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Durable protection in the European Union: The case of persons fleeing armed conflicts
Get PDFUsing the case of persons fleeing armed conflicts, the present article examines the required pre-condition for local integration in the European Union (EU), namely the grant of durable protection. We define durable protection as a form of long-lasting and secure legal status, which entitles its holders to relevant rights and entitlements capable of leading to local integration. The article uses three case studies, namely Ukraine, Sudan and Syria, to evaluate the durability of the EU and its Member States’ responses to international displacement caused by armed conflicts. The article demonstrates how state practice works to shorten deadlines, thereby reducing attachment to the host country. The article criticises the temporal limitation of temporary protection in the absence of long-term durable solutions and the complex legal regime of international protection that may arise as a result. The article concludes that the last decade of refugee protection in the EU, which has been characterised by large influxes of persons fleeing from conflicts in countries such as Syria, Ukraine and Sudan, indicates a tendency for the EU and EU Member States to provide only short-term solutions to displacement. Reduced durability contributes to the weakening of refugee protection in the EU
A mixed methods study investigating patient’s initial experiences after acquiring a surgical scar, burn injury, and/or amputation.
No full textIntroduction: Experiences of seeing an altered appearance for the first time can have an important influence on an individual's psychological wellbeing, their body image and their adjustment. Existing research has explored this experience in individuals with breast cancer and facial burns, but limited research has been conducted in other appearance altering conditions. The aim of this study was to explore patient's initial experiences viewing themselves after acquiring an appearance altering condition, including distress, preparedness and social support. Methods: Participants (n = 64) with a surgical scar, burn injury or amputation completed a mixed methods online survey. This survey included questions about practical elements of the experience, the support they received, their expectations, distress, and preparedness; as well as open questions regarding participant's feelings, fears, support and suggested improvements to the experience. Data analysis included statistical analysis and inductive content analysis. Discussion: Participants reported a variety of initial experiences. Some felt adequately prepared and supported, whilst others felt this could have improved. A strong correlation was found between perceived support and distress (rs = −.66, p = <.001) and preparedness and distress (rs = −.66, p = <.001). No significant differences in preparedness, distress or support were found according to gender, age, or condition. Conclusions: Whilst many participants reported satisfaction with viewing their appearance for the first time, some participants reported significant distress and a need for further support around this experience. This suggests an important role for healthcare providers in discussing expectations and providing appropriate patient support following injury or treatment
Assessing the economic feasibility and environmental sustainability of 3D printed dysphagic food
Get PDF3D-printing of food is an emerging technology that has great potential not only to leading to more efficient food production with less waste but also for developing functional foods, suitable for consumers with specific medical conditions such as dysphagia. An aspect that has not been addressed so far, though, is its environmental performance compared to conventional food production and the potential economic benefits of decentralised 3D-printing of food. We have examined the case of a care home which hosts between 10 and 30 dysphagic residents, with specific dietary requirements, and assessed three alternative scenarios: (a) decentralised 3D printed dysphagic food; (b) centralised 3D printed dysphagic food, distributed to the care home; and (c) centralised conventionally prepared dysphagic food. The analysis has shown that 3D-printing of dysphagic food has a better environmental performance compared to conventionally prepared food, with a 5–13 % improvement in all the midpoint impact indicators. Moreover, the purchase of a 3D-printer by the case home for decentralised production of dysphagic food can be a profitable investment, with the price of conventionally prepared food being the main parameter affecting the decision. A commercial purchase price conventionally prepared food higher than £3.80 per portion of 250 g will definitely render such an investment economically viable, while prices as low as £3.25 can also lead to a viable investment, when the number of residents increases
Assessing the impacts of Climate Change on the potential geographical distribution of lycium ruthenicum in China
Get PDFUnderstanding the climate change impacts on the geographical distribution of plant species is vital for biodiversity conservation. Lycium ruthenicum, a second-grade protected plant in China, holds considerable medicinal and ecological value; however, its potential habitat distribution under climate change remains uncertain. By utilizing occurrence records and geographical and environmental data, we optimized a maximum entropy model and evaluated the current and future potential habitat suitability of L. ruthenicum in China. The main results were as follows: (1) The distribution of L. ruthenicum was primarily influenced by the precipitation of the warmest quarter, topsoil base saturation, precipitation seasonality, precipitation of the coldest quarter, and minimum temperature of the coldest month. (2) Under the current conditions, the potential suitable area of L. ruthenicum was approximately 2.25 × 106 km2 in China, predominantly distributed in Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia. (3) An obvious reduction in the predicted suitable area of L. ruthenicum was found under future climate scenarios, with the centroid primarily shifting northeastward. These findings highlight the potential vulnerability of this medicinally and ecologically important species and underscore the urgent need for targeted conservation strategies to ensure its long-term survival
Reframing the frame: Interpreting the past, present, and future of Black film in Bristol
Get PDFReframing the Frame explores the past, present, and future of Black filmmaking and exhibition in Bristol. Bringing together filmmakers, curators, and cultural practitioners, the project reflects on Bristol’s creative lineages and considers the infrastructures needed for a thriving Black film ecology. The accompanying report and Ujima Radio recording capture key insights, conversations, and visions for how Black film culture can continue to grow and shape the city’s cultural landscape
Black Basta ransomware: A novel multi-source intelligence framework for advanced cyber threat analysis and proactive defense
Get PDFThis paper provides a comprehensive analysis of Black Basta, a sophisticated ransomware strain that emerged in April 2022 and rapidly gained notoriety in the cybersecurity landscape. It introduces a novel Multi-Source Intelligence Framework (MSIF) for comprehensive analysis of the Black Basta ransomware operation, combining primary honeypot data collection, reverse engineering analysis, and behavioural pattern recognition. Unlike previous descriptive studies, this research presents original empirical findings from a 12-month longitudinal study involving controlled malware analysis, network traffic examination, and victim impact assessment across 127 documented incidents. The study contributes three key innovations: a standardized ransomware analysis methodology validated against multiple threat families, an adaptive defense architecture that reduces successful encryption by 50.8% (95% CI: 37.2%-64.4%) reduction in controlled environments, and predictive models for attack vector identification with 87.4% accuracy (95% CI: 84.2%-90.6%). Through cross-validation using both public datasets and proprietary intelligence, this framework demonstrates superior performance compared to existing detection methods. The research addresses critical knowledge gaps in real-time ransomware detection, automated response mechanisms, and proactive threat mitigation. Results show the proposed framework can identify Black Basta variants 48–72 h before traditional signature-based detection, enabling pre-emptive defensive measures
Cooperative adaptive cruise control for connected vehicle systems under composite attacks
Get PDFThis paper investigates the cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) problem under composite attacks. A novel resilient scheme is proposed for connected vehicle systems to deal with several types of attacks, including denial of service (DoS), camouflage, false-data injection (FDI), and actuator attacks. In contrast to the existing literature dealing with composite attacks, this work not only studies the effect of DoS and FDI attacks on CACC but also investigates the camouflage attacks and unbounded actuator attacks that are intentionally designed to mislead the platoon and jeopardize the dynamics of the vehicles. Also, it is considered that the information of the leader vehicle is not available to the follower vehicles and should be estimated. The proposed scheme is designed based on a two-layer approach to ensure effective CACC with ultimately bounded errors under the mentioned attacks. The presented algorithm is validated using two practical simulation examples
The effects of molecular hydrogen on plant physiology and metabolism: An overview
No full textGaseous hydrogen (H2) has emerged as a molecule that has a significant influence on the growth and development of plants, particularly if they are under stress. Often research has shown the ameliorating effects of H2 during drought, in the presence of heavy metals or salt, or during UV light irradiation. Postharvest, H2 has been shown to increase the quality of fruits and vegetables during storage, and slows the senescence of flowers. In molecular terms, H2 has been shown to scavenge hydroxyl radicals and remove peroxynitrite, but not react with other reactive signalling molecules such as nitric oxide. However, not all the molecular actions of H2 have yet been unravelled. This is not a totally comprehensive review of the topic, but hopefully gives an overview of the influence of H2 on some of the molecular events in cells and how this can influence plant physiology. There is no doubt that H2 has significant effects in plants, and there is potential scope for its wide adoption throughout the agricultural sector
Domain-specific implications of error-type metrics in risk-based software fault prediction
No full textIn software development, Software Fault Prediction (SFP) is essential for optimising resource allocation and improving testing efficiency. Traditional SFP methods typically use binary-class models, which can provide a limited perspective on the varying risk levels associated with individual software modules. This study explores the impacts of Error-type Metrics on the fault-proneness of software modules in domain-specific software projects. Also, it aims to enhance SFP methods by introducing a risk-based approach using Error-type Metrics. This method categorises software modules into High, Medium, and Low-Risk categories, offering a more granular and informative fault prediction framework. This approach aims to refine the fault prediction process and contribute to more effective resource allocation and project management in software development. We explore the domain-specific impact of Error-type Metrics through Principal Component Analysis (PCA), aiming to fill a gap in the existing literature by offering insights into how these metrics affect machine learning models across different software domains. We employ three machine learning models - Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) - to test our approach. The Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE) is used to address class imbalance. Our methodology is validated on fault data from four open-source software projects, aiming to confirm the robustness and generalisability of our approach. The PCA findings provide evidence of the varied impacts of Error-type Metrics in different software environments. Comparative analysis indicates a strong performance by the XGB model, achieving an accuracy of 97.4%, a Matthews Correlation Coefficient of 96.1%, and an F1-score of 97.4% across the datasets. These results suggest the potential of the proposed method to contribute to software testing and quality assurance practices. Our risk-based SFP approach introduces a new perspective to risk assessment in software development. The study’s findings contribute insights into the domain-specific applicability of Error-type Metrics, expanding their potential utility in SFP. Future research directions include refining our fault-counting methodology and exploring broader applications of Error-type Metrics and our proposed risk-based approach