Digital Commons Network^™

Tracking Implementation Of Shark-Related Measures And Actions In The Mediterranean Region In The Context Of International Law, Jason Lowther, Lydia Koehler

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

We present national implementation progress on international and regional legal obligations up to 2020 and discuss recent developments in shark conservation management in the region. This study provides insights into the complexity of implemented measures and actions related to shark conservation and fisheries management, governed by various legal instruments. Measures were primarily identified through regional fisheries management organisations (RFMO) reports, reports of Focal Point meetings under the Barcelona Convention, and national reports under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). A total of 208 implemented measures across different categories were found. The most common …

An Investigation Of Ransomware Incidents In The Maritime Industry: Exploring The Key Risk Factors, Ömer Söner, Gizem Kayisoglu, Pelin Bolat, Kimberly Tam

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Ransomware is a subset of malicious cyberattacks that aim to hold an organization’s data or critical infrastructure at ransom, compromising or blocking access. If the attack is public or made public after the initial attack, it can also severely jeopardize an organization’s reputation. Given the direct and immediate impact ransomware attacks can have and the lack of in-depth sharing, additional research is needed to analyze ransomware incidents in order to understand the underlying causes of incidents in addition to the detection and prevention methods. In this paper, 22 public ransomware incidents within the marine industry have been investigated to determine …

Harvesting Tacit Knowledge For Composites Workforce Development, John Summerscales

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Explicit knowledge can often be shared through textbooks, technical papers, instruction manuals, guides, and videos. It is normally objective, logical and technical. However, tacit (implicit) knowledge is any information or skills that arise from personal and professional experiences. It is often subjective, cognitive and experiential. When an individual leaves an organisation, they can take intellectual property with them that could compromise future operations, unless that knowledge is harvested. This brief review considers how transient knowledge might be retained in an organisation.

Exploring Children’S Attitudes Towards Digital Good/Bad Through Hybrid Arts Practices. Final Project Report., Dylan Yamada-Rice, John Potter, Steve Love, Eleanor Dare, Angus Main, Richard Nash

School of Art, Design and Architecture

This report shares the findings of a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Digital Good Network that sought to explore children’s attitudes towards notions of digital good and conversely digital bad through hybrid arts practice. The project built on our previous work that has centred on one or more emerging technologies, exploring what this might mean in terms of children’s entertainment, play, education and/or health. To tie in with the wider Network’s provocation about whether a digital good society is possible and if so what it would look like, we connected our ideas to a project …

The Use Of Acupuncture To Manage Dry Mouth Post-Radiotherapy In Head And Neck Cancer Patients, Yen Ming Lin, Claire Forbes-Haley

Peninsula Dental School

At University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UK), patients with xerostomiaafter head and neck radiotherapy for whom local measures have not beensuccessful are referred to the acupuncture clinic. This has been offered for thelast ten years and preliminary data has shown that it can provide symptomaticrelief to patients. This article documents a service evaluation of 45 patientswho attended the acupuncture clinic from August 2020 to August 2021.Treatment was carried out at three points in each ear as well as a point on thedistal radial aspect of each index finger. Each session lasted for 30 minutesand sessions were carried out weekly for …

Consequences Of How Third Sector Organisations Are Commissioned In The Nhs And Local Authorities In England: A Mixed-Methods Study, Rod Sheaff, Angela Ellis Paine, Mark Exworthy, Alex Gibson, Joanna Stuart, Véronique Jochum, Pauline Allen, Jonathan Clark, Russell Mannion, Sheena Asthana

Peninsula Medical School

Background: As a matter of policy, voluntary, community and social enterprises contribute substantially to the English health and care system. Few studies explain how the National Health Service and local authorities commission them, what outputs result, what contexts influence these outcomes and what differentiates this kind of commissioning. Objectives: To explain how voluntary, community and social enterprises are commissioned, the consequences, what barriers both parties face and what absorptive capacities they need. Design: Observational mixed-methods realist analysis: exploratory scoping, cross-sectional analysis of National Health Service Clinical Commissioning Group spending on voluntary, community and social enterprises, systematic comparison of case studies, …

Intertidal Seagrass Extent From Sentinel-2 Time-Series Show Distinct Trajectories In Western Europe, Bede Ffinian Rowe Davies, Simon Oiry, Philippe Rosa, Maria Laura Zoffoli, Ana I. Sousa, Oliver R. Thomas, Dan A. Smale, Melanie C. Austen, Lauren Biermann, Martin J. Attrill, Alejandro Roman, Gabriel Navarro, Anne Laure Barillé, Nicolas Harin, Daniel Clewley, Victor Martinez-Vicente, Pierre Gernez, Laurent Barillé

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Intertidal areas, which emerge during low tide, form a vital link between terrestrial and marine environments. Seagrasses, a well-studied intertidal habitat, provide a multitude of different ecosystem goods and services. However, owing to their relatively high exposure to anthropogenic impacts, seagrasss meadows and other intertidal habitats have seen extensive declines. Remote sensing methods that can capture the spatial and temporal variation of marine habitats are essential to best assess the trajectories of seagrass ecosystems. An advanced machine learning method has been developed to map intertidal vegetation from satellite-derived surface reflectance at a 12-band multispectral resolution and distinguish between similarly pigmented …

Establishing A Community Of Practice For Nursing Associates Working In Mental Health, Learning Disabilities And Autism Care, Peter Watt

South West Clinical School Journal

#400WORDS: RESEARCH + ACTION

The Anchoring Policy Perspective On Policy Change: Mechanisms, Applications And Analytical Challenges, Tor Håkon Jackson Inderberg, Ian Bailey

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

How functional relationships between policies influence policy design and policy change has received relatively limited attention within public policy scholarship despite the importance of policy coordination. This article contributes to addressing this gap by introducing the Anchoring Policies Perspective (APP), a framework for analysing interactions between policies in functional policy hierarchies. The APP examines how formal links between anchoring policies (AP) and functionally subordinate policies (SP) generate anchoring effects, whereby the provisions codified in APs generate alignment pressures that channel the design of SPs towards the norms and goals of the AP. In the article, we examine the analytical contribution …

Addressing A Wider Problem: Enhancing Access To Radiographic Imaging Using Point-Of-Care Imaging And Non-Radiographers In Remote And Rural Settings, Samuel Huczmann

South West Clinical School Journal

#400WORDS: RESEARCH + ACTION

Improving Electronic Health Charting By Nurses In The Intensive Care Unit: An Evidence Informed Change Project, Dayananda Bittenahalli Omkarappa

South West Clinical School Journal

#400WORDS: KNOWLEDGE + ACTION

Barriers And Facilitators To Dental Care Services Utilization Among Children With Disabilities: A Systematic Review And Thematic Synthesis, Shiamaa Al-Mashhadani, Mona Nasser, Anas Alsalami, Lorna Burns, Martha Paisi

Peninsula Dental School

BACKGROUND: This systematic review investigates barriers and enablers to dental care utilization by disabled children. Given the high global prevalence of disabilities in children, coupled with poor oral hygiene and a 45% rate of dental caries in this group, developing inclusive oral health strategies is critical. The review aims to synthesize literature on factors affecting oral healthcare improvement for disabled children, identifying barriers, facilitators and knowledge gaps.

METHODS: The review was conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute's methods and reported according to PRISMA guidelines. A comprehensive search spanned multiple databases, considering perspectives from carers, parents, dentists and health professionals. The …

Strategic Deployment Of Service Vessels For Improved Offshore Wind Farm Maintenance And Availability, Chenyu Zhao, Adam Roberts, Ying Cui, Lars Johanning

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This research explores the optimization of Operations and Maintenance (O&M) strategies for offshore wind farms using a sophisticated O&M simulator built on the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. By integrating real-world constraints such as vessel availability and weather conditions, the study assesses O&M logistics’ impacts on wind farm availability, energy production, and overall costs across different scenarios in the Celtic Sea. Through comparative analysis of eight case studies involving various combinations of Crew Transfer Vessels (CTV) and Service Operation Vessels (SOV), the research highlights the critical role of strategic vessel deployment and the potential of permanent SOV stationing to enhance …

Atmospheric Geographies Of (Counter)Terrorism, Sara Fregonese, Paul Simpson, Damien Masson, Simon Runkel, Carrie Benjamin, Sam Berlin, Katha Ciax, Angeliki Drongiti

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

How are terror threats and counterterrorism measures experienced in everyday urban spaces? We argue that thinking atmospherically about the spaces of urban encounters with (counter)terrorism is important, firstly, to identify and question feelings and dispositions shaped by discourses, practices, and infrastructures of (counter)terrorism; secondly, to contribute spatial perspectives of felt experience to literatures on security and (counter)terrorism in geography and beyond; thirdly, to connect official understandings of (counter)terrorism with its everyday felt experiences and materialities. We highlight two conceptual and empirical arenas - the crowd and the question of difference - where atmospheric approaches to urban (counter)terrorism can be developed.

Integral Ida-Pbc Of Underactuated Mechanical Systems With Actuator Dynamics And Uncertain Coupling, Enrico Franco, Pablo Borja

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This work investigates the passivity-based control of a class of underactuated mechanical systems with first-order actuator dynamics and constant but uncertain coupling. The main contribution is a new dynamic extension of the interconnection-and-damping-assignment passivity-based control methodology that compensates for the effect of the model uncertainty. The effectiveness of the controller is demonstrated with numerical simulations on a ball-on-beam system.

Can Large Language Models Help Predict Results From A Complex Behavioural Science Study?, Steffen Lippert, Anna Dreber, Magnus Johannesson, Warren Tierney, Wilson Cyrus-Lai, Eric Luis Uhlmann, Emotion Expression Collaboration, Jan K. Woike, Thomas Pfeiffer

School of Psychology

We tested whether large language models (LLMs) can help predict results from a complex behavioural science experiment. In study 1, we investigated the performance of the widely used LLMs GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in forecasting the empirical findings of a large-scale experimental study of emotions, gender, and social perceptions. We found that GPT-4, but not GPT-3.5, matched the performance of a cohort of 119 human experts, with correlations of 0.89 (GPT-4), 0.07 (GPT-3.5) and 0.87 (human experts) between aggregated forecasts and realized effect sizes. In study 2, providing participants from a university subject pool the opportunity to query a GPT-4 powered …

How Valid Is The Lca Data For Composite Materials? ~ A Data Quality Assessment Approach, Badr Moutik, John Summerscales, Jasper Graham-Jones, Richard Pemberton

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

- Sustainability as a priority: Central to the growth of the composite industry.- Regulatory impact: Increasing regulations include sustainability mandates for composite products.- Role of LCA: Life cycle assessment is critical for evaluating environmental sustainability in material selection and manufacturing. • Growing research: LCA studies on composites have surged, showing an annual growth rate of over 20%. • Variability and uncertainty concerns: Significant discrepancies in LCA data per unit weight of composite materials highlight risks of inaccuracies.

Experiences Of Integrating Social Prescribing Link Workers Into Primary Care In England: Bolting On, Fitting In Or Belonging, Stephanie Tierney, Debra Westlake, Geoff Wong, Amadea Turk, Steven Markham, Jordan Gorenberg, Joanne Reeve, Caroline Mitchell, Kerryn Husk, Sabi Redwood, Catherine Pope, Beccy Baird, Kamal R. Mahtani

Peninsula Medical School

Background: Following the 2019 NHS Long-Term Plan, link workers (LWs) have been employedacross primary care in England to deliver social prescribing (SP).Aim: To understand and explain how the LW role is being implemented in primary care in England.Design and setting: Realist evaluation undertaken in England.Method: Focused ethnographies around seven LWs from different parts of England. As part of this,we interviewed 61 patients and 93 professionals from healthcare and the voluntary, community andsocial enterprise (VCSE) sector. We reinterviewed 41 patients, seven LWs and a LW manager 9-12months after their first interview.Results: We developed four concepts around how LWs are integrated (or …

Sheared Turbulent Flows And Wake Dynamics Of An Idled Floating Tidal Turbine, Lilian Lieber, Shaun Fraser, Danny Coles, Alex Nimmo Smith

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Ocean energy extraction is on the rise. While tides are the most predictable amongst marine renewable resources, turbulent and complex flows still challenge reliable tidal stream energy extraction and there is also uncertainty in how devices change the natural environment. To ensure the long-term integrity of emergent floating tidal turbine technologies, advances in field measurements are required to capture multiscale, real-world flow interactions. Here we use aerial drones and acoustic profiling transects to quantify the site- and scale-dependent complexities of actual turbulent flows around an idled, utility-scale floating tidal turbine (20 m rotor diameter, D). The combined spatial resolution of …

Inorganic Phosphorus Availability And Mobility In A Manufactured Soil, H Kate Schofield, Alan D Tappin, Tim R Pettitt, Gavyn K Rollinson, Mark F Fitzsimons

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Manufactured soils, created by combining various organic and inorganic waste materials and byproducts, may be tailored to specific applications, providing an alternative to the extraction of natural soils. It is important for them to be capable of supporting plant growth without the need for significant management or fertiliser applications, the over-application of which can have adverse environmental effects. We examined the dynamics of phosphorus (P) transformations within a manufactured soil and the implications for nutrient cycling. A freshly prepared manufactured soil (32.5 % composted green waste, 32.5 % composted bark, 25 % horticultural grit, and 10 % lignite clay) was …

Dental Therapy Foundation Training: A Dental Therapist's View, Molly Langford, Morag Powell

Peninsula Dental School

No abstract provided.

Air Quality And Mental Illness: Role Of Bioaerosols, Causal Mechanisms And Research Priorities, Kamaldeep Bhui, Marcella Ucci, Prashant Kumar, Simon K. Jackson, Corinne Whitby, Ian Colbeck, Christian Pfrang, Zaheer A. Nasir, Frederic Coulon

School of Biomedical Sciences

BACKGROUND: Poor air quality can both trigger and aggravate lung and heart conditions, as well as affecting child development. It can even lead to neurological and mental health problems. However, the precise mechanisms by which air pollution affect human health are not well understood.

AIMS: To promote interdisciplinary dialogue and better research based on a critical summary of evidence on air quality and health, with an emphasis on mental health, and to do so with a special focus on bioaerosols as a common but neglected air constituent.

METHOD: A rapid narrative review and interdisciplinary expert consultation, as is recommended for …

Explainable Ai For Autism Diagnosis: Identifying Critical Brain Regions Using Fmri Data, Suryansh Vidya, Kush Gupta, Amir Aly, Andy Wills, Emmanuel Ifeachor, Rohit Shankar

Peninsula Medical School

Early diagnosis and intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been shown to significantly improve the quality of life of autistic individuals. However, diagnostics methods for ASD rely on assessments based on clinical presentation that are prone to bias and can be challenging to arrive at an early diagnosis. There is a need for objective biomarkers of ASD which can help improve diagnostic accuracy. Deep learning (DL) has achieved outstanding performance in diagnosing diseases and conditions from medical imaging data. Extensive research has been conducted on creating models that classify ASD using resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. However, …

Body, Ritual, And Place: Advancing Their Chronotopic Interrelationship In Design Praxis And Pedagogy Through An Exploration Of Juxtaposed Surfaces, Threshold Sites Of Dialogic Encounter, And Collage, Robert Brown, Zoe Latham

School of Art, Design and Architecture

Echoing philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s chronotope, an ‘intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships,’ our work explores the interrelation of the body, ritual, and place as a chrontopic site of design and pedagogy. This exploration reaffirms architecture’s grounding in people, their inhabitation of place, and spatial form, an interrelatedness too often underexamined withinarchitectural education. First positioning ritual thematically, our discussion addresses three interrelated issues: the role of juxtaposed ritual surfaces in activating the body, ritual and place; the potential of ritual surfaces as threshold sites of dialogic encounter; and collage as a medium to investigate and communicate the interrelationship of body, …

Reflecting On Reflexivity In Realist Evaluation: A Call To Action, John Downey, Sarah Rybczynska-Bunt

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Realist evaluation is increasingly utilised across disciplines due to the value of identifying which mechanisms may explain how, and why, particular outcomes are generated in specific contexts. In theory, realist evaluation provides a tangible way to analyse the inherent complexity in many pressing societal challenges. Realist evaluation encourages a mixed methods approach and choosing a suite of methods that are most relevant within a specific project. Yet, navigating a plurality of methods with abstract philosophical concepts brings operational challenges such that, further methodological guidance is needed. Research processes can be opaque and although the relativist epistemology in realist evaluation is …

Navigating The Complexities Of End-Stage Renal Disease (Esrd) From Risk Factors To Outcome: Insights From The Uk Biobank Cohort, Debasish Kar, Durjoy Acharjee, Victoria Allgar, Aya El-Wazir, Soon Song, Ashish Verma, Umesh Kadam, Simon De Lusignan, Richard Byng, Aziz Sheikh, Mintu Nath, Bedowra Zabeen, Shubharthi Kar, Shakila Banu, Habibur Rahman, Navid Khan

Peninsula Medical School

SummaryBackgroundThe prevalence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is rising worldwide. Hyperglycaemia, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia are known risk factors. However, despite managing these risk factors optimally, ESRD cases are increasing. This study aims to explore the relationship between different cardiorenal risk factors and ESRD to address this global challenge.MethodsThis cross-sectional study used data from participants recruited between 2006 and 2010 in UK Biobank. Seven multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to analyse the risk factors for ESRD. Results are presented as adjusted odds ratio (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).FindingsAmong 502,408 study participants, 1191 (0.2%) were diagnosed with ESRD. Individuals …

Adapting Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Autistic Adults: Lessons From Plymouth's Nhs Talking Therapies And Autism Spectrum Service, Hope Trimmer, Sonja Heintz, Sarah Williams

School of Psychology

The prevalence of mental health conditions is high for autistic adults. Yet, the IAPT manual states that referral rates into NHS Talking Therapies Services (NHS-TTS) do not reflect this nationally. Non-adapted treatment has been identified as a key barrier to accessing these services. It is therefore imperative that clinicians adapt to the needs of autistic individuals to make treatment accessible and effective. However, there is limited research in the field, especially for low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (LICBT). This service evaluation explores adapted LICBT for autistic adults within Plymouth's NHS-TTS and Autism Service. It investigated clinical outcomes of adapted group and …

The Experiences Of Physiotherapists Delivering Pain Science Education Via An Interpreter: A Mixed-Methods Online Survey, Samuel Browne, Patricia Schofield, Cormac G. Ryan

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Objective: To explore physiotherapist’s experiences of delivering Pain Science Education (PSE) via an interpreter to people with persistent pain. Method: A cross-sectional online survey study of UK Physiotherapists. The study protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework Registry. Seventy-seven physiotherapists with experience of delivering PSE via an interpreter completed the survey between January 16, 2023 and May 24, 2023. Feelings of stress and confidence the messages of PSE had been understood when delivering PSE with and without an interpreter were assessed on an 11-point Likert scale. In addition, drop-down, multi-selection lists were presented with barriers and facilitators to delivering …

The Consequences Of Micro-Discretions And Boundaries In The Social Prescribing Link Worker Role In England: A Realist Evaluation, Stephanie Tierney, Debra Westlake, G Wong, Amadea Turk, Steven Markham, Jordan Gorenberg, Joanne Reeve, Caroline Mitchell, Kerryn Husk, Sabi Redwood, Anthony Meacock, Catherine Pope, Kamal Mahtani

Peninsula Medical School

Background: Social prescribing addresses non-medical factors affecting health and well-being. Link workers arekey to its delivery by connecting people to relevant support, often in the voluntary, community and social enterprisesector. Funding from the National Health Service means that link workers are becoming a common part of primarycare in England.Objective: To explore and understand the implementation of link workers in primary care in England.Design: A realist evaluation addressed the question – When implementing link workers in primary care to sustainoutcomes – what works, for whom, why and in what circumstances?Setting: Link workers and staff associated with seven primary care sites across …

Harnessing The Therapeutic Effects Of Nature For Chronic Pain: A Role For Immersive Virtual Reality? A Narrative Review, Alexander Smith, Kayleigh Wyles, Sonia Medina Herandez, Sophie Clarke, Patricia Schofield, Sam Hughes

School of Psychology

Background and Objective There is a growing interest in the relationship between nature and pain relief. Evidence from environmental psychology, neuroscience and physiology-based studies point towards analgesic effects of nature being mediated through various cognitive, affective and/or autonomic factors. Being able to harness these therapeutic effects using immersive virtual reality (VR) could help to optimize and improve accessibility of nature-based environments as part of chronic pain management plans. In this narrative review, we present evidence supporting a new theoretical framework for nature-based analgesia and suggest ways for applying this through immersive VR. Databases and Data Treatment We provide an overview …