The Curative Power of Play: The Voices of Therapists around the World

It is important for all therapists to be culturally sensitive to children and their eco-systems as well as to be aware of the current trends and the changing application of play as a healing agent. The focus of this study is on the development of a current description of play by therapists from a global perspective through a thematic analysis of focus groups resulting in an explanation of how play contributes to healing and the practice of therapy. In this study, the naturalistic method of qualitative research (Bowers, 2009; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was applied to the study of play around the world, resulting in a new description of “play”. The analyses of focus group meetings in Morocco, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada and Europe resulted in the emergence of 8 themes: productivity through play, contribution to development, facilitation of the relationship through play, honouring diversity, collaboration between children and caregivers, stimulation through technology-based play, relaxation provided by play, and the devaluation of play. These themes, which are presented through the “voices of the participants”, together with the literature review, serve to enrich the changing description of play. With participants from all continents, a current global perspective highlights the changes that play, both as a concept and as a healing agent, has undergone and will continue to do so. New information emerged suggesting that technology has become a worldwide focus for children but has a paradoxical effect on their relationships

CSLP in Sham Shui Po (理有「深」社區服務計劃) : a district-based service learning project, its mode of delivery and effectiveness

Background: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is committed to producing all-round graduates who are also responsible citizens and contributive members of the society. The annual campus-wide Community Service Learning Programme (CSLP) has been organized since 2004 to encourage staff and students to serve the community through the use of their professional knowledge and skills. About 800 students work on various service projects each year to serve the underprivileged groups of Hong Kong, Chinese mainland and overseas. In 2010/11, we started a new mode of service delivery with the implementation of a District-based Service-Learning Project in a relatively deprived area in HK, Sham Shui Po. We aim to organise more sustainable services by focusing the manpower and resources in serving the people in a particular district so that we can create bigger impacts and bring more benefits to the community. The Programme: Through collaboration with the Sham Shui Po District Social Welfare Office, we have successfully invited over 30 local NGOs and schools as our project partners. Together, 60 service projects of different nature and scales were planned and carried out during 2010-2012. The programme has generated a lot of synergy amongst students from different disciplines e.g. students from design schools working together with students from building services in improving the home environment of the lower income families; students from nursing school work together with social work and science students in promoting holistic health care for the elderly etc. Overall, the project has allowed us to provide more integrated services to the community people in various aspects including health care, education, improvement of the living environment and social integration. Effectiveness: The District-based Project has proven to be an effective mode of service delivery. By focusing our manpower and resources in a single district, we were more able to identify the community needs, organise larger scale and sustainable projects, and provide more integrated services to create a bigger impact to the community. During 2010-12, over 500 students from various disciplines had participated in 60 service projects and committed over 3100 service hours in total. The whole project has served more than 4,000 people in the district, addressing the needs of different target groups such as the elderly, new immigrants, lower income families, school children and the disabled

SOCIAL WORKERS\u27 PERCEPTION ON THE NEEDS AND SERVICES FOR FOSTER CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

Foster children are already at a disadvantage given that they tend to live in a home without their parents. Social workers have direct interactions working with children with special needs, and through interviews with the workers, we aimed to understand whether or not the services available are able to meet foster children’s special needs. The research on special needs children in foster care is quite limited. The purpose of the study was to identify social workers’ perceptions of the needs of special needs foster children and their access to services. This study used qualitative interviews with open-ended questions to gather qualitative data from ten social worker participants. The researchers employed thematic analysis techniques to analyze the qualitative data. The themes that emerged from analyzing the data were social workers’ challenges in providing services to special needs foster children, social workers’ access to services, and the need for institutional support to effectively manage service delivery for special needs foster children. This study found that social workers face challenges in obtaining training for parents and social workers, navigating complex funding processes, managing inconsistent desires between parents and court officials, and dealing with the limited number of capable foster homes. The social workers interviewed identified different tactics that could be implemented in order to improve services for the special needs foster children through changes and improvements within the department. Understanding large-scale policy and practice issues, such as organizational change or resource management, can lead county agency social workers to advocate for the challenges of special needs children in child welfare

A Multiscale Model of the Enhanced Heat Transfer in a CNT-Nanofluid System

Over the last decade, much research has been done to understand the role of nanoparticles in heat transfer fluids. While experimental results have shown "anomalous" thermal enhancements and non-linear behavior with respect to CNT loading percentage, little has been done to replicate this behavior from an analytical or computational standpoint. This study is aimed towards using molecular dynamics to augment our understanding of the physics at play in CNT-nanofluid systems. This research begins with a heat transfer study of individual CNTs in a vacuum environment. Temperature gradients are imposed or induced via various methods. Tersoff and AIREBO potentials are used for the carbon-carbon interactions in the CNTs. Various chirality CNTs are explored, along with several different lengths and temperatures. The simulations have shown clear dependencies upon CNT length, CNT chirality, and temperature. Subsequent studies simulate individual CNTs solvated in a simple fluidic box domain. A heat flux is applied to the domain, and various tools are employed to study the resulting heat transfer. The results from these simulations are contrasted against the earlier control simulations of the CNT-only domain. The degree by which the solvation dampens the effect of physical parameters is discussed. Effective thermal conductivity values are computed, however the piecewise nature of the temperature gradient makes Fourier's law insufficient in interpretting the heat transfer. Nevertheless, the computed effective thermal conductivities are applied to classical models and better agreement with experimental results is evident. Phonon spectra of solvated and unsolvated CNTs are compared. However, a unique method utilizing the Irving-Kirkwood relations reveals the spatially-localized heat flux mapping that fully illuminates the heat transfer pathways in the solid-fluid composite material. This method confirms why conventional models fail at predicting effective thermal conductivity. Specifically, it reveals the volume of influence that the CNT has on its surrounding fluid

A Sec14 domain protein is required for photoautotrophic growth and chloroplast vesicle formation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

In eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms, the conversion of solar into chemical energy occurs in thylakoid membranes in the chloroplast. How thylakoid membranes are formed and maintained is poorly understood. However, previous observations of vesicles adjacent to the stromal side of the inner envelope membrane of the chloroplast suggest a possible role of membrane transport via vesicle trafficking from the inner envelope to the thylakoids. Here we show that the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana has a chloroplast-localized Sec14-like protein (CPSFL1) that is necessary for photoautotrophic growth and vesicle formation at the inner envelope membrane of the chloroplast. The cpsfl1 mutants are seedling lethal, show a defect in thylakoid structure, and lack chloroplast vesicles. Sec14 domain proteins are found only in eukaryotes and have been well characterized in yeast, where they regulate vesicle budding at the trans-Golgi network. Like the yeast Sec14p, CPSFL1 binds phosphatidylinositol phosphates (PIPs) and phosphatidic acid (PA) and acts as a phosphatidylinositol transfer protein in vitro, and expression of Arabidopsis CPSFL1 can complement the yeast sec14 mutation. CPSFL1 can transfer PIP into PA-rich membrane bilayers in vitro, suggesting that CPSFL1 potentially facilitates vesicle formation by trafficking PA and/or PIP, known regulators of membrane trafficking between organellar subcompartments. These results underscore the role of vesicles in thylakoid biogenesis and/or maintenance. CPSFL1 appears to be an example of a eukaryotic cytosolic protein that has been coopted for a function in the chloroplast, an organelle derived from endosymbiosis of a cyanobacterium

Knowledge Management Systems Diffusion in Chinese Enterprises: A Multi-Stage Approach with the Technology-Organization-Environment Framework

Many enterprises encounter difficulties during the process of KMS diffusion and thus fail to gain benefits from KMS adoption. This study aims to explain why some enterprises succeed while others fail in KMS diffusion. Based on technology diffusion theory and technologyorganization- environment (TOE) framework, we propose an integrated model to examine the influence of factors from the technological, organizational, and environmental aspects on the three-stage KMS diffusion process, i.e., initiation- adoption/adaptation-acceptance /routinization /infusion. In particular, we incorporate social-cultural factors into our model to examine its effect on KMS diffusion, which has not been paid enough attention by prior KMS studies. For the specific research context, we choose China and examine how socialcultural factors influence KMS diffusion process in Chinese enterprises. This study benefits academics by providing a process perspective of KMS diffusion and also provides practical guidance for Chinese enterprises which are engaging in KMS implementation

Opportunities & challenges of international service project

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is committed to nurturing students to become responsible global citizens with a strong sense of social responsibility and a good global outlook. Students from PolyU participated in an International Service Learning Programme- Yogyakarta Kampung Field School (YKFS) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the summer of 2012. The programme was jointly organized by Duta Wacana Christian University (DWCU) in Indonesia, Australian National University (ANU) in Australia and PolyU. This overseas service learning programme was a new programme for PolyU students and staff that reaching the southern hemisphere and also a new attempt that collaborating with two other universities in service learning project. The theme of the Programme was ‘Improving the Living Quality of the Rural Settlements as a Basic of Developing Tourism village in Banjaroya’. Students were required to live in villages in Indonesia where they learned about the diversity of culture and made friends with other students by serving the rural community. Students coming from three universities mixed together and grouped themselves into teams, and stayed at the homes of the local villagers for nearly one month. While adapting to a very different lifestyle, they learned about the local culture and wisdom, and served the local community with their professional knowledge. As students were coming from different academic disciplines, they formed good teams which members were with different abilities and they were also able to carry out a variety of service projects after surveying on the needs of the local communities. During the programme, students studied different aspects of the rural villages and contributed rich ideas on improving the living quality of the local people. The programme has provided a good opportunity for students to learn how to be global citizens and to enhance their generic competences. It also served as a pilot service learning programme for the planning of a credit-bearing service learning subject. Meanwhile, this programme delivered challenges to students in the aspects of culture shock, unfamiliar serving community, language barrier…etc. It also appeared as a great challenge to the programme staff in the areas of risk and uncertainty management, which required the orientation, adjustment and balancing of different supervision dimensions -teaching, guidance, monitoring and consultant dimensions. This paper will discuss the characteristics of this programme and evaluate the project achievements and the new attempts of teaching that contributing for project outcomes