eDelphi study & consultation on Metaverse standards development: deliverable D1.3 of the shaping the Metaverse (phase II) project.

This study utilised a modified Delphi 3-stage approach to gauge expert perspectives on our research question: What should the priority actions be for policy makers or regulators in the development of interoperable standards for metaverse &amp; virtual worlds? We recruited a pool of participants with a range of metaverse interoperability and standards expertise based in UK, Europe and the US, covering core technology and application areas as well as human-centred perspectives. Our study indicated an emerging consensus that: 1st The UK should develop and promote a position on metaverse standards and interoperability. With three additional areas of emerging consensus around the following actions within a UK context: 2nd Promote use of open, accessible pre-existing standards over proprietary solutions for interoperable virtual worlds. 3rd Identify use cases and interoperable technology solutions. 4th Increase engagement between academia, industry and government around solutions for interoperability. Qualitative and quantitative data gathered from our Delphi study expert working group indicates that the UK has a vital role to play in the development of interoperable, virtual world technologies and practices, but that there is a lack of vision around addressing potential challenges and opportunities. Our data also suggest that to realise the benefits of interoperability, an international approach needs to be adopted, where the UK could contribute within existing international frameworks, while developing distinctive strengths and providing connected leadership without duplicating international efforts.<br/

Effects of interventions on the psychosocial health and well-being of informal caregivers of people with dementia in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background As the incidence of dementia grows globally, so does the number of individuals providing informal care. The highest care burden will likely be experienced by those living in low-resource settings, where need exceeds current service availability. The aim of this review was to explore the effects of interventions to support informal caregivers of people with dementia in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with respect to psychosocial outcome measures.Methods For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched 17 Global Databases and Resources, 12 Regional Databases and Resources, two Global Registers, six Regional Journals and two Global Dementia Organisations, from inception to July 2025. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) delivered to informal caregivers of adults affected by dementia in LMICs were included. Exclusions were made for studies lacking a focus on dementia or informal caregivers, conducted in non-LMICs, focused on needs/attitudes rather than interventions or were reviews (relevant reviews were hand-searched). The primary outcome was caregiver burden, and secondary outcomes included caregiver distress and depression. Where possible, results were synthesised using meta-analysis, and remaining results were reported in a narrative synthesis. Risk of bias was completed using Cochrane Collaboration’s Risk of Bias V.2.0 tool.Findings Of 2369 records screened, 35 papers representing 32 RCTs from 13 LMICs were included, of these 24 contributed to the meta-analysis. NPIs in LMICs have a significant improvement post intervention on caregiver burden (MD 8·7, 95% CI 4·1 to 13·3; I2=89·9%), distress (MD 4·3, 95% CI 0·5 to 8·2; I2=66·5%) and depression (MD 5·9, 95% CI 1·7 to 10·1; I2=67·0%). Interventions were delivered in person (10 studies; MD 6.4, 95% CI 1.4 to 11.5; I² = 88.7%), remotely (two studies; MD 8.0, 95% CI 1.9 to 14.1; I² = 37.5%) or as a hybrid of both (two studies; MD 20.9, 95% CI 5.8 to 36.0; I² = 90.1%), with all showing improvement in caregiver burden except for two studies. Narrative synthesis revealed variation in effects on health and well-being; quality of life; anxiety/distress; depression; stress and self-efficacy and factors potentially influencing implementation.Interpretation Overall, NPIs for informal dementia carers are effective in LMICs. Due to the heterogeneity of design and delivery, it is impossible to state an optimal component combination. A pragmatic approach is needed to adapt and implement these interventions culturally and contextually. Limitations include inaccessibility of some databases and journals, difficulty in analysing multicomponent interventions and heterogeneity across studies. Nonetheless, consistency in direction of effect was observed, and sensitivity analyses excluding high-risk-of-bias studies did not alter the overall findings.<br/

Characterizing ‘Atmosphere’: exploring determinants of regular service attendance amongst integrated supervised consumption site clients in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

BackgroundResearch has explored barriers and facilitators to supervised consumption sites (SCS) in Canadian settings. Despite this, little is known about what factors drive individuals to initiate and repeatedly attend specific SCS where multiple SCS options are available, such as in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). The aim of this study was to understand the structural, contextual, and operational determinants of regular SCS attendance during Canada's ongoing overdose crisis.MethodsRapid-ethnographic fieldwork was conducted over a six-week period at an integrated SCS in Vancouver’s DTES. This comprised an initial five-week period of non-participant observation (≈200 h) followed by a community consultation regarding the research design and question protocols. Qualitative data were then collected through five focus groups (n = 25) and 20 semi-structured interviews with regular service attendees with data analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsOur findings highlight four important factors related to regular service attendance. The service had a regular clientele who described their attendance as routinized, which they attributed to four distinct factors: (1) the accessible location, (2) the on-site auxiliary health and support services, (3) the diversity of harm reduction provision, and (4) the atmosphere. Exploring the concept of atmosphere in more depth showed that it was characterized by the safety, familiarity, and inclusivity experienced within the service. Together, these factors facilitated a strong sense of belonging among attendees regarding the service and its community of staff and clients.ConclusionWithin the context of an ongoing overdose crisis, our findings highlight SCS service characteristics which facilitate routinized engagement including accessibility, wrap-around support, comprehensive and tailored harm reduction, and an inclusive welcoming atmosphere. These insights can inform policy makers and service providers in scaling and developing effective, client-centred SCSs to reduce harm and promote wellbeing.<br/

GKM-OD: Gaussian knowledge based modelling for outlier detection

Outlier detection is a critical process in data engineering. Leveraging machine learning techniques for outlier detection enables the handling of large-scale, high-dimensional data, enhancing detection accuracy and efficiency. Traditional methods typically model data directly in the data space. However, these approaches often struggle to accurately distinguish inliers from outliers when dealing with complex data distributions. GMM can flexibly fit complex, multi-peak distributions using multiple Gaussian components and effectively identify outliers through probabilistic modelling. We introduce a novel outlier detection approach, which improves detection efficiency by indirectly modelling data in a latent space using a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM).This approach aligns with a growing trend in AI, notably advocated by Yann LeCun, that emphasizes decision-making and learning in latent representation spaces, instead of depending on raw token or feature spaces. For this, we design an encoder-decoder neural network with a GMM as the decision layer, enabling effective identification of outliers through probabilistic modelling. Our method not only addresses practical needs in anomaly detection but also contributes to this broader trend of latent space modelling as a step toward more autonomous and generalisable learning systems.Extensive evaluations on public and proprietary datasets demonstrate that our method outperforms existing approaches, including DAGMM and ECOD, highlighting its superiority in accuracy.<br/

Typology of online mental health peer support for young people: a systematic scoping review

BackgroundYoung people are the age group with the highest prevalence of mental health problems, yet they are the least likely to engage with traditional treatments for their symptoms. Online peer support can support youth mental health as a supplementary strategy. While there is a growing body of research focusing on specific forms of online peer support and their effectiveness, a clear classification of the types of online peer support is under-developed.ObjectiveThe aim of this systematic scoping review was to identify and synthesise the existing peer-reviewed literature on online mental health peer support for young people to better understand the main characteristics of online peer support and develop a possible typology.MethodsThe IBSS, SSCI, Scopus, PsycINFO, Medline and Social Policy and Practice databases were searched using title and abstract. Retrieved studies (n = 12,093) were double screened and 49 articles met the criteria to be included in the review.ResultsThe systematic scoping review identified seven main characteristics and twenty-two sub-characteristics of online peer support. Based on those characteristics, three key distinguishing characteristics were identified which enabled a typology to be developed. It was therefore found that online peer support for youth mental health could be categorised into eight main types.ConclusionsThe identified characteristics and typology provide an overall description of current online mental health peer support for young people. This typology can facilitate research on effectiveness and further developments in online peer support. It may also help young people explore the types of online support available to them. Further research should explore the mechanisms and effectiveness of online peer support.<br/

Formulation development of a dapivirine-releasing subdermal implant for HIV prevention

There have been several significant advances in recent years around long-acting strategies for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, including DapiRing® (a 1-month dapivirine (DPV)-releasing vaginal ring), Apretude® (a cabotegravir intramuscular injection administered every two months), and Yeztugo® (a twice-yearly lenacapavir injection). With the goal of developing new drug delivery devices that can extend antiretroviral release for 12 months or longer, we report here our preliminary efforts to design a subdermal implant releasing the antiretroviral drug DPV. These reservoir-type rod implants (length 40 mm, cross-sectional diameters 2.5, 3.2, 3.5 or 4.0 mm) comprised a silicone elastomer core containing solid crystalline DPV (loading 10, 20 or 40 % w/w) and an open-ended non-medicated rate-controlling silicone elastomer membrane (thickness 0.5, 0.8 or 1.0 mm). DPV in vitro release rates could be modulated by adjusting the membrane thickness. Continuous in vitro DPV release ∼12 μg/day was demonstrated over 330 days, with sufficient residual drug content (∼87 mg/∼95 %) to extend release for at least 5 years. In particular, the study highlights the challenges in designing subdermal implants providing sufficient DPV release to maintain systemic/vaginal concentrations at protective levels.<br/

SynFinTabs: a dataset of synthetic financial tables for information and table extraction

Table extraction from document images is a challenging AI problem, and labelled data for many content domains is difficult to come by. Existing table extraction datasets often focus on scientific tables due to the vast amount of academic articles that are readily available, along with their source code. However, there are significant layout and typographical differences between tables found across scientific, financial, and other domains. Current datasets often lack the words, and their positions, contained within the tables, instead relying on unreliable OCR to extract these features for training modern machine learning models on natural language processing tasks. Therefore, there is a need for a more general method of obtaining labelled data. We present SynFinTabs, a large-scale, labelled dataset of synthetic financial tables. Our hope is that our method of generating these synthetic tables is transferable to other domains. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our dataset in training models to extract information from table images, we create FinTabQA, a layout large language model trained on an extractive question-answering task. We test our model using real-world financial tables and compare it to a state-of-the-art generative model and discuss the results. We make the dataset, model, and dataset generation code publicly available (https://ethanbradley.co.uk/research/synfintabs)

A systematic review of second language (L2) student writers’ metacognitive experiences

This systematic review synthesises empirical evidence on second language (L2) student writers' metacognitive experiences (MEs) across different classroom-based L2 learning contexts in peer-reviewed academic journals. A comprehensive search of six databases (Scopus, APA PsycINFO, British Education Index, ERIC subscription, Education Source and Web of Science Core Collection), supplemented by a hand search through a university online library identified seven primary studies conducted in China and Türkiye that examined (a) conceptualisations, (b) measurements, (c) outcomes and (d) moderators of L2 student writers' MEs. The synthesised evidence indicates that self-report questionnaires are reliable and commonly used tools for assessing writing MEs. MEs pervade and facilitate student writers' self-regulation before, during and after the writing process. Post-writing MEs exhibit a weak but significant positive correlation with writing performance, writing enjoyment, and both psychological and behavioural engagement with writing. The intensity of post-writing MEs was reported to be moderated by both interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, including time, latent profiles among individual students, intrinsic motivation, external feedback and individual linguistic competence. The review highlights the interplay among L2 learners' MEs, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation strategies, illustrating how their real-time non-analytical affective and analytical cognitive processes work together to facilitate self-regulation in L2 writing. Several recommendations are provided for language instructors and curriculum designers to enhance L2 students' self-regulation by enriching their post-writing MEs.<br/

Decolonising pharmacy education: Broadening epistemic perspectives and advancing curricular inclusion

Introduction: Pharmacy education curricula remain predominantly influenced by Westernbiomedical paradigms, often marginalising diverse cultural and Indigenous health perspectives,which limits culturally responsive patient care.Perspective: Integrating epistemic pluralism, critical consciousness, and cultural safety frameworksfrom broader healthcare education can foster curricula reflective of diverse healing traditions.Curricular co-creation with marginalised communities further supports inclusive pharmacyeducation.Implications: Effective decolonisation requires comprehensive curriculum audits, targeted facultytraining in inclusive pedagogies, authentic community engagement, and alignment with regulatory standards. Interdisciplinary collaboration enriches pharmacy curricula, preparing culturallycompetent pharmacists to address health disparities and provide patient-centred care in diversecommunities.This paper offers a conceptual and advocacy-oriented perspective that outlines why and howpharmacy education should be reoriented through decolonising principles