Singing for mental health and wellbeing: findings from West Kent and Medway

Background: An earlier study in East Kent of weekly singing for people with enduring mental health issues revealed clinically important improvements in mental wellbeing over a period of ten months. The present study was designed to assess whether the model developed in East Kent could be transferred to West Kent and Medway with similarly positive results. Methods: Four community singing groups were established for people with experience of mental health issues, which ran weekly from November 2014 to the end of 2015. The groups were allowed to establish themselves to ensure stability of attendance before formal evaluation of the project took place over a six-month period from February-July 2015. Participants completed the short Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation questionnaire, CORE10, a measure of mental distress, and the full Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS), a measure of mental wellbeing, at baseline, and then three months and six months later. Of 47 participants regularly involved in the groups in early 2015, 26 (55%) completed baseline questionnaires in February, and after six months in July. Qualitative feedback on participants’ experiences of the groups was also gathered through comments on the questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Findings: Both the CORE10 and WEMWBS showed satisfactory reliabilities across the six-month period with significant negative correlations between the two scales. Scores on CORE10 significantly reduced over six months indicating reductions in reported mental distress. Scores on the WEMWBS significantly increased showing improved mental wellbeing. Significant improvements were found on the following CORE items, which signal reduction in specific problems affecting mental health: I have felt tense, anxious or nervous; I have had difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep; I have felt unhappy, and Unwanted images or memories have been distressing me. Qualitative feedback from participants was strongly consistent with the quantitative findings and gives further insights into participants’ mental health challenges and how regular singing helped ameliorate them. Conclusions: The current study replicates the earlier findings from the East Kent project and shows that regular group singing is associated with reductions in mental distress and increased mental wellbeing

Tawney and the third way

From the 1920s to the 1950s R. H. Tawney was the most influential socialist thinker in Britain. He articulated an ethical socialism at odds with powerful statist and mechanistic traditions in British socialist thinking. Tawney's work is thus an important antecedent to third way thinking. Tawney's religiously-based critique of the morality of capitalism was combined with a concern for detailed institutional reform, challenging simple dichotomies between public and private ownership. He began a debate about democratizing the enterprise and corporate governance though his efforts fell on stony ground. Conversely, Tawney's moralism informed a whole-hearted condemnation of market forces in tension with both his concern with institutional reform and modern third way thought. Unfortunately, he refused to engage seriously with emergent welfare economics which for many social democrats promised a more nuanced understanding of the limits of market forces. Tawney's legacy is a complex one, whose various elements form a vital part of the intellectual background to current third way thinking

Method and apparatus for the collection, storage, and real time analysis of blood and other bodily fluids

The present invention provides a simple, portable, relatively inexpensive apparatus for accurately and efficiently collecting, separating, testing, and even storing between about 1-20 ml, preferably about 1-10 ml, of blood or other bodily fluid in situ. The apparatus includes a collection chamber bounded on its sides by an opening in a sheet of material, preferably clear plastic, abutting a filter card. The filter card is made of fibrous material, preferably less than about a millimeter thick, having an average pore size of less than about 3 microns. Preferably, the fibers are glass and the fibrous material has an average pore size of about 1 micron. The fibrous material is treated with a carbohydrate/protein mixture which contains between about 1-40 percent wt/vol carbohydrate and about 0.1-15 percent wt/vol nonspecific protein, preferably between about 10-20 percent carbohydrate and about 5-8 percent protein. A preferred carbohydrate/protein mixture comprises about 10 percent mannitol and about 6 percent albumin. The blood or other fluid moves through the filter card by capillary action aided by an absorbent matrix with a high Klemm factor which abuts the filter card. The absorbent matrix and/or filter card can be treated with a wide spectrum of test reagents. The speed, cleanliness, and efficiency of the separation process can be altered by: (a) changing the absolute concentration of the carbohydrate/protein mixture; (b) applying positive or negative pressure to one side of the filter; and/or (c) varying the relative density and pore size of the filter card and absorbent matrix

Further evidence that singing fosters mental health and wellbeing: The West Kent and Medway project

Purpose Clift and Morrison (2011) report that weekly singing over eight months for people with enduring mental health issues led to clinically important reductions in mental distress. The present study tested the robustness of the earlier findings. Design Four community singing groups for people with mental health issues ran weekly from November 2014 to the end of 2015. Evaluation place over a six-month period using two validated questionnaires: the short Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation questionnaire (CORE-10), and the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS). Findings Twenty-six participants completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires. CORE-10 scores were significantly reduced, and WEMWBS scores significantly increased. Comparisons with the earlier study found a similar pattern of improvements on CORE items that are part of the 'problems' sub-scale in the full CORE questionnaire. There was also evidence from both studies of participants showing clinically important improvements in CORE-10 scores. Research limitations The main limitations of the study are a small sample size, and the lack of a randomised control group. Originality No attempts have been made previously to directly test the transferability of a singing for health model to a new geographical area and evaluate outcomes using the same validated measure

Method and Apparatus for the Collection Storage and Real Time Analysis of Blood and Other Bodily Fluids

The present invention provides an apparatus for separating a relatively large volume of blood into cellular and acellular fractions without the need for centrifugation. The apparatus comprises a housing divided by a fibrous filter into a blood sample collection chamber having a volume of at least about 1 milliliter and a serum sample collection chamber. The fibrous filter has a pore size of less than about 3 microns, and is coated with a mixture of mannitol and plasma fraction protein (or an animal or vegetable equivalent thereof). The coating causes the cellular fraction to be trapped by the small pores, leaving the cellular fraction intact on the fibrous filter while the acellular fraction passes through the filter for collection in unaltered form from the serum sample collection chamber

Method and Apparatus for the Collection, Storage, and Real Time Analysis of Blood and Other Bodily Fluids

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for separating a blood sample having a volume of up to about 20 milliliters into cellular and acellular fractions. The apparatus includes a housing divided by a fibrous filter into a blood sample collection chamber having a volume of at least about 1 milliliter and a serum sample collection chamber. The fibrous filter has a pore size of less than about 3 microns, and is coated with a mixture including between about 1-40 wt/vol % mannitol and between about 0.1-15 wt/vol % of plasma fraction protein (or an animal or vegetable equivalent thereof). The coating causes the cellular fraction to be trapped by the small pores, leaving the cellular fraction intact on the fibrous filter while the acellular fraction passes through the filter for collection in unaltered form from the serum sample collection chamber

Affirming the voices of teen mothers: Exploring the influences of the reconstruction of the welfare state on teen mothers in Ontario.

This thesis explores the influences of the reconstruction of the welfare state on teen mothers, a marginalized population in Ontario. It examines how the introduction of the LEAP programme, (learning, earning and parenting), a programme for teen parents on social assistance in Ontario, has influenced the identity of teen mothers. The analysis of this study shows how the teen mothers who have participated in the LEAP programme have experienced structural and ideological influences. These influences were determined through the voices of the teen mothers as they experienced both the power of the state and resistance.Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2002 .C55. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 41-04, page: 0974. Adviser: Lynne Phillips. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2002

Habits of the Axolotle

This is where the abstract of this record would appear. This is only demonstration data

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

Research examples from the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health

The poster represents four major areas of the Centre's work: Singing for wellbeing; Dance and health; Cultural value; and Disseminatio