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The transformation of legal frameworks through secure digitisation
Get PDFPurpose: This research article aims to study the positive and negative factors in implementing electronic document management, analyse the legal aspect of its functioning in the international context, and identify gaps in ensuring cybersecurity.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The research methodology was developed using a mixed approach. The qualitative aspect of the study included literature analysis, comparative analysis, statistical data analysis, generalisation, and systematisation, and the quantitative aspect assessed the impact of digital innovations on cybersecurity risks. A survey of legal experts (total = 16 participants) was conducted. The results were interpreted by correlation analysis conducted in the JASP statistical software using Pearson's Correlations tool.
Research Limitation: The study's main limitation is its focus on the domestic problems of implementing electronic document management in the context of rapid digital transformation.
Findings: The study found that electronic document management will mainly increase productivity by simplifying the basic processes of searching, editing, storing, and sharing digital documents. This will increase the availability of digital information, which, at the same time, will increase the risk of cyber terrorism.
Practical Implication: The study provides industries with actionable insights on optimising workflows, reducing operational costs, and mitigating cybersecurity risks through secure and efficient electronic document management.
Social Implication: The research results point to gaps in the modern electronic document management system, which is beneficial to society and provides the opportunity to increase transparency and trust in government institutions by improving the efficiency and security of document management systems.
Originality/Value: The study expands the scholarly discourse on digital governance by aligning technological progress with international legal standards and cybersecurity practices, thus bridging the gap between theory and practice in digital transformation research
Maximising data from small scale testing on irradiated material for fusion power
Get PDFThere is high demand in the fusion industry for a material testing procedure that extracts a large amount of data from a small volume of irradiated material. This demand arises from the high cost of irradiating material samples to accurately mimic conditions inside a fusion reactor. One property of interest is the variation in failure strain of a material under different stress states, or triaxialities. Current miniature tests are limited to a single triaxiality per experiment and usually result in substantial material waste. This report presents two complementary testing set-ups that combined allow for 18 different triaxialities to be tested while minimising wasted material. These designs consist of rigs and samples, developed iteratively using Finite Element Analysis in SolidWorks. The first design is the Christmas Tree, which allows three tests per sample and can achieve a triaxiality range of 0.31 - 0.457. The second is the Tie Fighter, which achieves a much wider range of -0.392 - 0.455 through rotation of the sample geometry. It only performs one test per sample and has a much more complex set up. To validate the designs, a detailed analysis was performed on each sample in Abaqus to establish the true triaxiality states for each sample
Confession and the scientist-theologian: science as a religious activity
Get PDFThe very title of the “After Science and Religion” project suggests that all is not as it should be with the current shape of Science and Religion as a scholarly discipline. The project presses the need to de-essentialise the discipline’s understanding of the ‘science’ and ‘religion’ categories, and it critiques the current state of the relationship between the modern sciences and theological enquiry. In this article, it is argued that the project has adopted too distant a stance with respect to the modern sciences, and is therefore unable to account for the sincere ‘confession’ of the scientist-theologian in the modern professional sciences, a confession which shows that positive theological engagement with the sciences is possible in spite of the caution of the “After” project. The details of this confession are introduced through Philip Hefner’s commentary on the personal contributions of John Polkinghorne, and are then expanded through a special focus on Charles Coulson’s classic (but largely forgotten) book of 1955, Science and Christian Belief. Coulson’s ‘act of reflection’ provides a means for recognising the rich theism that can flourish in scientific practice, to such an extent that we might follow him in speaking meaningfully of ‘science as a religious activity.
Enforcing conservation laws and dissipation inequalities numerically via auxiliary variables
No full textWe propose a general strategy for enforcing multiple conservation laws and dissipation inequalities in the numerical solution of initial value problems. The key idea is to represent each conservation law or dissipation inequality by means of an associated test function; we introduce auxiliary variables representing the projection of these test functions onto a discrete test set,and modify the equation to use these new variables. We demonstrate these ideas by their application to the Navier–Stokes equations. We generalize to arbitrary order the energy-dissipating and helicity-tracking scheme of Rebholz for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, and devise a time discretization of the compressible equations that conserves mass, momentum, and energy, and provably dissipates entropy
Alexandra El Badaoui - Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology (DClinPsych)
No full textProject 1: Systematic Review of the Literature Title: Review Investigating the Factors Impacting Risk and Resilience for Post Traumatic Stress following Incidents of Reproductive Loss in Mothers Aims/Background: This systematic review aimed to update the review by Christiansen (2017) on the prevalence estimates and risk and resilience factors related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following incidents of reproductive loss. Design/Methods: A search was conducted across Embase, Medline, and PsycINFO using key terms related to reproductive loss and PTSD. Studies published between October 2015 – March 2025 were included if they investigated relevant risk or resilience factors. Reproductive loss was defined as pregnancy loss including miscarriages, stillbirths, terminations for medical reasons, and neonatal deaths up to 28 days after birth. Results: Twenty-two studies fit the inclusion criteria. There was heterogeneity across studies in definitions of types of loss and time since the loss. Prevalence rates ranged from 3% to 99.5% though representativeness of samples limited the reliability of this finding. PTSD severity decreased across time, however prevalence remained high years after loss indicating the long-lasting impact of reproductive loss. Risk and resilience factors were organised into categories including psychiatric, cognitive, demographic, obstetric, and psychosocial factors. Perinatal grief, depression, and previous trauma were significantly correlated to increased PTSD. Social support was an important resilience factor. Similar to the previous review, gestational age and prior losses did not consistently predict PTSD. Novel findings include number of curettages being positively corelated to symptom severity, and the impact of religiosity and culturally relevant coping strategies. Conclusion: Results were compared to those of the previous review. Methodological limitations and directions for future research are discussed. Project 2: Service Improvement Project Title: Improving LGBTQ+ Individuals’ Experiences of Berkshire Talking Therapies This project aimed to explore LGBTQ+ individuals’ experiences of Berkshire Talking Therapies to identify what changes can be implemented to improve the service offering for this specific group. This was explored from both clinician and client perspectives. Qualitative interviews were run with 10 clients who were in therapy with the service at the time. A quantitative survey was emailed to clinicians with items intended to assess their confidence and competence meeting this group’s needs. Thematic analysis was used to analyse interview data, and descriptive statistics were used to present data from the clinician survey. Five themes and four subthemes were identified from the interviews that highlighted ideas around creating safety, avoiding assumptions and maintaining curiosity. The clinician survey evidenced that most clinicians felt confident meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ individuals though there was variation within this. Disparity between data sets highlighted that clinicians were perhaps making assumptions about individuals’ LGBTQ+ identities and the relevance of this to their presenting problems. Both clinicians and clients expressed that the service could do more to create a safe space for this community. Based on this data, recommendations for the service were drafted along with a dissemination plan. Project 3: Theoretically Driven Research Project Title: Exploring the Link Between Imagery, Fear of Childbirth, and Maternal-Foetal Attachment Aims/Background: Imagery plays an important role in maintaining mental disorders such as PTSD and bipolar disorder. Expectant mothers with a fear of childbirth (FoC) experience negative imagery related to the upcoming birth. Maternal-foetal attachment also has an imagery component as mothers imagine what it might be like to hold their baby after birth. These images may be competing for capacity. The present study explored the links between these variables. It was hypothesised that women highly impacted by birth-related imagery and FoC would have lower antenatal attachment, and that high FoC would be linked to a higher tendency to use imagery in everyday life. Design/methods: Pregnant women (n=133) were recruited mainly through social media. They were invited to complete a self-report survey measuring sociodemographic factors, FoC, antenatal attachment, intrusive birth-related imagery, mood, anxiety, and stress, and the general tendency to use mental imagery in everyday life. Results: Intrusive birth-related imagery was associated both with higher levels of FoC and antenatal attachment. FoC was not associated with lower levels of attachment. The general tendency to use imagery in everyday life predicted more variance in attachment than other factors and was not significantly associated with FoC. Conclusion: Birth-related imagery could be positive and negative and therefore linked to increased antenatal attachment and FoC respectively. Intrusive imagery may have a stronger effect on distress than the general capacity to visualise, highlighting its potential as a target for FoC interventions. Limitations with the FoC measure may have impacted the results. Clinical implications are discussed
Efficient hyperparameter estimation in Bayesian inverse problems using sample average approximation
Get PDFIn Bayesian inverse problems, it is common to consider several hyperparameters that define the prior and the noise model that must be estimated from the data. In particular, we are interested in linear inverse problems with additive Gaussian noise and Gaussian priors defined using Matérn covariance models. In this case, we estimate the hyperparameters using the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of the marginalized posterior distribution. However, this is a computationally intensive task since it involves computing log determinants. To address this challenge, we consider a stochastic average approximation (SAA) of the objective function and use the preconditioned Lanczos method to compute efficient approximations of the function and gradient evaluations. We propose a new preconditioner that can be updated cheaply for new values of the hyperparameters and an approach to compute approximations of the gradient evaluations, by reutilizing information from the function evaluations. We demonstrate the performance of our approach on static and dynamic seismic tomography problems. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Frontiers of applied inverse problems in science and engineering’
Coral restoration as economic stimulus: a case study from the Florida Keys ( United States )
Get PDFCoral reefs are declining at unprecedented rates, threatening the livelihoods of nearly 1 billion people. The cause of the decline is a complex mix of local, regional, and global pressures, which are expected to intensify in the coming years, creating a humanitarian crisis with transnational impacts. Coral restoration is neither a panacea for reef decline nor a long‐term solution in the absence of climate remediation. Still, it can be a helpful tool in ensuring corals persist into the future. Recent criticisms of coral restoration question its ability to induce ecological change. However, the socioeconomic benefits of coral restoration can be realized independently from ecosystem improvement through the economic stimulus generated by their activities. Using the Florida Keys (United States) as an exemplar, we show that coral restoration can generate near‐term economic benefits for a local community. Our findings demonstrate that funding coral restoration can have positive and immediate impacts on a local economy, providing near‐term socioeconomic benefits through economic stimulus, independent of future ecological outcomes. Additionally, our findings demonstrate that the economic stimulus generated by coral restoration activity can add resilience to a local economy, as demonstrated in 2020 during coronavirus disease of 2019 shutdowns. We encourage funding and permitting agencies to consider the economic stimulus value when assessing the impact of coral restoration actions
Timing characterization of MALTA and MALTA2 pixel detectors using Micro X-ray source
Get PDFThe MALTA monolithic active pixel detector is developed to address some of the challenges anticipated in future high-energy physics detectors. As part of its characterization, we conducted timing studies necessary to provide a figure of merit for this family of monolithic pixel detectors. MALTA has a metal layer in front-end electronics, and the conventional laser technique is not suitable for timing studies due to the reflection of the laser from the metallic surface. X-rays have been employed as a more effective alternative for penetration through these layers. The triggered X-ray set-up is designed to study timing measurements of monolithic detectors. The timing response of the X-ray set-up is characterized using an LGAD. The timing response of the MALTA and MALTA2 pixel detectors is studied, and the best response time of MALTA2 pixel detectors is measured at about 2.6 ns
Trees and near-linear stable sets
Get PDFWhen is a forest, the Gyárfás--Sumner conjecture implies that every graph with no induced subgraph isomorphic to and with bounded clique number has a stable set of linear size. We cannot prove that, but we prove that every such graph has a stable set of size . If is not a forest, there need not be such a stable set. Second, we prove that when is a ``multibroom'', there is a stable set of linear size. As a consequence, we deduce that all multibrooms satisfy a ``fractional colouring'' version of the Gyárfás--Sumner conjecture. Finally, we discuss extensions of our results to the multicolour setting.
Effective Whitney stratification of real algebraic varieties
No full textWe describe new algorithms to compute Whitney stratifications of real algebraic varieties. Using either conormal or polar techniques, these algorithms stratify a complexification of a given real variety. We then show that the resulting stratification can be described by real polynomials. We also extend these methods to stratification problems involving the so-called full semialgebraic sets as well as real algebraic maps