459 research outputs found
Listening and learning : the reciprocal relationship between worker and client
The relationship between worker and client has for the best part of 100 years been the mainstay of probation, and yet has recently been eroded by an increased emphasis on punishment, blame and managerialism. The views of offenders are in direct contradiction to these developments within the criminal justice system and this article argues that only by taking account of the views of those at the 'coal face' will criminologists, policy makers and practitioners be able to effect real change in crime rates. The article thus focuses on the views of a sample of previously persistent offenders in Scotland about offending, desistance and how the system can help them. It explores not only their need for friendship and support in youth but also the close association between relationships and the likelihood of offending. It also demonstrates the views of offenders themselves about the importance of the working relationship with supervising officers in helping them desist from crime. The article concludes that the most effective way of reducing offending is to re-engage with the message of the Probation Act of 100 years ago, namely, to 'advise, assist and befriend' offenders rather than to 'confront, challenge and change' offending behaviour
Education for Sustainable Development: Towards the Sustainable University
We planned this conference in anticipation of the end of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), and the start of the next phase for those involved in ESD here and internationally. At Plymouth University, 2015 marks ten year anniversary since cross-‐institutional work on sustainability and sustainability education was spearheaded by the founding of the Centre for Sustainable Futures (CSF). Coincidentally, 2015 also marks a ten years since the influential HEFCE policy document ‘Sustainable Development in Higher Education’ was released. Holding the conference in January – named after the Roman god of doorways, of endings and beginnings – we sought to look at some of what has been achieved in sustainability education to date and explore its prospects as we move forward. Following an enthusiastic response to the call for abstracts, the conference featured a diverse range of research papers, posters, and roundtable presentations from academics and practitioners across the UK and beyond. The conference was arranged around three overarching themes: ESD Pedagogy: Criticality, Creativity, and Collaboration What are the teaching and learning processes that enable students to develop their own capacity to think critically and creatively in the face of global sustainability challenges and, secondly, to act collaboratively in ways that pursue more hopeful and sustainable futures? Innovative Learning Spaces for ESD What are the physical environments that provide opportunities for new forms of sustainability education to flourish? What lies beyond the lecture hall that is conducive to student learning through inquiry-‐based, active, participatory, interdisciplinary and experiential methods? Towards the Sustainable University What are effective approaches for leading institutional change, organisational learning, and staff CPD towards sustainability? This publication focuses on the last theme – Towards the Sustainable University. The previous PedRIO Occasional Paper 8 looks at the first theme ESD Pedagogy: Criticality, Creativity, and Collaboration
The challenge of enterprise/innovation: a case study of a modern university
In the prevailing economic and political climate for Higher Education a greater emphasis has been placed on diversifying the funding base. The present study was undertaken between 2012 and 2014 and addressed the implementation of an approach to the transformation of one academic school in a medium-sized modern university in Wales to a more engaged enterprise culture. A multimethod investigation included a bi-lingual (English and Welsh) online survey of academic staff and yielded a 71% response rate (n = 45). The findings informed a series of in-depth interviews (n = 24) with a representative sample of those involved in enterprise work (support staff, managers, senior managers), and those who were not. The results provided the platform for the ‘S4E model’ for effective engagement with enterprise: (1) Strategic significance for Enterprise, (2) Support for Enterprise, (3) Synergy for Enterprise, and (4) Success for Enterprise. The outcomes of the research and the recommendations from it have potential to inform practice in other academic schools within the university and, in a wider context, within other Schools of Education regionally, nationally and internationally. Its original empirical exploration of enterprise within education studies is a significant contribution to that body of knowledge
A Home-Based eHealth Intervention for an Older Adult Population With Food Insecurity: Feasibility and Acceptability Study
Background: Food insecurity is a global public health challenge, affecting predominately the most vulnerable people in society, including older adults. For this population, eHealth interventions represent an opportunity for promoting healthy lifestyle habits, thus mitigating the consequences of food insecurity. However, before their widespread dissemination, it is essential to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of these interventions among end users. Objective: This study aims to explore the feasibility and acceptability of a home-based eHealth intervention focused on improving dietary and physical activity through an interactive television (TV) app among older adults with food insecurity. Methods: A pilot noncontrolled quasi-experimental study was designed with baseline and 3-month follow-up assessments. Older adult participants with food insecurity were recruited from 17 primary health care centers in Portugal. A home-based intervention program using an interactive TV app aimed at promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors was implemented over 12 weeks. Primary outcomes were feasibility (self-reported use and interest in eHealth) and acceptability (affective attitude, burden, ethicality, perceived effectiveness, and self-efficacy), which were evaluated using a structured questionnaire with a 7-point Likert scale. Secondary outcomes were changes in food insecurity (Household Food Insecurity Scale), quality of life (European Quality of Life Questionnaire with five dimensions and three levels and Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue), physical function (Health Assessment Questionnaire, Elderly Mobility Scale, grip strength, and regularity of exercise), and nutritional status (adherence to the Mediterranean diet). Results: A sample of 31 older adult individuals with food insecurity was enrolled in the 12-week intervention program with no dropouts. A total of 10 participants self-reported low use of the TV app. After the intervention, participants were significantly more interested in using eHealth to improve food insecurity (baseline median 1.0, IQR 3.0; 3-month median 5.0, IQR 5.0; P=.01) and for other purposes (baseline median 1.0, IQR 2.0; 3-month median 6.0, IQR 2.0; P=.03). High levels of acceptability were found both before and after (median range 7.0-7.0, IQR 2.0-0.0 and 5.0-7.0, IQR 2.0-2.0, respectively) the intervention, with no significant changes for most constructs. Clinically, there was a reduction of 40% in food insecurity (P=.001), decreased fatigue (mean −3.82, SD 8.27; P=.02), and improved physical function (Health Assessment Questionnaire: mean −0.22, SD 0.38; P=.01; Elderly Mobility Scale: mean −1.50, SD 1.08; P=.01; regularity of exercise: baseline 10/31, 32%; 3 months 18/31, 58%; P=.02). No differences were found for the European Quality of Life Questionnaire with five dimensions and three levels, grip strength, or adherence to the Mediterranean diet. Conclusions: The home-based eHealth intervention was feasible and highly acceptable by participants, thus supporting a future full-scale trial. The intervention program not only reduced the proportion of older adults with food insecurity but also improved participants’ fatigue and physical function.publishedVersio
The Evolution and Use of a Policy and Research Tool: assessing the technological capabilities of firms
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"Engaging with birth stories in pregnancy: a hermeneutic phenomenological study of women's experiences across two generations"
BACKGROUND: The birth story has been widely understood as a crucial source of knowledge about childbirth. What has not been reported is the effect that birth stories may have on primigravid women's understandings of birth. Findings are presented from a qualitative study exploring how two generations of women came to understand birth in the milieu of other's stories. The prior assumption was that birth stories must surely have a positive or negative influence on listeners, steering them towards either medical or midwifery-led models of care.
METHODS: A Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used. Twenty UK participants were purposively selected and interviewed. Findings from the initial sample of 10 women who were pregnant in 2012 indicated that virtual media was a primary source of birth stories. This led to recruitment of a second sample of 10 women who gave birth in the 1970s-1980s, to determine whether they were more able to translate information into knowledge via stories told through personal contact and not through virtual technologies
RESULTS: Findings revealed the experience of 'being-in-the-world' of birth and of stories in that world. From a Heideggerian perspective, the birth story was constructed through 'idle talk' (the taken for granted assumptions of things, which come into being through language). Both oral stories and those told through technology were described as the 'modern birth story'. The first theme 'Stories are difficult like that', examines the birth story as problematic and considers how stories shape meaning. The second 'It's a generational thing', considers how women from two generations came to understand what their experience might be. The third 'Birth in the twilight of certainty,' examines women's experience of Being in a system of birth as constructed, portrayed and sustained in the stories being shared.
CONCLUSIONS: The women pregnant in 2012 framed their expectations in the language of choice, whilst the women who birthed in the 1970s-1980s framed their experience in the language of safety. For both, however, the world of birth was the same; saturated with, and only legitimised by the birth of a healthy baby. Rather than creating meaningful understanding, the 'idle talk' of birth made both cohorts fearful of leaving the relative comfort of the 'system', and of claiming an alternative birth
Characterization of four subtypes in morphologically normal tissue excised proximal and distal to breast cancer
Widespread mammographic screening programs and improved self-monitoring allow for breast cancer to be detected earlier than ever before. Breast-conserving surgery is a successful treatment for select women. However, up to 40% of women develop local recurrence after surgery despite apparently tumor-free margins. This suggests that morphologically normal breast may harbor early alterations that contribute to increased risk of cancer recurrence. We conducted a comprehensive transcriptomic and proteomic analysis to characterize 57 fresh-frozen tissues from breast cancers and matched histologically normal tissues resected proximal to (<2 cm) and distant from (5–10 cm) the primary tumor, using tissues from cosmetic reduction mammoplasties as baseline. Four distinct transcriptomic subtypes are identified within matched normal tissues: metabolic; immune; matrisome/epithelial–mesenchymal transition, and non-coding enriched. Key components of the subtypes are supported by proteomic and tissue composition analyses. We find that the metabolic subtype is associated with poor prognosis (p < 0.001, HR6.1). Examination of genes representing the metabolic signature identifies several genes able to prognosticate outcome from histologically normal tissues. A subset of these have been reported for their predictive ability in cancer but, to the best of our knowledge, these have not been reported altered in matched normal tissues. This study takes an important first step toward characterizing matched normal tissues resected at pre-defined margins from the primary tumor. Unlocking the predictive potential of unexcised tissue could prove key to driving the realization of personalized medicine for breast cancer patients, allowing for more biologically-driven analyses of tissue margins than morphology alone
Theory of reasoned action for continuous improvement capabilities: a behavioral approach
Towards a belief revision based adaptive and context sensitive information retrieval system
In an adaptive information retrieval (IR) setting, the information seekers' beliefs about which terms are relevant or nonrelevant will naturally fluctuate. This article investigates how the theory of belief revision can be used to model adaptive IR. More specifically, belief revision logic provides a rich representation scheme to formalize retrieval contexts so as to disambiguate vague user queries. In addition, belief revision theory underpins the development of an effective mechanism to revise user profiles in accordance with information seekers' changing information needs. It is argued that information retrieval contexts can be extracted by means of the information-flow text mining method so as to realize a highly autonomous adaptive IR system. The extra bonus of a belief-based IR model is that its retrieval behavior is more predictable and explanatory. Our initial experiments show that the belief-based adaptive IR system is as effective as a classical adaptive IR system. To our best knowledge, this is the first successful implementation and evaluation of a logic-based adaptive IR model which can efficiently process large IR collections
Deconstruction of a Metastatic Tumor Microenvironment Reveals a Common Matrix Response in Human Cancers
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