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From plaster casts to picket lines: Public support for industrial action in the National Health Service in England
Get PDFData Availability Statement: Full replication data and code are available through the Harvard Dataverse, at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SZJSOF .This paper explores public sentiment towards strike action among healthcare workers, as a result of their perceived inadequate pay. By analysing survey data collected in England between 2022 and 2023, the study focuses on NHS nurses and junior doctors, due to their critical role in delivering essential public services. Results indicate higher public support for strikes by nurses and junior doctors compared to other professions such as postal workers, teachers, rail workers, airport workers, civil servants and university lecturers. However, variation in support for strikes by healthcare workers is observed across societal segments. Significant disparities in support are linked to individual political affiliations, left–right ideological positions and trust in the NHS. In short, nonconservative voters, individuals leaning towards left-wing politics and those with greater trust in the NHS demonstrate higher likelihoods of supporting strikes by health workers. These findings carry implications for future strike decisions and highlight specific target groups for enhanced communication efforts to garner increased public support.Economic and Social Research Council. Grant Number: ES/W011913/1;
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Grant Number: JPJSJRP2021170
Enforceability of solidarity in the European Union
Get PDFThis thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonFailure to cooperate and show solidarity in certain areas in the EU has created several problems within the Union. Solidarity is extremely important as the main purpose of the Union is for member states to be able to work together to achieve collective goals. Therefore, if there is a deficit in solidarity, then certain important goals of the Union cannot be accomplished. Along these lines, this thesis explores the concept of solidarity in the European Union. It traces the origins of solidarity and the motivations for solidarity within the Union. It then explores the various treaty provisions which provide for solidarity and cooperation within the Union and how the CJEU has interpreted them. It looks at solidarity in different areas including the area of Asylum, environmental protection, energy procurement, Common Defence & Arms Acquisition etc. Furthermore, it examines member states behavior in terms their compliance with decisions of the Court. Finally, it draws a comparison between solidarity at the Union level and the international level and provides recommendations in the conclusion
Fluid Antenna Array Enhanced Over-the-Air Computation
Get PDFOver-the-air computation (AirComp) has emerged as a promising technology for fast wireless data aggregation by harnessing the superposition property of wireless multiple-access channels. This paper investigates a fluid antenna (FA) array-enhanced AirComp system, employing the new degrees of freedom introduced by antenna movements. Specifically, we jointly optimize the transceiver design and antenna position vector (APV) to minimize the mean squared error (MSE) between target and estimated function values. To tackle the resulting highly non-convex problem, we adopt an alternating optimization technique to decompose it into three subproblems. These subproblems are then iteratively solved until convergence, leading to a locally optimal solution. Numerical results show that FA arrays with the proposed transceiver and APV design significantly outperform the traditional fixed-position antenna arrays in terms of MSE.Horizon Europe COVER Project (Grant Number: 101086228);
UKRI (Grant Number: EP/Y028031/1);
Horizon Europe Projects (Grant Number: COVER-101086228, UNITE-101129618 and INSTINCT-101139161);
ANR Projects NF-PERSEUS 22-PEFT-004 and PASSIONATE CHIST-ERA-22-WAI-04 (Grant Number: ANR-23-CHR4-0003-01)
Characterisation of mode-I fracture resistance of adhesive layers with imperfections
No full textSupplementary data are available on Brunelfigshare at: https://doi.org/10.17633/rd.brunel.25444726 [under a CC BY 4.0 license].In this work, a novel procedure to evaluate the influence of imperfections at the interface (such as voids and interfacial failure) on the fracture resistance of adhesive joints in mode-I debonding is proposed, based on an image-processing analysis of the crack surface. Its application to the characterisation of fracture resistance of aluminium DCB specimens bonded with an epoxy adhesive leads to a more accurate evaluation of the ‘effective’ fracture resistance by taking into account the distribution of imperfections along the interface, therefore also confirming that the typical oscillations and drops in the load–displacement curve can be attributed to the imperfections.TThis research is part of the project MOLAY-STRUDEL, funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement N. 701032
Correlation of Sea Surface Temperature and Bottom Water Temperature with the presence of Sperm Whales (Physeter macrocephalus) and Cuvier’s beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) in the NE Aegean Sea, Greece
No full textThe social and cooperative nature of dolphins is well documented, while little is reported on the behavioural and ecological factors driving group dynamics within subpopulations. Common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) are highly vocal animals, producing click trains, burst pulses and whistles. Previous studies have identified the importance of whistles for communication, but there is a lack of research on the ways group dynamics affect common dolphin vocalisations. This study investigates the different acoustic behaviour of the common dolphin subpopulation inhabiting the Southern waters of Samos Island in the Central Aegean Sea (Eastern Mediterranean Sea). This subpopulation of 51 individuals was divided using association analysis by gregariousness in SOCPROG. Results indicated 6 different clusters (modularity = 0.419) that could be differentiated within the subpopulation. The clusters ranged in size from 5 to 11 individuals. As per the acoustic
data, a total of 2,010 whistles were analysed and classified into different whistle types (Upsweep, Downsweep, Flat, Convex, Concave & Multiloop). A Chi-Square Test was used to identify the most common whistle type in each cluster. The most significant (p < 0.05) whistle types were Flat for Clusters 1 and 3, Upsweep for Clusters 2 and 4 and Downsweep for Clusters 5 and 6, indicating that different cluster formations impact the type of whistle produced. This may be linked with the strong fission-fusion bonds dolphins create for improved foraging, breeding, offspring protection and defence of territory and warrants further research.These preliminary results represent a baseline for further studies researching the correlation between social network
structures and habitat use in this study area. The subpopulation studied is one of the remaining strongholds for this endangered population and as such this research is extremely useful for cetacean management actions in the Aegean Sea
An efficient frequency-independent numerical method for computing the far-field pattern induced by polygonal obstacles
Get PDFMSC codes. 35J05, 78A45, 30E20, 65F20The first author’s research was supported by EPSRC grants EP/S01375X/1 and EP/V053868/1. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising to meet UKRI terms and conditions.. It is also is available at: arXiv:2310.17603v2 [math.NA], https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.17603.For problems of time-harmonic scattering by rational polygonal obstacles, embedding formulae express the far-field pattern induced by any incident plane wave in terms of the far-field patterns for a relatively small (frequency-independent) set of canonical incident angles. Although these remarkable formulae are exact in theory, here we demonstrate that (i) they are highly sensitive to numerical errors in practice, and (ii) direct calculation of the coefficients in these formulae may be impossible for particular sets of canonical incident angles, even in exact arithmetic. Only by overcoming these practical issues can embedding formulae provide a highly efficient approach to computing the far-field pattern induced by a large number of incident angles. Here we address challenges (i) and (ii), supporting our theory with numerical experiments. Challenge (i) is solved using techniques from computational complex analysis: we reformulate the embedding formula as a complex contour integral and prove that this is much less sensitive to numerical errors. In practice, this contour integral can be efficiently evaluated by residue calculus. Challenge (ii) is addressed using techniques from numerical linear algebra: we oversample, considering more canonical incident angles than are necessary, thus expanding the set of valid coefficient vectors. The coefficient vector can then be selected using either a least squares approach or column subset selection.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC): EP/S01375X/1, EP/V053868/1.
Funding: The first author’s research was supported by EPSRC grants EP/S01375X/1 and EP/V053868/1. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising
Recent Advances in 3D printing for in vitro cancer models
Get PDFThis paper is part of the special topic, Physics of 3D Printing.3D printing techniques allow for the precise placement of living cells, biological substances, and biochemical components, establishing themselves as a promising approach in bioengineering. Recently, 3D printing has been applied to develop human-relevant in vitro cancer models with highly controlled complexity and as a potential method for drug screening and disease modeling. Compared to 2D culture, 3D-printed in vitro cancer models more closely replicate the in vivo microenvironment. Additionally, they offer a reduction in the complexity and ethical issues associated with using in vivo animal models. This focused review discusses the relevance of 3D printing technologies and the applied cells and materials used in cutting-edge in vitro cancer models and microfluidic device systems. Future prospective solutions were discussed to establish 3D-printed in vitro models as reliable tools for drug screening and understanding cancer disease mechanisms.Brunel Research Interdisciplinary Labs (BRIL) and Brief Award (BRIEF
Functional shocks to inflation expectations and real interest rates and their macroeconomic effects
Get PDFJEL Classification: E31, E43, C32.This paper applies a recently developed method (Inoue and Rossi, 2021) to estimate functional inflation expectations and ex-ante real interest rate shocks, and then examines their macroeconomic effects in the context of a Functional Vector Autoregressive model with exogenous variables (Functional VARX). Monthly data from January 1998 to May 2023 for the US, the UK and the euro area are used for the analysis. The estimated impulse responses show significant effects of the functional shocks on both inflation and output. In addition, threshold functional local projections indicate that the effects are nonlinear and depend on central bank credibility. Further, inflation expectations shocks have similar effects to supply (demand) ones when they are driven by long-term (short-term) changes. In the presence of an inverted (steepening) real interest rate term structure, the effects are inflationary (deflationary) and expansionary (recessionary). Finally, the responses of inflation, output and the policy rate are driven primarily by the slope and curvature factors of the term structure shocks, which contain important information not captured by traditional scalar shocks
Normalizing flow based uncertainty estimation for deep regression analysis
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Data will be made available on request.Uncertainty estimation is a critical component of building safe and reliable machine learning models. Accurate estimation of uncertainties is essential for identifying and mitigating potential risks and ensuring that machine learning systems operate reliably in real-world scenarios. Various approaches, such as ensemble and Bayesian neural networks have been developed by sampling probability predictions from submodels, which is computationally expensive. At present, these techniques are incapable of precisely delineating the boundary separating in-distribution (ID) and out-of-distribution (OOD) data. To fill up this research gap, this paper presents a normalizing flow based framework to directly predict parameters of prior distributions over the probability with a neural network, the proposed model is able to effectively differentiate between ID and OOD data in regression problems. The posterior distributions learned by the model precisely represent uncertainties for OOD data based solely on ID data, without the need for OOD data during training. This approach has shown promising results in a number of applications, including image depth estimation and image adversarial attacks
Physical activity alters the effect of genetic determinants of adiposity on hypertension among individuals of European ancestry in the UKB
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Not applicable.Hypertension is a leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease and is modulated by genetic variants. This study aimed to assess the effect of obesity genetic liability and physical activity on hypertension among European and African ancestry individuals within the UK Biobank (UKB). Participants were 230 115 individuals of European ancestry and 3239 individuals of African ancestry from UKB. Genetic liability for obesity were estimated using previously published data including genetic variants and effect sizes for body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR) and waist circumference (WC) using Plink software. The outcome was defined as stage 2 hypertension (systolic blood pressure ≥ 140 mmHg, diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mmHg, or the use of anti-hypertensive medications). The association between obesity genetic liability and the outcome was assessed across categories of self-reported physical activity using logistic regression. Among European ancestry participants, there was up to a 1.2 greater odds of hypertension in individuals with high genetic liability and low physical activity compared to individuals with low genetic liability and high physical activity (p 0.05). This study suggests that higher physical activity levels are associated with lower odds of stage 2 hypertension among European ancestry individuals who carry high genetic liability for obesity. This cannot be inferred for individuals of African ancestry, possibly due to the low African ancestry sample size within the UKB.R.P. holds a fellowship supported by Rutherford Fund from Medical Research Council (MR/R026505/1 and MR/R026505/2). UKB genotyping was supported by the British Heart Foundation (grant SP/13/2/30111) for Large-scale comprehensive genotyping of UKB for cardiometabolic traits and diseases: UK CardioMetabolic Consortium
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