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Food Insecurity Among U.K. Veterans
Get PDFThis research compares food insecurity for U.K. veterans and nonveterans using the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 10-item Adult Food Security Survey Module (AFSSM) for a sample of 1,492 participants. We find 1 in 10 veterans are living in a food-insecure household but that veteran status is not related to food insecurity. In addition, income and housing benefits are correlated with food insecurity for veterans and for nonveterans, but disability benefits are correlated with food insecurity among veterans only. Specifically, veterans with disability benefits averaged 1.12 (95% confidence interval, [0.42, 1.82]) more points (indicating more food insecurity) on the AFFSM than veterans without those benefits. These findings raise concerns that low-income disabled veterans with housing needs are a unique population at risk of living in food insecurity. Given the absence of research on food insecurity among U.K. veterans, it is necessity to study this population in greater detail and implement screening protocols where possible
Speech Illusions in People at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis Linked to Clinical Outcome
Get PDFBACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS: Around 20% of people at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis later develop a psychotic disorder, but it is difficult to predict who this will be. We assessed the incidence of hearing speech (termed speech illusions [SIs]) in noise in CHR participants and examined whether this was associated with adverse clinical outcomes.
STUDY DESIGN: At baseline, 344 CHR participants and 67 healthy controls were presented with a computerized white noise task and asked whether they heard speech, and whether speech was neutral, affective, or whether they were uncertain about its valence. After 2 years, we assessed whether participants transitioned to psychosis, or remitted from the CHR state, and their functioning.
STUDY RESULTS: CHR participants had a lower sensitivity to the task. Logistic regression revealed that a bias towards hearing targets in stimuli was associated with remission status (OR = 0.21, P = 042). Conversely, hearing SIs with uncertain valence at baseline was associated with reduced likelihood of remission (OR = 7.72. P = .007). When we assessed only participants who did not take antipsychotic medication at baseline, the association between hearing SIs with uncertain valence at baseline and remission likelihood remained (OR = 7.61, P = .043) and this variable was additionally associated with a greater likelihood of transition to psychosis (OR = 5.34, P = .029).
CONCLUSIONS: In CHR individuals, a tendency to hear speech in noise, and uncertainty about the affective valence of this speech, is associated with adverse outcomes. This task could be used in a battery of cognitive markers to stratify CHR participants according to subsequent outcomes
Evaluating the effects of indoor air quality on teacher performance using artificial neural network
Get PDFPurpose: A building's Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) has a direct impact on the health and productivity on its occupants. Understanding the effects of IAQ in educational buildings is essential in both the design and construction phases for decision-makers. The purpose of this paper is to outline the impact air quality has on occupants' performance, especially teachers and students in educational settings. Design/methodology/approach: This study aims to evaluate the effects of IAQ on teachers' performances and to deliver air quality requirements to building information modelling-led school projects. The methodology of the research approach used a quasi-experiment through questionnaire surveys and physical measurements of indoor air parameters to associate correlation and deduction. A technical college building in Saudi Arabia was used for the case study. The study developed an artificial neural network (ANN) model to define and predict relationships between teachers' performance and IAQ. Findings: This paper contains a detailed investigation into the impact of IAQ via direct parameters (relative humidity, ventilation rates and carbon dioxide) on teacher performance. Research findings indicated an optimal relative humidity with 65%, ranging between 650 to 750 ppm of CO2, and 0.4 m/s ventilation rate. This ratio is considered optimum for both comfort and performance Originality/value: This paper focuses on teacher performance in Saudi Arabia and used ANN to define and predict the relationship between performance and IAQ. There are few studies that focus on teacher performance in Saudi Arabia and very few that use ANN in data analysis
Vortex Motions in the Solar Atmosphere: Definitions, Theory, Observations, and Modelling
Get PDFVortex flows, related to solar convective turbulent dynamics at granular scales and their interplay with magnetic fields within intergranular lanes, occur abundantly on the solar surface and in the atmosphere above. Their presence is revealed in high-resolution and high-cadence solar observations from the ground and from space and with state-of-the-art magnetoconvection simulations. Vortical flows exhibit complex characteristics and dynamics, excite a wide range of different waves, and couple different layers of the solar atmosphere, which facilitates the channeling and transfer of mass, momentum and energy from the solar surface up to the low corona. Here we provide a comprehensive review of documented research and new developments in theory, observations, and modelling of vortices over the past couple of decades after their observational discovery, including recent observations in Hα, innovative detection techniques, diverse hydrostatic modelling of waves and forefront magnetohydrodynamic simulations incorporating effects of a non-ideal plasma. It is the first systematic overview of solar vortex flows at granular scales, a field with a plethora of names for phenomena that exhibit similarities and differences and often interconnect and rely on the same physics. With the advent of the the 4-m Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope and the forthcoming European Solar Telescope, the ongoing Solar Orbiter mission, and the development of cutting-edge simulations, this review timely addresses the state-of-the-art on vortex flows and outlines both theoretical and observational future research directions
Investigating how the interaction between individual and circumstantial determinants influence the emergence of digital poverty: a post-pandemic survey among families with children in England
Get PDFThis paper explores Digital Poverty (DP) in England by adopting the DP Alliance’s theoretical framework that includes both Individual Determinants (individual capability and motivation) and Circumstantial Determinants (conditions of action). Such a framework is interpreted as an expression of Strong Structuration Theory (SST), by situating the connection between social structure and human agency in an intertwined relationship. We focus on new potential vulnerabilities that are connected to DP in England by drawing on a survey conducted on a randomised stratified sample (n = 1988) of parents aged between 20–55 with children at school. Exploring parents’ experience in the COVID-19 era, we identified economic factors and having children with disabilities as important predictors connected to Digital Poverty. Additional socio-demographic traits (such as age and education), parental status, lifestyles and digital behaviours also play a role in predicting some of the determinants linked to Digital Poverty. This paper adds to SST by empirically exploring how individuals use the Internet according to their metabolised embodiment of external determinants
Variegated Forms of Corporate Capture: The State, MNCs, and the Dark Side of Strategic Coupling
Get PDFMainstream literature on global value chains (GVCs) and global production networks (GPNs) has increasingly demonstrated how the state and political conjunctures play a central role in strategic coupling. Nonetheless, scholarly attention still remains on the role of firms and their strategies. By focusing on firms, GVC and GPN scholars often underestimate the influence that non-firm actors such as the state have on strategic coupling, especially concerning its negative development implicationsits “dark side”. To contribute to this literature, this article proposes an approach and research agenda to examine how processes of corporate capture evolve via strategic coupling. This approach is based on the interplay of three variables: the strategic selectivity of states; the strategic action of firms; and states' predominant mode of insertion into GPNs. I argue that corporate capture is much more common and variegated in capitalist states and consequently in strategic coupling than often assumed in mainstream literature
Predictive modeling of indoor dust lead concentrations: Sources, risks, and benefits of intervention
Get PDFLead (Pb) contamination continues to contribute to world-wide morbidity in all countries, particularly low- and middle-income countries. Despite its continued widespread adverse effects on global populations, particularly children, accurate prediction of elevated household dust Pb and the potential implications of simple, low-cost household interventions at national and global scales have been lacking. A global dataset (∼40 countries, n = 1951) of community sourced household dust samples were used to predict whether indoor dust was elevated in Pb, expanding on recent work in the United States (U.S.). Binned housing age category alone was a significant (p < 0.01) predictor of elevated dust Pb, but only generated effective predictive accuracy for England and Australia (sensitivity of ∼80%), similar to previous results in the U.S. This likely reflects comparable Pb pollution legacies between these three countries, particularly with residential Pb paint. The heterogeneity associated with Pb pollution at a global scale complicates the predictive accuracy of our model, which is lower for countries outside England, the U.S., and Australia. This is likely due to differing environmental Pb regulations, sources, and the paucity of dust samples available outside of these three countries. In England, the U.S., and Australia, simple, low-cost household intervention strategies such as vacuuming and wet mopping could conservatively save 70 billion USD within a four-year period based on our model. Globally, up to 1.68 trillion USD could be saved with improved predictive modeling and primary intervention to reduce harmful exposure to Pb dust sources
Beyond knowledge exchange: doctoral training, collaborative research and reflective pedagogies in human geography
Get PDFThis paper examines the pedagogies of collaborative doctoral education. Collaborative doctoral studentships link the academy to wider societal concerns and aim to address unease about employability post-PhD. Dominant discourses of collaboration by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and its associated research councils, give primacy to importance of knowledge exchange within doctoral education. By drawing on my own experiences of undertaking a collaborative studentship this paper articulates the benefits of a reflective pedagogical approach to collaborative studentships. This reflective pedagogy is both a way in which collective aims are potentially accomplished and an opportunity to understand more about the institutions, systems and environments in which the research relationship is embedded. This approach resonates with participatory geographies literature and this body of work can be drawn on to support collaborative students to explore the relational dynamics of the research process and reflect on the role of the university. A reflective approach highlights the importance of the relationships that are produced through collaborative research and it is by attending to these relationships that collaborative students can understand more about the inner socio-political worlds of both the academy and their non-academic partners
Co‐curation: Archival interventions and voluntary sector records
Get PDFThere is a growing trend across the social sciences to engage with archives. Within Human Geography this has stimulated a debate about the nature of archives, including moving from considering ‘archive as source’ to ‘archive as subject’. We build on and extend this thinking, suggesting that an even more active appreciation of the dynamic nature of relationships between researchers, owners of records, and archival material is needed. This paper draws on an interdisciplinary study of voluntary action and welfare provision in England in the 1940s and 2010s to highlight how the different iterative processes involved in collaborative archival research are part of what we call co-curation. Co-curation involves the negotiated identification, selection, preparation, and interpretation of archival materials. This has implications for both research processes and outcomes
Do Investment Fund Managers Behave Rationally in the Light of Central Bank Communication? Survey Evidence from Poland
Get PDFPurpose: This study aims to answer the question whether investment funds managers exhibit behavioural biases in their investment decisions. Furthermore, it investigates if fund managers, as a group of institutional investors, make decisions in response to central bank’s communication as well as other information in relation to various behavioural inclinations.
Methodology: A comprehensive study was conducted based on a questionnaire, which is composed of three main parts exploring: (1) General information about the funds under the management of the surveyed group of fund managers, (2) Factors that influence the investment process with an emphasis on the National Bank of Poland (NBP) communication and (3) Behavioural inclinations of the surveyed group. In the first step, Cronbach Alpha statistic was applied for measuring the reliability of the survey questionnaire and then chi-squared test was used to investigate the relationship between the answers provided in the survey.
Findings: The central bank’s communication matters for investors, but its impact on their decisions appears to be only moderate. Interest rates were found to be the most important announcements for investment fund managers. The stock market was the most popular market segment where the investments were made. The ultra-short time horizon played no, or only small, role in the surveyed fund managers’ decisions as most of them invested in a longer 1-5 years horizon. Moreover, most respondents declared that they considered in their decisions the information about market expectations published in the media. Finally, majority of the fund managers manifested limited rationality and were subject to behavioural biases, but the decisions and behavioural inclinations were independent and, in most cases, they did not influence each other.
Originality: Apart from the commonly tested behavioural biases in the group of institutional investors in the existing literature, such as loss aversion, disposition effect or overconfidence etc., we focus in this paper also on the less intensively analysed behavioural inclinations, i.e. framing, illusion of the control, representativeness, sunk cost effect and fast thinking. The originality of this study further lies in the way the research was conducted through interviews with fund managers, who were found to be subject to behavioural biases, although those behavioural inclinations did not influence their investment decisions. This finding indicates that professionalism and collectivism in the group of institutional investors protect them from irrationality.
Practical implications: The results reported in this study can be used in practice to better understand and to improve the fund managers’ decision-making processes