276 research outputs found
Steady Viscous Flow in a Trapezoidal Cavity
The flow in a trapezoidal cavity (including the rectangular and triangular cavities) with one moving wall is studied numerically by finite differences with special treatment in the corners. It is found that streamlines and vorticity distributions are sensitive to geometric changes. The mean square law for core vorticity is valid for the rectangle but ceases to be valid for the triangular cavity
Childcare, choice and social class: Caring for young children in the UK
This paper draws on the results of two qualitative research projects examining parental engagements with the childcare market in the UK. Both projects are located in the same two London localities. One project focuses on professional middle class parents, and the other on working class families, and we discuss the key importance of social class in shaping parents' differential engagement with the childcare market, and their understandings of the role childcare plays in their children's lives. We identify and discuss the different "circuits" of care (Ball et al 1995) available to and used by families living physically close to each other, but in social class terms living in different worlds. We also consider parents' relationships with carers, and their social networks. We conclude that in order to fully understand childcare policies and practices and families' experiences of care, an analysis which encompasses social class and the workings of the childcare market is needed
'It’s like saying “coloured"' : understanding and analysing the urban working classes
This paper draws on data from a qualitative project exploring the engagement of working class families in London with childcare. It is a first attempt to throw some light on our usage of the term ‘working class’, and consider what forms ‘working class-ness’ takes in relation to our respondent families. We discuss some recent sociological literature on the working class(es) in order to understand the emphasises and focuses of other research. We emphasise the heterogeneity of the working class(es), the differences in attitude and experiences based on place, gender, occupational status, education, age and family membership. Then we consider our respondents in relation to their strategies and exercise of agency, their engagement with the labour market, and their embedded-ness in social networks. We conclude that one way of understanding the lives of urban working class families is to consider the extent to which they ‘manage or struggle to cope’, a focus which emphasises process, activity and the differential degrees of agency which the respondents are able to exercise
Women and higher education: perspectives of middle-class, mother-daughter dyads
This qualitative research explores women’s experiences of accessing higher education (HE) in England, through the mother–daughter relationship. Women’s pathways to university and their funding histories are presented from both past and recent generations, to contextualise an understanding of funding HE in light of the 2012 tuition fee increase. Interview data indicate that the middle-class mothers in this study continue to engage and mediate their social, cultural and economic capital to enhance their daughters’ education beyond secondary school and into the tertiary sector. Subsequently, social and educational mobility has been reproduced or transformed positively in all of the dyads. A Bourdieusian approach is used to explore the class-inflected patterns and themes between habitus, capital and field in the process of accessing HE. The advantage of mothers’ continuing support through the mobilisation of capitals, along with their suggestions of anxiety surrounding tuition fees exacerbate the possibility of the marginalisation of access to HE for those from more disadvantaged or less supported social backgrounds
‘My life's properly beginning’: young people with a terminally ill parent talk about the future
This paper explores how young people who are living with a parent who is dying talk about the future. Drawing on a qualitative, interview study, I argue that young people are able to move imaginatively beyond the death of a parent, and in doing so, to maintain a sense of biographical continuity. While thinking about the future, most were able to generate an alternative to the ‘harm story’ typically associated with parental loss. Furthermore, the facility to engage with parental absence in the present enabled young people to make sense of living with dying, and gave meaning to their imagined futures. These findings suggest that young people's narratives of the future may act as a symbolic resource to draw on, albeit one requiring adequate material and social resources to construct. The paper extends the notion of continuing bonds derived from post‐bereavement accounts to suggest that relational experiences of the dead begin prior to bereavement, and may facilitate everyday living in anticipation of significant loss. Enabling young people to imaginatively explore the future may support them in getting by when they are living in these difficult family circumstances
Domestic knowledge, inequalities and differences
Research suggests that domestic knowledge is an expression of gender differences, which is constructed and deployed through unequal social relations, and is able to empower women if it gains collective spaces of expression. The article presents an analysis of parental involvement at school in Spain so as to underpin the former thesis and highlight its connection with the political theory about the "sexual contract"
Opportunities and barriers for adoption of a decision-support tool for Alzheimer's Disease
Clinical decision-support tools (DSTs) represent a valuable resource in healthcare. However, lack of Human
Factors considerations and early design research has often limited their successful adoption. To complement
previous technically focused work, we studied adoption opportunities of a future DST built on a predictive
model of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) progression. Our aim is two-fold: exploring adoption opportunities for
DSTs in AD clinical care, and testing a novel combination of methods to support this process. We focused
on understanding current clinical needs and practices, and the potential for such a tool to be integrated
into the setting, prior to its development. Our user-centred approach was based on field observations and
semi-structured interviews, analysed through workflow analysis, user profiles, and a design-reality gap model.
The first two are common practice, whilst the latter provided added value in highlighting specific adoption
needs. We identified the likely early adopters of the tool as being both psychiatrists and neurologists based in
research-oriented clinical settings. We defined ten key requirements for the translation and adoption of DSTs
for AD around IT, user, and contextual factors. Future works can use and build on these requirements to stand
a greater chance to get adopted in the clinical setting
The effect of the oil resin on the properties of solution of the petroleum wax treated in an ultrasonic field
It was found that the complex treatment of ultrasonic followed by the addition of 0.3% by weight. petroleum resins, a more efficient method of inhibiting sedimentation processes than just ultrasonic or addition of 0,3% by weight. petroleum resins. According to the obtained data, fragments of aliphatic petroleum resins are adsorbed on the high molecular hydrocarbons of normal structure and prevent their aggregation thus the inhibition of sedimentation occurs
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‘If I break your leg, you won’t ask me to fix it for you’: innovative explorations in ‘decolonising’ UK bereavement services
This paper acknowledges that decolonising white-led UK bereavement services is an ambitious endeavour, addressing the arrogance and inequities embedded in the Whiteness of coloniality/modernity. Specialised ‘bereavement support services’ (BSS) may in themselves represent an anachronism of a modernity whose core narrative of control and progress through rational scientific knowledge is profoundly challenged by death. In this paper, we address theoretical considerations, arguing that there can be no universal theory of ‘grief’ based in Western scientific models. Instead, we propose radically innovative openness to diverse understandings of the meanings and authoritative ‘knowledge’ of death, situating ‘bereavement’ and its aftermath in the spatial/historic/political power dynamics of intergenerational histories. Contemporary ‘bereavement’ theory, we argue, must understand how experiences of lives and deaths for minoritised and oppressed groups are bound up in complex ways with trans-generational heritage, including a pluriverse of ways of being in the world, and past and continuing traumas. We suggest that progress in practice and bereavement support requires less need for prescribed action and, instead, greater consideration and open-ended exploration of how white-led organisations can approach decolonising work, and what key principles and values may be appropriate. Writing personally, we offer individual contributions reflecting our experiences of seeking to ’decolonise’ bereavement support in various contexts
Refining tree recruitment models
We used a micrometeorological dispersal model to simulate seed and seedling distributions derived from subcanopy balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.) source trees in a trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) dominated forest. Our first objective was to determine the effect of substituting basal area for cone production as a proxy for seed output. The results showed that the r2 from the regression of predicted versus observed densities increased by ∼5% for seeds and ∼15% for seedling simulations. Our second objective was to determine the effects of changing the median horizontal wind speed. The median speed in this forest environment varies according to the proportion of leaves abscised. For values of the median expected wind speed between the extremes of leafless and full-canopy forests, the r2 of predicted versus observed varied between 0.35 and 0.49 for seeds and between 0.33 and 0.62 for seedling simulations. We demonstrated that the simple one-dimensional model can have added precision if the dispersal parameters are chosen so as to allow more fine-scale variation
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