Mentor Teaching in Four Communities of Catholic Sisters in the Mid-Twentieth Century (1940-1965)

This dissertation is a qualitative study that explores mentoring experiences of Catholic teaching nuns– hereafter called sisters and/or women religious– who served in parochial schools in the mid-twentieth century in the Diocese of Syracuse, NY. Teaching sisters comprised the majority of the professional workforce in Catholic schools through ministry as classroom teachers, building principals, diocesan-level administrators, service providers, and more. The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop an understanding of how teaching sisters engaged in mentoring to develop instructional and pedagogical skills in the mid-twentieth century, specifically 1940 through 1965. In addition to researching archival records, this study employs a phenomenological approach and uses oral history methods, enabling sisters to share their experiences in focus groups and oral history interviews. Interview data were recorded, transcribed and analyzed. This study asks the following research questions: 1) What do teaching sisters’ oral histories reveal about their development of teaching skills?; 2) What do teaching sisters’ oral histories reveal about how formal and informal networks supported their development of these skills?; 3) What do teaching sisters reveal about how support evolved over time?; 4) What do teaching sisters’ oral histories reveal about the roles formal and informal networks played in their development as teachers?; 5) Did their support for each others’ teaching change over time? The findings suggest that during the first half of the period studied, mentoring was a critical practice that sisters depended upon to develop skills in pedagogical practices, including lesson planning, instructional delivery, student assessment, and daily operations. In the second half of the time period under consideration mentoring practices continued; however, sisters began providing support to help them cope with substantial changes occurring in religious life. Sisters have shared empathy and symbiotic penchants to provide emotional and compassionate support to cultivate congregational and professional success. This research provides individual and congregational experiences that illuminate how mentoring was used as a form of occupational support. First-person narratives, based on the lived experiences of teaching sisters, further add to the existing literature on the history of women religious

The Art of Unknowing – The joy of amateur practice as a space for emancipation from the constraints of academic discipline.

Being immersed in the Art School for the most part of your professional life is a privileged position to find oneself in. But what if this immersion also presents a certain entrapment in the connoisseurship and knowledge that you have acquired, embodied, and are passing on. This paper is about the creative liberation of two female visual communication academics, through the pursuit of amateur practices in un-professional curatorship of personal obsessions. The first of these practices is a long-standing obsession with Marcel Duchamp, which has been enacted in the unofficial spaces and places of true fandom, where obsessions are lived out and ideas of being a neutral historian no longer need to be adhered to. The practice that has emerged is one based on leisure, travel and appropriation through collecting, recording and archiving. The importance of the process far outweighs any potential outcome or the production of any individual artefacts, as it is these alternative ways of experiencing, thinking about and documenting Marcel Duchamp that are the ultimate centre and purpose of this practice, - a kind of Duchamp Tourism. The second amateur practice could be considered to have made a similar journey of engagement only in reverse. The experience of childhood holidays on the island of Crete started a lifelong obsession with the collection of touristic artefacts and an immersion in its visual and historic heritage. An added dimension of ‘living out’ being the amateur, in as far as whilst loving a foreign place you still always remain ‘un-official’ – an outsider. This paper is an opportunity to discuss not only the freedom that is inherent in the enactment of amateur practices, but also the struggle to remain within the joy of the process rather than arriving at a destination. How can we preserve the freedom of ‘unknowing’ at the same time as the agency of the objects and experiences collected keeps on ‘acting back’ (Ingold 2009); beckoning to be solidified out of the aesthetic experience of the ‘making’ to new, but potentially dead-end, forms

Adaptive immunity to rhinoviruses: sex and age matter

Background: Rhinoviruses (RV) are key triggers in acute asthma exacerbations. Previous studies suggest that men suffer from infectious diseases more frequently and with greater severity than women. Additionally, the immune response to most infections and vaccinations decreases with age. Most immune function studies do not account for such differences, therefore the aim of this study was to determine if the immune response to rhinovirus varies with sex or age

Development of a haemophilia physiotherapy intervention for optimum musculoskeletal health (Dolphin trial)

Introduction: Haemophilic arthropathy is associated with muscle weakness and may be reduced prior to the onset of clinical arthropathy.Muscle weakness is strongly correlated to reduced walking distances, slower ascent and descent of stairs, and altered joint motion and forces during weight bearing activities. Our aim was to develop a muscle strengthening exercise intervention for children that could be tested in a randomised clinical trial. Methods: We conducted modified Nominal Group Technique focus groups with academic experts and specialist physiotherapists, and most importantly in consultation with patients. The exercise programme was demonstrated to five boys with haemophilia and their parents. Children and parents were asked; what they thought about the exercises and whether they could undertake them on a regular basis, where they thought the best place was for undertaking them, and how they would like to receive information on the exercise programme. They were also asked questions about how they would feel about taking part in a study testing the benefits of the exercises, issues around being allocated randomly into study groups, and what would encourage the children to continue on the exercise programme. Results: Strong consensus from physiotherapists indicated the exercise programme should include exercises focused on strength, balance, proprioception, flexibility and mobility, and a motor learning component. Families noted the best place for the intervention being carried out was at home and that twice per week would be achievable. Parents felt that in order to sustain interest and motivation, it was important to build in an incentive that would be valued by the child. They also said that in order to find out whether or not the exercise programme worked, they would not have a problem with their child being allocated into an intervention or usual care groups. Discussion/Conclusion: Engaging clinicians and patients in partnership as part of the research process enhanced the design of an exercise intervention ensuring it is acceptable and potentially beneficial for children with chronic disorders. The efficacy of a 24-session progressive exercise programme of stretching, strengthening, balance, proprioceptive and mobility using functional movement patterns is currently being tested in a randomised controlled trial

Rhinovirus stimulated IFN-α production: how important are plasmacytoid DCs, monocytes and endosomal pH?

Human rhinovirus (HRV) infection is a major cause of asthma exacerbations, which appears to be linked to a defective innate immune response to infection. Although the type I interferons (IFN-α and IFN-β) have a critical role in protecting against most viral infections, the cells responsible for IFN production in response to HRV and the relative importance of pattern recognition receptors located in endosomes has not been fully elucidated. In the current study we demonstrate that, using intracellular flow cytometry, >90% of the IFN-α-producing cells in human blood mononuclear cells following HRV16 exposure are plasmacytoid dendritic cells, whereas monocytes and myeloid dendritic cells contribute only 10% an

Protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial of a musculoskeletal exercise intervention versus usual care for children with haemophilia

Introduction: Haemophilia is a rare, inherited disorder in which blood does not clot normally, resulting in bleeding into joints and muscles. Long-term consequence is disabling joint pain, stiffness, muscle weakness, atrophy and reduced mobility. The purpose of this proposed feasibility of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) is to test the feasibility of an age-appropriate physiotherapy intervention designed to improve muscle strength, posture and the way boys use their joints during walking and everyday activities. Methods and analysis: A small-scale two-centre RCT of a 12-week muscle strengthening exercise intervention versus usual care for young children with haemophilia will be conducted. Primary outcomes will be safety and adherence to the exercise intervention. Secondary outcomes will include: recruitment, retention and adverse event rates, clinical data, muscle strength, joint biomechanics and foot loading patterns during walking, six-minute timed walk, timed-up-and-down-stairs, EQ-5D-Y, participants’ perceptions of the study, training requirements and relevant costs. Recruitment, follow-up, safety and adherence rates will be described as percentages. Participant diary and interview data will be analysed using a framework analysis. Demographic and disease variable distributions will be analysed for descriptive purposes and co-variant analysis. Estimates of differences between treatment arms (adjusted for baseline), and 75% and 95% confidence intervals will be calculated. Ethics and Dissemination: The study has ethical approval from the London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee (17/LO/2043) as well as Health Research Authority approval. As well as informing the design of the definitive trial, results of this study will be presented at local, national and international physiotherapy and haemophilia meetings as well as manuscripts submitted to peer-reviewed journals. We will also share the main findings of the study to all participants and the Haemophilia Society

Decision insight into stakeholder conflict for ERN.

Participatory modeling has become an important tool in facilitating resource decision making and dispute resolution. Approaches to modeling that are commonly used in this context often do not adequately account for important human factors. Current techniques provide insights into how certain human activities and variables affect resource outcomes; however, they do not directly simulate the complex variables that shape how, why, and under what conditions different human agents behave in ways that affect resources and human interactions related to them. Current approaches also do not adequately reveal how the effects of individual decisions scale up to have systemic level effects in complex resource systems. This lack of integration prevents the development of more robust models to support decision making and dispute resolution processes. Development of integrated tools is further hampered by the fact that collection of primary data for decision-making modeling is costly and time consuming. This project seeks to develop a new approach to resource modeling that incorporates both technical and behavioral modeling techniques into a single decision-making architecture. The modeling platform is enhanced by use of traditional and advanced processes and tools for expedited data capture. Specific objectives of the project are: (1) Develop a proof of concept for a new technical approach to resource modeling that combines the computational techniques of system dynamics and agent based modeling, (2) Develop an iterative, participatory modeling process supported with traditional and advance data capture techniques that may be utilized to facilitate decision making, dispute resolution, and collaborative learning processes, and (3) Examine potential applications of this technology and process. The development of this decision support architecture included both the engineering of the technology and the development of a participatory method to build and apply the technology. Stakeholder interaction with the model and associated data capture was facilitated through two very different modes of engagement, one a standard interface involving radio buttons, slider bars, graphs and plots, while the other utilized an immersive serious gaming interface. The decision support architecture developed through this project was piloted in the Middle Rio Grande Basin to examine how these tools might be utilized to promote enhanced understanding and decision-making in the context of complex water resource management issues. Potential applications of this architecture and its capacity to lead to enhanced understanding and decision-making was assessed through qualitative interviews with study participants who represented key stakeholders in the basin

Immunogenicity of COVID ‐19 vaccines in patients with follicular lymphoma receiving frontline chemoimmunotherapy

Summary: Immune responses to primary COVID‐19 vaccination were investigated in 58 patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) as part of the PETReA trial of frontline therapy (EudraCT 2016–004010‐10). COVID‐19 vaccines (BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1) were administered before, during or after cytoreductive treatment comprising rituximab (depletes B cells) and either bendamustine (depletes CD4+ T cells) or cyclophosphamide‐based chemotherapy. Blood samples obtained after vaccine doses 1 and 2 (V1, V2) were analysed for antibodies and T cells reactive to the SARS‐CoV‐2 spike protein using the Abbott Architect and interferon‐gamma ELISpot assays respectively. Compared to 149 healthy controls, patients with FL exhibited lower antibody but preserved T‐cell responses. Within the FL cohort, multivariable analysis identified low pre‐treatment serum IgA levels and V2 administration during induction or maintenance treatment as independent determinants of lower antibody and higher T‐cell responses, and bendamustine and high/intermediate FLIPI‐2 score as additional determinants of a lower antibody response. Several clinical scenarios were identified where dichotomous immune responses were estimated with >95% confidence based on combinations of predictive variables. In conclusion, the immunogenicity of COVID‐19 vaccines in FL patients is influenced by multiple disease‐ and treatment‐related factors, among which B‐cell depletion showed differential effects on antibody and T‐cell responses