Mobilizing Journalism Education

This paper evaluates several examples of integrating mobile social media within new pedagogical frameworks applied to journalism education, representing the reified activity of a journalism lecturer community of practice. We propose a mobile social media framework as a catalyst for new pedagogies that support student participation within a professional community. The framework leverages Skype and Twitter for facilitating authentic collaborative student-directed projects, establishing student eportfolios using a collage of social media, curating and critiquing mobile social media source material around news events using Storify, and the use of new and emerging collaborative mobile video applications such as Vyclone and Vine

Using ultra-thin parylene films as an organic gate insulator in nanowire field-effect transistors

We report the development of nanowire field-effect transistors featuring an ultra-thin parylene film as a polymer gate insulator. The room temperature, gas-phase deposition of parylene is an attractive alternative to oxide insulators prepared at high temperatures using atomic layer deposition. We discuss our custom-built parylene deposition system, which is designed for reliable and controlled deposition of <100 nm thick parylene films on III-V nanowires standing vertically on a growth substrate or horizontally on a device substrate. The former case gives conformally-coated nanowires, which we used to produce functional $\Omega$-gate and gate-all-around structures. These give sub-threshold swings as low as 140 mV/dec and on/off ratios exceeding $10^3$ at room temperature. For the gate-all-around structure, we developed a novel fabrication strategy that overcomes some of the limitations with previous lateral wrap-gate nanowire transistors. Finally, we show that parylene can be deposited over chemically-treated nanowire surfaces; a feature generally not possible with oxides produced by atomic layer deposition due to the surface `self-cleaning' effect. Our results highlight the potential for parylene as an alternative ultra-thin insulator in nanoscale electronic devices more broadly, with potential applications extending into nanobioelectronics due to parylene's well-established biocompatible properties

Evaluation of Four Recovery Communities across England: Interim report for the Give it Up project

The Comic Relief: Give it Up Fund is a programme that aims to develop and build abstinence based recovery communities and learn more about their value. The Give it Up Fund supports the development of recovery communities in four geographical locations in England. It is expected that the recovery communities will be sustainable and continue to operate after the two years of funding is complete. The aim of this research is to evaluate the operational processes of the pilot programmes and better understand how they might contribute to ambitions of improved and sustained recovery. Abstinence-based recovery communities aim to ensure that people with addictions are supported to meet their personal, social and economic needs in order to enable long-term recovery and reintegration back into society. Abstinence-based recovery complements the UK Drug Strategy (2010) objective of supporting people to live abstinence-based, ‘drug-free’ lives. The large grants programme element of the Give it Up Fund is supporting the development of recovery communities in Durham, Birmingham, Gloucester and London by creating partnerships offering collaborative working with approaches that aim to sustain recovery. This work explores how each of the projects contribute to recovery outcomes over time, and aims to embed processes to ensure that projects are able to measure and evidence their outcomes once the commissioned evaluation has finished

Emergency Department Chief Complaints Among Children With Cancer

Children with cancer have high emergency department (ED) utilization, but little is known about their chief complaints. A retrospective chart review of ED chief complaints for children with cancer (actively receiving therapy) at Riley Hospital for Children from January 2014 to December 2015 was performed. Proportions of visits and disposition for top 5 chief complaints were determined. Multivariate logistic regression analyzed factors associated with admission. There were 598 encounters by 231 children with cancer. About half (49%) had >1 complaint. The 5 most common primary chief complaints were: fever (60.2%), pain (6.5%), nausea/vomiting (5.0%), bleeding (3.9%), and abnormal laboratory values (3.3%). Admission rates varied, with the highest rates being for nausea/vomiting (66.7%). Risk factors for admission were: hospitalization in prior 4 weeks (odds ratio [OR], 2.67; confidence interval [CI], 1.77-4.02), chief complaint of fever (OR, 1.90; CI, 1.16-3.09). For each increase in number of chief complaints, odds increased by 1.45 (CI, 1.14-1.83). Black, non-Hispanic (OR, 0.44; CI, 0.22-0.88) as compared with white, non-Hispanic, younger age (OR, 0.53; CI, 0.29-0.99) or complaint of abnormal laboratory values (OR, 0.20; CI, 0.06-0.68) had lower odds of admission. Children with cancer present to the ED with multiple and varied complaints. Future interventions could aim to improve caregiver anticipatory guidance and ED visit preparedness

Macroscopically distinct quantum superposition states as a bosonic code for amplitude damping

We show how macroscopically distinct quantum superposition states (Schroedinger cat states) may be used as logical qubit encodings for the correction of spontaneous emission errors. Spontaneous emission causes a bit flip error which is easily corrected by a standard error correction circuit. The method works arbitrarily well as the distance between the amplitudes of the superposed coherent states increases.Comment: 4 pages, 2 postscript figures, LaTeX2e, RevTeX, minor changes, 1 reference adde

Experiences of Sustainable Abstinence-Based Recovery: an Exploratory Study of Three Recovery Communities (RC) in England

Contemporary recovery-models of treatment for substance misuse prioritise community-based support systems that focus on developing individuals’ strengths and quality of life. The research project aimed to explore the perceived mechanisms and processes that underpinned support in three abstinence-based recovery communities (RCs) across England. Focus groups and telephone interviews were conducted with 44 individuals. This was to identify self-prioritised outcomes for members and other key factors contributing to the delivery of an effective recovery community. Data were thematically analysed. Along with a number of other key outcomes, the achievement and maintenance of abstinence by participants was considered to be a key indicator of an effective RC. RC processes were also viewed as underpinning the development of recovery capital. The study provides an insight into the processes of RCs and highlights that development and support of recovery capital is an important aspect of service provision and delivery for those in abstinence-based recovery. © 2018, The Author(s)

Predictive Validity of the SAVRY With Indigenous and Caucasian Female and Male Adolescents on Probation

Indigenous people and the courts have emphasized that it is important to examine whether violence risk assessment tools are valid and appropriate for Indigenous youth. However, studies are scarce. Therefore, we examined the predictive validity of youth probation officers’ SAVRY ratings for 744 Canadian youth, including 299 Indigenous youth (219 male, 80 female), and 445 Caucasian youth (357 male, 88 female) in a prospective field study. The SAVRY summary risk ratings and risk total scores significantly predicted violent and any reoffending for Indigenous female and male youth with medium effect sizes. Relatively few significant differences in the predictive validity emerged for Indigenous and Caucasian youth. However, Historical, Protective, and Risk Total scores predicted any recidivism better for Caucasian males than Indigenous males. Also, Indigenous youth scored significantly higher on all risk domains than Caucasian youth. Opposite to predictions, the rates of false positives were higher for Caucasian youth than for Indigenous youth. Based on the results, the SAVRY appears to be a reasonable tool to use for assessing risk in youth who are Indigenous. However, assessors should take steps to ensure that they use the SAVRY in a culturally appropriate manner, such as considering cultural factors in case formulations and treatment planning as the SAVRY does not ground assessments in an understanding of factors such as colonialism. In addition, future research should examine culturally salient risk factors (e.g., discrimination) and examine potential causes of higher risk scores in Indigenous youth, particularly the role of both past and present-day colonialism

Oil palm land conversion in Pará, Brazil, from 2006-2014: evaluating the 2010 Brazilian Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program.

Global models of biophysical suitability for oil palm consistently rank Brazil as having the greatest potential for expansion, with estimates as high as 238 Mha of suitable lands. In 2010, Brazil launched the Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program (SPOPP) to incentivize oil palm development without deforestation on as much as 30Mha. Here we examine oil palm expansion before and after the SPOPP?s launch. In Par´a, the major oil palm producing state in Brazil, we analyze the extent and change in oil palm cultivation from 2006&#8722;2014 using satellite imagery, ground-truthed verification, site-based interviews, and rural environmental (land) registration data. Between 2006&#8722;2014, oil palm area (&#8805;9 ha) expanded >200% to &#8764;219 000 ha. Of the &#8764;148 000 ha of oil palm developed, &#8764;91% converted pasturelands while &#8764;8% replaced natural vegetation, including intact and secondary forests. Although >80% of all oil palm parcels rest <0.5 km from intact forests, direct conversion of intact forests declined from &#8764;4% pre-SPOPP (2006&#8722;2010) to <1% post-SPOPP (2010&#8722;2014). Despite low and declining deforestation rates associated with oil palm expansion in Par´a, our results also show a low area of oil palm development overall compared with reported land suitability. To explore potential contributing factors, we conducted semi-structured interviews with researchers, company representatives, and government officials involved in the sector to characterize the perceived factors influencing oil palm development and the role of agro-ecological suitability mapping among them. Interviews indicated that: (1) individual effects of suitability mapping efforts to encourage oil palm expansion on cleared areas, i.e. without deforestation, cannot be disentangled from pre-existing public and private deforestation reduction initiatives; and, (2) socio-economic constraints, e.g. high relative production costs and limited familiarity with this crop, appear to partially explain the major discrepancy between estimated potential suitable areas with realized oil palm development