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Studying how comparative data studies can contribute to macro social work: Insights from the Childcare Gap Policy Study Project
No full textThis article seeks to contribute to the advancement of macro social work with a focus on evidence-based transnational policy practices. It explores how comparative data research can support these practices. To illustrate this, a study on childcare gap policies is presented. This study examines how comparative data research can be used to influence the European Commission’s policies on reducing childcare gaps within the European Union. This article responds to the calls for macro social workers to collaborate with other disciplines and utilize evidence to inform their practices
Doing ethics without a ‘Map’: How Chinese researchers develop ethical awareness in research with children
Get PDFThis paper explores how researchers working with children in China navigate ethical challenges in the contexts of limited institutional guidance and the tension between global ethical principles and local moral expectations. Drawing on dialogic focus groups with 30 Chinese participants who have experience doing research with children, we conceptualise ethics not as compliance with rules but as an interplay of ethical awareness and practice shaped by affective, relational, and institutional conditions. Ethical awareness is theorised as a situated and relational capacity to recognise and respond to morally important moments under uncertainty. It develops through hesitation, discomfort and negotiation, particularly within ethical double binds between procedural frameworks and relational obligations. Rather than advancing a culturalist model, our paper offers a practice-based perspective that foregrounds ambiguity, moral complexity and the emotional labour of ethical decision-making. We argue for moving beyond universalist paradigms towards dialogic and context-sensitive approaches to research ethics. The paper concludes with implications for researchers, ethics committees and institutions seeking to foster reflexive and decolonising practices in cross-cultural qualitative inquiry
Linking soil structure and microbial communities to predict CO2 emissions from drained arable peatlands
Get PDFUnderstanding interactions between soil structure, microbial communities, and greenhouse gas dynamics is critical for predicting carbon losses from drained agricultural peatlands. This study tested the hypothesis that land use alters soil structure and microbial communities, thereby shaping CO 2 flux, using high-resolution XCT, microbial profiling, and gas and soil measurements across winter wheat, sugar beet, and bare soil treatments on a productive UK farm on peatland. Bare soil exhibited the highest pore connectivity and gas diffusivity (Dp/D 0 : 0.08-0.10 in dry conditions), declining to near-zero during wet periods in October. Fungal alpha-diversity (Shannon index: 2.8-3.2) was significantly higher in cropped soils compared to bare soil (2.0-2.5), with sugar beet supporting the most diverse fungal communities. Sordariomycetes dominated fungal assemblages (50-75 % relative abundance), while Actinobacteria and Vicinamibacteria consistently comprised 20-30 % of bacterial communities. Soil moisture strongly regulated diffusivity (R 2 = 0.93, p < 0.001), driving seasonal shifts in gas transport and microbial dynamics. Fungal communities showed stronger treatment differentiation (R 2 = 0.24-0.49) than bacterial communities, with distinct assemblages observed in sugar beet at 20 cm depth (R 2 = 0.489, p = 0.011). An XGBoost machine learning model explained 82 % of the variance in CO 2 concentrations, identifying key fungal (OTU_15_F, OTU_6_F) and bacterial (OTU_901, OTU_5115) taxa as top predictors. These results highlight that crop selection can alter microbial diversity by up to 60 % and drive tenfold changes in soil gas diffusivity, underscoring the importance of integrating soil structural and microbial metrics into greenhouse gas models. Such insights can guide sustainable peatland management strategies that balance productivity with carbon conservation
Caregiver-infant behaviours during multi-component object play are associated with infant visual working memory
Get PDFThrough play interactions, caregivers play a significant role in shaping children’s early cognitive development. The over-arching objective of this cross-sectional study was to examine whether caregiver and infant behaviours in two types of play contexts that differed in the objects used, were associated with infant visual working memory. To address this, we collected video-recordings from 90 caregivers and 91 6-to-10-month-old infants while they engaged in a single object play (SO play) using single objects such as toy car, cup etc. and a multi-component object play (MO play) using organizational objects with multiple components such as stacking boxes, sorting towers etc. We coded caregiver intrusiveness, caregiver scaffolding, infant object engagement and infant distractibility during both contexts. Visual working memory was assessed at the same time in infants using a preferential looking task. Caregivers and infants showed more scaffolding and object engagement, respectively, during MO play compared to SO play. Further, caregiver intrusiveness, caregiver scaffolding and infant object engagement during SO play was positively associated with these respective behaviours during MO play. Finally, only behaviours during MO play were associated with infant visual working memory. Specifically, higher visual working memory was observed in infants who showed better object engagement and reduced distractibility and had caregivers who showed better scaffolding. These findings contribute to existing work on caregiver-infant dyadic interactions, by teasing apart differences in types of play contexts and examining the impacts on visual working memory in infants
Examining changes in the prevalence of cost‐motivated alcohol reduction attempts in the context of a cost‐of‐living crisis and alcohol duty reforms: A population survey of risky drinkers in Great Britain, 2021–2024
Get PDFBackground and aimsAffordability of alcohol is a key driver of consumption. The cost-of-living crisis in Great Britain has been putting pressure on household budgets since late 2021. In addition, the UK Government implemented substantial reforms to the alcohol duty system and increased alcohol taxes in 2023. This study aimed to estimate changes in the monthly prevalence of cost-motivated alcohol reduction attempts among risky drinkers over this period.DesignData were drawn from the Alcohol Toolkit Study, a nationally representative monthly cross-sectional household survey.SettingGreat Britain.Participants26 212 risky drinkers [alcohol use disorders identification test – consumption (AUDIT-C) score ≥5] aged ≥18y surveyed between January 2021 and December 2024 [mean (SD) age = 45.9 (17.1); 61.4% men].MeasurementsThe primary outcome was having tried to reduce alcohol consumption in the past year due to a decision that drinking was too expensive (‘cost-motivated alcohol reduction attempt’). This included participants who also reported other motives (e.g. health concerns) for trying to reduce their consumption.FindingsOverall, 1355 participants reported making a cost-motivated alcohol reduction attempt. The monthly weighted prevalence of cost-motivated alcohol reduction attempts among risky drinkers increased from 4.6% in January 2021 to 7.0% in December 2024 [prevalence ratio (PR) = 1.54, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.34–1.74]; equating to ~1.1 million people attempting to reduce their drinking among risky drinkers in 2024. This was primarily driven by a rise in the proportion of all alcohol reduction attempts that were motivated by cost, from 12.4% to 19.7% (PR = 1.58, 95% CI = 1.39–1.77), rather than an overall increase in the prevalence of alcohol reduction attempts (which remained relatively stable across the period at an average of 36.0%). The pattern of results was similar when the outcome was restricted to alcohol reduction attempts only motivated by cost [17.3% (95% CI = 15.0–19.7%) of all cost-motivated alcohol reduction attempts].ConclusionsDuring a period of increasing financial pressures in Great Britain, alcohol reduction attempts were increasingly motivated by cost but the overall prevalence of reduction attempts did not increase
Thin plate regression splines for treatment effect estimation in a local randomisation regression discontinuity design
Get PDFA regression discontinuity (RD) design may be used for treatment effect estimation in observational settings, where a treatment or intervention is allocated using a threshold-based ‘decision rule’ that is linked to a continuous assignment variable. In a local randomisation framework, where the decision rule may be viewed as a quasi-randomisation device, treatment effect estimation at the threshold is often done using a two-stage least squares (TSLS) approach but this may be unsuitable when the assignment variable-outcome relationship is non-linear or unknown. The use of thin plate regression spline (TPRS) models for treatment effect estimation in an RD design under local randomisation is considered and explored. The TPRS model is fully flexible, completely data driven and does not require the pre-specification of the number or position of knots. Simulation studies are used to compare the performance of the TPRS method to TSLS estimation under varying relationships between the outcome and assignment variable. Results showed that the TPRS method produces less biased estimates of the treatment effect, especially when the underlying relationship is not linear. An example is shown where the method is used to estimate the effect of statins on low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol level in a local randomisation RD design, using real data from UK Primary Care
International Trade and Forced Labor
No full textWe explore the link between trade liberalization and forced labor theoretically and empirically. Our theoretical framework predicts that the net effect of trade on the use of forced labor depends on which sectors improve their relative terms of trade and if openness to trade triggers anti-forced labor policies in the country or by trade partners. Using two datasets, we show that trade openness increases the intensive margin of forced labor but not the extensive margin. Splitting trade partners by labor standards, we show that trade with high-standard countries reduces both margins, whereas trade with low-standard countries raises the intensive margin
Relating digital platform synergy and SME agility: The roles of organizational inertia and modularity
No full textOrganizational agility is vital for the survival of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in turbulent environments. While several studies have examined the role of digital platforms in shaping organizational agility, the impact of digital platform synergy on organizational agility in the context of SMEs remains underresearched. To address this gap, we examine the impact of SMEs' digital platform synergy on their organizational agility and identify the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Using a sample of 421 Chinese manufacturing SMEs, the analysis demonstrates that digital platform synergy inhibits organizational agility. Furthermore, organizational inertia mediates this relationship, while organizational modularity negatively moderates the positive effect of digital platform synergy on organizational inertia, thereby reducing the mediating effect of organizational inertia. The study advances the growing literature on the factors influencing the agility of SMEs in digital contexts by illuminating the nuanced roles of digital platform synergy, organizational inertia, and modularity
Hyperpolarized Xenon-129 MRI, Fluorine-19 PFG NMR, SAXS and electron microscopy studies of the impact on structure and gas phase mass transport of introducing controlled macroporosity into mesoporous, alumina, catalyst support pellets
Get PDFA novel combination of experimental characterization techniques has been used to assess the impact of the controlled addition of macroporosity to mesoporous catalyst supports for use with diffusion-limited, gas-phase reactions. This is the first study to 2D-map the gas-phase uptake across different internal regions within individual mesoporous pellets (or any other inorganic mesoporous media) using hyperpolarized xenon MRI. A porogen-templating method aimed to control the gas-phase mass transport properties of disordered alumina pellets. The degree of success of the pore structure design was examined using electron microscopy and gas sorption, and, for the resultant mass transport properties, using gas-phase PFG NMR and hyperpolarized xenon MRI. TEM showed that the macropore templating led to the creation of a corona of parallel-aligned alumina platelets around the macropore boundaries. The particular impact of this corona on mass transport was studied using PFG NMR, and found to be significant. The MRI showed that individual pellets had very large length-scale heterogeneities in the macroscopic spatial distribution of gas uptake rates. The data from the pore structural characterization, along with percolation theory, was used to develop a structural model to predict the impact of creating additional macroporosity by the particular fabrication method employed, and was successfully validated using the PFG NMR data for gas self-diffusion and MRI mapping of gas uptake rates across individual pellets
Transition off respiratory support for very preterm infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia: an observational study of national audit data in England and Wales
Get PDFObjective To compare the proportion of infants receiving different respiratory support types between 36 and 40 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA).Design Retrospective cohort study using National Neonatal Audit Programme data.Setting England and Wales.Patients 50 628 infants born <32 weeks of gestation admitted to neonatal units from 2017 to 2023.Interventions Not applicable.Main outcome measures Respiratory support received and mortality.Results The proportion of infants who died increased at 36 weeks (8.1% to 8.6%, p=0.01) and 40 weeks (8.4% to 8.9%, p=0.01) PMA, respectively. This trend was driven by infants born <24 weeks of gestation. In survivors, those receiving any respiratory support or respiratory pressure support at 36 and 40 weeks PMA increased between 2017 and 2023 (p<0.0001). Over the study period, more infants received non-invasive ventilation at 36 weeks PMA (12.6% to 15.1%, p=0.0001) and supplemental oxygen at 40 weeks PMA (12.4% to 13.1%, p=0.002). Between 36 and 40 weeks PMA, there were absolute reductions of 11.8% and 10.6% in the proportion of surviving infants receiving any respiratory support and respiratory pressure support, respectively. This is especially so in infants born between 24 and 27 weeks of gestation, with absolute reductions of 21.3% and 24.2%, respectively.Conclusions More surviving preterm infants are receiving respiratory support at 36 and 40 weeks PMA. However, a large proportion of infants born 24–27 weeks of gestation transition to no respiratory support during this period. Strategies to identify infants likely to wean off respiratory support could help safely transition them home at the right time or better plan respiratory support at discharge
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