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Early Words with Childminders is a programme aiming to support the practice of childminders by providing them evidence-based activities and strategies that foster children's early language development, and confidence and skills to engage with parents. Piloted between September and December 2023, the programme provides practitioners with training and a bank of carefully designed resources that include full session plans for 6 weekly sessions, as well as advice and activity cards to facilitate parents' engagement. This report summarises findings from data collected during the pilot from a group of 11 childminders. It gives an insight into their experiences with the first iteration of Early Words for Childminders, with a focus on the feasibility of delivery in the childminders' contexts and the learning benefits for this group of practitioners. [This report delivered in partnership with Bristol & Beyond Stronger Practice Hub and Swindon Borough Council.]

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) provide precise measurements of the cosmic expansion history through the comoving acoustic scale. The CMB angular scale measurement $\theta_*$ is particularly robust, constraining the ratio of the sound horizon to the angular diameter distance to last scattering independently of the late-time cosmological model. For models with standard early-universe physics, this measurement strongly constrains possible deviations from $\Lambda$CDM at late times. We show that the null energy condition imposes strict inequalities on the BAO observables $D_H(z)$, $D_M(z)$, $D_V(z)$ and $F_{\rm AP}(z)$ relative to $\Lambda$CDM predictions. These inequalities demonstrate that certain deviations from $\Lambda$CDM are impossible for any physical dark energy model that respects the null energy condition. We also identify the regions of parameter space in the CPL parameterization $w(a) = w_0 + w_a(1-a)$ that can give predictions consistent with both the null energy condition and the observed CMB scale. While current DESI DR1 BAO measurements exhibit slight joint-constraint parameter tensions with $\Lambda$CDM, this tension only arises in directions that are inconsistent with the null-energy condition, so $\Lambda$CDM is favoured by acoustic scale measurements unless the null-energy condition is violated., Comment: 10 pages, 6 Figures

The secular manifold $\Sigma_G$ and its singularities are intimately related to the spectra of metric graphs $(G,\ell)$. In this paper, we present a complete description of the singular locus for tree graphs, and confirm that it agrees with a conjecture of Colin de Verdi\`ere. We also discuss numerous applications toward studying the behavior of metric tree graphs.

The river Ganga is one of the Earth's most critically important river basins, yet it faces significant pollution challenges, making it crucial to evaluate its vulnerability for effective and targeted remediation efforts. While the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is widely regarded as the standard in decision making methodologies, uncertainties arise from its dependence on expert judgments, which can introduce subjectivity, especially when applied to remote sensing data, where expert knowledge might not fully capture spatial and spectral complexities inherent in such data. To address that, in this paper, we applied AHP alongside a suite of alternative existing and novel variants of AHP-based decision analysis on remote sensing data to assess the vulnerability of the river Ganga to pollution. We then compared the areas where the outputs of each variant may provide additional insights over AHP. Lastly, we utilized our learnings to design a composite variable to robustly define the vulnerability of the river Ganga to pollution. This approach contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of remote sensing data applications in environmental assessment, and these decision making variants can also have broader applications in other areas of environment management and sustainability, facilitating more precise and adaptable decision support frameworks.

We explore transdisciplinary collaborations between artists and roboticists across a portfolio of artworks. Brendan Walker's Broncomatic was a breath controlled mechanical rodeo bull ride. Blast Theory's Cat Royale deployed a robot arm to play with a family of three cats for twelve days. Different Bodies is a prototype improvised dance performance in which dancers with disabilities physically manipulate two mirrored robot arms. We reflect on these to explore how artists shape robotics research through the two key strategies of improvisation and provocation. Artists are skilled at improvising extended robot experiences that surface opportunities for technology-focused design, but which also require researchers to improvise their research processes. Artists may provoke audiences into reflecting on the societal implications of robots, but at the same time challenge the established techno-centric concepts, methods and underlying epistemology of robotics research., Comment: 16th International Conference on Social Robotics (ISCR 2024)

The merger timescales of isolated low-mass pairs ($\rm 10^8

Ultralight scalars emerge naturally in several motivated particle physics scenarios and are viable candidates for dark matter. While laboratory detection of such bosons is challenging, their existence in nature can be imprinted on measurable properties of astrophysical black holes (BHs). The phenomenon of superradiance can convert the BH spin kinetic energy into a bound cloud of scalars. In this letter, we propose a new technique for directly measuring the mass of a dark cloud around a spinning BH. We compare the measurement of the BH spin obtained with two independent electromagnetic techniques: continuum fitting and iron K$\alpha$ spectroscopy. Since the former technique depends on a dynamical observation of the BH mass while the latter does not, a mismatch between the two measurements can be used to infer the presence of additional extended mass around the BH. We find that a precision of $\sim 1\%$ on the two spin measurements is required to exclude the null hypothesis of no dark mass around the BH at a 2$\sigma$ confidence level for dark masses about a few percent of the BH mass, as motivated in some superradiance scenarios., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Main text 5 pages, 2 figures, 1 table

This paper explores expert accounts of autonomous systems (AS) development in the medical device domain (MD) involving applications of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and other algorithmic and mathematical modelling techniques. We frame our observations with respect to notions of responsible innovation (RI) and the emerging problem of how to do RI in practice. In contribution to the ongoing discourse surrounding trustworthy autonomous system (TAS) [29], we illuminate practical challenges inherent in deploying novel AS within existing governance structures, including domain specific regulations and policies, and rigorous testing and development processes, and discuss the implications of these for the distribution of responsibility in novel AI deployment., Comment: To be published in Second International Symposium on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems, September 15 18, 2024, Austin, Texas

This second international workshop on explainable AI for the Arts (XAIxArts) brought together a community of researchers in HCI, Interaction Design, AI, explainable AI (XAI), and digital arts to explore the role of XAI for the Arts. Workshop held at the 16th ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition (C&C 2024), Chicago, USA., Comment: Proceedings of The second international workshop on eXplainable AI for the Arts (XAIxArts)

This paper introduces a novel methodological approach for surfacing the acceptability and adoption challenges that confront future and emerging technologies from the perspective of mundane action, in which they will ultimately be embedded and used. This novel approach configures design fiction as a breaching experiment to surface taken for granted background expectancies that are fateful for acceptability and adoption. We explain the logic of this new interdisciplinary method and present a concrete case to demonstrate its viability: a design fiction called Experiencing the Future Mundane (EFM), which depicts a future world in which watching TV is driven by smart adaptive media. We explicate the design of the EFM, how it was configured to breach common sense knowledge and surface taken for granted background expectancies concerning how watching TV works and is expected to work, the acceptability and adoption challenges that emerge from user engagement with the experience, and how this novel approach may be adopted more broadly.

While ethical challenges are widely discussed in HCI, far less is reported about the ethical processes that researchers routinely navigate. We reflect on a multispecies project that negotiated an especially complex ethical approval process. Cat Royale was an artist-led exploration of creating an artwork to engage audiences in exploring trust in autonomous systems. The artwork took the form of a robot that played with three cats. Gaining ethical approval required an extensive dialogue with three Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) covering computer science, veterinary science and animal welfare, raising tensions around the welfare of the cats, perceived benefits and appropriate methods, and reputational risk to the University. To reveal these tensions we introduce beneficiary-epistemology space, that makes explicit who benefits from research (humans or animals) and underlying epistemologies. Positioning projects and IRBs in this space can help clarify tensions and highlight opportunities to recruit additional expertise., Comment: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24), May 11--16, 2024, Honolulu, HI, USA

We reflect on the design of a multispecies world centred around a bespoke enclosure in which three cats and a robot arm coexist for six hours a day during a twelve-day installation as part of an artist-led project. In this paper, we present the project's design process, encompassing various interconnected components, including the cats, the robot and its autonomous systems, the custom end-effectors and robot attachments, the diverse roles of the humans-in-the-loop, and the custom-designed enclosure. Subsequently, we provide a detailed account of key moments during the deployment and discuss the design implications for future multispecies systems. Specifically, we argue that designing the technology and its interactions is not sufficient, but that it is equally important to consider the design of the `world' in which the technology operates. Finally, we highlight the necessity of human involvement in areas such as breakdown recovery, animal welfare, and their role as audience., Comment: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24), May 11--16, 2024, Honolulu, HI, USA

The influence of the channel shape in a junctionless silicon-on-insulator finned field-effect transistor (JL SOI FinFET) on the amplitude of random telegraph noise (RTN) induced by single interface trapped charge has been simulated for the transistors with rectangular, trapezoidal, and triangular fin cross sections. The simulation of the RTN amplitude distribution along the channel induced by a single charge trapped at interface defect located at the fin top and at sidewall of JL SOI FinFETs with channels of different shapes is considered. It is established that at trapping the single charge at sidewall surface of the channel, the lowest RTN amplitude is seen for the triangular cross-section and the highest for the rectangular and trapezoidal cross-sections. At the single charge trapping at the top surface of the channel, the RTN amplitude is higher for the rectangle than for the trapezoidal cross-section.