PFAS contamination: regulatory landscape and future perspectives for India

This article highlights the escalating concern of PFAS (Per- and Polyfluorinated Alkyl Substances) contamination, which poses significant global concern and potentially serve implications for India. It offers a comprehensive overview of the types of PFAS, including sources, pathways, and regulatory challenges they present. Additionally, the article examines the regulatory limits proposed and followed by United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), European Union (EU) and guidelines followed in United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Furthermore, it provides an update on the present status of PFAS research and contamination in India and outlines the necessary steps to mitigate this contaminant in the long-term following the non-sum zero approach derived from game theory

Comparison of predicted aerobic capacity to measured aerobic capacity in menopausal women: an analysis of three methods.

Maintaining fitness throughout menopause is crucial for sustaining functional capacity and supporting healthy aging. Declines in physical activity and changes in physiology threaten cardiovascular health in menopause. Aerobic capacity is an indicator of current health status that can be measured directly, by maximal rate of oxygen uptake (V̇O2 max), or using submaximal predictive methods that require fewer resources. This study aimed to establish the validity of these predictive methods for midlife women. Forty-four women (age 52 ± 4 years) completed three predictive cycle ergometer protocols (YMCA, Astrand-rhyming and Ekblom-Bak) and an incremental cycle ergometer V̇O2 max test. Predicted V̇O2 max scores were compared for agreement with directly measured V̇O2 max. All methods evidenced moderate correlations with V̇O2 max. The mean V̇O2 max value derived from the YMCA (35.6 ± 9.7 ml·kg-1·min-1) and Astrand-Rhyming (35.5 ± 8.8 ml·kg-1·min-1) tests was no different to measured V̇O2 max (34.5 ± 7.2 ml·kg-1·min-1), but the Ekblom-Bak test (37.5 ± 7.2 ml·kg-1·min-1, p < 0.01) overpredicted V̇O2 max. All methods showed wide limits of agreement, suggesting variability in the accuracy of predictions. When measuring aerobic capacity or prescribing exercise using these predictive methods, the results should be interpreted with caution. Where possible, direct measurement of aerobic capacity should be utilized for prescription of exercise intensity in menopausal women

No Association Between Face Recognition and Spatial Navigation: Evidence from Developmental Prosopagnosia and Super-Recognizers

Background/Objectives: Previous studies have reported associations between prosopagnosia and spatial navigation, but it remains unclear whether this link is merely coincidental (i.e., observable only in prosopagnosia) or genuinely interdependent (i.e., such that variation in one ability predicts variation in the other across the full spectrum of face-recognition abilities). This study aimed to directly test this possibility by examining the relationship between face recognition and navigational skills in developmental prosopagnosics (DPs), super-recognizers (SRs), and control participants. Methods: Eighteen DPs, sixteen SRs, and twenty-eight control participants were tested in a recently validated route-learning task, in which they were asked to memorize a route from a first-person perspective. In the subsequent test stages, both route repetition and route retracing were assessed. Results: Group analyses showed comparable performance in route repetition and retracing across the three groups. Single-case analyses confirmed these findings and indicated that only two DPs and two SRs performed worse than control participants in route retracing. Conclusions: These findings suggest that spatial navigation and face recognition are not directly associated and therefore appear to be different skills

The SUNRISE Project: Inspiring student sustainability research

This book tells the story of the SUNRISE project, a British Council–funded collaboration between Bournemouth University and Universiti Sains Malaysia that focused on student engagement with the sustainability agenda, hybrid cross-cultural learning, and the power of sustainability research to connect people, places, and purpose. It captures the journey, celebrates the people involved, and showcases some of the remarkable work done along the way— serving as both a reflection on what we have accomplished and an inspiration for what is still to come

Dot Probe Tasks Produce No Attentional Modifications Towards Healthy Weight Bodies

Objective: Using the dot-probe paradigm, previous research has demonstrated that women on average show attentional biases towards underweight bodies. However, little research has used these paradigms to examine the malleability of such biases. Here, we examined whether a single session of attention bias modification training, in which participants were trained to attend to healthy-weight bodies, reduced attentional orientation towards underweight bodies and improved body satisfaction. Method: One hundred and twenty-one female participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental group in which they were trained to attend to healthy weight bodies or a control group (with no manipulation). Participants' body satisfaction was measured at two phases, before and following attentional training. Results: We found no changes to attentional biases or body satisfaction across both groups. Conclusion: Dot-probe attention bias modification tasks may not be able to modify body satisfaction and attention biases towards healthy-weight bodies following a single training session. Future research is encouraged to consider alternative attentional modification paradigms to modify pathological body image

Corrigendum to “Impact of obesity on outcomes after total hip and knee replacement: A study on hospital length of stay and readmission rates in NHS Scotland” [Int. J. Orthopaedic Trauma Nurs. 58 (2025) 101216] (International Journal of Orthopaedic and Trauma Nursing (2025) 58, (S1878124125000619), (10.1016/j.ijotn.2025.101216))

The authors regret that we have made a mistake in Table 2, in which the categories “obese” and “non-obese” were inadvertently switched. Specifically, the values in the first row should correspond to the “obese” category, and the values in the second row should correspond to the “non-obese” category. This error does not affect any conclusions of the work but is sufficiently important to require correction. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. [Table presented

Anthropometric Measurements from a 3D Photogrammetry-Based Digital Avatar: A Non-Experimental Cross-Sectional Study to Assess Reliability and Agreement

Photogrammetry captures and stitches multiple images together to generate a digital model of the human body, called an avatar, making it potentially useful in healthcare. Its validity for anthropometry remains to be established. We evaluated the reliability and agreement of measurements derived from a three-dimensional digital avatar generated by photogrammetry compared to manual collection. Fifty-three volunteers (34.02 ± 11.94 years of age, 64% female, 22.5 kg∙m−2 body mass index) were recruited, and twenty-two body regions (neck, armpits, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, breast, waist, belly, hip, thighs, knees, calves, ankles) were taken by an individual rater with a tape measure. Digital measurements were generated from photogrammetry. Participants’ intraclass correlation coefficients indicated strong consistency, with agreement of over 90% for limb regions such as biceps, elbows, wrists, thighs, knees, calves, and ankles, while chest and armpits showed lowest agreement (1 cm) and variation. Bland–Altman analysis revealed wider limits of agreements and higher biases for chest (−2.44 cm), waist and belly (around −1.2 cm), and armpits (around −1.1 cm) compared to limbs. Our findings suggest that photogrammetry-based digital avatars can be a promising tool for anthropometric assessment, particularly for limbs, but may require refinement in trunk-related regions

Supply network disruption: A framework for assessing vulnerability and implementing resilience strategies

Disruptions to food supply chains can have significant impacts on food security and economic stability. This study investigates the resilience of supply networks to such disruptions, focusing on the distribution of live fish between farms in England and Wales as a case study. A decision support framework is developed to assess network vulnerability and ensure operational continuity in the face of disruptions to the supply and demand balance. The framework incorporates a novel rewiring algorithm that dynamically reconfigures network connections to maintain the flow of goods. The algorithm predicts supply-demand pairs and adjusts connections to preserve functionality during disruptions. To evaluate the performance of the framework and algorithm, a combination of topological metrics, such as connectivity and redundancy, and operational measures, including supply fulfilment and distribution efficiency, is utilised. Through simulations of random and targeted node removals, the rewiring algorithm is shown to effectively mitigate the impact of disruptions, preserve network functionality, and help ensure a consistent supply of live fish. These findings offer valuable insights for managing disruptions in aquaculture supply chains and highlight the broader applicability of the framework to enhance the resilience of other supply networks

The significance of crystal structure on grain refinement during severe plastic deformation

This study focused on the significance of crystal structure on the grain refinement occurring during severe plastic deformation without considering the activation of softening mechanisms which inherently hinder grain refinement. Pure metals of Fe, Co and Ni, with relatively close melting points and initial grain sizes, were selected as models for BCC, HCP and FCC materials, respectively, for processing by high-pressure torsion under similar condition at room temperature. Severe plastic deformation of the BCC, HCP and FCC materials led to grain refinement with average grain sizes of ~90, ~60 and ~120 nm, respectively, with the FCC material showing the lowest hardness and microstrain among the studied materials. The formation of shear bands in the BCC and HCP materials were effective in microstructure fragmentation during straining which facilitated a finer grain size compared to the FCC material without shear bands. A significant grain refinement with the highest dislocation density was obtained due to an insufficient number of slip systems in the HCP material which encouraged deformation-induced twinning and a transformation for strain accommodation. The results demonstrate the high potential for achieving exceptional grain refinement in materials with an HCP crystal structure by comparison with BCC and then FCC materials

Evaluating the impact of user and learning experience in three cultural heritage VR applications

Many existing Virtual Reality (VR) applications in the Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH) domain are for education purposes. As educational VR DCH experiences become more prevalent, it becomes increasingly important to understand the user and learner experience of such installations. This work reports on a user study (n=30) evaluating three educational VR DCH experiences using three existing User experience (UX) evaluation methodologies from related fields and three learning evaluation methodologies. A total of 31 participants were recruited for the experiment, resulting in a dataset of 30 valid records. Our research seeks to explore the relationship between UX and Learning experience (LX), and their impact on learning in VR DCH experiences. Our results suggest that UX and LX in educational VR DCH experiences can influence certain aspects of learning, such as retention, concentration, motivation, and flexibility. Additionally, specific aspects of the educational VR DCH experience captured evidence by three existing UX evaluation and three learning evaluation methodologies are identified. These include instrumental aspects (ease of use, learnability, efficiency, etc.), stimulation of new experiences, the role of interactions, immersion in VR DCH contexts and flexibility of learning pace and using learning materials