5,955 research outputs found
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Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All Through the Transformation of Food Systems
An exploration of the language within Ofsted reports and their influence on primary school performance in mathematics: a mixed methods critical discourse analysis
This thesis contributes to the understanding of the language of Ofsted reports, their similarity to one another and associations between different terms used within âareas for improvementâ sections and subsequent outcomes for pupils. The research responds to concerns from serving headteachers that Ofsted reports are overly similar, do not capture the unique story of their school, and are unhelpful for improvement. In seeking to answer âhow similar are
Ofsted reportsâ the study uses two tools, a plagiarism detection software (Turnitin) and a discourse analysis tool (NVivo) to identify trends within and across a large corpus of reports.
The approach is based on critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 2009; Fairclough, 1989) but shaped in the form of practitioner enquiry seeking power in the form of impact on pupils and practitioners, rather than a more traditional, sociological application of the method.
The research found that in 2017, primary school section 5 Ofsted reports had more than half of their content exactly duplicated within other primary school inspection reports published that same year. Discourse analysis showed the quality assurance process overrode variables such as inspector designation, gender, or team size, leading to three distinct patterns of duplication: block duplication, self-referencing, and template writing. The most unique part of a report was found to be the âarea for improvementâ section, which was tracked to externally verified outcomes for pupils using terms linked to âmathematicsâ. Those
required to improve mathematics in their areas for improvement improved progress and attainment in mathematics significantly more than national rates. These findings indicate that there was a positive correlation between the inspection reporting process and a beneficial impact on pupil outcomes in mathematics, and that the significant similarity of one report to another had no bearing on the usefulness of the report for school improvement purposes
within this corpus
Learning disentangled speech representations
A variety of informational factors are contained within the speech signal and a single short recording of speech reveals much more than the spoken words. The best method to extract and represent informational factors from the speech signal ultimately depends on which informational factors are desired and how they will be used. In addition, sometimes methods will capture more than one informational factor at the same time such as speaker identity, spoken content, and speaker prosody.
The goal of this dissertation is to explore different ways to deconstruct the speech signal into abstract representations that can be learned and later reused in various speech technology tasks. This task of deconstructing, also known as disentanglement, is a form of distributed representation learning. As a general approach to disentanglement, there are some guiding principles that elaborate what a learned representation should contain as well as how it should function. In particular, learned representations should contain all of the requisite information in a more compact manner, be interpretable, remove nuisance factors of irrelevant information, be useful in downstream tasks, and independent of the task at hand. The learned representations should also be able to answer counter-factual questions.
In some cases, learned speech representations can be re-assembled in different ways according to the requirements of downstream applications. For example, in a voice conversion task, the speech content is retained while the speaker identity is changed. And in a content-privacy task, some targeted content may be concealed without affecting how surrounding words sound. While there is no single-best method to disentangle all types of factors, some end-to-end approaches demonstrate a promising degree of generalization to diverse speech tasks.
This thesis explores a variety of use-cases for disentangled representations including phone recognition, speaker diarization, linguistic code-switching, voice conversion, and content-based privacy masking. Speech representations can also be utilised for automatically assessing the quality and authenticity of speech, such as automatic MOS ratings or detecting deep fakes. The meaning of the term "disentanglement" is not well defined in previous work, and it has acquired several meanings depending on the domain (e.g. image vs. speech). Sometimes the term "disentanglement" is used interchangeably with the term "factorization". This thesis proposes that disentanglement of speech is distinct, and offers a viewpoint of disentanglement that can be considered both theoretically and practically
Chinese Benteng Womenâs Participation in Local Development Affairs in Indonesia: Appropriate means for struggle and a pathway to claim citizenâ right?
It had been more than two decades passing by aftermath the devastating Asiaâs Financial Crisis in 1997, subsequently followed by Suhartoâs step down from his presidential throne which he occupied for more than three decades. The financial turmoil turned to a political disaster furthermore has led to massive looting that severely impacted Indonesians of Chinese descendant, including unresolved mystery of the most atrocious sexual violation against women and covert killings of students and democracy activists in this country. Since then, precisely aftermath May 1998, which publicly known as âReformasiâ1, Indonesia underwent political reform that eventually corresponded positively to its macroeconomic growth. Twenty years later, in 2018, Indonesia captured worldwide attention because it has successfully hosted two internationally renowned events, namely the Asian Games 2018 â the most prestigious sport events in Asia â conducted in Jakarta and Palembang; and the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Bali. Particularly in the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting, this event has significantly elevated Indonesiaâs credibility and international prestige in the global economic powerplay as one of the nations with promising growth and openness. However, the narrative about poverty and inequality, including increasing racial tension, religious conservatism, and sexual violation against women are superseded by friendly climate for foreign investment and eventually excessive glorification of the nationâs economic growth. By portraying the image of promising new economic power, as rhetorically promised by President Joko Widodo during his presidential terms, Indonesia has swept the growing inequality in this highly stratified society that historically compounded with religious and racial tension under the carpet of digital economy.Arte y Humanidade
Songs without borders: complex interpretative song worlds and the audiences that inhabit them
The genre of music commonly referred to as art song often elicits emotionally charged responses in accounts of audience experiences. However, scholarship has largely neglected the object of inquiry where these responses and experiences materialise: the live art song event. The principal research task in this study is to investigate audience experience of live art song events in the UK. The audiences and events at the centre of this inquiry coalesce around the work of the art song promoter Oxford Lieder. Using a mixed method approach (questionnaire, diary methods and guided interviews), statistical and thematic analysis, and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, is applied to a dataset that utilises 82 individual participantsâ experiences of live art song events, including regular attendees and those experiencing live art song for the first time.
To frame the findings of this inquiry, this study establishes the concept of complex interpretative song worlds: defined as a collection of interactions that audience members draw upon to construct their experience of live art song events, through a dynamic and multi-faceted interplay with the system of possibilities afforded by live art song environments. In this study, complex interpretative song world theorising takes place across three levels of audiencing:
(1) Interactions with the live art song domain (the norms, behaviours, and conventions of live art song environments) are gathered under three themes. Collecting activity sees a desire for participants to scrutinise song objects, embrace familiar artists and repertoire, and adopt a connoisseur-like approach to knowledge acquisition. Connecting activity reveals a prized sense of close psycho-social resonance, which takes place between songs, performers, spaces and everyday experiences. Venerating activity foregrounds a view of songs as inviolable objects, where perceived changes to songs are deemed heretical by some, examined through the (re)introduction of sung English translations into the live art song corpus.
(2) Interactions with live art song objects (the lexical and musical features that make up songs) reveal the ways audience members process words and music, and prioritise either, or both features during live art song events. The presentation of these materials in ways that blur senses (sights and sounds), and time (before, during, and after performances), are shown to be as additive to audience member conceptualisations of the nature of lexical-musical relationships as they are disruptive.
(3) Interactions with live art song actors (performers, producers, and audiences) reveal processes of role formation at work, where vocal acts, non-vocal acts, and fixed and non-fixed traits complicate the way audience members derive impressions of performers. Art songâs hybridity as a genre, which is not a dramatic form, yet ânot notâ a dramatic form, reveals the imbricated way audience members construct identities of performers: as professional musicians; as human beings; and as inhabitants of roles defined textually through a songâs poetic content.
This interdisciplinary study draws predominantly on three overlapping areas of scholarship, and makes new contributions to knowledge in all three. For musicology, this inquiry develops deeper understandings of live art song objects to complement the hegemony of hermeneutic, musico-analytical and historiographical research that typifies much of the existing art song literature. For audience studies, these findings provide new audiencing insights, by examining an art form not yet analysed by empirical audience research methods, and one that simultaneously combines both words and music as a mode of expression. For translation theory, this inquiry responds to calls within the existing literature for more research to understand the reception of translation in music. This study also generates dividends outside of the academy, providing new insights for performers and promoters of art song to inform approaches to programming, presentation, production, marketing and audience development
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An Investigation of Privacy and Utility Tensions in Learning Analytics
Through learning analytics (LA), higher education institutions have put student data to various uses which aim to be beneficial for students, lecturers, and the institutions. Despite the potential benefits of LA, however, there are research gaps in understanding inherent privacy and utility tensions. Using four research studies, this thesis is an investigation of factors that contribute to these tensions.
An examination, using Delphi study techniques, of how LA experts (n=12) conceptualised privacy in LA and what they thought of as key privacy issues demonstrated a collective agreement on institutional responsibility, including to empower students to manage their privacy. As such, the findings exposed gaps between existing institutional applications of LA and the views of the experts.
A laboratory study (n=111) with follow-up semi-structured interviews (n=4) identified that students are not concerned about the use of their data for LA. However, knowing that student data could be shared with third parties evoked feelings of discomfort. The qualitative data suggested that studentsâ privacy concepts differed from those of the LA experts, highlighting a need to operationalise LA with a shared understanding of what privacy means for stakeholders.
Using an experimental design (n=447), privacy concern was further examined through the lens of studentsâ data use preferences. The findings suggested that participantsâ data use preferences were not influenced by an awareness of the possible privacy risks and benefits of data use for LA. Consequently, other factors might influence studentsâ data use preferences. The qualitative data shed light on a âdual natureâ to participantsâ data use preferences, suggesting both support for and reservation about the use of student data for LA, the latter due to ethics and privacy concerns. Further examination using follow-up interviews (n=15) suggested a need to align institutional data use practices with studentsâ expectations.
Taken together, the research findings suggest that privacy in LA combines several concepts, expressed in different ways across stakeholder groups. To better understand studentsâ perspectives of privacy in LA requires unpacking the dimensions of privacy that contribute to studentsâ privacy concern, or lack thereof. Most importantly, while some uses of student data for LA do not concern students, other data uses might not meet their expectations. Taking steps to address these tensions will contribute towards ethical LA
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Know Your Bugs: A Collaborative Evaluation of a Community Health Education Module That Aims to be Accessible to Adults with Learning Disabilities
The right to health should be a fundamental right of everyone. However, despite initiatives to improve the health of adults with learning disabilities, concerns about poorer health and health inequalities remain, and have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Accessible health promotion can help to overcome barriers to healthy behaviour but the effectiveness of health education in infection prevention and self-care is unknown. This research aimed to understand the health education experiences of adults with learning disabilities regarding a module designed to improve knowledge about self-care, infection prevention and antibiotic use.
Beginning with a scoping review of âwhat worksâ, this research involved observation of the learning context in two locations and semi-structured interviews with 18 course participants to explore health knowledge and behaviour change in the short, medium and longer term. Data were analysed iteratively, addressing the realist concept of context/mechanism/outcome configurations.
Participants had a positive learning experience and gained knowledge about microbes, hand hygiene, self-care, and antibiotic use. Some participants reported behaviour change regarding handwashing and self-care. The contexts that influenced learning were personal, social, physical, active, and external. Mechanisms that interacted with these contexts to trigger learning included: accessible teaching methods, interactive resources, relaxed and effective participant interactions, facilitation of independent thinking and planning, appropriate involvement of supporters, and an inclusive and engaging educator style.
Knowledge gain and changed behaviour intentions were achieved through an engaging, interactive, and focused learning environment, underpinned by a complex and changing combination of interactions. However, further research is needed to understand effective ways of communicating health information in an education context, to understand the impact of education on behaviour change, and to identify ways in which the longer-term retention of learning can be achieved. The research proposes a draft model that can guide effective community health education provision
Library wars: Discourse, power and Dystopian Young Adult Literature from the East and West
In the last twenty years, much of the excitement over the rapid development of technology has faded away as it has not provided all the answers to social problems. On the contrary, some problems have become more acute through the use of new technologies, such as the subjugation and monitoring of citizens, a phenomenon this thesis examines in a sample of the many dystopian works written for young adults which have emerged in both the West and the East in the last two decades. These works reveal authorsâ thoughts about the power structure of human society; their concerns and ideas about the past and present and their expectations about the future of the world.
This thesis is based on a comparative analysis of the contemporary Western and Eastern Dystopian Young Adult Literature (DYAL) from a sociological perspective. The focus will be on issues of information control and censorship in DYAL, because knowledge is one of the main bones of power contention in a dystopian prospect. Based on the theories of sociology of literature and Michel Foucaultâs theory about discourse and power and a historical review of the development of YAL in the East and West, this research attempts to structure the spatiotemporal attributes of DYAL, and expound the circulated, exchanged and interactive relationship between (D)YAL and society. From this structure, more importantly, a discourse-power mapping framework for analysing dystopian literature has been developed.
Although there have been numerous studies on the Western DYAL, comparative research on the Western and Eastern DYAL has been scarce. Hence, three representative dystopian YA works from USA (The Great Library series, Rachel Caine, 2015), Japan (Library Wars series, Hiro Arikawa, 2006) and China (Infernal Affairs, Sizhe Zangyi, 2014) were selected to be analysed with the framework in order to discuss the discourse-power relationship; the political ideas and social concerns shown in works from different cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, the results of the qualitative research on the Western and Eastern reader groupsâ discussions have been included in the comparative analysis of the works. This sheds light on both authorsâ and readersâ thoughts about discourse-power structure and the future prospect of human society inside and outside DYAL.
This thesis aims to demonstrate the sociological issues around DYAL from a different theoretical scope. The study may provide an effective framework for the researchers in this field and could be applicable to further educational conversations. Hence, this research has realistic and practical importance not only for scholars and educators in YA literature, but also for the sociologists who are interested in youth culture in the digital era
Internationalisation dynamics in contemporary South American life sciences: the case of zebrafish
We tend to assume that science is inherently international. Geographical boundaries
are not a matter of concern in science, and when they do â e.g. due to the rise of
nationalist or populist movements â they are thought to constitute a threat to the
essence of the scientific enterprise; namely, the global mobility of ideas, knowledge
and researchers. Quite recently, we also started to consider that research could
become âmore internationalâ under the assumption that in doing so it becomes better,
i.e. more collaborative, innovative, dynamic, and of greater quality. Such a positive
conceptualisation of internationalisation, however, rests on interpretations coming
almost exclusively from the Global North that systematically ignore power dynamics
in scientific practice and that regard scientific internationalisation as an unproblematic
transformative process and as a desired outcome.
In Science and Technology Studies (STS), social research on model
organisms is perhaps the clearest example of the influence of the dominant vision of
internationalisation. This body of literature tends to describe model organism science
and their research communities as uniform and harmonious international ecosystems
governed by a strong collaborative ethos of sharing specimens, knowledge and
resources. But beyond these unproblematic descriptions, how does
internationalisation actually transform research on life? To what extent do the power
dynamics of internationalisation intervene in contemporary practices of knowledge
production and diffusion in this field of research?
This thesis revisits the dynamics and practices of scientific internationalisation
in contemporary science from the perspective of South American life sciences. It takes
the zebrafish (Danio rerio), a small tropic freshwater fish, originally from the Ganges
region in India and quite popular in pet shops, as a case study of how complex
dynamics of internationalisation intervene in science. While zebrafish research has
experienced a remarkable growth in recent years at the global scale, in South America
its growth has been unprecedented, allowing average laboratories, which often
operate with small budgets and with less well-developed science infrastructures, to
conduct world-class research.
My approach is based on a consideration of internationalisation as a
conceptual model of change. I consider internationalisation to be a process essentially
marked by tensions in the spatial, cognitive and evaluative dimensions of scientific
practice. These tensions, I claim, are not just a key feature of internationalisation, but
also aspects of a conceptual opposition that is geared towards explaining how change
comes about in science. By studying the dynamics of internationalisation, I seek to
understand various transformations of zebrafish research: from its construction as a
research artefact to its diffusion across geographical boundaries. My focus on South
America, on the other hand, helps me to understand the complexity of such dynamics
beyond the lenses of the dominant discourse of internationalisation that prevails in
the STS literature on model organisms. I use mixed-methods (i.e. semi-structured
interviews, document analysis, bibliometrics and social network analysis) to observe
and interpret transformations of internationalisation at different scales and levels.
My analysis suggests first, that internationalisation played an important role in
the construction of the zebrafish as a model organism and that, in the infrastructures
and practices of resource exchange that sustain the scientific value of the organism
internationally, dynamics of asymmetry and empowerment problematise the
collaborative ethos of this community. Second, I found that collaborative networks â
measured through co-authorships â also played an important role in the diffusion of
zebrafish as a model organism in South America. However, I did not find a clear
indication of international dependency in the diffusion of zebrafish, explained by a
geographical concentration of scientific expertise in the zebrafish collaboration
network. Rather than exposing peripheral researchers to novel ideas, networks of
international collaboration seem to be more related to access to privileged material
infrastructures resulting from the social organisation of scientific labour worldwide.
Lastly, by examining practices of biological data curation and researchersâ
international mobility trajectories, I describe how dynamics of internationalisation
shape the notion of research excellence in model organism science. In this case, I
found mobility trajectories to play a key role in boosting researchersâ contributions to
the communityâs database, especially among researchers from peripheral
communities like South America. Overall, while these findings show the value of
considering internationalisation as a conceptual model of change in science, more
research is needed on the intervention of complex dynamics of internationalisation in
other cases and fields of research
Respecting the Voices of Individuals from Marginalised Communities in Research
This book considers the development of "respectful research" through an emphasis on partnership between researchers and those who are the subjects of research. It presents examples from a range of international contexts or projects that have worked to ensure that the voices of marginalised individuals and communities are accessed in a manner that respects their individuality and culture
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