Challenges with sensitized recipients in pediatric heart transplantation

The sensitization of patients to human leukocyte antigens prior to heart transplantation is increasingly being recognized as an important challenge both before and after the transplant, and the effects of sensitization on clinical outcomes are just beginning to be understood. Many patients are listed with the requirement of a negative prospective or virtual crossmatch prior to accepting a donor organ. This strategy has been associated with both longer waitlist times and higher waitlist mortality. An alternative approach is to transplant across a potentially positive crossmatch while utilizing strategies to decrease the significance of the human leukocyte antigen antibodies. This review will examine the challenges and the impact of sensitization on pediatric patients prior to and following heart transplantation

Values and design and technology: exploring an issue

The two presenters will deliver a dialogue which will explore the value judgements made, especially, around a particular issue, i.e. the value of recycling, or the need to recycle materials. Initially they will suggest possible technological projects and, as a consequence, explore the knowledge, skills and value judgements likely to be involved. The presentation will pursue the following steps: exploring the issue using stimulation material and information, including ideas from different cultures; suggesting possible technology projects; highlighting value judgements that would need to be taken; deciding appropriate criteria; suggesting strategies for widening the evidence that might be taken into account, clarifying perspectives and facing up to value conflicts

Cease agricultural activity forever? Underestimating the importance of symbolic capital

peer-reviewedSimilar to what is occurring on a global scale, Irish agriculture is populated by an older generation of farmers. Consequently, intergenerational family farm transfer is increasingly viewed as crucial to the survival, continuity and future sustainability of the family farm and agricultural sector. A review of existing research highlights how financial incentives that encourage succession and retirement from farming have stimulated little change in the behavioural intentions and attitudes amongst elderly farmers. Drawing on two previously disparate literature (transferring the family firm and transferring the family farm) and applying Pierre Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital as a theoretical framework, this paper sets aside financial enticements and presents an insightful, nuanced analysis of the human factors that influence the process of transferring the family farm from the perspective of the senior generation. This research employs a multi-method triangulation design, consisting of self-administered questionnaires in conjunction with complimentary Problem-Centred Interviews, to acquire data on the complex psychodynamic and sociodynamic emotions involved in the process. The prominent themes to emerge from the empirical data are farmer's concerns regarding potential loss of identity, status and control upon transferring management and ownership of the family farm and retiring. Many older farmers appear to prioritise the building and maintenance of their personal accumulation of symbolic capital rather than ceasing agricultural activity. The paper concludes by suggesting that future policies and programmes encouraging family farm transfer must take into account the pervasiveness of symbolic capital and work within this structure to develop effective strategies that addresses the emotional well-being of elderly farmers.Funding for this project was provided by the National University of Ireland, Galway's College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies Galway Doctoral Research Scholarship Scheme and the Geographical Society of Ireland postgraduate travel award bursar

Relational leadership as meaningful co-action

In the established field of leadership studies, Relational Leadership is a relatively new and under explored view of a familiar phenomenon. Scholars conceptualise Relational Leadership differently depending upon their philosophical position, in particular whether they privilege leaders’ traits and characteristics (known as an entity perspective) or foreground the relationships and interactions that enable leadership to be accomplished (a social constructionist relational perspective). To date there have been relatively few empirical studies that research Relational Leadership from a social constructionist perspective. This thesis adds to this underdeveloped body of empirical literature. The study uses data from an in-depth ethnographic single case study comprising the executive team of a large and complex UK local authority. The study took place as members of the executive team grappled with previously unheard of economic and social challenges following the global financial crash of 2007/8. Data is drawn from participant observation of the executive team’s meetings over a one year period, a series of in-depth interviews with executive team members, and a contextual analysis incorporating a review of relevant press coverage during the time. The study’s research question was: How is leadership relationally accomplished? The question was subsequently operationalised through the following additional three questions: Q1: How are relational strategies adopted by the case study team? Q2: How do these relational strategies support the accomplishment of the team’s strategic task? Q3: What contextual factors impact and are impacted by the relational strategies that are commonly adopted within the team? Adopting a Grounded Theory method, a theory of Relational Leadership as Meaningful Co-Action is developed. Meaningful Co-Action epitomises the ways in which the group went-on-together in socially and situationally developed ways through their moment-by-moment interactions. Social processes gave rise to individual process mediated through 6 contextual constraining and enabling forces. It was adherence to relational group norms that allowed the collective accomplishment of their leadership task. The study makes empirical, methodological and practice contributions. These are: Empirical Contribution Building on what is a relatively small body of theory on Relational Leadership, for the first time in a UK local authority Executive Team. Developing a theory of Relational Leadership as Meaningful Co-Action as the way that leadership was accomplished in the case study organization. Methodological Contribution Makes a contribution to Grounded Theory by explicitly utilising reflexivity towards disconfirming data as a mechanism for establishing theoretical sensitivity. Practice Contribution The findings from this study may inform the practice of management, particularly organization consultants working with leaders and teams

Longitudinal and cross-sectional modelling of health related quality of life in people with cystic fibrosis

People with cystic fibrosis (CF) must endure up to four hours treatment per day to maintain health and are vulnerable to complications. The Cystic Fibrosis Quality of Life Questionnaire was developed to measure health related quality of life (HRQoL) in the UK. Most studies on HRQoL are cross-sectional in design with HRQoL measured once per patient. However, the Cystic Fibrosis Quality of Life Questionnaire has been used to monitor HRQoL longitudinally with measures taken over a 12 year period at one clinic in the UK. These data were modelled with a binomial distribution for a domain score and with fixed and random coefficients for the patient-level clinical and demographic variables. The longitudinal study included 182 patients whose HRQoL was first measured within a single calendar year and were then followed-up. These data provided an opportunity to compare, directly and by simulation, the modelling of a cross-sectional with the modelling of a longitudinal study and so provided insights into the statistical merits of longitudinal studies compared to cross-sectional studies in HRQoL

Imagery and verbal symbolic processes in paired-associate learning tasks among young children

The present experiments attempted to assess the possible differential role played by visual versus verbal materials in children's learning of paired-associate items. -- Experiment I was essentially a replication of the Dilley and Paivio (1968) study. The sample included 48 Ss from each of nursery school, kindergarten, and grade two, with equal numbers of boys and girls at each level. Picture and word presentation methods were varied factorially on both the stimulus and response sides of item pairs to give four experimental conditions. Ss were randomly assigned to one of these four conditions and to one of two paired-associate lists with instructions to learn a ten pair list using a learning - test - feedback method. A nonverbal recognition test method was used. -- The major findings indicated that picture and word presentation methods were equally effective on the stimulus side of item pairs, but pictures significantly increased performance over words on the response side of item pairs. This latter finding may be seen to give indirect support to Paivio's hypothesis that children experience difficulty in decoding imaginally-stored information into verbal terms for response requirements. However, in the present experiment children experienced difficulty in decoding verbally stored information into nonverbal terms for response requirements. Thus, by comparing findings from this experiment with those of Dilley and Paivio (1968) it would appear that for retrieval of information Ss use that mode which is congruent with response requirements. -- The Ss for Experiment II included 48 children from each of pre-school, kindergarten, and grade two, with equal numbers of boys and girls at each level. Verbalization (no sentences versus sentences) was varied factorially with depiction (side-by-side line drawings versus interacting line drawings) to give four experimental conditions. Ss were randomly assigned to one of these four conditions and to one of two paired-associate lists with instructions to learn a 24-pair list according to a two-trial study-test method. This experiment also used a nonverbal recognition test method. -- Significant main effects were found for verbalization, depiction, grade level, and trials. Overall performance increased as a function of grade increase. A significant interaction between verbalization and depiction demonstrated that whereas action significantly increased performance when added to still pictures, when action depiction was combined with still pictures linked in sentences, no increment was found. -- Together these two experiments served to demonstrate that children within the 4 to 8 year age range are equally capable of utilizing pictorial and verbal or combined pictorial and verbal elaborations

Psychometric Network Analysis of the Hungarian WAIS

The positive manifold—the finding that cognitive ability measures demonstrate positive correlations with one another—has led to models of intelligence that include a general cognitive ability or general intelligence (g). This view has been reinforced using factor analysis and reflective, higher-order latent variable models. However, a new theory of intelligence, Process Overlap Theory (POT), posits that g is not a psychological attribute but an index of cognitive abilities that results from an interconnected network of cognitive processes. These competing theories of intelligence are compared using two different statistical modeling techniques: (a) latent variable modeling and (b) psychometric network analysis. Network models display partial correlations between pairs of observed variables that demonstrate direct relationships among observations. Secondary data analysis was conducted using the Hungarian Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Fourth Edition (H-WAIS-IV). The underlying structure of the H-WAIS-IV was first assessed using confirmatory factor analysis assuming a reflective, higher-order model and then reanalyzed using psychometric network analysis. The compatibility (or lack thereof) of these theoretical accounts of intelligence with the data are discussed

From Analog to Digital: Extending the Preservation Tool Kit

National Endowment for the HumanitiesPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150186/1/Kenney Conway From Analog to Digital 1998.pdfDescription of Kenney Conway From Analog to Digital 1998.pdf : Main articl