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Across landscapes and lifespan: causes and solutions of gender-based violence from survivors of sexual violence against women and girls (VAWG)
Get PDFViolence Against Women and Girls in public spaces has become a focus for violence prevention policy since the murder of Sarah Everard but is this how survivors experience VAWG? This study listened to survivors as part of Safer Spaces funded research. We report on qualitative data in the context of a review of policy and practice across one UK region. 13 survivors took part in online focus groups, safeguarded within a specialist sexual violence support service (SARSAS). Thematic analysis highlighted a discrepancy of policy and survivors’ perception of safety and spaces as well as the social inequality framing of cause and prevention. Survivors solutions focused on education and prevention. This dissonance of approaches was most acute in survivors experiences of the criminal justice and policing systems and raised examples of how survivors saw their own vulnerability making them both a target but also a less credible victim. The findings are set within contextual area statistics of a justice gap which suggest only 0.5% of rapes result in a conviction. Survivors in this study are clear about what they need from services and recommendations using the existing evidence base are summarised
A qualitative study to inform a parental education intervention for unintentional child injury prevention in rural Nepal
No full textIntroduction: Unintentional home injuries are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children under five in Nepal, particularly in rural areas. Despite this burden, culturally appropriate community-based prevention strategies remain limited. This study explored community perspectives to inform the design and delivery of a parental education intervention for childhood home injury prevention.Methods: A qualitative study was conducted in Sunkoshi Rural Municipality, Sindhupalchok District, in December 2024. Seven focus group discussions were held with 56 mothers of preschool-aged children, and 11 key informant interviews were conducted with Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs), health-facility in-charges, a school health nurse, and local government officials. Data were analysed thematically using NVivo 14, guided by the Health Belief Model.Results: Five major themes were identified: (1) Perceived household hazards and common child injuries, (2) Behaviours leading to child injuries, (3) Barriers and facilitators for prevention, (4) Prevention and control practices, and (5) Design and delivery of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials. Burns and falls were the most frequently reported injuries, often resulting from unsafe cooking areas, open fires, and poor supervision. Barriers to prevention included limited parental awareness, competing household priorities, and unsafe home environments, whereas community cooperation and FCHV support acted as facilitators. Participants favoured simple, visual, and low-cost educational materials, such as posters, flipcharts, and videos, delivered through participatory group discussions led by FCHVs.Conclusion: Parents and community stakeholders demonstrated strong interest in home injury prevention education. Embedding culturally tailored parental education within existing community health platforms, particularly FCHVs and mothers’ groups, represents a feasible, scalable, and sustainable approach to reducing childhood injuries in rural Nepal
PV2ES-BiRTM: Variational auto encoder sampling-based deep learning framework for emotion recognition from speech signals
No full textSpeech emotions are crucial for enabling the interactions between humans and machines, as well as for assisting in evaluating the emotional state of individuals. The techniques implemented for the emotional recognition established better detection, but could be liable to vulnerabilities regarding the accuracy, computational efficiency, understanding of spectral features, and multi-class classifications. To overcome such limitations, the research proposes a Perceptive Vulpus variational Autoencoder sampled Bidirectional recurrent long short-term memory (PV2ES-BiRTM) framework that delivers accurate recognition through an encoder-decoder system. The method utilized a variational autoencoder (VAE) that generated samples with an understanding of the latent space representations. The preprocessing minimized the complexities with the reduction of non-stationary noises, and the Mel Spectral Chromo frequency transform (MSCFT) improved the performance with the extraction of composite time-domain and spectral features. The Perceptive Vulpus Acclimate Search Optimization Algorithm (PVuAS) is incorporated to tune the hyperparameters, leading to the robust classification of multiple emotional classes. Furthermore, the model is compared against the prevailing methods, which exhibit effective performance, having a Positive predictive value of 0.974, a Negative predictive value of 0.969, and a Matthew’s correlation coefficient of 0.945
“That’s the dream, right?”: Reflections on the co-design of an environmental digital twin by flood risk management professionals
Get PDFA Digital Twin (DT) dynamically represents the near-real-time status of a system, allowing users to visualise its current and forecasted status, and test interventions. Emerging technologies, such as DTs, could be transformative for working practices in environmental risk management. However, the development of DTs for environmental management and disaster risk reduction involves extensive challenges. Within Flood Risk Management (FRM), this process is complicated by the involvement of multiple professional stakeholders with diverse statutory responsibilities, priorities, and needs. There is also no formal method for the design of DTs or established method of accounting for end user needs. Processes tend to be top-down and technology driven, rather than bottom-up and user focused. This paper presents one of the first attempts to explore user co-design within the development of a DT. It stems from FLOODTWIN - an interdisciplinary DT demonstrator project for FRM in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire (United Kingdom), a region with complex, compound flood risk. Using data from participatory workshops and interviews, we explore the project’s co-creation process with professional FRM stakeholders, mapping emerging opportunities and challenges in the development of DTs and their interfaces from a qualitative, ethnographic perspective. We reflect on the diverse perspectives of professional users, how they engage with emerging technologies, the politics of data-sharing, and the role of academic research in shaping future development of DTs in FRM practice. We present a new evidence-base to inform future research on the co-creation of digital tools in multi-agency decision-making for FRM and wider environmental management. The paper proposes a research planning framework for navigating co-design processes in future projects to develop environmental DTs. In so doing, the paper also illustrates ways in which sub-optimal water risk management is socially constructed, and not merely a technical challenge to be surmounted
Systemic spillovers in high-growth private market sectors: Determinants and portfolio implications
Get PDFThis study investigates the systematic spillover dynamics across high-growth private market sectors and their key drivers, with particular emphasis on portfolio diversification implications. Using a time-varying parameter vector autoregression framework, we document substantial and persistent return spillovers, with AI, HealthTech, FinTech, and Mobility Tech acting as dominant transmitters, and AgTech, BioPharma, ClimateTech, and Cybersecurity serving primarily as receivers. Spillover intensity peaks during post-pandemic capital inflows and green policy expansions, and declines during monetary tightening and geopolitical shocks. Employing robust regression and eXplainable AI approaches, we identify short-term interest rates, trade policy uncertainty, and geopolitical risk as the most influential determinants of connectedness. Portfolio tests show that minimum correlation and connectedness strategies outperform minimum variance portfolios, achieving higher risk-adjusted returns and better tail-risk protection. Our results provide new insights into the structural dynamics of high-growth private markets and offer a practical framework for spillover-aware asset allocation
Index of landscape conservation for urban nature-based solutions. A methodological shift and proof-of-concept
Get PDFUrbanisation disrupts ecosystem functions and alters landscape conservation. The literature stresses the role of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in cities in preserving and restoring these functions. However, the relationship between NbS and urban landscape conservation remains underexplored, and dedicated metrics to assess the effectiveness of NbS within the urban landscape mosaic require further research. In response to this gap, this study introduces a methodological shift through a novel spatially explicit framework that recalibrates the Index of Landscape Conservation (ILC). The framework enables scenario-based projection of NbS interventions, tailored to the hybrid nature of urban ecosystems. This approach was tested in a developed urban district (Lyde Green, South Gloucestershire, UK), where the ILC was applied at the scale of a minimum Homogeneous Urban Unit (HUU). Findings show the effectiveness of the ILC framework to capture the conservation status of the urban landscape; the analysed HUU achieved an ILC value of 0.49, corresponding to a medium level of conservation. Scenario modelling revealed that paving private gardens could lower the ILC to 0.39 (i.e., low-level), whereas installing green roofs on 50 % of built-up areas could raise it to 0.53 (i.e., high-level). These findings show that the ILC framework can be a robust and adaptable tool for planners and decision-makers, supporting early-stage scenario discussions and spatial prioritisation of NbS tailored to land-cover characteristics. The research concludes by outlining limitations and future studies on the methodological and operational developments of the ILC framework
Corrigendum: Interpretation guidance for MHRA regulatory considerations for phage therapeutic products
Get PDFCorrection to Interpretation guidance for MHRA regulatory considerations for phage therapeutic product
Incorporating spirituality into occupational therapy practice: A Scoping Review
Get PDFBackground: Spirituality is increasingly recognised as a vital component of health and well-being yet, there is a lack of clarity about how it is implemented in occupational therapy practice. This scoping review aimed to synthesise evidence on how spirituality is incorporated into occupational therapy practice and barriers and facilitators influencing this processMethod: Guided by the PRISMA-SCR PubMed, EBSCOhost, Scopus and Web of Sciences were searched for studies published in English from 2007 to 2024 that reported on ways which spirituality was incorporated into occupational therapy practice. Two reviewers independently screened all retrieved studies. data were exxtreacted and analysed descriptively.Results: Of the 385 identified studies, 10 met the inclusion criteria. Spirituality was incorporated into occupational therapy practice through steps of the occupationalo therapy process (evaluation, intervention) and therapeutic use of self. Barriers included therapists' limited knowledge, cultural sensitivity conceerns, and systemic contrainsts, while faciitators included therapist agency and service-user receptivity.Conclusion: Despite the barriers highlighted in the review, occupational therapists incorporate spirituality into practice mainly through the occupational therapy process. There are significant inconsistencies in addressing spiriitual needs throughout the process, with no studies reporting outcomes. Research on how occupational therapists integrate spirituality in practice remains limited.Implications for practice: This study identified two keyways in which occupational therapists incorporate spirituality into their practice: through the occupational therapy process and the therapeutic use of self. These findings represent a significant step toward deepening the exploration of spirituality within occupational therapy practice and research. In the African context where spirituality is often deeply embedded in cultural, social, and personal life this study offers a strong foundation for advancing both practice and scholarship in this area. Moreover, the study clearly illuminates the barriers and facilitators to integrating spirituality in contemporary occupational therapy. The identification of these factors at individual, organisational, and systemic levels assert the need for context-sensitive strategies to support meaningful integration. The review reported the lack of research from the African region, and this highlights the importance of further research that is culturally aligned with African worldviews, spiritual traditions and practice settings or systems
Exploring science with children from under-represented groups through Minecraft Clubs: Insights from a decade of practice
No full textThe Science Hunters programme engages children from under-represented groups with science, technology, engineering, and maths using the popular computer game Minecraft. Through a series of projects dating back to 2015, Science Hunters has delivered eight ‘Minecraft Clubs’ for children with Special Educational Needs, care-experienced children, and children in low socioeconomic status areas. Science concepts are used as themes to build around, rather than the key focus of the activity, which is communal gameplay and having fun. Delivery has been developed through reflective practice, which is drawn upon to extract key takeaways for engaging children from specific groups with science outside of traditional settings
Microbial communities in semi-mature oak trees are resilient to drought, nutrient limitation, and pathogen challenge
No full textGlobal forest biomes face increasing stressors and disease outbreaks that threaten ecosystem health. Tree-associated microbiota are vital for tree resilience, yet their responses to biotic and abiotic stressors in mature trees remain poorly understood. Using an experimental woodland plot of 144 Quercus petraea trees subjected to drought (rain exclusion), nutrient stress (ringbarking), and biotic treatments (bacterial pathogens and beetle larvae) to simulate acute oak decline, we tracked microbial communities in leaf, stem, and root/rhizosphere tissues across four time points over 2 years. Oak trees hosted distinct microbial communities across tissue types, which remained largely stable under stress. Rain exclusion significantly altered microbiota composition, though these changes explained less than 1% of total variance. Actinobacteriota, linked to drought tolerance, increased in the root/rhizosphere of rain-excluded trees. These findings reveal a surprising resilience of oak-associated microbial communities to environmental and biotic disturbances, highlighting their potential role in forest ecosystem stability