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Moving through menopause:A mixed methods study of UK women’s experiences of being physically active during the menopause life stage
No full textObjective: There is growing evidence for the benefits of physical activity during the menopause life stage. However, limited research has explored physical activity behavior of UK women. Using a mixed-methods approach, two-phases of research were undertaken to: 1) assess physical activity levels and examine the relationship with menopausal symptoms, and 2) use the COM-B theoretical framework to understand the influence of Capability, Opportunity and Motivation on physical activity Behavior.MethodsIn Phase 1, participants completed an online survey (n=655; mean age= 49.9yrs). Descriptive analyzes were supplemented with Chi-Squared tests, with Bonferroni correction. In Phase 2, four online focus groups (n=24; mean age=52.7yrs) were undertaken and thematically analyzed.ResultsIn Phase 1, 75% reported achieving 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity/week, although 57% reported activity levels had decreased during the menopause life stage. Twelve out of 14 symptoms were experienced by >50%, with changes in mood and brain fog most common (>80%). There was no significant difference in the proportion meeting the moderate to vigorous physical activity guidelines between those women who did or did not experience individual symptoms, although for 10/14 symptoms, >50% indicated a negative impact on likelihood to engage in activity. In Phase 2, capability (e.g., menopausal symptoms), opportunity (e.g., social support) and motivation (e.g., low confidence) were all influential on behavior. Conclusion These findings enhance our understanding of UK women’s experiences of being physically active during the menopause, and provide insight into potential intervention strategies to support women to be active at that time.<br/
A Robust Multi-Floor Wi-Fi Fingerprinting Approach Based on Geospatial Cells for Indoor Localization
Get PDFWi-Fi fingerprinting uses wireless signals to locate smartphone users indoors effectively. This method is popular because many buildings have numerous wireless access points available. However, due to the complex multi-floor indoor environment with its inherent signal dynamics, it suffers from: 1) computationally inefficient and complex algorithms designed to overcome the spatial unevenness and feature sparsity of the dataset; 2) high sensitivity to environmental dynamics; and 3) low accuracies due to signal fluctuations and inconsistencies between the physical and signal domains. To address these issues, we formulated a robust Wi-Fi fingerprinting approach for multi-floor indoor localization that accurately finds the user’s residing floor and location coordinates. The computational complexities are reduced by organizing the reference points (RPs) into geospatial cells (G-cells), extracting useful statistical features, and finding the localized cells (LCs) leveraging the knowledge of cell APs common with the test point (CATP) and the nearest reference point (N-RP). The algorithm removes outlier N-RPs, and the localized KNN algorithm (L-KNN) finds the real-time user’s coordinates accurately and efficiently. The floor identification algorithm, comprising two modules, segregates LCs into a layered format and utilizes information from neighboring floors’ APs common to the test point to overcome spatial unevenness between training and test samples. Extensive experiments are conducted on three real-world datasets. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach has superior localization accuracy and robustness compared to the best methods in the literature
The race for carbon pricing among firms
No full textAlthough carbon pricing should have a nontrivial impact on environmental performance of firms, prior studies have paid little attention to the type and number of carbon pricing mechanisms (CPMs) that firms deploy simultaneously. In this study, we analyze multiple CPMs within a single framework: mandatory CPMs including carbon trading on compliance markets and carbon tax as well as a voluntary CPM, i.e., internal carbon pricing. Using a sample of 2303 firms with one or more CPMs, we capture the relative impact of the presence of single and multiple CPMs on firms' environmental performance measured through carbon intensity, energy intensity, and environmental score. The results show that while carbon tax can independently provide significant improvements in environmental performance, carbon trading and internal carbon pricing are ineffective on their own, and can even be detrimental in some cases. Our findings suggest that voluntary action is most impactful when embedded within a credible regulatory framework, reinforcing the need for well-designed, predictable, and enforceable carbon pricing policies. A hybrid approach that integrates both mandatory instruments and voluntary corporate initiatives offers the most promising pathway toward effective decarbonization.</p
Enhanced Hydrogeochemical Baseline of a CO2 Injection Facility in Southern Alberta, Canada
No full textGeological storage of CO2 is anticipated to play a significant role in the management and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Monitoring of CO₂ injection facilities is essential to provide reassurance of the containment of the injected CO2. Here, we report results over six years (2018–2023) for a hydrogeological and geochemical (gas compositions, δ13CCH4, δ13CCO2, δ2HCH4 and noble gas concentration and isotopes) monitoring program at a small-scale CO2 injection facility located near Brooks, Alberta, Canada with injection ∼300 m below ground. The results provide a comprehensive record of the subsurface hydrological and geochemical conditions over the six-year period. Injected CO2 was not detected in samples from the injection zone. There was also no indication of injected CO2 in samples collected from surface casing vents of the three ∼300 m deep wells, nor was injected CO2 observed in samples from the six shallow groundwater wells (<105 m deep). Various compositional and isotopic changes have been observed over time which are interpreted to either be indirectly related to CO2 injection or completely unrelated indicating non-CO2 injection related variability in the baseline conditions of the site. Additionally, a progressive reduction in hydraulic head has been observed in some shallow aquifers consistent with drought conditions in the region. Our study implies that complex subsurface changes may occur at CO2 storage sites which may be unrelated to human activity, complicating the monitoring of CO2 injection
Anonymised transcripts from a research project on patient and transplant staff experiences with liver transplantation and the transplant benefit score
No full textThe Transplant Benefit Score (TBS) was introduced in the UK in March 2018 as a method of allocating DBD (donation after brain death) livers for transplantation. The TBS is both far more algorithmically complex than the previous system of allocation, and offers less clinician autonomy in allocation decisions, with livers being matched to particular patients from a national database. The TBS has been the subject of recent media attention, with pieces from BBC News and The Financial Times questioning its fairness and comprehensibility. This data set is the result of a qualitative empirical research project which interviewed 20 patients and 9 transplant staff on their perspectives on the TBS. The project considers the ethics of involving complex algorithmic systems in high stakes resource allocation. The data set includes participant perspectives on information disclosure and patient consent, trust, distributive justice, the staff-patient relationship, the clinical role, amongst other topics
SSD_AMC_Open-set_CODE
No full textAbstract: Increased crowding on the radio frequency spectrum has resulted in a greater risk of radar interference, creating the demand for cognitive radars that can dynamically adapt to avoid interference. A technique that benefits cognitive radar performance is automatic modulation classification, which is the task of identifying the modulation scheme used to encode received digital communications without prior knowledge. Current approaches fail to address the challenges of wideband radio frequency environments that simultaneously contain multiple transmitters and previously unseen modulation schemes. To address the issue of numerous transmitters, this research proposes a novel singleshot detector architecture for detecting and classifying radio frequency communications in a single forward pass through the model. The second issue of previously unseen modulation schemes is also addressed through the incorporation of open-set recognition. The results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves high accuracy in detection, classification, and open-set recognition. This research helps adapt automatic modulation classification to more realistic scenarios by addressing the joint detection and classification in wideband operation with previously unseen modulation schemes. In turn, this framework can improve the performance of downstream tasks such as spectrum sensing for cognitive rada
The lexicon adapts to competing communicative pressures:Explaining patterns of word similarity
Get PDFCross-linguistically, lexicons tend to be more phonetically clustered than required by the phonotactics of the language; that is, words within a language are more similar to each other than they need to be. In this study, we investigate how this property evolves under the influence of competing communicative pressures: a production-side pressure to re-use more easily articulated sounds, and a comprehension-side pressure for distinctiveness of wordforms. In an exemplar-based computational model and a communication experiment using a miniature artificial language, we show that natural-language-like levels of clustering emerge from a trade-off between these pressures. With only one pressure at work, the resulting lexicons tend to inhabit an extreme region of the possible design space: production pressures alone give rise to maximally clustered lexicons, while comprehension pressures alone give rise to maximally disperse lexicons. We also test whether clustering emerges more strongly for high-frequency items, but our results lend support only to a weak relationship between frequency and clustering. Overall, this study adds to a growing body of evidence showing that mechanisms operating at the level of individual language users and individual episodes of communication can give rise to emergent structural properties of language
Transforming Siliconization into Slippery Liquid-like Coatings
Get PDFSiliconization is a specific coating technique to engineer surface properties in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries to lubricate motion, ensure complete dispensation of product, and to inhibit protein adsorption and biofilm growth. However, the focus has been on optimizing hydrophobicity, whereas liquid shedding is dominated by static and kinetic contact line friction. Here, we report a simple-to-apply coating method with optimization of ultra-low contact angle hysteresis liquid-like coatings for glass (G), polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), polyurethane (PU) and stainless steel (SS); materials which are used for pharmaceutical/parenteral packaging and medical equipment. Moreover, we demonstrate that the coating's slow sliding dynamics surface properties for water droplets caused by high droplet kinetic friction, can be converted into fast sliding dynamics corresponding to low droplet kinetic friction, by a simple molecular capping (methylation) process. Our results provide new insight into key aspects of siliconization coatings in the context of industrial/commercial processes
Recycling of carbon fibre/PEKK laminates via glass transition assisted mechanical delamination
Get PDFRecycling high-value thermoplastic composites is essential for sustainable use of advanced materials in high-performance applications. However, the brittle resin matrix and strong interfacial bonding with carbon fibers (CF) compromise CF integrity and alignment during mechanical recycling of carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic laminates. To overcome this, the brittle polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) matrix in a CF/PEKK laminate was reversibly transformed into an elastic rubbery state via controlled heating across its glass transition. In this softened state, reduced resin strength and interfacial adhesion allow wedge-shaped blades to penetrate between CF plies. The wedging action drives incisions through the matrix, inducing fracture and debonding, enabling clean delamination of intact CF/PEKK plies. At low temperatures (≤260 °C), insufficient resin elasticity causes bending fractures during cutting, while at high temperatures (≥340 °C), resin melting disrupts fiber alignment. At optimal conditions, 2 mm-thick unidirectional laminate was delaminated into uniform 0.34 mm-thick plies, preserving fiber length and orientation. The delaminated plies were reconsolidated under heat and pressure into new laminates. The resulting composites retained over 80 % of the original laminate's flexural strength, flexural modulus, and interlaminar shear strength. This study presents a sustainable and effective strategy for high-value recycling of end-of-life carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites
Death of a trashcan genus? Phylogenetic reassessment of the oak gallwasp genus Dryocosmus (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini)
No full textOak gallwasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini) are a diverse group of Fagaceae-associated gall inducers, typically host-specific to a single section of the oak genus Quercus or a non-oak genus. Exceptionally, the host range of the genus Dryocosmus includes eight lineages of Fagaceae: five sections of Quercus and the genera Castanea, Castanopsis and Chrysolepis. While Dryocosmus may be a genuine exception to the gallwasp paradigm of host conservatism, such high host diversity could instead result from use of genus-level taxonomic characters that do not define a single monophyletic lineage but instead identify a polyphyletic assemblage of individually more host-specific lineages. We tested these two hypotheses by reconstructing relationships among 35 Dryocosmus species and 27 other Cynipini genera worldwide, using 1,871 base pairs of DNA sequence from one mitochondrial gene (cytochrome b) and three nuclear genes (28S D2, opsin, wingless). Our analyses unambiguously rejected Dryocosmus monophyly, revealing the genus as currently circumscribed to comprise a polyphyletic assemblage of lineages that individually show a general pattern of host conservatism. Our analyses also strongly reject monophyly of Callirhytis. We use our results to propose a backbone for taxonomic revision of Dryocosmus and closely related genera. We start this process by (i) transferring D. asymmetricus to Neuroterus asymmetricus (Kinsey), comb. nov., (ii) reinstating Dryocosmus kunugiphagus Ide & Abe comb. rev., (iii) creating a new genus, Chrysolepisphex Stone, Nicholls, Melika & Tang, gen. nov. to circumscribe Chrysolepis-associated Dryocosmus, and (iv) matching sexual and asexual generations of D. quercusnotha (Osten Sacken) and D. quercuspalustris (Osten Sacken)
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