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2036 research outputs found
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The practice debate: are midwifery educators and midwives in practice working together to support the education of the future workforce?
Full text linkIn this penultimate article in our series exploring the current landscape and challenges in educating the future midwifery workforce, we examine the interplay between the practice and academic environments and the impact this has on both students and staff alike, particularly in the wake of changing standards for student supervision. We explore whether the nature of being an educator in a health field such as midwifery is unique because of the need to support students through placement challenges when there are limitations on what HEIs can realistically influence. We also examine the ‘extra’ responsibilities put upon midwifery education staff to support students by way of ‘Academic Assessor’ roles
A metaverse-based virtual reality platform for online certification using Web3
Full text linkContext: Metaverse is an emerging technology that synchronizes physical and virtual things. It is used to communicate and simulate the virtual world with the physical world through human actions in real-life scenarios. Combining blockchain and metaverse technologies produces an archetype shift in the educational technology domain regarding online certification, largely due to the impact of synchronizing educational technologies. The combined technology elevates the security measure, ensures transparency, enhances accountability, and reduces costs for the online certification process. Proposed Solution: The suggested solution (MetaEduTech) accelerates the certificate verification process by (i) extenuating the risks of misuse by leveraging decentralized storage of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), (ii) securing the certificate, and (iii) providing the metaverse environment for certification. We perform experiments and evaluate the MetaEduTech solution by deploying a blockchain-based smart contract model on Ethereum on the Microsoft Windows platform. Results and Implications: The evaluation results show (i) the efficiency of the query response (5 ms–50 ms), (ii) and the performance of the query execution (CPU utilization between 2%–6%). The findings in this research underscore the effectiveness of the proposed solution with the potential to modernize the certification exam process. The proposed solution and its evaluation can provide insights into how to address the persistent issues surrounding certificate authenticity related to academic verification in a metaverse environment
Adapting to stigma, resilience, and systemic barriers: lived experiences of adolescents and young adults with mental illness
Full text linkBackground: Mental illness among adolescents and young adults is a significant public health concern globally, particularly in low and middle income countries like Nigeria, where mental health infrastructure is limited. Young Nigerians face pervasive stigma, inadequate mental health literacy, and limited access to care, often influenced by spiritual and sociocultural factors. This study explores the lived experiences of adolescents and young adults with mental illness, focusing on how they navigate stigma, emotional distress, and systemic barriers while leveraging coping mechanisms.
Methods: Using an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach, this longitudinal qualitative study examined the experiences of 16 participants aged 15-35 years diagnosed with mental illness. Participants were purposively sampled from a psychiatric hospital in South-Eastern Nigeria. Data were collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews over nine months. Thematic analysis was employed to identify patterns and interpret the dynamic interplay between societal stigma, individual coping strategies, and systemic challenges.
Results: Five key themes emerged: (1) Perceptions of mental illness as abnormality and shame; (2) Emotional and social struggles, including loneliness, strained family relationships, and fear of the future; (3) Coping mechanisms such as reliance on family, spirituality, and professional care; (4) Stigma and discrimination, highlighting both internalised stigma and advocacy efforts; and (5) Barriers to care, including accessibility issues and the need for youth-specific services. Participants reported evolving perceptions and coping strategies over time, facilitated by therapy, social support, and community awareness initiatives.
Conclusions: This study emphasises the complex interplay between stigma, resilience, and systemic barriers in the mental health journeys of young Nigerians. Findings highlight the need for culturally sensitive interventions, family-focused psychoeducation, youth-specific services, and community-integrated approaches to reduce stigma and enhance care. These insights provide actionable recommendations for improving mental health systems in resource-limited settings
Más allá de la apertura gubernamental: Participación y desarrollo de la alfabetización en datos en OGP
Full text linkDesde el lanzamiento de la Alianza para el Gobierno Abierto (Open Government Partnership – OGP) en 2011, se han desarrollado enfoques y modelos que promueven la transparencia, rendición de cuentas, participación ciudadana e innovación en más de 77 países. En este marco, es crucial analizar el impacto de los compromisos relacionados con la educación y la participación, así como su capacidad para fortalecer la ciudadanía activa y la colaboración en el gobierno abierto.
También se evalúa si estas iniciativas han mejorado el desarrollo de habilidades en el análisis y gestión de datos, como el open data y el big data. Este análisis se enfoca en cómo estos esfuerzos contribuyen a la educación cívica y la construcción de ciudadanía, impactando la justicia social, la inclusión y el bien común. El estudio revisa más de 2800 compromisos nacionales de los países miembros de la OGP, especialmente aquellos que impulsan una ciudadanía activa y colaborativa mediante el uso y análisis de datos. Al categorizar y analizar estos compromisos, se identifican enfoques prioritarios, brechas y desafíos para fortalecer las estrategias de gobierno abierto. El objetivo es valorar cómo estas estrategias contribuyen a la Agenda 2030 y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), impulsando una mejora integral en la apertura gubernamental y su impacto en la sociedad
Mentoring card game: supporting mentors with personality traits and the PSF 2023
No full textThis mentoring card game is a dynamic, role-play-based activity designed to enhance the practical and reflective skills of academic mentors, particularly in relation to the UK Professional Standards Framework (PSF 2023). Through conversations, it aims at simulates real-life mentoring scenarios that help participants explore how to effectively support colleagues seeking HEA Fellowship at any level. The game encourages critical engagement with the PSF dimensions while developing mentoring strategies that accommodate a variety of personality traits and communication challenges.
Played in pairs, each round lasts approximately 8–10 minutes and begins with one person acting as the Mentor and the other as the Mentee. The Mentee draws a card that defines a particular personality type—ranging from neutral ("Be Yourself") to more challenging traits like “The Know-it-All” or “The Perfectionist”—and acts accordingly during the conversation. Meanwhile, the Mentor draws a PSF Dimension Card (linked to Areas of Activity, Core Knowledge, or Professional Values), and must navigate the interaction by demonstrating understanding of that dimension while effectively supporting the Mentee’s development. Following the discussion, the pair debriefs together to reflect on the strategies used, challenges faced, and how the PSF was integrated. Roles are then switched, and partners rotate for the next round, ensuring diverse interactions.
Facilitators play a crucial role in preparing the activity. This includes assembling and printing the card decks and ensuring that participants have access to the PSF 2023 framework, either in print or digitally. Participants are briefed on the purpose of the game, which is to practice mentoring within a safe, supportive, and reflective environment, helping them build confidence and skill in handling complex interpersonal situations relevant to academic development.
After multiple rounds, a group reflection is facilitated to identify emerging patterns, share insights about mentoring challenging personalities, and evaluate the relevance of the PSF in mentoring conversations. Participants also consider how this experience can support their own Fellowship applications or academic practice portfolios.
This flexible tool is especially valuable for academic developers but can be adapted for broader contexts such as tutoring training, clinical mentoring, peer coaching, and leadership development. Customisation is encouraged, and feedback is welcomed to refine the resource for diverse institutional needs
CRAD: Cognitive Aware Feature Refinement with missing modalities for early Alzheimer’s progression prediction
Full text linkAccurate diagnosis and early prediction of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) often require multiple neuroimageing modalities, but in many cases, only one or two modalities are available. This missing modality hinders the accuracy of diagnosis and is a critical challenge in clinical practice. Multimodal knowledge distillation (KD) offers a promising solution by aligning complete knowledge from multimodal data with that of partial modalities. However, current methods focus on aligning high-level features, which limit their effectiveness due to insufficient transfer of reliable knowledge. In this work, we propose a novel Consistency Refinement-driven Multi-level Self-Attention Distillation framework (CRAD) for Early Alzheimer’s Progression Prediction, which enables the cross-modal transfer of more robust shallow knowledge with self-attention to refine features. We develop a multi-level distillation module to progressively distill cross-modal discriminating knowledge, enabling lightweight yet reliable knowledge transfer. Moreover, we design a novel self-attention distillation module (PF-CMAD) to transfer disease-relevant intermediate knowledge, which leverages feature self-similarity to capture cross-modal correlations without introducing trainable parameters, enabling interpretable and efficient distillation. We incorporate a consistency-evaluation-driven confidence regularization strategy within the distillation process. This strategy dynamically refines knowledge using adaptive distillation controllers that assess teacher confidence. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that our method achieves superior accuracy and robust cross-dataset generalization performance using only MRI for AD diagnosis and early progression prediction. The code is available at https://github.com/LiuFei-AHU/CRA
Reinventing Stahlstadt – research methods to reimagine steel towns, sustainability and collective geographies
Full text linkIn Jules Verne’s imaginary, Stahlstadt, the city created by Prof. Schultze in “The Begum’s Fortune” (1879) is the evil city “par excellence”: unhealthy, unfair, and based on a warfare economy; its symbol: steel. The idea of the industrial town being dangerous, treacherous, and ruthless, as opposed to the idealistic world of the hygienic city, is one of the cliches of the late XIX century, especially if we see the importance of coal and steel for the European history between 1914 and 1960s. The steel industry has been vital to industrial development and economic growth, but its environmental and health impacts have been significant. In recent years, there has been a growing concern about the sustainability of steel production, particularly in regions where environmental regulations are lax.
This study investigates the relationship between steelworks and geography, with a focus on the city of Taranto in southern Italy. Taranto is home to one of the largest steel mills in Europe, and its proximity to the city has been a source of environmental and health concerns for local residents. The research utilizes data from a recently financed Horizon project that analyses the steel industry’s impact on the environment and public health, with particular reference to non-communicable diseases. The study conducted at UoS focuses on the human geography component and the policy and regulatory framework that has contributed to the sustainability challenges facing the steel industry in Taranto. It highlights the need for stricter environmental regulations and a shift towards more sustainable production processes to ensure the long-term sustainability of the steel industry in the region.
Overall, the main aim is to provide valuable insights into the relationship between steelworks, heritage and geography and highlights the urgent need for action to address the sustainability challenges facing the steel industry in Taranto and other regions
Artificial Intelligence for sustainable agriculture: a comprehensive review of AI-driven technologies in crop production
Full text linkSmart farming leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address modern agricultural sustainability challenges. This study investigates the application of machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and time series analysis in agriculture through a systematic literature review following the PRISMA methodology. The review highlights the critical roles of ML and DL techniques in optimizing agricultural processes, such as crop selection, yield prediction, soil compatibility classification, and water management. ML algorithms facilitate tasks like crop selection and soil fertility classification, while DL techniques contribute to forecasting crop production and commodity prices. Additionally, time series analysis is employed for demand forecasting of crops, commodity price prediction, and forecasting crop yield production. The focus of this article is to provide a comprehensive overview of ML and DL techniques within the farming industry. Utilizing crop datasets, ML algorithms are instrumental in classifying soil fertility, crop selection, and various other aspects. DL algorithms, when applied to farming data, enable effective time series analysis and crop selection. By synthesizing the integration of these technologies, this review underscores their potential to enhance decision-making in agriculture and mitigate food scarcity challenges in the future
LAND-Tractor Duet-A Land Drawing
No full textLAND is a bold and expansive group exhibition showcasing the work of 27 contemporary artists, each engaging with the dynamic and often complex relationship between humans and the natural world. From the reflective to the humorous, from optimism to confrontation, LAND offers a powerful artistic response to the environment through an array of innovative practices.
Curated by Clare Palmier, Director of The Art Station, this multi-site exhibition features a rich mix of media including painting, drawing, video, installation, sound and performance displayed across three unique venues in Suffolk as well as The Old Bank Riverside Garden.
Susan Barnet is exhibiting video documentation of her Tractor Duet – A Land Drawing, a project created as part of Free Range, an art residency at Letheringham Lodge, a medieval moated hunting lodge near Wickham Market, Suffolk. The project presents mark making on a large scale, using a tractor to 'draw' onto the surface of the terrain. This is made visible through drone photography and video and sound recording. The process of drawing was choreographed for two performers, one driving a tractor and one walking, both moving in unison and diverging with each other