The baby friendly hospital initiative : level of implementation in ten New Zealand hospitals : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Midwifery at Massey University

The potential benefits of breastfeeding are well documented. These include benefits for the infant which may extend into adult life, as well as benefits for the mother, the family, the economy, and the environment. Yet despite this, breastfeeding rates in New Zealand are not improving, and there is evidence of practices in New Zealand hospitals which have a negative influence on breastfeeding. One possible solution to this is to try to improve hospital policies and practices through implementation of the Global Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (WHO/UNICEF, 1989). The purpose of this study was to ascertain the level of implementation of BFHI related policies and practices in New Zealand hospitals which provide maternity services. A descriptive survey utilizing face to face interviews of groups of 2-6 participants was undertaken in ten hospitals located in the North Island of New Zealand. Respondents included midwifery managers, lactation consultants, midwives, and nurses, familiar with their hospital's breastfeeding policy and practices. An adapted questionnaire and classification system developed by Kovach (1995) classified hospitals within four levels of implementation ranging from high, moderately high, partial, and low. Most of the hospitals were implementing six of the Ten Steps. The majority were not fully implementing Steps 1 and 2, and some hospitals had insufficient knowledge of current practices to be able to demonstrate implementation of Steps 3 and 5. The area identified as needing the greatest attention by hospitals is staff education on breastfeeding. Overall, five hospitals were classified as high implementers and five as moderately high, however no hospital was considered to be fully implementing BFHI. The study identified four main findings: a lack of consistent breastfeeding definitions and insufficient knowledge of exclusive breastfeeding rates; current difficulties in obtaining data, particularly about self-employed Lead Maternity Carer (LMC) practices; a lack of staff knowledge and misperceptions about the BFHI; and a gap between recommended evidence-based practices and reported breastfeeding practices in the surveyed hospitals

StarPlan: A model-based diagnostic system for spacecraft

The Sunnyvale Division of Ford Aerospace created a model-based reasoning capability for diagnosing faults in space systems. The approach employs reasoning about a model of the domain (as it is designed to operate) to explain differences between expected and actual telemetry; i.e., to identify the root cause of the discrepancy (at an appropriate level of detail) and determine necessary corrective action. A development environment, named Paragon, was implemented to support both model-building and reasoning. The major benefit of the model-based approach is the capability for the intelligent system to handle faults that were not anticipated by a human expert. The feasibility of this approach for diagnosing problems in a spacecraft was demonstrated in a prototype system, named StarPlan. Reasoning modules within StarPlan detect anomalous telemetry, establish goals for returning the telemetry to nominal values, and create a command plan for attaining the goals. Before commands are implemented, their effects are simulated to assure convergence toward the goal. After the commands are issued, the telemetry is monitored to assure that the plan is successful. These features of StarPlan, along with associated concerns, issues and future directions, are discussed

Measuring Credit Spread Risk

It is widely known that the small but looming possibility of defaultrenders the expected return distribution for financial productscontaining credit risk to be highly skewed and fat tailed. In thispaper we apply recent techniques developed for incorporating theadditional risk faced by changes in swap spreads. Using data from theUS, UK, Germany, and Japan, we find that the risk faced from largespread widenings and tightenings is grossly underestimated. Estimationof swap spread risk is dramatically improved when the severity of thefat tails is measured and incorporated into current estimationtechniques.value-at-risk;Market Risk;backtesting;extreme Value theory;parametric distributions

Going green: does it depend on education, gender, or income?

Sustainable development entails meeting our present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. This requires us to treat economic, social and environmental aspects in an integrated way, but little is known about the nature of individual preferences towards the trade-offs involved in this effort. For the first time, we study individual preferences towards the environment, social wellbeing, and financial wellbeing using a survey of over 1400 households in the Netherlands. Using nonparametric, parametric, and matching methods, we find that gender and education are important factors for sustainability rather than income levels. Moreover results indicate that educated females put the greatest value on going green whilst being socially minded.Sustainability, financial wellbeing, heterogenous preferences

Teaching open and reproducible scholarship: a critical review of the evidence base for current pedagogical methods and their outcomes

In recent years, the scientific community has called for improvements in the credibility, robustness and reproducibility of research, characterized by increased interest and promotion of open and transparent research practices. While progress has been positive, there is a lack of consideration about how this approach can be embedded into undergraduate and postgraduate research training. Specifically, a critical overview of the literature which investigates how integrating open and reproducible science may influence student outcomes is needed. In this paper, we provide the first critical review of literature surrounding the integration of open and reproducible scholarship into teaching and learning and its associated outcomes in students. Our review highlighted how embedding open and reproducible scholarship appears to be associated with (i) students’ scientific literacies (i.e. students’ understanding of open research, consumption of science and the development of transferable skills); (ii) student engagement (i.e. motivation and engagement with learning, collaboration and engagement in open research) and (iii) students’ attitudes towards science (i.e. trust in science and confidence in research findings). However, our review also identified a need for more robust and rigorous methods within pedagogical research, including more interventional and experimental evaluations of teaching practice. We discuss implications for teaching and learning scholarship

The Region and the Smaller Enterprise: A Discussion of Appropriate Investigative Methodologies

Regional policy instruments are typically driven by economic rationales, from either a firm or industrial perspective. Yet too often, these rationales are taken as ex ante to the contexts within which firms and industries compete. Recent regional development research has urged a better link be developed between the individual, the firm, and their context, so as to understand the role of regions in supporting effective competitiveness of organizations. In this article, recent research themes are explored that may shed light on the nature of this relationship and that can be developed into an investigative methodology that could aid policy practitioners in generating policy instruments that reflect differing societal constructions of SME reality

How Does Open Research Impact Student Outcomes? A Big Team Science Review and Evidence Synthesis

In this talk, I will provide a summary of a large-scale review of how embedding open and reproducible scholarship may impact student outcomes across educational contexts. This project aimed to reduce barriers to embed open and reproducible scholarship into research training, by reviewing, synthesising, and clearly articulating how embedding such an approach can confer benefits for students. We provide the first comprehensive review of how integrating open and reproducible science into teaching and learning impacts students, using a large-scale, collaborative, Big Team Science approach. This project focused on interdisciplinary undergraduate and postgraduate students, on an international level. In the talk, I will describe the key findings of the review and also reflect upon the value of employing Big Team Science approaches to the study of open pedagogy