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Bringing characters alive: sensory development in the Fourth Gospel’s characterisation
Get PDFThe present thesis is an interdisciplinary investigation of the work of biblical character construction drawing from biblical studies, cultural anthropology and semiotics. It surveys how the author of the Fourth Gospel alludes to the human senses to build his characters to impact his readers. The research proposes the methodological joint approach to survey the sensory development of the characterisation of Nicodemus (3:1-21; 7:45-51; 19:38-42), the Samaritan woman of Sychar (4:1-42), and the man born blind (9:1-38). Specifically, it attempts to address the question, how might the author of the Fourth Gospel have employed sensory experiences to establish a model of sensory perception to highlight somatic outcomes to develop his characters? To date, there has been no thorough investigation of the sensory development of Johannine portrayals. The analysis through such an exegetical method reveals facets that assist contemporary readers of this Gospel in understanding how its author elaborates on characters by creating unique sensory generative trajectories of meaning for each portrayal while also revealing the impact of sensory perceptions on somatic actions. The survey proposes a biblical sensory model of sensory hermeneutics to provide an alternative perspective of the Johannine characters’ interaction with Jesus that purposefully impacts the readers’ perception of this Gospel’s goal (20:30-31)
Integrating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into engineering education: a practical framework for developing future leaders in sustainability
Get PDFThe climate emergency is one of the most critical societal challenges of our time. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly seen as key drivers of sustainable development, as they prepare future leaders to tackle critical global challenges. HEIs are further identified as key players in advancing sustainable development by incorporating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and sustainability into their teaching and learning processes. This paper presents a practical approach to embedding the UNSDGs into the curriculum of BSc Architectural Technology programme at Middlesex University London which is a pioneering exemplar for embedding UNSDGs at programme level at Middlesex that inspired many undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to follow. The paper introduces a developed and tested framework that offers a step-by-step guide to aligning entire programs and individual modules with the UNSDGs. A core outcome of this research is the development of a baseline for high level integration and a competency matrix that classifies sustainability understanding into three levels: awareness and appreciation, analysis and evaluation, and application and creation. These matrices, alongside the framework, serve as a practical tool for educators aiming to incorporate sustainability into courses in a systematic way. Furthermore, this research offers resources, examples, and a visual workflow that can be adapted by educators to ensure that graduates are equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills and mindset to contribute to sustainable development
The crisis of experience in the age of algorithmic attention [Conference stream]
No full textIn the early decades of the Twentieth Century, theorists, most notably Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno, observed how the temporal registers of capitalism were tendentially
severing subjective experience from its structural and historical determinations, reducing Erfahrung—full, accumulated, and comprehended experience—to Erlebnis, wherein
temporally atomized subjects merely live through disjunctive moments. As Benjamin put it, consciousness was forced to act ‘as a screen against stimuli,’ as the relentless influx of
information did ‘not survive the moment in which it was new’ and impressions, rather than deepening into cumulative experience, increasingly remained confined to ‘the sphere of a certain hour in one’s life.’
In recent years, this crisis of experience has only intensified, with everyday life fundamentally shaped by social media, algorithmic feeds, and digital surveillance. Theorists and philosophers as diverse as Jonathan Crary, Byung-Chul Han, Bernard Stiegler, Yuk Hui, Wendy Chun, and Anna Kornbluh have all stressed how contemporary capitalism deepens the fragmentation of subjectivity, replacing sustained attention, memory, and historical continuity with compulsive immediacy, algorithmic habituation, and the relentless extraction of cognitive and affective labor.
Many of these contemporary theorists call for an effective recovery of Erfahrung—whether through cognitive mapping (Kornbluh), reclaiming shared attention (Crary), rethinking
individuation (Stiegler, Hui), or resisting the compulsions of immediacy (Han, Chun). However, for Benjamin and Adorno, any such attempts risked asserting by fiat the recovery
of a mode of experience whose social and historical conditions of possibility had been irreversibly dismantled. They instead affirmed that substantive experience must
paradoxically be grounded in the experience of Erlebnis, in the form of ‘dialectical images’ for Benjamin, and the wholly reified work of art for Adorno. In this spirit, this stream invites proposals which interrogate whether and how fragmented, immediate, and reified forms of experience could paradoxically become sites of critical mediation in contemporary theoretical, aesthetic, or political practices
Der Planungsansatz akut krisenbedingter Unternehmensrestrukturierungen unter Berücksichtigung von Compliance-Aspekten: Eine Untersuchung zu den Planungsmethoden deutscher Restrukturierungsberatungen
No full textThis study examines how specialized restructuring consultants in Germany manage acute corporate crises. It investigates how adequate planning can be ensured under tremendous time pressure. It also considers potential impacts of increasingly complex compliance requirements during the execution of restructuring measures. A critical review of the literature reveals a lack of methodological framework for crisis management. This question has not been extensively discussed in research or professional literature. Statements regarding this issue are thus rather superficial, revealing significant methodological gaps. This significantly complicates acute restructurings for less experienced consultants and managers, as evidenced by the persistently high failure rate of restructurings. To address this deficiency, this study focuses on how experts plan a restructuring in detail. Specifically, it examines how they cope with time pressure during planning, what methodological tools they employ, and how they account for compliance influences. This focus is achieved through an interdisciplinary examination of literature on project, crisis, and compliance management, serving as a starting point for further empirical investigations. The research is conducted using qualitative methods in the form of a single-case analysis followed by qualitative content analysis, focusing on leading restructuring consultancies in Germany. This approach aims to delve into the depth of the individual case, necessary due to the complexity of restructuring. Specifically, it investigates how restructuring experts shape their planning, covering general planning-related topics such as planning methods (operational and strategic), planning horizons, planning depth, and distinctions from project management planning. Additionally, proven solutions for dealing with compliance during restructuring are discussed. The study presents the planning approach of a restructuring expert and identifies the planning tools used in various restructuring phases and those that can be omitted. Overall, a staged action plan is proposed that can positively influence the execution of a restructuring
ChatEndoscopist: a domain-specific chatbot with images for gastrointestinal diseases
Get PDFThis study aims to enhance domain-specific medical knowledge within large language models (LLMs) by developing a chatbot, chatEndoscopist, a specialized model for oesophageal cancer. In particular, the chatbot incorporates related images to further elucidate the retrieved content while providing answers. Fine-tuned BioMistral LLM with 50 related documents, a dataset specifically curated for medical literature, ChatEndoscopist was compared to ChatGPT. For text answers, despite its specialized training, ChatGPT appears to outperform ChatEndoscopist in precision (0.210 vs. 0.148), recall (0.323 vs. 0.049), and F1 score (0.266 vs. 0.099). ChatGPT also demonstrated superior lexical diversity with a Type-Token Ratio (TTR) of 0.772 and Lexical Density of 0.813, compared to ChatEndoscopist’s TTR of 0.717 and Lexical Density of 0.781. This in part, could be due to the limited documents to fine tune. However, the related images are mostly retrieval with regarding to user’s queries. Future work will focus on incorporating more related papers to balance specialized accuracy with broader linguistic flexibility
The ‘economic rural’ – supporting recovery and regeneration
No full textThis chapter examines the economic rural and the role of planning in supporting and enabling the development or transformation of the rural economy. Central to the analysis is the way that other forms of capital (built, land-based, social-cultural) can be ‘converted’ to economic capital through the revalorisation of the rural resource base. These are fixed or less than mobile assets that are unique to a specific rural place and includes tangible (e.g. built heritage) and intangible (e.g. cultural practices, traditions, networks) assets. The chapter ‘unpacks’ the economic rural into three subcomponents that underpin rural prosperity: i) physical productive infrastructure as material assets for direct conversion to money; ii) enterprise infrastructure, which captures entrepreneurial culture, existing businesses and business links; and iii) community wealth building capacity. The chapter also considers how key societal challenges or mega-trends may potentially disrupt current economic trajectories. These themes are explored in relation to three case studies. First, an example of a smart rural economy in Ireland is examined, followed by the challenge of managing rural tourism in an area with a sensitive environmental and social context in Scotland. Finally, restructuring a local rural economy in relation to food security concerns and agricultural transitions in Wales is examined. The chapter concludes by drawing out lessons for future rural planning practice
Key action areas for transforming the UK food system: insights from the Transforming UK Food Systems (TUKFS) Programme project portfolio
Get PDFThe UK food system is a driver of the public health crisis of non-communicable disease, is linked to the cost-of-living crisis, and contributes to climate change, biodiversity loss and soil degradation. The economy relies strongly on the health of its people and food businesses, while also impacting the livelihoods of food system actors. However, action towards more resilient, equitable and regenerative food systems remains too slow and unambitious to adequately address these challenges. The Transforming UK Food Systems Programme comprises a wide range of research projects which address these challenges in a novel place-based, co-produced and action-oriented way. We provide 27 suggested action areas for supporting food system transformation, grouped in five themes spanning production, manufacturing, supply chain and consumption. Among the suggestions, there is a strong emphasis on the importance of co-production with food system actors and affected citizens. We highlight the vital role of governance and policy in supporting these action areas in both a structural and financial way, noting that this needs both national policy and regional approaches to take into account geographically varying cultural circumstances and values, and to allow the high level of co-production necessary
Introduction to the future priorities for design, branding, marketing and retail: the era of technology and sustainability
No full textIn an era marked by rapid technological advancement and heightened awareness of social and environmental sustainability, this book examines the future priorities for design, branding, marketing and retail. Through an analysis of current industry practices and emerging research, the book aims to illuminate how these transformative forces are reshaping the retail landscape and how they can inspire and inform the evolution of marketing education
A study of open spaces of urban bays in Qingdao, China: from the perspective of fractal order
Get PDFUrban bays in coastal cities like Qingdao play a pivotal role in fostering sustainable human-nature symbiosis amid rapid urbanization. However, economic-driven development has led to fragmented spatial hierarchies and heterogeneous open space distributions, limiting their capacity to meet diverse user demands. Despite their importance for localized human-environment interactions, small-scale bays have received limited scholarly attention. This study addresses this gap by employing fractal theory to analyze the hierarchical structure, scale transitions, and spatial organization of open spaces in two contrasting bays: Qingdao Bay (historically evolved) and Fushan Bay (modern development). Using grid fractal dimension analysis, box-counting methods, and GIS tools, we quantify fractal characteristics, identify scale discontinuities, and evaluate spatial balance. Results reveal that Qingdao Bay exhibits a fractal dimension of 1.784 (R2 = 0.998), aligning closely with ideal urban fractal patterns, while Fushan Bay’s higher fractal dimension (1.839, R2 = 0.999) indicates excessive spatial fragmentation. Key issues include oversized coastal parks disrupting scale continuity, insufficient human-scale interaction spaces, and homogeneous functional zoning. To address these, we propose a fractal-optimized hierarchical framework emphasizing multi-scale integration, transitional spaces, and mixed-use planning. This research advances the application of fractal theory to small-scale coastal systems in Qingdao, offering actionable insights for enhancing spatial quality within similar urban bay contexts
The future of local democracy – devolution and the need to empower town and parish councils
Get PDFDr Amy Burnett (Middlesex University/LPIP Place Fellow) Dr Jason Leman (Citizen Network) and Dr Daniel Ozarow (Middlesex University) reflect on key issues related to the role of town and parish councils, and how this can be amplified in discussions on devolution under the current Labour government. This discussion paper explores the roles and capacities of this smallest scale of government to deliver meaningful democratic action at the ‘hyper-local’ level. This is a particularly topical debate in light of The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which underpins the government’s reforms devolve powers to local government. The authors build on the debates raised in the National Association of Local Council’s (NALC) Power Shift Conference on 23rd June 2025, where its members and local government experts came together to discuss how the current devolution measures might affect town and parish councils. This document highlights the potential of parish and town councils to be leaders of this approach. It acts as a checklist for policy-makers, practitioners, and local government at all scales to consider an integrated approach to reflection, resourcing and measurement