Assistant practitioners (APs) perceptions of their developing role and practice in radiography: Results from a national survey

Introduction: In 2000, the NHS Plan set out the government's plans for investment and reform across the NHS. Through the introduction of a new workforce at assistant practitioner (AP) level the Department of Health intended to implement new ways in which to deliver a more efficient service. At the time, little published information existed on the integration of these assistants into the contemporary radiography workforce. Publications were limited to experiences gained by various individual departments ranging in their perception of the role and education of APs. Further research was suggested to track the continuing implementation of the 4-tier structure, establish the precise nature and scope of the roles across Trusts and determine their impact on workload and patient care. Aim: To establish the number and employment locality of APs in radiography professions in England, and to explore their scope of applied practice. Method and materials: The study was conducted over three phases and employed a mixed methods design to address the aims and objectives. Phase I was a scoping exercise performed prior to data collection in which n = 226 radiography sites were identified for contact across England. Phase II utilized a questionnaire as data collection tool to investigate the role of APs in radiography and explore how their roles were integrated into the radiography workforce in England. Results from phase III of the study which utilized semi-structured qualitative interviews are not included in this paper. Conclusion and discussion: Key findings depict the nature and variety of roles and responsibilities undertaken by APs in radiography. This study was the first of its kind to identify the integration of APs in radiography across a sizable geographical region. There were mixed responses to the question asking APs if they were required to perform duties outside their scope of practice. Questionnaire data revealed that a high numbers of APs were working in areas under indirect supervision. Results from this study showed that APs, in some areas at least, were performing the roles of practitioners. Therefore further investigation is needed for new roles to develop criteria to determine which new roles should be the subject of statutory regulation. © 2011 The College of Radiographers

Giving hope, ticking boxes or securing services? A qualitative study of respiratory physiotherapists' views on goal-setting with people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

OBJECTIVE: To explore respiratory physiotherapists' views and experiences of using goal-setting with people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in rehabilitation settings. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 17 respiratory physiotherapists with ⩾12 months current or previous experience of working with patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in a non-acute setting. Participants were diverse in relation to age (25-49 years), sex (13 women), experience (Agenda for Change bands 6-8) and geographic location. METHOD: Data were collected via face-to-face qualitative in-depth interviews (40-70 minutes) using a semi-structured interview guide. Interview locations were selected by participants (included participants' homes, public places and University). Interviews followed an interview guide, were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. DATA ANALYSIS: Data were analysed using thematic analysis; constant comparison was made within and between accounts, and negative case analysis was used. RESULTS: Three themes emerged through the process of analysis: (1) 'Explaining goal-setting'; (2) 'Working with goals'; and (3) 'Influences on collaborative goal-setting'. Goal-setting practices among respiratory physiotherapists varied considerably. Collaborative goal-setting was described as challenging and was sometimes driven by service need rather than patient values. Lack of training in collaborative goal-setting at both undergraduate and postgraduate level was also seen as an issue. CONCLUSION: Respiratory physiotherapists reflected uncertainties around the use of goal-setting in their practice, and conflict between patients' goals and organisational demands. This work highlights a need for wider discussion to clarify the purpose and implementation of goal-setting in respiratory rehabilitation

Probing Dark Energy with Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations from Future Large Galaxy Redshift Surveys

We show that the measurement of the baryonic acoustic oscillations in large high redshift galaxy surveys offers a precision route to the measurement of dark energy. The cosmic microwave background provides the scale of the oscillations as a standard ruler that can be measured in the clustering of galaxies, thereby yielding the Hubble parameter and angular diameter distance as a function of redshift. This, in turn, enables one to probe dark energy. We use a Fisher matrix formalism to study the statistical errors for redshift surveys up to z=3 and report errors on cosmography while marginalizing over a large number of cosmological parameters including a time-dependent equation of state. With redshifts surveys combined with cosmic microwave background satellite data, we achieve errors of 0.037 on Omega_x, 0.10 on w(z=0.8), and 0.28 on dw(z)/dz for cosmological constant model. Models with less negative w(z) permit tighter constraints. We test and discuss the dependence of performance on redshift, survey conditions, and fiducial model. We find results that are competitive with the performance of future supernovae Ia surveys. We conclude that redshift surveys offer a promising independent route to the measurement of dark energy.Comment: submitted to ApJ, 24 pages, LaTe

Radial Redshift Space Distortions

The radial component of the peculiar velocities of galaxies cause displacements in their positions in redshift space. We study the effect of the peculiar velocities on the linear redshift space two point correlation function. Our analysis takes into account the radial nature of the redshift space distortions and it highlights the limitations of the plane parallel approximation. We consider the problem of determining the value of \beta and the real space two point correlation function from the linear redshift space two point correlation function. The inversion method proposed here takes into account the radial nature of the redshift space distortions and can be applied to magnitude limited redshift surveys that have only partial sky coverage.Comment: 26 pages including 11 figures, to appear in Ap

The construction of identities in narratives about serious leisure occupations

Engagement in occupation contributes to the shaping of identity throughout the human life. The act of telling about such engagement involves interaction based on symbolic meaning; the speaker constructing an identity by conveying how the occupation is personally meaningful. This study explored meaning in narratives told by people who engage in serious leisure occupations. A total of 78 narratives were extracted from interviews with 17 people who invest considerable time and other resources into their leisure. Analysis focused on the content, structure and performance of each narrative in order to explore meaning. The meanings were organised into a framework based around three dimensions: the located self, the active self and the changing self. Each dimension has facets that the individual might emphasise, constructing a unique identity. The framework offers a structured basis for conceptualising how occupation contributes to the shaping of the internalised self and the socially situated identity

Exploring Large-scale Structure with Billions of Galaxies

We consider cosmological applications of galaxy number density correlations to be inferred from future deep and wide multi-band optical surveys. We mostly focus on very large scales as a probe of possible features in the primordial power spectrum. We find the proposed survey of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope may be competitive with future all-sky CMB experiments over a broad range of scales. On very large scales the inferred power spectrum is robust to photometric redshift errors, and, given a sufficient number density of galaxies, to angular variations in dust extinction and photometric calibration errors. We also consider other applications, such as constraining dark energy with the two CMB-calibrated standard rulers in the matter power spectrum, and controlling the effect of photometric redshift errors to facilitate the interpretation of cosmic shear data. We find that deep photometric surveys over wide area can provide constraints that are competitive with spectroscopic surveys in small volumes.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, ApJ accepted, references added, expanded discussion in Sec. 3.

The Correlation Function in Redshift Space: General Formula with Wide-angle Effects and Cosmological Distortions

A general formula for the correlation function in redshift space is derived in linear theory. The formula simultaneously includes wide-angle effects and cosmological distortions. The formula is applicable to any pair with arbitrary angle $\theta$ between lines of sight, and arbitrary redshifts, $z_1$, $z_2$, which are not necessarily small. The effects of the spatial curvature both on geometry and on fluctuation spectrum are properly taken into account, and thus our formula holds in a Friedman-Lema\^{\i}tre universe with arbitrary cosmological parameters $\Omega_0$ and $\lambda_0$. We illustrate the pattern of the resulting correlation function with several models, and also show that validity region of the conventional distant observer approximation is $\theta \le 10^\circ$.Comment: 45 pages including 9 figures, To Appear in Astrophys. J. 535 (2000

Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in 2D: Modeling Redshift-space Power Spectrum from Perturbation Theory

We present an improved prescription for matter power spectrum in redshift space taking a proper account of both the non-linear gravitational clustering and redshift distortion, which are of particular importance for accurately modeling baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs). Contrary to the models of redshift distortion phenomenologically introduced but frequently used in the literature, the new model includes the corrections arising from the non-linear coupling between the density and velocity fields associated with two competitive effects of redshift distortion, i.e., Kaiser and Finger-of-God effects. Based on the improved treatment of perturbation theory for gravitational clustering, we compare our model predictions with monopole and quadrupole power spectra of N-body simulations, and an excellent agreement is achieved over the scales of BAOs. Potential impacts on constraining dark energy and modified gravity from the redshift-space power spectrum are also investigated based on the Fisher-matrix formalism. We find that the existing phenomenological models of redshift distortion produce a systematic error on measurements of the angular diameter distance and Hubble parameter by 1~2%, and the growth rate parameter by ~5%, which would become non-negligible for future galaxy surveys. Correctly modeling redshift distortion is thus essential, and the new prescription of redshift-space power spectrum including the non-linear corrections can be used as an accurate theoretical template for anisotropic BAOs.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Measuring the galaxy power spectrum with future redshift surveys

Precision measurements of the galaxy power spectrum P(k) require a data analysis pipeline that is both fast enough to be computationally feasible and accurate enough to take full advantage of high-quality data. We present a rigorous discussion of different methods of power spectrum estimation, with emphasis on the traditional Fourier method, the linear (Karhunen-Loeve; KL), and quadratic data compression schemes, showing in what approximations they give the same result. To improve speed, we show how many of the advantages of KL data compression and power spectrum estimation may be achieved with a computationally faster quadratic method. To improve accuracy, we derive analytic expressions for handling the integral constraint, since it is crucial that finite volume effects are accurately corrected for on scales comparable to the depth of the survey. We also show that for the KL and quadratic techniques, multiple constraints can be included via simple matrix operations, thereby rendering the results less sensitive to galactic extinction and mis-estimates of the radial selection function. We present a data analysis pipeline that we argue does justice to the increases in both quality and quantity of data that upcoming redshift surveys will provide. It uses three analysis techniques in conjunction: a traditional Fourier approach on small scales, a pixelized quadratic matrix method on large scales and a pixelized KL eigenmode analysis to probe anisotropic effects such as redshift-space distortions.Comment: Major revisions for clarity. Matches accepted ApJ version. 23 pages, with 2 figs included. Color figure and links at http://www.sns.ias.edu/~max/galpower.html (faster from the US), from http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~max/galpower.html (faster from Europe) or from [email protected]