Linkage of social care and hospital admissions data to explore non-delivery of planned home care for older people in Scotland

Purpose: As part of a pilot study assessing the feasibility of record-linking health and social care data, we examined patterns of non-delivery of home care among older clients (>65 years) of a social home care provider in Glasgow, Scotland. We also assessed whether non-delivery was associated with subsequent emergency hospital admission. Design: After obtaining appropriate permissions, the electronic records of all home care clients were linked to a hospital inpatient database and anonymised. Data on home care plans were collated for 4,815 older non-hospitalised clients, and non-delivered visits examined. Using case-control methodology, those who had an emergency hospital admission in the next calendar month were identified (n=586), along with age and sex-matched controls, to determine whether non-delivery was a risk factor for hospital admission. Findings: There were 4,170 instances of ‘No Access’ non-delivery among 1,411 people, and 960 instances of ‘Service Refusal’ non-delivery among 427 people. The median number of undelivered visits was two among the one third of clients who did not receive all their planned care. There were independent associations between being male and living alone, and non-delivery, while increasing age was associated with a decreased likelihood of non-delivery. Having any undelivered home care was associated with an increased risk of emergency hospital admission, but this could be due to uncontrolled confounding. Research Implications: This study demonstrates untapped potential for innovative research into the quality of social care and effects on health outcomes. Practical Implications: Non-delivery of planned home care, for whatever reason, is associated with emergency hospital admission; this could be a useful indicator of vulnerable clients needing increased surveillance

World-making and un-doing: looking at minor cultural forms through moving image practice

World-making and Un-doing: Looking at minor cultural forms through moving image practice, examines how contemporary artistic practice - particularly artists’ moving image - can function as a unique and productive site within which to explore the ‘world-making’ capacity of certain objects. These include photographic postcards and woven tourist items; ‘minor’ cultural objects which combine aspects of representation, technology, memorialisation, and militarism in material form. This PhD takes the concept of ‘world-making’ to be broadly understood as attempts to “imagine, shape, revise, control, and articulate the dimensions of the world” to master it, through the employment of current theories of modernity. World-making, in this sense, is bound-up with acts of observation, measuring, naming, and re-naming: and with the technologies which enable these processes of mastery, such as photography. World-making is also connected to practices that inform and dictate how (modern) people engage with the world, such as tourism and the military: large-scale industries with global reach. In this practice-based research, “un-doing” has been considered as a strategy, act, or approach that dismantles or disassembles human-made constructs. Whether in relation to a physical object or a concept, the process of un-doing is intended to stop such constructs from functioning in the manner intended by their makers, and to reveal their constituting elements. My research draws on theories concerning the ontology of the photograph (Roland Barthes) and of photography (Susan Sontag); the use of the ‘still’ photograph in moving image practice (Raymond Bellour, Volker Patenburg); its relationship to the employment of suture (Jacques-Alain Miller) and forms of collage. In exploring minor forms of representation in relation to militarism (Teresia Teaiwa), in addition to the photographic postcard, this project is informed by the historic and contemporary deployment of textiles (Julia Bryan-Wilson, Elizabeth Barber). My thesis considers the work of filmmakers who explicitly use the photograph in their films (Jean-Luc Goddard, Harun Farocki), artists working across analogue and digital photography (Simon Starling and Moyra Davey), and practices of undoing (William Pope.L) and puts their work into critical dialogue with my own. Each chapter of the thesis anchors and informs the three main artworks which I have produced as practice-based research: Mean Time (2020) is a nine-minute film with sound that considers photography as a product of looking at, and thinking about, the world, prefigured on separating or shuttering it – thus questioning the (modern) apprehension of the world as divisible. Mean Time suggests that minor forms of photography, such as the postcard, have the potential to access undertheorized and overlooked connections, related to our understanding of historic or global events. The film uses the postcard to reflect on the observer and the camera in motion, mobilised across time zones and other invisible ‘world-making’ lines. The solo exhibition Parataxis (2021) comprises two works; a digital collage, manifest as a limited-edition hand-pulled printed textile titled, Revolution is a Living Language, and, Looking and Being Overlooked, a silent 20-minute looped video. These works are the result of a commission (from Centre for Research Collections; University of Edinburgh, and the A.G. Leventis Foundation; Greece) to explore the temporal overlap of the Greek Revolution of 1821 with Enlightenment discourse in Edinburgh. Parataxis foregrounds female experiences and contributions relative to the exhibition themes by bringing particular ‘overlooked’ figures, symbols, and structures into assembly, in an attempt to conceptually and physically undo dominant narratives and images. Apparent Time (2022) is an 11-minute film with sound, formed from a handful of photographs, footage of the un-doing of a piece of woven fabric, and the erasure of a tattoo. Whereas Mean Time uses an array of mass-produced photographic postcards, as visual interdictions and allusions to movements, through acts of travel and scanning, Apparent Time focuses attention on static or fixed positions to enable telescopic views of time and events. The film’s central subject is a photograph titled, 'Photo 9 - Boat on spot where Elugelab once stood, now a crater, 1972’ taken in Enewetak Atoll, in the Marshal Islands, 20 years after the nuclear device ‘Mike’ was detonated there, completely vaporising the island of Elugelab

Measurements of the Young’s modulus of hydroxide catalysis bonds, and the effect on thermal noise in ground-based gravitational wave detectors

With the outstanding results from the detection and observation of gravitational waves from coalescing black holes and neutron star inspirals, it is essential that pathways to further improve the sensitivities of the LIGO and VIRGO detectors are explored. There are a number of factors that potentially limit the sensitivities of the detectors. One such factor is thermal noise, a component of which results from the mechanical loss in the bond material between the silica fibre suspensions and the test mass mirrors. To calculate its magnitude, the Young’s modulus of the bond material has to be known with reasonable accuracy. In this paper we present a new combination of ultrasonic technology and Bayesian analysis to measure the Young’s modulus of hydroxide catalysis bonds between fused silica substrates. Using this novel technique, we measure the bond Young’s modulus to be 18.5 ± 2.0 2.3     GPa . We show that by applying this value to thermal noise models of bonded test masses with suitable attachment geometries, a reduction in suspension thermal noise consistent with an overall design sensitivity improvement allows a factor of 5 increase in event rate to be achieved

Valuing what clients think: standardized clients and the assessment of communicative competence

An international and interdisciplinary team from the Glasgow Graduate School of Law (GGSL) and the Dundee Medical School - in Scotland - and the Georgia State University College of Law (GSU) - in the United States - has undertaken an ambitious project to change the way lawyer-client communication skills are taught and assessed. Medical education in both America and Great Britain has been transformed by a new methodology for assessing competence in patient communication: the use of intensively-trained lay persons who present standardized patient scenarios to medical candidates and then assess the candidates' performance. GGSL is the site for a series of pilot projects testing whether a similar methodology using standardized clients (SCs) would be as valid, reliable and cost-effective as the current GGSL approach, which is widely used by many law schools, of having client roles played by students with assessment based on law teacher review of the interview videotape. These projects culminated in January 2006 with a graded interviewing exercise that GGSL students must pass in order eventually to he eligible for a law license. Over 250 GGSL students conducted this exercise with SCs, and the SC assessments were analyzed and com- pared with law teachers' evaluations of the interview videotapes. The results strongly indicated that assessment by SCs was sufficiently valid and reliable to be used for a high-stakes examination in legal education. As a direct result of this project, the way lawyer skills are taught and assessed is undergoing fundamental change not only at GGSL but elsewhere in Great Britain

Mixed metal nanoparticle assembly and the effect on surface enhanced raman scattering

Here we report the assembly of mixed metal nanoparticles using an oligonucleotide-templated approach. Substitution of one of the gold nanoparticle probes with an analagous silver probe to produce a hetero-metal duplex permitted surface enhanced Raman scattering of the dye label, exploiting the improved surface enhancement properties of silver nanoparticles whilst maintaining the surface chemistry benefits of gold nanoaprticle

A career in sport does not eliminate risk of cardiovascular disease; A systematic review and meta-analysis of the cardiovascular health of field-based athletes

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in current field-based athletes. Design: Meta-analysis. Methods: This review was conducted and reported in accordance with PRISMA and pre-registered with PROSPERO. Articles were retrieved via online database search engines, with no date or language restriction. Studies investigating current field-based athletes (>18years) for CVD risk factors according to the European Society of Cardiology and American Heart Association were screened. Full texts were screened using Covidence and Cochrane criteria. Eligible articles were critically appraised using the AXIS tool. Individual study estimates were assessed by random-effect meta-analyses to examine the overall effect. Results: This study was ascribed a 1b evidence level, according to the Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine. 41 studies were identified, including 5,546 athletes from four sports; American football; soccer; rugby and baseball (mean ages:18-28). Despite participation in sport, increased body mass was associated with increased total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, hypertension, systolic blood pressure, and decreased high-density lipoprotein. Linemen had increased prevalence of hypertension compared to non-athletes. Conflicting findings on fasting glucose were prevalent. There were inconsistencies in screening and reporting of CVD risk factors. Sport specific anthropometric demands were associated with elevated prevalence of CVD risk factors, most notably: elevated body mass; dyslipidemia; elevated systolic blood pressure and; glucose Conclusions: There are elevated levels of risk for CVD in some athletes, primarily football players. Lifestyle behaviours associated with elite athleticism, particularly football linemen potentially expose players to greater metabolic and CVD risk, which is not completely offset by sport participation

Providing Access for Students with Moderate Disabilities: An Evaluation of a Professional Development Program at a Catholic Elementary School

After a significant policy change led to the admittance of students with moderate disabilities, St. Agnes School (SAS; pseudonym)—a Catholic PK-8 school in Southern California—implemented an 18-month professional development (PD) program to improve teachers’ inclusive classroom practices. Grounded in the theoretical framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL; Center for Applied Special Technology, 2015b), the PD program included cyclical, one-on-one instructional coaching sessions that were led by trained UDL coaches and consisted of lesson demonstrations and personalized feedback. While SAS teachers held state credentials, most had very little training to work with students with special needs prior to this PD; the purpose of this study was to evaluate the UDL PD program at SAS in terms of its impact on teachers’ instructional practices and students’ engagement in the classroom. Data from one-on-one interviews and classroom observations were analyzed using evaluation coding (Patton, 2002, 2008; Rallis & Rossman, 2003; Saldana, 2013) and findings revealed improvements in classroom instruction and student engagement for teachers who embraced the framework. Administrative and programmatic challenges that emerged over the course of the program and teachers’ hope for a long term shift toward professional learning communities among faculty and staff are discussed. Acceso a estudiantes con discapacidades moderadas: evaluación de un programa de desarrollo profesional en una escuela elemental católica Después de que un cambio normativo significativo permitiera la admisión de estudiantes con discapacidades moderadas, St. Agnes School (SAS), una escuela católica de pre-kínder a 8o del sur de California, implementó un programa de desarrollo profesional (DP) de 18 meses para mejorar las prácticas inclusivas en el aula de los profesores. Basados en el marco teórico del Diseño Universal de Aprendizaje (UDL, Universal Design for Learning, Center for Applied Special Technology, 2015b), el programa DP incluyó sesiones cíclicas de instrucción personal, lideradas por especialistas en formación UDL que consistían en demostraciones de lecciones y comentarios personalizados. Aunque los profesores de SAS tenían credenciales estatales, la mayoría no había recibido formación para trabajar con estudiantes con necesidades especiales antes de este DP. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar el programa de DP de UDL en SAS en cuanto a su impacto en las prácticas de instrucción del profesorado y la participación de los estudiantes en el aula. Se analizó la información de las entrevistas personalizadas y las observaciones de clase utilizando la codificación de la evaluación (Patton, 2002, 2008, Rallis & Rossman, 2003, Salana, 2013). Los resultados revelaron mejoras en la instrucción en el aula y en la participación de los estudiantes para aquellos profesores que adoptaron el marco. Se discuten los retos administrativos y programáticos que emergieron en el transcurso del programa, así como el deseo de los profesores de un cambio a largo plazo hacia comunidades de aprendizaje profesionales entre profesores y personal administrativo. Palabras clave: desarrollo profesional, inclusión, diseño universal del aprendizaje, educación católica Donner accès aux élèves moyennement handicapés : une évaluation d\u27un programme de développement professionnel dans une école catholique primaire Après l\u27admission d\u27élèves moyennement handicapés à la suite d\u27un important changement de politique, l\u27école Sainte Agnès (dont le pseudonyme est SAS), une école catholique de la maternelle à la 3e dans le sud de la Californie, a mis en œuvre un programme de développement professionnel de 18 mois pour que les enseignants améliorent leurs pratiques d\u27inclusion en classe. Ce programme, ancré dans le cadre théorique de l\u27Universal Design for Learning (concept universel d\u27apprentissage), (UDL ; Centre de technologies appliquée, 2015b), comprenait des séances de formation pédagogique en tête à tête, dirigées par des animateurs formés à l\u27UDL, constituées de démonstrations de cours et d\u27un feedback personnalisé. Alors que les enseignants de SAS étaient titulaires de diplômes d\u27État, la plupart étaient peu formés à travailler avec des élèves présentant des besoins particuliers avant ce programme. Cette étude visait à évaluer le programme de développement professionnel de l\u27UDL à SAS par rapport à son impact sur les pratiques pédagogiques des enseignants et la participation des élèves en classe. Des données tirées des entretiens en tête à tête et des observations en classe ont été analysées à l\u27aide d\u27un codage d\u27évaluation (Patton, 2002, 2008; Rallis & Rossman, 2003 ; Saldana, 2013) et les conclusions ont montré des améliorations dans l\u27enseignement dispensé en classe et la participation des élèves pour les enseignants qui ont appliqué le cadre. Les difficultés administratives et programmatiques qui sont apparues pendant le programme et l\u27espoir des enseignants de voir s’opérer un changement à long terme parmi le corps enseignant et le personnel y sont exposés. Mots-clés : développement professionnel, Universal Design for Learning, éducation catholiqu

Understanding the training and education needs of homecare workers supporting people with dementia and cancer: a systematic review of reviews

Many people with dementia, supported by family carers, prefer to live at home and may rely on homecare support services. People with dementia are also often living with multimorbidities, including cancer. The main risk factor for both cancer and dementia is age and the number of people living with dementia and cancer likely to rise. Upskilling the social care workforce to facilitate more complex care is central to national workforce strategies and challenges. Training and education development must also respond to the key requirements of a homecare workforce experiencing financial, recruitment and retention difficulties. This systematic review of reviews provides an overview of dementia and cancer training and education accessible to the homecare workforce. Findings reveal there is a diverse range of training and education available, with mixed evidence of effectiveness. Key barriers and facilitators to effective training and education are identified in order to inform future training, education and learning development for the homecare workforce supporting people with dementia and cancer

On Large Rational Solutions of Cubic Thue Equations: What Thue Did to Pell

In 1659, John Pell and Johann Rahn wrote a text which explained how to find all integer solutions to the quadratic equation u2 - d v2 = 1. In 1909, Axel Thue showed that the cubic equation u3 - d v3 = 1 has finitely many integer solutions, so it remains to examine their rational solutions. We explain how to find large rational solutions i.e., a sequence of rational points (un, vn) which increase without bound as n increases without bound. Such cubic equations are birationally equivalent to elliptic curves of the form y2 = x3 - D. The rational points on an elliptic curve form an abelian group, so a large rational point (u,v) maps to a rational point (x,y) of approximate order 3. Following an idea of Zagier, we explain how to compute such rational points using continued fractions of elliptic logarithms. We divide our discussion into two parts. The first concerns Pell\u27s quadratic equation. We give an informal discussion of the history of the equation, illuminate the relation with the theory of groups, and review known results on properties of integer solutions through the use of continued fractions. The second concerns the more general equation uN - d vN = 1. We explain why N = 3 is the most interesting exponent, present the relation with elliptic curves, and investigate properties of rational solutions through the use of elliptic integrals. This project was completed at Miami University, in Oxford, OH as part of the Summer Undergraduate Mathematical Sciences Institute (SUMSRI)