3,692 research outputs found
Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature
Social prescribing is a means by which clinical services can link individuals who have psychological, social and/or practical needs with non-clinical services within their local community. There is a lack of empirical evidence investigating whether social prescribing helps such individuals and which interventions are the most effective and accepted by them to address their loneliness. This meta-synthesis aimed to synthesise findings from qualitative studies exploring experiences of people (of any age) who participated in any social prescribing intervention aimed at loneliness and/or social isolation to ascertain whether they felt it helped address loneliness/isolation and the potential mechanisms by which this might occur. We conducted a systematic search of 5 electronic databases and 4 other databases that would yield grey literature in April 2021 to identify qualitative articles on this topic written in English or French. We assessed the quality of the included studies using recognised tools, and synthesised findings using the approach of thematic analysis. We identified 19 records analysed (e.g. journal articles) from 18 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Our analysis identified three themes: (1) increased sense of wellbeing (with six subthemes), (2) factors that engendered an ongoing desire to connect with others, and (3) perceived drawbacks of social prescribing. These themes illustrate the benefits and difficulties people perceive in social prescribing programmes addressing loneliness and social isolation, with an overall balance of more benefits than drawbacks in social prescribing participation. However, given the unhelpful aspects of social prescribing identified by some participants, greater thought should be given to potential harms. Moreover, further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to better understand mechanisms and effectiveness, and how different components of social prescribing might be best matched to individual participants
First-principles method of propagation of tightly bound excitons: exciton band structure of LiF and verification with inelastic x-ray scattering
We propose a simple first-principles method to describe propagation of
tightly bound excitons. By viewing the exciton as a composite object (an
effective Frenkel exciton in Wannier orbitals), we define an exciton kinetic
kernel to encapsulate the exciton propagation and decay for all binding energy.
Applied to prototypical LiF, our approach produces three exciton bands, which
we verified quantitatively via inelastic x-ray scattering. The proposed
real-space picture is computationally inexpensive and thus enables study of the
full exciton dynamics, even in the presence of surfaces and impurity
scattering. It also provides intuitive understanding to facilitate practical
exciton engineering in semiconductors, strongly correlated oxides, and their
nanostructures.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by PR
Interface-induced heavy-hole/light-hole splitting of acceptors in silicon
The energy spectrum of spin-orbit coupled states of individual sub-surface
boron acceptor dopants in silicon have been investigated using scanning
tunneling spectroscopy (STS) at cryogenic temperatures. The spatially resolved
tunnel spectra show two resonances which we ascribe to the heavy- and
light-hole Kramers doublets. This type of broken degeneracy has recently been
argued to be advantageous for the lifetime of acceptor-based qubits [Phys. Rev.
B 88 064308 (2013)]. The depth dependent energy splitting between the heavy-
and light-hole Kramers doublets is consistent with tight binding calculations,
and is in excess of 1 meV for all acceptors within the experimentally
accessible depth range (< 2 nm from the surface). These results will aid the
development of tunable acceptor-based qubits in silicon with long coherence
times and the possibility for electrical manipulation
A Study on Tourism Development Strategy of Kaohsiung City in Taiwan after Urban Style Regeneration
Urban tourism has gradually been emphasized in past years; especially, it is regarded as a savior of urban regeneration in old industrial cities. When losing the competitive advantages and getting declined, old industrial cities are facing the challenge of transformation. The development of urban tourism is considered as the opportunity of industrial cities in dark recession that they start to involve in the development of tourism. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is applied in this study to evaluate key success factors in the tourism development strategy of Kaohsiung City after the urban style regeneration. AHP is used for confirming the levels of various evaluation factors. The first hierarchy contains four evaluation dimensions, and 14 evaluation standards are covered in the second hierarchy. The results reveal the important sequence of four evaluation factors in the second hierarchy as (1) marketing activity, (2) management strategy, (3) recreational environment, and (4) infrastructure, where the importance of evaluation factors in the third hierarchy is sequenced as (1) urban attraction, (2) environmental facility maintenance, (3) celebrations, (4) local characteristics, and (5) natural landscape. The research results and suggestions in this study are expected to enhance the tourism development of Kaohsiung City in Taiwan after the urban style regeneration.
Keywords: urban style, tourism development strategy, key success factors, Delphi method, AH
Piezoelectric control of the magnetic anisotropy via interface strain coupling in a composite multiferroic structure
We investigate theoretically the magnetic dynamics in a
ferroelectric/ferromagnetic heterostructure coupled via strain-mediated
magnetoelectric interaction. We predict an electric field-induced magnetic
switching in the plane perpendicular to the magneto-crystalline easy axis, and
trace this effect back to the piezoelectric control of the magnetoelastic
coupling. We also investigate the magnetic remanence and the electric
coercivity
Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature
Social prescribing is a means by which clinical services can link individuals who have psychological, social and/or practical needs with non-clinical services within their local community. There is a lack of empirical evidence investigating whether social prescribing helps such individuals and which interventions are the most effective and accepted by them to address their loneliness. This meta-synthesis aimed to synthesise findings from qualitative studies exploring experiences of people (of any age) who participated in any social prescribing intervention aimed at loneliness and/or social isolation to ascertain whether they felt it helped address loneliness/isolation and the potential mechanisms by which this might occur. We conducted a systematic search of 5 electronic databases and 4 other databases that would yield grey literature in April 2021 to identify qualitative articles on this topic written in English or French. We assessed the quality of the included studies using recognised tools, and synthesised findings using the approach of thematic analysis. We identified 19 records analysed (e.g. journal articles) from 18 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Our analysis identified three themes: (1) increased sense of wellbeing (with six subthemes), (2) factors that engendered an ongoing desire to connect with others, and (3) perceived drawbacks of social prescribing. These themes illustrate the benefits and difficulties people perceive in social prescribing programmes addressing loneliness and social isolation, with an overall balance of more benefits than drawbacks in social prescribing participation. However, given the unhelpful aspects of social prescribing identified by some participants, greater thought should be given to potential harms. Moreover, further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to better understand mechanisms and effectiveness, and how different components of social prescribing might be best matched to individual participants
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