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Perceptual body image tasks require ethnically appropriate stimuli
No full textCurrent body ideals and perceived weight status are often assessed with tests that include images which depict BMI dependent morphological changes in body shape. These images are almost exclusively based on White European (WE) bodies. However, East Asian (EA) and South Asian (SA) people have a different body composition and pattern of adipose deposition for a given BMI. As such, matching someone’s body from an EA or SA background to a WE body may lead to errors in estimation, as there are no equivalent bodies to match against. Therefore, we 3D scanned EA, SA and WE female volunteers and constructed computer-generated imagery (CGI) bodies based on a statistical analysis of the size and shape variation specific to each ethnic identity. We then asked participants to make judgements between pairs of bodies of the same or different ethnic identity as themselves. When presented with ethnically different stimuli, EA and SA participants significantly over-estimate body size and WE participants significantly under-estimate. Additionally, ethnically mismatched stimuli lead to significantly greater uncertainty about body size judgements. For the first time, we show that ethnically appropriate stimuli need to be used to assess body judgements and should be developed as a matter of urgency.</p
Leveraging board roles for strategic environmental orientation in emerging economies: evidence from Tunisia
No full text This study investigates the influence of board roles performance (BRP), namely monitoring, strategy, and service roles, on firms' strategic environmental orientation (SEO) in the context of an emerging economy, Tunisia.
Adopting a multi-theoretical approach that draws from agency theory and resource dependency theory, a questionnaire survey was conducted targeting 204 directors of 102 Tunisian publicly traded companies. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to evaluate the effect of BRP on SEO.
The results reveal a positive relationship between the board's strategy role and SEO. Conversely, the board's monitoring role exhibits a negative effect on SEO. However, the service role demonstrates no significant effect on SEO.
The findings offer guidance to board chairs and policymakers on leveraging different board roles to drive SEO by offering insights about the management of board agenda time and tasks, the relationship with management, and the profiles of independent directors that nomination committees should target to promote specific board roles and SEO.
This study is one of the first to explore the relationship between BRP and SEO in an emerging economy context. It extends existing theories by providing new insights into board roles beyond structural characteristics and highlighting the necessity of considering specific institutional and cultural contexts of emerging markets when examining board roles' impact on firms’ environmental orientation. </p
Creative Methodologies and the Media Arts Lab: Interrogating Digital Culture through modes of Practice Research
No full textThis presentation addressed what I call a ‘media arts lab’ framework for interrogating contemporary digital culture. As I shall illustrate, the ‘media arts lab’ seeks to leverage transdiscplinary modes of co-creation and embodied, media-arts practice in response to critical issues in media culture and society. I will outline a range of creative methodologies, including ‘speculative design’ (Dunne and Raby, 2013), ‘critical making’ (Ratto, 2008) and ‘design fiction’ (Sterling, 2013), highlighting how these approaches can be implemented in an educational setting as part of intensive ‘media lab’ and ‘hackathon’ style workshops. I suggest this represents a novel, practice-based approach for examining the complexity of our contemporary digital world.</p
The School as a Civic Institution
No full textIn this chapter, we think broadly about schools as civic institutions, and teachers as members of those institutions, and thus conceive of teachers as civic actors in their own right. On this view, we can see teachers’ engagement with colleagues, students and parents as part of the civic life of their communities. This chapter draws together disparate examples of action through the lenses of community organising, experiential learning and a responsive curriculum to present a vision of schools as ‘anchor’ institutions in their communities, playing a vital civic role and, as a consequence, generating a host of opportunities for learning politics across the whole community. In many local areas, schools may well be the biggest single institution having an impact on the local economy, environment, community safety and civic life. This is not, of course, what schools are primarily for, but it is an inevitable consequence of schools existing, and we offer some suggestions for how this broader community role can be better integrated with the school’s core educational mission.
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Written evidence from Professor Kim Barker, Professor of Law, University of Lincoln [MIS0082]
No full textWritten evidence in response to the Womens and Equalities Committee Inquiry on Misogyny and the Manosphere (2025) </p
Radiographer educational requirements for adaptive radiotherapy techniques: A mixed-methods regional scoping study
No full textIntroductionIn the study region an off-line approach is currently taken to adaptive radiotherapy delivery with plans to implement on-line approaches imminently. This is a step-change in how radiotherapy is delivered and represents a shift in traditional professional roles and responsibilities. This research aimed to explore therapeutic radiographer educational needs at a regional level and strategise how the therapeutic radiographer workforce can be enabled to deliver on-line adaptive radiotherapy.MethodsA mixed methods study was undertaken consisting of a quantitative on-line survey followed by qualitative interviews and a focus group. Survey invites were sent to all registered therapeutic radiographers in the region. All survey participants were invited to a focus group. There were 32 respondents to the survey and six focus group participants from all three radiotherapy centres in the region. There were four interview participants who were local service and education leads.Results16 of 32 survey participants were moderately familiar with the concept of adaptive radiotherapy but 22 participants felt not confident at all or slightly confident to adapt treatment plans. A key area for development was decision making and clinical judgment prior to plan adaptation. Upskilling radiographers were seen as essential and inter-disciplinary collaborations were key to this, particular with physicist, dosimetrist and clinical oncologists. Robust educational programmes were identified as a requirement at and pre and post registration level.Conclusion and implications for practiceThe academic underpinning of adaptive radiotherapy needs to be addressed to streamline the rapid uptake of advanced radiotherapy technologies. There was a consensus that a regional, inter-organisational approach to addressing radiographer educational needs is warranted to ensure efficiency and sustainability of clinical on-line adaptive radiotherapy implementation.</p
Geosocial inequalities in walking for leisure at older ages
No full textBackground: Walking for leisure is a key contributor to healthy ageing, yet participation remains uneven across older populations. Addressing these inequalities requires approaches that capture how physical and social environments jointly shape opportunities for walking. Integrating the COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behavior) model’s emphasis on behavioral opportunity, this study examines how the combinations of geographic and social domains intersect to shape walking in later life.Methods: Conceptually grounded in the geosocial framework, which posits that territories (e.g., parks, walkways, libraries), social networks (e.g., social trust and bonds), and social categories (e.g., age and gender) intertwine to shape health and well-being, multilevel models were analyzed to examine the association between interlocking geosocial environments and walking using data from the National Health Interview Survey for adults aged 55 or older (n = 14,149).Results: Collectively the three geosocial domains were interdependent, while individually territorial characteristics showed the strongest associations with walking for leisure, followed by social network and categorical characteristics.Conclusions: By integrating the geographic and social opportunity domains of the COM-B model through the geosocial framework, this study quantitatively operationalizes the built, network, and categorical domains as interacting structures at a fine level of granularity to inform precisely targeted physical activity interventions among older populations.</p
Economic, Environmental, and Societal Returns of Solar Energy Use in Public Buildings
No full textThis chapter presents a comprehensive analysis of the conversion from grid to cleaner solar energy, quantifying the non-financial benefits of the transition. It uses the Isaac Newton Building at the University of Lincoln, UK, as a case study to demonstrate a methodology for determining the environmental and societal benefits of a public building’s use of an environmentally friendly energy source, in this case, solar photovoltaic (PV). A metric is introduced to quantify these non-economic benefits in financial terms. It is known as the Return on Environmental and Societal Capital (RESC), modified from the original Return on Social Capital (RoSC) metric first proposed by Lakshmi & Tilley, which combines both the financial and non-financial returns. The results indicate that the investment in solar energy will be financially returned in 4–5 years. However, significant environmental and community returns are also achieved throughout the 25 years of the solar PV system. The findings suggest that clean energy is not only an economically viable alternative to traditional energy sources, but for communal buildings, it contributes significant environmental and community returns.</p
Bioacoustic fundamental frequency estimation: a cross-species dataset and deep learning baseline
No full textThe fundamental frequency (F0) is a key parameter for characterising structures in vertebrate vocalisations, for instance defining vocal repertoires and their variations at different biological scales (e.g. population dialects, individual signatures). However, the task is too laborious to perform manually, and its automation is complex. Despite significant advancements in the fields of speech and music for automatic F0 estimation, similar progress in bioacoustics has been limited. To address this gap, we compile and publish a benchmark dataset of over 250,000 calls from 14 taxa, each paired with ground truth F0 values. These vocalisations range from infra-sounds to ultra-sounds, from high to low harmonicity, and some include non-linear phenomena. Testing different algorithms on these signals, we demonstrate the potential of neural networks for F0 estimation, even for taxa not seen in training, or when trained without labels. Also, to inform on the applicability of algorithms to analyse signals, we propose spectral measurements of F0 quality which correlate well with performance. While current performance results are not satisfying for all studied taxa, they suggest that deep learning could bring a more generic and reliable bioacoustic F0 tracker, helping the community to analyse vocalisations via their F0 contours.</p
Common scents? A review of potentially shared chemical signals in the order Carnivora
No full textMany animals transmit information in the form of chemical signals to modify behavior or induce physiological change in receivers. For some taxa, such as species in the order Carnivora, chemical signals are known to provide a critical mode of communication, although they are still poorly understood compared to other signal modalities. Here, we review the literature to identify and categorize potential chemical signals within the Carnivora with a view to determining commonalities based on sex, taxon, and function. Data were drawn from 112 publications, dating from 1896 to 2021. Of the 1,532 discrete chemicals identified, 169 were detected in > 5 species, with 58 found in ≥ 10 species. However, multiple different names were often used to report the same compound, reducing the transparency of the literature. Two hundred and fifty-two chemicals were identified as biomarkers, i.e. associated with specific behavioral contexts (dominance hierarchy, appeasement, agonistic, etc.) or specific demographic traits (age, sex, etc.). Few studies established a causal link between these biomarkers and behavioral or physiological changes, so only a few could be definitively described as behaviorally functional bioactive signals. We found high variability concerning which species, chemicals, and sources were represented in the literature, which could potentially lead to a perceptual bias in the relative importance of certain chemicals. Finally, we propose a method for standardized reporting of chemical signals and suggest that future work should focus on a more consistent expansion of the range of species, products, and chemical types analyzed so that the phylogenetic relationship of chemical signals across taxa can be determined.</p