324139 research outputs found
Sort by
“Platformification” of banking: strategy and challenges of challenger versus incumbent banks in response to regulatory change in the UK
No full textRedefining social media influencership through followership building
Get PDFThis online ethnographic study explores the nature of online work by Nigerian X (formerly Twitter) influencers through their adaptation of the platform's socio-technical features and affective labour. Two interconnected observations are advanced. First, influencers’ practices hinge on relevance, one that draws on the limited repertoire of platform affordances available. These practices are employed before or alongside their engagement with affective labour and identity entrepreneurship. Second, the immateriality of influencership and practices adopted when influencers lose relevance contribute to understanding their platform-based technical labour and online influence. These findings, therefore, suggest that the practices of building popularity and influence online extend beyond affective labour, which dominates the existing literature. This research relies on 15 in-depth interviews with influencers, media agencies, and representatives of corporate organisations, including an observation of their online activities. Particular attention is paid to research ethics, positionality, and data collection, management and processing. This study contributes new insights into the influencer culture on social media in Nigeria and Africa
Suspension phenomenon: end-of-life care-seeking behavior of patients
Get PDFThe “suspension phenomenon” describes terminally ill patients caught in limbo within the end-of-life care system, uncertain where to seek appropriate treatment. While Western literature has problematized the binary of home vs. hospital deaths, such framing remains underexplored in Asian contexts. We aim to examine how and why patients and families in China make decisions about the place of end-of-life care and death, and to identify the barriers and facilitators that shape access to different care settings, using qualitative content analysis of death narratives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 225 bereaved family caregivers across multiple sites in China, using a Voluntary Cooperative Network Research approach that mobilized multidisciplinary volunteer researchers. Six decision-making approaches were identified: respecting patient preference, pursuing survival, resisting medical authority, prioritizing symptom relief, fulfilling filial duty, and consulting informal medical networks. Seven barriers contributed to suspension: mistrust in local services, financial hardship, facility rejection, inadequate palliative provision, non-disclosure to patients, dilemmas around medical technologies, and COVID-19 disruptions. Five care-seeking patterns emerged: aggressive rescue, intensive caregiving, returning home to die, treatment abandonment, and pursuit of a “good death.” Findings challenge normative assumptions about place of death, revealing how sociocultural, economic and technological factors shape end-of-life trajectories in contemporary China
Interactions and dynamics in collective cell behaviour
Get PDFCollective cell behaviours, from tissue growth and collision to adhesion-driven sorting, underpin key processes in development, regeneration and disease. Yet building models that are both mechanistically accurate and quantitatively calibrated to high-resolution data remains a major challenge. In this thesis, we tackle three interlocking challenges: deriving minimal but predictive continuum and discrete models from basic principles; integrating these models with diverse experimental assays via rigorous inference; and analysing their emergent dynamics to uncover the mechanisms driving collective phenomena. We begin with the classical Fisher–KPP and Porous–Fisher equations for tissue spreading, which we combine with a Bayesian inference framework to infer motility and proliferation parameters from epithelial monolayer assays. We then extend this picture by incorporating cell cycle data into a two-stage continuum model, revealing how crowding delays cell cycle progression and shapes proliferation patterns in expanding tissues. Extending to tissue–tissue interactions, we show that only models accounting for population pressure can reproduce the sharp interfaces observed in monolayer collision experiments. We then move to the study of adhesive interactions between cells. To bring classical nonlocal adhesion models closer to quantitative data, we derive a local fourth-order model for cell–cell adhesion in the short-range interaction limit, and show that it preserves the full phenomenology of sorting patterns in the context of differential adhesion. Finally, we build and analyse an agent-based spheroid model to explain emergent collective orbiting driven by boundary curvature, cell–cell, and cell–matrix adhesion. Together, these advances pave the way for the next generation of quantitative biology, where mechanistic modelling and data-driven methods combine to yield predictive, experimentally grounded frameworks
Zero-homogeneous and O(2)-equivariant critical points of the Oseen-Frank energy with multiple Frank constants
No full textWe give an existence and classification result for zero-homogeneous and O(2)-equivariant critical points of the Oseen-Frank energy with multiple Frank constants. These critical points carry a topological defect of degree one and are minimizing with respect to O(2)-equivariant perturbations supported away from the axis of symmetr
The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2025: Harmonised level estimates and their changes over time
No full textThis Database provides estimates of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) an international measure of acute poverty. More specifically, it contains harmonised level estimates and their changes over time of the global MPI and related sub-indices, which have been estimated for the 2025 release. For this Database all deprivation indicators have been harmonised over time. The Database covers estimates for 88 countries and 882 subnational regions. 40 of the 88 countries have data for one period spanning two points in time, while poverty trends in 35 countries are based on three points in time. Nine countries (Benin, Bolivia, Eswatini, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, the Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania and Thailand) have results spanning four points in time. One country (Ghana) provides trends across five time periods, while Mexico, Peru and Nepal have the longest coverage, with trends for six time periods. The estimates are based on 244 individual survey datasets, mostly the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS). The Database is organised in two results files, one for level estimates and one for change estimates. Both results files are each provided in Stata format (dta) and comma separated values (csv). This repository also contains the computer script files to extract and clean the micro data for replication purposes (i.e. the Stata do-files)
Minimal Impact of Sensation‐Related Items on the Association Between Alexithymia and Self‐Report Measures of Interoception
Get PDFEvidence suggests a relationship between alexithymia and self‐report measures of interoception. As measures of alexithymia often include items that may pick up on interoceptive difficulty, however, it is possible that previously reported associations are driven by a lack of independence of measurement. Here, we explored the effect of removing sensation‐related items from the Toronto Alexithymia Questionnaire (TAS‐20) on the association between the TAS‐20 and self‐report measures of interoceptive accuracy (Studies 1 and 2; N = 330 and N = 476, respectively) and attention (Study 2). In both studies, removal of sensation‐related items significantly reduced associations between the self‐report measures of interoception and alexithymia. This effect was specific to the removal of sensation‐related items (removing a random set of items did not result in a reduction in the size of the association). Importantly, relationships between alexithymia and self‐reported interoception remained after item removal. Although effects were modest, it is recommended that future studies exploring relationships with self‐report measures of interoception—particularly in relation to constructs where sensation‐related items may broadly feature—should implement sensitivity analyses or employ alternative instruments that exclude sensation‐related items, to ensure associations are not driven by a lack of independence of measurement
A Method for Assessing the Risks to Sustainability Posed by Process Operations
Get PDFWe present a framework for assessing the risks to sustainability posed by any given set of processes. The objective is to improve sustainability by enabling better decision‐making in policy and business contexts. The framework can be applied to any system of processes where available information supports discovery and quantification of sustainability‐risk, defined as risk to the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Processes are screened to identify sustainability‐risks, which are scored on a common scale to avoid arbitrary weighting factors. The method yields an overall risk score for the system, and an analysis of where and how sustainability‐risk arises. We demonstrate the method by applying it to the system that provides for the UK's production and use of liquid biofuels. A set of 18 distinct causes of risk is discovered, and impacts are assessed by triple‐bottom line accounting. The innovation risk optimism bias is the highest‐scoring cause of risk, followed by price volatility associated with competition between markets for bio‐feedstocks. In this case, the wide variety of risk types and severity, and scale of action, suggests that promoting sustainability requires a tailored response to address specific risks
Cocaine seeking and consumption are oppositely regulated by mesolimbic dopamine in male rats
Get PDFDrug-associated stimuli (cues) can usurp potent control of behavior in individuals with substance use disorders; and these effects are often attributed to altered dopamine transmission. However, there is much debate over the way in which dopamine signaling changes over the course of chronic drug use. Here, we carried out longitudinal recording and manipulation of cue-evoked dopamine release in the core of the nucleus accumbens across phases of substance use in male rats. We show that, in a subset of individuals that exhibit increased cue reactivity and escalated drug consumption, this signaling undergoes diametrically opposed changes in amplitude, determined by the context in which the cue was presented. Dopamine evoked by non-contingent cue presentation (independent of the animal’s actions) increases over drug use, producing greater cue reactivity; whereas dopamine evoked by contingent cue presentation (dependent on the animal’s actions) decreases over drug use, producing escalation of drug consumption. Therefore, despite being in opposite directions, these dopamine trajectories each promote cardinal features of substance use disorders
The psychological reality of ESP processing: insights from Aviation English
Get PDFIn the professional environment of aviation where efficiency and safety are fundamental concerns, a language has been created which conforms to both requirements. This is the language of Aviation English: a simplified and specialised subset of English. Speakers of Aviation English utilise a restricted syntax and specialised vocabulary to communicate in a rapid and unambiguous method. With such a rapid exchange of large amounts of information, communication error is inevitable. Examples of speaker failure in aviation include errors in read-back, intelligibility and idiomatic phrases. Examples of hearer failure include accepting a clearance for another aircraft, homophony confusion, and anticipatory actions. While minor errors can result in annoyance and frequency congestion, major errors can have disastrous results. The topic of how to effectively train pilots and controllers in Aviation English is one that is at the forefront of discussions in the industry: incorrect phraseology is not only a problem for efficiency of operations but also an issue of safety, particularly when non-native speakers are involved. This study presents an analysis of language in a series of pilot-ATC voice communications, with particular focus on deviations to standard phraseology. Our analysis highlights the clear need to focus on how violations affect both the speakers and listeners in this English for Specific Purposes (ESP) context