Plastic with personality: Increasing student engagement with manikins

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. Background: Simulation allows students to practice key psychomotor skills and gain technical proficiency, fostering the development of clinical reasoning and student confidence in a low risk environment. Manikins are a valuable learning tool; yet there is a distinct lack of empirical research investigating how to enhance engagement between nursing students and manikins. Objective: To describe student perspectives of a layered, technology enhanced approach to improve the simulation learning experience. Educational Framework: Tanner's Model of Clinical Judgment underpins the entire curriculum. This study additionally drew on the principles of narrative pedagogy. Intervention: Across ten teaching weeks, five separate case studies were introduced to students through short vignettes. Students viewed the vignettes prior to their laboratory class. In the labs, manikins were dressed in the props used in the vignettes. Setting: The innovation was trialed in a second year core subject of a Bachelor of Nursing program in a large urban university in the autumn semester of 2014. Data Collection and Analysis: Following ethics approval, students were emailed a participant information sheet. A focus group of nine students was held. The discussion was digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim prior to being subject to thematic analysis. Students' comments (143) about the vignettes in their standard subject specific student feedback surveys were also considered as data. Results: Four themes were identified: Getting past the plastic; knowing what to say; connecting and caring; and, embracing diversity. The feedback indicated that these measures increased students ability to suspend disbelief, feel connected to, and approach the manikins in a more understanding and empathetic fashion. Conclusions: In addition to achieving increased engagement with manikins, other advantages such as students reflecting on their own values and pre-conceived notions of people from diverse backgrounds were realized

Extreme alpha-clustering in the 18O nucleus

The structure of the 18O nucleus at excitation energies above the alpha decay threshold was studied using 14C+alpha resonance elastic scattering. A number of states with large alpha reduced widths have been observed, indicating that the alpha-cluster degree of freedom plays an important role in this N not equal Z nucleus. However, the alpha-cluster structure of this nucleus is very different from the relatively simple pattern of strong alpha-cluster quasi-rotational bands in the neighboring 16O and 20Ne nuclei. A 0+ state with an alpha reduced width exceeding the single particle limit was identified at an excitation energy of 9.9+/-0.3 MeV. We discuss evidence that states of this kind are common in light nuclei and give possible explanations of this feature.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Resubmission with minor changes for clarity, including removal of one figur

Paedophiles in the community: inter-agency conflict, news leaks and the local press

This article explores the leaking of confidential information about secret Home Office plans to house convicted paedophiles within a local community (albeit inside a prison). It argues that a politics of paedophilia has emerged in which inter-agency consensus on the issue of ‘what to do’ with high-profile sex offenders has broken down. Accordingly, the article situates newspaper ‘outing’ of paedophiles in the community in relation to vigilante journalism and leaked information from official agencies. The article then presents research findings from a case study of news events set in train following a whistle-blowing reaction by Prison Officers’ Association officials to Home Office plans. Drawing from a corpus of 10 interviews with journalists and key protagonists in the story, the article discusses both the dynamics of whistle blowing about paedophiles and also what happens after the whistle has blown

Population of bound excited states in intermediate-energy fragmentation reactions

Fragmentation reactions with intermediate-energy heavy-ion beams exhibit a wide range of reaction mechanisms, ranging from direct reactions to statistical processes. We examine this transition by measuring the relative population of excited states in several sd-shell nuclei produced by fragmentation with the number of removed nucleons ranging from two to sixteen. The two-nucleon removal is consistent with a non-dissipative process whereas the removal of more than five nucleons appears to be mainly statistical.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Finite reduction and Morse index estimates for mechanical systems

A simple version of exact finite dimensional reduction for the variational setting of mechanical systems is presented. It is worked out by means of a thorough global version of the implicit function theorem for monotone operators. Moreover, the Hessian of the reduced function preserves all the relevant information of the original one, by Schur's complement, which spontaneously appears in this context. Finally, the results are straightforwardly extended to the case of a Dirichlet problem on a bounded domain.Comment: 13 pages; v2: minor changes, to appear in Nonlinear Differential Equations and Application

Two-neutron knockout from neutron-deficient 34^{34}Ar, 30^{30}S, and 26^{26}Si

Two-neutron knockout reactions from nuclei in the proximity of the proton dripline have been studied using intermediate-energy beams of neutron-deficient $^{34}$Ar, $^{30}$S, and $^{26}$Si. The inclusive cross sections, and also the partial cross sections for the population of individual bound final states of the $^{32}$Ar, $^{28}$S and $^{24}$Si knockout residues, have been determined using the combination of particle and $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy. Similar to the two-proton knockout mechanism on the neutron-rich side of the nuclear chart, these two-neutron removal reactions from already neutron-deficient nuclei are also shown to be consistent with a direct reaction mechanism.Comment: Phys. Rev. C, rapid communication, in pres

Shell structure at N=28 near the dripline: spectroscopy of 42^{42}Si, 43^{43}P and 44^{44}S

Measurements of the N=28 isotones 42Si, 43P and 44S using one- and two-proton knockout reactions from the radioactive beam nuclei 44S and 46Ar are reported. The knockout reaction cross sections for populating 42Si and 43P and a 184 keV gamma-ray observed in 43P establish that the d_{3/2} and s_{1/2} proton orbits are nearly degenerate in these nuclei and that there is a substantial Z=14 subshell closure separating these two orbits from the d_{5/2} orbit. The increase in the inclusive two-proton knockout cross section from 42Si to 44S demonstrates the importance of the availability of valence protons for determining the cross section. New calculations of the two-proton knockout reactions that include diffractive effects are presented. In addition, it is proposed that a search for the d_{5/2} proton strength in 43P via a higher statistics one-proton knockout experiment could help determine the size of the Z=14 closure.Comment: Phys. Rev. C, in pres