70015 research outputs found
Sort by
Quantum Advantage on Blockchain Technologies
Get PDFThis thesis will be a discussion of the intersection of two emerging technologies that have the potential to have a major impact on the world over the coming decades, blockchain technologies and quantum computation.
Blockchain technologies have exploded in popularity since their inception in the early 2010s. There are thousands of different projects and millions of users globally. Cryptocurrencies as a product of blockchains are owned and used by hundreds of millions of people globally.
Quantum devices pose a significant threat to the future of many of our most relied upon cryptographic schemes. This has the potential to impact all aspects of our lives on the internet. While it is a technology still in its infancy, with only small-scale circuits capable of very little real-world application, major investment and research over recent years has accelerated the industries' growth.
Within this thesis, it is shown how quantum computers could dramatically affect the entire blockchain industry. Some blockchains will be left vulnerable in such a way that users' cryptocurrency and ownership of their cryptographic keys could be stolen, while others could be rendered almost completely useless. It will be demonstrated that this has an impact on all blockchains save the few that have been designed with quantum resistance in mind. While attacks to digital signature schemes such as RSA and ECDSA have been widely described and are well understood, attacks on the Proof-of-Work mechanism blockchains use for gaining consensus were less well understood. It will be shown how within a medium term time frame, PoW could be attacked by a single quantum entity, potentially leading to 51% attacks against some of the most secure blockchain networks.
This thesis also explores the potential positive impacts that quantum devices could have on blockchain technologies. At present, only a handful of near-term, real-world applications exist for small, error-prone quantum hardware. One promising candidate is the concept of quantum cryptocurrency miners-devices analogous to classical ASICs but engineered specifically to mine Proof-of-Work networks. Introducing such miners can boost profitability and create a self-reinforcing feedback loop that attracts even more quantum miners. Furthermore, it will be quantified how their potential effect on the Bitcoin network's energy footprint, demonstrating that widespread deployment could reduce total consumption by up to 99.999%.
Throughout this thesis, it will be hypothesised what the blockchain industry could look like over the next two decades as quantum devices become more accessible and more computationally powerful. This includes both the positives and the negatives that this could bring for the industry. The importance of this is evident as there exists currently over $1 Trillion in market cap of cryptocurrencies. For most of these funds, the underlying ledgers that they are held on are at least in some way vulnerable. Blockchains due to their decentralised governance structure will be slower to move towards post-quantum security. Furthermore, they are entirely reliant and dependent on quantum vulnerable cryptographic primitives
Linear or Cyclic? Theoretical Investigation of Astrophysically Relevant Magnesium-Bearing MgCnH Carbon Chains and Related Isomers
Get PDFMagnesium-containing molecules, including MgC2H, MgC4H, and MgC6H, have been detected in the interstellar medium, largely facilitated by their high dipole moments. However, despite great efforts, MgC2m + 1H species remain elusive. Given the challenges in obtaining experimental data for these molecules, theoretical studies play a crucial role in guiding their detection. In this work, we present a theoretical analysis of MgCnH isomers (n = 4-7) using density functional theory and coupled-cluster methods to identify low-lying isomers and characterize their structural and electronic properties. Our findings reveal that across the entire series investigated, the global minimum geometry is linear for even values of n, whereas for odd values, a cyclic geometry is favored. Additionally, our calculations highlight the enhanced stability of anionic MgCnH- systems, providing insights that could aid future astronomical detections in the interstellar medium
Indeterminacy and Chanson
No full textIndeterminacy and Chanson considers uncertainty from both academic and creative perspectives, the former through the dissertation, Indeterminacy: An Investigation, which investigates the specific idea of Indeterminacy, and the latter in the accompanying Chanson: A Creative Collection. The dissertation's investigation of Indeterminacy is undertaken from various viewpoints including the relationship between Indeterminacy and metaphor, the use of the term Indeterminacy in literary theory (and the dissertation's proposal of its own definition), the related consideration of John Ashbery's 'The Skaters' and Lyn Hejinian's My Life, and the final bridging chapter which relates the foregoing academic analysis to the creative collection. Chanson is a collection of poetry that comprises eleven sequences of poems in various forms of presentation, ranging from single and multi-column arrangements to prose poetry and images. Its time of writing can be summarised as from the final phase of the pandemic, through the brief phase of apparent recovery, and on to the renewed uncertainty of the current period. Its poems combine personal experience and related writing, and elements from historical literary texts including the anonymous La Chanson de Roland, Chaucer's House of Fame and Jean de La Fontaine's version of the fable, ''The Wolf and the Lamb''. Chanson: A Creative Collection's subject matter is approached from experiential and analytical perspectives, the latter including the relationship between writing and mortality, textual and visual expression, the collection of different objects and their association, and the inherent uncertainty (if not failure) of language to recount experience. Indeterminacy is not a word used in Chanson but a principal result of its writing was the discovery the essential condition of the poems is uncertainty, in various different ways, and related attempts, through the compositional process, to achieve a measure of certainty, failed or otherwise
Être et responsabilité. Phénoménologie et poésie de Jean-Louis Chrétien
Get PDFCette thèse étudie la pensée de la parole de Jean-Louis Chrétien, dans ses livres phénoménologiques et dans ses recueils de poèmes, en dialogue avec les œuvres de Martin Heidegger, d’Emmanuel Levinas et de Paul Celan, selon la perspective thématique « être et responsabilité ». Fondée sur la théologie du Verbe de la tradition chrétienne (catholique), la phénoménologie de Chrétien voit dans la parole le phénomène premier, et sa poésie consiste en une exploration parallèle du pouvoir humain de parler. Pour lui, parler est avant tout répondre, répondre à un appel antérieur. Héritier de l’ontologie de Heidegger et de l’éthique de Levinas, de leur traitement des notions de monde, d’altérité et de Dieu, sa singularité philosophique est de décrire un appel et une réponse à la fois ontologiques et éthiques. La poésie de Chrétien en est la mise en pratique car elle fait usage de la nomination des choses (réponse ontologique) et de l’adresse à l’interlocuteur (réponse éthique) pour exprimer le triptyque « monde, altérité, Dieu ». Dans la première partie de cette thèse (chapitres 2 et 3), nous étudions la pensée phénoménologique et théologique de la parole de Chrétien, son héritage et sa réponse critique à l’ontologie de Heidegger et à l’éthique de Levinas. Dans la seconde partie (chapitres 4 et 5), nous étudions la poésie de Chrétien et de Celan, en étudiant l’entrelacs du chant et de l’adresse dans leurs poèmes, et la définition de la poésie comme chant du monde adressé à un
interlocuteu
A comparative analysis of error correction procedures for skill acquisition in autistic students
Get PDFPurpose
The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of two error correction methods – Model Prompt Switch Repeat (MPSR) and Error Statement, Modelling and Active student Response (ESMASR) – for teaching new skills to autistic students. This study evaluates which method results in faster and more effective skill mastery, measured by the number of trials needed to reach the mastery criterion, and assesses long-term retention of learned skills.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a multiple-treatment reversal design within an Applied Behaviour Analysis framework, this study involved four participants aged 13–15 years. The participants were taught using both MPSR and ESMASR methods, with data collected on how quickly they mastered new skills. Maintenance data were gathered at one and four weeks after teaching to assess skills retention.
Findings
This study found that the MPSR method led to faster and more sustained skill acquisition than ESMASR for most participants. MPSR demonstrated better long-term retention in several cases. These results emphasise the effectiveness of structured error correction procedures in improving learning outcomes for autistic students.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the small sample size and focus on a specific educational setting, the findings of this study may not apply broadly. Future research should test these methods across a wider variety of learners and settings to ensure broader applicability and validation of the results.
Practical implications
This study’s findings offer practical strategies for educators working with autistic students, showing that structured error correction procedures like MPSR can be integrated into daily teaching to improve skill acquisition and retention. These strategies can also inform educator training and instructional planning.
Social implications
This study contributes to a more inclusive education system by offering evidence-based methods that help autistic students succeed. By identifying effective teaching techniques, this research supports efforts to ensure equal educational opportunities for neurodivergent learners.
Originality/value
This study fills a gap in research by comparing two specific error correction methods in an ABA setting, providing fresh insights into which strategies most effectively promote skill acquisition and long-term learning in autistic students. This study also offers practical guidance for educators seeking evidence-based methods to improve student outcomes
Snaring and wildlife wastage in Africa: drivers, scale, impacts, and paths to sustainability
Get PDFSnaring is considered to be the most common form of hunting in Africa. Although snaring can provide hunters with valuable food and income, it can also devastate wildlife populations when practiced unsustainably and has significant animal welfare implications. Snaring can also be wasteful, both when animals escape with fatal injuries and when catch is discarded. In the present article, we argue that snaring is a regional-scale threat to wildlife and to the sustainable use of biodiversity in Africa. We show that snaring in Africa is geographically widespread and locally intense, that tens of millions of snares are likely set across the continent annually, and that at least 100 million kilograms of wild meat is probably wasted in Africa every year because of snaring. We discuss opportunities to address these impacts through changes to governance and enforcement and by reducing demand for wild meat in cities
Development of a Microcontroller-Based Recurrent Neural Network Predictive System for Lower Limb Exoskeletons
Get PDFPractical deployments of exoskeletons can often be limited by cost, limiting access to their usage by those that would benefit from them. Minimising cost whilst not harming effectiveness is therefore desirable for exoskeleton development. For Control Systems governing assistive and rehabilitative exoskeletons that react to the wearer’s movements, there will inevitably be some delay between when their wearer intends to move and when the exoskeleton can assist with this movement. This can lead to situations where a user may be limited by their own assistive exoskeleton, reducing their ability to move freely. A potential solution to this is to provide a proactive method of control, where the most likely path of the wearer’s movement is predicted ahead of the wearer making the motion themselves. This can be used to give the user assistance immediately as they are walking, as well as potentially pre-emptively adjust their gait if they suffer from predictable gait deficiencies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Data Collection, Implementation, and Effectiveness of an LSTM Recurrent Neural Network dynamically predicting future movement based off of prior movement. These methods were developed to use off the shelf, Low-Cost Microcontrollers as to minimise their Financial, Weight, and Power Impact on an overall Low-Cost exoskeleton design, as well as to evaluate how effective such an implementation would be when compared to running such a Neural Network on a more powerful processor. The created model was capable of achieving similar accuracies to far more powerful models on High-Powered Laptops
Simple rules for creating and sustaining an anti-racist sport and exercise organisation
No full textThe murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020 incited a surge in anti-racism efforts across the world. Many organisations, including those related to sport and exercise, were quick to make their stances on racism clear. In efforts to promote anti-racism, new equality, equity, diversity and inclusion (EEDI) groups were formed, while many individuals joined protests and took to social media to raise awareness of the racism that Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) continue to face. In the sporting world, a significant burden and labour is placed on athletes of colour to make strides towards anti-racism. However, every individual working with the sport and exercise industry must act to condemn and eradicate racism. Sport and exercise organisations are in an opportune place to contribute to anti-racism efforts because of their wide reach, yet there is a need for clear advice on how to make change. Therefore, we provide commentary on 10 simple ‘rules’ that can support sport and exercise organisations in creating and sustaining an anti-racism
Citizenship and race
Get PDFBritish citizenship was recognised as a statutory right by the Supreme Court in O in 2022, and not one conferred by the common law. The requirements of citizenship are laid down in the British Nationality Act 1981, as amended. Legal changes to the rules of British citizenship are therefore constrained by rules of statutory interpretation, rather than any broader constitutional principles. Recent deprivation of citizenship laws and judicial decisions have reinforced a de facto stratification of British citizenship, with British citizens from racialised and minoritised communities more vulnerable to losing their citizenship. This is not a new phenomenon but has its origins in the way British subjecthood across the British Empire was racialised. This was done both in terms of immigration rules covering travel within the Empire, and also in terms of the differences in treatment afforded to different groups in the colonies and dominions. Today citizenship law in the UK can be seen as an extension of public order legislation, exercised against large number of the British population who live in the shadow of deprivation orders which may be used against them if they step out of line
Photodissociation of ethanolamine in interstellar clouds driven by UV and soft X-ray irradiation
Get PDFWe investigate the photoinduced fragmentation of ethanolamine (EtA, C2H7NO), a prebiotically relevant amino alcohol detected in G+0.693–0.027, under ultraviolet (UV) and soft X-ray irradiation (12–310 eV) to explore its stability and chemical pathways in astrophysical environments. Experimental data were combined with Born–Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations, which revealed dominant fragmentation pathways and identified nitrogen-containing species as the major ionic products. Notably, CH2NH2+, a highly stable cation formed via C–C bond cleavage and charge localization on the nitrogen centre, emerged as a key fragment. While CH2NH2+ has not yet been detected in the interstellar medium, our results indicate it as a promising candidate for future astronomical searches. Calculated photoionization and photodissociation cross-sections enabled the estimation of photodissociation rates and half-lives for EtA under the X-ray conditions of Sgr B2. EtA exhibited a half-life on the order of 10^7 yr, comparable to other complex organic molecules like methyl formate (HCOOCH3) and acetic acid (CH3COOH) but shorter than simpler molecules such as formic acid (HCOOH). These findings reinforce EtA as a key astrochemical molecule with significant potential for astrobiological implications
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Kent Academic Repository? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!