This paper presents and tests a new method for publishing and diagnosing leprosy-related skeletal lesions while making available the leprosy-related demographic data and pathology for St Mary Magdalen, Winchester (MMW). This method can facilitate interstudy comparisons of leprosy prevalence and severity by improving data comparability. The method scores five pathological changes to the maxillary area, proposes severity classes for periosteal bone formation on limbs, and records changes to the tarsals, metacarpals, metatarsals, and manual and pedal phalanges. Stage images for facial lesions and illustrations of a number of hand/foot lesions are provided. The method was applied to, and tested on, the MMW leprosarium collection (n = 126). Repeatability tests (n = 7-15) were performed at different experience levels. Application of the method to MMW has highlighted that over 65% of individuals show signs of leprosy, with more women showing severe lesions than men. Many individuals had lesions that likely impacted ability and mobility, more so than at other UK leprosaria, supporting the notion that MMW is a specialist institute. Intraobserver and interobserver tests show moderate-excellent agreement and highlighted the importance of definitions provided alongside illustrations. This method provides a coded, detailed short-hand that can replace qualitative descriptions in limited-word publications, thereby improving interstudy comparisons and aid statistical analysis. This can facilitate more complex diachronic and socially grounded research in relation to leprosy. This paper also presents the first formally published overview of all leprosy-related pathology for MMW to improve the usability of this collection for future research.
This article outlines, by means of a critique of film criticism, the processes of self-formation and subject-formation as affected by unconscious education. The basic definition of the unconscious used is: something that happens to someone without them being consciously aware of it happening, unless their attention to it is actively drawn. This is a functional definition used to develop a critical argument specific to the filmic and theoretical texts used in the article and is not an attempt to capture other definitions of the unconscious within its scope except where explicitly mentioned. While Freud is engaged indirectly through more recently theoretical work, including my own, the deep relationship to Freud's thought is beyond the scope of this article and is therefore - consciously - only gestured towards. Unconscious education, as defined in the context of this article, is as much about what in our experience might be out of focus, which, in aural terms might be heard without listening. As such, this article charts a theoretical and practical movement from hearing to listening and passive inattention to active attention in the context of film and film criticism, with a specific focus on film music. This specific focus, though, is principally a means of illustrating (note the visual metaphors) a theoretical position that can be considered across the full range of educational experiences and practices, including research and criticism.
To develop and retrospectively validate an artificial intelligence-based decision support system (AI-DSS) for optimising prostate biopsy decisions and improving benefit-to-harm ratios. This retrospective, multicentre, multiscanner study used data from 1022 patients. An AI-DSS integrating PI-RADS scores, automated prostate-specific antigen density (PSAd), and deep-learning imaging risk scores was developed on 770 cases and validated on an independent cohort of 252 men from six UK centres. The AI-DSS performance was benchmarked against the real-world clinical decisions (reference standard) using grade selectivity, biopsy efficiency, and selective biopsy avoidance as outcome measures. Biopsy-proven detection of grade group (GG) ≥ 2 disease was the reference standard. In the validation cohort of 252 patients (mean age, 67.3 years), 137 underwent biopsy and 79 (31
This paper investigates how natural language communication with an AI agent affects human cooperative behaviour in indefinitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemma games. We conduct a laboratory experiment (n = 126) with two between-subjects treatments varying whether human participants chat with an AI chatbot (GPT-5.2) before every round or only before the first round of each supergame, and benchmark against human-human data from Dvorak and Fehrler (2024) (n = 108). We find four main results. First, cooperation against the AI is high and initially comparable to human-human levels, but unlike in the human-human setting, where cooperation converges to near-complete levels, cooperation against the AI plateaus and never reaches full cooperation. Second, repeated communication, which substantially increases cooperation in human-human interactions, has no detectable effect in the human-AI setting. Third, strategy estimation reveals that human-AI subjects favour Grim Trigger under pre-play communication and remain dispersed under repeated communication, whereas human-human subjects converge to Tit-for-Tat and unconditional cooperation respectively. Fourth, human-AI conversations contain more explicit strategy commitments but fewer emotional and social messages. These results suggest that humans cooperate with AI at high rates but do not develop the trust observed in human-human interactions. Cooperation in the human-AI setting is sustained through conditional rules rather than through the social bonds and mutual understanding that characterise human-human cooperation.
Scientific interest in mindfulness meditation as complementary therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD) has grown significantly. This systematic review examined mindfulness meditation effects on PD motor, cognitive, falls-related (fear of falling (FoF), freezing of gait (FoG), falls prevention), psychological (anxiety and depression), physical (balance, mobility, gait velocity), and quality of life (QoL) outcomes. A comprehensive search of PubMed, Web of Science, PEDro, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov was conducted from database inception to May 2026. Data extraction and risk of bias assessment were performed independently by two reviewers. Fourteen studies met inclusion criteria: nine randomized controlled trials and five pre-post design studies. Following mindfulness meditation interventions: (1) Robust improvements were observed in anxiety symptoms; (2) Significant improvements were reported in depression and QoL; (3) Motor symptom improvements were inconsistent with limited evidence; (4) Findings on physical function outcomes, including balance and mobility, provided limited evidence of benefit, while one study demonstrated reduced gait speed; (5) Cognitive function improvements were mixed with benefits in specific domains but inconsistent general results; (6) Falls, FoF, and FoG were not evaluated despite clinical significance. There is a critical need for rigorously designed studies emphasizing motor outcomes and falls prevention to inform clinical practice.
