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Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics and Well-Being
No full textContents: Political Economy and the Arts edited by Katerina Paramana. Editors’ Introduction: Imaginary Futures by Robert F. Carley, Eero Laine, Yumi Pak, SAJ, Alyson K. Spurgas and Chris Alen Sula; Everyday Black Futurity in Popular Culture by RaShelle R. Peck; The Incubator and the Interregnum: Theorizing the (Work)Places of Class Struggle by Sarah Earnshaw; Cannaboom: Race and Labor in California Cannabis Cultures by Curtis Marez; BTS and the Labor of Techno-Orientalism by Julia H. Lee; Introduction – Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being by Katerina Paramana; The Problems with the Critique of Political Economy in the Arts by Mi You; Racial Capitalism, Refugee Adjudication, and the Performances of Zama Zama by Sean Metzger; “A Currency of Happenstance” by Louise Owen; Young People’s Self-Making in Neoliberal Capitalism: Challenges and Opportunities by Stephen M. Butler and Nathaniel Coward; How Vital is Nature? Animated Bodies and Agency in Contemporary Capitalism by Gareth Dale; Without Rethinking Colonialism and Racialization, a Sustainable Future is Not Possible by Marina Gržinić; Conscious Delirium of a Traveling Body: The Poetics and Politics of a Creative Practice by Tara Fatehi; Aporias edited by Joshua Falek; Enlightenment by Any Other Name by Patrick Michael Teed; Positions produced by Mark Nunes and Elaine Venter; Infrastructures of Transiency: On Cruise Ships by Richard Simpson, Constance Dijkstra, Karla Hart, Luc Renaud, Francesca Savoldi and Andrew Culp; Book Reviews: "Black Gathering: Art, Ecology, Ungiven Life by Sarah Jane Cervenak (Duke University Press)"
by Kelann Currie-Williams; "Biopolitics, Geopolitics, Life: Settler States and Indigenous Presence edited by René Dietrich and Kerstin Knopf (Duke University Press)" by Leah Kuragano; "Dancing Indigenous Worlds: Choreographies of Relation by Jacqueline Shea Murphy (University of Minnesota Press)" by Diana Duarte Bernal; "Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance by Moya Bailey (New York University Press)" by Yiming Wang; "The Life Worth Living: Disability, Pain, and Morality by Joel Michael Reynolds (University of Minnesota Press)" by Kora Dzbinski; "Maroon Choreography by fahima ife (Duke University Press)" by Walter Lucken IV.Issue 13.2 (Fall 2024) of Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association. Lateral is the peer-reviewed, open access journal of the Cultural Studies Association, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC) License, unless otherwise noted. ISSN 2469-4053
Enhancing safety in autonomous driving through reinforcement learning: A comparative study of machine learning approaches
Get PDFThis thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonWith the emergence of autonomous vehicles, the automotive industry promises to
revolutionize human mobility, offering many advantages such as increased driving
comfort, reduced congestion, and improved road safety. Despite significant
advancements in sensor technology and perception algorithms, ensuring the safety
of autonomous driving remains a critical challenge. This dissertation aims to explore
how reinforcement learning techniques can be leveraged to further enhance the
safety of autonomous driving systems.
The study presents an in-depth review of the vast landscape of deep neural network
and Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods, emphasizing their limitations in
applicability and functional safety. Various modifications to state-of-the-art DQN RL
algorithms are proposed, assessing their impact on training stability and agent
performance.
An essential contribution of this dissertation is the integration of profound safety body
of knowledge, in alignment with automotive safety standards, with advanced
machine learning expertise. This work extensively investigates the practical
implementation of deep neural network classifiers, identifies safety risks inherent in
every development phase, and puts forth both theoretical and practical solutions to
address and mitigate these risks.
A safety layer for RL agents, comprising eight key features, is introduced to enhance
autonomous driving safety. This includes methods to quantify and optimize
exploration behaviour in continuous state spaces. The safety layer integrates human
expert guidance, prevents unsafe actions, imposes safety constraints, dynamically
shapes rewards, introduces redundancy, and ensures a fail-safe strategy for
Operational Design Domain (ODD) violations. An additional method enhances RL
agent adaptability by emulating human drivers.
In the final chapter, the study utilizes the OPEN AI Gym environment for highway
driving experiments. Reinforcement learning-based agents are equipped with the
safety layer features to make real-time decisions in dynamic and varied driving
scenarios, and unexpected events. Quantitative comparisons of experimental results
are drawn to assess RL agent performance, safety KPIs, and other relevant metrics.
The findings of this dissertation contribute to the ongoing discourse on autonomous
vehicles, offering valuable insights into the capabilities and limitations of RL-based
autonomous driving systems. This work shall also increase awareness about the
criticality of safety in AI-based solutions and guide how such sophisticated solutions
comply with normative standards
Teachers’ self-efficacy and readiness for online pedagogy at Gulf University
Get PDFThis thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThis research aims to understand the effectiveness of Continuous Professional Development on university teachers’ readiness and self-efficacy for online pedagogy at Gulf University Bahrain. Using action research as research design, this study was conducted in four phases. In the first phase, a sample of 46 teachers of different genders, ages, and experiences was focused on collecting data on their online pedagogical skills, readiness, and self-efficacy for online pedagogy, using the Need Analysis Survey, Teachers’ Readiness for Online Pedagogy Questionnaire, and Teachers’ Self-efficacy for Online Pedagogy Questionnaire, respectively. Data from Teachers’ Readiness for Online Pedagogy Questionnaire and Teachers’ Self-efficacy for Online Pedagogy Questionnaire also served as the Pre-test. In the second phase, a four-week Continuous Professional Development model was developed and implemented among these teachers. In the third phase, a posttest was conducted using Teachers’ Readiness for Online Pedagogy Questionnaire and Teachers’ Self-efficacy for Online Pedagogy Questionnaire, followed by semi-structured and focus group interviews. In the last phase, quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed. The quantitative findings suggest that teachers' self-efficacy presented moderate scores, with an aggregate average of 4.3. Post-intervention, a modest increase was observed, culminating in an overall average of 5.2. Similarly, the readiness for online pedagogy showed an initial aggregate mean of 2.6, which post-intervention rose to 3.5. While the improvement is evident, the scores hover around the mid-range, suggesting that a significant portion of the cohort may still be inadequately prepared for online teaching. Qualitative data analysis provides a deep dive into the experiences of Gulf University teachers, revealing a multifaceted narrative that intertwines age, cultural context, and technological adaptation. The age-based digital divide is evident, with younger teachers demonstrating higher levels of self-efficacy for using online pedagogy, thus finding the transition to online teaching more intuitive. In stark contrast, older teachers, especially those above 50, grapple not just with the tools but with a fundamental shift in teaching approach. This thesis presents an in-depth analysis of the substantial changes in the educational landscape triggered by the pandemic, focusing on Gulf University in Bahrain. It highlights the vital role of Continuous Professional Development in enhancing teachers’ readiness and self-efficacy for online pedagogy, offering valuable insights and recommendations for educators, policymakers, and future researchers in the education sector. The study significantly contributes to comprehending the dynamics of online pedagogy and the crucial role of continuous professional development in enabling this transition
A Review Analysis of Electricity Generation Studies with Social Life Cycle Assessment
Get PDFSupplementary Materials: The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/en17122929/s1, Table S1: Detailed information of reviewed studies.This review explores the social impacts of electricity production by applying the framework of Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). The authors adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines to select studies that were published post-2010 and used S-LCA in the context of various electricity sources, including bioelectricity, solar, wind, and hydropower. The search yielded 13 eligible studies that employed both generic and site-specific assessment strategies, primarily relying on the Social Hotspot Database and Product Social Impact Life Cycle Assessment database for generic evaluations. The findings emphasize the Workers stakeholder as the most frequently examined, with significant attention also given to the Local Community, Society, Value Chain Actors, and Consumer stakeholders when social databases are employed. The studies primarily assessed socioeconomic impact subcategories related to labor practices, health and safety, and economic contributions, as well as a tailored set of self-developed social impacts and indicators specific to the energy sources and geographical contexts examined. This review demonstrates the crucial role of S-LCA in revealing the socio-economic impacts of electricity generation and the need to consider the impacts on Local Community and Society stakeholders through site-specific assessments. Such insights are crucial for guiding policy reforms and industry practices towards more socially responsible energy production.This research received no external funding
Assessing social risks in Greek and Dutch economies: A product social impact life cycle assessment approach
Get PDFData availability:
All inventory data used by the current study and raw results produced by the current study are available in the Supplementary Material.Supplementary Information is available online at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-024-02396-6#Sec15 .Purpose:
Input–output tables describe monetary relationships between producers and consumers within an economy and have been used to assess the effects on job creation and gross domestic product (GDP). The objective of this study was to apply the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) to assess direct social risks in national economies and explore whether S-LCA can replace or support beyond-GDP metrics.
Methods:
S-LCA was applied in three ways. First, a hotspot assessment was conducted using the Product Social Impact Life Cycle Assessment (PSILCA) database to assess the direct social risks of monetary outputs of the Dutch and Greek economies in 2018. Classification 1 regarded the comparison of the Dutch and Greek economies based on direct social risks classified as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Classification 2 grouped the calculated social risks into sub-sub-topics of the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Standards (CSRS) directive. In each classification, the calculated risks were normalized by the total monetary output of the national economy.
Results and discussion:
This study showed that the Dutch economy results in lower normalized risk values for all S-LCA stakeholders and impact subcategories, except for “Respect of indigenous rights” and “Health and safety (Workers).” The main contributing parameters were sectorial monetary output and the risk levels of the indicators. Classification 1 showed that using input–output tables and PSILCA to simplify the calculation of SDGs was partially successful, because the SDGs also consider environmental aspects and PSILCA is limited to social aspects. Classification 2 showed that the Greek economy resulted in higher normalized risk values than the Dutch economy for almost all sub-sub-topics of the CSRS.
Conclusions:
The results indicate that input–output tables can be extended to incorporate social dimensions with S-LCA and PSILCA. However, the nature of the SDGs means that S-LCA is not capable of simplifying the evaluation of countries’ societal progress, but S-LCA combined with PSILCA can assist national governments in taking targeted actions to reach SDG targets and enforce European CSRS directive compliance in the most impactful economic sectors for social performance monitoring and reporting.H2020 Societal Challenges, 869474, Evina Katsou. The authors are grateful to the European Commission for supporting the activities carried out in the framework of the WATER-MINING (project under grant agreement no. 869474)
Targeting Fatty Acid Oxidation Pathways to Overcome Proteasome Inhibitor Resistance in Multiple Myeloma
No full textMultiple myeloma (MM) is a blood cancer that affects plasma cells; despite recent significant advancements in therapy, the disease remains incurable with only a 53% 5-year survival rate. Given this grim reality, there is an urgent need to discover new vulnerabilities in MM and explore innovative therapeutic approaches. In this study, we investigated the possible anti-myeloma efficacy of a recently developed chemical inhibitor known as DIAPO (drug-inducing apoptosis). DIAPO has demonstrated the ability to trigger apoptosis in both treatment-naïve multiple myeloma cells and cells that have developed resistance to commonly used proteasome inhibitors such as bortezomib and carfilzomib. We used both in vitro and in vivo MM xenografts models to assess various cellular processes including cell viability, apoptosis, and cellular metabolism (specifically oxygen consumption rates and fatty acid oxidation). Mechanistically, we discovered
that DIAPO inhibits crucial survival signalling pathways in proteasome inhibitor-resistant cells, particularly by suppressing the expression of key regulators of fatty acid oxidation. Our findings suggest that DIAPO could be a promising treatment for patients with multiple myeloma, particularly for those who have developed resistance to current standard therapies and provide a strong rationale for extending the preclinical and clinical testing of DIAPO to improve patient outcome in MM.Leukaemia & Myeloma Research UK Ltd. Project title:
Interfering with fat metabolism to improve the efficacy of myeloma therapy
Supply Chain Resilience Optimization with Agent-Based Modeling (SCROAM): A Novel Hybrid Framework
Get PDFSupply chains are vulnerable to an array of exogenous disruptions, including operational contingencies, natural disasters, terrorism, and political and geopolitical instability. In order to ensure resilience to these disruptions, supply chains can use mitigation strategies to minimize risk and maximize recovery. Modeling approaches can be utilized to determine the most appropriate mitigation strategies for a specific scenario; however, there is currently no recognized modeling framework which can be applied to all supply chain sectors. This paper describes the key disruption risks to supply chains; the resilience and optimization strategies and performance metrics employed by supply chains to mitigate these risks; and the applications of simulation modeling in supply chain management. We present a hybrid framework for using agent-based modeling, alongside early warning systems, many objective optimization and option awareness analysis, to manage exogenous risks for a non-specific supply chain
How to Valorize Construction and Demolition Wastes? Beyond the State of the art Through Vision Systems and Artificial Intelligence Tools
Get PDFThe efficient tracking of Construction and Demolition Wastes (CDWs) is pivotal in a perspective of sustainability and circularity in the construction sector. Sensing and digital technologies can undoubtedly play a relevant role in this context. This paper proposes an innovative approach for detection, quantification, and characterization of CDWs in order to provide information exploitable through optimized valorization routes made available via dedicated service platforms. The preliminary results are promising, and the solution will be iteratively refined and improved thanks to continuous data collection from real-world scenarios.This research activity was carried out within the RECONSTRUCT (A Territorial Construction System for a Circular Low-Carbon Built Environment) project, funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101082265
Policy-making for creative industries in China: A case study of design policy
Get PDFPublished online: 27 Jun 2024.Conversation between Dr Weining Ning (Brunel University London) and Dr Sylvia Xihui Liu (Hong Kong Polytechnic University). Dr Weining Ning is the co-lead of the Policy Working Group of the SEED Fellowship project. Brunel University London.Design is recognized as a critical driving force of economic growth in China, shaped by its distinct political, economic and cultural history. However, documentation on Chinese design policies remains scarce. In this conversation, Dr Sylvia Xihui Liu, a distinguished researcher in design policy and design management from China, shares her invaluable experiences in influencing the development of China’s national design innovation policies. She also discusses the tangible impact these policies have on design practitioners within the country and offers her perspectives on the differences between the United Kingdom and China in crafting creative policies.This study was supported by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, AHRC SEED Fellowship (Award AH/Y000722/1)
Solution existence for a class of nonsmooth robust optimization problems
Get PDFThe main purpose of this paper is to investigate the existence of global optimal solutions for nonsmooth and nonconvex robust optimization problems. To do this, we first introduce a concept called extended tangency variety and show how a robust optimization problem can be transformed into a minimizing problem of the corresponding tangency variety. We utilize this concept together with a constraint qualification condition and the boundedness of the objective function to provide relationships among the concepts of robust properness, robust M-tamesness and robust Palais-Smale condition related to the considered problem. The obtained results are also employed to derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of global optimal solutions to the underlying robust optimization problem.This research is funded by Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) under grant number T2024-26-01
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