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Farms, libraries and adventure playground spaces for Orwell, Hardie, Carroll and Fry: James Martin Charlton's site-responsive productions of James Kenworth's plays in Newham
No full textSince 2014, I have directed a series of site-specific plays by James Kenworth in East London's Newham borough, funded by The Royal Docks Trust. Each production was staged at a non-theatre site. Charlton's role as a director was to facilitate productions that respond to the site's possibilities and uncover congruencies between the site and the text's content.
My process is site-responsive, using Wilkie's taxonomy of site-based theatre; it involves exploring the site, allowing its form to meld with the story and text of the performance, and creating a deep synergy between site and text to create a unique meaning.
The productions were Revolution Farm (2014), A Splotch of Red: Keir Hardie in West Ham (2016), Alice in Canning Town (2019), and Elizabeth Fry: The Angel of Prisons (2022). Revolution Farm was a promenade production at an inner-city farm. A Splotch of Red toured community halls and libraries, while Alice in Canning Town was a promenade production over a vast children's playground. Elizabeth Fry was staged in a library space that aligned with the play's prison settings.
This paper offers a case study of my practice in staging these plays in these environments, drawing on public and critical reactions and theories of site-specific, community, and immersive theatre. I argue that as a director, it is my job to imaginatively excavate and collaborate with the sites to reveal a production which has always potentially been there, awaiting discovery. In this way, these sites become the site of a rough magic, which a responsiveness to space and its ever-existing potential as theatre can reveal
Intimate partner violence: laws on sexual violence
No full textThis chapter will focus on laws on Intimate Partner Sexual Violence (IPSV) in Western Countries (e.g., Europe, North America and Australia), South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) . The choice of regions is dictated by the different legal, social and cultural status of women in the regions, which provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the legal status of intimate partner sexual violence globally. Moreover, taking into account the illegal status of extra-marital sexual relationships in a number of communities, the focus of this chapter will be primarily marital rape
The impact of comment history disclosure on online comment posting behaviors
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This study aimed to empirically examine the effectiveness of disclosing user comment history without disclosing personal identity as a nudge policy to refrain users from posting malicious content online.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected the number of comments and posters from the leading portal website in South Korea, Naver.com. To causally investigate the impacts of the new nudge policy on the number of comments and posters, the authors used the regression discontinuity design (RDD) approach.
Findings
The authors found that the new policy reduced all types of comments, including the number of malicious comments, self-deleted comments and current comments. This resulted in an overall decrease in the total number of posted comments, which is considered a side effect. In addition, the authors found that the effect of the nudge policy, which disclosed user comment history, has a stronger effect on older female users than their counterparts.
Originality/value
The study findings extend the current knowledge on a nudge policy being implemented by a website as a means to reduce malicious online content and how it impacts user content posting behaviors
Knowledge management for the micro enterprise: a taxonomy
Get PDFKnowledge Management Systems enhance innovation, increase operational efficiency, and improve decision-making in business organisations. The administrative and resource overheads required to implement and maintain such systems, however, inherently exclude the smallest of firms from reaping these benefits. This paper aims to identify, evaluate, and summarize the distribution of research on knowledge management and supporting systems across business size classifications with a particular focus on micro-enterprises. It also seeks to establish if existing knowledge management models, practices, and systems have invested due consideration in their design to cater for the limited resources typically found in the micro-enterprise. It contributes new insight into the applicability of knowledge management systems to micro-enterprises and stimulates a possible re-think of how such systems can cater for the specific constraints of this prolific business type. This taxonomy provides a thorough analysis of 168 research papers from a total of 10511 papers published in reputable conference proceedings since 2012. It focuses on key knowledge management themes covered, including the size of the enterprise, the adoption challenges, the potential benefits, the technologies used, and the aspects of the knowledge management cycle that are being employed. Furthermore, it draws on this analysis to highlight the appropriateness of existing knowledge management systems to the distinctive risk and opportunity characteristics of the micro-enterprise
Developing an object detection and gripping mechanism algorithm using machine learning
Get PDFLocalizing and recognition of objects are critical problems for indoor manipulation tasks. This paper describes an algorithm based on computer vision and machine learning that does object detection and gripping tasks. Detection of objects is carried out using a combination of a camera and depth sensor using a Kinect v1 depth sensor. Moreover, machine learning algorithms (YOLO) are used for computer vision. The project presents a method that allows the Kinect sensor to detect objects' 3D location. At the same time, it is attached to any robotic arm base, allowing for a more versatile and compact solution to be used in stationary places using industrial robot arms or mobile robots. The results show an error of locating an object to be 5 mm. and more than 70% confidence in detecting objects correctly. There are many possibilities in which this project can be used, such as in industrial fields, to sort, load, and unload different kinds of objects based on their type, size, and shape. In agriculture fields, to collect or sort different kinds of fruits, in kitchens and cafes where sorting objects like cups, bottles, and cans can occur. Also, this project can be added to mobile robots to do indoor human services or collect trash from different places
An exploratory randomised controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of different duration of canine-assisted interventions in higher education students
Get PDFThe aim of this study was to explore whether different durations of canine-assisted intervention (CAI) influenced the beneficial effects of CAI on anxiety, stress, depression, and the well-being of higher education (HE) students. Eighty-eight participants took part in an exploratory randomised control trial (RCT) and were assigned to the 2, 5, and 10-min CAI groups who interacted with a canine, or a control group who watched an unrelated slideshow. Pre- and post-intervention anxiety, stress, depression, and well-being levels were measured. Additionally, the type of interaction between humans and canines was recorded as well as participants’ views of the canines’ neoteny (juvenile features) to explore whether interaction activity and canine features have an impact on the beneficial positive effects of CAI. The results showed no differences in the duration of CAI in reducing anxiety, stress, and depression, meaning a 2-min CAI session was as effective as a 10-min session. The results also found individual intervention activities between humans and canines did not predict a reduction in anxiety, stress, depression, or an increase in general well-being. Additionally, a negative correlation was found between the cuteness of the canine and anxiety, and between the cuddliness of the canine and stress, although these results should be interpreted with caution due to high canine trait scores. Overall, this study used a CAI and control group to explore the differences between a single 2, 5, and 10-min CAI sessions in HE students and demonstrated a 2-min CAI session was as effective as a longer 10-min CAI session in supporting the mental health of HE students, by reducing anxiety, stress, and depression levels in the treatment group
Relationship between kinetic and kinematic measures of the countermovement jump and national weightlifting performance
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The association between vertical jump and weightlifting performance have been well established often using discrete performance measures such as jump height or peak power which provides little insight into temporal strategies. The purpose of this investigation was to identify currently unassessed temporal countermovement jump metrics and their reliability and relationship to national weightlifting performance.
Methods
A total of 42 national weightlifting athletes (n = 30 females and 12 males), were recruited for this study. Countermovement jump was measured using a force plate following a national and international competition. Vertical ground reaction force and time data were analyzed using a custom script where temporal metrics relating to specific phases of the jump were extracted. Snatch, Clean and Jerk and Total weightlifting performance was obtained following each competition. Reliability of jump metrics were determined using coefficient of variation and interclass correlation coefficient. A Spearman’s Rho, non-parametric bivariate correlation was used to determine the relationship between the jump metrics and weightlifting performance.
Results
From a total of 15 metrics, 13 were deemed reliable, with propulsive impulse showing the greatest level of reliability. Correlational analysis showed strong to very strong (r = 0.676–0.817) relationships between all absolute measures of weightlifting performance and propulsive impulse for both women and men.
Conclusion
This novel finding suggests that practitioners may wish to use propulsive impulse as it may provide more insight into changes of force capabilities following training. Additionally, it may also be used as a talent identification tool given its strong relationship to performance
Broadening horizons - employability opportunities within the Interiors Programme
No full textThe session will provide detail on the pedagogic practices, which promote employability, within the Interiors department. As a creative discipline, Interior Architecture and Design students must display a mixture of skills and presentation devices to communicate their work. While honing these abilities our students are immersed in realistic, professional briefs which mimic scenarios within the industry. Do the discipline’s tacit enculturation practices, steer graduates onto specific career pathways without understanding the wider contexts that they will be working in? Our employability challenge is to widen the experience of the cohort, exposing them to the various occupations within the built environment, while engaging them with the discipline’s need to address the ongoing challenges around technology, sustainability and inclusion.
This talk will describe how the team are responding to the changing world our graduates must navigate. We will look at three specific case studies; The Metaverse, Materiality and Adaptive Reuse as Social Practice, asking current students to discuss the effect the curriculum has had on their development. These themes have led Middlesex Interior students to engage with local and global communities, which in turn can help to expand restricted ‘career imaginations’ evident on arrival to the programmes. It is hoped that reflecting on these strategies will provoke further conversations applicable to many other programmes
Middleware for assisted living homes (MiddAALware)
No full textMany countries are grappling with the complexities of an ageing population, a challenge that ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies aim to mitigate. Typically, AAL systems employ middleware to facilitate integration among diverse devices. However, current middleware solutions tend to be large and are designed for expansive smart systems, which is less than ideal for the more modest scale of AAL homes targeted at individuals, such as those with early-stage dementia. The development of personalised and adaptive AAL systems necessitates middleware that is both flexible and lightweight, enabling deployment in environments with limited resources. This MRes project investigates a lightweight middleware solution for AAL systems, aiming to offer adaptable and efficient integration options for AAL home platforms. By embracing a minimalist design approach, this software is designed to perform optimally in resource-restricted settings. The middleware was implemented within the SEArch and Smart Spaces Lab at Middlesex University, alongside a real-time event reasoner, a location detection system, and a behaviour learning module. This setup facilitated improved interoperability among these components. Opting for an event-based middleware architecture over message-oriented or service-oriented alternatives, enables enhanced processing, routing, and data transformation capabilities within the SEArch system architecture. To assess the middleware's effectiveness, three smart automation scenarios simulating daily activities were conducted to illustrate the middleware’s proficiency. These tests illustrated the middleware's proficiency in communicating with the various elements of the SEArch system architecture and demonstrated its efficiency
Crowdfunding and entrepreneurship
No full textThis accessible text provides an insight into the growing global trend of crowdfunding as a source of entrepreneurial finance.
Grounded in academic literature, this book looks at the micro and macro issues within crowdfunding, from the entrepreneur’s access to finance at the business level, to the role of government in regulating the market. It helps the reader develop a sound understanding of crowdfunding as a source of finance, the crowdfunding process and potential options when faced with start-up funding issues.
A range of international case studies of successful and unsuccessful crowdfunding campaigns help readers to apply theory to real-life scenarios. Readers are also supported throughout the book with chapter objectives and summaries, key terms, discussion questions and further reading guidance. Instructor materials such as slides and test questions are available as digital supplements.
Crowdfunding and Entrepreneurship will be a valuable resource for students of new venture creation and entrepreneurial finance, as well as entrepreneurs exploring crowdfunding as an option for business development