Open Research Exeter - University of Exeter
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Feature calibration for computer models
No full textComputer model calibration involves using partial and imperfect observations of the real world to learn which values of a model’s input parameters lead to outputs that are consistent with real-world observations. When trying to calibrate to high-dimensional output (e.g., aspatial field), what is important to the credibility of the model is that key emergent physical phenomena are represented, even if not faithfully or in the right place. Commonly used approaches, which represent the output as a
linear combination of a small set of basis vectors, often fail to appropriately compare model output and data when the position of key emergent phenomena shifts, consequently leading to poor model calibration. To overcome this, we present kernel-based history matching (KHM), generalising the meaning of the technique sufficiently to be able to project model outputs and observations into a higher-dimensional feature space, where patterns can be compared without their location necessarily being fixed. We develop the technical methodology, present an expert-driven kernel selection algorithm, and then apply the techniques to the calibration of boundary layer clouds for the French climate model IPSL-CM
Can gender and race dynamics in performance appraisals be disrupted? The case of social influence
No full textWe document gender and race dynamics in performance evaluations in a multi-national company, examining the impacts of a feature of the performance appraisal process: managers’ knowledge of employees’ self-evaluations. Generally, (White) women were rated higher than men and people of color were rated lower than White employees. Women of color gave themselves the lowest self-ratings. When self-evaluations were unavailable due to a quasi-exogenous shock, manager and self-ratings were less correlated. However, gender and race gaps remained unchanged as managers anchored on previous years’ ratings. Based on suggestive evidence, women of color without an employment history benefitted from their self-ratings not being shared
Probabilistic-Search and Neighbor-Density Based Doppler-Shift Acquisition in Space Communications
No full textIn space communications, the signal’s long-distance transmission between a flying transmitter-receiver pair encounters two obstacles: a huge path-loss and a high-speed movement. The huge path-loss results in a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the high-speed movement brings a dynamic Doppler-shift, thus posing a great challenge for Doppler-shift acquisition. Under the low SNR, the Doppler-shift acquisition has to accumulate many symbols in a long-time period. However, during this period, the dynamic Doppler-shift disperses all these symbols’ total energy over a wide range, thus causing the energy dispersion problem. To address this problem, we propose a probabilistic-search and
neighbor-density (PSND) scheme, where the probabilistic-search considers the element’s amplitude and sacrifices some redundant signal elements for a narrower search-range, while the neighbor-density sums the signal element’s all neighbors for a larger signal energy. The PSND scheme includes two algorithms: the Generic PSND and Iterative PSND. The Generic PSND algorithm first selects some search-elements with their probabilities to construct a probabilistic-search-range, then selects some density-elements with their neighbor-elements to derive the neighbor-densities, and finally searches the largest neighbor-density to obtain the acquisition result. Built upon the Generic PSND algorithm above, the Iterative PSND algorithm iteratively updates the search-elements to further strengthen the neighbor-density in a narrower probabilistic-search-range. Moreover, the simulations results have demonstrated our PSND scheme’s higher acquisition probability, as compared with the existing schemes
The Development of Early Philosophies on Deafness and Hearing Impairment in Western Antiquity and Monotheistic Religion
No full textThis paper examines the evolution of Western knowledge on Deafness and Hearing Impairment (DHI) during antiquity (from Ancient Egypt to the end of the Roman Empire) and the foundation of the three monotheistic religions that effected Western culture: Judaism, Christianity and Islam [N.B. although Islam came after antiquity, it is important to include its part in the epistemological development of DHI as it is argued paper theorizes that it had an equally significant influence on the foundation of knowledge of DHI in Western epistemology]. The research questions that guide this paper are:
How has DHI been understood in Western culture?
How did this conception of DHI effect a general philosophy of mind, and this philosophy of mind influence our knowledge of DHI?
This development of this knowledge is seen as a process that represents an evolution of knowledge and a Western epistemological system of studying DHI as an intellectual concept. The aim of this paper therefore is to examine the Western foundational knowledge on DHI that has created our contemporary understanding of the treatment and cultural attitudes towards people with DHI. The objective of this section is to begin a debate on the guiding concepts of our current research on DHI and to question whether these principles are necessarily helpful in the support of people with hearing impairments in the modern world. The methodology used to examine the knowledge development in this paper is termed the epistemological model of examining Western knowledge development on disability, which is shortened to the epistemological model of disability for convenience (Hayhoe 2016). This epistemological development is identified as coming via what is referred to as an archaeology of knowledge, with each major era of knowledge broken down into discrete eras for convenience, and with each one described as an episteme within this archaeology
Personalised Post-Diagnostic Dementia Support Based In Primary Care: The D-Pact Health Economics Report
No full textThe economic analysis from the D-PACT programme, a two-phase intervention designed to support people with dementia (PwD) took both the NHS and social care perspective, and the broader societal perspective by including productivity losses and transport costs. Data were collected from a single cohort at pre- and post-intervention for D-PACT 1 (Feasibility), and at baseline, 4–6 months, and 9–12 months for D-PACT 2 (Evaluation).
Intervention costs were calculated by including the costs of training, dementia support worker time, and time for supervision, and were estimated on a per-participant basis Any research-related costs were excluded. Health and social care resource use was calculated per PwD (n=126), including dyads of PwD and unpaid carers (n=119) and PwD without carers (n=7). Unit costs were obtained from the PSSRU or from the National Costs Collection for the NHS and were used to estimate the total health care resource use per respondent for each health care professional encounter. Health-related quality of life was self-reported by PwD using the EQ-5D-5L; where self-report was not feasible; caregivers provided responses as proxies. The analysis is descriptive and exploratory, reporting summary statistics (mean and standard deviation) for both costs and utility values at each data collection point.
The total intervention cost per PwD was £1,222.48. For D-PACT 2, healthcare resource use costs increased over time from £1,491.94 at baseline, to £3,453.77 at 4-6 months follow-up, and £4,184.51 at 9-12 months. Meanwhile, utility decreased over time for both PwD and when carer responded as proxies
A synthesis of research into marine small-scale fishers’ operational behaviour
No full textUnderstanding of the current landscape and focus of peer-reviewed research on small-scale fisheries (SSF) operational behaviour is lacking despite its importance for management and guiding future research efforts. To address this knowledge gap, we performed a structured review to synthesise available data in the peer-reviewed literature. Published studies including metrics of SSF behaviour are relatively contemporary, with the first published in 2005 and 87 % (n = 68) published after 2011, and geographically limited, with 78 publications from 41 countries and 74 % of studies (n = 58) focused on SSF in upper-middle and high-income countries. Furthermore, 77 % of studies (n = 60) included ≤ 2 behavioural metrics, providing limited insights into SSF operational behaviour. Nonetheless, the literature review revealed a high degree of variability in fisher behaviour with trips ranging between 2 and 306 km (median = 65 km [IQR ± 76 km], n = 29 studies) and ranging between 1 and 648 hours in duration (median = 16 hrs [IQR ± 63 hrs], n = 32 studies). This variability was influenced by vessel length and the economic classification of a country, with larger vessels and fishers from lower-middle income countries travelling further than fishers in low-income and upper-middle-income countries. This is the first synthesis of peer-reviewed literature that provides insights into research on the operational behaviour of SSF; and reinforces calls for more directed research and improved reporting of behavioural metrics to help generate robust and comparable data to industrial fisheries that will enhance equity in decision-making
Support for hospital doctors’ workplace well-being in England: the Care Under Pressure 3 realist evaluation
No full textINTRODUCTION: The vital role of medical workforce well-being for improving patient experience and population health while assuring safety and reducing costs is recognised internationally. Yet the persistence of poor well-being outcomes suggests that current support initiatives are suboptimal. The aim of this research study was to work with, and learn from, diverse hospital settings to understand how to optimise strategies to improve doctors' well-being and reduce negative impacts on the workforce and patient care. METHODS: Realist evaluation consistent with the Realist And Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards (RAMESES) II quality standards. Realist interviews (n=124) with doctors, well-being intervention implementers/practitioners and leaders in eight hospital settings (England) were analysed using realist logic. RESULTS: There were four key findings, underpinned by 21 context-mechanism-outcome configurations: (1) solutions needed to align with problems, to support doctor well-being and avoid harm to doctors; (2) doctors needed to be involved in creating solutions to their well-being problems; (3) doctors often did not know what support was available to help them with well-being problems and (4) there were physical and psychological barriers to accessing well-being support. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Doctors are mandated to 'first, do no harm' to their patients, and the same consideration should be extended to doctors themselves. Since doctors can be harmed by poorly designed or implemented well-being interventions, new approaches need careful planning and evaluation. Our research identified many ineffective or harmful interventions that could be stopped. The findings are likely transferable to other settings and countries, given the realist approach leading to principles and causal explanations
Quantifying tipping behavior: Geometric early warnings and quasipotentials for a box model of AMOC
No full textA non-autonomous system can undergo a rapid change of state in response to a small or slow change in forcing, due to the presence of nonlinear processes that give rise to critical transitions or tipping points. Such transitions are thought possible in various subsystems (tipping elements) of the Earth’s climate system. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is considered a particular tipping element where models of varying complexity have shown the potential for bi-stability and tipping. We consider both transient and stochastic forcing of a simple but data-adapted model of the AMOC. We propose and test a geometric early warning signal to predict whether tipping will occur for large transient forcing, based on the dynamics near an edge state. For stochastic forcing, we quantify mean times between noise-induced tipping in the presence of stochastic forcing using an Ordered Line Integral Method of Cameron (2017) to estimate the quasipotential. We calculate minimum action paths between stable states for various scenarios. Finally, we discuss the problem of finding early warnings in the presence of both transient and stochastic forcing
Towards a sociology of healthcare robots
No full textWe propose a sociological approach to healthcare robots that emphasises the heterogeneous ethics of mutual labour and the complex definitions of care that emerge through robot design/deployment. This argument is the product of a narrative literature review that examined assistive robots deployed in care settings. We found that although the deployment of healthcare robots has redefined the concept of care, as featured in geography, legal studies, and philosophy, it rarely appears in sociological inquiry. There are three fields that this approach to a sociology of health and illness complements. These are (1) phenomenology and the new approaches to touch and recognition in embodied relations with robots, (2) biopolitics, where the governance of life is conceptualised as a conjunction between the biological and artificial and (3) the reconfiguration of healthcare labour around mutuality, where robots both maintain and are maintained by the human. We end by suggesting that the increased implementation of robotics into care work provides a broader sociological opportunity for addressing how boundaries of ‘human’ can be rethought alongside new healthcare technologies
Recognising and protecting the national benefit of sustainable fisheries in the UK
No full textSustainable commercial fishing makes valuable contributions to coastal regions and broader national benefits. This paper offers three arguments in relation to what is required for the societal benefits of sustainable fisheries to be fully realised and considers each in the context of the UK but with global relevance. First, there is a need to raise the profile of the full range of benefits that are delivered through sustainable fisheries to coastal communities and the broader public. In the UK, the delivery of a ‘national benefit’ objective through fisheries is now enshrined in law by the Fisheries Act, 2020; we operationalise this through a new framing that distils eight ‘national benefits’ that all sustainable fisheries should deliver. Second, better acknowledgement of what society gains from sustainable fisheries must be paralleled with recognition of what society is simultaneously at risk of losing through the decline of the fishing fleet. We detail this decline in a new analysis of long-term UK data, which highlights that the decline is unequally felt, with some regions of the UK, and small-scale fishing sectors, experiencing loss more acutely. This reality leads us to argue a third point, that if society is to retain and truly harness the benefits that flow from sustainable fisheries, governing bodies must act quickly to ensure that fisheries are environmentally sustainable, diverse and inclusive, pursuing fisheries that ‘leave no one behind’