Connected Communities Foodscapes

FOODSCAPES was an AHRC Connected Communities project (2013) that explored the use of art as a way of opening up discussion about food. Participants in the project included Knowle West Media Centre, The Matthew Tree Project (TMTP), the Edible Landscapes Movement (ELM), UWE Bristol, University of Southampton, the James Hutton Institute and Paul Hurley (artist-in-residence). Together, we explored how arts intervention and cultural engagement can help address food, food poverty, and sustainable communities. As co-designed action research, the project also examined how arts intervention can enhance interchange between community organisations and research institutions. Throughout Foodscapes there was an attempt to integrate the research questions, arts programming and evaluative activities into the actual process of the work, so that these activities could become entwined and, it is hoped, more meaningful for all involved

'Their story is a hard road to hoe': how art-making tackles stigma and builds well-being in young people living regionally

Purpose Remote and regional Australia have comparatively fewer mental health services than their urban counterparts, what is more, mental health remains profoundly stigmatised. This study aims to understand how, if at all, the process of group art-making then publicly displaying the artworks can contribute to stigma reduction for young people (YP) experiencing mental health challenges in regional Australia. Design/methodology/approach Interviews were conducted with six young artists who use regional mental health services and 25 people who viewed their displayed art using a thematic analysis of the coded interview data. Findings Findings of this study demonstrated how art-making as a process increased self-esteem, social interaction and artistic expression; while the viewers experienced an emotional connection to the art. The viewer’s response enhanced YP’s confidence in their abilities. Originality/value Incorporating art-making and exhibiting the art in public spaces could be incorporated into YP’s mental health services to support well-being and inform the perception the general public hold of mental health, thus reducing stigma

The development of an idiographic method of measurement for use in dynamic assessment

The dynamic, multifaceted nature of humans requires an individuated, dynamic approach to evaluation and intervention. The primary purpose of this research is to address issues of evaluating dynamic assessment research and practice. Dynamic assessment (DA) is, broadly, a psycho-educational approach to maximising potential in people, in particular marginalised, disenfranchised people or people not flourishing within their learning environment. In order to usefully consider a methodology of measurement which aligns with the philosophical foundations of DA it was necessary to propose a widening of the parameters or scope of reference within which DA is situated. The situation of DA within a copasetic framework – Integrated Social Learning Theory (ISLT) clarifies the theoretical paradigm for research and practice. The novel idiographic methodology developed for this thesis Individual Dynamic Evaluation and Assessment (IDEA) uses open card-sorts to capture the participant’s self-concept. Multidimensional scaling analysis of card-sort data renders a graphical representation of that self-concept in relation to others in the form of a life-space map. General Procrustes analysis of these life-space maps over time allows the evaluation of movement in self-concept for a person over time. DA is primarily concerned with the mediation of learning between the expert and novice. The focus of DA is the person, and the examination of movement or change for that person. Drawing from development and social learning theories which align with this position bolsters the grand theories of dynamic DA posited by Vygotsky, Luria (Luria, 1976; Luria & Cole, 1976; Luria, Cole & Cole, 2006; Luria & Yudovich, 1956, 1959), Haeussermann (1956), Feuerstein (1990, 2003; Feuerstein, Rand & Hoffmann, 1979; Feuerstein, Feuerstein, Falik & Rand, 2002 ) Bruner (1956, 1960) & Rey (1938). The ISLT framework allows for the useful consideration of intraindividual methods of evaluation and measurement. A position has been taken – namely that nomothetic methods of measurement are not best suited to the goal of usefully examining change over time in therapeutic practice contexts. ISLT and IDEA-1 consider the person as a complex, dynamic system. Learning and psychological support are inextricably linked within this paradigm. This has ramifications for practice. A holistic approach to psycho-educational support is recommended, the basis for which is provided within the ISLT framework. This thesis presents a novel N=1 case study design which is wholly idiographic in nature. The methodology for evaluation described here provides a basis for evidence-based practice while maintaining a focus on the progress of the individual under targeted intervention. The repeated measures design described here is one which has a format with which practitioners and researchers are familiar. It stands separate from the intervention procedure unlike integrated scoring systems and is idiographic in focus unlike nomothetic sandwich study designs. The results from the sixteen studies presented here provides the beginnings of an evidence-base for the use of this approach in intraindividual contexts

Measuring individual change - allowing the person to take centre stage

Traditionally, psychology has tended to find a voice as a science by providing findings from large-scale studies. Psychology as a therapeutic discipline, instead, has tended to find its voice by informing us of the lived experiences of individuals. A PhD study in the School of Applied Psychology has merged the need for robust data to underpin the measured changes experienced by individuals (one person) over time. How do we stand over measures of an individual in the same way that we would measure many individuals on aggregate? Normally, statistical techniques are used to assist in inferring findings from large-scale sample studies to the larger population from which they originate. In addition, statistical techniques provide measures which account for chance factors in research design. How can N=1 samples provide us with robust data in the same way that N=1000 samples can? Emma Hurley has investigated this very question in her PhD research under the supervision of Dr Raegan Murphy. Her PhD is embedded within the broader area of dynamic assessment

Learning from and Engaging with Assessment and Feedback (LEAF): Growing Practice

The LEAF (Learning from and Engaging with Assessment and Feedback) project addressed a key issue in third-level teaching and learning: assessment and feedback. The LEAF team comprised 18 academics from across the TU Dublin City Campus and representatives from all Colleges, along with the Director of Student Affairs and the Students’ Union Education Officer. This paper presents the findings of the LEAF project. Assessment strategies have been shown to have a large impact on shaping student learning process strategies which feedforward into key employability skills. Learning from best practice, surveys from staff and students and analysis of the quality documents, the project developed a set of recommendations to enhance practices in assessment and feedback. Many challenges were identified over the course of this project in relation to the timeliness, amount and quality of feedback, assessment load, burden on staff and students, student expectations, monologue versus dialogue approach to feedback, inconsistency across programmes and poor integration of assessment and feedback into the academic quality framework. Key drivers identified throughout the project that are necessary to enhance assessment and feedback strategies include adequate resourcing, alignment of assessment with graduate attributes, inclusion of the student voice and more widespread use of technology

BIPP: An efficient HPC implementation of the Bluebild algorithm for radio astronomy

The Bluebild algorithm is a new technique for image synthesis in radio astronomy which forms a least-squares estimate of the sky intensity function using the theory of sampling and interpolation operators. We present an HPC implementation of the Bluebild algorithm for radio-interferometric imaging: Bluebild Imaging++ (BIPP). BIPP is a spherical imager that leverages functional PCA to decompose the sky into distinct energy levels. The library features interfaces to C++, C and Python and is designed with seamless GPU acceleration in mind. We evaluate the accuracy and performance of BIPP on simulated observations of the upcoming Square Kilometer Array Observatory and real data from the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope. We find that BIPP offers accurate wide-field imaging with no need for a w-term approximation and has comparable execution time with respect to the interferometric imaging libraries CASA and WSClean. Futhermore, due to the energy level decomposition, images produced with BIPP can reveal information about faint and diffuse structures before any cleaning iterations. The source code of BIPP is publicly released.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figure

Scrutinizing pre- and post-device fabrication properties of atomic layer deposition WS₂ thin films

In this work, we investigate the physical and electrical properties of WS2 thin films grown by a plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition process, both before and after device fabrication. The WS2 films were deposited on thermally oxidized silicon substrates using the W(NMe2)2(NtBu)2 precursor and a H2S plasma at 450 °C. The WS2 films were approximately 8 nm thick, measured from high-resolution cross-sectional transmission electron imaging, and generally exhibited the desired horizontal basal-plane orientation of the WS2 layers to the SiO2 surface. Hall analysis revealed a p-type behavior with a carrier concentration of 1.31 × 1017 cm−3. Temperature-dependent electrical analysis of circular transfer length method test structures, with Ni/Au contacts, yielded the activation energy (Ea) of both the specific contact resistivity and the WS2 resistivity as 100 and 91 meV, respectively. The similarity of these two values indicates that the characteristics of both are dominated by the temperature dependence of the WS2 hole concentration. Change in the material, such as in sheet resistance, due to device fabrication is attributed to the chemicals and thermal treatments associated with resist spinning and baking, ambient and UV exposure, metal deposition, and metal lift off for contact pad formation.</p