From the low status role of residential (care) workers to the high-status role as house mentors

This article is about the claim that 'residential work is part of social work', and how the subsequent demise of specialist residential qualifications in both Britain and Australia came about. This demise resulted from the British adoption of the CQSW (Certificate of Qualification in Social Work) as a common fieldwork and residential services qualification. Australia, in time, imported US models of residential care and treatment. Two examples are given, firstly, of how the downsizing of residential facilities in NSW has created a demand for residential placements that cannot be satisfied. This is described as a planning and policy failure. The second example is from education. This educational sector programme avoided the rush by community services to reduce the use of residential facilities. In contrast, this programme, for educationally disengaged young people, has maintained a capacity of 32 young people, and can empirically demonstrate effectiveness in returning these young people to mainstream education. The focus in this programme is on 'educational gain and behaviour change', with staff in the four special houses having an educational role as house mentors

Infected pancreatic necrosis: outcomes and clinical predictors of mortality. A post hoc analysis of the MANCTRA-1 international study

: The identification of high-risk patients in the early stages of infected pancreatic necrosis (IPN) is critical, because it could help the clinicians to adopt more effective management strategies. We conducted a post hoc analysis of the MANCTRA-1 international study to assess the association between clinical risk factors and mortality among adult patients with IPN. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were used to identify prognostic factors of mortality. We identified 247 consecutive patients with IPN hospitalised between January 2019 and December 2020. History of uncontrolled arterial hypertension (p = 0.032; 95% CI 1.135-15.882; aOR 4.245), qSOFA (p = 0.005; 95% CI 1.359-5.879; aOR 2.828), renal failure (p = 0.022; 95% CI 1.138-5.442; aOR 2.489), and haemodynamic failure (p = 0.018; 95% CI 1.184-5.978; aOR 2.661), were identified as independent predictors of mortality in IPN patients. Cholangitis (p = 0.003; 95% CI 1.598-9.930; aOR 3.983), abdominal compartment syndrome (p = 0.032; 95% CI 1.090-6.967; aOR 2.735), and gastrointestinal/intra-abdominal bleeding (p = 0.009; 95% CI 1.286-5.712; aOR 2.710) were independently associated with the risk of mortality. Upfront open surgical necrosectomy was strongly associated with the risk of mortality (p < 0.001; 95% CI 1.912-7.442; aOR 3.772), whereas endoscopic drainage of pancreatic necrosis (p = 0.018; 95% CI 0.138-0.834; aOR 0.339) and enteral nutrition (p = 0.003; 95% CI 0.143-0.716; aOR 0.320) were found as protective factors. Organ failure, acute cholangitis, and upfront open surgical necrosectomy were the most significant predictors of mortality. Our study confirmed that, even in a subgroup of particularly ill patients such as those with IPN, upfront open surgery should be avoided as much as possible. Study protocol registered in ClinicalTrials.Gov (I.D. Number NCT04747990)

A house burden score: measuring the workload in therapeutic residential care for young people

This article is about using data from the Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire to develop a house burden score as a way of measuring the workload of a therapeutic residential care program. The development of the score ensures that residential placement selection is based on empirical data rather than on the often-used criteria of ‘where is there a vacancy?’ It may also curb comments by inexperienced staff such as ‘our house has the most difficult young people, whereas yours are easy’. The aim of the score is to ensure that a residential program is not overburdened with too many children and young people with complex emotional and behavioral difficulties to the extent that this result is a sub-standard service for all young people

A house burden score: measuring the workload in therapeutic residential care for young people

This article is about using data from the Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire to develop a house burden score as a way of measuring the workload of a therapeutic residential care program. The development of the score ensures that residential placement selection is based on empirical data rather than on the often-used criteria of ‘where is there a vacancy?’ It may also curb comments by inexperienced staff such as ‘our house has the most difficult young people, whereas yours are easy’. The aim of the score is to ensure that a residential program is not overburdened with too many children and young people with complex emotional and behavioral difficulties to the extent that this result is a sub-standard service for all young people

Revisiting the stability of computing the roots of a quadratic polynomial

We show in this paper that the roots $x_1$ and $x_2$ of a scalar quadratic polynomial $ax^2+bx+c=0$ with real or complex coefficients $a$, $b$ $c$ can be computed in a element-wise mixed stable manner, measured in a relative sense. We also show that this is a stronger property than norm-wise backward stability, but weaker than element-wise backward stability. We finally show that there does not exist any method that can compute the roots in an element-wise backward stable sense, which is also illustrated by some numerical experiments.Comment: 13 page

Recursive approximation of the dominant eigenspace of an indefinite matrix

AbstractWe consider here the problem of tracking the dominant eigenspace of an indefinite matrix by updating recursively a rank k approximation of the given matrix. The tracking uses a window of the given matrix, which increases at every step of the algorithm. Therefore, the rank of the approximation increases also, and hence a rank reduction of the approximation is needed to retrieve an approximation of rank k. In order to perform the window adaptation and the rank reduction in an efficient manner, we make use of a new anti-triangular decomposition for indefinite matrices. All steps of the algorithm only make use of orthogonal transformations, which guarantees the stability of the intermediate steps. We also show some numerical experiments to illustrate the performance of the tracking algorithm

A structurally backward stable algorithm for solving the indefinite least squares problem with equality constraints

The equality constrained indefinite least squares problem involves the minimization of an indefinite quadratic form subject to a linear equality constraint. In this paper, we study this problem and present a numerical method that is proved to be backward stable in a strict sense, i.e., that the computed solution satisfies a slightly perturbed equality constrained indefinite least squares problem. We also perform a sensitivity analysis of this problem and derive bounds for the accuracy of the computed solution. We give several numerical experiments to illustrate these results

On QZ steps with perfect shifts and computing the index of a differential-algebraic equation

In this paper we revisit the problem of performing a QZ step with a so-called ‘perfect shift’, which is an ‘exact’ eigenvalue of a given regular pencil λB − A in unreduced Hessenberg triangular form. In exact arithmetic, the QZ step moves that eigenvalue to the bottom of the pencil, while the rest of the pencil is maintained in Hessenberg triangular form, which then yields a deflation of the given eigenvalue. But in finite precision the QZ step gets ‘blurred’ and precludes the deflation of the given eigenvalue. In this paper we show that when we first compute the corresponding eigenvector to sufficient accuracy, then the QZ step can be constructed using this eigenvector, so that the deflation is also obtained in finite precision. An important application of this technique is the computation of the index of a system of differential algebraic equations, since an exact deflation of the infinite eigenvalues is needed to impose correctly the algebraic constraints of such differential equations