30472 research outputs found
Sort by
Witnessing (dis)engagement: a framework for examining legitimacy in the criminal courts
Get PDFThis paper examines legitimacy in the criminal courts from the perspective of witnesses, an under-researched setting and participant group. Based on interviews with witnesses and observations of court proceedings, the paper provides a framework for examining how witnesses engage with the courts, arguing that ‘engagement’ can be used as a lens through which to understand legitimacy. The findings suggest that witnesses often display weak levels of engagement with the court process, which is indicative of strain in the ongoing legitimacy ‘dialogue’ (Bottoms and Tankebe, 2012) between citizens and the state. The implications of this are explored
The next decades for astronomy from the Moon
No full textThe far side of the Moon offers unique advantages for science. A meeting at the Royal Society in London brought together planetary scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists and other stakeholders to discuss the future of astronomy from the Moon
The relationship between solo parents and fertility clinics
No full textDr Grace Halden asks how medicine and patient communities can work together to better ensure differentiated care, using the example of solo motherhood via gamete donation..
Spike protein mutations and structural insights of pangolin lineage B.1.1.25 with implications for viral pathogenicity and ACE2 binding affinity
Get PDFSevere Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of COVID -19, is constantly evolving, requiring continuous genomic surveillance. In this study, we used whole-genome sequencing to investigate the genetic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Bangladesh, with particular emphasis on identifying dominant variants and associated mutations. We used high-throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) to obtain DNA sequences from COVID-19 patient samples and compared these sequences to the Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 reference genome using the Global Initiative for Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID). Our phylogenetic and mutational analyzes revealed that the majority (88%) of the samples belonged to the pangolin lineage B.1.1.25, whereas the remaining 11% were assigned to the parental lineage B.1.1. Two main mutations, D614G and P681R, were identified in the spike protein sequences of the samples. The D614G mutation, which is the most common, decreases S1 domain flexibility, whereas the P681R mutation may increase the severity of viral infections by increasing the binding affinity between the spike protein and the ACE2 receptor. We employed molecular modeling techniques, including protein modeling, molecular docking, and quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) geometry optimization, to build and validate three-dimensional models of the S_D614G-ACE2 and S_P681R-ACE2 complexes from the predominant strains. The description of the binding mode and intermolecular contacts of the referenced systems suggests that the P681R mutation may be associated with increased viral pathogenicity in Bangladeshi patients due to enhanced electrostatic interactions between the mutant spike protein and the human ACE2 receptor, underscoring the importance of continuous genomic surveillance in the fight against COVID -19. Finally, the binding profile of the S_D614G-ACE2 and S_P681R-ACE2 complexes offer valuable insights to deeply understand the binding site characteristics that could help to develop antiviral therapeutics that inhibit protein–protein interactions between SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and human ACE2 receptor
Boundary management preferences from a gender and cross-cultural perspective
Get PDFAlthough work is increasingly globalized and mediated by technology, little research has accumulated on the role of culture in shaping individuals' preferences regarding the segmentation or integration of their work and family roles. This study examines the relationships between gender egalitarianism (the extent a culture has a fluid understanding of gender roles and promotes gender equality), gender, and boundary management preferences across 27 countries/territories. Based on a sample of 9362 employees, we found that the pattern of the relationship between gender egalitarianism and boundary management depends on the direction of segmentation preferences. Individuals from more gender egalitarian societies reported lower preferences to segment family-from-work (i.e., protect the work role from the family role); however, gender egalitarianism was not directly associated with preferences to segment work-from-family. Moreover, gender was associated with both boundary management directions such that women preferred to segment family-from-work and work-from-family more so than did men. As theorized, we found gender egalitarianism moderated the relationship between gender and segmentation preferences such that women's desire to protect family from work was stronger in lower (vs. higher) gender egalitarianism cultures. Contrary to expectations, women reported a greater preference to protect work from family than men regardless of gender egalitarianism. Implications for boundary management theory and the cross-national work-family literature are discussed
Women entrepreneurs: positioning equality, diversity and inclusion leadership in times of crisis
Get PDFThis paper demonstrates how disabled women entrepreneurs have been able to respond quickly during the Covid-19 crisis in addressing challenges faced by disabled entrepreneurs. It gives examples of women who have distinctive voices as leaders and advocates on behalf of minority entrepreneurs
The great economic slowdown: how narrowed technical progress brought static wages, sky-high wealth, and much discontent
No full textIn brief, the book lays out a series of economic models, supported by empirical observations and econometric results, that show how a fall in the rate of productivity growth in the West, in particular in the United States, has had the effect of lowering the world real rate of interest, lift the stock market, hence create a more unequal distribution of wealth, raise house prices and increase the markups of price over marginal cost. In addition we show how in a two-country model, the growth slowdown in the West has allowed other countries, such as China, to catch up and become a larger share of the world economy, hence generating geopolitical tensions. We discuss the effect of Covid on work patterns – in particular on the increased tendency to work from home – on the macroeconomy and of the marked increase in public debt. In the final chapter, we discuss how a resumption of high productivity growth in the West would solve many of these problems – equilibrium real interest rates would rise, stock markets come down from their current elevated levels, the share of profits in national income fall and the share of wages increase, and real wages would rise at a more rapid rate creating a more satisfied labor force
Better late than never: the ‘up the hill backwards’ academic
Get PDFWhy would someone who has spent nearly 40 years in a business career find themselves striving to become an academic? This brief chapter provides an opportunity for a personal reflection in exploring the experience of aiming to enter the world of academia late in one’s career. Questions on motivation and desire are explored. Alongside this, there are existential questions proposed about meaning, place and time. These reflections may be described as a growing sense of coming to, despite the fact that by ‘doing an academic career’ late and in a non-traditional manner, there is a sense of not only moving ‘up the hill backwards’ but in how to respond to unconscious desire and the individual liminal state that this has created. A brief snapshot then of a journey through a career within the world of business to starting a completely new journey within Academia. Journeys that echo with a need for acceptance, both personal and by peers. Using an autoethnographic approach and framed within a pseudo-psychoanalytical Lacanian-inspired session set during the first Covid Lockdown in the UK, the resulting conversation begins to bring to the surface these issues around identity, desire, lack and acceptance
Immigration and labour market flows
Get PDFWe document facts about the labour-market transition rates of immigrants and natives in
France, Spain and the US, for the period between 2003 and 2018. We find large differences in
how immigrants’ labour-market transitions compare to those of natives across the three countries.
Native-immigrant gaps in transition rates are not equal across nationalities of immigrants
within each county, and cannot be explained by compositional differences in terms of observable
characteristics such as education, age, sector or occupation. Our results point to other
factors, such as human capital transferability, discrimination, type of migration and language
proficiency as being more important determinants of immigrants’ labour market performance.
Despite the differences across the three countries, using a VAR model we find a common stylized
fact: inflows of foreign workers have a weak and mostly non-significant effect on the job-finding
and job-separation rates of natives
Color image recovery using generalized matrix completion over higher-order finite dimensional algebra
Get PDFTo improve the accuracy of color image completion with missing entries, we present a recovery method based on generalized higher-order scalars. We extend the traditional second-order matrix model to a more comprehensive higher-order matrix equivalent, called the "t-matrix" model, which incorporates a pixel neighbourhood expansion strategy to characterize the local pixel constraints. This "t-matrix" is then used to extend some commonly used matrix and tensor completion algorithms to their higher-order versions. We perform extensive experiments on various algorithms using simulated data and publicly available images. The results show that our generalized matrix completion model and the corresponding algorithm compare favourably with their lower-order tensor and conventional matrix counterparts
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Birkbeck Institutional Research Online? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!