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Reforming research cultures in UK HEIs in a neoliberal context : A critical discourse analysis of government and funder research policies
Get PDFThere has been an increasing focus on ‘research cultures’ within higher education institutions (HEIs), driven by greater awareness of negative experiences for staff. The current study explores the impact of government and funder policies on efforts aimed at improving research cultures within HEIs, in order to support effective action that addresses the challenges faced by staff and takes into account the policy context of higher education (HE). To enable a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between policies and research cultures, the current study adopts Archer’s concepts of structure, culture and agency (1995, 1996). Four government and funder policies are analysed to surface the key discourses employed and the effect of those on the behaviour of staff within HEIs. These discourses are compared to the discourses evident in the literature review to understand where contradictions exist. Finally, the opportunities for cultural change raised by those contradictions are discussed, drawing on Archer’s concept of social morphogenesis (2013). The analysed policies largely reinforce existing, dominant values within research cultures, and therefore reproduce elements that research communities have highlighted as unsustainable and problematic. Three key contradictions between the discourses in the policies and those associated with more positive research cultures are identified: narrow notions of research quality vs diversified and inclusive research quality; competition vs collaboration; performance management vs staff wellbeing. By applying Archer’s theoretical framework, recommendations for HEIs seeking to effect cultural change are made, including challenging or redefining existing values, addressing both culture and structure in initiatives, and building a critical mass around research culture values. The current study argues that conditions are ripe for genuine cultural change and advocates for discussion of research culture reform promoting the sustainability of the research sector to be integrated within ongoing discussions of reform related to the financial sustainability of the sector. The data from this project can be found in the appendix and at DOI: 10.17635/lancaster/researchdata/56
Technology-Enabled Cross-Border Entrepreneurship : The Role of Digital Platforms in SME Expansion Through the Lens of Institutional Theory
Get PDFSmall and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face significant institutional barriers when expanding across borders, including regulatory constraints, financial accessibility issues, and market entry challenges. Institutional theory provides a useful framework for understanding how external regulative, normative, and cognitive institutional forces shape SME internationalization. This study conceptualizes SME internationalization performance as a higher-order construct composed of three key dimensions: market entry, financial accessibility, and regulatory compliance. It examines how the adoption of digital platforms, fintech solutions, and blockchain technologies enables SMEs to overcome institutional barriers and enhance their internationalization performance. Using secondary data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the OECD Digital Economy Index, and the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), the study applies regression and factor analysis to assess the effects of digital adoption and institutional environments on SME internationalization performance. The findings indicate that technology-enabled SMEs achieve faster market access, improved financial liquidity, and more effective regulatory compliance than traditional firms. The results also show that the strength of regulative, normative, and cognitive institutions significantly moderates the relationship between digital adoption and overall internationalization performance. This research contributes to institutional theory by demonstrating that institutional alignment—not digital capability alone—is essential for leveraging technology to scale SME operations internationally across heterogeneous economic contexts, and offers policy insights for improving digital infrastructure, regulatory coherence, and institutional trust to foster SME competitiveness in the global economy
Examining human reliance on artificial intelligence in decision making
Get PDFThe use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to effectively support human decision making depends on whether humans are willing to trust in, and thus rely on, AI. Understanding human reliance on AI is critical given controversial reports of AI inaccuracy and bias. Furthermore, the erroneous belief that using technology removes biases may lead to overreliance on AI. To examine humans’ reliance on AI, human participants (N = 295, Mage = 33.79) judged the authenticity of 80 faces (40 real, 40 AI-synthesized) presented alongside guidance supposedly from humans or from AI. This guidance was correct only half of the time. Participants indicated their confidence in each judgement and completed measures to examine propensity to trust humans and general attitudes towards AI. Participants who received AI guidance and exhibited more positive attitudes towards AI showed poorer discriminability between real and synthetic faces than those with less positive attitudes towards AI. For participants who received human guidance, level of trust in humans did not affect discriminability. Therefore, AI-derived guidance may be uniquely placed to engender biases in humans, leading to less effective decision making. To ensure successful human-AI decision making partnerships, more research is needed to understand precisely how humans use AI guidance in various contexts
Pd‐Catalyzed C─C Bond Borylation of Biphenylenes Leading to Tri‐ Ortho ‐Substituted Biaryls
Get PDFRing‐opening diborylation of carbon─carbon (C─C) single bonds is a powerful strategy for installing two versatile functional groups at nonadjacent carbon atoms, enabling skeletal editing of strained ring systems. However, such transformations remain rare for rings larger than cyclopropanes due to kinetic and thermodynamic challenges. Herein, we describe a palladium‐catalyzed diborylation of 1‐substituted biphenylenes enabled by a highly electron‐rich and sterically demanding N‐heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand. The reaction proceeds via selective cleavage of the least sterically hindered C─C bond and affords ortho‐diborylated biphenyls in 39%–89% isolated yields across a broad range of 1‐substituted biphenylenes with diverse steric and electronic properties. High regioselectivities (up to >20:1) are observed for cleavage of the least sterically hindered C─C bond. Regioselectivity is modulated by both electronic and steric effects: electron‐donating aryl substituents enhance selectivity, as indicated by a Hammett correlation, whereas spherical substituents favour higher selectivity than planar aryl groups. Supporting stoichiometric experiments indicate a pathway involving initial C─C bond activation. The resulting sterically hindered tri‐ortho‐substituted biaryls may serve as valuable synthetic intermediates, as demonstrated by selective sequential orthogonal postfunctionalization of a representative example
Do More Public Sector School Resources Increase Learning Outcomes? Evidence from a Comprehensive Education Reform in Peruvian Secondary Schools
Get PDFWe evaluate a large-scale government reform in Peruvian public secondary schools that lengthened the school day and invested in pedagogy, staffing, and infrastructure. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we find that the program increased math and reading test scores by approximately 0.185 SD and 0.103 SD, respectively. For math only, we estimate that instructional time contributes approximately two-thirds of the effect, suggesting the importance of complementary inputs. The reform effectively enhanced school resources and increased students’ overall study time. Relative to other education interventions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, the program delivered above-average learning gains but was relatively expensive
Bearing Witness? A legacy of faith in family entrepreneuring
Get PDFIn this study, we examine the intriguing concept of a legacy of faith in the context of family businesses, providing a new perspective on family entrepreneuring across generations. Recent studies herald the influence of religious faith on entrepreneuring but are limited in providing clarity as to how and why a legacy influenced by religious faith may be created and sustained, and with what impact. Relying on a qualitative approach, we examine empirical data from multiple generations in seven families. We find that families in business generate co-constructed stories that build, and sustain, a legacy of faith. In doing so, we contribute to the understanding of a collective identity influenced by religious faith and enhance the theoretical perspective of cultural entrepreneurship. The study shows how and why co-constructed stories contribute to legacies that influence family entrepreneuring and impact business policy. We interpret these co-constructed stories using the metaphors of a compass, an anchor, and a lighthouse, and propose a model that illustrates a legacy of faith. We further introduce a model capturing a legacy of faith as a manifestation of cultural entrepreneurship and family entrepreneuring over time
Fire
No full textWe are fire-wielding creatures who live on our solar system's only fire planet. Fire needs a good supply of free oxygen, which is hard to maintain, meaning that fire planets may be rare in the cosmos. Because of the effort needed to escape gravitational fields, it is difficult to imagine leaving a planet without energy from combustion or materials forged by fire – which brings us back to the human history of constructing the fiery projectiles that eventually developed into rockets capable of leaving Earth. The probable rareness of fire in the cosmos should help us to appreciate the pyrodiversity that has evolved on Earth and the astounding range of ways that humans have elaborated upon the capabilities of their fire planet
Reproducibility in lie detection research : A case study of the cue called complications
No full textPurpose: This review examined reproducibility in verbal lie detection research, wherein studies typically involve coding statements to identify deception cues. Such coding is prone to analytic flexibility that can invite false positives. I focused on the cue called complications as a case study. The variable emerged in the literature simultaneously with the availability of open science resources—providing a reasonable expectation that the relevant materials would be archived in accessible repositories if not in the publication. Methods: I reviewed 30 relevant publications to assess whether complications research is amenable to auditing. Results: The findings indicated sufficient consistency in the definitions of complications and little ambiguity regarding what the variable denotes. Additionally, numerical estimates indicated that the extant results in the literature might be replicable—but with a significant caveat. Such replicability entirely depends on acquiring the coding protocols and anonymized raw data of published studies. However, that critical information is not publicly available. I discuss the ramifications of this barrier to reproducibility: it prevents the auditing of published findings, which allows explaining null findings away with post hoc explanations that depend on inaccessible information. Conclusions: At a minimum, journal editors and reviewers must insist on the codebooks of coding protocols. Providing the corresponding anonymized raw data should also be a requirement unless specific obstructions like grant agreements prevent data sharing. The nature of verbal lie detection research necessitates this policy
Resource Management and Intelligent Design for Future Wireless Communication Networks
No full textIn recent years, data traffic has surged unprecedentedly, raising concerns over resource management as predictions forecast a continual exponential growth in devices and wireless connection demand. The increasing demand for high-security, sub-millisecond latency, ultra-dense networks, and ultra-low energy consumption has sparked concerns over resource scarcity. Effective strategies to address this challenge often entail optimizing resource consumption or managing the resource allocation of significant access traffic. Cognitive radios (CR) emerges as a promising solution to alleviate radio resource scarcity, enabling secondary users (SUs) to dynamically share licensed spectrum with primary users (PUs). Firstly, a novel cluster-based cooperative sensing-after-prediction scheme is proposed and optimized under a system accuracy requirement and a energy consumption constraint. The challenging integer programming problems are solved first by relaxing the integer variable. Then, two low-complexity search algorithms are proposed to achieve the global optimum. This work demonstrate that the total energy consumption and the number of users contributing to learning and sensing can be greatly reduced by applying our optimized clustered sensing-after-prediction scheme. Although the proposed algorithm significantly reduces energy consumption in CRNs, the inherent resource sharing nature renders the networks vulnerable to malicious attacks and reduce effective resource utilization. To ensure the security of our system and enhance the outcomes of our energy optimization efforts to increase effective resource utilization, minimizing the effects of malicious users (MUs) remains crucial. Two new types of MU effects model are proposed: normal negative effect and hidden negative effect, based on the behavior of malicious users in categorized groups. The effect models are utilized to formulate the two optimizations on decision fusion parameters then minimize the effect of MUs. The two optimizations base on MUs model yields minimal system error rates and effectively decreases the detection cycle for malicious user detection schemes, without significantly compromising decision accuracy. The outcomes of resource management for CR effectively meet the stringent requirements of both low energy consumption and high security performance. Finally, to fulfill the escalating demand for massive access in future wireless networks, it is crucial to enhance the current Random Access Channel (RACH) mechanism in 5G. A NOMA-enhanced 2-step RACH scheme that jointly leverages the benefits of the ACB, 2-step RACH, and NOMA-RA is proposed to reduce the latency and manage the resource allocation of massive access traffic. The latency performance and other theoretical trade-offs are analyzed by applying Markov chain model, while the optimal access probabilities and throughput of NOMA are derived for further optimization. To cope with the practical scenarios with constantly changing UEs traffic, the thesis proposes a Deep Contextual Multi-Armed Bandit (DCMAB) model that optimizes the NOMA throughput and dynamically adjust the barring rate to remain optimal latency based on the observable channel feedback, confirming the effectiveness of our proposed scheme. The outcomes of resource management for massive access effectively meet the stringent requirements of both low access latency and ultra-dense networks capability
