POSTED training manual

This manual describes POSTED - a training programme for parents, teachers and teaching assistants who are responsible for the daytime postural care needs of children with a physical disability. The training programme is intended to improve understanding and knowledge of postural care and the confidence carers. The training should be facilitated by occupational therapists and/or physiotherapists who have attended a train-the-trainer workshop. It contains background information relating to the development, structure and content of the training programme. The contents of the manual were originally designed for use in research commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Programme (grant reference number PB‐PG‐ 0110‐21045)

A study into the effectiveness of an education programme for parents and teachers

Introduction: Parents and teachers lack knowledge and self-efficacy when providing postural care to physically disabled children. This can act as a barrier to the successful implementation of therapy. An intervention was developed to improve knowledge and confidence in providing postural care. The aim is to determine whether this intervention improves parents’ and teachers’ knowledge and confidence. Participants and Methods: The intervention includes a 2-hour interactive workshop and follow-up home/school visits delivered in three localities across the south-east of England. The UKC-PostCarD scale, which assesses levels of knowledge and confidence in providing postural care, was used to evaluate the intervention. It is completed at baseline and after the intervention is completed. Focus groups with participants will provide insight into elements that were effective/ineffective.Interviews with children will provide their perspective. Interviews with therapists will consider the feasibility and acceptability of delivery. Results: A mixed-design ANOVA 2 (Time: before vs. after) 9 3 (Area:Kent, Sussex, Surrey) will be used to determine whether knowledge and confidence improved following the intervention. Framework analysis will be used for the focus group and interview data. Qualitative findings will be fed into the overall evaluation. Results will be available by September 2013. Conclusion: If shown to improve confidence and knowledge, we will make this education programme available nationally

POSTED - general questionnaire

This questionnaire is concerned with carers experiences of daytime postural care. This questionnaire may be completed by anyone with experience of providing postural care to a child with a physical disability in a school and/or home environment. This includes parents, teachers and teaching assistants. It is likely that information, training and support needs vary considerably from one person to the next – due to the needs of the child, the type of equipment used, or the environment in which postural care is provided. This questionnaire was developed to enable parents, teachers, and teaching assistants to highlight specific aspects of postural care that they find challenging in order that information, training and support may be appropriately targeted. The questionnaire was originally designed for use in research commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Programme (grant reference number PB‐PG‐ 0110‐21045). When using/referring to this questionnaire please acknowledge authorship as appropriate. Details of the development of the questionnaire can be found in the following publication. Hotham, S., Hutton, E. & Hamilton‐West, K. E. (2015) Development of a reliable, valid measure to assess parents' and teachers' understanding of postural care for children with physical disabilities: the (UKC‐PostCarD) questionnaire. Child: Care, Health and Development, 41, 1172– 1178

Aftershocks and Preearthquake Seismicity

Although primary surface faulting was mapped for nearly 30 km, aftershocks extended in a complex pattern more than 100 km along the trend of the Imperial fault. A first-motion focal mechanism for the main shock is consistent with right-lateral motion on a vertical fault striking N. 42° W., in agreement with the strike of the Imperial fault within the limits of resolution. There is evidence that conjugate faulting on a buried complementary northeast-trending structure occurred at the north limit of displacement on the Imperial fault near Brawley, Calif. This faulting was apparently initiated at the time of a magnitude 5.8 aftershock 8 hours after the main shock. A line of epicenters extending along the trend of the San Andreas fault nearly 100 km into the eastern Imperial Valley was noted during the aftershock sequence, in an area recognized as notably aseismic during the preceding 5 years. The main shock was preceded by a 3-month period of significantly reduced seismicity affecting the central Imperial Valley. Although three small events near the incipient epicenter during this interval may be deemed foreshocks, no distinct foreshocks immediately before the main shock were observed

Understanding the support needs of disabled children and their families in East Kent

Objective: Explore the support needs of parents and carers of children with physical disabilities (< 18 years) within a therapy service in the South East of England. Method: Qualitative methods were used including focus groups and interviews with 9 parents/carers of children with a physical disability. Framework analysis approach was used to analyse the data. Results: Data was organised into the following themes. • Parent and carer experiences of using services including direct experience of therapy services • Education • Organisation of services and access to information • Impact of disability on family and carer life • Experiences and views of personalised care. Conclusions: Parents and carers had varied experiences of therapy services. Parents and carers valued close relationships established over time when therapists had knowledge and understanding of their child and family situation. Families experienced most difficulty over the provision of equipment and poor liaison between different parts of the care system added to stress and frustration. Few parents and carers had knowledge or awareness of personal health budgets and were unsure about whether a personal budget would improve their access to or experience of therapy

A study into the effectiveness of a postural care education programme aimed at improving self-efficacy in carers of children with physical disabilities

Background & Aim: Parents and teachers lack knowledge and self-efficacy when providing postural care to physically disabled children. This can act acts as a barrier to the successful implementation of therapy. An intervention was developed to improve knowledge and confidence in providing postural care. The aim is to determine whether this intervention improves parents’ & teachers’ knowledge & confidence. Methods. The intervention includes a 2-hour interactive workshop and follow-up home/school visits delivered in three localities across the South-East. The UKC-PostCarD scale assesses levels of knowledge and confidence in providing postural care was utilised to evaluate the intervention. This will be completed at baseline and after the intervention is completed. Focus groups with participants will provide insight into elements that were effective/ineffective. Interviews with children will provide an end user perspective. Interviews with therapists will consider the feasibility and acceptability of delivery. Analysis: A mixed-design ANOVA 2 (Time: before vs. after) x 3 (Area: Kent, Sussex, Surrey) will be used to determine whether knowledge and confidence improved following the intervention. Framework analysis will be used for the focus group and interview data. Qualitative findings will be fed into the overall evaluation. Findings: Analysis of data will begin in June 2013 and findings will be available in September 2013. Discussion. If shown to improve confidence and knowledge, we hope to make this education programme available regionally and nationally. As more physically disabled children attend mainstream schools this will be a timely and useful resource

Happiness as stable extraversion : internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire among undergraduate students

The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) was developed by Hills and Argyle (2002) to provide a more accessible equivalent measure of the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI). The aim of the present study was to examine the internal consistency reliability, and construct validity of this new instrument alongside the Eysenckian dimensional model of personality. The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire was completed by a sample of 131 undergraduate students together with the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data demonstrated good internal consistency reliability (alpha = .92) and good construct validity in terms of positive association with extraversion (r = .38 p < .001) and negative association with neuroticism (r = −.57 p < .001). The kind of happiness measured by the OHQ is clearly associated with stable extraversion

Executive function in first-episode schizophrenia

BACKGROUND: We tested the hypothesis that schizophrenia is primarily a frontostriatal disorder by examining executive function in first-episode patients. Previous studies have shown either equal decrements in many cognitive domains or specific deficits in memory. Such studies have grouped test results or have used few executive measures, thus, possibly losing information. We, therefore, measured a range of executive ability with tests known to be sensitive to frontal lobe function. METHODS: Thirty first-episode schizophrenic patients and 30 normal volunteers, matched for age and NART IQ, were tested on computerized test of planning, spatial working memory and attentional set shifting from the Cambridge Automated Neuropsychological Test Battery. Computerized and traditional tests of memory were also administered for comparison. RESULTS: Patients were worse on all tests but the profile was non-uniform. A componential analysis indicated that the patients were characterized by a poor ability to think ahead and organize responses but an intact ability to switch attention and inhibit prepotent responses. Patients also demonstrated poor memory, especially for free recall of a story and associate learning of unrelated word pairs. CONCLUSIONS: In contradistinction to previous studies, schizophrenic patients do have profound executive impairments at the beginning of the illness. However, these concern planning and strategy use rather than attentional set shifting, which is generally unimpaired. Previous findings in more chronic patients, of severe attentional set shifting impairment, suggest that executive cognitive deficits are progressive during the course of schizophrenia. The finding of severe mnemonic impairment at first episode suggests that cognitive deficits are not restricted to one cognitive domain

Effect of positron range on PET quantification in diseased and normal lungs

The impact of positron range on PET image reconstruction has often been investigated as a blurring effect that can be partly corrected by adding an element to the PET system matrix in the reconstruction, usually based on a Gaussian kernel constructed from the attenuation values. However, the physics involved in PET is more complex. In regions where density does not vary, positron range indeed involves mainly blurring. However, in more heterogeneous media it can cause other effects. This work focuses on positron range in the lungs and its impact on quantification, especially in the case of pathologies such as cancer or pulmonary fibrosis, for which the lungs have localised varying density. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we evaluate the effects of positron range for multiple radionuclides (18F, 15O, 68Ga, 89Zr, 82Rb, 64Cu and 124I) as, for novel radiotracers, the choice of the labelling radionuclide is important. The results demonstrate quantification biases in highly heterogeneous media, where the measured uptake of high-density regions can be increased by the neighbouring radioactivity from regions of lower density, with the effect more noticeable for radionuclides with highenergy positron emission. When the low-density regions are considered to have less radioactive uptake (e.g. due to the presence of air), the effect is less severe

Seismicity of Southern California: Earthquakes of ML 3.0 and Greater, 1975 through 1983

The time period since the last published California Institute of Technology (CIT) earthquake catalog (Hileman 1974; Friedman 1976) has seen many changes in data analysis and reporting procedures at the Seismological Laboratory. CIT merged its operation with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) during this period. Digital recording (Johnson 1979) was introduced in 1977 and computer systems improved several times since. The seismic network itself expanded from 125 stations in 1975 to more than 200 in early 1983 (Figure 1). The result is an agglomeration of data that way take a superhuman effort to sort through. Much use can be made, however, of a timely earthquake catalog which is restricted to the larger earthquakes. We therefore present as complete and reliable a list of events of ML 3.0 and greater as possible, comprising 3,650 individual earthquakes