Alternative Narratives of Dementia: Healthcare Professionals Witnessing Blogs from People Living with Dementia

Background: People with dementia are increasingly becoming involved in advocacy to seek change in the ways that dementia is understood by individuals, organisations, and society. A growing number of studies have explored the experiences and motivations of people with dementia who advocate, however they have not explored the impact of advocacy within a healthcare context. Aims: The aims were to explore the personal blogs of people with dementia who advocate, and to investigate the impact of these blogs on healthcare professionals who work alongside people with dementia. Methods: Two people with dementia and four healthcare professionals took part. The narrative practice of outsider witnessing was used to connect the blog entries of each person with dementia to two healthcare professionals. Following this group meeting, healthcare professionals were also interviewed individually. A Dialogical Narrative Analysis was used to explore blog posts and the narratives that were elicited from healthcare professionals pertaining to the impact of these blog posts. Analysis: Blog posts suggested that being diagnosed with dementia could initially be associated with loss. However, they also suggested that through a process of psychological acceptance and adaptation to symptoms, it was possible to continue living a full and meaningful life with dementia. Healthcare professionals reported that hearing blog entries from people with dementia enabled them to develop a greater insight into the experience of dementia, challenged their preconceived ideas about dementia, and incentivised them to change their practice. Conclusions: The findings provided initial support for the value of including advocacy by people with dementia (through their blog entries) into approaches to training and educating healthcare professionals. However, the effects of advocacy need to be explored further by studies which employ more rigorous methodologies. Moreover, there is a need for healthcare professionals and training providers to be open and receptive to involving people with dementia in service delivery

Kiss and Fly - a study of the impacts at a UK regional airport

In the light of the forecast growth in air transport the UK Government has placed a requirement on all airports with substantial air transport movements to implement surface access strategies. The emphasis of surface access policy has been to increase the proportion of people arriving at airports by public transport by a variety of means such as managing parking supply and pricing and improving public transport. The extent to which these policies will be effective will depend on a number of factors such as the quality and availability of the alternatives, the availability of competing off-site parking and the extent to which kiss and fly is feasible. This paper reports on two studies of passenger access to Leeds-Bradford International Airport in the summers of 2004 and 2005. The airport has an aspiration to increase public transport use to the airport from its current level of 3% to 10% by 2010. The principal means by which this is currently planned to be achieved is through the expansion of scheduled bus services to Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate. The 2004 study found that 49% of passengers were dropped off at the airport by friends and that the potential for larger quantities of people to reach the airport by conventional bus services was limited. The 2005 study investigated the extent to which these kiss and fly journeys generate extra travel on the road network. The results show that for an airport with around 2.5 million passengers the Kiss & Fly journeys are creating an extra 19.4 million kilometres, an increase of 36% over the distance that would have been travelled if people had driven and parked. The paper concludes that a charge levied on all vehicles accessing the airport, similar to a congestion charge, is likely to have the greatest impact on travel behaviour and will have a far greater impact on the environment than the current emphasis on public transport improvements and parking restrictions

Private Property Rights to Wildlife: The Southern African Experiment.

In most nations around the world wildlife are owned and managed by the State. However, in the past 30 years Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa have altered their legal regimes to give full control over the use of wildlife to the private owners of the land on which the wildlife are located. Following the privatization of wildlife management in southern African nations, wildlife tourism on private lands has boomed. In Zimbabwe, a majority of many desirable species - including 94 percent of eland, 64 percent of kudu, 63 percent of giraffe, 56 percent of cheetah, and 53 percent of both sable and impala - are found on commercial ranch properties. In Namibia, wildlife populations on private lands have risen by 80 percent since the creation in 1967 of a regime of private wildlife ownership. Privatization of control over use of wildlife has had more success in promoting biodiversity in the southern African region than any other policy measure. Other parts of the world may be able to benefit from the lessons learned from the successes of southern African nations in privatization and commercialization of wildlife. Based on the southern African experience, many wildlife managers should reconsider whether positive incentives might not be more effective in the future in promoting wildlife populations than the past club of state commands and controls.Wildlife; Privatization; Africa; Biodiversity; Economic Development

Chinese Investment in Latin American Resources: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

China's need for vast amounts of minerals to sustain its high economic growth rate has led Chinese investors to acquire stakes in natural resource companies, extend loans to mining and petroleum investors, and write long-term procurement contracts for oil and minerals in Africa, Latin America, Australia, Canada, and other resource-rich regions. These efforts to procure raw materials might be exacerbating the problems of strong demand; "locking up" natural resource supplies, gaining preferential access to available output, and extending control over the world's extractive industries. But Chinese investment need not have a zero-sum effect if Chinese procurement arrangements expand, diversify, and make more competitive the global supplier system. Previous Peterson Institute research (see Moran 2010) and new research undertaken in this paper, show that the majority of Chinese investments and procurement arrangements serve to help diversify and make more competitive the portion of the world natural resource base located in Latin America. For a more comprehensive analysis, we conduct a structured comparison of four Peruvian mines with foreign ownership: two Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-based, and two Chinese. We examine what conditions or policy measures are most effective in inducing Chinese investors to adopt international industry standards and best-practices, and which are not. We distill from this case study some lessons for other countries in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere that intend to use Chinese investment to develop their extractive sectors: first, that financial markets bring accountability; second, that the host country regulatory environment makes a significant difference; and third, that foreign investment is a catalyst for change.Chinese foreign direct investment, foreign direct investment (FDI), natural resources, Peru, environmental impact, corporate social responsibility.

Social interactions in massively multiplayer online role-playing gamers

To date, most research into massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) has examined the demographics of play. This study explored the social interactions that occur both within and outside of MMORPGs. The sample consisted of 912 self-selected MMORPG players from 45 countries. MMORPGs were found to be highly socially interactive environments providing the opportunity to create strong friendships and emotional relationships. The study demonstrated that the social interactions in online gaming form a considerable element in the enjoyment of playing. The study showed MMORPGs can be extremely social games, with high percentages of gamers making life-long friends and partners. It was concluded that virtual gaming may allow players to express themselves in ways they may not feel comfortable doing in real life because of their appearance, gender, sexuality, and/or age. MMORPGs also offer a place where teamwork, encouragement, and fun can be experienced

Cell Therapy for Type 1 Diabetes

Acknowledgements The work described in this review was supported by a grant from the MRC. K.R.M. is supported by a fellowship from the Scottish Translational Medicines and Therapeutics Initiative through the Wellcome Trust.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Letter from D[aniel] H. Muir to [John Muir], 1905 Aug 6.

[letterhead]Aug 6 1905Dear Bro JohnIt was with grief that we read the telegram announcing the death of Mrs Muir. My wife joins with me in extending simpathy to yourself and daughtersBro D H Muir0359

Some Shifting Relationships Between The User Community And The Earth Resources Program

The NASA Earth Resources Program has reached an important point in its development. Up to this point the program\u27s major emphasis has been on the research and development of sensors and other technical hardware required to place a remote sensing capability in orbit. This research has been quite successful. There may be some nearterm disappointments, but for the most part, the hardware required for ERTS A&B will be ready by early 1972. On the other hand, recent statements by NASA officials indicate that if ERTS is to achieve the success desired for it, more effort is required to effectively link the user communities with the program. While numerous Principal Investigators have identified various applications for remote sensing technology, the long-term interfaces between the actual users and the ERTS systems have been developing much too slowly. At this time various spokesmen and others prominent in the field are emphasizing the need for a specific effort to expose users to remote sensor technology and to educate users on the optimal ways to employ this new technological tool. This will result in better specifications for the earth resources information system and should argue for a particular direction in R&D outlays

Bounds on minors of binary matrices

We prove an upper bound on sums of squares of minors of {+1, -1} matrices. The bound is sharp for Hadamard matrices, a result due to de Launey and Levin (2009), but our proof is simpler. We give several corollaries relevant to minors of Hadamard matrices, and generalise a result of Turan on determinants of random {+1,-1} matrices.Comment: 9 pages, 1 table. Typo corrected in v2. Two references and Theorem 2 added in v

Gas tungsten arc welding in a microgravity environment: Work done on GAS payload G-169

GAS payload G-169 is discussed. G-169 contains a computer-controlled Gas Tungsten Arc Welder. The equipment design, problem analysis, and problem solutions are presented. Analysis of data gathered from other microgravity arc welding and terrestrial Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) experiments are discussed in relation to the predicted results for the GTAW to be performed in microgravity with payload G-169