5,388 research outputs found
Victims' Access to Justice in Trinidad and Tobago: An exploratory study of experiences and challenges of accessing criminal justice in a post-colonial society
This thesis investigates victims' access to justice in Trinidad and Tobago, using their own narratives. It seeks to capture how their experiences affected their identities as victims and citizens, alongside their perceptions of legitimacy regarding the criminal justice system. While there have been some reforms in the administration of criminal justice in Trinidad and Tobago, such reforms have not focused on victims' accessibility to the justice system. Using grounded theory methodology, qualitative data was collected through 31 in-depth interviews with victims and victim advocates. The analysis found that victims experienced interpersonal, structural, and systemic barriers at varying levels throughout the criminal justice system, which manifested as institutionalized secondary victimization, silencing and inequality. This thesis argues that such experiences not only served to appropriate conflict but demonstrates that access is often given in a very narrow sense. Furthermore, it shows a failure to encompass access to justice as appropriated conflicts are left to stagnate in the system as there is often very little resolution. Adopting a postcolonial lens to analyse victims' experiences, the analysis identified othering practices that served to institutionalize the vulnerability and powerlessness associated with victim identities. Here, it is argued that these othering practices also affected the rights consciousness of victims, delegitimating their identities as citizens. Moreover, as a result of their experiences, victims had mixed perceptions of the justice system. It is argued that while the system is a legitimate authority victims' endorsement of the system is questionable, therefore victims' experiences suggest that there is a reinforcement of the system's legal hegemony. The findings suggest that within the legal system of Trinidad and Tobago, legacies of colonialism shape the postcolonial present as the psychology and inequalities of the past are present in the interactions and processes of justice. These findings are relevant for policymakers in Trinidad and Tobago and other regions. From this study it is recognized that, to improve access to justice for victims, there needs to be a move towards victim empowerment that promotes resilience and enhances social capital. Going forward it is noted that there is a need for further research
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Antecedents of business intelligence system use
This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.Organisational reliance on information has become vital for organisational competitiveness. With increasing data volumes, Business Intelligence (BI) becomes a cornerstone of the decision-support system. However, employee resistance to use Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) is evident. This creates a problem to organisations in realising the benefits of BIS. It is thus important to study the enablers of sustained use of BIS amongst employees.
This thesis identifies existing theories that can be used to study BI system use. It integrates and extends technology use theories through a framework focusing on Business Intelligence System Use (BISU). Empirical research is then conducted in Kuwaitâs telecom and banking industries through a close-ended, self-administered questionnaire using a five-point Likert scale. Responses were received from 211 BI users. The data was analysed using SmartPLS to study the convergent and discriminant validity and reliability. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to study the direct and indirect relationships between constructs and answer the hypotheses. In addition to SmartPLS, SPSS was used for descriptive analysis.
The results indicated that UTAUT factors consisting of performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence positively impact BI system use. Voluntariness of use was found to positively moderate the relationship between social influence and BI system use. Furthermore, BI system quality positively impacts both performance expectancy and effort expectancy. The BI userâs self-efficacy also positively impacts effort expectancy. In addition, social influence was found to be positively influenced by organisational factors, namely top management support and information culture.
The findings of this research contribute to literature by determining and quantifying the factors that influence BISU through the lens of employee perspectives. This thesis also explains how employeesâ object-based beliefs about BI affect their behavioural beliefs, which in turn impact BISU. Limitations of this research include the omission of UTAUTâs facilitating conditions and the limited variance of respondent demographics
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Meaning-Making Practices of Emergent ArabicâEnglish Bilingual Kindergarten Children in Cairo
The number of British Schools in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is growing. The National Curriculum of England is used by an increasing number of such schools. As well as exporting a culturally-specific curriculum, these schools usually adopt an ideology of monolingualism, thus potentially limiting communication for emergent bilinguals and failing to acknowledge the multiple ways of meaning-making.
Current studies of translanguaging are moving the focus to multimodal forms of communication as a resource for thinking and communicating (GarcĂa and Wei 2014, Wei 2018). Building on the work of Kress (1997, 2010) I explore pre-school emergent bilingualsâ wider signifying practices and create an analytical framework, which I call MMTL (multimodal translanguaging), used as a lens to illustrate meaning-making.
Valley Hill in Cairo, Egypt is a British school which encourages âEnglish-onlyâ as the medium of instruction in the kindergarten. Using a case study methodology, this research explores the meaning-making practices of eight emergent bilingual children aged 3â4 during child-initiated play, later reduced to four in the thesis to provide a detailed multimodal analysis. The principal aim is to explore their speech, gaze, gesture, and their engagement (layout/position) with artefacts during play.
The findings of this study suggest that although there is an âEnglish-onlyâ approach, these young emergent bilingual children are meaning-making in a variety of ways. Children are translanguaging but it is never in isolation from other modes of communication. Emergent bilinguals use a range of modes to mediate their understanding and communication with others. They use gesture, gaze, and artefacts alongside translingual practices to move meaning across to more accessible modes, enabling communication and understanding. The implications for schools should be to embrace such hybrid practices and for teachers to be more responsive to young childrenâs meaning-making to enable learning
Multidimensional Analysis of Blockchain Data Using an ETL-based Approach
In this paper, a multidimensional model and an ETL workflow for blockchain data analysis are proposed. The workflow makes use of state-of-the-art open source tools and traditional data warehousing techniques to implement an extensible and efficient solution for the extraction, transformation, loading, and querying of data. Two scripts are implemented that aim at streamlining the ETL process, therefore simplifying the replication of the workflow to carry out a data analysis. Moreover, an exemplary use case demonstrating the analytical potential of the multidimensional model is presented and evaluated. Finally, strengths and limitations of this approach as well as the potential of future research are shown
Runtime Verification For Android Security
Users of computer systems face a constant threat of cyberattacks by malware designed to cause harm or disruption to services, steal information, or hold the user to ransom. Cyberattacks are becoming increasingly prevalent on mobile devices like Android. Attacks become more sophisticated along with countermeasures in an ever-increasing arms race. A novel attack method is âcollusionâ, where the attack gets hidden by distributing the steps through many malicious software actors [7].We investigate the use of runtime verification to detect collusion attacks on the end-users device. We have developed a novel algorithm called Reverse-Rosžu-Havelund that is a variation of an exist-ing algorithm by Grigore Rosžu and Klaus Havelund [26]. Our approach is computationally efficient enough to detect collusion in realtime on the Android device and does not require prior knowledge of malware source code. Thus, it can detect future malware without modification to the detection system or the software under scrutiny
Optimización del rendimiento y la eficiencia energética en sistemas masivamente paralelos
RESUMEN Los sistemas heterogéneos son cada vez mås relevantes, debido a sus capacidades de rendimiento y eficiencia energética, estando presentes en todo tipo de plataformas de cómputo, desde dispositivos embebidos y servidores, hasta nodos HPC de grandes centros de datos. Su complejidad hace que sean habitualmente usados bajo el paradigma de tareas y el modelo de programación host-device. Esto penaliza fuertemente el aprovechamiento de los aceleradores y el consumo energético del sistema, ademås de dificultar la adaptación de las aplicaciones.
La co-ejecuciĂłn permite que todos los dispositivos cooperen para computar el mismo problema, consumiendo menos tiempo y energĂa. No obstante, los programadores deben encargarse de toda la gestiĂłn de los dispositivos, la distribuciĂłn de la carga y la portabilidad del cĂłdigo entre sistemas, complicando notablemente su programaciĂłn.
Esta tesis ofrece contribuciones para mejorar el rendimiento y la eficiencia energética en estos sistemas masivamente paralelos. Se realizan propuestas que abordan objetivos generalmente contrapuestos: se mejora la usabilidad y la programabilidad, a la vez que se garantiza una mayor abstracción y extensibilidad del sistema, y al mismo tiempo se aumenta el rendimiento, la escalabilidad y la eficiencia energética. Para ello, se proponen dos motores de ejecución con enfoques completamente distintos.
EngineCL, centrado en OpenCL y con una API de alto nivel, favorece la mĂĄxima compatibilidad entre todo tipo de dispositivos y proporciona un sistema modular extensible. Su versatilidad permite adaptarlo a entornos para los que no fue concebido, como aplicaciones con ejecuciones restringidas por tiempo o simuladores HPC de dinĂĄmica molecular, como el utilizado en un centro de investigaciĂłn internacional.
Considerando las tendencias industriales y enfatizando la aplicabilidad profesional, CoexecutorRuntime proporciona un sistema flexible centrado en C++/SYCL que dota de soporte a la co-ejecuciĂłn a la tecnologĂa oneAPI. Este runtime acerca a los programadores al dominio del problema, posibilitando la explotaciĂłn de estrategias dinĂĄmicas adaptativas que mejoran la eficiencia en todo tipo de aplicaciones.ABSTRACT Heterogeneous systems are becoming increasingly relevant, due to their performance and energy efficiency capabilities, being present in all types of computing platforms, from embedded devices and servers to HPC nodes in large data centers. Their complexity implies that they are usually used under the task paradigm and the host-device programming model. This strongly penalizes accelerator utilization and system energy consumption, as well as making it difficult to adapt applications.
Co-execution allows all devices to simultaneously compute the same problem, cooperating to consume less time and energy. However, programmers must handle all device management, workload distribution and code portability between systems, significantly complicating their programming.
This thesis offers contributions to improve performance and energy efficiency in these massively parallel systems. The proposals address the following generally conflicting objectives: usability and programmability are improved, while ensuring enhanced system abstraction and extensibility, and at the same time performance, scalability and energy efficiency are increased. To achieve this, two runtime systems with completely different approaches are proposed.
EngineCL, focused on OpenCL and with a high-level API, provides an extensible modular system and favors maximum compatibility between all types of devices. Its versatility allows it to be adapted to environments for which it was not originally designed, including applications with time-constrained executions or molecular dynamics HPC simulators, such as the one used in an international research center.
Considering industrial trends and emphasizing professional applicability, CoexecutorRuntime provides a flexible C++/SYCL-based system that provides co-execution support for oneAPI technology. This runtime brings programmers closer to the problem domain, enabling the exploitation of dynamic adaptive strategies that improve efficiency in all types of applications.Funding: This PhD has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU16/03299 grant),
the Spanish Science and Technology Commission under contracts TIN2016-76635-C2-2-R
and PID2019-105660RB-C22.
This work has also been partially supported by the Mont-Blanc 3: European Scalable and
Power Efficient HPC Platform based on Low-Power Embedded Technology project (G.A. No.
671697) from the European Unionâs Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme
(H2020 Programme). Some activities have also been funded by the Spanish Science and Technology
Commission under contract TIN2016-81840-REDT (CAPAP-H6 network).
The Integration II: Hybrid programming models of Chapter 4 has been partially performed
under the Project HPC-EUROPA3 (INFRAIA-2016-1-730897), with the support of the EC
Research Innovation Action under the H2020 Programme. In particular, the author gratefully
acknowledges the support of the SPMT Department of the High Performance Computing
Center Stuttgart (HLRS)
Dynamic Contextualization of Learners Within Educational Systems Through a Vygotskian Lens: A Telling Case of Jesus Christ as an Educator
This study looked at Jesus Christ as a telling example of how transformative patterns of influence are exerted on learners by educators in educational systems. Based on concepts found in L.S. Vygotskyâs work, this study found these patterns acting as a current or stream of consistent aims and meanings introduced and reinforced by educators in the form of practices and methods that generated momentum toward/around desired learner responses. This studyâs insights into these patterns of influence as employed by Christ during his ministry and as experienced by his learners provided new means of both interpreting their success and potentially replicating elements of that methodology in contemporary educational practice
Symbiotic deep learning for medical image analysis with applications in real-time diagnosis for fetal ultrasound screening
The last hundred years have seen a monumental rise in the power and capability of machines to
perform intelligent tasks in the stead of previously human operators. This rise is not expected
to slow down any time soon and what this means for society and humanity as a whole remains
to be seen. The overwhelming notion is that with the right goals in mind, the growing influence
of machines on our every day tasks will enable humanity to give more attention to the truly
groundbreaking challenges that we all face together. This will usher in a new age of human
machine collaboration in which humans and machines may work side by side to achieve greater
heights for all of humanity. Intelligent systems are useful in isolation, but the true benefits of
intelligent systems come to the fore in complex systems where the interaction between humans
and machines can be made seamless, and it is this goal of symbiosis between human and machine
that may democratise complex knowledge, which motivates this thesis. In the recent past, datadriven
methods have come to the fore and now represent the state-of-the-art in many different
fields. Alongside the shift from rule-based towards data-driven methods we have also seen a
shift in how humans interact with these technologies. Human computer interaction is changing
in response to data-driven methods and new techniques must be developed to enable the same
symbiosis between man and machine for data-driven methods as for previous formula-driven
technology.
We address five key challenges which need to be overcome for data-driven human-in-the-loop
computing to reach maturity. These are (1) the âCategorisation Challengeâ where we examine
existing work and form a taxonomy of the different methods being utilised for data-driven
human-in-the-loop computing; (2) the âConfidence Challengeâ, where data-driven methods must
communicate interpretable beliefs in how confident their predictions are; (3) the âComplexity
Challengeâ where the aim of reasoned communication becomes increasingly important as the
complexity of tasks and methods to solve also increases; (4) the âClassification Challengeâ in
which we look at how complex methods can be separated in order to provide greater reasoning
in complex classification tasks; and finally (5) the âCuration Challengeâ where we challenge the
assumptions around bottleneck creation for the development of supervised learning methods.Open Acces
In the Quest for the Motivation App: Designing Effective Behavior Change Apps Through the Lens of the Self-Determination Theory
Mobile apps are used to support behavior change goals (e.g., stopping a lousy habit, increasing the physical activity frequency, or learning a new skill). Because these apps are pervasive, they are great tools to reach and help people in their self-improvement path towards better habits and well-being. However, users of these apps fail to reach their objectives because they lack the motivation to attain their goals. App creators might help to support motivation by integrating human motivation theories into their designs. Still, not many apps are theory- grounded. To address this issue, we organized our research around a comprehensive human motivation theory: The Self-Determination Theory (SDT). We explored three research streams: (1) developing an artifact that maps market app features to support the SDT Basic Psychological Needs (BPNs); (2) creating an SDT inspired physical activity app that provided empirical evidence that its design supported the BPNs; (3) providing empirical evidence of an SDT inspired app design that contributes to increasing the physical activity and motivation of individuals. The results of our studies show that the SDT can inform the design of behavior change app features. Moreover, these SDT inspired features can be used to create a physical activity app that improves individualsâ intrinsic motivation and physical activity level. This thesis results have practical implications for app designers, policymakers, and health practitioners whose interest lies in creating theory-informed and effective behavior change apps.
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Les applications mobiles sont utilisĂ©es pour les objectifs de changement de comportements (par exemple, arrĂȘter une mauvaise habitude, augmenter la frĂ©quence dâactivitĂ©s physiques ou apprendre une nouvelle compĂ©tence). Comme ces applications sont omniprĂ©sentes, elles constituent dâexcellents outils pour atteindre et aider les gens dans leur chemin vers de meilleures habitudes et bien-ĂȘtre. Cependant, les utilisateurs de ces applications ne parviennent pas Ă atteindre leurs objectifs car ils manquent de motivation pour y parvenir. Les crĂ©ateurs dâapplications pourraient contribuer Ă soutenir leur mo- tivation en intĂ©grant les thĂ©ories basĂ©es sur la motivation humaine dans leurs conceptions. Pourtant, peu dâapplications sont fondĂ©es sur ces thĂ©ories. Pour rĂ©soudre ce problĂšme, nous avons organisĂ© notre recherche autour dâune thĂ©orie globale de la motivation humaine : La thĂ©orie de lâautodĂ©termination (SDT). Nous avons explorĂ© trois axes de recherche : (1) le dĂ©veloppement dâun artefact qui met en correspondance les caractĂ©ristiques des applications du marchĂ© avec les besoins psychologiques fondamentaux (BPN) de SDT ; (2) la crĂ©ation dâune application dâactivitĂ© physique basĂ©e sur SDT qui fournit des preuves empiriques que sa conception soutient les BPN ; (3) donner des preuves empiriques dâune conception dâapplication inspirĂ©e de SDT qui contribue Ă augmenter lâactivitĂ© physique et la motivation des individus. Les rĂ©sultats de nos Ă©tudes montrent que SDT peut servir de base Ă la conception de fonctionnalitĂ©s dâapplication pour les changements comportementaux. De plus, ces caractĂ©ristiques inspirĂ©es de SDT peuvent ĂȘtre utilisĂ©es pour crĂ©er une application dâactivitĂ© physique qui amĂ©liore la motivation personnelle et le niveau dâactivitĂ© physique des individus. Les rĂ©sultats de cette thĂšse ont des implications pratiques pour les crĂ©ateurs dâapplications, les responables politiques et les mĂ©decins de la santĂ© qui sâintĂ©ressent Ă la crĂ©ation dâapplications efficaces et fondĂ©es sur cette thĂ©orie de la modification du comportement
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