Bowled out for a duck before picking up a bat: identifying women’s perceived barriers and lived experiences of cricket within the City of Lincoln

Gender inequality in sport has received significant attention from sports development initiatives and sociologists of sport. Gender inequality describes the structuring of aspects of society that favours one gender over another. Feminist academic literature is heavily focused around how the inequality is perpetuated in society (Hargreaves, J. (2000) Heroines of Sport: ‘The politics of difference and identity’. London: Routledge.). The prevalence of gender inequality is reflected in women’s participation levels in typically masculine sports such as cricket. Approximately 0.08% of the female population take part in cricket in the UK, which suggests there are inherent barriers to women’s participation (Sport England, 2011, Active People Survey 2011). This problem is something that has been highlighted as a substantial aim that the legacy of the 2012 London Olympics can help overcome (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympics games Ltd (2008) Diversity and Inclusion strategy). The present study builds on previous work to increase opportunities for women to participate in cricket (Hibberd et al 2011; ‘Not Just a Boys Game’: Programme evaluation of a multi-agency cricket intervention designed to reduce gender inequity in a city in the East of England.’Paper presented at the student BASES 2011 conference). The principal aim of this study is to investigate the perceived barriers that active women feel prevent or inhibit their participation in cricket. A case study approach will be adopted, focusing on six women’s community and University sports clubs in Lincoln, in conjunction with Lincolnshire Cricket board (LCB). Women will be recruited from an array of social backgrounds, with different abilities, ages and experiences of sport. A mixed method approach utilising both questionnaires and semi-structured group interviews will be employed (Bryman, A. (1988) Quantity and Quality in Social Research. London: Routledge). A theory driven approach to understanding women’s perceived barriers to participation in cricket will be adopted. The project will enable researchers to gain a better understanding of the reasons why women find access to certain sports easier than others. This information will allow researchers to make recommendations for widening participation in women’s cricket, with a view to increasing the viability of women’s participation in cricket locally

Evaluation of the multiple zeta values ζ(2,…,2,4,2,…,2)\zeta(2,\ldots,2,4,2,\ldots,2) via double zeta values, with applications to period polynomial relations and to multiple tt values

In studying the depth filtration on multiple zeta values, difficulties quickly arise due to a disparity between it and the coradical filtration. In particular, there are additional relations in the depth graded algebra coming from period polynomials of cusp forms for $SL_2(\mathbb{Z})$. In contrast, a simple combinatorial filtration, the block filtration is known to agree with the coradical filtration, and so there is no similar defect in the associated graded. However, via an explicit evaluation of $\zeta(2,\ldots,2,4,2,\ldots,2)$ as a polynomial in double zeta values, we derive these period polynomial relations as a consequence of an intrinsic symmetry of block graded multiple zeta values in block degree 2. In deriving this evaluation, we find a Galois descent of certain alternating double zeta values to classical double zeta values, which we then apply to give an evaluation of the multiple $t$ values $t(2\ell,2k)$ in terms of classical double zeta values.Comment: 47 pages. Computer readable versions of the full evaluations in Mathematica and pari/gp syntax is included in the arXiv submissio

A comparison in protein extraction from four major crop residues in Europe using chemical and enzymatic processes-a review

The agricultural production of olives, rapeseed, tomatoes and citrus fruits within Europe is significant, resulting in a considerable amount of residual material. Rapeseed contains a high proportion of protein but the presence of anti-nutritional components, including glucosinolates, limits its use in food and feed applications. In contrast, the protein quantities associated with the other crop residues are much lower, although each of the residues could be separated into different constitutive parts where some have shown higher protein contents. A variety of different enzymatic based approaches to deconstruct crop residues have shown to be effective in increasing the yields of protein recovered. These studies show that valorisation of selected crop components could form the basis of a crop biorefinery process to capture proteins and other potentially useful compounds