Digital Commons Network^™

Systematic Review Of Paediatric Sudep And Epilepsy-Related Deaths To Inform A Safety Counselling Checklist For Clinical Practice, Rohit Shankar

Peninsula Medical School

BackgroundOne in 200 children - in the UK have epilepsy. Approximately, 1 in 1,000 children with epilepsy die yearly from Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP), a leading cause of death in epilepsy. Various risk factors contributing to epilepsy mortality particularly SUDEP, some modifiable, have been identified. Structured discussion of risks results in behavioural change that reduces individual risk factors.AimTo investigate and collate risk factors for SUDEP and epilepsy mortality in children to propose a structured communication tool (“Checklist”) for person centred communication.MethodsA Systematic review for children’s epilepsy mortality risk factors was conducted. The search strategy was developed by clinical …

Autolyzed Brewer's Yeast Enhances Growth And Intestinal Health In Early Life Stages Of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis Niloticus L.), Sheu Odu-Onikosi, Taofik Momoh, Ben Eynon, Nicola Pontefract, Victor Kuri, Holger Kühlwein, Daniel Merrifield

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

The early life stages of fish are critical for determining the overall productivity and sustainability of aquaculture operations. This study investigated the effects of dietary autolyzed brewer's yeast (ABY) on the growth performance and intestinal health of Nile tilapia fry (Oreochromis niloticus). A 35-day feeding trial with 480 Nile tilapia fry across 12 experimental tanks tested the effects of diets supplemented with 1, 2, and 4 g/kg of ABY, with a control diet for comparison. The results indicated that the diet which had 1 g/kg ABY supplementation (ABY1) significantly enhanced the weight gain and specific growth rate (SGR) while reducing …

Mind The Gap - The Need To Integrate Novel Plankton Methods Alongside Ongoing Long-Term Monitoring, Matthew M. Holland, Luis Felipe Artigas, Angus Atkinson, Mike Best, Eileen Bresnan, Michelle J. Devlin, Dafne Eerkes-Medrano, Marie Johansen, David G. Johns, Margarita Machairopoulou, Sophie Pitois, James Scott, Jos Schilder, Rowena Stern, Karen Tait, Callum Whyte, Claire Widdicombe, Abigail Mcquatters-Gollop

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Changes in plankton have important implications for ecosystem services, including supporting fish stocks, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and oxygen production. Standard long-term plankton monitoring relies on light microscopy to identify and count plankton taxa, with methods fully supported by international standards, providing high quality trusted data. Novel methods, including imaging and molecular, offer means of collecting select types of plankton data efficiently, filling targeted knowledge gaps left by standard monitoring and generating a more complete picture of plankton dynamics. Standard and novel monitoring methods present different advantages and costs, positioning their suitability to address different management needs. Standard plankton monitoring …

Predicting Dune Evolution On A Regional Scale For Coastal Management, Liane M. Brodie, C. Stokes, G. Masselink, A. Konstantinou, T. Scott, T. Poate

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Dunes provide a range of ecosystem services, including natural resilience against coastal flooding, and it is essential for proactive coastal zone management to forecast future dune behaviour as sea levels rise. However, dunes exhibit dynamic behaviours over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, posing challenges for predicting their evolution. Here we demonstrate a high degree of variability in contemporary dune behaviour along a single coastal region, across 31 sites in Cornwall, southwest England. Rates of change varied widely, with sediment loss ranging from −12.4 m³/m/yr to a gain of +5.1 m³/m/yr, and dune retreat/advancement ranging from −3.7 m/yr …

The Impact Of Led Light Spectra On The Growth, Yield, Physiology, And Sweetness Compound Of Stevia Rebaudiana, Naofel Aljafer, Abdullah Alrajhi, Toby Anderson Von Trampe, William Vevers, Sophie Fauset, Hail Zuhir Rihan

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

This study investigated the effects of several light spectra on Stevia rebaudiana, analysing growth parameters, yield, and physiological responses within a controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) system. The experimental design involved different light treatments, including specific combinations of blue (435 nm and 450 nm), red (663 nm), and ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths (365 nm), to determine their impact on morphological development and biochemical properties, particularly focusing on the production of the sweetening compounds stevioside and rebaudioside A. Stevia rebaudiana plants cultivated from cuttings sourced from a reputable UK nursery (Gardener’s Dream Ltd., Glasgow, UK) were subjected to these spectral treatments over a period …

Hydrological Repair And Invasive Grass Removal Restore Rhizophora Racemosa Mangrove Communities In West Africa, Claudia M Agraz Hernández, Ebénézer Houndjinou, Jordan E Reyes Castellanos, Carlos A. Chan Keb, Juan Osti Saénz1, Julio C. Chávez Barrera, Janique Etienne, Romain L Glèlè Kakaï, Robert Puschendorf

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Mangrove ecosystems face significant threats from climate change and human activities. In West Benin, the invasive grass Paspalum vaginatum disrupts sedimentation and hydrology, creating anoxic conditions and nutrient imbalances. To address this, we implemented a cost-effective restoration strategy focused on hydrological repair, engaging local communities to excavate 26 artificial channels and clear 19 existing ones, restoring tidal flow to 30 ha of degraded mangrove forest. Of this, 20 ha were planted with Rhizophora racemosa propagules, while 10 ha remained unplanted due to unsuitable micro-topographic conditions. This intervention, costing $1394.3 USD per hectare, adjusted sediment levels to match natural micro-topography, enabling …

Practical Application Of Artificial Intelligence For Ecological Image Analysis: Trialling Different Levels Of Taxonomic Classification To Promote Convolutional Neural Network Performance, Amelia E.H. Bridges, Eleanor Cross, Kyran P. Graves, Nils Piechaud, Antony Raymont, Kerry L. Howell

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly convolutional neural networks (CNNs), into ecological research presents new opportunities for the automated analysis of image-based data. This study explores the practical application of CNNs for ecological image analysis by trialling annotation to different levels of taxonomic classification to determine their impact on model performance. We systematically compare various annotation strategies, evaluating their effects on the accuracy of CNNs in ecological contexts; as well as considering the feasibility of manually annotating training data to different levels. We demonstrate that variation in annotations groupings (animal, phylum or morphology) has little impact on model performance, …

Ecotoxicological Effects Of Sunscreen Derived Organic And Inorganic Uv Filters On Marine Organisms: A Critical Review, Anneliese A. Hodge, Frances E. Hopkins, Mahasweta Saha, Awadhesh N. Jha

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Sunscreens are topical personal care products that provide protection against the sun's ultraviolet A (UVA) and ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation. Ultraviolet (UV) filters are compounds added to sunscreens to block, absorb, or reflect the sun's UV rays, but are of major emerging concern due to their widespread use and global distribution. They pose a significant risk to marine organisms owing to their chemical properties, including high lipophilicity which increases their bioavailability. The present review identifies and summarises the factors that contribute to UV filter pollution, their sources, pathways, and effects on marine organisms. We identify and evaluate the current knowledge …

New Ethereum-Based Distributed Pki With A Reward-And-Punishment Mechanism, Chong Gee Koa, Swee Huay Heng, Ji Jian Chin

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This paper explores the critical role of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in ensuring the security of electronic transactions, particularly in validating the authenticity of websites in online environments. Traditional Centralised PKIs (CPKIs) relying on Certificate Authorities (CAs) face a significant drawback due to their susceptibility to a single point of failure. To address this concern, Decentralised PKIs (DPKIs) have emerged as an alternative. However, both centralised and decentralised approaches encounter specific challenges. Researchers have made several attempts using blockchain-based PKI, which implements a reward and punishment mechanism to enhance the security of traditional PKI. Most of the attempts are focused …

Is Sparse Local Ecological Knowledge Accurate Enough For Policy? A Seagrass Mapping Case Study From Five Greek Islands In The Eastern Aegean Sea, Konstantis Alexopoulos, Tim J. Grandjean, Anastasia Miliou, Theodoros Tsimpidis, Abigail Mcquatters-Gollop

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

The low cost, high applicability and community-based nature of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) data for mapping marine benthic habitats has become increasingly popular in recent years. Nonetheless, due to persisting technocratic distrust of LEK often stemming from the unquantifiable nature of bias, the embedding of empirical data at policy levels often lags. Currently, protocols rely on high participation from stakeholders, however, such quotas are often unfeasible, with common limiting factors being the low numbers of knowledgeable individuals in remote parts of the world, and the lack of community trust in the conservation mechanism. In this study, we test whether data …

Restoration Of River Connectivity Enables Long-Distance Spawning Migrations In A Potamodromous Fish, Dagmara Błońska, Ali Serhan Tarkan, Demetra Andreou, Jonathan D. Bolland, Peter Davies, Jamie R. Dodd, Phillipa Gillingham, Catherine Gutmann Roberts, Fatima Amat-Trigo, Sadi Aksu, Andrew Hindes, O. Jonas Palder, Mark Yeldham, J. Robert Britton

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Rivers across the world are increasingly fragmented due to anthropogenic barriers, with the restoration of connectivity often using fish passes. Fish passes are, however, usually designed for anadromous species, despite ecologically important non-anadromous species being present in the communities impacted by fragmentation. To assess the outcomes for non-anadromous fishes of the installation of multiple fish passes and weir modifications, the movements of the potamodromous European barbel Barbus barbus were evaluated in the lower River Severn basin, western Britain, which was fragmented by six weirs (two on a tributary, four on the Severn mainstem). Movements of individual fish were measured using …

A Unified, Data-Informed Model For Shoreline Evolution Due To Longshore And Cross-Shore Processes, Mark Davidson, Emily Hunt, Nieves Valiente

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Due partially to a changing global climate, there is an increasing need to develop a modelling approach capable of providing warnings of coastal evolution, including erosion at storm, interannual and decadal timescales and in complex coastal settings. This research presents a reduced complexity model with a common approach to predicting shoreline change due to cross-shore and longshore processes. The model architecture is designed to be flexible and data-informed, incorporating an Extended Kalman (eKF) for the assimilation of field measurements of shoreline change. Depending on the values of the optimised model free parameters resulting from the eKF assimilation, the longshore and …

Voices Of The Sound: Reflections On Transforming Ocean Governance: Stakeholder Reflections On The Plymouth Sound National Marine Park, Kizzy Beaumont

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Executive summaryThis stakeholder reflections report explores the perspectives of those engaged with the Plymouth Sound National Marine Park (NMP), the UK’s first National Marine Park. It draws on interviews and focus groups conducted between June and December 2024. Drawing on 24 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups, the report examines the aspirations, challenges, and governance of the NMP using the lens of Transformative Ocean Governance.Participants celebrated the NMP’s role in connecting people to the sea, fostering marine citizenship, and reimagining governance beyond traditional protected area models. Emotional ties to place, strong local champions, and inclusive education programmes were highlighted as …

Surf Stewardship And Coastal Change: A Combined Report For The North Devon Unesco Biosphere Reserve And The North Devon World Surfing Reserve, Kizzy Beaumont

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Executive summaryNorth Devon’s coastline sits within a layered governance setting, including statutory marine plans, inshore fisheries management, coastal and shoreline planning, protected areas, and seasonal bathing water monitoring, led by national regulators and local authorities. Within this wider context, this study focuses on how two non-statutory designations, the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and the North Devon World Surfing Reserve (WSR), canwork together. The work forms part of a PhD on Transformative Ocean Governance and was motivated by the North Devon WSR’s designation and the opportunity to understand how the two designations might complement each other in practice. We convened …

Surfing Towards Shared Futures - Comparative Insights From Australia's World Surfing Reserves: Part Of The Series: Transformative Ocean Governance In Australia’S World Surfing Reserves - A Community-Centred Perspective, Kizzy Beaumont

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Executive summaryThis comparative report brings together insights from the Noosa, Gold Coast, and Manly-Freshwater World Surfing Reserves (WSRs), showing how locally led stewardship delivers cultural, environmental, and economic value for coastal communities. Using a Transformative Ocean Governance lens, the analysis synthesises participant perspectives from focus groups and interviews alongside a desk-based review of official materials. Across the three sites there is clear commitment to surf culture, environmental care, and participation, with practical innovations already visible in education, etiquette, and community engagement.The sites follow different but complementary governance paths. Noosa demonstrates how independent stewardship can sit alongside council activity and deliver …

Large Marine Protected Areas Can Encompass Movements Of Diverse Megafauna, Alice M. Trevail, Ruth E. Dunn, Peter Carr, Nicole Esteban, Robin Freeman, Joanna L. Harris, Malcolm A.C. Nicoll, Nia Stephens, Guy M.W. Stevens, Stephen C. Votier, Hannah Wood, Graeme C. Hays

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Global calls for greater ocean protection have sparked renewed interest in very large marine protected areas (VLMPAs, >100,000 km²) to achieve management targets; however, their conservation value is debated. We assessed the suitability of a VLMPA (640,000 km²) in the Indian Ocean for capturing the movements of resident mobile marine megafauna. We found that 95% of foraging, breeding and/or locally migrating individuals occurred within the VLMPA despite variable habitat use; adult hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata, n = 22, 6124 tracking days) foraged on mesophotic banks (>30 m depth), reef manta rays (Mobula alfredi, n = …

Temperature-Driven Plasticity In Boldness, Its Predictability And Learning In The Beadlet Anemone, Actinia Equina, Samantha Simpson, Dunia Gonzales, Mark Briffa

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Variation in ambient temperature is for poikilothermic animals a key driver of behavioural variation because of its multiplicative effects on metabolic rate. Apart from the fundamental environmental source of behavioural variation, understanding the effects of temperature is also important in the context of predicted climate change scenarios. In particular, behavioural responses to extreme temperature fluctuation could represent maladaptive responses to rapidly changing environments. However, behavioural responses to moderate temperature fluctuations, within ranges that are routinely experienced, likely represent adaptive plasticity. Recent studies have addressed this question within an animal personality framework, which can quantify the effects of temperature regime across …

The Great Scrape: The Clash Between Scraping And Privacy, Daniel J. Solove, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems depend on massive quantities of data, often gathered by “scraping”—the automated extraction of large amounts of data from the internet. A great deal of scraped data contains people’s personal information. This personal data provides the grist for AI tools such as facial recognition, deep fakes, and generative AI. Although scraping enables web searching, archiving of records, and meaningful scientific research, scraping for AI can also be objectionable and even harmful to individuals and society.

Organizations are scraping at an escalating pace and scale, even though many privacy laws are seemingly incongruous with the practice. In this …

Working Paper: Zero-Sum Thinking, Meritocratic Beliefs, And Preferences For Basic Income And Universal Healthcare, David Chavanne

Economics Faculty Publications

This study uses survey responses to explore how support for basic income and universal healthcare is linked to zero-sum thinking and meritocratic beliefs. Consistent with earlier work, I find that zero-sum thinking and weaker meritocratic beliefs both lead to greater levels of support for basic income and universal healthcare. Using a path analysis, zero-sum thinking is also found to strengthen support for basic income and universal healthcare along two separate channels -- one via zero-sum thinking’s direct effect on policy support and a second via an indirect effect, whereby zero-sum thinking is attached to weaker beliefs in meritocracy, which in …

The Military's Constitutional Role, Brenner M. Fissell

Faculty Publications

A basic principle of the American constitutional order is that civilian authority must be supreme over that of the military. The violation of this principle by the British was one of the grievances enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, and the Framers responded with a Constitution that made military rule impossible. But why is so-called “civilian control” of the military so important? This deep normative question has yet to be thoroughly answered by scholars, most of who assume it away as a given. This Article takes up that task, using contemporary political theory to defend the principle of civilian control. …

Deep Learning In Archiving Indus Script And Motif Information, Vaishnavi Dixit, Nushrat Hussain, Shubham Basak, Deva Atturu, Debasis Mitra, Ujjwal Bhattacharya

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

This work presents a novel computational system for the automated digitization of image-based data from seals of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). The objective of this system’s design is to automatically extract and archive key information from seals or images, including the script and motifs. The system operates as a pipeline comprising three deep learning models integrated with a custom-designed database. Two models form the Ancient Script Recognition network (ASR-net), which digitizes sequences of graphemes from Indus seals, similar to Optical Character Recognition for modern languages. The third model, the Motif Identification network (MI-net), identifies recurring motifs—distinctive symbols or …

Enhancing Electric Vehicle Security And Privacy Through Decentralized Identity Management, Abdullah Aydeger, Engin Zeydan, Josep Mangues-Bafalluy, Suayb S. Arslan, Turk Yekta

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In the next decade, Electric Vehicles (EVs) are expected to contribute to reducing climate change and transforming road mobility significantly. However, the security and privacy of EV charging systems pose considerable challenges that need to be addressed. This article introduces a novel approach by integrating blockchain-based Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) to enhance the security and privacy of EV charging systems. By leveraging the decentralized and immutable nature of blockchain, the proposed SSI framework can ensure secure and private data exchanges between EVs, charging stations, and backend systems. This three-way integration addresses the vulnerabilities identified in existing EV charging methods, such as …

Redefining The Scope Of Anti-Discrimination Law: Illuminating Colorism As A Basis For Discrimination Claims By Black Entertainers, Tolulope Odunsi-Nelson

Faculty Scholarship

This Article critically examines the pervasive issue of colorism within the entertainment industry and its profound impact on dark-skinned Black entertainers. Anti-Black colorism is discrimination against Black people with darker skin tones and Afrocentric features (i.e. darker eye color, kinkier hair, broader nose, fuller lips). Tracing the historical roots of colorism from the colonial era to contemporary times, the Article emphasizes how societal preferences for Eurocentric features and anti-Black racism have created and perpetuated a hierarchy that disadvantages darker-skinned individuals. It analyzes the underrepresentation and pay disparities faced by dark-skinned Black actors and actresses. It details the industry’s preference for …

Title Ix And Athlete Compensation In The Postamateurism Era, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay argues that Title IX applies to all manners of compensation that universities provide and facilitate to their athletes because of their athletic participation. This includes paying wages (when and if that becomes permissible), paying for NIL (when that permission takes effect), and facilitating payments from booster collectives that are working on those universities’ behalf (as happens now). The statute and its implementing regulations create a structure of substantive equality that is flexible enough to address even the changing landscape of college athletics as it applies to matters of compensation that were not contemplated by the drafters of the …

The Transnationalisation Of Civil Society In East Asia’S War Redress Movement, Timothy Webster

Faculty Scholarship

Transnational human rights litigation is commonly associated with developments in Europe and the Americas during the 1990s. But Asian actors have used legal mobilisation to hold corporate actors to account since at least the 1970s. This chapter charts the first usages of transnational litigation in East Asia’s Word War II redress movement, akin to the Holocaust Restitution movement of the West. Korean and Chinese forced labourers liaised with Japanese attorneys, activists and academics to press compensation claims against Japanese corporations for wartime human rights abuses in Tokyo. Legal mobilisation did not succeed in the traditional sense. Yet, the formation of …

Formal Victories And Roads Not Taken: Excavating Departures And Throughlines In Challenges To The Place Of Marriage, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

A decade after Obergefell, Professor Mayeri’s fascinating and meticulously detailed new book, Marital Privilege: Marriage, Inequality, and the Transformation of American Law, tells the stories of “marriage’s challengers,”from the 1960s to the beginning of the twenty-first century.¹⁶ Along with the stories of some “well-known” lawyers, advocates, and scholars, Mayeri also “rescu[es]” the stories of now “obscure” Americans who “pushed marital boundaries” to protect their parental rights, their careers, or their “freedom to make decisions about their bodies and families.”¹⁷ Such rescue allows readers to “see change as a bottom-up as well as a top-down process.”¹⁸ Mayeri …

The Power Of Subnational Actors In Enforcement Of The Convention On Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, Wendy Erickson

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

The Geneva Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) was adopted in 1979 and continues to serve as the preeminent international framework for transboundary air pollution. The international community has used a range of multilateral and bilateral cooperative arrangements to address international movement of harmful pollutants. Each has had to contend with the issue of ensuring compliance among party States. CLRTAP faces challenges in addressing transboundary pollution in non-Western countries despite clear evidence that air pollution is harmful to human health and technological developments that enable more accurate tracking of pollutants. In the absence of a model assigning liability for …

Solving Standing Is Simply The Start: Climate Litigation Lessons Learned From The Evolution Of Rights Of Nature, Madeleine L. Kim

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

The global climate crisis continues to worsen. The Sixth Synthesis Report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2023 unequivocally stated that “[w]idespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred” and that “[h]uman-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe.” This report expressly states that climate change has “led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people” and that the “projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages from climate change escalate with every increment of global warming." However, …

The Alien Tort Statute And U.S. Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: Legal And Economic Corporate Governance Implications Beyond Al Shimari V. Caci Int'l, Gabriel Richardson

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

This note is divided into four overall parts. To continue with the academic dialogue regarding the ATS, the first part (Part I) deals with the historical overview and case law of the ATS, while contrasting the development of extraterritoriality in the United States with that abroad (particularly, Europe). More specifically, the first part is divided into two subparts—Subpart A provides a comprehensive background and historical legal overview of the ATS and Subpart B discusses the international trend, particularly in Europe, in extending legal mechanisms to hold corporations accountable beyond their borders, unlike the United States—which, again, was once at the …

Design Problems, Mark P. Mckenna, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay draws on our empirical research into designers and their work to investigate the limits of intellectual property law for achieving its goal of progress in the design context. We focus on two related aspects of our research and also address a pressing doctrinal question in design patent law. The two research questions we discuss are: (1) How do designers conceive of and solve design problems through innovative design practice?; and (2) How do designers incorporate human values of coherence, inclusivity, and sustainability in their process, imbuing their practice with a kind of politics? The related doctrinal question concerns …