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Collecting and organizing the influencing factors of team communications to handle nuclear power plant emergencies
Get PDFA nuclear power plant (NPP), as a complex safety-critical system, requires qualified operators working in teams. Interactions between operators in the main control room (MCR) team are important to ensure safe operation. Since communication is the basis of the operators’ interactions, team communication is a significant factor affecting teamwork performance. Especially during NPP emergencies, poor team communication may lead to incorrect decisions and countermeasures, causing deterioration toward accidents. Moreover, in an emergency situation, emergency response teams are assembled. This multi-team and critical work condition further emphasizes the need for effective and accurate team communication. We collected the factors influencing team communication in NPP emergencies using a literature review combined with text mining. Our method for extracting the influencing factors consists of four steps; then, by applying topic modeling from text mining, we complemented the influencing factors. The resulting list of influencing factors of team communications for handling NPP emergencies is organized into five elements: individual, team, communication, NPP tasks, and external elements. Discussions on the team communication model, applicability, communication errors, and emergency response teams are also presented
Ray's a laugh
No full textFirst published in 1996 to enormous acclaim, Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh is one of the most significant photobooks of the turn of the twentieth century, as well as a cornerstone work of the Young British Artists generation. Formed of starkly intimate images of Billingham’s often chaotic parental home under the heavy effects of alcoholism and poverty, the book was produced in the 1990s with editors Michael Collins and Julian Germain. This new edition restores Billingham’s original vision for his deeply personal work for the first time. Including numerous unseen images and a distinct approach to sequencing inflected by Billingham’s training as a painter: it constitutes a ‘director’s cut’ and reintroduces a vital and consistently challenging work for a new era. Chris Wiley, The New Yorker, 29th February 2024 wrote - ‘A landmark look at family dysfunction … from today’s vantage it looks just as bracing and uncompromising as it did when it was originally released – and perhaps even more relevant in the post-Brexit era of increasingly intractable inequality.’ Tim Adams, The Observer, 10th March 2024 wrote - ‘[The new edition] is closer to Billingham’s original intention, even more full of complicated affection and disgust and black comedy and overwhelming anxiety about his family life. The flash lit shock of the original is preserved but is given depth and context in a series of previously unseen images.’ Jim Lewis, Artforum, wrote of the first edition in 1996 - ‘Ray’s a Laugh is a parlour drama of sorts, as tightly composed as a Pinter play, and considerably more gruelling … [it] changed the way I looked at photographs, changed what I thought a photograph could do.’ The 2024 edition is accompanied by ‘Ray’s a Laugh: A Reader’, edited by Liz Jobey, which traces the book’s compelling history from Billingham’s ‘discovery’ at Sunderland University, through his Turner Prize nomination, to the present reworked edition. It also included a selection of conversations and essays from 1996 to the present by writers including Charlotte Cotton, Gordon Burn, Lynn Barber, and Jim Lewis
Ray's a laugh: a reader
No full text'Ray’s a Laugh: A Reader' by Liz Jobey, pub MACK Books (160pgs) by traced the history of Billingham’s photo series ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ which still remains as vital and provocative as on its first release. Editor Liz Jobey charted the history in a new commissioned essay that drew on interviews with Billingham and all the primary protagonists of the work’s emergence. This was followed by an extensive selection of conversations and essays from 1996 to the present, by writers including Charlotte Cotton, Gordon Burn, Lynn Barber, and Jim Lewis.
The book coincided with the release of a new edition of Ray’s a Laugh that restored Billingham’s original vision for the book.
'Ray’s a Laugh: A Reader is part of DISCOURSE, a series of books published by MACK Books in which a theorist, artist, or writer engages in a dialogue with a theme, an artwork, an idea, or another individual across an extended text
Seeing the unseen: a pragmatic response to a public health emergency
No full textIntroduction: The National Health Service (NHS) organisations in England have a statutory duty to respond to an emergency. Hence, in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, NHS organisations across all seven regions in England set up a protocolised ‘command and control’ hierarchical governance process. Its purpose was to provide strategic direction for responding to the emergency and support recovery. This study relates to one of the regions in NHS England and provides a network practitioner's perspective on the phenomenon of strategic decision-making governance. Due to the ongoing COVID -19 public inquiry, I have had to refrain from disclosing details of the region where this study was conducted.
Methodology: In response to the pandemic, my practice was rapidly evolving, and therefore, to intentionally study this I applied a pragmatic approach. This allowed me to embrace the transdisciplinary nature of my work as I started to view reality from different perspectives. To deeply study the dynamic phenomenon and my practice within it, I have applied my skills as a bricoleur and engaged with a variety of theoretical concepts. This approach is reflective of my practice in complex operational systems. As a result, this thesis is the product of the application of reflexivity and bricolage from which emerged my own theory of facilitative factors that supported decision-making. I have applied an autoethnography lens to present my findings.
Results: The findings of the enquiry contribute to the debates about the strength of distributed leadership and how it can support bureaucratic structures in managing emergency situations in complex systems. The findings also acknowledge that despite the complexity of the multiple layers and related power dynamics of the microsystems of health services, networks offer a platform for collaboration and facilitating decision-making. In this multilayered ecosystem, the findings highlight the strength of network coordination to facilitate cooperative relationship building between networks and bureaucratic structures.
Discussion: My unique contribution through this study is threefold, firstly in unravelling the function of network coordination and coordinator in managing relationships between bureaucratic structures and semi-autonomous agents when dealing with situations in complex environments. Through this, I have added to existing knowledge about the importance of network coordination in complex systems in providing a bridge across statutory and autonomous bodies. Secondly, I have contributed towards the role of public health specialists in providing leadership for complex issues. Finally, I offer a multidimensional framework of factors that influence strategic decision-making in emergencies. Although I studied the phenomenon during an emergency, I posit that the identified factors can equally be applied in non-emergency situations.
Conclusion: This thesis presents the dynamic yet symbiotic relationship between multiple factors that facilitated decision-making governance during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. Equally importantly, this has also been a journey of self-discovery through which I, as a practitioner-researcher, have gained new knowledge and continuously improved my practice. It is my privilege that, through this process, I have added new perspectives to the existing pool of knowledge.
Implications for practice: This enquiry contributes to the evidence base for transdisciplinary work-based doctoral studies by strengthening the case for applying pragmatic approaches to study complex systems. Despite its limitations of being a contextual study, it offers principles for system leadership for managing situations in complex ecosystems
Validity and reliability of a commercially available inertial sensor for measuring barbell mechanics during weightlifting
Get PDFThis study aimed to assess the validity and reliability of a commercially available inertial measurement unit (Enode) for measuring barbell kinematics and kinetics during the snatch. In order to assess validity and within and between session reliability, thirteen competitive weightlifters con-ducted two snatches on two separate occasions at 85% of their one-repetition maximum. The Enode sensor was attached to the barbell, with each lift recorded via the devices native application concurrently with an 11-camera motion capture system. Passing-Bablok regression indicated fixed and proportional bias in some horizontal measures of barbell mechanics, but showed no bias in all but one vertical variable. Collectively this suggests that the Enode is a valid tool in the measurement of vertically derived variables from barbell kinematics, but not horizontal. Within and between session reliability showed moderate to excellent ICC’s, with trivial to small differences between repetitions and between sessions. However, between session reliability showed lower levels of variability and thus may help coaches identify changes in technique over time (between sessions) with good accuracy. Overall the Enode offers a practical and affordable option for coaches seeking to monitor weightlifting technique in training environments
Testing interiors: an exploration of emerging digital practices as collaborative, transnational learning tools
No full textInterior Design and Architecture by their very definition are disciplines of circumstance and situation. We are working within a host space, site or area and using its existing physical characteristics as an intrinsic part of the process. As practitioners, we are bound by the problematic nature of the building process. It is rare that we can make a full scale ‘mock up’ of the creative proposal, instead we rely on an array of representations to communicate our intentions. The advent of technology such as digital twin prototyping (DTP), AR, VR and Lidar scanning, allows us many innovative ways to test out our various interventions before committing to a final proposal. We are teaching cohorts who are ‘immersed within a Digital Anthropology based culture. Our experimental collaboration utilised some of this technology and capitalised on the students prior understanding of consumer technology
Can art be a medium for connection with God: reflections on Taylor, Aquinas and Maritain
Get PDFThis research project is dedicated to exploring fresh expressions of the Church's mission in the context of a secular generation. It aims to raise important questions at the intersection of theology, art, culture, and Christian mission, and to illustrate how the Church can engage a secular generation through art. The project proposes a bridge that connects philosopher Charles Taylor’s concept of fullness with the theological understanding of how individuals in a secular age might connect with the transcendent God through art. To achieve this, the project critically examines Taylor's influential analysis of secularization, Neo-Thomist anthropology, and Jacques Maritain’s theory of art.
This dissertation proceeds through a triangulation of concepts. First, Taylor’s secularization theory is the necessary context for understanding and developing his notion of fullness. Taylor coined this term to describe experiences that make life worth living. Fullness provides the pathway, the trajectory to transcendence. Transcendence is the end goal. The term transcendence has a variety of definitions and concepts associated with it. The definition employed in this research project is the presence of God as he is manifest in the immanent frame. Second, Thomas Aquinas’ concept of humanity as imago Dei answers the question of why a person is capable of experiencing fullness. Perhaps more importantly, Neo-Thomist anthropology proposes that human beings are the horizon between heaven and earth. This understanding of humanity allows this study to go beyond Taylor and suggest that aesthetic experiences of works of art can be experiences of the transcendent God. Third, Neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain’s theory of art answers the question of how a person might experience fullness through the experience of art. The study will conclude with a case study of a modern ballet that will demonstrate the plausibility of the research’s claims.
The contribution of this research is to build on the foundation laid by Taylor and then take Taylor a step further to provide a theological bridge between the philosophical concepts of Taylor and Maritain. This theological bridge connects the notion of the experience of fullness and the experience of art to conclude that art can be a medium for an encounter with the transcendent God. This study’s main findings are, first, that Taylor’s philosophical search for fullness and transcendence is the theological longing for God, which exists in each person. Second, while Taylor offers many possible options for the experience of fullness - events, activities or conditions - this study focuses specifically on the aesthetic experience of art as a medium for the experience of fullness. However, this study will take Taylor a step further. Art is a locus theologicus, a theological space. It is a space in which the presence of God is active and can be encountered. Therefore, this study maintains that art and the aesthetic experience of art can be a medium through which the Christian Church can help people in a secular age move toward the transcendent God
The use of public environment as alternative auditoria and ‘mixed economy’ participation to create new writing which originates from, and is rooted in, a community’s history, culture and people
No full textThis presentation/research contends that a localist and grassroots approach is the most effective way of empowering wider access to the arts. It argues for an increased emphasis on performance in local spaces rather than in mainstream auditoria. The Newham Plays series have marked out a distinct territory by making a virtue of the absence of elements most commonly associated with conventional theatre spaces, e.g., a stage, scenery, lighting, seating.
My research contends that non-institutionalized theatre in community, site specific and localized environments can offer a greater resistance/indifference to commodification or mass reproduction than mainstream or commercial performance. It is precisely the evanescence of this kind of theatre, its ephemerality, that provides or proves its own justification or meaning, without the need to validate itself by entering the ‘economy of reproduction’ (Phelan 1993).
In an increasingly digitally-saturated world, where advances in technology are negating the need for face-to-face human contact, the ‘analogue’ experience of a small group of people in a non-corporate, localized setting, watching a play, on a bare stage, or on a farm or adventure playground, with just a few props, some indicative costumes, becomes almost an act of subversion, and suggests more than a hint of an oppositional stance towards the big-budget, lavish dramas pumped out on an alarmingly regular, if hugely popular, basis by the streaming giants
Public engagement for student empowerment
No full textThe ability to disseminate and communicate densely mathematical and technical material to a non-technical audience and coworkers is a key employability skill for mathematics graduates. While mathematics students are well regarded when it comes to working with highly technical material, they are perhaps less well known for their communication skills. As educators it is important that we consider how to bridge this gap and how we can embed these skills into already tightly packed programmes.
At Middlesex University we have long believed in embedding communication skills in our undergraduate mathematics programmes to empower our students from diverse backgrounds.
Importantly, while these students are with us, we also present them with the opportunity to work as mathematical ambassadors and apply these skills in-situ during outreach and public engagement events. These events include SMASHFest, Big Bang, Thorpe Park, World Skills, Teen Tech, and MDX STEMFest. This increases their confidence and knowledge of mathematical topics further while enhancing their employability and communication skills, and social capital.
In this presentation we will how we implemented this approach, the difficulties, the benefits and the perspective from current students and recent graduates and how this has shaped their attitude towards what mathematics is
Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom & Harun Morrison Dono, Somerset House Studios
No full textA number of quite unassuming works comprise this two person exhibition by artists Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom and Harun Morrison in Somerset House’s small exhibition space G31 (so-called because that's what the Inland Revenue designated it when operating out of the building prior to 2012)