Faculty Forum : Blue Sky Strategic Plan Pathway 2

The Blue Sky Strategic Plan’s Pathway 2 is entitled “Securing Our Future: Ensuring Financial Sustainability”. As the Pathway 2 Chair, Jeffery Mills, President of the University of Maine Foundation, presented to the University community a review of initiatives and accomplishments related to Pathway 2. He led a discussion and gathered feedback. UMaine community members were encouraged to attend. For those unable to attend, a video of the Forum and an opportunity to provide feedback were available through the webpage after the Forum

Learning from contract change in primary care dentistry: a qualitative study of stakeholders in the north of England

The aim of this research was to explore and synthesise learning from stakeholders (NHS dentists, commissioners and patients) approximately five years on from the introduction of a new NHS dental contract in England. The case study involved a purposive sample of stakeholders associated with a former NHS Primary Care Trust (PCT) in the north of England. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 commissioners of NHS dental services and 5 NHS general dental practitioners. Three focus group meetings were held with 14 NHS dental patients. All focus groups and interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were analysed using a framework approach. Four themes were identified: ‘commissioners’ views of managing local NHS dental services’; ‘the risks of commissioning for patient access’; ‘costs, contract currency and commissioning constraints’; and ‘local decision-making and future priorities’. Commissioners reported that much of their time was spent managing existing contracts rather than commissioning services. Patients were unclear about the NHS dental charge bands and dentists strongly criticised the contract's target-driven approach which was centred upon them generating ‘units of dental activity’. NHS commissioners remained relatively constrained in their abilities to reallocate dental resources amongst contracts. The national focus upon practitioners achieving their units of dental activity appeared to outweigh interest in the quality of dental care provided

Optimal Scheduling of Trains on a Single Line Track

This paper describes the development and use of a model designed to optimise train schedules on single line rail corridors. The model has been developed with two major applications in mind, namely: as a decision support tool for train dispatchers to schedule trains in real time in an optimal way; and as a planning tool to evaluate the impact of timetable changes, as well as railroad infrastructure changes. The mathematical programming model described here schedules trains over a single line track. The priority of each train in a conflict depends on an estimate of the remaining crossing and overtaking delay, as well as the current delay. This priority is used in a branch and bound procedure to allow and optimal solution to reasonable size train scheduling problems to be determined efficiently. The use of the model in an application to a 'real life' problem is discussed. The impacts of changing demand by increasing the number of trains, and reducing the number of sidings for a 150 kilometre section of single line track are discussed. It is concluded that the model is able to produce useful results in terms of optimal schedules in a reasonable time for the test applications shown here

Margaret danced through Neil Armstrong' : readers responding to Susan Power's spiritual fiction

In this study I investigate the believability and readability of Susan Power’s novel The Grass Dancer in an effort to better understand what makes the spiritual literature so well accepted and revered, even with the overabundant presence of apparent magic or supernatural phenomena. Power’s book won the Hemingway award for first fiction and it was a bestseller. Spirituality, magic, and supernatural events are often integral parts of the storyline and most of the time the situations are different from what the casual reader is used to; occasionally even trained readers are unaccustomed to some of the conventions of Power’s book. In order to investigate the believability of one particular aspect of Power’s fiction thoroughly, I interviewed five graduate students who had read the novel for a graduate course in American Indian literature. I also chose three undergraduate students to serve as casual readers. I watched each casual reader reading an excerpt from the book, a chapter titled “Moonwalk,” which was Power first wrote as a short story. Readers answered questions and gave their responses to the fiction so that I could record their individual reactions, transcribe them into appendices and investigate them thouroughly to determine what made the supernatural material in the book believable and enjoyable. Reader-response criticism is used as a guideline throughout this investigation, not so much as a rubric to determine if the respondents were right or wrong about their observations. I used critics like Holland, Rosenblatt, Fish and Rabinowitz to give the reader of this thesis a peek into what may be happening for a specific reader during a particular reading event. The graduate students’ responses proved, among other things, that they were interested in the motives of the author and that they were thinking critically and applying criticism while reading. Their reactions seemed genuinely earnest and also crafted from training received in college classrooms. There were also some standard literary responses which would be expected with this type of study, and some that were a mixture of personal material and critical analysis. The responses given by the undergraduate students, or casual readers, for the most part were heartfelt, either reminiscent of something remembered from long ago, or recognized to be a part of the way that they were raised. All of the responses in this investigation seemed to maintain that the readers found Power’s fiction believable and enjoyable; their reasons range in scope and often involve personal beliefs. However, they all lead the specific reader, eventually, in a personal search of his or her own ideas about the supernatural events that occur inside of the text. If there is one concrete finding in this investigation, it is that all readers are different and to understand how a reader will respond, that reader must be questioned

'Experts', 'partners' and 'fools': exploring agency in HIV treatment seeking among African migrants in London

In an attempt to promote patient agency and foster more egalitarian relationships between patients and doctors, discourse concerning health and wellbeing in the UK has increasingly centred around the notion of informed and 'expert' patients who are able to effectively input into the direction and management of their own health care and treatment. While the relationship between a patient and their doctor can play a vital role in influencing the treatment decisions and health-related outcomes of people living with long term illness, little is known about the ways in which people living with HIV actually perceive their relationship with their doctors, nor the implications this may have for the types of treatment they may seek to use and the related information that they share. Drawing on 11 focus group discussions and 20 repeat interviews undertaken in 2008-2009 with HIV-positive adult migrants from Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa living in the UK, this paper argues that patient-doctor relationships can be heavily influenced by the perceived legitimacy of different forms of medical knowledge and treatments and by culturally influenced ideas regarding health, wellbeing and agency. Despite a desire amongst some migrants to use 'traditional' medicines from southern Africa as well as other non-biomedical treatments and therapies, the research found that the perceived lack of legitimacy associated with these treatments in the UK rendered their use a largely clandestine activity. At the same time, many patients made clear distinctions concerning issues affecting their immediate health and factors influencing their more general wellbeing, which in turn, impacted upon the information that they chose to share with, or conceal from, their doctors. Such findings challenge assumptions underpinning policy promoting patient agency and have significant and, in cases, potentially adverse implications for the safety and effective administration and management of HIV treatments in African migrant populations and possibly more generally. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Observed parenting behaviors interact with a polymorphism of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene to predict the emergence of oppositional defiant and callous–unemotional behaviors at age 3 years

Using the Durham Child Health and Development Study, this study (N = 171) tested whether observed parenting behaviors in infancy (6 and 12 months) and toddlerhood/preschool (24 and 36 months) interacted with a child polymorphism of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene to predict oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and callous–unemotional (CU) behaviors at age 3 years. Child genotype interacted with observed harsh and intrusive (but not sensitive) parenting to predict ODD and CU behaviors. Harsh–intrusive parenting was more strongly associated with ODD and CU for children with a methionine allele of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene. CU behaviors were uniquely predicted by harsh–intrusive parenting in infancy, whereas ODD behaviors were predicted by harsh–intrusive parenting in both infancy and toddlerhood/preschool. The results are discussed from the perspective of the contributions of caregiving behaviors as contributing to distinct aspects of early onset disruptive behavior

Systems Theory and Cascades in Developmental Psychopathology

In the wake of prominent theoreticians in developmental science, whose contributions we review in this article, many developmental psychologists came to endorse a systems approach to understanding how the individual, as it develops, establishes functional relationships to social ecological contexts that from birth to school entry rapidly increase in complexity. The concept of developmental cascade has been introduced in this context to describe lawful processes by which antecedent conditions may be related with varying probabilities to specified outcomes. These are understood as processes by which function at one level or in one domain of behavior affect the organization of competency in later developing domains of general adaptation. Here we propose a developmental sequence by which the developing child acquires regulative capacities that are key to adjustment to a society that demands considerable control of emotional and cognitive functions early in life. We report empirical evidence showing that the acquisition of regulative capacities may be understood as a cascade of shifts in control parameters induced by the progressive integration of biological, transactional, and socioaffective systems over development. We conclude by suggesting how the developmental process may be accessed for effective intervention in populations deemed “at risk” for later problems of psychosocial adjustment

An Examination of the Parent Report Version of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a Community Sample of First-Grade Children

Background. The Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits is a self- and other report questionnaire of callous-unemotional behaviors that is increasingly widely used in research and clinical settings. Nonetheless, questions about the factor structure and validity of scales remain. Method. This study provided the first large-scale (N = 1,078) investigation of the parent report version of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a community sample of school-age (first-grade) children. Results. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a two-factor model that distinguished empathic-prosocial (EP) from callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors provided the best fit to the data. EP and CU were moderately to strongly correlated with each other (? = -.67, p < .001) and with oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder (ODD/CD) behaviors (?ODD/CD, EP = -.55; ?ODD/CD, CU = .71, ps < .001). Individual differences in EP and CU behaviors explained unique variation, beyond that attributable to ODD/CD behaviors, in peer-, teacher-, and parent relationship quality. Moreover, whereas EP moderated the effects of ODD/CD in the prediction of student–teacher relationship quality, CU moderated the effects of ODD/CD in the prediction of peer and parent relationship quality. Conclusions. Results are discussed with respect to the use of the ICU with school-age children