Knowledge elicitation solutions for improving performance and efficiency

Despite advances in mechanisation and automation processes, mining remains a people intensive industry, a large proportion of whom are responsible for operating and maintaining mining equipment under conditions that challenge even the most experienced people. Mining techniques, equipment designs and the work environment are constantly evolving and changing, imposing new demands on the technical competence of workers. With the trend towards global mining companies and ease of international travel, the workforce of the future may well encompass social and cultural changes that need to be addressed. The system of work rosters used by mine sites adds a further element of change to the situation, all of which contribute to the potential for unwanted events during normal operation

Description of a Relationship Focused Mother-Infant Group Program: Mother-Baby Nurture

Mother-Baby Nurture is an innovative group program that focusses on strengthening the mother-infant relationship through enhancing reflective capacity within mothers and their infants. We describe the unique combination of the features that are central to this program and present comparisons with other early parenting interventions. Infancy is a unique period of acute developmental vulnerability and dependence on a caregiver. As the caregiver is the critical regulator between infant and their environment, disturbances in the caregiver-infant relationship have heightened potential to interfere in the infant’s developmental trajectory and lifelong wellbeing. Mother-Baby Nurture is a 10-week targeted group program that is currently being implemented in Western Australia, for infants and their mothers experiencing relational or emotional distress. This program provides an emotionally containing space for a mother and her infant to explore mental states. We foster curiosity in the thoughts, feelings, and behaviour (of the baby, the mother, and others), as well as reflection on attachment relationships (past and present). This therapeutic approach shares common ground with parent-infant psychotherapy and mentalization-based treatment, and is informed by attachment theory and the neurobiological science of infant development

Audio-visual integration during overt visual attention

How do different sources of information arising from different modalities interact to control where we look? To answer this question with respect to real-world operational conditions we presented natural images and spatially localized sounds in (V)isual, Audio-visual (AV) and (A)uditory conditions and measured subjects' eye-movements. Our results demonstrate that eye-movements in AV conditions are spatially biased towards the part of the image corresponding to the sound source. Interestingly, this spatial bias is dependent on the probability of a given image region to be fixated (saliency) in the V condition. This indicates that fixation behaviour during the AV conditions is the result of an integration process. Regression analysis shows that this integration is best accounted for by a linear combination of unimodal saliencies

Help on the spot: online assistance for writing scientific English

Publishing in English represents a major challenge for non-native speakers (NNS) of English since they face the dual requirements of producing good quality research and presenting it in good quality English. Many NNS researchers learn how to write scientific English in a haphazard way, and few receive specific formal training in this field. This leads to misunderstandings on their part about how to write scientific English and what actually constitutes a reliable model to be imitated. Guidance exists in the form of style manuals and published writing courses, but these may prove unwieldy and too time-consuming to consult. We therefore sought to develop a dragand droppable form of online assistance in which NNS researchers’ initial drafts are processed didactically as models

Reducing attendances and waits in emergency departments : a systematic review of present innovations

Reducing the waits in emergency departments is important for patients and is a government priority. In order to reduce waits the whole system must be considered. The flow of patients before arrival at the emergency department determines the workload of the department. The staffing, resources and systems within the emergency department are key to providing high quality timely care. The flow of patients after leaving the emergency department until their return home will determine whether they can be discharged from the department in a timely manner. Despite the present focus on emergency care in the NHS there have been no reviews of the literature to inform the present changes to reduce waits

Identification of Plasmodium falciparum var1CSA and var2CSA domains that bind IgM natural antibodies

Malaria in pregnancy is responsible for maternal anaemia, low-birth-weight babies and infant deaths. Plasmodium falciparum infected erythrocytes are thought to cause placental pathology by adhering to host receptors such as chondroitin sulphate A (CSA). CSA binding infected erythrocytes also bind IgM natural antibodies from normal human serum, a process that may facilitate placental adhesion or promote immune evasion. The parasite ligands that mediate placental adhesion are thought to be members of the variant erythrocyte surface antigen family P. falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1), encoded by the var genes. Two var gene sub-families, var1CSA and var2CSA, have been identified as parasite CSA binding ligands and are leading candidates for a vaccine to prevent pregnancy-associated malaria. We investigated whether these two var gene subfamilies implicated in CSA binding are also the molecules responsible for IgM natural antibody binding. By heterologous expression of domains in COS-7 cells, we found that both var1CSA and var2CSA PfEMP1 variants bound IgM, and in both cases the binding region was a DBL epsilon domain occurring proximal to the membrane. None of the domains from a control non-IgM-binding parasite (R29) bound IgM when expressed in COS-7 cells. These results show that PfEMP1 is a parasite ligand for non-immune IgM and are the first demonstration of a specific adhesive function for PfEMP1 epsilon type domains

Leading co-production in five UK collaborative research partnerships (2008–2018): responses to four tensions from senior leaders using auto-ethnography

Background: Despite growing enthusiasm for co-production in healthcare services and research, research on co-production practices is lacking. Multiple frameworks, guidelines and principles are available but little empirical research is conducted on ‘how to do’ co-production of research to improve healthcare services. This paper brings together insights from UK-based collaborative research partnerships on leading co-production. Its aim is to inform practical guidance for new partnerships planning to facilitate the co-production of applied health research in the future. Methods: Using an auto-ethnographic approach, experiential evidence was elicited through collective sense making from recorded conversations between the research team and senior leaders of five UK-based collaborative research partnerships. This approach applies a cultural analysis and interpretation of the leaders’ behaviours, thoughts and experiences of co-production taking place in 2008–2018 and involving academics, health practitioners, policy makers and representatives of third sector organisations. Results: The findings highlight a variety of practices across CLAHRCs, whereby the intersection between the senior leaders’ vision and local organisational context in which co-production occurs largely determines the nature of co-production process and outcomes. We identified four tensions in doing co-production: (1) idealistic, tokenistic vs realistic narratives, (2) power differences and (lack of) reciprocity, (3) excluding vs including language and communication, (4) individual motivation vs structural issues. Conclusions: The tensions were productive in helping collaborative research partnerships to tailor co-production practices to their local needs and opportunities. Resulting variation in co-production practices across partnerships can therefore be seen as highly advantageous creative adaptation, which makes us question the utility of seeking a unified ‘gold standard’ of co-production. Strategic leadership is an important starting point for finding context-tailored solutions; however, development of more distributed forms of leadership over time is needed to facilitate co-production practices between partners. Facilitating structures for co-production can enable power sharing and boost capacity and capability building, resulting in more inclusive language and communication and, ultimately, more credible practices of co-production in research. We provide recommendations for creating more realistic narratives around co-production and facilitating power sharing between partners

Assessing and Strengthening African Universities' Capacity for Doctoral Programmes

Imelda Bates and colleagues developed and validated an evidence-based tool for evaluating doctoral programmes in African universities

Leading co-production in five UK collaborative research partnerships (2008-2018): responses to four tensions from senior leaders using auto-ethnography

BackgroundDespite growing enthusiasm for co-production in healthcare services and research, research on co-production practices is lacking. Multiple frameworks, guidelines and principles are available but little empirical research is conducted on ‘how to do’ co-production of research to improve healthcare services. This paper brings together insights from UK-based collaborative research partnerships on leading co-production. Its aim is to inform practical guidance for new partnerships planning to facilitate the co-production of applied health research in the future. MethodsUsing an auto-ethnographic approach, experiential evidence was elicited through collective sense making from recorded conversations between the research team and senior leaders of five UK-based collaborative research partnerships. This approach applies a cultural analysis and interpretation of the leaders’ behaviours, thoughts, and experiences of co-production taking place in 2008-2018 and involving academics, health practitioners, policy makers, and representatives of third sector organisations. ResultsThe findings highlight a variety of practices across CLAHRCs, whereby the intersection between the senior leaders’ vision and local organisational context in which co-production occurs largely determines the nature of co-production process and outcomes. We identified four tensions in doing co-production: 1) idealistic, tokenistic vs realistic narratives, 2) power differences and (lack of) reciprocity, 3) excluding vs including language and communication, 4) individual motivation vs structural issues.ConclusionsThe tensions were productive in helping collaborative research partnerships to tailor co-production practices to their local needs and opportunities. Resulting variation in co-production practices across partnerships can therefore be seen as highly advantageous creative adaptation, which makes us question the utility of seeking a unified ‘gold standard’ of co-production. Strategic leadership is an important starting point for finding context-tailored solutions; however, development of more distributed forms of leadership over time is needed to facilitate co-production practices between partners. Facilitating structures for co-production can enable power sharing and boost capacity and capability building, resulting in more inclusive language and communication and, ultimately, more credible practices of co-production in research. We provide recommendations for creating more realistic narratives around co-production and facilitating power sharing between partners