Research outputs

The published research outputs of Slop University.

All research outputs of the University are published open access under CC BY 4.0, with persistent identifiers minted by the Office of Research Outputs.

Published outputs

Poster

The Same Hands, Counted More Often

Bram Ntuli, Osei Vandermeer, Solveig Adeyemi · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.kxbwpx

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement decomposes two years of council volunteering returns from nine volunteer-run free weekly timed runs in one metropolitan area --- 15,412 volunteer occasions across 96 consecutive Saturdays --- into the distinct people who supplied them. The occasions series rises 38.1% across the window while the distinct-volunteer series falls 35.9%, and by the final quarter a median of eleven people per event cover half that event's roster positions, against nineteen in the first.

Poster

Sealed, and Not Re-Worn

Renke Sabel, Mirela Hanke, Casimir Beng · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.yx271i

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement repeats the University's own study of successor desire lines at 84 verge shortcuts sealed under a council path-formalisation warrant, this time across five wards of a second metropolitan council area, surveying each site fortnightly for fourteen months under the originating study's fixed coding definition. Successor lines appear at 26 per cent of sites within twelve months (95% CI 17-37) against the 71 per cent first reported, and the median is not reached; the null association between the qualifying wear score and time to recurrence does replicate (HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.68-1.53). Recurrence concentrates where the seal followed the engineered alignment (56 per cent of 27 sites) rather than the worn one (12 per cent of 57), leaving the warrant's 26-week review window resting on the estimate that did not transfer and its qualifying rule on the one that did.

Poster

Reached, and Unmoved

Solveig Adeyemi, Joost Nwosu, Ingeborg Nwachukwu · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.puo2j3

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement sets 1.84 million itemised transactions from 18 food-court outlets that came into scope of a menu-board kilojoule labelling requirement against 16 matched comparison counters in the same food courts, across fourteen fortnights either side of the changeover. The difference-in-differences estimate for mean energy per transaction is -7 kJ (90% CI -41 to +27), inside a ±100 kJ margin of indifference lodged before data access, so both one-sided tests reject and equivalence holds; the 90th percentile shifts -12 kJ (90% CI -74 to +50) and no item-mix share moves by more than 0.4 points. An intercept survey at the same counters (n = 412) finds 61.4 per cent of diners recall the figures and 7.5 per cent report they changed the order, a stated shift of -180 kJ the registers do not carry, while the district's healthy-choices indicator counts transactions at labelled premises and so cannot fall as compliance rises.

Poster

The Second Sign Buys Nothing

Ronja Oyelaran, Lindiwe Achterberg, Anouk Mensah · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.ntcw6j

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities intercepts 1,180 drivers at rest areas and fuel stops along 34 rural routes across eleven weeks of one declared fire season, scoring each respondent's account of the fire danger rating displayed on the last roadside sign they passed against the rating actually displayed, with sign passage taken from the road authority's asset register rather than self-report. Correct recall is 21.4 per cent with no sign passed and 62.8 per cent after one, and does not move above one (63.6 per cent at three signs, 63.9 per cent at five; marginal return above one sign +1.3 points, 95% CI -3.9 to 6.5), while the district's signs-per-100 km awareness indicator rises monotonically by construction.

Poster

Below the Line, and Further Below

Dagny Okafor, Osei Vandermeer, Bram Ntuli · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.7u27hw

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement observes 39 supervised school crossings in one metropolitan area either side of a mid-year warrant decision, with one three-hour afternoon count at each crossing before the decision and another ten weeks after: 19 crossings lost their supervisor at the recount and 20 matched crossings kept theirs. Counted children fall 26.2 per cent at the withdrawn crossings against 1.8 per cent at the retained ones (difference-in-differences -24.4 points, 95% CI -31.2 to -17.6), enrolments hold, and kerbside drop-off movements in the same window rise by a mean 31 vehicles per school. On a fresh recount 16 of the 19 sit further below the threshold they were withdrawn under, so reinstatement is unreachable under the scheme's own rule.

Poster

A Plate Is Not a Visit

Anneke Tolan, Marek Solheim, Osei Vandermeer · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.9jx27w

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities classifies 24,318 plate-camera entry and exit pairs at six shopping-centre car parks against a paired ground-truth record: an exit-lane intercept survey on 1,180 pairs and 214 hours of lane observation, with classes derived at the first centre and applied blind at the remaining five by two coders (kappa = 0.83). 58.6 per cent of pairs correspond to one shopping party's single stay; relocations within the site (12.4 per cent), read faults (10.1), boundary faults (9.8) and stays covering a party larger than the vehicle (9.1) account for the rest. Compliance recomputed on shopping parties from the same cameras falls from the published 94.1 per cent of pairs to 81.7 per cent.

Poster

The Weight the Schedule Supplied

Fenna Okoro, Runa Adegoke, Thandiwe Solberg · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.5lxze6

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities decomposes the diversion tonnage one metropolitan council publishes for its registered garage-sale weekend, a figure assembled from 1,940 post-sale returns covering 58,412 listed items across four trail weekends. Households supply counts by item class; a default weight schedule adopted nine years ago supplies the kilograms. Reported diversion of 462.6 tonnes falls to 144.7 tonnes when the same items are re-derived under the lowest of five alternative published schedules, a 3.2-fold span with no change to what was sold. Two of the schedule's fourteen categories, furniture and whitegoods, account for 12.2 per cent of listed items and 55.7 per cent of reported tonnage; the schedule records no source for nine of its categories and has never been revised.

Poster

Nine Minutes, or Ninety Seconds

Runa Adegoke, Petra Umbile, Marek Solheim · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.dyycee

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities sets 61 semi-structured interviews across four metropolitan home-delivered meal rounds against 214 doorstep encounters timed by ride-along observation over 14 weeks. The meal itself is named unprompted in 91 per cent of volunteer-driver interviews and 34 per cent of recipient interviews, while the check at the door reverses that split (39 and 87 per cent); two further domains, the noticed fault and the marked day, divide the two accounts by more than 40 points each. Observed dwell is bimodal before a mid-study route consolidation and single-moded after it: median dwell moves only from 2.0 to 1.7 minutes, while encounters longer than four minutes fall from 43 of 108 to none of 106 and the rounds' recorded meals-delivered figure rises 19.4 per cent.

Ad

The Shade Was Decided In A Meeting

Ingrid Vasseur · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.m6n9i1

A marketing poster advertising Futures in Committee, the School of Emergent Priorities' seminar series, built on the observation that a street tree is the visible end of a decision taken years earlier in a room --- the species that counts fastest toward a canopy target, staked on a verge it will outlive everyone who chose it for. Seven words over a suburban nature strip, prepared for the University's landscape signage rotation in matched daylight and after-dark renderings.

Brochure

Somebody Was Keeping Time

Ronja Oyelaran, Marit Osayande, Torun Ezeigwe, Lindiwe Achterberg, Iben Chikere, Bram Ntuli · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.mnign0

A research-showcase brochure setting out the University's programme on the ordinary occasion --- the run sheet settled before anyone arrives, the tally kept while the room is full, and the record that outlives the evening. Three published studies are cited by title and identifier as the evidence for it, alongside the two Schools and the programme that carry the work.

Paper

Well Presented, Slightly Overset

Thandiwe Solberg, Ingeborg Nwachukwu, Osei Vandermeer · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.be6zz8

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement randomises 46 preserves and baking classes at nine regional agricultural shows to return either a written judge's comment card with each entry or the placing card alone, with the outcomes, the equivalence margin, and the analysis model registered before the first entry book was opened. Exhibitor re-entry the following season was 61.4 per cent under comment cards and 60.2 per cent under placing cards (difference 1.2 percentage points, 95% CI -4.9 to 7.3; ICC 0.08), inside the registered ±8 percentage point margin, and two ablations of the card template left entries per class unchanged. Over the same period the engagement-weighted projection six of the societies use to set the schedule reached 72.6 per cent against an observed 60.8, the engagement term entering the index both directly and through the projection it feeds.

Paper

Nobody Asks for a Worse One

Fenna Okoro, Marek Solheim, Petra Umbile · August 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.akmw3y

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities assembles six years of one metropolitan council's food-premises register, covering 1,904 premises and 8,617 inspection events, and separates the rating a premises displays in its window from the rating it last received at a routine inspection. The district mean displayed rating rises 0.79 stars across the window, of which a three-term decomposition attributes 0.51 to opt-in re-inspection and 0.24 to premises turnover, leaving 0.04 stars (95% CI -0.06 to 0.13) to change measured on routine inspections alone; the routine series is flat throughout. Re-inspections are requested by the premises and may be withdrawn before publication, and 214 of 1,206 were, carrying provisional field ratings a mean 1.8 stars below the requester's displayed rating. A shopfront audit of 612 addresses finds a median displayed-certificate age of 2.9 years with 34.2 per cent already superseded, of which 81.4 per cent show a rating higher than the premises' current one.