What's the big idea? A critical exploration of the concept of social capital and its incorporation into leisure policy discourse

Starting from the overwhelming welcome that Putnam's (2000) treatise on social capital has received in government circles, we consider its relative merits for examining and understanding the role for leisure in policy strategies. To perform this critique we identify some of the key points from Putnam's work and also illustrate how it has been incorporated into a body of leisure studies literature. This is then extended to a discussion of the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of his approach and its link to civic communitarianism. We suggest that the seduction of the 'niceness' of Putnam's formulation of social capital not only misses the point of the grimness of some people's lives but it also pays little attention to Bourdieu's point that poorer community groups tend to be at the mercy of forces over which they have little control. We argue that if the poor have become a silent emblem of the ways in which the state has more and more individualised its relationship with its citizens, it is they who also tend to be blamed for their own poverty because it is presumed that they lack social capital. This in turn encourages 'us' to determine what is appropriate for 'them'. As a critical response to this situation, we propose that Bourdieu's take on different forms of 'capital' offers more productive lines for analysis. From there we go on to suggest that it might be profitable to combine Bourdieu's sociology with Sennett's recent interpretation of 'respect' to formulate a central interpretive role for community leisure practitioners - recast as cultural intermediaries - if poorer community groups are to be better included. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd

A transatlantic comparative study of acute dysphagia services

This was the first study to compare acute dysphagia service provision directly between the UK and the US. It examined variations in acute dysphagia services between the UK and the US, determined clinicians’ perceptions of their own service and that of their transatlantic counterparts, and elicited the reason for variation. An online survey was distributed to randomly-allocated teaching hospitals in the UK and the US, and speech and language therapists working with acute dysphagia responded anonymously via an automated system. Content analysis was employed to convert free-text responses to numeric data, and then this and existing numeric responses were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. Variability was high, with the US having on average 0.95 whole time equivalent more clinicians per hospital than the UK. This resulted in an increased number of new patients examined and increased frequency of review of existing patients compared to the UK. In contrast, the UK had significantly increased waiting times with no patient being assessed on the same day as referral (compared to 63.6% of US responses). Notable variation was also seen in objective or instrumental assessment, with most US patients receiving videofluoroscopy or fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (compared to only one UK hospital). Finance was found to be at the root of the variation. However, the more extensive US service was found to be more cost-effective

Realist evaluation of the impact of paediatric nurse practitioner clinics, specialist paediatric nurses, and a children’s community nursing team in deflecting attendance at emergency departments and urgent care centres by children with long-term conditions

In 2018, the Greater Manchester Children’s Health and Wellbeing Board developed a 10-point strategy to achieve its objectives, the sixth of which was to reduce unnecessary hospital attendances and admissions for children with long term conditions such as asthma, diabetes and epilepsy. Funding was secured from Manchester Academic Health Science Centre to commission an exploration of the impact of the Paediatric Nurse Practitioner Clinic within the context of the Family Services Model and the impact that the service was having on reducing attendance at urgent care centres or admission to hospital. Alternatives to taking children to the ED/UCC can be a preference. An integrated system, with elements able to book directly into others, with rapid access, information, health promotion, and follow-up were essential to success. Extra consultation time for proactive intervention, with sufficient nurses to provide a seven-days service were valued. Advertisement of the service to the public and to professionals is vital for uptake by professionals and the public

Groups Excluded from ‘Representative’ Household Surveys: An Analysis Based on Remittances Sent and Received in Vietnam

The Vietnam Living Standard Surveys (VLSS) are supposed to be representative of the entire population in Vietnam. However, we uncover an anomaly that the amount of remittances received from domestic sources is significantly larger than the amount of remittances sent to domestic sources, implying that the survey is at least not representative of remittance senders. By further exploring a unique characteristic of the survey questions about remittances, we determine that, in particular, female and urban-dwelling remittance senders are underrepresented in the survey.

Spectroscopic analysis of radiation-generated changes in tensile properties of a polyetherimide film

The effects of electron radiation on Ultem, a polyetherimide were studied for doses from 2 x 10 to the 9th power to 6 x 10 to the 9th power rad. Specimens were studied for tensile property testing and for electron paramagnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopic measurements of molecular structure. A Faraday cup design and a method for remote temperature measurement were developed. The spectroscopic data show that radiation caused dehydrogenation of methyl groups, rupture of main-chain ether linkage, and opening of imide rings, all to form radicals and indicate that the so-formed atomic hydrogen attached to phenyl radicals, but not to phenoxyl radicals, which would have formed hydroxyls. The observed decays of the radiation-generated phenoxyl, gem-dimethyl, and carbonyl radicals were interpreted as a combining of the radicals to form crosslinking. This crosslinking is the probable cause of the major reduction in the elongation of the tensile specimens after irradiation. Subsequent classical solubility tests indicate that the irradiation caused massive crosslinking

Spectroscopic comparison of effects of electron radiation on mechanical properties of two polyimides

The differences in the radiation durabilities of two polyimide materials, Du Pont Kapton and General Electric Ultem, are compared. An explanation of the basic mechanisms which occur during exposure to electron radiation from analyses of infrared (IR) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopic data for each material is provided. The molecular model for Kapton was, in part, established from earlier modeling for Ultem (pp. 1293-1298 of IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, December 1984). Techniques for understanding the durability of one complex polymer based on the understanding of a different and equally complex polymer are demonstrated. The spectroscopic data showed that the primary radiation-generated change in the tensile properties of Ultem (a large reduction in tensile elongation) was due to crosslinking, which followed the capture by phenyl radicals of hydrogen atoms removed from gem-dimethyl groups. In contrast, the tensile properties of Kapton remained unchanged because radical-radical recombination, a self-mending process, took place

Derivation of transformation formulas between geocentric and geodetic coordinates for nonzero altitudes

Four formulas, for the nonzero altitude transformation from geodetic coordinates (geodetic latitude and altitude) to geocentric coordinates (geocentric latitude and geocentric distance) and vice versa, are derived. The set of four formulas is expressed in each of the three useful forms: series expansion in powers of the earth's flattening; series expansion in powers of the earth's eccentricity; and Fourier series expansion in terms of the geodetic latitude or the geocentric latitude. The error incurred in these series expansions is of the order of one part in 3 x 10 to the 7th power