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Creating Space for NHS Voices – Creative writing with Frontline Healthcare Workers in the NHS: How emergent collective poems establish new ways of evaluation
No full textThis paper investigates the emergent outcomes arising from a co-designed creative writing intervention developed in collaboration with NHS frontline healthcare professionals. We address how this kind of creative writing intervention can both provide the structural framework for the co-design process along with providing a medium for emerging evaluation, where reflection and artistic production are interwoven. We then ask how creative writing practices might generate alternative modalities of documentation and discourse within healthcare settings, offering counterpoints to conventional clinical record-keeping, fostering deeper communication between patients and professionals, and potentially informing future co-designed in-service arts-based staff-s support initiatives for frontline healthcare staff
Lessons from Corporate Scandals: Strengthening Corporate Governance in the Fintech Era
No full textThis chapter explores corporate governance challenges and failures in the fintech sector, focusing on five high-profile corporate scandals: Centra Tech (2018), BitConnect (2018), QuadrigaCX (2019), Wirecard (2020), and FTX (2022). These cases reveal significant deficiencies—including poor board oversight, lack of transparency, and misuse of investor funds—that have undermined trust and stability in the financial ecosystem. By analyzing these failures, the chapter identifies critical lessons and emphasizes the need for robust governance frameworks, enhanced transparency mechanisms, and strengthened investor protections. Key recommendations include integrating RegTech solutions, embedding ESG principles, and fostering diverse board expertise to better address emerging risks and complexities in fintech operations. The chapter also emphasizes the importance of global collaboration in advancing regulatory reforms for the fintech sector. This analysis aims to guide fintech firms and policymakers in building a more resilient and sustainable fintech ecosystem
What’s in a hyphen? Insights from the field on co-production as methodology
No full textDrawing on our study of refugee women’s urban mobilities, we examine the mechanisms and infrastructure of arts-based co-production in geography. While co-productive approaches are often celebrated for their transformative potential, we interrogate this promise through a series of workshops culminating in a co-produced film with nine women who received bicycles through the charity, The Bike Project. We ask how the “co” in co-production may obscure hierarchies of power and explore what the hyphen’s implied horizontality reveals. By engaging with divergent research temporalities and underexamined aspects of co-production, we reveal how embedded asymmetries among actors shape both the process and its outcomes in complex ways.
We evidence how the gap between formal ethical guidelines, the way we write research, and meaningful ethics in practice limit co-production’s potential, and advance emotional value as an undervalued outcome of the approach. We conclude that research at the intersection of geography, migration studies, creative practice, and lived experience may produce both emotional and productive value, especially in the afterlives of the project when broader geographies of precarity, institutional constraint and uneven collaboration are meaningfully addressed
Surviving care: care work and migrant women of colour in the UK
No full textThis chapter examines the intersecting inequalities and marginalisation experienced by women of colour working in private care homes. Despite a growing body of literature on care work in gender and feminist scholarship, the experiences of migrant women of colour in private residential care homes remain underexplored. Using an intersectionality framework, this study investigates how the intersections of gender, race, and migration status create systems of oppression affecting the work and lives of racialised care workers. Drawing on interviews with 40 care workers, this chapter highlights the impact of racism on working and life conditions. The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the ways in which intersectional inequalities shape care work and have implications for policy and practice aimed at promoting greater equality and racial justice for care workers
Electron Momentum Spectroscopy of Benzonitrile and Propylene Oxide
Full text linkElectron momentum spectroscopy (EMS) is a powerful technique that employs kinematically complete electron impact ionisation to probe the electronic structure of a target. In these experiments, the known incident electron’s energy and momentum are used in conjunction with the two measured outgoing electron’s energies and momenta to determine the momentum of the target electron prior to ionisation and the energy required to remove it. The determined energy and momentum are then used to construct the orbital specific probability density in momentum space, known as the momentum distribution (MD). Under various approximations, the MD is directly proportional to the modulus squared of the electronic wavefunction. Thus, EMS provides a sensitive test for various theoretical models of the calculated wavefunction of the target orbitals. Recent theoretical advances have introduced a method to account for the effect nuclear vibrational motion has on the MD, helping to resolve some discrepancies observed between EMS experiments and theory. This further reinforces the ability of EMS to evaluate theoretical models and enhance the understanding of the target’s electronic structure.
This thesis describes the technique of EMS, the EMS apparatus recently installed at The Open University, provides characterisation data of its performance, and presents new measurements from two molecular targets. The apparatus was assembled and installed as part of this project and a detailed description of its various components is included in chapter 2. This includes the electron momentum spectrometer, the vacuum system in which it is housed, the control and signal processing electronics, and the data acquisition and analysis software. Characterisation of the spectrometers performance was conducted using three well known targets: helium, argon, and N2O. These results validate the capability of the spectrometer to accurately measure the binding energies of the target electrons and their orbital specific MD.
Within this thesis, EMS has been used to study two novel molecules, benzonitrile and propylene oxide, which are presented in chapters 4 and 5, respectively. These experimental measurements are complimented with theoretical calculations. The binding energies of the target electrons were calculated using both outer valence Greens function (OVGF) and symmetry adapted cluster configuration interactions (SAC-CI), with the latter being used to also calculate the spectroscopic factors (i.e. pole strengths). The MDs were calculated using a hybrid functional and the HEMS code by a collaborator at Flinders University in Australia. Furthermore, the effect of including nuclear motion on the MDs is also evaluated using the harmonic analytical quantum mechanical (HAQM) approach. These theoretical methods are all described in chapter 1.
Benzonitrile (C6H5CN) is an aromatic organic molecule with a cyano group (C ≡ N) attached to a phenyl ring and, in this thesis, is studied from the perspective of a substituent attached to a molecule. Good agreement is seen between the experimental momentum distributions (XMDs) and the theoretical momentum distributions (TMDs). The theoretical calculations show that the inclusion of the nuclear motion makes minimal alteration to the TMDs. The results from previous EMS measurements of benzene and fluorobenzene are available in the literature. For this study, TMDs of these three molecules were calculated and compared. This comparison is used to evaluate how the molecular orbitals and MDs are altered upon substitution. The results indicate that the cyano group substituent does not influence the entirety of the MOs, but only select ones. The cyano group and fluorine also similarly influence the MDs of the benzene ring, as both are electron withdrawing groups.
Propylene oxide (CH3CHCH2O) is a small chiral epoxide that was recently observed in the interstellar medium. Homochirality plays an important role in many biological molecules, such as in amino acids and sugars. As the first and only chiral molecule detected in space, propylene oxide serves as an excellent target to quantify the changes to the molecular orbitals and MDs of a molecule upon chirality inducing substitution. The EMS investigation on propylene oxide showed overall good agreement between the XMDs with the TMDs in all but one of the molecular orbitals. Along with this, the inclusion of the nuclear vibrations significantly affects the profile of two of the TMDs which improves the agreement with the XMDs. The results of propylene oxide (PO) are then compared to ethylene oxide (EO), propylene (PE), and ethylene (EE), to to assess the effects of methylation. These comparison demonstrated how the methylation influences all of the MOs, with similar changes observed from EO to PO and from EE to PE.
Finally, in the last part of this project, an alternative style of decelerating optics for one of the electron analysers was installed in an effort to decrease the data acquisition time of the apparatus. Chapter 6 describes these optics and characterises their performance with measurements of helium and argon. The characterisation measurements demonstrate an approximately two times increase in the measured coincidence counts rate and the signal to background ratio. While this is a significant improvement, it may not be enough to expand EMS to targets that have a smaller ionisation cross section which would normally require prohibitively long data collection times
The root causes of human trafficking: A Marxist legal analysis of structural injustice and vulnerability to exploitation
Full text linkThe human trafficking problem that plagues the modern world has resulted in the international community adopting legal instruments designed to combat the phenomenon. As a result, transnational anti-trafficking law has constructed an internationally accepted definition of human trafficking intended to assist states in addressing the problem. It has also constructed three state obligations to combat human trafficking: prevention, protection, and prosecution. However, in practice, only the protection and prosecution elements are emphasised to varying degrees by international and regional human rights mechanisms. The prevention aspect of anti-trafficking efforts is often given superficial attention, with little effort to define or implement practical measures. This thesis examines the key challenges in the conceptualisation of human trafficking, particularly the lack of terminological clarity surrounding the phenomenon. This is because essential elements of the definition, such as the concept of exploitation and the various modes of coercion, remain undefined and under-adjudicated. The indeterminacy allows political choices to be made in constructing problematic forms of exploitation. This is evident from the dominant approaches that have conceptualised the phenomenon through a simplistic binary of free and unfree practices. It has led to the problematisation of the most extreme cases of exploitation while simultaneously creating hierarchies of deserving and under-serving victims. However, emerging practice points to the fluidity of unfreedoms that characterise the experiences of trafficking victims, which exist on a continuum of coercion and exploitation. This study re-conceptualises human trafficking by drawing on insights from Marxist and Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) perspectives, highlighting how coercion operates along a continuum of exploitative practices sustained by structural injustices.
The thesis adopts the understanding of prevention as a range of efforts to avoid and minimise exploitation, focusing on interventions before exploitation occurs. It asserts that prevention efforts must address the root causes of human trafficking, which are structural injustices that intersect to heighten the vulnerability to exploitation and create an environment in which the problem can thrive. Only by interrogating vulnerability-generating factors will any intervention aimed at preventing human trafficking be effective. These factors can include social, economic, and politico-legal structures that increase an individual’s risk of trafficking by limiting their available options. The thesis explores how legal frameworks contribute to structural injustice, leading to the commodification and exploitation of labour
Accounting and accountability for and by the fossil fuel industry in a carbon-constrained world
Full text linkThis paper examines critical accounting and accountability challenges associated with the fossil fuel industry, with particular attention to the sector’s persistent avoidance of responsibility for its contribution to anthropogenic climate change. Using content analysis of investigative journalism, the study explores the environmental, economic and social dimensions of industry practices during the period surrounding the COP27 negotiations in Egypt in 2022. Three interrelated themes are identified: taxation and subsidies, carbon accounting and trading, and disinformation strategies, including greenwashing and sportswashing. Together, these themes illuminate systemic tensions within contemporary climate policy and regulatory frameworks. The analysis indicates that the fossil fuel industry continues to invest heavily in resisting decarbonisation while simultaneously seeking to legitimise or obscure contested activities. These dynamics are frequently reinforced by governments and institutional actors with vested interests in fossil fuel extraction, production and export. The paper argues that incremental improvements in corporate reporting are insufficient to address these structural issues. Instead, it highlights the need for reforms to accounting and accountability regimes supported by coordinated international action. It concludes by calling for stronger collaboration among civil society, regulators and governments to redirect financial gains associated with fossil fuel activities and tax practices towards equitable decarbonisation pathway
PP-47 Supporting young/young adult carers at the end of life and into bereavement: exploring the experiences and perspectives of bereaved young people and the professionals who support them
No full textHybrid particulate matter generated by lava-ignited wildfires at the Litli-Hrútur 2023 eruption, Iceland
Full text linkLava flows from the Litli-Hrútur 2023 eruption ignited the largest moss wildfires since modern record keeping in Iceland began. Volcanically ignited wildfires present a cascading and more complex hazard than standalone volcanic eruptions and are likely to become more frequent globally due to climate change. Both volcanic eruptions and wildfire events generate well-characterized air pollution hazards through the emission of gas and particulate matter, but the physicochemical consequences of mixing between end-member emission types during compound events remain poorly understood. In this study, we collected samples of end-member volcanic, wildfire, and mixed plume particulate matter during the Litli-Hrútur 2023 eruption and wildfires. Geochemical and morphological analysis showed that wildfire smoke and lava flow outgassing have distinctive chemical signatures and particulate matter (PM) size distributions, but that when mixing occurs between them, either directly at the lava-moss burning interface or during downwind transport, it can result in the formation of hybrid PM. This hybrid PM may be formed through mechanical interactions via well-established processes such as agglomeration and particle scavenging, although these interactions are unique in the context of a compound volcanic-wildfire event as they occur between emissions from two different sources. We demonstrate that the formation of hybrid PM via these mechanisms may result in altered physicochemical characteristics, and suggest that this may have consequences for depositional processes and atmospheric and environmental transport pathways of key species when compared to stand-alone volcanic eruptions
Bayesian variable selection for genome-wide association study of grain traits in rice
No full textRice (Oryza sativa) is a staple food crop for more than half of the world‘s population. Besides high gluten-free nutritional contents, it has high economic value supporting livelihood of millions of farmers. That is why a lot of research is being carried out to derive new varieties of rice and improve its yield, stress tolerance, and grain quality. It remains a central goal in agricultural research. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) provide a powerful framework for linking genetic variation to complex phenotypic traits, but the high dimensionality of genomic data presents significant challenges for model selection and prediction. Using rice genotype and phenotype data, we compared the performance of several frequentist and Bayesian modeling approaches: multiple linear regression (OLS: Ordinary Least Squares), LASSO (Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator), Ridge, Bayesian LASSO, Bayesian Sparse Linear Mixed Model (BSLMM), and a Bayesian spike-and-slab prior model. Phenotypic traits were transformed where necessary to approximate normality, and predictive performance was evaluated through cross-validation using mean squared error and predictive correlation. The spike-and-slab prior model often outperformed the classical methods, yielding superior prediction and effective variable selection. Our findings demonstrate the value of Bayesian model selection frameworks for plant GWAS and trait prediction, and highlight the effectiveness of Bayesian methods in identifying informative markers in rice. Such approaches hold promise for accelerating genetic improvement and supporting marker-assisted selection in crop breeding programs. Rather than emphasizing biological interpretation of individual loci, our results highlight differences in predictive behavior, stability, and inferential characteristics across models