Skills are not enough : the globalisation of knowledge and the future Uk economy

The UK’s policy response to globalisation centres on building a highly skilled population and competing in higher value market places: this is not enough. The UK needs to move beyond a ‘national-centric view of the world’ and to place a greater emphasis on active demand side policy that engages with employers and focuses on job creation, job quality and labour supply

Relative Humidity Effects on the Compression Strength of Corrugated Boxes

Corrugated boxes are relatively inexpensive and used extensively to contain and protect consumer products as they move through the distribution system, providing a much-needed function in today’s economy. Also, corrugated boxes are constructed from paper, which is affected by ambient moisture in the atmosphere. Relative humidity regularly varies between 30 to 90 percent depending on location and time of year. Above a relative humidity of 30 percent, paper fibers are affected, resulting in a decrease in the top-to-bottom compression strength of corrugated boxes. Therefore, understanding the moisture effect on box compression strength is essential. The goal of this study is to characterize the effect of relative humidity and, subsequently, the effects of moisture content on the compressive resistance of corrugated board boxes. A total of 3,000 industry supplied boxes are used to evaluate moisture content and compressive strength at seven relative humidity conditions from 30 to 90 percent. Three sets of conditions are repeated to test repeatability for a total of ten batches tested overall. Preconditioning and conditioning of all specimens meet or exceed the requirements of TAPPI T402. All specimens are compression tested by following TAPPI T804. Further, all compression testing is performed in an environmental chamber at test conditions to ensure uniformity. The moisture content for three out of every ten specimens is recorded using a loss-upon-drying moisture balance. Results indicate a second-order polynomial increase in moisture content as a function of relative humidity. The compression strength of corrugated boxes is found to vary linearly with moisture content for the range tested and follows a second-order polynomial decrease with increasing relative humidity. The data from this study are compiled into a table of corrugated box strength reduction factors for comparison with the results from previous studies

COVID-19: Examining Adherence through the Health Belief Model

Over 6.4 million individuals have died due to COVID-19. Although the vaccine has been distributed and made more accessible, it is important for individuals to continue adhering to guidelines that prevent the spread of this deadly virus. The current study explored adherence to COVID-19-related health behaviors (wearing a mask, social distancing, properly washing hands, and receiving the COVID-19 vaccine) in a U.S. sample (recruited through Amazon MTurk) and examined the role of interactions among various identities. The study was informed by the Health Belief Model (HBM) and participants completed questionnaires that assessed COVID-19 health behaviors, constructs comprising the HBM (perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, self-efficacy, and cues for action), measures of knowledge of COVID-19, COVID-19-related distress, as well as a full range of demographic parameters. The total sample of 756 individuals was made up of the following demographics: male (52.6%), White (82.7%), less than a high school education (47.1%), living in an urban area (67.1%), liberal political orientation (69.2%), identifying as not having a disability (80.2%), Christian religion (47.4%), identifying as straight/heterosexual (87.4%), younger than age 60 (90.9%), and lower SES (65.3%). With the exception of perceived susceptibility, constructs from the HBM predicted the odds of engaging in COVID-19-related health behaviors. Perceived severity of the virus and perceived barriers were significantly associated with engagement in all COVID-19 health behaviors. Self-efficacy was associated with all COVID-19 health behaviors except for receiving the vaccine and perceived benefits were associated with all COVID-19 health behaviors except for handwashing. Cues to action only significantly predicted receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Demographic variables (except for disability and sexual orientation) were significantly related to engaging in various COVID-19-related health behaviors, such that there were more African Americans (compared to White participants), females (compared to males), nonreligious (compared to Christian), older participants (compared to younger participants), and liberal participants (compared to conservative participants) who reported engaging in health behaviors. The relation between gender, education, religion, political orientation, age, and SES, but not race/ethnicity, and some COVID-19-related health behaviors were significantly mediated by HBM constructs. Patterns of engagement in COVID-19 health behaviors varied a good bit when demographic variables were examined within the context of other demographic variables. For example, non-religious, political liberals engaged in more COVID-19 health behaviors than non-religious, political conservatives, but Christian political liberals engaged in fewer COVID-19 health behaviors than Christian political conservatives. Similarly, single African Americans engaged in more COVID-19 health behaviors than single White Americans, but married African Americans engaged in fewer COVID-19 health behaviors than married White Americans. Findings from this study suggest that examination of the interaction among various demographic identities may prove useful in understanding engagement in various health behaviors, including those associated with COVID-19, and should be examined further

A Cultural Competence Guide for Occupational Therapists: Addressing Major Health Issues of the Eastern Shoshone & Northern Arapaho Tribes

The authors have created a cultural competency guide on the history, culture, and beliefs of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes as well as an overview of current health concerns and resulting health disparities. The creation of the guide is necessary in order to provide information about these cultures to occupational therapists (OT) working with them. However, there is considerable lack of resources for discussing cultural competency regarding these tribes in relation to occupational therapy. In preparing to create the guide, an extensive literature review was conducted to determine cultural issues and health disparities of the two tribes. Secondary sources were also utilized to describe the history, spiritual practices, and traditional healing practices of these populations. This product is an informative, useful resource for OT\u27s in Wyoming. The cultural competency guide is an effective means of beginning the process of cultural competence for OTIs that provide treatment to these tribes. The intended outcome is to help OT\u27s begin the process of developing cultural competency, resulting in the ability of OT\u27s to honestly and effectively provide quality care to members of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone nations

Examining Minority Youth Swimmers’ versus Non-Swimmers’ Perceptions of Swimming Involvement

Drowning is one of the leading causes of death in youth, especially among minority populations (Gilchrest & Parker, 2014). According to the World Health Organization (2014), every hour of every day approximately 42 people lose their lives to drowning. Additionally, African-Americans are 14 times more likely to drown in a pool than other racial or ethnic group members (Waller & Norwood, 2011). The purpose of this study was to examine survey results between swimming and non-swimming minority youth participants. Forty African American students between the ages of 5-17 from an after-school program completed the Swimming Involvement Survey. Results indicated that swimmers, independent of group or gender, would like to swim more than they currently do. These results can help structure more effective swimming programs targeting minority youth

Modelling the Relationship between Parental Behaviour and Childhood Skill Development: Empirical Evidence from the UK and Canada

This longitudinal, quantitative methods research defines a theoretical framework to model the developmental trajectories of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in primary school children and capture the role that parenting plays in the joint evolution of these skills. This framework draws on theoretical models and empirical findings from the fields of economics, psychology and education. Specifically, this thesis adapts the economic framework of Cunha and Heckman (2007, 2008) to separately measure the effect of financial resources and of inputs to development in the form of parenting behaviours; to allow for literature from psychology and education to aid in the identification of multiple types of such parental inputs; and to examine the differing impacts from each of these types of investment. Distinguishing between financial investments in children and other parental inputs to development is critical for the creation of public policies which address existing socio-economic disparities in child development. Applying this proposed framework to nationally representative, longitudinal survey data from the UK and Canada, yields empirical estimates of skill formation in two contexts. These studies demonstrate how the model can be adapted to examine various aspects of parenting or to accommodate different types of longitudinal measures. Additionally, each empirical application provides precise estimates of how cognitive and non-cognitive skills evolve from birth to adolescence; and specific measurements of how the time that parents spend with their children impacts skill development. In both the UK and Canadian data, three parenting constructs are identified. Each of these inputs has a significant effect on the development of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills, with differing periods of sensitivity to each type of parental input. Unlike past research which finds that as children age parental input becomes ineffective in promoting cognitive development, the results presented in this thesis find that some types of parental input are most effective for cognitive development in early childhood while other types have measurable effects on cognitive ability in older children.My tuition and maintenance were jointly funded by the Cambridge Trusts, the Canada-UK Foundation and Fitzwilliam College. There are no contractual arrangements for my thesis or research

Data from: Novel microsatellite markers for epiphytic bromeliad Tillandsia recurvata L., in an urban landscape in South-eastern Brazil

The authors present seven novel microsatellite markers for Tillandsia recurvata L. The genome assemble sequences of T. recurvata were obtained from NCBI (7.2Gb) (Sayers et al. 2022). The BioProject Accession and accession numbers are PRJNA701548 and SRX10089449, respectively. The microsatellite identification software Krait (0.5.2) (Du et al. 2018) was used to detect suitable microsatellites, both genome-wide and in the noncoding regions of T. recurvata. The single sequence repeats (SSRs) were refined to a minimum number of seven repeats of di-, tri-, or tetra-nucleotide repeat motifs. These sequences were further limited to SSRs of more than 100bp in length and low GC content (<50%). Krait (0.5.2) (Du et al. 2018) was also used to design the primers for the selected SSR sequences, in conjunction with the integrated Primer3 software. The criteria for primer selection included: a primer length of 18-26bp, an optimal melting temperature (Tm) of 54-59°C and GC content of <50%. These designed primers were single-plexed and amplified using the following PCR cycle: initial denaturation (95°C for 3 min), 34 cycles of 95°C for 30s, annealing for 30s (JP01-JP12: 54°C, 4873TD + 35251TD: 56°C, 19286TD: 53°C, 5044TD + 186664TD + 214633TD: 58°C), 72°C for 1 min and a final extension of 72°C for 5 mins. The authors make this information available to other researchers, to continue the investigation of epiphyte genetics

Statistical Analysis of Zebrafish Locomotor Response

Zebrafish larvae display rich locomotor behaviour upon external stimulation. The movement can be simultaneously tracked from many larvae arranged in multi-well plates. The resulting time-series locomotor data have been used to reveal new insights into neurobiology and pharmacology. However, the data are of large scale, and the corresponding locomotor behavior is affected by multiple factors. These issues pose a statistical challenge for comparing larval activities. To address this gap, this study has analyzed a visually-driven locomotor behaviour named the visual motor response (VMR) by the Hotelling's T-squared test. This test is congruent with comparing locomotor profiles from a time period. Different wild-type (WT) strains were compared using the test, which shows that they responded differently to light change at different developmental stages. The performance of this test was evaluated by a power analysis, which shows that the test was sensitive for detecting differences between experimental groups with sample numbers that were commonly used in various studies. In addition, this study investigated the effects of various factors that might affect the VMR by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The results indicate that the larval activity was generally affected by stage, light stimulus, their interaction, and location in the plate. Nonetheless, different factors affected larval activity differently over time, as indicated by a dynamical analysis of the activity at each second. Intriguingly, this analysis also shows that biological and technical repeats had negligible effect on larval activity. This finding is consistent with that from the Hotelling's T-squared test, and suggests that experimental repeats can be combined to enhance statistical power. Together, these investigations have established a statistical framework for analyzing VMR data, a framework that should be generally applicable to other locomotor data with similar structure

Professional capacity and organizational change as measures of educational effectiveness: assessing the impact of postgraduate education in development policy and management

We tend to measure educational performance by students' attainment in coursework or examinations. In the case of professional education, the impact of the educational programme on the students' own capacities to enhance their work practices, and the wider organizational effects of the students' education and training, are also key 'products' of the educational process. This is particularly important with education for Development Policy and Management (DPAM), which is directly concerned with capacity-building. This article adopts a work-related approach to educational effectiveness and examines four professional programmes in DPAM--three in Southern Africa and one in the UK. Through the analysis of the results of surveys and case studies, the article demonstrates how a positive learning experience is related to the application of learning at work. However the conditions for applying learning also depend strongly on organizational context, as do the wider organizational impacts of learning. The article presents a broad approach to assessing educational effectiveness in professional programmes which incorporate these factors