Birmingham City University Open Access Repository
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Can hybrid working survive a rise in unemployment in 2024?
No full text2024 is upon us and talks of an early election are intensifying. For many working people, what will happen to the economy is crucial- we have seen cuts in banking staff, not just the high level investment bankers but also in other more lowly paid staff with the closure of some 1,100 bank branches since May 2022 and more planned for next year. Other sectors are also being affected. And despite a large number of vacancies still advertised, the overall vacancy numbers are gradually declining . Surveys from Chambers of Commerce, though still reporting staff shortages in many areas, show a consistent weakening in private firms’ recruitment intentions
‘People don’t buy art, they buy artists’: Robot artists–work, identity,and expertise
No full textThis article critically examines the construction of the artistic identity and career of Ai-Da,‘theworld’sfirst ultra-realistic humanoid robot artist’. Engaging with scholarship on posthumanism andcreative assemblages, and creative work, identity and expertise, this article conceptualises Ai-Da’sdistinctive positioning and focuses on the practices used to construct a creative worker identity andcareer. The article uses qualitative content analysis to examine journalistic coverage, promotionaland presentation activities, exhibitions and performances, and social media postings over a four-year period from Ai-Da’sfirst launch to international visibility. The analysis shows how Ai-Da ispositioned as a high-profile, border crossing artist, engaging in debates about Artificial Intelligence(AI), art, and the environment. It considers the creative assemblage of Ai-Da as a humanoid robotartist, the creator Aidan Meller and the team working with him, and the wider contextual factors ofaesthetic expertise, networks and knowledge of art worlds which have shaped Ai-Da’s artisticidentity and career trajectory. The focus on how Ai-Da signals expertise on social media helps toframe the specific techniques used to speak about and for Ai-Da on social media platforms andwider media coverage. This includes articulating inspiration, showcasing artistic processes andcultivating audience relationships. In concluding, the implications of connecting critical perspectiveson creative work with developments in art, AI and robot artists are explored:firstly, for un-derstanding how the practices for constructing an artistic identity shape the development of robotartists; secondly, for understanding how developments in art and AI can frame reflections on artisticidentity and career
The Link Between ESG Performance and Earnings Quality
No full textThe field of study pertaining to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns has gained significant interest in recent years, primarily driven by increasing worldwide concern about climate change and environmental challenges. Prior research has examined corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives as actions that may be susceptible to opportunistic conduct by managers, which may be observed via earnings management. This research aims to investigate different perspectives of earnings quality (EQ) by examining the determinants of EQ described as inherent operating environment and risk of the industry business process (innate factors of EQ) and management reporting decision (manager’s discretion of EQ). Separating the components of EQ determinants individually is considered an advantage by the previous researcher. Using fixed effect panel data, this study demonstrates that ESG performance is positively associated with discretionary accruals and negatively related to innate earnings quality. This phenomenon might perhaps be attributed to the challenges posed by the sector, characterized by rapid digital transformation and unexpected digital development in the markets. This observation suggests that over time, the utilization of symbolic ESG business practices, which are susceptible to greenwashing, would have a detrimental effect on the fundamental earnings quality influenced by the operational context and the risk of uncertainty associated with the organization
Residual stress measurement in engine block—an overview
No full textSignificant residual stresses are often generated during the manufacturing of cast Al-Si alloy engine blocks due to differential cooling rates, the mismatch in the thermo-physical properties of adjacent materials in direct contact and volumetric changes caused by solid-state phase transformations during cooling. These may be modified during heat treatment and operation. These residual stresses may lead to distortion (affecting performance and economy) or premature failure of the engine block. For this reason, it is of fundamental importance to have reliable numerical and experimental methods for characterizing the residual stresses in the engine blocks at several steps during the manufacturing process. Sectioning and neutron diffraction techniques have been widely used to determine the residual stresses in the engine blocks. Numerical techniques have been developed to predict these residual stress but require experimental validation. The authors reviewed several numerical and experimental studies of residual stress evolution in engine blocks and showed how the residual stresses, microstructures, and mechanical properties are correlated
OHMI Music-Makers WCET Programme 2023-24 Project Evaluation
No full textMusic charity The OHMI Trust (OHMI) is dedicated to removing obstacles that prevent children and adults with physical disabilities from fully participating in music. By offering training programs, facilitating music sessions, and collaborating with innovative instrument developers, OHMI seeks to ‘remove the barriers to music-making so as to enable full and undifferentiated participation in musical life’ (OHMI, online).
This evaluation focuses on OHMI’s Music-Makers WCET (Whole Class Ensemble Tuition) Programme 2023-24, which aims to provide equal access to WCET for children with additional needs in mainstream primary schools. Working closely with Nottingham, Northamptonshire and Birmingham Music Hubs, the programme assesses the requirements of children participating in WCET for the forthcoming academic year. If children are found to have physical needs that would make playing conventional instruments challenging or not possible, OHMI supplies accessible instruments, necessary equipment, staff training, and other support before WCET classes commence.
Researchers from Birmingham City University (BCU) evaluated the efficacy and impact of the Music-Makers WCET Programme 2023-24 using qualitative methods. This report sets out these findings and includes details on take up and nature of provision, WCET observations, adult and children perspectives, and recommendations for future iterations of the programme. This is the third consecutive evaluation of the Music-Makers programme undertaken by BCU (see Nenadic & Booth, 2022; Nenadic, MacGregor & Booth, 2023)
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall – The Inexcusable State of British Politics
No full textThe scenes of chaos exhibited in Parliament last week may be considered to be another consequence of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Hamas’ murderous attack last October, in which 1,139 people died, including 36 children and causing dreadful injuries to many hundreds of others (France 24, 2013), was always going to elicit reaction from Israel
Up Brexit creek without a paddle
No full textThere’s a great divergence happening between the UK and Europe that very few seem to be aware of but that nevertheless is already having an enormous impact on the nature of the relationship. While Britain keeps getting roiled by Brexit and its ongoing and cumulative effects, be theypolitical, economic, environmental, societal or other, Europe has spectacularly lost interest. A quick scan of media stories mentioning Brexit in Germany and France over recent months shows that they overwhelmingly deal with the debate in the UK, not with Brexit effects in Europe. On a political level, this quite brutal loss of interest was apparently confirmed in recent weeks via European Commission contacts with Labour, the presumptive next party of government. Pushing back against Keir Starmer’s idea to majorly renegotiate the Brexit deal in 2026, the attitude seems to have been, no thank you very much. You might want to but we’re not interested
Migration: A Shared post-Brexit Trajectory
No full textEurope’s post-Brexit political landscape has changed a great deal since 2020. Four years on from the formal divorce, policymakers in the UK and EU appear to increasingly mirror one another in terms of their respective outlooks on an increasing number of issues. This extends prominently to the subject of migration. Recent developments on migration have highlighted how much the UK and EU have arrived at similar points regardless of political affiliation. Despite separating, the British and EU have followed charted mirrored political trajectories that have led them to comparable destinations
“The asylum system is completely broken”: An analysis of justifications and resistance for the UK Government’s Rwanda policy in parliamentary debates
No full textIn April 2022, the UK government announced the signing of a ‘partnership agreement’ with the Government of Rwanda in which some asylum seekers who enter the UK would be transported to Rwanda where their cases would be decided. This ‘Rwanda policy’ has been met with strong resistance from opposition politicians. This paper examines how the UK Government has sought to justify this ‘offshore processing’ policy and the ways in which the policy is resisted by politicians from the Opposition. We present a discursive analysis of the transcript of the Home Office’s statement to the House of Commons on the “Global Migration Challenge” and the subsequent debate among Members of Parliament about the statement. We identified three discursive repertoires that politicians on opposing sides used to both justify and resist the Rwanda policy, specifically repertoires focussing on the safety of Rwanda, the need to deter people smugglers and be in line with ‘what the people want’. Despite political polarisation in the debate on this policy, we argue that the use of similar discursive devices to both justify and resist this policy creates problems for supporters of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in carving out a clear discursive space for their arguments
Genetic Algorithms and Feature Selection for Improving the Classification Performance in Healthcare
No full textMicroarray technology appeared recently and is used in genetic research to study gene expressions. Microarray has been widely applied to many fields, especially the health sector, such as diagnosing and predicting diseases, specifically cancer diseases. These experiments usually generate a huge amount of gene expression data with analytical and computational complexities. Therefore, feature selection techniques and different classifications help solve these problems by eliminating irrelevant and redundant features. This paper presents a proposed method for classifying the data using eight classifications machine learning algorithms. Then, the Genetic Algorithm (GA) is applied to improve the selection of the best features and parameters for the model. We use the higher accuracy of the model among the different classifications as a measure of fit in the genetic algorithm; this means that the model’s accuracy can be used to select the best solutions than others in the community. The proposed method was applied to the colon, breast, prostate, and Central Nervous System (CNS) diseases and experimental outcomes demonstrated an accuracy rate of 93.75, 96.15, 82.76, and 93.33 respectively. Based on these findings, the proposed method works well and effectively