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Interest groups and trade unions
No full textPolish interest groups and trade unions have faced a tremendous transformation over the last thirty years. As the collapse of Communism provided new opportunities for organized society, it also led to the new challenges. Those include new access points for influencing public policies, institutionalization of social dialogue, Europeanization, as well as, democratic backsliding. Apart from an overview of the historical developments when it comes to the engagement of interest groups and trade unions in Poland’s political system, this chapter investigates the impact of most recent developments on the groups’ activity and opportunity structures. Drawing on survey data from national-level interest groups and trade unions, the analysis argues that especially the most recent changes (in particular, democratic backsliding) pose the real threat to the democratic representation of organized interests in Poland
Validating the children's eating behaviour questionnaire in a UK sample: A suitable tool for mothers and fathers
No full textChildren's eating behaviour is a complex construct linked to various health, social, and psychological outcomes. The Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ)assesses parents' perceptions of children's eating behaviours across eight subscales: food fussiness, enjoyment of food, food responsiveness, satiety responsiveness, desire to drink, slowness in eating, and emotional under- and overeating. Given that the initial validation of the CEBQ dates back to the early 2000s, this study aimed to (1) evaluate the psychometric properties of the CEBQ in a UK sample using current psychometric recommendations and (2) examine its measurement invariance based on parental sex. A total of 994 caregivers (196 fathers and 798 mothers) of children aged 3-5 years completed the questionnaire. The performance of the scale revealed that 23 items exhibited ceiling or floor effects or failed to meet recommended item-total correlation coefficients. Exploratory factor analysis supported an eight-factor, 34-item structure, which was confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis: X = 2129.845 (df = 499; p < 0.001), TLI = 0.911, CFI = 0.921, RMSEA = 0.083 (90 % CI 0.079-0.087) and SRMR = 0.080. All factors demonstrated adequate internal consistency (omega 3 values over 0.7). Measurement invariance testing confirmed strict invariance by parental sex, indicating the instrument performs equivalently for mothers and fathers. These findings support the use of the revised 34-item CEBQ with its eight original factors for both maternal and paternal respondents. However, future research should consider revising certain CEBQ items included to strengthen its capacity to capture variations in children's eating behaviour, and to provide a more accurate evaluation of the construct
CorGeS: The Corpus of German Suicide Notes
No full textThis paper introduces CorGeS, a historic corpus of authentic German suicide notes written between the 1910s and 1930s. Originally compiled and transcribed by a police officer, the corpus offers a rare and valuable resource for both linguistic and historical inquiry. We describe the provenance and structure of the corpus, as well as the methodological and ethical considerations involved in working with such sensitive material. While suicide note analysis is well established in English-language research, German-language material remains understudied, making CorGeS an important contribution to multilingual and cross-cultural perspectives in suicide note analysis. To illustrate the potential of the corpus, we present a preliminary topic modelling analysis, highlighting key thematic patterns in the texts, before using corpus methods to explore the most prevalent item in the corpus in more detail. These early results demonstrate the diversity and emotional complexity of the notes and suggest several avenues for further research at the intersection of linguistics, history, and suicide note analysis
Overcoming divalent cation sensitivity is not the only challenge for functional study of ABC transporters within polymer lipid particles
Get PDFProteins of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter superfamily are involved in diverse biological processes including multidrug resistance. As membrane proteins, they exist within a complex lipid environment, and often it is necessary to isolate them from the other membrane components to study their structure, function, and dynamics. Traditionally, detergents have been used to isolate the transporters into micelles but this can strip away lipids that may be essential for function. Polymers such as styrene maleic acid (SMA) offer attractive alternatives to detergents as they retain the protein and lipids in a nanoscale disc. However, to date, no demonstration of full ABC transporter activity in these discs has been achieved, possibly due to the inherent divalent cation sensitivity of the SMA polymers; magnesium is essential for ATP binding to ABC transporters. Novel polymers such as those based on acrylic acid styrene (AASTY) show decreased sensitivity to divalent cations and, as such, may be well placed to probe ABC transporter activity. We have demonstrated that a range of commercially available AASTY polymers solubilise biological membranes efficiently, albeit with slightly different kinetics. ABC transporters can be solubilised and purified using AASTY polymers into discs of a comparable size to those formed by SMA2000. These discs show increased magnesium tolerance but, as for SMA2000, lipids within them do not seem to undergo a full phase transition. We were unable to detect ATPase activity of ABC transporters in AASTY polymer lipid particles, suggesting that magnesium tolerance alone is not sufficient to overcome the challenges
A Multi-model Bias-corrected Large-Ensemble for High-resolution Climate Impact Assessment in Sub-Saharan Africa
Get PDFSub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is increasingly exposed to unprecedented climate extremes, posing critical challenges to water and food security. Hydrological and agricultural climate-change impact assessments commonly rely on downscaled and bias-corrected climate model simulations to drive hydrological and sectoral impact models. In many regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa, existing studies predominantly apply bias correction to single realisations from multi-model climate ensembles, which limits the explicit sampling of internal climate variability and constrains robust quantification of climate-change impacts and associated uncertainty. To account for internal variability in regional climate change projections, single model initial-condition large ensembles (SMILEs) can be used. Across diverse case studies in Europe and North America, different approaches have been developed to downscale and bias-correct SMILEs while preserving internal climate variability. However, these approaches have so far been applied almost exclusively to individual SMILEs, have not been extended to multiple SMILEs within a unified bias-correction framework, and remain unexplored in the SSA context. This study presents the first multi-model, bias-corrected large-ensemble for high-resolution climate impact assessment in Sub-Saharan Africa, using Uganda as a demonstrative case study. The framework integrates six CMIP6 SMILEs (MPI-ESM1-2-LR, ACCESS-CM2, IPSL-CM6A-LR, MIROC6, CanESM5, and UKESM1-0-LL), together providing more than 150 climate simulations sampling both internal climate variability and inter-model structural uncertainty. Bias correction is applied at monthly scale using the CDF-t method, following the ensemble-based and individual-member-based implementations proposed by Ayar et al. (2021). The correction functions are trained over the historical period 1950–2014, using ERA5-Land as the reference dataset, resulting in bias-corrected regional climate scenarios at 8 km spatial resolution. The resulting bias-corrected multi-model large ensemble is intended for use in hydrological and agricultural impact modelling over selected Ugandan catchments to support future analyses of hydroclimatic change, variability, and extremes. Beyond this case study, the framework is designed as a scalable prototype for the future development of a pan-SSA multi-model, bias-corrected large-ensemble climate dataset to support climate-impact assessments and adaptation planning
Live Music Ecologies: Mapping Live Music in Urban Economies
No full textMusic makes a significant economic contribution and is a source of cultural sustenance across cities (EC, 2006; IFPI-Oxford Economics, 2020), drawing attention to, and bringing both economic and cultural capital to localities. Each regional context produces a complex live music ecosystem of musical and non-musical actors and concerns – from venues, promoters and musicians to licensing, health, policing, and transport. Managing the interplay between distinctive regional and national circumstances, while negotiating interconnected commercial and civic priorities, represents a challenge to policymakers and businesses in identifying, accessing and interpreting credible sources of data and making informed strategic decisions. To meet this challenge the proposed volume engages with two core themes: Firstly, the valuation and measurement of live music ecologies by recognising relations between venues, stakeholders and their polities. Secondly, by examining results generated through a novel methodological approach based on mapping as a viable representation of the cultural and social dynamics. This methodology, in turn, leads to addressing questions on policy, aiming to improve policy decision-making that impacts on live music industries in urban environments. The empirical base of the volume is the Live Music Mapping Project (LMMP), a research consortium that works to measure the economic and socio-cultural impact using a geospatial approach to live music ecosystems. LMMP’s methods have derived from industry and policy-facing academic research to produce a bespoke process for mapping live music ecosystems in specific locations. These are focused on the creation of digital maps of music ecosystems, presenting music sector data integrated with other publicly accessible sources (e.g. national statistical datasets, historical house price data, rateable property valuations etc.) to broaden and strengthen the policymaking intelligence capacity. The volume involves a set of contributions from LMMP team members covering the background to the work; technical aspects of the live music mapping methodology; and European scope case-studies of its deployment and implementation; along with lessons learned. The proposed co-authored monograph aligns with the Geographies of Media series in the following way: • The volume is based on a multi/cross disciplinary approach devised to deliver data-led solutions to research challenges surrounding the spatial mapping, informed policy-making, and evaluation of the socio-cultural value of live music ecosystems. • The volume clearly recognises existence of urban geographies built through a focus on live music performance spaces. However, following the live music ecosystem definition, this is also positioned as a complex interplay of actors at various levels (local, regional, national) enhancing the purely physical understanding of urban creative economies. • The publication is based on the research project that deploys GIS measurement techniques as one of its research methodologies, enhanced through digital visualisation. As such, the book engages with the fluid border of the political systems when it comes to music policies through use of a novel methodology and discusses its implication on policy analysis and impact on policy-making
Rethinking Hybrid U-Shape Network with Pixel-Level Feature Learning for Retinal Vessel Segmentation
Get PDFRetinal vessel segmentation is a critical, non-destructive medical imaging task in computer vision, essential for diagnosing fundus diseases. Although deep learning methods dominate this field, existing U-shaped encoder-decoder networks with skip connections face limitations when handling discrepancies in multi-scale features. Shallow encoder and decoder stages produce high-resolution but low-dimensional feature maps, effectively capturing fine vessel details, whereas deeper stages (such as the bottleneck) generate lower-resolution, high-dimensional feature maps rich in semantic information. Traditional U-shaped architectures often struggle to effectively integrate these distinct types of features. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a redesigned U-shaped network that incorporates modified convolution and transformer layers tailored specifically for segmenting slender and tortuous retinal vessel structures. A Multi-Core Channel-Spatial Attention (MCCSA) block replaces conventional skip connections, enhancing the extraction of high-frequency texture features in shallow stages. For deeper stages, a Pixel-level Vision Transformer (P-ViT) is introduced to model semantic interconnections among pixels, thereby improving semantic feature recognition. Furthermore, a Pixel-level residual dynamic adaptive Convolutional Neural Network (P-CNN) is proposed to better capture the intricate curved topology of blood vessels. The proposed method is evaluated on two publicly available benchmark datasets, demonstrating significant segmentation performance improvements compared to existing U-shaped methods. Our contributions include enhanced multi-scale feature integration, improved semantic feature learning, and refined extraction of vessel topology
Empowering Students to Identify Their Own Skill Sets Through a Final Year Biomedical Science Job Interview Assessment
Get PDFIntroduction: The final year Professional Development for Biomedical Scientists module at Aston University strives to create competent practitioners upon graduation. Recent research identified that 93% of NHS pathology employers within the United Kingdom, do not believe that new Biomedical Scientist graduates possess the skills required for a Band 5 interview. Additionally, 73% of these employers believed students were not fully prepared for the NHS interview process. Therefore, Aston University redeveloped an existing mock interview component to align directly with NHS interview processes. This research aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the redesigned “Job interview” assessment upon student understanding of their own transferable skills and readiness for future laboratory employment. Methods: Researchers evaluated the effectiveness of the assessment through a mixed-method approach survey. The survey was launched to students following their completion of the Medical Laboratory Assistant video interview, using the interview software Interview360. The survey sought to identify if after the interview assessment students felt they could demonstrate with examples, using the STAR technique, several key skills sought by employers. Results: Data was collected from both the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 final year Biomedical Science cohort. Collected data has been overwhelmingly positive, with 97% of students agreeing that they “understand the types of questions they would be asked in an NHS interview” (p < 0.0001). In terms of the key skills sought for by employers, 93% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they felt they could communicate within a specific situation example their understanding of “Basic equipment skills” (p < 0.0001) and their “understanding of laboratory results” (p < 0.0001). Whilst 99% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they could demonstrate their “understanding of laboratory health and safety” (p < 0.0001). Furthermore, respondents reported that the job interview assessment assisted them to demonstrate their transferable skills, including teamwork (81.6%) and organisational skills (71.05%). Discussion: Student responses identify a positive change to their job interview skills and understanding of the NHS interview process. Here, researchers present the re-modelled graded job interview assessment with the NHS aligned mark scheme, along with four pre-assessment workshops as a process to embed employability into the Biomedical Science curriculum
Experimental Evaluation of Transmission of C+L+U bands over an Unrepeatered Link
Get PDFWe investigate the potential to expand the trans mission bandwidth beyond the C-band to include the L- and U bands over an unrepeatered link. We characterize three fibers- a G.654 compliant Sumitomo Z+ fiber, a G.657 compliant Corning SMF28ULTRA fiber, and a G.652 compliant OFS AllWave Zero Water Peak (ZWP) fiber- for their attenuation profiles and Raman gain efficiencies in the L- and U-bands. We demonstrate the transmission of C+L+U bands over an unrepeatered link of 257.1 km. The transmission system includes band-specific erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for the C- and L- bands, lumped Raman amplifiers for the U-band, and bidirectional distributed Raman amplification for the three bands. We report a decoded data-rate of 84.5 Tb/s over a spectral bandwidth of 109.2 nm using 520 polarization-multiplexed 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulated channels across C+L+U bands. We investigate ways to manage the effects of stimulated Raman scattering while expanding the transmission window beyond 100 nm over an unrepeatered link
Agency through Informality: How Bangladeshi Restaurant Owners Navigate Structural Constraints in Times of Crisis
Get PDFHow do Bangladeshi restaurant owners exercise agency during periods of extreme uncertainty? This question matters most when resource-constrained businesses face existential threats. This longitudinal study examines Bangladeshi-owned restaurants across multiple crises, identifying three agency forms operating through informal practices: navigational (contextual adaptations), relational (social network mobilisation) and innovative (entrepreneurial repositioning). Despite facing similar structural constraints, restaurants exhibited divergent trajectories reflecting their differential deployment of these agency forms. The study advances mixed embeddedness theory by providing a dynamic account of how entrepreneurs actively engage with structural contexts rather than merely responding to them. It contributes to employment relations literature by reconceptualising informality not as a compensatory response to disadvantage but as a strategic resource through which entrepreneurs exercise agency during structural constraints while maintaining operational flexibility. This perspective shows how informal employment practices serve as sophisticated mechanisms for balancing worker needs with business imperatives in challenging conditions
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