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How can we promote academic GP careers? A qualitative framework analysis of factors affecting the development of the academic GP workforce
No full textObjectives General practice continues to be an under-represented career choice among medical school graduates, and the retention of the general practitioner (GP) workforce remains challenging. Academic general practice (AGP) is vital to the development of the evidence base for general practice and the education of the next generation of doctors and GPs. Academic careers and portfolio careers in general practice are seen as a means of increasing retention of GPs in the profession. However, AGP remains largely invisible to many and the number of AGPs is declining. There is no clear understanding of the reasons for this. The aim of this study was to explore factors that inhibit and promote AGP careers. Design Secondary framework analysis of data from two qualitative studies. Participants, setting and measures 41 GPs, GP trainees and Academic GPs (25 females and 16 males) across Scotland. Analysis of the data employed a framework based on Feldman and Ng’s model of the factors influencing career mobility, embeddedness and success in order to explore the barriers and enablers to GPs developing academic careers that exist at multiple levels from the personal to the structural. Results GPs encountered barriers to entering AGP at multiple levels. Lack of clarity and visibility of training pathways, including the lack of clear routes into academia at multiple career stages, were significant barriers, as were the effects of taking on academic work on overstretched practices, and relative job insecurity and lower pay in academic careers. Conclusion The findings of this research demonstrate that unless the structural issues affecting the profession more generally are addressed, significant barriers to pursuing AGP careers will remain
The growing methodological toolkit for identifying and studying social learning and culture in non-human animals
No full textThere is a growing consensus that animals’ socially transmitted knowledge should be recognized when planning conservation management, but demonstrating social learning or culture can present considerable challenges, especially in the wild. Fortunately, decades of research have spawned a rich methodological toolkit for exactly this purpose. Here, we review principal approaches, including: social learning experiments; analyses of natural or experimentally seeded diffusions of novel behaviours, sometimes using specialist statistical techniques; mapping of behavioural variation across neighbouring, sympatric or captive groups, or at larger scales; and assessment of aspects of cross-generational transmission, including teaching, learning during ontogenetic development and cumulative change. Some methods reviewed were developed for captive studies, but have subsequently been adapted for application in the wild, or are useful for exploring a species’ general propensity to learn and transmit information socially. We highlight several emerging ‘rapid assessment’ approaches—including camera trapping, passive acoustic monitoring, animal-borne tags, AI-assisted data mining and computer simulations—that should prove useful in addressing particularly urgent conservation needs. We conclude by considering how best to use this growing methodological toolkit in practice, to guide further research on animal social learning and cultures, and maximize conservation and policy impact
Picturing landscape in an age of extraction:Europe and its colonial networks, 1780-1850
No full textIn the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, European artists confronted the emergence of a new way of thinking about and treating the Earth and its resources. Centered on extraction, this new paradigm was characterized by large-scale efforts to transform and monetize the physical environment across the globe. With this book, Stephanie O’Rourke considers such practices, looking at what was at stake in visual representations of the natural world during the first decades of Europe’s industrial revolutions. O’Rourke argues that key developments in the European landscape painting tradition were profoundly shaped by industries including mining and timber harvesting, as well as by interlinked ideas about race, climate, and waste. Focusing on developments in Britain, France, Germany, and across Europe’s colonial networks, she explores how artworks and technical illustrations portrayed landscapes in ways that promoted—or pushed against—the logic of resource extraction
OGLE-2011-BLG-0462:an isolated stellar-mass black hole confirmed using new HST astrometry and updated photometry
No full textThe long-duration Galactic-bulge microlensing event OGLE-2011-BLG-0462 produced relativistic astrometric deflections of the source star, which we measured using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations taken at eight epochs over ∼6 yr. Analysis of the microlensing light curve and astrometry led our group (followed by other independent groups) to conclude that the lens is an isolated stellar-mass black hole (BH)—the first and only one unambiguously discovered to date. There have now been three additional epochs of HST observations, increasing the astrometric time baseline to 11 yr. Additionally, the ground-based OGLE data have been updated. We have reanalyzed the data, including the new HST astrometry, and photometry obtained with 16 different telescopes. The source lies only 0.̋4 from a bright neighbor, making it crucial to perform precise subtraction of its point-spread function (PSF) in the astrometric measurements of the source. Moreover, we show that it is essential to perform a separate PSF subtraction for each individual HST frame as part of the reductions. Our final solution yields a lens mass of 7.15 ± 0.83 M⊙. Combined with the lack of detected light from the lens at late HST epochs, the BH nature of the lens is conclusively verified. The BH lies at a distance of 1.52 ± 0.15 kpc, and it is moving with a space velocity of 51.1 ± 7.5 km s−1 relative to the stars in the neighborhood. We compare our results with those of other studies and discuss reasons for the differences. We also searched for binary companions of the BH at a range of separations, but found no evidence for any
Key drivers of large scale changes in North Atlantic atmospheric and oceanic circulations and their predictability
No full textSignificant changes have occurred during the last few decades across the North Atlantic climate system, including in the atmosphere, ocean, and cryosphere. These large-scale changes play a vital role in shaping regional climate and extreme weather events across the UK and Western Europe. This review synthesizes the characteristics of observed large-scale changes in North Atlantic atmospheric and oceanic circulations during past decades, identifies the drivers and physical processes responsible for these changes, outlines projected changes due to anthropogenic warming, and discusses the predictability of these circulations. On multi-decadal time scales, internal variability, anthropogenic forcings (especially greenhouse gases), and natural forcings (such as solar variability and volcanic eruptions) are identified as key contributors to large-scale variability in North Atlantic atmospheric and oceanic circulations. However, there remain many uncertainties regarding the detailed characteristics of these various influences, and in some cases their relative importance. We therefore conclude that a better understanding of these drivers, and more accurate quantification of their relative roles, are crucial for more reliable decadal predictions and projections of regional climate for the North Atlantic and Europe
Multi-feature unsupervised domain adaptation (M-FUDA) applied to cross unaligned domain-specific distributions in device-free human activity classification
No full textHuman–computer interaction (HCI) drives innovation by bridging humans and technology, with human activity recognition (HAR) playing a key role. Traditional HAR systems require user cooperation and infrastructure, raising privacy concerns. In recent years, Wi-Fi devices have leveraged channel state information (CSI) to decode human movements without additional infrastructure, preserving privacy. However, these systems struggle with unseen users, new environments, and scalability, thereby limiting real-world applications. Recent research has also demonstrated that the impact of surroundings causes dissimilar variations in the channel state information at different times of the day. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised multi-source domain adaptation technique that addresses these challenges. By aligning diverse data distributions with target domain variations (e.g., new users, environments, or atmospheric conditions), the method enhances system adaptability by leveraging public datasets with varying domain samples. Experiments on three public CSI datasets using a preprocessing module to convert CSI into image-like formats demonstrate significant improvements to baseline methods with an average micro-F1 score of 81% for cross-user, 76% for cross-user and cross-environment, and 73% for cross-atmospheric tasks. The approach proves effective for scalable, device-free sensing in realistic cross-domain HAR scenarios
Fragmentation and the preface paradox
No full textThe preface paradox is often taken to show that beliefs can be individually rational but jointly inconsistent. However, this received conflict between rationality and consistency is unfounded. This paper seeks to show that no rational beliefs are actually inconsistent in the preface parado
Profit shifting from Nigeria to Europe:the impact on human rights
No full textThe United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone is entitled to economic and social rights essential to survive and thrive (Articles 25 and 26) and everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which their rights and freedom can be realised (Article 28). These rights must be ensured through national efforts and international cooperation (Article 22), but many millions of people worldwide do not access their rights, including the right to clean drinking water, safe sanitation, healthcare, and education. Government revenue from taxes plays a crucial role in ensuring these rights. However, globally, 10% of corporate tax revenue is lost because multinational corporations shift their profits from where they operate. This study examines the impact of profit shifting on tax revenue in Nigeria, focussing on access to economic and social rights and governance. It estimates the impact of revenue gains made on profits shifted from Nigeria to European tax havens, using data on profits shifted published by Wier and Zucman in 2022 and the Government Revenue and Development Estimations (GRADE) model for the estimations. The findings reveal that if the Nigerian government had additional revenue equivalent to tax losses, an additional 500,000 Nigerians would have their right to drink clean water and nearly 800,000 their right to use basic sanitation each day, 150,000 children would have their right to education, and 11 children would have their right to survive each day (amounting to 4,063 children each year). Increased revenue would also improve governance. In contrast, the gains European tax havens make as destinations for shifted profits in terms of rights are almost negligible, given that almost all Europeans have those economic and social rights discussed in this paper fulfilled. The tax reforms championed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including 27 European member nations, to tackle aggressive corporate tax avoidance and tax evasion—in short, tax abuse—fall short of ensuring a suitable international order for rights to be achieved. To remedy this, all European countries must support negotiations on international tax cooperation at the United Nations. This should include reforms on regulating multinational corporations, particularly through unitary taxation with formulary apportionment. In the short- and medium-term, interim measures to mitigate the harmful impacts of profit shifting are necessary. Countries must take steps to raise the global minimum corporate tax rate, introduce unilateral measures to tax multinational corporations, improve tax transparency and information sharing with lower-income countries, and strengthen anti-avoidance rules
TOI-2005b:an eccentric warm Jupiter in spin-orbit alignment
No full textWe report the discovery and characterization of TOI-2005 b, a warm Jupiter on an eccentric (e ∼ 0.59), 17.3 days orbit around a Vmag = 9.867 rapidly rotating F-star. The object was detected as a candidate by Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the planetary nature of TOI-2005 b was then confirmed via a series of ground-based photometric, spectroscopic, and diffraction-limited imaging observations. The planet was found to reside in a low sky-projected stellar obliquity orbit (λ = 4.8+2.3-2.5 degrees) via a transit spectroscopic observation using the Magellan Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle spectrograph. TOI-2005 b is one of a few planets known to have a lowobliquity high-eccentricity orbit, which may be the result of high-eccentricity coplanar migration. The planet has a periastron equilibrium temperature of ∼2100 K, similar to some highly irradiated hot Jupiters where atomic metal species have been detected in transmission spectroscopy, and varies by almost 1000 K during its orbit. Future observations of the atmosphere of TOI-2005b can inform us about its radiative timescales thanks to the rapid heating and cooling of the planet