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This study proposes an integrated Machine Learning and simulated framework for a personalized learning system. This framework aims to improve the integrity of the provided tasks, adapt to each student individually and ultimately enhance students' academic performance.

This methodology comprises two components. (1) A simulation-based system that utilizes reinforcement algorithms to assign additional questions to students who do not reach pass grade thresholds. (2) A Machine Learning system that uses the data from the system to identify the drivers of passing or failing and predict the likelihood of each student passing or failing based on their engagement with the simulated system.

The results of this study offer preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed simulation system and indicate that such a system has the potential to foster improvements in learning outcomes.

As with all empirical studies, this research has limitations. A simulation study is an abstraction of reality and may not be completely accurate. Student performance in real-world environments may be higher than estimated in this simulation, reducing the required teacher support.

The developed personalized learning (PL) system demonstrates a strong foundation for improving students' performance, particularly within a blended learning context. The findings indicate that simulated performance using the system exhibited improvement when individual students experienced higher learning benefits tailored to their needs.

The research offers evidence of the effectiveness of personalized learning systems and highlights their capacity to drive improvements in education. The proposed system holds the potential to enhance learning outcomes by tailoring tasks to meet the unique needs of each student.

This study contributes to the growing literature on personalized learning, emphasizing the importance of leveraging machine learning in educational technologies to enable precise predictions of student performance.

Wire + arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) uses existing welding technology to make a part from metal deposited in an almost net shape. WAAM is flexible in that it can use multiple materials successively or simultaneously during the manufacturing of a single component.

In this work, a gas metal arc welding (GMAW) based wire + arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) system has been developed to use two material successively and fabricate bimetallic additively manufactured structure (BAMS) of low carbon steel and AISI 316L stainless steel (SS).

The interface shows two distinctive zones of LCS and SS deposits without any weld defects. The hardness profile shows a sudden increase of hardness at the interface, which is attributed to the migration of chromium from the SS. The tensile test results show that the bimetallic specimens failed at the LCS side, as LCS has lower strength of the materials used.

The microstructural features and mechanical properties are studied in-depth with special emphasis on the bimetallic interface.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of voluntary disclosures in UK higher education institutions’ (HEIs) annual reports and examine whether internal governance structures influence disclosure in the period following major reform and funding constraints.

The authors adopt a modified version of Coy and Dixon’s (2004) public accountability index, referred to in this paper as a public accountability and transparency index (PATI), to measure the extent of voluntary disclosures in 130 UK HEIs’ annual reports. Informed by a multi-theoretical framework drawn from public accountability, legitimacy, resource dependence and stakeholder perspectives, the authors propose that the characteristics of governing and executive structures in UK universities influence the extent of their voluntary disclosures.

The authors find a large degree of variability in the level of voluntary disclosures by universities and an overall relatively low level of PATI (44 per cent), particularly with regards to the disclosure of teaching/research outcomes. The authors also find that audit committee quality, governing board diversity, governor independence and the presence of a governance committee are associated with the level of disclosure. Finally, the authors find that the interaction between executive team characteristics and governance variables enhances the level of voluntary disclosures, thereby providing support for the continued relevance of a “shared” leadership in the HEIs’ sector towards enhancing accountability and transparency in HEIs.

In spite of significant funding cuts, regulatory reforms and competitive challenges, the level of voluntary disclosure by UK HEIs remains low. Whilst the role of selected governance mechanisms and “shared leadership” in improving disclosure, is asserted, the varying level and selective basis of the disclosures across the surveyed HEIs suggest that the public accountability motive is weaker relative to the other motives underpinned by stakeholder, legitimacy and resource dependence perspectives.

This is the first study which explores the association between HEI governance structures, managerial characteristics and the level of disclosure in UK HEIs.

The research on the positive effects of children’s learning in and with nature is persuasive yet a deeper examination of the contemporary and historical discourses suggests that the school garden has been neither welcoming nor accessible to all children. Its detrimental effects on groups of children have been masked within the discourses of urban children’s health and wellbeing, environmental stewardship, and children’s connection with nature. The school garden has been used historically to enact adult agendas to contain and protect urban children from the social ills of modernity; civilise and assimilate marginalised, impoverished, and immigrant groups; and make future industrial and agricultural labourers who would in turn, entrench the white affluent society’s economic and social positions. In this sense, the school garden was used to reinforce patriarchal, colonial, white supremacist, and eugenic aspirations. We consider the school garden movement in North America through a discourse analysis of historical school garden texts to explore how childhoods were culturally constructed and how these discourses have influenced children both in the past and present.

Purpose – This chapter has three general purposes: to trace Canada’s hate speech laws from their policy inception to their current state; to identify the importance that media and mass communication have played in the creation and development of Canada’s hate speech laws; and to demonstrate the critical relationship that media has had to significant legal cases on hate speech. Methodology/Approach – This chapter historically maps the policy development of and legal challenges to Canada’s hate speech laws. It takes directed notice of the relationship of media and mass communication to the development and implementation of those laws. It engages with libertarian and egalitarian arguments on free speech throughout the chapter testing these ideas through an examination of the legal cases cited. Findings – Canadian legislators and courts have long grappled with the balancing of rights with respect to the issue of “hate speech.” Advances in mass communication technology have added intricate challenges to that legal balancing. Awareness of media’s allure to hatemongers and racial extremists and of media’s protean characteristics make regulation of its hateful content a continuous legal challenge. Canada’s greatest challenge yet to the regulation of hate speech will be its adaptive response to the growing phenomenon of online hate. Originality/Value – This chapter highlights the little recognized prescient statements made by the Cohen Committee about the allure of media and the dangers of its technological advancements in Canadian free speech debates. Providing a comprehensive survey of Canada’s “hate speech” laws, it recognizes the importance that advancements in mass communication have played in the creation and development of Canada’s “hate speech” laws.

This article discusses how the concepts of exploration and exploitation are fruitful for understanding individual fantasies of escape from the demands of contemporary workplaces. We examine one influential articulation of such fantasies, namely the best-selling self-help book “The 4-Hour Workweek.” This book advocates that individuals outsource the bulk of the routine (“exploitation”) tasks of their lives, leaving themselves free for creativity, play, and leisure (“exploration”). In this way, a radical separation of exploitation and exploration at the individual level is proposed. We examine the meanings and contradictions of such ideas by discussing how they may function as powerful escape fantasies for those facing corporate overwork. However, we argue that the solution proposed is unsatisfactory because of its individualism, which fails to see the inherently social nature of work and life.

The UK government has taken the lead in accelerating the capacity of higher education to engage with sustainability accounting and adopting a novel systematic approach toward a collective implementation of and contribution to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN SDG 16 “Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions” promotes the (re)building of effective and accountable institutions. In line with the institutional logics metatheory, we provide empirical evidence on how the alignment between social mechanisms alongside the reputation of higher education institutions (HEIs) and SDGs on transparent and responsible service (SDG 16) affect the students' overall experience. Using a sample of 142 UK HEIs, interpretative content analysis and ordinary least squares, the results show that integrating HEIs' responsible-oriented research agenda proactively with high sustainability reputation adds significantly to greater student satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the formation of service perceptions in services that are stressful and unpleasant for customers, e.g. healthcare services. The authors set out to show that customers' happiness, here conceptualized as a stable perception of happiness one has towards one's life, predicts how customers manage adverse services.

The authors conducted a survey in a healthcare setting and analyzed the data with partial least square modeling.

The results show that happiness is indirectly linked, through mood, to perceived service quality, trust and service outcome. Thus, the results suggest that happy consumers are less vulnerable to distress in adverse services.

The findings indicate that, to enable service providers to offer adequate support in adverse service situations, service management would benefit from taking into account different customers' different levels of happiness. It is recommended that providers of adverse services segment their customer base according to the level of happiness and allocate resources to foster trust and expectations to less happy customers that would benefit from more support.

The paper contributes to the service literature by providing an understanding of how service perceptions are formed in adverse service situations. As happiness is relatively stable across time and situations, this study also contributes to understanding the role of personality traits on evaluation.

An investigation of parallels between homegrown, international, and domestic terrorism.

A comparative method is used to analyze data from two main sources, ITERATE data on international and the TWEED data on domestic terrorism. The similarities are tested in various dimensions – target types, severity, and the method of the attacks.

Homegrown terrorism is inherently motivated by domestic issues. Moreover, variables of ethnic heterogeneity, political inclusiveness of fringe groups, and problems in the democratization process are good predictors of the occurrence of other forms of domestic and homegrown terrorism alike.

Number of observable cases of homegrown terrorism are low. The two main datasets have potentially overlapping incidents.

Provides and operational definition of homegrown terrorism and test empirically the similarity between homegrown and other types of terrorisms.

If the core purpose of transformative education is to challenge and reposition knowledge through a range of opportunities, then surfacing and attending to forms of student misconceptions (for example, through confusion, disequilibrium) are a necessary part of learning and teaching. We have come to understand that arriving at a clear view of a concept may involve a process of working through a range of misconceptions about a phenomenon or experience that may or may not create a threshold experience in a learner. We argue that the journey through conceptual change and thresholds requires a more nuanced emphasis on liminal spaces, where misconceptions and thresholds may reside. We offer a revised thresholds concept generic model that helps to identify student misconceptions as cycles within and through pre-liminal, liminal and post-liminal spaces. Two practice examples demonstrate the application of this model: (1) teaching and learning botanical literacy through a technology-rich, real-time mobile app and (2) embedding and measuring cultural competence as a graduate learning outcome in Australian universities. Each context offers a specific emphasis on highlighting the need to make all liminal learning spaces safer, as learners surface and engage with conceptual change. The conclusion suggests that conceptual change in student learning offers a form of threshold misconception.