Implementing NMC standards for learning, and assessing in practice(2006): a demonstration of effective partnership between a higher education institution and NHS Trust placement partners

This paper provides an account of the collaborative approach taken to implement professional standards in teaching, learning and assessing in practice for nursing and midwifery. How challenges for effective partnership working between university and placement/practice education provider were overcome are presented. Processes and issues which arose when new national regulatory professional standards of practice education were introduced are highlighted. The partnership work ensured a robust process to locally interpreting and implementing the NMC Standards for Supporting Learning and Assessing in Practice (2006). This was achieved and resulted in a county wide agreed implementation of the Standards across NHS Oxfordshire and beyond. The key requirements of the Standards and the challenges identified are presented together with how issues were addressed. The approach taken by an established partnership working group is described and the products of the process are detailed, including listing 'top tips' for successful partnership working

Interview with Lloyd Watkins, President Emeritus

Oral history interview with Illinois State University Emeritus President Lloyd Watkins. The interview was conducted on January 23, 2007, by Kate O\u27Toole, as part of the Illinois State University Oral History Project.https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/soh/1013/thumbnail.jp

The Pioneers of the Hybridised World of Vocational Education and GCSE retake

Since 2015, educational policy has required post-sixteen learners in England to resit GCSE English if they had marginally failed to gain Grade 4 (C). Nationally, results for post-sixteen GCSE resits have been poor, with less than a quarter of learners reaching the required standard at GCSE English each year, and vocational education (VE) learners have had the poorest results. The aim of this research was to examine the experience of VE learners subject to this policy. Dominant policy and institutional discourses have positioned GCSE as a benchmark of attainment, a determiner for future success and a lever for economic productivity. However, the findings did not uncover morose participants, disenfranchised because of their failure to pass GCSE. Using the construct of Figured Worlds, analysis revealed that the confluence of VE and GCSE retake created a hybridised learning experience. Using the theoretical framework of Figured Worlds, the findings reveal that this hybridised experience created agentic learner identities through learner discourses that positioned the GCSE as meaningless assessment compared with the experience of tangible, relevant and progressive learning in VE. The findings suggest that the experience of VE and GCSE retake has accidentally created the conditions for a positive learner identity and indicates implications of this finding for future practice and policy in VE

An appreciation of the prescience of Don Gilbert (1930‐2011): master of the theory and experimental unraveling of biochemical and cellular oscillatory dynamics

We review Don Gilbert's pioneering seminal contributions that both detailed the mathematical principles and the experimental demonstration of several of the key dynamic characteristics of life. Long before it became evident to the wider biochemical community, Gilbert proposed that cellular growth and replication necessitate autodynamic occurrence of cycles of oscillations that initiate, coordinate, and terminate the processes of growth, during which all components are duplicated and become spatially re‐organized in the progeny. Initiation and suppression of replication exhibit switch‐like characteristics: i.e., bifurcations in the values of parameters that separate static and autodynamic behavior. His limit cycle solutions present models developed in a series of papers reported between 1974 and 1984, and these showed that most or even all of the major facets of the cell division cycle could be accommodated. That the cell division cycle may be timed by a multiple of shorter period (ultradian) rhythms, gave further credence to the central importance of oscillatory phenomena and homeodynamics as evident on multiple time scales (seconds to hours). Further application of the concepts inherent in limit cycle operation as hypothesized by Gilbert more than 50 years ago are now validated as being applicable to oscillatory transcript, metabolite and enzyme levels, cellular differentiation, senescence, cancerous states, and cell death. Now, we reiterate especially for students and young colleagues, that these early achievements were even more exceptional, as his own lifetime's work on modeling was continued with experimental work in parallel with his predictions of the major current enterprises of biological research

Re-configurable, multi-channel, high-speed FBG strain sensing system for vibration analysis in oil risers

Eight re-configurable, synchronized resonant cavity time-division- multiplexed FBG sensor interrogators provide 16,800 high-resolution measurements-per-second from 280 axially embedded strain sensors, for the analysis of vortex-shedding-induced vibration and bending in a composite oil riser pipe

Consumer Showrooming::Value Co-destruction

Purpose This research employs value co-destruction as a theoretical lens to investigate the antecedents of consumer showrooming behavior. Drawing on relevant literature, a research model specifying showrooming dynamics from the consumer’s perspective is conceptualized and empirically tested. Methodology Utilizing survey data from 275 consumers, structural equation modelling is employed to assess a research model including thirteen hypotheses. Findings The study findings reveal that showrooming behavior is complex and comprises differing degrees of accumulative value co-destruction and value co-creation behavior across online and offline channels. Specifically, consumer characteristics, channel characteristics and product characteristics are shown to be associated with in-store value taking and online value co-destruction and co-creation. Originality and Value Scholarly insights into the antecedents of consumer showrooming are rare. In responding to calls for research, this paper represents the first empirical investigation of consumer showrooming behavior utilizing the lens of value co-destruction. The study adds to academic understanding of the showrooming phenomena and demonstrates that co-destructive and co-creative behaviors can occur in a simultaneous, concurrent and iterative fashion. Focusing on practice, the findings reveal opportunities for experience-led shopping environments

The combined effect of hypoxia and mental fatigue on physical and cognitive peformance [Abstract]

The combined effect of hypoxia and mental fatigue on physical and cognitive peformance [Abstract

Differences in Orgasm Frequency Between Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men and Women in a U.S. National Sample

There is a notable gap between heterosexual men and women in frequency of orgasm during sex. Little is known, however, about sexual orientation differences in orgasm frequency. We examined how over 30 different traits or behaviors were associated with frequency of orgasm when sexually intimate during the past month. We analyzed a large US sample of adults (N = 52,588) who identified as heterosexual men (n = 26,032), gay men (n = 452), bisexual men (n = 550), lesbian women (n = 340), bisexual women (n = 1112), and heterosexual women (n = 24,102). Heterosexual men were most likely to say they usually-always orgasmed when sexually intimate (95%), followed by gay men (89%), bisexual men (88%), lesbian women (86%), bisexual women (66%), and heterosexual women (65%). Compared to women who orgasmed less frequently, women who orgasmed more frequently were more likely to: receive more oral sex, have longer duration of last sex, be more satisfied with their relationship, ask for what they want in bed, praise their partner for something they did in bed, call/email to tease about doing something sexual, wear sexy lingerie, try new sexual positions, anal stimulation, act out fantasies, incorporate sexy talk, and express love during sex. Women were more likely to orgasm if their last sexual encounter included deep kissing, manual genital stimulation, and/or oral sex in addition to vaginal intercourse. We consider sociocultural and evolutionary explanations for these orgasm gaps. The results suggest a variety of behaviors couples can try to increase orgasm frequency