151398 research outputs found
Sort by
Trust-explicit systems: a primer on distributed ledgers and related technologies (Deliverable D3.2 of the shaping the metaverse (Phase 2) project)
No full textLateral bias in the domestic pig (Sus scrofa)
No full textLateralised motor behaviour can contribute to the study of animal welfare, with links to emotional processing, stress responses and personality. Lateral bias in the domestic pig, a species prone to poor welfare, has been subject to little scientific attention. This study therefore aimed to assess laterality in the form of side preferences in a population of farmed pigs, exploring for differences between the sexes and consistency in side preferences, both between measures and over time. Observations of side preference were recorded in fifty pigs across five measures: a snout use task, step-up task, detour task, tail curling and lying side. Snout use, step-up and detour side preferences were observed twice (3 and 6 weeks-of-age) to evaluate test-retest reliability. Pigs were significantly more likely to be ambilateral than side-preferent for both lying side and snout use at 6 weeks of age. By contrast, animals showed significant side-preferences at the level of the individual on the detour task at 6 weeks of age. Directional laterality index (LI) scores for snout use were positively correlated with those of the step-up task at 6 weeks of age, while strength of laterality index (ABSLI) scores for snout use at 4 weeks of age were positively correlated with the step-up task scores at 6 weeks of age. No other LI or ABSLI scores were significantly correlated. Findings pointed to good test-retest reliability, with animals demonstrating a significant positive correlation in the direction, although not strength, of their lateral biases for the snout use, step-up and detour tasks. A cluster analysis, employed to explore for individual lateralisation patterns across motor functions, revealed a leaning towards left-side preferences on animals’ combined step-up and detour laterality scores. Male and female animals showed no significant difference in either the strength or direction of their side preferences for any of the tasks. Overall, the results from this study point to individual-level lateralised behaviour in the domestic pig for one measure. Findings reveal a lack of sex differences and consistency between tasks, but show stability in pigs’ side preferences over time, at least in the short-term.<br/
Blackbird 2025
No full textAn anthology of work from postgraduate students at the Seamus Heaney Centre at QU
Using learning analytics to enhance online assessment delivery in postgraduate computing education
No full textThe integration of educational technologies in higher education has significantly expanded in recent years, particularly following the transition to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift has resulted in the widespread use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), which now serve as essential platforms for course delivery, learner interaction, and assessment. Importantly, VLEs generate large volumes of student engagement data, helping educators to apply learning analytics to better understand student behaviour and performance.Learning analytics, the process of collecting, analysing, and reporting data about learners and their contexts, has become an effective tool to support data-informed teaching strategies. One of its key applications is in assessment design, where it can be used to refine questions, improve alignment with learning outcomes, and enhance overall assessment quality. This is particularly relevant for part-time postgraduate learners, who often engage with content asynchronously and come from varied academic and professional backgrounds, and, also for large and diverse cohorts, where it is challenging to provide individualised feedback and ensure fair, effective assessment.This paper explores the use of learning analytics to improve the delivery of online assessments in a postgraduate computing module offered to part-time learners studying Software Engineering programme. Drawing on data collected over two academic years, the study focuses on how students engaged with a formative assessment (a mock exam), and how insights gained from item-level analysis were used to revise the summative assessment. Adjustments included refining question wording, revising distractors in multiple-choice items, and updating the marking scheme to better reflect the learning objectives.The findings demonstrate how data from formative assessments can inform improvements in summative assessment design and support a more targeted, evidence-based approach to teaching and learning.<br/
Transferability and expansion of the ClayNN model
No full textWe demonstrate that neural network potentials for kaolinite clay trained using forces and energies at the density functional theory level using two dispersion-corrected functionals are able to reproduce the structural properties of dickite and nacrite even when no structures for these minerals are included in the potential's training data. We also train a potential using the meta-GGA functional SCAN, which provides an extremely accurate reproduction of the structural properties of the studied kaolin minerals, and is the only potential able to discern subtle differences in polyhedral environments. We also build models for the polarisation of kaolin minerals, allowing the infrared spectra to be extracted from simulations. The ClayNN models provide an excellent description of the structural properties of the studied kaolin minerals and when combined with our polarisation models also give a reasonable description of the number of peaks in the vibrational spectra but perform poorly when considering peak positions.<br/
Towards a unified nomenclature for diseases associated with porcine circovirus infections
No full textMRM-PSO: An enhanced particle swarm optimization technique for resource management in highly dynamic edge computing environments
No full textThe resource constraints of Internet of Things (IoT) devices pose significant hurdles to delay-sensitive applications that operate in dynamic and wireless settings. Since offloading tasks to cloud servers can be hindered by security concerns and latency issues, edge and fog computing bring computation closer to data sources. Given their inherently distributed and resource-constrained nature, edge/fog-enabled platforms require more advanced resource-management solutions to address the numerous constraints encountered in dynamic and wireless environments. This study introduces an innovative resource management algorithm designed for dynamic edge/fog computing environments, tailored to real-world applications, with the objective of enhancing delay performance through optimal container placement. The resource management problem incorporates mobility patterns in wireless settings to reduce migration delay and the processing history of edge/fog nodes to provide a novel method for computing processing delay, resulting in a combined optimization problem expressed in an integer linear programming (ILP) format. To address the formulated NP-Hard problem, we developed a low-complexity Metaheuristic Resource Management algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization (MRM-PSO) with effective particle modelling. Our experimental findings demonstrate that greedy heuristics and genetic algorithm (GA) are inadequate for efficiently resolving a given problem, whereas our proposed MRM-PSO algorithm efficiently locates near-optimal solutions within reasonable execution times when compared to exact solvers. MRM-PSO reduces execution time by up to 663.82 % in the worst case and 2307.5 % in the best case. Furthermore, it attains a delay that is just 0.98 % higher in the best case and 5.54 % higher in the worst case compared to the optimal solution.</p
E-PSOGA: an enhanced hybrid metaheuristic for optimal edge-to-cloud placement of services with multi-version components
No full textThe evolution of edge-to-cloud networks has significantly increased the complexity of determining optimal service placement across these infrastructures, a challenge identified as an NP-complete problem. To address such problems, exact algorithms are impractical at larger scales owing to their computational demands. Heuristics exhibit faster runtimes but lower solution quality, whereas metaheuristics provide high-quality solutions at the cost of increased runtime. In this study, service placement in edge-to-cloud systems is investigated and formulated as an optimisation problem, where each service component is provided by different vendors and is available in multiple versions. The inclusion of multi-version components adds an additional layer of complexity, making the placement problem even more challenging. Specifically, this study addresses the service placement problem in Augmented Reality (AR)-and Virtual Reality (VR)-based remote repair and maintenance use cases, where service response time and system reliability are critical performance metrics. To optimise both metrics, we propose a novel hybrid metaheuristic algorithm (E-PSOGA) which combines the fast convergence of Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) with the global search capabilities of Genetic Algorithms (GA). A custom healing operator is also introduced to further enhance the solution quality and reduce the algorithm runtime. A comprehensive performance assessment shows that E-PSOGA reduces the response time by 37% compared with the other implemented baseline algorithms. E-PSOGA achieved 98% platform and 97% service reliability while maintaining a reasonable algorithm runtime. These results indicate that the proposed approach is well-suited for large-scale and time-sensitive scenarios requiring both computational efficiency and high solution quality.</p
Pupils with SEN - an international comparison
No full textA conundrum that a lot of education systems internationally have been struggling with is the large increase in pupils with, or identified as having, Special Educational Needs(SEN). Over the past ten years, the number of pupils classified as having SEN in Northern Ireland has increased from 21% to 24%, while the percentage of pupils statemented has increased from 4.2% to 5.6% of pupils. This is a worrying trend as it suggests greater needs among children and young people and poses affordability issues to education systems, so in this article I will try to get below the numbers a little bit, by looking at the broader international and in particular, European, picture