Multimodal outlier optimizer for textual, numeric, and image data

Ensuring the quality and reliability of multimodal video data is critical for applications that rely on accurate interpretation, such as medical imaging, surveillance, remote sensing and intelligent manufacturing. However, the presence of outliers across different data types such as visual, textual, and numerical poses a major challenge. To address this, we propose the Multimodal Outlier Optimizer (MOO), a unified framework designed to detect and filter outliers from heterogeneous data modalities within video files. MOO decomposes each video into still images, text, and numeric sequences, allowing specialized algorithms to handle each modality: Nonlocal Means (NLM) for removing Gaussian noise in image frames and Local Outlier Factor (LOF) for detecting contextual outliers in textual and numerical data. These filtered components are then recombined into a cleaned, optimized video. The system is trained and evaluated using synthetically generated datasets to simulate real-world noise while ensuring scalability and control. Performance is assessed using Jaccard Similarity Score (JSS) and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), with results demonstrating consistent improvements even under high contamination levels (up to 50%), achieving SSIM scores above 0.77 across three domains: medical imaging, remote sensing, and zoomed video data. These results highlight MOO’s potential as an effective and adaptable tool for enhancing the integrity of multimodal video data in complex, real-world environments

Fragile objects: uncovering networks and tracing material culture from the ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic exploration

Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton, among others, led multiple expeditions during the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, which lasted from the late-19th to the mid-20th century. Today, the material culture of their expeditions shapes the legacies of Heroic Age explorers in museum collections across Britain and Ireland. The Polar Museum in Cambridge and Discovery Point in Dundee are both heritage institutions with Heroic Age collections relating to Scott and Shackleton’s expeditions. While these collections are generally considered to be fairly inert – unless they are put on public display – and to relate to only a select group of white European explorers, this thesis considers the ongoing production of their status within the museums, and the diverse network of actors with which they are entangled. Through ethnographic data acquired during fieldwork with the museum teams and visitors at the Polar Museum and Discovery Point, as well as visitor observations and archival research, I argue that museum objects are undergoing continuous production within their networks. This thesis makes three key arguments: (1) that museum objects are subject to three modes of fragility – physical, contextual and conceptual, and that these must be stabilised to ensure their ‘object’ status; (2) that certain museum objects may be seen as more significant than others as a result of their inalienable connection to the body of particular historic figures; and (3) that reconstituting the network of actors within which objects are entangled enables researchers to analytically ‘pause’ an object’s connection to an inalienable individual and uncover other actors who have shaped the object’s trajectory. This thesis argues that ‘object’ status is not a fixed state, but requires a broad network of actors to produce and sustain it over time

Testing green finance portfolio performance

Green activities are measured with a green revenue adjustment factor that can be used to adjust observed market stock prices. We examine the green revenues factors for all companies that are part of the stock indexes representing the main five economies. Using multivariate correlation coefficients, we detect higher-order groupings of green indexes that may highly or lowly correlate. We employ the green revenues factor to construct portfolios that may benefit from the wedge between high green companies and low green companies, for all five economies. The quintile portfolios are compared across mean return, the CAPM beta, and realised beta. We also statistically test their comparative dollar performance using high order stochastic dominance tests. The US portfolio has better dollar performance than the corresponding portfolios for the other economies, while the similar portfolio for Japan has the least dollar performance out of portfolios of all the other economies

Gellan gum in drug delivery

Gellan gum is an anionic microbially derived polysaccharide which produced via fermentation of Sphingomonas elodea. The chemical structure of gellan gum composes of four repeating monosaccharide units such as two glucose units (1,3-β-D-glucose and 1,4-β-D-glucose), 1,4-α-L-rhamnose, and 1,4-β-D-glucuronic acid with molar ratio of 2: 1:1. The native gellan gum structure contains two different types of acyl substituents, including high acyl and low acyl types. So far, gellan gum is widely used in food industry as an emulsifier, a thickener, and stabilizer instead of agar-agar. However, recently, in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, gellan gum-based drug delivery systems have gained more attention for delivery of various therapeutic drugs via different drug administration routes to control and sustain drug release into target site. Gellan gum has unique favorable features such as its biodegradability, thermal, mechanical, and acid stability, low cost, biocompatibility, nontoxicity, mucoadhesiveness, hypoallergenicity, simple and mild processing preparation, and high transparency. Therefore, it offers an effective and safe drug delivery carrier in various dosage forms including tablets, microparticles, nanoparticles, beads, films, hydrogels, etc. This chapter focuses on recent modified gellan gum-based microparticles, nanoparticles, and hydrogels for drug delivery, especially, through different drug administration routes: nasal, ocular, oral, and buccal routes

Phylogenomic incongruence gives new perspectives on the taxonomic complexity of Muscari s.l. (Asparagaceae, Scilloideae)

Muscari s.l. (Asparagaceae, Scilloideae) is a widespread genus of bulbous geophytes native to the Mediterranean, the Middle East and into the Caucasus. Based on inflorescence and floral morphology, four distinct groups have long been recognised and treated as either genera (Muscari s.str., Muscarimia, Leopoldia, Pseudomuscari) or subgenera within Muscari s.l. However, a recent molecular phylogenetic investigation proposed a new subgenus, Pulchella. Despite the several morphological and molecular phylogenetic investigations of Muscari, the delineation of taxa, either at the generic or subgeneric level, remains unstable. Here we aim to evaluate the monophyly and robustness of the recognised groups using broadly sampled nuclear (low‐copy number and ribosomal cistron) and plastome sequence phylogenies of Muscari s.l. Our morphological and molecular delineation of M. subg. Muscarimia and subg. Pseudomuscari across the analyses of three data sources are broadly congruent. However, high levels of incongruence within M. subg. Leopoldia and subg. Muscari are reported and discussed here, with implications for the stability of the newly described M. subg. Pulchella. Nomenclatural rules also require a new subgenus name to replace the name Pseudomuscari, which is shown to be a synonym of subgenus Muscari and has therefore been misapplied in recent work

The impact of CEO political ideology on labor cost reductions and payout decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic

Using a hand-collected dataset, we study whether CEO political ideology affected S&P 500 firms’ reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. During the pandemic, CEOs had the option to distribute the pain of the pandemic’s impact onto shareholders by paying lower dividends, onto the workforce by reducing labor costs, or to share the pain. We hypothesize that conservative CEOs were more likely to aggressively reduce labor costs while still meeting dividend expectations. Conversely, other CEOs would have been less likely to meet dividend expectations and less likely to reduce labor costs. Our findings support this hypothesis. We also find that during the pandemic, conservative CEOs used temporary downsizing to avoid earnings losses, enabling them to meet dividend expectations

From wasteland to wonderland: brownfield land and registers as catalyst for addressing urban housing needs

This study investigates the utilization of brownfield land registers and the potential of brownfield land for urban regeneration in the UK, focusing on Central London to address housing shortages. Using a constructivist qualitative research design, the study engaged 31 participants and employed a three-stage data analysis process. The findings reveal significant underutilization of brownfield land, highlighting "politics and planning" as key barriers. The study emphasizes the need for policymakers to collaborate with industry stakeholders, update brownfield land registers more frequently, and address identified constraints to enhance the effective utilization of brownfield land, offering valuable insights for global urban regeneration efforts

Examining the fidelity of Leith subgrid closures for parameterizing mesoscale eddies in idealized and global (NEMO) ocean models

Eddy‐permitting models struggle to simulate accurate Southern Ocean (SO) circulation. In particular, the medium resolution Hadley Center Global Coupled model in CMIP6 exhibits a warm SO bias and weak Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) transport. These issues are attributed to a poor representation of mesoscale eddies, which also impair the simulated transport of heat and carbon. To rectify these problems, two momentum closures (harmonic and biharmonic) are implemented in the Nucleus for European Modeling of the Ocean general circulation model: 2D Leith and Quasi‐Geostrophic Leith. These Leith closures aim to capture the correct cascades of energy and enstrophy in quasi two‐dimensional models. Additionally, the harmonic Leith viscosity coefficients can replace the traditional Gent‐McWilliams and Redi diffusivity coefficients. In this work we explore Leith closures in an eddy‐resolving channel model and an eddy‐permitting forced global ocean sea‐ice model, Global Ocean Sea‐Ice 9 (GOSI9). The idealized model shows the Leith implementation functions as intended. In the GOSI9 configuration, the harmonic Leith schemes increase the ACC transport by %. This is in response to isopycnal flattening across Drake Passage that reduces a strong Westward flow at S. This increase in ACC transport coincides with reduced warming around Antarctica and reduction of cold biases in the Atlantic. Both viscosity schemes also lead to a warm model drift. Swapping biharmonic with quasi‐geostrophic Leith viscosity in GOSI9 results in one of the strongest ACC transports, along with improvements to some biases in the Atlantic

What shared learning spaces taught me about student belonging

An examination of what we can learn from the transition from online learning spaces during the Covid pandemic to our campus teaching post-pandemi