Peer mentoring to secure student placements

Purpose This paper describes a case study where student peer mentors were employed to motivate and assist undergraduates to secure optional professional placement positions. Design/methodology/approach The paper describes the reasons for establishing the project and the recruitment of mentors. It outlines a survey of students who had not undertaken placements the previous year to try to identify the activities that would be most effective on the part of the mentors. It then describes the mentoring that was conducted. The mentors, together with the placement co-coordinator, devised support ranging from one to one mentoring, drop in ‘clinics’, online support through a social network and large group talks. It discusses the results of this work and evaluates the oral and written responses of both mentors and mentees. Findings Those mentees who took part in the mentoring were typically those who were already enthusiastic about placement opportunities. The majority of students did not take advantage of mentoring support either face to face or online. It was found that the mentoring scheme did not significantly affect the proportion of students seeking or securing placements. However, the mentors themselves gained tremendous benefits from the mentoring scheme in particular developing their communication skills and confidence. Research limitations A thorough survey of potential mentees was not carried out after the project to ascertain the reasons for their lack of engagement. Practical implications There are two separate implications of this project: 1) The mentoring scheme was valuable primarily for the mentors and not the mentees and 2) The level of support provided by the University is not the main factor in the low take up of optional placement opportunities. If such learning opportunities are felt to be sufficiently valuable for the student learning experience they need to be compulsory with appropriate support available – a mentoring scheme might then be of far more value to mentees. Originality/value There is very little published concerning the use of mentoring to facilitate work based learning. Furthermore most published work on mentoring is located in the ‘best practice’ school of pedagogical research where it is implicitly assumed that one must report on the success of an intervention. Frequently it is more valuable to examine more unexpected results of an intervention. This paper however shows much greater benefits achieved by the mentors than the mentees

Employability and entrepreneurship embedded in professional placements in the business curriculum

Purpose This paper explains the practice of professional placements in a large UK Business School, grounded in literature and research concerning the relationship between professional experience and employability. It explores possible further developments of this practice into student entrepreneurship. Design The paper outlines the relevant literature and then describes the operation of the scheme in practice. It identifies relevant problems and discusses opportunities for both development and research. Findings Professional experience is of immense value to both students and the organisations that host them. Despite reluctance on the part of some of these two key stakeholders, it has the potential for further expansion in terms of number of students on placement, their location, their experience and integrating placements with entrepreneurship education. Practical implications Organisations may see the benefit of employing students on one year or shorter contracts, Universities not currently offering professional placements within the curriculum to their students may wish to adopt best practice, and those that are already involved may wish to consider the optional/compulsory element of the placement experience in order to address the reticence of many students to secure this experience. The paper suggests solutions to the well established question ‘Can entrepreneurship be taught?’ by investigating the idea of Enterprise Placements. Originality/value This work helps to explain, in a practical way, the opportunities and problems associated with the implementation of a placement scheme in the context of relevant literature

The Rise of Certificate Transparency and Its Implications on the Internet Ecosystem

In this paper, we analyze the evolution of Certificate Transparency (CT) over time and explore the implications of exposing certificate DNS names from the perspective of security and privacy. We find that certificates in CT logs have seen exponential growth. Website support for CT has also constantly increased, with now 33% of established connections supporting CT. With the increasing deployment of CT, there are also concerns of information leakage due to all certificates being visible in CT logs. To understand this threat, we introduce a CT honeypot and show that data from CT logs is being used to identify targets for scanning campaigns only minutes after certificate issuance. We present and evaluate a methodology to learn and validate new subdomains from the vast number of domains extracted from CT logged certificates.Comment: To be published at ACM IMC 201

Feasibility and preliminary efficacy of remotely delivering cognitive training to people with schizophrenia using tablets.

Limited access to Cognitive Training (CT) for people with schizophrenia (SZ) prevents widespread adoption of this intervention. Delivering CT remotely via tablets may increase accessibility, improve scheduling flexibility, and diminish patient burden.In this reanalysis of data from a larger trial of CT, we compared two samples of individuals with SZ who chose to complete 40 h of CT either on desktop computers in the laboratory (N = 33) or remotely via iPads (N = 41). We examined attrition rates and adherence to training, and investigated whether remote iPad-based CT and in-person desktop-based CT induced significantly different improvements in cognitive and real-world functioning.The attrition rate was 36.6%. On average, participants completed 3.06 h of CT per week. There were no significant between-group differences in attrition and adherence to CT requirements. Participants who completed iPad-based CT were significantly younger and had lower symptoms at baseline compared to participants who completed CT on the lab desktops. Controlling for age and symptom severity, rANCOVA showed that iPad-based and desktop-based CT similarly and significantly improved verbal learning and problem solving. Main effects of time, at trend level significance, were evident in global cognition, verbal memory, quality of life, and social functioning. All group by time interactions were non-significant except for verbal memory, where iPad users showed greater gains. Within-group effect sizes for changes in outcomes were in the small range.Although underpowered and not randomized, this study demonstrates that delivering CT remotely to people with SZ using tablets is feasible and results in retention rates, adherence, and cognitive and functional outcome improvements that are comparable to those observed when CT is delivered in the laboratory. This has important implications in terms of scalability and dissemination of CT. These results require confirmation in larger samples

Glucose-Dependent Insulinotropic Polypeptide (GIP) Induces Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP)-I and Procalcitonin (Pro-CT) Production in Human Adipocytes

Context: Increased plasma levels of glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), calcitonin CT gene-related peptide (CGRP)-I, and procalcitonin (Pro-CT) are associated with obesity. Adipocytes express functional GIP receptors and the CT peptides Pro-CT and CGRP-I. However, a link between GIP and CT peptides has not been studied yet. Objective: The objective of the study was the assessment of the GIP effect on the expression and secretion of CGRP-I and Pro-CT in human adipocytes, CGRP-I and CT gene expression in adipose tissue (AT) from obese vs. lean subjects, and plasma levels of CGRP-I and Pro-CT after a high-fat meal in obese patients. Design and Participants: Human preadipocyte-derived adipocytes, differentiated in vitro, were treated with GIP. mRNA expression and protein secretion of CGRP-I and Pro-CT were measured. Human CGRP-I and CT mRNA expression in AT and CGRP-I and Pro-CT plasma concentrations were assessed. Results: Treatment with 1 nm GIP induced CGRP-I mRNA expression 6.9 ± 1.0-fold (P > 0.001 vs. control) after 2 h and CT gene expression 14.0 ± 1.7-fold (P > 0.001 vs. control) after 6 h. GIP stimulated CGRP-I secretion 1.7 ± 0.2-fold (P > 0.05 vs. control) after 1 h. In AT samples of obese subjects, CGRP-I mRNA expression was higher in sc AT (P > 0.05 vs. lean subjects), whereas CT expression was higher in visceral AT (P > 0.05 vs. lean subjects). CGRP-I plasma levels increased after a high-fat meal in obese patients. Conclusion: GIP induces CGRP-I and CT expression in human adipocytes. Therefore, elevated Pro-CT and CGRP-I levels in obesity might result from GIP-induced Pro-CT and CGRP-I release in AT and might be triggered by a high-fat diet. How these findings relate to the metabolic complications of obesity warrants further investigations

Noetic Sanctification: Using Critical Thinking to Facilitate Sanctification of the Mind

This literature review proposes four pillars of critical thinking (CT) that should be applied as the Christian educational discipline of noetic (or cognitive) sanctification: 1) CT is a broad term involving multiple aspects of an approach to life, 2) education brings individuals out of the classroom and into developing CT dispositions, 3) CT necessitates being conversant with multiple perspectives throughout the process of thinking and learning, and 4) CT involves a high self-awareness regarding assumptions, biases, and motivation. Based on these CT pillars, some applications are recommended for Christian educators, regardless of educational setting

The Beck Initiative : training school-based mental health staff in cognitive therapy

A growing literature supports cognitive therapy (CT) as an efficacious treatment for youth struggling with emotional or behavioral problems. Recently, work in this area has extended the dissemination of CT to school-based settings. The current study has two aims: 1) to examine the development of therapists’ knowledge and skills in CT, an evidence-based approach to promoting student well-being, and 2) to examine patterns of narrative feedback provided to therapists participating in the program. As expected, school therapists trained in CT demonstrated significant gains in their knowledge of CT theory and in their demonstration of CT skills, with the majority of therapists surpassing the accepted threshold of competency in CT. In addition, an examination of feedback content suggested that narrative feedback provided to therapists most frequently consisted of positive feedback and instructions for future sessions. Suggestions for future research regarding dissemination of CT are discussed in light of increasing broad access to evidence based practices.peer-reviewe