213 research outputs found

    Under construction: infrastructure and modern fiction

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    In this dissertation, I argue that infrastructural development, with its technological promises but widening geographic disparities and social and environmental consequences, informs both the narrative content and aesthetic forms of modernist and contemporary Anglophone fiction. Despite its prevalent material forms—roads, rails, pipes, and wires—infrastructure poses particular formal and narrative problems, often receding into the background as mere setting. To address how literary fiction theorizes the experience of infrastructure requires reading “infrastructurally”: that is, paying attention to the seemingly mundane interactions between characters and their built environments. The writers central to this project—James Joyce, William Faulkner, Karen Tei Yamashita, and Mohsin Hamid—take up the representational challenges posed by infrastructure by bringing transit networks, sanitation systems, and electrical grids and the histories of their development and use into the foreground. These writers call attention to the political dimensions of built environments, revealing the ways infrastructures produce, reinforce, and perpetuate racial and socioeconomic fault lines. They also attempt to formalize the material relations of power inscribed by and within infrastructure; the novel itself becomes an imaginary counterpart to the technologies of infrastructure, a form that shapes and constrains what types of social action and affiliation are possible

    Studies to inform the development and practical roll-out of a digital adherence intervention, Video-Observed Therapy (VOT)

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    BACKGROUND: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, globally, tuberculosis (TB) was the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. It is an important example of a curable condition which has well-documented treatment adherence challenges. WHO recommends the use of video-observed therapy (VOT) as a flexible alternative to DOT (Directly Observed Treatment). There is limited evidence of VOT’s acceptability and how it may enable patients to engage with their treatment to elicit optimal adherence outcomes. This PhD thesis aims to improve understanding of patient groups who may benefit most from VOT. METHODS: Drawing upon a narrative literature review, this PhD thesis includes: a) a study to identify factors that predict non-completion of TB treatment through a retrospective cohort analysis of cases with TB notified to the Enhanced TB Surveillance System in England, Wales and Northern Ireland between 2010 and 2017; b) a study comparing VOT to in-person DOT to examine the factors which affect the levels of engagement with DOT and VOT and whether these affect the level of treatment observation achieved in DOT and VOT groups through a secondary analysis of the UK DOT/VOT trial dataset using descriptive analysis and logistic regression; c) a qualitative study exploring the lived experiences and perspectives of DOT and VOT users in two settings, the UK and Republic of Moldova using semi-structured interviews with 16 UK DOT/VOT trial participants and 22 Moldovan DOT/VOT trial participants. Themes were mapped onto the Capability Opportunity Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model, Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) and Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) to identify how the VOT and DOT functions, strategies and its policy categories elicit treatment adherence outcomes to support decision-making on commissioning of DOT and VOT interventions. RESULTS: Recent migration to the UK (0 -1 years from entry to the UK to TB notification), multidrug resistance, increasing social complexity and a previous TB diagnosis were significantly associated with non-completion of TB treatment. Higher levels of initial engagement with VOT (90% initially engaged) rather than DOT (49% initially engaged) were observed amongst all patient groups. Amongst those who initially engaged with either DOT or VOT, patients with TB on VOT had improved TB treatment adherence compared those on DOT. Women were less likely to adhere and those with a history of being lost to follow-up were also less likely to adhere. The COM-B model and TDF provided explanatory frameworks highlighting how VOT acted on key behaviour change domains and utilised key strategies to facilitate adherence behaviour change. VOT facilitated patient-provider interactions served as a prompt/reminder to address forgetfulness through regular personalised messages from VOT observers, building rapport and habit-forming practices. VOT was a flexible, time- and cost-saving alternative to DOT and supported patients with split dosing or negotiated timing of dosing to manage side effects and pill burden. VOT also served as an incentive through the provision of a smartphone and data plan, free domestic calls, text messages and internet access linking patients to providers, banking and social support services. In turn these ‘capability and ‘opportunity’ components of the model enhanced ‘motivation’ by supporting patients to re-gain autonomy, self-responsibility and establish regular dosing. There were mixed views on privacy with participants expressing concerns on how video clips would be used, shared and may compromise confidentiality and increase stigma. The Behaviour Change Wheel identified seven key functions (‘active ingredients’) of VOT: Enablement (increasing means/reducing barriers to increase capability), Education (increasing knowledge or understanding), Persuasion (using communication to induce positive or negative feelings or stimulate action), Training (imparting skills), Incentivisation (creating expectation of reward), Restriction (using rules to reduce opportunity to engage in target behaviour) and Environmental restructuring (changing the physical or social context). While participants on DOT felt cared for, they had doubts about their personal necessity for treatment, found DOT invasive and stigmatising, time-consuming and costly. At a health system level, DOT was resource-intensive and batch collections of medicines made it difficult to prove fidelity. CONCLUSION: VOT promotes engagement and adherence to TB treatment in all groups at risk of non-adherence, which suggest it is a more acceptable approach to TB treatment observation compared to DOT. VOT can be universally applied to all patient groups in need of adherence support, including inclusion health groups (those with a current or history of homelessness, imprisonment, drug misuse and current alcohol misuse, vulnerable migrant groups (asylum seekers and refugees), in low TB incidence settings. DOT is an acceptable intervention to some groups with multiple needs (participants who were aged over 55, had a prison history, a history of homelessness (more than 5 years ago) and those with current alcohol problems). The evidence from this research could be used to develop a personalised decision support tool to support clinicians to offer VOT to groups based on risk of poor adherence and quantitative and qualitative assessment of acceptability and engagement. Use of the e-Health Implementation Toolkit (e-HIT) supports the national and practical roll-out of VOT to all patient groups in need of adherence support, including those with social complexity. In the era of COVID-19 and acceleration of the use of digital innovations, monitoring the roll-out of VOT should also involve engagement with patients on privacy and confidentiality issues. Engagement with the TB workforce is needed to examine staff attitudes to support learning on what adaptations could be made to VOT and to inform their needs and health system readiness, strengthen health protection and global health security. Further engagement with healthcare professionals to secure their buy-in, address their concerns and to minimise “technology fatigue” is needed. VOT has shown that it improves treatment adherence and while trials are yet to provide convincing evidence to data that it enhances final outcomes, the technology itself does have the potential to reduce treatment-related costs at a patient and health service level. In 2020 WHO proposed VOT as one of the options to support adherence in its target product profiles for TB preventative treatment. Further real-world programmatic evidence on how VOT works and health system cost-effectiveness should continue to be conducted under different conditions of care, including in different geographical settings, patient sub-groups and at different stages of treatment. FUNDING: UCL discretionary funds, Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and UCL Public Policy small grant award

    Is Wide-Area Persistent Surveillance by State and Local Governments Constitutional?

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    This dissertation addresses the following question: “Can wide-area persistent surveillance (WAPS) developed by the United States military and employed abroad as a tool in the Global War on Terror be employed domestically as a law enforcement tool without violating the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment?” The most likely and controversial application of WAPS by state and local governments is for law enforcement. Aircraft will loiter over a city persistently taking high-definition photographs to capture locations of unidentified persons with the intent to identify persons and areas of interest for criminal investigations. Based on the Flyover Cases, aerial surveillance has few constitutional limitations which WAPS can be consistent. The key challenge in determining the constitutionality of WAPS depends on the Court’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment concerning emerging technologies. Legal scholars have suggested various forms of the Mosaic Theory, which was introduced in two concurring opinions in Jones v. United States . The Supreme Court has been reticent to engage new technology’s constitutionality. WAPS is among the less intrusive tools when compared to other emerging technologies like digital information or facial recognition. This research argues why the Courts should view Personal Identifying Information (PII) as the line of reasonable expectations of privacy for WAPS and other emerging technologies. Aerial surveillance by nature, collects passive information, new data is not being created by photographing the happenings in public spaces from an aerial platform. In Carpenter v. United States, the Court ruled that warrantless surveillance of cell site location information (CSLI) for more than seven days was an unreasonable search. However, the court repeatedly referred to CSLI as “unique,” whereas “conventional surveillance and tools, such as security cameras,” are not. WAPS should not be limited by the Constitution for the operational duration, time of day/night, camera resolution, location of collection, altitude, or any other variable at the collection stage of the operations. The analysis and exploitation of WAPS data encounters constitutional limits necessary to protect individuals’ PII absent probable cause standards

    Treatise on Hearing: The Temporal Auditory Imaging Theory Inspired by Optics and Communication

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    A new theory of mammalian hearing is presented, which accounts for the auditory image in the midbrain (inferior colliculus) of objects in the acoustical environment of the listener. It is shown that the ear is a temporal imaging system that comprises three transformations of the envelope functions: cochlear group-delay dispersion, cochlear time lensing, and neural group-delay dispersion. These elements are analogous to the optical transformations in vision of diffraction between the object and the eye, spatial lensing by the lens, and second diffraction between the lens and the retina. Unlike the eye, it is established that the human auditory system is naturally defocused, so that coherent stimuli do not react to the defocus, whereas completely incoherent stimuli are impacted by it and may be blurred by design. It is argued that the auditory system can use this differential focusing to enhance or degrade the images of real-world acoustical objects that are partially coherent. The theory is founded on coherence and temporal imaging theories that were adopted from optics. In addition to the imaging transformations, the corresponding inverse-domain modulation transfer functions are derived and interpreted with consideration to the nonuniform neural sampling operation of the auditory nerve. These ideas are used to rigorously initiate the concepts of sharpness and blur in auditory imaging, auditory aberrations, and auditory depth of field. In parallel, ideas from communication theory are used to show that the organ of Corti functions as a multichannel phase-locked loop (PLL) that constitutes the point of entry for auditory phase locking and hence conserves the signal coherence. It provides an anchor for a dual coherent and noncoherent auditory detection in the auditory brain that culminates in auditory accommodation. Implications on hearing impairments are discussed as well.Comment: 603 pages, 131 figures, 13 tables, 1570 reference

    The evolving loci of new music

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    This thesis argues that the nature of the performance of new music has evolved. Its arguments and evidence are taken from case-studies, presented by a performer, that reflect on recent and historical practices. The focus of the research is on the development of performance practices in contemporary music over recent decades, following the innovations of composers such as Stockhausen, Boulez and Xenakis since the 1950s, particularly in the field of writing for percussion. It acknowledges that musical performance has many dimensions and is determined by a complex configuration of conditions and factors such as musical materials, local and geographical physical location, cultural context and technologies. These dimensions offer perspectives for understanding the multivalent site of music performance, as a configuration of practical and theoretical ideas grouped under the headings practice, technology and community. This thesis proposes the notion of the locus of performance generated by a set of such conditions. My experiences as a performer are the basis for an auto-ethnographic methodology and central to the articulation of this notion. My creative work contributes to a model of practice-based research, and establishes my perspective as the performer, able to witness how the locus of performance has evolved. The roles of the composer, performer and audience, and their identity and presence in the musical performance, are considered in relation to factors such as new musical practices, technologies and communities. The relationship between these contributing factors is considered in an attempt to create a model of musical performance. The critical perspectives gained from this process will contribute to an evolved notion of the loci for new music

    Reinforced Polymer Composites

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    This book, consisting of 21 articles, including three review papers, written by research groups of experts in the field, considers recent research on reinforced polymer composites. Most of them relate to the fiber-reinforced polymer composites, which are a real hot topic in the field. Depending on the reinforcing fiber nature, such composites are divided into synthetic and natural fiber-reinforced ones. Synthetic fibers, such as carbon, glass, or basalt, provide more stiffness, while natural fibers, such as jute, flax, bamboo, kenaf, and others, are inexpensive and biodegradable, making them environmentally friendly. To acquire the benefits of design flexibility and recycling possibilities, natural reinforcers can be hybridized with small amounts of synthetic fibers to make them more desirable for technical applications. Elaborated composites have great potential as structural materials in automotive, marine and aerospace application, as fire resistant concrete, in bridge systems, as mechanical gear pair, as biomedical materials for dentistry and orthopedic application and tissue engineering, as well as functional materials such as proton-exchange membranes, biodegradable superabsorbent resins and polymer electrolytes

    Advancing Data Collection, Management, and Analysis for Quantifying Residential Water Use via Low Cost, Open Source, Smart Metering Infrastructure

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    Urbanization, climate change, aging infrastructure, and the cost of delivering water to residential customers make it vital that we achieve a higher efficiency in the management of urban water resources. Understanding how water is used at the household level is vital for this objective.Water meters measure water use for billing purposes, commonly at a monthly, or coarser temporal resolutions. This is insufficient to understand where water is used (i.e., the distribution of water use across different fixtures like toilets, showers, outdoor irrigation), when water is used (i.e., identifying peaks of consumption, instantaneous or at hourly, daily, weekly intervals), the efficiency of water using fixtures, or water use behaviors across different households. Most smart meters available today are not capable of collecting data at the temporal resolutions needed to fully characterize residential water use, and managing this data represents a challenge given the rapidly increasing volume of data generated. The research in this dissertation presents low cost, open source cyberinfrastructure (datalogging and data management systems) to collect and manage high temporal resolution, residential water use data. Performance testing of the cyberinfrastructure demonstrated the scalability of the system to multiple hundreds of simultaneous data collection devices. Using this cyberinfrastructure, we conducted a case study application in the cities of Logan and Providence, Utah where we found significant variability in the temporal distribution, timing, and volumes of indoor water use. This variability can impact the design of water conservation programs, estimations and forecast of water demand, and sizing of future water infrastructure. Outdoor water use was the largest component of residential water use, yet homeowners were not significantly overwatering their landscapes. Opportunities to improve the efficiency of water using fixtures and to conserve water by promoting behavior changes exist among participants

    Complex Terrain

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    This edited volume, composed by military professionals in the Gray Scholars Program at Marine Corps University, describes the changing character of urban operations. The pattern of human settlement and interaction is changing and the future is urban. Because the majority of the world’s population lives within cities, the future of strategic competition and conflict reside there as well. The density and connectivity of urban environments create a new type of complex terrain. Interests change from neighborhood to neighborhood, often intersecting global, political, and economic networks. Each city block sees shifting allegiances that often seem unclear from the outside. The cityscape compresses time and space while increasing uncertainty and complicating the conduct of military operations
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