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Region-aware prediction strategy based on shared points and multiple scales for dynamic multi-objective optimization
No full textThe file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.In dynamic multi-objective optimization problems, effectively predicting and tracking the Pareto optimal front (POF) under environmental changes has been one of the core challenges. In this paper, we propose a region-aware prediction strategy based on shared points and multiple scales (RADMOEA) that combines global and local characteristics, aiming to enhance the algorithm’s ability to sense and adapt to POF. Firstly, the center-point movement strategy is used to move the non-dominated solution set from the previous moment to obtain the non-dominated solution set after the movement. The actual non-dominated solution set at the current moment and the non-dominated solution set after the movement share points in the objective space, and these shared points divide the non-dominated solution set at the current moment into several subregions. Within each region, all individuals are appropriately rescaled, and a local coordinate system is established. Then, within the local coordinate system, each individual is associated with the nearest post-movement non-dominated individual. Finally, new populations adapted to environmental changes are generated by combining centroid movement directions, Gaussian perturbations, and multi-scale individual association relationships. The proposed strategy is compared with six advanced algorithms, and the experimental results demonstrate that RADMOEA is effective in tracking the POF under dynamic environments
Improving Access and Recruitment to Clinical Trials for Lung Cancer Patients: A Multi-Phase, Qualitative Focus Group and Co-Production Study
No full textopen access articleAim
To design and develop a novel co-produced intervention tool aimed at facilitating discussions that lung cancer nurses have with lung cancer patients about clinical trial opportunities; and promote trial recruitment.
Design
A multi-phase qualitative focus group (phase 1) and co-production (phase 2) study.
Methods
The rigorous design and content of the intervention tool was informed by qualitative data from seven focus groups with lung cancer healthcare professionals (n = 38) and patients and their carers (n = 22) to establish barriers and facilitators to clinical trial participation. Data collection took place across England and Scotland between October and December 2023. Findings from a previously published systematic review were also incorporated to inform intervention tool design. The tool was developed through an extended co-production workshop comprising lung cancer nurses (n = 7), lung cancer patients (n = 2) and health researchers (n = 4). The COM-B model of behavioural change underpinned both phases of the project to guide tool development.
Results
Phase 1 focus groups identified the need for a tool to provide basic trial information to patients, and to support lung cancer nurses in discussing trials with patients, thus improving nurses' knowledge, confidence, and awareness of trials. The phase 2 coproduction workshop identified that the tool should consist of two elements: a patient-facing information pamphlet and a large poster for nurses to assist them in discussing trial opportunities.
Conclusion
The study results demonstrate how nurses can be supported to discuss clinical trial opportunities with patients, with the potential to increase long-term recruitment to clinical trials
Integrating Personalized Individual Semantics and Consistency Control to Support Consensus Reaching in 2-Rank Group Decision Making
Get PDFThe file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Traditional group decision making (GDM) problems typically aim to obtain a complete ranking of all considered alternatives from best to worst. However, in numerous real-life scenarios, there are instances where it is imperative to assign each alternative into one of two rank levels, creating a ranking where one subset of alternatives is prioritized above the other subset of alternatives. These scenarios are known as 2-rank GDM problems. While a range of methods exist for addressing 2-rank GDM problems, most are specifically tailored to multiattribute decision making situations, thereby limiting their applicability in scenarios involving preference relations. The linguistic preference relation (LPR) is an effective representation tool of decision makers’ (DMs’) preferences for pairwise comparisons of alternatives using linguistic terms. Since words may have different meanings for different DMs, a phenomenon known as personalized individual semantics (PISs), the modeling of linguistic PISs in 2-rank GDM problems with LPRs is worth investigating and challenging to address. Consequently, this article develops models to support consensus reaching for 2-rank linguistic GDM problems with PISs and consistency of DMs. Specifically, PIS consistency-driven models are initially employed to measure and improve the consistency of the LPRs of the individual DMs with unacceptable consistency level. Based on this foundation, the 2-rank vectors for both individuals and the group are determined. Subsequently, a 2-rank consensus measurement method is proposed on which a 2-rank consensus reaching process is designed to support DMs in improving their consensus levels. This involves the development of a PISs-based minimum adjustment consensus optimization model and a PISs-based individual consensus level maximization model. An algorithm to implement the proposed consensus reaching framework is also provided. Finally, numerical experiments and simulation results are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method
The PMDWell framework: A confirmatory factor analysis of video game players’ wellbeing
Get PDFopen access articleDespite the video game moral panics that have sprung up since the early 1990s, videogames remain a popular medium, increasing in capacity and market value every year. With the growth in the number of digital game players came the growth of uncertainty over the impacts of video games on wellbeing. The new generations are growing upsurrounded by ubiquitous, always-available digital technology and increasingly practice digitally mediated socialisation. The cultural shift suggests a change in the conceptualisation of wellbeing that can explain the phenomena of video game playing deaths.
A Player Multidimensional Wellbeing scale (PMDWell) is presented. The scale was derived from a conceptual framework drawn from existing literature on video game specific influences on wellbeing, and tested of 443 participants aged 13 to 65 worldwide. Teenagers were included due to the prevalence of gamers in the younger population. The scale constructs were validated using confirmatory factor analyses, ranging from good to excellent model fits, validity and reliability. We concluded that player wellbeing is a multidimensional construct with internal (social functioning, mental health) and external (physical health, life circumstances) dimensions.
Compared to other measures of wellbeing, PMDWell offers a broader understanding of wellbeing in the digital era that can be used to promote and maintain good health and perhaps highlight the lifestyle changes needed to optimise wellbeing and improve mental health. Future research could seek to replicate our validation in wider populations to enable demographic comparisons, especially comparing adolescents and young adults
An enhanced spatial-temporal graph convolution network with high order features for skeleton-based action recognition
Get PDFopen access articleSkeleton-based action recognition has emerged as a promising field within computer vision, offering structured representations of human motion. While existing Graph Convolutional Network (GCN)-based approaches primarily rely on raw 3D joint coordinates, these representations fail to capture higher-order spatial and temporal dependencies critical for distinguishing fine-grained actions. In this study, we introduce novel geometric features for joints, bones, and motion streams, including multi-level spatial normalization, higher-order temporal derivatives, and bone-structure encoding through lengths, angles, and anatomical distances. These enriched features explicitly model kinematic and structural relationships, enabling the capture of subtle motion dynamics and discriminative patterns. Building on this, we propose two architectures: (i) an Enhanced Multi-Stream AGCN (EMS-AGCN) that integrates joint, bone, and motion features via a weighted fusion at the final layer, and (ii) a Multi-Branch AGCN (MB-AGCN) where features are processed in independent branches and fused adaptively at an early layer. Comprehensive experiments on the NTU-RGB+D 60 benchmark demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach: EMS-AGCN achieves 96.2% accuracy and MB-AGCN attains 95.5%, both surpassing state-of-the-art methods. These findings confirm that incorporating higher-order geometric features alongside adaptive fusion mechanisms substantially improves skeleton-based action recognition
PCE-GAN: A Generative Adversarial Network for Point Cloud Attribute Quality Enhancement based on Optimal Transport
Get PDFThe file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Point cloud compression significantly reduces data volume but sacrifices reconstruction quality, highlighting the need for advanced quality enhancement techniques. Most existing
approaches focus primarily on point-to-point fidelity, often neglecting the importance of perceptual quality as interpreted by the human visual system. To address this issue, we propose a generative adversarial network for point cloud quality enhancement (PCE-GAN), grounded in optimal transport theory, with the goal of simultaneously optimizing both data fidelity and perceptual quality. The generator consists of a local feature extraction (LFE) unit, a global spatial correlation (GSC) unit and a feature squeeze unit. The LFE unit uses dynamic graph construction and a graph attention mechanism to efficiently extract local features, placing greater emphasis on points with severe distortion. The GSC unit uses the geometry information of neighboring patches to construct an extended local neighborhood and introduces a transformer-style structure to capture long-range global correlations. The discriminator computes the deviation between the probability distributions of the enhanced point cloud and the original point cloud, guiding the generator to achieve high quality
reconstruction. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves state-of-the-art performance. Specifically, when applying PCE-GAN to the latest geometry-based point cloud compression (G-PCC) test model, it achieves an average BD-rate of -19.2% compared with the PredLift coding configuration and -18.3% compared with the RAHT coding configuration. Subjective comparisons show a significant improvement in texture clarity and color transitions, revealing finer details and more natural color gradients
Numerical Investigation of Thermal Performance in Liquid Cooling Serpentine Mini-Channel Heat Sink with Various Inlet/Outlet Positions
Get PDFopen access articleThis study aims to investigate and optimize the thermal dissipation of a constant heat flux source by conducting a numerical analysis of four serpentine mini-channel heat sink configurations, each characterized by different inlet and outlet arrangements for the cooling fluid. The cooling system under study consists of an upper part made of ABS copolymer resin, incorporating the fluid inlets and outlets (water), and a lower part made of aluminum, which contains the serpentine mini-channel heat sink. The analyzed configurations included four cases: First: a single inlet and a single outlet, Second: two inlets and one outlet, Third: one inlet and two outlets, and Fourth: a variation of the third model with reversed inlet and outlet positions. Numerical simulations, performed using the finite volume method, cover a Reynolds number range from 200 to 600. The analysis focuses on flow behavior, temperature distributions, pressure drop, thermal resistance, the average Nusselt number and the performance evaluation factor (PEF). The results indicate that the configurations with two inlets and one outlet (Case 2) and the reversed inlet/outlet configuration (Case 4) significantly enhance cooling compared to the other configurations. However, the two-inlet, one-outlet case also results in a higher pressure drop. At a Reynolds number of 600, Case 2 achieves the best thermal performance with an average Nusselt number of 20.79 and a minimum thermal resistance of 0.228K/W, while Case 3 exhibits the lowest efficiency. These findings help identify optimal configurations for cooling high heat flux electronic components
Authenticating Basil (Ocimum spp.): An Integrated Quality Control Strategy
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Collaboration between:
Biomolecular Technology Group, Leicester School of Allied Health Science, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
Plant Biology and Systematics, CSIR—Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Research Centre, Bengaluru 560065, India
Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad 201002, India
Phytochemistry Division, CSIR—Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow 226015, India
Leicester School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UKStandardisation is essential to ensure the quality, efficacy, and safety of basil oil products. Although Ocimum basilicum L. is the most widely traded species, other Ocimum species are often sold under the same name, increasing the risk of misidentification and adulteration. Intraspecific variation in morphology and chemical composition further complicates standardisation, highlighting the need for a comprehensive authentication strategy. This study evaluates genetic, chemical, and morphological methods for the authentication of commercial basil accessions to support accurate species identification and product standardisation. Samples were analysed using DNA barcoding (matK, trnH-psbA, rbcL, rpl16), GC-MS-based chemical profiling, and trichome characterisation via scanning electron microscopy. Phylogenetic analysis placed all commercial samples within a broad clade encompassing O. basilicum, its hybrids, and related species. Species-specific single nucleotide variations in matK and trnH-psbA supported the identification of distinct accessions. Notably, liquorice basil showed genetic similarities to non-basilicum species, suggesting the need to revisit its classification. Chemical profiling revealed substantial variation in essential oil composition, with some samples dominated by linalool and eugenol, and others by methyl chavicol, raising potential safety concerns. Morphological analysis further highlighted differences in trichome density, particularly in the blue spice variety. The findings underscore the limitations of using a single method for basil authentication and advocate for an integrated approach. DNA barcoding supports species identification, while chemical profiling is essential for chemotype differentiation. Developing reliable DNA markers and incorporating combined analyses into routine quality control can strengthen industry standards for natural product authentication
Effectuation in Crisis: How Displaced Women Entrepreneurs Adapt Strategies for Sustainable Business in Ethiopia
No full textopen access article
Developing Resilience and Enterprising Opportunities for Internally Displaced and Migrant Women in Ethiopia and Zambia (DREO4WEZ)This study investigates how displaced women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia’s fragile institutional environment apply effectuation principles to sustain their businesses. Through analysis of five effectuation dimensions, we find that while affordable loss strategies and means orientation enhance business resilience, traditional effectuation approaches like partnership formation and rigid control mechanisms often prove ineffective in displacement contexts. This research makes three key contributions: first, it extends effectuation theory by identifying how institutional fragility fundamentally alters the utility of entrepreneurial strategies; second, it reveals displaced women’s innovative adaptations through informal networks and risk-minimising approaches; and third, it challenges universal applications of effectuation principles in crisis settings.
This study contributes to sustainable entrepreneurship by demonstrating both the relevance and constraints of effectuation theory in crisis-affected environments. It underscores the importance of flexible, resourceful strategies for women entrepreneurs navigating systemic challenges, offering insights for policymakers and support organisations. Practical implications include designing capacity-building programmes that promote adaptive strategies, such as risk management and resource optimisation, while addressing the challenges of partnerships and rigid control mechanisms. By aligning with the goals of sustainable development, this research not only highlights the potential of effectuation principles but also unravels their limitations, providing a nuanced understanding of how entrepreneurial strategies can foster resilient livelihoods and sustainable economic practices in crisis-affected regions
A Critical Evaluation of the Customary Justice System in Nigeria: A Human Rights Approach for Integration
No full textThis thesis critically evaluates the traditional justice system (TJS) in Nigeria from a human rights perspective, with the overarching aim of determining its potential for meaningful integration into the formal justice system (FJS) to enhance access to justice. Although traditional justice mechanisms are widely recognised and utilised across Nigeria, they are not statutorily codified or formally legislated as in other jurisdictions such as Ghana. Their existence and legitimacy derive from historical continuity, social acceptance, and judicial recognition, rather than from constitutional enactment. This research examines how such systems function in practice, their relationship with state law, and their capacity to uphold fundamental rights and legal standards.
At the heart of this research lies a normative and empirical inquiry into whether the TJS, in its current form and practice, upholds or undermines fundamental human rights, and how it may be reimagined to promote a more inclusive, responsive, and equitable justice system. Adopting a human rights-based approach (HRBA) as the primary analytical lens, the study centres on core principles such as participation, accountability, non-discrimination, equality, empowerment, and the rule of law to interrogate the compliance of traditional justice practices with regional and international human rights principles, especially concerning equality, due process, and protection of vulnerable populations. These principles serve both as evaluative criteria and as normative goals for justice reform.
The research draws on qualitative fieldwork conducted in eleven communities (Egi clan, Rivers Sate, Owerri, Isiala Mbano, Mbaise, Obowu in Imo State and Enugu and Nsukka in Enugu State and Ibadan, Ogbomoso in Oyo State, Ife in Osun State and Egba clan in Abeokuta, Ogun state) of Nigeria between April and June 2022. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 60 participants, including traditional rulers, chiefs, elders, youths, members of customary courts and councils, women leaders, legal practitioners, and human rights experts. The study focused on gathering rich empirical data on the structure, process, values, and perceived legitimacy of the eleven selected traditional justice systems. These data were analysed using a triangulated approach, combining qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis, to assess perceptions of justice, fairness, procedural safeguards, and access to remedies within the TJS, especially for women, children, persons with disabilities, and marginalised groups.
Findings indicate that traditional justice institutions are often the first and only recourse for dispute resolution for many Nigerians, particularly in areas where the formal legal system is physically, financially, or culturally inaccessible. These systems are valued for their participatory nature, proximity, flexibility, speed, and rootedness in local norms. However, significant human rights concerns persist. These include gender-based discrimination, lack of procedural safeguards, limited opportunities for appeal or redress, exclusion of women and youth from dispute settlement roles, and the absence of formal oversight or accountability mechanisms. In many cases, TJS practices conflict with constitutional guarantees of equality and international human rights obligations under instruments such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), both of which Nigeria has ratified.
Despite these tensions, the study demonstrates that traditional justice systems are not inherently incompatible with human rights norms. Rather, it offers a culturally resonant and socially legitimate foundation upon which human rights principles can be localised and operationalized. The research advocates for a transformative approach that does not seek to abolish or assimilate the TJS into the formal system, but rather to strengthen its legitimacy, capacity, and compliance with human rights through institutional reform, capacity building, legal education, and participatory dialogue. This includes the development of human rights-aligned traditional justice standards, community-led monitoring mechanisms, gender-sensitive training for traditional adjudicators, and formalised interfaces between the traditional and formal systems without eroding their indigenous foundations.
This thesis contributes original empirical insights and theoretical reflections to legal scholarship. First, it generates original empirical data on the structure and function of TJS in Nigeria, filling a significant gap in academic and policy literature. Second, it deepens understanding of how plural legal systems operate in postcolonial African states, particularly that where customary law is recognised but not constitutionally entrenched, thereby contributing to ongoing debates on justice reform, legal modernisation, and postcolonial legal transformation in pluralist societies. Finally, it challenges binary assumptions that place traditional and formal systems in opposition, recommending instead for an integrated, rights-respecting, and contextually grounded justice framework that would enhance legal pluralism in Nigeria in a manner that promotes access to justice, protects fundamental rights, and affirms legal diversity.
In conclusion, this thesis advocates for a reimagined justice system that embraces the lived realities of its people, acknowledges reforms, and integrates the traditional justice system through a human-based approach. It argues that bridging the divide between state and traditional justice institutions is essential for promoting a more inclusive, equitable, and culturally relevant access to justice in Nigeria. By aligning traditional practices with regional and international human rights standards, the research highlights the potential for a pluralist justice model that enhances legal empowerment, democratic governance, and social cohesion. The study ultimately calls for a shift in perspective of viewing justice not as a solely state driven mechanism, but as a participatory process rooted in the lived realities, dignity, and rights of all Nigerians
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