Loughborough Institute of Advanced Studies Podcast

Professor Erik P. Bucy - Learning from Media Scandal: How Coverage of Press Crises Primes...

Fulbright Scholarship Fellow Professor Erik P. Bucy delivers a seminar on their research, fully titled "Learning from Media Scandal: How Coverage of Press Crises Primes Accountability and Reaffirms Faith in a Socially Responsible Press" -
Can we learn from media scandal? This talk argues we can, by studying how coverage of scandal in the wake of crisis primes accountability and other press values, shaping attitudes about media performance generally and offending organizations more specifically. The broader project from which this work is derived examines media scandals and news dilemmas in cross-national perspective beginning with disclosures of the News of the World phone hacking scandal in 2010 and continuing with media peccadillos to the present. Unlike political scandals, which have received sustained scholarly examination, the subject of press misconduct has received inadequate research attention and academic analysis outside of articles and tracts about the tabloid press or lapses in journalistic ethics despite significant harms to individuals and costs to information integrity. This project aims to rectify this deficit in understanding and identify how news coverage around media crisis works to reaffirm faith in a socially responsible press.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Dr Rudabeh Shahid - Geopolitics and Statelessness in South Asia

IAS Residential Fellow Dr Rudabeh Shahid delivers a seminar on their research -
This keynote speech addresses the issue of statelessness in South Asia, emphasizing the region's geopolitical dynamics. It begins by defining statelessness and discussing its impact on human rights. It continues by exploring historical factors that have contributed to statelessness, including the Partition of India and the legacy of colonialism. The talk additionally presents case studies from Myanmar and Sri Lanka, demonstrating how national policies and ethnic conflicts have resulted in large populations of stateless individuals, leading to severe socio-economic and political challenges. Additionally, the presentation examines the role of major global players such as China, the US, UK, and Japan in shaping the geopolitical landscape of South Asia. The presentation underscores the complex relationship between national security and human rights obligations, thereby calling for coordinated efforts by South Asian nations and international organizations to devise and execute strategies that tackle both the immediate effects and the root causes of statelessness.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Dr Alison Barnes - Graphic heritage: Politics, power & placemaking

IAS Residential Fellow Dr Alison Barnes delivers a seminar on their research -
Retail streets are full of graphic communication such as signage, imagery, pattern, and colour. This can be defined as a form of everyday urban graphic heritage that not only enables people to experience or be informed about heritage, but also informs our understanding of, and relationship with, place. This seminar will primarily focus on two very different shopping areas within Walthamstow in London, one of which has, in part, been the recipient of a planned National Lottery funded Townscape Heritage Regeneration scheme. By applying a combination of detailed attention to the visual outcomes of design decisions while situating these in relevant broader theoretical, social, cultural, and political contexts the seminar will discuss how the power and politics inherent in these seemingly mundane design choices can impact on one’s experience of place.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Associate Professor Lisanne du Plessis - “Break free, grow tall, reach far” – a systems approach for STUNTING reduction

IAS Visiting Fellow Associate Professor Lisanne du Plessis delivers a seminar on their research, fully titled "“Break free, grow tall, reach far” – a systems approach for STUNTING reduction" -
The nutritional status of young children in South Africa is of great concern. Stunting in a quarter of children under five is particularly alarming, since it poses significant costs on health, cognitive development, schooling, and economic performance in future. Overweight and obesity in this age group is also on the increase. The multiple burdens of malnutrition reflects a food system that is failing. This stems from inequalities of the past with persistent issues of access and agency, but also highlights unscrupulous actions of big food companies. To address these challenges, requires working with government, communities, civil society organisations and researchers to understand the complexities and work collectively to identify innovations and effective interventions to reverse the numbers. The presentation will share a systems approach to understand the multiple burdens of malnutrition and to identify community-based approaches to improving early childhood development, nutrition, and health for the future generation South Africans.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Professor Helena D Cooper-Thomas - The trials and tribulations of entering a tournament workplace: The case of new Members of Parliament

IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Helena D Cooper-Thomas delivers a seminar on their research - 
Workplace tournaments are characterized by competitive environments where individuals vie for resources and advancement. Tournaments are particularly prevalent at senior levels, yet little is known about how elite newcomers experience and respond to such adversarial contexts. To address this gap, we conducted qualitative research with new members of New Zealand’s Parliament, drawing on interviews and media case studies. Our findings shed light on both the key tournament challenges faced by elite newcomers and how these newcomers use promote and protect reputational strategies to navigate such challenges. We also show that the most successful tournament newcomers develop sophisticated patterns of reputational strategy use early on. Our research raises intriguing questions about the practical implications of exposing elite newcomers to workplace tournaments. Is “trial by fire” an efficient process for forging effective performers, or does it unnecessarily burn up those who could have contributed?
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias
 

Professor Niels Ørtenblad - Muscle failure: the role and mechanisms of energy in skeletal muscle fatigue

As part of the IAS Festival of Failure, IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Niels Ørtenblad delivers a seminar, with an introduction on sporting failure from Pro Vice-Chancellor for Sport, Professor Jo Maher.
Skeletal muscles have an impressive force and power generating capacity. However, with intense or prolonged activation muscle function is reduced, termed fatigue. Despite a broad interest of the scientific community, fundamental questions remain unsolved about how activation per se is affected by exercise or disuse and how metabolism affects muscle regulation. It is herein remarkable how precise skeletal muscle fibers with a high and fluctuating energy-turnover, balance energy utilization with production, preventing loss of energy and thereby cell integrity. With an integrative approach, i.e. combining data from whole body human experiments, including high level athletes, though to more mechanistic models, I will discuss metabolic factors contributing to impaired force generating capacity. I will particularly focus on the role of muscle glucose stores (glycogen), as we and colleagues in the field, have recently demonstrated that the muscle glycogen, serves as an energy sensor, contributing to muscle function and fatigue.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Professor Ruqiang Yan - Physics-Informed Deep Learning Empowering Intelligent Fault Diagnosis

As part of the IAS Festival of Failure, IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Ruqiang Yan delivers a seminar -
The Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) system revolutionizes the management of complex high-end equipment throughout its entire lifecycle, enabling intelligent operation and maintenance in the era of Industry 4.0. Within this system, fault diagnosis plays a pivotal role and is undergoing significant transformation. Presently, data-intensive science, propelled by deep learning, has surpassed the constraints of physics-based models in handling big data, emerging as a crucial approach for diagnosis. However, the lack of intuitive comprehension of physics models presents challenges to data science in terms of interpretability and reliability. This talk focuses on a collaborative approach that integrates data science with physics models to achieve intelligent fault diagnosis through collaborative deep learning structures known as physics-informed deep learning. This collaborative approach offers advantages in interpretability, controllability, and knowledge discovery, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of the evolution of physical systems in the big data era.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Associate Professor Wyke Stommel - (Resolving) failure in interaction with a robot

As part of the IAS Festival of Failure, IAS Visiting FellowAssociate Professor Wyke Stommel delivers a seminar on their area of research -
In this presentation, I argue that failure is an endogenous phenomenon, something participants establish locally and collaboratively in social interaction. Failure in social interaction may consist of misunderstandings, disagreement or some other social problem, reaching the interactional level in retro-sequences (Schegloff, 2007) of ostensibly noticings, either overtly or indirectly (e.g., laughter, initiation of repair). I examine fragments of interaction between a robot, a nurse and an elderly person, in which the participants notice some environmental prompt (talk or other perceptual feature) as problematic with respect to the progressivity of the interaction and/or socially. Finding a way out of the trouble sometimes includes questionable solutions. This type of analysis provides insights in how technologies may involve failure on the microlevel of their use.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Professor Antulio J. Echevarria II - Conflict & strategic policy failure

As part of the IAS Festival of Failure, IAS Visiting Fellow Professor Antulio J. Echevarria II delivers a seminar on their area of research -
This presentation draws from a monograph (under development) that contributes to debates concerning the West's failure to deter Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the implications for Integrated Deterrence. First, it describes the deterrence policy and supporting strategy the US and NATO implemented vis-à-vis Ukraine. If the West had no deterrence strategy in place, there's no point critiquing it. Second, it offers an alternative to the West's risk-averse approach to deterrence. This alternative uses a risk-consequence decision-calculus rather than a traditional cost-benefit one, since authoritarian regimes may not have cost ceilings that democracies can threaten given moral and material constraints. Finally, it offers some initial recommendations for NATO/EU militaries.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias

Festival of Failure Launch - Dr Michael Shaw

The opening plenary session of the Festival of Failure is an opportunity for all to meet, connect and discuss notions of failure across the university’s disciplines; to consider how its disadvantages can be minimised and some of its potential benefits exploited.
Recent events show how failure can affect entire nations as well as individuals be it physically, socially or mentally. From the world’s conflict zones and the migration of peoples, to the welfare of athletes and management of crime, across society and countries there is a pattern of failure to act or failure from acting. With the current Horizon scandal at the Post Office being a prime example. Failure in sport can be understood from the sub-cellular level up to and including failures of governance within organisations such as the International Olympic Committee and FIFA.
This multi-scale view of failure will be highlighted in this introductory session where four international fellows have been invited to focus discussions on the language and psychology of failure, the failure to tolerate exercise from the cellular to the whole organism level, failure in conflict and philosophical belief systems: alongside system failures in engineering and software.
Here one of the Festival leads, Dr Michael Shaw (School of Design and Creative Arts), discusses their thoughts on the topic.
For more information about the IAS, please visit - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/ias