Being conductor of the orchestra: An exploration of district nursing leadership

Chris McVittie - ORCID 0000-0003-0657-7524 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0657-7524Margaret Smith - ORCID 0000-0003-2944-5348 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2944-5348The purpose of the present study was to gain insight into how district nurses understand their leadership role. Data were generated through interviews and audio-journals and analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Findings suggested that district nurses managing teams and caseloads experienced a burden of responsibility. Being creative problem solvers, they adopted facilitative ways of engaging with patients but directive approaches to team management. District nurses sharing leadership with multidisciplinary colleagues did not appear to experience this burden. Their leadership drew on their facilitative approaches to care-giving. If nurses enabled, rather than directed teams, they could create a context for developing autonomy and growth, easing the burden of responsibility.https://doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2020.25.5.21425pubpub

Big Read: Collaborations Between a University and a Community

University and community partners write about their collaborations around the reading of Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying. When an urban university received a National Endowment of the Arts Big Read Grant, they immediately began making connections to existing key initiatives within the university and in the surrounding community. As the partners collaborated within and among the university and community programs and events created for the Big Read they made multiple discoveries regarding the importance of planning together, analyzing the intended audience for each program and event, including multiple ways to access the text, and considering the ways that readers can personalize the issues, synthesize what they have learned and apply it in discussion or action

Harman and Lorandos’ False Critique of Meier et al.’s Family Court Study

Jennifer Harman and Demosthenes Lorandos purport to have identified numerous methodological flaws in our 2019 study of family court outcomes in cases involving abuse and alienation allegations (“FCO study”; Meier et al., 2019). At least half of the supposed flaws they itemized relate to one claim - that they were unable to access our methods and data. They treat the claimed lack of public access as evidence that our study is unreliable, while speculating about other potential flaws. Yet we note - and they acknowledge - that most of the methodological information they sought was in fact available before publication of their article. This article responds to and refutes Harman and Lorandos’ exaggerated and unfounded condemnation of our study. In addition to pointing out that the claimed lack of information would not be a methodological flaw even if true, we explain that their other criticisms are speculative, incorrect, or insignificant. We appreciate this opportunity to clarify that the important findings of the FCO study are valid and should be taken seriously by the courts and those interested in the fairness and safety of custody decisions when there are allegations of abuse and alienation

Child Custody Outcomes in Cases Involving Parental Alienation and Abuse Allegations

Arguably the most troubling aspect of justice system response to intimate partner violence is custody courts\u27 failure to protect children when mothers allege the father is abusive. Family courts\u27 errors in assessing adult and child abuse, and punitive responses to abuse allegations, have been widely documented. A significant contributor to these errors is the pseudo-scientific theory of parental alienation (PA). Originally termed parental alienation syndrome (PAS), the theory suggests that when mothers allege that a child is not safe with the father, they are doing so illegitimately, to alienate the child from the father. PA labeling often results in dismissal of women\u27s and children\u27s reports of abuse, and sometimes trumps even expert child abuse evaluations. PAS was explicitly based on negative stereotypes of mothers and has been widely discredited. The term parental alienation – while treated as distinct - is still widely used in ways that are virtually identical to PAS. Nonetheless, because PA is nominally gender neutral (and not called a scientific syndrome), it continues to have substantial credibility in court. The first goal of this project was to ascertain whether empirical evidence indicates that parental alienation is, like PAS, gender-biased in practice and outcome. Second, the study sought to explore outcomes in custody/abuse litigation by gender and by differing types of abuse. Analysis of over 2000 court opinions confirms that courts are skeptical of mothers’ claims of abuse by fathers; this skepticism is greatest when mothers claim child abuse. The findings also confirm that fathers’ cross-claims of parental alienation increase (virtually doubling) courts’ rejection of mothers’ abuse claims, and mothers’ losses of custody to the father accused of abuse. In comparing court responses when fathers accuse mothers of abuse, a significant gender difference is identified. Finally, the findings indicate that where Guardians Ad Litem or custody evaluators are appointed, unfavorable outcomes for mothers and gender differences are increased. The study relies solely on electronically available published opinions in child custody cases. It has produced an invaluable database identifying 10 years of published cases involving alienation, abuse and custody, while coding parties’ claims and defenses, outcomes, and other key factors by gender and parental status

The trouble with Harman and Lorandos’s attempted refutation of the Meier et al. Family court study

Harman and Lorandos assert that they have produced a study analyzing custody cases involving alienation allegations, which “disconfirms” the findings from our study of family court out- comes in cases involving abuse and alienation. In addition to pointing out the authors’ misrepresentation and mis-reporting of some of their findings, this Response details a series of profound flaws in their study’s design, dataset construction and variable coding, interpretations and analytic approach, as well as a series of statistical errors. The statistical analyses demonstrate that Harman and Lorandos’s five findings of a gender bias in favor of fathers are not supported by their data; the only statistically significant findings that persist after re-analysis of the correct data are consistent with the Meier et al. study. These pervasive design and methodological errors undermine both the appearance and assertion of rigor in their approach; these problems and the foundational differences in their dataset from our own disqualify their study from serving as any kind of credible test or disconfirmation of our study

A picture is worth a thousand words: developing a common visual literacy amongst first year chemistry students

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND This paper reports on the development and implementation of student-generated submicro drawing questions into a first year chemistry laboratory program. AIMS This study aims are to use student-generated drawings to diagnose alternative conceptions held by first year chemistry students and enhance their understanding of the main concepts covered in each laboratory class. DESCRIPTION OF INTERVENTION Asking students to attempt submicro drawing tasks for assessment purposes first requires the development of a common visual literacy amongst students that helps to build familiarity with such tasks and allows comparable drawings to be produced. Developing a common visual literacy for this study involved students attempting three drawing tasks and watching a short video presentation. The drawing tasks were accompanied by guidelines but still required students to express their understanding of concepts such as molecular geometry, relative sizes of atoms and ions and the interactions between the chemical entities in their diagrams. Students attempted the questions individually before being invited to attempt them again in collaborative groups. DESIGN AND METHODS The participants for this study were first year general chemistry students at a large university in Victoria, Australia. The study compiled preliminary data which involved the collection of over three hundred student-generated drawings produced solely from the imaginations of the participants during week 1 of semester 1, 2013, followed by participant interviews at the end of the semester. A review of the relevant chemistry education literature and the preliminary data were used to develop the drawing tasks and video presentation that introduced students to a common visual literacy during weeks 1 and 2 of semester 1, 2014. Student-generated drawings collected during the preliminary data stage were assessed against criterion developed using a grounded approach which enabled themes to emerge by coding and categorizing the drawings through repetitive comparison. RESULTS Figures 1 – 3 are examples of student-generated drawings and highlight some of the alternative conceptions that can be revealed when students’ are asked to visually express their understanding of how ions interact in an aqueous solution (Figure 1) and in a solid (Figure 2). Students also revealed a number of alternative conceptions relating to water molecules and a difficulty in representing the detail required for solute-solute and solute-solvent interactions to be demonstrated (Figure 3). Figure 1: Drawings not meeting one or more criteria developed for aqueous calcium nitrate Figure 2: Drawings not meeting one or more criteria developed for solid silver chloride Figure 3: Drawings not meeting one or more criteria developed for liquid water CONCLUSIONS This study is situated within a constructivist framework which seeks to understand students’ alternative conceptions and to introduce effective pedagogical approaches that help to engage students in the learning process. Questions that require students to draw submicro diagrams and use them to facilitate a shared understanding with their peers are consistent with the collaborative nature of chemistry and a student-centred approach

Gene expression profiles in the rat streptococcal cell wall-induced arthritis model identified using microarray analysis

Experimental arthritis models are considered valuable tools for delineating mechanisms of inflammation and autoimmune phenomena. Use of microarray-based methods represents a new and challenging approach that allows molecular dissection of complex autoimmune diseases such as arthritis. In order to characterize the temporal gene expression profile in joints from the reactivation model of streptococcal cell wall (SCW)-induced arthritis in Lewis (LEW/N) rats, total RNA was extracted from ankle joints from naïve, SCW injected, or phosphate buffered saline injected animals (time course study) and gene expression was analyzed using Affymetrix oligonucleotide microarray technology (RAE230A). After normalization and statistical analysis of data, 631 differentially expressed genes were sorted into clusters based on their levels and kinetics of expression using Spotfire(® )profile search and K-mean cluster analysis. Microarray-based data for a subset of genes were validated using real-time PCR TaqMan(® )analysis. Analysis of the microarray data identified 631 genes (441 upregulated and 190 downregulated) that were differentially expressed (Delta > 1.8, P < 0.01), showing specific levels and patterns of gene expression. The genes exhibiting the highest fold increase in expression on days -13.8, -13, or 3 were involved in chemotaxis, inflammatory response, cell adhesion and extracellular matrix remodelling. Transcriptome analysis identified 10 upregulated genes (Delta > 5), which have not previously been associated with arthritis pathology and are located in genomic regions associated with autoimmune disease. The majority of the downregulated genes were associated with metabolism, transport and regulation of muscle development. In conclusion, the present study describes the temporal expression of multiple disease-associated genes with potential pathophysiological roles in the reactivation model of SCW-induced arthritis in Lewis (LEW/N) rat. These findings improve our understanding of the molecular events that underlie the pathology in this animal model, which is potentially a valuable comparator to human rheumatoid arthritis (RA)