28579 research outputs found
Sort by
How does participation in clinical mental health services and community arts programmes for mental health influence the expression of Mental Illness Identity (MII) among individuals with chronic and serious mental health difficulties?
Get PDFBackground: Growing evidence points to the benefits of community-based participatory arts for mental health. Such non-clinical interventions differ from traditional interventions for mental illness, which are typically situated within clinical statutory services. Clinical intervention can emphasise a sense of ‘patienthood’ and Mental Illness Identity (MII). MII is said to be dynamic, and further understanding of the factors influencing it is warranted. Aim: This study explored themes of MII and hopes for recovery in people with long-term mental illness, who have accessed both clinical services and a non-clinical arts programme for mental health. Method: A four-week Photovoice methodology was used with nine participants recruited from a community mental health arts group. Three discussion groups and four follow-up semi-structured individual interviews were carried out. Data was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Four themes were identified: Navigating identities: the struggle between mental illness and the whole self; Hierarchy, power and positioning; Performing the patient role; and Teetering between hope and hopelessness. This study highlighted the dynamic nature of MII, which was mediated by interpersonal and environmental factors within each intervention setting. Conclusion: The informal, non-hierarchical arts setting offered a safe, consistent space that contrasted with the outcomes-focused and time-limited nature of clinical care. This allowed participants to build trust and reconnect with an identity beyond mental illness. Although MII was less dominant in the art setting, it still persisted, indicating that negative self-belief is deeply held, and that identity reconstruction beyond mental illness is sensitive to changing interpersonal and environmental intervention factors. The findings have key implications for clinical practice, especially regarding power dynamics between clinician and client, shame in repeat help-seeking, and understanding the whole person within brief interventions. Community art spaces for mental health offer a valuable space in which relational safety can grow, which is an important foundation for any future clinical intervention. Therefore, collaboration between creative and health sectors is recommended, such as referring clients to community groups and providing trauma-informed training for arts practitioners. Co-production with service users in developing and maintaining these spaces can promote empowerment through roles beyond ‘patienthood’ and promote sustainability of community arts spaces
The involvement of non-governmental organisations in achieving health system goals based on the WHO six building blocks: A scoping review on global evidence.
Get PDFBackground Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have the potential to make a significant contribution to improving health system goals through the provision of resources, health services and community participation. Therefore, this paper examines the role of NGOs in achieving health system goals, based on the six building blocks of a health system framework, and identifies strategies to enhance NGO involvement in achieving health system goals.
Methods A scoping systematic review methodology was used to map and synthesise the existing literature on the topic, following the latest JBI six-stage framework. Four databases and one search engine including PubMed, Web of Science (ISI), EMBASE, Scopus and Google Scholar were searched from January 2000 to January 2024. The results were synthesised using a directed content analysis approach, and the findings were categorised according to the dimensions of the six building blocks.
Results NGO involvement in health system goals can effectively address gaps in service delivery, strengthen the health workforce, improve health information systems, increase access to essential medicines, mobilise resources and promote good governance. In addition, six key strategies were identified, including joint planning, policy development, capacity building, resource allocation, developing collaboration, and improving the quality of health care, to enhance NGO participation in achieving health system goals.
Conclusion NGOs can play a critical role in achieving health system goals, alongside government and other key health stakeholders. Governments need to use evidence-based policies and interventions to support NGOs to realise their potential in achieving health system goals
Predicting normative walking biomechanics across the lifespan using seven simple features.
Get PDFThe assessment of gait impairments requires a normative reference for comparison. For a fair assessment, comparisons must be made against a reference standing after controlling for sex, anthropometry, and walking characteristics. This study aimed to develop statistical models that predict the lower-limb kinematics and kinetics of walking across the lifespan of healthy participants, using seven simple covariates. Sixteen statistical models predicted 16 joint kinematics and kinetics during walking using the covariates of sex, age, height, mass, side (laterality), walking speed, and cadence, which were developed based on 301 participants between three to 91 years old. The root mean squared error (RMSE) ranged from 4.71° to 7.97° for joint angles, within 0.07 N/kg for ground reaction forces, 0.09 to 0.15 Nm/kg for joint moments, and 0.33 to 0.39 W/kg for joint powers. We provide both online and local apps which can be easily used by clinicians and scientists to generate normative walking data with uncertainty values, which can be used for movement impairment analysis ( https://github.com/EmanuelSommer/ShinyFOSR )
Navigating the anti-relational force: ambivalence and performance management in a child and family social work department
Get PDFDuring the 1980’s, the two dichotomous worlds of accountancy and social welfare came crashing together in the form of performance management (PM). This central feature of New Public Management (NPM) is now utilised as both a way to measure and prescribe a process to UK child and family social work. This study utilises a psychosocial approach to explore how six social workers and two managers in an English Local Authority child and family social work department experience PM. The study is heavily influenced by psychoanalytic theory, alongside trauma and complexity theory, and is methodologically informed by free association narrative interviewing techniques and data analysis, as well as reflexive thematic analysis. As such, both conscious and unconscious process occurring within individual and organisational experiences are explored within the data. The study finds that ambivalence is a central organising concept to understand both social workers’ and managers’ experience of PM. Ambivalence is experienced in multiple different forms both individually and within the group experience and this constitutes layers of ambivalence that are embedded within the functioning of the organisation. Six layers of ambivalence are identified within the data which are critically and theoretically analysed to develop an understanding of participants’ experience of PM. This thesis contributes to knowledge in several ways. Firstly, in establishing the role of ambivalence in experiences of PM, both from an individual and organisational position. Secondly, by providing an understanding of how the relatively new phenomenon of sharing performance data with frontline social workers is experienced, both from the position of those sending and those receiving this. Thirdly, through pluralist application of psychoanalytic, trauma and complexity theory, new findings into how PM is functioning organisationally in child and family social work are established
Energy Detection over Composite κ − μ Shadowed Fading Channels with Inverse Gaussian Distribution
Get PDFThis paper investigates the characteristics of energy detection (ED) over composite κ–μ shadowed fading channels in device-to-device (D2D) networks. We have derived the closedform expressions of the probability density function (PDF) of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) based on the Inverse Gaussian (IG) distribution. By adopting some novel integration and mathematical transformation techniques, we derive a truncation-based closed-form expression for the average detection probability for the first time. It can be observed from our simulations that the number of propagation paths has a more pronounced effect on average detection probability compared to average SNR, which contrasts with earlier studies that focus on D2D networks. It suggests that for D2D networks design, we shall consider enhancing transmitter-receiver placement and antenna alignment strategies, rather than relying solely on increasing the D2D average SNR
Ecological impacts of offshore structures on North Sea biodiversity and food webs
Get PDFOffshore structures including oil and gas (O&G) platforms and offshore wind turbines induce spatially and temporally extensive anthropogenic changes that profoundly influence the North Sea ecosystem. However, there are currently inadequate understandings of the biodiversity and food webs associated with offshore structures and their likely responses to future changes. This limits the development of ecologically sound management policies to address emerging issues such as decommissioning and the expansion of offshore renewables. This thesis utilises a series of approaches to assess ecological impacts of offshore structures on the North Sea biodiversity and food web structure. First, the links between O&G-associated sediment contamination and benthic invertebrate biodiversity and food web structures are assessed in a before-after control- impact (BACI) design, highlighting loss of larger individuals, shorter food chains and simpler food webs with more dietary generalists in the high contamination areas. Second, three O&G decommissioning scenarios are analysed to assess benthic ecological recovery, showing a non- linear trajectory from reduced diversity and food web complexity in the short term to a greater density of trophic interaction and more intermediate species in the long term. Third, the effects of both O&G platforms and wind turbines on marine fish biodiversity and food web responses are examined at the North Sea scale using Bayesian INLA models, revealing that wind turbines benefit total fish biomass. The study shows the biggest piscivores are negatively affected whilst small planktivores benefit. Cumulative effects of both structures in the past three decades were estimated to inform cumulative changes at each fish response. This thesis synthesises the major contributions of new insights in the context of wider application and informing future decision-making process and provides future research directions for biodiversity and food web studies in the context of offshore structures
Leveraging Sensory Knowledge into Text-to-Text Transfer Transformer for Enhanced Emotion Analysis
Get PDFThis study proposes an innovative model (i.e., SensoryT5), which integrates sensory
knowledge into the T5 (Text-to-Text Transfer Transformer) framework for emotion
classification tasks. By embedding sensory knowledge within the T5 model's attention
mechanism, SensoryT5 not only enhances the model's contextual understanding but
also elevates its sensitivity to the nuanced interplay between sensory information and
emotional states. Experiments on four emotion classification datasets, three sarcasm
classification datasets one subjectivity analysis dataset, and one opinion classification
dataset (ranging from binary to 32-class tasks) demonstrate that our model
outperforms state-of-the-art baseline models (including the baseline T5 model)
significantly. Specifically, SensoryT5 achieves a maximal improvement of 3.0% in both
the accuracy and the F1 score for emotion classification. In sarcasm classification
tasks, the model surpasses the baseline models by the maximal increase of 1.2% in
accuracy and 1.1% in the F1 score. Furthermore, SensoryT5 continues to demonstrate
its superior performances for both subjectivity analysis and opinion classification, with
increases in ACC and the F1 score by 0.6% for the subjectivity analysis task and
increases in ACC by 0.4% and the F1 score by 0.6% for the opinion classification task,
when compared to the second-best models.} These improvements underscore the
significant potential of leveraging cognitive resources to deepen NLP models'
comprehension of emotional nuances and suggest an interdisciplinary research
between the areas of NLP and neuro-cognitive science
'I suffered my deeds more than I acted them': Hegel on Sophocles' Oedipus plays'
Get PDFI reconfigure Hegel’s distinction between Tat (deed) and Handlung (action) to illuminate Oedipus’ enigmatic formula: ‘I suffered my deeds more than I acted them’. Most interpreters hold that Oedipus mistook his Tat for a Handlung and wrongly took responsibility for parricide and incest. I argue against the merely causal reading of Tat presupposed by this view that the tragic Tat also has an intentional structure. On the Restrictive Intentionalism about Action (RIA) which underlies Handlung, what counts as my action is only the realisation of a conscious intention, accomplished with reasonable knowledge of the relevant circumstances and foreseeable consequences of realising my intention. On RIA, Oedipus killed the charioteer and married Iocasta: parricide and incest happened to him. By contrast, on the Inclusive Intentionalism about Action (IIA) which underlies the tragic Tat, what counts as my action is everything I bring about in realising a conscious intention, regardless of reasonable expectations about knowledge of the circumstances or foreseeable consequences of realising my intention. On IIA, parricide and incest are part of the ‘whole compass’ of Oedipus’ deeds. I argue that Oedipus is right to take responsibility for his deeds and draw on Tony Honoré’s conception of ‘outcome responsibility’ to characterise the responsibility at stake as blameless liability. Where Oedipus errs is in taking ethical responsibility for his deeds. I show that in Oedipus at Colonus the older Oedipus reverses his position and holds, somewhat surprisingly, that he is innocent and ‘did nothing’. I argue that this reversal presupposes an implicit shift from IIA to RIA, and that this shift helps to finally make sense of Oedipus’ enigmatic formula: Oedipus suffered his deeds (on RIA) more than he acted them (on IIA). I conclude by widening the perspective beyond ancient Greece and engage with Bernard Williams’ interpretation of the same formula
C-RAN and Optical Fronthaul Latency in Representative Network Topologies
Get PDFThis paper presents a feasibility study aimed at understanding centralized radio access network (C-RAN) deployments based on incumbent distributed radio access network (D-RAN) topologies. A model is derived to allow realistic latency characteristics to be calculated for fronthaul connectivity between existing cell sites and transport network aggregation nodes (hubs) suitable for baseband centralization. Analysis has demonstrated that as much as 96% of urban cell site neighbor pairs could satisfy C-RAN fronthaul latency budgets if baseband processing were to be centralized at the local transport hub and 91% when centralized at the regional transport hub using single mode fiber. Findings suggest that the feasibility of advanced coordinated transmission schemes between such pairings could be realized based on existing real-world fiber deployment topologies. Furthermore, the proportion of sites that could support C-RAN requirements could be increased further to 97% when aggregated at local transport hubs and 95% at regional hubs where hollow core fiber transport solutions are employed
Proving Ecocide: the plight of pangolins as a case study for fusing ecological science with international law
Get PDFFocusing on the case study of pangolins, this article examines how ecological science can contribute to proving ecocide and other environmental crimes before international courts. It explores multiple vertices along which ecological science can assist forensic processes, including the widespread, long-term, and severity elements of ecocide, as well as gravity, causation, intention, linkage, and the classification of victims. The authors argue that the relationship between science and law needs to be reconceptualized. Instead of the traditional fact-value binary, it advocates for increased recognition that both science and law involve a mix of fact-based and value-dependent assessments. At the same time, the study highlights challenges when incorporating disparate disciplines with separate ontologies and methodologies, including the erosion of fair trial protections and the misunderstanding of requisite standards and methodologies, as well as the risk of outsourcing factual and legal assessments from the courts to scientific researchers. These insights are designed to assist the operationalization of ecocide, and other environmental crimes applicable during both war and peacetime, when applied to living species subjected to multi-variate anthropogenic threats