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Neurodivergence in museums: making the cultural heritage sector accessible using participatory practices
Get PDFMuseums and cultural heritage institutions have the potential to be engaging spaces for autistic and neurodivergent (AuND) people. However, this community continues to be under served by these organisations. While the sector has increasingly undertaken work to make its
organisations more “autism-friendly”, this tends to be primarily geared towards children or young people and lacks community involvement. The thesis focuses on three research questions:
1. What are the motivations for and barriers to museum visiting for AuND adults?
2. What do museums currently offer AuND visitors, and what are the perceived barriers
museums face when addressing their accessibility issues?
3. How can museums learn from AuND adults to adapt their practices to become more
engaging and accessible to this audience?
The author, an autistic researcher, answers these questions by utilising participatory and
emancipatory practices. Throughout the research project, AuND people were consulted on key aspects of the research – such as the research questions, aims, survey questions, and findings analysis – to ensure that the research was driven and informed by the needs and priorities of the people or the community the project is designed to serve. The research was carried out in three key stages: 1) consultation about the research, 2) surveys of AuND adults and museum workers, and 3) workshops presenting the findings and exploring the direction of a guidance toolkit for the sector. The research received an elevated level of engagement and participation throughout the data collection process, with 466 AuND people and 130 museum workers responding to the surveys.
The results show that AuND respondents are motivated to visit museums for a variety of reasons, with most respondents indicating that they would go to museums more often if they were more accessible to their needs. The research also highlights a broad range of barriers (for example, the sensory environment and lack of understanding of neurodiversity) that impact an AuND person’s ability to visit a museum, but indicates that many of these barriers could be addressed with often straightforward actions.
The research also reveals the barriers and experiences of museum workers in developing and delivering accessibility provisions for neurodivergent audiences. A key finding was the need for accessibility considerations for AuND workers, whether paid or voluntary, to be considered alongside the needs of visitors
An examination of the contemporary typological interpretation in Oscar Romero’s 1980 Homilies: towards a theological framework for contemporary typological preaching
Get PDFThis thesis is a study of the 1980 homilies of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Particularly it is looking at Romero’s contemporary typological interpretation in his preaching. There are some who are skeptical of a preacher using a contemporary typological approach in their preaching as they feel the biblical text is misinterpreted as the focus is on the present. Romero’s preaching was studied to see if there is any discernible pattern to his contemporary typological interpretation and what were the theological foundations of his interpretation. The central claim of this work is Oscar Romero’s 1980 sermons demonstrate he worked on the principle that a contemporary typological homiletic ought to be rooted in the principle of the continuation of the people of God within the unfolding of salvation history, and this is a helpful and effective homiletical option and framework for contemporary typological preaching
Data analytics, decision support and upholding business ethics in Chinese automobile market
Get PDFAfter more than 70 years of development, Chinese automobile market has gradually become the world’s largest automobile market. Especially after 2010, the rapid development of new energy vehicles has significantly changed the market competition pattern. Under the impact of new brands and new car models, all automakers have to rethink the applicability of the original business theory in the new environment in order to maintain the original market advantage or obtain new market competitiveness. At the same time, with the prevalence of social media, online reviews have gradually become an important source of information for consumers to make decisions and for enterprises to analyse consumer demands, but it has also gradually derived the unethical business behaviours of manipulating fake reviews. In addition, the rise and application of artificial intelligence technologies such as machine learning and deep learning have proved their important potential in business analytics. This research aims to address the above business challenges by applying suitable machine learning methods, and to provide theoretical support and methodological practice for business decision-making and ethical maintenance. The overall research consists of three subdivision studies. In the first study, it is mainly discussed what important business data are available in the automobile market and their potential applications, and finally a comprehensive automotive industry dataset is created. The second study investigates the impacts and changes of first-mover advantages and country-of-origin effects in the Chinese automotive market through a novel sales analysis framework. It demonstrates the positive impact of the first-mover advantage and country-of-origin effects on sales performance, as well as that the first-mover advantage can be broken by innovative latecomers. In the third study, a large number of fake reviews were identified by the detection method based on BERT and PU-Learning we proposed, thus completing the study on the timing of manipulation of positive fake reviews. It shows the correlation between the timing of manipulation and car sales, brand sales, market size, and the duration of brands and models in the market. The whole research not only extends theories related to the first-mover advantage, country-of-origin effects, and the timing of manipulating fake reviews, but also demonstrates the superior performance of machine learning methods in business analytics. In addition to providing decision-making support for automakers’ corporate strategies and marketing strategies, this research has important implications in formulating industrial policies, protecting consumer interests, enhancing the credibility of online review platforms, and maintaining a fair business environment
Multiscale modelling of aortic dissections
Get PDFThe human aorta is the main and largest artery in the human body, transporting oxygenated blood, water and vital nutrients to all parts of our bodies. An aortic dissection is an acute life threatening cardiovascular disease. It occurs when a small tear in the artery wall is pressurised by the blood flow, thus causing the tear to propagate. This process can quickly lead to death due to a restricted supply of blood flow, damage to the aortic valve or a full rupture of the artery wall. Understanding the fundamental mechanics of this process is crucial for the prevention and treatment of the disease. The current understanding of this process comes from a number of phenomenological studies which do not fully account for the role of the aortic microstructure. Our arteries are complicated three-layered structures, with each layer of the artery playing a different crucial mechanical role. The mechanical properties of each layer are due to their differing microstructures. These microstructures vary at the cellular level, with some layers being made up on laminated rows of smooth muscle cells and other layers being made up fibrous bundles of tissue. It follows that understanding the tearing process from a microscopic perspective is key to creating a mathematical model of aortic dissections.
The goal of this thesis is to develop a new multiscale model of material failure which fully explains the role of an arbitrary microstructure at a macroscopic level. To do this we first begin by introducing the damage phase field method. Using this method, we create a damage model comprising of two partial differential equations: an equation of motion and a damage evolution equation. Our model also has several physical constraints, including the irreversibility of damage and an energetic criterion for damage evolution, such constraints ground the model in the physical world. By applying this model over an arbitrary microscopic domain we can approximate the aortic microstructure as a composite material made of many different constituents. This provides us with an extremely large set of partial differential equations which one cannot practically work with. However, by upscaling this microscopic model we create a simpler macroscopic model comprising of an equation of motion and a damage evolution equation. This is done by employing asymptotic homogenisation and an assumption of local periodicity at the micro scale. With careful analysis we can fully upscale all the microscopic modelling constraints to the macro scale. Our macroscopic model accounts for the microscopic material properties and geometry by encoding them in a series of effective macroscopic coefficients. These coefficients themselves are calculated by solving a series of local cell problems relating the microscale to the macroscale.
For completeness, we introduce numerical methods for solving our damage phase model. We apply these numerical methods to both our microscopic and macroscopic models of material failure. By solving our models in one-dimension we perform a parametric analysis of both models. This analysis allows us to demonstrate a good agreement between the microscopic and macroscopic models, as one would expect. We also demonstrate that the microscopic model converges to the macroscopic model as the ratio of the microscopic and macroscopic length scales tends towards zero. Next, we use the finite element method to create a numerical method for solving our damage model in higher dimensions. To illustrate the utility of our model we consider a set of toy simulations. We achieve this by simulating a trouser test, where a rectangular configuration is clamped at one end and at the other end we pull the material apart. This action essentially creates a tear through the material resulting in a final configuration that looks like a pair of trousers. By performing a trousers test we are able to convey how our multiscale model can be used to study the effects of small changes at the micro scale. We find that these small changes can have a large effect on the outcome of the tearing process at the macroscale.
It follows, then that our developed multiscale model of the damage phase field method will be a valuable tool for further study into how changes in a materials microstructure can affect material failure. Throughout the thesis we remark upon how this model can be applied to the phenomena of aortic dissections. However, before this application can be performed it is commented upon how we require more data about the aortic microstructure to be collated. With this information we can calculate the appropriate ranges of effective coefficients describing the aorta. Allowing us to accurately study a wide variety of physical situations leading to aortic dissections
How international legal humanitarianism legitimises war and the deprivation of human life: a critique
Get PDFThis thesis argues that the international humanitarian vision comprises two main, antagonistic intellectual traditions: one that seeks to abolish war and another that deems such an endeavour hopeless and is instead devoted to regulating it. It suggests that the latter, termed the ‘Regulated War tradition’, has become hegemonic today. The thesis reveals the discursive strategies by which this tradition legitimises war and sustains its own hegemony. Through its hegemony, the Regulated War tradition defines the structure of international humanitarian legal argument which oscillates between two rhetorical poles: the rhetoric of aspiration, advocating for a more protective interpretation of the law, and the rhetoric of limitation, justifying a more permissive reading based on the so-called necessities of war. Having uncovered the grammar of international humanitarian legal discourse, this thesis advances an ideology critique of the Regulated War tradition by shedding light on the discursive ways in which it legitimises the deprivation of human life. The thesis contends that the hegemony of this tradition has led to the rise of instrumental humanitarian reason—a calculative logic that sidesteps the fundamental question of why human beings kill one another, focusing instead on how they should be killed. It concludes with an immanent critique of the Regulated War tradition, aiming to chart a path toward the realisation of the humanitarian promise to safeguard human life
Understanding barriers to engagement and pathways to desistance: exploring mental health access and desistance factors among young people who offend
No full textAbstract not currently available
Ideology, epistemic injustice, and ignorance: an analysis of the trans panic
Get PDFThis thesis is a philosophical analysis of the trans panic (the ongoing moral panic about trans people in the UK) which utilises the philosophical tools of ideology and epistemic injustice. Drawing on the work of Sally Haslanger, I define ideologies as epistemically defective networks of social meanings that function to uphold oppression. I describe how dominant ideologies cause hermeneutical injustice by failing to provide sufficient hermeneutical resources. I argue that an ideology I name ‘cissexist ideology’ functions to uphold the oppression of trans people and consists of social meanings about the supposedly binary nature of sex and gender, and stereotypes about trans people. I argue that notable features of the trans panic, such as its persistence and resistance to efforts to tackle it, and its wide scope, can be explained by a feedback loop between ideology and epistemic injustice. Although I don’t attribute ignorance with a substantial causal role in the trans panic, I also trace several ways that ideology leads to ignorance, including in the context of the trans panic.
I continue my analysis of the trans panic by providing accounts of two phenomena that are occurring within it. The first is a type of epistemic injustice that I term ‘hermeneutical sabotage’. Hermeneutical sabotage occurs when dominantly situated knowers actively worsen the available hermeneutical resources for understanding the experiences of a marginalised group. They do this by distorting hermeneutical resources necessary for understanding marginalised groups’ experiences, and introducing new, prejudiced hermeneutical resources. I explain how this is taking place within the trans panic and how hermeneutical sabotage is used as a tactic to further the aims of harmful political movements. I also give an account of the phenomenon I name ‘ideological true beliefs’: true beliefs about the world which are made true by ideological social construction and function to uphold an ideology. Ideological true beliefs are often expressed as claims and used to provide faulty evidence for false ideological claims. Even though they are constructed by ideology, it is not in the interest of activists to deny ideological true beliefs because they reflect the reality of the unjust world that activists must acknowledge. Activists therefore need other strategies to tackle them.
Finally, I turn to the question of how to tackle the trans panic. I argue that consciousness raising offers a method for generating warranted ideology critique. I then outline some tactics that activists can use to tackle the trans panic and explain how these intervene in the cissexist ideology/epistemic injustice feedback loop and tackle the phenomena I describe. Ultimately, I argue it will take a multiplicity of tactics to tackle the trans panic
Three essays in microeconomic theory
Get PDFThis thesis explores foundational problems in microeconomic theory and advances understanding of complex decision-making processes in different environments with different parties through mathematical modelling.
Chapter 2 proves a new representation theorem for continuous‐time preference over consumption or portfolio streams that take values in the probability simplex, allowing for both fully continuous and piecewise‐continuous paths. Unlike existing results, our construction only relies on standard axioms. This framework is applicable to problems like portfolio allocation under a fixed budget or consumption under liquidity shocks—where payoffs may jump at discrete dates. We also show that one agent is more impatient than another if and only if their discount factor is larger.
Chapter 3 explores the asymptotic behaviour of strictly dominated strategies in random games of two players, in which the elements are i.i.d. selected from a probability distribution. As the game size increases, if the number of strategies for the two players is similar, in a sense we make precise, the probability of having strictly dominated strategies approaches 0. This is particularly evident in large nearly square games where the row size is proportionate to the column size within a specific range. Consequently, the probability of a game being dominance solvable diminishes to zero. Furthermore, we show that this result is very nearly tight: small deviations lead to a non-zero chance of strictly dominated strategies, while larger deviations make their existence nearly certain. Our findings first emphasize the significance of the parameters in the underlying probability distribution.
Chapter 3 also examines the asymptotic behaviour of the fixed proportion q of dominated strategies as M,N →∞, where M and N are the row and column sizes. Specifically, for the row player, we show that the probability of existence of q-portion-dominated strategy approaches 0 as N ≥ M/(ln(M))α for some α > 0 and it approaches 1 when M grow much faster than (N/(1−δ −q))N for some δ > 0.
Finally, Chapter 3 proposes a simple algorithm for detecting strictly dominated strategies in finite games, a topic of interest in economics and computer science since Yu and Zeleny 1975. This algorithm improves the conventional approach by utilizing minimum and maximum comparisons to reduce the expected time complexity.
Chapter 4 introduces a social planner into the random allocation framework who does not receive any object but may influence the allocation toward his preference. We present two guiding principles to clarify the conditions under which the social planner’s opinion cannot be dismissed and when an agent’s opinion must be respected. Conformity-Priority Efficiency (CPF) asserts that for any given object, we should reward the agent who conforms to social expectation more than others, which strengthens the notion of ordinal efficiency. Indistinguishability Fairness (IF) requires that for any object, if we can’t distinguish agents due to social expectation and support of lottery, then they should be treated equally. Then, we construct a simple Flow algorithm to characterize them precisely.
Chapter 4 also examine the classic random allocation problem and, adhering to the principle of interim favouring rank, propose an alternative variant to the probabilistic setting to eliminate an unfair scenario where agents who rank objects higher receive more favourite objects with positive probability. We introduce the property of interim favouring support, which is satisfied by the fractional adaptive Boston rule. Additionally, we propose a new fairness criterion, termed equal support equal claim, to characterize the fractional adaptive Boston rule.
Finally, Chapter 4 introduces a new efficiency notion, interim efficiency, which is stronger than ex-post Pareto efficiency but weaker than ordinal efficiency. We construct the algorithm that is easy to apply in the lab, the Random Flow mechanism, to achieve interim efficiency. Numerical analysis shows that random flow results in less envy across preference profiles than the random priority mechanism.
Together, these contributions demonstrate the versatility of game theory in addressing complex decision-making, resource allocation, and strategic refinement across diverse contexts
Derived symmetries induced by relatively spherical contraction algebras
Get PDFThis thesis constructs homological symmetries (or, more precisely, derived autoequivalences) of algebras and varieties. In more detail, given a surjective ring morphism p: A → B, this thesis constructs endomorphisms T : D(Mod A) → D(Mod A) and C: D(Mod B) → D(Mod B) called the twist and cotwist around the extension of scalars functor induced by p. Moreover, we prove that these endomorphisms are equivalences in two settings: (1) twists for Gorenstein orders, and (2) twists induced by Frobenius exact categories. (1) When A is a Gorenstein order and B is self-injective, then the twist T and cotwist C are equivalences provided that B is perfect as an A-module and satisfies a certain Tor-vanishing condition. In fact, under these assumptions, C is a shift of the Nakayama functor of B. If, moreover, A is an order over a three-dimensional ring, then we prove that the Tor-vanishing condition is equivalent to the ring-theoretic condition that ker p = (ker p) 2 . (2) Given a Frobenius exact category E and an object x ∈ E, let A = EndE(x), B = EndE (x) so that there is a natural surjection p: A → B. In this setting, we show that the functors T and C are equivalences if B satisfies "hidden smoothness" and "spherical" criteria. We furthermore apply the technology developed in (1) and (2) to construct derived autoequivalences of varieties. More specifically, given a crepant contraction f : X → Y between varieties satisfying mild conditions, there is an associated epimorphism of OY - algebras π: A → Acon which, affine locally, induces a surjection of algebras. Therefore, using techniques in non-commutative geometry, we apply the technology of (1) and (2) to construct autoequivalences of D b (coh X). These results extend the construction of the noncommutative twist, introduced by Donovan and Wemyss, to more general settings. As a corollary, we also obtain that the noncommutative twist is in fact a spherical twist, and we discuss how our results extend previous works on spherical twists induced by crepant contractions
Assessing the role, status and functioning of Scottish Tribunals within the justice system - judicial perspectives
No full textAbstract not currently available
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