Inequalities in the Risk of Multidimensional Downward Mobility From the Most Advantaged Backgrounds

Relatively little research has explored socio-demographic inequalities in downward mobility from advantaged backgrounds, with such work focusing solely on class or income. This neglects the multi-dimensional nature of social position and particularly overlooks the importance of social status as a reward obtained via occupation. In this study, I use detailed data from a large, representative UK sample to examine inequalities in multidimensional destinations among workers from the most advantaged class and status backgrounds. I find evidence of significant socio-demographic inequalities both in the overall risk of downward mobility and in the pattern of class versus status mobility. Notably, women from privileged families have a higher risk of downward mobility than men, but this difference is driven exclusively by class, rather than status mobility. Black workers have a higher risk of downward mobility than White workers in both class and status terms, while those of Indian ethnicity are at lower risk, particularly of downward class mobility. The study’s findings have important implications for social mobility research and policy – with specific patterns of multidimensional mobility potentially requiring different explanations (and therefore policy interventions) than the patterns revealed by previous unidimensional analyses

Technical note: Does scan resolution or downsampling impact the analysis of trabecular bone architecture?

The “gold standard” for the assessment of trabecular bone structure is high‐resolution micro‐CT. In this technical note, we test the influence of initial scan resolution and post hoc downsampling on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of trabecular bone in a Gorilla tibia. We analyzed trabecular morphology in the right distal tibia of one Gorilla gorilla individual to investigate the impact of variation in voxel size on measured trabecular variables. For each version of the micro‐CT volume, trabecular bone was segmented using the medical image analysis method. Holistic morphometric analysis was then used to analyze bone volume (BV/TV), anisotropy (DA), trabecular thickness (Tb.Th), spacing (Tb.Sp), and number (Tb.N). Increasing voxel size during initial scanning was found to have a strong impact on DA and Tb.Th measures, while BV/TV, Tb.Sp, and Tb.N were found to be less sensitive to variations in initial scan resolution. All tested parameters were not substantially influenced by downsampling up to 90 μm resolution. Color maps of BV/TV and DA also retained their distribution up to 90 μm. This study is the first to examine the effect of variation in micro‐CT voxel size on the analysis of trabecular bone structure using whole epiphysis approaches. Our results indicate that microstructural variables may be measured for most trabecular parameters up to a voxel size of 90 μm for both scan and downsampled resolutions. Moreover, if only BV/TV, Tb.Sp or Tb.N is measured, even larger voxel sizes might be used without substantially affecting the results

Dental morphology in homo habilis and its implications for the evolution of early homo.

The phylogenetic position of Homo habilis is central to debates over the origin and early evolution of the genus Homo. A large portion of the species hypodigm consists of dental remains, but they have only been studied at the often worn enamel surface. We investigate the morphology of the H. habilis enamel-dentine junction (EDJ), which is preserved in cases of moderate tooth wear and known to carry a strong taxonomic signal. Geometric morphometrics is used to characterise dentine crown shape and size across the entire mandibular and maxillary tooth rows, compared with a broad comparative sample (n = 712). We find that EDJ morphology in H. habilis is for the most part remarkably primitive, supporting the hypothesis that the H. habilis hypodigm has more in common with Australopithecus than later Homo. Additionally, the chronologically younger specimen OH 16 displays a suite of derived features; its inclusion in H. habilis leads to excessive levels of variation

An overview of application-oriented multifunctional large-scale stationary battery and hydrogen hybrid energy storage system

The imperative to address traditional energy crises and environmental concerns has accelerated the need for energy structure transformation. However, the variable nature of renewable energy poses challenges in meeting complex practical energy requirements. To address this issue, the construction of a multifunctional large-scale stationary energy storage system is considered an effective solution. This paper critically examines the battery and hydrogen hybrid energy storage systems. Both technologies face limitations hindering them from fully meeting future energy storage needs, such as large storage capacity in limited space, frequent storage with rapid response, and continuous storage without loss. Batteries, with their rapid response (90 %), excel in frequent short-duration energy storage. However, limitations such as a self-discharge rate (>1 %) and capacity loss (∼20 %) restrict their use for long-duration energy storage. Hydrogen, as a potential energy carrier, is suitable for large-scale, long-duration energy storage due to its high energy density, steady state, and low loss. Nevertheless, it is less efficient for frequent energy storage due to its low storage efficiency (∼50 %). Ongoing research suggests that a battery and hydrogen hybrid energy storage system could combine the strengths of both technologies to meet the growing demand for large-scale, long-duration energy storage. To assess their applied potentials, this paper provides a detailed analysis of the research status of both energy storage technologies using proposed key performance indices. Additionally, application-oriented future directions and challenges of the battery and hydrogen hybrid energy storage system are outlined from multiple perspectives, offering guidance for the development of advanced energy storage systems

Exposing illegal hunting and wildlife depletion in the world's largest tropical country through social media data

Globally, illegal sport hunting can threaten prey populations when unregulated. Due to its covert nature, illegal sport hunting poses challenges for data collection, hindering efforts to understand the full extent of its impacts. We gathered social media data to analyze patterns of illegal sport hunting and wildlife depletion across Brazil. We collected data for 2 years (2018–2020) across 5 Facebook groups containing posts depicting pictures of illegal sport hunting events of native fauna. We described and mapped these hunting events by detailing the number of hunters involved, the number of species, the mean body mass of individuals, and the number and biomass of individuals hunted per unit area, stratified by Brazilian biome. We also examined the effects of defaunation on hunting yield and composition via regression models, rank–abundance curves, and spatial interpolation. We detected 2046 illegal sport hunting posts portraying the hunting of 4658 animals (∼29 t of undressed meat) across all 27 states and 6 natural biomes of Brazil. Of 157 native species targeted by hunters, 19 are currently threatened with extinction. We estimated that 1414 hunters extracted 3251 kg/million km2. Some areas exhibited more pronounced wildlife depletion, in particular the Atlantic Forest and Caatinga biomes. In these areas, there was a shift from large mammals and reptiles to small birds as the main targeted taxa, and biomass extracted per hunting event and mean body mass across all taxonomic groups were lower than in other areas. Our results highlight that illegal sport hunting adds to the pressures of subsistence hunting and the wild meat trade on Brazil's wildlife populations. Enhanced surveillance efforts are needed to reduce illegal sport hunting levels and to develop well‐managed sustainable sport hunting programs. These can support wildlife conservation and offer incentives for local communities to oversee designated sport hunting areas

Developing A New Mammalian Cell-Based Vaccine Manufacturing Platform and Novel Antibodies for the Treatment of Dengue Fever

The development of biotherapeutics is an important field in the modern approach to treating and preventing current and emerging global health challenges. Vaccines and monoclonal antibodies are two biotherapeutic modalities that are particularly important in addressing the unmet need for the treatment or prevention of a wide range of diseases and conditions. Alongside the development of such biotherapeutics comes the need to be able to manufacture/produce these complex medicines at a quality and quantity suitable for treating the target population. Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) host cell lines are the gold-standard mammalian expression system used in bioprocessing for the expression of biotherapeutics due to their ability to produce high quality products with human-like post-translational modifications (particularly glycosylation) and a record of producing safe therapies at large scale. Due to these attributes and their ability to tolerate genetic engineering for manipulation of secretion and vesicular pathways, CHO cells are an excellent candidate for the development of a mammalian-cell based vaccine platform for manufacture of recombinant exosomes. Additionally, CHO cells are routinely used for the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and have been successfully used to produce difficult-to-express (DTE) antibodies. This thesis presents investigations into the development of (1) a 'plug & play' CHO cell-based system for the expression of engineered exosomes which could be adapted for rapid response to outbreaks, and (2) the enhanced expression of a DTE novel anti-dengue antibody (Den54) using the CHO cell expression system via antibody sequence engineering. CHO-S host cells were shown to be a suitable cell host for the production of engineered exosomes to which can be targeted proteins/antigens of interest when fused (tagged) with exosome-targeting proteins. Two exosome targeting strategies were explored, ubiquitin-tagging and tetraspanin-tagging, both of which resulted in the production of engineered exosomes bearing fluorescent reporter proteins GFP and mCherry. However, of the strategies, a CD81 tetraspanin-tagging method resulted in more consistent targeting of cargo (GFP/mCherry) into recombinant exosomes, possibly due to the higher abundance of CD81+ exosome populations found in native CHO-S exosome populations. Further investigation using different SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins to test strategies to target antigens of varied lengths and complexities showed that successful generation of engineered exosomes is also dependent on the antigen targeted to them, with the Spike subunit 2 (S2) being most successfully targeted to recombinant CHO-S cell exosomes. The CHO-S host cell line was also used to investigate enhanced expression of a novel anti-dengue mAb that was DTE. Hybridisation or grafting of the DTE antibody sequences, particularly the variable regions, onto the constant and framework regions of well-characterised mAbs known to express well in CHO cells, trastuzumab and nivolumab, resulted in a marked improvement of secreted anti-dengue antibody. The molecule produced at the greatest yield, Den2, was a hybrid which contained more of the Den54 native sequence than its counterpart, Den4. Further investigation of the expression of these molecules and localisation of the antibody chains within the cells to determine where bottlenecking may be occurring, highlighted a problem with the Fc region of the native molecule resulting in a lack of secretory expression. This may be due to the formation of intra-ER crystals and the absence of the native Den54 Fc in the hybridised molecules allowed for higher secreted mAb amounts to be observed. The combined data described in this thesis provides evidence that CHO-S cells can be a platform for manufacture of engineered exosomes containing target antigens that could be investigated as vaccines and shows that protein engineering of a model mAb can improve the secretory expression of an anti-dengue DTE mAb and identify limitations upon its expression

Pelvic scarring: A result of gravidity and parity, or simply evidence of biological potential?

Background: Despite extensive research in recent decades, the association between pelvic scarring and obstetric events remains contentious, with discrepancies exacerbated by sample and methodological inconsistencies. This study revisits the investigation of a potential link between gravidity (pregnancy) and parity (childbirth) events and commonly observed scar sites on the modern pelvis using standardised analysis. Method: A known sample from the Texas State Donated Skeletal Collection (TXSTDSC), comprising 169 females and 51 males, was utilised in the morphometric analysis of four key scar features around the pubic and auricular areas of the pelvis. Associations between each scar feature and obstetric events were examined within mixed-sex and female-only samples. Cross-tabulation and Chi-square analyses were utilised to assess simple scar occurrence, while potential associations with scar dimensions underwent Kendall’s tau-B testing. Results: Combined-sex analyses revealed significant associations between gravidity and parity, and all scar features but pubic tubercle extension (p = <0.001 – 0.003). However, associations decreased upon the removal of male samples, with statistical significance remaining for only the preauricular sulcus (gravidity: p = 0.022; parity: p = 0.047) and superior interosseous cavity (gravidity: p = 0.002; parity: p = 0.004). Conclusion: Detailed analysis of results highlights that while the sulcus development is influenced by obstetric events, biological sex plays a more significant role in presence and severity. The superior cavity appears to be most influenced by the biomechanical stress caused by pregnancy and vaginal birth – thus making this feature of particular interest and warranting further investigation with consideration of clinical practice and osteological study

Navigating ethical challenges in online wildlife trade research

The surge in internet accessibility has transformed wildlife trade by facilitating the acquisition of wildlife through online platforms. This scenario presents unique ethical challenges for researchers, as traditional ethical frameworks for in‐person research cannot be readily applied to the online realm. Currently, there is a lack of clearly defined guidelines for appropriate ethical procedures when conducting online wildlife trade (OWT) research. In response to this, we consulted the scientific literature on ethical considerations in online research and examined existing guidelines established by professional societies and ethical boards. Based on these documents, we present a set of recommendations that can inform the development of ethically responsible OWT research. Key ethical challenges in designing and executing OWT research include the violation of privacy rights, defining subjects and illegality, and the risk of misinterpretation or posing risks to participants when sharing data. Potential solutions include considering participants’ expectations of privacy, defining when participants are authors versus subjects, understanding the legal and cultural context, minimizing data collection, ensuring anonymization, and removing metadata. Best practices also involve being culturally sensitive when analyzing and reporting findings. Adhering to these guidelines can help mitigate potential pitfalls and provides valuable insights to editors, researchers, and ethical review boards, enabling them to conduct scientifically rigorous and ethically responsible OWT research to advance this growing field

Felicity Kaganas: Asking the woman question in family law

This contribution to the special issue considers Felicity Kaganas as a feminist socio-legal scholar who persistently ‘asked the woman question’ in family law. It focuses on one of her important articles, ‘When it comes to contact disputes, what are family courts for?’. After summarising her argument concerning the evolution of the family courts’ approach to contact disputes, it examines her critique of a problem-solving approach, in light of the recent introduction of the Pathfinder pilot courts, following the recommendations of the Ministry of Justice report, Assessing risk of harm to children and parents in private law children cases (2020)

A Formalisation of Core Erlang, a Concurrent Actor Language

In order to reason about the behaviour of programs described in a programming language, a mathematically rigorous definition of that language is needed. In this paper, we present a machine-checked formalisation of concurrent Core Erlang (a subset of Erlang) based on our previous formalisations of its sequential sublanguage. We define a modular, frame stack semantics, show how program evaluation is carried out with it, and prove a number of properties (e.g. determinism, confluence). Finally, we define program equivalence based on bisimulations and prove that side-effect-free evaluation is a bisimulation. This research is part of a wider project that aims to verify refactorings to prove that particular program code transformations preserve program behaviour