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Predictors of vaccine hesitancy and protective behaviours to limit the community spread of COVID-19
Get PDFThis monograph is a series of four Rapid Evidence Assessments establishing the predictors of vaccine hesitancy, social distancing, mask wearing and self-isolating to limit the community spread of COVID-19
Are there sufficient education resources to underpin effective implementation of the Tianjin biosecurity guidelines for codes of conduct for life scientist? Results of a survey [Conference paper]
Get PDFAre there sufficient education resources to underpin effective implementation of the Tianjin biosecurity guidelines for codes of conduct for life scientist? Results of a surve
Blockchain technology and circular economy in the environment of total productive maintenance: a natural resource-based view perspective
Get PDFPurpose - Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) could act as a practical approach to offer sustainability deliverables in manufacturing firms aligning with the natural resource-based view (NRBV) theory’s strategic capabilities: pollution prevention, product stewardship, and sustainable development. Also, the emergence of Blockchain Technology (BCT) and Circular Economy (CE) are proven to deliver sustainable outcomes in the past literature. Therefore, the present research examines the relationship between BCT and CE and TPM’s direct and mediation effect through the lens of NRBV theory.
Design/ methodology - The current study proposes a conceptual framework to examine the relationship between BCT, CE, and TPM and validates the framework through the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling. Responses from 316 Indian manufacturing firms were collected to conduct the analysis.
Findings - The investigation outcomes indicate that BCT positively influences CE and TPM and that TPM has a significant positive impact on CE under the premises of NRBV theory. The results also suggest that TPM partially mediates the relationship between BCT and CE.
Originality - This research fills a gap in the literature by investigating the effect of BCT and TPM on CE within the framework of the NRBV theory. It explores the link between BCT, TPM, and CE under the NRBV theory's strategic capabilities and TPM mediation.
Implications - The positive influence of TPM and BCT on CE could initiate the amalgamation of BCT-TPM, improving the longevity of production equipment and products and speeding up the implementation of CE practices.
Keywords: Natural Resource-Based View, Blockchain Technology, Total Productive Maintenance, Circular Econom
NLP K-means algorithm incorporated into a proactive chatbot to assist failing student
Get PDFPredicting failure and individually assisting failing students is an ongoing challenge for most universities. This paper focuses on natural language processing and clustering the k-means algorithm applied to active chatbots. It aims to help students, and specifically to identify and predict failing students and proactively help them. Furthermore, it suggests an intervention to help students based on controllable academic factors that affect their academic performance. First, the authors outline the research context for achieving this goal and created a predictive model of students’ academic performance. The results of the study showed a correlation between the variables and an accuracy of 0.935, and a precision of 0.76 were achieved. Next, the k-means algorithm was used to cluster the students’ problems or different factors that affect the students’ academic performance. Finally, the k-means algorithm was integrated into an active chatbot to help students according to their problem groups
ESASCF: expertise extraction, generalization and reply framework for optimized automation of network security compliance
Get PDFOrganizations constantly exposed to cyber threats are compelled to comply with cyber security standards and policies for protecting their digital assets. Vulnerability assessment (VA) and pene- tration testing (PT) are widely adopted methods for security compliance (SC) to identify security gaps and anticipate security breaches. However, these methods for security compliance tend to be highly repetitive and resource-intensive. In this paper, we propose a novel method to tackle the ever-growing problem of efficiency in network security auditing by designing and developing an Expert-System Automated Security Compliance Framework (ESASCF). ESASCF enables industrial and open-source VA and PT tools to extract, process, store and re-use the expertise in similar scenarios or during periodic re-testing. ESASCF was tested on different size networks and proved efficient in terms of time efficiency and testing effectiveness. ESASCF takes over autonomously the SC in re-testing and offloading the human expert by automating repeated segments SC and thus enabling experts to prioritize important tasks in ad-hoc compliance tests. The obtained results show a performance improvement by cutting the time required for an expert to 50% in the context of typical corporate networks’ first security compliance and 20% in re-testing. In addition, the framework allows a long-term impact illustrated in the knowledge extraction, generalization, and re-utilization, which enables better SC confidence independent of the human expert skills, coverage, and wrong decisions resulting in false negatives
Football fandom, glocalisation and the ‘Man United in Pidgin’ Twitter community: a study of the glocal village created through the social media practices of a Twitter account dedicated to West African Manchester United Football Club’s fans
Get PDFThis thesis on ‘Man United In Pidgin’s (MUIP’s) Twitter account discusses how the glocalisation of Manchester United Football Club (MUFC) made possible via that account assists the construction of a postcolonial West African masculine online identity or fandom. MUIP is an unofficial MUFC’s social media fan account created by a Nigerian fan of MUFC that provides readers with the team’s news updates in Pidgin English, a lingua franca spoken in many West African countries. In this thesis, the concept of West Africa mainly refers to West African countries where West African Pidgin English is spoken (Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea). Thus, this study addresses two questions: which discursive features do MUIP’s tweets employ? In what ways do these features help create a West African online identity among MUIP’s followers? A discourse analysis of 107 MUIP’s tweets and readers’ replies to these tweets is used as the principal method to investigate these questions. An interview with the founder of MUIP and an online survey assessing MUIP’s followers on Twitter also provide some preliminary production and consumption contexts to this discourse analysis. This research predominantly addresses the relation between media or cultural texts and identity construction, looking at how West African MUFC’s consumers, through the MUIP community, resist to and rework Western media coverage of MUFC and Premier League Football to produce new forms of meanings. It examines what is produced by the MUIP community, how it is produced, what it means, which groups of people it represents, and how MUIP’s audience interpret MUIP’s texts. Through a discourse analysis of the MUIP community’s tweets, this thesis engages with some West African systems of knowledge and unpacks their meanings’ construction. The discourse analysis indicates that MUIP’s content creator, and to an extent MUIP’s audience, mainly give meanings to their utterances via personal pronouns (‘we/us’ or ‘una’) and figures of speech (humour, metaphors, and rhetorical questions). MUIP’s followers build twenty-seven semantic networks in response to the main MUIP’s tweets analysed. The reality constructed by MUIP’s tweets for the readers are mainly those of information and entertainment. This thesis concludes that this account enables its founder to create a sense of belonging to a Nigerian and West African imagined cyber community within his online community and an environment similar to Football Viewing Centres, thereby creating virtual stadiums that entertain, inform, and foster socialisation. This thesis’ findings contribute to discovering how football is covered and followed on social-networking sites in Nigeria and West Africa. New insights are provided by investigating how the participatory culture enabled by this account via the involvement of its readers in content creation is producing, shaping, and exposing a West African masculine online identity. The account’s author and readers perform identities which are decentred, multiple, and sometimes fragmented between numerous shades of local cultural characteristics and various global cultural ones. This thesis builds on McLuhan’s (1962, 1964) concept of ‘global village’ and argues that while the global media reach of the English Premier League and MUFC has created a global village, that village consists of a series of ‘glocal villages’ with unique and specific (cultural) characteristics – MUIP is an example of such villages. This thesis also builds on Igwe et al. (2021) idea that the glocalisation of European Football Leagues in Nigeria creates a sense of communal belonging for those watching these leagues’ matches at Football Viewing Centres by highlighting the discursive practices creating that sense of belonging to a common cultural identity. Besides, while Igwe et al. conducted an offline investigation of such glocalisation, this thesis investigates the glocalisation of MUFC fandom within a West African online community thereby addressing the concern raised by Onyebueke (2018) that the study of online football fandom in West Africa is significantly overlooked. Ultimately, this thesis builds on postcolonial theorists’ contentions that there is a profound global inequity in how frameworks of knowledge and understanding are defined (Young, 2020). Academic research often prioritises the experiences of Western Europeans and North Americans, and their views of the rest of the world. This research is an investigation by a West African of an online community that matters to West Africans. It investigates this global football industry transformed within a West African context and invested with new meanings that re-assert a distinctive West African identity
Beyond individual flow: distributed flow in ice hockey, its antecedents and consequences to performance
Get PDFOne of the most popular psychological factors underlying sport performance has been mental toughness. However, recently, flow and metacognition are starting to receive more attention as the understanding of their potential impact is ever increasing. Flow is considered the intersection of task absorption and intrinsic enjoyment, resulting in optimal performance. Metacognition is the consciousness and understanding of one’s thoughts and thought processes. Mental toughness is a wide-ranging construct generally regarded as the ability to cope through the demands and pressure while maintaining a sense of focus, confidence, and control. This PhD research aimed to extend flow theory and bring metacognition research to ice hockey as this sport has not been studied specifically with either of these nor have these elements been studied in a similar environment with such a fast-paced nature heavily dependent on team mates and requiring constant interaction. It was postulated that a new type of flow was necessary for success in this type of an environment, called distributed flow. This dissertation presents three studies that were conducted to identify distributed flow and develop and validate a self-report questionnaire to measure it validly and reliably as well as further exploratory findings of three distributed flow antecedents and two types of metacognitions.
Semi-structured interviews with 16 ice hockey players were conducted about their experiences and thoughts while playing ice hockey (Study 1, Chapter 2). The sample included six amateurs and 10 former National Hockey League (NHL) players. After the coding and analysis of these results, 15 factors were identified in three themes: distributed flow, composed of four factors, distributed flow antecedents, composed of seven factors, and metacognition, made up of four factors. A 125-item pilot Ice Hockey Questionnaire (IHQ) was developed and tested on a sample of 147 ice hockey players. Exploratory factor analysis yielded an eight-factor solution with item reduction processes resulting in a 36-item scale. Distributed flow remained, now composed of three factors instead of four but only two originals. Distributed attention split into distributed attention and external focus. These scales had the most movement with four items moving factors. The distributed flow antecedents were reduced to three, all original themes, with only one new item being added. Metacognition was reduced to just one type but further refined to consider team and individual aspects. All items were original with the addition of one. The remaining factors included metacognition of resilience: individual, metacognition of resilience: team, strategic timing, coaching impact, adaptiveness, distributed attention, external focus, and routine. The subscales explained a total of 58 per cent of the variance. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on a sample of 342 ice hockey players. Analysis resulted in the elimination of three items but confirmed all eight factors. The final result was a 33-item IHQ.
Participants in both studies also completed the Short Dispositional Flow Scale (SDFS2) (Jackson, Martin, & Eklund, 2008), Short Flow in Work Scale (SFWS) (Moneta, 2017), Flow Metacognition Questionnaire (FMQ) (Wilson & Moneta, 2016), and Mental Toughness Scale (MTS) (Madrigal, Hamill, & Gill, 2013). The correlations between each factor and the psychometric measures were calculated and analysed for each study as a whole as well as taking the demographic categories into consideration. The results across both studies were compared. Furthermore, participants had the option to consent to their playing statistics to be obtained and used the further the analysis. The previous process was completed for this aspect as well. After confirming the validity of the IHQ, mediation modelling was performed to test the relationships with mental toughness and performance. Mental toughness had both a direct and indirect effect on flow, which increased performance. This finding was in line with previous research, confirming the integrity of the data and allowing for the new individual subscales to be analysed in the same fashion. The standout result from this analysis came from strategic timing. When mental toughness, strategic timing, and flow were regressed together on performance, mental toughness was not significant. This is the first time research has shown mental toughness not to have a direct impact on flow and performance. This result far exceeded expectations initially laid out for this research and has confirmed the need for further investigation into this factor specifically as well as the overall concept of distributed flow.
Overall, the findings from the three studies conducted in this dissertation confirm the existence of distributed flow and its positive relationship with performance. Five additional factors have also been identified, which can be considered distributed flow antecedents and types of metacognitions. The dissertation concludes with a summary of its limitations as well as a projection for possible future research, specifically with other sports, such as NASCAR, combat and emergency environments, and multiplayer videogames. It is believed this PhD dissertation has met its aims by having identified a new type of flow and opening the door for future research into individual elements that can eliminate mental toughness when it comes to performance prediction
Metamaterial inspired electromagnetic bandgap filter for ultra-wide stopband screening devices of electromagnetic interference
Get PDFPresented here is a reactively loaded microstrip transmission line that exhibit an ultra-wide bandgap. The reactive loading is periodically distributed along the transmission line, which is electromagnetically coupled. The reactive load consists of a circular shaped patch which is converted to a metamaterial structure by embedded on it two concentric slit-rings. The patch is connected to the ground plane with a via-hole. The resulting structure exhibits electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) properties. The size and gap between the slit-rings dictate the magnitude of the reactive loading. The structure was first theoretically modelled to gain insight of the characterizing parameters. The equivalent circuit was verified using a full-wave 3D electromagnetic (EM) solver. The measured results show the proposed EBG structure has a highly sharp 3-dB skirt and a very wide bandgap, which is substantially larger than any EBG structure reported to date. The bandgap rejection of the single EBG unit-cell is better than − 30 dB, and the five element EBG unit-cell is better than − 90 dB. The innovation can be used in various applications such as biomedical applications that are requiring sharp roll-off rates and high stopband rejection thus enabling efficient use of the EM spectrum. This can reduce guard band and thereby increase the channel capacity of wireless systems
Materiality of common good objects
Get PDFLiterature is abundant about the materiality of 'things' in capitalism (Baudrillard 1968; Miller, 2006) as private good and their impact on public good (Geuss, 2003), but the sphere of the commons and their production outside their connection to the public or the private remains in need of further investigation and knowledge-production. This chapter uses one specific project from the commons organisation the author co-founded entitled Public Works in a neighbourhood in East London (Bow) where she initiated the project in 2014 after being asked to get involved by local residents. Methods in this chapter are framed as forms of common good production and practices within case studies and projects conducted directly by the author. The first method describes a place-based model of the researcher in residence, whilst the second method of practice as verb articulates the production of cultural commons to conceptualise a potential system of common good objects
“It was only a bit of fun” – when bullying and cyberbullying becomes harassment and sexual violence among university students - findings from the Violence at University Project.
No full textTackling violence, harassment and hate crime is high on the agenda for UK universities. Since 2010 the National Union of Students has conducted surveys that evidence problematic behaviours within university settings, including sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances amongst the student population (NUS, 2010; NUS, 2014). Further research also provides evidence of staff sexual misconduct and predatory behaviours (NUS 2018), as well as racial and homophobic harassment, prejudice and (cyber)-bullying (Wertans & Chakraborti 2020; EHRC 2019; Formby 2017; Myers & Cowie 2017).
For this chapter, we report findings from the Violence at University Project (Myers et al., 2022), a quantitative pilot research project that ran from November 2020 until December 2021. The survey was designed by City, University of London, in collaboration with Universities UK (UUK), University of Surrey, De Montfort University and the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen). It was a feasibility study to investigate the possibility of measuring violence, in all its forms, within the HE sector and was not a prevalence study. It did not ask for rates or frequency of violence, it was designed to ascertain whether it would be possible to measure violence in all its forms, picking up both subtle and unsubtle events