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Textile art promoting well-being in long-term illness: Some general and specific influences
The paper reviews previous research into the meanings of textile art-making for people living with long-term illness. Qualitative accounts of the creative process suggest that textile art-making is a multi-dimensional experience. Some practitioners regard textile artwork as a means of coping with discomfort and other symptoms. For a minority, it enables expressions of anxiety and feelings about loss. Nevertheless, participants place more emphasis on the role of textile art-making in rebuilding a satisfactory identity, and restoring autonomy and quality to life. It fills occupational voids following early retirement, and enables social contacts. Textile artwork also stimulates learning and personal development. It remains possible that any creative occupation delivers such benefits. The paper analyses qualitative accounts from seven participants to identify whether textile art-making has any distinctive experiential qualities. As a creative occupation, it seems to be quite distinctive in being readily accessible even to those who do not consider themselves as artistic. Modern textile art embraces diverse techniques and forms, and practitionersâ choice and autonomy are enhanced by having several different projects in process at once. It accepts the use of assistive technology, thereby enabling people with a variety of physical impairments to produce âmainstreamâ art. It draws upon rich social traditions, facilitating social contact. Many forms of textile art-making are highly time-consuming, fostering a future orientation, and the creative process is often socially visible within the home, with positive consequences for self-image. This study is exploratory. Further enquiry into the distinctive influences of different creative occupations upon well-being is recommended
Operator-based approaches to harm minimisation in gambling: summary, review and future directions
In this report we give critical consideration to the nature and effectiveness of harm
minimisation in gambling. We identify gambling-related harm as both personal (e.g.,
health, wellbeing, relationships) and economic (e.g., financial) harm that occurs from
exceeding oneâs disposable income or disposable leisure time. We have elected to use the
term âharm minimisationâ as the most appropriate term for reducing the impact of
problem gambling, given its breadth in regard to the range of goals it seeks to achieve,
and the range of means by which they may be achieved.
The extent to which an employee can proactively identify a problem gambler in a
gambling venue is uncertain. Research suggests that indicators do exist, such as sessional
information (e.g., duration or frequency of play) and negative emotional responses to
gambling losses. However, the practical implications of requiring employees to identify
and interact with customers suspected of experiencing harm are questionable,
particularly as the employees may not possess the clinical intervention skills which may
be necessary. Based on emerging evidence, behavioural indicators identifiable in industryheld
data, could be used to identify customers experiencing harm. A programme of
research is underway in Great Britain and in other jurisdiction
Improving Competitiveness Through Cooperation: Assessing The Benefits Of Cooperative Education Partnerships In Gaming Management
Cooperative education partnerships between industries and universities are becoming increasingly common in response to fundamental challenges facing both sectors. Theoretically, many benefits for both partners are espoused. This paper explores these benefits and then assesses whether and how these have occurred in a leading gaming management course in Australia. It was found that benefits for industry comprised enhanced industry professionalism and legitimacy; increased professional status; better public image; control of abstract knowledge and improved industry competitiveness. For the university, key benefits have included improved educational offerings; enhanced university reputation in the discipline and for cooperative education partnerships; additional student fees and economies of scale; and funds for discipline development and research and consultancy opportunities. However, precautions need to be taken in cooperative education partnerships if a university\u27s social contract is to remain intact in a climate of increased commercialization, and if it is to deliver expected benefits to industry
The Bionic Radiologist: avoiding blurry pictures and providing greater insights
Radiology images and reports have long been digitalized. However, the potential of the more than 3.6 billion radiology
examinations performed annually worldwide has largely gone unused in the effort to digitally transform health care. The Bionic
Radiologist is a concept that combines humanity and digitalization for better health care integration of radiology. At a practical
level, this concept will achieve critical goals: (1) testing decisions being made scientifically on the basis of disease probabilities and
patient preferences; (2) image analysis done consistently at any time and at any site; and (3) treatment suggestions that are closely
linked to imaging results and are seamlessly integrated with other information. The Bionic Radiologist will thus help avoiding missed
care opportunities, will provide continuous learning in the work process, and will also allow more time for radiologistsâ primary
roles: interacting with patients and referring physicians. To achieve that potential, one has to cope with many implementation
barriers at both the individual and institutional levels. These include: reluctance to delegate decision making, a possible decrease in
image interpretation knowledge and the perception that patient safety and trust are at stake. To facilitate implementation of the
Bionic Radiologist the following will be helpful: uncertainty quantifications for suggestions, shared decision making, changes in
organizational culture and leadership style, maintained expertise through continuous learning systems for training, and role
development of the involved experts. With the support of the Bionic Radiologist, disparities are reduced and the delivery of care is
provided in a humane and personalized fashion
The Effect of Employee Involvment on Firm Performance: Evidence from an Econometric Case Study
We provide some of the most reliable evidence to date on the direct impact of employee involvement through participatory arrangements such as teams on business performance. The data we use are extraordinary --daily data for rejection, production and downtime rates for all operators in a single plant during a 35 month period, almost 53,000 observations. Our key findings are that: (i) membership in offline teams initially enhances individual productivity by about 3% and reduces rejection rates by more than 25%; (ii) these improvements are dissipated, typically at a rate of 10 to 16% per 100 working days; (iii) the introduction of teams is initially accompanied by increased rates of downtime and these costs diminish over time. In addition: (iv) the performance-enhancing effects of team membership are greater and more long-lasting for team members who are solicited by management to join teams; similar relationships exist for more educated team members. These findings, which are best interpreted as lower bound estimates of the effects of teams, are consistent with the diverse hypotheses including propositions that: (i) employee involvement will produce improved enterprise performance through diverse channels including enhanced discretionary effort by employees; (ii) various kinds of complementarities accompany many changes in organizational design (such as between teams and formal education); (iii) the introduction of high performance workplace practices are best viewed as investments, though there are significant learning effects; (iv) differences in performance for team members solicited by mangers compared to those who volunteer are consistent with various hypotheses including management signaling and opportunistic behavior by employees, but inconsistent with hypotheses based on Hawthorne effectshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39998/2/wp612.pd
Extend Commitment Protocols with Temporal Regulations: Why and How
The proposal of Elisa Marengo's thesis is to extend commitment protocols to
explicitly account for temporal regulations. This extension will satisfy two
needs: (1) it will allow representing, in a flexible and modular way, temporal
regulations with a normative force, posed on the interaction, so as to
represent conventions, laws and suchlike; (2) it will allow committing to
complex conditions, which describe not only what will be achieved but to some
extent also how. These two aspects will be deeply investigated in the proposal
of a unified framework, which is part of the ongoing work and will be included
in the thesis.Comment: Proceedings of the Doctoral Consortium and Poster Session of the 5th
International Symposium on Rules (RuleML 2011@IJCAI), pages 1-8
(arXiv:1107.1686
A pedagogical framework for embedding C&IT into the curriculum
This paper proposes a methodology for effectively embedding communication and information technologies (C&IT) into the curriculum. This builds on existing frameworks for designing courses involving C&IT. A hypothetical illustration of this process is provided, and issues relating to the adoption and application of the methodology are identified
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