Supervisor professionalisation, recognition and reward

Over the past three decades or so, doctoral supervision has been transformed from an experientially based role to a professional one which demands a multiplicity of specialised knowledge and skills. This chapter seeks to trace this development and to consider how institutions have responded in terms of recognition and reward. It (1) sets out a framework for analysis, (2) outlines the historical model of ‘restricted’ professionality, (3) identifies the key drivers for change and their implications for supervision, (4) summarises the contemporary model of ‘extended’ professionality and (5) reviews institutional responses. It concludes that more needs to be done to adequately recognise and reward the enhanced professionalism of supervisors

Environmental sustainability in basic research. A perspective from HECAP+

The climate crisis and the degradation of the world's ecosystems require humanity to take immediate action. The international scientific community has a responsibility to limit the negative environmental impacts of basic research. The HECAP+ communities (High Energy Physics, Cosmology, Astroparticle Physics, and Hadron and Nuclear Physics) make use of common and similar experimental infrastructure, such as accelerators and observatories, and rely similarly on the processing of big data. Our communities therefore face similar challenges to improving the sustainability of our research. This document aims to reflect on the environmental impacts of our work practices and research infrastructure, to highlight best practice, to make recommendations for positive changes, and to identify the opportunities and challenges that such changes present for wider aspects of social responsibility

Using earth observation to develop a health index for peatlands.

Globally peatlands are laterally extensive and represent important stores and sinks of atmospheric carbon. The cold humid island hypothesis proposes that damaged peatlands can be distinguished from functioning peatlands by their relatively dark, bare, dry soils with resulting relatively high daytime and low night-time land surface temperatures. Contrasts in bare soil, vegetation cover and land surface temperature can be readily observed by satellite and so we propose that Earth observation, and the cold humid island hypothesis, can be used to survey, manage and monitor peatlands. Using the NASA MODIS Earth Observation (EO) products allowed the study to directly assess both status and trajectory of peatlands over multi-decadal time at a national scale. The predictions of the cold humid island hypothesis means EO products (albedo, enhanced vegetation index - EVI, daytime land surface temperature, night-time land surface temperature, and the diurnal amplitude in the land surface temperature) can be used to directly assess peatlands without further calibration or correlation to other ecosystem variables. Knowledge of specific sites within a target region means it is possible to use controls to assess absolute and relative status. By considering the state and expected trajectory of the five EO products over British peatlands it was possible to combine the five EO products into a peat health index. When compared to control locations the majority (69 %) of British peatlands showed that they were on a downward trajectory. This downward trajectory was primarily driven by changes in Land Surface Temperature (LST) and, crucially, by deviations from expected trends, as indicated by control variables

Under the Microscope: Shifting Perspectives on an Ethics Case in Participatory Health Research in a German Care Home

This article starts from an academic researcher’s written ethics case drawn from a participatory action research project in a residential care home for older people in Germany. The case contains an implicit dilemma for the academic researcher about whether to intervene to protect a resident giving a talk from perceived discomfort and humiliation in front of her peers. The case was discussed and acted out at several meetings of the ethics working group of the International Collaboration for Participatory Health Research. This article comprises: two commentaries on the case from micro and macro perspectives; the case author’s further reflections and reframing of the situation as less about protection and more about resident-determined empowerment following the discovery and transcription of an audio-recording; and discussion of the value of multiple perspectives and iterative dialogue in enabling in-depth and new understandings of the ethical nuances of everyday interactions. This article demonstrates the value of the ‘ethics co-laboratory’ process adopted in the ethics working group as a method of deepening researchers’ ethical sensitivity and extending their ethical competence

Understanding Repetitive behaviours (URB): a clinical and cost effectiveness, multi-site randomised controlled trial of a group for parents and carers of young autistic children.

Restricted and repetitive behaviours (RRB) vary greatly between autistic people. Some are a source of pleasure or create opportunities for learning, others may be detrimental in day to day life or cause harm. We have developed, in close collaboration with parents/carers, the Understanding Repetitive Behaviours (URB) programme, designed for families of young autistic children, to help them recognise, understand and respond sensitively to their child’s impactful RRB. This study is a clinical and cost effectiveness, multi-site randomised controlled trial of the URB parent programme versus a psychoeducation programme (equivalent to current best practice), Learning About Autism (LAA). Participants were parents/carers, with an autistic child aged between 3-9 years and 11 months. The study was delivered across three sites in England and Scotland. Analyses were completed using intention-to-treat principles. Two hundred and twenty seven families were randomised (113 in LAA; 114 in URB arm). No differences were found between the arms on the primary outcome measure (The Clinical Global Impression - Improvement scale). Analysis of secondary outcomes indicated that children in the URB arm were more likely to be rated as responders in target impactful RRB at 24 weeks but that this effect was not maintained at 52 weeks. Improvements in parent and family functioning were apparent, with no evidence of differences between the arms. The study reconfirms that it is important that clinicians consider both RRB and social communication needs of autistic children with parents when planning appropriate support

A simple parametrisation of the pion form factor

We discuss a novel and simple parametrisation of the pion vector form factor that transparently connects spacelike and timelike regions of the momentum transfer q2. Our parametrisation employs the framework of conformal mapping and respects the known analyticity properties of the form factor, accounting explicitly for the ρ(770)-meson pole. The parametrisation manifestly fulfils the normalisation condition at q2=0 as well as further restrictions at the pion production threshold and in the limit |q2|→∞. In contrast to the widely used Omnès parametrisation, our approach does not use the pion–pion scattering phase shift as input. We confront the parametrisation with experimental data from πH scattering and τ−→π−π0ν decay. We already find a good description of the data with only five free parameters, which include the pole mass and decay width of the ρ(770)

Methods and exploratory findings of the first Swiss agricultural health cohort FarmCoSwiss

FarmCoSwiss is Switzerland’s first agricultural cohort study on farmers’ health and wellbeing. It aims to longitudinally describe farmers’ mental and physical health and identify risk and protective factors. Between November 2022 and August 2023, 872 participants (65.9% men) were enrolled in the baseline survey assessing farm characteristics, occupational hazards, lifestyle and wellbeing, and physical and mental health. Selected variables were descriptively compared to the general population using Swiss Health Survey (SHS) data (2022) and the Swiss-wide SAPALDIA cohort (2020–2023). Findings suggest better physical health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in younger participants, and better mental HRQoL in older farmers. Furthermore, descriptive comparisons indicate that female farmers may have higher physical, but lower mental HRQoL than men. Most participants (60.5%) were classified as overweight or obese based on self-reported height and weight. Descriptive comparisons between the SHS and FarmCoSwiss suggest that farmers might spend less hours sitting, consume less alcohol and tobacco, but eat more red and processed meat. FarmCoSwiss participants further reported lower prevalences of most diseases compared to SAPALDIA participants. Occupational accidents were common in the farmers’ cohort. These high accident rates as well as high BMI values and indications for sex-based differences in physical and mental health highlight the need for further research and in-depth studies. Given increasing political, societal, and environmental pressures on agriculture, epidemiological evidence on farmers’ health and wellbeing is crucial to maintain a thriving agricultural workforce

Gradual convergence for Langevin dynamics on a degenerate potential

In this paper, we study an ordinary differential equation with a degenerate global attractor at the origin, to which we add a white noise with a small parameter that regulates its intensity. Under general conditions, for any fixed intensity, as time tends to infinity, the solution of this stochastic dynamics converges exponentially fast in total variation distance to a unique equilibrium distribution. We suitably accelerate the random dynamics and show that the preceding convergence is gradual, that is, the function that associates to each fixed $t>0$ the total variation distance between the accelerated random dynamics at time $t$ and its equilibrium distribution converges, as the noise intensity tends to zero, to a decreasing function with values in $(0,1)$. Moreover, we prove that this limit function for each fixed $t>0$ corresponds to the total variation distance between the marginal, at time $t$, of a stochastic differential equation that comes down from infinity and its corresponding equilibrium distribution. This completes the classification of all possible behaviors of the total variation distance between the time marginal of the aforementioned stochastic dynamics and its invariant measure for one dimensional well-behaved convex potentials. In addition, there is no cut-off phenomenon for this one-parameter family of random processes and asymptotics of the mixing times are derived

Ethics of biohybrid robotics and invertebrate research: Biohybrid robotic jellyfish as a case study

Invertebrate research ethics has largely been ignored compared to the consideration of higher order animals, but more recent focus has questioned this trend. Using the robotic control of Aurelia aurita as a case study, we examine ethical considerations in invertebrate work and provide recommendations for future guidelines. We also analyze these issues for prior bioethics cases, such as cyborg insects and the 'microslavery' of microbes. However, biohybrid robotic jellyfish pose further ethical questions regarding potential ecological consequences as ocean monitoring tools, including the impact of electronic waste in the ocean. After in-depth evaluations, we recommend that publishers require brief ethical statements for invertebrate research, and we delineate the need for invertebrate nociception studies to revise or validate current standards. These actions provide a stronger basis for the ethical study of invertebrates, with implications for individual, species-wide, and ecological impacts, as well as for studies in science, engineering, and philosophy. [Abstract copyright: Creative Commons Attribution license.

2,4,6-Trichloro-cyclohexa-2,5-dienone

A continuous flow process was optimised for the perchlorination of p-cresol to the corresponding 2,4,6-trichloro-cyclohexa-2,5-dienone derivative employing trichloroisocyanuric acid as a green and safer-to-handle chlorinating agent. The system could furnish 200 g of pure material within 5 h of operation (throughput = 40 g h−1). The compound was easily isolated by filtration and obtained in 95% purity as determined by GC analysis; it could be further purified by crystallisation from a 20:1 Hexane/AcOEt mixture left at −20 °C overnight. The resultant product was characterised by 1H & 13C NMR, MS, IR analyses, with melting point and X-ray single-crystal data being obtained, confirming the structure