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Learning mechanisms influencing infants’ early socio-pragmatic abilities
No full textAdvanced pragmatic skills are hypothesized to depend on early experience of interaction. However, we do not yet fully understand the causal pathways involved. In the current study, we explored one potential early learning mechanism by assessing whether increasing caregiver responsiveness to infant communication in turn promotes infants’ pre-linguistic communicative acts. In the first wave of a larger randomized controlled trial study, when their infants were around six months old, carers were randomly assigned to either a communication intervention or an active control intervention focused on physical health. When infants turned 12 months, home videos (N = 125, 64 active control intervention, 61 communication intervention) were analysed for infant pre-linguistic acts, and caregiver responses to infant pre-linguistic communication. We also examined whether these variables varied by socio-economic circumstances. Pre-registered analyses indicated that the intervention led to increases in infant communicative acts and caregiver semantically contingent responses to infant communicative behaviours. This indicates that the experience of communicating with a responsive caregiver has a causal effect on the development of the infant’s pre-linguistic pragmatic skills that are thought to provide the basis for later language, pragmatics and Theory of Mind.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘At the heart of human communication: new views on the complex relationship between pragmatics and Theory of Mind’
The statistical advantages of Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy for estimating intersectional inequalities
No full textMultilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) is a multilevel regression approach grounded in intersectionality theory. It examines inequalities across intersections of social identities (e.g., gender, ethnicity, class) and is argued to provide more accurate predictions of intersectional means than conventional methods that estimate group means directly or via regressions with all interactions. This study evaluates that claim using analytic expressions and an empirical illustration to compare simple and MAIHDA-predicted means against population values. Predictive accuracy is assessed via variance, correlation, bias, and mean squared error. Results show that MAIHDA estimates generally outperform simple means, particularly when decomposing intersectional means into additive and non-additive identity effects. The magnitude of the advantage depends on inequality patterns and group sample sizes. MAIHDA is especially valuable when inequalities are subtle or data for marginalized intersections are sparse—conditions common in practice. These findings highlight MAIHDA's practical relevance for quantitative intersectionality research
WS04.05Faecal colorectal cancer-associated toxins in adults with cystic fibrosis: preliminary analysis
No full textArchetypes of the Implementation of Ecosystem Service Approaches in Business Organisations: A Meta‐Analysis
No full textHumanity is dependent on ecosystems and the services they provide, yet unprecedented biodiversity decline continues. Ecosystem service (ES) and natural capital approaches offer a promising framing of the relationship between organisations and ecosystems, although not enough literature exists on their implementation and implications. We analysed 125 case studies from 81 companies to understand how the implementation of ES approaches aligns with the theory. Thematic and archetypal analysis of the data highlights that the implementation of ES approaches can help organisations contribute to ecosystem restoration, but only if implementation encompasses actions and monitoring, is collaborative and is adopted at scale. Our contribution is threefold. First, we provide new empirical evidence of ES approaches used by corporations. Second, we analyse the translation of theory into practice and identify areas for improvement. Third, we use archetypal analysis to discern patterns of implementation of ES approaches in corporate sustainability
Prevalence of comorbidity amongst people with palmoplantar pustulosis:A systematic review and meta-analysis
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Contextual factors in systematic reviews:understanding public health interventions in low socioeconomic status and disadvantaged populations
No full textBACKGROUND: Evaluations of public health interventions require an understanding of the contextual factors that shape their effectiveness. Context (including socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental factors) plays a critical role in establishing how interventions achieve impact, why outcomes can vary and whether the interventions of interest can be translated from one context to another. This overview explores the extent to which systematic reviews of public health interventions for low-income or low socioeconomic status (SES) populations report contextual factors influencing outcomes. METHODS: Systematic reviews were identified through a scoping review and updated searches in March 2023. Reviews focused on interventions targeting smoking, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and harmful alcohol use in disadvantaged groups. Reviews were screened for eligibility, and data were extracted on contextual factors related to intervention implementation and effectiveness. Data were synthesised using a framework approach, categorising findings by behaviour and level of intervention. RESULTS: Applying a very broad definition of context, 29 of 86 identified reviews provided some degree of contextual data which varied across interventions but was largely restricted to intervention implementation and delivery factors. For example, environmental characteristics, such as crime and perceived personal safety, affected the use of physical activity infrastructure in disadvantaged areas. Food voucher schemes had mixed results, with social and economic factors affecting their use and effectiveness. However, most reviews lacked sufficient reporting on contextual data, limiting conclusions on the role of context in intervention outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Contextual factors are often underreported in systematic reviews of public health interventions targeting disadvantaged populations. Such underreporting is likely to be similar in other areas of public health. This limits policymakers' ability to adapt interventions to specific settings. Improved reporting and consideration of context in systematic reviews are needed to ensure that interventions are appropriately tailored to the needs of low-income and low SES groups
Predicting pore-carrier solubility and size-exclusivity towards the rational design of type II porous liquid solutions
No full textPorous liquids are a sub-class of porous materials that combine permanent porosity, typically associated with solids, with the fluidity and fast mass-transfer capabilities of liquids, making them ideal candidates for gas storage and separation applications. One strategy to form porous liquids is the dissolution of discrete and permanently porous molecular species at relatively high concentrations in cavity-excluded solvents, thus introducing permanent porosity into the liquid in which it is dissolved and ensuring a solution of reasonable porosity is obtained. To access high-performance porous liquids for target applications, the selection of both the porous molecular species and the cavity-excluded solvent is key to ensuring the solvent is permanently excluded and the pore carrier is highly soluble. Finding new solvents that fit both these requirements is challenging, often resulting in a trial-and-error approach. While predictive data-driven models may be attractive, the youth of the porous liquid field currently limits the availability of data necessary to train robust models. Here, we present a computational workflow for the discovery of new porous liquid solutions combining solubility prediction software and a size-exclusivity prediction algorithm that correctly predicts size-exclusivity; this is followed by experimental validation with a representative system. Our workflow yielded size-excluded solvent and soluble porous organic cage pairs, leading to the realisation of a new porous liquid with enhanced methane uptake compared to previous systems discovered in a purely experimental high-throughput brute-force manner, highlighting the advantages of incorporating a computational workflow in the discovery of new porous liquids
Reflection Maps Associated with Involutions and Factorization Problems, and Their Poisson Geometry
No full textThe study of the set-theoretic solutions of the reflection equation, also known as reflection maps, is closely related to that of the Yang–Baxter maps. In this work, we construct reflection maps on various geometrical objects, associated with factorization problems on rational loop groups and involutions. We show that such reflection maps are smoothly conjugate to the composite of permutation maps, with corresponding reduced Yang–Baxter maps. In the case when the reduced Yang–Baxter maps are independent of parameters, the latter are just braiding operators. We also study the symplectic and Poisson geometry of such reflection maps. In a special case, the factorization problems are associated with the collision of N-solitons of the n-Manakov system with a boundary, and in this context, the N-body polarization reflection map is a symplectomorphism
Using digital ethnography to research embodied information practices on social media
No full textIntroduction. This paper discusses the use of digital ethnography to research the embodied information practices of ultrarunners. The paper considers the challenges of digital ethnography and explores how embodied and immersive methods could bring the body into digital ethnography.
Method. Digital ethnographic methods have been used as part of ongoing research exploring how ultrarunners use the affordances of social media to share embodied information. Participant observation and interviews have been the main methods of data collection.
Discussion. Embodied information can present challenges for the researcher as it is information which is difficult to access beyond the moment of practice. Reflection on use of digital ethnography has highlighted the importance of methods which bring the body into research.
Conclusions. Turning to sensory, embodied and immersive methods can support deeper understanding of embodied information practices. The paper highlights the value of ongoing reflection on methodological issues to address the challenges of researching embodied information