26207 research outputs found
Sort by
Hybrid graph convolutional LSTM model for spatio-temporal air quality transfer learning
Get PDFThe short-term air quality forecasting models serve as an early warning system for local agencies, aiding in preparing mitigation strategies against severe pollution episodes. This paper explores the application of Transfer Learning to enhance short-term air quality forecasting model accuracy when labelled data is limited or missing, as often occurs with newly installed monitoring stations or due to sensor malfunctions. These monitoring stations are typically installed in areas of high exposure, like roads or urban/industrial areas, due to recurrent peak episodes or to monitor background pollutant levels generally. Forecasts with greater reliability, even when there is limited historical data available due to the recent installation of the monitoring station for example, are expected to enable the swift implementation of proactive measures to prevent significant pollution episodes from happening. The proposed method leverages knowledge from spatially neighbouring air quality monitoring stations to achieve the multi-modal spatial-temporal transfer learning to the target station, exploring multivariate time series data available from neighbouring monitoring stations. This study employed historical air quality data from spatially adjacent monitoring stations identified in South Wales, UK. The study evaluates the predictive capabilities of four base models and their corresponding transfer learning variants for estimating NO2 and PM10 pollutant levels, which are the most difficult pollutants to meet objectives and limit values in the UK’s air quality strategy. The paper highlights the importance of capturing spatial patterns from different monitoring stations along with temporal trends when it comes to air quality prediction. Our experiments demonstrate that transfer learning models outperform models trained from scratch on air quality multivariate time series prediction problems in a low data environment. The proposed hybrid Graph Convolutional-LSTM model, making use of a novel Granger causality-based adjacency matrix for the new site, has significantly outperformed other baseline models in predicting pollutants, achieving notable improvements in prediction accuracy of approximately 8% for PM10 and 7% for NO2 values, as reflected in the RMSE values. It has also demonstrated the potential for data-efficient approaches in spatial transfer learning by reducing the need for large datasets by incorporating prior causal information
Horizontal autoscaling of virtual machines in hybrid cloud infrastructures: Current status, challenges, and opportunities
Get PDFThe deployment of virtual machines (VMs) within the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) layer across public, private, or hybrid cloud infrastructures is prevalent in various organisational settings for hosting essential business services. However, achieving rapid elasticity, or autoscaling, and ensuring quality of service amidst fluctuating service demands and available computing resources present significant challenges. Unlike the Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) layers, where cloud providers offer managed elasticity features, the VMs at the IaaS layer often lack such capabilities. This paper scrutinises the constraints surrounding the rapid elasticity of VMs within single and hybrid cloud environments at the IaaS layer. It provides a critical analysis of the existing research gaps, emphasising the necessity for the horizontal elasticity of VMs extended across hybrid clouds, coupled with predictive capabilities integrated into the elasticity mechanism. This paper’s focus is particularly beneficial in scenarios where workloads require VM provisioning from multiple clouds to eliminate vendor lock-in and enhance quality of service (QoS) assurances, especially in instances of platform failures. Through critical examination, several research challenges are identified, delineating the existing research gap and outlining future research directions. This paper contributes to the research challenges of VM elasticity in complex cloud environments and underscores the imperative for innovative solutions to address these challenges effectively
The 3W project: Wildlife and water for wellbeing. Full evaluation report
Get PDFNature-based activities are increasingly recognised in research for their contribution towards a range of benefits including improving people’s health, wellbeing, community contributions, and environmental engagement.Tewkesbury Nature Reserve (TNR) is a significant environmental and community asset in good proximity to people living in areas of higher social deprivation in Gloucestershire. Through recent successful grant-funded work, TNR has grown its skills, capabilities and local networks to deliver a range of social activities through the reserve.TNR’s Wildlife and Water for Wellbeing (3W) Project, funded through Gloucestershire’s Nature on Prescription Funding 2023, provided an important opportunity to build better social prescription and related links, and deliver activities that can benefit older people and children – particularly for those experiencing adversities such as poor health, isolation, or lack of opportunities to enjoy nature. The 3W Project, therefore, mobilises an important local asset for the benefit of residents and the local environment itself.Project deliveryThe project is described as having two phases due to the Project Officer changing approximately halfway through the first year of the project. The first phase ran from January to June 2024; the second phase ran from September 2024 to February 2025. While the change in personnel made matters more complex, each Project Officer brought their own expertise to the role – the first with an Early Years background and the second with NHS expertise.Over the two phases of the project, the Project Officers developed a detailed and well-structured system for documenting the delivery of the project. In addition, they recorded detailed and informative reflections about areas that have gone well or have been difficult. This evidence has been crucial to understanding the delivery and learning from the project.Using a test-and-learn approach, the project has piloted a wide range of activities. In a 12-month period, 30 activity groups (either one-off events or multi-week courses) were run alongside a larger number of outreach and networking events. Understanding their challenges and potential has been a key aspect of the project.Main learnings and impacts of the projectIn the first phase of the project, engagement with children, young people and their families led to close agency partnerships and some well-attended activities. These links have continued to consolidate and expand in the second phase of the project. This positive picture reflects the good match between the educational and recreational potential of TNR, and the interests of the target groups, parents, schools and other partner agencies. Collaboration with local agencies such as Priors Park Neighbourhood Project (PPNP) and local schools offers strong prospects to further develop nature-based activities with children.In the second phase of the project, the provision of events directed towards older adults grew substantially. This reflected the skills of the Project Officer and the growth of connections with health and social care agencies during this period. While links with health and social care agencies have taken time to develop, collaborations are increasingly evident in the patterns of 5 joint activities, particularly involving GP services. The project has developed ongoing referraland recommendation links with a progressively more diverse range of agencies that cover different age groups and interests.For the purposes of evaluation, the following data collection processes have worked well:❖ Demographic and related registration details for structured and small group activities❖ Activity attendance registers❖ Short and longer form capture of activity satisfaction for participants❖ Project Officer’s log of participant feedback and participant stories❖ Project Officer’s workload diary and time record❖ Project Officer's log of reflections about the delivery of activities and the wider project❖ Record of contacts, networking and added value with partner agencies❖ The development of participant case studiesWritten and verbal feedback on project activities shows very good levels of satisfaction from respondents. The qualitative feedback helps build a rich account of the benefits of activities.The case studies illustrate the health and wellbeing benefits of activities centred around mindfulness and creativity in a natural space.The baseline and follow-up questionnaires have been used on specific instances. This has demonstrated the feasibility of their use, particularly in the context of structured, multi-week activities. However, there are several limitations:❖ The low number of responses means that few conclusions can be drawn about the status of participants.❖ Some participants did not fully complete the questionnaire, or did not do so at the follow-up point.❖ For many activities, the Project Officer found that it was not appropriate or feasible to ask participants to complete the questionnaires.Nevertheless, TNR has successfully developed a flexible approach to capture short-term feedback on activities. This has been put to good use in adjusting and developing an increasing range of activities and capitalising on the rich potential of the reserve
Strategic organizational euthanasia: The cost of dying strategically in project management
Get PDFPurpose This paper aims to explore the complex experience of “deadlines” in project management, highlighting how they signify both project completion and the initiation of new ones, creating repetitive cycles of dying and living. It examines emotional responses to this strategic euthanasia, aiming to clarify the paradox of living and dying in project work. The paper addresses two key questions: What does “deadline” mean beyond its conventional use, and how do participants interpret its arrival during project execution? By situating the discussion within strategic management frameworks, it reconceptualizes deadlines as intricate temporal-spatial constructs that embody simultaneous experiences of life and death. Design/methodology/approach This paper is grounded in a qualitative research design, employing two years of intermittent fieldwork (2009-2010) and subsequent ethnographic observations within a complex project aimed at master-planning a major university campus expansion. The research involved in-depth, semistructured interviews with eight key participants from the project team, including the project manager and a representative from the client university. Findings The findings indicate that project members view deadlines as paradoxical symbols of life and death, signifying the conclusion of one project while prompting the pursuit of another. Shaped by client expectations and project management language, deadlines are seen as nonnegotiable boundaries that lead to passive compliance and strategic euthanasia. This creates existential tension, as meeting deadlines equates to professional survival but often compromises quality and integrity. Ultimately, the research highlights that deadlines are not just temporal markers; they reflect a lived experience of sacrifice and compromise that impacts individual well-being and the ethical dimensions of project work. Originality/value The paper offers an original perspective on the concept of deadlines within project management by framing them as existential phenomena that evoke emotional responses tied to the notion of death. By analyzing the duality inherent in the term “deadline” – symbolizing both the conclusion of a project and the vital precondition for future endeavors – the authors delve into the implications of managing temporal events in project-based settings. Through this lens, the paper contributes novel insights to strategic management literature, emphasizing the need to consider emotional experiences in the study of organizational processes
The validation of the ‘CARe Burn Scale: Parent/Caregiver Form’ - a Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) using Rasch Measurement Theory (RMT) to assess quality of life for parents or caregivers supporting a child with a burn injury
Get PDFA PROM is a measure of patient needs and therapeutic progress. This paper outlines the validation of the CARe Burn Scale: Parent/Caregiver Form, a PROM that measures quality of life in parents/caregivers supporting a child with a burn injury. A literature review and interviews with sixteen parents and six burns health professionals informed the development of the PROM conceptual framework/draft form. Cognitive debriefing interviews with five parents and seven burns-specialist health professionals provided feedback to ascertain content validity, and two-hundred and four parents/caregivers took part in the field testing. Rasch measurement theory (RMT) analyses and internal consistency tests were conducted to create a shortened version and for psychometric validation. The final conceptual framework included eight domains/individual scales: Physical Well-being, Confidence with Managing Burn Wound/Scar Treatments, Social Situations, Partner Relationship, Self-worth, Negative Mood, Parent Concerns about the Appearance of their Child’s Burn Wounds/Scars, and Positive Growth. Seven scales had solutions from RMT analyses and passed internal consistency criteria. Confidence with Managing Burn Wound/Scar Treatments did not fit the Rasch model but was retained as a checklist based on theoretical insight. The CARe Burn Scale: Parent/Caregiver Form is the first and only burn-specific PROM that assesses parents’ own health needs when caring for a child with a burn
Federated learning-based trajectory prediction for dynamic resource allocation in moving small cell networks
Get PDFWith the evolution of fifth generation (5G) of mobile communication, vehicular edge computing (VEC) and moving small cell (MSC) network are gaining attention because of their capability to provide improved quality-of-service (QoS) to vehicular users. The ultimate goal of VEC-enabled MSC network is to diminish the vehicular penetration effect and path loss resulting in improved network performance for vehicular users. In this paper, we explore distributed resource block (RB) allocation for fronthaul links of MSCs with probabilistic mobility in VEC-enabled MSC network. The proposed work exploits the computational power of road side units (RSUs) deployed with VEC servers present along the road sides to allocate the resources to MSCs in a distributed manner by exchanging limited information, with the objective of maximizing the data rate achieved by MSC network. Moreover, we propose federated learning (FL)-based position prediction of MSCs to predict the trajectory of MSCs in advance for efficient prediction of resource allocation in MSC network. Simulations results are presented to compare the position prediction dependent distributed and centralized time interval dependent interference graph-based resource allocation to MSCs in terms of RB utilization and average achievable data rate of MSC network. For comparison, we further investigated centralized as well as distributed threshold time dependent interference graph-based allocation of resources to MSC network
Model-free robust underactuated control of inverted pendulums
No full textThis work proposes a type of model-free robust underactuated control (MFRUC) framework for improving the efficiency and robustness in the designing and tuning of underactuated inverted pendulum control systems, by handling the unknown dynamics as a class of total uncertainty in a black-box connecting control inputs and attainable outputs. The system design and parameter tuning do not refer to physical equations or adaptive online estimation. In this technique a parallel sliding mode manifold is proposed to deal with the control challenge, and the corresponding model-free sliding mode controller (MFSMC) is derived by means of satisfying a Lyapunov differential inequality. To assure the MFRUC applications, a numerical Lyapunov function and an energy Lyapunov function are proved with general numerical conditions and physical constrains respectively. To validate the general feasibility of the MFRUC procedure, this study conducts computational experiments by simulating two bench test controls of 1) cart-pole inverted pendulum (CIP) and 2) motor rotated inverted pendulum (RIP). The major MFRUC performance includes. 1) monotonic dynamic tracking to the steady state (99%) in less 12 seconds and steady state errors (|xe| < 0.003m, |θe| <0.01∘of CIP and |βe| <0.1∘, |αe| < 0.5∘ of RIP) 2) robustness, demonstrated by the state output remaining completely insensitive to the tested unknown yet bounded internal uncertainties and external disturbances, 3) stable chattering at the control input of the RIP, with small amplitude < |1.5| and frequency 153 mHz, subject to the noise induced from encoder in measurements and the other hardware nonlinearities. The simulation results are better in setpoint tracking compared with those from well-known LQR and PD approaches. The simulation demonstrations also give a step-by-step recommendation for follow up and expansion
Written evidence (Northern Ireland Affairs Committee): Economic growth in Northern Ireland new and emerging sectors
Get PDFThis submission focuses on five key themes essential to Northern Ireland’s economic future:1. Strategic opportunities in emerging and high-growth sectors2. Skills development and talent pipelines3. Innovation and research translation capacity4. Sustainable infrastructure and net-zero readiness5. Cross-border trade and regulatory alignmentThe evidence is based on a combination of academic insight, sectoral analysis, and lessons from interdisciplinary collaborations in regional development and economic regeneration.This report was submitted to the UK Parliament Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
Bristol smartphone experience & school policy project
No full textSmartphones have become a ubiquitous part of childhood and school life, but reported challenges are mounting. Parents are calling for more support, while schools report that policies are increasingly hard to enforce—and often feel out of step with today’s smartphone reality.Our project set out to uncover the lived experiences and beliefs of young people, parents/carers, and school staff, with the aim of creating an evidence-informed foundation for future policy and support.Here we share key findings from our research into smartphone use and experiences, drawing on the perspectives of students, school staff, and parents/carers. By gathering extensive stakeholder data, we aim to help schools and families make better-informed decisions with the aim of supporting young people to thrive.The study spans both secondary and primary schools, offering a views of how smartphones shape young lives, from the first conversations about ownership to the realities of daily use