Sport and neighbourhood regeneration: exploring the mechanisms of social inclusion through sport

This thesis explores the way that sport can be used as a component of effective practice of neighbourhood regeneration. In particular, the thesis examines how and to what extent projects using sport for the purpose of engaging with young people affected by the deprivation of a neighbourhood can add to regenerating the area. The last decade has seen the shift of focus in British urban regeneration policy from physical renewal and economic development to tackling social and community-related matters concentrated in deprived neighbourhoods, such as unemployment, low income, low skills, poor housing, high crime rates, and poor health – in short, social exclusion. Young people who live in these neighbourhoods are greatly disadvantaged in respect both of their well-being at the present time and of their transition into adulthood. Use of sport for the purpose of alleviating these disadvantages is increasingly popular, although conclusive evidence of social benefits of sport participation has been lacking. The thesis identifies four sets of hypotheses that represent how sport may enhance the process of social inclusion; namely, personal development, diversion, social interaction/social networks, and the salience of sport. The normative and analytical framework is developed based on Amartya Sen’s ‘capability’ perspective so as to re-define the goal of neighbourhood regeneration, against which sport-related regeneration projects can be assessed their contribution. An in-depth qualitative case study, based on grounded theory, was carried out in deprived neighbourhoods in the East End of Glasgow. Main findings include: (1) young people in the area were trapped into the vicious circles of leisure deprivation, territoriality, and poor transition into adulthood; (2) the process of tackling youth-related problems in deprived areas can be represented with the analogies of ‘hooking’ and ‘signposting’; (3) a successful structure of a sport-related regeneration project can be represented by a ‘pyramid’, founded on financial sustainability nested in robust organisational base; (4) a project can enlarge its organisational base through a repeated process of ‘ownership’ and ‘evolution’, represented by an expanding ‘spiral’; and (5) sport-related projects are often too small to reach the majority of the ‘excluded’

A Capability Approach to Understanding Sport for Social Inclusion: Agency, Structure and Organisations

Despite the global diffusion of the term social inclusion, as well as the use of sport to promote it, questions have been raised regarding the extent to which sport is able to contribute to transforming the exclusive nature of the social structure. The lack of analytical clarity of the concept has not helped to address these questions. This article proposes a conceptual framework based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, considering social exclusion as the denial of social relations that leads to serious deprivation of important capabilities. A person’s capabilities could potentially be improved through micro-, meso-, and macro-level social processes. At the micro level, sport-based social inclusion programmes could offer such social relations to varying degrees, though sport’s values are only relative to other leisure activities. The scale of impact depends primarily on the meso-level processes, in which the size and quality of each programme can be improved through organisational learning, and secondarily on the macro-level processes whereby the organisational population is institutionalised. It is argued that more research needs to be done on the meso and macro levels, as they are concerned with the ultimate potential of sport to facilitate structural transformation towards more socially inclusive society

Novel features of nuclear forces and shell evolution in exotic nuclei

Novel simple properties of the monopole component of the effective nucleon-nucleon interaction are presented, leading to the so-called monopole-based universal interaction. Shell structures are shown to change as functions of $N$ and $Z$ consistently with experiments. Some key cases of this shell evolution are discussed, clarifying the effects of central and tensor forces. The validity of the present tensor force is examined in terms of the low-momentum interaction V$_{low k}$ and the Q$_{box}$ formalism.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Sport and neighbourhood regeneration : exploring the mechanisms of social inclusion through sport

This thesis explores the way that sport can be used as a component of effective practice of neighbourhood regeneration. In particular, the thesis examines how and to what extent projects using sport for the purpose of engaging with young people affected by the deprivation of a neighbourhood can add to regenerating the area. The last decade has seen the shift of focus in British urban regeneration policy from physical renewal and economic development to tackling social and community-related matters concentrated in deprived neighbourhoods, such as unemployment, low income, low skills, poor housing, high crime rates, and poor health – in short, social exclusion. Young people who live in these neighbourhoods are greatly disadvantaged in respect both of their well-being at the present time and of their transition into adulthood. Use of sport for the purpose of alleviating these disadvantages is increasingly popular, although conclusive evidence of social benefits of sport participation has been lacking. The thesis identifies four sets of hypotheses that represent how sport may enhance the process of social inclusion; namely, personal development, diversion, social interaction/social networks, and the salience of sport. The normative and analytical framework is developed based on Amartya Sen’s ‘capability’ perspective so as to re-define the goal of neighbourhood regeneration, against which sport-related regeneration projects can be assessed their contribution. An in-depth qualitative case study, based on grounded theory, was carried out in deprived neighbourhoods in the East End of Glasgow. Main findings include: (1) young people in the area were trapped into the vicious circles of leisure deprivation, territoriality, and poor transition into adulthood; (2) the process of tackling youth-related problems in deprived areas can be represented with the analogies of ‘hooking’ and ‘signposting’; (3) a successful structure of a sport-related regeneration project can be represented by a ‘pyramid’, founded on financial sustainability nested in robust organisational base; (4) a project can enlarge its organisational base through a repeated process of ‘ownership’ and ‘evolution’, represented by an expanding ‘spiral’; and (5) sport-related projects are often too small to reach the majority of the ‘excluded’.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Effects of a novel elastase inhibitor, ONO-5046, on nephrotoxic serum nephritis in rats

Effects of a novel elastase inhibitor, ONO-5046, on nephrotoxic serum nephritis in rats. ONO-5046 is a potent, specific and intravenously active inhibitor of neutrophil elastase. To examine the role of elastase in glomerulonephritis, we tested the effects of ONO-5046 on nephrotoxic serum (NTS) nephritis in a rat model of the disease in humans. Rats were administered ONO-5046 or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) intraperitoneally 24hours prior to injection of NTS, and they were then given equal doses of ONO-5046 or PBS three hours and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6days later. Compared with the control groups, ONO-5046 significantly reduced proteinuria and hematuria, and suppressed the formation of crescentic glomeruli in a dose-dependent manner. Our results suggest that neutrophil elastase participates in NTS nephritis by degrading glomerular basement membrane proteins, and that the elastase inhibitor, ONO-5046, suppresses crescentic formation and glomerular injury caused by elastase

Hysteretic Tricolor Electrochromic Systems Based on the Dynamic Redox Properties of Unsymmetrically Substituted Dihydrophenanthrenes and Biphenyl-2,2 '-Diyl Dications: Efficient Precursor Synthesis by a Flow Microreactor Method

A series of biphenyl-2, 2'-diylbis(diarylmethanol)s 3, which have two kinds of aryl groups at the bay region, were efficiently obtained by integrated flow microreactor synthesis. The diols 3NO/NX are the precursors of unsymmetric biphenylic dications 2NO/NX^[2+] which are transformed into the corresponding dihydrophenanthrenes 1NO/NX via 2NO/NX^[+•] upon reduction, when they exhibit two-stage color changes. On the other hand, the steady-state concentration of the intermediate 2NO/NX^[+•] is negligible during the oxidation of 1NO/NX to 2NO/NX^[2+], which reflects unique tricolor electrochromicity with a hysteretic pattern of color change [color 1→color 2→color 3→color 1]

Determination of tritium activity and chemical forms in the exhaust gas from a large fusion test device

A water bubbler system that can distinguish chemical forms of tritium was proposed for long-term tritium monitoring of the exhaust gas of a large fusion test device. The characteristics and performance of the water bubbler system were evaluated under operational conditions and confirmed to be suitable for tritium monitoring. For the tritium measurements, the water bubbler system determined the tritium activity and distinguished the chemical forms of tritium. The tritium activity and chemical forms in the exhaust gas provided helpful information to understand the tritium behavior in the large fusion test device