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Historicising sanitation work: Value, infrastructural labour and representation in colonial Bengal
No full textIn this paper, we examine how caste and coloniality intersect to render Dalit sanitation workers central to but actively overlooked and overburdened in the making and maintenance of ‘sanitary’ towns and cities in colonial Bengal. Bringing existing scholarship into conversation with archival material, we make three key conceptual, methodological and empirical contributions to waste/discard studies, infrastructural geographies and urban political ecology. First, we nuance debate on waste, value and infrastructural labour by demonstrating how Dalits were central to metabolising value from human waste and formed an essential yet unseen workforce to manage ‘unruly filth’ in growing towns and cities. Whilst caste fundamentally shapes who handles nightsoil, we show how colonial-era sanitary reforms dispossessed workers of income accrued from nightsoil sale and intensified the labour regime, with sanitary workers becoming infrastructure in the case of non-existent, newly constructed or faltering sanitary systems. Second, we highlight the value of historicising sanitation work via critical engagement with colonial archives. We argue that these resources, though presenting a paradox of absence and selective presence, help us better understand the centrality of human labour to nightsoil management across different scales, how and why such work has evolved, and in what forms and why it persists today. Third, we address a vital knowledge gap on the shifting nature of sanitation work in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), including the ‘import’ of landless Dalits by British administrators for ‘dirty work’, and call for further research to understand the particularities of manual scavenging in this context. We ultimately argue that a lens on human waste, and those forced to handle it, offers nuanced insights into the reproduction of social and spatial order historically and today.</p
Exploring the links between humanitarian shelter support and mental health in conflict-affected contexts: Experiences from the Kharkiv region, Ukraine
No full textThis article presents the findings from a study which explored the impact of humanitarian shelter programming on the well-being of Ukrainians that suffered damage to their homes following the full-scale Russian invasion. The impact of humanitarian interventions on mental health is neglected in the global mental health literature. A qualitative study was conducted in the rural territorial community in the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine. It utilised interviews with beneficiaries of shelter repair interventions, as well as focus groups with the beneficiaries, local community stakeholders, as well as staff, advisers and managers from a humanitarian organisation providing shelter and mental health and psychosocial support in the region. Findings suggest that shelter repairs alone are important for the participants’ sense of well-being, because home means ‘everything’ for the participants and is a focal point for their lives. Homemaking support and internal repairs are signposted as relevant to their well-being. Focus on their lived experience also highlights the importance of understanding the historical and socio-economic context to understand participants’ decisions to stay in or return to their damaged homes amid continued conflict. Beyond mental wellbeing, home is a site of food security. Family, friends, neighbours, and communities are also highlighted as important sources of support that significantly contribute to their well-being. Mobile communication is an important means to stay connected to their loved ones. Findings also suggest that the mental health and psycho-social support in conflict settings should focus on community revitalisation and collaboration with other humanitarian sectors.</p
Enhanced Theory of Change - Uni & You Young People with Experience of Care Intervention
No full textNo description supplied</p
‘This noble method in physic’: Peter Shaw's proposal for a controlled trial of an ‘antidote’ for rabies (1723)
No full textPeter Shaw (1694–1763) was an English physician who practised in London and Scarborough, Yorkshire. He was appointed physician to Kings George II and III. Shaw published many medical texts as well as translations of Lord Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle. Method: Historical examination of Shaw's text A Treatise of Incurable Diseases (1723). Results: Shaw states that ‘incurable’ conditions offer an opportunity to examine the cause of disease and its treatment. He proposes a model for a comparative trial of ‘antidote’ for hydrophobia (rabies) in one of two dogs and – if successful – in humans. Conclusion: Shaw's proposal is an early model for translational medical research from animals to humans to ensure effectiveness and safety. The evidence suggests that Shaw's was an inspiration for Hauksbee the Younger's 1743 proposed ‘experimentum crucis’ of venereal disease treatments. That is because in 1731 they co-authored ‘An Essay for Introducing a Portable Laboratory’. Furthermore, Hauksbee reveals that Shaw was actively involved in early enquiries into the efficacy of his venereal medication. Due to shared roots in Lichfield and an interest in spa water treatment, the authors conjecture that Shaw's comparative approach might have roots in Sir John Floyer's 1702 controlled trial of cold-water on athleticism.</p
MIDI-LLaMA: An instruction-following multimodal LLM for symbolic music understanding
No full textNo description supplied</p
Collaborative welding robots and their impact on welders’ work experience in the UK
No full textThis article investigates the job satisfaction and working conditions responses of welders after the implementation of collaborative welding robots in their workplaces. Through semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations at three sites, it explores themes such as pay, prestige, professional identity, social interaction at work and career prospects. Our research suggests that working experiences and responses to the robot are highly varied among welders, and many individuals were ambivalent about the new technology. We found evidence of improved work experiences, such as improvement in occupation safety, offloading repetitive tasks and the social prestige related to working with a robot, but also drawbacks and anxiety surrounding the adoption, change in professional identity and the possibility of being replaced by robots in the future. Building on previous literature on automation and job displacement, especially on the impact of new technologies on blue-collar workers, we broaden academic debates from questions surrounding labour replacement to delimiting contexts where new technologies enable the retention of workers and the creation of more meaningful work.</p
AAVT: a tool to run virtual surveys with passing aircraft
No full textMultiple studies have identified the perception of aircraft sounds to be highly multisensorial, making it difficult to predict what the effects of airspace restructuring may be. This is because very few survey methodologies can capture future aircraft-dominated soundscapes, with multisensorial fidelity and in different areas around an airport. In this study, we explore the possibility of creating an immersive environment for soundscape surveys, focused on aircraft sounds and capable of virtually bringing survey participants to different parts of a territory, like virtual tourists. Built within a game engine, our Aviation Acoustics Visualisation Tool (AAVT) combines video recordings of a local community with virtual 3D-modelled passing aircraft. Acoustic emissions within AAVT are based on real audio recordings of single aircraft flyovers at various altitudes. This work describes the technical validation of the tool, including challenges related to audio-visual synchronisation, lens distortion calibration, acoustic level adjustments and system modularity. AAVT provides a foundation for future comparative studies that aim to reproduce multisensory judgements, like the correlation between the visually perceived height of a passing aircraft and the acoustically perceived noise. Future studies will support investigations on community responses and discussions on aircraft noise policies.</p
Measurement of the rare B0(s) → µ+µ↑ decay properties with full run 2 ATLAS data
No full textFor Abstract please see PDF</p