Re-Presenting Black People Through OTT Television

Dynamic and diverse representation of black men and women in traditional television has been suppressed through the lens of many problematic ideologies since their introduction to television. Over-the-top video streaming platforms have created new avenues for making televisual content for mass audiences with less censorship and restrictions. This opens a door of opportunity for studying black representation. Focusing on original television written by black men and women for over-the-top platforms, I perform a textual analysis on Luke Cage, Dear White People, and Broke as the population of black-written television on OTT to find the character types and roles exist for black people on black-written television shows and how dynamic and important to the plot are black characters on these shows. I found that the interaction of the establishment and black characters cause black-ness to be divided ideologically, socially, and economically among characters in the plots of OTT platforms of black-written television. Although several character\u27s narratives take measures to combat the system, they consistently find themselves being challenged by the establishment in their actions, consciousness, and beliefs. The division of race, class, and black consciousness drives narratives in black-written original television on OTT platforms. This suggests black-ness cannot have diverse representation without consideration of the cultural relationship with the establishment

Advancing Black Youth Justice and Healing through Contemplative Practices and African Spiritual Wisdom

Enduring constructs of inequity seem to perpetually devalue Black youth, casting them as insignificant and disposable. Critical contemplative pedagogy can help us disrupt the damaging narratives and systems that impede youth thriving, while also awakening us to a deeper knowing of justice. In this reflective essay, I offer a reimagining of Black youth through the use of contemplative practices and West African cultural wisdom

The effectiveness of manual stretching in the treatment of plantar heel pain: a systematic review

Background: Plantar heel pain is a commonly occurring foot complaint. Stretching is frequently utilised as a treatment, yet a systematic review focusing only on its effectiveness has not been published. This review aimed to assess the effectiveness of stretching on pain and function in people with plantar heel pain. Methods: Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, AMED, and The Cochrane Library were searched from inception to July 2010. Studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria were independently assessed, and their quality evaluated using the modified PEDro scale. Results: Six studies including 365 symptomatic participants were included. Two compared stretching with a control, one study compared stretching to an alternative intervention, one study compared stretching to both alternative and control interventions, and two compared different stretching techniques and durations. Quality rating on the modified Pedro scale varied from two to eight out of a maximum of ten points. The methodologies and interventions varied significantly between studies, making meta-analysis inappropriate. Most participants improved over the course of the studies, but when stretching was compared to alternative or control interventions, the changes only reached statistical significance in one study that used a combination of calf muscle stretches and plantar fascia stretches in their stretching programme. Another study comparing different stretching techniques, showed a statistically significant reduction in some aspects of pain in favour of plantar fascia stretching over calf stretches in the short term. Conclusions: There were too few studies to assess whether stretching is effective compared to control or other interventions, for either pain or function. However, there is some evidence that plantar fascia stretching may be more effective than Achilles tendon stretching alone in the short-term. Appropriately powered randomised controlled trials, utilizing validated outcome measures, blinded assessors and long-term follow up are needed to assess the efficacy of stretching

Travel to school and housing markets: a case study of Sheffield, England

How children travel to school is at the centre of a complex set of interrelated issues with significant policy implications. This paper reviews the relation of patterns of travel to school to concerns about public health, school choice, urban form, and residential housing markets. The spatial relations between pupils’ homes and the schools that they attend provides the basis of an analytical framework that links local neighbourhood characteristics, school performance, and house prices to the distance and mode of travel to school and the level of ‘excess commuting’ in the urban system. A unique analysis of several integrated micro-datasets from Sheffield, UK, suggests that, while there are high levels of excess commuting, there remains a complex interrelationship between housing and neighbourhood characteristics, school performance, and commuting patterns. There are differences between the pictures for primary schools and secondary schools. Policies aimed at promoting transport efficiency and those promoting school choice are likely to remain in tension

Collaborative writing with young people with disabilities: raising new questions of authorship and agency

The process of communication between author and reader is a critical issue in examining any text. When considering the communication of ideas from young people whose voices are seldom heard, the journey from author to audience has particular significance. The construction of children and young people as ‘authors’ is important, especially for those with learning difficulties or who struggle to comply with the current emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar. This article relates to a UK Research-Council-funded three-year collaborative research project involving the co-creation of fictional stories with young people with disabilities to represent aspects of their lives. Drawing on frameworks from narratology, I analyse the co-creation of one of the stories, and present an interpretation and elaboration of the discourse structure of narrative fiction to illustrate the complexities of the relationship between the multi-faceted ‘author’ and community ‘reader’ of these stories. The combination of qualitative research and fictional prose has particular characteristics and implications for the dissemination and communication of research findings; while extending feminist critique of Barthes’ claim for the death of the author provides new insights for engaging children in writing with their own voice

Management\u27s Perspective on Critical Success Factors Affecting Mobile Learning in Higher Education Institutions - An Empirical Study

Mobile learning (m-Learning) is considered to be one of the fastest growing learning platforms. The immense interest in m-Learning is attributed to the incredible rate of growth of mobile technology and its proliferation into every aspect of modern life. Despite this, m-Learning has not experienced a similar adoption rate in the education sector, chiefly higher education. Researchers have attempted to explain this anomaly by conducting several studies in the area. However, mostly the research in m-Learning is examined from the perspective of the students and educators. In this research, it is contended that there is a third important stakeholder group whose opinion is equally important in determining the success of m-Learning: the university management. Although diversified by nature, heads of departments, deans, and information technology system administrators are nevertheless considered members of any university management. The results of the research show that university commitment to m-Learning, university learning practices, and change management practices were the factors critical to the success of m-Learning, from the university management perspective

Methods for comparing the performance of energy-conversion systems for use in solar fuels and solar electricity generation

The energy-conversion efficiency is a key metric that facilitates comparison of the performance of various approaches to solar energy conversion. However, a suite of disparate methodologies has been proposed and used historically to evaluate the efficiency of systems that produce fuels, either directly or indirectly, with sunlight and/or electrical power as the system inputs. A general expression for the system efficiency is given as the ratio of the total output power (electrical plus chemical) divided by the total input power (electrical plus solar). The solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency follows from this globally applicable system efficiency but only is applicable in the special case for systems in which the only input power is sunlight and the only output power is in the form of hydrogen fuel derived from solar-driven water splitting. Herein, system-level efficiencies, beyond the STH efficiency, as well as component-level figures of merit are defined and discussed to describe the relative energy-conversion performance of key photoactive components of complete systems. These figures of merit facilitate the comparison of electrode materials and interfaces without conflating their fundamental properties with the engineering of the cell setup. The resulting information about the components can then be used in conjunction with a graphical circuit analysis formalism to obtain “optimal” system efficiencies that can be compared between various approaches. The approach provides a consistent method for comparison of the performance at the system and component levels of various technologies that produce fuels and/or electricity from sunlight

A cross-national study on the antecedents of work–life balance from the fit and balance perspective

Drawing on the perceived work–family fit and balance perspective, this study investigates demands and resources as antecedents of work–life balance (WLB) across four countries (New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain), so as to provide empirical cross-national evidence. Using structural equation modelling analysis on a sample of 870 full time employees, we found that work demands, hours worked and family demands were negatively related to WLB, while job autonomy and supervisor support were positively related to WLB. We also found evidence that resources (job autonomy and supervisor support) moderated the relationships between demands and work–life balance, with high resources consistently buffering any detrimental influence of demands on WLB. Furthermore, our study identified additional predictors of WLB that were unique to some national contexts. For example, in France and Italy, overtime hours worked were negatively associated with WLB, while parental status was positively associated with WLB. Overall, the implications for theory and practice are discussed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

“In the Beginning, It Was Little Whispers...Now, We’re Almost a Roar”: Conceptualizing a Model for Community and Self in LGBTQ+ Health Information Practices

Although LGBTQ+ populations experience significant health challenges, little research exists that investigates their health from an informational perspective. Our study addresses this gap by exploring the health information practices of LGBTQ+ communities in South Carolina, focusing on how sociocultural context shapes these practices. Thirty semi-structured interviews with South Carolina LGBTQ+ community leaders analyzed using open qualitative coding informed the development of a conceptual framework describing their information practices. Findings show that participants engaged in two broad types of practices – protective and defensive – as responses to risks and barriers experienced, which are in turn produced by social and structural factors. Findings advance information practices and marginalization approaches and offer ways for medical professionals to improve service to LGBTQ+ populations