1,643 research outputs found
Exploring the processes of change facilitated by musical activities on mental wellness
While the benefits of music to people’s mental health have long been recognized, the process of how it works requires further investigation.
This paper is based on the results of a community-based music project offered to a group of mental health service users by a Hong Kong social service centre. A six-dimensional framework, which contains emotional, psychological, social, cognitive, behavioural and spiritual dimensions, is constructed for understanding how musical activities may produce benefits for mental health service users.
Through conducting 23 interview sessions for the participants (N = 47), who suffered from mental health problems, including schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, mood disorders and anxiety disorders, of the music project, this study examines the processes of change within musical activities. Feedback was solicited from them by listening to their first-hand experiences as service users of the musical activities. Recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed to generate themes that correspond to the six dimensions the researchers proposed.
This study shows that the clinical effects elicited by the musical activities described fit closely with the needs of mental health service users. Its findings suggest that community-based musical activities have clear potential for supporting mental health service users in recovery, which deserve further promotion
Remembering learning to play:reworking gendered memories of sport, physical activity, and movement
In this article, we explore young women’s memories of their experiences with sport, physical activity, and play during their childhood. Through collective memory work – sharing, discussing, writing, and analysing sporting memories/histories – we examine (re)constructions of young women’s experiences of gendered relations of power, bodily awareness, and regulation within movement-based practices. The approach taken explores relationships between theory and method, a feature of post- qualitative inquiry. Forming a collaborative memory workshop with six young women (aged 19–22) and two researchers, we illustrate how work-ing memories facilitates the interrogation of taken-for-granted assump-tions about women’s active bodies. Represented through two memories in this paper, their production, representation, and analysis were a collaborative effort, not solely representative of two individual experi-ences. Despite growing up within a period wherein women’s access to and engagement with sport and physical activity is more available, com-mon, and diverse compared to the youth of past generations, young women’s experiences explored here illustrate the ways in which move-ment-based practices are located within the confluence of postfeminist sensibilities including, intensely scrutinised gendered body cultures, potent neoliberal configurations, and discourses of empowerment. It is these new sporting and active femininities and the gendering experiences of physical culture that are explored within this paper through memory work and collective biograph
Remembering learning to play:reworking gendered memories of sport, physical activity, and movemen
Transcritical flow of a stratified fluid over topography: analysis of the forced Gardner equation
Transcritical flow of a stratified fluid past a broad localised topographic
obstacle is studied analytically in the framework of the forced extended
Korteweg--de Vries (eKdV), or Gardner, equation. We consider both possible
signs for the cubic nonlinear term in the Gardner equation corresponding to
different fluid density stratification profiles. We identify the range of the
input parameters: the oncoming flow speed (the Froude number) and the
topographic amplitude, for which the obstacle supports a stationary localised
hydraulic transition from the subcritical flow upstream to the supercritical
flow downstream. Such a localised transcritical flow is resolved back into the
equilibrium flow state away from the obstacle with the aid of unsteady coherent
nonlinear wave structures propagating upstream and downstream. Along with the
regular, cnoidal undular bores occurring in the analogous problem for the
single-layer flow modeled by the forced KdV equation, the transcritical
internal wave flows support a diverse family of upstream and downstream wave
structures, including solibores, rarefaction waves, reversed and trigonometric
undular bores, which we describe using the recent development of the nonlinear
modulation theory for the (unforced) Gardner equation. The predictions of the
developed analytic construction are confirmed by direct numerical simulations
of the forced Gardner equation for a broad range of input parameters.Comment: 34 pages, 24 figure
Life cycle assessment of conventional and advanced two-stage energy-from-waste technologies for methane production
This study integrates the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of thermal and biological technologies for municipal solid waste management within the context of renewable resource use for methane production. Five different scenarios are analysed for the UK, the main focus being on advanced gasification-plasma technology for Bio Substitute natural gas (Bio-SNG) production, anaerobic digestion and incineration. Firstly, a waste management perspective has been taken and a functional unit of 1 kg of waste to be disposed was used; secondly, according to an energy production perspective a functional unit of 1 MJ of renewable methane produced was considered. The first perspective demonstrates that when the current energy mix is used in the analysis (i.e. strongly based on fossil resources), processes with higher electric efficiency determine lower global warming potential (GWP). However, as the electricity mix in the UK becomes less carbon intensive and the natural gas mix increases the carbon intensity, processes with higher Bio-SNG yield are shown to achieve a lower global warming impact within the next 20 years. When the perspective of energy production is taken, more efficient technologies for renewable methane production give a lower GWP for both current and future energy mix. All other LCA indicators are also analysed and the hot spot of the anaerobic digestion process is performed
Lagrangian filtered density function for LES-based stochastic modelling of turbulent dispersed flows
The Eulerian-Lagrangian approach based on Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) is one
of the most promising and viable numerical tools to study turbulent dispersed
flows when the computational cost of Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) becomes
too expensive. The applicability of this approach is however limited if the
effects of the Sub-Grid Scales (SGS) of the flow on particle dynamics are
neglected. In this paper, we propose to take these effects into account by
means of a Lagrangian stochastic SGS model for the equations of particle
motion. The model extends to particle-laden flows the velocity-filtered density
function method originally developed for reactive flows. The underlying
filtered density function is simulated through a Lagrangian Monte Carlo
procedure that solves for a set of Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs)
along individual particle trajectories. The resulting model is tested for the
reference case of turbulent channel flow, using a hybrid algorithm in which the
fluid velocity field is provided by LES and then used to advance the SDEs in
time. The model consistency is assessed in the limit of particles with zero
inertia, when "duplicate fields" are available from both the Eulerian LES and
the Lagrangian tracking. Tests with inertial particles were performed to
examine the capability of the model to capture particle preferential
concentration and near-wall segregation. Upon comparison with DNS-based
statistics, our results show improved accuracy and considerably reduced errors
with respect to the case in which no SGS model is used in the equations of
particle motion
Party finance reform as constitutional engineering? The effectiveness and unintended consequences of party finance reform in France and Britain
In both Britain and France, party funding was traditionally characterized by a laissez faire approach and a conspicuous lack of regulation. In France, this was tantamount to a 'legislative vacuum'. In the last two decades, however, both countries have sought to fundamentally reform their political finance regulation regimes. This prompted, in Britain, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, and in France a bout of 'legislative incontinence' — profoundly transforming the political finance regime between 1988 and 1995. This article seeks to explore and compare the impacts of the reforms in each country in a bid to explain the unintended consequences of the alternative paths taken and the effectiveness of the new party finance regime in each country. It finds that constitutional engineering through party finance reform is a singularly inexact science, largely due to the imperfect nature of information, the limited predictability of cause and effect, and the constraining influence of non-party actors, such as the Constitutional Council in France, and the Electoral Commission in Britain
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