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Anchoring Museum Objects in the Cold War: The Hidden Meanings of a Transatlantic Telephone Cable
Get PDFThis chapter uses a piece of the first transatlantic telephone cable in the collection of National Museums Scotland to interrogate the ways in which museum objects attain significance as Cold War objects. It highlights the ways in which multiple meanings – and layers of meanings – adhere to objects at the same time. Objects not only connect these meanings, but they also exhibit elements of dissonance, noise and silence. Hence, this chapter explores the potential of the concept of anchoring, developed in the context of the history of science and technology by Christian Götter, for a Cold War museology. It offers a number of conclusions about the meaning of Cold War objects in museum collections, their collection, interpretation and display. By bringing history and museology into conversation with one another, this chapter also highlights the ways in which historians can learn through engaging with museum collections and how, in turn, museum and heritage professionals might benefit from interacting with historical scholarship
An Evaluation of Health Behavior Change Training for Health and Care Professionals in St. Helena
Get PDFBackground: Health behavior consultations support self-management if delivered by skilled practitioners. We summarize here the results of a collaborative training intervention program delivered to health and care practitioners working in a remote-island context. The program was designed to build confidence in the implementation of communication and behavior change skills and to sustain their use in work settings. The setting for the behavior change training program was the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, a remote low-middle-income country which has a population with high levels of obesity and a prevalence of long-term conditions. Objectives: We aimed to increase knowledge, confidence, and implementation of behavior change techniques (BCTs) and communication skills of health and social care staff through delivering and evaluating training using the MAP (Motivation, Action, Prompt) behavior change framework. A successful training intervention could ultimately improve self-management and patient health outcomes. Methods: Co-production with onsite representatives adapted the program for local delivery. A two-day training program was delivered face-to-face to 32 multidisciplinary staff. Pre-and post-intervention and 18-month follow-up evaluation assessed reactions, learning and implementation using multiple methods, including participant feedback and primary care patient reports. Results: Positive reactions to training and significant improvement in confidence, perceived importance, intention to use and implementation of BCTs and communication skills immediately post-training and at long-term follow-up were observed. Patient reports suggested some techniques became routinely used. Methodological difficulties arose due to staff retention and disruption through the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: The delivery of health behavior change training can be effective in remote contexts with sustainable impacts on healthcare. There are challenges working in this context including staff continuity and technological reliability.Good Health and Well-BeingSustainable Cities and CommunitiesPartnerships for the Goal
What time is the tide? The importance of tides for ocean colour applications to estuaries
Get PDFTides can play a major role in transitional water dynamics, being the primary driver of fluctuations in water parameters. In the last decade, remote sensing methods have become a popular tool for cost-effective systematic observations, at relatively high spatial and temporal scales. However, the presence of tides introduces complexities, given that Sun-synchronous satellites will observe a different tidal condition at each overpass, effectively aliasing the daily signal. This can create non-obvious biases when using remote sensing data for monitoring tidally-dominated systems, potentially leading to misinterpretation of patterns and incorrect estimates of periodicities. In this work, we used a six-year Sentinel-2-derived turbidity dataset to evaluate the impact of tidal aliasing on the applicability of a Sun-synchronous satellite to a tidally-dominated system (Tagus estuary, Portugal). Each satellite observation was classified according to tidal phase. Results indicate that tidal processes dominated over seasonal variability, with significant differences observed between turbidity levels of different tidal phases (p < 0.0001). Climatology analyses also revealed significant changes between all-data and per-tidal-phase data (p < 0.001), highlighting the importance of classifying satellite data by tidal condition. Additionally, tidal condition labelling at each Sentinel-2 overpass revealed that not all tidal conditions are observed by a Sun-synchronous satellite, as Low tide and Floods are always observed during Spring tides and High tide and Ebbs observed under Neap tides. Spring Low tides are overrepresented compared to all other tidal conditions. This result is particularly relevant for water quality monitoring based on remote sensing data in tidally-dominated systems
Exploring the link between spectra, inherent optical properties in the water column, and sea surface temperature and salinity
Get PDFSea surface salinity and temperature are important measures of ocean health. They provide information about ocean warming, atmospheric interactions, and acidification, with further effects on the global thermohaline circulation and as a consequence the global water cycle. In coastal waters they provide information about sub mesoscale circulations and tidal currents, riverine discharge and upwelling effects. This paper explores the methodology to extract sea surface salinity (SSS) and temperature (SST) from ground based hyperspectral ocean radiance. Water leaving radiance is linked to the inherent optical properties of the water column, effected by the constituent parts. Hyperspectral data at ground level is then used as input to train a linear regression model against temporally and spatially matched water data of SSS and SST. Furthermore, a neural network model to be able to estimate the SST and SSS with the hyperspectral data averaged to multispectral bands to emulate the satellite use case. The neural network model is able to learn the relationship between the multispectral radiance to both SSS and SST values, and can predict these with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.2PSU and 0.1 degree respectively. This demonstrates the feasibility of similar algorithms applied to multispectral ocean colour satellites with enhanced coverage and spatial resolution
Is Portfolio Diversification Still Effective: Evidence Spanning Three Crises from the Perspective of U.S. Investors
Get PDFThis paper uses over twenty years of data to examine diversification benefits for U.S. investors through assessing different portfolio opportunities, including a stock (60%)-bond (40%) portfolio, an internationally diversified stock portfolio, and a cross-asset diversified portfolio compared with investing only in the U.S. stock market. Our data set consists of three stock indices (S&P 500, MSCI EAFE, and MSCI EM) and three assets (Gold, Oil, and Bonds). Portfolios are built using both equal- and mean-variance efficient-weights and are compared primarily using the Sharpe ratio. The results indicate that before 2009, U.S. investors could benefit from an internationally diversified stock portfolio. However, since 2009, this international stock portfolio is less likely to benefit U.S. investors. In contrast, the cross-asset diversified portfolio does provide greater benefit and outperforms the U.S only, the stock-bond portfolio, and the international stock portfolio over different time periods. Of note, the mean-variance efficient portfolio weighting outperforms the equal-weighted portfolio. Overall, a portfolio consisting of the S&P500 Index, gold, oil, and U.S. 10-year Treasury Note is the preferred option for U.S. investors
Who is the 'public' when it comes to public opinion on energy? A mixed-methods study of revealed and elicited public attitudes to shale gas extraction
Get PDFShale gas is a contentious energy source. Yet, ‘imagined’ notions of the public (for example, NIMBYs) rarely reflect the reality of public opinion. We use an inductive, empirical approach to define UK publics in relation to shale gas extraction, drawing on multiple data sources (social media, a national survey, and two local surveys) and composite measures. Cluster analyses and thematic coding reveal a diversity of responses ranging from active opposition, through ambivalence, to active support. The number of communities varies by data source and analytical method, but across all datasets we see more opposition than support. Across all datasets, political views were an important lens through which shale gas was understood. Our findings have implications for how developers and policy-makers engage with the public, and expose limitations of pre-defined notions of the public that may not reflect empirical realities
Editorial: Sports, economics, and natural experiments: advances and retrospection
Get PDFSports provide a unique field laboratory for advancing behavioral microeconomics, offering precise and objective measurements of behavior due to standardized rules, clear observability, and highly motivated expert participants. Extensive data on sports are readily available, continuously refined and expanded, and cover the same or similar contestants over long periods. Additionally, sports offer numerous natural experiments where exogenous factors plausibly divide individuals, teams, or organizations into treatment and control groups, allowing for causal analysis. Despite these advantages, economic studies using sports often face challenges regarding external validity. Such studies can appear niche and may be difficult to understand for those unfamiliar with sports, potentially limiting the broader applicability of their findings and hindering the full use of sports as a platform for testing economic theories. The aim of this Research Topic was to showcase examples of research that harness sports as a field laboratory, leverage natural experiments, and replicate or validate existing findings. This collection features two studies exploiting natural experiments, three capitalizing on the advantages of sports data for measuring productivity, and one replication study. Below is a brief overview of these studies.RECEIVED December ACCEPTED December PUBLISHED January CITATION; TYPE Editorial PUBLISHED January Flepp R, Gauriot R and Singleton C () Editorial: Sports, economics, and natural experiments: advances and retrospection. Front. Behav. Econ. ::
Personalisation in racially minoritised groups within UK adult social care: a systematic review
Get PDFAlthough evidence shows that personalisation improves access to health and social care for UK’s racially minoritised groups, research suggests that uptake is low due to racism, discrimination and negative experiences with mainstream services. A systematic literature review of 45 articles found that racially minoritised individuals choose personalisation for greater control and choice over their care but face systemic barriers, including a complicated adult social care system that fails to respond to cultural and linguistic values. Recommendations to improve uptake include involving racially minoritised communities in service planning, attracting a diverse workforce, tackling racism and discrimination, bridging the information gap, and funding racially minoritised community organisations.Good Health and Well-Bein
Spuren des Alltags an ungewöhnlichen Orten: Ein Blick über den Tellerrand in deutscher und schottischer Heimerziehung
Get PDFCase records hold life-long significance for those who spent their childhoods in looked after care. Across Europe, public inquiries into the care and treatment of children in care have examined the content of records and have highlighted their limitations. This paper presents data from phase one of a wider study; ‘Archiving Residential Children’s Homes in Scotland and Germany (ARCH)’, which undertook content analysis of the archives of two residential settings, Aberlour and Freistatt. Findings highlight that records were kept and maintained not only by the institution but also for the institution. Despite this, children’s everyday lives were noticed and captured, albeit it often accidentally and incidentally. The ways in which these every day encounters were narrated and constructed suggest the power of the overarching ethos in place in the two settings and the adults’ orientations towards their role and purpose. Although different in tone and remit, both archives capture traces of daily life and tell us something about what a childhood in Freistatt or Aberlour might have been like. By examining the case recording practices in the past, we raise questions about what this means for contemporary social work and its responsibilities in relation to archiving children’s everyday childhoods
Large Language Model Based Mutations in Genetic Improvement
Get PDFEver since the first large language models (LLMs) have become available, both academics and practitioners have used them to aid software engineering tasks. However, little research as yet has been done in combining search-based software engineering (SBSE) and LLMs. In this paper, we evaluate the use of LLMs as mutation operators for genetic improvement (GI), an SBSE approach, to improve the GI search process. In a preliminary work, we explored the feasibility of combining the Gin Java GI toolkit with OpenAI LLMs in order to generate an edit for the JCodec tool. Here we extend this investigation involving three LLMs and three types of prompt, and five real-world software projects. We sample the edits at random, as well as using local search. We also conducted a qualitative analysis to understand why LLM-generated code edits break as part of our evaluation. Our results show that, compared with conventional statement GI edits, LLMs produce fewer unique edits, but these compile and pass tests more often, with the OpenAI model finding test-passing edits 77% of the time. The OpenAI and Mistral LLMs are roughly equal in finding the best run-time improvements. Simpler prompts are more successful than those providing more context and examples. The qualitative analysis reveals a wide variety of areas where LLMs typically fail to produce valid edits commonly including inconsistent formatting, generating non-Java syntax, or refusing to provide a solution
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