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The challenge of relational referents in early word extensions: Evidence from noun-noun compounds
No full textYoung children struggle more with mapping novel words onto relational referents (e.g., verbs) compared to non-relational referents (e.g., nouns). We present further evidence for this notion by investigating children’s extensions of noun-noun compounds, which map onto combinations of non-relational referents, i.e. objects (e.g., baby and bottle for baby bottle), and relations (e.g., a bottle FOR babies). We tested two- to five-year-olds’ and adults’ generalisations of novel compounds composed of novel (e.g., kig donka) or familiar (e.g., star hat) nouns that were combined by one of two relations (e.g., donka that has a kig attached (=attachment relation) versus donka that stores a kig (=function relation)). Participants chose between a relational (shared relation) and a non-relational (same colour) match. Results showed a developmental shift from encoding non-relational aspects (colour) towards relations of compound referents, supporting the challenge of relational word referents. Also, attachment relations were more frequently encoded than function relations
Book Review: Jesus in an age of enlightenment: Radical gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. By Jonathan C.P Birch
Get PDFThis is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in [Literature and Theology] following peer review. The version of record [Greenaway, J. (2021). Jesus in an Age of Enlightenment: Radical gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. By Jonathan C.P Birch. Literature and Theology, 35(1), 100–102] is available online at: [https://academic.oup.com/litthe/article/35/1/100/6130117?guestAccessKey=0523008b-46e6-4ed2-ab5d-001d93207bed].A review of Jesus in an Age of Enlightenment: Radical Gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson by Jonathan C.P Birc
Employing with conviction: The experiences of employers who actively recruit criminalised people
Get PDFAtherton, P., & Buck, G. Employing with conviction: The experiences of employers who actively recruit criminalised people. Probation Journal, 68(2), pp. 186-205. Copyright © [2021] (Copyright Holder). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.In England and Wales, criminal reoffending costs £18 billion annually. Securing employment can support desistance from crime, but only 17% of ex-prisoners are employed a year after release. Understanding the motivations of employers who do recruit criminalised people therefore represents an important area of inquiry. This article draws upon qualitative interviews with twelve business leaders in England who proactively employ criminalised people. Findings reveal that inclusive recruitment can be (indirectly) encouraged by planning policies aimed to improve social and environmental well-being and that employers often work creatively to meet employees’ additional needs, resulting in commercial benefits and (re)settlement opportunities
Terahertz reading of ferroelectric domain wall dielectric switching
Get PDF“This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in [ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces], copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsami.1c00523Ferroelectric domain walls (DWs) are important nano scale interfaces between two domains. It is widely accepted that ferroelectric domain walls work idly at terahertz (THz) frequencies, consequently discouraging efforts to engineer the domain walls to create new applications that utilise THz radiation. However, the present work clearly demonstrates the activity of domain walls at THz frequencies in a lead free Aurivillius phase ferroelectric ceramic, Ca0.99Rb0.005Ce0.005Bi2Nb2O9, examined using THz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). The dynamics of domain walls are different at kHz and THz frequencies. At low frequencies, domain walls work as a group to increase dielectric permittivity. At THz frequencies, the defective nature of domain walls serves to lower the overall dielectric permittivity. This is evidenced by higher dielectric permittivity in the THz band after poling, reflecting decreased domain wall density. An elastic vibrational model has also been used to verify that a single frustrated dipole in a domain wall represents a weaker contribution to the permittivity than its counterpart within a domain. The work represents a fundamental breakthrough in understanding dielectric contributions of domain walls at THz frequencies. It also demonstrates that THz probing can be used to read domain wall dielectric switching
Towards Effective Project Management and Knowledge Transfer Enhancement: A Novel System Capturing and Modelling Knowledge Acquired in a Software Development Practice
No full textThe practice of software project management evolves alongside emerging new technologies such as advances in new tools and resources in Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and machine learning applications. This thesis evaluates the ways in which a small software development unit, characteristics of other small enterprises, has embraced emerging trends in the development of digital technologies in order to establish and maintain successful practice. A qualitative research approach was adopted to elicit an understanding of the critical knowledge acquired as the unit developed and its members become effective practitioners. The research identifies and analyses the acquired knowledge that underpins successful practice, and uses the results of this analysis to propose a support system to enhance future practice. This is a challenge is that there is limited evidence of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) engaging in knowledge management (KM) or in organisational learning (OL) initiatives. In developing projects, smaller software development organisations rely on implicit knowledge and Agile to resolve complexity. Consequently, and specifically in a small business, the development of this bespoke system, represents a novel approach to Knowledge Management (KM) and Organisational Learning (OL).
Projects were identified as key sources and locus of development, innovation knowledge, skills, know-how and learning within the unit. This outcome has reinforced the proposal for a links-based system around individual projects. As in Chapter Nine, the system is as a web-based repository of project templates. The templates capture key insights into critical decisions and significant advances in current practice that arise from work within individual projects. The proposed system captures the unit’s knowledge. In addition, it provides an accessible resource that not only supports critical reflection and decision making but also retains key aspects of organisational learning (OL) and know-how. Further, while complementing continuing implicit learning, it has the further benefit of maintaining organisational resilience where individuals’ skills may be lost or where the unit faces high staff turnover. Moreover, the system can serve to induct newcomers to the unit.
Accordingly, for a small software development unit with no prior knowledge management initiative or system in place, the research’s immediate contribution is through modelling, capturing and representing the acquired knowledge. This thesis provides insights into the management of software project knowledge through web technology. The prototype was successfully designed, implemented, evaluated and made available to the research unit working group. Such a system provides an effective measure for application at organisational and project levels, the evaluation of practice and the reuse of project knowledge to improve performance and effective practice.
A further contribution made by this research is in revealing the range of the acquired knowledge, the know-how and the soft skills that complement the technical skills of software development within the research unit. The set of know-how and soft skills could be valuable where measures for effective professional practice are required. The analysed data revealed the range of capabilities the members developed to enable the application of implicit knowledge. Such insights, perceptions, and understanding enabled them to engage with clients, as well as manage risks and changes, assist key business processes and, importantly, deliver projects successfully. These skills contribute to the members’ individual professional development and capabilities. These might be termed Confidence, Relationships, Communication and Self-Management, Cooperation and Teamwork. Similarly, the research revealed the range of Know-How the members have developed. This range would include Understanding of Business Processes, Experimentation and Problem Solving, Reusing of Project Knowledge, Establishing and Marinating Quality, Project Time Estimates, and Learning from Project Failure the thesis also highlights the additional range of critical knowledge encapsulated within projects. This knowledge specifically related to Business Processes, Business Domains, Client and Working Environment. Such contextual implicit knowledge is part of the critical knowledge the practitioners acquired. Consequently, a model of successful practice within the unit was then built upon facets of this salient knowledge.
An evaluation provided feedback on the system and assessed its suitability for the research unit. The unit members were satisfied with how the prototype restricted the key elements related to their knowledge and practice without duplicating information and acknowledged that it was the knowledge management system that best suits their needs.
A focus group meeting with another similar software development unit highlighted and validated commonalities and differences in experience and in the nature of the individual organisations. The findings suggest that the proposed approach to recognising and utilising knowledge for transfer, reuse and consolidating effective practice is, potentially, extendable to similar domains. Continued research would explore the wider generalisability of this approach. Further research would explore extensions or revisions of the prototype that might further clarify the benefits and limitations of such an approach as well as providing a model for knowledge management in similar small-scale environments. This research might also serve as a template or road map for the implementation of KM initiatives elsewhere, such as start-up companies where there is a lack of software development expertise. Furthermore, the proposed system could serve as a model for the development of comparable systems in organisations where projects form the core of their work
Higher education is dead? A Nietzschean critique of the neoliberal higher education system and an exploration into the impact on academe
No full textThis thesis explores how academic and professional staff experience higher education. This research embraces a creative, ethnographic methodology to open up, through conversations and observations, how staff encounter HE in one university in the North West of England. Conversations with participants and observations of their university environs intertwine to reveal the seemingly multiple contradictory values within HE. These are analysed using Friedrich Nietzsche’s three concepts of Übermensch, amor fati and eternal recurrence.
Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s imaginative and poetic writing style represented in Thus Spoke Zarathustra resulted in a retelling of my conversations and observations with participants in three narrative vignettes. The vignettes reveal and disturb the ideas of tradition and the neoliberal values that confront both academic and professional staff. The thesis offers insights into HE’s ‘will to truth’ (Nietzsche, 1886/2014), the structures that allow its convictions to flourish to form a beleaguered culture of oppositional values that serves to divide the academe.
This thesis concludes by offering up the suffering of HE, as redemptive in this life, affirming an enduring joining together of multiplicities in the ring of existence (Nietzsche, 1883-5/1969). All this is necessary for HE to transcend itself in a constant becoming. I end the thesis with a call for the academe not to submit to a nihilistic looking back, nor to become the eager gravedigger (Nietzsche, 1874) for the death of HE, but to be the active, creative force in the revaluation of its values
Solidarity under duress: Defending state vigilantism
Get PDFFrom Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2021-01-09, accepted 2021-07-08, pub-electronic 2021-09-06Article version: VoRPublication status: PublishedAbstract: May European Union (EU) member states, in the pursuit of enforcing the norms of ‘EU justice’, unilaterally adopt harmful policies that are ordinarily impermissible in the course of voluntary cooperation amongst democratic states? Though conditions of permissible vigilantism are strict and only rarely met, there are some basic EU duties the compliance with which each individual member state is permitted to enforce unilaterally. Such measures are sometimes permissible even if European community law says otherwise: to the extent that European law prevents states from enforcing these duties, it lacks authority
The implications of outcome truncation in reproductive medicine RCTs: a simulation platform for trialists and simulation study.
Get PDFFrom Europe PMC via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: ppub 2021-08-01, epub 2021-08-06Publication status: PublishedFunder: Wellcome Trust; Grant(s): 204796/Z/16/ZBackgroundRandomised controlled trials in reproductive medicine are often subject to outcome truncation, where the study outcomes are only defined in a subset of the randomised cohort. Examples include birthweight (measurable only in the subgroup of participants who give birth) and miscarriage (which can only occur in participants who become pregnant). These outcomes are typically analysed by making a comparison between treatment arms within the subgroup (for example, comparing birthweights in the subgroup who gave birth or miscarriages in the subgroup who became pregnant). However, this approach does not represent a randomised comparison when treatment influences the probability of being observed (i.e. survival). The practical implications of this for the design and interpretation of reproductive trials are unclear however.MethodsWe developed a simulation platform to investigate the implications of outcome truncation for reproductive medicine trials. We used this to perform a simulation study, in which we considered the bias, type 1 error, coverage, and precision of standard statistical analyses for truncated continuous and binary outcomes. Simulation settings were informed by published assisted reproduction trials.ResultsIncreasing treatment effect on the intermediate variable, strength of confounding between the intermediate and outcome variables, and the presence of an interaction between treatment and confounder were found to adversely affect performance. However, within parameter ranges we would consider to be more realistic, the adverse effects were generally not drastic. For binary outcomes, the study highlighted that outcome truncation could cause separation in smaller studies, where none or all of the participants in a study arm experience the outcome event. This was found to have severe consequences for inferences.ConclusionWe have provided a simulation platform that can be used by researchers in the design and interpretation of reproductive medicine trials subject to outcome truncation and have used this to conduct a simulation study. The study highlights several key factors which trialists in the field should consider carefully to protect against erroneous inferences. Standard analyses of truncated binary outcomes in small studies may be highly biassed, and it remains to identify suitable approaches for analysing data in this context
Spatial Discretization for Stochastic Semi-Linear Subdiffusion Equations Driven by Fractionally Integrated Multiplicative Space-Time White Noise
Get PDFSpatial discretization of the stochastic semilinear subdiffusion driven by integrated multiplicative space-time white noise is considered. The spatial discretization scheme discussed in Gy\"ongy \cite{gyo_space} and Anton et al. \cite{antcohque} for stochastic quasi-linear parabolic partial differential equations driven by multiplicative space-time noise is extended to the stochastic subdiffusion. The nonlinear terms and satisfy the global Lipschitz conditions and the linear growth conditions. The space derivative and the integrated multiplicative space-time white noise are discretized by using finite difference methods. Based on the approximations of the Green functions which are expressed with the Mittag-Leffler functions, the optimal spatial convergence rates of the proposed numerical method are proved uniformly in space under the suitable smoothness assumptions of the initial values
The Impact of the Performance Appraisal Process on Job Satisfaction of the Academic Staff in Higher Educational Institutions
Get PDFFrom MDPI via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: accepted 2021-10-02, pub-electronic 2021-10-11Publication status: PublishedPerformance appraisal is one of the key management tools which identifies employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Usually, this is the major mechanism of gathering information for rewarding/training employees based on their performance, and hence a key to achieve organisational goals by creating a satisfied workforce. Therefore, this study was aimed at examining the effects of the Performance Appraisal Process on job satisfaction of the university academic staff. The information collected within one of the largest universities in the UK via questionnaires and semi-structured interviews showed that the existing appraisal process majorly aligned with the requirements of the research-excellence-framework of the UK, which is greatly concerned with research rather than teaching. Furthermore, it was found that there is no clear link between promotions, salary increments, and rewards, etc. with staff performance within the current appraisal process. Eventually, it was realised that the majority of the academic staff of the source university were dissatisfied with the current performance appraisal process, and this could be the situation in the majority of universities in the UK. Therefore, further research in this area is highly recommended to explore extensive information to create a favourable work/study environment for both staff and students within the universities
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