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Introduction: human resource management and employing service leavers and veterans
No full textThis special issue focuses on research on recruiting and employing military veterans and Human Resource Management (HRM) interventions to support Service leavers in successfully transitioning from active service to civilian work. The volume includes contributions that give insight into the experiences of diverse groups of veterans in making career changes. They also consider how employers can enable veterans to secure work that matches their skills, make the cultural adjustment from military to civilian life, and assimilate into a new work environment. In this introduction, we discuss the main themes of the special issue, ideas for future research, and practical outcomes for employers.</p
Word-specific tonal realizations in Mandarin
No full textThe pitch contours of Mandarin two-character words are generally understood as being shaped by lexical tones on the constituent single-character words, in interaction with articulatory constraints imposed by factors such as speech rate, co-articulation with adjacent tones, segmental make-up, and predictability. This study shows that tonal realization is also partially determined by words’ meanings. We first show, on the basis of a corpus of Taiwan Mandarin spontaneous conversations, using a generalized additive regression model, and focusing on the rise-fall tonal pattern, that after controlling for effects of speaker and context, word type is a stronger predictor of tonal realization than all the previously established word-form related predictors combined. Importantly, the addition of information about meaning in context improves prediction accuracy even further. We then proceed to show, using computational modeling with context-specific word embeddings, that token-specific pitch contours predict word type with 50% accuracy on held-out data, and that context-sensitive, token-specific embeddings can predict the shape of pitch contours with 40% accuracy. These accuracies, which are an order of magnitude above chance level, suggest that the relation between words’ pitch contours and their meanings are sufficiently strong to be potentially functional for language users. The theoretical implications of these empirical findings are discussed.</p
A multi-task ensemble strategy for gene selection and cancer classification
No full textGene expression-based tumor classification aims to distinguish tumor types based on gene expression profiles. This task is difficult due to the high dimensionality of gene expression data and limited sample sizes. Most datasets contain tens of thousands of genes but only a small number of samples. As a result, selecting informative genes is necessary to improve classification performance and model interpretability. Many existing gene selection methods fail to produce stable and consistent results, especially when training data are limited. To address this, we propose a multi-task ensemble strategy that combines repeated sampling with joint feature selection and classification. The method generates multiple training subsets and applies multi-task logistic regression with ℓ2,1 group sparsity regularization to select a subset of genes that appears consistently across tasks. This promotes stability and reduces redundancy. The framework supports integration with standard classifiers such as logistic regression and support vector machines. It performs both gene selection and classification in a single process. We evaluate the method on simulated and real gene expression datasets. The results show that it outperforms several baseline methods in classification accuracy and the consistency of selected genes.</p
Acoustic correlates of physiological stress in a wild primate
No full textVocalizations potentially encode information about physiological states, yet there is little direct evidence linking vocal parameters to physiological stress in non-humans, including primates. We investigated whether male mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliata) loud calls reflect physiological stress by analyzing the relationships between the acoustic parameters of loud calls and fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) concentrations. Howler monkeys produce loud calls primarily in the context of intergroup competition, which has the potential to elicit physiological stress responses. We expected that elevated fGCM would be associated with loud call acoustics through changes in laryngeal tension (increasing fundamental frequency and vocal perturbations), respiratory control (affecting call duration and temporal patterning), and vocal tract configuration (modifying spectral properties). We analyzed 93 high-quality loud calls and assayed 242 fecal samples collected over a 10-year period from 23 adult males across seven groups in Los Tuxtlas (Mexico). We calculated 26 loud call acoustic measurements including spectral, temporal, and non-linear variables. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that acoustic features collectively explained 71 % of the variation in fGCM. Loud calls produced at higher fGCM were characterized by increased pitch, greater pitch instability, altered vocal tract resonances, increased voice roughness, and reduced tonal clarity. Among these features, changes in pitch showed the strongest association with fGCM. These findings establish a link between stress physiology and vocal production in howler monkeys, suggesting that internal physiological states manifest in acoustic signals that could convey information about caller condition.</p
Sensory Food Education with Young Adults
No full textThis report summarises a pilot study for a sensory food education activity. The purpose of this activity was to encourage adults who self-identified as neurodiverse to explore and try new and healthy foods. This pilot explored whether using all five senses in the food tasting experience made participants more positive about the idea of trying, eating, and enjoying new and healthy foods.</p
Increasing educational and workforce opportunity in areas of deprivation: tackling the inverse care law
No full textMore than fifty years after Tudor Hart’s identification of the Inverse Care Law [1], health equity in the UK remains elusive. The phenomenon of inverse care is now recognised globally [2], with growing evidence that equitable access to primary care is essential to reverse entrenched disparities. We argue that alongside the Inverse Care Law, two additional structural barriers — the Inverse Education Law [3,4] and the Inverse Workforce Law [5] — further constrain progress. Despite repeated policy commitments, the most deprived communities continue to face higher morbidity and mortality yet have fewer educational placements and fewer permanent healthcare staff. These shortfalls are compounded by heavy workloads, low morale, and poor retention. The evidence demonstrates a dose-dependent relationship between access to primary care and improved patient outcomes [6], yet provision remains skewed away from areas of greatest need. Education offers a critical lever for change. Placements in deprived areas, when well supported, both strengthen clinical capability and increase the likelihood of trainees choosing to remain in such communities [7]. Retention, however, requires targeted support to enable staff to flourish and to sustain their careers in high-need settings. In this paper, we outline the evidence that links inverse care, inverse education, and inverse workforce patterns. In a companion article, “Evaluation of a London-wide intervention targeted at tackling educational and workforce inequity in primary care workforce across London”, we present a five-year regional evaluation that operationalises these ideas. Taken together, these papers argue for a whole-systems approach to tackling health inequity by addressing inverse patterns in care, education, and workforce simultaneously.</p
Global, regional, and national burden of major blindness-associated ophthalmologic conditions, 1990-2021, with forecasts to 2050: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021
No full textNo description supplied</p
Interventions for prediabetes: an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials
No full textAims: This umbrella review synthesized evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to assess the effectiveness of interventions for preventing adverse outcomes in individuals with prediabetes.Methods: A total of 23 meta-analyses comprising 602 RCTs and over 30,000 participants were analyzed from databases including Medline, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane through February 1, 2025. Interventions evaluated included both pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies compared to placebo or usual care. Studies reporting only bio-humoral markers were excluded. The GRADE approach was used to assess the certainty of evidence.Results: Among 15 evaluated interventions, four were supported by high-certainty evidence for diabetes prevention: GLP-1 receptor agonists (RR = 0.26), liraglutide/exenatide/semaglutide (OR = 0.29), orlistat (OR = 0.67), and structured self-care programs (OR = 0.58). High-certainty evidence also supported modest reductions in systolic blood pressure (∼2–3 mmHg) from lifestyle interventions, digital health tools, and liraglutide. Significant reductions in BMI and waist circumference were observed with pharmacologic agents, aerobic exercise, and digital platforms. However, metformin combined with lifestyle changes did not yield notable anthropometric benefits.Conclusion: These findings underscore the value of a multidimensional and personalized approach to prediabetes management, emphasizing evidence-based pharmacological options alongside behavioral and digital health strategies.Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42025649619.</p
Mapping the gaze: comparing the effectiveness of bowel cancer screening advertisements
No full textPublic-health campaigns have to capture and hold visual attention, but little is known about the influence of message framing and visual appeal on attention to bowel-cancer screening ad campaigns. In a within-subjects test, 42 UK adults aged 40 to 65 viewed 54 static adverts that varied by (i) slogan frame—anticipated regret (AR) vs. positive (P); (ii) image type—hand drawn, older stock, AI-generated; and (iii) identity congruence—viewer ethnicity matched vs. unmatched to the depicted models. Remote eye-tracking measured time to first fixation (TTFF), dwell, fixations, and revisits on a priori pre-defined regions of interest (ROIs); analyses employed linear mixed-effects models (LMMs), generalized estimating equations (GEEs), and median quantile regressions with cluster at the participant level. Across models, the AR slogans produced faster orienting (smaller TTFF) and more intense maintained attention (longer dwell, more fixations and revisits) than the P slogans. Image type set baseline attention (hand-drawn > old stock > AI) but did not significantly decrease the AR benefit, which was equivalent for all visual styles. Identity congruence enhanced early capture (lower TTFF), with small effects for dwell-based measures, suggesting that tailoring benefits only the “first glance.” Anticipated-regret framing is a reliable, design-level alternative to improving both initial capture and sustained processing of screening messages. In practice, the results indicate that advertisers should pair regret-based slogans with warm, human-centred imagery; place slogans in high-salience, low-competition spaces, and, when incorporating AI-generated imagery, reduce composition complexity and exclude uncanny details. These findings ground regret framing as a visual-attention mechanism for public health campaigns in empirical fact and provide practical recommendations for testing and production.</p
Relationality, decolonisation and practice-based methods: developing narratives for future making practices
No full textThis paper focuses on exploring the intersection between relationality and decolonisation to develop future-oriented practice-based methods. The paper explores the concept of various colonial logics and how it is imbued in the present pursuit of knowledge. The paper looks at decolonialisation through the lens of relationality, i.e. the notion that everything in the world is interrelated, emphasizing that nothing exists in solitude but rather in a web of relationships. There is also an exploration of the current nexus between decolonisation and practice-based methods. This is then followed by a look at practice-based methods and the concept of decolonisation. A new conceptual space is introduced to foster future-making practices in non-western settings, aiming to address, delineate, and integrate decolonization, relationality, and practice-based methods. A discussion focuses on the interplay between decolonization, relationality, and practice-based methods. A framework for developing narratives in future-making practices is provided.</p
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