Community psychology meets participatory arts

In this paper we explore the research processes and outcomes in a community psychology evaluation of community-based participatory arts projects. We draw on our experiences of preliminary work with artists and arts projects to establish a flexible and participatory evaluation framework, in order to highlight emergent conceptual and practical tensions in the work

Community psychology and participatory arts: well-being and creativity

This paper describes an action research project involving a team of community psychologists from Manchester Metropolitan University and a participatory, community based arts project for people with mental health problems - the Pathways project. As identified in Figure 1, it was anticipated that the link between participation in arts would have in indirect impact on mental well being and social inclusion. Previous work has found that arts impacts on mental health via: enhancing motivation, greater feelings of connectedness, a more positive outlook and reduced fear, isolation and anxiety (Angus, 2002; CAHHM, 2003; HDA, 1999;Huxley, 1997; Huxley and Thornicroft, 2003 ; Matarrasso,1997; White, 2003, 2004). The evaluation was undertaken in the context a programme of work we are engaged in, that seeks to contribute to an 'evidence base' for the arts and mental health work (Geddes, 2004)

Lexical knowledge and lexical use in autism

One aspect of autistic language that has been infrequently researched is vocabulary and the conceptual knowledge underpinning individual words or word types. In this descriptive study we investigate anomalous vocabulary use in a 70,000-word corpus of conversational autistic language and examine evidence that concept formation, and hence vocabulary, is abnormal in autism. Particular attention is paid to the expression of artifact and temporal concepts which some believe may develop abnormally in autism. Little evidence is found of anomalous use of artifact terms, though errors with temporal (and also spatial) expressions are relatively common. We discuss why this may be and consider several potential explanations for why underlying lexical knowledge in autism may not necessarily be reflected in lexical use

Participation, well being and creativity: community psychology meets participatory arts

A community psychological approach to evaluation: Action oriented, contributing to project improvement; Sensitive to diversity: inclusion and reflexivity; Incorporating principles of empowerment Employing diverse methods - fit for purpose; Combining stakeholder and organisational perspectives; Understanding relationships between context, processes and outcomes; Theoretical grounding and development

Atomic layer deposition of Pd and Pt nanoparticles for catalysis:on the mechanisms of nanoparticle formation

The deposition of Pd and Pt nanoparticles by atomic layer deposition (ALD) has been studied extensively in recent years for the synthesis of nanoparticles for catalysis. For these applications, it is essential to synthesize nanoparticles with well-defined sizes and a high density on large-surface-area supports. Although the potential of ALD for synthesizing active nanocatalysts for various chemical reactions has been demonstrated, insight into how to control the nanoparticle properties (i.e. size, composition) by choosing suitable processing conditions is lacking. Furthermore, there is little understanding of the reaction mechanisms during the nucleation stage of metal ALD. In this work, nanoparticles synthesized with four different ALD processes (two for Pd and two for Pt) were extensively studied by transmission electron spectroscopy. Using these datasets as a starting point, the growth characteristics and reaction mechanisms of Pd and Pt ALD relevant for the synthesis of nanoparticles are discussed. The results reveal that ALD allows for the preparation of particles with control of the particle size, although it is also shown that the particle size distribution is strongly dependent on the processing conditions. Moreover, this paper discusses the opportunities and limitations of the use of ALD in the synthesis of nanocatalysts

Modular semantics for transition system specifications with negative premises

Transition rules with negative premises are needed in the structural operational semantics of programming and specification constructs such as priority and interrupt, as well as in timed extensions of specification languages. The well-known proof-theoretic semantics for transition system specifications involving such rules is based on well-supported proofs for closed transitions. Dealing with open formulae by considering all closed instances is inherently non-modular – proofs are not necessarily preserved by disjoint extensions of the transition system specification.Here, we conservatively extend the notion of well-supported proof to open transition rules. We prove that the resulting semantics is modular, consistent, and closed under instantiation. Our results provide the foundations for modular notions of bisimulation such that equivalence can be proved with reference only to the relevant rules, without appealing to all existing closed instantiations of terms

A Rule Format for Associativity

Abstract. We propose a rule format that guarantees associativity of binary operators with respect to all notions of behavioral equivalence that are defined in terms of (im)possibility of transitions, e.g., the notions below strong bisimilarity in van Glabbeek’s spectrum. The initial format is a subset of the De Simone format. We show that all trivial generalizations of our format are bound for failure. We further extend the format in a few directions and illustrate its application to several formalisms in the literature. A subset of the format is studied to obtain associativity with respect to graph isomorphism.