Journal Hosting Service | The University of Edinburgh
Not a member yet
5244 research outputs found
Sort by
Solidarity and Responsibility-Sharing: Does the Global Compact on Refugees advance core principles of international refugee law? By Charlotte Stump
No full textIt is well established that there is a substantial gap between rhetoric and state practice of solidarity in international refugee protection. This article reflects on the Global Compact on Refugee’s normative impact in advancing the principle of solidarity and responsibility-sharing for the refugee crisis. First, the article will introduce current inequitable responses to refugee protection, evidenced by Global North states’ strategies of deterrence and externalisation of borders. Then, the article will briefly discuss the development of international refugee law, with a specific focus on the normative gap regarding international solidarity and responsibility-sharing, which the Compact intended to fill. At this juncture, the perspectives of postcolonial scholars are introduced to centre the critique on the Compact’s failings within the broader discussion of international law’s colonial roots and neo-colonial impacts. Finally, the future of responsibility sharing for international refugee protection is pondered in an effort to understand whether it is possible for international refugee law frameworks to equitably address and remedy the historical injustices of colonial project which perpetuate the contemporary crisis
Intent, control and creative freedom in AI- Supported Output: Lessons from Photography
Get PDFThe advancements achieved by generative AI have marked a significant step in creative art, raising copyright law questions, particularly around issues of authorship, originality and the role of AI in the creative process. Copyright law has grappled with similar challenges before, especially with the advent of emerging technologies, as evidenced during the early days of photography. Just as photography was initially viewed as the product of a machine rather than a human creation, so is output created with the support of generative AI often seen as predominantly AI driven. By drawing an analogy with the camera, this article explores how the users’ expression of free and creative choices, a fundamental aspect of originality under EU copyright law, can be identified at various stages in the production process of AI-supported output. It argues that the stage of ‘taking a photograph’ encompasses a series of human decisions rather than being an isolated act of pressing the shutter. Similarly, if the execution stage is seen as a process of converting users’ decisions into a preliminary output—much like ‘shooting a photograph’—those decisions can also serve as an additional element for attributing originality to AI-supported outputs. In analysing the emerging standards of authorial intent and control in assessing originality for AI-supported outputs, the article explores the distinction between semantic and categorial intentions, as well as the interplay between intent, control and the predictability of the outcome. It concludes that since categorial intent is always achieved and therefore infallible, the AI-supported output will consistently align with the author’s conception or fundamental approach to the work. Moreover, while authorial control and intent alone cannot establish originality, they can nonetheless contribute to assessing the originality of AI-supported output when they are evident in the creative process or its outcomes
Early experiences of monitoring healthy controls with total-body FDG-PET/CT
Get PDFFDG-PET/CT provides essential metabolic information for oncology diagnostics and may help assess systemic health in asymptomatic individuals. Reliable baseline values from healthy subjects are needed as references for disease detection, while acknowledging public concerns about radiation exposure. In this study, we performed test-retest scans in healthy subjects using total-body FDG-PET/CT and evaluated how much the effective dose (ED) could be reduced while maintaining quantitative accuracy.
47 (25F/22M) participants underwent two 5-min TB-PET/CT scans (test/retest) on a Siemens Biograph Vision Quadra system following an injected activity of 100 MBq of FDG. Test and retest scans were ~35 days apart. MOOSE [1] was used for automatic organ delineation and extracting organ-specific readouts (HU, SUV, volume). Imaging repeatability was assessed by comparing test/retest readouts with % difference and Student\u27s T-test per-subject and group levels, and with coefficients of variation (COV). To determine the lowest achievable PET-related radiation exposure, listmode emission data were reduced to 50%, 25%, 10%, and 5% of their original counts. Synthetic attenuation maps (ED=0 mSv) were used for attenuation correction at the various count levels [2] (Figure 1A). The %-differences of organ readouts between the reference and synthetic dose levels were statistically compared (Figure 1B).
For all assessed organs and readouts, test/retest %-differences were below 5% on a group level and 9% on a per-subject level, except in the heart and kidneys. Quantitatively accurate organ readouts were achieved at 25% of the original 100MBq (resulting in 0.5 mSv total ED) while preserving image integrity (COV < 15%).
Total-body FDG PET/CT provides reproducible measurements in healthy subjects and retains quantitative reliability at significantly lower doses, endorsing PET for longitudinal health monitoring and establishing metabolic references. Future work could integrate physiological and wearable data to expand this framework toward a broader model of systemic health tracking.
Please click on the \u27PDF\u27 for the full abstract
Investigating the effect of different CT protocols on material maps for preclinical PET imaging
Get PDFEvery Positron Emission Tomography (PET) reconstruction needs a material map of the imaged object to estimate the attenuation and scatter. In the preclinical setting, this is a Computed Tomography (CT)-based binary map. The dose delivered needs to be compliant with animal welfare requirements1. Currently, there is limited literature on preclinical CT-based material maps optimisation2,3. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of different CT acquisition and reconstruction protocols on the material maps generated and, consequently, on the quality of the PET image.
A 3D printed (tango-black) hollow rat phantom with a 3 cm diameter NEMA IQ phantom4 was used (Fig.1A) with 3.7 MBq activity. Helical (H), semi-circular (SC), and Zig-Zag (Z) trajectories were investigated. The projection number for SC1, SC3, H1, Z1 and Z2 was 360, while for SC2 it was 720. All of the non-helical scans were full scans, except the SC3 and Z2 as they were half scans. The helical pitch was 1. The tube voltage was 50 kV and the tube current was 980 mA for all the scans, expect for Z2 where these numberers were 35 kV and 180 mA. The dose of each protocol was measured by an ionizing chamber-based detector. FBP (Filtered-Back-Projection), MLTR (Maximum-Likelihood-Transmission-Reconstruction), and MSIRT (Modelled-Simultaneous-Iterative-Reconstruction-Technique) reconstruction were used. The generated maps were subtracted from each other to quantify the differences. The PET image was reconstructed with all the material maps, and the NEMA image quality phantom analysis was carried out.
The low dose protocols (SC3, Z2) (Fig.1B) with FBP reconstruction resulted in slightly different maps (Fig.1C), which also influenced the uniformity and accuracy (Fig.1D-E). The iterative reconstructions (MLTR, MSIRT) helped to overcome this issue (Fig.1B-E).
With iterative reconstruction even low dose CT protocols (SC3 and Z2) can produce accurate material maps for PET imaging.
Please click on the \u27PDF\u27 for the full abstract
The European Ethnological Centre
No full textEthnology, Folklore, Scottish culture, Scottish history, material culture, fieldwork, local studies, regional studies, Dumfries and Galloway, Archive
Trusting the Untrustworthy: How trust is established and maintained in illicit markets and organised crime groups
No full textIllicit markets and organised crime groups are characterised by risk and uncertainty. Inherent information asymmetry and the ubiquitous threat of law enforcement and adversaries, like scammers, create an environment that where cooperation and exchange would seem unlikely. To profit in illicit markets, however, cooperation is necessary and, given the potential payoffs, illicit actors find means to overcome the barriers to collaboration. This article explores how criminal actors cooperate in what would be assumed to be an uncooperative environment. Without the usual legal mechanisms, they establish trust to mitigate against such risks. This is done by leveraging social capital, emitting signals that are cheap to emit but costly to fake and using the threat of violent sanctions. In online markets, where anonymity generates further problems for cooperation, actors also use built-in reputation systems and chat forums to mitigate risk
The Ciudad Juárez Fire: Zemiology’s Expansion of a Criminological Analysis
Get PDFThe migrant detention centre fire in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico on March 27, 2023 led to 40 dead and 27 more injured. All those effected were migrants. An analysis of this tragedy from a zemiological perspective demonstrates its usefulness in deepening and expanding our understanding of its implications. This is illustrated via three points of analysis. First, zemiology explores several important harms not captured from a criminological standpoint. A key harm in this case is cultural harm. Second, zemiology holds responsible those not subjected to scrutiny by criminology’s state-centred investigation. This shines light on the United States and Mexican governments’ culpability for the fire. Finally, zemiology expands the definition of the victim. Survivors of the fire, as well as the broader migrant community, receive acknowledgement for their suffering. Finally, the implications for immigration policy are touched upon
How to Understand Jinv’s Resistance towards Heteronormativity in China
Get PDFThis paper explores the intersectionality of the Chinese political, social, cultural, and digital landscape, which is reflected in jinv’s resistance to heteronormativity. Jinv refers to a group of Chinese radical grassroots feminists active on social media. The production of a Chinese woman ideal constructed through Confucian ideals, social norms, and policies that expect women to marry and bear children is explained, alongside an analysis of jinv’s localised response and resistance on social media. The paper also discusses the potential limitations of jinv’s resistance, particularly its emphasis on individual agency over structural problems, and briefly suggests possible reasons for such a limitation. The essay concludes by suggesting that a broader understanding of Chinese cultural and social environments, as well as further research into jinv as a unique feminist group, is essential to fully understand jinv’s feminist struggle
Overcoming Inferiority through the Past-Orientalisation and the Present-Occidentalisation
Get PDFThis article examines the erasure of Japan’s premodern homosexual culture, known as nanshoku, through the lens of Orientalism. It argues that the decline of nanshoku through Japan’s westernisation following the Meiji Restoration (1868) entailed a process of "past-Orientalisation" and "present-Occidentalisation." While Edward Said theorised Orientalism as a Western discourse that subjugates the "Orient," this study extends his framework to analyse how Japan internalised Orientalist logic to distanse itself from its own past. By historicising its own sexual past as an "Othered" element belonging to an inferior “Orient” (“past-Orientalisation”), Meiji Japan sought to align itself with the dominant Western cultural and ideological framework ("present-Occidentalisation"). Drawing on the discourse of Orientalism and expanding its application to Japan’s internalisation of Oriental inferiority, this study explores how Japan’s restructuring of its sexual norms was not merely a process of westernising the past norms but a subjective redefinition of its own identity. This article further contends that this pattern persists in contemporary Japanese society, where discourses on gender and sexuality essentialise Western paradigms. By illustrating how Japan’s internalisation of Western ideology contributed to the persistent suppression of its cultural autonomy over sexuality, this article contributes to the discourse on how societies in the non-West have shaped modernity under the enduring legacy of Orientalist frameworks