Research from April 2016
This area brings together all research published after April 2016.
Collections in this community
Recent Submissions
-
Microplastics in human urine: characterisation using μFTIR and sampling challenges using healthy donors and endometriosis participantsMicroplastics (MPs) are found in all environments, within the human food chain, and have been recently detected in several human tissues. The objective herein was to undertake an analysis of MP contamination in human urine samples, from healthy individuals and participants with endometriosis, with respect to their presence, levels, and the characteristics of any particles identified. A total of 38 human urine samples and 15 procedural blanks were analysed. MPs were characterised using μFTIR spectroscopy (size limitation of 5 μm) and SEM-EDX. In total, 123 MP particles consisting of 22 MP polymer types were identified within 17/29 of the healthy donor (10 mL) urine samples, compared with 232 MP particles of differing 16 MP polymer types in 12/19 urine samples from participants with endometriosis. Healthy donors presented an unadjusted average of 2589 ± 2931 MP/L and participants with endometriosis presented 4724 ± 9710 MP/L. Polyethylene (PE)(27%), polystyrene (PS)(16%), resin and polypropylene (PP)(both 12%) polymer types were most abundant in healthy donor samples, compared with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) (59%), and PE (16%) in samples from endometriosis participants. The MP levels within healthy and endometriosis participant samples were not significantly different. However, the predominant polymer types varied, and the MPs from the metal catheter-derived endometriosis participant samples and healthy donors were significantly smaller than those observed in the procedural blanks. The procedural blank samples comprised 62 MP particles of 10 MP polymer types, mainly PP (27%), PE (21%), and PS (15%) with a mean ± SD of 17 ± 18, highlighting the unavoidable contamination inherent in measurement of MPs from donors. This is the first evidence of MP contamination in human urine with polymer characterisation and accounting for procedural blanks. These results support the phenomenon of transport of MPs within humans, specifically to the bladder, and their characterisation of types, shapes and size ranges identified therein.
-
Engaging young people with sexual health services in general practice surgeries: a qualitative study of health care professionalsEvidence to date suggests that young people are becoming more sexually active and are forming relationships during the early stages of their lives, sometimes engaging in sexual risk-taking, which contributes to high rates of conception and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Young people at risk of adverse sexual health outcomes are the least likely to engage with reproductive and sexual health promotion programmes and services (RSHPPs), especially in mainstream clinics such as general practice (GP) surgeries. The study aimed to explore the views and experiences of service providers. A qualitative approach to explore the views and experiences of designing and implementing RSHPPs for young people in GP surgeries was used. A total of seven participants were interviewed, including four general practitioners (GPs), two of whom were managers at the practice; one nurse; one healthcare and support worker; and one practice manager. The context of RSHPPs such as local health priorities and partnerships to address STIs and unplanned pregnancies among young people contribute to the implementation and engagement of young people with RSHPPs. Training of GPs, nurses, and support workers helps develop confidence and overcome personal factors by promoting effective engagement of young people with RSHPPs. Addressing local health priorities such as reducing teenage pregnancies and STIs requires organisations to provide RSHPPs in both non-clinical and clinical settings to ensure that RSHPPs are accessible to young people. There is room for improvement in access to RSH for young people in GP surgeries by addressing organisational and structural barriers to access.
-
A privacy-preserving approach to effectively utilize distributed data for malaria image detectionMalaria is one of the life-threatening disease caused by the parasite knows as Plasmodium falciparum affecting the human red blood cells. Therefore, it is an important to have an effective computer aided system in place for early detection and treatment. As the visual heterogeneity of the malaria dataset is highly complex and dynamic, therefore higher number of images are needed to train the machine learning (ML) models effectively. However, hospitals as well as medical institutions do not share the medical image data for collaboration due to general data protection regulation (GDPR) and data protection act (DPA). To overcome this collaborative challenge, our research utilised real-time medical image data using framework of federated learning (FL) framework. We have used the state of the art ML models that include the Resnet50 and densenet in a federated learning framework. We have experimented both models in different settings on malaria dataset constituting 27,560 publicly available images and our preliminary results showed that the densenet model performed better in accuracy (75%) in contrast to resnet50 (72%) while considering 8 clients, while the trend is observed common in 4 clients with the similar accuracy of 94% and 6 client showed that the densenet model performed quite well with the accuracy of 92% while resnet50 achieving only 72%. The federated learning framework enhances the accuracy due to it’s decentralised nature, continuous learning, effective communication among clients as well as the efficient local adaptation. The use of federated learning architecture among the distinct clients for ensuring the data privacy and following the GDPR is the contribution of this research work.
-
Relational wellbeing in the lives of young refugeesThis book is a Special Issue Reprint. In it we consider the ways in which a relational wellbeing approach can be used to understand the lives and trajectories of refugees in general and young refugees in particular. We mainly focus on the lives of young adults who came to the global North as unaccompanied children—that is, without an adult responsible for them when they claimed asylum. Many of the papers report from the Drawing Together project (see https://www.drawingtogetherproject.org/, accessed on 11 January 2024). The project focus is on ‘relational wellbeing’ for young refugees—that is, wellbeing that is experienced through actions that repair and amplify a sense of responsibility they and other people have to each other. Hospitality and reciprocity emerge through small acts of fellowship. In time, these build patterns of exchanges between young refugees and those important to them, leading to a mutual sense of ‘having enough’, ‘being connected’, and ‘feeling good’ (White and Jha 2020). This is wellbeing as a shared endeavour. Overall, the project and many contributions in this Special Issue stand at the conjunction between fields of research into wellbeing and refugee studies. The papers span contexts and countries, offering a sense of an international array of experiences, joined by an issue of supra-national importance—that is, the ways interaction and relationality mediate the experiences of becoming and being a refugee.
-
Accounting professionals' legitimacy maintenance of modern slavery inspired extreme work practices in an emerging economyIt is well-established in the human resource management literature that high intensity and excessive workload can cause undesirable physiological, psychological, behavioural, and social outcomes. However, there is a need to theorise the process by which extreme work has been legitimised and embedded among professionals. In this paper, we view extreme workers as those professionals who contribute to their works beyond acceptable contractual obligations, either voluntarily for personal rewards or involuntarily due to the menace of penalty, or both. We chose to investigate how accounting professionals in India legitimise extreme work in their workplaces using exploratory qualitative research methods and applied economies of worth theoretical framework. Our findings demonstrate that senior accounting professionals with the assistance of professional associations can play an important role in mobilising professional and organisational resources to tackle extreme work in their accounting firms and the industry.
-
Passion and intention among aspiring entrepreneurs with disabilities: the role of entrepreneurial support programsPurpose: This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial support programs and entrepreneurial intention, and the moderating role of entrepreneurial support programs in the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention, among students with physical disabilities in Nigerian tertiary institutions. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a closed-ended questionnaire survey, composed of previously validated scales, to sample 209 students with physical disabilities at tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Hierarchal regression was performed to assess the relationships between the variables and test the hypotheses. Findings: Both entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial support programs were found to be significantly positively related to entrepreneurial intention, and entrepreneurial support programs also moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial intention. Research limitations/implications: This research paper identifies that developing entrepreneurial passion and providing accessible and inclusive entrepreneurial support programs are valuable in supporting and facilitating a passage into entrepreneurship for those with disabilities. Originality/value: This research paper addresses calls for further understanding of how those with disabilities can be supported into entrepreneurship, by identifying supporting factors. The research paper provides further understanding of the entrepreneurial passion and intention nexus by exploring the relationship within those with a physical disability, where significant barriers exist and within a developing country context where entrepreneurship might be a necessity rather than driven by passion.
-
Enhancing text comprehension via fusing pre-trained language model with knowledge graphPre-trained language models (PLMs) such as BERT and GPTs capture rich linguistic and syntactic knowledge from pre-training over large-scale text corpora, which can be further fine-tuned for specific downstream tasks. However, these models still have limitations as they rely on knowledge gained from plain text and ignore structured knowledge such as knowledge graphs (KGs). Recently, there has been a growing trend of explicitly integrating KGs into PLMs to improve their performance. For instance, K-BERT incorporates KG triples as domain-specific supplements into input sentences. Nevertheless, we have observed that such methods do not consider the semantic relevance between the introduced knowledge and the original input sentence, leading to the issue of knowledge impurities. To address this issue, we propose a semantic matching-based approach that enriches the input text with knowledge extracted from an external KG. The architecture of our model comprises three components: the knowledge retriever (KR), the knowledge injector (KI), and the knowledge aggregator (KA). The KR, built upon the sentence representation learning model (i.e. CoSENT), retrieves triples with high semantic relevance to the input sentence from an external KG to alleviate the issue of knowledge impurities. The KI then integrates the retrieved triples from the KR into the input text by converting the original sentence into a knowledge tree with multiple branches, the knowledge tree is transformed into an accessible sequence of text that can be fed into the KA. Finally, the KA takes the flattened knowledge tree and passes it through an embedding layer and a masked Transformer encoder. We conducted extensive evaluations on eight datasets covering five text comprehension tasks, and the experimental results demonstrate that our approach exhibits competitive advantages over popular knowledge-enhanced PLMs such as K-BERT and ERNIE.
-
Coachees’ experiences of integrating a self-selected soundtrack into a one-off coaching sessionArtistic media use in coaching has received growing interest in recent years with increased research and encouraging results. Music benefits wellbeing, aids new perspectives, and enhances embodiment, however, research on the use of music in coaching is limited. This study thematically analysed participants’ reflective texts (N=12) relating to their experience of a one-off coaching session that integrated a self-selected piece of music as a soundtrack related to the session topic. Results support previous literature on the subject, while also providing new findings that the soundtrack primed thinking for the session and was a motivational reminder of the session.
-
Assessing place experiences in Luton and Darlington on Twitter with topic modelling and AI-generated lexiconsPurpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the in situ place experiences of people in Luton and Darlington. Design/methodology/approach: The study used 109,998 geotagged tweets from Luton and Darlington between 2020 and 2022 and conducted topic modelling using latent Dirichlet allocation. Lexicons were created using GPT-4 to evaluate the eight dimensions of place experience for each topic. Findings: The study found that Darlington had higher counts in the sensorial, behavioural, designed and mundane dimensions of place experience than Luton. Conversely, Luton had a higher prevalence of the affective and intellectual dimensions, attributed to political and faith-related tweets. Originality/value: The study introduces a novel approach that uses AI-generated lexicons for place experience. These lexicons cover four facets, two intentions and two intensities of place experience, enabling detection of words from any domain. This approach can be useful not only for town and destination brand managers but also for researchers in any field.
-
How do existing organizational theories help in understanding the responses of food companies for reducing food waste?Food waste is a serious global problem. Efforts to reduce food waste are closely linked to the concepts of circular economy and sustainability. Though food organizations across the world are making efforts to reduce waste in their supply chains, there is currently no theoretical explanation that would underpin the responses of food companies in reducing food waste. Based on interactions with food companies over a nearly 5-year period, we explore the applicability of some well-known and not so well-known organizational theories in the operations management literature to underpin the observed responses of companies in reducing food waste. This paper is one of the first attempts to study food waste from an operations and supply chains point of view, especially from the lens of existing theories in the operations management literature and newer sustainability theories borrowed from other disciplines. Our research findings not only show that existing organizational theories and societal theories can help explain the motivations of firms engaging in food waste reduction, but also call for more research that could help explain some interesting observations that are not apparent when existing theories are used. This paper contributes to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2 and 12.
-
Malaria vaccine efficacy, safety, and community perception in Africa: a scoping review of recent empirical studiesThe review summarizes the recent empirical evidence on the efficacy, safety, and community perception of malaria vaccines in Africa. Academic Search Complete, African Journals Online, CINAHL, Medline, PsychInfo, and two grey literature sources were searched in January 2023, and updated in June 2023. Relevant studies published from 2012 were included. Studies were screened, appraised, and synthesized in line with the review aim. Statistical results are presented as 95% Confidence Intervals and proportions/percentages. Sixty-six (N = 66) studies met the inclusion criteria. Of the vaccines identified, overall efficacy at 12 months was highest for the R21 vaccine (N = 3) at 77.0%, compared to the RTS,S vaccine (N = 15) at 55%. The efficacy of other vaccines was BK-SE36 (11.0-50.0%, N = 1), ChAd63/MVA ME-TRAP (- 4.7-19.4%, N = 2), FMP2.1/AS02A (7.6-9.9%, N = 1), GMZ2 (0.6-60.0%, N = 5), PfPZ (20.0-100.0%, N = 5), and PfSPZ-CVac (24.8-33.6%, N = 1). Injection site pain and fever were the most common adverse events (N = 26), while febrile convulsion (N = 8) was the most reported, vaccine-related Serious Adverse Event. Mixed perceptions of malaria vaccines were found in African communities (N = 17); awareness was generally low, ranging from 11% in Tanzania to 60% in Nigeria (N = 9), compared to willingness to accept the vaccines, which varied from 32.3% in Ethiopia to 96% in Sierra Leone (N = 15). Other issues include availability, logistics, and misconceptions. Malaria vaccines protect against malaria infection in varying degrees, with severe side effects rarely occurring. Further research is required to improve vaccine efficacy and community involvement is needed to ensure successful widespread use in African communities.
-
From augmentation to inpainting: improving Visual SLAM with signal enhancement techniques and GAN-based image inpaintingThis paper undertakes a comprehensive investigation that surpasses the conventional examination of signal enhancement techniques and their effects on visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (vSLAM) performance across diverse scenarios. Going beyond the conventional scope, the study extends its focus towards the seamless integration of signal enhancement techniques, aiming to achieve a substantial enhancement in the overall vSLAM performance. The research not only delves into the assessment of existing methods but also actively contributes to the field by proposing innovative denoising techniques that can play a pivotal role in refining the accuracy and reliability of vSLAM systems. This multifaceted approach encompasses a thorough exploration of the intricate relationships between signal enhancement, denoising strategies, their cumulative impact on the performance of vSLAM in real-world applications and the innovative use of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) for image inpainting. The GANs effectively fill in missing spaces following object detection and removal, presenting a novel state-of-the-art approach that significantly enhances overall accuracy and execution speed of vSLAM. This paper aims to contribute to the advancement of vSLAM algorithms in real-world scenarios, demonstrating improved accuracy, robustness, and computational efficiency through the amalgamation of signal enhancement and advanced denoising techniques.
-
Fault detection and monitoring for electric pump motorsPatent file GB2402869.8 Outcome of Innvoate KTP project.
-
The mediating role of thriving at work between organizational inducements and work outcomesThe study intends to assess the underlying mechanism of thriving between organizational inducements (OIs) and health care workers’ (HCWs) mental health and work effort based on social exchange theory and the socially embedded model (SEM) of thriving. This study tested a conceptual model regarding the antecedents and outcomes of thriving at work (TW). According to the results of structural equation modelling, both dimensions of OIs predict TW among HCWs. Employees who receive OIs display enhanced levels of thriving, which plays a key role in HCWs’ mental health and their work effort. This research adds important insights to the thriving literature by empirically examining its mediating role between workplace resources and HCWs’ health and work-related outcomes.
-
‘Mind the gap”: extending outcome measurement for accountability and meaningful innovationWe examine the outcome measurement landscape in care leaver innovation, where many innovations to support transitions of young people leaving care fail to sustain beyond a fixed-term pilot, and fewer impact wider transition policies. Our empirical qualitative study comprises interviews with 31 senior UK children’s social care policy and practice professionals, 103 interviews across five innovation-focused case studies within England with a range of public and private providers. We consider these data in relation to evaluations from a nationally diffused social care innovation. We identified three measurement landscape challenges. First, we highlight the limits of the economically-oriented measurement and identify an overlooked outcome measurement demand. Second, we emphasise a need to stratify care leaver population outcomes to better reflect individuals transition through different domains of life and trajectory. Third, we identify areas of precarity around intended use of care leaver experience. We conclude that tensions exist between the pull toward a unified approach to outcome measurement and the reality of decoupled outcome requirements and legitimacy-seeking priorities which differ according to stakeholder. These tensions entrench stagnant innovation. Recognition of roles and legitimacies that exist across the process of care leaver innovation is warranted. Opportunities for action are discussed.
-
Comparing leaving-care policy and practice across the four nations of the United Kingdom: exploring similarities, differences, and implementation gapsFrom an international comparative perspective, the four nations of the UK have robust legal and policy frameworks governing care-leaving. Measures taken include: access to aftercare workers; pathway planning; introduction of extended care arrangements (permitting young people to remain in placement beyond 18 years); and specific types of financial support. The paper explores commonalities and differences in approaches across the UK and illuminates how resource constraints, placement availability, workforce challenges and cultural norms may result in implementation gaps and a post-code lottery of provision. Findings lend weight to calls for attentiveness to, and systematic evaluation of, the implementation process to understand the challenges encountered in embedding effective support for care leavers. They also highlight the value of further comparative studies that explore the systems and subsystems of law, policy and practice in the four nations to contribute to more informed leaving care policy and practice.
-
The effects of adapted mind-body exercises on physical function, quality of life and wellbeing for older people: a systematic review and meta-analysisParticipating in physical activity programmes is one way to optimise wellbeing and quality of life in older adults. Mind-body exercises could provide greater benefits than other forms of traditional physical activity and can be easily adapted for older people who are starting to develop functional decline. To synthesise the literature looking at the effects of adapted mind-body interventions on older people. A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted on articles from Web of Science, MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus, AMED and CINAHL that were searched up to 13 September 2023. Studies were extracted and assessed by two authors and included if they were adapted mind-body quasi experimental trials (QET) or randomised controlled trials (RCT) evaluating physical function, quality of life or wellbeing in community dwelling older adults aged 60 years and over. The Cochrane Risk of Bias 2 scale was used for quality appraisal. Analysis of the results included calculating standardised effect sizes (Hedge's g) and a narrative synthesis of results not included in meta-analysis. 18 studies (8 quasi-experimental trial designs, n = 310; 10 randomised control trials, n = 1829) were included in the systematic review, with 14 studies (9 RCT, n = 1776, 5 QET, n = 100) retained for meta-analysis. For the RCT studies, some improvement was noted in mobility (ES 0.36: 95% CI: 0.01, 0.71), flexibility (ES 0.36: 0.01, 0.70), well-being (ES 0.54: 0.18, 0.91) and quality of life (ES 0.50: 0.21, 0.79). No positive effect was observed for leg power (ES 0.09: -0.33, 0.51), leg endurance (ES 0.16: -0.72, 1.03), back scratch test (ES 0.24: -0.10, 0.59), or balance, (ES 0.05: -0.06, 0.15). Heterogeneity varied from 0%-87% across the different outcomes. For the QET studies, gait velocity was shown to improve (ES 0.54: 0.18, 0.91), while fear of falling showed no significant improvements (ES 0.82: -0.06, 1.69). A meta-regression for quality of life in which the total physical activity of the intervention, in hours, was used as a covariate, showed ES = 1.1 for every 100 h of physical activity. There is scope for adapted mind-body physical activity interventions to play a role in improving quality of life, wellbeing, and physical function in older adults. The provision of adapted interventions for older people might improve uptake of and engagement with physical activity interventions in older people with limited or reduced abilities.
-
What does the mid-1990s soybean liberalization tell us about the role of foreign investment in China's rural industrialization?This article reassesses the role of foreign investments in China’s rural industrialization in the 1980s and the early 1990s. It draws upon the power disputes between agribusiness transnational corporations (TNCs) and central domestic players in the country’s soybean complex. I follow Chris Bramall’s argument that food processing infrastructure grew progressively since the Maoist era in the 1960s and 1970s, instead of springing from foreign investments or pro-business local state officials during the reform and opening up. However, I go beyond this assumption by suggesting that foreign investments often had a detrimental role in rural industrialization, depending on their political action. I show through in-depth empirical analyses that due to the Maoist industrial legacy, soybean processors from Northeast China consolidated an endogenous form of accumulation based on local circuits of production and consumption under state protectionism. This specific industrialization trajectory has put them on opposite sides from agribusiness TNCs. The liberalization agenda pushed by the TNCs through bilateral and multilateral levels of influence culminated in the opening of China’s soybean imports in the late 1990s, allowing the consolidation of their global trade monopoly to the detriment of domestic players.
-
Beyond monolithic threat: understanding risk typology in court-involved Black male youthBlack male youth are at greatest risk of disparate contact and detention in the U.S. juvenile justice system. This study aims to identify recidivism risk/need patterns among African American male youth in the Ohio juvenile justice system, utilizing cluster analysis of risk assessment data from the Ohio Youth Assessment System-Disposition (OYAS-DIS). We found four distinct risk patterns and accompanying recidivism rates in the Black male youth population. Two of the clusters exhibited moderate levels of risk. However, they had significantly different recidivism outcomes, suggesting certain combinations of risk factors have more or less impact the propensity for crime in the Black male sample. Implications for policy and practice are discussed, as well as future directions for research.
-
Revolutionising financial portfolio management: the non-stationary transformer's fusion of macroeconomic indicators and sentiment analysis in a deep reinforcement learning frameworkIn the evolving landscape of portfolio management (PM), the fusion of advanced machine learning techniques with traditional financial methodologies has opened new avenues for innovation. Our study introduces a cutting-edge model combining deep reinforcement learning (DRL) with a non-stationary transformer architecture. This model is designed to decode complex patterns in financial time-series data, enhancing portfolio management strategies with deeper insights and robustness. It effectively tackles the challenges of data heterogeneity and market uncertainty, key obstacles in PM. Our approach integrates key macroeconomic indicators and targeted news sentiment analysis into its framework, capturing a comprehensive picture of market dynamics. This amalgamation of varied data types addresses the multifaceted nature of financial markets, enhancing the model’s ability to navigate the complexities of asset management. Rigorous testing demonstrates the model’s efficacy, highlighting the benefits of blending diverse data sources and sophisticated algorithmic approaches in mastering the nuances of PM.