36633 research outputs found
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The Golf and Strength and Conditioning Coach Interface: A Model to Optimise Performance Support for Golfers
No full textThe benefits of strength and conditioning (S&C) for golf are well established in the empirical scientific evidence base. While more longitudinal training studies are required, recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses have confirmed the viability of S&C for golfers, particularly for improving clubhead speed, a critical performance determinant. Golfer support is also evolving, whereby the historic “team” of golfer and golf coach is expanded. Elite golfers seek additional coaching from various sport science disciplines including S&C in the quest for sustained optimal performance. However, until recently, how S&C integrates within an overall golf plan had not been considered. Our research addressed this knowledge gap. This article is the first to synthesise these findings, make practical recommendations for golfers and their support team and suggestions for future research. The article highlights a continued need for improved communication between S&C coach, golf coach, and golfer. The golfer’s wants and needs are not always aligned to those of the golf coach and the qualities the S&C coach needs to possess, vary depending on the perceptions and practices of the golf coach and/or golfer. The S&C coach also needs to be cognisant of their varying overall impact on performance potential in a highly technical sport
Characteristics of mental health awareness programmes for workplace well-being in low-income and middle-income countries:a scoping review
No full textObjectives: Workplace-based mental health awareness programmes are increasingly promoted to support employee well-being; however, evidence from low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains fragmented. This scoping review aimed to map and synthesise the characteristics of workplace-based mental health awareness programmes implemented in LMICs. Design: Scoping review. Data sources: Peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2024 were identified through systematic searches of major electronic databases. Eligibility criteria: Studies were eligible if they described or evaluated mental health awareness programmes delivered in workplace settings among adult workers in LMICs. Data extraction and synthesis: Data were charted and synthesised descriptively, focusing on programme characteristics, delivery modalities, study designs and outcome domains. Results: 66 studies were included, with most published between 2020 and 2024 (n=52). Programmes were implemented across Asia (n=26), the Middle East (n=27), Africa (n=12) and North America (Dominican Republic; n=1). Interventions were delivered both online and in person and employed quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods designs. Outcome domains assessed included emotional, psychological, physical, social and work-related well-being, with commonly measured outcomes such as anxiety, stress, depression and burnout. Conclusions: Mental health awareness programmes in LMIC workplace settings are implemented unevenly and evaluated using heterogeneous outcome measures. More rigorous evaluation designs and culturally tailored approaches are needed to strengthen the evidence base and support effective workplace mental health interventions in LMIC contexts
A contact lens-embedded betaine ester polymer for pH-responsive release of an osmoprotectant to the corneal surface
No full textTopical delivery of osmoprotectants to ocular surface has been shown to be a promising solution to ocular discomfort thought to be associated with corneal hyperosmolarity. Currently, most osmoprotectants are administrated by aqueous eyedrops, which are associated with poor bioavailability and short residence time in the tear film, requiring repeated dosing to maintain the osmoprotectant concentration above the effective level. In response to this challenge, this work describes poly(vinyl glycine betaine) (PV-GB), a degradable ester quat polymer which gradually releases the osmoprotectant, glycine betaine (GB), over a period of days to weeks, with release rate strongly dependent on pH of its surroundings. PV-GB was embedded into commercial contact lenses (CLs) alongside a polyanion, hyaluronic acid (HA), to provide extended release of GB during a period reflecting the typical usage of a daily disposable CL wear of 8 – 16 h. A GB release lifetime of ≪48 hrs was achieved from a system comprising PV-GB/HA embedded within an anionic CL using a simple soaking method. Further experiments indicated the polymer was stable to autoclave sterilisation, had a shelf-life of 6 + months (under optimised solution conditions), and was likely to be mucoadhesive, which would be expected to enhance bioavailability of GB at the ocular surface
Researching hate crime with LGBTQ+ individuals
No full textConducting social research with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ+) people is a particularly complex process. LGBTQ+ people have always been located within a troublesome legal framework that has (and continues in many nations in the world) criminalised, persecuted, and oppressed them. Crimes aggravated by specific identities, in this case, sexuality and gender, are a legislative construct that responds to the violence experienced by LGBTQ+ communities. Accessing LGBTQ+ communities is therefore particularly difficult, and the researcher has a delicate task in sensitively and empathically gathering the stories and experiences of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime from victimised participants. Hate crime is an adult-centric concept that has excluded young people from its remit. Tips and strategies are offered to recruit and make space for young LGBTQ+ people. Considerable care, emotional literacy, empathy and reflection are required of the researcher to avoid retraumatising victims and create a secure space that is emotionally safe for both researcher and participant. LGBTQ+ researchers may experience the harms of hate, vicariously, through their shared identity with their participants. It is, therefore, vitally important that researchers remain introspective when researching their own community to prevent taking on the trauma of participants
Classifying Students' Performance in Mathematics in a Multicultural Primary School Using Machine Learning Algorithms
No full textThe last few years have witnessed a global change in the education system that was exacerbated with Covid-19 pandemic. The increasing use of online learning resources has introduced a challenge in deliverying quality education, especially in multicultural societies. In this respect, the first step to delivering high-quality education involves optimising educational quality by identifying facilitators and barriers to it. This research proposed the use of machine learning (ML) algorithms to understand the influence of key characteristics on the performance of level 6 students at a primary school in Mathematics. Three ML algorithms were applied to 12 characteristics related to students’ performance over three semesters being autumn, Spring and Summer. The ML algorithms were correlation in variable space method (CM), principal component analysis (PCA) and self-organizing maps (SOM). The aforementioned 12 characteristics included: attendance, behavior, engagement, nationality, previous school, age, weekly homework, daily in-class exercise, previous report, gender, learning disability, benchmark testing and end of block assessment. The results showed that the influence of characteristics was related to the type of assessment/lessons undertaken by students. In all cases, five characteristics played a key role and included attendance, weekly homework, daily in-class test, previous report and benchmark testing. The extent to which degree these five characteristics influenced performance varied between lessons depending on the type of task undertaken. Overall, the performance of students was consistently similar across the different semesters. Future work involves exploring the prediction of student performance based on the proposed 12 characteristics
Towards making EIA more human-centric:Demonstration in Nepal of a values crystallization approach to capture local shared values for scoping use
No full textEnvironmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are a critical component of planning and decision-making processes before projects are conducted, because they are used to forecast and inform mitigation of potential impacts on the local community, including its social, physical, and natural environments. Current EIA processes predominantly focus on issues that can be directly measured using objective methods, with mostly tokenistic inadequate use of suites of qualitative methodologies needed for identification and documentation of issues relating to community shared values. On the other hand, protests and tensions are known to easily arise which are related to such human values-based issues not being addressed. In this pragmatic study, a method is demonstrated which can bridge this gap, by capturing local community shared values in a well-defined manner and short time. The approach, called WeValue InSitu, enables local communities to construct their own bespoke group shared values statements in a specialized crystallization process, with outputs which are well-articulated proto-indicators. In this study we compare the outputs from two existing scoping reports of EIA in Nepal with the outputs from the values crystallization approach which we conducted with ten groups in a village in Nepal, and show that the latter brings out many more, and more localised, shared values of the community, and additionally reveals underlying interrelationships between values, producing conceptual maps for planning effective mitigations. Future studies can investigate whether the achievements of this method offer any advantages to existing qualitative methods in improving EIA-SIA scoping, and/or whether the hegemony of objectivism of institutions and proponents is an unsurmountable barrier.</p
Environment:Critical Social Psychology in the Anthropocene
No full textIn this chapter, I provide a brief overview of contemporary understandings of ecological crisis. I then describe how psychology has been co-opted into addressing this crisis, particularly in terms of trying to understand what factors determine more ‘sustainable behaviour’. This is followed by what some may consider a surprising ‘social turn’ in literature concerned with climate change mitigation and adaptation hinted at in our opening quotation. Subsequent sections critically consider the conception of the social therein, before exploring critical currents that might be of interest to critical social psychologists
Blue rejuvenation and reconciliation; Belfast’s titanic watery renaissance
No full textOver twenty five years since the Good Friday Agreement, Belfast has moved away from its past Troubles, having reformed itself as a cultural engine and facilitator on the island of Ireland. Beal Feirste, Belfast’s original Irish language name, describes ‘the settlement at the mouth of the River Farset’. The rivers Farset and Lagan conjoin in Belfast and were straightened to form one of Europe’s most accessible deep-water ports. The city is now synonymous with that symbol of venture capital, and venture and capital, the RMS Titanic. Belfast uses its fluvial arteries as connecting points and conduits for material and immaterial flows of energy, ideas and currency across the city and further across the historic province of Ulster. Its iconic status as a shipbuilding city has enabled it to draw in international tourists who flow onwards to fly fish at Lake Neagh, step up the coast to the Giant’s Causeway and drift inland towards Seamus Heaney country, to link industry and ideas together as leisure domains. The fabrication of modern Belfast continues with the emergence of the Titanic Quarter, framed around the River Lagan’s waters, offering both a museum dedicated to the ship’s legacy, real, fiction and filmic. Alongside art installations and working film studios which mythologise Northern Ireland’s beautiful landscapes in fantasy works such as Game of Thrones and Dungeons and Dragons and its fantastic people in Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Belfast’, the Titanic Quarter joins the ‘Lagan Corridor’ to flood the former shipbuilding area with visitors, artists and artisans, keeping stories, history and the economy alive. This chapter explores Belfast’s watery renaissance as a space of reconciling political and cultural history, along with a reincarnation of Irish sensibilities as imaginative and playful, to argue that both real and imaginary waterscapes link Belfast’s blue rejuvenation as a tourist destination
Toussaint Louverture
No full textThis entry explores the life of François Dominique Toussaint Louverture (c1743-1803), who was the pre-eminent leading figure in the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804, the only successful slave revolt in recorded history. Toussaint remains an international inspiration, seen by many to be one of the greatest fighters for national liberation who ever lived, for his critical role in the abolition of slavery in French colonial Saint-Domingue, the Caribbean’s wealthiest colony, and in laying the foundation for the birth of Haiti, the first independent black republic outside Africa and the second independent state in the Americas. Toussaint was the military and strategic genius who built and led an army composed overwhelmingly of former enslaved Africans and people of African descent to victory after victory under the banner ‘Liberty or Death’ over the European imperial professional armies of France, Spain and Britain
Cloud Condenser
No full textA cartographer of the now, the cloud condenser constantly maps the moment. It’s multiple reflectors track every movement, capturing our presence, positioning us within space. As we move our relationship to the condenser alters revealing further perspectives. All the time it confirms our presence, our grounding. The play of light upon the mirror pools casts dancing light across the space, reaffirming the beauty and poetics of the everyday. The minutiae of the moment are brought to the fore; the overlooked, the transient, are given voice.<br/