Defense or attack? Can soccer clubs help tackle social exclusion?

This paper examines soccer as a social and cultural phenomenon which is increasingly being adopted as an instrument for social change. The economic power of soccer in the UK, and in many other parts of the world, is apparent with the fame and wealth visited on players. But what is it about soccer that leads policy-makers to think that it can help change the life-courses of young people who may be excluded from education, work, health or suffer other forms of deprivation? Little literature has been found to explain how sport in general and soccer in particular is suited to countering issues of social inequality although the potential socialising effect of sport has been examined. Likewise evidence of effect from funding bodies seems to be limited although some examples of good practice exist. In this paper the theoretical and empirical basis of the assertion of soccer’s ‘transformative ability’ is challenged and the actual and potential role of soccer in social inclusion is assessed. A reflexive approach inspired by Bourdieu is adopted. This examines the structural, social reality of the soccer clubs involved in social inclusion projects but also looks at the individuals’ involvement in constructing this reality. A ‘participant objectivation’ approach is suggested and the initial results reported. Tentative conclusions suggest the emic and etic perspectives of participants and programme workers need to be taken into account. We argue that, although social exclusion is referred to, it is in fact only a set of correlated effects of the distribution of economic, social and cultural capital. An understanding of social exclusion and the potential role of soccer is, itself a form of cultural capital that will have different values to the various actors

ABC for Climate: Dealing with Expensive Simulators

A single molecule or molecule complex detection method is disclosed in certain aspects, comprising nano- or micro-fluidic channels.U

Sensitivity of the Eocene climate to CO₂ and orbital variability

The early Eocene, from about 56 Ma, with high atmospheric CO2 levels, offers an analogue for the response of the Earth’s climate system to anthropogenic fossil fuel burning. In this study, we present an ensemble of 50 Earth system model runs with an early Eocene palaeogeography and variation in the forcing values of atmospheric CO2 and the Earth’s orbital parameters. Relationships between simple summary metrics of model outputs and the forcing parameters are identified by linear modelling, providing estimates of the relative magnitudes of the effects of atmospheric CO2 and each of the orbital parameters on important climatic features, including tropical–polar temperature difference, ocean–land temperature contrast, Asian, African and South (S.) American monsoon rains, and climate sensitivity. Our results indicate that although CO2 exerts a dominant control on most of the climatic features examined in this study, the orbital parameters also strongly influence important components of the ocean–atmosphere system in a greenhouse Earth. In our ensemble, atmospheric CO2 spans the range 280–3000 ppm, and this variation accounts for over 90 % of the effects on mean air temperature, southern winter high-latitude ocean– land temperature contrast and northern winter tropical–polar temperature difference. However, the variation of precession accounts for over 80 % of the influence of the forcing parameters on the Asian and African monsoon rainfall, and obliquity variation accounts for over 65 % of the effects on winter ocean–land temperature contrast in high northern latitudes and northern summer tropical–polar temperature difference. Our results indicate a bimodal climate sensitivity, with values of 4.36 and 2.54 ◦C, dependent on low or high states of atmospheric CO2 concentration, respectively, with a threshold at approximately 1000 ppm in this model, and due to a saturated vegetation–albedo feedback. Our method gives a quantitative ranking of the influence of each of the forcing parameters on key climatic model outputs, with additional spatial information from singular value decomposition providing insights into likely physical mechanisms. The results demonstrate the importance of orbital variation as an agent of change in climates of the past, and we demonstrate that emulators derived from our modelling output can be used as rapid and efficient surrogates of the full complexity model to provide estimates of climate conditions from any set of forcing parameters

USDLA: An Instructional Media Selection Guide For Distance Learning

Purpose and Use of the Media Selection Guide Increasingly, educators and trainers are challenged within their respective organizations to provide for the efficient distribution of instructional con-tent using instructional media. The appropriate selection of instructional media to support distance learning is not intuitive and does not occur as a matter of personal preference. On the contrary, instructional media selec-tion is a systematic sequence of qualitative processes based on sound in-structional design principles. Although media selection is often mentioned when studying the discipline of instructional technology or Instructional Systems Design (ISD), it is sometimes overlooked when applying the se-lection process in a distance-learning environment. It is our intent, there-fore, for this guide to highlight the essentials of good media selection. We hope to present an instructionally sound and systematic approach to se-lecting the most appropriate media for the delivery of content at a dis-tance

Precessional forcing of tropical vegetation carbon storage

Since the Mid-Pleistocene Revolution, which occurred about one million years ago, global temperatures have fluctuated with a quasi-periodicity of ~100 thousand years (kyr). The pattern of past change in the extent of woodlands, and therefore by inference vegetation carbon storage, has been demonstrated to have a strong positive link with this global temperature change at high and mid latitudes. However, understanding of climate systems and ecosystem function indicates that the pattern of woodland change at low latitudes may follow a fundamentally different pattern. We present output from the intermediate complexity model GENIE-1, comprising a single transient simulation over the last 800 kyr and a 174-member ensemble of 130 kyr transient simulations over the last glacial cycle. These simulations suggest that whilst vegetation carbon storage in mid-high northern latitudes robustly follows the characteristic ~100 kyr cycle, this signal is not a robust feature of tropical vegetation which is subject to stronger direct forcing by the precessional (21 kyr) orbital cycle (albeit with a highly uncertain response). We conclude that the correlation of palaeoenvironmental records from low latitudes with global temperature change must be done with caution

Spatial probabilistic calibration of a high-resolution Amundsen Sea Embayment ice sheet model with satellite altimeter data

Probabilistic predictions of the sea level contribution from Antarctica often have large uncertainty intervals. Calibration of model simulations with observations can reduce uncertainties and improve confidence in projections, particularly if this exploits as much of the available information as possible (such as spatial characteristics), but the necessary statistical treatment is often challenging and can be computationally prohibitive. Ice sheet models with sufficient spatial resolution to resolve grounding line evolution are also computationally expensive. Here we address these challenges by adopting and comparing dimension-reduced calibration approaches based on a principal component decomposition of the adaptive mesh model BISICLES. The effects model parameters have on these principal components are then gathered in statistical emulators to allow for smooth probability density estimates. With the help of a published perturbed parameter ice sheet model ensemble of the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE), we show how the use of principal components in combination with spatially resolved observations can improve probabilistic calibrations. In synthetic model experiments (calibrating the model with altered model results) we can identify the correct basal traction and ice viscosity scaling parameters as well as the bedrock map with spatial calibrations. In comparison a simpler calibration against an aggregated observation, the net sea level contribution, imposes only weaker constraints by allowing a wide range of basal traction and viscosity scaling factors. Uncertainties in sea level rise contribution of 50 year simulations from the current state of the ASE can be reduced with satellite observations of recent ice thickness change by nearly 90%; Median and 90% confidence intervals are 18.9 [13.9, 24.8] mm SLE for the proposed spatial calibration ap- proach, 16.8 [7.7, 25.6] mm SLE for the net sea level cal- ibration and 23.1 [-8.4, 94.5] mm SLE for the uncalibrated 35 ensemble. The spatial model behaviour is much more con- sistent with observations if, instead of Bedmap2, a modified bedrock topography is used that most notably removes a to- pographic rise near the initial grounding line of Pine Island Glacier. The ASE dominates the current Antarctic sea level contri- bution, but other regions have the potential to become more important on centennial scales. These larger spatial and tem- poral scales would benefit even more from methods of fast but exhaustive model calibration. Applied to projections of the whole Antarctic ice sheet, our approach has therefore the potential to efficiently improve our understanding of model behaviour, as well as substantiating and reducing projection uncertainties