What works for wellbeing in culture and sport? Report of a DELPHI process to support coproduction and establish principles and parameters of an evidence review

Aims: There is a growing recognition of the ways in which culture and sport can contribute to wellbeing. A strong evidence base is needed to support innovative service development and a 3-year research programme is being undertaken to capture best evidence of wellbeing impacts and outcomes of cultural and sporting activities in order to inform UK policy and practice. This article provides an overview of methods and findings from an initial coproduction process with key stakeholders that sought to explore and agree principles and parameters of the evidence review for culture, sport and wellbeing (CSW). Methods: A two-stage DELPHI process was conducted with a purposeful sample of 57 stakeholders between August and December 2015. Participants were drawn from a range of culture and sport organisations and included commissioners and managers, policy makers, representatives of service delivery organisations (SDOs) and scholars. The DELPHI 1 questionnaire was developed from extensive consultation in July and August 2015. It explored definitions of wellbeing, the role of evidence, quality assessment, and the culture and sport populations, settings and interventions that are most likely to deliver wellbeing outcomes. Following further consultation, the results, presented as a series of ranked statements, were sent back to participants (DELPHI 2), which allowed them to reflect on and, if they wished, express agreement or disagreement with the emerging consensus. Results: A total of 40 stakeholders (70.02%) responded to the DELPHI questionnaires. DELPHI 1 mapped areas of agreement and disagreement, confirmed in DELPHI 2. The exercise drew together the key priorities for the CSW evidence review. Conclusion: The DELPHI process, in combination with face-to-face deliberation, enabled stakeholders to engage in complex discussion and express nuanced priorities while also allowing the group to come to an overall consensus and agree outcomes. The results will inform the CSW evidence review programme until its completion in March 2018

Climatically driven changes in the supply of terrigenous sediment to the East China Sea

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 19 (2018): 2463-2477, doi:10.1029/2017GC007339.We examine the paleoceanographic record over the last ∼400 kyr derived from major, trace, and rare earth elements in bulk sediment from two sites in the East China Sea drilled during Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 346. We use multivariate statistical partitioning techniques (Q‐mode factor analysis, multiple linear regression) to identify and quantify five crustal source components (Upper Continental Crust (UCC), Luochuan Loess, Xiashu Loess, Southern Japanese Islands, Kyushu Volcanics), and model their mass accumulation rates (MARs). UCC (35–79% of terrigenous contribution) and Luochuan Loess (16–55% contribution) are the most abundant end‐members through time, while Xiashu Loess, Southern Japanese Islands, and Kyushu Volcanics (1–22% contribution) are the lowest in abundance when present. Cycles in UCC and Luochuan Loess MARs may indicate continental and loess‐like material transported by major rivers into the Okinawa Trough. Increases in sea level and grain size proxy (e.g., SiO2/Al2O3) are coincident with increased flux of Southern Japanese Islands, indicating localized sediment supply from Japan. Increases in total terrigenous MAR precede minimum relative sea levels by several thousand years and may indicate remobilization of continental shelf material. Changes in the relative contribution of these end‐members are decoupled from total MAR, indicating compositional changes in the sediment are distinct from accumulation rate changes but may be linked to variations in sea level, riverine and eolian fluxes, and shelf‐bypass processes over glacial‐interglacials, complicating accurate monsoon reconstructions from fluvial dominated sediment.U.S. National Science Foundation Grant Numbers: NSF‐EAR1434175, NSF‐EAR1433665, NSF‐EAR143413

Schools out : Adam Smith and pre-disciplinary international political economy

In this article, I argue that invocations of Adam Smith in international political economy (IPE) often reveal the influence therein of a disciplinary ontological disaggregation of economic and non-economic rationality, which I claim is obscured by the tendency to map its complex intellectual contours in terms of competing schools. I trace the origins of the disciplinary characterisation of Smith as the founder of IPE's liberal tradition to invocations of his thought by centrally important figures in the perceived Austrian, Chicago and German historical schools of economics, and reflect upon the significance to IPE of the reiteration of this portrayal by apparent members of its so-called American and British schools. I additionally contrast these interpretations to those put forward by scholars who seek to interpret IPE and Smith's contribution to it in pre-disciplinary terms, which I claim reflects a distinct ontology to that attributed to the British school of IPE with which their work is often associated. I therefore contend that reflection upon invocations of Smith's thought in IPE problematises the longstanding tendency to map its intellectual terrain in terms of competing schools, reveals that the disciplinary ontological consensus that informs this tendency impacts upon articulations of its core concerns and suggests that a pre-disciplinary approach offers an alternative lens through which such concerns might be more effectively framed

Continuous- and dispersed-phase structure of dense nonevaporating pressure-atomized sprays

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77144/1/AIAA-23475-448.pd

Hydrogeological typologies of the Indo-Gangetic basin alluvial aquifer, South Asia

The Indo-Gangetic aquifer is one of the world’s most important transboundary water resources, and the most heavily exploited aquifer in the world. To better understand the aquifer system, typologies have been characterized for the aquifer, which integrate existing datasets across the Indo-Gangetic catchment basin at a transboundary scale for the first time, and provide an alternative conceptualization of this aquifer system. Traditionally considered and mapped as a single homogenous aquifer of comparable aquifer properties and groundwater resource at a transboundary scale, the typologies illuminate significant spatial differences in recharge, permeability, storage, and groundwater chemistry across the aquifer system at this transboundary scale. These changes are shown to be systematic, concurrent with large-scale changes in sedimentology of the Pleistocene and Holocene alluvial aquifer, climate, and recent irrigation practices. Seven typologies of the aquifer are presented, each having a distinct set of challenges and opportunities for groundwater development and a different resilience to abstraction and climate change. The seven typologies are: (1) the piedmont margin, (2) the Upper Indus and Upper-Mid Ganges, (3) the Lower Ganges and Mid Brahmaputra, (4) the fluvially influenced deltaic area of the Bengal Basin, (5) the Middle Indus and Upper Ganges, (6) the Lower Indus, and (7) the marine-influenced deltaic areas

Enabling curriculum change in physical education: the interplay between policy constructors and practitioners

Background: Curriculum for Excellence, a new national policy initiative in Scottish Schools, provides a unified curricular framework for children aged 3–18. Within this framework, Physical Education (PE) now forms part of a collective alongside physical activity and sport, subsumed by the newly created curriculum area of ‘Health and Wellbeing’ (HWB). This research set out to examine the new curriculum in Scottish schools at the micro-implementation stage of the policy process within the context of practice.Purpose: The primary objective was to understand the factors that enable PE teachers to enact government-led policy in a climate which provided schools and teachers greater autonomy, flexibility and responsibility. The secondary objective was to compare policy constructors' vision of PE to the interpretation of PE teachers who were currently immersed in initiating curricular development.Methods and procedures: The research adopted a mixed method survey approach. Eighty-eight secondary school PE teachers responded to a questionnaire that explored teachers' perceptions of curriculum change. Respondents were full-time PE teachers working in secondary schools across Scotland and represented 16 local authorities. In addition, 17 PE teachers within one local authority took part in semi-structured individual interviews. Comparisons were made with 10 interviews conducted with policy constructors who were responsible for the initial, interim and final stages of developing and designing the PE curriculum.Main outcomes and results: The results from the questionnaire indicated that 66% of teachers believed there was a need for change within the Scottish curriculum; however, only 54% anticipated that they would change the PE curriculum. When comparing PE teachers’ and policy constructors’ interview responses, a discrepancy between the policy constructors' understanding of the vision of PE and teacher's interpretation was evident. The alignment of PE within HWB was seen as an opportunity to build on the strengths of the subject; however, concerns were raised that this shift may result in PE becoming part of a fitness discourse, distorting policy intentions.Conclusions: The combining factors of teacher agency, culture and social and material structures along with the schools capacity to manage new policy development were seen as crucial in enabling teachers to enact and sustain change. As educational policy draws on teachers' professional capacity to translate, mould and recreate policy uniquely to fit within the opportunities and constraints of the school, it is important that policy intentions, aims and values are not lost in the process