A survey of vocational guidance services for junior college secretarial students

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Changing Returns to Education During a Boom? The Case of Ireland. ESRI WP227. February 2008

Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” years saw GDP per capita rise from 60% of the EU average to 120% of the average over the course of the 1990s, with a growth in employment of about 40% over the period 1994-2001. What were the consequences of the boom for returns to education and wage inequality? This paper uses data from the Living in Ireland Survey for 1994, 1997 and 2001 to examine wage inequality, the returns to education and the relative demand for labour for men and women

MONITORING REPORT ON INTEGRATION 2018. ESRI Report, November 2018

Given that a significant proportion of the population living in Ireland is of non-Irish origin, how are non-Irish nationals integrating into Irish society? How do they compare to the Irish population in terms of employment rates, educational qualifications, income and poverty rates, health outcomes, housing and participation in Irish political life? This Integration Monitor is the sixth of a series of reports which consider outcomes in a wide range of life domains, including employment, education, social inclusion and active citizenship. It is based on indicators proposed at the European Ministerial Conference on Integration held in Zaragoza in 2010. These indicators are comparable across European Union (EU) Member States, based on existing data and focused on outcomes. It should be noted that some differences between Irish and non-Irish may be a result of differences in age, gender, duration in Ireland, educational background and work experience. Accounting for these differences using statistical modelling is beyond the scope of this report, but readers are alerted to relevant differences. This Monitor’s special topic is: ‘Muslims in Ireland’, based primarily on data from the 2016 Irish Census

The Impact of Flexible Working Arrangements on Work-Life Conflict and Work Pressure in Ireland. ESRI WP189. April 2007

Recent rapid economic growth in Ireland has been accompanied by a strong surge in the number of women in employment, and this has led to a significant increase in the proportion of dual-earner families. These changes have brought the issue of reconciliation between work and care commitments to the fore. Flexible working arrangements in firms have been identified as one important means of balancing work and other commitments (Evans 2001). In this paper we investigate the relationship between four flexible working arrangements – flexi-time, part-time hours, working from home and job-share – and two key employee outcomes – work pressure and work-life conflict, using data from the first national survey of employees in Ireland in 2003. Our results show that while part-time work and flexi-time tend to reduce work pressure and work-life conflict, working from home is associated with greater levels of both work pressure and work-life conflict. We conclude that it is important to distinguish between flexible working arrangements to discover their potential for reducing work pressure and work-life conflict

RECONCILING WORK AND FAMILY LIFE: WORKPLACES, OCCUPATION AND THE EXPERIENCE OF WORK-LIFE CONFLICT. ESRI Research Bulletin 2009/3/4

Concerns about the appropriate balance between work and family life have intensified as growth in female labour market participation has been accompanied by falling fertility and the prospect of an ageing population. The importance of this area for policy has led to a growing body of research, to which ESRI researchers have recently contributed.† One of the papers specifically explores the various types of flexible working mechanisms and the relationship with work-life conflict, using data from the 2003 Changing Workplaces Survey,1 a nationally representative survey of employees in Ireland, which provides a unique and comprehensive picture of contemporary Irish workplaces. The other papers focus on Ireland’s situation in an international comparative context, drawing on the 2004 European Social Survey

MIGRANTS’ EXPERIENCE OF RACISM AND DISCRIMINATION IN IRELAND. Results of a survey conducted by The Economic and Social Research Institute for The European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia

In this report we present the results of a survey conducted in 2005 as submitted to the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) in October 2005. The study was carried out on a harmonised basis in 12 Member States. These are the results of the first survey on the issue of subjective experiences of racism and discrimination conducted in respect of a representative random sample of two groups of immigrants: employment permit holders and asylum seekers. Publication of the individual country studies was not permitted until after the release of the synthesis report Migrants’ Experiences of Racism and Xenophobia in 12 EU Member States, which was published by the EUMC in October 2006.

Step-count accuracy of three motion sensors for older and frail medical inpatients

Objectives: To measure the step-count accuracy of an ankle-worn accelerometer, a thigh-worn accelerometer and one pedometer in older and frail inpatients. Design: Cross-sectional design study. Setting: Research room within a hospital. Participants: Convenience sample of inpatients aged ≥65 years, able to walk 20 metres unassisted, with or without a walking-aid. Intervention: Patients completed a 40-minute programme of predetermined tasks while wearing the three motion sensors simultaneously. Video-recording of the procedure provided the criterion measurement of step-count. Main Outcome Measures: Mean percentage (%) errors were calculated for all tasks, slow versus fast walkers, independent versus walking-aid-users, and over shorter versus longer distances. The Intra-class Correlation was calculated and accuracy was visually displayed by Bland-Altman plots. Results: Thirty-two patients (78.1 ±7.8 years) completed the study. Fifteen were female and 17 used walking-aids. Their median speed was 0.46 m/sec (interquartile range, IQR 0.36-0.66). The ankle-worn accelerometer overestimated steps (median 1% error, IQR -3 to 13). The other motion sensors underestimated steps (40% error (IQR -51 to -35) and 38% (IQR -93 to -27), respectively). The ankle-worn accelerometer proved more accurate over longer distances (3% error, IQR 0 to 9), than shorter distances (10%, IQR -23 to 9). Conclusions: The ankle-worn accelerometer gave the most accurate step-count measurement and was most accurate over longer distances. Neither of the other motion sensors had acceptable margins of error

A study of the influence of nutrition knowledge on the food selection habits of high school students

When the first draftees, representative of the manhood of the nation, were called for physical examinations at the opening of World War II, the appalling truth was revealed in figures for the first time, It was known that many of the rejections of World War I were due to health defects, but it was deemed highly improbable that the same condition existed now because of the many advances in science. Results of physical examinations proved the contrary. John D. Black quotes General Hershey, in his report to the National Nutrition Conference for Defense, in May, 1941, as having ventured an estimate that perhaps one-third of the rejections are due either directly or indirectly to nutritional deficiencies; that is about fifteen per cent of the total number that had been examined by the Selective Service up to that time.

A study protocol of a randomised controlled trial to measure the effects of an augmented prescribed exercise programme (APEP) for frail older medical patients in the acute setting

Background: Older adults experience functional decline in hospital leading to increased healthcare burden and morbidity. The benefits of augmented exercise in hospital remain uncertain. The aim of this trial is to measure the short and longer-term effects of augmented exercise for older medical in-patients on their physical performance, quality of life and health care utilisation. Design and Methods: Two hundred and twenty older medical patients will be blindly randomly allocated to the intervention or sham groups. Both groups will receive usual care (including routine physiotherapy care) augmented by two daily exercise sessions. The sham group will receive stretching and relaxation exercises while the intervention group will receive tailored strengthening and balance exercises. Differences between groups will be measured at baseline, discharge, and three months. The primary outcome measure will be length of stay. The secondary outcome measures will be healthcare utilisation, activity (accelerometry), physical performance (Short Physical Performance Battery), falls history in hospital and quality of life (EQ-5D-5 L). Discussion: This simple intervention has the potential to transform the outcomes of the older patient in the acute setting

Carbohydrate Syntrophy enhances the establishment of Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003 in the neonatal gut

The non-digestible oligosaccharide fraction of maternal milk represents an important of carbohydrate and energy source for saccharolytic bifidobacteria in the gastrointestinal tract during early life. However, not all neonatal bifidobacteria isolates can directly metabolise the complex sialylated, fucosylated, sulphated and/or N-acetylglucosamine-containing oligosaccharide structures present in mothers milk. For some bifidobacterial strains, efficient carbohydrate syntrophy or crossfeeding is key to their establishment in the gut. In this study, we have adopted advanced functional genomic approaches to create single and double in-frame deletions of the N-acetyl glucosamine 6-phosphate deacetylase encoding genes, nagA1 and nagA2, of B. breve UCC2003. In vitro phenotypic analysis followed by in vivo studies on co-colonisation, mother to infant transmission, and evaluation of the relative co-establishment of B. bifidum and B. breve UCC2003 or UCC2003 Delta nagA1 Delta nagA2 in dam-reared neonatal mice demonstrates the importance of crossfeeding on sialic acid, fucose and N-acetylglucosamine-containing oligosaccharides for the establishment of B. breve UCC2003 in the neonatal gut. Furthermore, transcriptomic analysis of in vivo gene expression shows upregulation of genes associated with the utilisation of lactose, sialic acid, GlcNAc-6-S and fucose in B. breve UCC2003, while for UCC2003 Delta nagA1 Delta nagA2 only genes for lactose metabolism were upregulated