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Multimodal pain assessment with transformers
No full textPain assessment is a critical challenge in healthcare, requiring accurate and objective measurement to enhance patient care. Traditional methods rely on subjective self-reporting, which lacks reliability, particularly for patients with communication difficulties. This work presents PainFusion+, a multimodal transformer architecture for pain assessment that integrates physiological signals and facial expressions to improve pain assessment accuracy. For physiological signals, our approach first employs convolutional neural networks to extract local patterns from short signal fragments, capturing essential pain-related features. These localized representations are then processed by a transformer encoder, which models long-range dependencies to form a comprehensive global representation. For facial video data, we leverage a frozen video transformer to extract expressive features without requiring fine-tuning, significantly reducing computational costs. Finally, both feature spaces are fused using a transformer encoder, allowing effective cross-modal learning. Experiments on publicly available datasets demonstrate that PainFusion+ outperforms existing models. In biomedical signal processing, our method achieves over a 16 % improvement in accuracy. For multimodal pain estimation, it achieves 35.40 % accuracy on the BioVid dataset, setting a new state-of-the-art benchmark
Thanatourism in London and the Metropolitan Imaginary
No full textThanatourism is often seen as a modern phenomenon. In contrast, this chapter shows that it was a leading feature of the guidebooks to London in the eighteenth century. With this representation as a framework, it uses a case study of London thanatourism over the period since 1700 to explore the shaping of the imaginary of the metropolis. In the process, it also offers a groundbreaking typology of thanatourism as a phenomenon
Navigating Immobility: Crisis of Movement and Subversive Strategies
No full textMigration, often regarded primarily as a spatial occurrence, is fundamentally a temporal experience, embodying the concept of immobility or temporal disbelonging as elucidated by Shahram Khosravi. This paper delves into the crisis of immobility inherent in human mobility, taking varied forms shaped by governmentality aimed at impeding movement. The manifestations include waiting for asylum application processing, indefinite waits at borders attempting unauthorized crossings into countries likely to reject entry, waiting in camps, or awaiting rescue during distress at sea.
The paper emphasizes the urgency to deconstruct the prevailing hegemonic discourse on migration, portraying it as an uncontrollable crisis necessitating a stringent response often entailing increased border enforcement and militarization. This discourse is criticized for lacking common sense, as a true crisis, if existing, would have been resolved, preventing further loss of lives. The imperative to resist this misleading narrative is underscored.
Focusing on practices of resistance to temporal immobility amid migration crises, the paper examines the experiences of Mediterranean border crossers, known as Harraga or border burners. These individuals depart North African shores for Europe via perilous routes. The analysis centers on Instagram and TikTok videos posted by these travellers, accused of glamorizing their hazardous journey. Contrary to this accusation, the paper interprets these videos as attempts to counter narratives of scapegoating and alarmism perpetuated by security-focused discourse and crisis policies
Orientalist Animation: Ma Liang and His Magic Paintbrush
No full textThis chapter examines the incremental transformation of the animated character Ma Liang from a strong, politically-conscious character who acts decisively against class enemies into a mild-mannered, introspective character who fights tyranny only when there is no alternative. In doing so, it traces the movement of Ma Liang from the discursive realm of 1950s socialist China into the English-language discourses of late-twentieth century capitalist countries. The chapter firstly contextualizes the production of an animated Ma Liang in the 1950s, as part of efforts by the young PRC to construct a new socialist culture. It secondly examines English-language literary adaptations of the 1950s Ma Liang in order to understand how this character’s socialist past came to be concealed and how he became a character in a timeless, orientalist folktale. Finally, this chapter examines two English-language animations which followed these literary adaptations, showing how they present Ma Liang as an introspective, unconfrontational character who paints according to his inner feelings rather than a political cause. In this way, a resolute class warrior of socialist cultural production was repackaged for North American and European audiences as a reluctant hero of pre-modern Chinese folklore
Towards Zero-Emission Urban Logistics: Public Sector Roles, Policy Mix and Public-Private Collaboration in Europe and Japan
No full textEating clean, feeling broken: A qualitative meta-synthesis of the lived experience of orthorexia nervosa
No full textOrthorexia nervosa refers to a pathological obsession with healthy eating, yet its classification, causes, and clinical relevance remain contested. This qualitative meta-synthesis explores the lived experiences of individuals with orthorexic behaviors to better understand the psychological, social, and cultural dynamics that sustain this condition. Drawing on thematic synthesis of 16 peer-reviewed, qualitative studies, three major themes emerged: (1) Origins and Motivations for Orthorexic Behavior, highlighting the role of perfectionism, identity, and sociocultural ideals; (2) The Orthorexic Experience and Its Consequences, illustrating the emotional, physical, and social costs of rigid dietary practices; and (3) Individual's Perspectives on Orthorexia as a Disorder, revealing ambivalence toward diagnosis, conceptual confusion, and overlaps with other eating disorders. Findings suggest that orthorexia serves both as a personal coping strategy and a moralized performance of health shaped by contemporary wellness culture. The synthesis reveals how orthorexic behaviors are often normalized, socially reinforced, and deeply tied to individual identity—rendering recognition and recovery particularly challenging. Rather than advocating for diagnostic categorization, this study highlights how orthorexic practices are embedded in broader cultural narratives around health, control, and morality
The Guardian: Does getting cold increase your chances of catching flu?
No full texthttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/05/does-getting-cold-increase-your-chances-of-catching-fl
Using stories in Accounting Education to create belonging
No full textWe draw on our experience of teaching across practice, professional education and higher education to highlight how stories can transform learning experiences and foster belonging with the classroom. We will share some of the stories we have used and the reasons we have used them. We make the case that storytelling and narrative are central to human understanding and sense making.
Social Media and the Dual Role of Lawyers from Supporting Human Rights to Activism in the 2019 Algerian Hirak
No full textThis thesis explores the dual role of Algerian lawyers, both as legal professionals and political activists, during the 2019 Hirak movement. It pays particular attention to their strategic use of social media. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach, the study combines qualitative semi-structured interviews and content analysis with quantitative survey data, engaging twenty-one lawyers from various Algerian regions. The research is grounded in a multi-theoretical framework encompassing Critical Internet Theory, Social Movement Theory, Fanon’s decolonial lens, Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory, Marxist analysis, Critical Legal Studies, and Legal Mobilisation Theory. The study investigates how digital tools shape legal advocacy, political expression and professional identity in a repressive political context, by means of this framework. The findings reveal that social media platforms, especially Facebook and WhatsApp, served as vital instruments for legal coordination, rights-based discourse, and public engagement, allowing lawyers to challenge state narratives and disseminate legal knowledge. These digital practices blurred the boundaries between traditional legal professionalism and activism, as lawyers evolved from fulfilling professional duties to embracing ideological and moral missions grounded in historical resistance and cultural identity. Participants reported escalating government repression, including censorship, surveillance, and arrests, underscoring the risks inherent in digital legal activism. The study also highlights regional and generational diversity among lawyers, illustrating how local histories and familial legacies informed their commitment to justice and human rights. While social media has empowered legal mobilisation, it also exposed lawyers to ethical dilemmas, professional tensions and systemic surveillance. This research contributes to current understandings of the intersection between law, digital media and social movements. It offers insights into how legal professionals can act as agents of change under government control. It further provides practical and theoretical recommendations for integrating digital advocacy into legal education, strengthening protections for lawyer-activists, and supporting civil society in politically constrained environments. Ultimately, the thesis offers a critical re-evaluation of the legal profession’s role in resisting political oppression, demonstrating how social media has redefined both the possibilities and perils of legal activism in the digital age