Recent publications
In translating data governance for the AI era, Taylor et al. have put forward a set of ambitious and considered benchmarks that can serve as an important vision for data justice. However, in doing so, we are also confronted with the challenges of the current ‘AI moment’. The open consolidation of powerful interests seeking to advance AI's unfettered development has also marginalised governance agendas, especially those seeking to assert publicness and avenues for resistance and refusal. In this sense, asserting benchmarks for just data governance can only garner real meaning if such benchmarks can account for the broader politics of the current AI moment and connect to the political mobilisation around data justice that might now be possible.
Attending to competing styles of thought in healthcare controversies may be helpful to critical health scholarship. This article reexamines the debate over the introduction of a new HIV prevention technology in England as a tension between epidemiological and molecular style of thoughts. I argue English HIV services were organised according to an epidemiological style of thought. The introduction of biomedical pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to the health system brought this rationality into question in ways the English health system was ill-prepared to manage. A situational analysis of English PrEP discourse in the lead up and following NHS-England’s ‘U-turn’ on PrEP illustrates a split along epidemiologically and biomedically informed styles of thought. These networks have their dedicated administrators, experts, activists and ways of thinking about their target population and preferred organisation of HIV services. Though they often collaborate, these two groups have distinct moral and political agendas that relate to their style of thinking. This analysis further nuances existing critical interpretations of the PrEP controversy in England. Beyond England, this debate suggests a potential departure from the conventional biopolitical subject and rationality of advanced liberalism.
This article investigates the innovative pedagogical approaches and cultural integration of electroacoustic music in Papua, Indonesia, through the work of composer and educator Markus Rumbino. Born in 1989 in Jayapura, Papua, Rumbino is the first professional electroacoustic composer from eastern Indonesia. After returning to Jayapura in 2013 to join the Institute of Arts and Culture (ISBI) Tanah Papua, he faced unique challenges in a region where electroacoustic music is largely unfamiliar and often misunderstood. The study explores how Rumbino bridges Western music education with Indigenous Papuan sound environments to foster cultural identity and confidence among his students – primarily Indigenous from East Indonesia, including natives from the Papuan Highlands with limited formal musical training. Through detailed interviews and analysis, the article examines his innovative use of soundscape composition, listening exercises and soundwalk methodologies as pedagogical tools. By engaging students in critical listening and exploration of their local soundscapes, Rumbino reconnects them with their cultural heritage while introducing contemporary artistic expressions. Situating his methods within the broader context of soundscape literature and inclusive educational practices in electroacoustic music, this article highlights the transformative potential of integrating local soundscapes into music education. This contributes to discussions on culturally responsive teaching methods and the role of environmental sounds in fostering musical creativity.
According to some indicators, Britain has become a more gender-equal society over the past two decades. And yet, as we argue in this article, these gains are undermined by persistent gendered inequalities and violence. Progress has been made principally in relation to what we might think of as liberal feminist demands—especially access to power. Yet even this progress is undermined by persistent and pervasive gendered violence and inequality—all of which takes place against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crash, the departure of the UK from the European Union, as well as the global COVID-19 pandemic. We recognise and welcome the presence of active and vibrant feminist groups and organisations in Britain who have campaigned creatively on a range of issues. Nonetheless, there remains much to do to advance feminist interests and to achieve gender equality for all women in British politics.
Rising popularity of green marketing has resulted in an enhanced incidence of greenwashing practices, leading to consumer skepticism. We examine how greenwashing behavior impacts consumers’ purchase intentions, by studying the relationship between greenwashing behavior of firms and consumers’ purchase intentions, mediated by green skepticism, brand embarrassment, and brand hate. We collected responses from 430 respondents using the mall intercept method. The research model and hypotheses have been verified through structural equation modeling (SEM), and the impact of mediation and moderated mediation was examined through conditional PROCESS modeling. We found that customers with high environmental beliefs are more skeptical of greenwashed brands, resulting in brand embarrassment, and further translating into hatred for such brands, adversely impacting the purchase intention. We conclude by discussing theoretical and managerial implications.
Background
People with multiple and persistent physical symptoms have impaired quality of life and poor experiences of health care. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based Symptoms Clinic intervention in people with multiple and persistent physical symptoms.
Trial design
Pragmatic multicentre individually randomised parallel group clinical trial.
Methods
Participants: Recruitment was between December 2018 and December 2021 in four areas of the UK. Eligibility was based on electronic health records, healthcare use and multiple physical symptoms (PHQ-15 between 10 and 20) which were not due to other medical conditions. Intervention delivery changed from face to face to online in 2020 in response to the pandemic.
Interventions: Participants were randomised to receive the Symptoms Clinic plus usual care (intervention) or usual care alone (control). The Symptoms Clinic is a short-term extended medical consultation-based intervention delivered over approximately 8 weeks.
Objective: To test the clinical and cost-effectiveness of an extended-role general practitioner ‘Symptoms Clinic’ for people with persistent physical symptoms.
Outcome: The primary outcome measure was the PHQ-15 at 52 weeks post randomisation.
Randomisation: Participants were randomised 1 : 1 using a centralised web-based system, stratified by study centre with random permuted blocks of varying sizes.
Masking: It was not possible to mask participants to their allocation. Outcome assessors who handled patient-reported questionnaires were masked to allocation.
Results
Numbers randomised: 354 participants were randomised into the trial: 176 to the usual care group and 178 to the intervention group.
Numbers analysed: 132 participants in the usual care group and 144 participants in the intervention group were included in the analysis representing 77.8% retention.
Outcome: Mean (SD) PHQ-15 at baseline was 14.9 (3.0) in the control group and 15.0 (2.9) in the intervention group. At 52 weeks it was 14.1 (3.7) in the control group and 12.2 (4.5) in the intervention group. The between-group difference, adjusted for age, sex, baseline PHQ-15 and clinician effect was −1.82 (95% CI −2.67 to −0.97; p < 0.001) favouring the intervention.
Harms: There were no significant between-group differences in the proportions of patients experiencing non-serious (−0.03, 95% CI −0.11 to 0.05) or serious (0.02, 95% CI −0.02 to 0.07) adverse events. All serious adverse events were deemed unrelated to trial interventions.
Economic evaluation: Cost-effectiveness analysis indicated an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of £15,751/QALY.
Process evaluation: The intervention was delivered with high fidelity and was acceptable to patients. The intervention appeared to act through the hypothesised mechanism of explanation as a bridge from uncertainty about the cause to actions to manage symptoms.
Limitations and further research: The intervention was delivered by a small number of GPs in long consultations. Further research should examine wider implementation and how to integrate elements of the intervention into shorter consultations.
Conclusions
The Symptoms Clinic delivered by specially trained GPs leads to a clinically meaningful improvement in physical symptoms at 52 weeks and is likely to be a cost-effective addition to current care.
Funding
This synopsis presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme as award number 15/136/07.
A deeper understanding of the emergence of creative products in science is essential, as scientific products have a profoundly impact society by driving advancements in medicine, technology, and industry. In this chapter, we examine creative products in science through the 5A framework, emphasizing the interconnectedness of the actor (the creative scientist), the action (scientific process), the audience (assessment), and affordances (material and socio-cultural resources) in the creation of scientific products (artefacts). Creative products, such as peer-reviewed publications and grant applications, are developed in an iterative cycle of divergent and convergent thinking, shaped by interactions with peers and access to resources. The audience plays an active role in assessing the value of these creative products, with peer reviewers and the broader scientific community acting as gatekeepers. Material and socio-cultural affordances, including funding, infrastructure, and intellectual freedom, further shape the development of scientific products.
Background
Psychopathological symptoms appear important for cognitive functions in schizophrenia. Nevertheless, the factors and their impact on relationships between negative or disorganization symptoms and verbal fluency are still debatable. The preliminary objective of the study was to compare verbal fluency, including clustering and switching as cognitive strategies, executive functions, and processing speed between individuals with schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy controls (HC). The main aim of the study was to investigate mediation models and identify whether relationships between negative and disorganization symptoms and verbal fluency in schizophrenia are mediated by cognitive flexibility and processing speed.
Methods
Semantic (animal and fruit) and phonemic (letter k and letter f) fluency tasks, the Berg Card Sorting Test (BCST), and the Color Trails Test (CTT) were administered in the SZ group (n = 108) and a matched HC group (n = 108). The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was applied to measure psychopathological symptoms in schizophrenia patients.
Results
SZ produced fewer words, had larger cluster size, and fewer switches in semantic fluency than HC. Moreover, the SZ group had longer completion time in CTT 1 and CTT 2 and higher percent of perseverative and non-perseverative errors in BCST than HC. Three mediation models demonstrated good fit indices, suggesting that processing speed and cognitive flexibility were significant mediators for relationships between: (1) psychopathological symptoms and productivity or semantic clustering in animal fluency; (2) negative symptoms and productivity in semantic or phonemic fluency; and (3) disorganization symptoms and productivity in semantic fluency.
Conclusions
Individuals with schizophrenia are characterized by a specific performance profile on verbal fluency tasks. They manifest poor productivity and problems using cognitive strategies for semantic fluency. Referring to executive functioning, schizophrenia patients exhibit decreased cognitive flexibility, problem-solving, and formulating concepts, as well as slow processing speed. It was found that processing speed and cognitive flexibility may be understood as the neuropsychological mechanisms modifying the relationships between negative symptoms, disorganization symptoms, and semantic and phonemic fluency. Therefore, these results provide a foundation for including cognitive flexibility and processing speed in cognitive remediation for schizophrenia patients.
While bullying on social media among the youth remains a public health problem, there is little that we know about ways of dealing with bullying by disconnection. In this article, we build upon the concepts of disconnective practice (Light, 2014) and visibility (Brighenti, 2007) to explain the ways into which the youth deal with bullying on social media. We draw evidence from in-depth interviews with 152 youth across the Philippines. First, we find that disconnective practice is a continuum of acts that involves disconnecting from people and messages and is anchored on temporality. Second, we find that visibility is both a condition for and a process of disconnective practice. Grounded in the youth’s experiences with bullying on social media, we suggest the concept of ambivalent visibilities to characterize the youth’s efforts to manage their well-being amid the volatile landscape of social media interactions. We conclude this article by discussing the implications of ambivalent visibilities for Filipino youth, their support networks, and technology designers and platform owners.
Curiosity, a crucial trigger of exploration and learning, has been described as the antithesis of mind wandering, a state of non-engagement with the external environment or a given task. Findings have confirmed that music’s structure influences levels of curiosity in listeners as they listen and, as such, suggests that this context could be useful in examining the relationship between curiosity and mind wandering. Here, participants were exposed to extended melodies twice, during which they carried out two counterbalanced tasks: one requiring them, whenever probed, to indicate whether they had been mind wandering at that moment and the other requiring them to indicate, when probed, how curious they were feeling about the music at that moment. Critically, participants were probed at the exact same moments in the music when completing the two tasks, allowing the relationship between curiosity and mind wandering to be examined. Results confirmed our prediction of a negative relationship between curiosity and mind wandering, while exploratory analysis further suggested an influence of expertise and the music’s information dynamics on patterns of mind wandering. We discuss the implications of our study for understanding music as an exploration-affording sound environment and outline directions for future work.
People are living longer than ever. Loneliness is prevalent across various age groups, posing a serious threat to both wellbeing and health. The social surrogacy hypothesis predicts that people make use of temporary substitutes for interaction with other people. In this qualitative study, we explored the role of self-chosen music as a social surrogate. A sample of older adults ( N = 35) was asked to name three pieces of music they would choose to make them feel better if they were feeling very lonely and to explain their choices. We carried out a reflexive thematic analysis of their responses, which revealed six main themes: musical characteristics, coping mechanisms, memory and engagement, emotional reflection, bodily movement and dance, and listening context. These findings offer insight into how self-chosen music serves as a social surrogate in the absence of other people, through fulfilling social needs and mimicking human expressions or emotions through its characteristics and the context in which it is listened to. Age-specific factors including reminiscence and engagement with meaningful memories are likely to enhance emotional reflection, enabling familiar music to deepen connections to personal experiences. Overall, this study highlights the potential of music as a social surrogate to alleviate the loneliness often experienced by older adults.
Linking neurobiology to relatively stable individual differences in cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior can require large sample sizes to yield replicable results. Given the nature of between-person research, sample sizes at least in the hundreds are likely to be necessary in most neuroimaging studies of individual differences, regardless of whether they are investigating the whole brain or more focal hypotheses. However, the appropriate sample size depends on the expected effect size. Therefore, we propose four strategies to increase effect sizes in neuroimaging research, which may help to enable the detection of replicable between-person effects in samples in the hundreds rather than the thousands: (1) theoretical matching between neuroimaging tasks and behavioral constructs of interest; (2) increasing the reliability of both neural and psychological measurement; (3) individualization of measures for each participant; and (4) using multivariate approaches with cross-validation instead of univariate approaches. We discuss challenges associated with these methods and highlight strategies for improvements that will help the field to move toward a more robust and accessible neuroscience of individual differences.
Synchronous movement between individuals has been shown to increase pro-sociality, such as closeness and generosity. To date, synchrony research tests these effects using a variety of movement tasks, including musical and non-musical coordination. However, musical versus non-musical synchrony may have separable pro-social effects. To test this, we had 60 children immersed in an augmented reality space called the ‘Moving Mandala’ where they moved asynchronously with only visual cues, synchronously with only visual cues or synchronously with musical and visual cues. We then tested for differences in pro-social effects using sharing and proxemics tasks. Results showed that while the synchrony version of the mandala led to greater closeness in the proxemics task, the musical synchrony led to more pro-sociality on the sharing task. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Evidence suggests that popular musicians are an at-risk occupational group for suicide, with the deaths of famous musicians in the ‘27 Club’ reinforcing culturally powerful notions of musicianship and early mortality. This cross-disciplinary paper advances our understanding of the factors that may increase the risk for suicide among musicians and offers clinical recommendations around screening and prevention. First, we synthesise extant literature on suicide risk among musicians from around the world, including emerging evidence from Korea, and evaluate some of the methodological challenges presented in the analysis of suicide data on musicians. Second, given the lack of musician-specific forms of suicide prevention intervention, we draw on the Zero Suicide Framework and apply this schematic to musicians and the wider music industries, analysing the latest evidence on suicide screening, assessment, and prevention to develop best practices in this at-risk population. In doing so, we offer a comprehensive and clinically relevant overview of this most tragic of cultural affinities to improve strategies to prevent this devastating and all too frequent feature of musical life.
Musical development in childhood follows universal trajectories, such as the acquisition of basic rhythm and pitch recognition, alongside individual differences shaped by environmental, educational, and innate factors. Despite the importance of understanding these aspects for both research and educational purposes, there remains a significant gap in the availability of validated tools that can quickly and comprehensively assess musicality in children. To address this gap, this paper presents a series of studies on the development and validation of the Child Musicality Screening, a standardised instrument for the assessment of musicality in children aged 3 to 10 years. In Study 1, an initial pool of items was compiled and administered to 810 adults (293 English-speaking, 517 German-speaking) who regularly interact with children. Factor analysis was used to reduce the number of items and to identify three key dimensions of child musicality: Enthusiasm and Motivation, Music Perception, and Music Production. In Study 2, confirmatory factor analysis on ratings of parents (n = 305) and educators (n = 250) indicated moderate to high model fit, confirming the factor structure of the questionnaire. Interrater agreement between parents and educators was significant, with moderate agreement on the total scale and subscales. Preliminary evidence of convergent and divergent validity was also obtained. Study 3 further established the convergent and divergent validity, as well as internal reliability and test-retest reliability, of the instrument, using both English (n = 323) and German (n = 384) samples. Overall, the Child Musicality Screening is a newly developed tool for assessing individual musical profiles in children aged 3 to 10 years, with initial evidence supporting its validity and reliability. Available in both English and German, it offers a promising approach for researchers and educators to assess musicality, map developmental trajectories, identify musically gifted children, and enhance targeted music education.
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