411 research outputs found

    Engaging with History after Macpherson

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    The Race Relations Amendment Act (2000) identifies a key role for education, and more specifically history, in promoting ‘race equality’ in Britain. In this article Ian Grosvenor and Kevin Myers consider the extent of young people’s current engagement with the history of ‘diversity, change and immigration’ which underpins the commitment to ‘race equality’. Finding that in many of Britain’s schools and universities a singular and exclusionary version of history continues to dominate the curriculum, they go on to consider the reasons for the neglect of multiculturalism. The authors identify the development of an aggressive national identity that depends on the past for its legitimacy and argue that this sense of the past is an important obstacle to future progress

    Reframing dementia: Nursing students' relational learning with rather than about people with dementia. A constructivist grounded theory study

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    OBJECTIVES: Developing an informed and effective workforce that provides effective and ethical care to people with dementia and their families is an international priority. Here we explore the impact of a novel approach on students of adult nursing. It involved engagement with people with dementia and their carers over 3 years in the Time for Dementia Programme. This research explored students' perceptions of their professional learning and practice. METHODS: A longitudinal, constructivist grounded theory approach in three phases (3 years) was used. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 12 students of adult nursing following visits with older adults with dementia and their carers in their own homes at 12 months, 24 months and at 36 months. A constant comparative analysis of transcribed interviews was completed. RESULTS: A new theory of Whole Sight was identified as representing the impact of the learning that occurred as a consequence of relational learning visits. The core category of New Ways of Seeing dementia represented a broadening of students' views of dementia that encompassed the person's lives and relationships. This led to a person‐centred shift in students' practice. The data suggest that Time for Dementia can help students to be active in their contribution to care and serve as change agents in transforming dementia care. CONCLUSIONS: The theory of Whole Sight that emerged is a novel and useful contribution to the evidence on community‐based educational initiatives. Visiting people with dementia and their carers at home in training can help develop a workforce that meets their needs

    The practical exploitation of tacit machine tool intelligence

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    Manufacturing equipment embraces an increasing measure of tacit intelligence, in both capacity and value. However, this intelligence is yet to be exploited effectively. This is due to both the costs and limitations of developed approaches and a deficient understanding of data value and data origin. This work investigates the principal limitations of typical machine tool data and encourages consideration of such inherent limitations in order to improve potential monitoring strategies. This work presents a novel approach to the acquisition and processing of machine tool cutting data. The approach considers the condition of the monitored system and the deterioration of cutting tool performance. The management of the cutting process by the machine tool controller forms the basis of the approach, and hence, makes use of the tacit intelligence that is deployed in such a task. By using available machine tool controller signals, the impact on day-to-day machining operations is minimised while avoiding the need to retrofit equipment or sensors. The potential of the approach in the contexts of the emerging internet of things and intelligent process management and monitoring is considered. The efficacy of the approach is evaluated by correlating the actively derived measure of process variation with an offline measurement of product form. The potential is then underlined through a series of experiments for which the derived variation is assessed as a direct measure of the cutting tool health. The proposed system is identified as both a viable alternative and synergistic addition to current approaches that mainly consider the form and features of the manufactured componen

    What are the most effective interventions to improve physical performance in pre-frail and frail adults? A systematic review of randomised control trials

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    Background: With life expectancy continuing to rise in the United Kingdom there is an increasing public health focus on the maintenance of physical independence among all older adults. Identifying interventions that improve physical outcomes in pre-frail and frail older adults is imperative. Methods: A systematic review of the literature 2000 to 2017 following PRISMA guidelines and registered with PROSPERO (no. CRD42016045325). Results: Ten RCT trials fulfilled selection criteria and quality appraisal. The study quality was moderate to good. Interventions included physical activity; nutrition, physical activity combined with nutrition. Interventions that incorporated one or more physical activity components significantly improved physical outcomes in pre-frail and/or frail older adults. Conclusions: Physical activity interventions are key to maintaining independence in pre-frail and frail older adults. A lack of consensus regarding the definition of frailty, and an absence of core measures to assess this means any attempt to create an optimal intervention will be impeded. This absence may ultimately impact on the ability of older and frail adults to live well and for longer in the community

    Mechanical, structural and dissolution properties of heat treated thin-film phosphate based glasses

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    Here we show the deposition of 2.7 ÎŒm thick phosphate based glass films produced by magnetron sputtering, followed by post heat treatments at 500 °C. Variations in degradation properties pre and post heat treatment were attributed to the formation of Hematite crystals within a glass matrix, iron oxidation and the depletion of hydrophilic P-O-P bonds within the surface layer. As deposited and heat treated coatings showed interfacial tensile adhesion in excess of 73.6 MPa; which surpassed ISO and FDA requirements for HA coatings. Scratch testing of coatings on polished substrates revealed brittle failure mechanisms, amplified due to heat treatment and interfacial failure occurring from 2.3 to 5.0 N. Coatings that were deposited onto sandblasted substrates to mimic commercial implant surfaces, did not suffer from tensile cracking or trackside delamination showing substantial interfacial improvements to between 8.6 and 11.3 N. An exponential dissolution rate was observed from 0 to 2 h for as deposited coatings, which was eliminated via heat treatment. From 2 to 24 h ion release rates ordered P > Na > Mg > Ca > Fe whilst all coatings exhibited linear degradation rates, which reduced by factors of 2.4–3.0 following heat treatments

    Homogeneous nonrelativistic geometries as coset spaces

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    We generalize the coset procedure of homogeneous spacetimes in (pseudo-) Riemannian geometry to non-Lorentzian geometries. These are manifolds endowed with nowhere vanishing invertible vielbeins that transform under local non-Lorentzian tangent space transformations. In particular we focus on nonrelativistic symmetry algebras that give rise to (torsional) Newton-Cartan geometries, for which we demonstrate how the Newton-Cartan metric complex is determined by degenerate co- and contravariant symmetric bilinear forms on the coset. In specific cases we also show the connection of the resulting nonrelativistic coset spacetimes to pseudo-Riemannian cosets via Inonu-Wigner contraction of relativistic algebras as well as null reduction. Our construction is of use for example when considering limits of the AdS/CFT correspondence in which nonrelativistic spacetimes appear as gravitational backgrounds for nonrelativistic string or gravity theories

    The feasibility of using electromagnetic waves in determining membrane failure through concrete

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    Concrete flat roof defects such as water leakage present a significant and common problem in large buildings, particularly in tropical countries, where rainfall is high. To monitor this condition, effective non-destructive test methods are required to detect problems at an early stage, especially hidden defects within the concrete roof, which are critical. This paper presents the potential use of electromagnetic (EM) waves for determining possible leakage of the concrete flat roof as a result of failure of the waterproof membrane layer. This study was assessed, experimentally by investigation of the propagation of EM waves through the roof and their interaction with water. Novel Microwave sensors described in the paper operate in the 6 GHz to 12 GHz frequency range using a Marconi 6200A microwave test set. A range of existing methods was reviewed and analysed. Results of experimental tests confirmed that microwaves could be used as an alternative non-destructive method for identifying water ingress caused by membrane failure into the concrete roof surface

    Opportunistic experiments to constrain aerosol effective radiative forcing

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    Aerosol–cloud interactions (ACIs) are considered to be the most uncertain driver of present-day radiative forcing due to human activities. The nonlinearity of cloud-state changes to aerosol perturbations make it challenging to attribute causality in observed relationships of aerosol radiative forcing. Using correlations to infer causality can be challenging when meteorological variability also drives both aerosol and cloud changes independently. Natural and anthropogenic aerosol perturbations from well-defined sources provide “opportunistic experiments” (also known as natural experiments) to investigate ACI in cases where causality may be more confidently inferred. These perturbations cover a wide range of locations and spatiotemporal scales, including point sources such as volcanic eruptions or industrial sources, plumes from biomass burning or forest fires, and tracks from individual ships or shipping corridors. We review the different experimental conditions and conduct a synthesis of the available satellite datasets and field campaigns to place these opportunistic experiments on a common footing, facilitating new insights and a clearer understanding of key uncertainties in aerosol radiative forcing. Cloud albedo perturbations are strongly sensitive to background meteorological conditions. Strong liquid water path increases due to aerosol perturbations are largely ruled out by averaging across experiments. Opportunistic experiments have significantly improved process-level understanding of ACI, but it remains unclear how reliably the relationships found can be scaled to the global level, thus demonstrating a need for deeper investigation in order to improve assessments of aerosol radiative forcing and climate change

    Mesoporous Ternary Nitrides of Earth-Abundant Metals as Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalyst

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    As sustainable energy becomes a major concern for modern society, renewable and clean energy systems need highly active, stable, and low-cost catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Mesoporous materials offer an attractive route for generating efficient electrocatalysts with high mass transport capabilities. Herein, we report an efficient hard templating pathway to design and synthesize three-dimensional (3-D) mesoporous ternary nickel iron nitride (Ni3FeN). The as-synthesized electrocatalyst shows good OER performance in an alkaline solution with low overpotential (259 mV) and a small Tafel slope (54 mV dec(−1)), giving superior performance to IrO(2) and RuO(2) catalysts. The highly active contact area, the hierarchical porosity, and the synergistic effect of bimetal atoms contributed to the improved electrocatalytic performance toward OER. In a practical rechargeable Zn–air battery, mesoporous Ni(3)FeN is also shown to deliver a lower charging voltage and longer lifetime than RuO(2). This work opens up a new promising approach to synthesize active OER electrocatalysts for energy-related devices. [Image: see text] ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s40820-020-0412-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users
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