Speaking in Pictures and Play: The Unique Approach to Using Art and Play as Data in Hermeneutic Research

Art and play are the language of children. The act of creating art and playing help children to make sense of their world. Pediatric clinicians have used art and play as therapy to elicit conversation, to allow children to express themselves, and to overcome communication barriers when children may not have the vocabulary to articulate what they would like to say. Art and play therapy have demonstrated their utility in practice, and this way of communicating should be equally effective as part of data collection and analysis in hermeneutic research. By approaching hermeneutic interviews with children in a novel way, using art and play to augment what is said in an interview, new opportunities for understanding the worlds of children may arise.             Keywords: art, play, children, hermeneutic research, data collection, data analysi

Raising Children: Philosophical Hermeneutics and Children with Life-Limiting Illness

Children are authentically hermeneutic beings; they are not only open to the possibility that the other may be right, but often expect that the perspective of the other is correct. The hermeneutic tenets of history, tradition, and authority shape how children and childrearing are perceived in society. Children are often regarded as in-progress, and this has implications for children diagnosed with life-limiting illness and the pediatric palliative healthcare providers that care for them. Children who experience unique phenomena, such as dying in childhood, may possess an authority gained through superior insight that adults often overlook. Art is a common language that can be used in hermeneutic research to better understand children’s experiences of life-limiting illness. Researchers who work with children must raise the value of children’s perspectives, find a shared language to foster understanding, and enter the circle with the same genuine hermeneutic spirit that children exemplify.   Keywords: hermeneutics, children, authority, art, pediatric palliative car

High risk alcohol use after sleeve gastrectomy

Obesity is a major health problem associated with a plethora of health risks and a high economic cost in the United States. While non-surgical treatment options exist, surgical treatments have been shown to provide better success with weight-loss long term. Despite its success, an early type of weight loss surgery (WLS) called Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass (RYGB) has been linked to a higher risk of alcohol consumption post-operatively; however, the potential risk between the newer, more commonly performed surgery, sleeve gastrectomy, has yet to be explored. This pilot study conducted at the Bariatric Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, will provide preliminary data on high-risk alcohol use before and after sleeve gastrectomy (SG). Patients were interviewed regarding eating and drinking behaviors before and after SG using modified versions of the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire Revised-18 and the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test-C respectively. In this interim analysis, 37 of 70 eligible subjects underwent the baseline questionnaire (52.9% participation) and out of the 9 participants who had 3-month follow-ups, 8 participants completed their interview (88.9% retention). The overall prevalence of high-risk drinkers at baseline was 27%. Among the 8 participants who completed the 3-month follow-up, 1 reported high-risk drinking baseline and none reported high risk alcohol use at follow-up. In conclusion, although 27% of patients were high-risk drinkers at baseline, none of the patients were high-risk drinkers at the 3-month follow-up. Future studies investigating the change of alcohol use after longer-time periods after weight loss surgery are necessary in order to better assess if there is an increased alcohol use after sleeve gastrectomy

Harnessing Hollywood Hype: Film Marketing Meets the Challenges and Opportunities of the 21st Century

Marketing is a vital commercial activity and source of competitive advantage within the Hollywood film industry, serving to create, circulate and translate symbolic meaning around a film and its ancillary products, construct and target key audience segments, guide audience expectations and viewing choices, and mitigate financial risk. Marketers thus play an increasingly central role in all stages of the filmmaking process. To examine the often overlooked structures and practices of Hollywood’s marketing arm, this study adopts a media industry studies approach, employing interviews, fieldwork, and textual analysis to explore the social, technological, organizational, economic, and spatial forces that shape the contemporary context of Hollywood marketing materials’ creation. In the early 21st century, Hollywood studios face profound challenges and opportunities wrought by the dual forces of globalization and digitization. In response, marketers have developed a novel view of their audience: as increasingly global and empowered. Globalization and digitization are thus treated as centrifugal forces, diffusing production and meaning-making capabilities across geographic space and media platforms, and threatening the centralized control traditionally held by Hollywood studios. Marketers are incentivized to embrace these decentralizing forces and the cultural labor now provided by third party marketing agencies, international distributors, and audiences. However, Hollywood studios’ institutional inertia, risk aversion, and inclination to maintain firm control of their marketing messages and intellectual property preclude a whole-hearted embrace of these changes. Studio marketers thus act with deep ambivalence toward these outside players, attempting to capitalize on their cultural labor while simultaneously acting to circumscribe their power

Increasing the voluntary and community sector’s involvement in Integrated Offender Management(IOM)

As part of an undertaking to increase voluntary and community sector (VCS) involvement in service delivery, the Home Office set up an initiative to provide small grants to VCS organisations to work with IOM partnerships. The Home Office commissioned an evaluation of the initiative which aimed to: explore the strengths and weaknesses of the funding model; identify perceived barriers and facilitators to voluntary and community sector involvement in IOM; explore how the Home Office might best work with the VCS to encourage and support their capacity to work in partnership with statutory agencies; and identify any implications for the delivery of future similar projects

Process evaluation of Derbyshire Intensive Alternatives to Custody Pilot

The aim of this study was to critically assess the implementation and development of the Intensive Alternatives to Custody (IAC) pilot in Derbyshire. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Penal Policy paper (May 2007) outlined the government’s intention to develop higher intensity community orders as an alternative to short-term custody. The IAC Order was subsequently developed and piloted, first in Derbyshire and then in six other areas.* The pilots were centrally funded until March 2011

Conducting Literature Reviews Hermeneutically

It is well understood that conducting high quality literature reviews provides an important and solid foundation for research studies. While there is an abundance of resources available about how to conduct literature reviews for quantitative research, there are fewer publications available about how to conduct literature reviews for qualitative research, particularly research that is guided by hermeneutic philosophy. Rather than detailing how to conduct a hermeneutic literature review, in this paper we make the subtle, yet necessary, distinction that literature reviews included in research studies that are guided by hermeneutics should be conducted hermeneutically. We begin by reviewing the few resources that are currently available about conducting literature reviews for hermeneutic research and detail three different literature review processes for three hermeneutic studies. We then discuss how researchers, who are using hermeneutics to guide their research, might determine what literature should be included in their literature reviews. We close the paper by addressing the significance of rigour in literature reviews that are conducted hermeneutically

Assessing risk to fresh water resources from long term CO2 injection- laboratory and field studies

In developing a site for geologic sequestration, one must assess potential consequences of failure to adequately contain injected carbon dioxide (CO2). Upward migration of CO2 or displacement of saline water because of increased pressure might impact protected water resources 100s to 1000s of meters above a sequestration interval. Questions posed are: (1) Can changes in chemistry of fresh water aquifers provide evidence of CO2 leakage from deep injection/sequestration reservoirs containing brine and or hydrocarbons? (2) What parameters can we use to assess potential impacts to water quality? (3) If CO2 leakage to freshwater aquifers occurs, will groundwater quality be degraded and if so, over what time period? Modeling and reaction experiments plus known occurrences of naturally CO2-charged potable water show that the common chemical reaction products from dissolution of CO2 into freshwater include rapid buffering of acidity by dissolution of calcite and slower equilibrium by reaction with clays and feldspars. Results from a series of laboratory batch reactions of CO2 with diverse aquifer rocks show geochemical response within hours to days after introduction of CO2. Results included decreased pH and increased concentrations of cations in CO2 experimental runs relative to control runs using argon (Ar). Some cation (Ba, Ca, Fe, Mg, Mn, and Sr) concentrations increased over and an order of magnitude during CO2 runs. Results are aquifer dependant in that experimental vessels containing different aquifer rocks showed different magnitudes of increase in cation concentrations. Field studies designed to improve understanding of risk to fresh water are underway in the vicinity of (1) SACROC oilfield in Scurry County, Texas, USA where CO2 has been injected for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) since 1972 and (2) the Cranfield unit in Adams County, Mississippi, USA where CO2 EOR is currently underway. Both field studies are funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) regional carbon sequestration partnership programs and industrial sponsors. Preliminary results of groundwater monitoring are currently available for the SACROC field study where researchers investigated 68 water wells and one spring during five field excursions between June 2006 and July 2008. Results to date show no trend of preferential degradation below drinking water standards in areas of CO2 injection (inside SACROC) as compared to areas outside of the SACROC oil field.Bureau of Economic Geolog