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The teaching hours transfer window
No full textFor readers who have followed our previous blogs, you will know that we often lean on sport analogies to explore and understand the everyday complexities of academic life. This time round we want to focus on something that appears each year like clockwork, usually accompanied with a dose of collective dread amongst academics, our topic this time around is workload allocation.
Workload allocation covers a whole gamut of topics from who teaches which module, through to which programme needs additional support? It stops off at; who has capacity, and who is already stretched too thinly? It is an ongoing puzzle that brings to mind both a super-sized game of Sudoku and also a 2000-piece-sized jigsaw.
But what if we borrowed an idea from the world of sport to rethink the whole process
Prevalence and Clinical Significance of QRS Fragmentation and Low QRS Voltages in Elite Female Football Players
Get PDFAims:
QRS fragmentation (fQRS) and low QRS voltage are electrocardiogram (ECG) findings associated with cardiomyopathy and adverse cardiac events. However, their prevalence and significance in elite female athletes are unknown. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and clinical significance of fQRS and low QRS voltage in elite female footballers undergoing cardiovascular screening.
Methods:
Between April 2017 and October 2024, a cohort of 2,566 consecutive elite female football players underwent cardiovascular screening, including a 12-lead ECG and echocardiogram. ECGs were analysed for the presence of fQRS and low QRS voltage. These findings were correlated with demographic and echocardiographic data. The mean follow-up period was 4.4 ± 2.5 years.
Results:
The mean age was 20.13 ± 5.48 years. fQRS in ≥2 contiguous leads was present in 205 (8.0%) athletes, predominantly in the anterior leads (61.3%). fQRS in lead V1 alone was seen in 370 (14.4%) players. Athletes with fQRS demonstrated significantly larger indexed right ventricular (p < 0.001) and left ventricular (p = 0.033) diameters compared to those without. Low QRS voltage in the limb leads was exceedingly rare, observed in only 2 (0.1%) athletes. No athlete was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.
Conclusion:
In elite female footballers, fQRS is a common ECG finding strongly associated with physiological biventricular remodelling, particularly of the right ventricle. Within the context of this screening programme, fQRS was not associated with detectable cardiac pathology or adverse events, suggesting it may represent a feature of the athlete's heart rather than underlying disease. Conversely, the extreme rarity of low QRS voltage suggests it warrants clinical suspicion if detected. These sex-specific findings provide a new reference for interpreting ECGs in this unique population
Enhancing Employability and Responsible Management Education via Curriculum Design
No full textThis chapter examines the intersection between Responsible Management Education (RME) and employability. Traditionally treated as distinct domains, these areas have seldom been explicitly integrated within module design. The chapter explores pedagogical approaches that bridge this gap, fostering engaging and impactful learning experiences for students. The chapter analyses the application of the Employability Capital Growth Model (ECGM) as a framework to support employability and responsible management pedagogy within the curriculum. The chapter provides resources for ECGM in curriculum design and outlines an exploratory pilot study to gain insight into how students perceive various forms of employability capital. Evaluation of the ECGM’s potential to align employability-focused teaching with responsible management learning outcomes highlights its benefits and some limitations. The authors’ reflexive insights, drawn from teaching applications and empirical data, are that integrating the ECGM into RME enables curriculum innovation and strengthens student reflection and goal setting
Global mapping of lake-terminating glaciers
Get PDFProglacial lakes at glacier termini have received widespread attention in the literature for their role in accelerating melt, velocity and contributing to cryospheric hazards. Although global and regional inventories for both glaciers and lakes exist, lake-terminating glaciers have not been consistently identified at the global scale. Based on the most recent global glacier inventory (RGI 7.0), which so far identifies marine-terminating glaciers in most regions, but not lake-terminating glaciers, we present a global inventory of lake-terminating glaciers, differentiating between three categories based on the degree of contact between the glacier terminus and any proglacial lakes. Contributors manually assigned categories to glaciers using satellite imagery from as close to the target date of 2000 as possible, aided by regional lake inventories where available. The resulting dataset corresponds to the year 2000 (±1.5), matching to the timestamp of RGI 7.0 outlines (2001 ± 6.2). We find that of 274 531 glaciers worldwide, 1.4 % terminate in lakes, with regional percentages varying between 0.5 % and 6.7 % across the 19 RGI regions. These glaciers account for 11.4 % of global glacier area (0.2 % to 41.8 % across regions). With multiple submissions available for 1260 individual glaciers, we find mapping conflicts between contributors to be low (6.7 %). The lake termini data set is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15524733 (Steiner et al., 2025) as well as at https://github.com/GLIMS-RGI/lake_terminating (last access: 2 February 2026). This dataset is integrated into the forthcoming update to the RGI, v7.1
International tourism in the Global South: revealing an extractive development process
No full textHosting international tourism remains a key development strategy for many Global
South countries to generate economic growth, government revenue and
employment. However, this conventional wisdom can be contested with tourism
instead being seen as an extractive process that can disrupt livelihoods, ecosystems
and host economies. UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 highlights tourism as a
key industry supporting inclusive economic growth and decent work, however, this
ideal is often hard to achieve. Destinations struggle to retain significant economic
benefits with high levels of economic leakages of profits overseas, and weak
economic linkages to local economies. To begin to shift tourism’s balance of power
and reduce this extractive process of profits flowing from the Global South to the
North, policy interventions are urgently needed. We argue that, given sufficient political will, inclusive growth policies can be designed to reduce economic leakages,
facilitate local ownership, and further develop economic linkages within host economies
Advancing Our Understanding of CE Loop Strategies: A Synthesizing Framework for Durable Consumer Products
Get PDFThe Circular Economy (CE) concept is widely promoted as a pathway to sustainability, yet its practical realization can appear to be challenging and unclear due to divergent definitions, interpretations and understanding about the implications and goals of a realized CE. Addressing this gap, this study develops the Circular Economy Loop Strategies (CELS) Framework, a synthesizing foundational model that defines and organizes five overarching strategies—simplifying, narrowing, slowing, intensifying, and closing—within a material flow perspective for durable consumer products, such as electronics and furniture. The framework delineates how varying CE goals (e.g., recycling vs. sufficiency) can influence material flow outcomes and, for each strategy, outlines overlaps and trade-offs while linking them to CELS characteristics: trajectory, magnitude, composition, and rate of flow. The CELS Framework was constructed through a critical review of CE literature and refined via a two-round Delphi study with 17 international experts from academia, industry, policy, and non-profit sectors. Results indicate strong consensus (89% agreement) on the framework’s validity and usefulness for mapping CE strategies and evaluating their implications across different CE versions—from recycling-focused approaches to sufficiency-driven models. This research contributes to CE theory by providing a clearer conceptual foundation and vocabulary, as well as provides a foundational tool for policymakers and practitioners to support strategic planning and alignment in CE transitions. The framework highlights the need for integrated strategies to achieve environmental sustainability and serves as a starting point for future research on operationalization, prioritization, and social dimensions of circularity
Effects of gold nanoparticles and apricot seeds on bone healing in New Zealand rabbits
Get PDFObjectives
Suboptimal osseointegration of implant materials is linked to oxidative stress and compromised bone regeneration. Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) function as anti-inflammatory and osteogenic agents, promoting bone growth by reducing cell damage and enhancing cellular activity. Apricot seeds contain amygdalin, a natural antioxidant and osteogenic substance. This study aimed to evaluate the impacts of Au NPs and apricot seed extract on bone healing in a rabbit model.
Methods
Twelve adult male New Zealand white rabbits were assigned to three groups: untreated (control), Au NPs treated, and apricot seed treated groups. Six holes were surgically drilled in the tibiae (right/left) of each animal. Each hole was injected with 0.3 mL of Au NPs or apricot seed liquid extract. Histological analysis was performed after 7 and 14 days of healing using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained bone samples, which were cut around the holes in all test animals. Light microscopy and S-EYE 2.0 software were used to count blood vessels, osteoblasts, osteocytes, and bone marrow spaces.
Results
Local application of apricot seeds and Au NPs decreased vascularization and bone marrow spaces, and stimulated bone-forming cells, where Au NPs were more effective. Treatment with Au NPs significantly lowered the number of blood vessels after 14 days to the smallest value (2.6 ± 0.96) recorded under all treatments. By day 14, the numbers of osteoblasts (45.1 ± 4.36) and osteocytes (60.0 ± 7.71) were significantly higher under treatment by Au NPs compared with the control.
Conclusion
Au NPs and the natural agent apricot seed extract enhanced osteoblasts and osteocytes in a rabbit model, and could potentially promote bone regeneration. However, these observations should be interpreted cautiously considering the limitations of this study, such as its retrospective design and single-center sample. These findings are an essential preliminary clinical step required to justify future human studies
Unconditional Cash Transfers and Maternal Labour Supply: The Case of the Two‐Child Limit in the United Kingdom
Get PDFI study the impact of a policy in the United Kingdom to restrict per child welfare benefits to the first two births—the Two Child Limit (‘2CL’)—on maternal labour supply. Using regression discontinuity models based on a birth date cut off, I find that, as at March 2021, the policy had increased the economic activity rate of mothers affected by the policy by approximately three percentage points, with indications that the policy had additional impacts at the intensive margin
Exploring narratives of long-term substance addiction recovery in Norway
Get PDFIntroduction
Long-term substance addiction (SA) recovery continues to be presented as a varied concept, with conceptual consequences for how recovery is investigated and approached in practice. Social and societal aspects are often mentioned as important considerations for understanding recovery within substance use treatment, follow-up services, policies, and research. However, the concept continues to be dominantly constructed within individualised frameworks, first and foremost concerned with an idealised concept of substance use cessation prior to shorter-term treatment interventions, and a preset outcome of full substance use abstinence as the main goal. This individualised approach is limited and does not take account of the societal context in which recovery processes occur. Policy, practice and research needs to reflect the reality of people’s experiences of long-term recovery that is currently sparse. Thus, there is a need for qualitative investigations of people’s storied accounts of long-term SA recovery within their societal environment in search of mechanisms of human change and development.
Method
This research is framed within a critical realist, interpretive, and social constructionist position, aimed to identify, apply, and evaluate, relevant psycho-social and cultural factors for people in their long-term SA recovery. To achieve these aims, 10 participants with former polysubstance use and four to 11 years in recovery were
peer-interviewed concerning their storied accounts of long-term SA recovery experiences, using the following objectives:
1. Identify key factors relevant to long-term SA recovery through narrative exploration of people’s lived experiences,
2. Apply a developmental model as a framework for mapping, explaining, and developing knowledge of long-term SA recovery,
3. Propose recommendations for policy, practice, and further research in support of SA recovery.
Analysis
Using a combination of Developmental Systems Theory, an interactional-performative analytical lens, and narrative thematic analysis, distinct typologies of long-term SA recovery courses will be presented.
Findings
The research findings, presented through typologies, extend retrospective and prospective time frames often suggested for SA recovery. Three main themes were developed: Stories of loneliness, isolation and development of social connections, stories of agency development, and stories of developing self-determination. The participants’ narrations of their long-term SA recovery describe how they were able to change their performativity in society over time, in correlative relationships with others, within their societal environment. These new modes of action contributed to heightened sense of agency and purpose for the participants, which functioned as counterweights to self-stigma, loneliness, and social isolation. Their stories serve as examples of how they manoeuvred in their societal environment, alongside showing
inventiveness and entrepreneurship, while keeping their personal autonomy intact. The participants' stories of flexible re-authoring through non-linear and varied recovery courses underline human possibilities for adaptability, inventiveness, and reflective choice. This potential multiplicity of possibilities challenges idealised templates for human existence, including how change and development can occur in people’s lives, and key mechanics concerning societal expectations of normativity.
Conclusions
This is the first study of its kind to use a combination of Developmental Systems Theory and a narrative research design to study long-term SA recovery. I argue that the potential significance for long-term SA recovery stemming from reciprocal interactions with people’s social surroundings has been underplayed in practice, policy, and research, on behalf of an overrated focus on individual responsibility. This focus continues to hinder developments of broader frameworks in support of people’s recovery courses. In addition, I argue that service providers and policymakers continue to respond according to a deficit model, based on overly fixed frameworks, a lack of pragmatic timing, and normative assumptions of successful living and societal contributions. There is a need for highlighting strengths-based opportunities, depending on people’s current life situations, alongside subjective reflections on how they see their lives going forward, within their social contexts. As potential for human re-authoring, change and development exist, the person in question and their context should remain ever attentive to such possibilities, as complexity and open endings constitute all human existence. In such efforts, explorations of resources, passions, and personal strengths within peoples’ societal context are pivotal, as advantageous alternatives to focusing on individualised chronic vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and human limitations. Thus, continued investigations of necessary prerequisites for long-
term human change and development are key to contribute to hope in the SA recovery field
