17,823 research outputs found
Desarrollo de papeles biocativos por injerto de moléculas específicas en celulosa
Tesis (DCI)--FCEFN-UNC, 2019En la presente tesis se presenta el desarrollo de papeles bioactivos con potencial aplicación en el envasado activo de alimentos. Para tal fin, se propuso el injerto de eugenol, un compuesto de origen natural con propiedades antimicrobiana, antioxidante y repelente de insectos, en celulosa, utilizando ácido policarboxílico como agente ligante. Con el objetivo de evaluar la escalabilidad del proceso propuesto, se estudiaron distintas tecnologías de curado, tales como calentamiento por convección, infrarrojo, microondas y conducción. En todos los casos, se analizaron la influencia de las variables operativas sobre el avance de la reacción y propiedades finales del papel preparado, utilizando un diseño de experimentos Doehlert para elegir las experiencias a realizar, y analizando los resultados mediante metodología de superficie de respuesta y análisis estadístico ANOVA. Se pudo comprobar que la reacción de injerto de eugenol en papel comercial se produjo con éxito en todas las tecnologías estudiadas. Asimismo, se encontraron las condiciones óptimas de reacción para cada una de las tecnologías, para lo cual se buscó un compromiso entre el avance de la reacción y las propiedades finales del material (mecánicas y color). A partir de estas condiciones, se prepararon papeles y se realizó una caracterización más específica para su aplicación como envase de alimentos comparando los papeles modificados con el papel virgen. Se analizaron las propiedades mecánicas por ensayo de tracción, rasgado y punzonado y se midió la absorción de agua y la capacidad de degradación. Por otro lado, las propiedades bioactivas analizadas fueron la actividad antioxidante, antimicrobiana, repelente e insecticida de gorgojos (T. castaneum y R. dominica). Una vez probado que el papel modificado presenta buenas características físicas y bioactivas para su posible aplicación en el envasado de alimentos, se realizaron prototipos de envasado para harina, como alimento representativo de alimentos derivados de cereales, susceptibles al ataque de plagas. En este estudio se analizó la migración de reactivos, propiedades organolépticas y conservación del alimento, arrojando resultados promisorios para la industria de envases de alimentos. Finalmente, se realizó una comparación de las tecnologías de curado ensayadas, analizando diferentes aspectos como avance de reacción, propiedades finales, apariencia, tiempo de reacción, consumo de energía, entre otros, como así también disponibilidad y uso de estas tecnologías a escala industrial, seleccionando la tecnología de conducción como la más adecuada para una propuesta de escalado industrial.Fil: Muratore, Florencia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales; Argentina.Fil: Muratore, Florencia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo en Ingeniería de Procesos y Química Aplicada; Argentina
Building body identities - exploring the world of female bodybuilders
This thesis explores how female bodybuilders seek to develop and maintain a viable sense of self despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of what Erving Goffman (1983) refers to as the 'interaction order'; the unavoidable presentational context in which identities are forged during the course of social life. Placed in the context of an overview of the historical treatment of women's bodies, and a concern with the development of bodybuilding as a specific form of body modification, the research draws upon a unique two year ethnographic study based in the South of England, complemented by interviews with twenty-six female bodybuilders, all of whom live in the U.K. By mapping these extraordinary women's lives, the research illuminates the pivotal spaces and essential lived experiences that make up the female bodybuilder. Whilst the women appear to be embarking on an 'empowering' radical body project for themselves, the consequences of their activity remains culturally ambivalent. This research exposes the 'Janus-faced' nature of female bodybuilding, exploring the ways in which the women negotiate, accommodate and resist pressures to engage in more orthodox and feminine activities and appearances
Factors shaping future use and design of academic library space
COVID is having immediate and long-term impacts on the use of libraries. But these changes will probably not alter the importance of the academic library as a space. In the decade pre COVID libraries saw a growing number of visits, despite the increasing availability of material digitally. The first part of the paper offers an analysis of the factors driving this growth, such as changing pedagogies, diversification in the student body, new technologies plus tighter estates management. Barriers to change such as academic staff readiness, cost, and slow decision making are also presented. Then, the main body of the paper discusses emerging factors which are likely to further shape the use of library space, namely: concerns with student well-being; sustainability; equality, diversity and inclusion, and decolonisation; increasing co-design with students; and new technologies. A final model captures the inter-related factors shaping use and design of library space post COVID
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Co-design As Healing: Exploring The Experiences Of Participants Facing Mental Health Problems
This thesis is an exploration of the healing role of co-design in mental health. Although co-design projects conducted within mental health settings are rising, existing literature tends to focus on the object of design and its outcomes while the experiences of participants per se remain largely unexplored. The guiding research question of this study is not how we design things that improve mental health, but how co-designing, as an act, might do so.
The thesis presents two projects that were organized in collaboration with the mental health charity Islington Mind and the Psychosis Therapy Project (PTP) in London.
The project at Islington Mind used a structured design process inviting participants to design for wellbeing. A case study analysis provides insights on how participants were impacted, summarizing key challenges and opportunities.
The design at PTP worked towards creating a collective brief in an emergent fashion, finally culminating in a board game. The experiences of participants were explored through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), using semi-structured interview data. The analysis served to identify key themes characterising the experience of co-design such as contributing, connecting, thinking and intentioning. In addition, a mixed-methods analysis of questionnaires and interview data exploring participants' wellbeing, showed that all participants who engaged fairly consistently in the project improved after the project ended, although some participants' scores returned to baseline six months later.
Reflecting on both projects, an approach to facilitation within mental health is outlined, detailing how the dimensions of weaving and layered participation, nurturing mattering and facilitating attitudes interlace. This contribution raises awareness of tacit dimensions in the practice of facilitation, articulating the nuances of how to encourage and sustain meaningful and ethical engagement and offering insights into a range of tools. It highlights the importance of remaining reflexive in relation to attitudes and emotions and discusses practical methodological and ethical challenges and ways to resolve them which can be of benefit to researchers embarking on a similar journey.
The thesis also offers detailed insights on how methodologies from different fields were integrated into a whole, arguing for transparency and reflexivity about epistemological assumptions, and how underlying paradigms shift in an interdisciplinary context.
Based on the overall findings, the thesis makes a case for considering design as healing (or a designerly way of healing), highlighting implications at a systems, social and individual level. It makes an original contribution to our understanding of design, highlighting its healing character, and proposes a new way to support mental health. The participants in this study not only had increased their own wellbeing through co-designing, but were also empowered and contributed towards healing the world. Hence, the thesis argues for a unique, holistic perspective of design and mental health, recognizing the interconnectedness of the individual, social and systemic dimensions of the healing processes that are ignited
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The influence of blockchains and internet of things on global value chain
Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Despite the increasing proliferation of deploying the internet of things (IoT) in the global value chain (GVC), several challenges might lead to a lack of trust among value chain partners, for example, technical challenges (i.e., confidentiality, authenticity, and privacy); and security challenges (i.e., counterfeiting, physical tampering, and data theft). In this study, we argue that blockchain technology (BT), when combined with the IoT ecosystem, will strengthen GVC and enhance value creation and capture among value chain partners. Therefore, we examine the impact of BT combined with the IoT ecosystem and how it can be utilized to enhance value creation and capture among value chain partners. We collected data through an online survey, and 265 U.K. Agri-food retailers completed the survey. Our data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Our finding reveals that BT enhances GVC by improving IoT scalability, security, and traceability combined with the IoT ecosystem. Moreover, the combination of BT and IoT strengthens GVC and creates more value for value chain partners, which serves as a competitive advantage. Finally, our research outlines the theoretical and practical contribution of combining BT and the IoT ecosystem
Queer spies in British Cold War culture: literature, film, theatre and television
This PhD thesis investigates how male homosexuality has been represented in British spy
fiction from the 1950s to the 2010s in multiple media: literature, film, television and
theatre. Due mainly to the betrayal of the Cambridge Spy ring around the middle of the
century, British culture has associated spies with homosexuality, while the wider
Anglophone world was in the grip of a homophobic atmosphere created by McCarthy's
Red Scare. My thesis explores how this history is reflected in the spy genre from the Cold
War to the present, in which male homosexuality and secret agency intersect as “queer”,
in so far as they were both considered to be discreet and criminal, existing outside of the
heteronormative order. By following multiple texts across media and time, I discuss how
some writers, television and film directors and actors update queer identity in spy fiction,
creating a shifting image of queer spies through decades. I refer to the findings of
adaptation studies and queer studies, along with numerous studies on spy fiction.
I conclude that the interrelation of different media has contributed to the re-drawing of queer identity in spy fiction. These developments have enabled the spies'
queer identity to transcend its pejorative history in British culture, towards its more
flexible and pliant sense which is designated by the term's modern usage. I also discuss
that spies’ homosexuality has been represented as a fleeting ghost in most of the texts
examined, hovering on the margins of pages and screen. Although homosexuality is not
“the love that dare not speak its name” anymore, clandestine queer spies have been
preserved as spectral others in the genre for many years. Spy fiction is a cultural
repository retaining the memory of violence inflicted against those who have been called
“queer” in twentieth century Britain, and the spectral nature of queer spies narrates this
history reaching back to the Oscar Wilde trial in 1895, from which point British queer
identity as we know now developed.
This thesis benefits the study of spy fiction by filling a gap in the investigation of
homosexual representation. It also contributes to the field of gender studies of literature,
film, television, and theatre by illustrating queer history in a genre which has not received
a great deal of focus on its representation of homosexuality. Spy fiction occupies a
central position in British popular culture, and by exploring this genre in terms of
homosexuality, this research will identify the role which same-sex desire has historically
played in the British cultural imagination
Data-to-text generation with neural planning
In this thesis, we consider the task of data-to-text generation, which takes non-linguistic
structures as input and produces textual output. The inputs can take the form of
database tables, spreadsheets, charts, and so on. The main application of data-to-text
generation is to present information in a textual format which makes it accessible to
a layperson who may otherwise find it problematic to understand numerical figures.
The task can also automate routine document generation jobs, thus improving human
efficiency. We focus on generating long-form text, i.e., documents with multiple paragraphs. Recent approaches to data-to-text generation have adopted the very successful
encoder-decoder architecture or its variants. These models generate fluent (but often
imprecise) text and perform quite poorly at selecting appropriate content and ordering
it coherently. This thesis focuses on overcoming these issues by integrating content
planning with neural models. We hypothesize data-to-text generation will benefit from
explicit planning, which manifests itself in (a) micro planning, (b) latent entity planning, and (c) macro planning. Throughout this thesis, we assume the input to our
generator are tables (with records) in the sports domain. And the output are summaries
describing what happened in the game (e.g., who won/lost, ..., scored, etc.).
We first describe our work on integrating fine-grained or micro plans with data-to-text generation. As part of this, we generate a micro plan highlighting which records
should be mentioned and in which order, and then generate the document while taking
the micro plan into account.
We then show how data-to-text generation can benefit from higher level latent entity planning. Here, we make use of entity-specific representations which are dynam ically updated. The text is generated conditioned on entity representations and the
records corresponding to the entities by using hierarchical attention at each time step.
We then combine planning with the high level organization of entities, events, and
their interactions. Such coarse-grained macro plans are learnt from data and given
as input to the generator. Finally, we present work on making macro plans latent
while incrementally generating a document paragraph by paragraph. We infer latent
plans sequentially with a structured variational model while interleaving the steps of
planning and generation. Text is generated by conditioning on previous variational
decisions and previously generated text.
Overall our results show that planning makes data-to-text generation more interpretable, improves the factuality and coherence of the generated documents and re duces redundancy in the output document
Upgrading Urban Services Through BPL: Practical Applications for Smart Cities
Current initiatives related to smart cities in LATAM reveal an increasing interest in the improvement of cities and the wellbeing of their citizens. In addition, specific working groups have been created for this purpose. In this sense, the communication technologies set the basis for gathering, transporting, and managing the large amount of data generated in cities to provide a wide range of services. Within the many alternatives available, BPL positions as a promising technology, since smart cities can greatly benefit of its higher data rates and low latency. In addition, since the medium is already deployed and most of the assets and sensors are connected to the same medium, the cost of the communication systems will be reduced in price and simplicity. The work presents four practical applications: smart buildings, urban lighting, energy assets management and broadband access, in which the possibilities and advantages of BPL are further addressed. Finally, some conclusions and key aspects relating BPL to the success of smart cities are identified.Eusko Jaurlaritza IT-1234-19, KK-202
Fuzzy Perceptron Learning for Non-Linearly Separable Patterns
Perceptron learning has its wide applications in identifying interesting patterns in the large data repositories. While iterating through their learning process perceptrons update the weights, which are associated with the input data objects or data vectors. Though perceptrons exhibit their robustness in learning about interesting patterns, they perform well in identifying the linearly separable patterns only. In the real world, however, we can find overlapping patterns, where objects may associate with multiple patterns. In such situations, a clear-cut identification of patterns is not possible in a linearly separable manner. On the other hand, fuzzy-based learning has its wide applications in identifying non-linearly separable patterns. The present work attempts to experiment with the algorithms for fuzzy perceptron learning, where perceptron learning and fuzzy-based learning techniques are implemented in an interfusion manner
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