The efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions and cognitive rehabilitation on emotional and executive functioning problems after acquired brain injury

This thesis portfolio aimed to assess the effectiveness of interventions on emotional and executive functioning difficulties after brain injury; both of which can be debilitating to an individual’s everyday life. The aim was to systematically review mindfulness-based literature used within the brain injury population to ascertain its effectiveness on emotional difficulties, especially anxiety and depression. Along with a meta-analytic review to assess the effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation on executive functioning difficulties after brain injury. Databases were searched, and risk of bias and methodological quality was rated for all included papers. After inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, 11 individual papers and five reviews were included in the systematic review, and 26 in the meta-analysis. Overall findings from the systematic review suggest that there is insufficient methodologically robust evidence from the reviewed studies to make confident conclusions about the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions reducing anxiety and/or depression symptoms after brain injury. Findings from the meta-analysis show small significant effect sizes across the majority of analyses which is suggestive of the heterogenous nature of brain injury literature. Methodological quality also varied across studies reviewed. Taking the findings from both reviews, whilst further methodologically robust research in both areas may be argued, the variation between participants and the interventions presented in both papers will create difficulty in concluding effectiveness confidently

Editorial

No abstract available

Ecocide is the missing 5th Crime Against Peace

The term ecocide was used as early as 1970, when it was first recorded at the Conference on War and National Responsibility in Washington, where Professor Arthur W. Galston “proposed a new international agreement to ban ‘ecocide’”2. Ecocide as a term had no strict definition at that time: “although not legally defined, its essential meaning is well-understood; it denotes various measures of devastation and destruction which have in common that they aim at damaging or destroying the ecology of geographic areas to the detriment of human life, animal life, and plant life”. What was recognised was that the element of intent did not always apply. “Intent may not only be impossible to establish without admission but, I believe, it is essentially irrelevant.” Richard A. Falk, in his draft (1973) Ecocide Convention, explicitly states at the outset to recognise “that man has consciously and unconsciously inflicted irreparable damage to the environment in times of war and peace”. By the end of the 1970s the term itself seems to have been well understood. So how was it that an international crime whose name was familiar to many who were involved in the drafting of the initial Crimes Against Peace was completely removed without determination? Documents that have only now been examined and pieced together shed a whole new light on a corner of history that would otherwise be buried forever. What is so remarkable is that the collective memory has erased this crime in just 15 years, and yet documents tell a story of engagement by many governments who supported the criminalisation of ecocide in peacetime as well as in wartime. Extensive debate over 40 years, with committees of experts specifically tasked to undertake examination of ecocide and environmental crimes, documented in the paper trail left behind tells us that this was well-considered law; early drafts, which have been referred to in some of the papers that have been uncovered, provide definitive reference to ecocide as a crime which was to stand alongside genocide as a Crimes Against Peace – both during peacetime as well as wartime

Living with supercomplexity

No abstract available

‘Repeat abortion’, a phrase to be avoided? Qualitative insights into labelling and stigma

Background In recent years there has been growing international interest in identifying risk factors associated with ‘repeat abortion’, and developing public health initiatives that might reduce the rate. This article draws on a research study looking at young women's abortion experience in England and Wales. The study was commissioned with a specific focus on women who had undergone more than one abortion. We examine what may influence women's post-abortion reproductive behaviour, in addition to exploring abortion-related stigma, in the light of participants' own narratives. Study design Mixed-methods research study: a quantitative survey of 430 women aged 16–24 years, and in-depth qualitative interviews with 36 women who had undergone one or more abortions. This article focuses on the qualitative data from two subsets of young women: those we interviewed twice (n=17) and those who had experienced more than one unintended/unwanted pregnancy (n=15). Results The qualitative research findings demonstrate the complexity of women's contraceptive histories and reproductive lives, and thus the inherent difficulty of establishing causal patterns for more than one abortion, beyond the obvious observation that contraception was not used, or not used effectively. Women who had experienced more than one abortion did, however, express intensified abortion shame. Conclusions This article argues that categorising women who have an abortion in different ways depending on previous episodes is not helpful. It may also be damaging, and generate increased stigma, for women who have more than one abortion

Reclaiming education: ‘fake news’, research and social justice

No abstract available

Problems and Projects for the Teaching of the Higher Plants

The teaching of biology is interesting and inspiring if the teacher makes use of the living world about him. One of the most effective methods for using living organisms in teaching is the problem and project method. This report presents the teaching of the higher plants by this method. It includes thirty-two problems and projects by which they may be solved. This is only one part of a large continuous project, from which many problems would branch to complete. This report is part of the preplanning which is needed in the problem-solving approach in teaching. There are many problems and projects that can be used to make the teaching of higher plants interesting and challenging to the students. They should be chosen and varied to fit the experiences and needs of the group of students. The experiments can be so devised that they will require only inexpensive or easily obtainable equipment. In many cases, the students will be able to plan and carry out their projects, but the teacher should be prepared to guide them in the right direction. The project may consist of experimental work, careful observations, checking of data, as well as confirmation of results by the use of some source of authority. The solution of each problem should have some definite contribution to an understanding of life.Natural Scienc