131,261 research outputs found
Young children suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm : experiences on entering education
Since 2005, the Centre for Child and Family Research, Loughborough University has been tracing the decision-making process influencing the life pathways of a cohort of very young children who were identified as suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm before they reached their first birthdays.
The overall objective of the research is to collect evidence which supports decisions concerning which children require permanent out of home placements (such as adoption) and those that can safely remain with their birth parents
EchoFusion: Tracking and Reconstruction of Objects in 4D Freehand Ultrasound Imaging without External Trackers
Ultrasound (US) is the most widely used fetal imaging technique. However, US
images have limited capture range, and suffer from view dependent artefacts
such as acoustic shadows. Compounding of overlapping 3D US acquisitions into a
high-resolution volume can extend the field of view and remove image artefacts,
which is useful for retrospective analysis including population based studies.
However, such volume reconstructions require information about relative
transformations between probe positions from which the individual volumes were
acquired. In prenatal US scans, the fetus can move independently from the
mother, making external trackers such as electromagnetic or optical tracking
unable to track the motion between probe position and the moving fetus. We
provide a novel methodology for image-based tracking and volume reconstruction
by combining recent advances in deep learning and simultaneous localisation and
mapping (SLAM). Tracking semantics are established through the use of a
Residual 3D U-Net and the output is fed to the SLAM algorithm. As a proof of
concept, experiments are conducted on US volumes taken from a whole body fetal
phantom, and from the heads of real fetuses. For the fetal head segmentation,
we also introduce a novel weak annotation approach to minimise the required
manual effort for ground truth annotation. We evaluate our method
qualitatively, and quantitatively with respect to tissue discrimination
accuracy and tracking robustness.Comment: MICCAI Workshop on Perinatal, Preterm and Paediatric Image analysis
(PIPPI), 201
NHS reforms and the working lives of midwives and physiotherapists
From 2000 the NHS was subjected to a series of far reaching reforms, the purposes of which were to increase the role of the primary care sector in commissioning and providing services, promote healthier life styles, reduce health inequality, and improve service standards. These were seen as requiring a greater leadership role from health professionals, closer and more cooperative working between health professionals, and between health professionals, social services, and community and other service providers. The project surveyed a random sample of midwives and physiotherapists to investigate their perceptions of the effectiveness of the reforms, and their effects on working
lives. The predominant perception was that NHS reforms had negatively affected the funding of their services; and had done little to improve service quality, delivery or organisation. Although the potential existed for the reforms
to improve services, the necessary resources and required staffing were not made available and the objectives of the reforms were only partially secured by intensifying of work. The downside of this was a deterioration of the sociopsychological wellbeing of midwives and physiotherapists, especially the former, exacerbating the shortage of skilled and experienced. Shortage of staff
and the associated increased work burdens were demoralising and demotivating; morale and job satisfaction declined, and job insecurity and labour turnover increased
Learners in the English Learning and Skills Sector: the implications of half-right policy assumptions
The English Learning and Skills Sector (LSS) contains a highly diverse range of learners and covers all aspects of post-16 learning with the exception of higher education. In the research on which this paper is based we are concerned with the effects of policy on three types of learners – unemployed adults attempting to improve their basic skills in community learning settings, younger learners on Level 1 and 2 courses in further education colleges and employees in basic skills provision in the workplace. What is distinctive about all three groups is that they have historically failed in, or been failed by, compulsory education. What is interesting is that they are constructed as 'problem learners' in learning and skills sector policy documents. We use data from 194 learner interviews, conducted during 2004/5, in 24 learning sites in London and the North East of England, to argue that government policy assumptions about these learners may only be 'half right'. We argue that such assumptions might be leading to half-right policy based on incomplete understandings or surface views of learner needs that are more politically constructed than real. We suggest that policy makers should focus more on systemic problems in the learning and skills sector and less on problematising groups of learners
Capabilities For Catching-up: Economic Development and Competitiveness in Uganda: Implications for Human Resource Development
The study summarizes desk research for a GTZ report on the human resource dimension of Uganda's economic development
- …