Measuring progress towards the application of freedom of association and collective bargaining rights: A tabular presentation of the findings of the ILO supervisory system

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.ILO_MeasuringProgressTowardApplicationofFreedomofAssociation_CollectiveBargainingRights.pdf: 636 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Compassion in emergency departments. Part 1: nursing students’ perspectives

Compassion is a topical issue in clinical nursing practice, nurse education and policy, but a review of the literature reveals that nursing students’ experiences of compassionate care receives little attention. In this three-part series David Hunter and colleagues explore compassion in emergency departments (EDs) from nursing students’ point of view. Part one provides findings of a professional doctorate study of nursing students’ experiences of compassionate care in EDs, part two explores the barriers to compassionate care in this clinical setting that emerged from the study, and part three considers factors that enable and support compassionate care provision in EDs. Aim: The aim of the study was to explore nursing students’ experiences of the provision of compassionate care in EDs. Method: The underpinning methodology was an exploratory-descriptive qualitative design. A total of 15 nursing students from across the west of Scotland, who had been placed in eight different EDs, participated in face-to-face interviews which were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed. Findings: Two major themes emerged ‘doing the little things’ and ‘a strange, new world: the uniqueness of the ED’. The students also identified barriers and enablers to providing compassionate care which are discussed in parts two and three. Conclusion: Despite the challenges of working in the most acute of clinical settings, nurses can provide compassionate care to patients and their relatives. However, this is not universal because certain groups of patients considered ‘challenging’ do not receive equitable compassionate care

Defining Exploratory-Descriptive Qualitative (EDQ) research and considering its application to healthcare

No abstract available

Compassion in the emergency department. Part 3: enabling and supporting the delivery of compassionate care

In the final part of this three-part series, David Hunter and colleagues analyse the factors that enable and support delivery of compassionate care in emergency departments (EDs). Part one reported findings from doctoral-level research that explored nursing students' experiences of compassionate care in EDs, while part two considered the barriers to such care identified by the students. This article highlights and celebrates the ways in which emergency nurses provide compassionate care despite the challenges they face

Detection thresholds of macaque otolith afferents

The vestibular system is our sixth sense and is important for spatial perception functions, yet the sensory detection and discrimination properties of vestibular neurons remain relatively unexplored. Here we have used signal detection theory to measure detection thresholds of otolith afferents using 1 Hz linear accelerations delivered along three cardinal axes. Direction detection thresholds were measured by comparing mean firing rates centered on response peak and trough (full-cycle thresholds) or by comparing peak/trough firing rates with spontaneous activity (half-cycle thresholds). Thresholds were similar for utricular and saccular afferents, as well as for lateral, fore/aft, and vertical motion directions. When computed along the preferred direction, full-cycle direction detection thresholds were 7.54 and 3.01 cm/s(2) for regular and irregular firing otolith afferents, respectively. Half-cycle thresholds were approximately double, with excitatory thresholds being half as large as inhibitory thresholds. The variability in threshold among afferents was directly related to neuronal gain and did not depend on spike count variance. The exact threshold values depended on both the time window used for spike count analysis and the filtering method used to calculate mean firing rate, although differences between regular and irregular afferent thresholds were independent of analysis parameters. The fact that minimum thresholds measured in macaque otolith afferents are of the same order of magnitude as human behavioral thresholds suggests that the vestibular periphery might determine the limit on our ability to detect or discriminate small differences in head movement, with little noise added during downstream processing

Moment-based analysis of biochemical networks in a heterogeneous population of communicating cells

Cells can utilize chemical communication to exchange information and coordinate their behavior in the presence of noise. Communication can reduce noise to shape a collective response, or amplify noise to generate distinct phenotypic subpopulations. Here we discuss a moment-based approach to study how cell-cell communication affects noise in biochemical networks that arises from both intrinsic and extrinsic sources. We derive a system of approximate differential equations that captures lower-order moments of a population of cells, which communicate by secreting and sensing a diffusing molecule. Since the number of obtained equations grows combinatorially with number of considered cells, we employ a previously proposed model reduction technique, which exploits symmetries in the underlying moment dynamics. Importantly, the number of equations obtained in this way is independent of the number of considered cells such that the method scales to arbitrary population sizes. Based on this approach, we study how cell-cell communication affects population variability in several biochemical networks. Moreover, we analyze the accuracy and computational efficiency of the moment-based approximation by comparing it with moments obtained from stochastic simulations.Comment: 6 pages, 5 Figure

Defining Exploratory-Descriptive Qualitative (EDQ) research and considering its application to healthcare.

This article aims to introduce readers to a distinctive approach to health research when the topic under investigation has received little previous attention. It provides details of the theoretical underpinnings of the methodology, as well as providing recommendations regarding the practicalities of its use. To address a specific research aim, the primary author believed that an exploratory descriptive qualitative approach was the most suitable. A subsequent review of the relevant literature identified a number of published research articles, which claimed to use an "exploratory descriptive qualitative" design. Closer inspection revealed that these papers lacked theoretical underpinning. As a result, the authors created a conceptual framework, underpinned by appropriate theory, to support the use of an exploratory descriptive qualitative approach. We refer to this approach as EDQ and argue that there is a place in health research when it is deemed the most appropriate methodology to achieve the aims of a study

Coca Industrialization: A Path to Innovation, Development, and Peace in Colombia

For decades, Colombia has faced the challenge of promoting economic development and peace in its coca growing regions while quelling the flow of coca for unlawful purposes. During this time, the country has rarely considered promoting economic development with coca, partly because national and international frameworks and policies have written off coca growers as one of the main drivers of the drug trade.The 2016 peace agreement marked the first significant shift towards a paradigm that prioritizes human rights, rural development, and local governance in the issue of coca. Within the context of the provisions of the peace accord, concrete policy innovations were introduced in 2017. The National Training Service (SENA), a government entity in charge of offering vocational training in vulnerable communities, a peacebuilding organization, and members of the Lerma coca-growing community formed a partnership that became the key to success in advancing policy reform.Coca Industrialization: A Path to Innovation, Development, and Peace in Colombia presents coca as an agricultural product with ample industrialization opportunities that fit within the existing national and international legal arrangements. This report explores coca's diverse potential in applications as varied as nutrition, natural medicine, personal care, and agro-industry—as well as coca's historical cultural uses.The report suggests seeing the coca plant (Erythroxylum spp) as an agricultural product for lawful uses as well as the challenges and opportunities that have influenced industrialization. It proposes building a coca leaf industry that  guarantees a sound income for farmers; provides good quality, sustainable raw materials for manufacturers; and ensures traceability, and control across the supply chain, with adherence to international laws.Coca Industrialization explores the potential that the coca leaf holds and sets out the parameters for a system that could significantly expand coca industrialization in a manner that makes the most of its social, political, economic, and environmental benefits