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‘I’m taking the Costa Brava plane’: affluent British workers’ holidays to Spain in the 1950s and 1960s
No full textFrom the 1950s, millions of newly affluent British workers began to holiday abroad for the first time with the majority travelling to Spain. We enjoy no detailed social and cultural history of this transformation which turned Spain into a major site for British social history. But studying this history can help us re-think our understanding of both affluent workers and tourists while enriching Spanish tourism history and British social history. To do this the article focuses on the life narratives of early British mass tourists and how holidays became linked to their sense of personal development and framed around joy in overcoming fear, benefiting from new opportunities, demonstrating personal adaptability, and experiencing personal growth. In this way, it shifts the debate on affluent workers from concerns around income and status to considering how leisure and holidays became linked to consumerism as identity making and the forging of meaning. It also highlights the importance of understanding tourists historically and within their own life narratives. This helps shift the Spanish historiography on tourism from the effects of tourism to the tourist experience and opens up a new field of agency and experience to British social history
Micro-explosion and recycling of an iron-ethanol-kerosene slurry fuel
No full textMetallic iron is explored as a dual-purpose energy carrier and material feedstock by formulating a kerosene-based iron–ethanol slurry that serves both as a micro-explosive fuel where each droplet undergoes rapid internal bubble growth and fragments into many smaller droplets and as a source of recyclable iron. Single-droplet combustion experiments (with 30 wt% iron particles in kerosene + 5 wt% ethanol) demonstrate novel micro-explosion-driven combustion behavior. The addition of ethanol markedly enhances combustion, nearly quadrupling the burning rate and halving the burnout time compared to kerosene alone. Iron particle size is shown to govern the combustion mode: micron-scale iron produces intense, disruptive micro-explosions (with droplet fragmentation rates up to ∼20,000 sec⁻¹) leading to complete burnout in as little as 0.3 s, whereas nano-iron yields more controlled burning (∼1,700 sec⁻¹). Crucially, the hydrocarbon slurry provides an in-situ antioxidant effect, in the sense that the surrounding kerosene liquid acts as a protective barrier that separates the iron particles from oxygen, delaying iron oxidation during combustion and enabling non-oxidative storage of the metal fuel. Following combustion, over 90% of the iron oxide byproduct is recovered and regenerated into metallic iron via hydrogen reduction. The reduced iron is then compacted by Field-Assisted Sintering Technology (FAST), yielding dense iron compacts with fine microstructure and a Vickers hardness of ∼165 HV approximately twice that of conventional pure iron (70–90 HV). This integrated combustion–reduction–sintering cycle highlights a circular iron loop in which the fuel itself becomes a high-value product. The findings showcase a sustainable, energy-efficient metal fuel platform that couples fire-driven micro-explosion phenomena with advanced materials processing, pointing to new opportunities in carbon-free combustion, functional material fabrication, and pyrotechnic applications
Organisational justice in online harms management in UK police services: enacting a feminist ethics of care
No full textThis article presents a novel integration of two theoretical concepts traditionally examined and applied separately in policing scholarship: feminist ethics of care and organisational justice. Drawing from pioneering empirical work on online harms management in UK police organisations, we analyse 52 interviews with managerial personnel from four partner forces to problematise the emphasis on organisational reputation in online harms management. By applying a feminist ethics of care lens, we theorise and demonstrate how care-based principles, such as attentiveness, relationality, and contextual responsiveness, can underpin organisationally just management strategies in practice. We propose embedding networks of care structures and dependencies within police organisations and advancing a politics of care to enhance perceptions of organisational justice among police personnel, while ensuring managerial officers are supported in and through their care relations. This theoretical integration offers new visions and actionable approaches to care which empowers police personnel and potentially translates into wider public good through more democratic policing. Our policy-oriented recommendations for online harms management are generalisable to international policing contexts and other public-facing professions beyond policing
An exploration of patient and family carers’ views of dietary intervention for psychosis care and management
No full textPsychosis greatly impacts affected individuals and their families. Current pharmacological treatments are not fully efficacious and are associated with a range of metabolic side-effects. As a result, patients and their families seek alternative interventions, including managing their diet. Psychosis treatment guidelines recommend dietetic support as part of psychosis treatment, however this has not become embedded within routine practice. The aim of this study was to determine the views of patients and their families on the value of dietary intervention in their psychosis care and management. Study participants (n = 14) were either accessing psychosis treatment services (n = 8) or were familial carers (n = 6). Data were collected via individual semi-structured interviews and were thematically analysed resulting in four themes: 1) ‘What constitutes a healthy diet?’, 2) ‘The connection between diet, the brain and symptoms’, 3) ‘Empowerment gained from finding my own self-management strategies’ and 4) ‘How we envision dietary management for psychosis’. Findings suggest participants would value having access to a diet intervention to aid their management of psychosis, delivered by knowledgeable health care practitioners within mental health services. Participants wanted the dietary intervention to be evidence-based, accessible and have outcomes which including improved dietary knowledge and skills. The principal recommendation following this research is to further develop a dietary intervention for psychosis care and management that is co-designed with health staff, people with psychosis and their familial carers, mental health service commissioners and academics responsible for educating health care practitioners' curricula
Dry season feeding profiles of a Characiformes assemblage in a Brazilian tropical stream
No full textTrophic interactions between fish and their resources depends on resource availability and interspecific competition. To understand dry season trophic profiles of a speciose Characiformes assemblage we performed stomach content analysis to describe diet and determine levels of niche partitioning and morphological adaptations among eight Characiformes species in the dry season in Mata de Itamacaoca, Chapadinha Municipality, State of Maranhão, northeastern Brazil. Insectivory dominated most diets, with Astyanax cf. bimaculatus and Characidium cf. bimaculatum exhibiting the broadest niches. Specialization occurred in Curimatopsis cf. cryptica (85.07% plant material) and there was significant dietary segregation with indicator species analysis linking Astyanax cf. bimaculatus to piscivory and Knodus guajajara to vermivory. Pianka index showed extreme niche overlap variations, with the highest overlap between Bario oligolepis and Characidium cf. bimaculatum (1.68), and between Astyanax cf. bimaculatus and Nannostomus beckfordi (1.64). Morphological PCA associated traits with feeding strategies: caudal fin length (Astyanax cf. bimaculatus), body depth (Curimatopsis cf. cryptica), and oral gape width (Bario oligolepis). Mixed models confirmed insects and plant material with a marginally significant effect as key drivers of dietary variation. Therefore, the assemblage shows high niche overlap combined with diverse trophic profiles. Results presented here demonstrate how dry season resource scarcity promotes trophic divergence via morphological specialization, with generalists (Astyanax cf. bimaculatus) coexisting with specialists through niche partitioning, which is critical for conservation in this threatened urban-protected area
Cosmographic footprints of dynamical dark energy
No full textWe introduce a novel cosmographic framework to trace the late-time kinematics of the Universe without assuming any underlying dynamics. The method relies on generalized Padé (2, 1) expansions around arbitrary pivot redshifts, which, compared to state-of-the-art calculations, reduce truncation errors by up to two orders of magnitude at high redshift and yield more precise constraints by defining cosmographic parameters exactly where the data lie. This avoids extrapolations, mitigates degeneracies, and enables a clean disentangling of their effects. Using the latest low-redshift datasets, we center the generalized expansion in multiple bins across z ∈ [0, 1] and obtain precise constraints on the redshift evolution of cosmographic parameters. We find that all key parameters deviate from their ΛCDM predictions in a redshift-dependent way that can be naturally explained within dynamical dark energy scenarios. The deceleration parameter q(z) follows a redshift evolution consistent with the Chevallier–Polarski–Linder (CPL) parameterization, while the generalized Om(z) diagnostic shows deviations of up to ∼4σ from the constant ΛCDM expectation, closely matching the CPL predictions. Taken together, these results point to footprints of dynamical dark energy in the kinematics of the Universe at z ≲ 1
Slavery, the French Revolution and Condorcet’s Childhood Argument
No full textIn a 1781 book on why slavery ought to be abolished, Condorcet argued that the enslaved were not fit to enjoy liberty, because, like children, they were not capable of handling it without harming others or themselves. The Childhood Argument was also used by Condorcet’s opponents, the anti-abolitionist members of the Club Massiac, and a version of it was adopted by the Legislative Assembly when they proposed it in May 1791. I will suggest that the argument depends on a loophole in the republican thought that was popular during the French revolution: although republicans argued that one could not be free if one was dominated, they also believed – as many of us still do – that children should be dominated
Discrimination in the Local Welfare State
No full textR (LL and AU) v Trafford Metropolitan Council [2025] EWHC 2380 (Admin) represents the most comprehensive judicial scrutiny of a local welfare scheme to date. The claimants succeeded on all grounds: Trafford's Council Tax Reduction Scheme was unlawfully adopted, breached the Public Sector Equality Duty, was irrational, and contravened ss.15 and 19 of the Equality Act 2010. Trafford illustrates the broader public law challenges posed by the localisation of council tax support since 2013. Instead of one national benefit, there are now 296 separate means-tested schemes operating across England. With each having its own eligibility criteria and administration, the risks of unlawful, discriminatory, and irrational decision-making are considerable. This case comment argues that Trafford illustrates how the localisation of council tax support generates risks that outweigh its purported benefits and adds further weight to the argument that council tax support should be restored as a national benefit
Future heatwave conditions inhibit CO2-induced stomatal closure in wheat
No full textAs global temperatures and the severity of droughts continue to increase, food crops will more frequently experience high vapour pressure deficit (VPD) during heatwave events. However, the interactive effects of rising atmospheric CO2 and high-VPD heatwaves on crop water fluxes and yields are currently unknown.
We investigate stomatal, photosynthetic and productivity changes in wheat during simulated future high-VPD heatwaves, under ambient (450 ppm) or elevated (720 ppm) CO2 concentrations, across four N-fertiliser treatments. We measured the physiological response of abaxial and adaxial leaf surfaces to elevated CO2 concentration and/or high-VPD heatwave exposure, and quantified drought responses, seasonal water usage and ear weight.
Transpiration (E) and stomatal conductance (gsw) increased during high-VPD heatwaves (irrespective of CO2 concentration or N-fertiliser), largely due to increased water fluxes from abaxial leaf surfaces. Higher E and water usage increased wheat vulnerability to drought and led to reduced total ear weight. High-VPD heatwaves also hindered stomatal responses to light, with gsw only reducing by 37–38% after 1 h of dark treatment.
Our results show that wheat stomata are inhibited from closing under future high CO2, high-VPD heatwave conditions. This has considerable implications for future wheat water requirements, which in-turn could significantly impact drought susceptibility and yield potential