A powerful heuristic for telephone gossiping

A refined heuristic for computing schedules for gossiping in the telephone model is presented. The heuristic is fast: for a network with n nodes and m edges, requiring R rounds for gossiping, the running time is O(R n log(n) m) for all tested classes of graphs. This moderate time consumption allows to compute gossiping schedules for networks with more than 10,000 PUs and 100,000 connections. The heuristic is good: in practice the computed schedules never exceed the optimum by more than a few rounds. The heuristic is versatile: it can also be used for broadcasting and more general information dispersion patterns. It can handle both the unit-cost and the linear-cost model. Actually, the heuristic is so good, that for CCC, shuffle-exchange, butterfly de Bruijn, star and pancake networks the constructed gossiping schedules are better than the best theoretically derived ones. For example, for gossiping on a shuffle-exchange network with 2^{13} PUs, the former upper bound was 49 rounds, while our heuristic finds a schedule requiring 31 rounds. Also for broadcasting the heuristic improves on many formerly known results. A second heuristic, works even better for CCC, butterfly, star and pancake networks. For example, with this heuristic we found that gossiping on a pancake network with 7! PUs can be performed in 15 rounds, 2 fewer than achieved by the best theoretical construction. This second heuristic is less versatile than the first, but by refined search techniques it can tackle even larger problems, the main limitation being the storage capacity. Another advantage is that the constructed schedules can be represented concisely

Interwoven Waves:Enhancing the Scalability and Robustness of Wi-Fi Channel State Information for Human Activity Recognition

This PhD dissertation investigates the future of unobtrusive radio wave-based sensing, specifically focusing on Wi-Fi sensing in realistic healthcare scenarios. Wi-Fi sensing leverages the analysis of multi-path reflections of radio waves to monitor human activities and physiological states, providing a scalable solution without intruding on daily life.Wi-Fi-based sensing, particularly through channel state information, fits well in healthcare due to its ubiquitous presence and unobtrusiveness. As our society ages and populations grow, continuous health monitoring becomes increasingly critical. Existing solutions like wearable devices, audiovisual technologies, and expensive infrastructure modifications each have limitations, such as forgetting to wear devices, privacy invasions, and high costs. Channel state information-based sensing offers a promising alternative, enabling remote monitoring without the need for additional infrastructure changes.Nevertheless, implementing channel state information-based sensing in already congested Wi-Fi bands could present challenges in the future. Current solutions often exacerbate congestion by adding random noise, which can degrade network performance. These solutions also tend to address niche problems in idealistic settings, making it difficult to justify their use in everyday environments due to potential impacts on network latency and overall user experience.To realise the potential of Wi-Fi sensing, future solutions must integrate seamlessly with wireless communication networks, ensuring that sensing and communication processes coexist and collaborate effectively. This dissertation categorises the relationship between sensing and communication into three models: parasitic, opportunistic, and mutualistic. In the parasitic model, sensing operates independently of the wireless infrastructure, potentially adding noise and congestion. The opportunistic model leverages existing traffic flows, avoiding adverse effects on communication. The mutualistic model aims for a balance, enhancing both sensing and communication without compromising either function.The primary research objective is to enhance the robustness and scalability of channel state information-based sensing for human activity recognition, facilitating seamless integration into home environments with minimal impact on existing infrastructure. Overall, this dissertation provides an exploration of the challenges and solutions for unobtrusive Wi-Fi sensing in healthcare, paving the way for future advancements in the field

Interacting with television : morning talk-TV and its communicative relationship with women viewers

This thesis presents a unique interdisciplinary approach to gender and mass communication within the field of media and cultural studies. It evolves from a trend in media research that understands broadcasting as a communicative event which involves the creation of new and different forms of social action and interaction in a modem world (Meyrowitz, 1985; Thompson, 1995; Scannell, 1989; 1991; Moores, 2000). It investigates women's involvement with television discourse concentrating on morning talk programming in Britain which presents a concentration of talk shows and magazine programmes. These programmes are chosen specifically because in dealing with issues that are usually contained within the personal and private domain they often privilege the voices of 'ordinary' people and women in particular. It is argued that their personalised stylistic features produce textual strategies which position the viewer as also 'participator'. The research also involves a, broadly speaking, 'ethnographic' approach, viewing programmes with women in their homes and recording their responses alongside the text. This original methodology produces an analysis of text/audience interaction that concentrates on the motivation of a particular style of 'feminine' discourse, which can articulate the personal and private. As such, I emphasise the importance of the women's voices in the construction of the viewing experience which uniquely establishes a 'mediated conversational floor'. The research finds that through the interaction encouraged by the texts, the women respond producing their own relevant subjective experience that is significant as a modern phenomenon of self-reflexivity and identity construction

Women and Vampire Fiction: Texts, Fandom and the Construction of Identity

This thesis examines what vampire fiction and vampire fandom offer to women and uses as a case study the accounts offered by women fans in New Orleans and Britain. Textual approaches to vampire fiction and femininity have largely proposed that just as the woman is punished by being positioned as passive and masochistic in the texts of Dracula, so too is the female viewer or reader of the texts. This thesis argues that such approaches are inadequate because they impose a singular ('Dracularesque') structure of meaning which both underestimates the variety of vampire fiction available and ignores the process of reading that women interested in the vampire figure engage in. It is argued, based on the women vampire fan's own textual interpretations, that the vampire can be read as a figure of pathos who elicits the fans' sympathy because of its predicament. It is further argued that this approach to the vampire appeals to the women because it brings into play a melodramatic structure which resonates with certain problematic experiences of feminine identity that are often suppressed in our culture and thus difficult to articulate. The figure of the vampire offers women fans both a channel for their creativity and a means of rebelling against the imposed norms of femininity. It is a well-rehearsed position in theories of fandom that the activity that fans engage in is a form of rebellion or resistance. However, this thesis has suggested that the rebellion that the women fans engage in is a rebellion of the 'self which is both filled with contradictions and limited to the personal sphere. Furthermore, through a comparison of two fan clubs, it will be argued that fandom is not automatically a culture of resistance and that different fan clubs position themselves in relation to two opposing, yet dominant, sets of values in the cultural field. Vampire fandom offers women the chance to construct alternative identities, but participation in fandom does not constitute resistance to dominant culture

Transitions to adulthood: the experiences of youth with disabilities in Accra, Ghana

Youth with disabilities are amongst the poorest and most marginalised of young people worldwide. Approximately 80 per cent of disabled young people live in countries of the Global South. Despite a growing body of research problematising youth transitions in situations of poverty and increasing interest in disability issues beyond the Global North, little is known about how youth with disabilities in the Global South make their transitions to adulthood. This thesis addresses this gap by reporting on a qualitative study on the transitions to adulthood of young people with different impairments living primarily in Accra, Ghana. Using innovative, participatory methods, it explores young people s individual narratives within the areas of education, employment, and social and community life, and the ways in which these shape their life trajectories. The study shows that the transitions to adulthood of youth with disabilities in Accra are substantially influenced by disability-related factors and processes that are socio-spatially embedded and intricately intertwined. Disabling social and physical environments restrict disabled young people s participation in education, employment, and social and community life, which increases their vulnerability to marginalisation and exclusion in society. As a consequence, their transitions to adulthood are even more complex, protracted, and uncertain than for their non-disabled peers. Youth with disabilities, however, use a variety of coping strategies to navigate the challenges they face associated with school, work, and social life in their attempts to achieve adulthood. Foregrounding the voices of young people with differing categories of social difference challenges the hitherto existing homogenisation of the lives of youth with disabilities in the Global South highlighting their agency and capabilities as well as the complex ways in which they negotiate transitions during the life-course

Individuality and (dis)identification in young women's friendship at school.

This thesis concerns itself with young women's (aged 14/15) discourses and practices of friendship at Hilltop, a large urban comprehensive school in the North of England. Young women's experiences of friendship are central to this thesis. This is reflected in the 'feminist research praxis' adopted, and the use of the following participatory research methods: multi-locational participant observation (curriculum classrooms, PSHE classroom, registration, corridors, dining hall, staff room, local 'hang out' areas), self-directed photography, and semi-structured group and individual interviews with young women. The use of participatory research methods when working with young women at school raises a number of ethical and moral dilemmas for the feminist researcher. These are discussed in-depth in chapter two, specifically in relation to a feminist 'politics of intervention'. Discourses of individuality and practices of (dis)identification (Skeggs, 1997) are central to understanding young women's complex and often contradictory constructions of friendship which serve to reproduce heterosexual and classed femininities. In all three empirical chapters relations of power are masked through practices of (dis )identification (Skeggs, 1997). Through the use of three case-studies chapter three focuses on young women's discourses of individuality and practices of (dis)identification. Young women's responses to 'heterosexual laddism' (Epstein and Johnson, 1998) in the 'sexuality education' classroom are discussed in chapter four. Finally, chapter five considers 'alternative' young women's discourses of 'distinctive individuality' (Muggleton, 2000) and spatial practices of (dis)identification. The material encountered in this thesis suggests that it is heterosexuality as masculinity and the 'male-in-the-head' (Holland et al, 1998) that benefits from the cultural suppression of young women's friendship through discourses of individuality and practices of (dis)identification

Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom

Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom is dedicated to the practice of immersive ethnographic and autoethnographic writing that encourages authors to participate in the communities about which they write. This book draws not only on critical qualitative inquiry methods such as interview and observation, but also on theories and sensibilities from creative writing and performance studies, which encourage self-reflection and narrative composition. Concepts from qualitative inquiry studies, which examine everyday life, are combined with approaches to the creation of character and scene to help writers develop engaging narratives that examine chosen subcultures and the author’s position in relation to her research subjects. The book brings together a brief history of first-person qualitative research and writing from the past forty years, examining the evolution of nonfiction and qualitative approaches in relation to the personal essay. A selection of recent student writing in the genre as well as reflective student essays on the experience of conducting research in the classroom is presented in the context of exercises for coursework and beyond. Also explored in detail are guidelines for interviewing and identifying subjects and techniques for creating informed sketches and images that engage the reader. This book provides approaches anyone can use to explore their communities and write about them first-hand. The methods presented can be used for a single assignment in a larger course or to guide an entire semester through many levels and varieties of informed personal writing.https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/oer-ost/1006/thumbnail.jp

The end of stigma? Understanding the dynamics of legitimisation in the context of TV series consumption

This research contributes to prior work on stigmatisation by looking at stigmatisation and legitimisation as social processes in the context of TV series consumption. Using in-depth interviews, we show that the dynamics of legitimisation are complex and accompanied by the reproduction of existing stigmas and creation of new stigmas