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Urban life matters: The heterogeneous effects of on-demand bike-sharing platforms on urban public transit
Get PDFOn-demand sharing economy platforms have redefined access to goods and services, transforming consumption patterns and mobility dynamics. In the context of transportation, the rise of on-demand micro-mobility platforms has reshaped urban life by offering flexible and sustainable mobility options. Among these, bike-sharing platforms have emerged as the most significant micro-mobility system, impacting public transit systems widely in almost all cities. Particularly, this study examines the heterogeneous impacts of bike-sharing platform entry on city bus ridership across U.S. cities by using a difference-in-differences framework with fixed effects. We find that the introduction of bike-sharing platforms, on average, substitutes for city bus ridership. However, our analysis of heterogeneity reveals that this effect varies across cities depending on key urban life related factors, such as city infrastructure and demographic factors. Specifically, bike-sharing platforms substitute for bus trips in bike-friendly cities but complement bus transit in more pedestrian-friendly cities. Bike-sharing platforms also tend to substitute for bus trips in cities with relatively well-developed but not overly extensive transit systems. Stronger complementary effects are observed in cities with longer average bus trip distances, as well as in medium and large cities compared to very large cities. Our findings contribute to the literature on sharing economy platforms and urban transit by highlighting how city-level characteristics shape the relationship between bike-sharing and public transportation. The study provides valuable insights for platform owners and urban planners within city transit networks
Disruptive Journeys: Multi-Sited Archives of ‘Invasion’ and the Everyday
No full textThis article uses print and associated visual media to investigate the sensationalist reportage of, and the local responses to, a transnational journey undertaken over a century ago. Referred to at the time as the ‘German Gipsy Invasion’, this was a widely reported and highly debated journey of German Roma and Sinti across the UK. The exploration of the media coverage of this event provides a way to geographically and narratively track the activities and local interactions undertaken within a temporary and high-profile migration. It also enables the exploration of domestic, locale-specific discourses around migration, spectacle and the everyday. This paper seeks to explore how, and where, the event was documented in order to explore how it was remembered and later archived. It asks how a perceived spectacle, and the memory of that spectacle, is subsumed into the everydayness of place
Mitotoxic effects of the melanin-concentrating hormone receptor 1 (MCHr1) antagonist AZD1979 are influenced by mitochondrial DNA variation in HepG2 cybrids
No full textAZD1979 is a melanin-concentrating hormone receptor 1 (MCHr1) antagonist, which was developed for obesity treatment, but clinical development was halted due to unanticipated liver toxicity. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation influences hepatic energy metabolism and may underlie individual susceptibility to drug-induced mitotoxicity. Transmitochondrial cybrids offer a model to assess the impact of mtDNA variation on drug response against a constant nuclear background. This study assessed the mitotoxic potential of AZD1979 in HepG2 wild-type (WT) cells and HepG2 transmitochondrial cybrids representing distinct mtDNA haplogroups from the H and J haplogroup lineages. A 2-hour acute metabolic switch assay was performed in HepG2 WT cells and transmitochondrial cybrids to identify mitochondrial toxicity, with confirmatory Seahorse extracellular flux analysis. AZD1979 was identified as a potent mitotoxicant in HepG2 WT cells, inducing mitochondrial dysfunction prior to cell death. AZD1979 caused reductions in basal respiration, ATP-linked respiration, and spare respiratory capacity, and inhibited complex I-driven respiration. Cybrids displayed haplogroup-specific differences in susceptibility. Haplogroup J2b1g showed the highest sensitivity, while J1c1e, despite lacking spare respiratory capacity, was less susceptible. These findings highlight the role of mtDNA in shaping individual responses to mitochondrial toxicants and that transmitochondrial cybrid models could support early assessment of mitochondrial liability
A digital framework for estuarine stratigraphy: an example of a machine learning approach to paleo-environmental classification and coastal evolution
No full textEstuarine successions are globally significant stratigraphic archives, fundamental to understanding coastal evolution, assessing petroleum and groundwater reservoirs, and evaluating carbon storage potential. Yet, their interpretation remains hindered by facies heterogeneity and interpretive subjectivity. This study establishes a new digital framework for estuarine sedimentology by integrating high-resolution core analysis with a machine learning–based sediment classification system (Automated Prediction of Environments using Grain Size: APEGS). Applied to Holocene successions from the River Esk arm of the Ravenglass Estuary (northwest England) and trained on 482 modern reference samples, the workflow objectively discriminates six depositional sub-environments—salt marsh, mud flat, mixed flat, sand flat, tidal bar, and tidal inlet/north foreshore—with reproducibility beyond the reach of lithostratigraphic approaches. The results resolve vertical and lateral facies variability at unprecedented precision, capturing transgressive and highstand infilling phases and revealing tide-dominated early Holocene conditions when the current inner estuary was directly connected to the sea. The method establishes a transferable analytical protocol with international applicability across marginal-marine successions, offering a step-change in the quantitative reconstruction of coastal evolution. By replacing subjectivity in facies classification with a reproducible, scalable, and globally transferable digital toolset, this research sets a new benchmark for the stratigraphic interpretation of estuaries. Its methodological innovation directly informs depositional modelling, resource evaluation, and climate adaptation strategies
Historical Droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771–1981)
Get PDFBelize, located on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan peninsula, is increasingly vulnerable to hydroclimatic hazards such as droughts, which have caused widespread agricultural losses, water shortages, and economic disruption in recent years. Despite these risks, long-term climate reconstructions for the country remain lacking. This study presents the first documentary-based reconstruction of droughts in British colonial Belize from 1771 to 1981, using a diverse body of unpublished and published sources including newspapers, missionary letters, agricultural reports, and early instrumental records. Droughts were identified through both direct meteorological references and indirect evidence such as crop failures, forest fires, and water scarcity, and were classified by severity and confidence levels. Results show that droughts were more frequent, longer, and more severe in the northern districts. The wetter southern districts experienced fewer and less intense droughts. Instrumental data partially corroborate the documentary findings, but also reveal key discrepancies, particularly for the pre-20th-century period. Comparison with drought records from the Mexican Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala, and the Caribbean suggests some regionally synchronous events, alongside droughts that appear specific to Belize. By extending the climate record back two centuries, this study provides critical historical context for current and future drought trends in Belize and the wider region. It highlights the importance of combining documentary and instrumental sources to assess long-term climate variability in data-scarce tropical environments and contributes to broader efforts to understand past climate extremes in the context of growing climate risk
Observation of the Rare Baryonic Decay B+ →p Λ ¯ and Measurement of its Weak Decay Parameter
No full textThe first observation of the decay B+→pΛ¯ is presented using proton-proton collision data collected by the LHCb experiment between 2016 and 2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb-1. The signal significance exceeds seven standard deviations. Using the B+→KS0π+ decay as a normalization channel, the branching fraction is measured and combined with previous LHCb results based on data collected at 7 and 8 TeV in 2011 and 2012, yielding B(B+→pΛ¯)=(1.24±0.17±0.05±0.03)×10-7, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is systematic, and the third comes from the uncertainty on the branching fraction of the normalization channel. The B+→pΛ¯ weak decay parameter is measured to be αB=0.87-0.29+0.26±0.09, indicating the presence of comparable S-wave and P-wave decay amplitudes
Project guests? Temporal modes of employment and strategic HRM in project-based organizations
Get PDFHRM and employment practices have mainly been studied in organizations performing relatively routine work, even if the work is only of a temporary nature and/or outsourced to external service providers. Although project-based work and employment have become commonplace, how modes of employment are formed and managed in more temporary, complex and dynamic organizational forms like project-based organizations (PBOs) is less well understood and addressed in HR architecture theory. This research examines how different temporal modes of employment have developed due to the structural characteristics of projects and the HR strategies of PBOs. Following a practice-based perspective, this research examines four PBOs in the Iranian and Scottish oil and gas industry drawing on primary data collected through semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation along with secondary data. The findings reveal a spectrum of modes of employment and related HRM practices in contemporary PBOs, which require high commitment to a project and/or the PBO, thus moving beyond the traditional dichotomy of temporary or permanent employment. We use the metaphor of project ‘guests’ to reflect the varying degrees of temporariness to project employment. While guests do not stay permanently, the duration of their stay may differ considerably. The findings enable contributions to the extension of HR architecture theory to PBOs and generate practice implications for a growing number of other dynamically configuring organizations
Family income trajectories and adverse outcomes in late adolescence: Evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study
No full textBackground: Low family income and poverty are linked to adverse outcomes in childhood and adolescence. However, the role of early-life family income trajectories in shaping late-adolescence outcomes remains unclear. Methods: Using longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study and group-based trajectory modelling, we construct family income trajectories from infancy to early adolescence. We investigate associations of these trajectories with overweight/obesity, underachievement of GCSE educational qualifications, habitual smoking, socio-emotional behavioural problems, and cognitive impairment at age 17, using logistic and ordered logistic regressions, adjusting for confounders. An optimal trajectory is defined as one that does not significantly increase risk for any outcome and reduces risk for some. This optimal trajectory is used as the reference for estimating average marginal effects, ratios of average risk, and population attributable fractions. Results: We identify four income trajectories: low (46.0%), lower-middle (34.2%), upper-middle (15.6%), and high-declining (4.1%), with the upper-middle trajectory being optimal. Compared with this trajectory, the low and lower-middle trajectories show higher risk of GCSE underachievement. The low trajectory additionally shows higher risk of smoking and socio-emotional behavioural problems. The high-declining trajectory, with declining income after the 2007–08 financial crisis, shows higher risk of smoking. Discussion: Early-life income trajectories shape adolescent health and development. Most UK children experience non-optimal trajectories, which are linked to multiple adverse outcomes by age 17. Sustained policy efforts could help mitigate income-related inequalities in adolescent development across high-income countries
Unpacking the micro-regeneration of alley corners in Guangzhou: an urban design governance perspective
Get PDFLittle is known about how design interventions are delivered in public spaces at the neighbourhood level in China’s micro-regeneration practices. Alley corners, which are often a focus of the regeneration, remain understudied. Adopting a qualitative approach, this paper examines alley corners in two historic urban neighbourhoods of Guangzhou to explore how design governance can best support public space quality in regeneration. The research demonstrates that more innovative approaches to community engagement in design governance are needed to revitalize overlooked corners as inviting public spaces for residents. This paper contributes to understanding micro-regeneration practices through a novel design governance perspective
Pandemic Geographies of Home: Domestic Thresholding in Response to COVID-19
No full textWith the home at the forefront of political and public health responses to COVID-19, the thresholds between domestic space and the world beyond acquired a new significance in people's everyday lives. Whilst pre-pandemic research stressed the porosity of domestic thresholds and the capacity of home to stretch beyond domestic space, ‘stay home’ directives and lockdown restrictions demarcated home as a place of containment, separation and immobility at the height of the pandemic. By analysing interviews conducted with adults in London and Liverpool and maps drawn by children and young people throughout the United Kingdom, this paper introduces the concept of ‘thresholding’ to address three key questions: How were domestic thresholds secured, crossed and remade during the COVID-19 pandemic? How were people's everyday lives in pandemic times mediated by internal and external domestic thresholding practices? What are the wider implications for understanding geographies of home during and beyond the pandemic? We argue that the enhanced significance of domestic thresholds in pandemic times was materialised and embodied through new, reworked and more labour-intensive thresholding practices. We reveal not only the changing relational dynamics of homespaces during lockdown, but also how people's everyday lives continued to be shaped in varied and uneven ways by the world beyond, as well as within, domestic space. The concept of thresholding reframes the relational spatialities of home by foregrounding the ways in which internal and external thresholds are understood and materialised through embodied practice
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