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Tropical forest clearance impacts biodiversity and function, whereas logging changes structure
Get PDFThe impacts of degradation and deforestation on tropical forests are poorly understood, particularly at landscape scales. We present an extensive ecosystem analysis of the impacts of logging and conversion of tropical forest to oil palm from a large-scale study in Borneo, synthesizing responses from 82 variables categorized into four ecological levels spanning a broad suite of ecosystem properties: (i) structure and environment, (ii) species traits, (iii) biodiversity, and (iv) ecosystem functions. Responses were highly heterogeneous and often complex and nonlinear. Variables that were directly impacted by the physical process of timber extraction, such as soil structure, were sensitive to even moderate amounts of logging, whereas measures of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning were generally resilient to logging but more affected by conversion to oil palm plantation
ColdZyme® reduces viral load and upper respiratory tract infection duration and protects airway epithelia from infection with human rhinoviruses
Get PDFUpper respiratory tract infection (URTI) has a significant economic and social impact and is a major factor compromising athletes’ training and competition. The effects of ColdZyme® Mouth Spray on URTI were investigated using an in vivo study in athletes, combined with a novel in vitro air–liquid interface human airway model. Endurance athletes were randomised to ColdZyme (n = 78) or placebo (n = 76) and monitored over 3 months. They completed daily symptom and training logs and collected throat swabs over 7 days during perceived URTI. In vitro studies examined rhinovirus infectivity and epithelial barrier integrity of airway epithelial cells. Eighty‐two in vivo episodes were analysed with significantly lower (P = 0.012) episode duration in the ColdZyme vs. Placebo group (mean ± SD, 6.2 ± 2.6, (median [interquartile range]) 5.5 [4–9] days vs. 10.7 ± 10.2, 7.0 [5–11]). There was no difference in incidence (P = 0.149). Training absence and symptom ratings were lower (P < 0.05) in the ColdZyme group. Swabs were returned for 50 episodes, with at least one pathogen detected in all (rhinovirus was most abundant). Absolute quantification (qPCR) for rhinovirus revealed a significantly lower 7‐day area under the curve in ColdZyme vs. placebo (median reduction, 94%, P = 0.029). In vitro, viral load was significantly lower (median reductions 80–100%), and epithelial barrier integrity better maintained, and no virus was detected by immunofluorescence analyses of pseudostratified epithelia, with ColdZyme treatment (all P < 0.05). ColdZyme is beneficial for reducing URTI duration, symptom ratings and missed training days. These novel data suggest that the mechanisms involve the protection of epithelial cells against rhinovirus infection and damage. image Key points: Upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) are a common complaint in the general population and athletes alike, with social, well‐being and economic consequences, including performance detriments in athletes and reduced work productivity in the general population. Strategies to minimise the risk of contracting a URTI and/or reduce the time taken to clear an infection are desirable to athletes and the general population alike. The present study employed an in vivo study with athletes in combination with a novel in vitro human airway cell model to examine the effects of ColdZyme Mouth Spray on URTI and viral infectivity. The duration for which URTI symptoms persisted was lower with ColdZyme treatment, which also resulted in fewer training absence days. Swabs from participants in the in vivo study and supernatants from the in vitro studies showed lower rhinovirus viral load with ColdZyme treatment compared with placebo or control
Plastic identification using NIR spectral analysis and KNN model with correlation feature selection
Get PDFThe increasing demand for high-purity postconsumer plastics for recycling highlights the importance of efficient material identification. Near-Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is widely used to capture unique spectral fingerprints of materials for identification purposes. However, developing efficient and lightweight machine learning models with NIR spectral data for accurate and real-time classification of plastic materials is still in high demand. This paper presents a new hybrid approach combining the k-nearest neighbours (KNN) model with the filter-based correlation feature selection (CFS) technique for plastic identification. Experiments were conducted to test six key recyclable plastic polymers consisting of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE), Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Polypropylene (PP), and Polystyrene (PS). Feature selection techniques - CFS and principal component analysis (PCA) are applied to extract the essential discriminative features of each type of plastic. With the extracted features, KNN and support vector machine (SVM) models are developed respectively for plastic identification. Experimental results demonstrate that the CFS-KNN model achieves a success rate of 100% with a computational time of 40ms under laboratory conditions, outperforming the PCA-SVM, PCA-KNN and CFS-SVM models in terms of accuracy and computational efficiency
Rotational speed and vibration measurement of wind turbine blades using image processing techniques
No full textThe high cost of operation and maintenance of wind turbines makes structural health monitoring an important front of research. Accurate and real-time measurement of wind turbine blades' rotational speed and vibration is key to ensure operating safety and reduce the cost of maintenance. Existing methods mostly rely on contact measurement on the blades or sophisticated feature extraction. This thesis proposed new methodologies to measure the rotational speed and vibration frequency of wind turbine blades using image processing techniques, improving the response time of the measurements. The methods are tested under various conditions to evaluate their performance and feasibility in simulation as well as an experimental test rig.
A literature review is conducted to understand the advantages and limitations of existing techniques and methods for rotational speed and vibration measurement of wind turbine blades. Consequently, marker-based image processing techniques were selected due to their easy applicability. A marker tracking method is proposed to measure the wind turbine blades' rotational speed and a moiré pattern analysis method is proposed to measure a wind turbine blade's vibration frequency.
The marker tracking method is evaluated mainly by experimentation through conditions including camera parameters, camera positions, and environmental brightness. Results show that higher gain generally yields better results. The marker tracking method works well even in low light conditions with a mere increase of 0.1% in the error range. Camera position greatly affects the measurement accuracy, and is recommended that the camera is positioned within 15° perpendicular to the rotational plane. The marker tracking method is more instantaneous compared to correlation-based methods, especially at low rotational speeds. However, the marker tracking method is less resilient to noise, with the marker detector failing at a Gaussian noise with 0.07 variance.
The moiré analysis method was tested under various camera positions, camera distances, blade angles, and vibration frequencies. The experimental results showed that the moiré analysis method achieves 0% between 14 and 18 Hz at a camera distance between 1 to 2 m. Simulation results further indicate that the measurement range is up to 6 m with a maximum pitch of 60°. Simulating the vibration frequencies of a large wind turbine between 0.8 Hz to 21.9 Hz resulted in an error range from -2.33% to 0.46%. The moiré analysis method's accuracy is not affected by Gaussian noise below 0.3 variance and salt-and-pepper noise below 0.3%
Personality
No full textThe question of personality has been axiomatic to TWAIL scholarship since the seeds of the earliest non-European critique of international law began to germinate in tandem with the earliest seeds of international law per se. This chapter endeavours to provide an overview of some of the most important arguments in this area – whether advanced by TWAIL scholars themselves or unearthed by TWAIL historians from the archives of earlier scholars and practitioners – and to move some way towards an answer to the question of what exactly it is about this body of work that makes its analysis so powerful
Systemic risk: New evidence from alternative financial systems
Get PDFThis study examines the systemic stability of alternative financial systems alongside traditional ones. Utilizing data from 376 conventional and Islamic financial institutions in South and Southeast Asia, as well as MENA countries, spanning 2000-2019, we analyze systemic risk and potential cross-transmission effects. Initially, we evaluate systemic stability considering both systems as a unified framework, then as separate entities. Subsequently, we investigate distress transmission between them to identify the systemically important financial system in these economies. Our findings suggest that systemic risk in one system may stem from distress in the other, with the conventional system exhibiting greater systemic influence on the Islamic system, while the latter transmits lower systemic shocks to the former. These results remain robust regardless of institution size. Additionally, the Islamic financial system demonstrates greater resilience and lower contagion during the 2008 financial crisis. Ultimately, our findings suggest that Islamic financial institutions complement conventional ones in terms of systemic financial stability in dual-banking systems
'Flexibility is the name of the game’: Clinicians’ views of optimal dose of psychological interventions for psychosis and paranoia
Get PDFIn the UK, NICE (2014) recommends a minimum of 16 sessions of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for the treatment of psychosis. One of the barriers to implementation is that clinicians’ views of optimum doses may not fit with this guidance. This study investigates the views of clinicians on the optimal dose of interventions. Fifteen clinicians participated in four focus groups and completed a bespoke questionnaire investigating experiences of dose in different contexts. We used the framework method for data analysis, with Voils et al. (2012) conceptualisation of dose as the frame.
We identified three deductive themes on dose components; number, frequency, and length of therapy sessions. In community settings, participants recommended 1–5 sessions for shorter-term goals, 10–12 sessions for longer-term goals, and highlighted the importance of review after 20–26 sessions. While a range of 16–26 sessions was identified as optimal, a consensus formed around dose being variable to each individual. In inpatient settings, number of sessions was largely dependent on length of stay. In community settings participants found it helpful to initially have weekly sessions and then transition to fortnightly, while in inpatient settings participants met with patients 1–3 times a week. In community settings, participants reported often delivering 50–60 min sessions (although that could vary); while in inpatient settings sessions lasted from 5 min to 2 h. Dose recommendations for community settings applied to digital therapies.
We constructed four inductive themes on how clinicians adapt dose in clinical practice; (1) context matters, (2) individualised treatment approaches, (3) flexibility is key, and (4) balancing clinical idealism and service constraints. Complementing the NICE guidance, our findings endorsed the use of a variable index of sessions to address variability in clinical need. The incorporation of stakeholder views is essential to contextualise quantitative evidence-based recommendations
Endometrial immune assessment in patients with a history of previous euploid blastocyst failure
Get PDFInflux and establishment of key endometrial immune factors in the mid-luteal phase of the menstrual cycle is paramount for successful embryo implantation. Endometrial immune dysregulation is associated with repeated embryo implantation failure and miscarriage. In fertilisation cycles, approximately 30% of embryos diagnosed as chromosomally normal will still fail to produce a viable live birth, yet factors such as the endometrium are rarely clinically explored. In this retrospective analysis, clinical outcomes were compared between patients undergoing their first euploid transfer in a conventional substituted cycle (n=612), patients undergoing a euploid transfer in a similar cycle after previous euploid failure (n=149) and the study group of patients with previous euploid transfer failure who received a modified endometrial preparatory regimen following endometrial immune profiling targeting uterine natural killer cell recruitment, maturity and activity as well as their key regulatory counterparts (n=37). Significant differences were found between first euploid attempt outcomes and patients with previous failures who didn't use endometrial testing (implantation rate 63% vs 51, =0.02; clinical pregnancy rates 55% vs 40%, =0.002; live birth rates 50% vs 38%, =0.02). Patients with previous failures who underwent endometrial immune profiling and a subsequent personalised plan exhibited a trend towards improved clinical outcomes than those with previous failures and no testing (implantation rate 65% vs 51%; clinical pregnancy rate 57% vs 40%; live birth rate 54% vs 38%, respectively) although statistical significance was not demonstrated. Clinical outcomes were comparable between the endometrial immune profiling group and those undergoing a first euploid attempt (implantation rate 65% vs 63%; clinical pregnancy rate 57% vs 55%; live birth rate 54% vs 50%, respectively). Patients who had a failed attempt when using a euploid embryo had lower chances of pregnancy when repeating their treatment, unless they received a personalised endometrial preparation regimen derived from the results of endometrial immune profiling. These preliminary findings indicate the potential value of guiding management based on immune endometrial testing
Human-snake Conflict and Co-existence in Goa, India
No full textHuman-wildlife conflict is increasingly recognised as a major challenge in conservation policy and practice, but remains narrowly framed around visible encounters with large, charismatic species. In contrast, snakebite envenomation, despite causing over 100 times more human deaths annually in India than elephants and tigers combined, remains largely excluded from both conservation frameworks and human-wildlife conflict discourse. In India, as well as globally, snakebite remains of the most neglected challenges at the intersection of public health and biodiversity governance, even though India accounts for nearly half of the global burden of recorded deaths. Treated primarily as a medical emergency, snakebite sits at an uneasy intersection of health systems, ecological disruption, and ethical coexistence, rendering it both politically and institutionally invisible. While policy attention has grown in recent years, mitigation continues to focus narrowly on clinical treatment and species removal. Ecological, veterinary, and socio-cultural dimensions remain largely excluded, despite the need for a One Health approach that recognises snakebite as a conflict that also results in the deaths of both domestic animals and snakes, impacting animal welfare, rescue systems, and broader coexistence dynamics.
This thesis investigates the layered dynamics of human-snake encounters in Goa based on a mixed-methods study that combines five years of public health facility data, six years of rescue and climate records, and 68 in-depth interviews with stakeholders such as doctors, rescuers, veterinarians, community members, and government officials. Two seasonal frequency peaks, during and after the monsoon, merged consistently across human bites, domestic animal deaths, and snake rescues. Generalised Additive Models applied to multi-species rescue data revealed that while rainfall, humidity, and temperature shaped overall patterns of snake rescues, species-specific behaviours such as mating, nesting, and neonate dispersal drove distinct rescue peaks. When interpreted alongside detailed interviews with rescuers, these models showed a striking alignment between local ecological knowledge and modelled trends, demonstrating that retrospective rescue data, when ecologically contextualised, can inform species-sensitive mitigation planning. Goa's relatively low recorded level of human mortality was supported by relatively good decentralised antivenom access, ambulance response, and public trust in government services. However, long-term morbidity is undocumented, psychological trauma is unaddressed, and migrant and informal workers remain structurally excluded from outreach and emergency care. Also, veterinary snakebite is entirely absent from policy frameworks. Interviews revealed that pet and livestock deaths from snakebite are common and often deeply distressing, with owners frequently describing emotional trauma, economic loss, and frustration at the absence of veterinary care or institutional recognition. Unlike animal deaths caused by tigers or leopards, which trigger financial compensation and formal response, snake-related losses remain entirely outside the scope of human-wildlife conflict governance. This exclusion reinforces a systemic double standard in how conflict is recognised, whose suffering is acknowledged, and which species are seen as the state's responsibility. Snake rescues have played a central role in reducing retaliatory and precautionary killings, but now risk reinforcing dependency on removal and undermining coexistence. With no legal clarity, rescue practices remain uneven, some grounded in conservation ethics, others shaped by public pressure, lack of institutional support, or social media performance. This has led to inconsistent training, arbitrary translocations, and growing emotional fatigue among rescuers. These patterns reflect deeper tensions around legitimacy, institutional accountability, and the uneven burden placed on informal actors to mediate human-wildlife conflict in the absence of state systems.
This thesis is the first to empirically connect human, animal, and ecological dimensions of snakebite conflict in India, demonstrating why coexistence strategies must move beyond charismatic species and address the systemic realities of overlooked human-wildlife interactions. By combining ecological modelling, institutional analysis, and grounded qualitative insights, it reframes snakebite as a biodiversity conflict shaped by infrastructure, species behaviour, policy absence, and unequal access to care. The findings show that snakebite conflict results in a spectrum of preventable suffering, of people, livestock, pets, and even protected snakes, shaped by systemic neglect and governance gaps. In doing so, it contributes to a multi-layered framework for understanding how neglected forms of conflict impact both human and animal wellbeing, and why biodiversity governance must integrate coexistence, care systems, and community knowledge as core components of response. Finally, it challenges prevailing assumptions about which people, species, and systems are prioritised in conservation policy and calls for more inclusive, ecologically grounded approaches to managing biodiversity conflict in India and beyond
Ransomware crime through the lens of neutralisation theory
Get PDFThis study examines ransomware crime through the lens of neutralisation theory, and explores techniques used by alleged offenders to justify their involvement in ransomware attacks. This work focuses on highly organised ransomware groups that not only conduct attacks but also operate as Ransomware-as-a-Service businesses. The interview data (n = 9) used in this research were collected by several media and cyber security companies. Drawing on Kaptein and Van Helvoort model of neutralisation techniques, we discovered that interviewees – reported ransomware offenders – distorted the facts (n = 5) and negated societal norms (n = 8). Less common, some interviewees admitted breaking norms, but they rejected responsibility by blaming the circumstances (n = 8) or their own shortcomings (n = 3). These results offer new insights that can support the development of counter-narratives
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