Bursting the bubble or opening the door? Appraising the impact of austerity on playwork and playwork practitioners in the UK

Introductory essay for special issue on 'Playwork in Times of Austerity

Flush communication channels: Effective implementation and verification

Flush communication channels, or F-channels, generalize more conventional asynchronous communication paradigms. A distributed system which uses an F-channel allows a programmer to define the delivery order of each message in relation to other messages transmitted on the channel. Unreliable datagrams and FIFO (first-in-first-out) communication channels have strictly defined delivery semantics. No restrictions are allowed on message delivery order with unreliable datagrams--message delivery is completely unordered. FIFO channels, on the other hand, insist messages are delivered in the order of their transmission. Flush channels can provide either of these delivery order semantics; in addition, F-channels allow the user to define the delivery of a message to be after the delivery of all messages previously transmitted or before the delivery of all messages subsequently transmitted or both. A system which communicates with a flush channel has a message delivery order that is a partial order.;Dynamically specifying a partial message delivery order complicates many aspects of how we implement and reason about the communication channel. From the system\u27s perspective, we develop a feasible implementation protocol and prove its correctness. The protocol effectively handles the partially ordered message delivery. From the user\u27s perspective, we derive an axiomatic verification methodology for flush applications. The added flexibility of defining the delivery order dynamically slightly increases the complexity for the application programmer. Our verification work helps the user effectively deal with the partially ordered message delivery in flush communication

Introduction: children’s emotions in policy and practice

Introduction: children’s emotions in policy and practic

Constructing and Unsettling Utopia: The Hundertwasser-Haus, Vienna and Nant-y-Cwm Steiner School, Pembrokeshire

The thesis draws on a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to interrogate some of the ways in which the idea of ‘utopia’ is relevant to contemporary socio-spatial practices. It does this in two, inter-linked ways. Firstly, the notion of utopia is re-theorised following a re-reading of utopian literature through certain ‘non-representational’ and post-structural theories (performativity, Actor Network Theory). Secondly, the thesis explores the complex relationship between architecture and utopia. I promote a number of new ways in which studies of architecture and utopia can be related. Crucially, I do this through a ‘critical geography’ of two ecological buildings: The Hundertwasser-Haus, Vienna, and Nant-y-Cwm Steiner School, West Wales. This meant examining – through mixed, ethnographic methods – the complicated ‘performative’ meanings that builders and users constructed. This is particularly important because these two examples, and ecological architecture in general, can be associated with various utopian features, but have not yet been explored through a more ‘critical’ approach. The research drew together these strands to provide a number of often surprising conclusions. The most important was that in addition to (re)presenting visions of comfort, order or political critique, much of the effect and attraction of utopias is that they can in many ways be fundamentally unsettling, discomforting and un-homely. Focusing on three specific themes – difference, the homely and community – the thesis demonstrates this empirically by arguing that utopias are contingent, painful, embodied, anxiety-inducing, momentary, co-relationally produced with non-human actants (including ruination!), and require a tremendous amount of work, whether euphoric experiences of ‘escape’ or ethical versions of the ‘good’. It highlights important ways in which critical geographies of architecture can collect and disperse a variety of emotional, ethical and material concerns (such as utopia or community), and are hence well-suited to the complex demands of contemporary theories and everyday lives

Introduction: geographies, histories and practices of informal education

Introduction: geographies, histories and practices of informal educatio

Cultural geographies of education

Cultural geographies of educatio