Promoting Asset Based Approaches for Health and Wellbeing: Exploring a Theory of Change and Challenges in Evaluation

This project sought to explore two key areas that are critical for moving to a more systematised approach to asset based action for health. These two areas are: 1. The need to develop further a Theory of Change for asset based approaches aligned to an asset model for health 2. The requirement to understand how to measure and illustrate impact and benefit from asset based approaches. Following work to develop an understanding of practice, through site visits, interviews and a think piece event, a new Theory of Change for asset-based working is presented. A rapid review of published and grey literature was also conducted to map and categorise evaluation approaches and measures used in asset-based programmes. The map of literature (33 studies) showed that a variety of methodologies and evaluation strategies are used in asset-based practice. Seven clusters were identified: Asset Based Community Development; Asset Mapping; Community-based evaluation; Conceptual frameworks for measurement; Resilience; Salutogenesis; Other

Correlation Between Handgrip Strength and Functional Fitness Among Older Adults

Please refer to the pdf version of the abstract located adjacent to the title

Battling the tides: the Severn Estuary wetlands during the prehistoric, Roman and medieval periods

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from ArchaeoPress via the ISBN in this recordThis paper will review how human communities changed from simply exploiting the rich natural resources of the Severn Estuary’s wetlands during the prehistoric period, through to modification and then transformation as the coastal marshes were reclaimed over the course of the Roman and medieval periods. This intensification of wetland utilisation can in part be accounted for by a ‘push in the margins’ driven by expanding population and the need for more agricultural land, but it was also affected by other social and economic factors that sometimes prevented reclamation such as the rich natural resources of intertidal marshes occasionally being more highly valued than agricultural land. Indeed, the model of wetland exploitation, modification, and transformation is itself in need of revision as we become increasingly aware that the history of human endeavour in wetland landscapes has not been one of unilinear success. Instead, periods extensification (the reclamation of new land) intensification (such as increased arable cultivation) have been interspersed with episodes of retreat when reclaimed land was abandoned and the estuarine tides recovered some of what they had lost

The early medieval territory associated with Cannington

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxbow via the link in this recordCotswold Archaeology Monograph series volume 1

Changing Landscapes? Land, People and Environment in England AD 350-600

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from oxbow via the link in this recor

Big-data projects: English landscapes and identities

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this recordThis review considers two books outlining the results of a major big-data project in England that sought to make sense of the growing amount of information from developer-funded archaeology, the reporting of finds to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and from a wide range of other databases. The result is fascinating and thought-provoking discussions of how we could interpret regional variation in archaeological data, although methodological issues present an interesting case study of the challenges that big-data projects face. The publication strategy—of two separate volumes—also raises questions about how we should disseminate the results of large-scale research programmes

Landscape analysis

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Routledge via the DOI in this recordThis chapter explores the different sources and methods that can be used to explore the historic landscape. The role of traditional archaeological techniques and paleoenvironmental data is considered, and a warning is given over a recent trend towards seeking simplistic correlations between observed trends in climate change and cultural events. The techniques of historic landscape analysis are explored, and in particular their role in integrating a wide range of other source material such as documentary evidence. Other important aspects of landscape character include standing buildings, field and place names, and the cultural associations

The Fields of Britannia: continuity and change within the early medieval landscape

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxbow via the link in this recordThis paper will explore what we can learn about the Roman to medieval transition through a major synthesis of two datasets: pollen sequences that reflect broad patterns in land-use, and the relationship between excavated Romano-British and medieval field systems. Marked regional and temporal variations are found across the whole of Roman Britain, with some regions showing greater continuity than others. In lowland areas most of this variation will reflect the different ways in which communities responded to the changing socio-economic circumstances that followed Britain ceasing to be part of the Roman Empire, although climate change may have been significant in upland areas. Where there are identifiable discontinuities between Romano-British and medieval landscapes the crucial change may not have come at the end of the Roman period but several centuries later when an intensification of agriculture was seen across much of southern Britain around the 8th century.Leverhulme Trus

Slow escaping points of quasiregular mappings

This article concerns the iteration of quasiregular mappings on Rd and entire functions on C. It is shown that there are always points at which the iterates of a quasiregular map tend to infinity at a controlled rate. Moreover, an asymptotic rate of escape result is proved that is new even for transcendental entire functions. Let f:Rd→Rd be quasiregular of transcendental type. Using novel methods of proof, we generalise results of Rippon and Stallard in complex dynamics to show that the Julia set of f contains points at which the iterates fn tend to infinity arbitrarily slowly. We also prove that, for any large R, there is a point x with modulus approximately R such that the growth of |fn(x)| is asymptotic to the iterated maximum modulus Mn(R,f)