University College London

Predicting high-dimensional dynamical systems with irregular time steps presents significant challenges for current data-driven algorithms. These irregularities arise from missing data, sparse observations, or adaptive computational techniques, reducing prediction accuracy. To address these limitations, we propose a novel method: a Physics-Spatiotemporal Masked Autoencoder. This method integrates convolutional autoencoders for spatial feature extraction with masked autoencoders optimised for irregular time series, leveraging attention mechanisms to reconstruct the entire physical sequence in a single prediction pass. The model avoids the need for data imputation while preserving the physical integrity of the system. Here, ’physics’ refers to high-dimensional fields generated by underlying dynamical systems, rather than the enforcement of explicit physical constraints or PDE residuals. We evaluate this approach on multiple simulated datasets and real-world ocean temperature data. The results demonstrate that our method achieves significant improvements in prediction accuracy, robustness to nonlinearities, and computational efficiency over traditional convolutional and recurrent network methods. The model shows potential for capturing complex spatiotemporal patterns without requiring domain-specific knowledge, with applications in climate modelling, fluid dynamics, ocean forecasting, environmental monitoring, and scientific computing.

Worldwide, Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) are the 8th leading cause of death, and leading killer of children and young adults. An additional 50 million people are seriously injured annually. We argue here that RTAs are also a leading - although rarely acknowledged - cause of preventable disability in low and middle-income countries. The Road Traffic Safety community pays little attention to people disabled in an RTA once they leave medical or rehabilitative care. Disability policy, advocacy and research groups rarely consider people disabled in RTAs as a discrete subgroup within the disability community. Furthermore, the costs and consequences of RTA-related disability are greatly underestimated. A scoping review and interviews with prominent road traffic safety and disability experts identified major conceptual gaps between the fields of Road Traffic Safety and Disability, including how people disabled in RTAs are identified, followed and provided with needed services and support. The current lack of 'joined up' thinking around those who survive an RTA with a disability represents a lost opportunity to more systemically address this major global health concern.

Setting up a psychedelic study can be a long, arduous, and Kafkaesque process. Researchers are faced with a host of challenges in this rapidly evolving field, necessitating a range of considerations that remain largely unstandardised. Many of the complexities inherent to psychedelic research also challenge existing assumptions around, for example, approaches to psychiatric prescribing, the conceptual framing of the placebo effect, and definitions of selfhood. This review paper aims to formalise these unique considerations by addressing the sociocultural, political, legal, pharmacological, safety, study design and experiential facets inherent to a psychedelic study. We bring together several of the major psychedelic research teams across the United Kingdom, identify continuing areas of debate, and provide a practical, comprehensive, experience-based guide, with recommendations for policymakers and future researchers intending to set up a psychedelic research study or clinical trial.

Hearing our own voice is commonly assumed to be an unpleasant experience. In contrast, some studies of voice perception have reported that we actually find our own voice to be more attractive than other voices. It remains however unclear whether previously observed enhancements of self-voice attractiveness were mediated by the recognition of the self-voice during the task, because recognition was never explicitly and rigorously examined in previous studies. We therefore conducted a voice attractiveness rating task under conditions that limited the likelihood of self-voice recognition, in order to directly compare the perceived attractiveness of one's own voice when recognised versus when not. We found that both participants who did (N=59) and did not (N=80) recognise their own voice rated their own voice differently from other voices. However, crucially, the direction of this difference depended on whether the self-voice was recognised during the task or not: listeners who spontaneously recognised their voice rated it as more attractive than other voices, whereas listeners who did not recognise their voice rated it as less attractive. The findings help to explain one source of contradictory perspectives in the voice perception literature and beyond, highlighting a possible interplay between self-perception and voice identity recognition.

Demand for animal-source foods (ASF) is growing globally, and the consumption can improve food and nutrition security. However, there are growing food safety risks associated with milk contamination. Studies assessing food safety measures (FSM) at the farm level are still limited. This study investigated FSM adoption in Kenyan smallholder dairy farms. Data were collected through focus group discussions (FGDs) and a farm survey involving 652 farmers, which considered 11 milking hygiene, 6 milk storage, 6 environmental hygiene, and 7 animal health measures. The Food Safety Index (FSI) was 51.67%, which reveals average FSM adoption and a good agricultural practices (GAPs) compliance gap that exposes consumers to public health risks. FSM adoption was associated with participation in formal and/or informal milk value chains, socio-economic and demographic factors, knowledge of milk quality standards and regulations, farm biophysical conditions, market dynamics and institutional factors. There is a need for increasing FSM adoption through improving farmers' knowledge, supporting their access to financial resources, and providing infrastructure and services, including roads, inputs, extension and animal health services. Policymakers should design and implement policies that address specific farmers' needs. There is also a need to provide economic incentives and ensure that the market rewards dairy producers who adopt high levels of FSM that lead to safer milk. Finally, promoting the One Health approach can help farmers address human, environmental and animal health risks, which can reduce food safety risks in dairy value chains.

Psychological trauma is an increasingly prominent construct in contemporary culture, invoked across diverse contexts of policy, practice, and public discourse. However, little is known about how laypeople conceptualise trauma in everyday life. This qualitative study explored social representations of trauma among residents of the Republic of Ireland. Twenty participants completed interviews that elaborated their associations with the term ‘trauma’. Thematic analysis identified three overarching themes, which represented trauma as (a) an individual journey, (b) a byproduct of social ills, and (c) a cultural construct. More specifically, participants viewed trauma as highly subjective, shaped by individual differences in experiences, responses and outcomes. In parallel, trauma was linked to societal-level phenomena such as war and violence, with social support positioned as key to coping and recovery. Participants were highly sensitive to the growing cultural prominence and widening uses of trauma and expressed ambivalence regarding this trend, welcoming trauma’s de-stigmatisation but decrying its potential trivialisation. These findings offer original insights into how trauma is understood beyond clinical settings, informing responsible uses of the concept and ongoing debates about its cultural significance. • Psychological trauma is an increasingly prominent construct in contemporary culture • Qualitative interviews explored lay associations with the concept of trauma • Trauma was construed as an individual journey, byproduct of social ills, and cultural construct • Lay understandings of trauma have potential implications for clinical, personal and societal contexts