14,331 research outputs found

    The Metaverse: Survey, Trends, Novel Pipeline Ecosystem & Future Directions

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    The Metaverse offers a second world beyond reality, where boundaries are non-existent, and possibilities are endless through engagement and immersive experiences using the virtual reality (VR) technology. Many disciplines can benefit from the advancement of the Metaverse when accurately developed, including the fields of technology, gaming, education, art, and culture. Nevertheless, developing the Metaverse environment to its full potential is an ambiguous task that needs proper guidance and directions. Existing surveys on the Metaverse focus only on a specific aspect and discipline of the Metaverse and lack a holistic view of the entire process. To this end, a more holistic, multi-disciplinary, in-depth, and academic and industry-oriented review is required to provide a thorough study of the Metaverse development pipeline. To address these issues, we present in this survey a novel multi-layered pipeline ecosystem composed of (1) the Metaverse computing, networking, communications and hardware infrastructure, (2) environment digitization, and (3) user interactions. For every layer, we discuss the components that detail the steps of its development. Also, for each of these components, we examine the impact of a set of enabling technologies and empowering domains (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, Security & Privacy, Blockchain, Business, Ethics, and Social) on its advancement. In addition, we explain the importance of these technologies to support decentralization, interoperability, user experiences, interactions, and monetization. Our presented study highlights the existing challenges for each component, followed by research directions and potential solutions. To the best of our knowledge, this survey is the most comprehensive and allows users, scholars, and entrepreneurs to get an in-depth understanding of the Metaverse ecosystem to find their opportunities and potentials for contribution

    Annual SHOT Report 2018

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    SHOT is affiliated to the Royal College of PathologistsAll NHS organisations must move away from a blame culture towards a just and learning culture. All clinical and laboratory staff should be encouraged to become familiar with human factors and ergonomics concepts. All transfusion decisions must be made after carefully assessing the risks and benefits of transfusion therapy. Collaboration and co-ordination among staff is vital

    The place where curses are manufactured : four poets of the Vietnam War

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    The Vietnam War was unique among American wars. To pinpoint its uniqueness, it was necessary to look for a non-American voice that would enable me to articulate its distinctiveness and explore the American character as observed by an Asian. Takeshi Kaiko proved to be most helpful. From his novel, Into a Black Sun, I was able to establish a working pair of 'bookends' from which to approach the poetry of Walter McDonald, Bruce Weigl, Basil T. Paquet and Steve Mason. Chapter One is devoted to those seemingly mismatched 'bookends,' Walt Whitman and General William C. Westmoreland, and their respective anthropocentric and technocentric visions of progress and the peculiarly American concept of the "open road" as they manifest themselves in Vietnam. In Chapter, Two, I analyze the war poems of Walter McDonald. As a pilot, writing primarily about flying, his poetry manifests General Westmoreland's technocentric vision of the 'road' as determined by and manifest through technology. Chapter Three focuses on the poems of Bruce Weigl. The poems analyzed portray the literal and metaphorical descent from the technocentric, 'numbed' distance of aerial warfare to the world of ground warfare, and the initiation of a 'fucking new guy,' who discovers the contours of the self's interior through a set of experiences that lead from from aerial insertion into the jungle to the degradation of burning human feces. Chapter Four, devoted to the thirteen poems of Basil T. Paquet, focuses on the continuation of the descent begun in Chapter Two. In his capacity as a medic, Paquet's entire body of poems details his quotidian tasks which entail tending the maimed, the mortally wounded and the dead. The final chapter deals with Steve Mason's JohnnY's Song, and his depiction of the plight of Vietnam veterans back in "The World" who are still trapped inside the interior landscape of their individual "ghettoes" of the soul created by their war-time experiences

    Message Journal, Issue 5: COVID-19 SPECIAL ISSUE Capturing visual insights, thoughts and reflections on 2020/21 and beyond...

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    If there is a theme running through the Message Covid-19 special issue, it is one of caring. Of our own and others’ resilience and wellbeing, of friendship and community, of students, practitioners and their futures, of social justice, equality and of doing the right thing. The veins of designing with care run through the edition, wide and deep. It captures, not designers as heroes, but those with humble views, exposing the need to understand a diversity of perspectives when trying to comprehend the complexity that Covid-19 continues to generate. As graphic designers, illustrators and visual communicators, contributors have created, documented, written, visualised, reflected, shared, connected and co-created, designed for good causes and re-defined what it is to be a student, an academic and a designer during the pandemic. This poignant period in time has driven us, through isolation, towards new rules of living, and new ways of working; to see and map the world in a different light. A light that is uncertain, disjointed, and constantly being redefined. This Message issue captures responses from the graphic communication design community in their raw state, to allow contributors to communicate their experiences through both their written and visual voice. Thus, the reader can discern as much from the words as the design and visualisations. Through this issue a substantial number of contributions have focused on personal reflection, isolation, fear, anxiety and wellbeing, as well as reaching out to community, making connections and collaborating. This was not surprising in a world in which connection with others has often been remote, and where ‘normal’ social structures of support and care have been broken down. We also gain insight into those who are using graphic communication design to inspire and capture new ways of teaching and learning, developing themselves as designers, educators, and activists, responding to social justice and to do good; gaining greater insight into society, government actions and conspiracy. Introduction: Victoria Squire - Coping with Covid: Community, connection and collaboration: James Alexander & Carole Evans, Meg Davies, Matthew Frame, Chae Ho Lee, Alma Hoffmann, Holly K. Kaufman-Hill, Joshua Korenblat, Warren Lehrer, Christine Lhowe, Sara Nesteruk, Cat Normoyle & Jessica Teague, Kyuha Shim. - Coping with Covid: Isolation, wellbeing and hope: Sadia Abdisalam, Tom Ayling, Jessica Barness, Megan Culliford, Stephanie Cunningham, Sofija Gvozdeva, Hedzlynn Kamaruzzaman, Merle Karp, Erica V. P. Lewis, Kelly Salchow Macarthur, Steven McCarthy, Shelly Mayers, Elizabeth Shefrin, Angelica Sibrian, David Smart, Ane Thon Knutsen, Isobel Thomas, Darryl Westley. - Coping with Covid: Pedagogy, teaching and learning: Bernard J Canniffe, Subir Dey, Aaron Ganci, Elizabeth Herrmann, John Kilburn, Paul Nini, Emily Osborne, Gianni Sinni & Irene Sgarro, Dave Wood, Helena Gregory, Colin Raeburn & Jackie Malcolm. - Coping with Covid: Social justice, activism and doing good: Class Action Collective, Xinyi Li, Matt Soar, Junie Tang, Lisa Winstanley. - Coping with Covid: Society, control and conspiracy: Diana Bîrhală, Maria Borțoi, Patti Capaldi, Tânia A. Cardoso, Peter Gibbons, Bianca Milea, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, Danne Wo

    China’s approach to international law and the Belt and Road Initiative - perspectives from international investment law

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    This dissertation examines China’s approach to international law. In order to do so, it compares the country’s stance on international dispute resolution in past and present times. After a first historical chapter outlining China’s changeable relationship with international adjudication, the thesis subsequently focuses on contemporary developments. The emphasis here is on international instruments and mechanisms that China uses to protect investments within the Belt and Road Initiative. This dissertation combines doctrinal analysis with concrete case studies and applies deductive as well as inductive methods. The study of the legal dimension of the initiative leads to the basic assumption that two coexisting regulatory complexes provide investment protection within the initiative. Accordingly, as a first complex, the dissertation analyses China’s design of investment protection treaties and China’s stance in the reform debate on the future of in-vestment arbitration. As an outcome, the analysis claims that even though the first complex does not relate specifically to the Belt and Road Initiative, this complex nevertheless has inextricable links to China’s approach in the initiative’s context. Soft law documents, which China has concluded with both state and non-state actors, and informal mechanisms of dispute resolution form the second regulatory complex. The study investigates their functions for investment protection in the Belt and Road Initiative. In an overall view of the two regulatory complexes, this dissertation finds that China uses strictly legal and rather political methods for investment protection. In the synopsis of this result with the findings obtained from the historical part, the study concludes that China follows a realist approach to international law

    In vitro investigation of the effect of disulfiram on hypoxia induced NFκB, epithelial to mesenchymal transition and cancer stem cells in glioblastoma cell lines

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    A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one of the most aggressive and lethal cancers with a poor prognosis. Advances in the treatment of GBM are limited due to several resistance mechanisms and limited drug delivery into the central nervous system (CNS) compartment by the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and by actions of the normal brain to counteract tumour-targeting medications. Hypoxia is common in malignant brain tumours such as GBM and plays a significant role in tumour pathobiology. It is widely accepted that hypoxia is a major driver of GBM malignancy. Although it has been confirmed that hypoxia induces GBM stem-like-cells (GSCs), which are highly invasive and resistant to all chemotherapeutic agents, the detailed molecular pathways linking hypoxia, GSC traits and chemoresistance remain obscure. Evidence shows that hypoxia induces cancer stem cell phenotypes via epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), promoting therapeutic resistance in most cancers, including GBM. This study demonstrated that spheroid cultured GBM cells consist of a large population of hypoxic cells with CSC and EMT characteristics. GSCs are chemo-resistant and displayed increased levels of HIFs and NFκB activity. Similarly, the hypoxia cultured GBM cells manifested GSC traits, chemoresistance and invasiveness. These results suggest that hypoxia is responsible for GBM stemness, chemoresistance and invasiveness. GBM cells transfected with nuclear factor kappa B-p65 (NFκB-p65) subunit exhibited CSC and EMT markers indicating the essential role of NFκB in maintaining GSC phenotypes. The study also highlighted the significance of NFκB in driving chemoresistance, invasiveness, and the potential role of NFκB as the central regulator of hypoxia-induced stemness in GBM cells. GSC population has the ability of self-renewal, cancer initiation and development of secondary heterogeneous cancer. The very poor prognosis of GBM could largely be attributed to the existence of GSCs, which promote tumour propagation, maintenance, radio- and chemoresistance and local infiltration. In this study, we used Disulfiram (DS), a drug used for more than 65 years in alcoholism clinics, in combination with copper (Cu) to target the NFκB pathway, reverse chemoresistance and block invasion in GSCs. The obtained results showed that DS/Cu is highly cytotoxic to GBM cells and completely eradicated the resistant CSC population at low dose levels in vitro. DS/Cu inhibited the migration and invasion of hypoxia-induced CSC and EMT like GBM cells at low nanomolar concentrations. DS is an FDA approved drug with low toxicity to normal tissues and can pass through the BBB. Further research may lead to the quick translation of DS into cancer clinics and provide new therapeutic options to improve treatment outcomes in GBM patients

    Coloniality and the Courtroom: Understanding Pre-trial Judicial Decision Making in Brazil

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    This thesis focuses on judicial decision making during custody hearings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The impetus for the study is that while national and international protocols mandate the use of pre-trial detention only as a last resort, judges continue to detain people pre-trial in large numbers. Custody hearings were introduced in 2015, but the initiative has not produced the reduction in pre-trial detention that was hoped. This study aims to understand what informs judicial decision making at this stage. The research is approached through a decolonial lens to foreground legacies of colonialism, overlooked in mainstream criminological scholarship. This is an interview-based study, where key court actors (judges, prosecutors, and public defenders) and subject matter specialists were asked about influences on judicial decision making. Interview data is complemented by non-participatory observation of custody hearings. The research responds directly to Aliverti et al.'s (2021) call to ‘decolonize the criminal question’ by exposing and explaining how colonialism informs criminal justice practices. Answering the call in relation to judicial decision making, findings provide evidence that colonial-era assumptions, dynamics, and hierarchies were evident in the practice of custody hearings and continue to inform judges’ decisions, thus demonstrating the coloniality of justice. This study is significant for the new empirical data presented and theoretical innovation is also offered via the introduction of the ‘anticitizen’. The concept builds on Souza’s (2007) ‘subcitizen’ to account for the active pursuit of dangerous Others by judges casting themselves as crime fighters in a modern moral crusade. The findings point to the limited utility of human rights discourse – the normative approach to influencing judicial decision making around pre-trial detention – as a plurality of conceptualisations compete for dominance. This study has important implications for all actors aiming to reduce pre-trial detention in Brazil because unless underpinning colonial logics are addressed, every innovation risks becoming the next lei para inglês ver (law [just] for the English to see)

    Embodying entrepreneurship: everyday practices, processes and routines in a technology incubator

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    The growing interest in the processes and practices of entrepreneurship has been dominated by a consideration of temporality. Through a thirty-six-month ethnography of a technology incubator, this thesis contributes to extant understanding by exploring the effect of space. The first paper explores how class structures from the surrounding city have appropriated entrepreneurship within the incubator. The second paper adopts a more explicitly spatial analysis to reveal how the use of space influences a common understanding of entrepreneurship. The final paper looks more closely at the entrepreneurs within the incubator and how they use visual symbols to develop their identity. Taken together, the three papers reject the notion of entrepreneurship as a primarily economic endeavour as articulated through commonly understood language and propose entrepreneuring as an enigmatic attractor that is accessed through the ambiguity of the non-verbal to develop the ‘new’. The thesis therefore contributes to the understanding of entrepreneurship and proposes a distinct role for the non-verbal in that understanding
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