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The Europe’s Lost Frontiers Augmented Reality sandbox: Explaining a 2.5 million Euro project using play sand
Get PDFYesThe subject area of the Europe's Lost Frontiers project, the submerged landscape of Doggerland, is
inaccessible and the data by which we can understand it is complex and hard for the non-specialist
to understand. In order to be able to present the project at public events, an Augmented Reality
sandbox was constructed, which records the shape of sand in a box, interprets it as a landscape
inhabited by humans, animals and plants, and projects this simulated land back on to the sand.
Different software packages can be used to highlight the effects of climate change or provide
examples of the different types of evidence available to archaeologists researching submerged
landscapes. The end result is an interactive, accessible display which attracts all ages and can be
used as a starting point to conversation regarding the project's archaeological, scientific and
technological aspects
Interventions for self-management of medicines for community dwelling people with dementia, mild cognitive impairment and family carers: a systematic review
No full textYesPeople with dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and their family carers face challenges in managing medicines. How medicines self-management could be supported for this population is unclear. This review identifies interventions to improve medicines self-management for people with dementia, MCI and their family carers, and which core components of medicines self-management they address. Methods A database search was conducted for studies with all research designs and ongoing citation searches from inception to December 2021. Selection criteria included community dwelling people with dementia and MCI and their family carers, and interventions with a minimum of one medicine self-management component. Exclusion criteria were wrong population, not focusing on medicines management, incorrect medicines self-management components, not in English and wrong study design. Results are presented and analysed through narrative synthesis. The review is registered [PROSPERO (CRD42020213302)]. Quality assessment was carried out independently applying the QATSDD quality assessment tool. Results Thirteen interventions were identified. Interventions primarily addressed adherence. A limited number focused on a wider range of medicine self-management components. Complex psychosocial interventions with frequent visits considered the person’s knowledge and understanding, supply management, monitoring effects and side-effects and communicating with healthcare professionals; and addressed more resilience capabilities. However, these interventions were delivered to family carers alone. None of the interventions described patient and public involvement. Conclusion Interventions, and measures to assess self-management, need to be developed which address all components of medicines self-management, to better meet the needs for people with dementia and MCI and their family carers
Effect of chloride corrosion on eccentric compression response of concrete columns reinforced with steel-FRP composite bars
Get PDFYesThis paper presents test results of eccentrically loaded concrete columns reinforced with steel-fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite bars (SFCBs) subjected to chloride corrosion. The first stage of the experimental work explored the tensile and compressive tests of various reinforcements (SFCBs with different cross section, steel and FRP bars) used in the large reinforced concrete (RC) columns after chloride corrosion with or without sustained stresses. The results showed that the tensile and compressive stress-strain relationships of SFCBs are characterised by stable secondary (post-yield) stiffness. The second stage of the testing investigated the structural performance of RC columns with various amounts and types of reinforcements, slenderness ratio, applied load eccentricity and chloride corrosion rate. The results showed that the effect of reinforcements on eccentric compression behaviour is significant. The deformation and crack width of SFCB RC columns, respectively, decreased by 12.2%~52.6% and 8.5%~71.0%, while the load capacity improved by 0.9%~18.8%, when compared with the corresponding FRP RC columns having the same eccentricity and reinforcement ratio. The use of SFCBs as the reinforcement of RC columns, especially with high reinforcement ratio or SFCBs having high area ratio of inner steel to SFCB, is beneficial to reduce the deflection and crack width as well as improve the bearing capacity utilization coefficients under serviceability limit state
Using hotel reviews to assess hotel frontline employees’ roles and performances
Get PDFYesThis study aims to explore how marketers can use text mining to analyze actors, actions and performance effects of service encounters by building on the role theory. This enables hotel managers to use introduced methodology to measure and monitor frontline employees’ role behavior and optimize their service. Design/methodology/approach: The authors’ approach links text mining and importance-performance analysis with role theory’s conceptual foundations taking into account the hotel industry’s specifics to assess the effect of frontline hotel employees’ actions on consumer satisfaction and to derive specific management implications for the hospitality sector. Findings: This study identifies different actors involved in hotel frontline interactions revealing distinct role behaviors that characterize consumers’ perspectives of service encounters with different role types associated with front-office employees. This research also identifies role performance related to role behavior to improve service encounters. Practical implications: Customer–employee interactions can be assessed by user-generated contents (UGC). Performance evaluations relate to frontline employee roles associated with distinct role scripts, whereby different hotel segments require tailored role designs. Insights of this study can be used for service optimization, market positioning as well as for improving human resource management practices in the hotel industry. Originality/value: This study contributes to the service encounter literature by applying role theory in the text mining of UGC to assess frontline employees as actors and the effects of their actions on service quality delivery.Science Foundation of Ministry of Education, PR China (Grant No. 21YJA630031
So...is Archaeology Decolonized Yet?
Get PDFYesTuck and Yang famously wrote that “decolonization is not a metaphor”…but are archaeologists still thinking metaphorically? The origins of archaeology as a discipline can be traced to colonial endeavours and the pursuit of instilling and maintaining racist hierarchies; as such, colonialist attitudes and approaches have become entrenched in the very foundation of archaeology. Fortunately, the past decades have seen a movement towards rectifying these past injustices, with more recent actions aligned with the broader decolonial movement that can be seen throughout academia. But has any part of archaeology been “decolonized” yet? In this article, I will examine the current state of decolonizing archaeology, with reference to actions occurring in adjacent disciplines, such as heritage and museum studies. Particular attention will be paid to projects that have attempted a decolonial approach, and the results of said project. This will be framed by an honest and critical self-reflection of my own attempts to “decolonise” my research, placing both its successes and failures in context with the broader literature on postcolonial archaeology today. This framework will also delve into the ways in which my identity as a Chinese American migrant working in Britain colours my perspective on decolonising archaeology
Blockchain for Sustainable Supply Chain Management: Trends and Ways Forward
Get PDFYesBlockchain operates on a highly secured framework, and its decentralized consensus has benefits for supply chain sustainability. Scholars have recognized the growing importance of sustainability in supply chains and studied the potential of blockchain for sustainable supply chain management. However, no study has taken stock of high-quality research in this area. To address this gap, this paper aims to provide a state-of-the-art overview of high-quality research on blockchain for sustainable supply chain management. To do so, this paper conducts a systematic literature review using a bibliometric analysis of 146 high-quality articles on blockchain for sustainable supply chain management that have been published in journals ranked “A*”, “A”, and “B” by the Australian Business Deans Council and retrieved from the Scopus database. In doing so, this paper unpacks the most prominent journals, authors, institutions, and countries that have contributed to three major themes in the field, namely blockchain for sustainable business activities, decision support systems using blockchain, and blockchain for intelligent transportation system. This paper also reveals the use of blockchain for sustainable supply chain management across four major sectors, namely food, healthcare, manufacturing, and infrastructure, and concludes with suggestions for future research in each sector
To Be the Curator, and Not the Curated
Get PDFYesEven as a child, I loved museums. Science museums, history museums – I could spend hours losing myself in intricately designed and curated exhibits that would transport me to another place or another time. One of my favourite parts of the common museum in the United States were the “World History” or “World Cultures” section, the area in which all of the non-Western, non-European artefacts were kept. Here, sometimes tucked away in a corner, I would find the Chinese Cultural displays, places in which I could actually see items that resonated with my familial culture that often felt so different from my white friends and their families
Recruitment and retention of care workers: A rapid review
Get PDFYesChallenges in the recruitment and retention of care workers is a long-standing issue [1]. However,
these challenges have worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic. In October 2021, there was an
average staff vacancy rate of 17% [2], and in November 2021, care homes feared they would lose
around 8% of their care home staff as a direct result of the policy of vaccination being a condition of
deployment in care homes [3]. This has profound impacts, not only on those in care homes and
receiving care at home, but on the health service as a whole, with 33% of social care providers limiting
or stopping admissions from hospital [2]. Therefore, this review was undertaken to identify learning
about how to support recruitment and retention of care workers during the pandemic.
Methods:
To identify strategies that are currently being used to support recruitment and retention of care
workers, a Google search was undertaken, combining termsthat referred to the setting or role (“social
care”, “care worker”) and the topics of interest (recruitment, retention), and for some searches adding
in terms that referred to the type of literature being sought (“case study”). Through this, we identified
that research on recruitment and retention of care workers since the pandemic was already being
published and so a search was also undertaken on Google Scholar for research published since 2020.
This was supplemented by a review of websites recommended by an expert working in the area: Care
England, National Care Forum, Care Forum, Care Choices, Care Workers Charity, National Association
of Care & Support Workers, and Skills for Care. We also reviewed the websites of NHS Confederation,
NHS Employers, and the Local Government Association.
Inclusion criteria were reports that included recommendations and/or examples of strategies to
recruit and retain the social care workforce. While we focused on reports published since the start of
the pandemic, given that recruitment and retention of care workers is a long-standing challenge, we
also included some significant reports that were published before then. A number of the documents
included did not provide a publication date. While many of the reports identified discussed the
problems that have led to the social care workforce crisis, we limit our discussion of these in this
report, instead focusing on possible solutions.
Findings:
From the Google and Google Scholar searches, 190 records were screened and 22 potentially relevant
documents were reviewed in detail for possible inclusion. Alongside this, seven potentially relevant
documents from the websites listed above were reviewed in detail for possible inclusion. From this,
21 relevant documents were identified and included in this review. These included seven documents
reporting case studies, one Government report, one report based on a survey of employers, four
reports based on surveys of care workers, two reports based on interviews with stakeholders, one
report based on interviews and focus groups with care workers, managers, and commissioners, and
one based on interviews with care workers.
It quickly became apparent that potential strategies for improving recruitment of care workers were
closely interlinked with strategies for improving retention of care workers. Below we consider those
strategies relevant to both, before moving on to consider specific recruitment strategies and strategies
focused specifically on increasing retention
Development of an efficient nano-fluid cooling/preheating system for PV-RO water desalination pilot plant
Get PDFYesIn order to improve the performance of the reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant powered by photovoltaic (PV), two cooling systems were proposed in this study to cool the PV and preheating the RO feed water as well. In the cooling design (1), the cooling fluid flows in direct contact with the back surface of the PV through channels of half circular cross-sections. While in the design (2), it flows through channels of squar cross-sections fixed on the PV back surface. Two nano-fluids were also tested as cooling fluid: H2O/CuO and H2O/Al2O3, in addition to distilled water for the purpose of comparison. The effect of changing the weight concentration of the nano-fluid (0.05, 0.1, and 0.15%) on the PV performance was also investigated. The results showed that the PV integrated with the cooling design (1) achieves better performance compared to design (2) at all studied cooling fluids. The improvements in the electric efficiency of the PV integrated with design (1) reached 39.5, 34.8 and 27.3 % when CuO and Al2O3 nano-fluids and distilled water were used as cooling fluid, respectively, compared to the uncooled PV. Based on the obtained experimental results, the PV integrated with design (1) was selected to power the RO with H2O/CuO nano-fluid of weight concentration 0.15% and flow rate 0.15 kg/s being used as the coolant. The RO powered by the improved PV was tested at different salinities of brackish water when the preheating technique was implemented. The results showed that the proposed PV-RO desalination system produces 366 l/day when brackish water of salinity 3000 ppm was used
Genetic Prediction of Myopia in Different Ethnic Ancestries
Get PDFYesBackground: Myopia has been shown to have a complex mode of inheritance, being influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Here, an introduction into myopia genetics is given, with the shortcomings of current genetic prediction for myopia discussed, including the proportionally limited research on genetic prediction in people of non-European ancestry. A previously developed genetic risk score derived from European participants was evaluated in participants of non-European ancestry.
Methods: Participants from UK Biobank who self-reported their ethnicity as “Asian”, “Chinese”, or “Black” and who had refractive error and genetic data available were included in the analysis. Ancestral homogeneity was confirmed using principal component analysis, resulting in samples of 3500 Asian, 444 Chinese, and 3132 Black participants. A published refractive error GWAS meta-analysis of 711,984 participants of European ancestry was used to create a weighted genetic risk score model which was then applied to participants from each ethnic group. Accuracy of genetic prediction of refractive error was estimated as the proportion of variance explained (PVE). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were developed to estimate myopia prediction performance at three thresholds: any myopia (equal to or more than 0.75D), moderate myopia (between -3.00D and -4.99D) and high myopia (equal to or more than -5.00D). Odds ratios for myopia were calculated for the participants in the top 10th or 5th percentile of genetic risk score distribution, comparing them to the remainder of the population.
Results: The PVE value for refractive error was 6.4%, 6.2%, and 1.5% for those with Asian, Chinese and Black ethnicity, respectively (compared to 11.2% in Europeans). Odds ratios for any myopia and moderate myopia development for those within the top 10th and 5th percentile of genetic risk were significant in all ethnic groups P<0.05). However, the genetic risk score was not able to reliably identify those at risk of high myopia, other than for participants of Chinese ethnicity (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Prediction of refractive error in Asian, Chinese and Black participants was ~57%, 55% and 13% as accurate in comparison to prediction in European participants. Further research in diverse ethnic populations is needed to improve prediction accuracy.This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource (applications #17351). UK Biobank was established by the Wellcome Trust; the UK Medical Research Council; the Department for Health (London, UK); Scottish Government (Edinburgh, UK); and the Northwest Regional Development Agency (Warrington, UK). It also received funding from the Welsh Assembly Government (Cardiff, UK); the British Heart Foundation; and Diabetes UK. Collection of eye and vision data was supported by The Department for Health through an award made by the NIHR to the Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London, United Kingdom (grant no. BRC2_009). Additional support was provided by The Special Trustees of Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, United Kingdom (grant no. ST 12 09). Many parts of this project were performed during the time that author Neema Ghorbani Mojarrad was supported by the College of Optometrists with a Postgraduate Scholarship