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Carbon Markets in Africa: A Justice Perspective for Sustainable Development
No full textThis study argues that carbon emissions trading arrangements in sub-Saharan Africa, and by extension the Global South, do not foster sustainable development as required under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. By applying a Rawlsian notion of justice, particularly the difference principle, and extensively analysing available research, we identify such justice concerns. We assert that to achieve equitable outcomes, carbon markets should align with the Rawlsian difference principle of justice to promote sustainable development. Furthermore, by embracing the principles of operationalisation for carbon markets, established by the PA, we argue that States in the SSA can address many of the pitfalls and injustices created by earlier approaches to carbon markets in Africa. We also contend that incorporating the interests of the least advantaged party in the carbon trading arrangement is essential for achieving sustainable development and global climate action. If the carbon market practices in SSA fail to advance sustainable development, the objectives of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement will not be realised. Adopting principles of Article 6 will accentuate justice, sustainable development, environmental integrity, and climate action in African carbon markets
A Self-Adaptive Digital Twin Architecture for Dynamic Resource Management
No full textDigital Twins (DTs) are increasingly used to manage systems under fluctuating demand, yet many remain static and cannot adjust their internal models or control policies as the targeted real system changes. We present a self-adaptive DT architecture that supports runtime reconfiguration of resources. The architecture integrates semantic reflection to keep the DT's runtime model aligned with the structural representation of the real system, lifecycle-based state management to trigger reconfiguration at appropriate times, and penalty-guided optimisation for decision-making under constraints, balancing resilience and operational cost when capacity must be reorganised. We realise the approach in DynResDT, a resilient hospital ward prototype for bed bay allocation of patients. Through simulation with realistic patient-arrival patterns and stress peaks, the DT maintains model consistency, opens and closes overflow capacity when needed, and allocates patients while minimising costly room usage and unnecessary moves. Our results show a practical trade-off between correctness and responsiveness: timely and principled adaptions offset potential overhead through reflection and lifecycle logic. The architectural pattern is applicable beyond healthcare to other dynamic resource-management domains. CCS Concepts • Software and its engineering → Layered systems; Software as a service orchestration system; • Computer systems organization → Self-organizing autonomic computing
Intersectionality and co-production in disability and physical activity research; Critical reflections on promise, negotiation and transformation
No full textScholars undertaking intersectional research are called upon to address issues of power, positionality, and difference throughout their research. Equitable and experientially-informed co-production complements intersectionality with shared principles that centre marginalised voices and interrogate power dynamics. This article responds to the lack of guidance in integrating these two approaches by exploring our experiences of adopting an intersectional approach to co-production. We critically reflect upon the challenges and opportunities of co-production in our intersectional research into inequalities faced by disabled people in relation to physical activity. In collaboration with the UK’s leading organisation for disabled people, Disability Rights UK (DR UK), we created the Moving Intersectionality co-production group that is comprised of disabled people from diverse backgrounds. Reflexive thematic analysis of seven co-production meeting notes, 36 reflective diaries, and nine interviews with co-production partners resulted in the construction of three themes: 1) the paradox of co-production: promise versus reality; 2) negotiating power and conflict in relationship-building; and 3) transformations through shared learning. Taken together, these themes illustrate that intersectional approaches to co-production have the potential to foster equitable relationships for research if they are foregrounded in extensive collective reflexivity. Collective reflexivity enabled us to critically evaluate the challenges we experienced in upholding our co-production principles such as navigating how power between co-production partners was shaping our research. To conclude we call for further research to utilise intersectionality and co-production as complementary approaches to advance the practice of co-production, to reduce social inequalities and to promote social justice
From handshakes to hashtags: Fostering digital human touch in business interactions
No full textIn the contemporary business landscape, where business interactions are progressively migrating to virtual environments, the ability to convey human touch without physical proximity has emerged as a critical yet under-explored phenomenon. This study conceptualizes Digital Human Touch as a relational construct, exploring how empathy, authenticity, warmth, and care are enacted through digital channels. The study’s research design encompasses dyadic buyer–supplier interviews conducted prior to, during, and following the onset of the pandemic with a large-scale analysis of customer reviews. The findings identify core dimensions of Digital Human Touch: digital authenticity, warmth and care, and openness in communication; during the pandemic also: forgiveness and tolerance, and reconciliation. The post-Covid-19 emergence of real-time connectedness was also identified. The findings indicate that Digital Human Touch fosters relational continuity and value co-creation. By challenging the assumption that human touch always requires physical interaction, this study contributes to the advancement of theory on relationship management
Cross-sector perspectives on the role of a UK national cultural asset in social prescribing: a qualitative study.
No full textRecognition of the role of the culture sector in promoting health and well-being is increasing across research, practice, and policy. Despite this growing prominence, there remains more limited understanding of how cultural assets can be effectively coordinated with health services, or how these cultural provisions are perceived by professionals working across the health and third sectors. This study aimed to explore cross-sector professionals' perspectives on the efforts of Scottish Ballet, a UK national cultural asset, to connect its dance provisions for neurological conditions into health and social care pathways through social prescribing. An exploratory qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured, online interviews with professionals across the health, cultural, and third sectors. Participants were purposively sampled, focused on three health boards: NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Tayside, and NHS Orkney. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Fourteen professionals were interviewed. The analysis identified two themes reflecting the dual role of Scottish Ballet in relation to social prescribing: (1) as a credible cultural service provider of dance for people with neurological conditions, and (2) as a cross-sector promoter of the arts in health practice and policy. Sub-themes show opportunities for connecting dance provisions with health services by enhancing professionals' delivery of person-centred care and expanding access to dance activity for certain patients with reduced mobility, alongside challenges with limited professional-level capacity, inconsistent service-level coordination, and lacking sustainable, system-level support. Cultural assets such as Scottish Ballet can offer meaningful contributions to social prescribing, both as direct service providers and wider strategic advocates. Yet, sustained collaboration, shared understanding, and long-term investment across sectors remain important to more comprehensively and sustainably embedding the arts and culture in prescribing pathways
A cross-national study examining imaginary companions and face pareidolia in British and Chinese adults
No full textAlthough imaginary companions are created by children and sometimes adults around the world, the prevalence of this play behaviour varies. Cross-nationally, imaginary companions are reported more frequently in Western countries. These imaginary entities have been speculated to be similar to hallucination-like-experiences, based on evidence for elevated top-down auditory processing in children who report them. Face pareidolia tasks engage visual top-down processing, and performance on them does not tend to vary across cultures. This study asked if: 1) there would be cross-national differences in imaginary companion creation in childhood and adulthood between Chinese and British adults, 2) whether those creating imaginary companions would see more face pareidolia and 3) if there would be cross-national differences in face pareidolia. 291 participants (185 Chinese) completed a questionnaire on their imagination followed by a face pareidolia task consisting of 36 image trials (24 containing face pareidolia). Results showed that including all participants (Chinese and British) 11% of the adults currently had an imaginary companion. Chinese adults were significantly less likely than British adults to report a childhood, but not adulthood, imaginary companion. There were significantly more reports of face pareidolia from participants with a current imaginary companion, but not those who remembered a companion in childhood. The pareidolia hits did not differ between country, but false alarms were experienced significantly more by the Chinese participants. Taken together, the results provide more information around imaginary companion creation in China and the UK as well as the role top-down processing may play in imaginary companion interactions
When Reality Defies Prediction: Polymorphism, Twinning, and Accordion Crystals
No full textThe ability to understand crystallization and predict the resulting solid form of a system is not always easily achieved, but it is critical, particularly in the field of materials science. Intriguing (and previously unreported) crystallization behavior is observed with terephthalic dihydrazide (TeDi) as it rapidly forms two concomitant crystalline polymorphs upon cooling in solution. The crystal morphology of Form I (FI) has not been seen before in organic systems and involves impressive, accordion-like stacks, composed of numerous twin domains and remains stable in solution for years. Form II (FII) exists as large needles that disappear in solution after 20 h. All experimental methods employed reveal that FI is the most stable polymorph. Conversely, all computational methods utilized (conformational analyses, lattice energy calculations, and crystal structure prediction) suggest that FII is the most stable polymorph. Isolation of FII was achieved by the crystallization of TeDi powder with a supramolecular mimetic gelator, as the gel fibers act as a template for the preferential crystallization of FII, due to the comparable crystal packing of FII and the gelator. This work highlights the impact of crystallization behavior in a real laboratory and the defects, disorder, and twinning that lead to remarkable crystal morphologies that may not be accounted for with idealized calculations, and also explores approaches for controlling and directing crystallization outcomes
Rotating extremal black holes in Einstein-Born-Infeld theory
No full textWe construct exact solutions that describe the near horizon region of extremal rotating black holes in Einstein-Born-Infeld theory. Using generalized Komar integrals, we extract the electric charge and angular momentum from the near horizon geometries and study their deviations from the Kerr-Newman solution. We identify two features that are direct consequences of the nonlinearities of Born-Infeld theory. First, we find solutions which have vanishing charge but nontrivial electric and magnetic fields. Second, we find that extremal rotating black holes do not exist for sufficiently small charge and angular momentum. Based on analogy with the static black holes, we argue that it would be particularly interesting to construct the full rotating solutions in these parameter regions as they may provide examples of rotating black holes without Cauchy horizons
The Role of Aspiration Gap and Affect in Shaping Life Satisfaction
Get PDFThis study examines how the gap between individuals’ income aspirations and actual income – termed the “aspiration gap” – affects life satisfaction. Drawing on self-discrepancy theory and the theory of socially determined aspirations, we propose a structural model in which life satisfaction is shaped not only by the aspiration gap but also by the positive and negative states of individuals. Using harmonized microdata from the 2018 EU-SILC survey for 31 European countries and partial least squares structural equation modelling, we find that a larger aspiration gap is robustly associated with lower life satisfaction, even when we account for affective states and socio-demographic controls. Positive affect independently enhances life satisfaction, while negative affect diminishes it. Moreover, affect moderates the impact of the aspiration gap in the pooled sample, although we do not consistently detect this interaction across all countries. However, the direct relationships between life satisfaction, aspiration gap, and affective states remain highly robust across national contexts. These findings underscore the dual cognitive and affective pathways through which aspirations influence well-being and suggest that fostering positive emotional resources may buffer the psychological costs of unfulfilled goals. Our results from country-specific estimations closely mirror those from the pooled model, indicating that the observed relationships hold consistently across diverse national contexts. The results have implications for policies aimed at promoting realistic goal-setting and emotional resilience to enhance subjective well-being
Phase-space sectors for colour-ordered momentum mappings in local subtraction up to N 3 LO
Get PDFMomentum maps connecting phase spaces of different multiplicities are widely used in precision calculations in QCD and collider phenomenology in general. The antenna mapping is a colour-ordered map which allows to absorb the recoil of an arbitrary number of emissions onto two hard radiators. Due to the rapid convergence in soft and collinear configurations, the antenna mapping is extensively used for fixed-order calculations within the antenna subtraction method, as well as in parton showers such as the VINCIA shower. However, colour-ordered momentum mappings cannot be directly applied in the presence of multiple unordered emissions of quarks and gluons, which typically appear beyond the leading-colour approximation. To address this technical challenge, we present, in the context of the antenna subtraction method, a simple decomposition of the phase space into sectors to isolate classes of infrared configurations which can be unambiguously assigned to a specific momentum ordering. In each sector, the singularities of any matrix element can be subtracted relying on a colour-ordered map. We illustrate the required phase-space sectors for up to three unordered emissions. The mapping algorithm described here has been recently employed for the first differential N3LO calculation of jet production at electron–positron colliders
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