No abstract

Urban Living Labs (ULL) are advanced as an explicit form of intervention delivering sustainability goals for cities. Established at the boundaries between research, innovation and policy, ULL are intended to design, demonstrate and learn about the effects of urban interventions in real time. While rapidly growing as an empirical phenomenon, our understanding of the nature and purpose of ULL is still evolving. While much of the existing literature draws attention to the aims and workings of ULL, there have to date been fewer critical accounts that seek to understand their purpose and implications. In this paper, we suggest that transition studies and the literature on urban governance offer important insights that can enable us to address this gap.

The term 'ecological security'is usually used in relation to attempts to safeguard flows of ecological resources, infrastructure and services at the national scale. But increasing concerns over 'urban ecological security' (UES) are now giving rise to strategies to reconfigure cities and their infrastructures in ways that help to secure their ecological and material reproduction. Yet cities have differing capacities and capabilities for developing strategic responses to the opportunities and constraints of key UES concerns. These include resource constraints and climate change, and consequently these newly emerging strategies may selectively privilege particular urban areas and particular social interests over others. In this article, we focus on world cities and outline the challenges posed by the growing concern for UES. We review the emerging responses that may increasingly form a new dominant 'logic' of infrastructure provision, which we characterize as Secure Urbanism and Resilient Infrastructure (SURI). We conclude by addressing the extent to which this new dominant 'logic' underpins a new strategy of accumulation or more 'progressive' politics by outlining alternatives to SURI, possibilities for shaping SURI more 'progressively' and developing an agenda for future research.

Background: Cognitive Muscular TherapyTM (CMT) is an integrated behavioural intervention developed for knee osteoarthritis. CMT teaches patients to reconceptualise the condition, integrates muscle biofeedback and aims to reduce muscle overactivity, both in response to pain and during daily activities. This nested qualitative study explored patient and physiotherapist perspectives and experiences of CMT.Methods: Five physiotherapists were trained to follow a well-defined protocol and then delivered CMT to at least two patients with knee osteoarthritis. Each patient received seven individual clinical sessions and was provided with access to online learning materials incorporating animated videos. Semi-structured interviews took place after delivery/completion of the intervention and data were analysed at the patient and physiotherapist level.Results: Five physiotherapists and five patients were interviewed. All described a process of changing beliefs throughout their engagement with CMT. A framework with three phases was developed to organise the data according to how osteoarthritis was conceptualised and how this changed throughout their interactions with CMT. Firstly, was an identification of pain beliefs to be challenged and recognition of how current beliefs can misalign with daily experiences. Secondly was a process of challenging and changing beliefs, validated through new experiences. Finally, there was an embedding of changed beliefs into self-management to continue with activities. Conclusion:This study identified a range of psychological changes which occur during exposure to CMT. These changes enabled patients to reconceptualise their condition, develop a new understanding of their body, understand psychological processes, and make sense of their knee pain.

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