293,383 research outputs found
PLAYING SENIOR INTER-COUNTY GAELIC GAMES: EXPERIENCES, REALITIES AND CONSEQUENCES. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 76 September 2018
Given the developments that have taken place in Gaelic games over the past
decade, particularly at the senior inter-county level, there is a concern that the
demands that todayâs games are placing on players are having negative effects on
their lives. The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and the Gaelic Players Association
(GPA) have introduced a number of measures to ensure that playersâ needs are
taken care of and that those who play enjoy their experience. Nevertheless,
questions continue to be raised. Given this, the GAA and GPA jointly commissioned
the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) to conduct an independent
examination of the commitment required to play senior inter-county, and the
impact that this has on playersâ personal and professional lives and club
involvement.
The research was primarily conducted through senior inter-county player
workshops and a survey of 2016 players. Workshops were also conducted with
2016 senior inter-county managers, County Board Secretaries and third-level
Games Development Officers (GDOs). What follows is a summary of the principal
findings arising from the study, consideration of their implications for both player
welfare and policy in this area, and some discussion on future directions
Adolescent road user behaviour : a survey of 11-16 year olds
This study was carried out to investigate the safety related behaviour of road users aged 11-16. A self-completion questionnaire was designed to measure the frequency with which children from the target population carry out 43 different road using behaviours and a number of other variables including children's beliefs about the safety of their own road using behaviour. Two thousand four hundred and thirty three children from eleven secondary schools within England completed the questionnaire in lesson time at school. Factor analysis showed that scores on the 43 behaviour items were best represented by a three-factor solution. The three factors were named unsafe road crossing behaviour, dangerous playing in the road, and planned protective behaviour. Analysis of variance and stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that demographic variables and exposure variables had statistically significant effects on how often these behaviours were carried out. More interesting was the finding that respondents had realistic perceptions of their own behaviour as road users. The more respondents believed their road using behaviour to be unsafe and irresponsible, the more often they reported carrying out road using behaviour that was undesirable from a road safety point of view. These results and their implications for road safety interventions and further research are discussed
Reionization Through the Lens of Percolation Theory
The reionization of intergalactic hydrogen has received intense theoretical
scrutiny over the past two decades. Here, we approach the process formally as a
percolation process and phase transition. Using semi-numeric simulations, we
demonstrate that an infinitely-large ionized region abruptly appears at an
ionized fraction of ~0.1 and quickly grows to encompass most of the ionized
gas: by an ionized fraction of 0.3, nearly ninety percent of the ionized
material is part of this region. Throughout most of reionization, nearly all of
the intergalactic medium is divided into just two regions, one ionized and one
neutral, and both infinite in extent. We also show that the discrete ionized
regions that exist before and near this transition point follow a near-power
law distribution in volume, with equal contributions to the total filling
factor per logarithmic interval in size up to a sharp cutoff in volume. These
qualities are generic to percolation processes, with the detailed behavior a
result of long-range correlations in the underlying density field. These
insights will be crucial to understanding the distribution of ionized and
neutral gas during reionization and provide precise meaning to the intuitive
description of reionization as an "overlap" process.Comment: 16 pages, version accepted by MNRAS (conclusions unchanged from
original
Graduates of Character - Values and Character: Higher Education and Graduate Employment
Graduates of Character is the product of an empirical enquiry into the values, virtues, dispositions and attitudes of a sample of students and employees who volunteered to be involved. The research team sought host sites which would offer a diverse set of interviewees in gender, ethnicity, religion and aspiration.
In this study we discuss what character is taken to mean by students and employees in their years of higher education and employment. We examine what their values are, what they gain from the university, what they believe employers look for when recruiting, what they hope to give to an employer, and what they expect from their employer. We then explore who or what influenced their values and moral development. We also examined the role of the personal tutor or mentor, and the persons or services to which they might go for personal and/or professional support
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From dawn to dusk: a temporal model of caregiving: adult carers of frail parents
Caregiving is not a short term commitment. Of the estimated 6 million carers in the UK, almost a third of co-resident carers have been caring for at least 10 years (Rowland and Parker 1998). Yet our understanding of how caregiving evolves over time is limited. Many of the existing temporal models of care are based on studies of service users who suffer from dementia and their carers. These models have a tendency to map the experiences of carers in line with the progress of this degenerative condition. This focus means that existing models overlook the care provided for non-users of services such as older people without dementia, whose progress towards frailty and dependence is uncertain.
The study on which this paper is based was a longitudinal, qualitative one which used a grounded theory methodology. Over a period of 28 months, it explored the experiences of unsupported carers of older people who were not known to service providers. This study provides a unique insight into the lives of âunsupported carersâ and reveals how caregiving evolves over time. The paper outlines a temporal model of care and argues that unsupported or hidden caring is simply one of many dynamic stages; that carers are more receptive to service intervention during particular stages of their caregiving trajectory; and that in order to be effective, service interventions need to be âstage specificâ
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