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This study explores the relation between risk of job automation and participation in adult education and training (AET) and examines variation in that relation across welfare regimes distinguishing between situational and institutional barriers. Using microdata of PIAAC, we analyze participation in formal or nonformal AET for job-related reasons in relation to the risk of automation of the respondents' occupation after controlling for main sociodemographic characteristics. Logistic regression models are run on respondents from 14 European countries representing different welfare regimes: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (Scandinavian countries); Italy, Greece, and Spain (Southern European); Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland (Central and Eastern Europe), Belgium, France, and Germany (Continental); and United Kingdom and Ireland (Anglo-Saxon countries). Our findings confirm that workers in occupations at high risk of automation were found to be consistently less likely to participate in job-related AET, quite irrespective of welfare regime. [The paper was presented at XIII Conferenza Espanet Italia--Il welfare state di fronte alle sfide globali (Venezia, 17 September 2020).]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on a designed research methodology to distil existing research findings from an esrc/ahrc funded japan/uk network on location-based virtual reality experiences for children in order to generate new knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: The structured co-production methodology was undertaken in three stages. These were: (1) a collaborative workshop which produced a series of collage narratives, (2) collaborating with a non-human entity in the form of a digital coded tool to reconfigure the workshop responses and mediate the hierarchy of roles, (3) the co-production of a zine as a collaborative reflection method, which shared via postal service enabled a dialogue and exchange of round Robin interventions by the network members. Findings: The analysis of the data collected in this study highlighted five themes that could be used by other researchers on a wide range of projects. These were: (1) knowing through making, (2) the importance of process, (3) beyond linear representations, (4) agency of physical materials and (5) agency of digital code. Research limitations/implications: The context of the study being undertaken during the first phase of the global pandemic, revealed insight into a method of co-production that was undertaken under emergency remote working conditions. The knowledge generated from this can be applied to other research contexts such as working with researchers or participants across global borders without the need to travel. Originality/value: The research provides an innovative rethinking of co-production methods in order to generate new knowledge from multidisciplinary and multimodal research.

AI and other forms of automation are causing a shift into a more capital-intensive form of capitalism. Many scholars have suggested that we can best understand this process as the cost-efficient substitution of labour by capital in routine tasks based on relative factor costs. However, this model, which has cast firms as endlessly chasing the productivity frontier, has not paid sufficient attention to cross-national divergences in technological changes. This paper builds a comparative historical case study tracing the divergent introduction of credit scoring in British and German bank branches to argue that the introduction of credit scoring was a result of a policy-led process in both countries. Increased liberalisation of financial market institutions benefitted the rise of market-led banking which fundamentally changed the business model of banks resulting in a devaluation of the services provided by branch managers. This case suggests we need to think about the role of politics and policy within our, often deterministic, models of labour-saving technological change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates the importance of considering lived experiences of adjunct teaching staff during the introduction of automated student messaging services in a UK Business School. With cost-orientated moves to expanding online provision through emergent technologies and the growth of alternative HE strategies, traditional group-orientated student and tutor interactions are developing into a continuum. Automated messages aim to increase retention, and standardise the student experience in terms of academic qualification communications. These messages, however, have necessarily required tutors unlearning previous pedagogical support routines, thus changing academic roles and in consequence impacting academic identity processes. The investigation adds to emerging literature by examining the impact on a group of adjunct faculty staff during change introduction. Study into these changes to academic routines has value, as much existing retention literature privileges the institutional or student experience, and much of learning/unlearning literature is in a non-educational setting.

The article focuses on the decline of British national newspapers. It says that the main factors affecting the decline are the actions made by the proprietors, unions and the government. It states that unreasonable pricing, market positioning, unreliable image because of strikes, and worsening distribution networks were among contributors to the deteriorating condition of the industry. It offers several actions and recommendations that proprietors should adopt in order to save the industry, which includes cutting of production and operating costs, persuading the unions to accept full automation, and moving some or all of the papers to one or more printing plants in England. It mentions the idea of entering to a joint operating agreements to keep the papers.

In the United Kingdom and further afield, policy discourse has focused on the efficiencies technology will afford the care sector by increasing workforce capacity at a time when there are recruitment and retention issues. Previous research has explored the impact of telecare and other technologies on roles within the care sector, but issues related to job quality and the consequences of newer digital technologies that are increasingly being deployed in care settings are under researched. Through an exploration of the literature on robotics and empirical studies of telecare and mainstream 'smart' digital technology use in UK adult social care, this paper examines how these technologies are generating new forms of work and their implications for job quality, arguing the tendency to prioritise technology results in the creation 'machine babysitters' and 'fauxtomatons'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1990s, the 'knowledge economy' was hailed as a key driver of future prosperity by progressive policymakers in developed democracies. According to its proponents, in the knowledge economy, companies and countries alike would succeed by cultivating workers' knowledge – as opposed to traditional forms of capital such as plant and machinery. This had radical implications for public policy, implying that education reform and other supply-side interventions could deliver inclusivity as well as prosperity. Today, however, this benevolent vision of the social and economic impacts of technological progress has been superseded by an altogether more dystopian view, associated with automation and the rise of artificial intelligence, as well as transformations in the digital economy and the evolving nature of globalisation. This paper analyses that transition. It charts the key assumptions of the knowledge economy concept, through an intellectual history that focuses on how these ideas manifested themselves in the rhetoric of the UK Government under Tony Blair. It then shows how evolving understandings of the digital economy, technological progress and globalisation challenge these assumptions, and the policy agenda that was premised on them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article cites a variety of sources and synthesizes a number of studies on the social implications of technological innovations (microelectronics). These studies were related to six European and Asian countries and were also concerned with the international division of labor. (SSH)

To date, vehicle manufacturers have largely been left to their own initiatives when it comes to the design, development and implementation of automated driving features. Whilst this has enabled developments within the field to accelerate at a rapid pace, we are also now beginning to see the negative aspects of automated design (e.g., driver complacency, automation misuse and ethical dilemmas). It is therefore becoming increasingly important to identify systemic aspects that can address some of these Human Factors challenges. This paper applies the principles of the Risk Management Framework to explore the wider systemic issues associated with automated driving in the United Kingdom through the novel application of network metrics. The authors propose a number of recommendations targeted at each level of the Risk Management Framework that seek to shift the power of influence away from vehicle manufacturers and back into the hands of governing bodies., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In the UK, the NDE community is making a coordinated effort to underpin and enable the full benefits of the large-scale trend toward comprehensive digitalization and automation of industrial processes and assets, frequently referred to as "Industry 4.0". Certain facets of what is now considered to be NDE 4.0 have been the subject of research for some time and have already gained industrial traction, while others are quite new, with unexplored potential and pitfalls. However, in these areas there is scope for learning from progress in fields outside of, but related to, NDE such as dimensional metrology. This paper reviews progress to date based on UK activities, considers some planned and potential research tasks in this domain, and highlights the major challenges the NDE community must tackle. In particular, as interoperability and data reuse are key features of Industry 4.0 practices, international and cross-domain efforts on data format standardization are needed. It is clear that, without the NDE community stepping up to the challenge, much of Industry 4.0 cannot be realized; yet if the NDE 4.0 vision is implemented comprehensively, NDE has the potential to become more capable, more valuable, and therefore more highly valued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine how robot adoption and Chinese import competition shaped employment patterns in 352 cities across the United Kingdom. We find that cities whose initial industry composition exposed them to industrial robots and China's integration into the world economy experienced significant employment declines. When pitched against other capital and technologies, the impact of robots remains distinct. Our findings suggest that one more robot per thousand workers reduced the employment-to-population ratio by 0.5 percentage points, while an increase of $1,000 imports from China per worker reduced the employment-to-population ratio by 0.11 percentage points. We also show that while these are sizable effects, penetration of both robots and Chinese imports are too small to account for Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a skeleton chronology of the computerization of archival description within the United Kingdom. Considering a period from the 1960s to the early 1990s, it describes many of the early experiments and systems developed in UK archives and sketches out how the vision of automation or ‘going digital’ changed over time, in line with advances and changes in the underlying technological landscape. It also seeks to consider how archivists reacted to the challenges of the computer both in terms of a move towards cooperation and working together, but also in terms of a growing focus on the standardisation of archival description and descriptive practice. This focus on standardisation is considered and interrogated through the interconnected lenses of both; a power struggle – the reassertion of professional (human) standards in a move towards specifying the requirements required by the machines; and the reconsideration of practice. It suggests that the answer as to the exact balance of power between archivist and computer probably remains mute, particularly in respect of the exact impact of the computer on driving changes in archivists’ thinking around their descriptive practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the importance of effective data management and automation when onboarding and carrying out KYC (know your customer) on clients, thereby providing a holistic view of the challenges and solutions in the client lifecycle management space. In most firms, KYC remains a largely manual, time-consuming and error-prone process. The lack of competency in this area is reflected in the high level of fines levied by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Last year the UK saw in excess of £229m fines issued for compliance breaches. We will investigate the data management practices and automation required by firms to comply with AML and KYC regulations, covering data completeness, timeliness and quality of data — so companies can demonstrate compliance to the fullest extent with the regulators. The key to success is being able to understand all the strategic implications of data management and how to align the firm's data strategy with the overall business and compliance strategy to ensure: A good customer experience Flexibility to react to regulatory and market changes Accountability for data ownership Internal commitment to data quality It covers the methodologies used to enable the control and management of end-to-end data — bringing data management, onboarding and KYC operations together to ensure optimum efficiency and regulatory compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated assistance in driving emergencies aims to improve the safety of our roads by avoiding or mitigating the effects of accidents. However, the behavioural implications of such systems remain unknown. This paper introduces the driver decision-making in emergencies (DDMiEs) framework to investigate how the level and type of automation may affect driver decision-making and subsequent responses to critical braking events using network analysis to interrogate retrospective verbalisations. Four DDMiE models were constructed to represent different levels of automation within the driving task and its effects on driver decision-making. Findings suggest that whilst automation does not alter the decision-making pathway (e.g. the processes between hazard detection and response remain similar), it does appear to significantly weaken the links between information-processing nodes. This reflects an unintended yet emergent property within the task network that could mean that we may not be improving safety in the way we expect. Practitioner Summary: This paper contrasts models of driver decision-making in emergencies at varying levels of automation using the Southampton University Driving Simulator. Network analysis of retrospective verbalisations indicates that increasing the level of automation in driving emergencies weakens the link between information-processing nodes essential for effective decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to devise a general solution that allows a policy-based (i.e. rule-based) management system to explain its operation. In particular, a solution has been developed and evaluated in the context of an automated home care system. Design/methodology/approach - The work has built on an existing policy-based management system called Advanced Component Control Enhancing Network Technologies (ACCENT). This includes automated management of home care using two forms of rules: higher-level (user) goals and lower-level (system) policies. These rules can be defined by users (typically carers) to personalise how the system should support the resident. In new work, the system has been extended to include an explanation facility that allows the user to understand the past and future behaviour of the system. Findings -An explanation facility has been created to explain the past and future behaviour of the system. An initial evaluation of this has been carried out with carers. The participants in this evaluation found the facility to be understandable and were able to use it effectively. Research limitations/implications -The work has made a useful extension to the design of policy-based systems in general. The initial evaluation with a limited group of users identified small weaknesses in the explanation facility that will be addressed in future work. The updated approach will then be evaluated with a larger group of users. Practical implications - The enhanced home care system is now more usable and comprehensible, and so will be easier to deploy and maintain. Social implications - The explanation facility has made the home care system more usable and comprehensible for users, and so will enhance its acceptability in future deployment. Originality/value - Although expert systems have long been able to explain their operation, this kind of solution has not previously been attempted for policy-based management systems. The value to end users is that the approach makes automated support of home care more understandable and thus more acceptable and usable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews some early evidence on the adoption and diffusion of computer-integrated manufacturing in the UK. It draws particularly on research into experience with partially-integrated applications of advanced manufacturing technology such as flexible manufacturing systems. Analysis of both supplier and user side issues is followed by a brief discussion arguing the need for closer integration at a number of levels. Within the supply side the various actors need to cooperate or move towards other forms of strategic alliance. On the user side successful implementation of integrated manufacturing technology appears to depend on supporting organisational integration. Finally, the novelty and complexity of the technological systems being sold requires a shift from simply selling automation products towards working closely with users in providing appropriate and often highly specific solutions to their problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological and organisational advances have increased the potential for remote access and proactive monitoring of the infrastructure in various domains and sectors – water and sewage, oil and gas and transport. Intelligent Infrastructure (II) is an architecture that potentially enables the generation of timely and relevant information about the state of any type of infrastructure asset, providing a basis for reliable decision-making. This paper reports an exploratory study to understand the concepts and human factors associated with II in the railway, largely drawing from structured interviews with key industry decision-makers and attachment to pilot projects. Outputs from the study include a data-processing framework defining the key human factors at different levels of the data structure within a railway II system and a system-level representation. The framework and other study findings will form a basis for human factors contributions to systems design elements such as information interfaces and role specifications. Practitioner Summary:The framework reported in this paper can become the basis for human factors guidance of engineers, developers and business analysts in developing appropriate levels of information display, automation and decision aid into rail II. Guidance will be aimed at the different functions and activities within multi-layered, multi-agent control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the impact of current and future technology developments on the way health care professionals perform their work. It describes the transformation in patient contact after the North Manchester Community Service provided mobile devices to its district nurses in 2017. Also mentioned are a survey showing that majority of community nurses find information technology (IT) systems as more reliable than paper-based systems and the need for technology to be implemented better.

The 1960s represents a key decade in the expansion of ergonomics within the UK. This paper reviews trends and developments that emerged out of the 1960s and compares these with ergonomics research and practice today. The focus in particular is on the expansion of ergonomics as a discipline within industry, as well as more specific topics, such as the emergence of areas of interest, for example, computers and technology, automation and systems ergonomics and consumer ergonomics. The account is illustrated with a detailed timeline of developments, a set of industrial case studies and the contents of important publications during the decade. A key aim of the paper is to provide the opportunity to reflect on the past and the implications this may have for future directions for ergonomics within the UK. The paper provides practitioners with an insight into the development of ergonomics in the UK during one of the most important decades of its history. This is especially relevant given the fact that in 2009 the Ergonomics Society celebrates its 60th anniversary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses UK unemployment in the period 1979–2005. Structural breaks are identified endogenously and they coincide with key institutional changes associated with financial deregulation and computerization in the New Economy. A vector error correction model is estimated and it confirms that computerization and financial deregulation have had counteracting impacts on UK unemployment. The results are consistent with three hypotheses: technological advances associated with computerization have moderated inflationary struggles between firms and insiders by increasing total factor productivity; financial deregulation has generated financial fragility fostering rises in unemployment; financial deregulation and computerization together have been associated with shifts from manufacturing towards services, fostering structural unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The paper aims to describe how BMW in the UK has increased the number of industrial robots at Plant Oxford in the UK; this plant is part of a production "triangle" that brings together three of its four manufacturing plants in the UK to produce the latest version of the Mini passenger car - the Mini Clubman. Design/methodology/approach - The paper describes the major production line techniques that are used in the manufacture of the body-in-white (BIW) structure as well as the functions of painting and final assembly of the vehicle. The BIW techniques include spot-welding and ultrasonic weld inspection for parts assembly. Findings - Over the space of the last three or four years, the management of BMW Group has increased significantly the stature of its UK manufacturing units with the aim of increasing the diversity of models produced, while at the same time achieving greater utilization of its existing capacity, and improving productivity. Research limitations/implications - The BMW Group continually assesses all of the functions involved in the manufacture of a motor vehicle, and in this context is working both with its own plants and with suppliers of equipment and components to enhance production and quality processes. This includes all of the processes of joining steel and other materials using spot welding and adhesives. There is also much to be gained from the interchange of information between the various plants in the group world-wide with a view to implementing continuous improvement. The benefits achieved from one process in one particular plant are quickly communicated to other facilities, again with the object of improving quality and productivity. A typical example here is the paint shop. Practical implications - It is likely that, arising out of greater plant integration and utilization, the management of BMW Group will be able to further increase the capacity of its Mini production units to be in a position to move to the next stage of expansion, namely to reach a target of 300,000 units a year. Originality/value - BMW continues to rationalise its UK plants in Oxford, Swindon and Hams Hall, further integrating these production facilities with those of major component suppliers to produce a finished vehicle. There is a heavy concentration of KUKA robots within the BIW and sub-assembly manufacturing facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a case study for a knowledge management project carried out in con-junction with two major UK electrical utilities. The focus of the work is on the design of protection schemes for electrical power transmission systems. A brief overview is provided of the traditional protection system design processes implemented within both companies and the associated shortcomings relating to the management of the data, information and knowledge throughout this process. The development of the Design Engineering Knowledge Application System (DEKAS), designed to address the knowledge management issues within both companies, is described, and the perceived benefits this system offers the existing protection design and application process of each company will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Space allocation" was a central pursuit in postwar research on computing and architecture. Researchers sought an algorithm that could automatically design the most efficient floor plan for a set of activities. In this article, we connect an early algorithm for computing architectural floor plans to the postwar British hospital. We examine how researchers adapted algorithmic methods for floor layout design developed in industrial capitalist settings to the promotion of the British welfare state. Finally, we pay special attention to the agency that certain graphic inscriptions borrowed from mathematics had in validating these particular algorithmic methods as promising avenues for the algorithmic automation of all architectural work. This article situates the automation of hospital design in postwar U.K. at the intersection of building science and healthcare management, with the aim to contribute critical perspectives on algorithmic reifications of work in early computer-aided architectural design systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on research by Readsoft AB which suggests that British companies can cut procurement costs to 92% lower than average by adopting automated processes and invoice processing. It says that the median measure of companies suggests most finance departments still have as many paper transactions as they do electronic. It also mentions that Readsoft offers its "Documents" software platform to help organisations handle their documents.

Abstract: In this paper we discuss the redesign of a support management system deployed in a small and medium sized enterprise (SME) in the UK. The original system was not fulfilling its needs as it had not captured work practices in a way that was recognizable to the users. The advantages of the redesign included: improved usefulness; improved efficiency and productivity; reduced learning time; improved usability; and increased acceptance among users. The system is used to support complex and distributed cooperative activities taking place in an SME. We evaluated the current system and analysed work practices using a user-centred design and evaluation philosophy. In this paper we discuss how user needs are incorporated into the enhanced design of the support management system. The user-centred design techniques used in this research include interviews, questionnaires, observations and user tests. We present comparative evaluation results that show significant improvement in performance of user tasks using the redesigned support management system. The contribution of this paper is the presentation of a case study to show how a user-centred design and evaluation philosophy can lead to better requirements capture resulting in systems that more accurately capture the users’ conceptual models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Organisation and Method' (O&M) was a discipline promoted in Britain in the first half of the twentieth century as a way of improving the efficiency of administrative enterprises. O&M practitioners were influential actors in the implementation of various information technologies in British businesses. When computers became the new technology, their introduction was seen as a natural adjunct to O&M work. The O&M practitioners understood the connections between the individual tasks to be done, the final outcome desired, and the technologies available. The practice of organizational 'insiders' acting as the dedicated mediators of technological introduction resulted in some remarkable successes in computer introduction in Britain in those years. Eventually the O&M approach would be superseded by purely technical experts, arguably to the detriment of user satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how fieldwork evidence can be used to investigate key themes that arise in the historiography of domestic industry, particularly with regard to the insights that can be obtained into the regional nature of Britain's industrialisation. The focus is on articulating and explaining the variations that have been reported in the design characteristics of domestic workshops; on judging the impact that the rise of domestic industry had on the formation of rural and urban settlement, both in quantitative and qualitative terms; and on assessing the variation in accommodation standards that domestic workers and their families experienced. Work already undertaken in relation to each of these themes is discussed, drawing illustrations from various parts of the country, and further research possibilities are suggested. Emphasis is placed on the insights that can be derived by linking field and documentary evidence and by undertaking contextualised investigation, not only in relation to historiographical discussion, but also through comparative analysis within and between industrial regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Application of formal methods to commercial medical devices in the UK. • Empirical socio-technical experiment on effective application of formal techniques. • Need for safety-critical mentality and safe automation in medicine. We see the future of medicine as highly automated. Improvement in care-provision will be achieved by both increased clinician efficiency, as well as new computing assisted treatments and diagnoses. In other safety-critical industries, such as avionics and automotive, certification is dependability-driven. In contrast, medical certification is clinical-trial driven, which we argue will become increasingly problematic with increasing medical device and software complexity. By dependability, we mean the dictionary notion: reliable and trustworthy. Thus, failures are either avoided by design, or are accountable to a measured extent. This touches upon the verification (intent) versus validation (outcome) problem. Even though correctness does not imply safety, we do believe from our experiences that, the process of striving for correctness (verification) done right does shed light on safety; on whether the requirements/assumptions were addressed as intended (validation). Medical device trials can lead to adequate assurances of safety, as defined by the local regulatory burden. Nevertheless, the nature of such complex systems means that certain errors may not be detected by trials and so additional efforts to reduce errors is needed. Our intent is, at least for software, to explore the contrast between approaches: correctness-by-construction versus correct-by-trial. Additionally, these levels of safety and effectiveness of systems vary across regulatory domains in different countries. A key challenge is how to achieve a successful interaction between verification tasks using formal methods and system development tasks within engineering teams without prior knowledge of formal techniques. This paper describes a pragmatic process for the application of formal techniques, which is illustrated for three medical devices during pre-clinical development prior to certification. That means, the techniques are not only applied to realistic systems, but are also taken up by development teams themselves (i.e. cannot be entirely formal expert driven). We demonstrate differences in applying formalisms at the start, midpoint and final development stages. In particular, we describe the underlying socio-technical challenges and how we developed mitigation methods for each exemplar case. This paper is not about a general technique for medical automation, as we do not believe this is practical/possible given the varied/dynamic nature of medical problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic generated a series of profound and unprecedented challenges for health and social care systems and those frontline clinicians responsible for delivering services including nurses. One consequence has been the rapid and widespread introduction of a range of digital tools, solutions, and initiatives. In the United Kingdom, this has required clinical leadership to drive implementation and adoption of digital innovations across the system, ranging from those in senior executive board level positions to those on the frontline. Findings: This commentary presents a framework highlighting the breadth of digital transformations which emerged as a consequence of the U.K. health and social care systems' response to the COVID-19 crisis. The framework outlines the different levels of digital transformation, ranging from what we have termed "ceremonial adoption" to isolated automation, organizational integration, and full systems integration. We reflect on the nursing leadership practices that need to be in place to support these changes. Conclusion: Whilst acknowledging the extraordinary results achieved by the COVID-19 driven tsunami of digital transformation, we reflect on the essential steps required to translate these nascent, isolated efforts into fully integrated, long-term solutions. We also offer recommendations for clinical digital leaders and suggest steps that will be crucial to translate the temporary and/or limited interventions into effective, permanent features of our health and social care systems, while also providing a platform on which to build future digital capabilities. We will inevitably continue to see an increase in the use of technology in everyday clinical practice, and nurses are well positioned to take a lead in its widespread adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future of work has become a prominent topic for research and policy debate. However, the debate has focused entirely on paid work, even though people in industrialized countries on average spend comparable amounts of time on unpaid work. The objectives of this study are therefore (1) to expand the future of work debate to unpaid domestic work and (2) to critique the main methodology used in previous studies. To these ends, we conducted a forecasting exercise in which 65 AI experts from the UK and Japan estimated how automatable are 17 housework and care work tasks. Unlike previous studies, we applied a sociological approach that considers how experts' diverse backgrounds might shape their estimates. On average our experts predicted that 39 percent of the time spent on a domestic task will be automatable within ten years. Japanese male experts were notably pessimistic about the potentials of domestic automation, a result we interpret through gender disparities in the Japanese household. Our contributions are providing the first quantitative estimates concerning the future of unpaid work and demonstrating how such predictions are socially contingent, with implications to forecasting methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK is home to several major air commercial and transport hubs. As a result, there is a high demand for Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) services to ensure that fleets of aircraft are in airworthy conditions. MRO services currently involve heavy manual labor. This creates bottlenecks, low repeatability, and low productivity. Presented in this paper is an investigation to create an automation cell for the fan-blade reconditioning component of MRO. The design and prototype of the automation cell is presented. Furthermore, a digital twin of the grinding process is developed and used as a tool to explore the required grinding force parameters needed to effectively remove surface material. An integration of a 6-DoF industrial robot with an end-effector grinder and a computer vision system was undertaken. The computer vision system was used for the digitization of the fan-blade surface as well as tracking and guidance of material removal. Our findings reveal that our proposed system can perform material removal, track the state of the fan blade during the reconditioning process and do so within a closed-loop automated robotic work cell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looks at the kind of technological education and training which will be necessary to staff the successful companies of the year 2000, concentrating on the recent European Automation and Robotics Training Conference held in London, where a discussion of this subject took place. Topics covered included ways of unlocking European funds to support education and training projects, the need for hybrid technicians with multi-disciplinary skills and the launching of the first undergraduate degree course in the UK with robotics as a central theme. Concludes that training in robotics and automation is becoming more difficult as the complexity of controls, monitoring and adaptive devices grows. There is a need for more awareness of industry when developing courses for upcoming technicians and engineering graduates and a need to develop a continuous improvement culture that updates the education training of management and staff at all levels in companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical coding is the task of transforming medical information in a patient's health records into structured codes so that they can be used for statistical analysis. This is a cognitive and time-consuming task that follows a standard process in order to achieve a high level of consistency. Clinical coding could potentially be supported by an automated system to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the process. We introduce the idea of automated clinical coding and summarise its challenges from the perspective of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP), based on the literature, our project experience over the past two and half years (late 2019–early 2022), and discussions with clinical coding experts in Scotland and the UK. Our research reveals the gaps between the current deep learning-based approach applied to clinical coding and the need for explainability and consistency in real-world practice. Knowledge-based methods that represent and reason the standard, explainable process of a task may need to be incorporated into deep learning-based methods for clinical coding. Automated clinical coding is a promising task for AI, despite the technical and organisational challenges. Coders are needed to be involved in the development process. There is much to achieve to develop and deploy an AI-based automated system to support coding in the next five years and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Conventional scoring methods for radiographic hip OA (rHOA) are subjective and show inconsistent relationships with clinical outcomes. To provide a more objective rHOA scoring method, we aimed to develop a semi-automated classifier based on DXA images and confirm its relationships with clinical outcomes. Methods Hip DXAs in UK Biobank (UKB) were marked up for osteophyte area from which acetabular, superior and inferior femoral head osteophyte grades were derived. Joint space narrowing (JSN) grade was obtained automatically from minimum joint space width (mJSW) measures. Clinical outcomes related to rHOA comprised hip pain, hospital diagnosed OA (HES OA) and total hip replacement. Logistic regression and Cox proportional hazard modelling were used to examine associations between overall rHOA grade (0–4; derived from combining osteophyte and JSN grades) and the clinical outcomes. Results A toal of 40 340 individuals were included in the study (mean age 63.7), of whom 81.2% had no evidence of rHOA, while 18.8% had grade ≥1 rHOA. Grade ≥1 osteophytes at each location and JSN were associated with hip pain, HES OA and total hip replacement. Associations with all three clinical outcomes increased progressively according to rHOA grade, with grade 4 rHOA and total hip replacement showing the strongest association [57.70 (38.08–87.44)]. Conclusions Our novel semi-automated tool provides a useful means for classifying rHOA on hip DXAs, given its strong and progressive relationships with clinical outcomes. These findings suggest DXA scanning can be used to classify rHOA in large DXA-based cohort studies supporting further research, with the future potential for population-based screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological advancement is seen as one way of sustainably intensifying agriculture. Scholars argue that innovation needs to be responsible, but it is difficult to anticipate the consequences of the 'fourth agricultural revolution' without a clear sense of which technologies are included and excluded. The major aims of this article were to investigate which technologies are being associated with the fourth agricultural revolution, as well as to understand how this revolution is being perceived, whether positive or negative consequences are given equal attention, and what type of impacts are anticipated. To this end, we undertook a content analysis of UK media and policy documents alongside interviews of farmers and advisers. We found that the fourth agricultural revolution is associated with emergent, game‐changing technologies, at least in media and policy documents. In these sources, the benefits to productivity and the environment were prioritised with less attention to social consequences, but impacts were overwhelmingly presented positively. Farmers and advisers experienced many benefits of technologies and some predicted higher‐tech futures. It was clear, however, that technologies create a number of negative consequences. We reflect on these findings and provide advice to policy‐makers about how to interrogate the benefits, opportunities, and risks afforded by agricultural technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Healthcare organizations in the UK face a particular combination of challenges in managing learning and development (L&D) activity and have traditionally lagged behind corporates in adopting relevant technologies. However, a wave of initiatives from the UK government's Department of Health has underlined its support for greater use of technology and greater deployment of e-learning to improve knowledge and competence throughout National Health Service (NHS) organizations. These organizations also have to meet a variety of mandatory and statutory reporting requirements and in effect suffer financial penalties if they fail to meet set targets. The purpose of this case study is to review how one newly-merged Primary Care Trust (PCT) - a body that manages local delivery of primary healthcare - progressed from having a new L&D team with no common systems, to successfully rolling out self-service learning and e-learning to end users. Design/methodology/approach - This paper uses the experience of the PCTs covering the Hertfordshire area as a case study Findings - The trust has found that the right strategy and technologies deliver greater transparency to the L&D process, raismg the profile of L&D in the organization, creating better understanding and appreciation of the benefits of L&D and generating better training attendances and positive feedback. Originality/value - The Hertfordshire PCTs form one of the most proactive and innovative healthcare organizations in the UK, in terms of the rollout of self-service learning and the way it integrates the NHS web-based knowledge and skills framework - called the e-KSF - with its learning management system. This potentially offers valuable insights to other healthcare organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the use of the Internet-based system in publishing management of 'British Journal of Dermatology.' Advantages of the Internet-based system; Direction in submitting a medical report; Implementation of the system on June 1, 2002.

This paper describes how Clamason Industries, a UK-based precision presswork manufacturer, has managed to remain competitive despite pressure from low-cost manufacturing economies in the Far East. In addition to re-focusing and diversifying to other expanding sectors, Clamason invested further in new presses, robotic spot welding and dedicated cellular manufacturing facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased automation has long been mooted as a way to keep manufacturing jobs in the UK. But there are several factors that hinder the adoption of automation in the UK, primarily short-term accounting practices and lack of belief in the viability of manufacturing. According to an expert, some is driven by the fact that all manufacturing companies in the UK are publicly owned and they are trying to show short term gains for their shareholders rather than taking a longer-term view. If UK manufacturing is to compete on a global basis, factories need to invest in simple automation so that they can take on the low-cost countries in terms of labour. This paper discusses the reasons why the manufacturing sector in UK is still doubtful about installing robots along with the advantages of robotics in the manufacturing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how the impacts of AI technologies on creative work have been identified and constructed. The concept of imaginaries is used as a methodological and analytical approach to analyse a variety of grey literature sources published in the UK. The analysis highlights three interconnecting risk imaginaries in which creative occupations are differentiated from other occupations - they are safe and/or are being complemented, but are not being replaced by automation. The construction and implications of these imaginaries are questioned in two ways. Firstly, the concept of assemblages highlights the everyday role of AI technologies in creative production. Secondly, analysis of portfolio working and multiple job holding problematises the notion of safe creative occupations. This article argues that the relationship between AI technologies and creative work can be partly understood as enhancing creative production and the opportunities for creative work, and partly understood in terms of uncreative production and non-creative work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary As the description of transfusion practice over time requires the handling of massive amounts of data, and because the majority of records have until now been paper-based, little is known about the epidemiology of blood transfusion. Furthermore, most previous studies have collected data manually from patient records or from computerized registers created solely for study purposes. We describe a procedure for monitoring transfusion practices based exclusively upon the collection of data from the existing computerized registers. During the calendar years 1997 and 1998, more than 750 000 data records were collected from the blood transfusion registers, diagnosis and procedure registers, and clinical biochemistry registers at two university hospitals. Linking of the data required a unique and consistent identification of all data records. This was made possible by the national Personal Identification Number. In this way more than 98% of all transfusions could be identified and approximately 95% (77 950) could be connected to a principal diagnosis. The described procedure creates new opportunities for studies of transfusion practices both on a large scale and in richness of detail, and we propose to establish a network where transfusion practices data are available and comparable for individual departments, hospitals, whole regions, and possibly nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'big four' firm hopes the new technology will make client service more efficient, while Pinsent Masons has appointed a new tax head in Dublin [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]