A middleware framework for application-aware and user-specific energy optimization in smart mobile devices

munication, and social interaction. In addition to the demand for an acceptable level of performance and a comprehensive set of features, users often desire extended battery lifetime. In fact, limited battery lifetime is one of the biggest obstacles facing the current utility and future growth of increasingly sophisticated ‘‘smart’’ mobile devices. This paper proposes a novel application-aware and user-interaction aware energy optimization middleware framework (AURA) for pervasive mobile devices. AURA optimizes CPU and screen backlight energy consumption while maintaining a minimum acceptable level of performance. The proposed framework employs a novel Bayesian application classifier and management strategies based on Markov Decision Processes and Q-Learning to achieve energy savings. Real-world user evaluation studies on Google Android based HTC Dream and Google Nexus One smartphones running the AURA framework demonstrate promising results, with up to 29% energy savings compared to the baseline device manager, and up to 5×savings over prior work on CPU and backlight energy co-optimization

Are you ok?’ Mental health and wellbeing of international doctoral students in the UK: an investigation of supervisors’ understanding and existing support provision

This research investigates how well supervisors understand the mental health and psychological wellbeing of international doctoral students, and what support supervisors can provide given the seemingly poor levels of psychological wellbeing experienced by this group. Based on the research team’s recent engagements with HE stakeholders in supporting international doctoral students, a focus on the supervisor’s role was strongly endorsed. This research explores this timely but less explored area through in-depth creative interviews with experienced doctoral supervisors from UK HE institutions

Two sides of the Same Coin? Examining Doctoral Scholars’ and Supervisors’ Mental Health & Well-being

In terms of mental health and well-being within the context of doctoral education, the spotlight has primarily been focused on doctoral scholars’ academic experience, research genre or conditions, doctoral journey or institutional research culture, rather than exploring a potential link between key doctoral stakeholders’ experiences. Likewise, less attention has been paid to some doctoral groups, including the international group. To understand more deeply the experiences of those who pursue their PhD in another country and the perspectives of those who typically serve as this cohort’s first port of call, i.e. doctoral supervisors, our research takes both crucial considerations into account. Using a qualitative approach, our team employed creative interviews with fifteen highly-experienced UK-based supervisors – more than half of whom had five successfully completed doctoral scholars. Combined visual and textual data complemented each other and were analysed using thematic analysis. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological ecological model of human development served as a useful theoretical lens and offered a more nuanced understanding of the research findings. Our study argues for a strong connection among doctoral spatial contexts to understand doctoral well-being more holistically. As informed by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems, our study illustrates the interlink among a) Personal space (or doctoral ‘adventures’ within the microsystem); b) Supervisor space (or academic remit, professional boundaries and received support distributed within the microsystem, mesosystem and exosystem); and c) Institutional space (or doctoral research culture, professional and social communities within the exosystem). Based on these findings, we contend for the importance of having a deeper appreciation of the three doctoral spaces in nurturing and sustaining well-being, but more importantly, in forging stronger connections among these three spatial elements. Arguably, doing so is a form of non-clinical intervention for fostering well-being not only for international doctoral scholars, but for all doctoral scholars in general

Does sex influence the diagnostic evaluation of autism spectrum disorder in adults?

It is unknown whether sex influences the diagnostic evaluation of autism spectrum disorder, or whether male and female adults within the spectrum have different symptom profiles. This study reports sex differences in clinical outcomes for 1244 adults (935 males and 309 females) referred for autism spectrum disorder assessment. Significantly, more males (72%) than females (66%) were diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder of any subtype (x2 = 4.09; p = 0.04). In high-functioning autism spectrum disorder adults (IQ > 70; N = 827), there were no significant sex differences in severity of socio-communicative domain symptoms. Males had significantly more repetitive behaviours/restricted interests than females (p = 0.001, d = 0.3). A multivariate analysis of variance indicated a significant interaction between autism spectrum disorder subtype (full-autism spectrum disorder/partial-autism spectrum disorder) and sex: in full-autism spectrum disorder, males had more severe socio-communicative symptoms than females; for partial-autism spectrum disorder, the reverse was true. There were no sex differences in prevalence of co-morbid psychopathologies. Sex influenced diagnostic evaluation in a clinical sample of adults with suspected autism spectrum disorder. The sexes may present with different manifestations of the autism spectrum disorder phenotype and differences vary by diagnostic subtype. Understanding and awareness of adult female repetitive behaviours/restricted interests warrant attention and sex-specific diagnostic assessment tools may need to be considered