Being safe & taking risks : how a group of nurses managed children's pain : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Nursing at Massey University

A small, grounded theory study was conducted in a children's surgical ward in a large, urban teaching hospital involving registered nurse volunteers. The purpose of the study was to investigate how nurses' deal with children's acute pain. Ten unstructured, but focused in-depth, taped interviews were conducted with five nurses. The constant comparative method as proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Glaser (1978) was used to generate substantive theoretical categories, a core category and basic social process. Analysis revealed that what nurses may want to do and what they can do when managing children's pain is not necessarily the same thing. A number of structural barriers to prompt and effective pain management were identified, such as doctors not always being available to write prescriptions, under prescribing or doctors even refusing to prescribe opioids for children at times. Lack of equipment for delivering continuous analgesic infusions meant that optimal methods could not always be used. The predominant method used was intermittent incremental intravenous doses of morphine, which appeared to provide poor pain control in many cases. The analgesic protocols the nurses were expected to follow were time consuming and impractical when they had several children needing analgesia at once. The nurses' solution to such dilemmas was to still act to relieve pain even when this involved some risk because the nurses' believed that the risk-taking was done responsibly, and that it was more important to promote the child's wellbeing. The types of risks they took included administering several doses of morphine in quick succession without always monitoring for respiratory depression, and altering prescriptions (but not in writing). Being Safe and Taking Risks emerged as a paradoxical core category, which reflected the pattern for the nurses' pain management decision-making and practice. It also emerged that a moral interest (Being Ethical) appeared to direct and connect the nurse's thinking and practice; they tended to do what they considered was in the child's best interests and believed that the benefits outweighed potential harms

The Value of a Note: A Finding Aid Usability Study

Finding aids have long been an essential part of archivists’ work. To create a finding aid is to create a surrogate of an archival collection. Multiple levels of description are used to distill information about the unique groupings and parts of a collection and to place its content into context. Archivists make decisions about what to include in a finding aid based on their own judgment as trained professionals, but also with the intent to create a finding aid that will be genuinely helpful to researchers. Indeed, as the revised principles of Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) state: “Users are the fundamental reason for archival description… To make wise choices about descriptive practices, archivists must develop and maintain an awareness of user needs and behaviors.” The practical challenge facing archivists is knowing what users will find helpful. Although archivists often seek to center users in their processes of description, these efforts are often based on guesses concerning what users will find useful. Very little research has been done to understand how users read and navigate archival description; there is a distinct disconnect between the intention of centering users and carrying out usability or user studies to under user needs. This study is intended to advance our understanding on this matter, responding to two questions: Do researchers use collection or series level notes valued by archivists, such as scope and content and arrangement notes, in order to understand what is in a collection? Or, do users rely mostly on information found at lower levels, describing what might be in a single file or the content of a single item? And, working in the post MPLP context, if granular description is not available in a finding aid, are users able to ascertain what is in a collection and if it is relevant to their search

A Case Study Approach for Assessing Operational and Silvicultural Performance of Whole-Tree Biomass Harvesting in Maine

In the Northeastern United States, re-emerging markets for renewable energy are driving interest in increasing the harvest of underutilized biomass material from Maine’s forest. These markets may offer opportunities for forest managers to implement silvicultural treatments that have previously been foregone due to their high cost. However, many operational challenges arise in using current harvesting systems to harvest biomass material profitably while simultaneously achieving silvicultrual objectives. This research uses a case study approach to analyzing some of the possibilities and obstacles in implementing biomass harvesting in Maine. The first three studies investigate a factorial silvicultural and operational case study involving whole-tree biomass harvesting in conjunction with herbicide injection. The first study investigated the use of combined biomass harvesting and herbicide treatment as a means of rehabilitating northern hardwood stands dominated by dense understory thickets of small diameter American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) and striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum L.). Prior to being harvested, a portion of beech and striped maple trees were treated using glyphosate stem injection as a means of controlling post harvest regeneration. Efficacy of the herbicide treatment was evaluated the first growing season after harvesting. During the harvest operation, a second study evaluated the productivity and impact of the feller-buncher using two trail spacings to determine if operational efficiency could be increased. A third study was carried out after the harvest to quantify and evaluate the damage inflicted by the operation at each trail spacing. A related case study was then conducted that attempted to develop an organized methodology for analyzing and improving the long-term efficiency of whole-tree harvest operations using statistical process control (SPC) in order to better evaluate the long-term impacts of modifying harvesting systems. The methodology was developed using actual operation data collected on several whole-tree system machines used throughout Maine. Results from the combined herbicide injection and biomass harvest case study indicated that whole-tree harvesting could utilize most of the beech and striped maple component of the stand while also effectively controlling the density of post-harvest beech regeneration. The harvest study found that feller-buncher productivity was not significantly different when operating at either of the two trail spacings; however, a tradeoff was found between efficient bunching and bunching frequency, with the narrower trail spacing using less time per bunch but requiring more bunches to be produced. Trail occupancy levels resulting from use of the narrower trail spacing were considerable, which could pose potential difficulties in future management. However, the frequency and patter of damage to the residual trees caused by the harvest operation was not significantly different between the two trail spacings. The second case study demonstrated that Statistical Process Control could offer a unique perspective on evaluating operational variability and showed great potential as a tool for improving forest harvesting processes. The study revealed several challenges in applying this approach to whole-tree harvesting operations. These challenges are primarily related to how operational data is collected and organized, and how the underlying causes of variation are interpreted

Conversion Casting: Adapter Hub

The concept of conversion casting makes manufacturing major components much more efficient with regards to time and cost. The conversion cast of the adapter hub used in the Victair Mistifier is a major component that requires 8 hours to machine. The existing hub starts from steel stock and then that block of steel is placed into a CNC machine and coded in to create the adapter hub. The manufacturing method changes to a casting for the adapter hub will create a replicated part that requires 1.5 hours of post machining. The intricate design makes a conversion to casting more effective in reducing time and costs, because the cast part will be near-net shape. The original design was redesigned to be castable with the addition of casting components onto a pattern bed to create a match plate. In order to make this project economical and the final product as close to the net design of the adapter hub, shrinkage of the material was placed into consideration and casting formulas were used to create the smallest gating system as possible. Draft angles were added to all faces of the adapter hub design and filleted edges around the overall design were added for easy removal from the casting flask. This process reduces time and costs by $157 while also providing H.F. Hauff, manufacturer of the Victair Mistifier, the ability the mass produce a critical component of their most sold product. This in turn should lead to reduced costs for their customers

Workers' perceptions of industry, and their commitment to their union

In the field of industrial sociology, little research has been done which views industry and the organisations associated with it, from the worker's perspective. There is agreement among those associated with the field in this country, that very little is known about the attitudes, perceptions and expectations that the New Zealand industrial worker has of industry, employer and job. It is important that research be done on the worker's views, since this would establish a better basis for our industrial relations policy. The present research was designed as an exploratory study, to examine workers' perceptions of their industry, their relationship with their employer, and their union. Essentially, there were two specific points considered. The first was an examination of the adequacy of Marxian theory as an explanation for the relationship that exists between employer and worker in the New Zealand industrial setting. The second was a preliminary analysis of the validity of a model, which attempts to predict the commitment of workers to their union, on the basis of certain preconditions which are outlined as a series of five stages. The research consisted of interviews with workers sampled from two unions in the Christchurch area. The analysis of the data did not use any sophisticated statistical techniques, since these were not appropriate for a preliminary study, or the size of the sample involved. The conclusions reached on the first point were, that although these workers do display certain characteristics that would be expected on the basis of a Marxian perspective, they also have other characteristics (notably an awareness of the interdependence of worker and employer), which Marxian theory cannot explain adequately. With regard to the model, the trends that it predicts definitely occur in this data, but the model does not account for all factors affecting the commitment of union members. It needs refinement and further, more rigorous, testing, before any final conclusion can be reached regarding its validity. As is appropriate for an exploratory study, a considerable number of suggestions for further research have been generated

Domain specific transfer learning using image mixing and stochastic image selection

Can a gradual transition from the source to the target dataset improve knowledge transfer when fine-tuning a convolutional neural network to a new domain? Can we use training examples from general image datasets to improve classification on fine-grained datasets? We present two image similarity metrics and two methods for progressively transitioning from the source dataset to the target dataset when fine-tuning to a new domain. Preliminary results, using the Flowers 102 dataset, show that the first proposed method, stochastic domain subset training, gives an improvement in classification accuracy compared to standard fine-tuning, for one of the two similarity metrics. However, the second method, continuous domain subset training, results in a reduction in classification performance

Comparison of Processing Consistency Between Television Station Processors and Professional Film Laboratories as Measured by Density and Color Characteristics of Vnf Color Control Strips

Curriculum and Instructio

Parental Perspective: Toddlers with Clefts Using Touch Screen Technology

This investigation assessed the parental perspectives of parents of toddlers with cleft lip and palate and their use of touchscreen technology. Findings will highlight parental perspectives on touchscreen technology in early intervention with their toddler

Forest Biomass Harvesting in the Northeast: A Special-Needs Operation?

There is growing interest in harvesting forest biomass to meet the needs of bioenergy and bioproducts facilities in the Northeast. This interest is accompanied by increased concern over the potential impacts of biomass removals on forest ecosystems. Debates over biomass proposals have revealed a considerable level of confusion over the term biomass harvest, much of which stems from ambiguity surrounding the term forest biomass. Indeed, all forest material removed during harvest is forest biomass, yet many view only a small portion of this—typically low-value chipped material—as biomass. Since much of this material is destined for use as energy, we feel that communication among the public, foresters, academics, and industry representatives would improve by referring to forest biomass of this nature as what it really is: energy wood. Once terms are clarified, it is easier to understand how concerns with market dynamics, soil productivity, water quality, and forest biodiversity can be addressed through forest policy development

Inflammatory fibroid polyp (Vanek's tumour), an unusual large polyp of the jejunum: a case report

We report the case of a 46-year-old man who presented with recurrent episodes of severe upper abdominal pain over a period of three months. A computerized tomography scan of his abdomen demonstrated a large non-obstructing jejunal mass. He underwent laparotomy and resection of a 13.5 cm tumour from the distal jejunum. Histopathological examination confirmed a large inflammatory fibroid polyp of the jejunum. The clinical presentation and microscopic features are discussed