The Ballad of Goodwill

The Ballad of Goodwill or The Lecturers Lament at the Demise of Goodwill in the Neoliberal University. The Ballad of Goodwill is a new workers ballad collectively written during a one-day singing symposium devised by Post Workers Theatre and hosted by the Allmänningen (The Common Room) at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, Gothenburg University (2021). The symposium guests included: Professor Rajani Naidoo - Director, International Centre for Higher Education Management / Dr. Joanna Figiel - Researcher and activist, Centre for Cultural Policy and Management, University of London / Dr. Stevphen Shukaitis- Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex, Centre for Work and Organisation / Dr. Jenni Hyde- Ballad historian and precarious academic. Symposium guests and invited speakers all contributed to the production of a ballad through retelling, scripting and discussing the often-hidden economies of goodwill in academic labour and life. Soprano and librettist Roxanne Korda, acted as the event's Troubadour, and sings the final recording of the ballad accompanied by a PWT modular synthesiser reimagining of the tune Packington's Pound, a popular broadside ballad tune before 1700. The Ballad of Goodwill revisits the social function of the broadside ballad for the contemporary workplace and considers the ballad's potential to create relationships across different institutions and professions that face growing pressure and precarity within marketized education. The Ballad of Goodwill was organised as part of Post Workers Theatres residency within Allmänningen (The Common Room) at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, Gothenburg University. Allmänningen was a Vinnova funded research project from 2018-2021 developing and piloting alternative models for university usership and collaboration. The symposium was accessible for students and staff from the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, Gothenburg University, Goldsmiths University and Birmingham City University

Tomorrow's Great Pageant

Tomorrow’s Great Pageant is a socially charged project that re-imagined the iconic Suffrage play, A Pageant of Great Women, for a 21st Century non-binary context. Workshops and participatory events with Bedford’s LGBTQIA+ community performed active ways of debating and co-writing to generate new dialogue and form a network of contemporary voices to comment on issues of gender and freedom. The project launched during The Place Theatre, Bedford’s LGBTQIA+ season in February 2019 with a collective brainstorming event. Guest writers, critics and community activists joined an audience to revisit the structure and message of the historic play and discuss how it could be updated to represent the values and ideals of a diverse 21st century LGBTQIA+ community. Using collective creation, improvisation and debate, Bedford’s local community were then invited to co-author the new play. Workshops led by Ray Filar, Claudia Jefferies and Emma Frankland brought together Q:Youth Bedford, students and local performers over a period of six weeks to debate the original play’s premise and characters, transforming their ideas into a new dialogue and updated script. A final performative event, presented a first sharing of the script at The Place Theatre, Bedford on 6 April 2019. Subsequent sharing’s took place at Goldsmith’s, University of London, and Eastside Projects, Birmingham

Autohoodening

Autohoodening is a consciousness-raising custom for the age of A.I Capitalism, updating an ancient midwinter ritual to critically engage with the horrors of working as a seasonal associate in an Amazon fulfilment centre. Conceived in 2019 by Post Workers Theatre, Autohoodening is a collective inquiry that combines talks and debate on folk history and contemporary work issues, with scripts, songs, costume and live performance. A symposium was held within the Design Department at Goldsmiths, which acted as the catalyst for a week of collective reworking. Discussion focues on how folkloric, archetypes could be used to address contemporary labour issues. Presentations were given by Ben Jones, member of the St Nicholas at Wade Hoodeners, Folk Historian George Frampton and journalist and writer James Bloodworth who shared his experience of working undercover in Amazon's Rugeley Fulfilment Centre. Participants of the symposium went on to produce a collectively written response to the mid-winter custom of Hoodening, performed in East Kent for over 200 years. Originally, the Hoodeners were agricultural labourers, working in ploughing teams, who performed a carnivalesque satire of their working realites, visiting different locations in the local community during the fallow season of winter. Autohoodening 2019 begins to reimagine this custom for the age of automation, updating its design, delivery and social purpose. How might the singing, dancing and physical humour parody and draw attention to the horrifying working conditions hidden behind consumer-facing infrastructure and the ease of ‘one-click’ delivery

Autohoodening: The Rise of Captain Swing

As part of the wider Autohoodening Symposium and workshops begun in 2019, this is a collaborative response to a midwinter custom dating back over 200 years. Further research in the working conditions of Amazon Workers in the UK to create a feature length tragic comic opera farce, further reimaging the Kentish calendar Custom of Hoodening. Hoodening was originally performed by farm labourers in East Kent who paraded with a horse effigy in a carnivalesque satire of their working reality during the fallow season of winter. The Opera was written in collaboration with Infinite Opera, with additional material gathered through interviews with GMB Union Managers and Amazon worker message boards. Autohoodening reimagines this custom for the age of automation, updating its design, delivery and social commentary and asks how might the singing, dancing and physical humour parody and draw attention to the horrifying working conditions hidden behind consumer-facing infrastructure and the ease of ‘one-click’ delivery? The work was premiered at Vivid Studios Birmingham at Christmas in 2021, following Amazon Prime Day and during a spate of worldwide protests against the treatment of Amazon workers, and shown again at the 2022 Lulea Bienalle in Sweden. The film focuses on Captain Swing, the fictional face of worker dissent in the great English agricultural uprising of 1830, is resurrected to confront the horrors of working as a seasonal associate in an Amazon fulfilment centre. Will Swing help the workers to overcome Alexis the evil scanner, a symbol of Amazon’s regime of technological discipline

Protesteroo

Protesteroo is a socialist rerouting of the gig economy food delivery company Deliveroo. A singing and cycling protest service that reactivates activities from the historic Clarion social movement to deliver on-demand messages of hope and resistance. Protesteroo was conceived as part of Three Day Work-Out; a three day event exploring the connections between work, social movements and free time at Tate Liverpool in May 2019. The Clarion, a historic social reform movement, was very active in Liverpool in the late 19th century. Three Day Work-Out, revisited it’s core activities: communal cycling, singing and publishing to reflect on current debates around modern forms of work and leisure. The project brought together the Liverpool Socialist Singers, and the Angry Margaret Protest Choir (BCU) led by Infinite Opera. Members of the public were invited to update songs from the Clarion Song Book and specify a location within a 2.5 mile radius of Tate Liverpool where they would like their protest to be delivered. Tate Exchange became the Protesteroo HQ, hosting a range of participatory events. These included a film screening of The Last Clarion House (2017), directed by Charlotte Bill, a talk and discussion with Prof Peter Cox on the Clarion movement, cycling cultures, and activism and a drop in a zine-making workshop led by Gareth Proskourine-Barnett and BAAAD Press

New Insights into the Origin and Evolution of the Hikurangi Oceanic Plateau (Southwest Pacific) from Multi-beam Mapping and Sampling

Oceanic plateaus and continental flood basalts, collectively referred to as large igneous provinces (LIPs), represent the most voluminous volcanic events on Earth. In contrast to continental LIPs, relatively little is known about the surface and internal structure, range in age and chemical composition, origin, and evolution of oceanic plateaus, which occur throughout the worlds oceans [e.g., Mahoney and Coffin, 1997]. One of the major goals of the R/V Sonne SO168 ZEALANDIA expedition (depart Wellington, 3 December 2002, return Christchurch, 15 January 2003) was to investigate the Hikurangi oceanic plateau off the east coast of New Zealand

Adverse health effects associated with household air pollution: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and burden estimation study

Background: 3 billion people worldwide rely on polluting fuels and technologies for domestic cooking and heating. We estimate the global, regional, and national health burden associated with exposure to household air pollution. Methods: For the systematic review and meta-analysis, we systematically searched four databases for studies published from database inception to April 2, 2020, that evaluated the risk of adverse cardiorespiratory, paediatric, and maternal outcomes from exposure to household air pollution, compared with no exposure. We used a random-effects model to calculate disease-specific relative risk (RR) meta-estimates. Household air pollution exposure was defined as use of polluting fuels (coal, wood, charcoal, agricultural wastes, animal dung, or kerosene) for household cooking or heating. Temporal trends in mortality and disease burden associated with household air pollution, as measured by disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), were estimated from 2000 to 2017 using exposure prevalence data from 183 of 193 UN member states. 95% CIs were estimated by propagating uncertainty from the RR meta-estimates, prevalence of household air pollution exposure, and disease-specific mortality and burden estimates using a simulation-based approach. This study is registered with PROSPERO, CRD42019125060. Findings: 476 studies (15·5 million participants) from 123 nations (99 [80%] of which were classified as low-income and middle-income) met the inclusion criteria. Household air pollution was positively associated with asthma (RR 1·23, 95% CI 1·11–1·36), acute respiratory infection in both adults (1·53, 1·22–1·93) and children (1·39, 1·29–1·49), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (1·70, 1·47–1·97), lung cancer (1·69, 1·44–1·98), and tuberculosis (1·26, 1·08–1·48); cerebrovascular disease (1·09, 1·04–1·14) and ischaemic heart disease (1·10, 1·09–1·11); and low birthweight (1·36, 1·19–1·55) and stillbirth (1·22, 1·06–1·41); as well as with under-5 (1·25, 1·18–1·33), respiratory (1·19, 1·18–1·20), and cardiovascular (1·07, 1·04–1·11) mortality. Household air pollution was associated with 1·8 million (95% CI 1·1–2·7) deaths and 60·9 million (34·6–93·3) DALYs in 2017, with the burden overwhelmingly experienced in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs; 60·8 million [34·6–92·9] DALYs) compared with high-income countries (0·09 million [0·01–0·40] DALYs). From 2000, mortality associated with household air pollution had reduced by 36% (95% CI 29–43) and disease burden by 30% (25–36), with the greatest reductions observed in higher-income nations. Interpretation: The burden of cardiorespiratory, paediatric, and maternal diseases associated with household air pollution has declined worldwide but remains high in the world’s poorest regions. Urgent integrated health and energy strategies are needed to reduce the adverse health impact of household air pollution, especially in LMICs. Funding: British Heart Foundation, Wellcome Trus

Patient and Public Involvement in Youth Mental Health Research: Protocol for a Systematic Review of Practices and Impact

Various health settings have advocated for involving patients and members of the public (PPI) in research as a means to increase quality and relevance of the produced knowledge. However, youth PPI has been an understudied area. This protocol paper describes a new project that aims to summarize what is known about PPI with young people in mental health research. In line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses Statement guidelines we will identify and appraise suitable articles and extract and synthesize relevant information including at least two reviewers at each stage of the process. Results will be presented in two systematic reviews that will describe (a) how youth PPI has been conducted (Review1) and (b) what impact youth PPI had on the subsequent research and on stakeholders (Review2). To our knowledge, this is the first set of reviews that uses a critical appraisal tool, which is co-developed with children and young people. Findings from this project will provide valuable insights and set out the key steps to adopting adequate PPI methods when involving children and young people in mental health research

Development and evaluation of low-volume tests to detect and characterize antibodies to SARS-CoV-2

Low-volume antibody assays can be used to track SARS-CoV-2 infection rates in settings where active testing for virus is limited and remote sampling is optimal. We developed 12 ELISAs detecting total or antibody isotypes to SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid, spike protein or its receptor binding domain (RBD), 3 anti-RBD isotype specific luciferase immunoprecipitation system (LIPS) assays and a novel Spike-RBD bridging LIPS total-antibody assay. We utilized pre-pandemic (n=984) and confirmed/suspected recent COVID-19 sera taken pre-vaccination rollout in 2020 (n=269). Assays measuring total antibody discriminated best between pre-pandemic and COVID-19 sera and were selected for diagnostic evaluation. In the blind evaluation, two of these assays (Spike Pan ELISA and Spike-RBD Bridging LIPS assay) demonstrated >97% specificity and >92% sensitivity for samples from COVID-19 patients taken >21 days post symptom onset or PCR test. These assays offered better sensitivity for the detection of COVID-19 cases than a commercial assay which requires 100-fold larger serum volumes. This study demonstrates that low-volume in-house antibody assays can provide good diagnostic performance, and highlights the importance of using well-characterized samples and controls for all stages of assay development and evaluation. These cost-effective assays may be particularly useful for seroprevalence studies in low and middle-income countries

Predictors of Occurrence and Severity of First Time Low Back Pain Episodes: Findings from a Military Inception Cohort

Primary prevention studies suggest that additional research on identifying risk factors predictive of low back pain (LBP) is necessary before additional interventions can be developed. In the current study we assembled a large military cohort that was initially free of LBP and followed over 2 years. The purposes of this study were to identify baseline variables from demographic, socioeconomic, general health, and psychological domains that were predictive of a) occurrence; b) time; and c) severity for first episode of self-reported LBP. Baseline and outcome measures were collected via web-based surveillance system or phone to capture monthly information over 2 years. The assembled cohort consisted of 1230 Soldiers who provided self-report data with 518 (42.1%) reporting at least one episode of LBP over 2 years. Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that gender, active duty status, mental and physical health scores were significant predictors of LBP. Cox regression revealed that the time to first episode of LBP was significantly shorter for Soldiers that were female, active duty, reported previous injury, and had increased BMI. Multivariate linear regression analysis investigated severity of the first episode by identifying baseline predictors of pain intensity, disability, and psychological distress. Education level and physical fitness were consistent predictors of pain intensity, while gender, smoking status, and previous injury status were predictors of disability. Gender, smoking status, physical health scores, and beliefs of back pain were consistent predictors of psychological distress. These results provide additional data to confirm the multi-factorial nature of LBP and suggest future preventative interventions focus on multi-modal approaches that target modifiable risk factors specific to the population of interest