Supporting memory and identity in older people: findings from a ‘Sandpit’ process

Identity in old age is challenged by physical changes, evolving roles within the family, and life transitions such as retirement. Supporting identity is therefore important in later life, and might be assisted by media technologies which allow people to reflect on their lives, record their personal histories and share these with family, friends and caregivers. This possibility was explored in two creative ‘Sandpits’ with older people as part of the SUS-IT project, funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing programme in the UK. Discussions were held with PC and non-PC user groups of retirement age to understand memory and identity practices and elicit reactions to three novel product concepts. These included a Reminiscing Radio for life review, a Story Lamp for associating spoken stories with photographs and memorabilia, and a pair of virtual reality Travel Glasses for transporting you back to a special place in the past. The main findings of these discussions will be presented, along with concepts generated by the participants in a re-design exercise. This paper will also show how the sandpits enabled older people to be involved in the design process by allowing them to shape early design concepts through exploring their own ideas and motivations

Do the short helices exist in the nematic TB phase?

Dimeric compounds forming twist-bend nematic, Ntb, phase show unusual optical textures related to the formation of arrays of focal conic defects (FCDs). Some of the focal conics exhibit submicron internal structure with 8 nm periodicity, which is very close to that found in the crystalline phase of the material, that might suggest surface freezing

Building a dataset for image steganography

Image steganography and steganalysis techniques discussed in the literature rely on using a dataset(s)created based on cover images obtained from the public domain, through the acquisition of images from Internet sources, or manually. This issue often leads to challenges in validating, benchmarking, and reproducing reported techniques in a consistent manner. It is our view that the steganography/steganalysis research community would benefit from the availability of common datasets, thus promoting transparency and academic integrity. In this research, we have considered four aspects: image acquisition, pre-processing, steganographic techniques, and embedding rate in building a dataset for image steganography

Minimum Free Energy, Partition Function and Kinetics Simulation Algorithms for a Multistranded Scaffolded DNA Computer

Polynomial time dynamic programming algorithms play a crucial role in the design, analysis and engineering of nucleic acid systems including DNA computers and DNA/RNA nanostructures. However, in complex multistranded or pseudoknotted systems, computing the minimum free energy (MFE), and partition function of nucleic acid systems is NP-hard. Despite this, multistranded and/or pseudoknotted systems represent some of the most utilised and successful systems in the field. This leaves open the tempting possibility that many of the kinds of multistranded and/or pseudoknotted systems we wish to engineer actually fall into restricted classes, that do in fact have polynomial time algorithms, but we\u27ve just not found them yet. Here, we give polynomial time algorithms for MFE and partition function calculation for a restricted kind of multistranded system called the 1D scaffolded DNA computer. This model of computation thermodynamically favours correct outputs over erroneous states, simulates finite state machines in 1D and Boolean circuits in 2D, and is amenable to DNA storage applications. In an effort to begin to ask the question of whether we can naturally compare the expressivity of nucleic acid systems based on the computational complexity of prediction of their preferred energetic states, we show our MFE problem is in logspace (the complexity class L), making it perhaps one of the simplest known, natural, nucleic acid MFE problems. Finally, we provide a stochastic kinetic simulator for the 1D scaffolded DNA computer and evaluate strategies for efficiently speeding up this thermodynamically favourable system in a constant-temperature kinetic regime

The relationship between MNE tax haven use and FDI into developing economies characterized by capital flight

The use of tax havens by multinationals is a pervasive activity in international business. However, we know little about the complementary relationship betweentax haven use and foreign direct investment (FDI) in the developing world. Drawing on internalization theory, we develop a conceptual framework that explores this relationship and allows us to contribute to the literature on the determinants of tax haven use by developed-country multinationals. Using a large, firm-level data set, we test the model and find a strong positive association between tax haven use and FDI into countries characterized by low economic development and extreme levels of capital flight. This paper contributes to the literature by adding an important dimension to our understanding of the motives for which MNEs invest in tax havens and has important policy implications at both the domestic and the international level

Urban organic waste management in Karachi, Pakistan

Inadequate collection and disposal of waste poses a serious health risk to the population and is an obvious cause of environmental degradation in most cities of the developing world. Mixed municipal solid waste is dumped either indiscriminately in the neighbourhood or, if collected by a waste collection service, disposed of in uncontrolled dumpsites. The organic fraction of this waste, often contributing to more than 50% of the total waste amount, threatens the health of residents as the indiscriminate waste dumps attract rodents and other disease carrying vectors. Organic waste is also responsible for pollution of soil and water bodies through leachate, and in the process of uncontrolled anaerobic degradation it contributes to global warming by the production of methane. A possible step in mitigating these detrimental effects is enhancing resourcerecovering activities of the organic waste fraction. An obvious treatment and recovery option for organic waste is composting. However, before strategies can be developed on how to proceed, it is necessary to understand the existing organic waste management practices and try to assess current and potential markets for the converted organic waste

A theoretical model to solve cost shifting problem

Cost shifting strategy in service organizations causes difficulties between co-existing internal business units each competing for scarce resources. Within regulatory and legal constraints, cost shifting between business units instigates concomitant changes to each unit's profitability/budget-surpluses. For internal monopoly and competitive units, this strategy has shortcomings. Through management sponsored training programs, employee learning and productivity improvements offer a long-term approach to better address this short-term cost shifting problem. We mathematically model this solution, and outline further research that builds on this long-term cost shifting approach

Bridging clock gaps in Mega-Constellation LEO satellites

In recent years, mega-constellation Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites have been proposed as an augmentation to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) for positioning on the ground, especially for those in measurement environments with limited satellite visibility. The fast geometry change of these LEO satellites also reduces the convergence time of Precise Point Positioning (PPP) techniques. To realize the benefits brought by these LEO satellites, their precise orbits and clocks need to be delivered to users, which would typically be based on processing the GNSS signals collected onboard LEO satellites. Assuming that this will be possible in the future, during data reception, storage and transmission, however, data gaps could exist in the collected GNSS measurements, which would result in gaps in the LEO clock estimates. The transmission of the LEO satellite clock corrections to users could also experience outages. In this study, taking the Ultra-Stable Oscillator (USO) onboard GRACE FO-1 as an example of LEO satellites that has similar operational conditions to the expected LEO mega-constellations, three different models are proposed for bridging clock gaps varying from 1 to 60 minutes. Model A considers its mid- to long-term systematic effects, Model B bridges the gaps using low-order polynomials employing the data near the gap, and Model C exploits the benefits of both Models A and B. Results show that Model A results in larger errors than the other two models for short clock gaps, while Model B could lead to a dramatic increase in the bridging errors for long gaps, e.g., 1h. Applying Model C for the USO on GRACE FO-1, the mean absolute bridging errors (in range) are within 1cm for gaps shorter than 10min, and within 0.2m for gaps not exceeding 1h. Increasing the polynomial degree of Model C from quadratic to cubic can lead to a reduction in the mean absolute bridging errors to mm- to cm-level

Integrity Monitoring: From Airborne to Land Applications

Safety-critical applications in transportation require GNSS-based positioning with high levels of continuity, accuracy and integrity. The system needs to detect and exclude faults and to raise an alarm in the event of unsafe positioning. This capability is referred to as integrity monitoring (IM). While IM was considered until recently only in aviation, it is currently a key performance parameter in land applications, such as Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). In this chapter the IM concepts, models and methods developed so far are compared. In particular, Fault Detection and Exclusion (FDE) and bounding of positioning errors methods borrowed from aviation (i.e. Weighted RAIM and ARAIM) are discussed in detail, in view of their possible adoption for land applications. Their strengths and limitations, and the modifications needed for application in the different context are highlighted. A practical demonstration of IM in ITS is presented