Skills - Mutual Recognition Standard

This document describes the development of a mutual recognition standard in order to issue digital “Maker Passports” that show skills and experience levels of makers

Damaris Masham, Ralph Cudworth and John Locke: Some Philosophical Continuities

In this paper, I focus on Damaris Masham, to re-consider the relationship of her philosophy to the two philosophers with whom she was most closely associated: John Locke, and her father, the Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth. After considering some of the problems of interpretation which have arisen in scholarly debates, I focus her Occasional Thoughts to highlight continuities with both Locke and Cudworth in her epistemology, moral philosophy and metaphysics. I argue these show that Damaris Masham’s philosophy does not fit the received categories of empiricist or rationalist of the dominant narrative. Her position requires us to reconsider not just the relationship of her philosophy to that of Cudworth and Locke, but also of the relationship of Cudworth and Locke. Ultimately, therefore, reintegrating women into the history of philosophy challenges us to rethink standard narratives of the history of philosophy

Support and services for parents : a review of practice development in Scotland

Three year national evaluated pilot intended to focus on systems and practice for the operation of Parenting orders

Support and Services for Parents:A Review of the Literature in Engaging and Supporting Parents

This literature review aims to draw together existing knowledge on assessing and evaluating parenting interventions. In conducting the literature review, the research team was interested in re-examining the historical policy context to locate the rationale for the introduction of Parenting Orders and the apparent under use of the provisions; to re-examine the evidence of risk and protective factors and the interrelated issues of antisocial behaviour and child care; alongside effective approaches to family service provision. These themes set the context and framework for examining the evidence on the practice of engagement with clients and the use of compulsion

SED & Variability Studies of AGN

This thesis contains the results of studies into the causes of variability seen in the optical and X-ray emission from matter accreting onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGN). The first chapter provides a brief overview of the history of optical and X-ray astronomy along with a summary of the principle properties of AGN. The second chapter investigates the dust-to-gas relationship for a sample of 1,201 X-ray detected quasars. We carry out an in-depth optical and X-ray spectral analysis and produce composite spectra for gas absorbed and dust reddened quasars. We find that the objects with the largest gas column densities are not the objects with the largest amounts of dust reddening. This study also highlights problems in constraining absorption levels in objects with low-quality X-ray spectra. We then present optical-to-X-ray spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for 170 Type 1 AGN. We use a new broadband SED model, which combines the standard disc emission with low- and high- temperature Comptonisation components through the introduction of a coronal radius. We find that objects that have an Eddington ratio greater than unity have larger disc luminosities, lower black hole mass, higher mass accretion rate and smaller coronal radii, than the rest of the sample. We conduct a detailed optical and X-ray variability study on a subset of 41 of these objects in the fourth chapter. We combined optical light curves from the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) with long duration X-ray observations from the XMM-Newton satellite. We found that the objects with the lowest black hole masses were the least variable. However, we did not find the expected relationship between luminosity and variability, probably due to the wavelength range observed by CSS and selection biases in our sample. The final two chapters report results from pilot studies based on data from the Pan-STARRS telescope. In the fifth chapter we present an in-depth study of a highly variable object discovered as part of the Pan-STARRS supernovae search, and in the sixth chapter we investigate a subset of the light curves produced in the Medium Deep Survey (MDS) by analysing the light curves of 39 quasars including 12 broad absorption line quasars (BALQSOs). Finally, we also examine the potential for future studies, by cross-matching a large sample of spectroscopically identified Seyfert 2 AGN to the large area 3π catalogue

Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP) is not just 'Morning Sickness' : data from a prospective cohort study

Background: Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is usually called ‘morning sickness’. This is felt by sufferers to trivialise the condition. Symptoms have been described as occurring both before and after noon, but daily symptom patterns have not been clearly described and statistically modelled to enable the term ‘morning sickness’ to be accurately analysed. Aim: To describe the daily variation in nausea and vomiting symptoms during early pregnancy in a group of sufferers. Design and setting: A prospective cohort study of females recruited from 15 May 2014 to 17 February 2017 by Swiss Precision Diagnostics (SPD) Development Company Limited, which was researching hormone levels in early pregnancy and extended its study to include the description of pregnancy symptoms. Method: Daily symptom diaries of nausea and vomiting were kept by females who were trying to conceive. They also provided daily urine samples, which when analysed enabled the date of ovulation to be determined. Data from 256 females who conceived during the first month of the study are included in this article. Daily symptom patterns and changes in daily patterns by week of pregnancy were modelled. Functional data analysis was used to produce estimated symptom probability functions. Results: There was a peak probability of nausea in the morning, a lower but sustained probability of nausea throughout the day, and a slight peak in the evening. Vomiting had a defined peak incidence in the morning. Conclusion: Referring to nausea and vomiting in pregnancy as simply ‘morning sickness’ is inaccurate, simplistic, and therefore unhelpful

Development of a reliable, valid measure to assess parents' and teachers' understanding of postural care for children EKHUT Internal Grant Reportwith physical disabilities.

Schools play an important role in facilitating the day time aspects of postural management programmes for children with physical disabilities, enabling children to participate at school and engage in functional tasks associated with school work; however, the majority of teachers and teaching assistants are inexperienced and lack confidence in how to manage the needs of children with a physical disability (Hutton & Coxon 2010). “Definition: A postural management programme is a planned approach encompassing all activities and interventions which impact on an individual's posture and function. Programmes are tailored specifically for each child and may include special seating, night-time support, standing supports, active exercise, orthotics, surgical interventions, and individual therapy sessions. Gericke (2006) A small exploratory study of the views of teachers and teaching assistants recommended that information about postural care be made widely available to parents and teachers in order to assist them in their role as care givers for children with disabilities. In response to these findings, a booklet, the “A-Z of Postural Care” was developed by a team of researchers, therapists, teachers and parents of children with a disability (Hutton et al., 2009)