An urban historical perspective : swimming a recreational and competitive pursuit 1840 to 1914

Over the last three decades or more, there has been a considerable interest in the socio-historical analysis of sport. While a number of historians have examined the development of the major team games and commercial sports in the context of the changing nature of Victorian and Edwardian society, very few have considered the development of individual and more recreational sports, or located the transformation of sport to the process of urbanization. This thesis examines the relationship between growing urbanization and the transformation of swimming from a recreative activity, into an urban recreation and 'modern' competitive sport. Swimming as a recreation and as a competitive sport, developed as a reaction to and consequence of, both the positive and negative features of urbanization. The hypotheses that the greater the urbanization, the more developed and 'modern' sport became, will be supported with evidence from the sport of swimming

Koopman analysis of the periodic Korteweg–de Vries equation

The eigenspectrum of the Koopman operator enables the decomposition of nonlinear dynamics into a sum of nonlinear functions of the state space with purely exponential and sinusoidal time dependence. For a limited number of dynamical systems, it is possible to find these Koopman eigenfunctions exactly and analytically. Here, this is done for the Korteweg–de Vries equation on a periodic interval using the periodic inverse scattering transform and some concepts of algebraic geometry. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first complete Koopman analysis of a partial differential equation, which does not have a trivial global attractor. The results are shown to match the frequencies computed by the data-driven method of dynamic mode decomposition (DMD). We demonstrate that in general, DMD gives a large number of eigenvalues near the imaginary axis and show how these should be interpreted in this setting

Koopman analysis of the periodic Korteweg-de Vries equation

The eigenspectrum of the Koopman operator enables the decomposition of nonlinear dynamics into a sum of nonlinear functions of the state space with purely exponential and sinusoidal time dependence. For a limited number of dynamical systems, it is possible to find these Koopman eigenfunctions exactly and analytically. Here, this is done for the Korteweg-de Vries equation on a periodic interval, using the periodic inverse scattering transform and some concepts of algebraic geometry. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first complete Koopman analysis of a partial differential equation which does not have a trivial global attractor. The results are shown to match the frequencies computed by the data-driven method of dynamic mode decomposition (DMD). We demonstrate that in general DMD gives a large number of eigenvalues near the imaginary axis, and show how these should be interpretted in this setting

Pastoral care for young people in the workplace.

This research sets out to explore the range and type of support that employers have in place to support young people’s transition from education to the workplace. As well as exploring the traditional support through induction and training we have also examined additional support which we have defined as pastoral care. Emerging from the research with there was a dissatisfaction for young people with the preparation that they had received prior to leaving education. The grievances centred around two key areas: that schools often focus on academic achievement and transition to university rather than to employment; and topics such as making pension arrangements and dealing with tax and NI contributions were reported as not being adequately discussed at school/college. These activities are core parts of working life for everyone and need addressing so that young people understand and can make informed decisions about their financial futures. Young people are generally happy with the support that they receive from employers. Almost one third of the young people surveyed had a mentor or buddy appointed when they started work and all young interviewees stated that they were aware of someone they could go to for pastoral and/or other kinds of support. Although most had not needed to access such support themselves. Sometimes the person offering support was doing so in an ‘official’ capacity, as someone who had been appointed by the employer or was someone in a managerial role. Sometimes, support was provided more informally, by a ‘mate’ or older colleague, which was often reported as the most valuable type of support.SEMT

Effects of Roundup on Behavior, Growth, and Mortality of Larval Blue Dashers, Pachydiplax longipennis

The objective of this study was to determine if Roundup (active ingredient: Glyphosate) causes negative effects on behavior, growth, and mortality of larval Pachydiplax longipennis. Larvae were captured from rainwater-filled mesocosms at Hancock Biological Station in Murray, KY. Larvae were exposed to one of four concentrations of Roundup (0mg/L, 2.5mg/L, 5mg/L, or 10mg/L). Daphnia consumption, seek refuge, and anti-predator trials were conducted at 7 and 14 days post-exposure. Growth and survival trials were carried out for eight weeks using different larvae. There were no significant differences among treatments for whether or not larvae ate offered Daphnia for Day 7 (c2 =1.915, df =3) or Day 14 (c2 =1.283, df =3). For the trials on Day 7, Roundup concentration did not have a significant effect on the time the larvae took to consume 1, 2, or 4 Daphnia; however, exposure significantly increased the time the larvae took to consume three Daphnia (P=0.036). For the trials on Day 14, concentration did not have a significant effect on the time the larvae took to consume 1 or 2 Daphnia; however, Roundup significantly increased the time the larvae took to consume 3 (P=0.050) or 4 Daphnia(P=0.029). In the seek refuge trials, there were no significant differences among treatments for the number of pokes required to elicit a behavioral response to hide during Day 7(c2=9.458, df =6) or Day 14 (c2 =5.759, df =6). In the anti-predator trials, there were no significant differences among treatments for the number of pokes required to elicit a fleeing response during Day 7 (c2 =1.336, df =3) or Day 14 (c2 =1.976, df =3). The behavioral response variables measured in the seek refuge and anti-predator trials were not significantly influenced by Roundup concentration, trial day, or size of the larvae. Roundup concentration and exposure week had a significant effect on growth (head width and body length) (

The Silver Line: Tackling Loneliness in Older People : Evaluation Research Report

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A qualitative comparison of care home staff and palliative care specialists’ experiences of providing end of life care to people living and dying with dementia in care homes in two countries: A focus group study

© The Author(s) 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0Background: Palliative care for people with dementia dying in care homes is an important aspect of long-term care. Whilst there is consensus about the principles of palliative care, less is known about how care home staff negotiate and influence decisions around end of life and how organisational context shapes that process. Aim: To explore the views and experiences of care home staff and palliative care specialists on end of life care in care homes and understand how care home settings affected palliative care provision in England and Australia. Design/participants: Eight focus groups in Australia and England with care home staff and palliative care specialists (n = 49). Reflexive thematic analysis was undertaken. Findings: Australian participants reported collaboration between care home staff, visiting professions and family members though case conferences. English participants discussed resident-focussed involvement from specialists that was less formally organised. Negotiating roles and responsibilities in end of life care; the importance of relationships to overcome deficiencies in formal processes; and the legitimacy and authority of advance care planning at times of crisis were recurring themes. The organisation and embedding of end of life care in processes and practices of care homes differed; this closely linked to care home procedures in Australia but was less apparent in England. Conclusion: In both countries, partnership working was recognised and valued as key to effective palliative care. Work that enables care home staff to identify challenges with visiting professionals, such as agreeing priorities for care and negotiating their shared responsibilities, may lead to context-sensitive, sustainable solutions.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Early-life adversity accelerates cellular ageing and affects adult inflammation: experimental evidence from the European starling

Early-life adversity is associated with accelerated cellular ageing during development and increased inflammation during adulthood. However, human studies can only establish correlation, not causation, and existing experimental animal approaches alter multiple components of early-life adversity simultaneously. We developed a novel hand-rearing paradigm in European starling nestlings (Sturnus vulgaris), in which we separately manipulated nutritional shortfall and begging effort for a period of 10 days. The experimental treatments accelerated erythrocyte telomere attrition and increased DNA damage measured in the juvenile period. For telomere attrition, amount of food and begging effort exerted additive effects. Only the combination of low food amount and high begging effort increased DNA damage. We then measured two markers of inflammation, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, when the birds were adults. The experimental treatments affected both inflammatory markers, though the patterns were complex and different for each marker. The effect of the experimental treatments on adult interleukin-6 was partially mediated by increased juvenile DNA damage. Our results show that both nutritional input and begging effort in the nestling period affect cellular ageing and adult inflammation in the starling. However, the pattern of effects is different for different biomarkers measured at different time points

Ex-vivo perfusion bioassay : an excellent technique to measure the bioactivity of inhalable insulin coated microcrystals

Purpose: To measure the bioactivity of inhalable insulin coated microcrystals using a perfusion bioassay that measures its vasodilatory effect on smooth muscle arterial tissue. Methods: The bioactivity of an insulin protein coated microcrystal (PCMC), a potential candidate for pulmonary drug delivery and commercial insulin was determined on a Danish Myo Tech P110 pressure myograph system. 12 week old Mesenteric resistance arteries from Male Wistar rats were isolated and immersed in a physiological salt solution (PSS) and attached to 2 opposing hollow glass micro-cannula (outer diameter 80 microns). The PSS was gradually warmed to 37°C (at a pressure less than 5mm Hg) for 1hr. Subsequently the pressure was increased up to 40mm Hg over a period 15 minutes and equilibrated for a further 15 minutes after gassing with 95%O2 / 5%CO2 to achieve a pH of 7.4 at 37°C. After normalisation by two washes of 123mM KCl and exposure to 1-10mM noradrenaline the arteries were exposed intraluminally to each insulin preparation by gradual infusion directly into the lumen via a fetal microcannulae inserted to the tip of the glass mounting cannula, at a constant pressure. Results: The preliminary results (full cummulative response curve yet to be determined) demonstrate insulin mediated relaxation to noradrenaline preconstriction. The level of constriction drops from 100% to 42% as the concentration of insulin increases from -11 to -9 Log M for the PCMC compared with a drop from 100 % to 65% for the commercial insulin preparation. However the more potent vasodilatory effect found for the insulin PCMC is more likely to be a result of variance introduced in each dilution step than a real increase in potency. Conclusion: The perfusion bioassay technique provides an excellent method of measuring insulin bioactivity and indicates the insulin loaded on the microcrystal support is fully active