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A user-centred interface design framework for the deloneliness system in older adults: design indicator development and prioritization
No full textBackground: Loneliness among older adults has become a major public health concern associated with cognitive decline, depression and increased healthcare utilization. The advancement of digital health technologies such as wearable devices, smart home systems and mobile health applications, provides new opportunities to monitor and mitigate loneliness through continuous physiological and behavioral assessment. However, the effectiveness of such technologies largely depends on user interface design, ensuring that older adults can understand, trust, and comfortably engage with the technology. Existing research on interactive platforms and user interfaces for psychological and emotional monitoring has mainly focused on usability testing and technology feasibility, with limited attention to structured design frameworks that integrate psychological, emotional and accessibility dimensions for older adults. Furthermore, most studies rely on qualitative assessments and lack quantitative prioritization of design indicators. Objective: This study aimed to develop a user-centered hierarchical framework of interface design indicators for older adults. Methods: A mixed-method design was applied, integrating literature search, qualitative focus group analysis and expert consultation to build an initial indicator pool. A hierarchical indicator structure with 7 first-level and 26 second-level indicators was developed. The Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to assign indicator weights through surveys of 20 experts with academic or professional experience in human-computer interaction, digital health, gerontology and health informatics. Based on the weighted results, three interface design solutions were developed and comparatively evaluated using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution. Results: All expert judgment matrices satisfied the AHP consistency requirement (consistency ratio Conclusions: This study developed a user-centered framework for interface design in loneliness monitoring among older adults. By integrating user insights, literature-derived indicators and expert consensus, providing a structured data-driven approach to prioritizing design requirements. The proposed framework bridges subjective user experience with objective evaluation, offering practical guidance for developing empathetic, inclusive and trustworthy digital mental health technologies for older adults.</p
Children's Medical Treatment and the Law: Table of Cases
No full textThe table of reported judgments concerning the medical treatment of children first appeared as an appendix to Jo Bridgeman, Medical Treatment of Children and the Law: Beyond Parental Responsibilities, (Routledge, 2020). It lists all reported cases concerning the medical treatment of children from the first case of Re D in 1976 and is updated monthly. In addition to the case citation and judge, the table includes: age and medical condition of the child, the treatment at issue, the process by which the case was referred to court, the decision of the court and identifies important issues raised by the case. It is available for download as a resource for anyone working on, or interested in the issues raised by, the law concerning the medical treatment of children.</p
Effects of sensory and environmental labelling of plant-based products on consumer acceptance: Context, energy density and framing factors
No full textThere is growing pressure to replace animal-sourced proteins with plant-based proteins. Consumer studies suggest sensory properties and environment are the major factors impacting adoption of PBFs, but few studies have contrasted these factors. Knowing that health labels negatively impact sensory experience, we tested whether environmental labels had the same negative impact. Using an online survey, volunteers (N = 328) were randomly assigned to one of three label contexts: sensory (emphasizing taste and texture), environmental (highlighting sustainability and environmental impact), or control (no specific messaging), where they evaluated eight plant-based alternative foods. Each product was enhanced by either a positive or a negatively valanced framing statement, with half the foods higher, and half lower, in energy density (ED). Participants rated expected liking, wanting and likely recommendation, and estimated what they would pay for each food. For liking and recommending, there was no significant difference between environmental and sensory contexts (p = 0.94), but both were significantly higher than control (p = 0.0006), while for expected wanting only the sensory exceeded the control (p = 0.0014). The amount willing to pay was significantly higher in the environmental than sensory (p = 0.0005) or control (p </p
Embracing complexity: connecting bipolar affective disorder, joint hypermobility, and neurodivergence
No full textBackground Neurodivergence encompasses neurodevelopmental conditions including autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Tourette syndrome. Particular physical traits, notably those linked to joint hypermobility, have an established association with both neurodivergence and bipolar affective disorder. Aim This case-control study tested firstly whether the presence of joint hypermobility predicted bipolar affective disorder and secondly, whether neurodivergent characteristics were important in understanding this relationship. Methods Data was collected from 52 participants with self-reported clinical diagnoses of bipolar affective disorder and from a comparison group of 54 participants without diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder. All participants were assessed on screening instruments for autism (Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale; RAADS-R), ADHD (Wender Utah Rating Scale; WURS), and joint hypermobility. Group differences were explored, and odds ratios calculated for presence of bipolar and neurodivergence given presence of hypermobility. A mediation analysis was performed to determine the contribution of neurodivergent characteristics to the relationship between joint hypermobility and bipolar affective disorder. Results The presence of joint hypermobility significantly predicted the presence of bipolar disorder (OR 5·1; 95% CI = [2·1, 12·4]). In the bipolar affective disorder group, the prevalence of likely autism and ADHD was greater (84·6% and 65·4% respectively) than in the comparison group (22·2% and 3·7% respectively). OR for a diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder was 18·2 (CI 95% = [6·70, 49·41]) in those meeting threshold for likely autism; and 46·89 (95% CI = [9·96, 220·74]) in participants meeting threshold for likely ADHD. Mediation analysis showed that autistic, ADHD and pooled neurodivergent characteristics mediated the link between joint hypermobility and bipolar affective disorder.</p
Humanitarianism in the Home Hosting-At-Home and the Politics of Hospitality
No full textWho is a humanitarian, and where does humanitarianism take place? Focusing on humanitarian responses within the Global South and North, Humanitarianism in the Home critically examines hosting-at-home – that is, people providing shelter in their own home to displaced people – as a widespread yet underexamined and underappreciated response to large-scale displacement.This book situates hosting-at-home practices and initiatives within a current expansion of private expressions of humanitarian actions across a range of global contexts. It situates the home as a key site of humanitarian hospitality and considers the implications of hosting-at-home for humanitarian politics writ large and its relationship to wider dynamics and structures of international relations and global politics. Drawing on feminist and decolonial literature, it grounds this analysis in a theorisation of the interconnections between humanitarianism, home, and hospitality, informing a critical understanding of hosting-at-home as a simultaneously every day and global practice, in its spatial, temporal, and relational dimensions. Overall, the book sees hosting-at-home as neither a straightforward alternative to the dominant international humanitarian system and attendant structures of power, nor a simple continuation of this. Instead, given the multiplicity of its various expressions, hosting-at-home occupies an ambivalent position within tensions between care and control, and complicity and solidarity.This book will be of interest to students and scholars of humanitarianism, international relations and politics, and refugee and migration studies. It will be of particular interest no doubt to those curious about how humanitarian responses have changed over time, how international organisations as well as ‘ordinary people’ have responded to humanitarian crises historically and in the present, and the politics of welcoming and caring for people displaced within and across borders.</p
Informal, individual and cumulative labour agency: reconceptualising capital's socio-spatial fix in the south Indian garment industry
No full textThis paper reconceptualises labour agency by examining the cumulative impact of informal and individual worker agency on capital’s search for a social-spatial fix in the Tiruppur garment industry in Tamil Nadu, India. The study foregrounds everyday micro-acts—such as choosing, refusing, and exiting work—as significant forms of agency, especially when viewed in aggregate. Based on ethnographic research, we explore how these acts influence the socio-spatial fix pursued by capital. Drawing on social reproduction theory to unpack the gendered dynamics of workers’ agency, the paper first highlights how workers’ decisions— constrained by domestic responsibilities, safety concerns, and aspirations for dignity and autonomy—create a volatile and elusive labour force. It then shows how capital responds to this agency by adapting its socio-spatial strategies, such as increasing its use of labour contractors, shifting to piece-rate payments, relocating production units, and fostering patronage-based labour ties. The study advances labour geography by expanding the conceptualisation of agency to include reproductive dynamics and by demonstrating how individual acts of agency, though not always intentional or collective, cumulatively reshape capitalist production geographies. Ultimately, the paper argues for a dialectical understanding of capital-labour relations, in which socio-spatial fixes are continuously restructured through the interplay of everyday worker agency and capital’s strategic responses.</p
A long-run perspective on unconditional convergence in manufacturing: evidence from U.S. industrialization
No full textThis paper examines long-run unconditional convergence of labour productivity in manufacturing across 48 contiguous U.S. states. We construct a detailed panel data set of state-industry pairs with over 120 industries covering the period 1880–2007. The remarkable finding is a rapid rate of unconditional -convergence: 7.6% per year in the period 1880–2007, and about 6.5% in each period 1880–1940 and 1958–2007. We also find a steep rise in unconditional convergence from 5.5% in 1930–1940 to 10.6% in 1940–1947 and 9.4% in 1947–1958, followed by a considerable drop thereafter. In the years 1958–2007, the rate of convergence in ICT industries (8.3%) is higher than in 1st-Industrial-Revolution (6.3%) or 2nd-Industrial-Revolution (7.0%) industries. We interpret our results as a process of technological catch up between initially laggard Southern manufacturing and manufacturing industries in the North.</p
Balancing Responsiveness and Reliability: Liquid Innovation in Practice
No full textOpportunity vs risk
AI agents offer enterprises capabilities legacy systems cannot, including natural language interaction, adaptive responses, and proactive assistance. But these same
capabilities introduce risks that traditional controls struggle to manage. Fluent
responses can mask uncertainty, obscure missing sources, and produce inconsistent
guidance across similar situations. This paper examines how organisations can
capture the value of AI agents without accepting uncontrolled risk. It argues that
the tension between user expectations for responsiveness and regulatory
requirements for reliability is not inevitable, but a design problem that can
be addressed through deliberate architectural choices.
Case evidence
Drawing on deployment experience in critical infrastructure, the paper presents
two cases that demonstrate what becomes possible when AI agents are built for both
speed and accountability. One shows how pattern-based alerting provided
operational teams with early warning of a major disruption, before mainstream
media coverage reached control rooms. The other reveals how portfolio-scale
synthesis across multiple premises surfaced compliance gaps that isolated
reviews had missed.
Design principles
These outcomes were enabled by specific design decisions, including evidence-based outputs, a deterministic core, governance embedded by design, and adaptive delivery that personalises presentation without compromising substance. The paper concludes with five principles for responsible deployment, namely start where stakes are highest, augment rather than replace existing systems, anchor outputs in evidence, embed governance by design, and expand only after value is proven. This approach, what we describe as liquid innovation, adapting a concept introduced by Spanjol et al. (2024), enables organisations to improve continuously while maintaining the reliability that critical operations require.
Five principles for responsible deployment
1.Start where stakes are highest
2.Augment rather than replace existing systems
3.Anchor outputs in evidence
4.Embed governance by design
5.Expand only after value is proven</p
Everyone on board? Dynamic capabilities and their role for transformative change in Germany
No full textThis study explores the role of dynamic capabilities for transformative policy-making, focusing on industrial and mission-oriented policies in Germany. While being a front-runner on the one hand, Germany faces multiple deeply rooted structural barriers for transformative change. By comparing various cases of attempts of transformative policy change (High-Tech Strategy 2025 and Climate Contracts) and administrative reforms (agency for disruptive innovation SPRIND and the coordination of foresight activities) among principal state actors, the paper provides an in-depth view on the interaction between dynamic capabilities and reform efforts. The analysis highlights that dynamic capabilities are pivotal for facilitating change, underlining particularly the necessity of shaping routines that depend upon sense-making and connecting routines. However, given the path-dependent and segmented administrative system in Germany, dynamic capabilities required activation by a disruptive impulse that challenged existing structures and processes. We conclude that change processes should explicitly take into consideration the role of such disruptive impulses.</p
Necrotising fasciitis in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia: a diagnostic challenge, management and learning points
No full textNecrotising soft tissue infection (NSTI), or necrotising fasciitis (NF), is a life-threatening, rapidly spreading bacterial infection affecting soft tissues. Mortality rates can be up to 70%, emphasising the need for early diagnosis and intervention. However, timely identification remains challenging, particularly in immunocompromised patients, due to nonspecific early signs. This case involves a patient who developed NF 12 days after R-CHOP (Rituximab, Cyclophosphamide, Hydroxydaunorubicin, Oncovin, Prednisolone) chemotherapy. Despite clinical and radiological evidence of NF and a high Laboratory Risk Indicator for Necrotising Fasciitis score, blood tests revealed leucopenia, neutropenia and lymphopenia, with no fever and a low National Early Warning Score of one. This atypical presentation underscores the difficulty in diagnosing NF in immunosuppressed individuals. The case highlights the complexity of managing NSTI in such populations, stressing the importance of rapid recognition and treatment to improve outcomes in these high-risk scenarios.</p