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Making the Temporary Permanent? Approaches to International Protection in the European Union, Türkiye and the United States
No full textThe question of temporary protection has risen in prominence and generated a growing body of scholarship since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the resulting activation of the EU’s long-dormant Temporary Protection Directive for the benefit of persons forced to flee Ukraine. In this special section we examine the practical implementation of temporary protection in Poland, a key host EU member state for Ukrainians. We also widen the scholarly inquiry into temporary protection beyond the EU to examine the approach of other important destination states, namely, Türkiye and the United States. The contributions to this special section illustrate a number of key features of temporary protection, including that it is neither a new response to forced migration, nor confined to the Global North. They also make clear that the increasing recourse to temporary protection for persons seeking refuge outside their countries of origin entails not only fixed-term protection statuses but also, often, an accompanying suite of rights that falls short of that traditionally associated with refugee status. While highlighting some key disadvantages endured by temporary protection beneficiaries, such as precarity and uncertainty, the contributions also identify the benefits of such protection, both for host states and some beneficiaries. Collectively, the contributions to this special section sketch the pitfalls that must be avoided if the increasingly widespread recourse to temporary protection is to unfold in a manner that benefits not only host states but also those in need of those states’ protection.</p
Target switching in 2D and 3D visual foraging reveals trade-offs between mental effort, travelling distance and movement speed
No full textMany everyday activities entail searching for multiple desired items and can be conceptualised as foraging. They require mental effort to keep each item in memory, while searching. An instantiation of such activities in experimental psychology is visual foraging, where people search for multiple target categories among distractors. In visual foraging, high frequencies of switching between selections of two different target categories suggest the use of mentally effortful strategies, which require sustained simultaneous use of working memory templates for each of them. As humans often strive to reduce mental effort in cognitive tasks, a key theoretical issue is the characterisation of what induces people to spontaneously increase the frequency of switching between target categories. In five experiments, we systematically manipulated variables in instances of foraging in 2D and 3D virtual reality environments to assess changes in target switching frequency and its determinants. Experiment 1 showed that humans switch more when foraging in large immersive navigational environments, than in visual arrays seen from a bird’s eye view. Further experiments clarified that: 1) inter-target distance and movement speed are the critical determinants of strategy changes in a 2D small-scale environment; 2) distance affects the frequency of switching more than speed, in a 3D navigational environment. These results indicate that people spontaneously choose to endure mental costs to meet the demands of different naturalistic instances of foraging. They support theories postulating a flexible use of working memory templates.</p
PremPath parent summary findings
No full textThe PremPath study was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Policy Research Programme (NIHR204242) between April 2023 and June 2025. The perinatal optimisation pathway brings together a number of evidence-based interventions to reduce the risk of neonatal death and associated preterm morbidities. This project was commissioned to examine how the pathway is working in practice. We aimed to explore how multiple clinical teams work together to make decisions about the optimisation and stabilisation of preterm infants and to explore the experiences of staff delivering the pathway, and parents and families receiving care. This resource comprises a summary of the findings from interviews with 41 parents. We heard from 2 fathers and 39 mothers of preterm babies born at a variety of gestations. The majority of parents interviewed were White British (66%). Parents lived across England.</p
Social Norms and the Rise of Fringe Candidates
No full textTo explore the recent surge of fringe candidates, we investigate the dynamic interplay between social norms and elections. We use a two-period electoral competition model featuring a mainstream and fringe candidate, where voting for the fringe candidate incurs stigma due to her extreme views that contravene prevailing social norms. A significant first-period vote for the fringe candidate signals wider acceptance, eroding norms and boosting her second-period success. To achieve this, the fringe candidate diverges on standard policy issues, while the mainstream candidate imitates her. Paradoxically, heightened initial social norms may enhance the fringe candidate’s subsequent election success.</p
Enhancing Critical Thinking and Self‐Efficacy With GenAI : A Social Cognitive Perspective Using Structural Equation Modelling
No full textBackground The integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) into higher education is growing rapidly, yet its impact on learning processes remains underexplored. Existing research and theories, such as social cognitive theory (SCT), largely focus on human‐to‐human learning interactions, leaving a gap in understanding how cognitive and motivational mechanisms operate in human–AI contexts. Objectives This study investigates how GenAI features influence students' critical thinking and self‐efficacy, with a specific focus on the mediating role of cognitive engagement. Methods Drawing on SCT, we conceptualised GenAI features—playfulness, perceived learning value and output quality—as environmental stimuli influencing student outcomes via cognitive engagement. Survey data were collected from 223 undergraduate and postgraduate students. Structural equation modelling was used to test both direct effects and the mediating role of cognitive engagement. Results and Conclusions The results indicate that GenAI playfulness and perceived learning value significantly enhance students' cognitive engagement, which then positively affects their critical thinking and self‐efficacy. Cognitive engagement functioned as a key mediator in these relationships. However, output quality did not exhibit a significant effect, suggesting that engagement, rather than content quality alone, is crucial for fostering meaningful cognitive development. This study extends SCT by adapting it to human–AI learning contexts and provides actionable insights for designing GenAI tools that enhance learner engagement and development.</p
Thesaurus for Advancing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: A Curated Research Collection
No full textThesaurus used to create the University of Leicester 'Advancing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: A Curated Research Collection', inspired by the University of York Glossary of equality, diversity and inclusion terminology.Keywords and terms were used to filter content available on Leicester Research Archive prior adding to the collection.</p
Fundamental Science Inspired Metaphorical Approach to Creative Computing for Persuasion: An Ethos-Pathos-Logos Framework
No full textThis thesis proposes a metaphor-driven creative computing framework for the structured generation of persuasive messages. Fundamental-science metaphors are treated as computational operators that define states, constraints, and composition rules, yielding varied yet interpretable sentence surfaces. The framework comprises three coordinated stages. Ethos is aligned with chemistry to compose credential statements and resource offers via rule mappings over chemical affinity matching, neutralisation reaction, and endothermic reaction. Pathos is aligned with physics to manage affect through active noise cancellation that removes unwanted negative affect, acoustic resonance that aligns message intensity with the listener’s arousal band for efficient uptake, and amplification that raises the level of the same in-band signal without changing its spectrum or phase. Logos is aligned with a mathematics metaphor to structure evidence through Pareto’s rule that summarises the past as decided by vital decisions, golden ratio that validates the present by representing the option as an balance between internal and external factors of listener, and Fibonacci sequence that projects the future, with each step reusing the previous output and jointly covering numerical, qualitative, and logical evidence. A proof-of-concept system for UK university subject selection is presented to demonstrate the approach. The implemented pipeline is evaluated using topic and length matched prompts. Assessment is conducted with audit driven operator metrics. Results indicate full metaphor coverage and correct placement across messages. Science-aligned metaphors are established as both the creativity mechanism and the methodological framework for creativity generation in persuasive message. Then, a structured ethos–pathos–logos pipeline is implemented that separates and coordinates credibility cues, affect control, and evidential framing. Lastly, chemistry, physics, and mathematics are unified into reusable, interpretable rule libraries, instantiating creativity generation as an operator space that supports enumerability and recombination.</p
Uncertainty, Volatility Spillovers, and Sustainability in Financial Markets
No full textThis thesis investigates how stock market risk and volatility evolve in a changing global financial environment. Integrating insights from volatility forecasting, systemic risk transmission, and environmental sustainability, it applies advanced econometric and machine-learning methods to study how different forms of uncertainty are forecasted, transmitted, and priced in international markets. Chapter2 examines whether country-specific economic policy uncertainty (EPU) improves forecasts of realised volatility in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, the Euro Area, and Hong Kong (2001–2022) within an HAR framework. Across markets, implied volatility is the strongest short-horizon predictor, while EPU provides additional forecasting value at longer horizons, supporting volatility timing and risk control. By contrast, the incremental contribution of EPU is limited in Hong Kong, consistent with local policy signals playing a less dominant role in volatility dynamics. Chapter3 analyses volatility spillovers between the G7 and major emerging markets (Brazil, India, China) from 2010 to 2022, with emphasis on systemic episodes such as COVID-19. Using connectedness measures in the time, quantile, frequency, and time-varying VAR domains, it documents persistently high spillovers that rise sharply in crises, event-driven shifts in net transmission roles, and long-horizon persistence. Regression evidence indicates that global risk sentiment (VIX) and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) are robust macro-financial indicators associated with fluctuations in aggregate connectedness, supporting surveillance and stress-scenario design. Chapter4 studies whether firms’ environmental sustainability performance predicts US aggregate market risk, focusing on the variance risk premium (VRP). Using 14 Sustainalytics indicators for S&P 500 firms, it constructs a market-level environmental index and shows out-of-sample predictive power for VRP, with emissions disclosure, carbon intensity (and its trend), and green procurement policies among the most informative predictors. Notably, stronger carbon performance is associated with higher VRP, consistent with transition-related uncertainty. Overall, the thesis clarifies how policy, systemic, and environmental uncertainties jointly shape modern financial risk and informs monitoring, portfolio management, and policy-oriented assessment.</p
Immigration in the Press: An Analysis of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal During the Obama and Trump Presidencies
No full textOver recent decades, immigration and xenophobic reactions to it have become issues of heated public debate in many countries around the globe, with immigrants being routinely constructed negatively and silenced in the Western press.To understand such constructions, this thesis analyses broadsheet newspaper representations of unauthorised immigrants from south of the U.S.-Mexico border during the eras of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, two presidents with staunchly disparate political standpoints on immigrants/immigration. More specifically, the thesis offers a qualitative analysis of news articles from the relatively liberal New York Times and the conservative Wall Street Journal, covering the periods 2009-11 and 2017-19. Aside from, first, enquiring about constructions of social actors and events, it asks, second, why/if there are (dis)continuities between the two sources, and third, how/why emotions and voice manifest in the representations of immigrants.The thesis responds to these questions by analysing four corpora of news articles from immigration-related events in the two newspaper sources, representing the first two years of Obama and Trump’s presidencies. Operating within the framework of critical discourse analysis, the thesis considers the different ideological positions of the two news sources as affecting the representations and undertakes thematic analysis, social actor analysis, and detailed textual analysis to understand them.This thesis reveals an at times affirmative, humanising (i.e., inclusive) construction of immigrants. Thus, the thesis contributes to an understanding of multilayered representations around actors and events in newspapers with different ideological orientations, illuminating how voice and emotion are activated. The thesis not only documents outright negative portrayals, but also decodes the complexities of seemingly humanising representations, which are ultimately rather ambiguous as they are regularly rooted in what appears to be a neoliberal perspective on deservingness and undeservingness. As such, the thesis uncovers the role of these media in potentially shaping public understandings of immigration.</p
Planet Migration in Turbulent or Windy Discs
No full textThis thesis investigates the migration dynamics of planets in turbulent protoplanetary discs, focusing particularly on the impacts of disc turbulence, and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) disc winds on planetary orbital evolution and observational signatures. Using advanced hydrodynamical simulations with the FARGO and FARGO3D code, I explore how stochastic turbulent perturbations influence planetary mean-motion resonances (MMRs). I find that turbulence enhances resonance overstability, increasing equilibrium eccentricities and driving planet pairs to sequentially break from lower-order resonances (e.g., 3:2, 4:3) and temporarily stabilise in tighter resonances (e.g., 5:4). In parallel, I investigate the influence of magnetically driven disc winds on planet migration in protoplanetary discs (PPDs). My simulations reveal that MHD disc winds can significantly reduce or reverse inward migration rates of planets, effectively addressing the “migration braking” problem observed in planet formation theories. Additionally, my work addresses a critical methodological issue in numerical simulations of planet-disc interactions. Traditional simulations often fix planets at specific orbits to induce observable disc structures like gaps and rings. However, my findings show that migrating planets produce similar substructures but require notably different disc conditions and parameters compared to fixed planets. This discrepancy implies that the observational interpretation of disc substructures must account for the realistic migration of embedded planets. And my work also show that combined constraints from planet migration and dust dynamics can be used to put tight constraints on the unobservable gas masses of PPDs. Together, these studies provide new insights into the complex interplay between planet migration, turbulence, and MHD disc winds, significantly impacting our understanding of planet formation and the interpretation of observed disc features.</p