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Examples of enablers for curriculum agility
No full textWithin six institutions, Chalmer’s University of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, NTNU, Queen’s University Belfast, and Umeå University, activities of self-mapping Curriculum Agility have taken place, facilitated by the co-creators of this work. In this paper, they reflect on enablers of Curriculum Agility that they identified during the self-mapping process at their respective institutions. By putting a spotlight on enablers, ways to overcome obstacles are exemplified, when the ambition is to proactively future-proof an engineering curriculum. These enablers help in four curriculum innovation areas, which each have their own challenges: (1) Continuously adjusting learning content in courses, creating a need for a teaching and learning system with more dynamic learning goals and on the-go, reciprocal expertise development. (2) Implementing or refining flexible education pedagogy and didactics to tailor to and being inclusive of the diverse student populations entering university. (3) Working with a responsive organisation and a continuously-change facilitating management, where engagement and ownership of educational innovation is shared, and innovation space is constructively created where desired and needed. (4) Continuously developing all academic staff involved in engineering education innovation, for informed decision-making and shared understanding of the pedagogic and (inter- and trans-) disciplinary innovations needed to keep the engineering programme relevant and of high quality. This paper highlights positive examples of Curriculum Agility, and how its characteristics and principles can be implemented in a variety of university contexts with different organisational structures.<br/
Investigating syndemic effects of air pollution and physical inactivity on cognitive decline in older adults
No full textBackground: Previous research has independently associated air pollution and physical inactivity with increased mortality and morbidity. There is an ongoing debate about whether those factors interact to cause an even higher burden, suggesting potential syndemics. This study aimed to estimate the interaction between air pollution and physical inactivity on cognitive decline in older adults. Methods: The study utilized the Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing. The outcome was a ≥3 points decline in the Mini-Mental State Examination score between 2 cohort waves. Exposures were annual mean particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) in a 1-km buffer around participants’ residences estimated based on national monitoring and self-reported recreational moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) minutes per week. Logistic regression models were used to estimate additive and multiplicative interactions between exposures adjusting for confounders. Results: Among 2836 participants, 137 (4.8%) had cognitive decline between waves. The median PM2.5 was 6.6 μg/m3 (interquartile range: 5.6–7.6), and 50% reported no MVPA in a week (interquartile range: 0–251.2). Models indicated additive (relative excess risk due to interaction = 0.63; 95% CI, −0.98 to 2.24) and multiplicative (synergy factor = 1.76; 95% CI, 0.84 to 3.72) interactions between high PM2.5 and low MVPA on the risk of cognitive decline; however, estimates were not precise. Conclusions: This study presents a novel quantitative investigation of a potential syndemic focusing on a less-explored outcome of cognitive decline. However, outcome and exposure measurements limited the certainty of our findings. Future studies should include areas with higher variation in air pollution and use more granular exposure and sensitive outcome measures.</p
The British-Israeli project for algorithm-based management of age-related macular degeneration: deep learning integration for real- world data management and analysis
No full textPURPOSE: To describe the development of an integrative dataset, combining clinical and optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging data by applying a deep learning algorithm for automated, objective, and comprehensive quantification of OCT scans to two large real-world datasets of eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). We further report baseline characteristics of the study population, focusing on demographics, clinical parameters, and quantitative retinal morphological features.METHODS: This retrospective study analyzed data from 5,207 eyes of 4,265 nAMD patients treated at two centers in the UK and Israel. Longitudinal clinical data and OCT scans were. A deep learning algorithm (NOATM, Notal Ltd.) was used to quantify retinal fluid volumes and morphological features. Baseline characteristics were compared between the cohorts.RESULTS: The dataset included 134,340 visual acuity measurements, 79,457 OCT scans, and 73,218 anti-VEGF injections. Median follow-up was 4.54 years (UK) and 3.12 years (Israel). Baseline visual acuity differed significantly between cohorts due to varying treatment criteria. Fluid distribution patterns were similar, with most eyes showing combined intraretinal and subretinal fluid. Age-related trends in fluid volumes were observed. Weak correlations were found between baseline OCT measurements and visual acuity.CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the feasibility of integrating large-scale clinical and imaging data for automated analysis in nAMD. The comprehensive baseline characterization provides insights into real-world presentations and lays the groundwork for enabling personalized decision-making and optimizing outcomes based on individual patient profiles and fluid distribution patterns.</p
Women of the Irish Citizen Army: an assessment of their role and recognition during and after the revolutionary period
No full textXuefeng Chen and relational art
No full textAt a time when Nicolas Bourriaud put forward his theory of relational art, which arose out of his curatorial and critical involvement with artists of the 1990s, Chinese contemporary art was transforming into a global art as several prominent artists emigrated to the West. Bourriaud did not feature any Chinese artists in his Esthétique relationnelle (1998), presumably because their conceptual works did not operate in the domain of social exchanges, interactions and communicative acts, but in recent years his legacy may be detected in the works of Xuefeng Chen, a Chinese-born artist who settled in France in 2003. Focusing on the transmission of knowledge about nature and art to others, primarily children, she often involves them in the processes of production and/or reception. Does her artistic mission to connect nature, audience and personal history enable us to answer affirmatively Bourriaud's key question, ‘cette oeuvre m’autorise-t-elle au dialogue?’. To explore this idea, Chen's artistic practice and philosophy will be considered and then the key principles of Bourriaud's theory as they relate to a selection of Chen's sculptures and installations. Thirdly, the study will draw on Félix Guattari's conceptualisation of artistic practice as an ethical-political articulation between the environment, the social and subjectivity, itself mentioned by Bourriaud, to understand Chen's approach in terms of a possible ecosophy. Ultimately, this article aims to direct critical attention to a francophone Chinese artist whose works are entering the international stage and, by doing so, it will expand the, hitherto, primarily Eurocentric scope of discussions about relational art. The case study will, then, have important consequences for our understanding of Bourriaud's theory concerning its limitations in terms of applicability, adaptability, and geographical scope, thus raising questions about the international functioning of art and aesthetic theory.<br/
Injuries and illnesses in male and female sailors throughout the professional sailing circuit SailGP: a retrospective cohort study of SailGP’s season 3
No full textObjectives: SailGP is an international professional mixed-sex sailing competition, which uses F50 foiling catamarans capable of reaching speeds up to ~100 km/h. This seminal study assesses injuries and illnesses observed by male and female sailors during trainings and competitions in SailGP’s third season. This study aims to assess injury and illness incidence, comparing results with other professional sailing events and high-performance sports. In addition, injury and illness risk factors (sex and position) will be explored with the goal to reduce morbidity for future seasons. Materials and Methods: This retrospective cohort design analysed medical records of male and female sailors during SailGP’s third season (April 2022 to May 2023). Risk factors assessed included sailor sex, sailor position (helm, strategist, grinder, flight controller and wing trimmer), sailing venue, wind speed and mechanism of injury/nature of illness. International Olympic Committee reporting guidelines on injuries and illnesses were followed, including the STROBE-SIIS checklist. Confidence intervals were set at 95%, statistical tests were two-sided and p-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 40 on-water injuries were reported in 32 athletes. Injury incidence was greater during competitions than trainings, with strategists and then grinders being the most frequently injured positions. Competition injury incidence was 32.6 per 1000 h and 6.42 injuries per 365 days. Training injury incidence was 2.62 injuries per 1000 h and 3.82 injuries per 365 days. Knee, ankle, hand and head injuries were most prevalent, with three concussions observed during trainings and competitions (two female and one male). Direct impacts and falls during manoeuvres caused most injuries. Overall injury incidence (IRR = 2.69 [95% CI 1.41–5.16]), risk of training injuries (RR = 3.75 [95% CI 1.59–8.83], p = 0.001), risk of competition injuries (RR = 1.79 [95% CI 0.65–4.90], p = 0.25) and overall concussion risk (RR = 10.04 [95% CI 0.91–110.46], p = 0.02) were greater in females. Ten sailors accounted for 17 illnesses. Females had a 3.33 increase in training and competition illnesses (IRR = 3.33 [95% CI 0.94–11.81]). Conclusions: Competition injury incidence was higher than previous reported sailing studies. Knee injuries were most prevalent and direct impacts caused most injuries. Female sailors reported a higher injury and illness incidence. These results may guide injury prevention efforts and the development of an IOC-equivalent consensus statement. Future studies should examine time loss.<br/
Closed-form access probability analysis for LoRa-based LEO satellite IoT
No full textLong-range (LoRa) can provide highly energy-efficient and cost-effective communications for low power wide area networks, playing an indispensable role in the Internet of Things (IoT). However, terrestrial LoRa networks cannot guarantee pervasive connectivity, especially in rural and remote areas. To tackle this problem, exploiting LoRa-based low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite IoT has garnered a growing interest in both academia and industry. In this paper, we provide a novel analytical framework based on spherical stochastic geometry (SG) for characterizing the uplink access probability of LoRa-based LEO satellite IoT. For practical modeling, multiple classes of LoRa end-devices (EDs) are taken into consideration, where each class of EDs is modeled by an independent Poisson point process (PPP). Both the channel characteristics of near-Earth satellite communications and the unique features of LoRa network are considered to derive closed-form analytical expressions for the uplink access probability. Numerical simulations validate the accuracy of our theoretical analysis and provide insightful guidelines for the practical design and implementation of LoRa-based LEO satellite IoT
QoS-aware power minimization for fluid antennas assisted integrated sensing and communication
No full textThe rapid proliferation of devices brought about by the Internet of Things (IoT) has underpinned the inclusion of sensing capabilities in wireless systems. Therefore, integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is emerging as a key use case for next-generation systems. The dual functionality of ISAC systems increases interference, which multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) arrays can mitigate through spatial diversity. However, achieving substantial diversity gains with MIMO requires large antenna arrays, which could amplify the system complexity. Fluid antennas (FAs) provide an efficient alternative, delivering comparable spatial gains without the need for massive arrays, making them a promising candidate for ISAC systems. In this paper, we propose a quality-of-service (QoS) aware powerefficient transceiver design for an FA-ISAC system. We jointly design the antenna position vector, transmit beamformers, radar signal and receive combiners to meet the sensing and communication performance constraints. Our results demonstrate a 2 dB improvement compared to conventional MIMO systems
Impact of Platt scaling on calibration in ML-based wireless resource allocation
No full textIn this paper, we study the calibration performance of a machine learning (ML)-based outage predictor applied to a single-user, multi-resource allocation system. Our approach models the wireless channel using Rayleigh fading with temporal characteristics that are consistent with Clarke’s 3D model. This allows us to account for the mobility of the receiver, introducing correlation between successive channel samples. Building upon this, we study the calibration performance of the outage predictor when Platt scaling is applied. Its calibration performance is assessed by generating histogram-based reliability plots with logarithmic binning. This outage predictor is trained using a customized outage loss function (OLF) as well as the commonly employed binary cross entropy. Using the negative log likelihood as an indicator, our results show that Platt scaling has a clear impact upon calibration performance, with greater enhancement observed at higher confidence levels and less improvement at lower ones. Furthermore, we observe that Platt scaling is particularly effective in minimizing overconfidence for predictors trained with OLF at lower classification thresholds and as the signal-to-noise ratio increases
The barriers and enablers of achieving 30x30 EU marine conservation targets
No full textIn the European Union, ambitious 30 X 30 marine conservation targets - i.e., protecting at least 30% of the marine environment by 2030 - have been set for member states. Informed by an assessment of eight regions throughout Europe, including national and transboundary sites, this research identifies several barriers and enablers to fulfilling the targets. Hierarchical policy frameworks, resource constraints, and a lack of political will are major barriers. Partnership working, policy integration, and innovative evaluation protocols are key to enabling the achievement of conservation targets