LONDEPENDENCE AND THE ‘LEFT BEHIND’: Social Class, Race and Gender as Determinants of Attitudes to Brexit in London

Since the 2016 'Brexit' Referendum, which saw a slim majority of Britons vote to leave the EU, largely quantitative political science research has been undertaken to investigate why people voted the way they did. While this burgeoning literature has helped to identify patterns in voting behaviour, tropes around the 'left behind' and the so-called 'male-stream' nature of social science research has left us with a limited picture of voting behaviour, with certain voices, including women and ethnic minorities, often excluded. What’s more, while London was set aside as a remain-voting outlier in leave-voting England, and various campaigns began for an independent London, we know very little about the Brexit vote in the capital. As such, this research aims to dig deeper into the determinants of attitudes to Brexit, in particular looking at the effects of social class, race and gender on voting behaviour at the referendum in two London boroughs: Lambeth and Barking and Dagenham. These boroughs are – on the face of it – very similar in terms of ethnic diversity and deprivation, in comparison to the rest of the UK. However, their very different referendum results do not fit patterns of voting behaviour identified in the existing literature. The study draws on qualitative research, combining (very) semi-structured interviews and participatory ‘identity mapping’ to collect a rich dataset of participants' experiences of Brexit.In doing so, the study contributes empirically to what we know about the determinants of attitudes to Brexit. It picks apart key issues like immigration, political disillusionment and economic and cultural anxiety to bring to the fore new issues that are yet to be drawn into the mainstream Brexit debate, from gentrification to ‘smoking beagles’. It also makes a conceptual contribution by applying Bourdieu's concepts of 'cultural capital' and 'fields' to a new setting. In particular, it is argued that, alongside gender and race, citizenship should be viewed as part of our ‘embodied cultural capital’. Doing so makes it possible to understand how identity shaped the Brexit attitudes of migrants living in the UK at the time of the referendum, existing research into which is very sparse. Ultimately, this research highlights the value in combining sociological and political science approaches in the study of Brexit and British politics, and outlines a number of future research avenues on this basis. <br/

A Visual Approach to Improving the Experience of Health Information for Vulnerable Individuals

Many individuals with low health literacy (LHL) and limited English proficiency (LEP) have poor experiences consuming health information: they find it unengaging, unappealing, difficult to understand, and un-motivating. These negative experiences may blunt, or even sabotage, the desired effect of communicating health information: to increase engagement and ability to manage health. It is imperative to find solutions to improve poor experiences of health information, because such experiences heighten vulnerability to poor health outcomes. We aimed to address a gap in the health literacy literature by studying the patient experience of health information and how visualization might be able to help. Our four studies involved patients presented with health information in various settings to improve understanding and management of their care. We used semi-structured interviews and observations to understand patient experiences of receiving personal health information in the hospital. We learned that the return of results is desired and has the potential to promote patient engagement with care. We developed a novel method to analyze LHL, LEP caregiver experience and information needs in the community setting. The novel method increased our understanding and ability to detect differences in experiences within the same ethnic group, based on language preference. Next, we interrogated the literature for a solution to easily communicate complicated health information to disinterested, LHL, LEP individuals. We found that visualizations can help increase interest, comprehension, support faster communication, and even help broach difficult topics. Finally, our findings were used to develop a novel prototype to improve experiences of consuming genetic risk information for those having LHL and LEP. Unlike traditional approaches that focus on communicating risk numbers and probabilities, the novelty of our approach was that we focused on communicating risk as a feeling. We achieved this by leveraging vicarious learning via real patient experience materials (e.g., quotes, videos) and empathy with an emotive relational agent. We evaluated and compared the prototype to standard methods of communicating genetic risk information via a mixed methods approach that included surveys, questionnaires, interviews, observations, image analysis, and facial analysis. Main outcome variables were perceived ease of understanding, comprehension, emotional response, and motivation. We employed t-tests, ANOVAs, directed content analysis, correlation, regression, hierarchical clustering, and Chernoff faces to answer the research questions. All variables were significantly different for the prototype compared to the standard method, except for motivation as rated by 32 LHL, LEP community members. Findings revealed that LHL, LEP individuals have difficulty appropriately processing standard methods of communicating risk information, such as risk numbers supported by visual aids. Further, appealing visuals may inappropriately increase confidence in understanding of information. Visualizations affected emotions, which influenced perceived ease of understanding and motivation to take action on the information. Comprehension scores did not correlate with perceived ease of understanding, emotional response, or motivation. Findings suggest that providing access to comprehensible health information may not be enough to motivate patients to engage with their care; providing a good experience (taking into account the aesthetics and emotional response) of health information may be essential to optimize outcomes

Quaranzine

I made this zine for a class final, where we were asked to document our quarantine. In this class, Meaning of Death, we talked a lot about what it means to die and how we think about those who have died. In the first few months of lockdown, I turned 20, I was falling in love, I was at home for the longest time since I was a teenager, and I was just getting to the other side of some old heartbreak, so I spent a lot of time looking at my growth over the last year. This is my final project, my project to keep my sane, my artistic outlet, and my own little public diary.https://digital.kenyon.edu/covid19words/1067/thumbnail.jp

Protecting Soil: A Shared Obligation

Soil is one of the ecosystems that human beings depend on for survival. The ecological imbalance caused by soil contamination is not only a threat to the soil ecology itself, but also a potential source of danger to human health and the future. We have an obligation to take responsibility for protecting the soil

Chilled to the Bone: An Analysis on the Effects of Cold Temperatures and Weather Conditions Altering the Decomposition Process in Pig (Sus Scrofa) Remains

Temperature is one of the most crucial variables affecting the decomposition process, significantly increasing or decreasing the rate at which decomposition occurs. Few studies have been conducted to show how the effects of cold temperatures and weather conditions influence the postmortem interval (PMI). The PMI is defined as the amount of time that has passed since death. The purpose of this study was to evaluate estimations for the PMI when remains are exposed to cold temperatures and weather conditions. Secondly, this study seeks to explain whether variables (i.e., coverings, burial depth, soil pH) can affect the decomposition process during colder months in central Illinois. Over the course of five months, ten partial domestic pig specimens (Sus scrofa) were variably exposed to the elements of central Illinois. Information was gathered about how cold weather exposure affected these specimens from early January until early May. Four specimens were covered in white cotton t-shirts, four were wrapped in plastic garbage bags, and the remaining two were left uncovered on the ground surface. The covered pig human proxies were placed under the ground at depths of 6 and 18 inches. These variations were tested in order to gauge how a wide variety of decompositional conditions would affect decomposition during cold temperatures and associated weather conditions. It was determined from the observations in this study that burial depth and types of coverings, or lack thereof, are significant to the decomposition process in cold weather conditions. This study concludes that precautions in determining the PMI must be taken when remains are identified during, or closely after, a period (circa four months) of cold temperatures have occurred

Gas in engine cooling systems: occurrence, effects and mitigation

The presence of gas in engine liquid cooling systems can have severe consequences for engine efficiency and life. The presence of stagnant, trapped gases will result in cooling system hotspots, causing gallery wall degradation through thermal stresses, fatigue and eventual cracking. The presence of entrained, transient gases in the coolant flow will act to reduce its bulk thermal properties and the performance of the system s coolant pump; critically the liquid flow rate, which will severely affect heat transfer throughout the engine and its ancillaries. The hold-up of gas in the pump s impeller may cause the dynamic seal to run dry, without lubrication or cooling. This poses both an immediate failure threat should the seal overheat and rubber components melt and a long term failure threat from intermittent quench cooling, which causes deposit formation on sealing faces acting to abrade and reduce seal quality. Bubbles in the coolant flow will also act as nucleation sites for cavitation growth. This will reduce the Net Positive Suction Head available (NPSHA) in the coolant flow, exacerbating cavitation and its damaging effects in locations such as the cylinder cooling liners and the pump s impeller. This thesis has analysed the occurrence of trapped gas (air) during the coolant filling process, its behaviour and break-up at engine start, the two-phase character of the coolant flow these processes generate and the effects it has on coolant pump performance. Optical and parametric data has been acquired in each of these studies, providing an understanding of the physical processes occurring, key variables and a means of validating numerical (CFD) code of integral processes. From the fundamental understanding each study has provided design rules, guidelines and validated tools have been developed, helping cooling system designers minimise the occurrence of trapped air during coolant filling, promote its breakup at engine start and to minimise its negative effects in the centrifugal coolant pump. It was concluded that whilst ideally the prevention of cooling system gases should be achieved at source, they are often unavoidable. This is due to the cost implications of finding a cylinder head gasket capable of completely sealing in-cylinder combustion pressures, the regular use of nucleate boiling regimes for engine cooling and the need to design cooling channel geometries to cool engine components and not necessarily to avoid fill entrapped air. Using the provided rules and models, it may be ensured stagnant air is minimised at source and avoided whilst an engine is running. However, to abate the effects of entrained gases in the coolant pump through redesign is undesirable due to the negative effects such changes have on a pump s efficiency and cavitation characteristics. It was concluded that the best solution to entrained gases, unavoidable at source, is to remove them from the coolant flow entirely using phase separation device(s)

Preparing the Roadmap: "Prioritising cross-disciplinary training needs with industry" An X-Net workshop report

This workshop was part of the X-Net’s series of workshops to deliver on their goal to remove barriers for researchers crossing disciplines in the biomedical sciences. The main aims of this workshop were: i. explore how academia does, or does not, currently provide industry hires with sufficient interdisciplinary skills to perform roles in this sector, and ii. via X-Net’s future Roadmap, influence UKRI’s future training strategy. The workshop was designed around two themes and several key questions, and aimed to involve scientists from companies (big and SME) to present their views on what is required from academia to smooth the transition of staff from universities to interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary projects in industry. X-Net’s goal was to include their input to X-Net’s roadmap and thereby transfer industry’s views to funders and policy makers