365 Days of Belonging, Activism and Change: Examining the perception of minorities in the UK in the wake of the Black Lives Matter Summer

This research examines the perception of racial and ethnic minorities within the UK, in response to the Black Lives Matter protests that occurred over the summer of 2020, focusing upon the south Wales region. Explored through themes of the everyday, activism and change, the research addresses the historic place of minorities within society. These ideas are then developed in connection with a number of case studies that detail examples of how the perception of minorities has changed over time, and as a direct result of the Black Lives Matter movement. Alongside this, qualitative data collected from interviews with minorities of varying ages and backgrounds allows for a focus on their own thoughts and feelings, thus creating a new dialogue that juxtaposes a more traditional, academic view on issues of race, racism and social justice. It is through these discussions that many of the key themes of the research are addressed and subsequently developed in order to gain a better understanding of how racial and ethnic minorities’ lived experiences and place within modern society impacts the wider perception and education around issues of race and racism. This research project aims to develop tools and educational avenues through which a better understanding of race and racism, and those affected by it, can be developed, in the hope of advancing attitudes and understandings of anti-racism and its newfound significance in an ever increasing multi-racial and multi-ethnic world

Ursula K. Le Guin's Science Fictional Feminist Daoism

It is hardly a novel claim that the work of Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) contains influences from philosophical Daoism, but I argue that this influence has yet to be fully understood. Several scholars criticize Le Guin for misrepresenting Daoist ideas as they appear in ancient Chinese philosophical texts, particularly the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. While I have sympathy for this charge, especially as it relates to Le Guin’s translation of the Dao De Jing, I argue that it fails to understand the extent to which her fiction contains her own philosophical development of Daoist ideas. Looking at some of her most influential works (e.g., The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Lathe of Heaven, A Wizard of Earthsea, etc.), I suggest that Le Guin’s fiction is better seen as a refocusing of Daoist concepts such as complementary contrasts and non-action (wu wei) in the contexts of modern feminism, modern anarchism, science fiction, and fantasy. Le Guin was not trying to represent ancient Daoism as a scholar. Rather, she was trying to reimagine Daoism as a creative artist and philosopher in her own right. This way of viewing Le Guin’s work does not fully exorcise the specter of the possibility of Orientalist cultural appropriation, but it does make the issue more complex in a way that can deepen further conversations. To what extent can an artist be guilty of misrepresentation if representation was not, strictly speaking, her goal? I end with a brief reflection on what is perhaps the deepest philosophical lesson of Le Guin’s work: everything is more complicated than it first appears. On that note, the present article is an attempt not just to do philosophy about Le Guin, but to do philosophy in a Le Guinian fashion, which requires rethinking the metaphor of combat that guides much academic philosophy today

WikiRate.org - leveraging collective awareness to understand companies' environmental, social and governance performance

Abstract. WikiRate is a Collective Awareness Platform for Sustainability and Social Innovation (CAPS) project with the aim of \crowdsourcing better companies" through analysis of their Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) performance. Research to inform the design of the platform involved surveying the current corporate ESG information landscape, and identifying ways in which an open approach and peer production ethos could be e ffectively mobilised to improve this landscape's fertility. The key requirement identi ed is for an open public repository of data tracking companies' ESG performance. Corporate Social Responsibility reporting is conducted in public, but there are barriers to accessing the information in a standardised analysable format. Analyses of and ratings built upon this data can exert power over companies' behaviour in certain circumstances, but the public at large have no access to the data or the most infuential ratings that utilise it. WikiRate aims to build an open repository for this data along with tools for analysis, to increase public demand for the data, allow a broader range of stakeholders to participate in its interpretation, and in turn drive companies to behave in a more ethical manner. This paper describes the quantitative Metrics system that has been designed to meet those objectives and some early examples of its use

\u3ci\u3e\u3c/i\u3eIntuitions about God and Satan: The relationship of mentalizing and imagination with the experience of supernatural good and evil

Believers in relational deities conceptualize god(s) as agents with mental states. The ability to imagine other minds may be one of the cognitive foundations of religious belief. Research on this relationship is mixed, however. This study tests this relationship across experiences of supernatural good and evil rather than abstract beliefs. Previous research has demonstrated that mentalizing significantly predicted prayer type (Edman et al., 2015; 2017). However, a multi-site replication study failed to replicate the initial results, indicating that perhaps mode of prayer is more complexly related to mentalizing than initially hypothesized. Edman (2015; 2018) extended this research by including measures of belief in agentic evil and absorption. This research supported the relationship of mentalizing with supernatural experiences, but a curious result emerged: mentalizing desires (i.e., empathy) were positively related to experiences with supernatural agents, but mentalizing abilities (i.e., scores on the Mind in the Eyes test) were negatively related. Also, experiences with agentic evil were more highly related to mentalizing scores (both positive and negative) than were experiences with a good god. A previous study related empathy and mentalizing abilities were related to supernatural experience, but the correlations were not in the hypothesized direction (Edman, 2019). The current study attempts to parse out this relationship as well as the differences between beliefs in agentic supernatural evil versus agentic supernatural good

Concert recording 2019-04-11

[Track 1]. Concert etude / Alexander Goedicke -- [Track 2]. Sonata VIII. I. Prelude: Largo II. Allemande: Allegro / Arcangelo Corelli -- [Track 3]. Oliver\u27s birthday / Bruce Broughton -- [Track 4]. Concerto [abridged] / Alexander Arutunian -- [Track 5]. Aria con variazioni / Georg Frederic Handel -- [Track 6]. Sonata for trumpet and piano. I. Lento, Allegro molto / Eric Ewazen -- [Track 7]. Concerto in E♭. I. Allegro / J.B.G. Neruda -- [Track 8]. Suite. II. Air [Track 9]. I. Prelude / William P. Latham

Feature Extraction and Classification from Planetary Science Datasets enabled by Machine Learning

In this paper we present two examples of recent investigations that we have undertaken, applying Machine Learning (ML) neural networks (NN) to image datasets from outer planet missions to achieve feature recognition. Our first investigation was to recognize ice blocks (also known as rafts, plates, polygons) in the chaos regions of fractured ice on Europa. We used a transfer learning approach, adding and training new layers to an industry-standard Mask R-CNN (Region-based Convolutional Neural Network) to recognize labeled blocks in a training dataset. Subsequently, the updated model was tested against a new dataset, achieving 68% precision. In a different application, we applied the Mask R-CNN to recognize clouds on Titan, again through updated training followed by testing against new data, with a precision of 95% over 369 images. We evaluate the relative successes of our techniques and suggest how training and recognition could be further improved. The new approaches we have used for planetary datasets can further be applied to similar recognition tasks on other planets, including Earth. For imagery of outer planets in particular, the technique holds the possibility of greatly reducing the volume of returned data, via onboard identification of the most interesting image subsets, or by returning only differential data (images where changes have occurred) greatly enhancing the information content of the final data stream

Cardiometabolic effects of a novel SIRT1 activator, SRT2104, in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background: The cardiometabolic effects of SRT2104, a novel SIRT1 activator, were investigated in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods: Fifteen adults with T2DM underwent a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over trial and received 28 days of oral SRT2104 (2.0 g/day) or placebo. Forearm vasodilatation (measured during intrabrachial bradykinin, acetylcholine and sodium nitroprusside infusions) as well as markers of glycaemic control, lipid profile, plasma fibrinolytic factors, and markers of platelet-monocyte activation, were measured at baseline and at the end of each treatment period. Results: Lipid profile and platelet-monocyte activation were similar in both treatment arms (p>0.05 for all). Forearm vasodilatation was similar on exposure to acetylcholine and sodium nitroprusside (p>0.05,respectively). Bradykinin-induced vasodilatation was less during treatment with SRT2104 versus placebo (7.753vs9.044, respectively, mean difference=−1.291,(95% CI −2.296 to −0.285, p=0.012)). Estimated net plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 antigen release was reduced in the SRT2104 arm versus placebo (mean difference=−38.89 ng/100mL tissue/ min, (95%CI −75.47, to –2.305, p=0.038)). There were no differences in other plasma fibrinolytic factors (p>0.05 for all). After 28 days, SRT2104 exposure was associated with weight reduction (−0.93 kg (95% CI −1.72 to −0.15), p=0.0236), and a rise in glycated haemoglobin (5 mmol/ mol or 0.48% (0.26 to 0.70), p=0.004) Conclusions: In people with T2DM, SRT2104 had inconsistent, predominantly neutral effects on endothelial and fibrinolytic function, and no discernible effect on lipids or platelet function. In contrast, weight loss was induced along with deterioration in glycaemic control, suggestive of potentially important metabolic effects. Clinical trial registration: NCT01031108; Results