The Gameful Museum: Developing a Location-Based Game Design Framework for Engagement and Motivation

The popularity of location-based games, which blend digital and physical gameplay in specific real-world locations, has been rising in recent years. Research in museum studies looking into these games as engagement tools has so far been limited to individual case studies or sporadic overviews of play and games that do not explore the relationship between game design, location, gameplay and the museum experience. This practice-led thesis addresses this gap through the development of a game design framework and guidelines to create location-based games in museums, combined with a study of the impact of the designed experiences on audiences’ motivation to visit and engage with museum content. The findings and framework proposed are relevant for museum professionals and game designers who are interested in developing this practice while benefiting from guidance grounded in real-world research. Methodologically, I supplemented a study of past experiences with a first-person gameplay analysis, the results of which informed the design and examination of case studies of games for Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) developed in collaboration with the museum staff and external game designers. Findings suggest that location-based games benefit museums by creating added motivation to visit, attracting new and existing audiences, increasing and diversifying engagement with the museum content, and to a lesser degree, supporting knowledge acquisition. Structuring visits into games limits the possible actions of players while offering agency within those limitations, making the players part of a story and giving them challenges to complete, encouraging visitors to become more active and invested in exploring the space and the content displayed. I conclude this thesis by proposing the concept of the gameful museum as a possible path for museums as institutions of learning and entertainment, offering the location-based game design framework as an instrument to work towards audience development and engagement and highlighting the field’s future potential

Quality after the QOF? before dismantling it, we need a redefined measure of 'quality'

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Using Statistical Process Control to Monitor Anastomotic Leak

Background Surgery remains a cornerstone in the treatment of bowel diseases, such as those involving cancer or inflammation. In the majority of patients, a section of bowel is resected and the remaining bowel is re-joined surgically using sutures or staples (bowel anastomosis). However, in some cases this anastomosis can break down (Anastomotic Leak (AL)), causing significant complications for the patients including increased mortality, prolonged hospital stay and worse cancer outcomes. Despite the significance of this complication most hospitals do not prospectively measure their leak rate or engage in activities to reduce it. Another key postoperative outcome which can act as a surrogate marker of performance is Postoperative Length of Stay (PLoS) One way to address this is to promote the use quality improvement (QI) methodologies such as Statistical Process Control (SPC). This involves mapping the data points in time order and seeing if the process is stable between a set of upper and lower parameters (i.e. confidence intervals) and observing whether there has been a statistical change. Methods The aim of this study was to retrospectively map AL rates and PLoS using Statistical Process Control at Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation NHS Trust. This was to provide a baseline measurement as part of the first phase of a QI project as well as investigating the suitability for SPC chart analysis for monitoring postoperative outcomes. All patients undergoing colorectal resections with ileo-colonic, colo-colonic colorectal, colo-anal or ileo-anal anastomoses from 01//01/2010 to 30/04/2017 were included in this study. AL was defined as cases where there was subsequent return-to-theatre, radiological drainage or medical management of the AL. SPC charts were used to map AL rates to establish whether variation in the rate over time was due to “common-cause variation” or “special-cause variation.” The G-Chart, a type of SPC chart used to count the number of events between rare incidents was used to map AL. I-Charts were used to map median monthly Postoperative Length of Stay (PLoS). Results The AL rate is relatively low at this hospital with a return-to-theatre rate of 4.3% and an overall rate of 6.1% (once conservatively managed ALs and radiologically drained leaks were included). The overall median PLoS was 6 days. The SPC charts show that there is a reasonable chance of special cause variation for the Elective, Stapled and Right-sided AL charts, with some overlap with the former two categories. SPC charts for Sutured ALs and Left-sided ALs both only exhibited common cause variation. SPC charts for all six sub-groups monitoring PLoS indicated periods of special cause variation. Discussion In terms of the AL rate, 4.3% is a very acceptable return-to-theatre rate in line with other studies. The rate of 6.1% is difficult to interpret given that not all cases of medically managed ALs would have been identified. The overall median PLoS was also consistent with the literature. This is the first phase of a QI project to reduce rates of AL at Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation NHS Trust which can now take place prospectively and an intervention can be planned and implemented. Also, now that the methodology is in place, SPC charts can also be used to ensure patient safety over time, acting within a Quality Assurance context. Despite their ability to identify retrospective periods of SCV, the findings in SPC charts monitoring AL and PLoS will now need to be corroborated with the historial clinical context as SPC charts cannot identify which factors have caused the shift. In summary, this dissertation demonstrates that using SPC charts are a feasible methodology to retrospectively map AL and PLoS rates in a Colorectal Unit

Urban sustainability and the subjective well‐being of migrants: The role of risks, place attachment, and aspirations

While material conditions of migrant populations on average tend to improve over time as they become established in new destinations, individual trajectories of material and subjective well-being often diverge. Here, we analyse how social and environmental factors in the urban environment shape the subjective well-being of migrant populations. We hypothesise these factors to include (a) perceived social and environmental risk, (b) attachment to place, and (c) migrant aspirations. We analyse data from a cross-sectional survey of 2641 individual migrants in seven cities across Ghana, India, and Bangladesh. The results show that the persistence of inferior material conditions, exposure to environmental hazards, and constrained access to services and employment affect migrants' subjective well-being. Hence, social and environmental risks constitute urban precarity for migrants whose social vulnerability persist in their destination. Meeting migration-related aspirations and developing an affinity to urban destinations have the potential to mitigate negative sentiments from perceived risks. These findings have implications for future urban planning and sustainability

The Emergence of an Iconoclast: Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī and His Critics.

The legacy of the 20th Century Albanian Islamic scholar Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī is a unique brand of Salafism, a movement whose adherents promote as establishing an eternal model of proper Muslim creed, practice, exegesis, and conduct that stands in stark contrast to madhhab Traditionalism. The purpose of this study is to trace the origins and manifestation of Albānīʾs critique of madhhab Traditionalism. In tracing origins, the study explores the strict madhhab environment in which Albānī was raised, a religious and social climate that fomented his disdain for Traditionalism and led him to “deconstruct” madhhab Traditionalist fiqh and ḥadīth and “construct” his own means of interpreting the jurisprudential requirements of sacred scripture. Marked by simplicity, reliance on textual literalism, and distrust of the scholarly class, Albānīʾs perspectives and methodology were manifested in anti-madhhab polemics that enhanced the profile and popularity of his unique brand of Salafism

From four to zero? The social mechanisms of symbolic domination in the UK accounting field

Corporate failures and financial crises periodically lead to speculation and critique of the Big Four in the UK. Wide-reaching regulatory changes and reforms have emerged as a consequence, yet the overall dominance of the large accounting firms remains an immutable truth. This paper explores the dominance of the Big Four drawing on Bourdieu’s rich system of thought, and in particular the role of symbolic productions, and how symbolic power and symbolic violence are deployed to secure the social integration of an arbitrary order. We document the social mechanisms of symbolic domination that secure the Big Four’s position in the social structure of professional accounting firms. We identify a circular system of double-structured domination, where three mechanisms of euphemised discourse, rites of institution and socialisation normalise symbolic systems and disabling constraints for smaller firms. In addition to interviewing informants working in the field, this paper examines recent political challenges that have placed the role of the Big Four and their domination under increasing scrutiny. These challenges bring into focus issues of recognition and resistance to symbolic modes of domination, and we contemplate the impact of such discourses on the dynamics of the UK accounting field, and the Big Four’s continued influence

Why TMT international experience and diversity may (not) improve acquisition performance (working paper)

Recognizing the benefits of international competences for firms expanding abroad, prior research advocated the positive role of executives’ international orientation, as reflected in international experience and national diversity of top management teams (TMTs). Yet research into managerial beliefs and biases as well as research into team composition suggests potential negative consequences of TMT international orientation due to overconfidence and inefficient decision-making. Combining these two perspectives, we predicted and tested non-linear effects of TMT international orientation on firm performance following foreign acquisitions. Analyses of 1,697 deals completed by 428 UK companies over a period 1999-2008 revealed that performance benefits may only accrue to the most experienced TMTs and that the benefits from TMT national diversity wane after a relatively low threshold. These findings shed new light on when TMT international orientation may (not) improve foreign acquisition performance, beyond the impact it has on internationalization decisions themselves as documented in prior research

Narrative Dis/Repair: Interlinked Stories, Trauma, and Narrative Repair

This Ph.D. thesis is composed of two parts: a collection of interlinked stories and a critical study that investigates the same form. The story collection, Not That Far from Tel Aviv, entwines the autobiographical and the fictional, the realistic and the supernatural, the historical and the speculative. The stories involve themes such as life in Israel, home/homeland, war, the Shoa, and intergenerational trauma. With the creative part of my thesis deploying the form of interlinked stories, the critical research focuses on this literary form and, more specifically, its relationship with narratives of trauma. Looking at three collections of interlinked stories—Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s Three Apples Fell from Heaven, and Denis Johnson’s Jesus' Son—my study argues that this literary form reflects narratives of trauma and thus increases their impact and enables a resonant narrative repair. The question at the heart of this thesis, therefore, is: how does the form of interlinked stories enable the representation of trauma and enact a form of narrative repair? While the traditional realist novel provides details to create an environment in which the narrative unfolds, collections of interlinked stories often give only the minimally required details and are therefore better designed to deliver disjointed storytelling. I argue that the disjointed nature of interlinked stories reflects and augments the sense of chaos, crisis, and mental and physical breakdown that are typical of war, genocide, and addiction—the themes of the books examined in this study. Moreover, this literary form allows authors to entwine different time periods and merge a variety of styles and genres, which further highlights the disjointed nature of interlinked stories. Consistent across all three story collections is the narrative repair that concludes the books. Practices of storytelling complement processes of healing and of honoring the dead, allowing survivors and storytellers to find some sense of reparative community at last. Conducting the critical research and writing my story collection had a mutually beneficial effect. While my writing was influenced by my growing understanding of this literary form and its relationship with narratives of trauma, my analysis of the examined three books and the various critical thesis was at times informed by my creative journey

Local policy uncertainty and the firm's investment reaction to monetary policy

Rising local economic policy uncertainty increases the firm's capital investment sensitivity to monetary shocks. This effect is driven by the tendency of uncertainty-driven precautionary behavior to increase the firm's propensity to reduce investment in response to contractionary monetary shocks. This effect is more pronounced for geographically bound firms that are financially constrained. Our results show how the investment effects of local economic policy uncertainty are entangled with the asymmetries that govern the economic impact of monetary policy

Telephone triage for management of same-day consultation requests in general practice (the ESTEEM trial): a cluster-randomised controlled trial and cost-consequence analysis

Telephone triage is increasingly used to manage workload in primary care; however, supporting evidence for this approach is scarce. We aimed to assess the effectiveness and cost consequences of general practitioner-(GP)-led and nurse-led telephone triage compared with usual care for patients seeking same-day consultations in primary care