University of Bristol

A comprehensive phylogenomic framework for brachiopod evolution among lophotrochozoans

Brachiopods appeared early in the Cambrian radiation and represent an important clade for understanding the origin of animal body plans and the evolution of biomineralized structures. A robust phylogenetic framework of the living representatives is needed to answer persistent que...

Encoding tactile stimuli for Braille recognition with organoids

This study proposes a transferable encoding strategy that maps tactile sensor data to electrical stimulation patterns, enabling neural organoids to perform an open-loop artificial tactile Braille classification task. Human forebrain organoids cultured on a low-density microelectr...

Respiratory Viruses in the Air of Shared Indoor Environments: Multi-Country Molecular Surveillance Across Europe (TwinAIR)

Indoor environments are the dominant setting for human exposure to respiratory viruses, yet routine molecular surveillance of indoor air remains rare outside single-site studies. Within the Horizon Europe TwinAIR project, a single harmonised workflow was applied to 102 indoor air...

The advice guidance boundary review and targeted support – the challenges of addressing the “advice gap”

Purpose Under its Advice Guidance Boundary Review (AGBR) initiative, the Financial Conduct Authority has introduced “targeted support”, a new regime that has become the focal point of a proposed “continuum of support” being developed through the AGBR. It is expected targeted supp...

Speculating on Speculation? Thinking Within and Beyond the Mortgage Present a Reply to the Comments on ‘Envisioning Mortgage Futures’

This piece replies to some fine scholarship from the five commentators who have taken up the pen in response to our focus article. We take up four themes running through the commentaries: the novelty of the imagined future, the politics of prediction, the social life of the score...

Network meta-analysis and diffusion

We show that the covariance matrix of the treatment effect estimates in a network meta-analysis can be obtained without matrix inversion using a geometric series of diffusion matrices. This property extends to the hat matrix and provides a connection between parameter estimation...

Belonging for Women, LGBTQ+ and Black and Ethnically Minoritised People With Learning Disabilities: Findings From a Qualitative, Co‐Produced Study in England

ABSTRACT Belonging is a key aspect of human experience. This qualitative study examined where diverse people with learning disabilities feel belonging, what shapes belonging and how it affects their health. Focus groups were held with people with learning disabilities across Engl...

Reported outcomes for patients following postoperative periprosthetic femoral fractures

Aims: Postoperative periprosthetic femoral fracture (POPFF) is an increasingly common and morbid complication of arthroplasty. This review aims to determine what outcomes are reported for POPFF and how they are measured, to inform the development of a core outcome set. Methods: S...

Cancer workforce readiness to identify and respond to domestic abuse: A national survey and follow-up interviews

Purpose Domestic abuse (DA) is a highly prevalent public health and health equity issue. We aimed to investigate cancer professionals’ experiences of DA among patients and assess cancer workforce readiness to identify, respond to, and prevent DA.Methods Cross-sectional survey (n...

Seismological Constraints on Subduction and Suture Zone Architecture in the Central African Copperbelt

Summary Central Africa marks a major collisional zone of the Pan-African Orogeny, involving convergence of the Congo and Kalahari plates during Gondwana assembly (~600–500 Ma). This collision formed the Lufilian Belt and one of the world’s most significant metallogenic provinces—...

Biomechanical analyses point to dense collagen fibre architecture in an Ediacaran frond

Ediacaran macrofossils record the earliest large and complex organisms on Earth. Despite extensive study, fundamental aspects of their internal anatomy and tissue composition remain poorly known, limiting understanding of how these organisms were constructed and functioned, as we...

Navigating sensitive content in secondary English: teachers’ use of content warnings when teaching Shakespeare

This article reports on a small-scale mixed methods survey, conducted as part of a larger funded project, examining how secondary English literature teachers approach violence and other potentially disturbing material in Shakespeare’s plays. Forty teachers in England completed an...

A new megaraptoran dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Wessex Formation, UK, and its implications for theropod evolution and biogeography

Abstract Theropod dinosaur remains from the Barremian (Lower Cretaceous) Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight, UK, are rare and often fragmentary. Here, we present a previously undescribed braincase from this formation that represents a new coelurosaurian, Invictibellatrix amber...

Elite welfare and the good fortune of just being there

Abstract This paper examines how senior executives at the UK’s largest publicly listed companies financially benefited from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), and seeks to explain this phenomenon with the concept of elite welfare . Using a difference-in-differences rese...

Envisioning Mortgage Futures

This paper explores how open banking and algorithmic profiling are reshaping mortgage lending in the UK. Drawing on interviews with lenders, brokers, technology developers and borrowers, it examines how transaction data, behavioural analytics and predictive modelling are being us...

Super Warm Early Eocene Simulations With HadGEM3‐GC31‐LL

Abstract The early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO; 53.3–49.1 million years ago) represents the period of greatest sustained warmth in the Cenozoic (last 66 million years), with proxy‐data indicating global‐mean temperatures 10–16°C above preindustrial and atmospheric concentration...

We are all genocide scholars now: Palestine, Gaza, and the failures of security studies

For three years, the State of Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza, the latest and most intensive phase of a ‘slow-motion genocide’ inflicted on the Palestinian people over the past 80 years...

To Acquire or to Ally? Foreign Competition and Firm Boundary

ABSTRACT This study examines how foreign competition influences firms’ external growth strategies. Exploiting staggered US import tariff reductions as a quasi‐natural experiment, we find that heightened competition leads firms to expand their use of strategic alliances. This patt...

Can multi-dimensional descriptive representation increase policy priority alignment? Evidence from South African municipalities

Abstract Does an increase in the number of shared identity traits between citizens and their public representatives increase the likelihood that they will agree on policy priorities? The identities of citizens and politicians are complex and multi-dimensional, but we know little...

Hydration Changes are Essential for Efficient Breakdown of Faropenem by the L1 Metallo-β-lactamase

Abstract Metallo-β-lactamases (MBLs) are key contributors to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The L1 MBL, originally from Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, is a tetrameric, dizinc, subclass B3 MBL that efficiently hydrolyzes most β-lactam antibiotics and evades inhibitors that act on...