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How does news coverage of suicide affect suicidal behaviour at a high-frequency location? A 7-year time series analysis
Get PDFIntroduction News reporting of suicide can have a significant influence on suicidal behaviour in the general population, especially following the death of a well-known individual. By comparison, the impact of reporting on suicides at well-known, ‘high-frequency’ locations is less well understood. We investigated the relationship between news coverage of suicide and incidents at a high-frequency coastal location in the UK over a 7-year period.
Methods We analysed bidirectional associations (with daily and weekly lags) and Granger causality between suicide-related news in the UK (n=38 595, of which 789 focused on cliff locations) and suspected suicides (n=278) and crisis interventions (n=3050) at the site between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2023. Separate subanalyses explored associations with repeat coverage and with headlines featuring explicit location/method details.
Results While coverage of incidents at the study site and other coastal locations represents a small and decreasing proportion of all UK news of suicide, 51% of all cliff-related news focused on the study site, often explicitly identified in the story’s headline (81%). There were significant but small (r<0.3) correlations between the volume of news coverage (particularly when method-specific and location-specific) and suicidal behaviour at the site, with fatalities increasing in the immediate aftermath of reporting. This effect was strongest in 2018–2019 (which had the greatest volume of reporting and repeat coverage) but failed to reach significance in 2020–2023, when there were fewer reports, less repeat coverage and no headlines referring to multiple deaths at the site.
Conclusions Findings underscore the importance of continued efforts to monitor and improve the quality of news and other media portrayals of suicide. Follow-up studies, including qualitative research with people with lived/living experiences of suicide, could further explore how different types of news stories and wider narratives might contribute to increases—and potentially decreases—in suicides at high-frequency locations
Collective resistance roundtable discussion
Get PDFIndu Jain, Julia Listengarten, Stefanie Gabriele Sachsenmaier, and Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva were invited to participate in a roundtable discussion on ‘Collective Resistance’, chaired by Jason Benson, as part of the conference, Borderlines IX: Seeking Solidarity and Wonder Through Performance, which took place at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, on 30 June and 1 July 2022. The speakers were asked to provide a 5-minute provocation stemming from their own research perspective, and then engaged in conversation stemming from themes, concerns and ideas resulting from those provocations. The provocations precede this article. What follows is the text of the discussion between participants, which was edited by Alissa Clarke and Julia Listengarten with Harriet Curtis. The roundtable discussion considers collective resistance in relation to: ‘making strange’; a process-centred approach; making the invisible visible; sharing the space with others; forging solidarity with the audience; amplifying the individual voice within the collective; articulating alternative aggressive forms of solidarity
Introduction: Gender and work in twentieth-century Italy: new approaches
Get PDFThis introduction to the special issue ‘Gender and Work in Twentieth-Century Italy’ draws on key strands of historical scholarship on gender and work, including women workers’ experiences, labour market discrimination, domestic work, the impact of gender norms, and ideas of masculinity and femininity on work identities. It traces the development of feminist influence within this scholarship, from making women workers’ experiences visible to challenging essentialist notions of gender identities. Drawing on post-structuralist and intersectional perspectives, particularly influenced by Joan Wallach Scott and Judith Butler, the scholarship on which this special issue is based understands gender as a system of power signified through language and social constructions, and builds on the critique of the dichotomies and essentialisations of traditional labour history, proposing a systemic and structural approach to understanding gendered experiences of work. By exploring the intersections of gender, work and power, this collection offers insights into wider European developments and challenges established historical concepts and narratives. It highlights the importance of understanding gender dynamics in shaping labour relations and social structures, ultimately contributing to a more nuanced understanding of labour and power dynamics in twentieth-century Italy and beyon
Faithful Counterfactual Visual Explanations (FCVE)
Get PDFDeep learning models in computer vision have made remarkable progress, but their lack of transparency and interpretability remains a challenge. The development of explainable AI can enhance the understanding and performance of these models. However, existing techniques often struggle to provide convincing explanations that non-experts easily understand, and they cannot accurately identify models’ intrinsic decision-making processes. To address these challenges, we propose to develop a counterfactual explanation (CE) model that balances plausibility and faithfulness. This model generates easy-to-understand visual explanations by making minimum changes necessary in images without altering the pixel data. Instead, the proposed method identifies internal concepts and filters learned by models and leverages them to produce plausible counterfactual explanations. The provided explanations reflect the internal decision-making process of the model, thus ensuring faithfulness to the model
A novel bio-inspired bat node scheduling algorithm for dependable safety-critical wireless sensor network systems
Get PDFThe multi-objective optimization (MOO) problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is concerned with optimizing the operation of the WSN across three dimensions: coverage, connectivity, and lifetime. Most works in the literature address only one or two dimensions of this problem at a time, except for the randomized coverage-based scheduling (RCS) algorithm and the clique-based scheduling algorithm. More recently, a Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based algorithm was proposed that improves on the latter two; however, the question remains open if further improvement is possible as previous algorithms explore solutions in terms of local minima and local maxima, not in terms of the full search space globally. Therefore, the main contribution of this paper is to propose a new scheduling algorithm based on bio-inspired computation (the bat algorithm) to address this limitation. First, the algorithm defines a fitness and objective function over a search space, which returns all possible sleep and wake-up schedules for each node in the WSN. This yields a (scheduling) solution space that is then organized by the Pareto sorting algorithm, whose output coordinates are the distance of each node to the base station and the residual energy of the node. We evaluated our results by comparing the bat and HMM node scheduling algorithms implemented in MATLAB. Our results show that network lifetime has improved by 30%, coverage by 40%, and connectivity by 26.7%. In principle, the obtained solution will be the best scheduling that guarantees the best network lifetime performance as well as the best coverage and connectedness for ensuring the dependability of safety-critical WSNs
Pied tamarins change their vocal behavior in response to noise levels in the largest city in the Amazon
Get PDFMany animal species depend on sound to communicate with conspecifics. However, human‐generated (anthropogenic) noise may mask acoustic signals and so disrupt behavior. Animals may use various strategies to circumvent this, including shifts in the timing of vocal activity and changes to the acoustic parameters of their calls. We tested whether pied tamarins (Saguinus bicolor) adjust their vocal behavior in response to city noise. We predicted that both the probability of occurrence and the number of long calls would increase in response to anthropogenic noise and that pied tamarins would temporally shift their vocal activity to avoid noisier periods. At a finer scale, we anticipated that the temporal parameters of tamarin calls (e.g., call duration and syllable repetition rate) would increase with noise amplitude. We collected information on the acoustic environment and the emission of long calls in nine wild pied tamarin groups in Manaus, Brazil. We found that the probability of long‐call occurrence increased with higher levels of anthropogenic noise, though the number of long calls did not. The number of long calls was related to the time of day and the distance from home range borders—a proxy for the distance to neighboring groups. Neither long‐call occurrence nor call rate was related to noise levels at different times of day. We found that pied tamarins decreased their syllable repetition rate in response to anthropogenic noise. Long calls are important for group cohesion and intergroup communication. Thus, it is possible that the tamarins emit one long call with lower syllable repetition, which might facilitate signal reception. The occurrence and quantity of pied tamarin' long calls, as well as their acoustic proprieties, seem to be governed by anthropogenic noise, time of the day, and social mechanisms such as proximity to neighboring groups
Active Energy: creating change through citizen engagement
No full text“When electricity prices prevent older people from heating their homes, and the River Thames is just down the road, why aren’t we using it to power our city?” was a question posed by a member of The Geezers seniors’ group at an East London AgeUK centre. Artist Dr. Loraine Leeson first met the Geezers through a research project when the group recollected developments in tidal and wave power several decades previously, which they were surprised to have seen scarcely developed. Twelve years later with the help of engineers and further fundraising they had developed and tested a prototype turbine for the Thames, held exhibitions in the UK and US, worked with young people to produce a wind turbine for an AgeUK roof, contributed to three university research projects, conducted numerous joint presentations, collaborated with a seniors’ group in Pittsburgh, and produced floating water wheels to provide aeration for rivers, the last installed in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Active Energy received the RegenSW Arts and Green Energy award and the 2022 Times Higher Education award for Knowledge Exchange.
Dr. Leeson will present this project as an example of research centred on the premise that citizen-held knowledge can often hold answers to society’s problems, which the arts are well placed to bring into the public domain. She will also introduce the Social Art Educators’ Forum which is currently uniting people from twenty-six countries who are introducing these concepts into teaching and learning
Molding the future: optimization of bioleaching of rare earth elements from electronic waste by Penicillium expansum and insights into its mechanism
Get PDFThe recovery of rare earth elements (REE) from electronic waste is crucial for ensuring future demand security, as there is a high supply risk for this group of elements, and mitigating the environmental impacts of conventional mining. This research focuses on extracting REE from waste printed circuit boards through bioleaching, addressing the limited attention given to this source. A strain of Penicillium expansum demonstrated efficient bioleaching under optimal conditions of 7.5 initial pH, 0.1 mM phosphate concentration, and excluding a buffering agent. The study achieved significant improvements in La and Tb extraction and enhancements in Pr, Nd, and Gd recovery, approaching 70 % within 24 h. Fungal mechanisms involved in REE extraction included fungal pH control, organic acid biosynthesis, phosphate bioavailability, and potential fungal proton pump involvement. This approach offers a promising solution for sustainable REE recovery from e-waste, contributing to resource security and circular economy
Zusammenarbeit zwischen Arbeitgebern und Arbeitnehmervertretungen im Lichte der datenschutzrechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen unter Berücksichtigung der Mitbestimmungsgesetze und Regelungen zum Beschäftigtenschutz
Get PDFThe General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force on the 25th of May 2018, brought strict regulations for the processing of personal data. Those regulations in combination with national data protection and employment law play an important role for employers, unions and works councils when they process personal employee data in the context of employment relationships. This applies to established cooperative agreements as well as negotiations that aim to establish collective agreements for the processing of personal employee data.
The main question of the thesis investigates how the above-mentioned parties can work together in a continuously changing digital world, be in compliance and at the same time stay competitive and economically efficient. In this context, a comparative case study between Lufthansa and Ryanair investigates whether the former company can operate more successfully with codetermination or the latter with less to no codetermination at all. The primary focus of this thesis is the legal area of Germany.
The case study is based on interviews with experts in the airline industry and literature analyses. A qualitative content analysis provided extended insights. Quantitative research methods were used to expand the research design. The focus here was on conducting and statistically evaluating an online survey of employees on the topic of data privacy in the employment relationship. Recommendations for employers, works councils and trade unions were derived from the empirical results.
The research results reveal the immense influence that codetermination has on the design of employee data protection and employers’ freedom of action. It is evident that companies with less codetermination, such as Ryanair, enjoy economic advantages. They can quickly introduce new technologies without obstacles while only meeting minimum requirements, but it implies social disadvantages for their employees. Lufthansa maintains more comprehensive employee data protection structures with the help of employee representatives. This is more costly in the short term, but the results of the thesis show that it is beneficial in the long run
Investigating the effects of EZH2 inhibitors on targeting epigenetic changes in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
No full textIntroduction: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) affect both men and women worldwide with approximately 880,000 new cases annually. The main risk factors involved in the pathogenesis of HNSCC include smoking tobacco, alcohol consumption and infection with human papillomavirus (HPV). There are over 200 different HPV types, with HPV16 accounting for approximately 90% of HPV positivity in HNSCC. HPV oncogenes E6 and E7 are the main causative agents for cancer progression in HPV positive HNSCC, due to their interactions with tumour suppressor proteins P53 and Rb and the HPV oncogene’s ability to inactivate them. Similarly, in HPV negative HNSCC mutations in the p53 and Rb tumour suppressors are often seen. Since epigenetic modifications were identified from a large number of epithelial cancer cases, EZH2 inhibitors has been shown to be effectively targeting those cancers, and HPV relevance has been also taken into consideration. However, the results were not consistent and whether or not HPV infection is related to the treatment outcome and the mechanisms of the treatment were not clearly understood. Therefore, in this study, two EZH2 inhibitors, GSK343 and GSK126, have been investigated on their therapeutic effects on HNSCC cell lines with different HPV status. The mechanisms of their action were also evaluated accordingly.
Methods: Two HNSCC cell lines, one HPV negative, HN5, and one HPV positive, SCC47, were investigated in this study. MTT assay was used to calculate the IC50 values of two EZH2 inhibitors, GSK343 and GSK126, and chemotherapeutic agent, cisplatin, which was used as the treatment dosage for further experiments. Following 48-hour incubation, apoptosis assay via flow cytometry was carried out; immunocytochemistry staining, and Western blotting were used to analyse various protein expressions of epigenetic, EMT, HPV16 E6/E7 and tumour suppressor markers in HNSCC cell lines. Furthermore, the analysis of gene expression of these markers was conducted by qPCR analysis.
Results: Both EZH2 inhibitors reduced protein expressions of epigenetic markers EZH2 and
H3K27me3 and EZH2 gene expression also significantly decreased following 48-hour incubation. Cisplatin had similar effects for EZH2 although an opposite effect was observed from H3K27me3 protein expression. A reversal of EMT was observed at the protein level, following treatment with EZH2 inhibitors in HNSCC cells following 48-hour treatment. Additionally, HPV oncoproteins E6 and E7 had decreased expressions following treatment with EZH2 inhibitors in SCC47 cell line and only HPV positive SCC47 had an increase in tumour suppressor, p53 and Rb gene expression following incubation with GSK343 and GSK126, no significant changes were observed for HPV negative HN5 cell line.
Conclusion: EZH2 inhibitors, GSK343 and GSK126, demonstrated their potential as desirable chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of HNSCC in vitro. They displayed reduced cytotoxicity in normal cell line in comparison of HNSCC cell lines, which overcomes the drawbacks of current chemotherapeutic agent, cisplatin. They showed significant reductions in epigenetic protein and gene expressions, a reversal of EMT, and a reduction in HPV16 oncogenes. Additionally, EZH2 inhibitors demonstrated the ability to increase tumour suppressor gene expression in HPV positive HNSCC cell line SCC47