Edinburgh Napier University

About: Edinburgh Napier University is a education organization based out in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 2665 authors who have published 6859 publications receiving 175272 citations.

Prospects for secure and sustainable electricity supply for Pakistan

Abstract: Fossil fuel reserves are diminishing rapidly across the world, intensifying the stress on existing reserves day-by-day due to increased demand. Not only that, fossil fuels, presently contributing to 80% of world primary energy, are inflicting enormous impacts on environment. Energy sector has a key role in this regard since energy during its production, distribution and consumption is responsible for producing environmentally harmful substances. There is an urgent need for a quicker switch over of energy systems from conventional to renewables that are sustainable and can meet the present and projected world energy demand. Hydrogen, in the capacity of energy vector and storage medium is expected to be the optimum solution for intermittency and storage of energy produced by renewables. Within the context of Pakistan solar and wind power are two of the most promising renewables. In this article, the current energy consumption for Pakistan is presented and the issue of security of electrical energy supply is discussed. Furthermore, the prospects for a large-scale switch over to renewables are also addressed and the relevant economies and underpinning rationale provided. It has been found that solar energy is a much more economical choice for Pakistan as compared to wind energy-respective costs for solar and wind energy are (US cents/kWh) 20 and 77. This is due to the fact barring the four monsoon months, the average wind speed for the remaining 8 months does not cross an economic threshold. On the contrary, it was found that solar energy has a fairly stable and consistent availability.

KM, culture and compromise: interventions to promote knowledge sharing supported by technology in corporate environments

Abstract: The theme of knowledge sharing is discussed extensively in the knowledge management literature. Such work tends to focus on the barriers that impede knowledge sharing activity. Of these 'culture' is commonly cited as a major obstacle. This article examines what is meant by the term 'culture'. In the context of efforts to promote good practice in knowledge management, it is argued that straightforward reference to culture as a barrier to knowledge sharing is inadequate. Rather, firms should be looking at power issues and, in particular, organizational politics to explain success and failure in attempts to motivate knowledge sharing. The domain of sociotechnical studies is considered as a means of unpicking cultural issues at work in specific environments through the deployment of actor-network theory to identify shifting organizational power relationships.

Loneliness and social isolation causal association with health-related lifestyle risk in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Abstract: The health impacts of loneliness and social isolation among older adults are widely acknowledged. Despite this, there is no consensus on the possible causal nature of this relationship, which could undermine effectiveness of interventions. One body of thought is that loneliness and social isolation affect health-related behaviours to indirectly damage health. However, there has not been any systematic assessment of the association between loneliness and social isolation and health-related behaviours which considers the possible impact from confounding factors and the causal direction of this association. The research will comprise a systematic review and meta-analysis to address the evidence gap. EMBASE, MEDLINE, PSYCINFO, CINAHL, SocIndex, Scopus and Web of Science will be systematically searched for quantitative observational studies considering an association between loneliness/social isolation and key health-related behaviours in older adults. Two reviewers will independently check the study titles and abstracts for eligibility. Included studies will be critically appraised using Newcastle-Ottawa Scale by the lead author and checked by the second reviewer. Discrepancies in eligibility or quality assessment will be resolved via discussion or referral to a third reviewer. Results will be synthesised and reported in accordance with the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) guidelines. This will be in the form of a descriptive summary, risk of bias assessment together with a meta-analysis and sub-group analyses (for covariate adjusted results) where sufficient heterogeneity of results is established. Finally, any associations identified will be analysed using the Bradford-Hill criteria to explore causal relationships which, if they exist, will be reported by means of a computed causations score. This review aims to assess the extent and causal nature of associations between loneliness/social isolation and health-related behaviours among older adults. This data will provide a comprehensive overview of the quality of the evidence base to inform stakeholders in tackling the growing public health challenges arising from loneliness/social isolation in ageing populations. PROSPERO CRD42017020845

Nonlinearly Weighted First-order Regression for Denoising Monte Carlo Renderings

Abstract: We address the problem of denoising Monte Carlo renderings by studying existing approaches and proposing a new algorithm that yields state-of-the-art performance on a wide range of scenes. We analyze existing approaches from a theoretical and empirical point of view, relating the strengths and limitations of their corresponding components with an emphasis on production requirements. The observations of our analysis instruct the design of our new filter that offers high-quality results and stable performance. A key observation of our analysis is that using auxiliary buffers normal, albedo, etc. to compute the regression weights greatly improves the robustness of zero-order models, but can be detrimental to first-order models. Consequently, our filter performs a first-order regression leveraging a rich set of auxiliary buffers only when fitting the data, and, unlike recent works, considers the pixel color alone when computing the regression weights. We further improve the quality of our output by using a collaborative denoising scheme. Lastly, we introduce a general mean squared error estimator, which can handle the collaborative nature of our filter and its nonlinear weights, to automatically set the bandwidth of our regression kernel.

Detecting Gender Bias in Peer Marking of Students' Group Process Work.

Abstract: Concerns relating to the reliability of teacher and student peer assessments are discussed, and some correlational analyses comparing student and teacher marks described. The benefits of the use of multiple ratings are elaborated. The distinction between gender differences and gender bias is drawn, and some studies which have reported gender bias are reviewed. The issue of ‘blind marking’ is addressed. A technique for detecting gender bias in cases where student raters have awarded marks to same and opposite sex peers is described, and illustrated by data from two case studies. Effect sizes were found to be very small, indicating an absence of gender bias in these two cases. Results are discussed in relation to task and other contextual variables. The authors conclude that the technique described can contribute to the good practice necessary to ensure the success of peer assessment in terms of pedagogical benefits and reliable and fair marking outcomes.