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High consistency of interest but not perseverance of effort is related to doping via moral disengagement: a cross-sectional study of grit
No full textGrit, defined as consistency of interest and perseverance of effort toward long-term goals, is the trait that allows individuals to persist despite adversity. The temptation to dope and moral disengagement can increase under competitive pressure, during injury recovery, and in high-performance situations. Research suggests grit can buffer moral dilemmas and may resist doping and moral disengagement, though its impact may vary by component. High consistency of interest may justify doping through moral disengagement due to strong commitment to long-term goals. Perseverance of effort, characterized by persistence despite obstacles, may reduce the likelihood of doping by enhancing resistance to moral disengagement. However, research on grit, moral disengagement, and doping is limited. We therefore examined whether the relationship between components of grit and doping is indirectly related to moral disengagement. This study involved Japanese athletes across various sports. We first translated the Moral Disengagement in Doping Scale (MDDS) into Japanese, confirming its reliability and single-factor structure with 445 participants (α = .87). We then had 561 competitive athletes complete the MDDS, Grit scale and prohibited substance (doping) use experience measures. Results revealed that a higher consistency of interest was associated with increased moral disengagement, which led to a higher possibility of doping. As direct effects, the Grit and its subscales showed significant negative effects on doping. These findings highlight the differential roles of grit components; high consistency of interest may be a risk factor for doping when mediated by moral disengagement, while perseverance of effort may serve as a protective factor
Exploring the landscape of genAI and education literature: A taxonomy of themes and sub‐themes
No full textThe research landscape surrounding Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and education is rapidly expanding, characterised by a dynamic array of themes and sub‐themes. This paper aims to construct a comprehensive taxonomy that categorises the current literature on the integration of GenAI in educational settings. To do so, a systematic analysis was conducted first, which filtered and selected 30 pieces of literature. Within this literature, 369 phrases were identified, which culminated in the development of 5 overarching themes and 38 sub‐themes. These themes within the systematic review ran parallel to a taxonomy that was developed from them, which subsequently revealed a tension between them. Emphasising an interpretivist approach, this research acknowledges the subjective nature of knowledge formation and interpretation, enhancing understanding of the complex interplay between GenAI and educational practices, with a predominant focus on GenAI in higher education. Unlike previous literature reviews, this paper presents a subsequent taxonomy derived from the systematic review, which holds an original narrative: that a critical tension exists between technical discussions of GenAI and the pedagogical realities faced by educators. This taxonomy presents evidence that supports a notion that the fledging field of ‘GenAI and education’ research has two developing strands: the technical and the pedagogical. Not only are these two strands of foci emerging within the literature, but there is also a growing disconnect or void between the two. Without addressing this almost ‘siloed’ growth, conversations about GenAI's role in education risk becoming overly abstract, lacking practical relevance for educators. By illuminating this tension, this research invites further exploration into how educators can navigate the evolving landscape of GenAI in their classrooms
Towards efficient and accessible geoparsing of UK local media: A benchmark dataset and LLM-based approach
No full textLocation mentions in local news are crucial for examining issues like spatial inequalities, news deserts, and the impact of media ownership on news diversity. However, while geoparsing—extracting and resolving location mentions—has advanced through statistical and deep learning methods, its use in local media studies remains limited and fragmented due to technical challenges and a lack of practical frameworks. To address these challenges, we identify key considerations for successful geoparsing and review spatially oriented local media studies, finding over-reliance on limited geospatial vocabularies, limited toponym disambiguation, and inadequate validation of methods. These findings underscore the need for adaptable and robust solutions, and recent advancements in fine-tuned Large Language Models (LLMs) for geoparsing offer a promising direction by simplifying technical implementation and excelling at understanding contextual nuances. However, their application to UK local media—marked by fine-grained geographies and colloquial place names—remains underexplored due to the absence of benchmark datasets. This gap hinders researchers’ ability to evaluate and refine geoparsing methods for this domain. To address this, we introduce the Local Media UK Geoparsing (LMUK-Geo) dataset, a hand-annotated corpus of UK local news articles designed to support the development and evaluation of geoparsing pipelines. We also propose an LLM-driven approach for toponym disambiguation that replaces fine-tuning with accessible prompt engineering. Using LMUK-Geo, we benchmark our approach against a fine-tuned method. Both perform well on the novel dataset: the fine-tuned model excels in minimising coordinate-error distances, while the prompt-based method offers a scalable alternative for district-level classification, particularly when relying on predictions agreed upon by multiple models. Our contributions establish a foundation for geoparsing local media, advancing methodological frameworks and practical tools to enable systematic and comparative research
The virtual concert-goer: Audience perspectives on remote music performances
No full textOur work explores how audiences perceive and engage with remote music events. The shift to digital platforms has transformed the live music experience, leading to the rise of remote music performances. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, platforms such as Twitch have been repurposed and surged in popularity as meaningful outlets for live music dissemination. Concurrently, novel platforms specifically crafted for music events have begun to emerge. Understanding the preferences and challenges of remote music audiences is crucial because it guides the development of platforms that effectively answer varied user needs, which could enhance overall engagement and shape the future of music consumption. For this, we employed a qualitative multi-method approach, including a survey, interviews, and event observations, to start mapping the design space of remote music performances and capture a wide spectrum of audience perspectives. Our findings reveal audience engagement patterns in remote music events across different digital platforms, highlighting unmet needs, desires as well as opportunities for future HCI work in this area
Sensitive near point-of-care detection of asymptomatic and submicroscopic Plasmodium falciparum infections in African endemic countries
No full textLimited diagnostic capacity for detecting asymptomatic malaria infections with low parasite densities hinders elimination efforts in Africa. Here, we adapt a near point-of-care, LAMP-based diagnostic platform for malaria diagnosis using capillary blood. This Pan/Pf detection method meets the Malaria Eradication Research Agenda (malERA) criteria for community-level screening, with a limit of detection of 0.6 parasites/μL and a sample-to-result time under 45 minutes. We evaluate its performance on 672 capillary blood samples collected at the community level in The Gambia and Burkina Faso, including 146 Plasmodium falciparum positives confirmed by qPCR. The diagnostic platform achieved 95.2% sensitivity (95% CI: 90.4–98.1) and 96.8% specificity (95% CI: 94.9–98.0). It also detected 94.9% (130/137) of asymptomatic infections and 95.3% (41/43) of submicroscopic cases (<16 parasites/μL), outperforming expert microscopy (70.1% and 0%) and rapid diagnostic tests (49.6% and 4.7%). This field-deployable molecular diagnostic method offers a sensitive, scalable solution to support test-and-treat strategies for malaria elimination across Africa
Dispute settlement in the AfCFTA investment protocol
No full textThe African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement 2018 and its Protocols are some of the most notable efforts by the African Union to improve economic integration in recent times. These instruments are timely because Africa has remained the weakest continent in the area of trade, investments and economic integration. Although, African States have previously concluded agreements to harmonise the domestic trade and investment policies for economic integration, it is expected that the Protocol to the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area on Investment 2023 (Investment Protocol) will have a more far-reaching impact. However, to achieve this, the available dispute settlement mechanisms must be adequate and perceived to be legitimate given the backlash against traditional investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), particularly investor-State arbitration. Accordingly, this article makes proposals for reform of ISDS rules and mechanisms for the Investment Protocol and concludes that these are crucial for economic integration in Africa
The Dis/appearing Sporting Body: The Complex Embodiment of Disabled Athletes
No full textThis article critically explores how disability appears and disappears in high-performance sporting environments. Drawing upon symbolic interactionism and embodiment theory, we specifically focus upon disabled athletes’ lived experiences of competing in a pan-disability setting and interrogate the interplay between corporeality and social interaction in the materialising of ability, disability and impairment. In this study, 22 (21 male and one female) disabled athletes participated in online semi-structured interviews. The sample was purposively selected from athletes who had been drafted for the Disability Premier League (DPL), a unique pan-disability, draft-based franchise cricket tournament. This article establishes the DPL as a site of sociological importance – a neo-liberal, ableist environment that pushes the boundaries of what a disabled athlete and the disabled body should be. Our wide-ranging findings demonstrate the complex and interactional ways in which the disabled body dis/appears in sporting spaces and the significant embodied repercussions of this process
Diagnosis and treatment of gestational non-epithelial ovarian cancer: A systematic review
No full textBackground/Aim: Ovarian cancer is categorized into epithelial ovarian cancer and non-epithelial ovarian cancer (NEOC), with NEOC accounting for approximately 10% of cases, predominantly affecting young women and adolescents. The incidence of gestational ovarian cancer is expected to rise in developed nations due to delayed childbearing. NEOC in pregnancy presents various risks, including spontaneous abortion, ventriculomegaly, respiratory distress, and maternal-fetal mortality. This review aims to evaluate the diagnostic tools and management strategies for early NEOC detection during pregnancy to improve maternal and fetal outcomes.
Materials and Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed and Embase, covering studies from January 2019 to January 2024. The search terms included “pregnan*” AND “non-epithelial ovarian cancer” AND “diagnos*” AND “manage*” to identify relevant studies. Only articles addressing the diagnosis and management of NEOC during pregnancy were included.
Results: Four relevant articles published between 2019 and 2021 were identified, reporting a total of 44 NEOC cases during pregnancy. In 34 of these cases, NEOC was diagnosed at International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage I, primarily through routine ultrasonography. Fertility-sparing unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (USO), often combined with adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy, was the standard treatment for stage I cases.
Conclusion: Currently, no standardized management guidelines exist for NEOC during pregnancy, due to factors such as FIGO staging, gestational age, and maternal preferences. Routine ultrasonography is effective for the early identification of NEOC, particularly in asymptomatic patients. For pregnant women with stage I NEOC who wish to continue their pregnancy and preserve fertility, fertility-sparing surgery with chemotherapy represents a promising treatment approach
Making up for lost time: University students' quest to reclaim missed opportunities while adjusting to post-COVID life in higher education
No full textA small-scale qualitative case study of students at a post-1992 university in England sought to understand the nuanced experiences of returning to face-to-face study following the pandemic. Whilst much has been written about the effects of studying online, much less is known about how students adapted once they returned to campus-based delivery. Specifically, the paper focuses on student motivations to pursue Higher Education, and the ways that they blended digital-learning habits learned during the pandemic with their experiences and demands of campus life in the immediate aftermath. This study expands on existing scholarship by detailing how students managed the isolation, loneliness, and disrupted ‘sense of belonging’ emerging from and during pandemic-related lockdowns and online learning. We show how students returned to campus delivery invigorated and eager to immerse themselves in real time pedagogic and extracurricular experiences. Notwithstanding the difficulties of adaptation, their hopeful narratives balance the findings of other studies that suggest students are struggling to re-engage with traditional modes of university delivery
More than a lucky break: disability, ambition, and a shifting theatre climate
No full textShifting diversity strategy has prompted new urgency to increase engagement with disabled people and added complexity in seeking and measuring authenticity in the theatre practice. Drawing on an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis study with actors self-defining as disabled people, this article expands on how intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences in theatre influence personal ambitions within, and for, the industry. It considers how actors interpret their career position and future alongside weighing authenticity in practice, whether progress to remove disabling barriers in theatre can be trusted as long-term. This article questions if a pause in business during the COVID-19 pandemic only added to precarity in the industry or offered necessary opportunity for increased disability engagement. The UK Disability Arts Alliance and its national #WeShallNotBeRemoved campaign are acknowledged as valuable, and actors’ lived experiences are shared as a route to more nuanced understanding of what is needed to move towards the sector’s equitable future