The Great Transition of Scholarly Communication at the Thomas G. Carpenter Library

Many factors are changing the ways academic libraries are disseminating scholarly communication. Libraries must meet new expectations of how scholarly information is communicated and delivered to students and faculty. Due to shrinking budgets, Florida universities\u27 libraries are tasked with providing information within a defined monetary amount. Open access journals, institutional repositories, and libguides are a way to offset the cost of expensive subscriptions. We would like to present how the Thomas G. Carpenter Library at the University of North Florida contributes to the UNF community by providing and presenting alternative electronic resources while remaining within a limited budget

Going beyond two degrees? The risks and opportunities of alternative options

Since the mid-1990s, the aim of keeping climate change within 2 °C has become firmly entrenched in policy discourses. In the past few years, the likelihood of achieving it has been increasingly called into question. The debate around what to do with a target that seems less and less achievable is, however, only just beginning. As the UN commences a two-year review of the 2 °C target, this article moves beyond the somewhat binary debates about whether or not it should or will be met, in order to analyse more fully some of the alternative options that have been identified but not fully explored in the existing literature. For the first time, uncertainties, risks, and opportunities associated with four such options are identified and synthesized from the literature. The analysis finds that the significant risks and uncertainties associated with some options may encourage decision makers to recommit to the 2 °C target as the least unattractive course of action

The assessment of good practice in pain management in severe dementia : a pilot study

Introduction: Dementia constitutes a major problem for sufferers, carers and society as a whole. In common with other progressive life threatening conditions, it has been increasingly recognised that the principles of palliative care should apply to patients with dementia [1]. One important aspect of care is management of pain, which may contribute to agitated behaviour in dementia. Studies suggest that pain is under-recognised and under-treated in those with severe dementia [2]. Identifying pain is the first step in its effective management. However, research has not been carried out in the UK regarding the utility of behavioural pain and distress assessment tools in those with advanced dementia. The aim of the research was to demonstrate the importance of assessing and managing pain as part of good quality palliative care in people with severe dementia. The research objectives were to investigate the utility of a pain assessment tool (Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia scale, PAIN AD [3]) and a distress assessment tool (Disability Distress Assessment Tool, DisDAT [4]) in a UK population with severe dementia; to demonstrate the ability of the tools to measure change in pain following a change to the management regime; to assess the nature of distress that may produce a false positive result on a pain scale and to examine the use of analgesia within the nursing homes and in those identified as experiencing pain. The PAINAD was chosen for use as it is based on a well-validated scale and changes in scores have been demonstrated on 2 analgesic administration. The DisDA T was chosen for use as it identifies distress rather than just pain and allows unique behaviours to be documented. The two assessment scales were chosen, therefore, because they offered a related but contrasting approach. Whereas PAINAD stipulates the behaviours to be observed, DisDAT allows unique behaviours to be described for individuals.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Meaning and role of functional-organic distinction: a study of clinicians in psychiatry and neurology services

The functional-organic distinction attempts to differentiate disorders with diagnosable biological causes from those without and is a central axis on which diagnoses, medical specialities and services are organised. Previous studies report poor agreement between clinicians regarding the meanings of the terms and the conditions to which they apply, as well as noting value-laden implications of relevant diagnoses. Consequently, we aimed to understand how clinicians working in psychiatry and neurology services navigate the functional-organic distinction in their work. Twenty clinicians (10 physicians, 10 psychologists) working in psychiatry and neurology services participated in semistructured interviews that were analysed applying a constructivist grounded theory approach. The distinction was described as often incongruent with how clinicians conceptualise patients’ problems. Organic factors were considered to be objective, unambiguously identifiable and clearly causative, whereas functional causes were invisible and to be hypothesised through thinking and conversation. Contextual factors—including cultural assumptions, service demands, patient needs and colleagues’ views—were key in how the distinction was deployed in practice. The distinction was considered theoretically unsatisfactory, eventually to be superseded, but clinical decision making required it to be used strategically. These uses included helping communicate medical problems, navigating services, hiding meaning by making psychological explanations more palatable, tackling stigma, giving hope, and giving access to illness identity. Clinicians cited moral issues at both individual and societal levels as integral to the conceptual basis and deployment of the functional-organic distinction and described actively navigating these as part of their work. There was a considerable distance between the status of the functional-organic distinction as a sound theoretical concept generalisable across conditions and its role as a gatekeeping tool within the structures of healthcare. Ambiguity and contradictions were considered as both obstacles and benefits when deployed in practice and strategic considerations were important in deciding which to lean on