A comparison of five benchmarks

Five benchmark programs were obtained and run on the NASA Lewis CRAY X-MP/24. A comparison was made between the programs codes and between the methods for calculating performance figures. Several multitasking jobs were run to gain experience in how parallel performance is measured

Putting you in the picture: using visual imagery in social work supervision

The literature on social work supervision has consistently documented the impact of the work on the health and wellbeing of individual practitioners and the tensions they experience when mediating organisational demands with the needs of service users. Simultaneously, the quality and content of social work supervision has become increasingly vulnerable to both local and global systemic issues impacting on the profession. It is timely to explore effective short term, self-regulatory methods of support based on short/simple training for professionals. These can be used as a means of complementing and enriching their current supervision experiences and practice. We describe such a method involving an arts-based intervention in which five groups of social work professionals in England (n=30) were invited to explore guided imagery as a tool for reflecting on a challenge or dilemma arising in their everyday practice. Evaluation data was captured from the participants’ pre-workshop questionnaire; visual analyses of the images generated and the social workers narratives and post-workshop evaluation. We discuss the potential application of using visual imagery as a tool to bridge gaps in supervision practice and as a simple pedagogic tool for promoting contemplative processes of learning. Visual imagery can be used to strengthen social workers integration of different demands with their emotional supports and coping strategies

The use of images as an arts based intervention to promote therapeutic approaches to social work supervision

As a global professional social work faces common challenges in supporting its workforce, one of which is the prevention of practitioner stress and burnout. This has been consistently documented within the professional literature given the potential traumatic impact of the work not only on the health and wellbeing of individual practitioners, but on their organisations and ultimately on the quality of support offered to users of social work services. It is timely to find effective short term and self-regulatory methods of stress reduction requiring short/simple training for professionals to use in their supervision practice to promote contemplative processess of learning and strengthening to integration of different cultural perspectives. This presentation shared the outcomes of a British Academy sponsored collaborative project between social work educators in the UK and Israel which capitalized on emerging knowledge about the impact of arts based interventions within social work. Through a series of developmental workshops in both sites with practice educators and key professionals involved in social work supervision practice, we have been working to bridge gaps in traditional support for ongoing stress reduction in already overburdened bureaucracies. Working with guided imagery, we have sought to develop common tools and learning materials useful in the supervision context and transferable to different international contexts which can also be easily accessed from a web-based source. Our presentation drew on a specific and comprehensive review of the literature on arts based approaches within supervision practice from which we then critically reviewed the developmental process taken as well as providing a demonstration of the tools we developed. We conclude with a short evaluation of the impact of using imagery in social work supervision based on this initial pilot

Using art to illuminate social workers' stress

Summary: This article aims to capture the self-defined holistic interaction between stressors, stress reactions and coping for social workers’ stress. We utilised an arts-based intervention in the form of a single drawing with 80 social workers, who were actively guided to explore their own stressors, stress reactions and coping. Findings: Our findings suggest that whilst social workers define their stressors as being related to a lack of social work professional and managerial support (a macro problem), they experience this stress as lack of personal efficacy and self-worth and expect to cope by drawing on their inner strengths rather than by challenging the ‘system’ (micro solutions). Thus, they tend not to utilise available systemic ideas and theories in social work to address their own problems. Application:These findings offer a way of exploring stress and coping as an interactive whole that helps to understand both systemic stressors and the gaps in social workers’ coping methods. It also explores the relationship between stressors, stress reactions and coping through the personal drawings and narratives of participating social workers. The findings are relevant for supervisors, and managers helping social workers to manage stress, and offer an example of how visual methods might be used as a pedagogic tool in social work education and practice

Sub-Zero Alteration in an Isotopically Heavy Brine Preserved in a Pristine H Chondrite Xenolith

Introduction: Brecciated H chondrites host a variety of xenoliths, including unshocked, phyllo- silicate-rich carbonaceous chondrites (CCs). The brecciated H chondrite Zag (H3-6) is one of two chondrites to host macroscopic (1 - 5mm), xenolithic crystals of halite (NaCl) with aqueous fluid inclusions and organics. A ~1cm CC xenolith in Zag (Zag clast) has mineralogy similar to CI chondrites, but it has a unique bulk oxygen isotopic composition among all meteorites ((exp 17)O = 1.49 0.04 , (exp 18)O = 22.38 0.17 ). The Zag clast encloses halite in its matrix, linking the coarse, matrix halite and the xenolith to the same parent object, suggested to be hydrovolcanically active. Its bulk C and N contents are the highest among chondrites and bulk (exp 15)N is similar to CR chondrites and Bells. Insoluble organic material (IOM) in the Zag clast has D and (exp 15)N hotspots, also similar to CR chondrites and Bells (C2-ung.). We provide further isotopic characterization of the Zag clast to constrain the formation temperature and origin of its primary and secondary components

Clasts in the CM2 carbonaceous chondrite Lonewolf Nunataks 94101: evidence for aqueous alteration prior to complex mixing

Clasts in the CM2 carbonaceous chondrite Lonewolf Nunataks (LON) 94101 have been characterized using scanning and transmission electron microscopy and electron microprobe analysis to determine their degrees of aqueous alteration, and the timing of alteration relative to incorporation of clasts into the host. The provenance of the clasts, and the mechanism by which they were incorporated and mixed with their host material are also considered. Results show that at least five distinct types of clasts occur in LON 94101, of which four have been aqueously altered to various degrees and one is largely anhydrous. The fact that they have had different alteration histories implies that the main part of aqueous activity occurred prior to the mixing and assimilation of the clasts with their host. Further, the presence of such a variety of clasts suggests complex mixing in a dynamic environment involving material from various sources. Two of the clasts, one containing approximately 46 vol% carbonate and the other featuring crystals of pyrrhotite up to approximately 1 mm in size, are examples of unusual lithologies and indicate concentration of chemical elements in discrete areas of the parent body(ies), possibly by flow of aqueous solutions