Safer recruitment? protecting children, improving practice in residential child care

In the wake of a number of high-profile cases of the abuse of children and young people in residential child care, there have been repeated calls for the improvement of recruitment and selection of residential child care staff. This paper describes the findings from a survey, undertaken in 2005, of operational and human resource managers who have responsibility for the recruitment and selection of residential child care staff in the voluntary and statutory sectors in Scotland. This research was commissioned by the Scottish Executive to identify which elements of safer recruitment procedures had been implemented following the countrywide launch of a Toolkit for Safer Recruitment Practice in 2001. Research findings show that although local authorities were more likely than voluntary organisations to have gone some way toward implementing safer recruitment procedures, the recruitment process lacked rigour and commitment to safer procedures in some organisations. The article discusses the current barriers to the introduction of safer recruitment methods and proposes some possible solutions for the future

Reasonable Notice for Wrongful Dismissal Court versus Human Resource Decisions

Nota: Las reglas de escritura de las referencias bibliográficas pueden variar según los diferentes dominios del conocimiento. Este documento está protegido por la ley de derechos de autor. La utilización de los servicios de Érudit (comprendida la reproducción) se rige por su política de utilización que se puede consultar en el UR

Early peer play: the roles of temperament and socio-emotional understanding in young children’s social competence

Peer interactions are recognised as playing a key role in the development of children, but we lack detailed analysis of individual differences in the early peer play of preschoolers. Five data sets are used to explore aspects of children’s developing social competence between the ages of 2 and 5 years. Four of the five research investigations were carried out in day nurseries, and the remaining study was conducted in a reception class (children aged 5 years), all in a London Local Authority. The first paper explores core elements of peer play which can be identified through direct observation. It serves the dual purpose of highlighting children’s real life experience of making social connections through peer interactions and exploring the key dimensions of verbal and nonverbal behaviour that support such connections. Papers 2 and 3 are mainly focused on exploring the different perspectives of parents and practitioners in their views of children’s current social adjustment, with additional reports on child temperament from parents and reports on peer play from practitioners. Finally, Papers 4 and 5 explore in greater depth a range of potential predictors of young children’s social competence, including temperament and socioemotional understanding. Being able to recognise individual differences in patterns of play specifically in terms of levels of interaction and disconnection led to the use of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale throughout the remaining studies. The notable differences in levels of successful interactivity underlined the need to measure children’s effectiveness in using a range of abilities to establish and maintain engagement with play partners. The further studies involved a total of 516 practitioner reports and 179 parent reports on children’s behaviour, social competencies and temperament, as well as 123 direct assessments of children’s socio-emotional understanding. Matched parent and practitioner questionnaires were used to examine similarities and differences in adult perceptions and interpretations of children’s peer play. Levels of convergence between parent and practitioner views of children’s socio-behavioural functioning were found to change as children get older, from an early convergence on prosocial behaviours to a later convergence on problem behaviours. The results also highlighted the particular roles of temperament and socioemotional understanding in peer play. Effortful control was found to be a significant predictor of positive, interactive play. Furthermore, socio-emotional understanding – as assessed through the use of simple structured tasks and hypothetical scenarios – was found to predict patterns of interactive play, thereby evidencing the sociocognitive factors involved in effective peer interactions. Gender differences were also evident, suggesting that girls and boys may rely on different attributes and skills to forge social connections. The key findings are discussed with attention to their implications for effective practice in early years provision, developing our understanding of early social competence from different perspectives. Directions for further research are presented

The Simple Triod

thesisIn this thesis we wish to show that in a metric space a continuum M is a simple trio if M contains three points a, b, and c such that every point of M - (a+b+c) separates M and a, b, and c do not separate M, and we wish to give some properties of this continuum

Transmission of prices and price volatility in Australian electricity spot markets: A multivariate GARCH analysis

This paper examines the transmission of spot electricity prices and price volatility among the five Australian electricity markets in the National Electricity Market (NEM): namely, New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD), South Australia (SA), the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme (SNO) and Victoria (VIC). A multivariate generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (MGARCH) model is used to identify the source and magnitude of spillovers. The results indicate the presence of positive own mean spillovers in only a small number of markets and no mean spillovers between any of the markets. This appears to be directly related to the limitations of the present system of regional interconnectors. Nevertheless, the large number of significant ownvolatility and cross-volatility spillovers in all five markets indicates the presence of strong ARCH and GARCH effects. Contrary to evidence from studies in North American electricity markets, the results also indicate that Australian electricity spot prices are stationary.spot electricity price markets; mean and volatility spillovers; multivariate GARCH

Late Precontact and Protocontact Stone Circle Sites at Little Manitou Lake, South-Central Saskatchewan

This study focuses on the Little Manitou Lake archaeological complex, a collection of sites situated around the western end of Little Manitou Lake, located in south-central Saskatchewan. The majority of sites documented in this region contain stone circle features suggesting residential/domestic use while a handful of sites have been documented as ceremonial in nature, containing medicine wheels and vision quest features. Today, Little Manitou Lake is hypersaline and has been so for the last 2,000 years. Evidence suggests that the lake was previously a deep freshwater lake. Changing climatic and environmental conditions responsible for the transformation of the lake would likely have influenced lifeways of past populations and may have influenced use of this area. Archaeological sites around Little Manitou Lake have been hypothesized to relate to the saline/healing nature of the water. The named Manitou comes from an Algonquian word meaning “great spirit” and the lake became known as the “Lake of Healing Waters”. Ethnographic information indicates that aboriginal groups made pilgrimages to the lake to experience the lakes healing properties. The main objective of this research was to improve understanding of interactions between past populations and the environment of the Little Manitou Lake area and to set the local archaeological record into the broader context of Northern Plains prehistory. The importance of this area to past populations is demonstrated by the density of archaeological sites identified around the lake. Considering paleoenvironmental data in relation to these sites provides new insights about human-environment interactions and how changing environmental conditions may have influenced past use of this area. To achieve the objective of this study, three goals were set out and explored: to identify hearth deposits at archaeological sites that could provide dates for site occupation in the area, to review paleoenvironmental data to better understand changing water and salinity levels of the lake through time, and to carry out spatial analyses to evaluate how site placement may relate and help elucidate the overall cultural landscape. Hearth deposits, containing charred organics, were identified which produced dates for three archaeological sites, establishing part of the cultural chronology for the region and provided data which suggest occupation occurred during the late summer or early autumn. The sites were found to belong to the Precontact and Protocontact periods. Data from EkNk-3 indicated that occupation occurred during a period of transition from the Late Old Women’s phase to the Mortlach phase while data from EkNj-4 and EkNj-68 indicated that occupations occurred during the Mortlach phase. Dates from these sites, when compared to the literature relating to paleoenvironmental conditions in the region, allowed for the inference that Little Manitou Lake was a saline lake during site occupation, leading to an improved understanding of the environmental context in which the sites were utilized. Spatial analyses were conducted on both domestic and ceremonial sites in the area. Spatial evaluations of domestic sites at the western end of Little Manitou Lake provided insight about the patterning of features present at the sites. Spatial evaluations of ceremonial sites provided insight about the importance of prominent topographic features in the region and helped to elucidate the overall cultural landscape. Taken as a whole, data collected during this study provides substantive new insights about the archaeological environment at Little Manitou Lake

Effects of protein kinase inhibitors on hair bundle structure

The sensory hair bundles of the cochlea are complex structures that are vital for hearing. Phosphorylation plays an important role in regulating actin in many cell types, but the role it plays in regulating the development and maintenance of the hair bundle has yet to be fully elucidated. Furthermore, the extent to which damaged hair bundles can be repaired in the mammalian cochlea remains to be determined. The aims of this study were twofold: 1) to assess the role of phosphorylation in hair bundle development and 2) to ascertain whether hair bundles could recover from any damage caused by protein kinase inhibition or the aminoglycoside neomycin. Post-natal mouse cochlear cultures were treated with a range of protein kinase inhibitors. Of those tested, the broadspectrum protein kinase inhibitor staurosporine was found to cause hair bundle collapse and detachment of the apical cell membrane from the cuticular plate without causing cell death. Further investigation suggests that staurosporine may have its effects through inhibiting the function of the Ezrin-Radixin-Moesin proteins, an important family of proteins that cross link actin to the plasma membrane. An inhibitor of c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase, JNK inhibitor I, was also found to cause the loss of hair bundles, but in contrast to staurosporine, also caused hair cell death. This was unexpected, as previous studies have shown that inhibition of c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase confers protection on hair cells from noise and aminoglycoside damage. Recovery of hair bundles was not observed following brief treatment with either staurosporine or neomycin. The current study shows that protein phosphorylation is vital for the proper maintenance of the hair bundle, and hair that bundles show little sign of recovery from limited damage in vitro

Woolf and the Art of Exploration

Coinciding with the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark\u27s Expedition, the wide range of papers presented at this conference emphasized the adventurousness of Woolf\u27s work. Nearly 30 essays were selected for publication that reflect her enterprising nature, with titles such as Cheryl Mares\u27s The Making of Virginia Woolf\u27s America and Emily Wittman\u27s The Decline and Fall of Rachel Vinrace: Reading Gibbon in Virginia Woolf\u27s The Voyage Out. The selected papers explore such topics as Woolf\u27s life; her relationship to nature and to scientific and environmental thinking; her attitudes towards London, America, and the Middle East; and the cultural origins and contexts of her outlook on art and empire.https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/cudp_woolfe/1003/thumbnail.jp

Trade and investment liberalization and Asia's noncommunicable disease epidemic: a synthesis of data and existing literature.

BACKGROUND: Trade and investment liberalization (trade liberalization) can promote or harm health. Undoubtedly it has contributed, although unevenly, to Asia's social and economic development over recent decades with resultant gains in life expectancy and living standards. In the absence of public health protections, however, it is also a significant upstream driver of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes through facilitating increased consumption of the 'risk commodities' tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods, and by constraining access to NCD medicines. In this paper we describe the NCD burden in Asian countries, trends in risk commodity consumption and the processes by which trade liberalization has occurred in the region and contributed to these trends. We further establish pressing questions for future research on strengthening regulatory capacity to address trade liberalization impacts on risk commodity consumption and health. METHODS: A semi-structured search of scholarly databases, institutional websites and internet sources for academic and grey literature. Data for descriptive statistics were sourced from Euromonitor International, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the World Trade Organization. RESULTS: Consumption of tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed foods was prevalent in the region and increasing in many countries. We find that trade liberalization can facilitate increased trade in goods, services and investments in ways that can promote risk commodity consumption, as well as constrain the available resources and capacities of governments to enact policies and programmes to mitigate such consumption. Intellectual property provisions of trade agreements may also constrain access to NCD medicines. Successive layers of the evolving global and regional trade regimes including structural adjustment, multilateral trade agreements, and preferential trade agreements have enabled transnational corporations that manufacture, market and distribute risk commodities to increasingly penetrate and promote consumption in Asian markets. CONCLUSIONS: Trade liberalization is a significant driver of the NCD epidemic in Asia. Increased participation in trade agreements requires countries to strengthen regulatory capacity to ensure adequate protections for public health. How best to achieve this through multilateral, regional and unilateral actions is a pressing question for ongoing research