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Introduction: Ambidextrous open innovation in the 4th Industrial Revolution
Get PDFWith the popularity of artificial intelligence, big data and Internet of Things, business nowadays is featured with technology advancement, open innovation and collaboration. This happens particularly in the manufacturing sectors, known as the Industrial 4.0 or the 4th Industrial Revolution. Alongside this trend, there is also a movement towards servitisation and service innovation. In the financial service sector, FinTech firms, traditional large firms, intermediaries, users and regulators are actively engaged together to develop a smart system of banking, investing and insurance service. Nevertheless, the sector is facing challenges in relation to security, trust and external disruptions. To solve this, first, this article builds an ambidextrous open innovation model with multi-dimensions, which are motivated by the arriving of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Second, this article applies the ambidextrous open innovation model with multi-dimensions to the financial sectors to validate the model basically. Third, this model is applied to several research studies to obtain additional validation of it
Impact and the Research Environment: An Art And Design Case Study
Get PDFThere is much debate on how to successfully create impact. Discussions often centre on the role of discipline, researcher skills and behaviour, or institutional systems to capture impact evidence, but little consideration is given to the relationship between research impact and the research environment.
Focussing on the Impact Case Studies submitted to Unit of Assessment 34: Art & Design: History, Practice and Theory, this research used Content and Narrative Analysis to review a sample of the most and least successful Impact submissions as ranked by Times Higher Education. The aim was to identify the characteristics of high-scoring Impact Case Studies to inform strategies for supporting the generation of research impact, but what emerged was evidence of a nuanced relationship between research environment and research impact.
For Research and Management Practitioners, these findings highlight a need to extend beyond the development of training, advice and databases and respond directly to the core purpose and ethos of research impact. This can be achieved through the cultivation of an open, flexible and dynamic research environment capable of responding to institutional and researcher needs in order to allow impact to flourish
Maternal cultural orientation and speech sound production in Spanish/English dual Language preschoolers
Get PDFEmpirical work has shown that maternal education is related to children’s language outcomes, especially in the societal language, among Spanish-English bilingual children growing up in the U.S. However, no study thus far has assessed the links between maternal cultural orientation and children’s speech sound production. This paper explores whether mothers’ orientation to American (acculturation) and Mexican culture (enculturation) and overall linear acculturation are related to children’s accuracy of production of consonants, of different sound classes, and of phonemes shared and unshared between languages in both English and Spanish at age 4;6 (4 years and 6 months). The results reveal a link between maternal acculturation and children’s segmental accuracy in English, but no relation was found between mothers’ enculturation and children’s speech sound production in Spanish. We interpreted the results in English as suggesting that more American-oriented mothers may have been using more English with their children, boosting their English production abilities and promoting English speech sound development. At the same time, we speculate that the results in Spanish were possibly due to the high and homogeneous levels of Mexican orientation among mothers, to language input differences attributable to distinct cultural practices, or to the status of Spanish as a minority language
Molecular exploration for Mycoplasma amphoriforme, Mycoplasma fermentans and Ureaplasma spp. from patient samples previously investigated for Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection
No full textObjectives:
To determine the presence and genotypic macrolide susceptibility of Mycoplasma amphoriforme, and presence of Ureaplasma spp., and Mycoplasma fermentans among clinical samples from England previously investigated for Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
Methods:
Quantitative and conventional PCR were used to retrospectively screen a collection of 160 clinical samples, previously submitted to Public Health England (PHE) for detection of M. pneumoniae, between October 2016 and December 2017. Samples which were positive for M. amphoriforme DNA were further investigated for mutations associated with genotypic macrolide resistance by sequencing of domain V of the 23s rRNA.
Results:
Mycoplasma amphoriforme were detected in 10/160 (6.3%) samples, Ureaplasma parvum were detected in 4/160 samples (2.5%) with 0/160 M. fermentans detections. Of the nine individuals (two samples were from the same patient) in which M. amphoriforme were detected, eight were male (10 – 60 years age range) and one was female (30 – 40 years age range). One individual, with cystic fibrosis was positive for both M. amphoriforme and U. parvum. All M. amphoriforme DNA were genotypically susceptible for macrolides.
Conclusions:
Mycoplasma amphoriforme were found in clinical samples including the lower respiratory tract samples of patients with pneumonia. In the absence of other respiratory pathogens, these data suggest a potential role of this organism in human disease, with no evidence of acquired macrolide resistance. Ureaplasma parvum was detected in cerebrospinal fluid and respiratory tract samples. These data suggest the need to consider these atypical respiratory pathogens in future diagnostic investigations
Demands and realities: Significance and implications of Galperin’s legacy for learning and teaching in 21st century
Get PDFImplementation of e-cigarette regulation through the EU Tobacco Products Directive (2016) in Wales, Scotland and England from the perspectives of stakeholders involved in policy introduction and enforcement
Get PDFIntroduction:
From May 2016, the European Union introduced the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD)
regulations, which included restrictions to advertising and new safety and labelling standards
for e-cigarette products. This represented the first supra national policy regulating e-cigarette
sales and marketing. This study explores perceptions of TPD and its implementation in Wales,
Scotland and England, from perspectives of stakeholders involved in tobacco and e-cigarette
policy and implementation in each nation.
Methods:
Semi-structured qualitative interviews were completed with 12 stakeholders from government
and third sector organisations in the UK involved in tobacco control policy-making processes,
and Trading Standards Officers from 13 UK local authorities. Data were analysed thematically
and a sub-sample double-coded.
Results:
Stakeholders held varying views of e-cigarettes, recognising potential benefits and harms of
both the products and the new policy actions. Nevertheless, most perceived TPD to be a
positive step in introducing regulation for e-cigarettes. Compliance was perceived as high
across nations, although stakeholders highlighted product adaptations to circumvent
restrictions, and absence of controls on non-nicotine products. Budgetary and staffing
limitations also meant that capacity to communicate new measures, and enforce change, was
limited. This led to a gap occupied by industry representatives, who played a substantial role
in preparing retailers for adoption of new measures.
Conclusion:
TPD policy rollout was largely perceived positively and as having been effectively
implemented. However, contribution of industry to communication of new measures and
absence of resourcing for effective communication perhaps introduced widespread
innovations within regulations. While largely viewed positively, some refinements to device
regulations were proposed
Increased Aortic Stiffness is Associated with Higher Rates of Stroke, GI-bleeding and Pump Thrombosis in CF-LVAD Patients
No full textBackground
In the general population, increased aortic stiffness is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events. Previous studies have demonstrated an increase in aortic stiffness in patients with a continuous flow left ventricular assist device (CF-LVAD). However, the association between aortic stiffness and common adverse events is unknown.
Methods and results
Forty patients with a HeartMate II (HMII) (51 $ 11 years; 20% female; 25% ischemic) implanted between January 2011 and September 2017 were included. Two-dimensional transthoracic echocardiograms of the ascending aorta, obtained before HMII placement and early after heart transplant, were analyzed to calculate the aortic stiffness index (AO-SI). The study cohort was divided into patients who had an increased vs decreased AO-SI after LVAD support. A composite outcome of gastrointestinal bleeding, stroke, and pump thrombosis was defined as the primary end point and compared between the groups. While median AO-SI increased significantly after HMII support (AO-SI 4.4-6.5, P = .012), 16 patients had a lower AO-SI. Patients with increased (n = 24) AO-SI had a significantly higher rate of the composite end point (58% vs 12%, odds ratio 9.8, P < .01). Similarly, those with increased AO-SI tended to be on LVAD support for a longer duration, had higher LVAD speed and reduced use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin II receptor blockers.
Conclusions
Increased aortic stiffness in patients with a HMII is associated with a significantly higher rates of adverse events. Further studies are warranted to determine the causality between aortic stiffness and adverse events, as well as the effect of neurohormonal modulation on the conduit vasculature in patients with a CF-LVAD
Bilingual phonological development across generations: Segmental accuracy and error patterns in second-and third-generation British Bengali children
No full textIntroduction: While developmental normsfor speech sound development have been widely reported for monolingual children, and increasingly for bilingual children, little is known about speech sound developmentacrossdifferent generations of children growing up in heritage language settings.The purpose of the present study was to gain a better understanding of inter-generational differences in the phonological development ofBritish Bengali children.Methods: Typically-developing second-generation and third-generationBengali heritage children living in Wales(n=19), aged between 4 and 5 years, participated in a picture-naming task in Sylheti and English. The single-word speech samples were transcribed phonetically and analyzedin terms of consonant and vowelaccuracy measures,and error patterns.Subsequently, logistic mixed-effects regression models were fitted to identify thefactors that predict accurate speech patterns in the children’s productions. Results: The results revealed high levels of accuracy in consonant and vowel production by both sets of children, particularlyin English. On Sylheti consonants, second-generation children significantly outperformed third-generation children, howeveronly on language-specific sounds. In contrast, generation wasnot a significant predictor for accuracy on English consonants, but allchildren performed better on shared sounds thanon English-specific categories, and on stops than affricates. The third-generation children exhibited a greater number of error types in Sylheti than the second-generation children, and more common replacement of Sylheti dental stops with alveolars. Conclusion:Theresults suggest that third-generation children have less developed pronunciation patterns inthe heritage language, but not the majority language, thantheir age-matched second-generation peers, however only on language-specific sounds. These findingsindicatethat differentiating between the phonological norms of monolingual and bilingual children may not be clinically sufficiently sensitive, at least in the minority language, and that more fine-grained language use variables, such as the generation to which a bilingual child belongs, need to be considered
Body and Memory in 'Coriolanus'
No full textIn this note I explain how and why 'Coriolanus' needs to be fully brought into discussions about body and memory in Shakespearean scholarship
Contributions and limitations of using machine learning to predict noise-induced hearing loss
Get PDFPurpose
Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a global issue that impacts people’s life and health. The current review aims to clarify the contributions and limitations of applying machine learning (ML) to predict NIHL by analyzing the performance of different ML techniques and the procedure of model construction.
Methods
The authors searched PubMed, EMBASE and Scopus on November 26, 2020.
Results
Eight studies were recruited in the current review following defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Sample size in the selected studies ranged between 150 and 10,567. The most popular models were artificial neural networks (n = 4), random forests (n = 3) and support vector machines (n = 3). Features mostly correlated with NIHL and used in the models were: age (n = 6), duration of noise exposure (n = 5) and noise exposure level (n = 4). Five included studies used either split-sample validation (n = 3) or ten-fold cross-validation (n = 2). Assessment of accuracy ranged in value from 75.3% to 99% with a low prediction error/root-mean-square error in 3 studies. Only 2 studies measured discrimination risk using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and/or the area under ROC curve.
Conclusion
In spite of high accuracy and low prediction error of machine learning models, some improvement can be expected from larger sample sizes, multiple algorithm use, completed reports of model construction and the sufficient evaluation of calibration and discrimination risk