Maritime Security and Sovereignty

The upsurge of maritime piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia over the last decade (Ama Osei-Tutu, 2011; Bahadur, 2011; Murphy, 2011), made the headlines and grabbed international attention triggering a broad discussion within the scholarly debate and policy practice, focused on contemporary maritime security

Home-based high intensity interval training in patients with intermittent claudication:a systematic review protocol

Introduction: The aim of this systematic review is to consider the evidence base for homebased high intensity interval training (HIIT) in patients with intermittent claudication (IC). Prior knowledge of the evidence base suggests that there may be little research considering HIIT in patients with IC. If so, the evidence base across all cardiovascular diseases will be considered.Methods: Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and Cochrane CENTRAL databases will be searched for terms including ‘peripheral arterial disease’, ‘intermittent claudication’, ‘home-based exercise’, ‘high intensity interval training’ and ‘home-based high intensity interval training’. All prospective randomised trials and non-randomised studies considering home-based HIIT in patients with IC will be included. Studies will not be excluded based on the use of a comparator arm, meaning single-arm studies as well as multi-arm trials will also be included. If appropriate, based on the extant literature, a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials will be conducted. The outcomes of interest will include intervention components, intervention feasibility (based on uptake and completion rates), intervention tolerability (based on compliance and adherence to the intervention), maximum walking distance, pain-free walking distance, quality of life and cardiorespiratory fitness. Conclusion: This review aims to assess the evidence for home-based HIIT in patients with IC, to establish its feasibility and to inform the refinement of an existing supervised HIIT intervention to allow it to also be delivered remotely. Following this, a pilot randomised controlled trial to compare HIIT versus usual care supervised exercise programmes will be developed. For this, the interventions will be delivered either in person or remotely in real-time,depending on centre availability and patient preference

Stability of penetrative convective currents in local thermal non-equilibrium

The aim of this paper is to investigate the onset of penetrative convection in a Darcy–Brinkman porous medium under the hypothesis of local thermal non-equilibrium. For the problem at stake, the strong form of the principle of exchange of stabilities has been proved, i.e. convective motions can occur only through secondary stationary motions. We perform linear and nonlinear stability analyses of the basic state, with particular regard to the behaviour of stability thresholds with respect to the relevant physical parameters characterizing the problem. The Chebyshev- τ method and the shooting method are employed and accurately implemented to solve the differential eigenvalue problems arising from linear and nonlinear analyses to determine critical Rayleigh numbers. Via numerical simulations, the stabilizing effect of the upper bounding plane temperature, of the Darcy number and of the interaction coefficient for the heat exchange, is demonstrated

ESG performance and financial distress during COVID-19: the moderating effects of innovation and capital intensity

Purpose: This study examines the relationship between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices and financial distress in times of uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach: Thomson Reuters ESG database, Compustat and Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) were used to derive a final sample size of 1,572 firms and 11,618 firm-year observations from 2003 to 2022. Fixed-effects regression was used to analyze the data. Findings: It was found that increasing ESG involvement leads to an increase in Z score (i.e. lower financial distress), and this impact was more profound during the COVID-19 period and also when firms' innovativeness increased. However, during the COVID-19 period, increases in capital expenditures weaken the positive effect of ESG on financial distress. Research limitations/implications: This study contributes to the growing body of literature on the impact of ESG performance on financial distress and the nature of this relationship during times of uncertainty such as COVID-19. Practical implications: This study offers insights to managers and practitioners when developing their corporate financial strategies, particularly financial distress management, showing the potential benefits of innovativeness and capital intensity during turbulent times similar to COVID-19. Originality/value: Little knowledge exists on how ESG engagement helps weather financial distress during periods of uncertainty due to external shocks (e.g. COVID-19). This paper looks at the effect of ESG engagement on financial distress and how capital intensity and innovativeness could influence this relationship while giving fresh insights into the impact of COVID-19.</p

Fuzzy Logic-based Enhanced Edge Server Selection for Hierarchical Federated Learning

—In the rapidly evolving landscape of federated learning (FL), hierarchical architectures are pivotal for improving computational efficiency and safeguarding data privacy. A key challenge in this research area is the optimal selection of edge servers, crucial for executing distributed learning tasks across multiple clients and servers efficiently. Traditional selection methods falter due to their inability to dynamically handle the uncertainties in network conditions and server capabilities. To addressing this weakness, we propose a fuzzy logic based approach that optimizes edge server selection in a novel smart way, thus enhancing resource allocation by efficiently handling the unpredictable nature of network environments and servers performance. This method is integrated with a previously developed scheme for selecting an optimal subset of clients,thereby establishing a comprehensive framework that significantly boosts the performance and reliability of FL networks.The performance of our approach is validated through real world experiments and the results demonstrate its superiority over existing methods in terms of accuracy and processing tim

Worldviews, religious literacy and interfaith readiness: Bridging the gap between school and university

This briefing paper presents findings from academic research that explores the relationships between UK university students’ religious literacy, their experiences of religious education (RE) at school, and what we call their ‘interfaith learning and development’, a multidimensional concept representing students’ ability to engage with, and relate across, religion and worldview difference. This research represents the first step in exploring how different types of RE might prepare students for the challenges of university, in which they are often faced with a variety of identities different from their own. This briefing is based on data collected from a national sample of UK university as part of the 'Building Positive Relationships among University Students across Religion and Worldview Diversity' project

Loss and Found:Barthes, Hidden Biography and Ethical Deficit in Alexander Gardner’s ‘Portrait of Lewis Payne’

The reconsideration of the symbolic landscape of the Civil War and Confederate iconography since events in Charleston, Charlottesville, and Minneapolis points toward a necessary reappraisal of Alexander Gardner’s 1865 portrait of Lincoln conspirator Lewis Payne (real name Lewis Powell), and its use by Roland Barthes as an illustration for his seminal 1980 book Camera Lucida. Barthes uses the photograph to illustrate a conceptual shift from the punctum, as an individual affect for the viewer, to the noeme, or ‘that-has-been’ appreciable in all photographs. As a result of an emblematic approach using a combination of motto, subscriptio, and illustration, key details of the photograph are misrepresented, and key features of Powell’s Confederate identity are erased. This study therefore explores the circumstances of the photograph’s production, its precarious existence as an unprinted cast-off, and its eventual appreciation as a distinctive example of portraiture’s power. Whereas in Civil War historiography Powell and this photograph are little more than footnotes, the debate around Confederate statues and symbols now begs the question of how the photograph should be contextualised in photography, media and cultural studies, where it has its greatest visibility by far

Profiles of resilient psychosocial function during three isolated ski expeditions in the High Arctic

To successfully complete a Polar expedition individuals and teams must respond resiliently to the environmental, psychological, and social demands they face. In this study we examined profiles of resilient function in seven people from three expeditions in the High Arctic. Using a structured daily diary, participants reported on experiences of physical health (morning and evening), affect, team cohesion, performance, and potential explanatory factors including sleep, demand appraisals, events, and coping strategies. Notable intra- and inter-individual variability was observed in daily reports and all profiles could be interpreted as representing resilient function. A number of significant relationships were found between markers of resilient physical and psychosocial function and potential explanatory variables. For example, there was much more daily variability in an individual's reporting of positive affect than prior research might imply, and what prior research designs could capture. Further, while negative affect tended to remain low and stable, our findings reveal that even minor and infrequent increases in negative emotions were significantly associated with other variables in the network. Finally, across the expedition period individual coping resources consistently exceeded demands, suggesting that individuals viewed the expedition as a challenge and not a threat. More broadly, these findings inform efforts to monitor, and maintain resilience when operating in Polar and other extreme settings.</p