Existing research indicates that clients from diverse backgrounds often experience poorer access to and outcomes from psychological therapy in primary care mental health services in England. This issue is arguably compounded for clients with limited English proficiency or those who wish to access therapy in other languages. Guidance on interpreter-mediated therapy provides essential recommendations to ensure equitable access, effective communication, culturally sensitive care, and parity in outcomes. Despite these guidelines, they are not always consistently implemented in clinical practice. This study aims to explore and address staff experiences and perspectives on the barriers to interpreter-mediated therapy within Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression (TTad). An online survey was used to collect data on professionals’ experiences and perceptions of these barriers. A total of 133 staff working within TTad completed the survey. The data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA), revealing four key themes: (1) individual level, (2) service level, (3) organisational level, and (4) overlapping barriers. The study highlights that while the barriers to effective interpreter-mediated therapy are distinct across individual, service, and organisational levels, they are also interdependent and often overlap. The findings suggest that addressing these barriers requires a comprehensive approach that considers the interconnected nature of these challenges. Improving training for both therapists and interpreters, enhancing administrative processes, ensuring sufficient funding, and promoting adherence to best practice guidelines are crucial. Future research and continued efforts to implement and monitor these changes are essential for improving access and outcomes for clients within TTad.

Little guidance exists for developing institutional policies and procedures that support financial management of community-engaged research, including those related to compensating community partners equitably and efficiently for their expertise and time. To address this gap at our institution, the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) pursued an iterative, multi-pronged approach to identify and address institutional barriers and facilitators related to community partner compensation for research engagement. This case study describes the approach used to involve research administrative leadership, research teams, and community partners at UNC in the identification of institutional barriers to efficient partner compensation. It also elucidates our efforts to develop policies, processes, and resources to address these barriers. The approaches and solutions described can be adapted by other academic research institutions to enhance compensation processes and to facilitate incorporation of community perspectives into the design and implementation of institutional processes that directly impact their engagement in research.

Amid the radioactive fallout of the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and across what would come to be known as the Exclusion Zone, Japanese members of the nuclear lobby laboured to contain the political fallout of the Fukushima disaster. This article scrutinizes the profuse rhetoric over recycling as mobilized by nuclear boosters and the wider operations of circularity in waste management in Japan. Japanese leant heavily on the notion of recycling to attempt to frame the clean-up in Fukushima in more ideologically convenient terms. This led, for example, to officials trumpeting plans to ‘recycle’ over 16 million cubic metres of radioactive topsoil scraped from hundreds of square kilometres of Fukushima Prefecture, as well as efforts to achieve ‘thermal recycling’ by generating electricity from the incineration of collected irradiated vegetal matter and the large amounts of protective clothing and other material used in the ‘decontamination’ campaign. By scrutinizing this appropriation of recycling rhetoric and its leveraging across Japan's nuclear waste management apparatus, the article exposes contradictions and distortions in contemporary Japanese policy that have considerable socio-political ramifications.

Reducing inequalities in preconception health and care is critical to improving the health and life chances of current and future generations. A hybrid workshop was held at the 2023 UK Preconception Early and Mid-Career Researchers (EMCR) Network conference to co-develop recommendations on ways to address inequalities in preconception health and care. The workshop engaged multi-disciplinary professionals across diverse career stages and people with lived experience (total n = 69). Interactive discussions explored barriers to achieving optimal preconception health, driving influences of inequalities and recommendations. The Socio-Ecological Model framed the identified themes, with recommendations structured at interpersonal (e.g. community engagement), institutional (e.g. integration of preconception care within existing services) and environmental/societal levels (e.g. education in schools). The co-developed recommendations provide a framework for addressing inequalities in preconception health, emphasising the importance of a whole-systems approach. Further research and evidence-based interventions are now needed to advance the advocacy and implementation of our recommendations.

PSR J0837$-$2454 is a young 629 ms radio pulsar whose uncertain distance has important implications. A large distance would place the pulsar far out of the Galactic plane and suggest it is the result of a runaway star, while a short distance would mean the pulsar is extraordinarily cold. Here we present further radio observations and the first deep X-ray observation of PSR J0837$-$2454. Data from the Parkes Murriyang telescope show flux variations over short and long timescales and also yield an updated timing model, while the position and proper motion (and, less strongly, parallax) of the pulsar are constrained by a number of low-significance detections with the Very Long Baseline Array. XMM-Newton data enable detection of X-ray pulsations for the first time from this pulsar and yield a spectrum that is thermal and blackbody-like, with a cool blackbody temperature $\approx$$70\ \mbox{eV}$ or atmosphere temperature $\approx$$50\ \mbox{eV}$, as well as a small hotspot. The spectrum also indicates the pulsar is at a small distance of $\lesssim$$1\ \mbox{kpc}$, which is compatible with the marginal VLBA parallax constraint that favours a distance of $\gtrsim$330 pc. The low implied luminosity ($\sim7.6\times10^{31}\mbox{erg\, s}^{-1}$ at 0.9 kpc) suggests PSR J0837$-$2454 has a mass high enough that fast neutrino emission from direct Urca reactions operates in this young star and points to a nuclear equation of state that allows for direct Urca reactions at the highest densities present in neutron star cores.

We consider an internally heated fluid between parallel plates with fixed thermal fluxes. For a large class of heat sources that vary in the direction of gravity, we prove that $\smash { \smash {{\langle {\delta T} \rangle _h}} } \geq \sigma R^{-1/3} - \mu$, where $\smash { \smash {{\langle {\delta T} \rangle _h}} }$ is the average temperature difference between the bottom and top plates, $R$ is a ‘flux’ Rayleigh number and the constants $\sigma,\mu >0$ depend on the geometric properties of the internal heating. This result implies that mean downward conduction (for which $\smash { \smash {{\langle {\delta T} \rangle _h}} }< 0$) is impossible for a range of Rayleigh numbers smaller than a critical value $R_0:=(\sigma /\mu )^{3}$. The bound demonstrates that $R_0$ depends on the heating distribution and can be made arbitrarily large by concentrating the heating near the bottom plate. However, for any given fixed heating profile of the class we consider, the corresponding value of $R_0$ is always finite. This points to a fundamental difference between internally heated convection and its limiting case of Rayleigh–Bénard convection with fixed-flux boundary conditions, for which $\smash {{\langle {\delta T} \rangle _h}}$ is known to be positive for all $R$.

As the world deals with climate change, it is crucial that new products are designed to be more sustainable. Product design strategies which conform to the Circular Economy principles have recently gained attention, which promote sustainability and resource efficiency. However, such strategies require careful consideration of uncertainties and the ways to mitigate them, e.g. by using margins. The pursuit of circularity can inadvertently lead to overdesign as designers strive to mitigate elevated risks, thereby making a product less sustainable. In this paper, we explore this balance.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Community-based participatory research is a “gold standard” methodology, yet many researchers lack the experience or resources to implement this approach. To make engagement more accessible, we developed and implemented a 3-part training series highlighting engagement as a spectrum with many options to meaningfully engage partners. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Staff at UNC-Chapel Hill’s CTSA and Cancer Center collaborated with patient and community partners to co-develop training content, structure, and delivery. Sessions were free and open to the public and covered key components of research engagement and its benefits, debunked common myths and misconceptions about engagement, outlined specific methods along the spectrum of engagement (from low to high touch), and described nuances of building and maintaining partnerships. Partners determined how to best incorporate their perspectives, developed content (including videos, audio clips, and quotes), and co-presented with UNC staff. Evaluations were collected after each session and feedback was incorporated into future iterations. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: 194 individuals from over 20 institutions have participated in the training. Of all survey respondents to date (n=74), 93% were very or extremely satisfied, 77% felt the training was very or extremely relevant to their work, and 76% were very or extremely likely to use information learned in the next year. Most helpful parts of the training were differentiating research engagement from participation; explaining engagement as a spectrum with varied methodologies; providing tools and resources to implement different approaches; and hearing directly from community co-presenters about their experiences engaging in research. Based on feedback, we created a workshop for researchers to develop engagement plans and an additional training for partners to build capacity and knowledge about engaging in research. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Engaging partners who are impacted by research can be instrumental to the success of a study. This training can help researchers identify engagement approaches that align with their goals, experience, and resources, as well as the interests and capacity of potential partners, and can serve as a model for those interested in training co-development.

This article presents a comparison of two Vietnamese Buddhist monks who travelled to and spent time in South Asia in the 1950s. The first, Thích Tố Liên (1903–1977), travelled to Calcutta and then on to Sri Lanka in May 1950 to participate in the First General Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. Though his encounter was relatively brief, it left a lasting impression. Tố Liên returned as an ardent advocate for the World Fellowship and for an internationalist view of Buddhism more generally. The second, Thích Minh Chàu (1918–2012), had a very different encounter with Sri Lanka and India. He spent most of the 1950s studying Pali manuscripts and earning his doctoral degree from the Nalanda Institute (then a part of the University of Bihar, now Nalanda University). During this time, he became an important popularizer of contemporary Indian ideas. While in South Asia, he contributed many articles to Buddhist journals back in Vietnam. He recounted his pilgrimage to major Buddhist sites, considered the contemporary influence of Buddhism in India, and analysed the works of everyone from Tagore to the Dalai Lama. This article will compare the South Asian experiences of these two Vietnamese Buddhist monks and analyse their impact on Buddhist unification and the Vietnamese Buddhist movement in the 1960s.

The use of bio-based construction materials in Haiti could help the construction sector to transition, from non-seismic unreinforced masonry structures towards materials that can reverse catastrophic deforestation, promote ecological regeneration, and help save the soil. Architecture has a role to play in this vision, by creating new designs and incentivising clients to invest in new materials.

Clinical trials face many challenges with meeting projected enrollment and retention goals. A study’s recruitment materials and messaging convey necessary key information and therefore serve as a critical first impression with potential participants. Yet study teams often lack the resources and skills needed to develop engaging, culturally tailored, and professional-looking recruitment materials. To address this gap, the Recruitment Innovation Center recently developed a Recruitment & Retention Materials Content and Design Toolkit, which offers research teams guidance, actionable tips, resources, and customizable templates for creating trial-specific study materials. This paper seeks to describe the creation and contents of this new toolkit.