11237 research outputs found
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Examining a hyper-human virtual brand ambassador as a brand personification strategy
No full textPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to explores the usage of Ella, a virtual influencer, as a dedicated ambassador for the brand Disney Japan. Identifying what storytelling strategies are being used by the hyper-human brand owned virtual brand ambassadors and how these build upon the endorsed brand’s existing personification. Design/methodology/approach: An abductive thematic analysis was carried out on the images of 212 posts across the complete active period of Ella, a virtual brand ambassador for Disney Japan. Findings: Brands that use hyper-human brand-dedicated virtual ambassadors can produce native social media content. This content situated in either the physical or virtual space take on different roles in the virtual brand ambassador’s connection with the audience. Storytelling of the everyday allows for relatability to be established, whereas storytelling using fantasy and surrealism allow for harnessing of imagination. They both allow for the easy integration of brand iconography. Practical implications: Brands seeking to utilise social media content for storytelling can use brand-dedicated virtual ambassadors to both tell new stories as well as to act as a route to integrate existing brand stories, with the potential to elicit collective nostalgia. The use of these virtual entities also allows the creative flexibility of content encompassing both reality and virtuality. Originality/value: The work contributes to the emerging literature on hyper-human virtual brand ambassadors providing a critical case study into the content repertoire available to the brands utilising them and crucially identifying key storytelling techniques used within their posts on Instagram.</p
Fragile methods, fractured trust: rethinking scientific responsibility
No full textScience has a credibility problem, and it is not just the fault of politicians, journalists, or conspiracy theorists. It begins within science itself. This review examines how flawed methods and selective reporting, combined with overly polished communications that prioritise image over clarity, have normalised bad practice in molecular biology, diagnostics, and related applied sciences. The quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) offers a clear example: a conceptually simple, technically mature technology that is nonetheless routinely misused, despite published standards and repeated calls for methodological rigour over the past two decades. If qPCR is so often misapplied, what does that suggest about confidence in more complex, less transparent technologies? An additional problem lies in the way scientific findings are misreported or exaggerated. Such distortions have far-reaching consequences beyond individual studies. From the MMR-autism scare to COVID-19 testing and vaccine hesitancy, they have fuelled confusion, eroded public trust, and endangered public health. Consequently, when flawed or overstated findings shape public policy or clinical decisions, the damage undermines science's role as a reliable source of knowledge and informed choice. Credibility must rest on transparent practice, ethical responsibility, and attention to both how results are produced and how they are communicated. Until scientists recognise that communication is not value-neutral, and that our public voice carries consequences far beyond the lab, public scepticism will be justified.</p
Sharing Best Practice in Neurodiversity from the UK to Indonesia
No full textA collection of PowerPoints presented at ARU by academics from the UK and Indonesia. </p
Data set: Professional Advocacy in Focus: A Qualitative Descriptive Study of Nurses and Midwives Perceptions in one UK NHS Trust
No full textThis dataset contains anonymised interview transcripts that were used in the data analysis for the paper Professional Advocacy in Focus: A Qualitative Descriptive Study of Nurses and Midwives Perceptions in one UK NHS TrustData access will be granted once users have consented to the data sharing agreement and provided written plans and justification for what is proposed with the data. Data access may be obtained by submitting a request to the ARU Research Services Manager via [email protected]. Requests will be reviewed by the authors and key collaborators as named on the repository.</p
Unlocking the market potential of macroalgae in alternative protein supply chains: enablers and inhibitors
No full textAs conventional land-based protein sources become increasingly costly, additional solutions are needed to help meet future global food requirements. We examine the potential of macroalgae (seaweed) as an alternative protein source, providing insights into key market enablers and inhibitors. The global seaweed market has grown significantly in recent years, with Asia dominating both production and consumption. However, despite its long-standing dietary significance in Asia, macroalgae applications are underdeveloped in European markets. In this research, we investigate why macroalgae applications are underdeveloped in the food industry in Europe. Value chain mapping allowed us to capture the involved stakeholders, operations, and outcomes, while a PESTEL analysis enabled us to identify contextual enablers and inhibitors. Key findings highlight the industry's strengths, including the high nutritional value of products and the rapid growth rate of macroalgae businesses, alongside weaknesses such as industry fragmentation and regulatory gaps. Two workshops with food supply chain experts confirmed the findings, resulting in six strategic recommendations to speed up macroalgae adoption: (i) harmonising regulations across EU Member States, (ii) educating consumers to increase awareness and reduce food neophobia, (iii) targeted research and development investment in macroalgae cultivation and processing, (iv) improving supply chain integration, (v) establishing multi-stakeholder collaboration platforms, and (vi) providing sustainability incentives aligned with the EU Blue Economy Strategy. This research is among the first to identify key enablers, inhibitors, and practical policy directions for the macroalgae sector, highlighting the importance of coordinated innovation and cross-sector collaboration to unlock its potential as a sustainable protein source.</p
The Greater Peterborough City Centre Plan. Gordon Cullen and the cinematics of British Townscape
No full textGordon Cullen (1914−1994) was a key figure in 20th-century urban design. If Cullen’s contribution in promoting the Townscape’s Architectural Review agenda is well known, his career as a private consultant and his involvement in innumerable British redevelopment plans has not still been sufficiently investigated. Furthermore, his archive at the University of Westminster is almost entirely unstudied, leaving a significant gap in understanding his broader influence on urban development. This paper addresses this omission focusing on The Greater Peterborough City Plan (1971). The research employs archival investigation of Cullen’s reports, sketches, and drawings, alongside site visits, photographic documentation, and visual analysis of present-day urban spaces. The findings highlight Cullen’s distinctive ability to capture lived experience through sequential sketches. His Peterborough project demonstrates that modernisation and new buildings can coexist with historic character, showing that urban development, when thoughtfully conceived, can reinforce a sense of place.</p
Barriers and facilitators to quality mental health care for forcibly displaced children and adolescents in the WHO European Region: protocol for a scoping review
No full textIntroduction: Forcibly displaced children and adolescents in the WHO European Region have high mental health needs, yet few manage to access mental health services and even fewer receive high-quality care. Addressing this gap is crucial, as inadequate mental health support has profound and lasting negative effects on individuals, families and communities. This scoping review aims to identify and synthesise the available evidence on the barriers and facilitators to quality mental healthcare for forcibly displaced children and adolescents in the WHO European Region. Methods and analysis: Quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method studies that examine barriers and facilitators of quality mental healthcare for forcibly displaced children and adolescents in the WHO European Region will be included. Eligible participants include forcibly displaced children and adolescents, mental healthcare providers, policymakers and humanitarian actors in the mental health and psychosocial support field. We will adhere to the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines. A comprehensive search of databases, including Embase, Medline, PsycINFO, Scopus and Web of Science, will be conducted. We will systematically search for relevant studies published between January 2004 and December 2024. At least two reviewers will independently screen titles, abstracts and full texts. Data extraction will involve systematically charting relevant information from included studies. We will use the WHO Quality Standards for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services as an analytical lens to map the evidence. Our study will provide a comprehensive overview of the barriers and facilitators to quality mental healthcare for forcibly displaced children and adolescents, and identify knowledge gaps and areas for potential quality improvement. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval will not be required since this study will retrieve data from already published research and no new data will be collected. The results of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at international conferences in order to disseminate to academic and non-academic stakeholders such as non-governmental organisations, government bodies and community organisations involved in mental healthcare for forcibly displaced persons. Review registration details: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/AK74F .</p
A Guide for UK-Based Research Ethics Committees Assessing Health Research with People who are Unhoused
No full textThis is one of five new guides designed to support Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in reviewing health research involving diverse inclusion health communities.
The collection includes one overarching guide and four specialist guides focused on research with Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showmen and Boater communities, people seeking asylum or with refugee status, people who are unhoused and individuals with impaired capacity.
Written and reviewed by experts, including people with lived experience, the guides offer practical tips, checklists, and best practice advice for panel members.</p
A Guide for UK-Based Research Ethics Committees Assessing Health Research with People Seeking Asylum or Who Have Refugee Status
No full textThis is one of five new guides designed to support Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in reviewing health research involving diverse inclusion health communities.
The collection includes one overarching guide and four specialist guides focused on research with Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showmen and Boater communities, people seeking asylum or with refugee status, people who are unhoused and individuals with impaired capacity.
Written and reviewed by experts, including people with lived experience, the guides offer practical tips, checklists, and best practice advice for panel members.</p
<i>tidypopgen</i>: Tidy population genetics in R
No full textAs genome‐wide data have become increasingly available, software libraries for their analysis have proliferated. While new tools for downstream analyses are constantly emerging, existing workflows are hindered by inefficiencies. Switching between coding languages and object types in the early stages of pipelines wastes researchers' time, impedes reproducibility and creates opportunity for error. To confront these obstacles, we introduce tidypopgen, a comprehensive R package for population genetic analysis of biallelic single‐nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. Genotype data can be read, filtered and analysed within a single environment, without the need for prior data cleaning or setup with other software. tidypopgen 's gen_tibble object structure makes analysis efficient and intuitive, while standardised tidy grammar makes data manipulation clear. Functionality within tidypopgen supports cleaning and merging datasets, basic descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis, clustering algorithms and F‐statistics, as well as integrating with existing tools for population genetic analyses in R. We use the Human Genome Diversity Project SNP dataset (Li et al., 2008) to show that a basic population genetic workflow can be executed in under 25 lines of code in a single environment using one file set, without the need to write superfluous outputs or change directories. By supporting data assembly through to data analysis, tidypopgen significantly streamlines workflows without compromising speed or functionality.</p
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