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National security and free speech: counter-terrorism as a pretext for silencing political dissent
Get PDFThis article examines the global attacks on freedom of expression precipitated by the war in Gaza through the lens of internation law and the role of the human rights advocate in an age of democratic decline. It argues that terrorist-related speech offences —and counter terrorism efforts more broadly—undermine human rights and stifle public debate on the most pressing political issues of the day by bestowing upon States enormous power to silence unpopular and divisive viewpoints in the name of national security. States wield this power within the context of a discourse plagued by counter-protective binaries such as "good and evil" and "terrorism and counter-terrorism" that distract from the human cost of the counter-terrorism project
Navigating Plural Coloniality: Reflections on the Making of Black Afro-Francophone Higher Education in an Anglo-American Academic World
Get PDFThis article examines the emergence of Black African Francophone higher education and what it means to navigate it in the broader context of the enduring legacies of French colonialism in an Anglo-American-dominated global academe. Even as fallist movements have revived and recentred key debates and conversations about epistemic decolonisation in the academe globally since #RhodesMustFall, there has been a tendency to construe the (neo)colonial imperial legacies that continue to shape global academe as Anglo-American. As such, the plurality of European colonialisms and the ensuing varied colonialities of power, knowledge, epistemic injustice, and death in the form of epistemicide and otherwise in formerly colonised regions remain under-examined. Meanwhile, these diverse systems have emerged from varied European colonial histories and present academics navigating those systems in decolonial ways with varied neocolonial intellectual and material challenges. Using Ousmane Sembène’s film adaptation of 'La Noire de. . .' (Black Girl) as a metaphor to examine the coloniality of death (neo)colonially in the academe in Black Francophone Africa and its diasporas, I propose the concept of agentic death to examine how death becomes a site of self-reclamation and emancipatory possibilities in the face of compounded (neo)colonialisms
Validity and reliability of the Arabic orthorexia nervosa inventory scale in young adults: a validation study
Get PDFPurpose: This study aimed to translate and validate the Arabic version of the Orthorexia Nervosa Inventory (ONI) scale to assess orthorexia nervosa (OrNe) among young Arabic-speaking adults in the UAE and explore the relationship between OrNe and various sociodemographic factors. Methods: A total of 625 young adult participants (88.2% female) completed a questionnaire comprising the ONI scale and sociodemographic questions. The study assessed internal reliability using Cronbach’s α, external reliability using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), content validity using a panel of 12 experts, Known-Group validity using associations between OrNe classification and demographics, and structural validity using confirmatory factor analysis. Results: The Arabic ONI scale showed high internal (Cronbach’s α = 0.934) and external (ICC = 0.849) reliability. Content validity was excellent (scale-level content validity index = 0.96). Vegetarians had significantly higher ONI scores, indicating good Known-Group validity. The model fit indices (χ2/df = 1.663, comparative fit index = 0.993, Tucker–Lewis index = 0.992, goodness-of-fit index = 0.989, root mean square error of approximation = 0.033, standardized root mean square residual = 0.049) reflected excellent structural validity. Conclusions: The Arabic ONI scale is a reliable and valid tool for assessing OrNe tendencies in young Arabic-speaking adults. Future studies should explore its applicability to broader populations and investigate predictors of OrNe tendencies. Level of evidence: Level V, descriptive cross-sectional study
International evidence on happiness and social media: World Happiness Report 2026: Chapter 2
No full textBeyond motonormative punishment: on road safety as environmental regulation
No full textCriminology has a blind-spot concerning road safety. The field tends to accept that the problem is best left to technical specialists; treats road safety as separate from its focal concerns with public safety; and reproduces an ideology of streets as distinct socio-juridical spaces. In so doing, criminology leaves unaddressed a significant dimension of the question of how to create safe and liveable urban environments. In this paper, I set out to unsettle these distinctions. I begin with a brief historical and geographic sketch of the forms of violence and harm associated with car-systems. I then offer a critique of what I term motonormative punishment – a mix of legal sanctions and culture of blame that focuses on the individualised responsibility of a minority of ‘careless’ or ‘dangerous’ drivers while accommodating the structural violence generated by regimes of automobility. I argue, instead, for theorizing road safety in terms of diffused responsibility between actors and hybrid actants in a system. It follows, I conclude, that we should radically decentre criminal punishment as a response to road violence in favour of forms of environmental regulation organised around five harm reduction principles: diversion, design, distributed agency, deliberative learning, and the disassembly of dangerous actants
Use of platelets and the challenge of adherence to guidelines: Who, when and why?
Get PDFEffective implementation of evidence‐based platelet transfusion guidelines would be expected to reduce adverse events, improve platelet availability and decrease costs, all without increasing risk for mortality or bleeding. For this reason, leveraging existing data to evaluate transfusion practices is important, but little is known about how best to approach this across a hospital or health system considering, for example, clinical context. The study by Ryan and colleagues reports an approach to evaluate platelet guideline adherence using health science data from a multicentre Canadian database. The findings highlight practice variation, use of platelets outside evidence‐based recommendations in guidelines and identify multiple pressing opportunities for quality improvement research. Commentary on: Ryan et al. Opportunities for improving platelet transfusion practice: A large retrospective audit across 22 hospitals. Br J Haematol 2026 (Online ahead of print). doi: 10.1111/bjh.70304
Factors influencing willingness to pursue living kidney donation among relatives of patients with kidney disease in the United States
Get PDFBackground: Living donor kidney transplantation provides superior outcomes for patients with end-stage kidney disease, yet rates of living donation remain low. Identifying factors that influence willingness to donate is essential for developing effective interventions. Methods: Data were analyzed from 600 U.S. relatives of kidney disease patients in the 2019 Families of Renal Patients Survey. Respondents rated how 14 considerations, including financial, health, and relational factors, affected their willingness to be evaluated as living donors. Associations between each consideration and the number of donation-related actions taken were estimated using Poisson regression models with and without sociodemographic controls. Results: Improving or extending the recipient’s life and the donor–recipient relationship were the strongest motivators, while concerns about donor health, surgery, and finances were key deterrents. Willingness differed across demographic groups. Older adults were less likely than younger respondents to report reduced willingness for financial reasons, while younger adults more often reported increased willingness based on match likelihood, current health, and knowledge of living donation. Older respondents more often indicated that their own health reduced willingness, and adults aged 40 to 59 most often cited negative effects on their family. Women were more likely than men to report reduced willingness related to financial and recovery concerns. Asian or Pacific Islander and Black respondents more often reported reduced willingness due to financial issues and the surgery itself, while Hispanic and White respondents more often reported increased willingness related to extending the recipient’s life. Greater willingness related to match likelihood, current health, the donor–recipient relationship, and the potential to extend the recipient’s life was associated with completing more donation-related actions. Lower willingness tied to general views on organ donation, surgery, or recovery was associated with completing fewer actions. After adjustment for demographic factors and relationship to the patient, significant associations remained for match likelihood, current health, the donor-recipient relationship, the potential to extend the recipient’s life, and general views on organ donation. Conclusions: Interpersonal and health-related considerations were the strongest predictors of donation behavior. Interventions that address these factors may increase willingness to pursue living kidney donation and reduce disparities in access
Common and rare variant contributions to discontinuation of stimulant treatment in ADHD
Get PDFStimulants are the first-line pharmacological treatment for ADHD and generally effective, yet 35–61% of individuals discontinue treatment within a year. We investigated the contribution of common and rare genetic variants to early stimulant discontinuation using data from 18,362 individuals with ADHD (31% female) initiating stimulants in iPSYCH, a Danish population-based case-cohort linked to national registers. Discontinuation was defined as a ≥ 180-day gap between dispensations within one year of initiation. We examined genetic differences by age groups, estimated SNP-heritability (h2SNP), conducted genome-wide association studies (GWAS), polygenic score (PGS) analyses, and assessed associations with protein truncating variants (PTV). Within one year, 7102 individuals (39%) had discontinued stimulants. Age-stratified analyses (cut-off: age 16) revealed low genetic correlation (r₉ = 0.23, 95% CI: –0.37, 0.83) between children and adolescents/adults. The h²snp for discontinuation was 0.06 (95% CI: 0.02, 0.11) overall, 0.08 (95% CI: 0.02, 0.14) in children, and 0.14 (95% CI: 0.02, 0.27) in adolescents/adults. No genome-wide significant loci were identified overall or in adolescents/adults; however, one locus (SLC5A12, chromosome 11) reached genome-wide significance in children. Ten of 36 PGSs were associated with discontinuation, with higher psychiatric risk PGSs predicting increased discontinuation, while educational attainment and BMI PGSs showed divergent effects by age. Reduced burden of dopamine-related PTVs was nominally associated with discontinuation, particularly in adolescents/adults. These findings suggest modest contributions of both common and rare variants to stimulant discontinuation in ADHD and point to potential developmental differences in genetic architecture
Optimising Primary thErapy in pRimAry biliary cholangitis (OPERA): protocol for a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of enhanced primary therapy with obeticholic acid
Get PDFPrimary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a rare chronic cholestatic disease that despite current therapy has significant ongoing unmet needs, including risks of cirrhosis and life-impairing symptoms. The current treatment approach is a step-up model, wherein first-line therapy, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), is given for a minimum of 12 months before the addition of second-line therapy is considered for non-responding patients. This 'waiting to fail' approach, focused on the needs of low-risk patients, allows, we postulate, a key process of biliary epithelial cell (BEC) senescence to become established, driving accelerated bile duct loss and aggressive disease. Preclinical mouse modelling has shown that early use of the farnesoid X receptor agonist obeticholic acid (OCA), currently only used as second-line therapy following UDCA failure, reverses BEC senescence, changing the clinical course of disease. Here, we describe the design of the Optimising Primary thErapy in pRimAry biliary cholangitis (OPERA) trial. The aim of OPERA is to explore a new paradigm for disease-modifying treatment of PBC: risk-informed early treatment stratification, with patients at increased risk offered UDCA and OCA combination with the goal of complete biochemical remission. OPERA is a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of OCA in combination with UDCA, as first-line treatment for high-risk PBC. This is a multicentre trial in England, which will be undertaken in specialist clinics in secondary/tertiary referral centres (or as per local set up). These centres will be specialists in the area of PBC management and will manage patients from across their local region. OPERA will recruit and randomise 106 adults, within 6 months of PBC diagnosis, who are at an enhanced risk of non-response to standard first-line therapy, between either: (1) UDCA and OCA or (2) UDCA and matched placebo in a 1:1 ratio. The primary efficacy outcome measure is the percentage of participants showing normalisation of serum alkaline phosphatase and total bilirubin values at 26 weeks (disease remission). Favourable ethical opinion was received from London - Riverside Research Ethics Committee (reference: 22/LO/0878). Potential participants will be fully informed of their rights and the benefits and harms of the trial by the research team before giving informed consent to participate in the trial. Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed publications, at national and international conferences, in peer-reviewed journals and to participants and the public (using lay language). ISRCTN17176388