Empowering Positive Partnerships: a review of the processes, benefits and challenges of a university and charity social and emotional learning partnership

‘Working in partnership to transform society through education’ is the inspirational mission statement of our Faculty of Education. But what can and does ‘working in partnership’ mean in practice? This paper outlines a partnership development story with a charity and a university Faculty. There is limited research surrounding academic partnerships with social enterprises, although no shortage of claims to be ‘working in partnership’. This is a research informed review of a social and emotional learning partnership between the charity Family Links and Canterbury Christ Church University which we suggest has had a profound and positive impact on individuals and organisations. We draw on theory based partnership evaluation frameworks and partnership review data, including filmed interviews with project participants, training evaluations and action research case studies to tell this story and discuss the processes, benefits and challenges of our partnership. The impact of key actors’ personal responses to participation and subsequent empowerment as agents of change is highlighted. The active nurturing of emotional leaders and agreeing and reviewing protocols at all levels are key review recommendations. The complexity of measuring improved wellbeing outcomes for learning communities as a desired goal is also highlighted

A Project Based Approach to Statistics and Data Science

In an increasingly data-driven world, facility with statistics is more important than ever for our students. At institutions without a statistician, it often falls to the mathematics faculty to teach statistics courses. This paper presents a model that a mathematician asked to teach statistics can follow. This model entails connecting with faculty from numerous departments on campus to develop a list of topics, building a repository of real-world datasets from these faculty, and creating projects where students interface with these datasets to write lab reports aimed at consumers of statistics in other disciplines. The end result is students who are well prepared for interdisciplinary research, who are accustomed to coping with the idiosyncrasies of real data, and who have sharpened their technical writing and speaking skills

Self-conscious emotions in patients suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain: a brief report.

OBJECTIVE: The role of self-conscious emotions (SCEs) including shame, guilt, humiliation and embarrassment are of increasing interest within health. Yet, little is known about SCEs in the experience of chronic pain. This study explored prevalence and experience of SCEs in chronic pain patients compared to controls and assessed the relationship between SCEs and disability in pain patients. DESIGN AND MEASURES: Questionnaire assessment comparing musculoskeletal pain patients (n=64) and pain-free control participants (n=63). Pain was assessed using the McGill Pain Questionnaire; disability, using the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire; and six SCEs derived from three measures (i) Test of Self-Conscious Affect-3 yielding subscales of shame, guilt, externalisation and detachment (ii) The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale and (iii) The Pain Self-Perception Scale assessing mental defeat. RESULTS: Significantly greater levels of shame, guilt, fear of negative evaluation and mental defeat were observed in chronic pain patients compared to controls. In the pain group, SCE variables significantly predicted affective pain intensity; only mental defeat was significantly related to disability. CONCLUSION: Findings highlight the prevalence of negative SCEs and their importance in assessment and management of chronic pain. The role of mood in this relationship is yet to be explored

GRB 050408: An Atypical Gamma-Ray Burst as a Probe of an Atypical Galactic Environment

The bright GRB 050408 was localized by HETE-II near local midnight, enabling an impressive ground-based followup effort as well as space-based followup from Swift. The Swift data from the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) and our own optical photometry and spectrum of the afterglow provide the cornerstone for our analysis. Under the traditional assumption that the visible waveband was above the peak synchrotron frequency and below the cooling frequency, the optical photometry from 0.03 to 5.03 days show an afterglow decay corresponding to an electron energy index of p_lc = 2.05 +/- 0.04, without a jet break as suggested by others. A break is seen in the X-ray data at early times (at ~12600 sec after the GRB). The spectral slope of the optical spectrum is consistent with p_lc assuming a host-galaxy extinction of A_V = 1.18 mag. The optical-NIR broadband spectrum is also consistent with p = 2.05, but prefers A_V = 0.57 mag. The X-ray afterglow shows a break at 1.26 x 10^4 sec, which may be the result of a refreshed shock. This burst stands out in that the optical and X-ray data suggest a large H I column density of N_HI ~ 10^22 cm^-2; it is very likely a damped Lyman alpha system and so the faintness of the host galaxy (M_V > -18 mag) is noteworthy. Moreover, we detect extraordinarily strong Ti II absorption lines with a column density through the GRB host that exceeds the largest values observed for the Milky Way by an order of magnitude. Furthermore, the Ti II equivalent width is in the top 1% of Mg II absorption-selected QSOs. This suggests that the large-scale environment of GRB 050408 has significantly lower Ti depletion than the Milky Way and a large velocity width (delta v > 200 km/s).Comment: ApJ submitte

Boolean delay equations on networks: An application to economic damage propagation

We introduce economic models based on Boolean Delay Equations: this formalism makes easier to take into account the complexity of the interactions between firms and is particularly appropriate for studying the propagation of an initial damage due to a catastrophe. Here we concentrate on simple cases, which allow to understand the effects of multiple concurrent production paths as well as the presence of stochasticity in the path time lengths or in the network structure. In absence of flexibility, the shortening of production of a single firm in an isolated network with multiple connections usually ends up by attaining a finite fraction of the firms or the whole economy, whereas the interactions with the outside allow a partial recovering of the activity, giving rise to periodic solutions with waves of damage which propagate across the structure. The damage propagation speed is strongly dependent upon the topology. The existence of multiple concurrent production paths does not necessarily imply a slowing down of the propagation, which can be as fast as the shortest path.Comment: Latex, 52 pages with 22 eps figure

Theodicy and End-of-Life Care

Acknowledgments The section on Islamic perspective is contributed by information provided by Imranali Panjwani, Tutor in Theology & Religious Studies, King's College London.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Cosmological Constraints from calibrated Yonetoku and Amati relation implies Fundamental plane of Gamma-ray bursts

We consider two empirical relations using data only from the prompt emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), peak energy ($E_p$) - peak luminosity ($L_p$) relation (so called Yonetoku relation) and $E_p$-isotropic energy ($E_{\rm iso}$) relation (so called Amati relation). We first suggest the independence of the two relations although they have been considered similar and dependent. From this viewpoint, we compare constraints on cosmological parameters, $\Omega_m$ and $\Omega_{\Lambda}$, from the Yonetoku and Amati relations calibrated by low-redshift GRBs with $z < 1.8$. We found that they are different in 1-$\sigma$ level, although they are still consistent in 2-$\sigma$ level. This and the fact that both Amati and Yonetoku relations have systematic errors larger than statistical errors suggest the existence of a hidden parameter of GRBs. We introduce the luminosity time $T_L$ defined by $T_L\equiv E_{\rm iso}/L_p$ as a hidden parameter to obtain a generalized Yonetoku relation as $(L_p/{10^{52} \rm{erg s^{-1}}}) = 10^{-3.88\pm0.09}(E_p/{\rm{keV}})^{1.84\pm0.04} (T_L/{\rm{s}})^{-0.34\pm0.04}$. The new relation has much smaller systematic error, 30%, and can be regarded as "Fundamental plane" of GRBs. We show a possible radiation model for this new relation. Finally we apply the new relation for high-redshift GRBs with $1.8 < z < 5.6$ to obtain $(\Omega_m,\Omega_{\Lambda}) = (0.16^{+0.04}_{-0.06},1.20^{+0.03}_{-0.09})$, which is consistent with the concordance cosmological model within 2-$\sigma$ level.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, published in JCA

Magnetic Damping of Solid Solution Semiconductor Alloys

The objective of this study is to: (1) experimentally test the validity of the modeling predictions applicable to the magnetic damping of convective flows in electrically conductive melts as this applies to the bulk growth of solid solution semiconducting materials; and (2) assess the effectiveness of steady magnetic fields in reducing the fluid flows occurring in these materials during processing. To achieve the objectives of this investigation, we are carrying out a comprehensive program in the Bridgman and floating-zone configurations using the solid solution alloy system Ge-Si. This alloy system has been studied extensively in environments that have not simultaneously included both low gravity and an applied magnetic field. Also, all compositions have a high electrical conductivity, and the materials parameters permit reasonable growth rates. An important supporting investigation is determining the role, if any, that thermoelectromagnetic convection (TEMC) plays during growth of these materials in a magnetic field. TEMC has significant implications for the deployment of a Magnetic Damping Furnace in space. This effect will be especially important in solid solutions where the growth interface is, in general, neither isothermal nor isoconcentrational. It could be important in single melting point materials, also, if faceting takes place producing a non-isothermal interface. In conclusion, magnetic fields up to 5 Tesla are sufficient to eliminate time-dependent convection in silicon floating zones and possibly Bridgman growth of Ge-Si alloys. In both cases, steady convection appears to be more significant for mass transport than diffusion, even at 5 Tesla in the geometries used here. These results are corroborated in both growth configurations by calculations

Mapping between dissipative and Hamiltonian systems

Theoretical studies of nonequilibrium systems are complicated by the lack of a general framework. In this work we first show that a transformation introduced by Ao recently (J. Phys. A {\bf 37}, L25 (2004)) is related to previous works of Graham (Z. Physik B {\bf 26}, 397 (1977)) and Eyink {\it et al.} (J. Stat. Phys. {\bf 83}, 385 (1996)), which can also be viewed as the generalized application of the Helmholtz theorem in vector calculus. We then show that systems described by ordinary stochastic differential equations with white noise can be mapped to thermostated Hamiltonian systems. A steady-state of a dissipative system corresponds to the equilibrium state of the corresponding Hamiltonian system. These results provides a solid theoretical ground for corresponding studies on nonequilibrium dynamics, especially on nonequilibrium steady state. The mapping permits the application of established techniques and results for Hamiltonian systems to dissipative non-Hamiltonian systems, those for thermodynamic equilibrium states to nonequilibrium steady states. We discuss several implications of the present work.Comment: 18 pages, no figure. final version for publication on J. Phys. A: Math & Theo