Palinoia

The idea of restrictive and regimented female beauty standards is certainly not a new concept, but rarely are the repetitive, destructive, and exploitive aspects analyzed in a cinematic setting. This realization sparked the idea for Palinoia: a three minute and thirty-four second film dedicated to the artistic exploration of this very topic. Starting with the title itself, “palinoia” is defined as the obsessive or compulsive repetition of an action until it is mastered or perfect – a rather accurate statement when looked at in the context of female actions in response to societal beauty standards and expectations. This definition ultimately drove the direction of this short film, with the piece dedicated to visually and atmospherically depicting the repetition of these societal driven actions as well as the frustration and mental decline that comes along with them. The artistic focus of the film was shifted from a typical fixation on a narrative to an emphasis on a more abstracted and experimental piece which allowed for flexibility in the style utilized as well as impacting the overall message in a positive manner

Temporal stability of beliefs about medicines : implications for optimising adherence

Peer reviewedPostprin

Criminology in the professions: turning academic benchmarks into employability skills

This report reflects on a case study example of teaching a dedicated employability module in an undergraduate criminology curriculum. The report uses various sets of data collected from students, criminology alumni, a sample of employers and university academic and support staff, to reflect on pertinent issues relating to graduate employability. Findings suggest that understanding the links between critical academic theory, technical knowledge and generic skills, are empowering both for staff and students, and such a framework represents a creative way of addressing the QAA criminology employability benchmarks. Whilst staff are unable to change the national context relating to graduate employability, understanding the pertinent issues and contradictions within the area helps in counteracting potential ‘bad news’ and also enables students to be more aware of what they need, beyond their degree, to be successful in gaining appropriate employment. Apart from the research detailed below, outcomes include a DVD entitled ‘Life after Criminology’ which features contributions from criminology alumni, academic and careers staff and students, and also a Mahara portfolio including materials used for a criminology information day held in July 2010

Researchers, Patients and Open Access Publishing

Participatory healthcare is a model of self management characterised by emphasis on people living with long term conditions being seen as equal partners in their own care. One essential resource to enable this is equal access to reliable information

Linked health data for pharmacovigilance in children : Perceived legal and ethical issues for stakeholders and data guardians

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Snapshot of Internet Innovation: Using e-Philanthropy to Expand Volunteering, Giving and Community Building

A report on the 3rd e-Philanthropy Conference in McLean, Virginia, USA, exploring the strategic issues and promising practices of the Internet to increase various forms of civic engagement including giving, volunteering, and community buildin

NDM-552: COMBINED PROBABILITIES OF PEAK WIND AND SNOW LOAD EVENTS

The National Building Code of Canada 2010 (NBCC) defines several loading combination scenarios for use in structural design. Appropriate combination factors are provided based on the probability of failure due to the simultaneous occurrence of the specified loads. Load Combination Cases 3 and 4 of Table 4.1.3.2.A include the combination of wind and snow loads, which are transient in nature. The recommended combination factors are intended to provide a uniform degree of reliability for design. However, in reality, the probability of the simultaneous loading due to wind and snow depends on the local meteorological climate. This probability can be more accurately simulated through the Finite Area Element (FAE) process, which studies the hour-by-hour accumulation and depletion of snow based on historical meteorological records. It takes into account variables such as wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, water retention in a snow pack and many others. In the present work, the accumulation and depletion of snow on a modelled ground patch and the corresponding wind speeds were computed on an hourly basis to determine the correlation of wind and snow loads. Using this process, this paper investigates the interaction between wind and snow loads for 25 distinct regions in Canada, for both ground and roof snow loads

STR-940: PARAMETRIC SIMULATION OF ROOF STRUCTURAL SNOW LOADS

While the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) provides engineers with suitable snow loading guidelines for structural design, the strict application of the code may not lead to an optimized structural design. Generalizations have been made to ensure the applicability of the code to the majority of potential structures within Canada, which result in conservative estimates in certain situations. In particular, the interaction between region-specific prevailing wind directionality, climate and roof orientation are not accounted for. However, the development of advanced physical and numerical snow simulation approaches allows for the investigation of building-specific variables that affect snow loading. The Finite Area Element (FAE) process simulates the hour-by-hour accumulation and depletion of snow on a specific building design. This tool provides detailed quantification of the probabilistic snow loading accounting for region-specific long term meteorological conditions and building-specific variables such as roof size, exposure to prevailing winds, thermal capacity and local aerodynamics. While providing a detailed assessment of the snow loads, a full FAE assessment can be both time consuming and relatively costly for many applications. This parametric analysis approach has been developed using a variety of simple building geometries to provide an approach to assess the relative impacts of many of the key variables needed to inform a design. This paper describes the physical and numerical models used for the parametric simulation of snow loads, and discusses their application to structures within Canada

Strengthening impact assessment: a call for integration and focus

We suggest that the impact assessment community has lost its way based on our observation that impact assessment is under attack because of a perceived lack of efficiency. Specifically, we contend that the proliferation of different impact assessment types creates separate silos of expertise and feeds arguments for not only a lack of efficiency but also a lack of effectiveness of the process through excessive specialisation and a lack of interdisciplinary practice. We propose that the solution is a return to the basics of impact assessment with a call for increased integration around the goal of sustainable development and focus through better scoping. We rehearse and rebut counter arguments covering silo-based expertise, advocacy, democracy, sustainability understanding and communication. We call on the impact assessment community to rise to the challenge of increasing integration and focus, and to engage in the debate about the means of strengthening impact assessment