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Designing Together for radical collaboration
No full textEarly in 2023, we embarked upon a project designed to bring staff and students together, support one another and develop a shared language and knowledge around learner-centred design. At the core of this project was the belief that we needed a new co-creation mindset, based on radical collaboration to truly embed the student voice across all stages of the project. By developing a space where staff and students felt trusted, valued and heard, we created a growing community of practice, instigated new potential collaborations and shared expertise and experiences, co-led with our students
Machine learning applications for smart building energy utilization : a survey
Get PDFThe United Nations launched sustainable development goals in 2015 that include goals for sustainable energy. From global energy consumption, households consume 20–30% of energy in Europe, North America and Asia; furthermore, the overall global energy consumption has steadily increased in the recent decades. Consequently, to meet the increased energy demand and to promote efficient energy consumption, there is a persistent need to develop applications enhancing utilization of energy in buildings. However, despite the potential significance of AI in this area, few surveys have systematically categorized these applications. Therefore, this paper presents a systematic review of the literature, and then creates a novel taxonomy for applications of smart building energy utilization. The contributions of this paper are (a) a systematic review of applications and machine learning methods for smart building energy utilization, (b) a novel taxonomy for the applications, (c) detailed analysis of these solutions and techniques used for the applications (electric grid, smart building energy management and control, maintenance and security, and personalization), and, finally, (d) a discussion on open issues and developments in the field
AIRQKD : the role of free-space optics quantum key distribution enabling pragmatic secure and scalable communications
Get PDFEfficient degradation of vulcanized natural rubber into liquid rubber by catalytic oxidation
No full textWaste tire rubber based on natural rubber (NR) represents an abundant feedstock for the production of valuable products. This study investigated an efficient approach to convert NR vulcanizates into liquid rubber with the number-average molar masses of 1.3 × 104 g/mol. Compared to the anaerobic liquefaction at 300°C for 3 min, NR vulcanizates were liquefied efficiently at 210°C for 3 min by thermo-oxidative degradation catalyzed by manganese (II) stearate. The apparent activation energy of the NR degradation reaction decreased from 470.8 kJ/mol to 208.2 kJ/mol with catalysis, which was attributed to the formation of a coordination complex between catalysts and peroxides via the single-electron transfer redox reaction, leading to the catalytic oxidative degradation of NR vulcanizates. The main chain scission and crosslink scission occurred simultaneously during the degradation process, and the main chain scission was the primary catalytic oxidation reaction according to the Horikx theory. In addition, the obtained liquid rubber contained carbonyls, ether linkages, and sulfoxide groups, as proved by FTIR and 13C-NMR. The catalytic oxidative degradation mechanism of NR vulcanizates was proposed based on the chemical structure of products and simulation results. The efficient method was proposed to highly facilitate the recycling and valorization of NR-based waste tire rubber
Property and the end of Empire in international zones, 1919-1947
Get PDFAt the end of the First World War, defeated European empires ceded a wealth of imperial patronage, including palaces, government buildings and offices, to newly forming states in central Europe. While we know a great deal about these property transfers, the fate of ceded property in mandates and other newly emerging sovereign spaces, such as international zones, is less well known. This article traces the ways in which central European properties were reallocated and sold in international zones, with special reference to the International Zone of Tangier. While the remains of central European imperialism in Tangier were integrated into the international administration, this process encouraged erstwhile imperial powers to vie ever harder to reclaim ‘their’ former property, including private property portfolios. Meanwhile, it encouraged existing imperial powers to support private property purchases in order to secure advantages in the administration. In other words, internationalization entailed widespread competition for property that is omitted from the usual accounts of these spaces. Drawing attention to this phenomenon is important as it reveals the new forms imperial rivalries took on within the international structures created after the war
Minds of monsters : scary imbalances between cognition and emotion
Get PDFFour studies investigate a fear of imbalanced minds hypothesis that threatening agents perceived to be relatively mismatched in capacities for cognition (e.g., self-control and reasoning) and emotion (e.g., sensations and emotions) will be rated as scarier and more dangerous by observers. In ratings of fictional monsters (e.g., zombies and vampires), agents seen as more imbalanced between capacities for cognition and emotion (high cognition–low emotion or low cognition–high emotion) were rated as scarier compared to those with equally matched levels of cognition and emotion (Studies 1 and 2). Similar effects were observed using ratings of scary animals (e.g., tigers, sharks; Studies 2 and 3), and infected humans (Study 4). Moreover, these effects are explained through diminished perceived control/predictability over the target agent. These findings highlight the role of balance between cognition and emotion in appraisal of threatening agents, in part because those agents are seen as more chaotic and uncontrollable
Distributional effect of import shocks on British local labour markets
No full textThis article investigates the causal effect of import shocks on the wage distribution using individual-level data from the UK in the period 1997–2010. The analysis exploits regional variation in initial industrial structure and concentration for identification, and applies a group IV quantile approach to estimate the effect of import shocks on workers at different parts of the wage distribution. The study finds that the effect of import shocks generated by increased import competition is concentrated on the middle of the wage distribution: while the import shocks negatively and significantly affect workers at the bottom-middle of the wage distribution, its effect on the very bottom and upper parts of the wage groups is insignificant. Moreover, the study finds that this labour market adjustment takes place through a reduction in the hourly wage rather than a decline in total hours worked
Emotional problems and peer victimization in adolescents born very preterm and full-term : role of self-control skills in childhood
Get PDFThe aim of the current study was to examine whether self-control skills in childhood moderate the association between very preterm birth (<32 weeks of gestational age) and emotional problems and peer victimization in adolescence. We used data from four prospective cohort studies, which included 29,378 participants in total (N = 645 very preterm; N = 28,733 full-term). Self-control was mother-reported in childhood at 5–11 years whereas emotional problems and peer victimization were both self- and mother-reported at 12–17 years of age. Findings of individual participant data meta-analysis showed that self-control skills in childhood do not moderate the association between very preterm birth and adolescence emotional problems and peer victimization. It was shown that higher self-control skills in childhood predict lower emotional problems and peer victimization in adolescence similarly in very preterm and full-term borns
Wide-frequency-range vibration positioning based on adaptive TQWT for long-distance asymmetric interferometer sensor
No full textThe asymmetric dual Mach–Zehnder interferometer (ADMZI) based vibration sensor effectively extends the sensing distance, however, the asymmetry seriously deteriorates the positioning accuracy. In this paper, an adaptive tunable Q-factor wavelet transform (TQWT) based long-distance asymmetric sensing system is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for the positioning of wide-frequency-range knocking vibration signals. The TQWT can extract the time-frequency features of the non-stationary signals by performing multi-scale decomposition. Firstly, the positioning method adaptively determines the decomposition levels by analyzing the power spectrum of the vibration signals, which not only effectively suppresses the effect of low-frequency noise, but also accurately extracts the main time-frequency variation characteristics of the vibration signals with various bandwidths. Then, the time delay between the time-frequency characteristics is obtained using a cross-correlation algorithm, and the vibration position is demodulated. Experimental results show that the method can accurately locate vibration signals with bandwidths of 10–80 kHz at a sensing length of 125 km. For high-frequency, strong vibration signals, the standard deviation of the positioning is around 35.1 m. For low-frequency, weak signals, the proposed method can still achieve effective positioning compared with the traditional approaches with a standard deviation of approximately 238.1 m. The proposed scheme can significantly improve the applicability of the asymmetric interferometer based vibration sensing system
Level and factors of support for the Living with the Virus policy in a Chinese adult general population : a mediation analysis via positive and negative attitudes toward the policy
No full textBackground: This study investigated the public’s support for the Living with the Virus (LWV) policy, its associated factors, and related mediations at a time when more countries were considering adopting the LWV policy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: A random, population-based telephone survey was conducted among 500 Chinese adults in Hong Kong during March/April 2022.
Results: 39.6% of the participants were supportive/strongly supportive of the LWV policy. Perceived efficacy of the control measures was negatively associated with the support and was partially mediated via the perception that the policy would greatly improve the economy/daily life of the policy. Perceived physical harms of the Omicron variant was negatively associated with the support and was fully mediated via perceived negative impacts of the policy. 26.2%/54.6% believed that the policy would improve the economy/daily life greatly; about 40% perceived negative impacts on deaths and the medical system due to the policy. COVID-19 ever infection did not significantly moderate the studied associations.
Conclusion: The public was split regarding the support for the LWV policy and whether it would cause better economy/daily life, unnecessary deaths, and the collapse of the medical system. Health communication is needed in shifting toward the LWV policy