Peformance evaluation of a passive microwave imaging system

A test program was conducted to evaluate the passive microwave imaging system for possible application in the NASA Earth Resources Program. In addition to test data analysis, the report gives a brief description of the radiometer, its software, and the ground support equipment. The microwave image quality is adequate for remote sensing applications studies. Instrument problems are described, and suggestions are given for possible improvements and potential applications

Organisational volunteering: Meanings of volunteering, professionalism, volunteer communities of practice and wellbeing

Volunteering has become the major means by which individuals and communities connect and engage with significant social issues. While volunteering is typically constructed as an inherently positive activity that improves personal and social wellbeing, this project critically examines the relationship between organisational volunteering and wellbeing. Scholarly literature from multiple disciplines suggests that three key dimensions are particularly salient in understanding connections between volunteering and wellbeing. The first dimension is the significance and meaning that volunteers themselves attach to what they do. The extensive volunteering literature contains multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives on the core features of organisational volunteering, without considering how volunteers themselves might reconcile these tensions. The second dimension is the role that organisational expectations and messages about professionalism in particular play in shaping volunteer identity and practice and its relationship with wellbeing. Professionalism is usually framed as an attribute of paid work and hence as inconsistent with the volunteer role and the mission of nonprofit organisations more generally. The third dimension involves the connections between organisational volunteering and wellbeing as they are evident in nonprofit communities of practice, where wellbeing emerges from the collaborative relationships that volunteers develop. CoP scholarship tends to position collaboration as a component of “good” CoPs and conflict as negative. Accordingly, the objective of the thesis is to understand the meanings of volunteering as they are constructed by volunteers, shaped by understandings of professionalism embedded in core organisational codes of conduct, and enacted in communities of practice. Doing so will enable a close and comprehensive assessment of the connections and potential tensions between volunteering and wellbeing. In addition to advancing research on volunteering, the research has implications for three core organisational communication constructs: occupational and organisational identity, coordination and relationality. The study of the meanings, identities and practice of volunteering offers insight into how individuals manage multiple identity positions, especially in non-work settings, and how particular identities cue the ways in which relationality is enacted. The study of communities of practice in nonprofit contexts could also extend studies of coordination that explore how organisations attempt to control their members by focusing on meaningful participation. The thesis is structured around five research questions. First, I ask: what meanings do individuals engaged with voluntary organisations give to their volunteering? Second, in order to assess the impact of professionalism, I ask three questions: How do organisational codes of conduct construct professionalism for volunteers? How do these codes of conduct position the relationship between professionalism and wellbeing? How do volunteers relate organisational notions of professionalism to their own wellbeing? Finally, in order to understand the connections between organisational volunteering, relationships and wellbeing in practice, I ask: How do volunteers enact communities of practice? As a broad frame for the entire project, I employ a hybrid phenomenological perspective based around three key postulates: (1) individuals create meaning through intentional interaction with objects of experience; (2) we use both experience and context to understand a phenomenon; and (3) individual and group differences in how an object is experienced enrich our understanding of a phenomenon. The postulates suggest that, in order to understand the phenomenon of organisational volunteering, both a detailed account of volunteers’ experiences and an analysis of the organisational context in which volunteering occurs is required. Specifically, I analysed volunteering in three nonprofit organisations in New Zealand: Refugee Services, the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society, and St John Ambulance. A total of 49 in-depth interviews were conducted with volunteers in all three organisations in order to answer questions about the meanings of volunteering, the impact of professionalism on wellbeing, and communities of practice. Additionally, I collected textual data in the form of reports, brochures, promotional materials and training manuals, as well as observational data to assess how codes of professional conduct were constructed in each organisation. Data were analysed for each of the three key dimensions of the volunteering-wellbeing relationship as follows. I used a phenomenological method of analysis adapted from the Duquesne School to unpack the meanings that volunteers gave to their experiences of volunteering. In order to develop emic understandings of professionalism within the nonprofit organisations in this study, I highlighted statements from organisational representatives and in organisational texts that discussed professionalism and clustered key elements into themes. In contrast, I applied an a priori coding method to address the last research question on communities of practice. Specifically, I adopted Lave and Wenger’s (1991) framework to analyse how volunteers used shared repertoire, mutual interaction and joint enterprise to create communities of practice, and I parsed these categories for evidence of both collaboration and conflict. The findings of this project have significant implications for research on volunteering. First, this study challenges uni-dimensional visions of volunteering found in both academic and popular literature as a free act. Instead, the data highlights the dual nature of volunteering, which is simultaneously agentic and deeply relational. Moreover, two distinct pathways, or ways of negotiating this duality, emerge. Volunteers on the freedom-reciprocity pathway move synchronically between agency and relationality, while those on the giving-obligation pathway shift diachronically from agency to relationality. Second, the study shows that codes of conduct regarding professionalism and its relationship with wellbeing are constructed differently across organisations. Further, participants in each organisation diverged in their responses to organisational notions of professionalism. One group enjoyed the structure and control afforded by professional standards, while the other group resisted professionalism as impersonal and negative for their wellbeing. Third, contestation and conflict were as prevalent as collaboration and cooperation in volunteer communities of practice in all three organisations. While it was clear that dissent was an important part of “well” volunteer communities, the expectation that volunteering would lead to wellbeing and collaborative relationships did influence volunteer retention and intentions to exit. These findings have implications for organisational communication research on identity, coordination and relationality, as well as theorising on nonprofit organising, in the form of three dialectical tensions. First, the study suggests that the process of identification is dynamic and dependent upon how volunteers manage the duality between agency and relationality inherent in volunteering. Second, the study offers an expansive view of what “collaborative” behaviour in communities of practice might entail, implicating both consensus and dissensus. Finally, the study demonstrates the key role that relationality plays, both in definitions of occupational identity as well as the construction of collaborative communities of practice

Measurement of atmospheric precipitable water using a solar radiometer

A technique is described and tested that allows the determination of atmospheric precipitable water from two measurements of solar intensity: one in a water-vapor absorption band and another in a nearby spectral region unaffected by water vapor

"That's what I've got on the counterfeit" : a study of the factors influencing the completion of death certificates by general practitioners

Death certificates are used for various purposes, including research, public health planning and settlement of estates. The evidence of inaccuracies in death certification is well documented in the medical literature. The cause of inaccurate death certificates is attributed principally to inadequate training, and the proposed solutions to date focus on this. The incongruity of continuing to use data which are known to be inaccurate, and the persistence of calls for "more training" as the solution, were stimulants for this research. This study looked for factors that influence general practitioners that certify the cause of death. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data gathering were used. The quantitative arm of the study was a questionnaire sent to 220 randomly selected New Zealand general practitioners. The qualitative arm consisted of four focus groups that were held by teleconference. Each focus group had four participating general practitioners, a facilitator and the researcher as a silent participant recording the discussion. The participants were chosen to reflect the diverse settings in general practice. The focus group discussions were semistructured with minimal facilitation. The questionnaire was analysed by frequency analysis, and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used. Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between independent variables and p values applied to the findings. There was an 87% response rate to the questionnaire. Of the respondents 53% (CI 46% to 61%) received no training or could not recall receiving training. Frequency analysis of the questionnaire showed that 72% of general practitioners (CI 63% to 77%) had experienced doubt at some time when completing death certificates. Factors that were shown to influence some general practitioners when certifying the cause of death were the wishes of the family, the access to postmortem examinations, stigma of certain diagnoses, the use to which death certificates were put, and confidentiality issues. However, the wishes of the family and relatives were the most influential always being considered by 7% (CI 4% to 13.%) and sometimes being considered by 53% (CI 46% to 61 % ) of general practitioners. Substantive thematic analysis of the transcriptions of the focus groups identified and elaborated on each of the factors described in the questionnaire. The issues of certainty and uncertainty in clinical diagnosis, and of the nature of general practice were dominant. The expectation to provide a precise clinical diagnosis and the reality of achieving this in given clinical circumstances was a dilemma familiar to the general practitioners. The nature of general practice (focused on the person who is the patient and the people important to the patient) creates a bias for the certifying general practitioner. Although inadequate training is a factor contributing.to inaccuracy of death. certification, there are other factors involved. The role of clinical certainty and the bias of the certifying medical practitioner need to be taken into consideration when strategies to improve the situation are planned. There are contemporary thinkers who already acknowledge the role of certainty and uncertainty in clinical medicine, and have proposed strategies how to manage this when making health policy. The strategies they propose are integrated with the findings of this study

D3.2. ENEON methodology for management and coordination and first plenary Workshop minutes

The report on the ENEON plenary Workshop (WS2) will gather the minutes and all the information regarding the plenary. The workshops will also be used to build a collection of frameworks and best practices across domains and stakeholders that will be collected in this deliverable. The deliverable also describes the new aspect about ENEON methodology for management and coordination. It is important to differentiate this deliverable from "D6.1 ConnectinGEO methodology" that deals with the gap analysis and priorities that uses the ENEON knowhow as input

D3.3 : Mid term revision of the data management plan

The Data Management Plan (DMP) will be reviewed as requested in http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/h2020-hi-oa-data-mgt_en.pdf. The review will be conducted in collaboration with WP1 and WP5. The deliverable will include the outcome of task 3.3. Publisher ConnectinGEOConsortiu

District nursing and family/whanau assessment practices: A New Zealand study

Aim: District Nurses apply specialized nursing knowledge and assessment skills to provide care in New Zealand communities. This study aimed to identify whether District Nurse's (both Registered and supervised Enrolled Nurse's) had knowledge of, and used the 15-Minute Interview tool, including Ecomaps/Genograms, and if not, what they saw as enablers or barriers to doing so. Design: Participatory action research was used, following the phases of look, think and act. Methods: Two pre-intervention focus groups occurred, two education sessions which introduced the 15-Minute Interview and four postintervention interviews which explored the use of the tools and their potential use in the future. Results: District Nurses demonstrated working with families, and the selection of when and where to apply the 15-Minute Interview

ZnII(atsm) is protective in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis model mice via a copper delivery mechanism

AbstractMutations in the metalloprotein Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase (SOD1) cause approximately 20% of familial cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease for which effective therapeutics do not yet exist. Transgenic rodent models based on over-expression of mutant SOD1 have been developed and these have provided opportunity to test new therapeutic strategies and to study the mechanisms of mutant SOD1 toxicity. Although the mechanisms of mutant SOD1 toxicity are yet to be fully elucidated, incorrect or incomplete metallation of SOD1 confers abnormal folding, aggregation and biochemical properties, and improving the metallation state of SOD1 provides a viable therapeutic option. The therapeutic effects of delivering copper (Cu) to mutant SOD1 have been demonstrated recently. The aim of the current study was to determine if delivery of zinc (Zn) to SOD1 was also therapeutic. To investigate this, SOD1G37R mice were treated with the metal complex diacetyl-bis(4-methylthiosemicarbazonato)zincII [ZnII(atsm)]. Treatment resulted in an improvement in locomotor function and survival of the mice. However, biochemical analysis of spinal cord tissue collected from the mice revealed that the treatment did not increase overall Zn levels in the spinal cord nor the Zn content of SOD1. In contrast, overall levels of Cu in the spinal cord were elevated in the ZnII(atsm)-treated SOD1G37R mice and the Cu content of SOD1 was also elevated. Further experiments demonstrated transmetallation of ZnII(atsm) in the presence of Cu to form the Cu-analogue CuII(atsm), indicating that the observed therapeutic effects for ZnII(atsm) in SOD1G37R mice may in fact be due to in vivo transmetallation and subsequent delivery of Cu

Oral Treatment with CuII(atsm) Increases Mutant SOD1 In Vivo but Protects Motor Neurons and Improves the Phenotype of a Transgenic Mouse Model of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Mutations in the metallo-protein Cu/Zn-superoxide dismutase (SOD1) cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in humans and an expression level-dependent phenotype in transgenic rodents. We show that oral treatment with the therapeutic agent diacetyl-bis(4-methylthiosemicarbazonato)copperII [CuII(atsm)] increased the concentration of mutant SOD1 (SOD1G37R) in ALS model mice, but paradoxically improved locomotor function and survival of the mice. To determine why the mice with increased levels of mutant SOD1 had an improved phenotype, we analyzed tissues by mass spectrometry. These analyses revealed most SOD1 in the spinal cord tissue of the SOD1G37R mice was Cu deficient. Treating with CuII(atsm) decreased the pool of Cu-deficient SOD1 and increased the pool of fully metallated (holo) SOD1. Tracking isotopically enriched 65CuII(atsm) confirmed the increase in holo-SOD1 involved transfer of Cu from CuII(atsm) to SOD1, suggesting the improved locomotor function and survival of the CuII(atsm)-treated SOD1G37R mice involved, at least in part, the ability of the compound to improve the Cu content of the mutant SOD1. This was supported by improved survival of SOD1G37R mice that expressed the human gene for the Cu uptake protein CTR1. Improving the metal content of mutant SOD1 in vivo with CuII(atsm) did not decrease levels of misfolded SOD1. These outcomes indicate the metal content of SOD1 may be a greater determinant of the toxicity of the protein in mutant SOD1-associated forms of ALS than the mutations themselves. Improving the metal content of SOD1 therefore represents a valid therapeutic strategy for treating ALS caused by SOD1

Spontaneous regression of CIN2 in women aged 18-24 years: a retrospective study of a state-wide population in Western Australia

Introduction: CIN2 has a high rate of spontaneous regression in young women and may be managed conservatively in appropriately selected patients. This study aimed to investigate health outcomes in women aged 18–24 years with biopsy-confirmed CIN2. Material and methods: A retrospective cohort study of Western Australian women aged 18–24 years diagnosed with CIN2 on cervical biopsy from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2010. Women who had not received treatment at ≥4 months following CIN2 diagnosis were classified as managed ‘conservatively’. Subsequent cervical cytology and/or biopsy test results were used to report lesion regression (absence of dysplasia or an epithelial lesion of lower grade than CIN2) and disease persistence (CIN2, CIN3 or ACIS). Results: Follow-up data were available for 2417 women of whom 924 (38.2%) were ‘conservatively’ managed. In all, 152 (16.4%) conservatively managed women had a lesion more severe than CIN2 detected within 24 months of initial diagnosis, of which 144 were CIN3 and eight were ACIS. There was no statistically significant association between rates of regression and patient age, Socio-economic Indexes for Areas or Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia indices. The 2-year regression rate for CIN2 was estimated to be 59.5% (95%CI 0.5–0.6) in this cohort of women. Conclusion: In conservatively managed young women with CIN2 there was a high rate of spontaneous disease regression. Thus, excisional or ablative treatments may be avoided in selected patients who receive appropriate counseling and who are able to comply with more intensive and prolonged follow-up requirements