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Visual bordering: how refugee-serving organizations represent refugees on Instagram
No full textTheories of symbolic bordering highlight how xenophobic media coverage and humanitarian messaging create boundaries between migrants and receiving communities partly based on deservingness. Contrasting with studies of mainly text-based representations of refugees, we examine refugee-serving organizations’ visual communications work on Instagram. Using a discourse-centered online ethnographic approach, we collected 191 posts made in early 2021 by five UK-based organizations. Then, we applied quantitative content and qualitative semiotic analysis to these posts, complemented by two semi-structured interviews with communications staff members. We show how visual choices invoke divisions between posts’ refugee subjects and their intended audiences, while rendering some refugees legible and particularly worthy of protection or empathy. These choices include using stereotypical elements, obscuring identifiable people, and explicitly attributing quotations to refugees. We also identify “takeover” posts where refugees had controlled organizations’ social media accounts. Our study contributes understanding of how symbolic bordering occurs visually online and has implications for humanitarian communications practice
Making better decisions, eschewing conspiracy, populism and science denial: analysing the attributes of individuals who engage effectively with ideas
No full textHow can we encourage individuals to engage with beneficial ideas, while eschewing dark ideas such as science denial, conspiracy theories, or populist rhetoric? This paper inves-tigates the mechanisms underpinning individuals' engagement with ideas, proposing a model grounded in education, social networks, and pragmatic prospection. Beneficial ideas enhance decision-making, improving individual and societal outcomes, while dark ideas lead to suboptimal consequences, such as diminished trust in institutions and health-related harm. Using a Structural Equation Model (SEM) based on survey data from 7,000 respondents across seven European countries, we test hypotheses linking critical thinking, network dynamics, and pragmatic prospection (i.e. a forward-looking mindset) to the value individuals ascribe to engaging with ideas, their ability to identify positive and dark ideas effectively, how individuals subsequently engage with ideas and who they engage in them with. Our results highlight two key pathways: one linking pragmatic prospection to network-building and idea-sharing, and another connecting critical reasoning and knowledge acquisition to effective ideas engagement. Together, these pathways illustrate how interventions in education, network development, and forward-planning can empower individuals to critically evaluate and embrace positive ideas while rejecting those that might be detrimental. The paper concludes with rec-ommendations for policy and future research to support an ideas-informed society
Design archaeology: on the Smartwatch
No full textThis research is designed to form a holistic understanding of the smartwatch as a contemporary product, as it has the potential to reveal the tangled dynamics between people and technology. This study attempts to understand present phenomena by benefiting from the past, creating and applying a design archaeological approach.The research is conducted in two temporal axes and explores the connections, parallels and reoccurring patterns in the past and present by looking at the genealogy of the research object. Moreover, it aims to investigate the relationship between smartwatches and people and to explore the archaeological traces of the smartwatch to have a better understanding of the current phenomena related to it. By benefiting from the past and exploring the parallels and interactions between the past and the present, it provides a comprehensive analysis on the smartwatch and the relevant contemporary concepts.The study implements various research methods such as focus group and autoethnography. It suggests new approaches in design and theorisation of smartwatches as well as new interpretations of the relations between technological objects and people. Additionally, it provides insights into digital culture.The findings of the study vary from the connections between time discipline and information discipline to the elements for internalisation of using smartwatches and adopting self-discipline. Moreover, the parallels and reoccurrences between the smartwatch and its antecedents are identified. The quantified and qualified self, intimacy and gamified discipline are some of the concepts explored further in the research
Radio emissions reveal Alfvénic activity and electron acceleration prior to substorm onset
No full textMagnetospheric substorms are among the most dynamic phenomena in the Earth’s magnetosphere, yet their triggering mechanisms remain unclear. Ground-based observations have identified wave-like aurora as precursors to substorms. Here, we report a new precursor feature in space-based observations of auroral kilometric radiation (AKR), marked by the appearance of emissions with slowly frequency-drifting tones (<2 kHz/s) above 100 kHz. Simultaneous multi-instrument obser-vations and statistical analysis suggest that these AKR precursors occur concurrently with wave-like aurora, either manifesting as pseudo-breakup features (with about 5 minutes duration) or as pre-onset activity (about 2 minutes prior to substorm expansion), indicating a common driving mechanism. Analysis of the emissions with frequency-drifting tones suggests that they are linked to moving double-layers driven by dispersive Alfvén waves, consistent with an Alfvénic accelera-tion mechanism for pre-onset aurora. These findings highlight the importance of Alfvénic activity in substorms and suggest that Alfvénic acceleration is not only responsible for optical auroral fea-tures but also for radio emissions, potentially explaining also the ubiquitous frequency-drifting emission features observed at other magnetized planets like Saturn and Jupiter
A survey of inclusive information access
No full textInclusive Information Access (IIA) is an essential field within information science and technology aimed at providing equitable information access for individuals from diverse backgrounds. Despite its significance, research on IIA remains dispersed across various domains, making it difficult to gain a comprehensive understanding of the field. This survey systematically examines the existing literature to map key themes, identify research trends, and highlight influential contributions within IIA. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) as a topic modeling method, this survey provides insights into the evolution of major topics, including publication trends, institutional engagement, and geographical reach. By analyzing authorship networks and citation patterns, this survey identifies key contributors, highly cited works, and influential research institutions, providing a structured overview of scholarly impact within IIA. This survey aims to support researchers in navigating the complex landscape of IIA and identifying avenues for future research
Impact of anhydride compatibilizer on dielectric performance and chemical structure of polypropylene/thermoplastic polyurethane blends
No full textIn this study isotactic polypropylene (iPP) was blended with 30wt.% thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and maleic anhydride-grafted-polypropylene (MA-PP) as a compatibilizer, aiming for improved brittleness, while retaining acceptable thermal and electrical performance. The chemical structure, thermal and dielectric properties of the PP/MA-PP/TPU blends are analysed using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Dielectric Spectroscopy (DS). The results show that TPU and MA do not significantly affect the melting and crystallisation temperatures of the blends, especially when MA content is less than 3wt.%. The MA crosslinks with the TPU promoting compatibilization however, the highest MA content is shown to result in excess unreacted anhydride groups. Addition of TPU increases the dielectric permittivity (ε^') and losses (ε^'') of the blend, while the MA increased them slightly further. At frequencies below 10-1 Hz, the excess unreacted anhydrides resulted in reduced ε^' and ε^'' values
Visualisation and analysis of large distributed temperature sensing (DTS) datasets from high voltage cables
No full textHigh-voltage cables are a critical part of a countries power infrastructure, whether transferring power from large-scale, onshore and offshore renewable projects, or expanding network capacity for more conventionally generated energy sources. Ensuring the integrity of these assets requires continuous thermal monitoring; distributed temperature sensing (DTS) is the standard tool but produces archives of extreme size at metre-scale and minute-scale sampling over ~100 KM and years, ≥100 GB. Analysis of such huge archives has up until now been impossible. The challenges are twofold: interactive out-of-core computation over full resolution and display-aware visualization that preserves local transients under hard pixel limits. This work delivers a preliminary approach: an out-of-core stack ordered tiling, zstd compression, memory-mapped streaming, and adaptive, pixel-aware aggregation; a layered analysis pipeline from coarse heatmaps to contours and fixed quantiles, perceptual composites, fixed-scale wavelet energy, and UMAP–HDBSCAN segmentation. Finally, a Bayesian-optimized weighted baseline correction combining TOPHAT, JBCD, MORMOL, and IARPLS is also presented. Results demonstrate efficient and robust visualisation of 100 GB/3.4 billion-points of data on 32 GB RAM; contours and quantiles make seasonal structure and thresholds explicit; composites separate temporal from spatial temperature spikes and highlight sparse sampling; and baseline removal suppresses drift to reveal load-correlated vertical banding in the residuals
Epidemiology of hip fracture in Iraq and development of a country-specific FRAX model
No full textUNLABELLED: Hip fracture data were retrieved from the Iraqi government's Ministry of Health and the Kurdistan region's Ministry of Health for the years 2022-2023 and used to create a FRAX® model to facilitate fracture risk assessment. Hip fracture rates and probabilities were compared with estimates from neighboring countries.INTRODUCTION: There are no published data on the epidemiology of osteoporotic fractures in Iraq. This paper describes the epidemiology of femoral fractures in Iraq and the development of the corresponding country-specific FRAX® tool for the prediction of fractures.METHODS: Femoral fracture data (ICD-10 S72) were retrieved from the Iraqi government's Ministry of Health and the Kurdistan region's Ministry of Health for the years 2022-2023 in Iraq. The age- and sex-specific incidence of hip fracture in Iraqi residents and national mortality rates were used to create a FRAX® model. Fracture probabilities were compared with those from neighboring countries having existing FRAX models.RESULTS: Fracture rates were low and comparable to those in neighboring countries, with hip fracture rates closest to estimates from Saudi Arabia at older ages. Ten-year fracture probabilities were lower in males than in females and were comparable to those in neighboring countries.CONCLUSION: The FRAX model should enhance the accuracy of determining fracture probability among the Iraqi population and help guide treatment decisions.</p
Continuously variable topological charge of a vector vortex beam generated by an integrated metasurface
No full textWe propose and numerically verify a new method for generating a vector vortex beam, in which the twist of the wavefront varies continuously along the beam axis, offering potential benefits for distance detection
Back to the communities: a mixed-methods and community-driven evaluation of cultural sensitivity in text-to-image models
No full textEvidence shows that text-to-image (T2I) models disproportionately reflect Western cultural norms, amplifying misrepresentation and harms to minority groups. However, evaluating cultural sensitivity is inherently complex due to its fluid and multifaceted nature. This paper draws on a state-of-the-art review and co-creation workshops involving 59 individuals from 19 different countries. We developed and validated a mixed-methods community-based evaluation methodology to assess cultural sensitivity in T2I models, which embraces first-person methods. Quantitative scores and qualitative inquiries expose convergence and disagreement within and across communities, illuminate the downstream consequences of misrepresentation, and trace how training data shaped by unequal power relations distort depictions. Extensive assessments are constrained by high resource requirements and the dynamic nature of culture, a tension we alleviate through a context-based and iterative methodology. The paper provides actionable recommendations for stakeholders, highlighting pathways to investigate the sources, mechanisms, and impacts of cultural (mis)representation in T2I models
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