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Mobilise! course: New opportunities
No full textThis project aims to explore the early stages of the commercialisation process for an online course, designed for an LU ESRC IAA funded project named ‘Mobilise!’. This online course, developed with charity, Global Link, focuses on empowering Lancaster-based asylum seekers and refugees to become active UK citizens, using material from two research projects: ‘Remembering Resistance’ and ‘Documenting Dissent’. Two different methods are employed to understand whether the course could be scaled up (i.e., improving the course offer, adding new material and formats) and/or scaled out (i.e., widening availability of the course to new publics) to improve the course’s impact. These methods include: (1) online market research to discover whether there are existing courses, toolkits and businesses performing similar approaches; (2) interviews with key actors from different sectors (e.g., education, third sector) to understand potential audiences, their needs and their perspectives on the current course
Stabilizing Configurational Entropy in Spinel‐type High Entropy Oxides during Discharge–Charge by Overcoming Kinetic Sluggish Diffusion
Get PDFSpinel‐type high entropy oxides (HEOs) have emerged as promising next‐generation lithium‐ion battery anodes owing to exceptional electrochemical performance. However, suppressing irreversible phase transformations caused by high‐entropy to low‐entropy state transitions during discharge–charge has remained challenging. The core issue stems from an insufficient understanding of phase evolution pathways and the key thermodynamic/kinetic driving forces, which is due to current methodological limitations in analyzing highly disordered structures. Further complicating this challenge is the elusive impact of nanosized effects on both thermodynamic and kinetic processes. This study addresses these challenges through three synergistic approaches: 1) investigating phase evolution mechanisms across different particle sizes to delineate nanosized effects; 2) resolving complex local structures by pair distribution function analyses and 7Li magic‐angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy; 3) elucidating influences of high entropy on phase evolution via DFT calculations. Comprehensive results reveal a complex phase evolution process governed by the thermodynamic‐kinetic interplay. The incomplete phase transformations of the rock‐salt‐like intermediate phase during discharge, which are attributable to high entropy‐mediated kinetic sluggish diffusion, account for the transition from high‐entropy to low‐entropy states. By shortening the solid‐state diffusion lengths, the kinetic limitations can be overcome, as demonstrated by nanosized spinel‐type HEOs achieving reversible phase transformations during discharge‐charge
SMARTS solution for airspace design and configuration
Get PDFThis paper presents the SMARTS solution for airspace design and dynamic configuration in European air traffic management. The approach addresses the critical need for increased airspace capacity through intelligent sector management using artificial intelligence and optimization algorithms. The SMARTS solution comprises three main components: Basic Volume Design; Sector Design employing mixed integer linear programming for optimal sector boundaries; and Dynamic Configuration using graph-based optimization for near real-time configuration planning. Validation was conducted at Madrid Area Control Center (ACC) using 2023 traffic data. The results show that the SMARTS solution successfully balances air traffic controller workload, improves capacity utilization, and introduces a local resilience KPI for monitoring robustness toward a reliable framework for future European airspace architecture. The system delivers operationally viable configurations that align with real-world air traffic management needs while maintaining flexibility for various operational scenarios
Functional Data Analysis in Flight Trajectory Clustering
No full textMachine learning (ML) is revolutionizing flight trajectory analysis, offering unprecedented capabilities to enhance safety, efficiency, and sustainability in aviation. This presentation showcases diverse ML applications that transform raw flight data into actionable intelligence. We explore how predictive models, leveraging techniques like regression and time-series analysis, can accurately forecast arrival times, fuel burn, and potential conflicts, enabling proactive decision-making. Unsupervised learning algorithms, such as clustering and anomaly detection, are examined for their power in identifying common flight patterns, detecting deviations from standard procedures, and flagging potential safety hazards from large-scale trajectory datasets (e.g., ADS-B). The presentation will demonstrate tangible benefits, including optimized route planning for reduced fuel consumption and emissions, improved airspace capacity utilization, and enhanced situational awareness for air traffic controllers and pilots. We will also touch upon the challenges of data integration and model validation in this critical domain. Ultimately, this exploration aims to underscore how ML-driven trajectory analysis contributes directly to a safer, more efficient, and environmentally conscious global air transportation system, paving the way for next-generation air traffic management. This work has been supported by the AI4ATM project, funded by both MAECI (Italy) and A*STAR (Singapore)
The human crisis in cancer : a Lancet Oncology Commission
Get PDFAmid unprecedented scientific progress in oncology, a growing body of evidence reveals a parallel and profound crisis in the human experience of cancer care. Despite overall survival outcomes improving, the systems designed to deliver care increasingly fall short in addressing the emotional, relational, and existential dimensions of cancer. Although examples of compassionate and attentive care can be found in every setting, patients and families across global contexts continue to report being unheard, unsupported, and, at times, actively harmed by care structures that prioritise technical precision over human presence. This Lancet Oncology Commission proposes that the human crisis of cancer is not defined by pathology, mortality, or cause, but by the erosion of meaning, connection, and compassion in the experience of cancer. This crisis is shaped by what is present and what is absent: the presence of fragmented, costly, and impersonal systems and the absence of human connection, psychological safety, and relational care. It is a crisis that spans delivery, mental health, palliative care, research, and education-one that is not peripheral to oncology's progress but central to its failures. The impacts of this crisis are felt most acutely by those already made vulnerable by inequity, discrimination, and economic precarity, but it is a system-level failure that ripples across every context, from the most resource-rich to the most resource-constrained settings. Addressing this crisis will require more than good intentions; it will demand confronting the structural incentives and ideologies that have devalued the relational foundations of cancer care. This Commission identifies a growing imbalance between technological innovation and the human dimensions of cancer care. As the field has increasingly prioritised biopharmaceutical development, genomic precision, and market-driven efficiencies, it has often neglected core practices that uphold dignity, alleviate suffering, and build trust
Soft Range Limits Shape Sensitivity to Forest Cover More Strongly Than Hard Range Limits
Get PDFAim: Land‐use change is a major threat to biodiversity, yet there remains considerable unexplained variation in how it affects different populations of the same species. Here, we examine how sensitivity to forest cover changes depending on proximity to different limits of a species' range. By comparing responses as species approach their coastal (‘hard’) and inland (‘soft’) range limits, we aim to provide insight into the relative influence of mass effects, as compared to abiotic and biotic environmental suitability in shaping population sensitivity. Location: Global. Time Period: 1996–2019. Major Taxa Studied: Birds. Methods: We combined data from several large databases to obtain a dataset of 2543 bird species surveyed across 116 studies, spanning six continents. Using expert‐verified range maps, we calculated the position of populations relative to their species' nearest inland (‘soft’) and coastal (‘hard’) range limits and categorised the inland limits as equatorward‐ or poleward‐ facing. We investigated how distance to range limits and forest cover, derived from a 30 m‐resolution global dataset, affect the probability of species' incidence. Results: We found that bird populations are more sensitive to forest cover when located closer to their species' inland (‘soft’) range limits, whereas this was not the case at coastal (‘hard’) range limits. The heightened sensitivity to forest cover at soft range limits was similar regardless of whether the range limit faced equatorward or poleward. Main Conclusions: These results highlight how populations close to the soft limits of their species' ranges are at higher risk of extirpation resulting from loss of forest cover. This suggests that environmental conditions (e.g., climate), which become more challenging away from the core of the species' range, drive variability in sensitivity to forest cover
Plus Ça Change, Plus c’est la Même Chose — Preliminary Reflections on the United Kingdom Stewardship Code 2026
Get PDFThe Article offers preliminary reflections on the UK Stewardship Code 2026 as it relates to institutional investors’ compliance with it. It argues that, while this iteration of the Code provides some important clarifications regarding the purpose of investor stewardship and introduces substantive changes to the Code’s principles and reporting requirements, its overall contribution to the UK’sregulatory framework forinvestorstewardship may remain limited.There are still pressing issues left unaddressed, which can undermine the framework’s capacity to promote the adoption of practices consistent with the ethos of investor stewardship. Chief among these are several normative elements of investor stewardship’s purpose and the framework’s ability to ensure institutional investors uphold its principles, including those contained in the Code
Goodness-of-fit in production models : A Bayesian perspective
No full textWe propose a general approach for modeling production technologies, allowing for modeling both inefficiency and noise that are specific for each input and each output. The approach is based on amalgamating ideas from nonparametric activity analysis models for production and consumption theory with stochastic frontier models. We do this by effectively re-interpreting the activity analysis models as simultaneous equations models in Bayesian compression and artificial neural networks framework. We make minimal assumptions about noise in the data and we allow for flexible approximations to input- and output-specific slacks. We use compression to solve the problem of an exceeding number of parameters in general production technologies and also incorporate environmental variables in the estimation. We also present Monte Carlo simulation results and an empirical illustration of this approach for US banking data
Moments of Intersection : Shakespeare’s plays and the operations of early modern law in cases of vagrancy, sexual deviancy and witchcraft
No full textThis thesis examines a selection of Shakespeare’s plays as critical representations of the multiple legal systems and jurisdictions that operated in early modern people’s everyday lives. Through the relationships between law and literature, the thesis reveals the incongruity that existed between the ordinary lives of the people as depicted in the plays and those that shaped the laws in early modern England. Instead of focusing on a single play as a moment captured in history, the thesis looks at the fictional representation of a crime from two Elizabethan plays, 2 Henry VI and The Merry Wives of Windsor, and four Jacobean plays, Measure for Measure, Macbeth, Coriolanus and The Winter’s Tale. It focuses on the representation of three crimes: masterlessness, sexual transgression and witchcraft. When taken together, this thesis suggests that these dramatic representations or moments of intersection between law and literature, offer us a glimpse into different localised attitudes about the dynamic early modern legal landscape. This thesis compares the plays’ representation of the law’s efficacy, its use of adjudication and punishment, with the real-world outcomes dictated by parliamentary legislation. It investigates how the law is represented as dysfunctional, unfair or inequitable while acknowledging the broader societal contexts in which the law operated. Through the crime of masterlessness, the thesis examines the divergence between an increasingly punitive legislative process and its representation in the plays. The crime of sexual transgression explores the intersections of secular, spiritual, and community self-regulatory jurisdictions. Finally, the crime of witchcraft is analysed in relation to the evolution of legal narratives in law and on stage. The thesis’s original argument is that each dramatized criminal act has to be investigated separately as independent moments of intersection between law, society and literature because each crime’s patterns of divergence, intersection or evolution is unique. It thus demonstrates that a new approach to investigating specific crimes and their temporal jurisdictions is required to provide us with a clearer glimpse at the different localised attitudes of the play writing community and their patrons