Stability of Three-Dimensional Compressible Boundary-Layers

The failure repair process of a continuously operating device is studied in this research. Different cases that incorporate modeling of equipment deterioration, inspection, and maintenance for optimal maintenance policy are proposed. Markov processes are used to determine state probabilities, and the optimal value of the mean time to preventive maintenance is determined by maximizing the availability of the equipment with respect to the meantime preventive maintenance. The approach uses models that assume that equipment can fail due to both deterioration and random failures. Preventive maintenance can be performed from each working state to avoid deterioration failure. Economic effects are integrated into all the models to determine the costs associated with the preventive maintenance policy. The computational work involved in developing algorithmic solutions for the developed Markov models is perfomed using Matlab® software. The results of how the obtained maintenance rate impacts the equipment availability are discussed. This study is helpful for engineers to determine optimal maintenance policy of equipment

Place and the uncanny in child protection social work: exploring findings from an ethnographic study

This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of child protection social workers in Britain, which explored social workers’ experiences of and practices in space and place. It draws on data from interviews with practitioners and observations that were carried out as social workers moved around the places (the town, estates, streets and areas around service users’ homes) where they worked. It focuses on the significance of a particular affective experience, the uncanny, which social workers evoked in many of their accounts of these places. The paper introduces recent conceptualisations of space, affect and the uncanny before going on to consider data from the interviews. The following themes are explored: the relationships between the intimate spaces of service users' homes and the neighbourhoods in which they were located; social workers' accounts of feeling vulnerable in public and open spaces; social workers' experiences of feeling unsettled by apparently mundane features of neighbourhood spaces. The paper draws on critical engagements with the uncanny to consider its significance for child protection social work practice in Britain and its consequences in terms of social workers’ potential to work in emplaced and locally sensitive ways

How is 'racism' understood in literature about the experiences of black and minority ethnic social work students in Britain? A conceptual review

This conceptual review interrogates a body of literature concerned with black and minority ethnic (BME) social work students in Britain since 2008. This period has coincided with an increasing focus on diversity in Higher Education, but also lower prominence being given to race in social work. In social work education, there has been increased attention to the needs and experiences of BME students. While most of this literature acknowledges racism, what constitutes racism and how it can be understood usually remain implicit. This review aimed to explore influential concepts in the literature and the ways these affected how racism is understood and identified. A search was carried out for articles in peer-reviewed academic journals between 2008 and 2018. In this article we discuss four recurring concepts of racism in this literature: subtle racism, institutional racism, cultural difference and pedagogical solutions. The article analyses the assumptions underpinning these concepts, and the implications for how racism has been understood and investigated in this literature. The subsequent discussion calls for a more reflexive approach and identifies questions that future research could explore, which could lead to improved understandings of racism in social work education

Exploring the spatial turn in social work: a bibliometric and narrative analysis of the Latin American and Global North literature:Explorando el giro espacial en Trabajo Social: análisis bibliométrico y narrativo de la literatura de América Latina y el Norte Global

This article reviews the increasing amount of literature focusing on spatial issues in social work. It combines bibliometric and narrative approaches to analyse articles published between 2003 and 2022. The review focuses on publications in Latin America and the Global North, considering the issues addressed, spatial concepts through which they are understood, connections between issues discussed and between concepts used, and degrees of interaction within and between discussions in these two global regions. Informed by theoretical arguments, a search was conducted for literature using four concepts: space, place, environment and territory. After refining and screening, 395 articles were identified that utilised these spatial concepts to discuss social work. The review shows evidence of a spatial turn in social work literature across the four concepts and increasing amounts of literature in both global regions. There are differences in the extent to which each concept has been employed in Latin America and the Global North, leading to different questions and epistemological frames being used in each region. The article considers the factors in the development and circulation of knowledge about space in social work so far in these two regions and considers priorities for future research.<br/

How does race work in social work education? Everyday racial logics, distinctions and practices in social work qualifying programmes in England

This article presents findings from a study which explored the everyday ways race works on social work programmes in England. The study focussed on how race was spoken about and conceptualised, how people were categorised and ordered according to race, and the social interactions where race was understood by participants to be significant. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight social work lecturers and nineteen black social work students at two universities in England, to explore the following topics: classroom-based and practice learning, assessment and feedback, interactions between students and between students and educators, and university and practice agency cultures. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and the following themes identified: the routine interpellation of black students and communities in terms of absolute cultural differences, black students’ everyday experiences of marginalisation, hostility and othering, and the racialisation of black students in judgements made about their academic and practice performance. The article concludes that social work education must engage more deeply with contemporary theorisations of race and culture, and that social work educators need a reflexive understanding of how notions such as diversity, equality and universal academic standards are put into practice in ways that marginalise and devalue black students

Geographers of small things: a study of the production of space in children's social work

This study explores children's social workers' experiences of and practices in space. It is based on ethnographic research with social workers in two sites and examines data from observations, interviews with social workers, photographs and other images of the spaces in which social workers practised. The study draws on the work of Henri Lefebvre, concerned with how space is produced through spatial practices, conceptions of space and moments of lived space, which occur beyond these conventions and escape complete articulation. The study uses this analytical frame in order to explore how social workers produce certain kinds of spaces as significant in their practice. It identifies a small number of affect-heavy spaces which hold great importance for children's social work: social work offices, children's and practitioners' bodies, families' homes as they are experienced by practitioners during home visits, the wider neighbourhoods which social workers associate with service users. In particular, it identifies social workers' attention to small things and micro-scales in their practice. This enables social workers to present their work as sensitive to that which is imperceptible to others but also leads to a restricted focus and limited engagement with the social and political contexts of service users' lives

Temporal gene expression changes in the developing striatum

Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative condition in which the predominant loss of neurons occurs in the striatum. At present there is no treatment for this condition, although neural transplantation may prove to be a viable therapeutic strategy if an appropriate source of donor cells can be identified. A major requirement of these donor cells is that they are able to differentiate into the cells lost to the disease process that is, largely medium spiny projection neurons (MSNs). Currently, suitable donor cells (i.e. those already committed to developing into MSNs) can be extracted from foetal brain and early clinical trials have provided some evidence of efficacy when human foetal-derived striatum is transplanted into the brain of patients with HD. However, there is a major problem of supply and demand with respect to human foetal tissue and so alternative source of donor cells must be identified. However, only a small proportion of animal studies in the literature report differentiation of MSNs from either animal or human stem cell sources and the percentage of mature MSNs is generally low, most cells becoming glia or taking on a 'default' GABA-ergic neuronal phenotype. Thus it is likely that stem cells will need to be 'directed' towards a MSN phenotype. Knowledge of the molecular signals that cause striatal progenitors to differentiate into a MSN phenotype in vivo would help us to understand how to direct the fate of stem cell populations towards this phenotype in vitro. In this thesis I have studied the genetic changes that occur during normal striatal development in the mouse with the aims being (i) to identify genetic markers of stages of differentiation for these cells and (ii) to identify genes important for striatal development with the ultimate aim of using this information to design protocols to direct the differentiation of stem cells towards a MSN phenotype. I have studied the gene expression of the population of cells that make up the whole ganglionic eminence during its period of peak neurogenesis using Affymetrix micro array. I then validated the results of a subset of genes that were found to be significantly up-regulated using in situ hybridisation and then used these genes to characterise either primary cells that were differentiated in vitro, or cells that have been proliferated and then differentiated in vitro. This study has not only provided a gene expression signature of a developing population of striatal precursors, enabling future experiments to compare and contrast expression patterns seen in different in vitro studies, but it has also highlighted Foxpl and Foxp2 that have been shown to have a high degree of association with this period of development. This has encouraged future work in this laboratory in which the developmental functions of these genes in relation to MSN differentiation and development will be studied.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Temporal gene expression changes in the developing striatum

Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative condition in which the predominant loss of neurons occurs in the striatum. At present there is no treatment for this condition, although neural transplantation may prove to be a viable therapeutic strategy if an appropriate source of donor cells can be identified. A major requirement of these donor cells is that they are able to differentiate into the cells lost to the disease process that is, largely medium spiny projection neurons (MSNs). Currently, suitable donor cells (i.e. those already committed to developing into MSNs) can be extracted from foetal brain and early clinical trials have provided some evidence of efficacy when human foetal-derived striatum is transplanted into the brain of patients with HD. However, there is a major problem of supply and demand with respect to human foetal tissue and so alternative source of donor cells must be identified. However, only a small proportion of animal studies in the literature report differentiation of MSNs from either animal or human stem cell sources and the percentage of mature MSNs is generally low, most cells becoming glia or taking on a 'default' GABA-ergic neuronal phenotype. Thus it is likely that stem cells will need to be 'directed' towards a MSN phenotype. Knowledge of the molecular signals that cause striatal progenitors to differentiate into a MSN phenotype in vivo would help us to understand how to direct the fate of stem cell populations towards this phenotype in vitro. In this thesis I have studied the genetic changes that occur during normal striatal development in the mouse with the aims being (i) to identify genetic markers of stages of differentiation for these cells and (ii) to identify genes important for striatal development with the ultimate aim of using this information to design protocols to direct the differentiation of stem cells towards a MSN phenotype. I have studied the gene expression of the population of cells that make up the whole ganglionic eminence during its period of peak neurogenesis using Affymetrix micro array. I then validated the results of a subset of genes that were found to be significantly up-regulated using in situ hybridisation and then used these genes to characterise either primary cells that were differentiated in vitro, or cells that have been proliferated and then differentiated in vitro. This study has not only provided a gene expression signature of a developing population of striatal precursors, enabling future experiments to compare and contrast expression patterns seen in different in vitro studies, but it has also highlighted Foxpl and Foxp2 that have been shown to have a high degree of association with this period of development. This has encouraged future work in this laboratory in which the developmental functions of these genes in relation to MSN differentiation and development will be studied