Targeting Mr Average: Participation, gender equity and school sport partnerships

The School Sport Partnership Programme (SSPP) is one strand of the national strategy for physical education and school sport in England, the physical education and school sport Club Links Strategy (PESSCL). The SSPP aims to make links between school physical education (PE) and out of school sports participation, and has a particular remit to raise the participation levels of several identified under-represented groups, of which girls and young women are one. National evaluations of the SSPP show that it is beginning to have positive impacts on young people's activity levels by increasing the range and provision of extra curricular activities (Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), 2003, 2004, 2005; Loughborough Partnership, 2005, 2006). This paper contributes to the developing picture of the phased implementation of the programme by providing qualitative insights into the work of one school sport partnership with a particular focus on gender equity. The paper explores the ways in which gender equity issues have been explicitly addressed within the 'official texts' of the SSPP; how these have shifted over time and how teachers are responding to and making sense of these in their daily practice. Using participation observation, interview and questionnaire data, the paper explores how the coordinators are addressing the challenge of increasing the participation of girls and young women. The paper draws on Walby's (2000) conceptualisation of different kinds of feminist praxis to highlight the limitations of the coordinators' work. Two key themes from the data and their implications are addressed: the dominance of competitive sport practices and the PE professionals' views of targeting as a strategy for increasing the participation of under-represented groups. The paper concludes that coordinators work within an equality or difference discourse with little evidence of the transformative praxis needed for the programme to be truly inclusive. © 2008 Taylor & Francis

The Effectiveness of Placing a Mid-Level Provider in Triage as an Intervention to Improve Patient Flow in the Emergency Department

With increasing scrutiny on the condition of the nation\u27s emergency services and emphasis on patient satisfaction and pay for performance, Emergency Departments (EDs) are examining ways to improve public perceptions of satisfaction and quality. A reduction in ED wait times and left without being seen (LWBS) volumes can have a significant impact on patient satisfaction scores. The purpose of this study is to determine if placement of a mid-level provider in triage to perform medical screening exams (MSEs) will reduce ED wait times, increase efficient patient flow, and increase patient and staff satisfaction. For one hundred sixty nine days, a nurse practitioner was placed in triage to perform MSEs in the ED during peak times at Onslow Memorial Hospital. Twelve standardized days were determined to evaluate average arrival to disposition times. Patient and staff satisfaction surveys were conducted. Mid-level provider placement in triage will reduce ED wait times and improve patient satisfaction. The most significant benefit is seen in the efficient patient flow of lesser acuity patients

Assessing quality of life for clients of Langs Farm Village Association: A case for inclusion of the social determinants of health approach in addressing quality of life in a community health centre setting

In my master’s thesis research I investigated the relationship between participant inclusion in Langs Farm Village Association, a local community health centre, and quality of life. A quality of life survey which I developed based on prior research conducted by the Canadian Policy Research Network (2001) was administered to 130 individuals, 65 participants who attended a program and/or service at Langs (Langs group), and 65 participants who did not (non-Langs group). Results of multivariate ANOVA indicated group differences of statistical significance on four out of eleven subscales of my quality of life survey. Community residents who participated in a program or service at Langs Farm Village Association reported higher quality of life on three out of eleven survey subscales. I have described and explained factors associated with quality of life for Langs’ participants related to these survey results. In concluded that quality of life can be improved for community residents (especially those who are most vulnerable or at-risk) who access programs and/or services at Langs. My findings are discussed in terms of addressing the social determinants of health through a community health centre setting in order to improve quality of life for its participants and patients

Social Movements and Charitable Dress: An Examination of 19th Century Adornment at the Industrial School for Girls in Dorchester, Massachusetts

This thesis is an examination of the 19th century adornment assemblage recovered from the archaeological excavation of two features (1859-1884) at the Industrial School for Girls in Dorchester located at 232 Centre Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The school was administered by middle class Bostonian women that wished to train working class girls from broken, abusive, or unfit homes in professionalized domestic work. This thesis is a rare examination of a site that is single-gendered, and predominantly single-classed and aged with a large collection of documented activity. This investigation was conducted in order to question the values that the administration of the institution placed on dress and how the social movements of the time, such as domesticity, womanhood, gentility, and the Second Great Awakening, influenced those values. The school was to act as a home with the matron as the “mother” that would impart values and give a regimented schedule with an environment filled with objects that were to exude purity and domesticity. An extensive investigation of the Secretary Records, Annual Reports, and Intake Records were consulted in conjunction with the adornment assemblage of 2,832 artifacts to answer this question. After this investigation it was found that the girls were dressed in similar styles to that of each other and domestic servants as a way to assert the girls’ place in society, economic thrift, and morality. These ideas were directly related to the values the administration placed on adornment objects due to the influence of social movements at the time

Lateral Variations in Lower Crustal Strength Control the Temporal Evolution of Mountain Ranges: Examples From South-East Tibet

Controversy surrounds the rheology of the continental lithosphere, and how this rheology controls the evolution and behavior of mountain ranges. In this study, we investigate the effect of lateral contrasts in the strength of the lower crust, such as those between cratonic continental interiors and weaker rocks in the adjacent deforming regions, on the evolution of topography. We combine numerical modeling with recently published results from stable-isotope palaeoaltimetry in south-east Tibet. Stable-isotope palaeoaltimetry in this region provides constraints on vertical motions, which are required to distinguish between competing models for lithosphere rheology and deformation. We use numerical modeling to investigate the effect of lateral strength contrasts on the shape and temporal evolution of mountain ranges. In combination with palaeoaltimetry results, our modeling suggests that lateral strength contrasts provide a first-order control on the evolution of topography in south-east Tibet. We find that the evolution of topography in the presence of such strength contrasts leads to laterally varying topographic gradients, and to key features of the GPS- and earthquake-derived strain-rate field, without the need for a low-viscosity, lower-crustal channel. We also find that palaeoaltimetric samples may have been transported laterally for hundreds of kilometers, an effect which should be accounted for in their interpretation. Our results are likely to be applicable to the evolution of mountain ranges in general and provide an explanation for the spatial correlation between cratonic lowland regions and steep mountain range-fronts

Subduction tractions and vertical axis rotations in the Zagros-Makran transition zone, SE Iran: The 2013 May 11 M<inf>w</inf> 6.1 Minab earthquake

The source parameters and slip distribution of the 2013 May 11 Mw 6.1 Minab earthquake are studied using seismology, geodesy and field observations. We observe left-lateral strike-slip motion on a fault striking ENE–WSW; approximately perpendicular to previously studied faults in the Minab–Zendan–Palami fault zone. The fault that ruptured in 2013 is one of a series of ∼E–W striking left-lateral faults visible in the geology and geomorphology. These accommodate a velocity field equivalent to right-lateral shear on ∼N–S striking planes by clockwise rotations about vertical axes. The presence of these faults can reconcile differences in estimates of fault slip rates in the western Makran from GPS and Quaternary dating. The longitudinal range of shear in the western Makran is likely to be controlled by the distance over which the underthrusting Arabian lithosphere deepens in the transition from continent–continent collision in the Zagros to oceanic subduction in the Makran.This work forms part of the NERC- and ESRC-funded project ’EarthquakesWithout Frontiers‘. CP is funded by a NERC PhD studentship.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggv20

Cluster derivation of Parisi's RSB solution for disordered systems

We propose a general scheme in which disordered systems are allowed to sacrifice energy equi-partitioning and separate into a hierarchy of ergodic sub-systems (clusters) with different characteristic time-scales and temperatures. The details of the break-up follow from the requirement of stationarity of the entropy of the slower cluster, at every level in the hierarchy. We apply our ideas to the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model, and show how the Parisi solution can be {\it derived} quantitatively from plausible physical principles. Our approach gives new insight into the physics behind Parisi's solution and its relations with other theories, numerical experiments, and short range models.Comment: 7 pages 5 figure

A recurrent neural network with ever changing synapses

A recurrent neural network with noisy input is studied analytically, on the basis of a Discrete Time Master Equation. The latter is derived from a biologically realizable learning rule for the weights of the connections. In a numerical study it is found that the fixed points of the dynamics of the net are time dependent, implying that the representation in the brain of a fixed piece of information (e.g., a word to be recognized) is not fixed in time.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, 4 figure