Thesis title: Feasibility study of using collaborative UAVs for Emergency Response in Road Tunnels

Utilizing UAVs for assisting in emergency response missions is already a fact, both in open landscapes like forests and in restricted areas like sewers. However, using them in road tunnels has not yet been realised, and could possibly provide a huge help for the first responders in the form of surveillance, providing network coverage or announcing self-help assistance to the victims. There are certain challenges for this to be possible, some of them being lack of signal coverage, battery life and positional navigation in a GPS-denied environment. In this thesis the feasibility of this will be put into consideration by surveying available software and hardware for this utilization, as well as setting up a generalised energy consumption model to check where the different drone configurations can be used. The results implies that the state-of-the-art drone configurations are very capable of being used to assist in emergency situations in road tunnels, both when it comes to response time and length coverage. However, the main restricting factor will be cost, as modern drone swarm configurations with a reasonable battery capacity and sophisticated sensors comes at a high cost.Utilizing UAVs for assisting in emergency response missions is already a fact, both in open landscapes like forests and in restricted areas like sewers. However, using them in road tunnels has not yet been realised, and could possibly provide a huge help for the first responders in the form of surveillance, providing network coverage or announcing self-help assistance to the victims. There are certain challenges for this to be possible, some of them being lack of signal coverage, battery life and positional navigation in a GPS-denied environment. In this thesis the feasibility of this will be put into consideration by surveying available software and hardware for this utilization, as well as setting up a generalised energy consumption model to check where the different drone configurations can be used. The results implies that the state-of-the-art drone configurations are very capable of being used to assist in emergency situations in road tunnels, both when it comes to response time and length coverage. However, the main restricting factor will be cost, as modern drone swarm configurations with a reasonable battery capacity and sophisticated sensors comes at a high cost

‘It pushed me back into the human race’: evaluative findings from a community Christmas event

Many older people in Britain spend Christmas day alone. The Christmas period may be especially difficult for older people who are socially isolated, living with dementia or who have physical impairments, and may feel particularly marginalised at this time of year. This paper draws on evaluative research findings from a community Christmas event held in December 2014 at the University of Salford for older people and their carers who would be on their own on Christmas day. A multi-method approach was employed, seven guests took part in semi-structured interviews to explore their experiences and perceptions of the event, seven staff and student volunteers participated in a group interview to explore and discuss their participation in the event. Data collection took place during April and May 2015. Interview transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis. Three overarching themes were identified from the interviews: ‘reasons for participants attending the event’, ‘a different Christmas day: the impact on guests and volunteers’, and ‘learning, planning and moving forwards’. The findings illustrate that a range of people participated in the Christmas day event for a variety of reasons. The event itself had a positive impact, including the shared experience of social belonging, for all involved. There are tangible longer term benefits as a result of the event, such as ongoing contact between participants and the development of supportive networks in the local community

Teaching Care Homes : leading and facilitating cross-sector collaborations : A Care England Programme in partnership with the Foundation of Nursing Studies and the Burdett Trust for Nursing : application pack

Background Information about the Programme During 2016/17, Care England, with funding from the Department of Health, co-ordinated an exciting pilot programme to explore and develop the concept of Teaching Care Homes i.e. centres of excellence in person-centred care where learning and innovation is a continuous process (see: http://www.careengland.org.uk/teaching-care-home-pilot). These centres of excellence are acknowledged as supportive places for staff to work, where they feel valued and confident to take responsibility for care and innovation. The homes offer a positive and meaningful learning environment for students and staff. Most importantly, residents and families experience effective, compassionate and safe care that is centred on their needs. The pilot has realised a number of key outcomes including improvements in care and services and increased commitment to learning for all. It has also raised the profile of long-term care as a career choice that is exciting, challenging, rewarding and forward thinking. This is a vital part of addressing the issues of recruitment and retention of registered nursing and other care workforce, which has significant cost saving implications. Using the learning from the pilot programme, Care England was successful in securing continued funding from the Burdett Trust for Nursing to spread and extend Teaching Care Homes across England. Over a two-year period, and in partnership with the Foundation of Nursing Studies (FoNS), this programme will support the development of a further ten homes (five home in 2018/19 and a further five homes in 2019/20). Working together, the five homes engaged in the programme during 2018/2019 decided to explore and develop activity around three interlinked priority areas: inspiring others, cross-sector and interprofessional working, and intergenerational working and engagement. They are working creatively within their homes, but also with partners in the community, education and health to enhance care experiences and learning and development opportunities (see: https://www.fons.org/programmes/teaching-care-homes). This activity is exemplifying the ways in which nurse-led care home teams can be leaders and facilitators of exciting innovations. With this in mind, moving into the second year of the partnership with the Burdett Trust for Nursing, Care England and FoNS want to offer five nurse-led care home teams the opportunity to lead and facilitate a tangible and realistic cross-sector collaboration that will enhance care experiences and outcomes and/or learning and development opportunities. The programme is only open to care homes in England

Greek thinking, fast and slow. Euripides and Thucydides on deliberation and decision-making

The author acknowledges the support of the Leverhulme Trust via a Research Fellowship award.Euripides’ Suppliant Women and Thucydides’ account of Pericles’ leadership within the Athenian democracy of 431/430 BCE are good examples of classical Greek texts which ask citizen-audiences to reflect very deeply on the processes by which they come to make political or legislative decisions in a council or assembly. They also stimulate reflection among elite citizens and leaders on their own involvement in such processes. Both texts achieve these forms of reflection by anticipating recent empirical work in sociology, political psychology, ‘behavioural economics’ and cognitive science. These anticipations may reflect an elite ‘paternalistic’ approach to political rhetoric and leadership to an extent. But in the case of the mass art form of Greek tragedy, its dramatization of ‘pathologies’ and ‘errors’ of both mass deliberation and leaders’ responses to them may have contributed to Athens’ relative success as a participatory ‘deliberative democracy’ in which the masses were sovereign.PostprintPeer reviewe