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Essays on Automation and Future of Skills
Get PDFThe adoption of automation in the labour market introduces a complex array of effectson employment, skill demand, and human capital investment. This thesis encompassesthree distinct but interrelated studies exploring the multifaceted impacts of technologicaladvancement and automation on the labour market, focusing on different types of au-tomation and how it affects human capital investment and the demand for skills.Chapter 1 delves into the differentiated impact of various forms of automation on thehuman capital investment. Utilising data from the international survey of adult skills(PIAAC) across 22 European countries, the study categorises automation based on tasksand technology (e.g., software, robots, AI) and explores how these factors influence work-ers’ decisions to invest in training. The findings reveal a nuanced landscape where theeffect of automation on training varies significantly depending on the type of technologyand the level of a country’s technological readiness. For example, while AI is associatedwith an increase in the investment in human capital, the reverse is true for other automa-tion technologies.Chapters 2 and 3 exploit online job advertisements data in the UK to measure the changesin the employers’ demand for skills. One of the key challenges when using this type datais to correctly identify occupation from the advertisement text. In Chapter 2, I addressthis issue by proposing a novel methodology for classifying occupations using advancedlanguage processing models. To implement it, I used web-scraping to collect data onjob advertisements in the UK. Incorporating job titles and descriptions into the classi-fication process, in particular skill requirements, significantly improves the accuracy ofoccupational classification from job advertisements, opening new areas of labour marketresearch based on job ads.Building on the previous chapter, chapter 3 uses online vacancy data to examine thechanges in the demand for specific skills and the associated wage premiums within andacross occupations, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysisis based on the universe of job advertisements in UK, aggregated by online job plat-form Adzuna. This study uses a novel text classification method I developed by using aLarge Language Model (LLM), specifically the GPT-4 API, to categorise job postings intoskill groups. It finds that workers with ICT and AI skills command significantly higherwages compared to those with interpersonal skills. Interestingly, the study suggests thatCOVID-19 has had no long-term impact on either the demand for specific skills withinan occupation or the wages offered for those skills.Collectively, these studies offer critical insights into the evolving dynamics of the labourmarket in the face of technological change, emphasising the importance of adaptabilityin skill development and the potential that the advanced data analysis techniques offerfor informing policy and practice
Renegade in an Imperial Age:Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall’s Islamic Scholarship and Politics in India Recentred (1920-1935)
Get PDFThis thesis seeks to contribute to discussions across varied disciplines by exploring the historical events and intellectual debates that coloured the life and work of Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall. By paying close attention to the content of Pickthall’s literature, scholarship, and journalism, this thesis offers insights into an array of topics, including controversies surrounding Muslim religious authority in colonial India, the history of Quran translation, post-colonial literary theory, and Muslim anti-colonial activism and scholarship. This work’s primary focus is Pickthall’s political activism and scholarship in India between 1920-1935, which remains a neglected feature of current academic scholarship on his life. My assessment of Pickthall’s life does not seek resolutions, rather it seeks to open further avenues of debate and enquiry, by displaying the multifaceted and complex nature of the historic epochs he inhabited and the nuances that comprised the development of his thought. Pickthall’s was an era of momentous change, as Muslims grappled with the constantly shifting socio-political, intellectual, and religious landscapes they inhabited. One of the most significant aspects of Pickthall’s story is the intricate glimpses he offers into these historical developments through his writings. His literature, journalism, and later scholarship offer varied lenses through which to view the changes occurring in the diverse historical milieus he inhabited, each of which had a deep bearing on his thought. It is this thorough and revised contextualisation of his Islamic thought and politics in India that this thesis offers to existing scholarship on his life
Guest Editorial: Impact through Transformative Consumer Research
Get PDFTransformative Consumer Research (TCR) is the pre-eminent sub-field in Marketing addressing the key intersections between consumer theory, marketing practice and policy to explicitly promote solutions for improving societal well-being. Adopting the innovative format of an EJM impact article, this special issue focuses on TCR’s strength in developing rigorous scientific findings in collaboration with stakeholder organisations and groups to alleviate social problems. Representing a first-time collaboration between European Journal of Marketing and the bi-annual Transformative Consumer Research Conference, all papers contained in this issue have emanated from the 2023 TCR Conference, held at Royal Holloway University of London. By focusing on positive individual and collective change, this exclusively impact article populated special issue showcases the breadth and depth of outcomes that TCR uniquely delivers in terms of partnership, community-building and empowerment-focused collaborations to achieve greater societal impact on wide-ranging issues such as, social media mindfulness, misinformation interventions, gender equity in advertising, social impact measurement for nonprofits, and children’s digital well-being
Bias Control for Mach-Zehnder Modulators:A Gradient-Based Optimization Approach
Get PDFIn this paper, we explore the use of gradient basedoptimization algorithms for automated bias control in Mach-Zehnder Modulators (MZM). We present and demonstrate, experimentally,five gradient descent algorithms; Stochastic GradientDescent (SGD), Stochastic Gradient Descent with Momentum(SGD+M), Adagrad, RMSProp, and Adam, applied to the biascontrol problem in MZMs. We present a method of creating anerror signal from the measured output of an MZM with a lowfrequency pilot tone, and provide a detailed explanation of howeach algorithm is used to both identify the set bias conditionand track the bias condition in the presence of disturbances.Our implementation is capable of identifying and holding thenull condition and the quadrature condition. We evaluate thebias point identification for each algorithm by measuring andanalysing the step response for each method. We test the biastracking of each algorithm using three forms of disturbance;RF power disturbances, temperature disturbance, and long-termbias drift. All tests were conducted at 20GHz. To the best ofour knowledge, this is the first investigation into the applicationon gradient based learning approaches for MZM bias control.This work has great importance on future bias control designand implementations for telecommunications, the space sector,Microwave Photonics (MWP), and defence
“All that ‘needs’ stuff… It’s just me!”: Contesting, navigating and satisfying needs in a homelessness hostel setting
Get PDFPeople who are homeless are frequently discussed in relation to the complex needs that they present with, given their experiences of overlapping physical and mental ill-health, substance use and childhood trauma. This thesis critically examines the ways that needs fit alongside the context of homelessness, the nature of such needs and how they play out. The research question at the heart of this study is ‘how are needs understood (contested), negotiated (navigated) and supported (satisfied) for people who are homeless’. A single-site instrumental case study was undertaken at a 50-bed complex needs hostel in an English city over 22 days in a 4-month period. The study was informed by a conceptual framework linking Stockwell’s ‘unpopular groups’, Honneth’s ‘recognition’ theory and Fricker’s ‘epistemic injustice’. Data collection was undertaken through semi-structured interviews with the residents (n=28) and staff (n=25), structured observations of handover meetings (n=25), team meetings (n=4) and keywork meetings (n=13) and documentary analysis of agency policies and other relevant documents (n=20). The results identify that the liminal nature of the hostel policies, geographies, homelessness experience and staff working conditions shaped how needs were understood. The study also found that needs included functional, relational, ontological and safety or safeguarding needs but there were tensions in how each type were navigated. Encounters with external professionals were pivotal in the satisfaction of needs but could be based on limited understanding, uncaring attitudes, and power dynamics. These findings can be analytically generalised to inform broader policy, practice, and research. The study challenges assumptions about the inherent complexity and hierarchical nature of the needs of people who are homeless. The study also identifies barriers to the acceptance of need by professionals and considers the impact this has on residents’ expressions of their own needs. Concerns about the inversion of professional responses are noted, where wellbeing and care are proposed as core to the offer of support but very little of this care is experienced by people who are homeless. The thesis makes an important contribution to the understanding of needs of people who are homeless at a time when rough sleeping is growing, and hostels are coming under scrutiny in terms of their outcomes for residents with complex needs
Rethinking the Inherent Jurisdiction of the High Court in Safeguarding Adult Reviews:Beyond Legal Literacy
Get PDFPurpose: The Inherent Jurisdiction of the High Court (the IJ) is used in safeguarding adults' work to protect ‘vulnerable’ adults whose autonomy is compromised but who have mental capacity as defined by the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) frequently call on practitioners to develop legal literacy, including regarding the IJ. This article explores and discusses how the IJ is presented in SARs and argues that there are systemic problems beyond legal literacy to consider in this area.Design/methodology/approach: Relevant SARs (n=29) were located through theNational Network of Safeguarding Adult Board Chair’s library. These were thematically analysed to identify patterns regarding how the IJ is covered in these documents.Findings: The reviews converged around specific experiential clusters (familial and domestic abuse, community-based exploitation, self-neglect). They entailed accounts of complex mental capacity issues and raised concerns about legal literacy. It was common to find situations where many other avenues for intervention had been exhausted and the IJ was proposed as a measure of last resort. The discussion of the IJ in SARs occasionally differs from prevailing legal accounts of its application, particularly regarding self-neglect and situations where a third party is not exerting coercion or control. We close the article with a discussion about legal literacy.Originality/value: The IJ is an evolving area of law and practitioners may therefore struggle to grasp its applicability. SARs are important resources for practitioners to learn lessons concerning this less commonly used legal mechanism. As a result, independent reviewers should be cautious about how they frame this legal remedy and consider if this really is a case of ‘legal literacy’
Finanzieller Missbrauch älterer Menschen:Strategien der Befähigung
Get PDF(translated abstract)In October 2018, a UK Member of Parliament, Giles Watling, used his maiden speech to highlight the issue of elder abuse in the UK. Although imperfectly and inconsistently defined, elder abuse is commonly referred to as “a single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust” which results in “harm or distress” to an older person. It is, Watling noted, a widespread yet “poorly understood” crime which deserves to dominate political discourse but which is too often overlooked, the result being Parliament’s “marginalising [of] a forgotten generation.” Elder abuse is also a human rights violation, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission and All Parliamentary Group on Aging and Older People respectively identifying “serious” and “systemic” threats to the human rights of older people as a result. The UK House of Commons Health Committee reported on elder abuse in 2004, expressing concern at the “refusal of professional bodies and society overall to acknowledge the extent of the problem”. Importantly, in Europe and worldwide, states have been slow to respond to elder financial abuse, which is perceived as an increasingly pressing issue
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