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Individual and combined effects of acute nitrate and caffeine ingestion on cardiovascular health markers
No full textData set for a study assessing individual and combined effects of acute nitrate and caffeine ingestion or cardiovascular health markers.© the authors</p
Creeds of Kinship: an animal-human history of the lives and ideas of Anna Kingsford and Henry Salt
No full textCreeds of Kinship: an animal-human history of the lives and ideas of Anna Kingsford and Henry Salt</p
A systemic longitudinal case study of the eMed GP at Hand digital first primary care model
No full textThe shift toward digital-first healthcare models presents both opportunities and challenges for health systems worldwide. This case study critically examines the evolution of eMed GP at Hand (formerly Babylon GP at Hand) within the NHS, tracing its journey from an innovative digital provider to the largest GP practice in England, and ultimately, its downsizing. By bringing together an analysis of reviews, media coverage, and existing research, the study evaluates the model’s impact on accessibility, continuity of care, and health inequalities. Findings reveal that while the digital-first approach improved access for younger, healthier populations, it inadequately served vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and those with complex conditions. The study also highlights systemic challenges, such as limitations in Babylon’s business model, regulatory gaps in digital health oversight, and the complexities of integrating private sector innovation within public healthcare systems. These insights emphasise the necessity for robust regulation, tailored digital solutions, and a complementary relationship between digital and traditional care models to ensure sustainable and equitable healthcare delivery.</p
Extraction ecologies in medieval Venice: nature, speculation, painting, and the gesture
No full textThis paper looks at the specific political economic conditions of 16th century Venice and seeks to connect these with the introduction of the gesture in painting. Arguing that the production of “nature” and its exploitation via increased accumulation, and management of resources are enacted in Titan and Tintoretto’s painting via the expanded and abstracted gesture. I outline the development of financial and quantification techniques in Venice and Italy during the 15th century and ask if these were echoed in painting, that draws from nature while codifying it. Arguing that by looking at paintings made during the emergence of capitalism we can better understand the interaction of the economic and the ideological and locate painting as one such technique. By identifying the gesture in painting as speculative, we can read it through systems of fictitious capital that seek to capture future labour and nature, which underlines the role of credit for emergent capitalism. Arguing against previous conceptualising of the gesture as labour-time, to suggest instead it mimics the abstraction of future labour time in finance capitalism. I portend that by understanding more about ecological thinking in the emergence of capitalism we can better frame our ongoing metabolic rift.</p
Supplementary information files for "Hydrogen for cooking: Mapping multi-level transition outcomes and preemptive policy pathways through stakeholder engagement in Zambia"
No full textSupplementary files for article "Hydrogen for cooking: Mapping multi-level transition outcomes and preemptive policy pathways through stakeholder engagement in Zambia"Clean cooking transitions are context specific due to the challenges and opportunities they present in shifting from traditional biomass and fossil fuels. This study explored hydrogen for cooking in Zambia to understand how stakeholders judge its benefits and risks (n = 14 organisations). A systems-thinking lens was applied to theorize and map interdependencies across social, economic, and technical benefits. Qualitative insights were combined with a transparent scoring approach and non-parametric bootstrapping to show uncertainty around rankings. The findings revealed that stakeholders view hydrogen cooking as a catalyst for socio-economic progress and environmental gains. They also flag major hurdles: livelihood disruption during transition, affordability, cultural acceptance, infrastructure readiness, and fragmented policies. These findings point to early, targeted interventions that anticipate and mitigate potential externalities. Priorities include alternative income support where livelihoods may shift, community engagement to build acceptance, technical training to reduce reliance on external expertise, and supply chain development to ensure reliability. Across options, respondents give more weight to social benefits than to purely technical or economic performance of energy systems. A multi-criteria decision-making approach, informed by stakeholder-derived weights highlights where preferences converge at small scale and diverge at larger scale. The study contributes a context-sensitive approach that integrates stakeholder analysis with systems thinking. It foregrounds interdependencies, explicitly accommodates uncertainty, and places communities at the centre of clean-cooking strategies, offering guidance for implementation in similar settings.© The Author(s), CC BY 4.0</p
Detecting audio deepfakes at “Hi”
No full textThis paper focuses on audio deepfake detection under realworld communication degradations, with a particular emphasis on ultra-short inputs (0.5–2.0s), targeting the capability to detect audio deepfake “at Hi,” i.e., within the opening seconds of a conversation. We propose Short-MGAA (SMGAA), a lightweight extension of Multi-Granularity Adaptive Time–Frequency Attention, designed to enhance discriminative representation learning for short, degraded inputs. The S-MGAA integrates two tailored modules: a Pixel–Channel Enhanced Module that amplifies fine-grained time–frequency saliency, and a Frequency Compensation Enhanced Module to supplement limited temporal evidence via multi-scale frequency modeling and adaptive frequency–temporal interaction. Extensive experiments demonstrate that S-MGAA consistently surpasses nine state-of-the-art baselines while achieving strong robustness to degradations and favorable efficiency–accuracy trade-offs, including low RTF, competitive GFLOPs, compact parameters, and reduced training cost, highlighting its strong potential for real-time deployment in communication systems and edge devices.</p
Age-friendly car design: An emotional design approach
No full textAs society ages and more people continue to drive in later life, the number of older drivers is expected to rise substantially. Long standing challenges in age friendly car design remain unresolved, even though age related sensory, physical and cognitive declines contribute to driving difficulty. Yet much work still places primary emphasis on physical challenges, while psychological dimensions that shape emotional comfort in driving receive less attention. The research in this thesis adopts an emotional design approach, and aims to explore the emotional needs and expectations of older drivers which could lead to age-friendly car design guidelines. Three studies were conducted, all guided by emotional design principles: In the first study, Kansei Engineering is employed using a sample of older drivers (N = 75, aged 60+) to analyse older adults' emotional and aesthetic preferences for car interiors. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) identified six key semantic dimensions, ranked in order of importance: Comfort-related, Trends-related, Self-expression, Quality-related, Style, and Symmetry. Cluster Analysis (CA) with PCA indicated that comfort is a core requirement, while participants emphasised different aspects of comfort: comfort from materials, comfort derived from personal emotions, and comfort from traditional design elements. In the second study, expert focus groups were conducted with a sample of participants (N = 30, aged 20'39) to develop age-friendly interior design guidelines within the Kansei Engineering. Experts collectively agreed that emotional value and comfort are critical, and recommended enhancing the intuitiveness, accuracy, and feedback mechanisms of interaction and functionality. They also emphasised retaining selected traditional elements within modern design to support familiarity and emotional resonance for older drivers. In the third study, three co-design workshops were carried out with a sample of older adults (N = 10, aged 55+) to validate and refine the proposed design concepts. The study identified three major categories of user needs: Age-related needs'physical flexibility and limitations, visual ability, and cognitive load; Emotional needs'aesthetic comfort, higher-level emotional aspects, and avoidance of negative experiences; Needs across diverse driving scenarios'functionality. Overall, the findings indicate that Kansei Engineering is highly efficient in the early stages of the design process. Specifically, the application of Kansei Engineering Type I facilitates the effective transformation of users' emotional responses into design requirements (represented and interpreted through semantic dimensions). However, its use in qualitative research is limited by vocabulary scope and interpretive flexibility. When guiding age-friendly car interior design, particular attention should be paid to eliminating negative driving experiences among older drivers. This includes, but is not limited to, improving comfort on both the physical and psychological levels, enhancing the perceived ease of use and usability of systems, and retaining certain traditional interaction elements to foster a sense of familiarity and reduce usage barriers.</p
Borders
No full textBorders are not merely lines-in-the-sand neither are they simple aggregate of individual acts. Borders are found at the “edge” of the state and similarly within and beyond state territory. Thus, questions such as what is a border? where is the border? who borders? on whom? for whom? and how? are thrown into sharp relief every time borders are put under an academic microscope. The current entry engages with such questions and issues in three primary sections. By tracing a brief evolution of political borders, the first section sheds light on how borders may assume different meanings at different times and places for various parties. The second section delves into the task of “locating” border as defined in a variety of ways. And finally, with the conceptual and locational aspects of borders in mind, the third section focuses on how borders come into being through their performance.</p
Project: Para Sportswomen's Experiences of Pregnancy and Motherhood
No full textProject Title: Para Sportswomen's Experiences of Pregnancy and MotherhoodThis project explored the embodied experiences of pregnancy and motherhood in para sportswomen. The research design was qualitative and consisted of 10 in depth interviews lasting between 60-120 minutes. </p
Banking on Europe: semi-structured interviews
No full textThis three-year project, which was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, and the Luxembourg National Research Fund, brought together a team of researchers in the UK and Luxembourg between 2022 and 2025. The project's aim was to generate new knowledge about the evolution and accountability of pan-European borrowers. Institutions with the authority to raise funds on financial markets to provide grants, loans or guarantees were part of the European Communities' early efforts in the 1950s to support the coal and steel sectors and regional development. Such institutions formed key elements of European responses to the economic crises of the 1970s, the reuniting of Europe in the 1990s and the euro crisis in the 2010s, and they were pivotal to the EU's response to COVID-19. The Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank, which has become the world's largest multilateral lender, provided EUR 25 billion in guarantees for European businesses hit by the pandemic. This is in addition to the EUR 750 billion that the European Commission was authorised to borrow to help with the economic costs of COVID-19. As a result of these and other initiatives, the EU started to borrow on the scale of a large state. This data set includes semi-structured interviews with European and member state practitioners about the evolution and accountability of pan-European borrowers.</p