence of ethnicity and nationality in determining their lived experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper arises from our concerns regarding the documented increases in xenophobia in the UK and more widely around the world. This is evidenced by a rise in religiously motivated hate crimes, especially against Muslims and Jews. Our enquiry is into the potential religious education has to mitigate xenophobia and educational justification for it to do so. We suggest that a religious education seeking to mitigate xenophobia will need teachers who take plurality seriously. Such teachers will need courage as well as the capacity to navigate complexity of lives lived with a religious orientation, with open mindedness. This means not only appreciating there is a great deal to know in terms of history and the lived human religious experience but also that religious life has an existential dimension which cannot be reduced to beliefs and practices. We ask what it is that the public sphere needs educationally from religious education at this point in history. This paper concludes by making the point that religious education is uniquely placed, to bring humanity to the heart of education and in so doing mitigate xenophobia, in light of its close connection to human experience. Finally, we alert the religious education community to the significance of doing this at this time, and the danger of ignoring it, for the continued well-being of the public sphere itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK's collective investment scheme ('CIS') sector is a key aspect of UK financial services. With the UK's departure from the EU, it has also become a politically salient topic, with various Member States competing to lure business to their financial centres in the light of Brexit. Brexit prompts hard choices and a key question arising for the CIS industry is whether the UK should continue to shadow EU law or whether elements of regulatory divergence could be envisaged. The paper suggests that, over the short to medium term, the UK should ensure it is likely to be deemed equivalent under EU law. Be that as it may, the paper also suggests that there may be areas within UK CIS regulation where some limited divergence can be considered. This would be provided that the UK remains in line with international standards, and (ideally) continues to be recognisably similar to remain equivalent. This certainly holds true in the event that equivalence is interpreted as more of a holistic assessment that could extend to embrace an element of regulatory competition. Any such divergence could also be framed as being of an optional nature, in order to grant CIS businesses full flexibility with respect to which regime they wish to comply. Writ large, Brexit may also help to stimulate broader conversations about the longer-term challenges the CIS industry faces in today's world. Viewed in this light, leaving the union could also inspire innovative and proportionate solutions to support and strengthen this pivotal sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the nature of a curriculum as presented in formal curriculum documents, and the inherent difficulties of representing formal disciplinary knowledge in a prescription for teaching and learning. The general points are illustrated by examining aspects of a specific example, taken from the chemistry subject content included in the science programmes of study that are part of the National Curriculum in England (an official document published by the UK government). In particular, it is suggested that some statements in the official curriculum document are problematic if we expect a curriculum to represent canonical disciplinary knowledge in an unambiguous and authentic manner. The paper examines the example of the requirement for English school children to be taught that chemical reactions take place in only three different ways (i.e., proton transfer; electron transfer; electron sharing) and considers how this might be interpreted in terms of canonical chemistry and within the wider context of other curriculum statements, in order to make sense of neutralisation and precipitation reactions. It is argued that although target knowledge that is set out as the focus of teaching and learning cannot be identical to disciplinary knowledge, the English National Curriculum offers a representation of chemistry which distorts and confuses canonical ideas. It is suggested that the process of representing the disciplinary knowledge of chemistry as curriculum specifications is worthy of more scholarly attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deprivation scales are becoming increasingly familiar in research and official statistics on poverty. Taking advantage of the basis of these scales in Item Response Theory, this paper proposes a more efficient approach to implementation using adaptive testing. This maximises information collected for a given amount of survey time by screening respondents on the basis of initial answers, and halting questioning where it is very unlikely any further information will be gathered. The paper illustrates various implementations using data from eight years of the UK's Family Resources Survey (FRS). Results show that an adaptive approach collects more than 99% of the information from the UK's official deprivation measure in half the survey time. In addition, the paper suggests improvements in the design of the UK's official deprivation scale as well as lessons for the development of future deprivation scales more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contract cheating services are marketing to students at discipline level, using increasingly sophisticated techniques. The discipline level reach of these services has not been widely considered in the academic integrity literature. Much of the academic understanding of contract cheating is not discipline specific, but the necessary solutions to this problem may need to vary by discipline. This paper reviews current knowledge about contract cheating services at the discipline level, including summarising four studies that rank the relative volume of contract cheating within different academic disciplines. The reviewed studies show high volumes of contract cheating transactions in the disciplines of Business and Computing. Examples of discipline level contract cheating research and service advertising are provided. The main contribution of the paper is an analysis of the discipline level reach by contract cheating services as seen through an analysis of Google search results from the United Kingdom. This analysis of 19 discipline groups uses measures of organic search engine results, paid results and competition. Three discipline groups are shown as currently being heavily exploited by essay mills; these are: (1) Architecture, Building and Planning, (2) Computer Science and (3) Law. In addition, the discipline group of Creative Arts and Design is shown to be at risk of future exploitation. The paper recommends that academics are made aware about continual change in the contract cheating industry including the involved marketing taking place at discipline level. The paper concludes with a call to action for academia to develop discipline specific solutions to contract cheating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important indicator of greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon footprint (CF) has become increasingly important in recent years under the dual pressures of global warming and international commitments to mitigate its effects. This study collected 3698 papers related to CF from the Web of Science database as research samples (year 2007 to 2018). Based on CiteSpace, the knowledge base, popular topics, and research trends of CF are presented. The results show the following: (1) from 2007 to 2018, the number of articles on CF have steadily increased. (2) After spatial analysis of the literature, we found that among research institutions, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has the largest number of publications on the issue. When it comes to country, three important research forces can be identified: USA, China, and UK. (3) Research on the CF is interdisciplinary; in addition to the traditional fields of environmental, political, economics, and computing, CF research has received attention from the Physics, Materials, Chemistry, Mathematics, and animal sciences. (4) Through keyword clustering, currently popular topics in research can be roughly divided into four aspects: CF calculation methods, research scales, energy, and agriculture. (5) The CF research during the study period is divided into four stages according to the burst time and content of the burst keywords. According to the research status and trend, this paper puts forward the future research direction of carbon footprint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many high-income countries, governments seek to ensure that households at least have sufficient incomes to afford basic essentials such as food and clothing, but also to help citizens reach socially acceptable living standards allowing full participation in society. Their success in doing so is commonly monitored in terms of how many citizens are below a poverty line set relative to median income, and by how far below it they fall (the 'poverty gap'). Yet the threshold below which this gap starts to be measured is arbitrary, begging the question of what level of low income needs addressing. A more ambitious measure, presented in this paper, considers the extent to which people fall short of a benchmark representing a socially agreed minimum standard. This 'low income gap' can be used to represent the distance a society has to go to eliminate income that is undesirably low. The paper presents the indicator, its meaning and some recent trends in the United Kingdom, where the methodology behind the indicator has been pioneered. The results demonstrate that this empirically derived benchmark has the potential to be of value in other countries, in assessing whether they are making progress in reducing low income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an analysis of two independent, qualitative interview data sets: the first containing semi-structured interviews with mid-senior academics from across a range of disciplines at two research-intensive universities in Australia and the UK, collected between 2011 and 2013 (n = 51); and the second including pre- (n = 62), and post-evaluation (n = 57) interviews with UK REF2014 Main Panel A evaluators, this paper provides some of the first empirical work and the grounded uncovering of implicit (and in some cases explicit) gendered associations around impact generation and, by extension, its evaluation. In this paper, we explore the nature of gendered associations towards non-academic impact (Impact) generation and evaluation. The results suggest an underlying yet emergent gendered perception of Impact and its activities that is worthy of further research and exploration as the importance of valuing the ways in which research has an influence 'beyond academia' increases globally. In particular, it identifies how researchers perceive that there are some personality traits that are better orientated towards achieving Impact; how these may in fact be gendered. It also identifies how gender may play a role in the prioritisation of 'hard' Impacts (and research) that can be counted, in contrast to 'soft' Impacts (and research) that are far less quantifiable, reminiscent of deeper entrenched views about the value of different 'modes' of research. These orientations also translate to the evaluation of Impact, where panellists exhibit these tendencies prior to its evaluation and describe the organisation of panel work with respect to gender diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive Cities, a university led knowledge exchange initiative works in collaboration with six UK city administrations facilitating the development of their strategic and practical approach to the inclusion of newcomers in the city. The paper places this case study into the context of the UK's centralized asylum reception and resettlement policy framework, contrasting it with the increasing recognition of the importance of the local level in integration and inclusion policy and the intersections between these differing modes of governance and competencies. The paper explores emerging learning from the programme in relation to the leadership role of local government, its ability to act as a place shaper in relation to inclusion and integration and it role in convening partners through horizontal, place-based, networks as well as the ways in which this case study can contribute to wider learning on the role of knowledge exchange in facilitating social change and policy framing at the city level and learning on the multi-level governance of reception and integration. The paper explores how mutual knowledge exchange may create space for a broadening out of the policy framing in relation to reception – in particular how a 'newcomer' frame may support increased innovation at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in the use of "distributionally-sensitive" forms of economic evaluation that capture both the impact of an intervention upon average population health and the distribution of that health amongst the population. This review aims to inform the conduct of distributionally sensitive evaluations in the UK by answering three questions: (1) How averse are the UK public towards inequalities in lifetime health between socioeconomic groups? (2) Does this aversion differ depending upon the type of health under consideration? (3) Are the UK public as averse to inequalities in health between socioeconomic groups as they are to inequalities in health between neutrally framed groups? EMBASE, MEDLINE, EconLit, and SSCI were searched for stated preference studies relevant to these questions in October 2017. Of the 2155 potentially relevant papers identified, 15 met the predefined hierarchical eligibility criteria. Seven elicited aversion to inequalities in health between socioeconomic groups, and eight elicited aversion between neutrally labelled groups. We find general, although not universal, evidence for aversion to inequalities in lifetime health between socioeconomic groups, albeit with significant variation in the strength of that preference across studies. Second, limited evidence regarding the impact of the type of health upon aversion. Third, some evidence that the UK public are more averse to inequalities in lifetime health when those inequalities are presented in the context of socioeconomic inequality than when presented in isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulation and governance of labour exploitation is a well-researched area across numerous disciplines. Common approaches towards regulating labour exploitation in businesses and supply chains include state interventions to tackle organised crime via the criminal justice system. However, due to strict criminal-legal definitions, these interventions are only possible when targeting severe exploitation. This emphasis means that a large amount of non-criminalised exploitation risks being overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to argue that non-state regulation is an important element in preventing routinised forms of labour exploitation, whereby a criminological perspective would help to understand and better prevent such practices. The paper examines state regulation, self-regulation of businesses, and trade union activity, which together addresses a wider range of labour exploitation. Semi-structured interviews from workers and supply chain stakeholders in the UK agri-food industry are used to inform this discussion. The governance of labour exploitation in relation to business activities has broader implications for the disciplinary areas of regulation and (corporate) criminology, whereby the former tends to prioritise restorative and persuasive approaches, whereas the latter focuses on deterrence and coercion. Ultimately, drawing together different strands of regulation into a hybrid approach is useful not only due to socio-political processes, but is arguably the most helpful in addressing routinised exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical papers analysing the transmission of (unconventional) monetary policy typically rely on a vector autoregressive framework. In this paper, I complement these studies and employ a matching approach to examine the impact of the Bank of England's asset purchase program on macroeconomic quantities in the UK. My sample covers the period March 2001−December 2015 and five small open inflation targeting economies. Using entropy balancing, I create a synthetic control group comprised of credible counterfactuals for the sample of observations subject to quantitative easing (QE). My key results indicate that a 100 bn GBP increase in QE has a significant and positive effect on GDP growth with a peak effect of 0.66−0.69 percentage points (pp) after 30 months. The same increase leads to a reduction in the inflation gap with a peak effect between −0.77 and −0.94 pp after 30 months. An in-depth analysis reveals that the latter finding is not driven by the choice of the empirical methodology. In contrast, I find that the returns on QE in the UK are decreasing (i) over time and (ii) with the volume of QE. Consequently, monetary policymakers should be aware of the fact that the returns on QE might be non-linear and that QE eventually could have detrimental effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In UK medical schools, five-option single-best answer (SBA) questions are the most widely accepted format of summative knowledge assessment. However, writing SBA questions with four effective incorrect options is difficult and time consuming, and consequently, many SBAs contain a high frequency of implausible distractors. Previous research has suggested that fewer than five-options could hence be used for assessment, without deterioration in quality. Despite an existing body of empirical research in this area however, evidence from undergraduate medical education is sparse. The study investigated the frequency of non-functioning distractors in a sample of 480 summative SBA questions at Cardiff University. Distractor functionality was analysed, and then various question models were tested to investigate the impact of reducing the number of distractors per question on examination difficulty, reliability, discrimination and pass rates. A survey questionnaire was additionally administered to 108 students (33 % response rate) to gain insight into their perceptions of these models. The simulation of various exam models revealed that, for four and three-option SBA models, pass rates, reliability, and mean item discrimination remained relatively constant. The average percentage mark however consistently increased by 1-3 % with the four and three-option models, respectively. The questionnaire survey revealed that the student body had mixed views towards the proposed format change. This study is one of the first to comprehensively investigate distractor performance in SBA examinations in undergraduate medical education. It provides evidence to suggest that using three-option SBA questions would maximise efficiency whilst maintaining, or possibly improving, psychometric quality, through allowing a greater number of questions per exam paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates a methodology for flexible, dynamic systems modelling relevant to urban rail decarbonisation. Decarbonisation of urban rail is a vital component of policy and strategy to minimize anthropogenic emissions. Decarbonisation is a systems problem, however, that needs to reflect the interaction between components and processes. Dynamic computer modelling of systems for decarbonisation involves interfacing multiple models together and running them in parallel in order to observe and predict systems-level effects. This is challenging due to the diverse nature of models, achieving parallel model integration and concerns around intellectual property (IP). One solution is the multi-modelling paradigm, which supports integrated, diverse, secure interfacing of models. This paper demonstrates the application of the multi-modelling approach, using the INTO-CPS tool chain. A multi-model was developed comprising key components required for urban rail decarbonisation problems. This multi-model was tested for power consumption in four different scenarios with an example drawn from the Tyne and Wear Metro in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the United Kingdom. These scenarios compared combinations of decarbonisation intervention (baseline rolling stock versus lightweight, regenerative braking rolling stock and baseline driving style versus energy-efficient defensive driving style), generating different power consumption profiles for each. As such, this serves as a proof of the application of the multi-modelling approach and demonstrates a number of benefits for flexible and rapid systems modelling. This paper fills a knowledge gap by demonstrating a potentially valuable tool for future systems-level decarbonisation challenges in urban rail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper updates and extends the systematic review and meta-analysis of Wardman and Batley (Transportation 41:1041–1069, 2014), which hitherto was the most comprehensive study of the impacts of punctuality on passenger rail demand in the literature. Whereas the 2014 paper covered 51 elasticities from 6 studies in Great Britain published between 2003 and 2011, this updated paper adds 11 subsequent British studies yielding a further 201 observations. The meta-model recovers a range of significant effects, relating to whether the elasticity was short versus long run, flow type and distance, season versus nonseason tickets, the relevant measure of lateness, and whether the purpose of the study was specifically the estimation of late time elasticities. Allowance was also made for study quality-related issues. The data indicated that, despite dynamic models being commonplace, there is some uncertainty as to how long the long run is. Alongside the meta-model, the paper also reports new econometric evidence that addresses some gaps in existing evidence and knowledge, especially in relation to functional form and non-linearity of effects. Findings from both strands of analysis would seem to suggest that rail industry guidance has tended to overstate the demand impacts of punctuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the West, Islam has been historically 'othered' as a religion and frequently linked to negative media representation, terrorism, and fundamentalism. As the aftermath of 9/11 witnessed a global rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric and action, there was a parallel increase in academic research on the Muslim community, including adults, youth, and children. In this paper, a systematic literature review was undertaken to explore how empirical studies over the last two decades have investigated experiences of growing up as young Muslims in an age of Islamophobia. Based on objective inclusion and exclusion criteria, pertinent databases were searched for research with contextual, temporal, topical relevance. NVivo Plus software was used for content-coding, quantitative processing, and qualitative thematic analyses of data. A rigorous screening process resulted in the identification, compilation, and methodical review of 87 journal articles, between 2001 - 2021, on the topic 'Islamophobia and Young Muslims.' The descriptive analysis represented that there has been a substantial increase in empirical studies on young Muslims in the last five years, particularly in the field of educational studies. A majority of these studies covered experiences of adolescent Muslims, between 13-20 years, residing in western countries like U.K., U.S.A., and Australia. Qualitative research designs were frequently employed, with a sample size of >50 participants. Through the word-count frequency output of NVivo, four meaningful and recurrent themes of 'Islamophobia', 'Identity', 'School', and 'Women' were derived. Content analysis of these themes revealed that studies widely researched on diverse interpretations of Islamophobia in the lives of young Muslims, identity negotiation strategies adopted by Muslim minority youth, school-based religious bullying, and gendered facets of Islamophobia. Research gaps showed a requirement for studies that capture heterogeneous narratives of Muslim youth in non-western countries and early childhood settings. Future research recommendations are of a unique child or youth-based theoretical conceptualization of Islamophobia, that particularly highlights youth perspectives of their own lived realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United Kingdom, more than 20% of the population live with a disability. Past evidence shows that being disabled is associated with functional limitations that often cause social exclusion and poverty. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse the connection between disability and poverty. This paper examines whether households with disabled members face extra costs of living to attain the same standard of living as their peers without disabled members. The modelling framework is based on the standard of living approach which estimates the extra income required to close the gap between households with and without disabled members. We apply an ordered logit regression to data from the Family Resources Survey between 2013 and 2016 to analyse the relationship between standard of living, income, and disability, conditional on other explanatory variables. We find that households with disabled members face considerable extra costs that go beyond the transfer payment of the government. The average household with disabled members saw their weekly extra costs continually increase from £293 in 2013 to £326 in 2016 [2020 prices]. Therefore, the government needs to adjust welfare policies to address the problem of extra costs faced by households with disabled members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty, poor housing and poor health are complexly interconnected in a cycle that has proven resistant to intervention by housing providers or policy makers. Research often focuses on the impacts of the physical housing defects, particularly upon rates of (physical) illness and disease. There has been comparatively little research into the ways in which housing services can underpin the generation of positive health and, especially, wellbeing. Drawing on qualitative data from 75 tenants in the social and private rented sectors, this paper describes the findings of a research project that tracked tenants' experiences across their first year in a new tenancy in Greater Glasgow, Scotland. The project collected data on tenants' perceptions of housing and housing service quality, financial coping and health and wellbeing, which was analysed using the principles of Realist Evaluation to elucidate impacts and causal pathways. Being able to establish a sense of home was key to tenants' wellbeing. The home provided many tenants with a recuperative space in which to shelter from daily stressors and was a source of autonomy and social status. A sense of home was underpinned by aspects of the housing service, property quality and affordability which are potentially amenable to intervention by housing providers. These findings raise questions about the extent to which social housing providers and the private rental market in the UK are able to meet the needs of vulnerable tenants. They suggest that approaches to housing provision that go beyond providing a basic dwelling are needed to successfully intervene in the cycle of poverty, poor housing and poor health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a brief survey of the Series of Scientific Monographs "Stability and Control: Theory, Methods and Applications" published during 1995–2002 at the Gordon and Breach Science Publishers (UK) and the Taylor and Frances Publisher (USA). The Series comprises 22 volumes and is encyclopedic in the field of stability and control theories. Moreover, the history of appearance and realization of the idea of publishing the Series is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper simulates the likely fiscal and employment effects of a vast public annual investment programme of free universal high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in the UK. It examines the extent to which it would pay for itself fiscally for different scenarios of pay increases. Investing in high-quality universal ECEC benefits all children by improving their life chances, especially for those living in lower income families. It also generates larger employment effects than other more typical investment policies such as construction projects and fosters gender equality in employment: not only it provides many high-quality jobs for women, it also allows many mothers to improve their lifetime earnings prospects by freeing up their childcare constraints. This in turn has beneficial fiscal revenue effects for the government. Estimations of annual public expenditure for a system of highly qualified and well-paid childcare staff with low child-to-staff ratios are performed, with universal coverage for all pre-school children aged 6 months to 4.5 years. Labour demand and matching supply effects are also simulated using input–output methods, for different take-up rates of the programme. A microsimulation tool is used to calculate increases in household income and tax liabilities and decreases in social security benefits spending. This results in a net annual funding requirement of between 28 and 39% of the gross investment. Two funding methods are then explored: raising taxation in a progressive way and recouping the cost over time from persistent mothers' increased earnings. The former would entail a net additional contribution by the richest 20% of households of at most 0.4% of their income; the latter would require 21 to 31 years to offset the programme on average, which is within a typical working life-course following a first child's birth, of 35 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a mixed methods quantitative and qualitative approach to capture fully the measurable and less tangible social impacts of transport projects on local people and communities. The approach was used to assess the potential social impacts of a strategic road by-pass project case study in a deprived region of Wales in the UK. The project specifically aimed to stimulate local economic growth and regeneration in the local areas it serves. In a 'before and after' case study, we combined fine-grained, GIS-based spatial analysis of secondary datasets with qualitative participative exercises with the local residents of the five communities living adjacent to the road, and interviews with professional local stakeholders. This mixed methods approach significantly enhanced understanding of both the social benefits and disbenefits of the road project. It helped to reveal local concerns that would not otherwise have been apparent from secondary dataset analysis alone. The qualitative studies were also successful in bringing to the table new 'hard to reach' voices that had not been heard through the formal consultation and public engagement process. The study revealed that the social benefits accruing to local people from the project could have been significantly enhanced, whilst a number of its locally occurring negative social impacts could have been avoided had social assessment been employed earlier in the decision processes concerning its routing and design. Recommendations to improve the practice and uptake of social assessments at the option appraisal, project design mitigation and post evaluation stages of transport projects are included in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Travel-based multitasking, i.e. using travel time to conduct enjoyable and/or productive activities, is the subject of an increasing number of theoretical and empirical studies. Most existing studies focus on modelling the choice of which activities people conduct while travelling, and a limited number of papers also focuses on their duration. The novelty of this study with respect to this literature is two-fold. Firstly, we specifically study the engagement in different online activities while travelling, and apply the state-of-the-art Multiple Discrete-Continuous Extreme Value (MDCEV) model to jointly model the choice and duration of multiple activities. We apply this model to data collected face-to-face from train passengers in the UK. We find that activity choice and duration is explained by both passenger and trip characteristics, especially trip purpose, ticket type and day/time of the trip. Secondly, we show how such modelling can assist in investment appraisal, in particular by providing insights into lower- and upper- bound estimates of the proportion of the entire travel time spent working, itself of importance in, for example, valuation of business travel time using the so-called Hensher Equation. We present a detailed discussion of how the findings from our work contribute to the broader discourse around the nature of travel time and its valuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The Posterior Fossa Society, an international multidisciplinary group, hosted its first global meeting designed to share the current state of the evidence across the multidisciplinary elements of pediatric post-operative cerebellar mutism syndrome (pCMS). The agenda included keynote talks from world-leading speakers, compelling abstract presentations and engaging discussions led by members of the PFS special interest groups. Methods: This paper is a synopsis of the first global meeting, a 3-day program held in Liverpool, England, UK, in September 2022. Results: Topics included nosology, patient and family experience, cerebellar modulation of cognition, and cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome. In addition, updates from large-scale studies were shared as well as abstracts across neuroradiology, neurosurgery, diagnosis/scoring, ataxia, and rehabilitation. Conclusions: Based on data-driven evidence and discussions, each special interest group created research priorities to target before the second global meeting, in the spring of 2024. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional Neurological Disorders (FNDs) are characterized by the symptoms experienced by the individuals but also by how they express personal experiences and concerns related to the clinical condition. Access to care programs for functional neurological symptoms appears challenging and may entail circular, self-perpetuating healthcare pathways. Given the challenging and misleading interpretations around FND, in advocating for care pathways beyond medical therapies, we designed a scoping review to map recently suggested practices and interventions. We identified 31 relevant papers published between January 2018 and December 2022. Most of the literature was gathered from the US and UK healthcare experiences, with documented interventions provided by multi-professional teams or stand-alone psychotherapists. We found different care pathways addressing either motor or non-motor manifestations. Persons with Functional Motor Disorder are more likely to be referred to physical therapy first, while Persons suffering from Non-Epileptic Seizures are to mental health services. A narrow focus was given to minor components of multimodal approaches (e.g. social workers, and occupational therapists). High heterogeneity was found between assessment instruments as well, reflecting different perspectives in selecting treatment outcomes (e.g., reduction of non-epileptic events, psychological functioning, motor symptoms). Among healthcare professionals, neurologists and (neuro)psychiatrists are typically engaged in formulating and delivering diagnoses, while treatment is often administered by physiotherapists and/or psychologists. In the context of FNDs, the complex etiopathological nature of the condition, including comorbidities, suggests the recommendation of multidisciplinary treatments adopting a stepped care model progressing from standard to higher level individualized modules may better suit individual complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]