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Kinetics of plasticiser release and degradation in soils
No full textDespite the increasing use of emerging phthalate and non-phthalate plasticisers as replacements for restricted phthalates, few studies have investigated their rates of entry and persistence in soils. We investigated release of the emerging plasticiser diethyl hexyl terephthalate (DEHTP) from polyvinyl chloride microplastics (PVC; 4 mm diameter; 21% DEHTP w/w) in soils in a 3-month laboratory study. DEHTP was released rapidly, with 6.6–12.1 ng DEHTP released per mg PVC within 100 days. Plasticiser half-lives in soils were significantly positively correlated with logKOW. Degradation was typically slower in acidic heathland (pH 3.8; organic matter 3.7%), than in alkaline grassland (pH 7.3; OM 16%) or sandy loam agricultural (pH 5.3; OM 5%) soils. Rapid release and potential persistence of some emerging plasticisers in soils indicates that presence of these contaminants may increase in the future
M-SOS : Mobility-Aware Secured Offloading and Scheduling in Dew-Enabled Vehicular Fog of Things
Get PDFThe gradual advancement of Internet-connected vehicles has transformed roads and highways into an intelligent ecosystem. This advancement has led to a widespread adoption of vehicular networks, driven by the enhanced capabilities of automobiles. However, managing mobility-aware computations, ensuring network security amidst instability, and overcoming resource constraints pose significant challenges in heterogeneous vehicular network applications within Fog computing. Moreover, the latency overhead remains a critical issue for tasks sensitive to latency and deadlines. The objective of this research is to develop a Mobility-aware Secured offloading and Scheduling (M-SOS) technique for a Dew-enabled vehicular Fog-Cloud computing system. This technique aims to address the issues outlined above by moving the computations closer to the edge of the network. Initially, a Dew-facilitated vehicular Fog network is proposed, leveraging heterogeneous computing nodes to handle diverse vehicular requests efficiently and ensuring uninterrupted services within the vehicular network. Further, task management is optimized using a Fuzzy logic that categorizes tasks based on their specific requirements and identifies the target layers for offloading. Besides, a cryptographic algorithm known as SHA-256 RSA enhances security. Moreover, a novel Linear Weight-based JAYA scheduling algorithm is introduced to assign tasks to appropriate computing nodes. The proposed algorithm surpasses the comparable algorithms by 23% in terms of AWT, 18% in terms of latency rate, 14% and 23% in terms of meeting the hard-deadline (H_d) and soft-deadline (S_d), and 35% in terms of average system cost, respectively
Search for a heavy charged Higgs boson decaying into a W boson and a Higgs boson in final states with leptons and b -jets in s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
No full textThis article presents a search for a heavy charged Higgs boson produced in association with a top quark and a bottom quark, and decaying into a W boson and a 125 GeV Higgs boson h. The search is performed in final states with one charged lepton, missing transverse momentum, and jets using proton-proton collision data at s = 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector during Run 2 of the LHC at CERN. This data set corresponds to a total integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1. The search is conducted by examining the reconstructed invariant mass distribution of the Wh candidates for evidence of a localised excess in the charged Higgs boson mass range from 250 GeV to 3 TeV. No significant excess of data over the expected background is observed and 95% confidence-level upper limits between 2.8 pb and 1.2 fb are placed on the production cross-section times branching ratio for charged Higgs bosons decaying into Wh
Invisible pasts, erased futures: epistemic erasure in refugee and migrant experiences
No full textThe ongoing influx of refugees and undocumented migrants has catalysed a more profound discourse on discrimination, stigmatisation, and social exclusion. Existing scholarship often delineates these challenges, yet it frequently characterises refugees as passive victims rather than active agents in shaping their own lives. This paper seeks to bridge this conceptual void through the lens of epistemic erasure – the systemic devaluation and exclusion of refugees’ knowledge, narratives and professional identities – within host communities. Drawing on interviews from Syrian, Afghan and African refugees in Istanbul, we examine how these groups cultivate collective capabilities to subvert epistemic injustice and reclaim their agency and showcase how refugees foster collective strategies to safeguard their cultural heritage, preserve their skills and credentials and sustain their livelihoods. However, these collective capabilities, while essential for resilience and resistance, create a complex paradox: when confined to marginalised social and institutional spaces, there is a risk that they may inadvertently reinforce the very exclusions they seek to dismantle. By recognising these intricacies, we highlight the importance of fostering environments that validate the contributions of refugees and migrants, empowering them to redefine their identities and, reinforce their agency in the face of adversity
Harnessing the bilingual descent down the mountain of life : Charting novel paths for cognitive and brain reserves research
No full textEvidence from various empirical study types have converged to show bilingualisms potential for serving as a cognitive and brain reserves contributor. In this article, I contextualize, frame the need for and offer some expanding questions in this endeavor, inclusive of empirical pathways to address them. While the set of variables and questions discussed herein are definitively incomplete, they embody a good starting point for shaping future directions in research that considers the role bilingual language engagement can have for the developing mind and brain, inclusive of how various, non-linear factors impact the descent bilinguals of various types take down the proverbial mountain of life
Accounting for shared covariates in semi-parametric Bayesian additive regression trees
Get PDFWe propose some extensions to semi-parametric models based on Bayesian additive regression trees (BART). In the semi-parametric BART paradigm, the response variable is approximated by a linear predictor and a BART model, where the linear component is responsible for estimating the main effects and BART accounts for non-specified interactions and non-linearities. Previous semi-parametric models based on BART have assumed that the set of covariates in the linear predictor and the BART model are mutually exclusive in an attempt to avoid poor coverage properties and reduce bias in the estimates of the parameters in the linear predictor. The main novelty in our approach lies in the way we change the tree-generation moves in BART to deal with this bias and resolve non-identifiability issues between the parametric and non-parametric components, even when they have covariates in common. This allows us to model complex interactions involving the covariates of primary interest, both among themselves and with those in the BART component. Our novel method is developed with a view to analysing data from an international education assessment, where certain predictors of students' achievements in mathematics are of particular interpretational interest. Through additional simulation studies and another application to a well-known benchmark dataset, we also show competitive performance when compared to regression models, alternative formulations of semi-parametric BART, and other tree-based methods. The implementation of the proposed method is available at https://github.com/ebprado/CSP-BART
Digitalised higher education : key developments, questions, and concerns
No full textHigher education is already profoundly digitalised. Students, academics, and university administrators routinely use digital technologies, many of which rely on data, including artificial intelligence. Universities aim to operate as data-powered organisations to support institutional efficiency and the personalisation of learning and student experience. These developments are occurring against the backdrop of university digital infrastructure moving to the cloud and the increasing role of ‘Big Tech’ in the sector. However, there are many unknowns about the aggregate impact of digitalisation on the sector, and hence, questions about potential risks and harms remain unanswered. Our approach in this collective piece is to reflect on particularly relevant and impactful dynamics of higher education digitalisation. We first identify assetisation as an emergent mode of governance linked to the digitalisation of HE, which brings new temporal, relational, and lock-in challenges for universities and their constituents. Second, we examine the macro-level structural transformation of higher education with the increasing role of Big Tech and Big EdTech. We conclude by discussing the consequences of the identified macro power dynamics
The relationship between specific reading difficulties and reading motivation dimensions
Get PDFReading comprehension and reading motivation are strongly related. The current study explored the relation between groups of students with different reading profiles (poor decoders, poor comprehenders, good readers, difficulties with both decoding and comprehension – mixed deficit) and key dimensions of motivation. We assessed 120 students (2nd to 6th grade, 57 boys, 63 girls) using standardised assessments of reading comprehension, word reading, and language comprehension. Cluster analysis identified a four-cluster solution in line with the four hypothesised reading profiles. Children completed a reading motivation questionnaire examining affirming (perceived self-efficacy, reading value) and undermining (perceived difficulty, and devaluation of reading) motivations. Mixed deficit students exhibited higher reading value, perceived difficulty, and devaluation of reading than good readers. Poor decoders showed higher reading value than good readers and lower perceived difficulty than mixed deficit students. Poor comprehenders did not show differences with any of the other profiles, and no differences were found between profiles on perceived self-efficacy. These results show that different types of reader have different profiles of reading motivation and underscore the importance of understanding the nuanced relationships of reading difficulties with diverse dimensions of reading motivation
The Liminality of Fraud : Reimagining Fraud Theory to Inform Financial Crime Prevention
No full textUtilizing knowledge from academics, practitioners and subject matter experts with lived experience of fraud, this paper offers four significant contributions to fraud theory. Firstly, we argue that fraudsters seek out liminal spaces. Secondly, the paper identifies that fraudsters do not always seek immediate financial gain. Thirdly, we argue that within liminal space, individuals are transformed into fraud victims or potentially ‘co-offenders’ used to target businesses. By understanding the importance of liminality for the success of fraudulent interactions, we propose that both on and offline spaces that are vulnerable to facilitating fraud can be identified. Finally, we make the argument that aspects of situational crime prevention can be utilized within liminal spaces at key points to prevent fraud
Exploring emergent microservice evolution in elastic deployment environments
Get PDFMicroservices have become an important technology to enable the dynamic composition of large-scale self-adaptive systems. Although modern microservice ecosystems provide a variety of autonomous adaptation mechanisms, when focusing on the microservice itself, they can only account for changes in the sheer increase in workload volume. On the other hand, when workload patterns change, efficient treatment requires the intervention of DevOps experts to manually evolve the internal architecture of services. Given the need to quickly adapt systems to respond to changes, solely relying on DevOps to react to workload pattern changes becomes a bottleneck for future systems. To address this issue, we advance the concept of emergent microservices, that autonomously adapt and evolve their internal architectural composition to better handle changes in the pattern of incoming requests without human intervention. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by exploring this novel concept in the context of a microservice-based Smart City platform