1,155 research outputs found
Exploring perceptions of interreligious learning and teaching and the interplay with religious identity
Toni Foley explored perceptions of interreligious learning and teaching starting with self, extending to other adults and then to participants in a Catholic School. The study revealed the importance of leadership, all voices counting, and an educational frame for learning. Resonances could assist all schools to work towards solidarity and a 'civilisation of love'
Digital agriculture: research, development and innovation in production chains.
Digital transformation in the field towards sustainable and smart agriculture. Digital agriculture: definitions and technologies. Agroenvironmental modeling and the digital transformation of agriculture. Geotechnologies in digital agriculture. Scientific computing in agriculture. Computer vision applied to agriculture. Technologies developed in precision agriculture. Information engineering: contributions to digital agriculture. DIPN: a dictionary of the internal proteins nanoenvironments and their potential for transformation into agricultural assets. Applications of bioinformatics in agriculture. Genomics applied to climate change: biotechnology for digital agriculture. Innovation ecosystem in agriculture: Embrapa?s evolution and contributions. The law related to the digitization of agriculture. Innovating communication in the age of digital agriculture. Driving forces for Brazilian agriculture in the next decade: implications for digital agriculture. Challenges, trends and opportunities in digital agriculture in Brazil
Application of knowledge management principles to support maintenance strategies in healthcare organisations
Healthcare is a vital service that touches people's lives on a daily basis by providing treatment and
resolving patients' health problems through the staff. Human lives are ultimately dependent on the skilled
hands of the staff and those who manage the infrastructure that supports the daily operations of the
service, making it a compelling reason for a dedicated research study. However, the UK healthcare sector
is undergoing rapid changes, driven by rising costs, technological advancements, changing patient
expectations, and increasing pressure to deliver sustainable healthcare. With the global rise in healthcare
challenges, the need for sustainable healthcare delivery has become imperative. Sustainable healthcare
delivery requires the integration of various practices that enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of
healthcare infrastructural assets. One critical area that requires attention is the management of
healthcare facilities.
Healthcare facilitiesis considered one of the core elements in the delivery of effective healthcare services,
as shortcomings in the provision of facilities management (FM) services in hospitals may have much more
drastic negative effects than in any other general forms of buildings. An essential element in healthcare
FM is linked to the relationship between action and knowledge. With a full sense of understanding of
infrastructural assets, it is possible to improve, manage and make buildings suitable to the needs of users
and to ensure the functionality of the structure and processes.
The premise of FM is that an organisation's effectiveness and efficiency are linked to the physical
environment in which it operates and that improving the environment can result in direct benefits in
operational performance. The goal of healthcare FM is to support the achievement of organisational
mission and goals by designing and managing space and infrastructural assets in the best combination of
suitability, efficiency, and cost. In operational terms, performance refers to how well a building
contributes to fulfilling its intended functions.
Therefore, comprehensive deployment of efficient FM approaches is essential for ensuring quality
healthcare provision while positively impacting overall patient experiences. In this regard, incorporating
knowledge management (KM) principles into hospitals' FM processes contributes significantly to ensuring
sustainable healthcare provision and enhancement of patient experiences. Organisations implementing
KM principles are better positioned to navigate the constantly evolving business ecosystem easily.
Furthermore, KM is vital in processes and service improvement, strategic decision-making, and
organisational adaptation and renewal.
In this regard, KM principles can be applied to improve hospital FM, thereby ensuring sustainable
healthcare delivery. Knowledge management assumes that organisations that manage their
organisational and individual knowledge more effectively will be able to cope more successfully with the challenges of the new business ecosystem. There is also the argument that KM plays a crucial role in
improving processes and services, strategic decision-making, and adapting and renewing an organisation.
The goal of KM is to aid action â providing "a knowledge pull" rather than the information overload most
people experience in healthcare FM. Other motivations for seeking better KM in healthcare FM include
patient safety, evidence-based care, and cost efficiency as the dominant drivers. The most evidence exists
for the success of such approaches at knowledge bottlenecks, such as infection prevention and control,
working safely, compliances, automated systems and reminders, and recall based on best practices. The
ability to cultivate, nurture and maximise knowledge at multiple levels and in multiple contexts is one of
the most significant challenges for those responsible for KM. However, despite the potential benefits,
applying KM principles in hospital facilities is still limited. There is a lack of understanding of how KM can
be effectively applied in this context, and few studies have explored the potential challenges and
opportunities associated with implementing KM principles in hospitals facilities for sustainable healthcare
delivery.
This study explores applying KM principles to support maintenance strategies in healthcare organisations.
The study also explores the challenges and opportunities, for healthcare organisations and FM
practitioners, in operationalising a framework which draws the interconnectedness between healthcare.
The study begins by defining healthcare FM and its importance in the healthcare industry. It then discusses
the concept of KM and the different types of knowledge that are relevant in the healthcare FM sector.
The study also examines the challenges that healthcare FM face in managing knowledge and how the
application of KM principles can help to overcome these challenges. The study then explores the different
KM strategies that can be applied in healthcare FM. The KM benefits include improved patient outcomes,
reduced costs, increased efficiency, and enhanced collaboration among healthcare professionals.
Additionally, issues like creating a culture of innovation, technology, and benchmarking are considered.
In addition, a framework that integrates the essential concepts of KM in healthcare FM will be presented
and discussed.
The field of KM is introduced as a complex adaptive system with numerous possibilities and challenges.
In this context, and in consideration of healthcare FM, five objectives have been formulated to achieve
the research aim. As part of the research, a number of objectives will be evaluated, including appraising
the concept of KM and how knowledge is created, stored, transferred, and utilised in healthcare FM,
evaluating the impact of organisational structure on job satisfaction as well as exploring how cultural
differences impact knowledge sharing and performance in healthcare FM organisations.
This study uses a combination of qualitative methods, such as meetings, observations, document analysis
(internal and external), and semi-structured interviews, to discover the subjective experiences of
healthcare FM employees and to understand the phenomenon within a real-world context and attitudes of healthcare FM as the data collection method, using open questions to allow probing where appropriate
and facilitating KM development in the delivery and practice of healthcare FM.
The study describes the research methodology using the theoretical concept of the "research onion". The
qualitative research was conducted in the NHS acute and non-acute hospitals in Northwest England.
Findings from the research study revealed that while the concept of KM has grown significantly in recent
years, KM in healthcare FM has received little or no attention. The target population was fifty (five FM
directors, five academics, five industry experts, ten managers, ten supervisors, five team leaders and ten
operatives). These seven groups were purposively selected as the target population because they play a
crucial role in KM enhancement in healthcare FM. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with all
participants based on their pre-determined availability. Out of the 50-target population, only 25 were
successfully interviewed to the point of saturation. Data collected from the interview were coded and
analysed using NVivo to identify themes and patterns related to KM in healthcare FM.
The study is divided into eight major sections. First, it discusses literature findings regarding healthcare
FM and KM, including underlying trends in FM, KM in general, and KM in healthcare FM. Second, the
research establishes the study's methodology, introducing the five research objectives, questions and
hypothesis. The chapter introduces the literature on methodology elements, including philosophical views
and inquiry strategies. The interview and data analysis look at the feedback from the interviews. Lastly, a
conclusion and recommendation summarise the research objectives and suggest further research.
Overall, this study highlights the importance of KM in healthcare FM and provides insights for healthcare
FM directors, managers, supervisors, academia, researchers and operatives on effectively leveraging
knowledge to improve patient care and organisational effectiveness
LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volume
LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volum
Conceptualizing Positive versus Negative Awe: Do Connection and Self-Significance Interact to Determine Aweâs Valence?
In this dissertation, I adopted an appraisal theory approach to differentiating positive and negative experiences of awe. In addition to assessing traditional appraisal dimensions, I focused on self-diminishment and connectedness as the appraisals hypothesized to best differentiate awe by valence. I predicted that self-diminishment and connectedness would interact to determine whether awe is experienced as positive or negative, arguing that feeling âsmallâ can be positive if paired with feeling connected but that feeling small can be negative if paired with feeling isolated. An exploratory study (n = 742) induced participants to feel an emotion (positive awe, negative awe, joy, or fear) before rating the descriptiveness of 24 appraisals of the emotion-inducing experience (including self-diminishment and connectedness). Compared to positive awe, negative awe was associated with greater appraisals of need for accommodation, self-diminishment, and isolation, and lower appraisals of connectedness and certainty. Five pilot studies were conducted to validate a video awe induction of awe and essay-based manipulations of self-diminishment and connectedness manipulations. Finally, Experiment 2 (n = 309) tested the theorized model that self-significance and connectedness interact to differentiate positive and negative awe; Experiment 2 also included an exploratory eye-tracking sample (n = 62). Although the predicted interaction was not significant, connectedness was associated with experiencing awe as more positive and less negative. Additional analyses suggested that whether one feels connected or isolated may change whether feelings of significance are experienced positively or negatively. Together, the studies are a further step in using appraisal theory to understand aweâs variants
Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Nationally Credentialed Victim Advocates: Baseline and Risk Factors
Crime victims rely on the expertise of nationally recognized victim advocates to navigate the complex criminal justice process that includes reporting the crime and participating in the criminal legal system while recovering from trauma. People indirectly involved in traumatic events can also experience adverse effects. Providing direct services to traumatized crime victims may increase an advocateâs risk of developing secondary traumatic stress and negatively affect client services. This study was designed to examine the occurrence of specific symptoms matching the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale to establish a baseline of secondary traumatic stress among a sample of nationally credentialed victim advocates working with military or civilian communities. The data identified potential risk factors, including victim advocatesâ caseload volume and frequency, personal history of trauma, the nature of support from their employing organizations, long-term engagement with trauma victims, and demographic variables of gender, age, and ethnicity. This study was quantitative, descriptive, and exploratory. Results indicated secondary traumatic stress is a genuine phenomenon that affects victim advocates working with traumatic crime victims, that advocates working in military or civilian communities did not differ in terms of the impact of indirect trauma exposure and secondary traumatic stress, and that caseload volume was a minor risk factor. Of the 59 respondents, 43 experienced at least one symptom of secondary traumatic stress in the previous 7 days. Comparing advocates working with the military to those working with the civilian community showed half reported high to severe symptoms based on the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale
Case and Gender Loss in Germanic, Romance, and Balkan Sprachbund Languages
My dissertation investigates the loss of morphological case and grammatical gender in the Germanic, Romance, and Balkan Sprachbund languages. Crucial language-internal and language-external motivations are considered. To illustrate the changes of morphological cases, the languages are divided into historical stages. Every change in nominal inflection between stages is attributed to either sound change or analogical change; these choices are justified through consideration of historical sound changes and the motivations behind analogical processes. The changes are also discussed in terms of their effects on number syncretism, case and gender mergers, order of case loss, and the relationship between gender and declension.These motivations can be classified as language-internal or language-external. Phonological, morphosyntactic, and semantic factors are among the former. Different types of sound change can neutralize inflection differences, but two closely related types, prosodic change, and vowel reduction have been suggested as key causes in case and gender loss in IE languages. A usual direction of change in morphological case loss includes variation between two or more cases in one or more functions, followed by functional narrowing and occasionally a complete functional merger of the case markings. Similarly, there can be differences between a case and an analytic construction, which can lead to the former being replaced by the latter in some or all functions. External motivations for case and gender loss include the kinds of contact conditions that cause or accelerate simplification in internal developments. Essential contact situation is the establishment of a sprachbund, or linguistic region, which usually entails structural convergence among surrounding languages during a long period of profound contact. Interactions among number, case, and gender are analyzed using original quantitative measures of number syncretism on nouns and gender syncretism on agreement targets. Overall, the results of my study support the general hypothesis that the loss of case and gender categories can be explained by the neutralization of distinctions in these categories as a direct result of sound change and by the profiling of a more relevant category through analogical processes
Digital agriculture: research, development and innovation in production chains.
Digital transformation in the field towards sustainable and smart agriculture. Digital agriculture: definitions and technologies. Agroenvironmental modeling and the digital transformation of agriculture. Geotechnologies in digital agriculture. Scientific computing in agriculture. Computer vision applied to agriculture. Technologies developed in precision agriculture. Information engineering: contributions to digital agriculture. DIPN: a dictionary of the internal proteins nanoenvironments and their potential for transformation into agricultural assets. Applications of bioinformatics in agriculture. Genomics applied to climate change: biotechnology for digital agriculture. Innovation ecosystem in agriculture: Embrapa?s evolution and contributions. The law related to the digitization of agriculture. Innovating communication in the age of digital agriculture. Driving forces for Brazilian agriculture in the next decade: implications for digital agriculture. Challenges, trends and opportunities in digital agriculture in Brazil.Translated by Beverly Victoria Young and Karl Stephan Mokross
The World Wide Web of Work
Global Labour History has rapidly gained ground as a field of study in the 21st century, attracting interest in the Global South and North alike. Scholars derive inspiration from the broad perspective and the effort to perceive connections between global trends over time in work and labour relations, incorporating slaves, indentured labourers and sharecroppers, housewives and domestic servants.
Casting this sweeping analytical gaze, The World Wide Web of Work discusses the core concepts âcapitalismâ and âworkersâ, and refines notions such as âcoerced labourâ, âhousehold strategiesâ and âlabour marketsâ. It explores in new ways the connections between labourers in different parts of the world, arguing that both âglobalisationâ and modern labour management originated in agriculture in the Global South and were only later introduced in Northern industrial settings. It reveals that 19th-century chattel slavery was frequently replaced by other forms of coerced labour, and it reconstructs the laborious 20th-century attempts of the International Labour Organisation to regulate labour standards supra-nationally. The book also pays attention to the relational inequality through which workers in wealthy countries benefit from the exploitation of those in poor countries. The final part addresses workersâ resistance and acquiescence: why collective actions often have unanticipated consequences; why and how workers sometimes organise massive flights from exploitation and oppression; and why âproletarian revolutionsâ took place in pre-industrial or industrialising countries and never in fully developed capitalist societies
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