Costing study of two-year accelerated honours degrees

Report to HEFCE by Liz Hart Associates. "[This] study had two key objectives: to provide evidence of the impact of two-year accelerated honours degrees on course costs; to make comparisons with the costs of comparable degrees delivered through the traditional three-year route; and, in addition, the study was to consider any barriers to the possibility of expansion of two-year accelerated honours degrees... The indicative cost comparisons and institutional modelling in this study clearly show the potential for cost savings represented by two-year accelerated honours degrees. However, the realisation of these savings presents further challenges for institutions and the study makes recommendations to HEFCE as to how some of these might be addressed." - pp 3-4

'For a mere cough, men must just chew Conjex, gain strength, and continue working': the provider construction and tuberculosis care-seeking implications in Blantyre, Malawi.

BACKGROUND: Delay by men in seeking healthcare results in their higher mortality while on HIV or tuberculosis (TB) treatment and contributes to ongoing community-level disease transmission before going on treatment. OBJECTIVE: To understand masculinity's role in delay in healthcare seeking for men, with a focus on TB-suggestive symptoms. DESIGN: Data were collected between March 2011 and March 2012 in low-income suburbs in urban Blantyre using focus group discussions with community members (n=8) and health workers (n=2), in-depth interviews with 20 TB patients (female=14) and 20 uninvestigated chronic coughers (female=8), and a 3-day participatory workshop with 27 health stakeholder representatives. The research process drew to a large extent on grounded theory principles in the manner of Strauss and Corbin (1998) and also Charmaz (1995). RESULTS: Role descriptions by both men and women in the study universally assigned men as primary material providers for their immediate family, that is, the ones earning and bringing livelihood and additional material needs. In a context where collectivism was valued, men were also expected to lead the provision of support to wider kin. Successful role enactment was considered key to achieving recognition as an adequate man; at the same time, job scarcity and insecurity, and low earnings gravely impeded men. Pressures to generate continuing income then meant constantly looking for jobs, or working continuously to retain insecure jobs or to raise money through self-employment. All this led men to relegate their health considerations. CONCLUSIONS: Early engagement with formal healthcare is critical to dealing with TB and HIV. However, role constructions as portrayed for men in this study, along with the opportunity costs of acknowledging illness seem, in conditions of vulnerability, important barriers to care-seeking. There is a need to address hidden care-seeking costs and to consider more complex interventions, including reducing precarity, in efforts to improve men's engagement with their health

Contemporary Art Therapists: Study of Identity Within Artmaking

This paper highlights the design and results of a research study conducted by graduate art therapy students that surveyed professional art therapists and the role that personal and clinical art making has in their practice. The study included a mixed-method approach that involved a survey of 88 graduates from art therapy programs, interviews, the creation of art by art therapists, and the creation of art responses by the graduate researchers. The researchers analyzed the data from the surveys and interviews through thematic coding and identified common themes that reflected the research questions: What is the relationship between personal art making and the development of the art therapist and What supports and barriers exist for art therapists to engage in an active art practice within and outside of clinical practice? The themes reflected the importance of having a personal art practice as an art therapist, the relationship between personal work and its impact with clients, the challenge of advocating for the understanding and inclusion of art therapy in professional spaces, and the career long evolution of the relationship between the artist and art therapist identity. These findings emphasize the barriers and supports associated with the art therapist identity

Control, struggle, and emergent masculinities: a qualitative study of men's care-seeking determinants for chronic cough and tuberculosis symptoms in Blantyre, Malawi.

BACKGROUND: Men's healthcare-seeking delay results in higher mortality while on HIV or tuberculosis (TB) treatment, and implies contribution to ongoing community-level TB transmission before initiating treatment. We investigated masculinity's role in healthcare-seeking delay for men with TB-suggestive symptoms, with a view to developing potential interventions for men. METHODS: Data were collected during March 2011- March 2012 in three high-density suburbs in urban Blantyre. Ten focus group discussions were carried out of which eight (mixed sex = two; female only = three; male only = three) were with 74 ordinary community members, and two (both mixed sex) were with 20 health workers. Individual interviews were done with 20 TB patients (female =14) and 20 un-investigated chronic coughers (female = eight), and a three-day workshop was held with 27 health stakeholder representatives. RESULTS: An expectation to provide for and lead their families, and to control various aspects of their lives while facing limited employment opportunities and small incomes leaves men feeling inadequate, devoid of control, and anxious about being marginalised as men. Men were fearful about being looked at as less than men, and about their wives engaging in extramarital sex without ability to detect or monitor them. Control was a key defining feature of adequate manhood, and efforts to achieve it also led men into side-lining their health. Articulate and consistent concepts of men's bodily strength or appropriate illness responses were absent from the accounts. CONCLUSIONS: Facilitating men to seek care early is an urgent public health imperative, given the contexts of high HIV/AIDS prevalence but increasingly available treatment, and the role of care-seeking delay in TB transmission. Men's struggles trying to achieve ideal images seem to influence their engagement with their health. Ambiguous views regarding some key masculinity representations and the embrace of less harmful masculinities raise questions about some common assumptions that guide work with men. Apparent 'emergent masculinities' might be a useful platform from which to support the transformation of harmful masculinity. Finally, the complex manifestations of masculinity indicate the need for interventions targeting men in health and TB control to assume supportive, multidimensional and long-term outlooks

California\u27s Coast and Ocean Summary Report, part of California\u27s Fourth Climate Change Assessment

This report synthesizes current scientific understanding about the impacts of climate change on California’s coast and ocean and presents a forward-looking summary of challenges and opportunities for the future. It is one component of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment (Fourth Assessment). To prepare this report, the state called upon the California Ocean Protection Council (OPC) and California Ocean Science Trust (OST) to convene an Ocean Protection Council Science Advisory Team (OPC-SAT) working group composed of science and policy leaders. Similar to other components of the Fourth Assessment, the 12-member working group was guided by an Advisory Group of end users and high-level decision-makers. This report is intended to provide accessible scientific information that is relevant for policy and decision-makers, build a foundation for policy to address climate change impacts through adaptation and mitigation, highlight best practices and models for coastal adaptation to climate change along the coast, and inform interested members of the public on the impacts of climate change on California’s coast and ocean waters and potential approaches for adaptation and mitigation. It will also inform the next update of the Safeguarding California plan, a policy document serving as California’s climate adaptation strategy, by presenting a scientific grounding to help focus and prioritize future state adaptation efforts

Optimising renewable energy integration in new housing developments with low carbon technologies

Since buildings account for more than one-third of final energy use, it is important to integrate renewable energy sources for new housing developments to reduce demand for grid energy and carbon emissions. This research investigates the potential of solar PV, energy storage, and electric vehicles in new housing developments and their associated grid impacts by taking the UK’s Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Oxford arc as a case study. Using published data on electrical loads for different types of dwellings, energy demands for new housing developments with and without renewable and low carbon technologies are analysed using techno-economic modelling frameworks. Technical analysis includes sizing and optimisation of PV and storage while economic analysis covers cost-benefit analyses, by considering a range of existing and future tariffs and subsidy schemes including Standard, Economy 7 (cheaper electricity for seven hours at night), Feed-in tariff, and the Smart Export Guarantee. Results show that installing PV panels and storage systems not only reduces the dwellings’ grid energy demand by 31% in January but also helps the dwellings to become net exporters of green electricity to the grid in July and hence saves a substantial amount of money by taking advantage of Feed-in and Economy 7 tariffs

The Grizzly, November 5, 2009

Escape Velocity Performances are Timeless • Dr. William Keim Inspires with Humor • National Deficit May Favor Health Care Reform • Second Annual Greek Activities Fair Held in Wismer Parents Lounge • Sophomores Learn About the ILE • Behind the Scenes: Association for Computing Machinery • Educational Effect of the International Film Festival • Haunted Ursinus: Good ole\u27 Ghost Stories • Opinion: Where Did the Lounges Go? The Cramped UC Community; Texting and Facebook IM: Our Generation Conversation; Drop the Natural Light and Expand Your Beverage Horizons • UC Athletics Spotlight: Alyssa Thren of Field Hockeyhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1798/thumbnail.jp

The Lantern Vol. 55, No. 1, Fall 1988

• The Third Grade Gorilla • Friend, I Am Not Yet A Poet • Twisted • The Final Journey • Ritu Miltonis • Hearthside • The Ogre • O Indestructible Everlasting • December 1, 1988 • Our Church • Louise • Gazebo For Learned Women • Hanging Mirror • Of Football and Flashlights • The Ragged Brown Peasant • Judgement of the Serpent • Sidewalk Wars • I Guess That\u27s Why I Went Awayhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1133/thumbnail.jp

The Lantern Vol. 55, No. 1, Fall 1988

• The Third Grade Gorilla • Friend, I Am Not Yet A Poet • Twisted • The Final Journey • Ritu Miltonis • Hearthside • The Ogre • O Indestructible Everlasting • December 1, 1988 • Our Church • Louise • Gazebo For Learned Women • Hanging Mirror • Of Football and Flashlights • The Ragged Brown Peasant • Judgement of the Serpent • Sidewalk Wars • I Guess That\u27s Why I Went Awayhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/lantern/1133/thumbnail.jp