Apprenticeships as pathway to care careers: Ethical challenges and opportunities for professions

Editorial

A study on emission reduction and combustion efficiency, analyzing oxymethylene ether (OME1-5) with diesel fuel

Data availability: Data will be made available on request.This study investigates an optimized fuel blend comprising oxymethylene ethers (OMEn = 1–5 series) with diesel aimed at simultaneously reducing soot and NOx emissions while enhancing fuel efficiency. An optimal blend was identified through rigorous experimentation and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. The study employs the response surface method (RSM) for regression analysis and integrates machine learning techniques for predictive modeling to assess various fuel compositions and optimize the mixture for improved combustion dynamics. Experimental measurements were conducted in an optical constant volume combustion chamber (CVCC) to confirm the blend’s effectiveness in reducing both soot and NOx emissions. The investigation thoroughly analyzes spray combustion properties, including injection duration, Start of Combustion (SOC), End of Combustion (EOC), Lift-Off length of fuels, spray tip penetration, and their impact on combustion efficiency. Analysis of energy densities between the blends reveals that OMED exhibits a heating value superior to OME2-5 but inferior to diesel, striking a balance in energy output. Furthermore, OMED demonstrates superior energy density compared to OME1-3 and diesel, highlighting its potential for enhanced fuel efficiency. The optimized blend achieves a significant 78.2 % reduction in soot emissions and a 31.3 % reduction in NOx emissions compared to conventional diesel, underscoring its efficacy in mitigating harmful emissions without compromising combustion performance. This research contributes valuable insights into developing sustainable fuel solutions for diesel engines, paving the way for greener automotive technologies in the future.This research was financially supported by the College of Engineering Design and Physical Sciences at Brunel University London under grant number 11667100

Dynamic Fashion Video Synthesis from Static Imagery

Data Availability Statement: This paper did not generate any new data.Online shopping for clothing has become increasingly popular among many people. However, this trend comes with its own set of challenges. For example, it can be difficult for customers to make informed purchase decisions without trying on the clothes to see how they move and flow. We address this issue by introducing a new image-to-video generator called FashionFlow to generate fashion videos to show how clothing products move and flow on a person. By utilising a latent diffusion model and various other components, we are able to synthesise a high-fidelity video conditioned by a fashion image. The components include the use of pseudo-3D convolution, VAE, CLIP, frame interpolator and attention to generate a smooth video efficiently while preserving vital characteristics from the conditioning image. The contribution of our work is the creation of a model that can synthesise videos from images. We show how we use a pre-trained VAE decoder to process the latent space and generate a video. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our local and global conditioners, which help preserve the maximum amount of detail from the conditioning image. Our model is unique because it produces spontaneous and believable motion using only one image, while other diffusion models are either text-to-video or image-to-video using pre-recorded pose sequences. Overall, our research demonstrates a successful synthesis of fashion videos featuring models posing from various angles, showcasing the movement of the garment. Our findings hold great promise for improving and enhancing the online fashion industry’s shopping experience.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant number EP/T518116/1

A UNIFIED THEORY FOR ARMA MODELS WITH VARYING COEFFICIENTS: ONE SOLUTION FITS ALL

......Alessandra Canepa acknowledges financial support under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4, Component 2, Investment 1.1, Call for tender No. 104 published on 2.2.2022 by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR), funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU– Project Title 20223725WE - Methodological and computational issues in large-scale time series models for economics and finance – CUP J53D23003960006- Grant Assignment Decree No 967 adopted on 30/06/2023 by the Italian Ministry of Ministry of University and Research (MUR)

Anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of indoor environmental hazards impacting Syrian refugees in Lebanon

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonA pilot study of indoor air quality in Syrian refugee settlements in Lebanon found indoor mould growth significantly linked with moisture and ventilation levels. A follow-up cross-sectional study was subsequently performed in 4 provinces of Lebanon. It was revealed that although non-residential shelters had the highest mean total indoor count (TIC), 3 mould genera were strongly associated with non-permanent shelters (p<.001) and occupancy was found strongly associated with some of the genera. Regarding shelter conditions, highest TIC was observed in unfinished structures. These findings suggest shelter category, condition and occupancy significantly influence indoor mould concentrations and may lead to increased respiratory health risks for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Biomonitoring using the fractional exhaled breath nitric oxide (FENO) biomarker and clinical interpretation of results suggested potential persistent exposure to allergens. Two mitigation technologies were developed for deployment in non-permanent shelters: Solar-powered Window Air Cleaning (SWAC) and Solar-powered Wall Air Vent (SWAV). Operating at 100% outdoor air intake, the SWAC unit exceeded the ASHRAE standard 62.2 minimum requirement for an average refugee household occupancy (n=6) and total floor area (56 m2) and met equivalent outdoor air requirements for the most stringent ASHRAE standard 52.2 particle range (0.3 – 1.0 μm) operating at 50% outdoor air. The SWAV unit exceeded ASHRAE ventilation requirements for individual refugee rooms (15 m2) at average occupancy. In conclusion, this project provides a rare insight into the poor indoor air quality of refugee shelters in Lebanon. Exposures to indoor mould can increase susceptibility to respiratory health risks in this vulnerable population, already impacted by multiple factors, from poor hygiene to displacement trauma and poverty. However, the low-cost renewable mitigation technologies developed here, offer a sustainable solution to remediate poor indoor air quality in refugee shelters accommodating displaced populations not only in Lebanon, but in refugee settings globally

Explanation–Question–Response dialogue: An argumentative tool for explainable AI

Advancements and deployments of AI-based systems, especially Deep Learning-driven generative language models, have accomplished impressive results over the past few years. Nevertheless, these remarkable achievements are intertwined with a related fear that such technologies might lead to a general relinquishing of our lives’s control to AIs. This concern, which also motivates the increasing interest in the eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) research field, is mostly caused by the opacity of the output of deep learning systems and the way that it is generated, which is largely obscure to laypeople. A dialectical interaction with such systems may enhance the users’ understanding and build a more robust trust towards AI. Commonly employed as specific formalisms for modelling intra-agent communications, dialogue games prove to be useful tools to rely upon when dealing with user’s explanation needs. The literature already offers some dialectical protocols that expressly handle explanations and their delivery. This paper fully formalises the novel Explanation–Question–Response (EQR) dialogue and its properties, whose main purpose is to provide satisfactory information (i.e., justified according to argumentative semantics) whilst ensuring a simplified protocol, in comparison with other existing approaches, for humans and artificial agents.This research was partially funded by the UK Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under grant #EP/P010105/1

Carburization-induced surface modification of Ti-6Al-7Nb alloy and its characterization

Data availability: Data will be made available on request.The Ti-6Al-7 Nb alloy and its carbide possess a wide range of engineering applications, therefore, it is utmost required to fabricate high-quality carburized layers on the alloy surface. In this study, the carburization of Ti-6Al-7 Nb alloy was conducted using molten salts (including Carbon Nano Tubes, LiCl, KCl, and KF) in a planetary ball mill, followed by placement in an alumina tube furnace under a nitrogen atmosphere at 1050 °C for various durations. Several characterization techniques were employed to analyze the results, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The XRD results reveal that as the carburization duration increased, the alloy achieved complete carburization, forming a 120 µm thick layer of TiC0.3N0.7. After 24 h of carburization, the crystallite size of TiC0.3N0.7 increased, and the micro-strain decreased, indicating improved structural quality. The morphology of the carburized layer at shorter durations exhibits micro-cracks and defects due to incomplete carburization, where carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) could not effectively occupy in the grain boundaries of alloy. After 24 h, an agglomerated, cauliflower-like layer of TiC0.3N0.7 formed, enhancing the alloy's engineering properties. XPS confirmed the presence of carbon and nitrogen in the carburized sample, which contributed to the formation of the TiC0.3N0.7 layer on the alloy surface. AFM analysis supported the SEM findings, revealing broad islands with microgrooves on the carburized layer. These features indicate a thick and well-formed carburized layer, confirming the successful carburization of Ti-6Al-7 Nb. Overall, the study demonstrates that a 24-h carburization process at 1050 °C in molten salts under a nitrogen atmosphere effectively produces a high-quality, thick, and adherent TiC0.3N0.7 layer on Ti-6Al-7 Nb alloy, significantly enhancing its engineering properties.National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. RS-2022-00166565 and NRF2018R1A5A1025137)

Educational research in the global north and south; reflections on the field and future directions

EditorialWe are delighted to have been appointed as the new Editorial Team for the British Educational Research Journal (BERJ). As we embark on this new challenge, we would like to reflect here on our aspirations and ambitions for the journal over the coming four years of our tenure

M-FISH evaluation of chromosome aberrations to examine for historical exposure to ionising radiation due to participation at British nuclear test sites

All data that support the findings of this study are included within the article (and any supplementary files).Data availability statement: All data that support the findings of this study are included within the article (and any supplementary files) available online at: https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6498/ad1743 .Veterans of the British nuclear testing programme represent a population of ex-military personnel who had the potential to be exposed to ionising radiation through their participation at nuclear testing sites in the 1950s and 1960s. In the intervening years, members of this population have raised concerns about the status of their health and that of their descendants, as a consequence. Radiation dose estimates based on film badge measurements of external dose recorded at the time of the tests suggest any exposure to be limited for the majority of personnel, however, only ∼20% of personnel were monitored and no measurement for internalised exposure are on record. Here, to in-part address families concerns, we assay for chromosomal evidence of historical radiation exposure in a group of aged nuclear test (NT) veterans, using multiplex in situ hybridisation (M-FISH), for comparison with a matched group of veterans who were not present at NT sites. In total, we analysed 9379 and 7698 metaphase cells using M-FISH (24-colour karyotyping) from 48 NT and 38 control veteran samples, representing veteran servicemen from the army, Royal Airforce and Royal Navy. We observed stable and unstable simple- and complex-type chromosome aberrations in both NT and control veterans' samples, however find no significant difference in yield of any chromosome aberration type between the two cohorts. We do observe higher average frequencies of complex chromosome aberrations in a very small subset of veterans previously identified as having a higher potential for radiation exposure, which may be indicative of internalised contamination to long-lived radionuclides from radiation fallout. By utilising recently published whole genome sequence analysis data of a sub-set of the same family groups, we examined for but found no relationship between paternal chromosome aberration burden, germline mutation frequency and self-reported concerns of adverse health in family members, suggesting that the previously reported health issues by participants in this study are unlikely to be associated with historical radiation exposure. We did observe a small number of families, representing both control and NT cohorts, showing a relationship between paternal chromosome aberrations and germline mutation sub-types which should be explored in future studies. In conclusion, we find no cytogenetic evidence of historical radiation exposure in the cohort of nuclear veterans sampled here, offering reassurance that attendance at NTs sites by the veterans sampled here, was not associated with significant levels of exposure to radiation.Nuclear Community Charity Fund (NCCF) through funds received by The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust under the Aged Veterans Fund Grants AVF15A and AVF16. The funding organization had no role in the design and conduct of the study; in the collection, management, analysis and interpretation of the data; or in the preparation, review or approval of the manuscript

Green Human Resource Management, Green Supply Chain Management and Regulation and Legislation and its Effects on Sustainable Development Goals in Jordan

Data Availability Statement: No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.A preprint version of this article is available at: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202312.1706/v1 - it has not been certified by peer review.In recent decades, sustainability and environmental concerns have become increasingly significant topics of discussion. This article aims to propose a conceptual framework of a research model including the correlations between government regulations and legislations, Green Human Resource Management (GHRM), Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM), and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The methodological approach adopted in this study included conducting a review of the relevant literature and accessing databases and search engines to gather information. The current article presents a novel approach to understanding how organizations and regulators can collaborate to drive sustainable development in this domain. This study also adds significant value due to its unique contribution in connecting GHRM, GSCM, and government regulation and legislation, particularly in the context of sustainable development and its link to promoting decent work and economic growth (SDG8), responsible consumption and production (SDG12), and addressing climate action (SDG13). The rarity of articles addressing these interrelated topics, especially within the specific context of Jordan, where such research has been largely absent, underscores the distinctive nature of this study. Furthermore, this article stands out for its comprehensive incorporation of legal and regulatory aspects into the discourse on organizational GHRM and GSCM practices and their alignment with the pursuit of SDGs. By providing valuable insights for decision makers and organizations, including a thorough examination of the barriers involved, this article serves as an essential resource for understanding and navigating the complex interplay between environmental sustainability, GHRM, GSCM, and governmental regulations. Based on the analysis of the findings, a conceptual framework is proposed based on three environmental dimensions and six green practices that have discernible effects. Finally, it is envisaged that this study will offer directions for future research work to use another approach and another environment.This research received no external funding