Trustworthy autonomous systems:challenges and enablers

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies becoming ubiquitous in people’s daily life, trustworthiness in these intelligent and autonomous systems is crucial. For this purpose, this tutorial will outline the major challenges of trustworthy autonomous systems, while it will highlight the enablers to develop and deploy such systems. In particular, the tutorial will cover methods and guidelines for designing, developing, testing and verifying autonomous systems. Furthermore, this tutorial will present IEEE and ISO/IEC/IEEE standards for the design and development of autonomous systems so they meet not only technical but also societal expectations – leading thus to the trustworthiness in autonomous systems

Communicating risks with interactive visualisations and reflective tasks:a mixed-methods evaluation of a mammography screening decision aid

Static graphs of statistics are established visual aids in risk communication and decision support. Interactive information visualisations (InfoVis) and reflective tasks are supposed to enhance active processing, but the evidence is scarce and mixed. This mixed-methods research investigated the effectiveness and user experience of InfoVis and tasks in the context of mammography screening. In a web-based experiment prospective invitees of the screening program (N = 338; aged 30-49) tried a pre-tested web-based decision-aid with risk information either as text, static graph, or InfoVis with or without reflective tasks. The main outcomes were informed choice and risk knowledge, the latter operationalised according to the fuzzy-trace-theory. The accompanying qualitative evaluation with seven participants applied think-aloud protocols and focused interviews. There was no experimental evidence that InfoVis support risk knowledge or informed choice better than text or static graphs. There were even minor detrimental effects. The qualitative results showed problems with the InfoVis presenting risk of overdiagnosis, and negative reactions towards the tasks. InfoVis processing was easy when the underlying concept was easy. While reflective tasks seem not advisable in this target group, limited and well-considered application of InfoVis with a low cognitive load can be an alternative, attention-directing visual aid format

Testing context-aware software systems from the voices of the automotive industry

As automotive software systems evolve towards high and full driving automation, evaluating their quality becomes increasingly challenging, especially concerning emerging behaviors. Context-awareness is the capability to sense the environment and adapt behavior. Automotive software systems are Context-Aware Software Systems (CASS). Previous secondary studies in technical literature indicate a need for testing techniques for CASS. However, these studies should have investigated the information provided by the industry. Therefore, this research undertakes a Gray Literature Study to uncover evidence of CASS testing using 20 reports from 16 automotive companies as primary sources. Our findings show that industry practices exhibit quality assurance best practices, but CASS abstraction adoption still needs to be completed. Industry reports emphasize testing challenges but lack technical resolutions, relying on amassing diverse datasets for testing. This research has the potential to impact the quality assurance of automotive software systems significantly and lead industry professionals to enhance their testing process

Compostable Intervention:a hopeful, humble reimagining of health behaviour change

Lifestyle intervention is presented as a positive practice contributing to health promotion and non-communicable disease prevention. Behaviour change research forms the bulk of its evidence base, informing neoliberal policies of self-improvement and prosumption for the greater good. Despite its widespread adoption as an effective public health investment, outcomes from health behaviour intervention are variable and tend not to last. The practice has been extensively critiqued for its negative consequences such as labelling, exclusion, and widening inequalities.New materialist scholars acknowledge the real and varied impacts behaviour has on health, but they argue that it matters, materially and meaningfully, how we think problems like inactivity, diet, mental health, and the like, because the stories that story them and the knowledges that know them shape the practices for changing them and how that change is understood. For example, Donna Haraway’s (2016) compost has been proffered as a useful concept for thinking physical activity intervention. Compost refers to relational practices of living and dying, and when used to make sense of how interventions function, behaviour change becomes more of a making and unmaking than a direct and measurable outcome of technique. This paper is a speculative fabulation of health behaviour change that reimagines the function of a typical digital intervention to improve physical activity based on the NHS’s Couch to 5K app. Modelled on Haraway’s (2016) The Camille Stories, three vignettes trace the encounter and string-figuring of physical activity through the living/dying relations the intervention enacts. We conclude by proffering that evaluating compostable interventions requires humility and aesthetic skills

Housing adequacy in Delhi, Dhaka and Karachi:strategies for promoting sustainable and inclusive housing

Access to adequate housing is one of the major challenges in the rapidly urbanising megacities of the Indian subcontinent. This study examines variations in housing adequacy and its determinants in Delhi, Dhaka and Karachi. It investigates potential planning interventions to improve housing conditions, drawing on urban policies, programmes and insights from Demographic and Health Surveys. Findings reveal severe housing inadequacy, with four out of ten households living in inadequate housing. Notably, certain socio-cultural disadvantaged communities experience exceptionally poor housing conditions. Income inequality is identified as the most important factor contributing to housing inadequacy, followed by inhabitants' socio-cultural backgrounds and educational attainment. Dhaka and Karachi have made considerable progress in housing adequacy, whereas Delhi's progress has stalled. A key challenge remains the need to expand living spaces, although Dhaka also requires improvement in urban amenities. To achieve sustainable and inclusive housing, it is crucial to enhance access to adequate living spaces, particularly among disadvantaged communities, establish interlinkages between housing adequacy and socio-economic conditions and reimagine urban governance systems

Security challenges on business and economy:_"Entrepreneurship in a fragile state of Burundi”

Background: Burundi is a country which has been deeply affected by political instability, and low-intensity conflict causing a lack of jobs, slowing economic recovery, and poverty reduction with entrepreneurship playing a vital role in most Burundian entrepreneurs’ survival (IFC, 2022; Nintunze, Bigirimana, 2021). Nkurunziza (2022) argues that state fragility in Burundi is caused by poor strategies and policies of its political leaders, who are motivated by personal interests, such as state rent extraction which maintains a lack of security. Nziku and Bikorimana (2024) comment on poor policies and strategies that are gender blind and not fit for the purpose and lack support. The purpose of this study is to critically investigate the impact of security challenges on entrepreneurship in the fragile state of Burundi. To achieve this aim, researchers have designed three research objectives: a) to examine how the security challenges affect entrepreneurship in this fragile country post-conflict; b) to explore the strategies employed by entrepreneurs to start and grow their ventures; c) to provide key recommendations for policymakers to enhance peace, security, and good governance. Such actions can help to achieve stability and peacebuilding for all Burundians. The originality of this study lies in the investigation of security challenges faced by Burundian entrepreneurs due to state fragility. State fragilities are perceived as major barriers to entrepreneurship development because they add additional constraints and restrict the growth of ventures and entrepreneurs reaching their full potential.Research purpose: A qualitative study was conducted in Burundi using institutional theory (North, 1990 and Scott, 2003) with empirical data from semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 20 respondents including 2 stakeholders. The interviews were conducted in two cities, Bujumbura capital and Cibitoke Province, less developed compared to other Provinces of Burundi. The study used a purposive sampling method to recruit 15 respondents (Ilker et al., 2016) and 5 interviewees using the snowball method (Saunders et al., 2016). The interviews were conducted in Kirundi (the national language of Burundi), audio-recorded, translated to English then transcribed using a Word document. A six-step thematic framework for data analysis was used in data analysis (Braun, Clarke, 2017).Findings and discussions: The findings of this study revealed that many Burundian entrepreneurs are affected by the lack of security, weak business environment and slow economic growth, lack of durable peace, poor governance, and lack of institution support. Addition challenges were linked to lack of finance, poor infrastructure, poverty, poor market penetration and lack of management and technical skills. Behind those challenges, many women, and young entrepreneurs face challenges due to lack of access to property ownership, and jobs to enter entrepreneurship. Other barriers faced by women in Burundi were related to gender inequality, violence, lack of education, low market, lack of suppliers, and lack of business support (Nintunze, Bigirimana, 2021). The result of this study found that Burundian entrepreneurs used different strategies to survive while trading in fragile states post-conflict and building resilience. Recommendations for peace dialogue to resolve conflicts, maintain peace, build social cohesion and better communication between different members of society. Researchers in this study recommend Burundian government focus on reforming its institutions, building, and restoring infrastructures, reinforcing regulation, providing better access to finance, developing human capital and markets as well and tackling corruption. The novelty of this study lies in the contributions to the literature related to security challenges for Burundi, a country which remains under-researched

Multi-camera machine learning for salt marsh species classification and mapping

Accurate classification of salt marsh vegetation is vital for conservation efforts and environmental monitoring, particularly given the critical role these ecosystems play as carbon sinks. Understanding and quantifying the extent and types of habitats present in Ireland is essential to support national biodiversity goals and climate action plans. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with optical sensors offer a powerful means of mapping vegetation in these areas. However, many current studies rely on single-sensor approaches, which can constrain the accuracy of classification and limit our understanding of complex habitat dynamics. This study evaluates the integration of Red-Green-Blue (RGB), Multispectral Imaging (MSI), and Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) to improve species classification compared to using individual sensors. UAV surveys were conducted with RGB, MSI, and HSI sensors, and the collected data were classified using Random Forest (RF), Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. The classification performance was assessed using Overall Accuracy (OA), Kappa Coefficient (k), Producer’s Accuracy (PA), and User’s Accuracy (UA), for both individual sensor datasets and the fused dataset generated via band stacking. The multi-camera approach achieved a 97% classification accuracy, surpassing the highest accuracy obtained by a single sensor (HSI, 92%). This demonstrates that data fusion and band reduction techniques improve species differentiation, particularly for vegetation with overlapping spectral signatures. The results suggest that multi-sensor UAV systems offer a cost-effective and efficient approach to ecosystem monitoring, biodiversity assessment, and conservation planning

Performance of a novel military shape compact tri-band textile patch antenna for short range communications applications

This paper introduces a novel design for a wearable tri-band textile patch antenna, integrated with the emblem of the Algerian Gendarmerie Nationale. The antenna is engineered to operate across three distinct frequency bands, making it suitable for various wireless communication applications. The first operational band targets the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) and Wi-Fi spectrum for Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) applications at 2.45GHz(2.37GHz - 2.52 GHz). The second band is centered at 4.42GHz(4.2GHz 4.5 GHz), while the third band covers the 6.58 GHz range (6.4 GHz - 6.8 GHz), catering to Wi-Fi 6 E applications. The design utilizes a commercially available flexible denim substrate with a compact footprint of 32×30×0.6 mm3 with a partial ground plane. We conducted extensive evaluations of the antenna’s performance under various bending conditions and its proximity to the human body. Results indicate that the antenna maintains satisfactory performance in both free-space and on-body scenarios. This low-cost, flexible antenna offers a promising solution for a range of wearable consumer electronics applications. Its potential extends to enhanced workforce management, secure access control, and identification systems

Domain-specific cognitive flexibility:shift-readiness adaptations for task- and attention-switching are non-transferrable

Adaptive behavior in the real world involves navigating competing goals in a constantly changing environment. Doing so requires cognitive flexibility across multiple domains, including flexibility for switching between tasks, that is, activating the appropriate rules for stimulus-response associations, and flexibility for shifting attention between different sources of sensory inputs. Previous work in task switching and attention shifting has separately shown that people are capable of strategically modulating both types of flexibility based on the current demands. That is, people become better at switching between tasks (e.g., digit magnitude vs. parity tasks) when switches are frequently cued and better at shifting attention between different stimulus locations when shifts are frequently cued. Across five experiments in the current study, we investigated the possibility of cognitive flexibility transfer between the domains of task switching and attention shifting when the frequency of switches/shifts is orthogonally manipulated within the same context. We implemented a novel paradigm that involved concurrent cued task switching and attention shifting. We varied either the proportion of task switches or attention shifts across blocks of trials, while keeping the proportion of the other constant. If flexibility adaptations in biased contexts transferred across domains, switch/shift frequency manipulations in one domain should affect flexibility across both domains. Instead, in Experiments 1 to 3, we found that performance costs of attention shifts remained constant across task-switch biased contexts despite adjustments in task-switch costs; likewise, in Experiments 4 to 5, we found that costs of switching between tasks remained constant across blocks that varied in attention-shift frequency despite adaptations in attention-shift costs. These results suggest that probabilistic learning and adjustments of attention-shifts and task switches to meet contextual demands occur independently

Understanding the psychosocial burden of living with advanced COPD in context of palliative care:a mixed methods study

People with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) face substantial physical and psychosocial challenges influencing their quality of life. This study explored the psychosocial aspects of people with COPD attending palliative care services. Concurrent embedded mixed methods study with 22 individuals was conducted. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews and McGill Quality of Life-Revised and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale questionnaires. Findings revealed a negative correlation between quality of life and psychological distress, emphasising that as disease severity increased, so did psychological distress. From interviews emerged three themes: adjustment to living with a debilitating disease, loss of identity and developing lifestyle coping strategies. To conclude, a biopsychosocial perspective to understanding the impact of COPD is essential in identifying mitigating factors which exacerbate disease burden and increase psychological distress of people living with COPD. Implementing a biopsychosocial framework can enhance care by furthering self-management, reducing psychological distress and promoting a person-centred approach