Counselling immigrant adults at an educational institution

The principle of promoting free mobility of citizens has been written into European educational policies. Additionally, the philosophy of educational equality has been clearly included into the educational regulation of most European countries. Furthermore, at the beginning of the twenty-first century the ideas of lifelong learning have been defined to be the goals of improving practice within the educational systems. This means that teachers all over Europe are increasingly facing students with various ethnic backgrounds of all ages and having varied educational backgrounds, life situations and work-experiences and accordingly, being in the need of diverse educational support within educational settings. The growth in demands for equal educational rights for all inevitably strengthens the demands for the development of each teacher’s and counsellor's the skills of the teaching and counselling staff for meeting the individual needs of learners emerging from diverse reasons and counselling them accordingly. However, with this new concentration on the needs of diverse students emerging on issues like immigration, age, race, gender, special educational needs or the like, there seems to be some uncertainty with regards to what the development of these skills might mean for the practices of educational settings, their teachers and other staff and, accordingly, for teacher education training professionals for educational settings. In this article we will provide the reader with a couple of examples of how these challenges have been met within educational settings. Besides offering some examples of good practice of working with immigrant adults we also focus on the challenge of training professionals and in particular to of training teachers working with immigrant adults in educational provisions institutions. With In putting the focus on teachers we would like to underline the importance of every teacher to have having the counselling attitude and skills in his/her everyday practice with immigrant adult learners besides the work done by actual counselling professionals. However, we start our article with by addressing briefly the subject of to adult learners and some grounds of working with immigrant adult learners in educational settings. This starting point provides the conceptual framework for the practical examples to be presented. The first two of these examples are dealing deal with counselling immigrant adult students. They are followed with by examples of some learning tools used in training teachers to work with multicultural adult students

VLTI observations of the dust geometry around R Coronae Borealis stars

We are investigating the formation and evolution of dust around the hydrogen-deficient supergiants known as R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars. We aim to determine the connection between the probable merger past of these stars and their current dust-production activities. We carried out high-angular resolution interferometric observations of three RCB stars, namely RY Sgr, V CrA, and V854 Cen with the mid-IR interferometer, MIDI on the VLTI, using two telescope pairs. The baselines ranged from 30 to 60 m, allowing us to probe the dusty environment at very small spatial scales (~ 50 mas or 400 stellar radii). The observations of the RCB star dust environments were interpreted using both geometrical models and one-dimensional radiative transfer codes. From our analysis we find that asymmetric circumstellar material is apparent in RY Sgr, may also exist in V CrA, and is possible for V854 Cen. Overall, we find that our observations are consistent with dust forming in clumps ejected randomly around the RCB star so that over time they create a spherically symmetric distribution of dust. However, we conclude that the determination of whether there is a preferred plane of dust ejection must wait until a time series of observations are obtained.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 14 pages, 10 figures, 6 table

The Relationship between Self-Regulation and Stress, Sleep, and Behavioral Health

The goal of this research was to investigate multiple aspects of self-regulation and their relationship to stress, sleep, and behavioral health. Participants (N=89, 55 females, 29 males, and 5 did not list their sex) were recruited from a high-risk Midwest high school. Participants reported their own self-regulatory ability, sleep, stress, and behavioral problems. Nail samples were also collected from a subset of the participants to assay for cortisol and DHEA. Several measures of self-regulation were found to correlate with sleep quality, behavioral problems, and perceived stress. The natural log of the ratio of cortisol to DHEA was positively correlated with multiple measures of self-regulation. These findings demonstrate a relationship a positive relationship among self-regulation, sleep quality, and improved behavioral functioning as indexed by lower levels of externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Better self-regulation also correlated with lower perceived stress, but higher physiological biomarkers of stress. These findings are discussed in the context of theoretical proposals of self-regulation and stress adaption

Children's Databases - Safety and Privacy

This report describes in detail the policy background, the systems that are being built, the problems with them, and the legal situation in the UK. An appendix looks at Europe, and examines in particular detail how France and Germany have dealt with these issues. Our report concludes with three suggested regulatory action strategies for the Commissioner: one minimal strategy in which he tackles only the clear breaches of the law, one moderate strategy in which he seeks to educate departments and agencies and guide them towards best practice, and finally a vigorous option in which he would seek to bring UK data protection practice in these areas more in line with normal practice in Europe, and indeed with our obligations under European law

Integral throat entrance development, qualification and production for the Antares 3 nozzle

Although design analyses of a G-90 graphite integral throat entrance for the Antares 3 solid rocket motor nozzle indicated acceptable margins of safety, the nozzle throat insert suffered a thermostructural failure during the first development firing. Subsequent re-analysis using properties measured on material from the same billet as the nozzle throat insert showed negative margins. Carbon-carbon was investigated and found to result in large positive margins of safety. The G-90 graphite was replaced by SAI fast processed 4-D material which uses Hercules HM 10000 fiber as the reinforcement. Its construction allows powder filling of the interstices after preform fabrication which accelerates the densification process. Allied 15V coal tar pitch is then used to complete densification. The properties were extensively characterized on this material and six nozzles were subjected to demonstration, development and qualification firings

Elevated PSA is associated with decreased physical function in men with prostate cancer

Studies have reported an association between cortisol and fatigue in multiple clinical populations, including prostate cancer (PCa). Treatment options for men with PCa, such as androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), come with a wide variety of adverse effects, including cancer-related fatigue, which greatly impacts quality of life (QoL). PURPOSE: Conduct a preliminary analysis on the association between cortisol, fatigue and QoL in men with PCa. METHODS: This study is part of an ongoing study to determine the impact of PCa and PCa treatment on fatigue and QoL approved by the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Intuitional Review Board. Twenty-one men (age: 69.1±11.55; BMI 28.99±4.78) with PCa were recruited from the Urology Clinic at the Medical Arts and Research Center in San Antonio, Texas. Participants provided ~2 mL of saliva for cortisol quantification using the passive drool technique. Saliva was immediately placed on ice and transferred within 4 hours to a freezer at -80oC until analysis. Cortisol was quantified using a commercially available salivary cortisol ELISA assay kit (Salimetrics, College Park, PA). Participants also completed three questionnaires: the Brief Fatigue Inventory, the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue, and the SF-36. Pearson product moment correlation was performed to determine association between outcome variables. Student t-test was used to determine differences in cortisol, fatigue and QoL between men treated with ADT and men not treated with ADT. Significance was set at pRESULTS: Of the 21 participants, 9.5% (n=2) of participants had metastatic PCa, 4.8% (n=1) had castration-resistant PCa, 4.8% (n=1) had high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, and 81% (n=17) had localized PCa. Twelve of the participants were being treated with ADT (57.14%). Significant correlation was observed between prostate specific antigen (PSA) and physical function (r=-0.728; p=.001), physical health (r=-0.729; p=.001), and emotional problems (r=-0.765; p=.001). No correlation was found between fatigue and cortisol levels. A comparison between groups revealed no significant difference in fatigue level between those on ADT versus those not on ADT. However, men not on ADT had a 28% higher average general health score. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggest cortisol is not a strong physiological measure of fatigue in men with PCa. Furthermore, these preliminary data suggest that advanced cancer, as evident by elevated PSA, significantly impacts physical function and QoL in men with PCa. Further study for a more reliable biomarker of fatigue and interventions to improve QoL in men with PCa is warranted

The Australian Incident Monitoring Study in Intensive Care: AIMS-ICU. The development and evaluation of an incident reporting system in intensive care

Publisher's copy made available with the permission of the publisher © 1996 Australian Society of AnaesthetistsIntensive care units are complex, dynamic patient management environments. Incidents and accidents can be caused by human error, by problems inherent in complex systems, or by a combination of these. Study objectives were to develop and evaluate an incident reporting system. A report form was designed eliciting a description of the incident, contextual information and contributing factors. Staff group sessions using open-ended questions, observations in the workplace and a review of earlier narratives were used to develop the report form. Three intensive care units participated in a two-month evaluation study. Feedback questionnaires were used to assess staff attitudes and understanding, project design and organization. These demonstrated a positive attitude and good understanding by more than 90% participants. Errors in communication, technique, problem recognition and charting were the predisposing factors most commonly chosen in the 128 incidents reported. It was concluded that incident monitoring may be a suitable technique for improving patient safety in intensive care.U. Beckman, L.F. West, G.J. Groombridge, I. Baldwin, G.K. Hart, D.G. Clayton, R.K. Webb, W.B. Runcima

High-resolution spectroscopy of the R Coronae Borealis and Other Hydrogen Deficient Stars

High-resolution spectroscopy is a very important tool for studying stellar physics, perhaps, particularly so for such enigmatic objects like the R Coronae Borealis and related Hydrogen deficient stars that produce carbon dust in addition to their peculiar abundances. Examples of how high-resolution spectroscopy is used in the study of these stars to address the two major puzzles are presented: (i) How are such rare H-deficient stars created? and (ii) How and where are the obscuring soot clouds produced around the R Coronae Borealis stars?Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 201

Simplified Method for Efficient Intravascular Inoculation of Chicken Embryos

The simple syringe-stabilizer unit described in this note provides a means for rapid intravascular inoculation of embryonated chicken eggs with minimal embryonic death from vascular trauma