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Building and boosting capitals for health care access: a qualitative study of homeless health peer advocacy in London, UK
No full textPeer support is widely promoted as enabling health care access with people experiencing homelessness, including through enabling independence, empowering individuals and managing stigma. However, there is little understanding of these processes, including how they relate to the wide range of potential activities involved in peer support. We studied peer support within a peer advocacy service at a charity run by and for people experiencing homelessness in London, UK. We report analysis from a sub-set of qualitative interviews and focus groups gathered for a qualitative study of peer advocacy. We include interviews that offered insight to particular cases of peer advocacy. These interviews came from 23 clients of the service, 6 peer advocates, 1 staff member and 2 stakeholders. We drew on Bourdieu's theory of capitals to develop a typology of different ways peer support works. The findings focus on reporting three types of experiences: where peer support builds cultural health capital amongst service clients, boosts cultural health capital, social and economic capital, and third, where boosting social and economic capital are priorities. The discussion considers how the analysis helps conceptualise processes of peer support with respect to empowerment, independence and stigma management
‘Better sleep, better wellbeing’: qualitative process evaluation of a hybrid, digital cognitive behavioural therapy programme for employees with sleep and emotion regulation problems
No full textIntroduction
Sleep and mental health problems are common across the working adult population. This process evaluation provides insight into the experiences of employees who took part in a digital intervention trial: Supporting Employees with Insomnia and Emotional Regulation Problems (SLEEP). The programme combined digital CBT for insomnia with emotion regulation. Digital content was supported by remote therapy. The objectives of this process evaluation were to explore participants' experiences of the intervention, and identify how the intervention achieved change.
Methods
Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted using videoconferencing. A stratified sample of participants from within each of five cohorts of the SLEEP trial was interviewed. Thematic analysis utilized a collaborative codebook and framework approach. To conceptualize mechanisms of change, behaviour change techniques were retrospectively coded onto participant interview data.
Results
An overarching theme: ‘Better sleep, better wellbeing’ was generated, with three interlinking themes conceptualizing the process by which positive changes to sleep and wellbeing were achieved. These were: ‘Procedure: The value of therapy sessions versus digital-only’, ‘Context: Working on mental health from home during COVID-19’, and ‘Mechanisms: Practice, feedback and problem solving.’
Conclusions
Participants' experiences of SLEEP were predominantly positive and suggested a spillover effect of improved sleep on overall wellbeing. Triangulation of quantitative outcomes showed congruent improvements. Maintaining therapist contact to facilitate behaviour change throughout the programme was important. Furthermore, providing a private space for therapist calls was essential to facilitate the intervention in the workplace; an important insight for the development of digital mental health interventions intended for the workplace
Acoustic assessment of lithium-ion batteries: Unravelling temperature and charge contributions
No full textLithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are critical for renewable energy storage, and accurate charge and health estimation remains a significant challenge. Acoustic sensing offers a unique method to observe lithium-ion movement between electrodes during battery operation. However, both the charge state and the internal temperature of the battery affect the acoustic response. This study systematically investigates the interactions between temperature and charge state on acoustic signals through a novel thermal cycle methodology. Using a global sensitivity analysis, we demonstrate that temperature has a non-negligible and dominant effect on the acoustic signal, with a largely insignificant cooperative interaction with charge state. The results reveal temperature-induced variations in the acoustic signal that increase with charge level, though not uniformly. Our findings underscore the critical importance of temperature compensation in acoustic-based LIB estimation techniques. By quantifying the independent and cooperative effects of temperature and charge, this research provides the possibility of independently measuring thermal and SOC effects on the acoustic signal without the need for additional thermal sensing equipment
Informality in architectural heritage: A conceptual framework for inclusive conservation practice
No full textThe role of informality in architectural heritage conservation has remained underexplored despite its increasing significance in urban governance and community-led preservation. This study develops a conceptual framework to define and analyse informality within the context of tangible cultural heritage. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from architecture, urban planning, and anthropology, the paper addresses the lack of theoretical clarity and empirical grounding in existing conservation literature. Using a systematic literature review of 24 peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2025, the research identifies key attributes, such as adaptability, non-regulation, political negotiation, and community agency. It maps these across four dimensions: informal actors, practices, spaces, and governance. The findings underscore that the informal practices, often excluded from formal frameworks, play a crucial role in sustaining architectural heritage, especially in regions with limited institutional capacity. These practices include grassroots-led maintenance, vernacular adaptation, and public participation in decision-making. The study proposes an inclusive, bottom-up model integrating informal actors and practices with formal conservation policies. It advocates for institutional recognition of community contributions, development of capacity-building initiatives, and flexible policy design to accommodate informal dynamics. The proposed framework aims to support more sustainable, inclusive, and locally grounded approaches to heritage conservation, particularly relevant in urban areas of the Global South
Extinction, Cut-Up:Species Revival and Literary Ecomodernism
No full textThis article examines the fantasies of species revival through the lens of William Burroughs’s literary ecomodernism—a characterization tied to his practice of the cut-up, and expanded through a reading of his late novella Ghost of Chance (1991). The first section traces Burroughs’s connection to the interdisciplinary cultures surrounding the Whole Earth Catalog (1968–71) and CoEvolution Quarterly (1974–85). The second reads de-extinction’s dreams of genetic agency through the lens of the cut-up, which helps to understand the implications of DNA’s linguistic analogy for species revival. The final section reads Ghost of Chance as a satirically misanthropic vision of species resurrection
A Data-Limit Account of Release From Masking During Speech-on-Speech Listening
No full textSpeech-on-speech listening involves selectively attending to a target talker while ignoring a simultaneous competing talker. Spatially separating the talkers improves performance, a phenomenon known as spatial release from masking (spatial RM). The same is true of spectral separation, that is, filtering the talkers into non-overlapping frequency bands (spectral RM). The relative benefit of spatial versus spectral RM is currently unknown. Furthermore, it is unclear how listeners’ ability to exploit spatial versus spectral cues is related to individual differences in cognition. The resource-limit account suggests that cognitive resources are required to support the processing of degraded speech, implying the strongest cognition/performance relationship when RM is limited or absent. However, an alternative claim, referred to as the data-limit account, suggests that cognitive resources cease to be useful when the target is severely degraded. In this study, participants (N = 240) completed a selective listening task in which they transcribed the speech of one of two simultaneously presented talkers. The speech was filtered into interleaved or overlapping frequency bands (spectral RM vs. no spectral RM) and presented dichotically or collocated (a proxy for spatial RM vs. no spatial RM). A battery of cognitive tasks was administered to assess working memory/attention. Spectral RM provided at least as much benefit as spatial RM, with the best performance when both RM types were present. Cognitive scores were significantly positively correlated with RM benefits. However, the weakest correlation between cognitive scores and performance was observed in the no-RM condition. The results therefore support an account of speech-on-speech listening that lies on a continuum from data-limited to resource-limited processing as a function of the quality of the target speech signal
Algal reorganization in post-crisis early Triassic oceans revealed by biomarker evidence
No full textThe end-Permian mass extinction (EPME) fundamentally reshaped marine ecosystems. However, the long-term response of eukaryotic algae, a key foundation for marine primary production, is poorly understood. To address this limited knowledge, we determine the long-term change in algal communities using molecular fossil steranes. We use samples that span the uppermost Permian to the Lower Triassic from sections that were located in Boreal Sea (Sverdrup Basin, Arctic Canada) as well as the tropical Tethys (Xiakou, South China), and complement these new data with published datasets. Sterane to hopane ratios, reflecting the relative contribution of eukaryotic algal to bacterial sources, vary in absolute values between sites but show no significant decrease in the earliest Griesbachian compared to the pre-crisis Permian. However, Early Triassic ratios changed dramatically. In the Sverdrup Basin, they were stable during the Griesbachian and, following an interval where both hopane and sterane concentrations diminished, became much higher in the late Spathian. This confirms suggestions that there was a major decline in algal productivity after the EPME that may have delayed recovery. Sterane C28/C29 ratios, which monitor algal composition, increase at the EPME level in Meishan and are generally higher in the rest of the Early Triassic in the Sverdrup Basin and Chaohu. The increase shows that algae that preferentially produce C28 over C29 sterols were thriving, possibly including those predominant in modern oceans. It further implies a reorganized marine algal community–apparently in the tropics and in the post-crisis interval in the Boreal realm. Our findings suggest that instead of a simple collapse and recovery, the Early Triassic saw a complicated reorganisation for algae
Large language models for clinical trials in the Global South: opportunities and ethical challenges
No full textLarge language models (LLMs) show promise for improving clinical trials in wealthy countries but remain underexplored in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where healthcare infrastructure is weaker and resources limited. This article explores opportunities for LLM integration and addresses ethical challenges in LMIC clinical trials through a review of recent literature (2024–2025) on LLMs in healthcare and clinical research, examining adaptation potential for LMICs using thematic analysis to identify ethical issues specific to LMIC contexts, including data control, fairness, and sustainability. LLMs can accelerate protocol development, improve multilingual patient recruitment, streamline regulatory processes, and address data gaps through synthetic records; however, implementation raises concerns about data privacy, community representation, AI transparency, and technological dependence on foreign platforms. While LLMs can enhance clinical trial efficiency and inclusivity in LMICs, successful integration requires locally-adapted models, community-centered ethical oversight, and regional partnerships, with thoughtful implementation potentially democratizing healthcare innovation benefits across Global South populations
