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Public preference of flood-resilient housing technologies in Nigeria: A case study of Kogi State
Get PDFPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore flood-prone area residents' preferences of flood-resilient housing technologies (HTs), to understand the factors influencing their choices. Flood-resilient HTs can reduce damage and disruption at a household level, particularly in areas where large-scale community schemes are not available or feasible. People’s perception of floods and their preferences of flood-resilient HTs are among many very important factors influencing the adoption of these technologies. Therefore, these perceptions and preferences must be well understood before implementation of these technologies can occur. However, studies on these two important factors are lacking in literature, particularly in the sub-Saharan African context. Design/methodology/approach: Nigerian residents’ preferences of flood-resilient HTs were explored by focusing on five frequently flooded areas around the Niger and Benue river basins in Kogi State, Nigeria. Thirty-eight chat, video and voice call interviews were conducted with participants across five case study areas: Lokoja, Idah, Bassa, Ajaokuta and Koton Karifi. The interviews, informed through an illustrated brochure, covered residents’ experiences and perceptions of floods. This was done to gain an understanding of the factors influencing the choice of flood-resilient HTs adopted and those preferred. Findings: This study confirms that residents in these five focus areas show similar characteristics to other floodplain residents as encapsulated in protection motivation theory. The flood-resilient HTs discussed in this study include flood-avoidance, flood-recoverability and flood-resistance strategies, as well as neighbourhood-scale approaches. Flood-resistance and flood-recoverability strategies rated highly in terms of suitability and envisaged efficiency in mitigating flooding in Kogi State. Although the measures were mostly agreed to be potentially effective and successful on a household scale, there were concerns as to flood mitigation on a neighbourhood scale. Research limitations/implications: Pre-existing flood-resilient HTs were not extensively discussed in the literature review but were included to have a sense of the participants’ mitigation behaviour, as well as their potential to adopt (or not) new measures after adopting previous ones. Originality/value: The results provide supporting evidence of the factors influencing the choice of and/or intention to adopt flood-resilient HTs, highlighted in literature. Results also contribute to literature by providing further insight into flood-resilient measures already adopted by residents, as well as their preferred HTs from the options presented. The implications of these findings and methodological considerations in this research are fully discussed in this paper
Frailism: A scoping review exploring discrimination against people living with frailty
Get PDFPeople living with frailty can experience discrimination, but unlike the characteristics of age and disability, frailty is not protected by law. Frailty is a clinical syndrome associated with ageing in which health deficits increase a person's vulnerability to illness, disability, and death. This scoping review, conducted by a team of methodologists, clinicians, lawyers, and patients, aimed to investigate the extent of discrimination against people living with frailty described in health-care literature. We searched five health-care databases from inception up to June, 2022, and grey literature, to identify 144 texts. The texts were classified by the types of discrimination (direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimisation) and inductively developed into contextual themes. The median age of the participants was 77 years (IQR 69·9-82·0), and 65·4% were women. The most common types of discrimination were direct (in 90 [63%]), indirect (in 66 [46%]), and harassment (in one [1%]) of the 144 texts, with no instances of victimisation reported. Nine themes of discriminatory actions were developed. Discrimination against people living with frailty overlapped with discrimination based on established protected characteristics, including age, disability, race, and sex. Evidence indicated that frailty discrimination replaces, mediates, masks, and potentiates age discrimination. Discrimination against people with frailty seemed to be both an independent event and one that interacts with established protected characteristics. Future research should focus on preventing frailty-based discrimination and establishing whether frailty should be considered a new protected characteristic by law. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.
The dynamics of investor sentiment impacts in equity crowdfunding: Unveiling the when
Get PDFExpanding upon the known impact of investor sentiment on crowdfunding contributions, we delve deeper to pinpoint specific conditions under which sentiment influences investor choices. Grounded in psychological theory, we assert that sentiment's influence thrives at the peak of investor attention, primarily on a campaign's first day and among projects with greater uncertainty. Our empirical study, based on 447 campaigns with 17,244 daily observations from the United Kingdom's Crowdcube platform, substantiates our claim. Our research enhances the comprehension of equity crowdfunding investors and provides practical insights for its proponents
“He was very confusing to me in the beginning”: A qualitative exploration of the romantic relationship experiences of neurotypical individuals with autistic partners
Get PDFAutistic individuals can struggle with aspects of social interaction, communication and maintaining relationships. Despite this, autistic people are often successful in long-term romantic relationships and can bring qualities others may not. Often, these relationships are with Neurotypical (NT) individuals. This can present challenges in communication, as both partners may feel their needs are not heard or validated and they may misunderstand the needs and wishes of the other partner. Existing research around ‘mixed’ autistic and NT couples is scarce and, when conducted, results have focused predominantly on the challenges faced in the relationship. Thus, data collected in this study are valuable to offer an alternative view, progressing away from deficit-based views of mixed relationships and recognizing strengths and challenges equally. This research takes a qualitative approach, utilising Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA), and analyses data from six NT participants. Semi-structured interviews took place online with all participants. Three themes were developed, ‘All or Nothing: The Impact of Black and White Thinking’, ‘Being able to understand autism helps us develop’ and ‘For me, autism doesn’t define us’. Participants had mostly positive experiences with their partners and were happy in their relationships. This research identified that autism does not define a relationship, black and white thinking can be both a strength and a challenge for NT partners and understanding autism greatly benefits the relationship and communication between partners
Emotional Skills Groups: A qualitative study exploring client experiences of online emotional skills group interventions in an NHS Talking Therapies service
No full textBackground: Many people treated in Talking Therapies services have highly complex needs which are not always met by the treatment offered. Emotional skills groups based on adaptations of dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) have been offered to meet complex needs, but little is known about clients' experiences of these.Aims: This research aimed to gain insight into clients' experiences of online emotional skills groups in NHS Talking Therapies.Methods: Twelve participants who attended online emotional skills groups were recruited from a Talking Therapies service. Semistructured interviews focused on participants' experiences were conducted and analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA).Results: The central organising concept, ‘My journey from disconnection towards connection’ splits into three main themes: (1) finding life hard; (2) maybe this group will make a difference; and (3) re‐evaluating the importance of connection. These themes are broken down into subthemes allowing for a more in‐depth analysis.Originality/Value: There is little known about clients' experiences of online emotional skills groups in adult NHS Talking Therapies services. This research demonstrates the benefit and value of these groups, something that therapists and managers should consider when it comes to improving treatment outcomes and commissioning.Conclusion: Findings suggest that online emotional skills groups benefit people who experience a high level of distress but find it difficult to engage with standard Talking Therapies treatments. There is a need for a policy change so that online emotional skills groups can be offered as a widely available treatment for complex emotional needs in primary care
Automated urban buses: An application of autonomous vehicle technology on route to sustainable development?
Get PDFAutomation is strongly promoted in the road transport sector as a technology with economic development and transport efficiency potential, but evidence about the actual outcomes of road sector automation is limited and contradictory. It is proposed that broad sustainability benefits are most likely to be achieved if automation is applied to the bus system, as it is already relatively efficient and socially inclusive. However, significant service quality benefits are only likely to be achieved if completely crewless operation is possible. And even in the case of the bus, it is important to assess whether automation would, overall, support sustainable development objectives. The present paper tests this proposition, drawing on a unique automated urban bus service demonstration which operated in Didcot (UK) in 2023 as part of the MultiCAV Project. The paper takes a novel approach to assessing the future implications of technological innovations by applying the UN Sustainable Development Goals. A review of how the SDGS have been applied in (mainly retrospective) policy evaluation informs the development of a framework for assessing bus automation. Outcomes hypothesised to arise from a list of 22 SDG indicators are presented, and these hypotheses are evaluated using qualitative evidence from MultiCAV. It is found that bus automation could influence outcomes for up to 12 SDGs, but the most significant potential lies with indicators linked to economic activity, public transport use, and spatial development. However, due to the current stage of technological development, which does not permit crewless operation, the main benefit in the near future is identified as support for the innovation economy, although socioeconomic and transport benefits also arise from driver assistance technologies. It is concluded that the SDGs provide an effective framework for the sustainability appraisal of innovation, although the indicators must be selected for both the technology and its context
Precarious mobilities on the axis of changing labour and mobility dynamics: The case of female domestic workers in Istanbul during the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textIn this paper, we examine the overlapping challenges that arose from domestic work, gender, and class in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, with implications that extend beyond this timeframe. We explore how these factors intersect with reproductive labour and contribute to the precarious lifestyles and livelihoods of female domestic workers (FDWs) and their related mobility spheres. Our analysis draws insights from feminist, labour, and transport geographies to illustrate the complex challenges FDWs faced during this time. We investigate an emergent mobility strategy (i.e. the servis minibus-shuttle) initiated and organized by FDWs who live in a low-income peripheral community and commute to high-income gated communities in Istanbul. To do this, we employed various ethnographic methods, including participative observations, informal discussions with FDWs and the drivers of the servis, and in-depth mobile interviews with three of its users. We discuss that servis helps FDWs overcome precarity in their daily mobilities to some extent by making them agents of this mobility sphere. However, it also emerges as an instrument of further entrapment, deepening their ‘precarious mobilities’. Our analysis of the interplay between multi-faceted spheres of domestic work deepens our understanding of labour reproduction and the precarity of FDWs in everyday mobilities
Deep Huber quantile regression networks
No full textTypical machine learning regression applications aim to report the mean or the median of the predictive probability distribution, via training with a squared or an absolute error scoring function. The importance of issuing predictions of more functionals of the predictive probability distribution (quantiles and expectiles) has been recognized as a means to quantify the uncertainty of the prediction. In deep learning (DL) applications, that is possible through quantile and expectile regression neural networks (QRNN and ERNN respectively). Here we introduce deep Huber quantile regression networks (DHQRN) that nest QRNN and ERNN as edge cases. DHQRN can predict Huber quantiles, which are more general functionals in the sense that they nest quantiles and expectiles as limiting cases. The main idea is to train a DL algorithm with the Huber quantile scoring function, which is consistent for the Huber quantile functional. As a proof of concept, DHQRN are applied to predict house prices in Melbourne, Australia and Boston, United States (US). In this context, predictive performances of three DL architectures are discussed along with evidential interpretation of results from two economic case studies. Additional simulation experiments and applications to real-world case studies using open datasets demonstrate a satisfactory absolute performance of DHQRN
Robust multi-label surgical tool classification in noisy endoscopic videos
Get PDFOver the past few years, surgical data science has attracted substantial interest from the machine learning (ML) community. Various studies have demonstrated the efficacy of emerging ML techniques in analysing surgical data, particularly recordings of procedures, for digitising clinical and non-clinical functions like preoperative planning, context-aware decision-making, and operating skill assessment. However, this field is still in its infancy and lacks representative, well-annotated datasets for training robust models in intermediate ML tasks. Also, existing datasets suffer from inaccurate labels, hindering the development of reliable models. In this paper, we propose a systematic methodology for developing robust models for surgical tool classification using noisy endoscopic videos. Our methodology introduces two key innovations: (1) an intelligent active learning strategy for minimal dataset identification and label correction by human experts through collective intelligence; and (2) an assembling strategy for a student-teacher model-based self-training framework to achieve the robust classification of 14 surgical tools in a semi-supervised fashion. Furthermore, we employ strategies such as weighted data loaders and label smoothing to enable the models to learn difficult samples and address class imbalance issues. The proposed methodology achieves an average F1-score of 85.88% for the ensemble model-based self-training with class weights, and 80.88% without class weights for noisy tool labels. Also, our proposed method significantly outperforms existing approaches, which effectively demonstrates its effectiveness
Distributed estimation and motion control in multi-agent systems under multiple attacks
Get PDFThis paper addresses the problem of distributed estimation and motion control (DEMC) in multi-agent systems (MASs) with both linear and Lipschitz nonlinear dynamics. Unlike conventional DEMC methods designed for MASs under ideal conditions, this work investigates scenarios where all agents are vulnerable to various forms of attacks. The considered attacks comprise false-data injection (FDI) attacks and denial of service (DoS) attacks that affect the communication channels among agents to destabilize the MAS. Also, the unbounded actuator attacks which exist in practical environments to intentionally degrade the MAS performance is considered. To cope with these kinds of attacks, two novel resilient approaches are established aimed at estimating and following a mobile target under attacks. The proposed distributed attack-resilient control strategies are designed based on a dual-layer structure, guaranteeing effective DEMC with an ultimately bounded error. The results from two simulation examples are provided to validate the presented algorithms