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Consolation and hope in a time of crisis extension project: Listening to Year 10 students’ response to covid-related losses
No full textKey findings
1. Immaturity and weirdness: Looking back on their experience, students said of the experience that the strict routines were reminiscent of primary school, and sometimes weird and overwhelming. This impacted students with one professional commenting the students were still a bit like primary pupils.
2. Deeper bonding friendships: Students said the social bubbles had a marked impact on friendship groups long term, leading to deeper relationships, and connection.
3. Student behaviour: Students felt their behaviour was good compared to younger pupils, although they were honest about misbehaviour.
4. Cohort and herd: Senior leaders reported a cohort unity and herd mentality in
this group.
5. Some subjects suffered more: The students felt that some subjects suffered more from the pandemic in terms of GCSE choice. This was especially where social distancing rules significantly limited the practical elements of science, food tech, art and design, drama, music, and IT.
6. Students spoke positively about the chaplain as a guide, a spiritual and life advisor: someone they would consider going to for support, along with other pastoral leaders. This included students who were not religious.
7. Students felt they could seek help from their chaplains: especially in areas of mental health or spirituality irrespective of religious belief.
8. Chaplains and other school staff created an atmosphere of encouragement, listening and hope for students: to see that they can overcome this challenge with lots of positive encouragemen
Energy-economy analysis of a novel spiral channeled conical turbulator Inserted within the parabolic trough solar collector absorber tube
No full textThis study introduces a novel spiral channeled conical turbulator (SCCT) to enhance the hydrothermal and economic performance of a parabolic trough solar collector. Key design parameters, including spiral channel width (1–3 mm) and pitch (1–9 mm), are investigated, and the results are compared to those of a plain conical turbulator (PCT) and plain absorber tube. The inclined surfaces of the PCT and SCCT induce a strong radial flow, significantly improving heat transfer. Heat transfer and friction coefficients exhibit a direct correlation with spiral channel pitch but an inverse relationship with channel width. The PCT achieves the highest heat transfer enhancement, up to 550% over a plain tube. However, the SCCT’s aerodynamic geometry, enabled by its spiral channels, reduces pressure drop, yielding a higher and optimal performance evaluation criterion (PEC) compared to the PCT. The SCCT achieves a maximum PEC of 3.05 at a channel pitch of 5 mm and a width of 3 mm. This results in a 375% improvement in heat transfer and a 280% increase in the friction coefficient compared to plain absorber tubes. Economically, the PCT outperforms, with a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of 0.405$/kWh and a payback time of 2.7 years. These results indicate that PCT is the optimal choice for heat transfer and economic performance, while SCCT is superior from a hydrothermal perspective
Fifth generation of biomass feedstocks to produce cleaner and more efficient energy
No full textThe gradual shift from fossil to biomass feedstocks offers hopes for Global Sustainable Development. Biomass is renewable and can be transformed into green energy and chemicals. However, this practice has historically sparked debates, resulting in the development of fourth-generation biomass feedstocks: engineered organisms, which are controversial. This work proposes arid plants as the Fifth Generation Feedstocks for energy transition, food security and water conservation (5Gen Feedstocks). However, the environmental impact and energy efficiency of 5Gen Feedstocks at large scale are unknown. Experiments and analyses of four realistic scenarios were performed with nopal (prickly pear, Opuntia ficus-indica) to propose a cleaner and more energy-efficient system, integrating farming and ethanol production in a plant-wide agrobiorefinery. Life cycle assessment, energy balances, energy efficiency and evolutionary process design principles were applied to design a better agrobiorefinery. Scenario 1 was energy inefficient and environmentally harmful (classic biorefinery). The cleanest and most energy-efficient agrobiorefinery had the lowest environmental impacts in all categories (10); the best energy efficiency (three-fold that of scenario 1) and used the lowest amount of energy per unit of energy produced as ethanol fuel (0.33 MJ MJ-1). 5Gen Feedstocks enable sustainable agrorefineries for renewable energy production, net zero emissions and climate risk mitigation
Julian Symons’s (Neo-)Victorian criminals: “She might be a she-devil, but she looked more like an angel”
No full textPostmodern origin texts such as The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) and Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) continue to frame the terms in which the early neo-Victorian project is generally understood. This essay argues that twentieth-century crime writing offers equally compelling approaches, at a time when ‘Victorian values’ were being reinscribed. It takes Julian Symons as a test case, focusing on his Victorian crime novels The Blackheath Poisonings (1978) and Sweet Adelaide (1980). In both novels, female deviance is mediated through experiments with temporality and place, including the historic murder trial of Adelaide Bartlett, ‘the Pimlico Poisoner”’, and the dynamics of a family who refer to their own aesthetic house as “the white elephant”. Symons’s apparent complicity in ‘giving the public what it wants’ is complicated by the voices of his own Victorian characters
Investigating machine learning methods for identifying elephant ivory for sale online
No full textConference talk (Session: "Understanding Threats", Chair: Dr Amy Hinsley, University of Oxford
Carrying out a GenAI-assisted scoping review - key lessons learnt
No full textThis work presents our findings from a recent work where we compared human decisions with those made by GenAI at different stages within a scoping review. The chosen area of the scoping review was related to teamwork and regulation of learning. The process of carrying out a scoping review and indeed a systematic review is usually quite involved. It often uses a team of researchers to enhance the reliability of the work. This can be time consuming and repetitive, which makes this ideal workflow to be ethically and responsibly offloaded to GenAI. We decided to help build trust in GenAI within this area by first comparing the decisions made by humans and GenAI objectively. Once we were satisfied with the reliability of the tool, we then chose to use GenAI to augment our work with the speed GenAI can bring into the workflow. We will present the results from the reliability testing to compare general GenAI use vs human interrater reliability
How can AI support teaching in HE?
No full textRole of GenAI in supporting teaching and learning in higher engineering education
Sonic ethnography as artivism: Tekking back fe my mess with AI, dancehall, and patois
No full textMy creative practice is a form of research. It's where my identities as a Black anthropologist, poet, and AI artist converge to challenge dominant narratives and create new forms of knowledge. My latest work exists as both a powerful poem and an urgent dancehall track titled 'Tek Back Fe Your Mess.'
A direct call to action for climate and ecosystem justice. Built from my poem # tek back fe your rubbish,' originally commissioned for Medway River Lit 2024, this project lives as both written word and sonic rebellion.
This poem and song are deliberate acts of artivism, fusing art and activism to address the catastrophic failure in our media landscape: the systematic erasure of both the planetary emergency and Black ecological perspectives. My response was to create undeniable visibility using the accessible, global sounds of contemporary dancehall and the authentic, resonant language of Jamaican Patois.
The Theoretical Backbone: Climate Justice Through Sound and Word
My methodology bridges creative and academic practices:
Sonic Ethnography for Ecosystem Awareness: Moving beyond traditional research that privileges text, I practice sonic ethnography through Steven Feld's concept of "acoustemology." Understanding sound as a way of knowing our environment. The track becomes living data, an acoustic ecosystem that demands we listen to the interconnected crises of pollution, climate change, and environmental racism.
Decolonising Climate Narratives: The climate and ecosystem crisis isn't just the "Anthropocene"; scholars like Kathryn Yusoff frame it as the "White Anthropocene" or "Capitalocene" - a direct product of colonial and racial-capitalist extraction. My poem's command to "tek back fe your rubbish" confronts the entire system of environmental destruction. This demand exposes how Western nations like the UK dump their waste in the Global South, forcing former colonies to bear the health and ecosystem burdens of our overconsumption while facing the worst climate impacts.
AI as an Ecological Storytelling Tool (ADN™/MMAT™ in Action): Using Suno AI to generate the music while maintaining complete control over lyrics, musical direction, and vocal arrangements demonstrates my frameworks ADN™ (Anthro-Digital Narratives) and MMAT™ (Masumi Method for Art & Technology). Here, AI becomes a collaborator in climate communication, helping disseminate urgent ecological messages beyond academic circles and into communities most affected by environmental injustice.
The 4 R's of Climate Artivism
This poem and song enact a cycle of environmental resistance:
RESISTANCE: The work resists the silencing of climate emergencies in Black communities. It resists the neo-colonial practice of outsourcing environmental damage and resists corporate AI by weaponizing it for ecosystem justice.
RECLAIMING: I am reclaiming the narrative of Black relationships to land and water. Reclaiming Patois as a legitimate language for climate discourse. Reclaiming technology to tell our ecological stories.
REFraming: 'Tek back fe your mess' reframes "rubbish" from a local issue to a symptom of global ecosystem collapse. It reframes the UK's green image by exposing its pollution exported to vulnerable nations. It reframes climate change as both personal responsibility and systemic failure.
RETAINING: This is cultural and ecological memory work. Using Dancehall and Patois preserves diasporic identity while documenting environmental violence. The poem and song together become a living archive of climate witness and resistance.
Conclusion: We Are the Ecosystem Archive
'Tek back fe your mess' is more than separate artistic pieces, it's an integrated practice-based ethnographic model connecting local pollution to global climate injustice. As both poem and song, it demonstrates that ecosystem protection requires cultural sovereignty and that climate justice demands representational justice.
By leveraging the emotional power of poetry, the visceral energy of dancehall music, and the strategic reach of AI, I've created a counternarrative that must be read, heard, felt, danced to, and acted upon - a unified demand for the UK and the West to finally "tek back" their mess from our ecosystems and our futures.
This is the core of my PhD research and artistic mission: to prove that we are the archive, we are the ecosystem data, and we are the designers of climate justice
Analysing Roman hobnail footwear in soil-blocks using radiography: Design, dating, and identities
No full textThis study presents the radiographic imaging and analysis of eight soil-blocks containing hobnailed footwear from a Romano-British cemetery (5-5a Rhodaus Town, Canterbury, England). The site, dated to the Late Roman period, underwent archaeological excavation prior to commercial development in 2019. Of the 215 inhumations identified, 51 contained evidence of footwear by virtue of hobnails in varying quantities. For a selection of graves, radiography was performed upon soil-blocks with the aim of demonstrating footwear design and dimensions using hobnail distribution, despite the absence of leatherwork. The resultant imaging showed a range of designs in keeping with known examples elsewhere and can assist dating according to changes in fashion. Dimensions of footwear length and width appeared to correlate with descriptions of interred individuals within the osteological report. Limitations for the use of radiography includes taphonomic changes within the grave, damage during excavation, or post-excavation changes within the soil-block which alter the original position of hobnails. Geometric unsharpness is also an inherent limitation within radiography and impacts the accuracy of measurements. Despite this, radiography has been demonstrated as a useful tool, providing a permanent imaging record prior to micro-excavation and aiding identification of footwear type and design. Of particular utility is the imaging of soil-blocks where no skeletal remains have survived, in which case footwear design and dimensions may offer the only clues for age-at-death, biological sex, and social status