Architectural design principles for extra-terrestrial habitats

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The Role of the Solicitor in the Children's Hearings System : A Study Commissioned by the Scottish Legal Aid Board

In 2015, the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) commissioned the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELCIS) to carry out a piece of research looking at the role of solicitors in the children’s hearings system. This research took place between July and December 2015, and was designed to address the following five topics: • Defining the ethos of the children’s hearings system and applying this to solicitors • The role and impact of solicitors in the modernised children’s hearings system • How to achieve a fair and consistent approach to monitoring compliance • How best to get feedback from professional and non-professional stakeholders • Training of solicitors on children’s hearings The role of solicitors in the children’s hearings system has taken on greater importance over the last five years, as the number of solicitors attending hearings proceedings is perceived to have increased since Part 19 of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (The Scottish Executive, 2011) enabled the provision of legal aid to both children and relevant others. In order to gather information, the study included nationwide surveys with solicitors, social workers, reporters, and panel members, followed by focus groups with these same groups. In addition, the study included key informant interviews with various professional stakeholders and interviews with three young people with experience of solicitors in the children’s hearing system

Combining astrophysical datasets with CRUMB

At present, the field of astronomical machine learning lacks widely-used benchmarking datasets; most research employs custom-made datasets which are often not publicly released, making comparisons between models difficult. In this paper we present CRUMB, a publicly-available image dataset of Fanaroff-Riley galaxies constructed from four "parent" datasets extant in the literature. In addition to providing the largest image dataset of these galaxies, CRUMB uses a two-tier labelling system: a "basic" label for classification and a "complete" label which provides the original class labels used in the four parent datasets, allowing for disagreements in an image's class between different datasets to be preserved and selective access to sources from any desired combination of the parent datasets.Comment: Accepted in Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop at NeurIPS 2023; 6 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl

Exploring strategies to optimise the impact of food-specific inhibition training on children's food choices

This is the final version. Available on open access from Frontiers Media via the DOI in this recordData Availability Statement: The research data and analysis code supporting this publication are openly available in ORE at: https://doi.org/10.24378/exe.3303Food-specific inhibition training (FSIT) is a computerised task requiring response inhibition to energy dense foods within a reaction-time game. Previous work indicates that FSIT can increase the number of healthy foods (relative to energy-dense foods) children choose, and decrease calories consumed from sweets and chocolate. Across two studies, we explored the impact of FSIT variations (e.g., different response signals, different delivery modes) on children’s food choices within a time-limited hypothetical food-choice task. In Study 1, we varied the FSIT Go/No-Go signals to be emotive (happy vs. sad faces) or neutral (green vs. red signs). One-hundred-and-fifty-seven children were randomly allocated to emotive-FSIT, neutral-FSIT or a non-food control task. Children participated in groups of 4-15. No significant FSIT effects were observed on food choices (all p values > .160). Healthy-food choices decreased over time regardless of condition (p .050). Healthy choices decreased over time in the control group (p = .001) but did not change in the two FSIT groups (both p > .300) supporting previous evidence that FSIT may have a beneficial effect on children’s food choices. Ensuring that children perform FSIT with high accuracy (e.g., by using FSIT in quiet environments and avoiding group-testing) may be important for impacts on food choices though. Future research should continue to explore methods of optimising FSIT as a healthy-eating intervention for children.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)European Union Horizon 2020Ghent Universit

Supporting Computing Educators to Create a Cycle of Teaching and Computing Education Research

Despite a rich history of computing education in the United Kingdom and Ireland, computing educators often rely on the same procedures and teaching practices rather than embrace innovations. Similarly, while a growing collection of literature exists on educational theory and practice in computing education, much of this focuses on the same concepts and concerns. An aspiration is that both these problems can be simultaneously addressed by computing educators adopting a cycle of embracing existing literature when devising teaching practice and then feeding their experience and findings back to the community in a rigorous fashion. Consequently, this panel supports computing educators by acting as advisers on a one-on-one basis to support audience members in discovering or devising their own cycle of teaching practice and computing education research

Attention-gating for improved radio galaxy classification

In this work we introduce attention as a state of the art mechanism for classification of radio galaxies using convolutional neural networks. We present an attention-based model that performs on par with previous classifiers while using more than 50% fewer parameters than the next smallest classic CNN application in this field. We demonstrate quantitatively how the selection of normalisation and aggregation methods used in attention-gating can affect the output of individual models, and show that the resulting attention maps can be used to interpret the classification choices made by the model. We observe that the salient regions identified by the our model align well with the regions an expert human classifier would attend to make equivalent classifications. We show that while the selection of normalisation and aggregation may only minimally affect the performance of individual models, it can significantly affect the interpretability of the respective attention maps and by selecting a model which aligns well with how astronomers classify radio sources by eye, a user can employ the model in a more effective manner.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures, Published in MNRA

Structured Variational Inference for Simulating Populations of Radio Galaxies

We present a model for generating postage stamp images of synthetic Fanaroff-Riley Class I and Class II radio galaxies suitable for use in simulations of future radio surveys such as those being developed for the Square Kilometre Array. This model uses a fully-connected neural network to implement structured variational inference through a variational auto-encoder and decoder architecture. In order to optimise the dimensionality of the latent space for the auto-encoder we introduce the radio morphology inception score (RAMIS), a quantitative method for assessing the quality of generated images, and discuss in detail how data pre-processing choices can affect the value of this measure. We examine the 2-dimensional latent space of the VAEs and discuss how this can be used to control the generation of synthetic populations, whilst also cautioning how it may lead to biases when used for data augmentation.Comment: 20 pages, 20 figures, accepted MNRA

Adversarialism in informal, collaborative, and 'soft' inquisitorial settings : lawyer roles in child welfare legal environments

This article explores the challenges and benefits of increased legal representation in child welfare hearings, with reference to the Scottish Children’s Hearings System. We look at the role and impact of adversarial behaviours within legal environments intended to follow an informal, collaborative approach. We analyse the views of 66 individuals involved in the Hearings System, including reporters, social workers, panel members and lawyers, collected through four focus groups and 12 interviews held in 2015. We place this analysis in the context of previous research. Our findings identify concern about adversarialism, inter-professional tensions and various challenges associated with burgeoning legal representation. Difficulties stem from disparate professional values and perceived threats to the ethos of hearings. We conclude it is difficult, but possible, to incorporate an adversarial element into such forums. Doing so may help to protect rights and potentially improve decision-making for children and families. The article concludes by considering implications for the practice of lawyers and others

Function, Quality and Outcomes of Residential Care : Rapid Evidence Review

In seeking to provide an overview of the existing research on residential care, this review addresses the following research questions: What is the function of residential care as part of a range of alternative care options? What facilitates ‘quality’ care in residential care? Taking account of it both in the relational interactions between children and their carers, and in how residential care is organised to facilitate high quality care for children. What effect does residential care have upon outcomes for children and young people? Methodology This review used Rapid Evidence Review Methodology based on the steps detailed in Khangura et al (2012), which aim to streamline the process of synthesising evidence for practical applications. The research questions and the protocol for the search, screening, and reviewing of relevant literature were devised in close consultation with a stakeholder group from SOS Children’s Villages

Postnatal care in Brazil: Opportunities and challenges

Aim: in this paper the authors described the experience in proposition and realization of a workshop in a partnership between UK and Brazilian researchers. The aim was plan out a strategy for the successful implementation of interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of women’s postnatal care in Brazil. Method: this is an experience report about the implementation of that workshop. It was held in the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, from 7 to 10 March 2016, under the auspices of the British Council Researcher Links Scheme, funded through the Newton Fund and Brazilian Council of the State Foundations of Research, Sciences and Innovation represented in Santa Catarina by Foundation for Research and Innovation of Santa Catarina. Results: during the workshop were presented health and social care experiences of women in Brazil from pregnancy through to the months after birth, integrated review of social technology in health, the importance of specific public health initiatives and good health surveillance in a country as large and multi-cultured as Brazil. It was also carried out a meeting between health professionals and women and their partners who had received postnatal care. Each day we worked in small groups to identify the research areas that we were interested in moving forward with as a Brazil-UK research network. Conclusions: a number of perceived opportunities and challenges were identified during the workshop from researchers, practitioners, parents and policy makers. The success of social technology interventions depends on their appropriate introduction within Brazil’s social and healthcare context.</p