Centro de Documentación de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música
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Kinetic theory of binary fluid–surfactant systems: A variational framework
No full textWe derive a self-consistent hydrodynamic theory of coupled binary fluid–surfactant systems from the underlying microscopic physics using Rayleigh’s variational principle. At the microscopic level, surfactant molecules are modelled as dumbbells that exert forces and torques on the fluid and interface while undergoing Brownian motion. We obtain the overdamped stochastic dynamics of these particles from a Rayleighian dissipation functional, which we then coarse-grain to derive a set of continuum equations governing the surfactant concentration, orientation, fluid density and velocity. This approach introduces a polarisation field p(r,t), representing the average orientation of surfactants, which plays a central role in suppressing droplet coalescence. The remaining hydrodynamic equations are consistently obtained from a mesoscopic free energy functional. The resulting model accurately captures key surfactant phenomena, including surface tension reduction and droplet stabilisation, as confirmed by both perturbation theory and numerical simulations, and is thermodynamically consistent with both the Gibbs adsorption isotherm and Henry’s law for adsorbed surfactant concentration
Sustainable Learning Ecosystems in Later Life: A Critical Realist Perspective
No full textLater-life learning has been an object of theory and empirical research for decades. However, gaps remain in frameworks that can both recognize learners’ agency and the impact of structural barriers. Envisioning a future of sustainable learning practices in later life, this position paper offers critical realism as a framework for researching later-life learning as situated within sustainable learning ecosystems. To that end, the authors first outline the main ontological and epistemological orientations of critical realism. Further, drawing on literature from educational sciences and ageing studies, the authors explore the affordances of critical realism to theorize the causal mechanisms that inform learning in later life. What follows is a discussion of the practicalities and realities of the learning environments, and an argument that a critical realist framing clarifies what it takes to build adaptable learning ecosystems grounded in age equity and inclusion
Evaluating educational technology: Consolidating across multiple impact indicators and rating systems
No full textProcurement of educational technologies (EdTech) requires a research-based rubric with multiple quality indicators that reflect the technology’s impact across various settings. We outline the development of the Multiple EdTech Impact Index (MEII) and an impact benchmarking formula for EdTech tools designed for K12 education. MEII includes fifteen indicators of impact, categorized into three evidence weights (high, medium, low) across five domains: efficacy, effectiveness, ethics, equity, and environment. It calculates a total EdTech impact score, highlighting the strength and relevance of products. MEII integrates evaluations based on diverse national EdTech certification standards and proposes a unified approach for assessment. We demonstrate its value through two models: national EdTech certification systems and a comparative database ranking EdTech tools by impact weight
Achebe, Igbo Writing and the Aka Weta controversy
No full textThe mass exodus which followed the 1966 pogroms, and the subsequent Biafran war, which emptied other first-generation Nigerian universities, notably the universities of Ibadan and Lagos, from their Igbo scholars and writers and reabsorbed them into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), renamed ‘University of Biafra’, marked a turning point in Achebe’s approach to writing and led to the publication of Aka Weta, the first anthology of poetry in Igbo language, co-edited by Achebe and Obiora Udechukwu in 1982. This presentation focuses on this seldom-known and still untranslated anthology shunned by critics, its brand of Igbo, and its deliberate choice, at a time when standard Igbo had already been in use for ten years, to offer texts in a variety of dialects from Anambra, Abia and Imo States. This was Achebe’s first statement in defence of literary writing in dialects: the article examines the controversy it generated and weighs the arguments used by Igbo linguists against it
The Poetry of Unease in the First World War: Heroes, Conflicts, Bodies, Values
No full textFirst World War poetry has often been stereotyped in the public imagination as protest poetry, but scholarship has shown that the poetry composed during the war varied in its perspectives. Protest poetry did become a feature, but its didacticism contrasts with the more nuanced poetry of unease that was evident from the onset of the war. This article analyses ways in which the poetry of unease deployed the classical texts of ancient Greece and Rome to communicate the impact of conflict on individuals, societies and environments. The Trench poets discussed here came from a wide range of social and educational backgrounds. All used key figures, values and metaphors from ancient texts, especially Homeric epic, as touchstones for exploring the effects of industrialized warfare on conceptions of heroism and conflict, on funerary rituals, and on the relationships between war and environment, providing intertexts for subsequent creative writers and scholars
Political trust in divided societies: Who trusts whom in Northern Ireland?
No full textPolitical trust is essential for peace in divided societies. In post-accord Northern Ireland (NI), past research has identified differences in political trust amongst the Catholic and Protestant communities. The present research explored which political institutions are trusted, and by whom, in the NI context. Drawing on the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) 2022 survey data (n=968; 373 male, 595 female, aged 18 and over, 537 Protestant, 431 Catholic), principal component analyses identified two factors (with 62.85% cumulative variance explained), one factor trusted mainly by Catholics, which includes the EU and the Alliance Party, and the other factor trusted mainly by Protestants, which includes the UK government (at Westminster) and the NI Executive. This differentiation suggests that political events such as Brexit and the suspension of the NI Assembly have impacted political trust differently in each community. Findings highlight the complexity of political trust and how ostensibly neutral political institutions are perceived in divided societies
Hierarchies of Need: A Systematic Review of Resilience, Challenge, and Change in the Global Nursing Workforce During the First Two Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic
No full textBackground: Nursing was critical to global health care delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nurses everywhere experienced an extreme tension between public appreciation and personal distress. These experiences are ubiquitous in nursing research conducted across the world between 2020 and 2022. Despite holding profound value for future clinicians, policymakers, and wider society, these stories already appear absent in the collective memory. Review Question: To synthesize available qualitative and quantitative research about nurses' experiences of resilience, challenge, and change during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Type of Review: Mixed-methods systematic review. Methods: The review followed a convergent integrated approach with multiple reviewers involved at each stage. Results: A total of 59 studies were eligible for analysis. Coding of results revealed a similarity to Maslow's expanded hierarchy of needs, which was used as a framing device for findings. The greater portion of recorded experiences expressed needs for safety, belonging, and esteem. Conclusions: The findings contained common and conflicting stories. Taken as a whole, the nursing experience during early COVID represents a powerful, compassionate counter-narrative to contemporary political dystopianism.Implications: Nurses need to leverage their critical importance to health-care delivery for improved work security, sociocultural recognition, and political influence
Unruly Modernity: Reconciling Modernity and Decolonisation in Migration Theory
No full textThis paper uses unruly modernity as a way of reconciling modernity and decolonisation in migration theory. Migration theory has adopted aspirations and capability as two underpinning concepts for explaining migration. Drawing on empirical research these aspirations and capabilities are usually set within modernity and describe modernity as a driver, condition and/or result of migration. At the same time, another group of migration researchers aims to divest migration thinking from the shackles of modernity, pointing to the different entanglements of coloniality and migration, in terms of migration processes, the topics studied and the peopling of migration research. I call this the coloniality of migration, coloniality in migration and coloniality and migration respectively. These researchers argue for stepping away from modernity/coloniality, to decolonise migration research. Given the centrality of modernity to migration processes and theorisation, how do we decolonise migration theory? This paper deploys unruly modernity as a way of bringing these two perspectives together. Unruly suggests that as modernity and migration are linked, we should explore the inherent plurality of modernity through counter‐hegemonic, alternative and hybrid modernities to decolonise migration theory. Unruly also points to the disruptive ways in which modernity may be lived. It thus offers us the opportunity to disorder the coloniality‐modernity argument to reorder migration theory. The paper outlines how unruly modernities can be operationalised through reflexivity, arguing that one implication of unruliness is that we must analyse reflexivity as a tool among those whom we research and not only that of researchers