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Tone language experience enhances dimension-selective attention and subcortical encoding but not cortical entrainment to pitch
Get PDFWhat factors determine the importance placed on different sources of evidence during speech and music perception? Attention-to-dimension theories suggest that, through prolonged exposure to their first language (L1), listeners become biased to attend to acoustic dimensions especially informative in that language. Given that selective attention can modulate cortical tracking of sound, attention-todimension accounts would predict that tone language speakers would show greater cortical tracking of pitch in L2 speech, even when it is not task-relevant, as well as an enhanced ability to attend to pitch in both speech and music. Here we test these hypotheses by examining neural sound encoding, dimensionselective attention and cue-weighting strategies in 54 native English and 60 Mandarin Chinese speakers. Our results show that Mandarin speakers, compared to native English speakers, are better at attending to pitch and worse at attending to duration in verbal and non-verbal stimuli; moreover, they place more importance on pitch and less on duration during speech and music categorization. The effects of language background were moderated by musical experience, however, with Mandarin-speaking musicians better able to attend to duration and using duration more as a cue to phrase boundary perception. There was no effect of L1 on cortical tracking of acoustic dimensions. Nevertheless, the frequency-following response to stimulus pitch was enhanced in Mandarin speakers, suggesting that speaking a tone language can boost processing of early pitch encoding. These findings suggest that tone language experience does not increase the tendency for pitch to capture attention, regardless of task; instead, tone language speakers may benefit from an enhanced ability to direct attention to pitch when it is task-relevant, without affecting pitch salience
Gendered precarity in Saudi Arabia: examining the state policies and patriarchal culture in the labour market
Get PDFThis study explores the intersection of state-driven policies, patriarchal culture, and gender precarity in the Saudi Arabian retail sector, drawing on twenty-six in-depth interviews with employees and other stakeholders. We offer a comprehensive understanding of the multi-layered nature of precarity, focusing on the role of the patriarchal state and culture in perpetuating gender inequalities and shaping individuals' subjective experiences of precarity against the backdrop of structural precarity. For Saudi men, state-driven policies exacerbate job insecurity and challenge traditional family ideology and the breadwinner model. However, Saudi women faced socio-economic vulnerability and organisational neglect, leading to underreporting of sexual harassment and limited protests against it. This antagonistic interplay of state policies and entrenched socio-religious norms creates both structural and subjective precarity in workplaces. Our study highlights the complexities in addressing gender disparities, emphasising the intersectionality of gender, religiosity, and power relations. It contributes to understanding gender dynamics in Saudi Arabia by illustrating how state policies and patriarchal culture shape both structural and subjective forms of precarity and emphasises the importance of fostering feminist consciousness amongst women as part of a broader strategy for addressing gender inequalities
London's water: city comedy, migration and Middletons
No full textBook synopsis: From its origin as the Roman city of Londinium through to its latest incarnation as a super-diverse World City in the twenty-first century, London's history and culture has been shaped by migration. This book expresses and celebrates the plurality of the capital's cultures and affirms the importance of migration in the making of the modern city through thirty-three short essays written by academics, artists, broadcasters and curators. Subjects range from the mediaeval to the contemporary: buildings and institutions, individuals and communities, objects, visual art, street performances and literary texts. Some contributors focus on famous people and places, like Shakespeare and St Paul's, while others explore less well-known subjects, like the Free German League of Culture (1939-46) or Ignatius Sancho, the eighteenth-century musician, grocer and man-of-letters.
It is not only London's cultures which are diverse, migration is also plural. This book engages with the very many human migrations from across the globe and within the British Isles that have taken place over the last two-thousand years, as well as with the movements of plants, animals, and ideologies from other countries and continents, and the movement of natural resources and manmade toxins into and through the city.
Composed of a vivid collection of snapshots, the volume offers a kaleidoscopic vision of the city and provides new insights into the successive migrant communities that have come to London and made it their own
The politicisation of the European Commission's presidency
No full textBook synopsis: This book is the first systematic effort to investigate the ramifications of the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten process for the appointment of the President of the European Commission. It does so by examining the first two applications of the Spitzenkandidaten process from an historical, legal and political perspective. Although this process has spurred vibrant debate regarding its impact on EU elections and the EU political system, it has yet to be comprehensively analysed by scholars. Addressing this important gap, the book provides a conceptual framework for analysing the impact of the Spitzenkandidaten process, takes stock of its internal, inter-institutional and constitutional repercussions, and assesses its future prospects. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book touches on several important themes, including European elections, EU policy making, leadership, legitimacy, supranationalism and European integration. Published to coincide with the 2024 European Parliament election, it will appeal to scholars and students of the politics of European integration, public administration, governance, European politics and EU constitutional law
Notting Dale: the making and breaking of a west London slum 1865-1946
No full textThe Notting Dale area of North Kensington was part of the great suburban growth of London between 1840 and 1870. It suffered reputational damage from the beginning, built close to land formerly used for brick-making and pig-keeping. As large houses were built nearby, many local workers moved in, damaging for ever the neighbourhood’s chances of attracting a middle-class clientele. In 1893, a newspaper article by the campaigning journalist George R. Sims threw a dramatic spotlight on the Bangor Street area, labelling it a ‘West End Avernus’, or hell on earth. From then on, the resources of the local state and of local Christian evangelists and philanthropists, became focused on the area, trying to drive out the rough metropolitan poor who continued to derive benefits from living there. In all of this the life-stories of the people of the Bangor Street area remain elusive, though its population can, in part, be illuminated and humanised by the deployment of family history resources.
KEYWORDS
London, inequality, common lodging houses, slum, slum clearance, prostitution, crime, sanitary inspection, policing, labelling, journalism, George R. Sims
Working conditions, psychological distress and suicidal ideation: cross-sectional survey study of UK junior doctors
Get PDFBackground: Evidence attests a link between junior doctors’ working conditions and psychological distress. Despite increasing concerns around suicidality among junior doctors, little is known about its relationship to their working conditions.
Aims: To (a) establish the prevalence of suicidal ideation among junior doctors in the National Health Service; (b) examine the relationships between perceived working conditions and suicidal ideation; and (c) explore whether psychological distress (e.g. symptoms of depression and anxiety) mediates these relationships.
Method: Junior doctors were recruited between March 2020 and January 2021, for a cross-sectional online survey. We used the Health and Safety Executive's Management Standards Tool; Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale 21; and Paykel Suicidality Scale to assess working conditions, psychological distress and suicidality, respectively.
Results: Of the 424 participants, 50.2% reported suicidal ideation, including 6.1% who had made an attempt on their own life. Participants who identified as LGBTQ+ (odds ratio 2.18, 95% CI 1.15–4.12) or reported depression symptoms (odds ratio 1.10, 95% CI 1.07–1.14) were more likely to report suicidal ideation. No direct relationships were reported between working conditions (i.e. control, support, role clarity, strained relationships, demand and change) and suicidal ideation. However, depression symptoms mediated all six relationships.
Conclusions: This sample of junior doctors reported alarming levels of suicidal ideation. There may be an indirect relationship between working conditions and suicidal ideation via depressive symptoms. Clearer research exploring the experience of suicidality in junior doctors is needed, including those who identify as LGBTQ+. Systematic interventions addressing working environment are needed to support junior doctors’ mental health
Application of geospatial analysis in health research: a systematic review of methodological aspects of studies on violence against children and young people
Get PDFBackground: Geographical variation exists in violence experienced by children and young people; however, there is limited research applying geospatial techniques to study this variation, and the methodological quality of this body of work is unclear.
Objective: This study aimed to review the application of geospatial analysis in research on violence against children (VAC) and evaluate how essential methodological aspects are reported. Methods: Twelve databases were searched for studies on VAC using geospatial techniques. Two independent reviewers screened the papers for eligibility. Findings were narratively synthesised.
Results: Sixty studies were included. Six studies estimated the prevalence of VAC and 54 investigated the associations between VAC and covariates. Most studies were conducted in the US (68 %), and the broad definition of ‘child maltreatment’ (53 %) was the most common form of violence explored. Most studies (83 %) used administrative data, whereas 23 % used an ecological study design to estimate the associations between risk factors and official reports of VAC. Frequentist modelling approaches were used in 54 % of the studies, and 47 % investigated VAC at census tract level. Model fit metrics were reported in 69 % of studies.
Conclusions: Current knowledge of the geographical distribution of VAC is severely limited because of the reliance on administrative data, which vastly underestimates the prevalence of VAC compared with self-reports and poor reporting of quality characteristics. There is a huge opportunity for applying geospatial methods in VAC research in diverse geographic contexts. Future research must adopt rigorous and standardised approaches to model fitting and validation and make better use of self-reported data
Constraining the exhumation history of the northwestern margin of Tibet with a comparison to the adjacent Pamir
Get PDFRegional variations in the evolution of the Tibetan Plateau have important implications for our understanding of crustal deformation processes. There have been few studies of the evolution of the NW margin of the plateau and its transition to the Pamir Mountains to the west. We focus on this region with a multi-technique detrital study of two sedimentary sections in the Tarim Basin. Our provenance data show that an appreciable component of the detrital material in the sedimentary sections was derived from the Songpan-Ganzi–Tianshuihai composite terrane, with some contribution from the Karakoram and/or West Qiangtang. Given the proximity of the West Kunlun terrane to the sedimentary sections under study, and its long history of exhumation, this terrane in all likelihood also contributed to the studied successions. Our thermochronological data record phases of exhumation in the hinterland in the Triassic, Early Cretaceous and Oligo-Miocene. Similar to the Pamir Mountains, the Triassic and Oligo-Miocene periods of exhumation are attributed to the Cimmerian and Himalayan orogenies, respectively. The Early Cretaceous signal may reflect the distal effects of the Lhasa–Qiangtang collision. Coevality with deformation in the Pamir Mountains suggests a coupled geodynamic system, with retro-arc deformation associated with Neotethyan subduction in the west and terrane accretion in the east
Regulation needs to acknowledge that donor siblings connect before 18
No full textDirect-to-consumer 'matching' websites and social media platforms are enabling parents of donor-conceived people to discover donor siblings outside of the regulatory framework, with potential implications
Daddy’s (not) home: work and gender-related factors in men’s attitudes toward Shared Parental Leave
Get PDFUptake of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) in the UK remains poor, with fewer than 2% of eligible fathers utilising the policy since its introduction in 2015. With limited extant research addressing the policy, reasons behind the low level of uptake remain unclear. Specifically, the role of work (family supportive organisation perceptions [FSOP]) and gender-related factors (perceived social identity threat and traditional gender role orientation) in men’s attitudes towards SPL have been largely overlooked. Addressing this gap, this study sought to identify the extent to which work and gender-related factors influenced employed men’s attitudes towards SPL, utilising social role theory to understand the mechanisms underpinning these relationships. A survey of 120 employed men living and working in the UK captured attitudes towards SPL, traditional gender role orientation, perceived social identity threat, and FSOP. Results showed that perceived social identity threat was positively associated with traditional gender role orientation. Traditional gender role orientation was, in turn, the mechanism through which FSOP and perceived social identity threat affected attitudes towards SPL. At low levels, FSOP moderated the relationship between perceived social identity threat and traditional gender role orientation, but did not moderate the indirect effect between perceived threat and attitudes towards SPL. Theoretical contributions and recommendations for organisations to improve workplace gender equality are discussed
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