Housing Voices: Using theatre and film to engage people in later life housing and health conversations

Purpose: Quality, accessible and appropriate housing is key to older people’s ability to live independently. The purpose of this paper is to understand older people’s housing aspirations and whether these are currently being met. Evidence suggests one in five households occupied by older people in England does not meet the standard of a decent home. The Building Research Establishment has calculated that poor housing costs the English National Health Service £1,4bn annually (Roys et al., 2016). Design/methodology/approach: This paper reports on the findings of a participatory theatre approach to engaging with those not often heard from – notably, those ageing without children and older people with primary responsibility for ageing relatives – about planning for housing decisions in later life. The project was led by an older people’s forum, Elders Council, with Skimstone Arts organisation and Northumbria University, in the north east of England. Findings: Findings suggest there is an urgent need to listen to and engage with people about their later life housing aspirations. There is also a need to use this evidence to inform housing, health and social care policy makers, practitioners, service commissioners and providers and product and service designers, to encourage older people to become informed and plan ahead. Research limitations/implications: Use of a participatory theatre approach facilitated people to explore their own decision making and identify the types of information and support they need to make critical decisions about their housing in later life. Such insights can generate evidence for future housing, social care and health needs. Findings endorse the recent Communities and Local Government (2018) Select Committee Inquiry and report on Housing for Older People and the need for a national strategy for older people’s housing. Originality/value: Although this call is evidenced through an English national case study, from within the context of global population ageing, it has international relevance

The geometry of supersymmetric coset models and superconformal algebras

An on-shell formulation of (p,q), 2\leq p \leq 4, 0\leq q\leq 4, supersymmetric coset models with target space the group G and gauge group a subgroup H of G is given. It is shown that there is a correspondence between the number of supersymmetries of a coset model and the geometry of the coset space G/H. The algebras of currents of supersymmetric coset models are superconformal algebras. In particular, the algebras of currents of (2,2) and (4,0) supersymmetric coset models are related to the N=2 Kazama-Suzuki and N=4 Van Proeyen superconformal algebras correspondingly.Comment: pages 2

The Upper Respiratory Tract as a Microbial Source for Pulmonary Infections in Cystic Fibrosis. Parallels from Island Biogeography

A continuously mixed series of microbial communities inhabits various points of the respiratory tract, with community composition determined by distance from colonization sources, colonization rates, and extinction rates. Ecology and evolution theory developed in the context of biogeography is relevant to clinical microbiology and could reframe the interpretation of recent studies comparing communities from lung explant samples, sputum samples, and oropharyngeal swabs. We propose an island biogeography model of the microbial communities inhabiting different niches in human airways. Island biogeography as applied to communities separated by time and space is a useful parallel for exploring microbial colonization of healthy and diseased lungs, with the potential to inform our understanding of microbial community dynamics and the relevance of microbes detected in different sample types. In this perspective, we focus on the intermixed microbial communities inhabiting different regions of the airways of patients with cystic fibrosis

Twistor Approach to String Compactifications: a Review

We review a progress in obtaining the complete non-perturbative effective action of type II string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold. This problem is equivalent to understanding quantum corrections to the metric on the hypermultiplet moduli space. We show how all these corrections, which include D-brane and NS5-brane instantons, are incorporated in the framework of the twistor approach, which provides a powerful mathematical description of hyperkahler and quaternion-Kahler manifolds. We also present new insights on S-duality, quantum mirror symmetry, connections to integrable models and topological strings.Comment: 99 pages; minor corrections; journal versio

Type IIA orientifold compactification on SU(2)-structure manifolds

We investigate the effective theory of type IIA string theory on six-dimensional orientifold backgrounds with SU(2)-structure. We focus on the case of orientifolds with O6-planes, for which we compute the bosonic effective action in the supergravity approximation. For a generic SU(2)-structure background, we find that the low-energy effective theory is a gauged N=2 supergravity where moduli in both vector and hypermultiplets are charged. Since all these supergravities descend from a corresponding N=4 background, their scalar target space is always a quotient of a SU(1,1)/U(1) x SO(6,n)/SO(6)xSO(n) coset, and is therefore also very constrained.Comment: 31 pages; v2: local report number adde

Geometric Transitions on non-Kaehler Manifolds

This article is based on the author's PhD--thesis. We study geometric transitions on the supergravity level using the basic idea of arXiv:hep-th/0403288, where a pair of non-Kaehler backgrounds was constructed, which are related by a geometric transition. Here we embed this idea into an orientifold setup as suggested in arXiv:hep-th/0511099. The non-Kaehler backgrounds we obtain in type IIA are non-trivially fibered due to their construction from IIB via T-duality with Neveu-Schwarz flux. We demonstrate that these non-Kaehler manifolds are not half-flat and show that a symplectic structure exists on them at least locally. We also review the construction of new non-Kaehler backgrounds in type I and heterotic theory as proposed in arXiv:hep-th/0408192. They are found by a series of T- and S-duality and can be argued to be related by geometric transitions as well. A local toy model is provided that fulfills the flux equations of motion in IIB and the torsional relation in heterotic theory, and that is consistent with the U-duality relating both theories. For the heterotic theory we also propose a global solution that fulfills the torsional relation because it is similar to the Maldacena-Nunez background.Comment: 127 pages, based on PhD-thesis, v2 some references added, this version to appear in Fort. Phy

D3-instantons, Mock Theta Series and Twistors

The D-instanton corrected hypermultiplet moduli space of type II string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau threefold is known in the type IIA picture to be determined in terms of the generalized Donaldson-Thomas invariants, through a twistorial construction. At the same time, in the mirror type IIB picture, and in the limit where only D3-D1-D(-1)-instanton corrections are retained, it should carry an isometric action of the S-duality group SL(2,Z). We prove that this is the case in the one-instanton approximation, by constructing a holomorphic action of SL(2,Z) on the linearized twistor space. Using the modular invariance of the D4-D2-D0 black hole partition function, we show that the standard Darboux coordinates in twistor space have modular anomalies controlled by period integrals of a Siegel-Narain theta series, which can be canceled by a contact transformation generated by a holomorphic mock theta series.Comment: 42 pages; discussion of isometries is amended; misprints correcte

What Determines the Formal Versus Relational Nature of Local Government Contracting?

Meeyoung Lamothe is currently an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests include local alternative service delivery arrangements, social service contracting, and nonprofit management. Her recent publications may be found in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, International Journal of Public Administration, and American Review of Public Administration.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Self-help groups challenge health care systems in the US and UK

Purpose: This research considers how self-help groups (SHGs) and self- help organizations (SHOs) contribute to consumerist trends in two different societies: United States and United Kingdom. How do the health care systems and the voluntary sectors affect the kinds of social changes that SHGs/SHOs make? Methodology/approach: A review of research on the role of SHGs/SHOs in contributing to national health social movements in the UK and US was made. Case studies of the UK and the US compare the characteristics of their health care systems and their voluntary sector. Research reviews of two community level self-help groups in each country describe the kinds of social changes they made. Findings: The research review verified that SHGs/SHOs contribute to national level health social movements for patient consumerism. The case studies showed that community level SHGs/SHOs successfully made the same social changes but on a smaller scale as the national movements, and the health care system affects the kinds of community changes made. Research limitations: A limited number of SHGs/SHOs within only two societies were studied. Additional SHGs/SHOs within a variety of societies need to be studied. Originality/value of chapter Community SHGs/SHOs are often trivialized by social scientists as just inward-oriented support groups, but this chapter shows that local groups contribute to patient consumerism and social changes but in ways that depend on the kind of health care system and societal context