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To Sit In A Box Can Only Mean Death
No full textFACE - (Fashion Academics Creating Equity)
FACE MISSION STATEMENT
FACE is a not-for profit organisation dedicated to catalysing transformation within Higher Education Arts and Design fields, and the creative industries. Our mission is to champion equity, inclusivity and unity, with a specific focus on addressing issues related to race, colour, and ethnicity.
We believe in interrogating the euro-centric gaze and exploring the etymology of fashion, identity, colonisation and neo-colonisation to disrupt norms and foster progressive dialogue, thus facilitating a landscape where diversity is normalised and celebrated. We commit to amplifying marginalised voices through collaborative efforts and unwavering advocacy. We will inspire, educate, and empower individuals within academic and industry spheres to dismantle systemic barriers, fostering a more equitable and harmonious future for all.
https://www.weareface.uk/about-usHair, Identity & Representation in Fashion and Textile Education
To sit in a box can only mean death.
Artwork presented by Davina Hawthorne forms part of an ongoing collaborative project with FACE (Fashion Academics and the Arts Creating Equity) and the Horniman Museum that explores personal narratives attached to hair from Black, Brown and Asian perspectives within the UK. Both students and academics create works examining Black, Brown, and Asian hair narratives, centering racialised experiences.
To sit a box can only mean death is underpinned by social, political, historical and cultural research around race, beauty standards and Black hair discrimination. Upcycling of materials (hair) and self - portraits (selfies) are hand embroidered into words, used and reused, collaged and digitised to create new meaning, context and visual abstraction for fashion and textiles.
Question’s
1. How and why are hair stories from Black, Brown and Asian perspectives important and how can these stories be expanded and incorporated within fashion and textile industry and education?
2. How are we perpetuating western beauty standards and why is this important within history, society and culture within the context of fashion and textile industry and education?
Davina is interested in how her research and collaboration can be incorporated within her own practice as curator, educator, researcher and designer and how these can be interlinked to inform each other.
Student space: FACE x Horniman - Student Space - Horniman Museum and Gardens
Academic space: FACE X Horniman: Academic Space - Horniman Museum and Gardens
FACE Our stories: About 1 — FAC
The CAPS Project Report: Building Resilience Within Leicester Communities
No full textThe Community, Academic and Public Service (CAPS) research project examined how local and national government policies influence efforts to create a safe, inclusive and sustainable Leicester, aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). Conducted between May and July 2025 by researchers at De Montfort University, the study gathered perspectives from community leaders, public sector stakeholders and DMU academics through surveys and semi-structured interviews to identify policy impacts, challenges, opportunities and research priorities.
Findings highlight strong cross-sector commitment to collaboration and policy engagement, but reveal a persistent gap between policy intent and implementation. Key challenges include housing insecurity, health inequalities, digital exclusion, limited culturally responsive services, fragmented governance and short-term funding cycles. Stakeholders emphasised the importance of systems-thinking approaches, equitable participation in policymaking and stronger cross-sector partnerships to address interconnected issues spanning housing, health, education, environment and community safety.
The project identifies opportunities for co-produced research partnerships that integrate academic expertise with community knowledge to inform evidence-based policymaking. Its longer-term aim is to develop collaborative thematic research groups that can generate robust evidence to support Leicester’s ambition to become a resilient, equitable and sustainable city, while contributing to national and international urban sustainability agendas
Synthesis and characterisation of fluorescent FITC-insulin glulisine conjugates for insulin delivery
No full textDrug development and its delivery have always been a pioneering area of research for the application and understanding of modern bioanalytical problems. The biodistribution of the drug, along with its stability and metabolism within biological systems, has been of prime importance in pharmaceutical drug development and research. The study carried out in this thesis aimed to evaluate novel fluorescent conjugates synthesised from commercially available rapid-acting insulin glulisine (Apidra®) and the fluorescent dye FITC (Fluorescein Isothiocyanate) for comparison with the biological activity of native insulin glulisine. The first objective of the study was to produce a single-labelled fluorescent-insulin conjugate (FITC-insulin glulisine), achieved without using any lengthy and expensive procedures involving protective groups for selective tagging and multi-step processes. The next objective was to study the stability of the insulin glulisine conjugate in several formulations at different temperatures (4oC, 20oC and 37oC) to assess appropriate storage temperature and shelf life without compromising its composition and biological activity. Thirdly, the biological activity of the FITC-insulin glulisine conjugate was studied and compared to that of native insulin glulisine. The formation of the desired mono-labelled conjugate was confirmed by MALDI-TOF mass spectroscopy, which identified the mass of the conjugate and the label position. Additional further conjugation analysis was conducted using Attenuated total reflectance Fourier Transform Infra-Red (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. Further studies were conducted by assessing the lyophilic/hydrophilic nature of the synthesised FITC-insulin glulisine mono-labelled conjugate in octanol: water systems to ascertain its physical properties. A separate study examined the role of EDTA in chelating zinc from human insulin to assess what impact this has on producing FITC-human insulin conjugates labelled at B1.
Experiments involved several parameters being examined with changing molar ratio altered from 1:1 to 3:1 and reaction time spanning from 18 hours to 24 hours with a pH of 7 to achieve the desired B1 mono-labelled FITC-insulin glulisine conjugate and this was successfully achieved at a reaction time of 18 hours at pH 7 with a molar ratio of 2:1. The B1 mono species was confirmed by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry analysis with a molecular weight of 6207.7 Da for the mono labelled insulin glulisine conjugate. Mass spectroscopy fragmentation studies determined FITC was attached with the b-ion peak for FITC-Phenylalanine (N-terminus of Chain B) at m/z = 537.11 (FITC- MW- 389 g/mol and phenylalanine -MW- 165 g/mol) which confirms the position of conjugation at the first amino acid of the β-chain at position B1 (phenylalanine). The stability of the B1 labelled FITC-insulin glulisine conjugate was studied at temperatures of 4oC, 20oC and 37oC and extended stability of the B1 labelled conjugate was found in the Diluting Fluid (DF) stored at 4°C over the 56-day study period, suggesting excipients support the integrity of the FITC-insulin glulisine conjugate. On the other hand, Distilled Water (DW) at 37°C showed the least stability over the same study period. The biological activity experiments conducted on the FITC-insulin glulisine conjugate using western blot analysis confirmed pAKT and IRS tyrosine activity and the confocal microscopy analysis showed the GLUT4 translocation comparable to the native insulin glulisine. This biological activity study proved that the mono B1 conjugate showed similar biological activity and successfully translocated GLUT4 in the insulin signalling pathway, identical to native insulin glulisine, making it potentially useful in many biological and pharmaceutical applications. Native insulin glulisine, FITC and synthesised FITC-insulin glulisine conjugate were subjected to various analytical procedures for the -ATR -FTIR measurements to prove the successful conjugation of the fluorescent FITC to the native insulin glulisine without compromising the secondary structure of the insulin and the disappearance of the original isothiocyanate peak present for FITC at 2050 cm-1 was not found in the conjugate and formation of an additional peak for thiourea at 1395 cm-1 affirmed the conjugation. In other experiments human insulin (Actrapid®) was fluorescent-labelled with FITC at various EDTA concentrations ranging from 0mM to 2.4mM, which resulted in different chromatograms, reflecting varying percentages of the mono-labelled conjugate (A1 or B1) and di-labelled conjugate (A1B1) formation. At lower concentrations of EDTA, only the B1 mono-labelled FITC-insulin conjugate was produced, but beyond a crucial threshold of 0.2 mM EDTA, the di-labelled A1B1 conjugate began to form, with a 40% decrease in the mono-labelled conjugate at an EDTA concentration of 0.8 mM. Therefore, this EDTA study demonstrates that up to 0.2 mM EDTA enables optimal monoB1 labelling. A partitioning study on FITC-insulin glulisine conjugate compared to native insulin glulisine in an Octanol: water system demonstrated that the slow stirring method of mixing of the reaction mixture was favourable for the experiment and the logP values obtained for commercial insulin glulisine was -1.95 while the pure FITC logP value was determined to be 5.25, while the conjugated FITC-insulin glulisine had the logP value of -0.197 confirming the lipophilic influence of the fluorescein conjugation.
This thesis demonstrates a streamlined and efficient protocol for FITC labelling of insulin glulisine established under mild conditions (pH 7, 2:1 FITC-to-insulin glulisine molar ratio, 18 h reaction time), achieving near complete yield without the need for protecting groups or multi-step synthesis. The resulting mono-labelled insulin glulisine (monoB1) retains full biological activity, including effective GLUT4 translocation via the insulin signalling pathway, comparable to native insulin. This approach offers a robust and simplified method for generating fluorescently conjugated insulin glulisine suitable for diverse biological and pharmaceutical applications, particularly in insulin delivery research
Mentoring Music Teachers in the secondary school
No full textMentoring Music Teachers in the Secondary School helps mentors of trainee and newly qualified music teachers in both developing their own mentoring skills and providing the essential guidance their beginning teachers need as they navigate the roller-coaster of the first years of teaching. Offering tried and tested strategies based on research and evidence, this book covers the knowledge, skills, understanding, and practical tools every mentor needs.
This book is a vital source of support and inspiration for mentors involved in developing the next generation of outstanding music education teachers. Key topics explained include:
What is meant by mentoring
What a mentor does
Supporting specific aspects of beginning music teachers’ knowledge, skills, and understanding
Moving beginning music teachers on in their professional practice
Filled with key tools for the mentor’s individual development, this essential text offers an accessible guide to mentoring early career music education teachers with ready-to-use strategies that support and inspire both mentors and beginning teachers alike
Explainable Ensemble Learning For Obesity Risk Prediction And Personalized Guidance
No full textThis study presents an explainable machine learning-based framework for predicting and personalizing obesity levels as a multiclass problem. A UCI dataset of 2,111 records collected from Colombia, Peru, and Mexico with 16 input features was used to build the model. After imputation, encoding, scaling, outlier winsorization, and data class rebalancing with SMOTE NC using a uniform pipeline structure, we benchmarked Logistic Regression, SVM, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Extra Trees, XGBoost, LightGBM, CatBoost, MLP, and similar learners, and ensembled the best three learners in a soft voting metaclassifier. On stratified five-fold evaluation with a held-out test data split, the final ensemble reached 99.75% accuracy and a 0.9942 macro F1 score with ROC AUC (one vs. rest) > 0.99 across all classes. Global and local explanation techniques (SHAP and LIME) showed that the reasons for the predictions were consistent with known risk factors and highlighted the role of BMI, family history, physical activity, water consumption, vegetable intake, and high-calorie diet as relevant risk drivers. Model accuracy did not vary significantly across the gender and age groups analyzed. Overall, the proposed framework not only achieves high prediction accuracy but also the reasons for risk and classification are transparent and human-intuitive, making it particularly suited for communicating individual risks and tailoring lifestyle interventions in clinical and digital healthcare use cases
Algorithm 1060: EDOLAB, a platform for education and experimentation in evolutionary dynamic optimization
No full textopen access articleMany real-world optimization problems exhibit dynamic characteristics, posing significant challenges for traditional optimization methods. Evolutionary Dynamic Optimization Algorithms (EDOAs) have been developed to address these challenges by adapting to changing environments over time. However, the reproducibility and consistency of experimental results in the literature remain limited due to the lack of publicly available source codes and the complexity of accurately re-implementing algorithms and performance evaluation protocols. To support the community, we introduce Evolutionary Dynamic Optimization LABoratory (EDOLAB), an open source MATLAB platform designed for both research and educational purposes. EDOLAB includes 27 EDOAs, four highly configurable benchmark generators, and a growing suite of performance indicators. The platform supports full parameter tuning, batch experiment management, parallel execution, and automated statistical comparisons—including rankings, significance testing, box plots, and performance trend visualizations over time. An educational application allows users to observe: (a) dynamic changes in a 2D problem landscape, (b) the movement of individuals in response to these changes, and (c) the ability of an algorithm to track moving optima. By providing an integrated environment for experimentation, benchmarking, and instructional use, EDOLAB promotes reproducibility, comparative analysis, and a deeper understanding of EDOAs in dynamic environments
A Systematic Literature Review of Passenger Non-Adoption of Airport Self-Service Technologies: Issues and Future Recommendations
No full textopen access articl
An investigation into the opportunities and challenges of strategically implementing successful WTO Accession for LDCs: A case study of Afghanistan
Get PDFThis doctoral thesis critically explores the strategic implementation of successful World Trade Organization (WTO) accession for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), using Afghanistan as a case study. The study adopts a governmental lens, applying strategic planning and strategic implementation theories to identify and analyze the opportunities and challenges inherent in executing a successful WTO accession process. While the existing literature primarily emphasizes the technical aspects and negotiations of accession, it seldom addresses the crucial stages of strategic implementation. Different LDCs approach the accession process with varied methodologies, yet the research reveals that the most successful candidates are those that effectively navigate all three stages: pre-accession, the negotiation phase (actual accession process), and post-accession. This research aims to bridge the identified gap by proposing a conceptual framework that integrates coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures drawn from institutional theory (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Given that institutional theory has been extensively used as a foundational reference in contemporary organizational theory (Greenwood and Suddaby, 2008), it serves as a crucial analytical tool in understanding the dynamics of WTO accession for LDCs. These countries, however, face significant internal challenges, including poverty, political instability, scarce resources, corruption, and bureaucratic inefficiencies. These factors render the WTO accession process a formidable task for LDC governments, posing the
research question: What are the opportunities and challenges of strategically implementing successful WTO accession for LDCs?
To answer this question, the study employs a qualitative research methodology grounded in inductive reasoning. Primary data were collected through elite interviews with experts and government officials deeply involved in WTO accession. The analysis employed various qualitative methods, including content analysis, narrative analysis, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the data. The findings reveal that the accession process can be categorized into three main phases, each presenting both opportunities and challenges, including political involvement, technical capacity building, negotiations, and the need for technical assistance. As a significant contribution to the field, this study proposes a holistic model for WTO accession that has practical, theoretical, and policy implications. This model not only aids current and future acceding countries but also serves as a foundation for further scholarly exploration. The research provides substantial contributions to the discourse on LDC accession to the WTO by examining
both the procedural and strategic aspects, thus offering actionable insights for policymakers, international organizations, and academic researchers alike.
In summary, this doctoral research advances theoretical and practical knowledge of WTO accession processes for LDCs, emphasizing the importance of strategic planning and implementation. The findings and model proposed here hold significant implications for the
acceding countries, WTO members, the private sector, and academic circles
A Techno-Economic Investigation on Insulating Glass Solar Thermal Flat-Plate Collectors for District Heating Systems in Europe
No full textInstitute of new Energy SystemsTechnische Hochschule IngolstadtThe large-scale integration of solar thermal collector arrays into district heating networks has emerged as a global trend with the objective of decarbonising heating supply. To accelerate the expansion of this renewable heating technology, it is advantageous to achieve significantly lower heat generation costs compared to fossil fuel-based alternatives. However, over the past decades, this has not been the case when considering the long-term averages. Furthermore, the subsidisation undertaken to compete with fossil-based heating systems and the financial risks associated with high upfront investment demonstrates the need to enhance cost-effectiveness.
This study investigates the techno-economic performance of novel insulating glass flat-plate collectors compared to market-available collector types for European solar district heating systems. These collectors combine insulating glass unit manufacturing technology with the design principles of conventional flat-plate solar thermal collectors. While the concept was introduced more than a decade ago, the focus was on domestic use rather than large-scale applications. This thesis presents a novel design created specifically for this application. However, its performance and economic viability in large-scale district heating applications have not yet been thoroughly assessed.
The aim of this thesis is to address this gap through a combination of theoretical and experimental analyses both on component level and system level. A literature review was conducted to identify previous research findings in the field, followed by numerical modelling and optimisation of the collectors. Experimental investigations include the production of prototypes, thermal performance measurements, and durability assessments. In addition, key system-level performance indicators were evaluated, and a techno-economic analysis was carried out to compare the potential heat generation costs of the novel collectors with conventional systems.
The findings indicate that the novel insulating glass solar collectors exhibit competitive performance, demonstrating a relative efficiency increase of 10% in comparison to the average of conventional collectors. However, at the system level, this advantage is partially offset by additional hydraulic connections and increased thermal capacity, leading to an overall annual performance increase of 6.5%.
Economic analyses reveal that the specific total costs of insulating glass collector systems are approximately 10% higher, mainly due to increased hydraulic costs. Consequently, the levelised cost of heat is 1.4 €/(MWh) or 2.6% higher than that of conventional systems. However, definitive conclusions regarding the superiority of either system could not be drawn due to the absence of economic reference data. The overall heat generation costs of the novel system were found to be comparable to those of conventional technologies, thereby demonstrating its viability for large-scale solar district heating applications. In addition, the possibility of further optimisation in terms of collector design, system hydraulics, and mounting system was identified, which suggests a promising outlook for large-scale solar district heating applications.The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action funded the flexLAC research project (grant number 03ETW015) as part of the 7th Energy Research Programm
"It's Like a Double Whammy!": A Photo-Phenomenological Analysis of the Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer People Living With Multiple Sclerosis.
No full textMultiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological, autoimmune condition which affects the nervous system, creating several physiological and psychosocial issues. Simultaneously, there is an expanding body of research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) populations which indicates health inequalities due to heteronormativity. Despite this, research exploring chronic illness, neurological conditions, and MS within LGBQ contexts remains limited. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the experience of LGBQ people living with MS. We undertook a culturally responsive multi-method approach, employing verbal and visual data through phenomenological interviews and participant-authored photographs. Twenty-three LGBQ individuals from several countries took part. All data collected from the three groups were analyzed separately using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). We created three interrelated themes: (a) , (b) , and (c) . It was revealed that from the moment of confirmed MS diagnosis, LGBQ individuals in this study appear to progress to an individual transformation of the self. Subsequently, the LGBQ persons living with MS typically experience an amended social exposure whereby they experience the enhanced force of multiple stigmas and incidents of discrimination. However, participants noted reaction and resistance against both the attack of MS on their identity and against the multiple discriminations. These different phases and stages are revisited and retouched dynamically and non-linearly, echoing the fluidity and episodic nature of MS. The findings have academic and real-world impact through recommendations for advocacy, policy change, future research, and healthcare
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