Assessing the quality of the time delay estimate in acoustic leak localisation

The problem considered in this paper is assessing the quality of the time delay estimate between leak signals measured on water pipes. This is practically important, as a quantitative assessment of the accuracy of time delay estimation (TDE) results makes it possible to infer the reliability of acoustic leak localisation results in a given situation. Three quality assessment approaches are developed by considering the statistical properties of the cross-correlation function (CCF): information-criterion, processing gain, and statistical approaches. In the information-criterion approach, the Bayes factor (BF) is employed to decide the most likely probability distribution of observed CCF peak values. The processing gain approach determines the quality of the time delay estimate using indices that indicate detectability of the CCF peak, namely, the peak-to-side lobe ratio (PSR) and the peak-to-mean ratio (PMR). In the statistical approach, an index termed inconsistency score (ICS) is used to describe the quality of TDE results based on root-mean square of deviations of time delay estimates from their statistical mode. Experimental results show that the proposed approaches provide effective means of assessing the accuracy of the time delay estimate in acoustic leak detection applications. Also, the proposed indices can be employed as figures of merit for selecting best parameters for TDE, for example, filter cut-off frequencies

A case study of washback and test preparation of the new version of PTE academic

The Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE-A), a widely used high-stakes language proficiency test for university admissions and migration purposes, underwent a notable change from a three-hour to a two-hour version in November 2021. The implementation of the new version has prompted inquiries into the washback effects on various stakeholders. Focusing on a small sample of Chinese test takers (n=10), this paper explores washback effects following the revision of PTE-A and the complexity of test preparation through in-depth semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest a shorter test length is preferred and several different methods are adopted for test preparation which gives evidence to the positive washback. However, participants reported some confusion regarding certain test items, leading to the adoption of construct-irrelevant methods. This, in turn, may affect the face validity of PTE-A. While addressing the literature gap in this field, recommendations for improving the test design to better meet test takers’ needs are provided

Changing configurations of day of the dead / día de muertos during the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico and beyond

In his illuminating study, The Work of the Dead (2016), Thomas Laqueur reminds us that the dead come in and out of cultural focus. The period of time since Covid-19 erupted into the lives of millions across the globe from early 2020 onwards has seen a painful energizing of the cultural focus of which Laqueur writes. This book explores the ways in which death in Mexico —probably most associated with the visual tour-de-force that is the Día de Muertos or Day of the Dead festival—has been reconfigured and reimagined since Covid both within Mexico and for some Mexican migrant communities beyond its boundaries. It traces these transformations as they have occurred in Mexico and takes two diasporic communities in the UK and Ireland as case studies through which to study the changing configurations of the festival and its commemoration of the dead during the pandemic time-frame of 2020-2022. It also assesses the shifting contours of the feminist response in Mexico to the Día de Muertos and charts the literary and performative ways in which this feminist protest has been channelled since the outbreak. The project reflects on the intersections of death and the pandemic with traditional Día de Muertos commemorative practices through analysis of both creative and commercial practices as well as community responses in (trans)national and diasporic contexts.This book is being written over the course of 2020-22 during the Covid-19 pandemic and as we move hesitantly into a tentative post-pandemic age. In Mexico City, the 2020 street events and parade were replaced by virtual events which played specific homage to all those who had passed due to Covid-19. The pandemic generated commercial opportunities for small businesses whereby traditional Día de Muertos products were adapted in innovative ways, and creative practitioners and activists responded to the health crisis deploying imaginative modes of artistic, literary and performative expression. The wider community has similarly revealed both resilience and creativity as demonstrated in the way they have adapted to new ways of celebrating Día de Muertos via literary expression and conferred in particular by digital technologies. Though ‘normal’ Día de Muertos global practices have been affected by the pandemic, so too does it become apparent that as a practice it is in a process of constant transformation to meet people’s needs in ever-shifting circumstances (Lavery 2021). The book charts the ways in which that transformation has occurred, and certain questions guide our examination of the topic. These include wider considerations of how the pandemic has shaped ideas about death and dying differently. It explores how commemorative and mourning practices have changed and evaluates the impact of the pandemic on the way stories are told about the dead. In addition, it asks how the pandemic has cast a light and shaped conversations on global issues such as mental health, exhaustion, and gender violence and seeks to understand how these have been captured differently in Día de Muertos rituals in Mexico and beyond through its transnational case studies in the UK and Ireland. Given that in 2020, the Día de Muertos became a particularly poignant festival considering the global death tolls due to Covid, the book reflects on these diasporic communities’ lived experiences of the pandemic and evaluates how their approaches to Día de Muertos changed from the onset of the pandemic. Notions of belonging, distance and home are all radically questioned by the pandemic’s halt to mobility and disruption of everyday life — we ask how in these radically changed circumstances do diasporic Mexican communities re-imagine these relationships, and connect to loved ones in Mexico. Finally, the book will evaluate data emerging from author-led workshops and multimedia exhibitions, as well as Día de Muertos events that seek to engage with local Mexican and non-Mexican audiences in both Ireland and England. Held in 2021-2022, the participants engage with the rich compendium of Día de Muertos symbolic and narrative systems in order to discuss how the pandemic has framed ideas of loss more widely. In this way, we can see how the Día de Muertos commemorative practices can be expanded to other societal groups and communities to take on new meanings within a dramatically altered and at times apocalyptic environment.<br/

Looking for love: a monster-mapping

Invited, accepted, in progress. James Baldwin likens the artist to the lover. ‘If I love you, I make you conscious of the things you don’t see’, states the Black queer author-activist. Baldwin’s quote captures my vision as an artist, academic and agitator. I cultivate critical interventions that seek to reveal how art and mobilities can work together to make the hidden or erased visible, and catalyse conversation and action toward change. By destabilising traditional knowledge-formations, and cultivating ‘tentacles’ to connect between distinct ideas, methods and fields, I seek to develop new, liminal spaces that enable knowledge-creation in others, as seen in my efforts to diversify, decolonise and neuroqueer running studies, neurodiversity studies and leadership studies. Love is the subject, method and proposed outcome of my creative research programme Looking for Love, 2024-2029. Through theory-building, embodied and collaborative action research, I seek to diversify, decolonise and neuroqueer how we understand and do leadership as a co-creative mobilities change- and future-making practice. ‘Love’ highlights the role of art and creative practice through non-western, decolonial and intersectional prisms; ‘looking for’ celebrates the origins of the term ‘leadership’ in travelling, struggling and guidance, which I have argued are embodied in marginalised culture workers (for example, Baldwin, hooks, Lorde, Friere et al), while ‘looking’ underpins how visual arts highlights blind-spots within art, mobilities and leadership studies, and the value of entangling both. I use the term ‘monster-mapping’ as a mobilities method of ‘way-finding and re-direction during and beyond crisis’, in order to map together my research pathways so far, align it with discourses on mobilities (creative mobilities, and mobility justice), themes of leadership and the arts, and visualise/envision where this can go for future creative practice/research

“Mild preparations”: work, practices, and the internal good of recognition

This chapter seeks to articulate the ethically developmental potential of work, both in terms of the intrinsic satisfactions of the very best activities, and because of the recognition structures work can provide. We do so by exploring the goods of work in the context of the discussion concerning technological unemployment. One response to the possibility of technological unemployment is provided by the anti-work perspective, the plausibility of which rests in large part on its capacity to do justice to the impoverished nature of much contemporary work. Drawing on MacIntyre’s concept of practices we argue, however, that the concept of good work is better equipped to sustain the recognition structures that facilitate the achievement of excellence in those practices. Thus, good work can be viewed, somewhat ironically, as being powerfully conducive to our efforts to prepare ourselves for a world in which leisure is more socially central

Global Englishes

The global spread of English, with over two billion users of the language, is now well-documented. English functions as a language of education, business, tourism, and intercultural communication in many settings across the world. Global Englishes offers a clear and comprehensive overview of key areas of the topic, encompassing both World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) within a single volume.This engaging textbook offers readers the opportunity to reflect on key debates as well as develop their own thinking on real-world language practices and problems in light of Global Englishes theory and research. Organised into a three-part Survey, followed by readings from important texts, this is both an introductory textbook covering key concepts and themes, and a starting point for further study. It is essential reading for students of Global/World Englishes and ELF in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, English language teaching, and intercultural communication