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How Can We Do This? Power Constraints & Barriers to Innovation
Get PDFThe author explores how power constraints and other barriers may factor into the innovative progress of careers services and professionalism of the career development sector - in this study funded by the Jisc careers research grant.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education institutions, career development practitioners stand at a critical juncture. At the heart of their role lies a critical challenge: navigating the intricate power dynamics that define and often constrain their ability to innovate.
Practitioner voices on the process of innovation in their work have not been examined extensively in the sector's research literature before. This study examines the factors influencing their decision making about innovative practices.How do career development practitioners innovate in HE? | Funder: Jisc Careers Research Gran
Evaluating the Stability and Digestibility of Long-Chain Omega-3 Algal Oil Nanoemulsions Prepared with Lecithin and Tween 40 Emulsifiers Using an In Vitro Digestion Model
Get PDFThe health benefits of long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCn-3PUFA) intake have been well documented. However, currently, the consumption of oily fish (the richest dietary source of LCn-3PUFA) in the UK is far below the recommended level, and the low digestibility of LCn-3PUFA bulk oil-based supplements from triglyceride-based sources significantly impacts their bioavailability. LCn-3PUFA-rich microalgal oil offers a potential alternative for populations who do not consume oily fish, and nanoemulsions have the potential to increase LCn-3PUFA digestibility and bioavailability. The aims of this study were to produce stable algal oil-in-water nanoemulsions with ultrasonic technology to increase DHA digestibility, measured using an in vitro digestion model. A nanoemulsion of LCn-3PUFA algal oil was developed with 6% w/w emulsifiers: lecithin (LE) or an equal ratio of Tween 40 (3%) and lecithin (LTN) (3%), 50% w/w, algal oil and 44% w/w water using rotor–stator and ultrasound homogenization. The in vitro digestion experiments were conducted with a gastric and duodenal digestion model. The results showed the creation of nanoemulsions of LCn-3PUFA algal oils offers potentially significant increases in the bioavailability of DHA in the human body. The increase in digestibility can be attributed to the smaller particle size of the nanoemulsions, which allows for higher absorption in the digestive system. This showed that the creation of nanoemulsions of LCn-3PUFA algal oils offers a potentially significant increase in the bioavailability of DHA in the human body. The LE and LTN nanoemulsions had average droplet sizes of 0.340 ± 0.00 µm and 0.267 ± 0.00 µm, respectively, but the algal oil mix (sample created with same the components as the LTN nanoemulsion, hand mixed, not processed by rotor–stator and ultrasound homogenization) had an average droplet size of 73.6 ± 6.98 µm. The LTN algal oil nanoemulsion was stable in the gastric and duodenal phases without detectable destabilization; however, the LE nanoemulsion showed signs of oil phase separation in the gastric phase. Under the same conditions, the amount of DHA digested from the LTN nanoemulsion was 47.34 ± 3.14 mg/g, compared to 16.53 ± 0.45 mg/g from the algal oil mix, showing DHA digestibility from the LTN nanoemulsion was 2.86 times higher. The findings of this study contribute to the insight of in vitro DHA digestion under different conditions. The stability of the LTN nanoemulsion throughout digestion suggests it could be a promising delivery system for LCn-3PUFAs, such as DHA, in various food and pharmaceutical applications.Unfunde
Constructions of agency in children’s cultural and linguistic brokering practices
Get PDF© The Author(s) 2024.Constructions of children’s agency have been an influential and dominant arena for discussion since the emergence of the ‘new’ paradigm of childhood in the 1990s. Cross-disciplinary studies recognise the different social, cultural and temporal influences upon perceptions of childhood and acknowledge the impact of such constructions on how children’s agency is understood and realised. Many of the definitions of agency reflect Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states the child’s right to be involved in decisions affecting them. However, as with other articles of the convention, Article 12 is prone to subjective adult interpretation predicated on assumptions of competence and capability, and subject to the same uneasy tension between participation, protection and provision which characterises the convention more broadly. Furthermore, the presumed relationship between children’s involvement in decision making as an indicator of agency is misleading. This paper argues that children’s agency is a poorly defined concept, whose lack of clarity contributes to children being constrained as active change agents within and beyond contexts which directly affect them. Using the context of child language brokers, the paper argues that despite offering children the ‘socio-culturally mediated capacity to act’ brokering practices frequently take place in response to adult-determined objectives, rather than in contexts freely chosen by the child, potentially compromising their agentic potential. This paper draws upon the findings from Crutchley’s doctoral thesis which used Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method to explore the retrospective narratives of adults who assumed the role of cultural and linguistic brokers during their childhoods.Unfunde
A new double observer‐based census framework to improve abundance estimations in mountain ungulates and other gregarious species with a reduced effort
Get PDF© 2024 The Author(s). Ecological Solutions and Evidence published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.Estimating animal abundance has a key role to play in ecology and conservation, but survey methods are always challenged by imperfect detection. Among the techniques applied to deal with this issue, Double Observer (DO) is increasing in popularity due to its cost‐effectiveness. However, the effort of using DO for surveying large territories can be significant. A DO‐based survey method that allows accurate abundance estimations with reduced effort would increase the applicability of the method. This would have positive effects on the conservation of species which are challenging to survey such as mountain ungulates. We used computer simulations based on real data and a field test to assess the reliability of the DO and of a new proposed survey procedure, the Double Observer Adjusted Survey (DOAS). DOAS is based on total block counts adjusted with some DO surveys conducted in a proportion of the total area only. Such DO surveys are then used to estimate detection probability with a mark‐recapture‐derived approach. We found that full DO is much more accurate than simple block counts for abundance estimations. DOAS is a less demanding alternative to full DO and can produce comparable abundance estimates, at the cost of a slightly lower precision. However, in the DOAS overall detectability has to be estimated within a sufficient number of sites (around a quarter of the total) to obtain a higher precision and avoid large overestimations. Practical implications. DO methods could increase the reliability of abundance estimations in mountain ungulates and other gregarious species. Full DO in particular could allow researchers to obtain unbiased estimations with high precision and its usage is therefore suggested instead of block counts in wildlife monitoring. Given the high costs of full DO, the DOAS procedure could be a viable and cost‐effective survey strategy to improve abundance estimates when resources are scarce.MP was financially supported by a Sustainable Futures studentship by the University of Chester sponsored with a matched funding by the Gran Paradiso National Park (grant reference: BIO20/10)
Growing Old and Dying inside: Improving the Experiences of Older People Serving Long Prison Sentences
Get PDF© 2024 Prison Reform TrustThis report, authored by Dr Jane Price in partnership with the Prison Reform Trust’s Building Futures Programme, provides insights into the age-specific experiences of men and women aged 50 and over who are serving prison sentences of 10 years or more.
Based on consultation with 121 men and women in 39 prisons in the UK, it aims to influence positive changes that would provide a more humane prison experience that recognises the distinct needs of this group.
Our central recommendation is that, as a matter of urgency, the government should publish a draft national strategy for rapid consultation and final publication before the end of the parliamentary year. These proposals are based on our consultation, and this report aims to ensure that the experiences, needs and ideas of older people with lived experience of prison can contribute to this positive change.Prison Reform Trus
Development and Validation of Embedded Device for Electrocardiogram Arrhythmia Empowered with Transfer Learning
Get PDFWith the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), investigation of different diseases in healthcare improved, and cloud computing helped to centralize the data and to access patient records throughout the world. In this way, the electrocardiogram (ECG) is used to diagnose heart diseases or abnormalities. The machine learning techniques have been used previously but are feature-based and not as accurate as transfer learning; the proposed development and validation of embedded device prove ECG arrhythmia by using the transfer learning (DVEEA-TL) model. This model is the combination of hardware, software, and two datasets that are augmented and fused and further finds the accuracy results in high proportion as compared to the previous work and research. In the proposed model, a new dataset is made by the combination of the Kaggle dataset and the other, which is made by taking the real-time healthy and unhealthy datasets, and later, the AlexNet transfer learning approach is applied to get a more accurate reading in terms of ECG signals. In this proposed research, the DVEEA-TL model diagnoses the heart abnormality in respect of accuracy during the training and validation stages as 99.9% and 99.8%, respectively, which is the best and more reliable approach as compared to the previous research in this field.N/
The Vatican's adaptation to new media: an exploration of the strategies, benefits and impacts on the local church
Get PDFThis thesis investigates how the Catholic Church has adapted to the emergence of new media, its strategies, benefits, and impacts on the local church. Religious institutions such as the Catholic Church have entered the world of new media in an effort to achieve their aims and objectives, emphasizing the power of new media as ‘new spaces for evangelization’. This situation requires a reorganization that takes into account the historic development of the Holy See’s structures of communication, unified integration, and management. As a result, the Dictionary of Communications was created to respond to the current demands of communication by factors of convergence and interactivity. To assess how the new Dicastery of Communications has fared in the face of recent changes, the study traces the historical evolution of the Church’s attitude towards the media, from one of outright hostility in the early decades of the twentieth century to a much more open and progressive stance today.
Generally, the study aims to explore how the Vatican has adapted to new media and the strategies, benefits, and impacts on the local church. Specifically, the study identifies how the Vatican uses new media strategies to engage existing audiences and to market to potential adherents; to explore how the new Dicastery for Communications is taking full advantage of the benefits and opportunities presented by the new media and engagement paradigms; to examine the barriers to and dangers of the Vatican's adoption of new media strategies to engage existing audiences and to market to potential adherents; and lastly, to consider how new media strategies from the center cascade and impact local churches.
The study employed the use of qualitative research methods, with the elite interview used as the medium of data collection in the research. Interviews conducted with nine elites, including three each of the members of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications, local Church officials in the developing world, particularly the Archdiocese of Ibadan, and independent experts with knowledge about the Vatican's media, serve as major data employed to discover how successful Pope Francis and the Catholic Church as a whole have been in this endeavor of strategic communications and synodality. The initial stage of the data analysis procedure involved transcribing the interviews, prioritizing the objectives of precision and ethical reporting in documenting the participants' remarks. The transcribed data were further analyzed using thematic data analysis techniques.
The study finds that the new media strategies adopted by the Vatican have succeeded in terms of enabling a more coherent internal communications structure but have largely failed to attract new converts to Catholicism. Overall, the findings suggest the church is still finding its way in the new media sphere. Conceptually, the church is on the right track. Its challenge now lies in implementing the practical steps necessary if the digital sphere is truly to become a modern space for evangelisation
The Sea of Faith 40 Years On
Get PDF©Liverpool University PressOn the fortieth anniversary of its first broadcast in 1984, this article will consider the main themes of the BBC TV series The Sea of Faith , written and presented by the Cambridge philosopher and theologian Don Cupitt. It will attempt to evaluate its significance, then and now. We argue that Cupitt’s ‘radical’ reputation for his advancement of a broadly ‘non-realist’ understanding of God may have overshadowed other equally significant features, not least his central argument that unless Christianity responded constructively to modern thought it would be doomed to irrelevance. The article will close with some reflections on what Cupitt’s manifesto for religion might mean for those who continue to identify with his critiques of traditional theology today.N/
Pandora's Box (2007)
No full textPublishing information and table of contents for issue 5 (2007)Founded 2003, Pandora’s Box is an annual literary periodical publishing a selection of the year’s best creative writing by students and staff at the University of Chester.N/
Science Fiction and Posthumanism in the Anthropocene
No full textThis book is not available on ChesterRepWith science fiction stories imagining futures and worlds vastly different from our own, and posthuman philosophies radically reconceptualising our species’ place within our own world, this book is a deep dive into the similarities between science fiction studies and critical posthumanism and how they can be read together. Both fields fantasise about future technologies, envisage alienness through conversation with everyday life and both anticipate the Anthropocene as a dire source of rupture from the present. Drawing inspiration from these and other consonances, this book establishes a common theoretical ground between the two fields, upon which the two currents of future-oriented thought can meet and begin to share a common language.
An investigation that draws critical currency from the everyday condition of our species in relation to technology and our perilous situation in the Anthropocene, the book observes posthumanism not just as a theoretical framework that may be applied to science fictional ideas, but also as an integral part of how it is that science fiction is generated.
Featuring case studies of the work of prominent authors Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson, alongside the BBC television series Doctor Who and the cult videogame Outer Wilds, Science Fiction and Posthumanism formulates a new critical paradigm which recognises the value of such works to posthumanist thought. Addressing those with an interest in either academic discipline, it demonstrates that urgent discourses around our shared future are more imperative now than ever before.n/
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