Whilst there has been growing attention paid to the paradox around the concept of employability and widening participation agenda, insufficient attention has been paid to intentions of mature students enrolling in the UK higher education. The focus of this study is mature students domiciled in the UK. The empirical literature reviewed presents limited evidence around factors that influence the intention to pursue higher education in the UK. These factors form the key issues for the tertiary education authorities to acknowledge. Hence, this research identified these factors. To achieve this a two-stage literature review process was implemented i.e., critical review of literature followed by systematic review (PRISMA application). The factors identified are personal development, employability, student engagement and financial support. An adapted model based on a newly established theoretical framework Theory of Reasoned Goal Pursuit (TRGP) tested significant relationship between the identified factors to attitude, intention, control belief, perceived control behaviour and enrolment (actual behaviour). TRGP is a newly established theoretical framework based on well-established Theory of Planned Behaviour and Goal System Theory. TRGP has only been applied to health research to predict the intentions for certain health behaviours. The adapted model could be implemented in future research to predict various key behaviours. In this current study this model has generated evidence around mature students’ intention to pursue higher education. Quantitative research methodology was applied, and 349 participants (mature students) data was collected which was then tested using the statistical tool SPSS AMOS extension. This study adopts CB-SEM (Covariance based structure equation modelling) for its ability to effectively test the model developed featuring complex relationships. The current body of knowledge around application of CB-SEM confirms that incorporating confirmatory factor analysis could enhance the reliability and validity of the study. With a focus on generalisability, CB-SEM's requirement for a large sample size aligns with the essence of quantitative research. The assessment of model fit, a critical function enabled by CB-SEM, ensures the empirical viability of the hypothesised model. This study included a theoretical foundation to achieve a model fit and fit indexes served as supplementary information. This study found significant relationship between procurement goal and control belief, the mediating relationship between procurement goal, control belief and attitude are significant. Control belief and perceived control behaviour also indicated significance. This study contributes to knowledge by filling the gap in relation to mature students intention to pursue higher education in the UK and confirms the link between employability, personal development, student engagement and financial support and mature student’s intention to pursue higher education in the UK. This study provides recommendation the factors considered could build a solid evidence base for development of future higher education policies specially around enrolment, entry requirements and assessments in providing student loans and the adapted model is applied to test various other behaviours. It reveals that there is a gap between HEIs and government agenda due to lack understanding around mature students’ intention to pursue higher education in the UK.

The fact that dictionaries fail to agree completely on a definition of uncanny is perhaps, in and of itself, an uncanny occurrence, at least in the sense of uncanny that we hope to use consistently throughout this paper. (Whether we do use this slipperiest of concepts consistently is a matter for the reader to decide.) The writers and compilers of dictionaries, of course, have a job to make their contributions stand out from other similar publications, and a nod towards originality is expected.[1] However, a failure to align semantically – which we might describe as a non-event, as something that did not happen – feels rich with hidden meaning, especially given that “the uncanny” attracts synonyms such as “weird”, “eerie” and (in particular) “unsettling”. [1] For a fascinating account of the professional disagreements between dictionary writers, please see “Authority and American Usage” by David Foster Wallace. “[P]robing the seamy underbelly of US lexicography reveals ideological strife and controversy and intrigue and nastiness and fervor…” (Wallace, 2014, p.885).

The rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has significantly increased reliance on sensor-generated data, which are essential to a wide range of systems and services. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), crucial to this ecosystem, are often deployed in diverse and challenging environments, making them susceptible to faults such as software bugs, communication breakdowns, and hardware malfunctions. These issues can compromise data accuracy, stability, and reliability, ultimately jeopardizing system security. While advanced sensor fault detection methods in WSNs leverage a machine learning approach to achieve high accuracy, they typically rely on centralized learning, and face scalability and privacy challenges, especially when transferring large volumes of data. In our experimental setup, we employ a decentralized approach using federated learning with long short-term memory (FedLSTM) for sensor fault detection in WSNs, thereby preserving client privacy. This study utilizes temperature data enhanced with synthetic sensor data to simulate various common sensor faults: bias, drift, spike, erratic, stuck, and data-loss. We evaluate the performance of FedLSTM against the centralized approach based on accuracy, precision, sensitivity, and F1-score. Additionally, we analyze the impacts of varying the client participation rates and the number of local training epochs. In federated learning environments, comparative analysis with established models like the one-dimensional convolutional neural network and multilayer perceptron demonstrate the promising results of FedLSTM in maintaining client privacy while reducing communication overheads and the server load.

This article introduces a contemporary art and storytelling project that took place in January 2024 in Bestwood Village, an ex-coal community, showing a televised play filmed in the village (1963) written by Dennis Potter, Stand Up, Nigel Barton, about the son of a coal miner gaining a place at Oxford University during this period of social change. The project and the article show that the art of working-class storytelling is both political and personal, and despite the lack of working-class voices in the arts, in the culture industries and in academia, small storytelling events such as this one play an important part in strengthening working-class communities.

Hiiden Fist Poster featured in exhibtion book catalogue

In recent years, large-scale language test providers have developed or adapted automated essay scoring systems (AESS) to score L2 writing essays. While the benefits of using AESS are clear, they are not without limitations, such as over-reliance on frequency counts of vocabulary and grammar variables. Discourse competence is one important aspect of L2 writing yet to be fully explored in AEE application. Evidence of discourse competence can be seen in the use of Metadiscourse Markers (MDM) to produce reader-friendly texts. The article presents a multidisciplinary study to explore the feasibility of expanding the construct representation of automated scoring models to assess discourse competence in L2 writing. Combining machine learning, automated textual analysis and corpus-linguistic methods to examine 2000 scripts across two tasks and five proficiency levels, the study investigates (1) in addition to frequency and range, whether accuracy of MDM is worth pursuing as a predictive feature in L2 writing, and (2) how identification and classification of MDM use might be fed into developing an automated scoring model using machine learning techniques. The contributions of this study are three-fold. Firstly, it offers valuable insights within the context of Explainable AI. By integrating MDM usage and accuracy into the scoring framework, this research moves beyond frequency-based evaluation. This study also makes significant contributions to the current understanding of L2 writing development that even lower-proficiency learners exhibit evidence of discourse competence through their accurate use of MDMs as well as their choice of MDMs in response to genre. From the perspective of expanding the construct representation in automated scoring systems, this study provides a critical examination of the limitations of many AEE models, which have heavily relied on vocabulary and grammar features. By exploring the feasibility of incorporating MDMs as predictive features, this research demonstrates the potential for construct expansion of L2 AEE. The results would support test providers in developing competence tests in various contexts and domains including manufacturing, medicine and so on.

Atlantic reef-building corals and coral reefs continue to experience extensive decline due to increased stressors related to climate change, disease, pollution, and numerous anthropogenic threats. To understand the impact of ocean warming and reef loss on the estimated extinction risk of shallow water Atlantic reef-building scleractinians and milleporids, all 85 valid species were reassessed under the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, updating the previous Red List assessment of Atlantic corals published in 2008. For the present assessment, individual species declines were estimated based on the modeled coral cover loss (1989–2019) and projected onset of annual severe bleaching events (2020–2050) across the Atlantic. Species traits were used to scale species’ relative vulnerability to the modeled cover declines and forecasted bleaching events. The updated assessments place 45.88%–54.12% of Atlantic shallow water corals at an elevated extinction risk compared to the previous assessments conducted in 2008 (15.19%–40.51%). However, coral cover loss estimates indicate an improvement in reef coverage compared to the historic time-series used for the 2008 assessments. Based on this, we infer that, although remaining dangerously high, the rate of Atlantic reef coral cover decline has surprisingly slowed in recent decades. However, based on modeled projections of sea-surface temperature that predict the onset of annual severe bleaching events within the next 30 years, we listed 26 (out of 85) species as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List. Each of these species had previously been listed under a lower threatened category and this result alone highlights the severe threat future bleaching events pose to coral survival and the reef ecosystems they support.

The taxonomic concepts and phylogenetic relations among genera of the family Mniaceae have given rise to much controversy in recent years, including Mnium, Plagiomnium, and Pohlia. Chloroplast genome study of these genera will be helpful to reflect the fact of this relationship. In this study, we sequenced three species in the Plagiomnium genus using an Illumina HiSeq 4000 platform. The complete chloroplast genomes of P. rostratum, P. succulentum and P. vesicatum were 125,196 bp, 124,689 bp, and 124,663 bp in length, which all contained a quadripartite structure including two copies of the invert repeats (IR, 10,120 bp, 9,818 bp, and 9,665 bp), one large single copy region (LSC, 86,395 bp, 86,299 bp, and 86,532 bp), and one single copy region (SSC, 18,561 bp, 18,754 bp, and 18,801 bp). The overall GC contents were 29.8%, 30.5%, and 30.5% respectively. The simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were detected in conjunction with Plagiomnium acutum, with variable sites genes observed: rpoC2, ycf1, and ycf2. Combined with the other three sequences published in Mniaceae, analyses of codon usage, repeats sequences, GC contents, and gene features revealed similarities among the seven species in Mniaceae. The trend of nucleotide diversity (Pi) in the seven complete chloroplast genomes showed Pi > 0.056: trnI-rpl23, petG-petL-psbE, trnK-chlB, trnG-trnR-atpA, rpoB-trnC-ycf66, ndhB, trnN-ndhF, and rps15-ycf1. We confirmed the phylogenetic relationships that Plagiomnium genus is a sister group with Mnium, while the Pohlia genus is not a monophyletic group. Phylogenetic analyses corroborated the monophyly of Mniaceae and supported the transfer of the Pohlia genus into Mniaceae.

Two Posters 'No Breathing Space' part of group show at Flood Tides of Resistance Exhibtion, CAC Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito in Ecuador. Del 23-nov-2022 al 19-feb-2023 OVERGROUND RESISTANCE. Resistencias a la luz del sol Exposición curada por Oliver Ressler Evento de Inauguración 23 de noviembre de 2022 a las 19h00. Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito Entrada Libre OVERGROUND RESISTANCE. Resistencias a la luz del sol es una exposición curada por Oliver Ressler (Austria) en colaboración con el Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito y A4C ArtsForTheCommons. Una muestra que reúne la mirada de artistas de diferentes partes del planeta, que producen sus obras en diálogo con los movimientos por la justicia climática, en los que se consideran partícipes desde la intersección de la producción artística y los activismos. Las urgencias globales que sugiere el colapso climático se manifiestan a diario a través de los medios de comunicación. Lamentablemente, los incendios forestales, las sequías, las temperaturas extremas, el derretimiento de los glaciares y otros síntomas medioambientales causados por el capitalismo aún no han generado una respuesta adecuada de los planes de gobierno y programas institucionales, por lo que los gobiernos y demás instituciones siguen sin poder responder efectivamente ante acciones necesarias para una reparación integral, generando legítimos procesos de activismos y resistencia desde la organización civil. Históricamente, la resistencia ha sido organizada de forma clandestina por organizaciones civiles o colectivos insurgentes. Los activismos climáticos, por el contrario, están organizados en la superficie, a la luz del sol y a gran escala, atravesando los límites de lo que se considera “legal”. Las obras que conforman la exposición Overground Resistance. Resistencias a la luz del sol, proceden de todo el mundo. Los artistas o colectivos involucrados son parte o están estrechamente asociados con movimientos de justicia climática. La exposición será inaugurada el 23 de noviembre de 2022 a las 19h00 en las galerías del cubo bajo del Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito con 17 obras en formato audiovisual e instalación. Como parte de la exposición se realizará un programa educativo que acercará los contenidos de las obras y ejes transversales de la muestra hacia los diferentes públicos. Este programa, empezará el 24 de noviembre con el encuentro: Arte y activismos por la justicia climática; actividad en colaboración con Acción Ecológica y A4C ArtsForTheCommons, que reunirá a artistas y activistas por la justicia climática y donde participarán: * Rosa Jijón – A4C artsforthecommons * Oliver Ressler – curador y artista Overground Resistance * Angie Vanesita – artista visual * Ivonne Ramos – Acción Ecológica * Boloh Miranda – artista visual * Sofía Acosta – artista visual Artistas de la exposición: Tiago de Aragão (BRA), Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio (EE. UU.), Noel Douglas (GBR), Francisco Huichaqueo (Mapuche Nation / CHL), Gilbert Kills Pretty Enemy III (Hunkpapa Lakota de la tribu Standing Rock Sioux / EE. UU.), Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner & Aka Niviâna (MHL / GRL), Laboratorio de Imaginación Insurreccional (FRA), The Natural History Museum (EE. UU.), Oliver Ressler (AUT), Rachel Schragis (EE. UU.), Seday (FRA), Jonas Staal (NLD) ), Tools for Action (HUN / NLD), Rosa Jijón y Francesco Martone A4C ArtsForTheCommons (ECU – ITA), Boloh Miranda (ECU) y Sofia Acosta (ECU)

CRITICAL DE?!GN DESIGNERS TROUBLEMAKERS Exhibition about critical graphic design 1– 16/9/2022 MEDIUM Gallery, Bratislava Curators: Katarína Balážiková, Lenka Hámošová Curators’ text The international exhibition CRITICAL DE?!GN / Designers troublemakers talks about critical design as an advocate for change. The position of the designer is changing in today’s media society, as well as the influence of design studies. Its field of action is much broader – the designer needn’t serve only the market, but also choose the content to communicate. The design we create is no longer just a tool, it is also a carrier of messages and itself becomes an important message and a reflection of the times in which we live. Critical design can have various faces and names. Some theorists or practitioners call it socially engaged, while others call it reflective or speculative. However, it has the same goal – it wants to bring about changes in society, to highlight problems, to ask questions, to provoke debate, and to question the seemingly unquestionable. It needn’t be the solution to a problem – it can be the creator of it. The exhibition and symposium explain critical approaches in design through a variety of methodological approaches by international and local designers, which are presented through selected practical examples. Often these are not established and strictly defined methods, but creative authorial approaches based on a sincere interest in one’s surroundings, questioning the established ruts of the design profession, and taking a critical reflection on our society. Design thinking here is not subservient to the demands of industry, but – in conjunction with critical thinking – rather functions as a tool of knowledge that can bring a different way of looking at the world and the ways we design for it. Each author’s approach is unique, but from the methodological perspective specific practices can be decoded and inspire other designers and critical thinkers to replicate them in a different context. For Slovak professional and lay audiences alike, this exhibition can provide a long-missing stimulus for reflection and an impetus for their own critical thinking. The exhibition presents a selection of texts and key projects by national and international authors from the Critical Daily blogzine, illustrating various critical design methods. The installation of texts and visual documentation in the space foregrounds the project’s background and authors’ critical approach, rather than the project output’s final design . The viewer is thus compelled to read and not only perceive the aesthetic level of the exhibited works. The website www.critical-design.com – which was created on the occasion of the exhibition and the Designers Troublemakers International Symposium – encourages interactive participation and offers a space for designers to participate in mapping these methodological approaches. The exhibition is aimed both at designers and a critically-minded audience which is interested in design as a discipline that shapes our contemporary world.