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Game-based simulation for ethics understanding
No full textThough games have been proposed as potentially useful tools for research ethics education, designs have tended to focus on content-oriented understanding, ethics reasoning, and compliance. We explore a game in which contexts and pressures that tend to complicate typical research ethics decision-making were simulated. Preliminary findings suggest that the simulation was better than a traditional, video-based training in helping students realize the socially situated factors influencing ethical research decisions
Negotiating expectations in refugee research:Social work researchers’ unique and intersectional identities
No full textWhile existing scholarship examines research ethics with refugee communities in the Global South, a dearth of literature focuses on how social work researchers’ intersecting personal and professional identities impact the research relationship between refugee research participants and researchers. From the perspectives of two social work researchers, one Black female from Uganda and one white male from the United States, this paper unpacks the implications of facilitating social work research with refugees in East Africa based on our unique identities. Rooted in critical self-reflections of our research projects at two sites (Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda and Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya), this paper illustrates the intersection between sociopolitical context, power, privilege, colonialism, culture, and identity in social work research with refugees. Furthermore, we explore how these factors impact refugee research participants’ expectations of our research projects. We individually and collectively explore how participants’ expectations were connected to our personal and professional identities
Numerical modelling of additively manufactured and wrought maraging steel targets under ballistic impact
No full textThe advantages of on-demand production and customised or optimised parts make additive manufacturing (AM) an exciting prospect for optimised armour systems. High-strength maraging steel is a martensitic steel, widely used in aerospace and tooling industries. The combination of high-strength and the flexibility of AM gives maraging steel significant potential for impact protection applications. However, the enhanced strength of maraging steel, achieved through heat-treatment, simultaneously causes reduced fracture elongation and impact toughness. Therefore, the improved ballistic perforation resistance comes at a compromise of reduced ductility, with the effects of AM fabrication potentially exacerbating the brittle behaviour. This study predicts the ballistic performance of heat-treated AM maraging steel targets, in comparison to wrought targets of the same material, through simulations validated by experiment data. Numerical models calibrated from material characterisation tests are established in the IMPETUS Afea Solver. The ballistic limit velocity was estimated conservatively within the experimentally determined value for both AM and wrought maraging steel with good agreement. Comparisons are drawn concerning how well the numerical failure techniques implemented, node splitting and element erosion, were able to capture the fragmentation behaviour of the brittle heattreated, high-strength targets
What drives the centralization or decentralization of network governance? A configurational analysis in different health and social care networks
No full textMany studies have sought to identify the contingency factors of success in various network governance mechanisms. Despite the relevance of their results, the contingency factors that determine the establishment of specific governance forms remain unclear. Through a qualitative comparative analysis of 13 networks of health and social care integration in Milan (Italy), we explore how diverse configurations of contingency factors produce different governance forms. The results highlight three models. The first clarifies the pathways for centralized governance; the second focuses on those resulting in decentralized governance, and the third demonstrates the existence of hybrid pathways that can lead to hybrid outcomes, underlining the importance of including other contingency factors and assessing them periodically over time. These results yield theoretical and practical insights into how various factors may collectively influence the establishment of centralized/decentralized governance
1,2,5,6-Tetrathiocin as a scaffold for improved charge transport in double-cable oligothiophene systems
Get PDFFour novel small molecules featuring central 1,2,5,6-tetrathiocin (TTC) units fusing two oligothiophene chains have been prepared, characterised and their structures elucidated through X-ray crystallography. These compounds have been evaluated as p-channel semiconductors in organic field-effect transistor devices, representing the first time that any tetrathiocin-containing compound has been utilised in organic transistors. Through extensive optimisation, involving the screening of different processing solvents, surface treatments, post-processing conditions, dielectric materials, and device configurations, hole mobilities (μh) in the 10−2 cm2 V−1 s−1 range were obtained for the most optimised devices, with the highest value of 7.3 × 10−2 cm2 V−1 s−1 achieved in 5T-TTC. The double-cable design, established through two parallel oligothiophene chains in the same molecule bridged by a tetrathiocin core, provides improved device characteristics over analogous double-cable oligothiophenes with tetrathiafulvalene and germanium cores
(Re)organising spontaneity:Organisational practices of the candlelight vigil in South Korea
Get PDFThis article aims to explore how the relational dynamics between the traditional social movement organisations (SMOs) and the newly emerged networks of individual participants influence the institutionalisation of ‘Candlelight Vigil (Chotbuljipoe)’ as a predominant repertoire of contention in South Korea. Candlelight vigils, which generally appear in a peace demonstration or a memorial ceremony, have been established as a routinised form of public protest in South Korea since the early 2000s. Notably, the mobilisation of the Candlelight Vigil is not based on centralised, rigid and hierarchic organisations like traditional trade unions, student groups or civic organisations but more on decentralised, flexible and horizontal networks via the Internet. Moreover, the participants were inclined to reject control by or identification with one central organisation, and instead sought to construct the meaning of their actions spontaneously through both online and offline fora. However, if we excessively emphasise only the novelty of online mobilisation in the Candlelight Vigils, we could overlook the dynamic interactions between conventional well-established organisations and online-based networks. For instance, once the rally was spontaneously suggested on the Internet, the conventional SMOs which had been engaging in divergent issues immediately launched formal cross-sector coalitional organisations for the Candlelight Vigils in a few days. Drawing on in-depth interviews of individual participants and SMO activists in two cases of the Candlelight Vigils, respectively, occurred in 2008 and 2016 to 17, this article has shown that the Candlelight Vigils generated organisational practices across two different modes of mobilisation, the conventional mode led by well-organised activists and the novel mode initiated by unorganised participants, which allowed both sides to learn how to find a middle ground between ‘institutionalisation’ and ‘stagnation’
Fine-Tuning Large Language Models with Sequential Instructions
Get PDFWe find that existing instruction-tuned models usually struggle to adhere to a query with multiple intentions, which impairs their performance when the completion of several tasks is demanded by a single command. Hence, this paper teaches models to respond to sequential instructions. Our first attempt stems from a task-driven perspective, manually creating additional intermediate tasks to train multilingual and visual question answering. Next, we develop an automatic and generic process that turns instructions in existing data into diverse and complex task chains. Models that underwent sequential instruction tuning follow a list of instructions better and deliver higher results in coding, maths, and open-ended generation. Moreover, we put forward a new benchmark named SeqEval to evaluate a model's ability to follow all the instructions in a sequence, which further corroborates the benefits of our sequential instruction tuning method
Developing an English curriculum Introduction of Fire Dynamics for graduate students in non-English speaking countries: an example in China
Get PDFIn response to the challenges prevailing in the international education of fire science for graduate students, and the core one is how to accurately and efficiently disseminate cutting-edge or fundamental international knowledge in the Far East, particularly in non-English-speaking countries or regions, the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science (SKLFS) at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has established an English curriculum titled Introduction of Fire Dynamics with the researchers from University of Edinburgh, UK. This course gives an effective collaborative teaching methodology that fully considers the learning/teaching characteristics of domestic and international students at USTC by combining the strengths of fire safety education across the continents and is dedicated to bridging fire safety education gaps in two hemispheres, broadening the horizons of graduate students, enhancing their professional English level and developing the critical thinking skills. It has transformed its midterm examination by incorporating experimental demonstrations and theoretical explanations of its mechanism, which significantly inspired the students’ interests and passion in fire safety science, attracting extensive national official media reports from China News, People’s Daily Online, China Youth Daily, etc. The students from five other Chinese universities also attended this course online, which is unusual for an English course in a non-English-speaking country, so the course was called the “hottest” course at USTC. This paper will introduce this initiative and propose important references and experiences for education innovation in fire safety science for non-native English-speaking graduate students
Evolution of the Archean crust in the Indian Ocean coastal sector (Napier Complex, and nearby areas) of Antarctica – Review
Get PDFThe Antarctic continent preserves a long crustal history from Eoarchean through Proterozoic to Phanerozoic. This article summarizes the evolution of Archean crustal fragments in the Indian Ocean coastal sector of Antarctica (Dronning Maud Land, Enderby Land, Kemp Land and MacRobertson Land). The Napier Complex in Enderby Land and western Kemp Land is an Archean craton measureing 400 km by 200 km. It is characterized by old fragments >3850 Ma and high-T to ultrahigh-T regional metamorphism at about 2550–2480 Ma, thus recording a crustal history spanning nearly the entire Archean. The available data, which are sparse relative to the large area covered, suggest that several crustal components of different ages have come together to form the terrane. Numerous studies have focused on the UHT metamorphism of this terrane, with >1000–1100 °C peak metamorphic temperatures and subsequent isobaric cooling evident along with some local variations in the P–T evolutions. In addition to the Napier Complex, the surrounding Proterozoic metamorphic terranes, such as in the Lützow-Holm Complex, the Western Rayner Complex, the Rayner Complex, and the Rauer Islands, include several relatively small Archean crustal blocks. Some areas of the Rayner Complex are thought to be reworked parts of the Napier Complex (Oygarden Islands and the Edward VIII Gulf area). UHT metamorphism of Neoproterozoic to Cambrian age has also been demonstrated in these complex, polymetamorphic areas containing Archean protoliths (Rundvågshetta, Forefinger Point, Mather Supracrustals)
Discovery of core genes for systemic lupus erythematosus via genome-wide aggregated trans-effects analysis
Get PDFThe “omnigenic” hypothesis postulates that the polygenic effects of common variants on a typical complex trait coalesce on relatively few core genes through trans-effects on their expression. Our aim was to identify core genes for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by testing for association with genome-wide aggregated trans-effects (GATE) scores for gene expression in a large genetic dataset (5267/4909 SLE cases/controls). SLE was strongly associated with upregulation of expression of eight interferon-stimulated genes driven by shared trans-effects. We estimate that trans-effects on interferon signaling account for 9% of the total genetic effect on SLE risk. Outside this pathway, GATE analysis detected twenty putative core genes for SLE. Direct protein measurements for these genes were strongly associated with SLE in UK Biobank. Two putative core genes (TNFRSF17, TNFRSF13B) encode receptors (BCMA, TACI) expressed on B cells; their ligands (BAFF, APRIL) are targeted by drugs licensed or in development for SLE. Four genes (PDCD1, LAG3, TNFRSF9, CD27) encode receptors that have been characterized as immune checkpoints, and three (CD5L, SIGLEC1, CXCL13) are biomarkers of SLE disease activity. These results provide genetic support for existing drug targets in SLE (interferon signaling, BAFF/APRIL signaling) and identify other possible therapeutic targets including immune checkpoint receptors
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