30793 research outputs found
Sort by
From cafés to clinics: Consumer attitudes toward human-like and machine-like service robot failures
Get PDFData availability:
Data will be made available on request.This study examines consumer evaluations of robotic service failures caused by human interference by integrating service context, robot appearance, and individual anthropomorphism tendencies into a unified model. Two between-subjects experiments were conducted. In Study 1 (N = 402), participants interacted with a healthcare or food-service bot that failed due to verbal interference. Healthcare service failure elicited significantly more negative attitudes and lower failure tolerance than food service failure, and failure tolerance fully mediated the relationship between context and attitudes. In Study 2 (N = 213), we employed a 2 × 2 design (healthcare vs. food services × human-like vs. machine-like robot) and measured perceived deservingness and trait anthropomorphism. Human-like robots were judged most harshly when failing in healthcare (vs. food) services, whereas machine-like robots received similar evaluations across contexts. Perceived deservingness of the robot mediated this interaction. Moreover, the moderated-mediation effect occurred only among individuals with low to medium anthropomorphism tendencies. By positioning failure tolerance and deservingness judgments as core mechanisms in human–robot interaction, our findings advance theoretical understanding of moral attributions in service failure. Practically, they highlight the importance of matching robot anthropomorphic cues to service criticality: less human-like designs in high-stakes environments, while more human-like appearances may be appropriate in lower-stakes settings.The Marketing Trust (Project: The Role of Physical Interference Modes in Robotic Service Failures: Implications for Customer Comfort and Desired Service Outcomes). The authors would like to note appreciation for the grant received by the first author from the Marketing Trust in support of this research
Social media, body image and exercise motivation
Get PDFThis thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonLittle is known about the relationship between social media, body image and exercise motivation in adult men. Previous research has suggested that social media can have negative implications on some individual’s body image, but this has predominantly been investigated in female and undergraduate samples. Social media that claims to provide inspiration and motivation for exercise has also shown limited efficacy in prior studies. This thesis sought to investigate the relationship between social media, body image and exercise motivation in physically active men. This was investigated using a mixed methods approach that comprised of three studies. Study 1 used a cross sectional survey design to explore relationships between social media and body image, and social media and exercise motivation and behaviour using a sample of 224 men (M age = 32.76). Study 2 used a qualitative methodology comprising of interviews with 20 men (M age = 32.45) about their experiences of social media, body image and exercise. Study 3 used an experimental methodology to investigate the impact of different types of fitness social media imagery (body aesthetic and function focused) on 165 men’s (M age= 32.69) body image and exercise motivation. Together these studies found that social media was frequently associated with a higher drive for muscularity and increased awareness of appearance in men, with some experiencing body image concerns driven by social media. Social media was not deemed to be motivational by most men, but it was found to be a useful educational tool by many. Men showed evidence of critical thinking and media literacy to combat the negative influence of body image threats. This thesis used a novel methodology to explore a previously understudies population group. These findings have implications for future research, social media policy and interventions seeking to encourage physical activity and improve body image in adult men
The Impact of Alternative Specifications of Uncertainty Relating to Extrapolation in Decision Models
Get PDFData availability statement:
No data were used in this study.Economic evaluations that incorporate value-of-information analysis frequently conclude that the greatest information value relates to replicating short-term clinical trials. This study builds on recent guidance relating to extrapolation in economic evaluation by assessing the impact of alternative approaches to representing the uncertainty around unobserved/extrapolated data with respect to incremental outcomes and value of information. When the uncertainty over unobserved and observed data is considered distinct but correlated (i.e., has a joint distribution), it is demonstrated that the value to replicating short-term clinical studies is lessened and that further studies relating to the unobserved periods likely provide more value.The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article
Nanoneedle-Based Electroporation for Efficient Manufacturing of Human Primary Chimeric Antigen Receptor Regulatory T-Cells
Get PDFData Availability Statement:
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.Regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a crucial role in moderating immune responses offering promising therapeutic options for autoimmune diseases and allograft rejection. Genetically engineering Tregs with chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) enhances their targeting specificity and efficacy. With non-viral transfection methods suffering from low efficiency and reduced cell viability, viral transduction is currently the only viable approach for GMP-compliant CAR-Treg production. However, viral transduction raises concerns over immunogenicity, insertional mutagenesis risk, and high costs, which limit clinical scalability. This study introduces a scalable nanoneedle electroporation (nN-EP) platform for GMP-compatible transfection of HLA-A2-specific CAR plasmids into primary human Tregs. The nN-EP system achieves 43% transfection efficiency, outperforming viral transduction at multiplicity of infection 1 by twofold. Importantly, nN-EP preserves Treg viability, phenotype and proliferative capacity. HLA-A2-specific CAR-Tregs generated using nN-EP show specific activation and superior suppressive function compared to polyclonal or virally transduced Tregs in the presence of HLA-A2 expressing antigen presenting cells. These findings underscore the potential of nN-EP as a GMP-suitable method for CAR-Treg production, enabling broader clinical application in immune therapies.C.C. acknowledges funding from the European Union under the ERC Starting Grant ENBION 759577 and the medical research council under the Confidence in Concept award (MC_PC_18052); King's-China Scholarship Council (202106230065)
Exploring the emotional labour of occupational therapists when interacting with clients
Get PDFData availability statement:
During the development, progress and reporting of the submitted research, Patient and Public Involvement in the research was not included at any stage of the researchIntroduction:
Occupational therapy is an inherently emotional endeavour for both clients and therapists. Despite navigating diverse and challenging work environments, relatively little is known about how occupational therapists are expected to manage and express their emotions in line with job-related emotion norms. The aim of this study was to explore the emotional labour experiences of occupational therapists when interacting with clients.
Method:
Fourteen qualified occupational therapists (11 female and 3 male) took part in a semi-structured interview about practice-related emotion norms, emotion regulation and emotion performance demands. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
Findings:
Two overarching themes captured the complexities of emotional labour when interacting with clients including (1) navigating subjective emotion norms, and, (2) negotiating authentic and inauthentic emotions to nurture the therapeutic relationship. Prioritizing client needs informed how and what emotions were expressed and regardless of the emotional labour strategies adopted, therapists strived for perceptions of sincerity in their relationships with clients.
Discussion:
The enactment of emotional labour when interacting with clients is critical to delivering therapy and meeting professional standards. The findings have implications for practitioners (e.g. reflective practice, self-care), managers (e.g. supervision) and organizations (e.g. support structures, education) and point to fruitful avenues for research.This project was funded by the Brunel Research Initiative and Enterprise Fund (BRIEF) at Brunel University of London (PI: Rebecca F. Hings): Exploring the Emotional Labour of Student and Practicing Occupational Therapists in the United Kingdo
A Novel Attention-Guided Enhanced U-Net With Hybrid Edge-Preserving Structural Loss for Low-Dose CT Image Denoising
Get PDFData Availability Statement:
The data supporting this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.Computed Tomography (CT) scan, pivotal for medical diagnostics, involves exposure to electromagnetic radiation, potentially elevating the risk of leukemia and cancer. Low-dose CT (LDCT) imaging has emerged to mitigate these risks, extensively reducing radiation exposure by up to 86%. However, it significantly reduces the quality of LDCT images and introduces noise and artifacts, degrading the diagnostic accuracy of the Computer Aided Diagnostic (CAD) system. This study presents a novel U-Net architecture, featuring several key enhancements. The model integrates residual blocks to improve feature representation and employs a custom hybrid loss function that combines structural loss with gradient regularization using the Euclidean norm, promoting superior CT image quality retention. Additionally, incorporating Attention Gates in the up-sampling layers of a proposed model optimizes the extraction of critical features, ensuring more precise denoising of CT images. The proposed model undergoes iterative training, using a custom loss function to refine its parameters and improve CT image denoising progressively. Its performance is rigorously evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively on the ‘2016 Low-dose CT AAPM Grand Challenge dataset’. The results, assessed through the metrics Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM), and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), demonstrated promising improvements compared to state-of-the-art techniques. The model effectively reduces noise while preserving critical fine details, establishing itself as a highly efficient solution for LDCT image denoising.Institute of Emerging Digital Technologies (EDiT) & Center For Cyber Physical Systems (C2PS), Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, Malaysia
Marketing a Banned Remedy: A Topic Model Analysis of Health Misinformation in Thai E-Commerce
Get PDFData Availability Statement:
The data used in this study consist of publicly available advertisements collected from social media and e-commerce platforms. No proprietary or personal data was collected. Relevant data or details about the data collection process are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.Unregulated herbal products marketed via digital platforms present escalating risks to consumer safety and regulatory effectiveness worldwide. This study positions the case of Jindamanee herbal powder—a banned substance under Thai law—as a lens through which to examine broader challenges in digital health governance. Drawing on a dataset of 1546 product listings across major platforms (Facebook, TikTok, Shopee, and Lazada), we applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to identify prevailing promotional themes and compliance gaps. Despite explicit platform policies, 87.6% of listings appeared on Facebook. Medical claims, particularly for pain relief, featured in 77.6% of posts, while only 18.4% included any risk disclosure. These findings suggest a systematic exploitation of regulatory blind spots and consumer health anxieties, facilitated by templated cross-platform messaging. Anchored in Information Manipulation Theory and the Health Belief Model, the analysis offers theoretical insight into how misinformation is structured and sustained within digital commerce ecosystems. The Thai case highlights urgent implications for platform accountability, policy harmonization, and the design of algorithmic surveillance systems in global health product regulation.This research was funded by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth), Thailand, under Grant No. 67-00463
Fatigue initiation from short cracks in thick welded steels
Get PDFThis thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonIn the shipbuilding industry, there is a growing trend toward larger ships, which has led to the increased use of thicker, high-strength steels in the construction of ship and marine structures. This shift has raised concerns about potential failures due to material imperfections arising from welding, external loading, fatigue, and corrosion. Such failures could result in catastrophic environmental pollution or loss of life. While the fracture mechanics and fatigue properties of shipbuilding materials have been widely studied through both experimental and numerical methods, research on thick steel plates, particularly with respect to short flaws, remains limited. To address this gap, both experimental and numerical approaches have been developed to investigate the effects of short cracks on the fracture and fatigue crack growth properties of EH47 and X65 steels, which are commonly used in the shipbuilding and oil and gas industries, respectively.
A thick, flat welded plate made from EH47 steel and an X65 steel pipe were selected as the materials for the testing program. SENB specimens of the type Bx2B were manufactured and notched in two different ways: half of the specimens had full-thickness notches, while the remaining specimens had semi-elliptical notches. These specimens were used to conduct fatigue crack growth tests using both a constant loading method (K-increasing) and a K-decreasing method (load-shedding). The surface crack length was measured using the direct current potential drop (DCPD) method. Calibration tests were performed to correlate crack length with potential drop for the semi-elliptical cracks. For the full-thickness notches, the DCPD method was previously calibrated, and the threshold stress intensity factors (ΔKth) were experimentally determined for specimens with semi-elliptical cracks of varying surface crack depths (a-value). The experimental results were compared with the analytical solutions documented in BS7910, and the feasibility of the experiments was verified. It was found that the surface crack length had a significant influence on ΔKth: the longer the surface crack, the larger the ΔKth. However, as the crack width (c-value) approached infinity (i.e., when the semi-elliptical crack progresses into a full-thickness crack), ΔKth decreased instead. Based on the experimental results, numerical models were developed to calculate key fracture mechanical parameters, including stress intensity factors (SIFs), J-integral, T-stress, and plastic zone size (PLZ). These models were verified against empirical solutions, and a theoretical procedure to predict the plastic zone size was derived and calibrated with the numerical results. The calculated fracture parameters were then used to derive fatigue curves and provided a theoretical foundation for explaining the observed fatigue phenomena.
Furthermore, numerical models were developed to simulate the fatigue crack growth process, and a variable amplitude loading procedure was generated using Python scripts and the UAMP subroutine. The finite element analysis (FEA) of the fatigue crack growth process was validated against experimental results, with the calculated fatigue crack propagation showing a maximum 10% deviation from the corresponding experiments. This provides a reliable basis for the numerical models in predicting experimental principles and analyzing fatigue behavior in the research. Using the calibrated numerical models, parametric studies were conducted to examine the effects of various parameters, such as the R-ratio, loading methods, and constraint effects, on fatigue crack growth rates (FCGRs). Moreover, the numerically obtained effects of surface crack length on the ΔKth of SENB specimens showed good agreement with the experimental findings.
Finally, efforts were made to understand the effects of residual stress on fatigue crack growth rates (FCGRs) using numerical methods. The numerical simulations were validated by comparison with experimental data from the literature and theoretical models outlined in BS7910. Simplified residual stress profiles were incorporated, and the effects of welding residual stress (WRS) on FCGRs were preliminarily investigated. The comparison of residual stress distributions, stress intensity factors (SIFs), and crack growth rates demonstrated a high degree of consistency between the numerical predictions and experimental results, further confirming the reliability of the developed model. The results revealed that WRS has a significant impact on crack growth behavior, particularly during the accelerated crack propagation phase.Brunel University London and TWI Ltd. The project was funded by the Lloyd's Register Foundation and China Scholarships Council
Physiological and Physical Determinants of Flat-Water Kayaking
Get PDFData Availability Statement:
No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.The main research question of this review involved the identification of the various physiological and physical determinants of flat-water kayaking. A systematic search was conducted using three databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, and Microsoft Academic) between 1991 and December 2022. Quality assessment was performed using a version of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute checklist tailored for cross-sectional and observational studies. A total of 169 articles were identified in the initial screening. After duplicate removal and further screening for relevance, a total of 17 articles were included in the review. Altogether, it was found that flat-water kayaking performance was strongly correlated with maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max), aerobic and anaerobic thresholds, peak aerobic and anaerobic capacity measure in lab and on the water, and upper and lower-body strength and power, which were measured using heavy resistance, as well as isometric and isokinetic implements. What is less clear is the association between total lean mass and flat-water kayaking performance. However, this may largely be due to the differences in when the measurements were taken.This research received no external funding
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Open Research Online? Become a CORE Member to access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard! 👇