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

Paper

Cold or Counter, Same Heels

Solveig Adeyemi, Thandiwe Solberg, Joost Nwosu · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.3sznbg

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement reports a pre-registered crossover trial across 74 household kitchens and 888 loaves, finding that a sliced loaf kept in the bread bin and one kept in the fridge send the same number of slices to the kitchen bin, and records the University's adoption of a divided-storage provision, under which every loaf received into a University kitchen is halved on arrival and kept in both places.

Paper

Three Coins Already in the Jar

Kwame Lindqvist, Lindiwe Achterberg, Runa Adegoke · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.dzvnn6

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities interviews 43 counter staff at 19 cafés, food trucks and strip-mall counters about seeding the tip jar, and reports five themes in their own words: the seed is for the next customer, kept small and silver, and taken home at close. Twenty-one of the 37 who seed their jars place three coins. A 30-counter pilot found seeded and unseeded jars ended the day with the same contents, though the University now requires every service counter to open with a jar seeded to three silver coins, entered on the opening checklist, on pain of lapsed accreditation.

Paper

Can a Painted Stick Tell a Driver Whether the Gap Will Fit?

Sten Okwuosa, Dagny Okafor, Solveig Adeyemi · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.5591t5

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement describes a three-faced aluminium gap gauge, banded green, amber and red for each of three vehicle classes, and reports a twelve-week deployment of nine gauges along one suburban shopping strip of 212 kerbside bays. The gauge's band agreed with an observer's tape measure in 95.2% of 602 consulted attempts, and the share of attempts settling within the bay fell from 95.5% in green gaps to 14.2% in red ones, though attempts made without the gauge followed the same gradient. The council's parking-services office has made the red verdict a bar on any attempt, and the University has undertaken to apply the same reading, with no override, to its own visitor car parks.

Paper

Seen With a Rake

Marek Solheim, Anouk Mensah, Hedvig Anyanwu · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.w3zxqb

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities interviews nineteen allotment-society volunteer coordinators about how they decide that a person came to the working bee, coding the transcripts in the coordinators' own phrases. Seventeen describe attendance as being seen with a tool, fourteen require the sighting to come from a second tool-holder, and fifteen exclude the coordinator's own clipboard; the University adopts the two-tool sighting as the attendance standard for its committees, with a Sighting Column in every set of minutes.

Poster

Replicating the Register Effect

Marit Osayande, Renke Sabel, Joost Nwosu · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.fguaks

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement reruns, across 38 suburban residents' forums in 19 matched pairs, an earlier share-house finding that a written incident register makes later quarrels cite a logged incident more than four times as often. Forums with a pinned known-issues thread cite earlier problems at a ratio of 1.05 over those without, so the effect does not reproduce, and the Adaptive Metrics Lab's forum checklist keeps the pinned-thread requirement and lengthens any thread that goes uncited.

Poster

Street Parties Stall Once the Marshals Have Vests

Hedvig Anyanwu, Anneke Tolan · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.d7x1to

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities scores 467 street parties on 141 streets across four summers against a five-level closure maturity model, from Cones Only to Repeatable, finding that streets stall at Level 3 and that a change of bouncy castle drops a Level 5 street back to Level 3. The council now waives its traffic-management fee only from Level 4 and rations closure permits for streets at Level 1.

Brochure

Towards the Last Tab

Anneke Tolan, Verity Marris, Renke Sabel, Petra Umbile, Torun Ezeigwe · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.7wnnae

A research-showcase brochure from the School of Emergent Priorities presents a survey of the tear-off-tab cards on shopping-centre noticeboards, reported as distributions of tabs remaining and weeks posted, and the Last-Tab Rule under which every University notice carries a nine-tab fringe and stays up until the last tab is taken, alongside eight of the University's published studies of notices, signs and stubs.

Poster

Can a Thank-You Flash Reach the Car It Was For?

Ingrid Vasseur, Petra Umbile, Iben Chikere · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.cpd275

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities describes a rear-window relay lamp that repeats a driver's hazard-light thank-you until the driver ahead acknowledges it, fitted to 40 vehicles across nine merge sites for 26 weeks. The acknowledged share of thank-yous rises from 23% to 84%, and a roads authority now narrows by one lane any merge scoring below six acknowledged thanks per 100 vehicles.

Poster

Still Up After the Open Day

Marit Osayande, Solveig Adeyemi, Torun Ezeigwe · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.t540sx

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement scores thirty-six corridor corkboards against a five-level pin-hygiene maturity model (Palimpsest, Stamped, Pruned, Pin-Accounted, Bare Cork) across fourteen fortnightly warden walks and 4,906 coded flyers. Expired flyers fall 93% as boards climb, but current-event flyers fall 75% and flyers pulled before their event date rise from 3% to 22% of removals; the student union's executive nonetheless binds each board's pin issue and past-event flyer life to its level, and unmounts any board that scores Bare Cork twice running.

Impact report

Strangers Leave Three Hand-Widths Between Them on a Bus-Stop Bench

Marit Osayande, Mirela Hanke, Joost Nwosu · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.2fc562

The School of Continuous Improvement's Impact Report 2021-2026 reports a five-season survey of 61,208 pairs of adjacent strangers on 1,340 bus-stop benches, giving the clear gap between them as a distribution with a mode of three hand-widths. Since March 2024 every seat in a School meeting room has been set at that gap, and each room's rated capacity is the number of seats that fit, with no exception sustained beyond a single review cycle.

Poster

Odd Is Honest

Anouk Mensah, Dagny Okafor, Casimir Beng · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.1laqem

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities sorts 912 weekly timesheets from a plumbing-supplies depot into a four-cell grid of round or odd hours, entered the same day or later, and reports that once overtime was paid without query from the odd, same-day cell alone, that cell grew from 11% to 63% of the weekly stack, with 58% of same-day entries stamped within two minutes of five o'clock.

Poster

Scoring the Adopted Stretch

Joost Nwosu, Solveig Adeyemi, Bram Ntuli · September 2026 · doi:10.5555/slop.ne1a7b

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement scores 118 adopted roadside stretches in one regional shire against a five-level stewardship maturity model, from Sign Only to Self-Clearing. Attained level is unrelated to the litter counted on the verge (Spearman rho = 0.08), yet the shire now sets contractor litter rounds and sign-panel size by level, and withdraws the round from any Level 5 stretch.