Remit Of Research Research Articles

From Entrepreneurial Origins to Professional Museum: A Practitioner’s Perspective on Field Hockey’s Sporting Heritage at The Hockey Museum, England

Founded in Woking, England, in 2011, The Hockey Museum (THM) set out to achieve something unprecedented. That is, the bringing together of objects and archives that collectively chronicle the national history and development of field hockey in England, the country from which ‘modern’, codified field hockey originated before spreading globally. Formed from the personal collections of its founders and heritage material from the defunct English Hockey Association, THM has since adopted an increasingly international collecting and research remit courtesy of the involvement of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and grown rapidly in scale and professionalism. Its collection is a unique and culturally significant sporting and social history resource – the only museum for field hockey in the world. Drawing on case studies of other museums and the wider historiography of sport museums and sport heritage to contextualize THM’s evolution across three temporary premises, the author explores the entrepreneurial genesis of THM’s founding, including formative, short-lived iterations in the 1980s, before looking to the future. Addressing an identified gap in the available literature, the author examines how THM’s journey and the people involved in its development have fashioned an unusual, seemingly contradictory sport museum operating model, that is worthy of documentation and practitioner introspection.

Empathy is key: addressing obstacles to policy progress of ‘work-focused healthcare’

Background:In 2019, Public Health England commissioned the authors of this paper to conduct research examining healthcare professionals’ conversations about work with their patients to inform policy aimed at reducing work loss due to ill health. Aims and objectives:The purpose of this paper is to show how the commission provided a unique opportunity for the authors to collaborate with the funders to address obstacles to policy progress. Methods:A steering group was established to revise the original remit of research. In outlining that process here, qualitative data collected from a wide range of healthcare professionals as part of the commission are presented for the first time. We are able to further illuminate and expand on the previously published report findings and policy recommendations, revealing novel insights on researcher-policy engagement. Findings:Robust implementation of ‘work-focused healthcare’ policy has been limited, resulting in an overwhelming lack of empirical data and misguided directives. However, the existing evidence did provide important information about obstacles to policy progress and how to overcome them. The qualitative data were instrumental in this respect, with healthcare professionals revealing various interpretations of, and discourse on the policy. Discussion and conclusions:This paper adds to the expanding literature which suggests that long term, mutualistic, collaborative working is central to addressing barriers to improving evidence use and mobilising health policy into practice. It was shown that tacit, generous, open, empathic and ongoing knowledge exchange, advocacy, and alliances are needed.

English in Taiwan

While World Englishes scholarship has always been concerned with different types of English varieties, Expanding Circle (i.e., non-postcolonial) Englishes have had a ‘late start’ in being added to its research remit. As a result, much important work in this area remains to be done. Expanding Circle Englishes in general and Asian Expanding Circle Englishes in particular are still neglected in many handbooks of World Englishes (e.g., inThe Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes; Schreier, Hundt & Schneider, 2020). Notable exceptions here are, for example,The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes(Kirkpatrick, 2020; including, among others, chapters on Japanese, Chinese, and Slavic Englishes) andThe Handbook of Asian Englishes(Bolton, Botha & Kirkpatrick, 2020; including, among others, chapters on Taiwanese, Cambodian, and Indonesian Englishes). While traditionally much focus has been laid on matters of language policies, education, and attitudes, corpus linguistic approaches to Expanding Circle Englishes have become more and more relevant (see, e.g., Edwards, 2016 for the Netherlands; Rüdiger, 2019 for South Korea). In this article, we present the first results from a corpus-based study of Taiwanese English, drawing on the pilot version of a spoken Taiwanese English corpus.

Endocrine disruption and altered sexual development in aquatic organisms: an invertebrate perspective

AbstractContaminants causing sex-altering, endocrine disrupting-like (ED) effects, or otherwise influencing reproduction, have been of growing concern to humans for more than 50 years. They have also been a perturbing, though less well-studied, phenomenon in marine organisms, following the recognition of tributyltin (TBT)-induced imposex and population extinctions in (neo)gastropods in the 1970s. Whilst ED impacts in mammals and fish are characterized by mimicry or antagonism of endogenous hormones by environmental contaminants (acting through Nuclear Receptors which are present in all metazoans) much less is known regarding pathways to effects in invertebrates. Despite the absence of a defined steroidal/mechanistic component, the extent, severity and widespread nature of ED-like manifestations and altered sexual characteristics observed in marine invertebrates gives rise to comparable concerns, and have been a long-term component of the MBA's research remit. The manifestations seen in sensitive taxa such as molluscs and crustaceans confirm they are valuable indicators of environmental quality, and should be exploited in this capacity whilst we seek to understand the pervasiveness and underlying mechanisms. In so doing, invertebrate indicators address aims of organizations, such as the EEA, OECD, UNEP and WHO, charged with management and monitoring of chemicals and ensuring that adverse effects on humans and the environment are minimized (Bergman et al., 2013). In view of the recent general declines in marine biodiversity, and the potential contribution of ED-like phenomena, safeguarding against deleterious effects through increased research which links pollutant exposure with reproductive dysfunction among invertebrates, is seen as a high priority.

Commentary: Broadening the research remit of participatory methods in autism science - a commentary on Happé and Frith (2020).

Autism science has transformed beyond recognition in the last two decades. International investment has grown extensively and the number of papers published on autism has increased 10-fold (Pellicano et al., 2014), far surpassing publications on related topics. The sheer amount of scientific research on autism has no doubt been instrumental in many of the discoveries and insights so eloquently described by Happé and Frith (2020). But, as autistic scientist Michelle Dawson reminds us, quality matters too and, for that reason, it is a delight to recognise the contribution that both Happé and Frith have made, dramatically changing our understanding of autism in a host of ways.

Challenges for Irish teacher educators in being active users and producers of research

ABSTRACTIf teacher education is to be taken seriously, it must be research-based with teacher educators as active researchers and perceived as ‘public intellectuals’. This re-positioning of teacher education to be ‘research driven’ comes with pressure on teacher educators to focus on securing research funding and increase publication output. This expectation for research productivity competes with increasing calls for more relevant and imaginative teacher preparation programmes. To present the challenging contexts in which Irish teacher educators operate with respect to fulfilling both a teaching and research remit, this paper maps the changing higher education landscape, the regulation of teacher education along with a myriad of curricular reforms at primary and post-primary level. The paper then explores current teacher educators’ positioning in the Irish context as active users and producers of research through in-depth interviews with ten experienced teacher educators.

Decolonising the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium's Second Museum Age

In December 2018, the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in Tervuren, Belgium, reopened its doors after a renovation project that started nearly 20 years ago. Founded by the infamous King Leopold II, the RMCA contains cultural and natural history collections from Belgium's former colonies of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, as well as other parts of Africa and beyond. Today, a new ‘Welcome pavilion’ leads the visitor through a monumental subterranean corridor to the historic building's basement and to an introduction to the history of the collections. The exhibition halls on the ground level have been refurbished, including the old colonial maps painted on the walls, while in the Crocodile Room, the original display has been retained as a reminder of the museum's own history. The largest halls now present displays linked to the scientific disciplines and themes within the museum's research remit (Figure 1): ‘Rituals and Ceremonies’ (anthropology), ‘Languages and Music’ (linguistics and ethnomusicology), ‘Unrivalled art’, ‘Natural History’ (biology), ‘Natural resources’ (biology, geology) and ‘Colonial History and Independence’ (history, political science). Eye-catching developments include: a room featuring some of the statues of a racist style and subject matter, which were formerly exhibited throughout the museum, and are now collected together in a kind of ‘graveyard’ (although this symbolic rejection is not properly explained); a new Afropea room focusing on diaspora history; a section on ‘Propaganda and representation’ (Imagery), a Rumba studio and a Taxolab. In place of racist statues, and occupying a central position in the Rotunda, is a new sculpture by Aimé Mpane named ‘New breath, or burgeoning Congo’. The accompanying label states that this piece “provides a firm answer” to the remaining allegorical colonial sculptures in the Rotunda by “looking at a prosperous future”. Alas, this answer is not as clear as is claimed and its message may be lost on many visitors.

Engineering and Development of Chitosan-Based Nanocoatings for Ocular Contact Lenses

This article reports on electrohydrodynamic atomization to engineer on-demand novel coatings for ocular contact lenses. A formulation approach was adopted to modulate the release of timolol maleate (TM) using chitosan and borneol. Polymers polyvinylpyrrolidone and poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) were utilized to encapsulate TM and were electrically atomized to produce optimized, stationary contact lens coatings. The particle and fiber diameter, thermal stability, material compatibility of the formed coatings, their in vitro release-modulating effect, and ocular tolerability were investigated. Results demonstrated highly stable nanomatrices with advantageous morphology and size. All formulations yielded coatings with high TM encapsulation (>88%) and excellent ocular biocompatibility. Coatings yielded biphasic and triphasic release, depending on composition. Kinetic modeling revealed a noticeable effect of chitosan; the higher the concentration, the more the release of TM because of chitosan swelling, with the mechanism changing from Fickian diffusion (1% w/v; n = 0.5) to non-Fickian (5% w/v, 0.45 <n < 0.89). The use of electrohydrodynamic atomization has not yet been explored in depth within the ocular research remit, engineering on-demand lens coatings capable of sustaining TM release. This is likely to offer an alternative dosage form for management of glaucoma with particular emphasis on improving poor patient compliance.

What difference does dance make? Critical conversations across dance, physical activity and public health

ABSTRACTCritical conversations concerning if and how dance ‘fits’ within current (dominant) discourse across physical activity (PA), public health (PH) and sport policy are presented here in the form of commentaries from a ‘collective’ research base and individual ‘worldviews’ that includes the director of an established community-based dance organisation, a local authority PH commissioner and three academic researchers (a sociologist, cultural geographer and technologist). Dynamic dialogue between all parties has been encouraged throughout the research process (January–December 2015). From our viewpoints, discursive differences and occasional disciplinary dilemmas are regarded as potentially knowledge producing. We share transcribed parts of our critical conversations to illustrate how evaluating dance as PA represents opportunities for challenging if not disrupting some discursive terrain, whilst concurrently being somewhat constrained by that terrain. Our broader research remit contributes to ongoing debates surrounding ‘what works’ in relation to PA. Our dynamic interactions are thus constitutive of and productive within wider circuits or discourses of policy and provision. Paradigmatic rivalry or epistemological ‘tensions’ may well be hindering attempts to demonstrate that dance does have positive impacts on health. Acknowledgement and engagement with these tensions can arguably inform policy and practice in effective and meaningful ways and contribute further to debates regarding an evidence base seeking to ‘prove’ the benefits of activity-based programmes and interventions as we look across PA, PH and sport.

A14 Involving service users in prehospital emergency care through TRUST

BackgroundService user involvement in health and social care policy-making and research is increasingly encouraged to improve research quality, relevance and accountability. There are particular challenges when involving people in prehospital...

Editorial

The academic conference is an important feature of our professional lives. It constitutes a meeting ground, a forum, in which key topics in a field can begin to emerge; where cognate ideas and approaches get debated, affirmed or contested; where, in short, ideas can move (on) through academics being in contact with each other's ideas. Any journal editor is drawn inevitably to the conference ‘season’ as fertile, ‘hunting’ ground; trawls for papers that will yield article publications (if others do not get there first!). And so it is that my second issue of TRI since becoming editor is sourced from the 2008 Actions of Transfer: Women's Performance in the Americas conference, hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles and co-sponsored by the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. As this event is expertly introduced and the issue framed by co-organizers Sue-Ellen Case and Diana Taylor, this editorial note needs only to be brief. Indeed, I hesitated long at the computer keyboard thinking that perhaps no note at all was necessary. Except that two observations or headlines felt editorially important to me to express: the significance of Actions of Transfer for thinking generally about the nature of the conference event in relation to TRI's international, theatre research remit, and the mix of articles and the performance dossier brought together in the issue.

The Association for International Cancer Research

The Association for International Cancer Research

What research should be done in gynaecological endoscopy? A national questionnaire survey of members of the British Society of Gynaecological Endoscopy

To determine current research activity and establish views on the direction of future research in gynaecological endoscopy.A self‐administered structured questionnaire was posted to 389 UK gynaecologists to enquire about current research activity and collect their views on future research within gynaecological endoscopy.Members of the British Society of Gynaecological Endoscopy (BSGE).The postal questionnaire was returned by 100 BSGE members (26% response rate) and of these respondents, 47 (47%) were actively involved in research. The majority of respondents (99/100, 99%), believed that the BSGE should play a proactive role in directing future research in gynaecological endoscopy. Therapeutic laparoscopy was the area of gynaecological endoscopy identified most frequently (80/100, 80%) for future study. Within this area, 22/80 (28%) specified the need for studies into laparoscopic treatment of endometriosis, especially comparative studies between ablative and excisional treatment (15/22, 68%).There is a substantial commitment to research in gynaecological endoscopy by BSGE members who responded to the survey. The BSGE should play a proactive role in defining its research remit in health technology assessment. Future research requiring priority should focus on determining the effectiveness of laparoscopic methods of treatment for endometriosis.

The educational psychologist as practitioner-researcher: Reality or dream?

AbstractIt is almost five years since the publication of the Special Edition ofEducational and Child Psychology, 15(3)that contextualised the debate on the new paradigm methods for would-be educational psychology practitioner-researchers. Despite the exciting and constructive message conveyed, numerous studies, both concurrent and subsequent to the Special Edition, suggest that, whilst practitioner research is happening, it has still not become a demonstrable reality for the majority of educational psychologists and their services. More recent publications on the state of education research in general and the official Scottish review of the educational psychologist’s role that includes the research remit, add a fresh dimension to the discussion. In addition, the current uncertain climate for professional educational psychology practice is a function of a number of ongoing shifts in paradigms, training, professional role expectations, and legislation, and these factors may be contributing to this lack of progress as well as creating unprecedented opportunities. With particular reference to the context of educational psychology in Scotland, this paper reviews existing and new literature, and focuses on identifying the helps and hindrances to the development of a research ethos and practice within psychological services.

Erratum

Argues that the growing availability of information, especially from electronic sources, offers both potential and problems for the researcher. Increasingly, information has become a commodity, commissioned for a specific purpose and shaped to fit the needs of the commissioner. It follows that user requirements will dictate not just the research remit (what information to collect) but also the selection criteria (why the information is needed). Establishing why information is needed is an integral step in deciding on the particular focus or slant that any search strategy, and subsequent information analysis, must take. A comprehensive, or indeed a balanced, collection of information may be neither necessary nor desirable. End‐users may only require information that will support their information need. Choice of information sources will also be governed by these information needs, and their selection is a vital factor in the provision of useful, relevant information and its successful communication to the ...

Balance or Bias? Information Selection for the Researcher

Argues that the growing availability of information, especially from electronic sources, offers both potential and problems for the researcher. Increasingly, information has become a commodity, commissioned for a specific purpose and shaped to fit the needs of the commissioner. It follows that user requirements will dictate not just the research remit (what information to collect) but also the selection criteria (why the information is needed). Establishing why information is needed is an integral step in deciding on the particular focus or slant that any search strategy, and subsequent information analysis, must take. A comprehensive, or indeed a balanced, collection of information may be neither necessary nor desirable. End users may only require information that will support their information need. Choice of information sources will also be governed by these information needs, and their selection is a vital factor in the provision of useful, relevant information and its successful communication to the end user.

An Evolving Research Design in a Study of Educational Provision for Blind and Partially Sighted Children

24 One of several key elements which characterises illuminative research is its flexible, constantly evolving and continually up-dated research design. The main reason for this is that it is often difficult to determine in advance of a study what should be its major areas of enquiry. The design evolves as the researchers become increasingly more knowledgeable about the subject area and as they progressively focus on issues of concern to their target audiences. The choice of research strategy and methods depends upon the subject being studied: problems define methods, not vice versa. Thus, practising illuminative research is rather like doing a jigsaw: pieces of the design are continually being fitted although is a fundamental difference; the number of pieces in a jigsaw is always known in advance. This paper describes the evolution of one particular illuminative research study in the field of special education.1 Our broad research remit was to investigate integration the education of blind and partially sighted children in ordinary schools. A proposal was approved and funded before the research team was appointed. It outlined the educational alternatives open to visually impaired children and concluded: there is as yet little evidence regarding the relative effectiveness of these various possibilities ... it is unclear whether integration . . . should be encouraged or not.