Dual Benefits of a Student-Assisted Interprofessional Men’s Healthy Lifestyle Pilot Program

Reprinted by permission of SAGE PublicationsMen are less willing to seek health professional advice than women and die more often than women from preventable causes. Therefore, it is important to increase male engagement with health initiatives. This study reports the outcomes of a student-assisted, interprofessional, 12-week health program for overweight adult males. The program included weekly health education and structured, supervised group exercise sessions. Thirteen males (participants) and 18 university students (session facilitators) completed the program. Participants were assessed for a range of health and physical activity measures and health and health profession knowledge. Participants demonstrated significant improvement in activity, knowledge, and perceptions of physical and mental function, and appreciated the guided, group sessions. Students completed an interprofessional readiness questionnaire and reported significant improvement in the understanding of the benefits of interprofessional education and of their role in health care. This program provides evidence of the dual benefit that occurs from the delivery of a student-assisted, interprofessional men’s health program to at-risk community members

An analysis of the impact of privatisation and deregulation on the UK bus and coach and port industries

The main objectives of this dissertation are: (1) To analyse the pre and post privatisation and deregulation performance of two United Kingdom industries from the transport sector. (2) To analyse the earning and employment in these industries prior to deregulation and/or privatisation, and to examine what has happened to them after these changes. (3) To investigate any changes that have occurred in trade union density in these industries compared with what has happened in the rest of the economy. (4) To see if there was any evidence of rent sharing prior to privatisation and deregulation. If it did exist, did it continue after privatisation and deregulation, or was it substantially reduced or eliminated. The methodology of the dissertation is eclectic, so it examined these issues from a number of different perspectives, and its contribution to knowledge is incremental. In regard to the bus and coach industry in the newly competitive period following deregulation and privatisation, the major firms emerged almost solely through external rather than organic growth. This went against one of the main aims of privatisation, which was to create a competitive industry of many small-to-medium sized operations. Privatisation and deregulation also failed to stop the decline in passenger numbers, which was another objective of the programme. In the case of the UK ports, it is extremely difficult to conclude that the changing ownership constituted a significant factor in port performance and efficiency. Instead, factors such as geographical location and labour market deregulation seems to have had a greater influence on efficiency in the ports. That the measure of liberalisation most associated with privatisation, and that offered the most in terms of potential gains in efficiency, were those on which major concessions had to be made by the Government to win management support for the political process of privatisation. If managerial support for privatisation was absent then process was unlikely to occur. The underlying success of deregulation and privatisation in these industries has been in reducing the power of trade unions to obtain rent for their members, which was one of the main, if understated aims of the policy

Attitudes Towards Migrants and Needs in Teacher Training : Some Research Findings

The area of immigrant education has become a major source of interest, concern, comment, and research in recent years. This interest has its origins in the concern felt and views expressed at various conferences that many pupils in our schools are in need of an educational approach which will take cognisance of their linguistic and cultural differences

Device and method for measuring thermal conductivity of thin films

A device and method are provided for measuring the thermal conductivity of rigid or flexible, homogeneous or heterogeneous, thin films between 50 .mu.m and 150 .mu.m thick with relative standard deviations of less than five percent. The specimen is sandwiched between like material, highly conductive upper and lower slabs. Each slab is instrumented with six thermocouples embedded within the slab and flush with their corresponding surfaces. A heat source heats the lower slab and a heat sink cools the upper slab. The heat sink also provides sufficient contact pressure onto the specimen. Testing is performed within a vacuum environment (bell-jar) between 10.sup.-3 to 10.sup.-6 Torr. An anti-radiant shield on the interior surface of the bell-jar is used to avoid radiation heat losses. Insulation is placed adjacent to the heat source and adjacent to the heat sink to prevent conduction losses. A temperature controlled water circulator circulates water from a constant temperature bath through the heat sink. Fourier's one-dimensional law of heat conduction is the governing equation. Data, including temperatures, are measured with a multi-channel data acquisition system. On-line computer processing is used for thermal conductivity calculations

Mangroves enhance the biomass of coral reef fish communities in the Caribbean

Mangrove forests are one of the world's most threatened tropical ecosystems with global loss exceeding 35% (ref. 1). Juvenile coral reef fish often inhabit mangroves, but the importance of these nurseries to reef fish population dynamics has not been quantified. Indeed, mangroves might be expected to have negligible influence on reef fish communities: juvenile fish can inhabit alternative habitats and fish populations may be regulated by other limiting factors such as larval supply or fishing. Here we show that mangroves are unexpectedly important, serving as an intermediate nursery habitat that may increase the survivorship of young fish. Mangroves in the Caribbean strongly influence the community structure of fish on neighbouring coral reefs. In addition, the biomass of several commercially important species is more than doubled when adult habitat is connected to mangroves. The largest herbivorous fish in the Atlantic, Scarus guacamaia, has a functional dependency on mangroves and has suffered local extinction after mangrove removal. Current rates of mangrove deforestation are likely to have severe deleterious consequences for the ecosystem function, fisheries productivity and resilience of reefs. Conservation efforts should protect connected corridors of mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs

On Vanishing Theorems For Vector Bundle Valued p-Forms And Their Applications

Let $F: [0, \infty) \to [0, \infty)$ be a strictly increasing $C^2$ function with $F(0)=0$. We unify the concepts of $F$-harmonic maps, minimal hypersurfaces, maximal spacelike hypersurfaces, and Yang-Mills Fields, and introduce $F$-Yang-Mills fields, $F$-degree, $F$-lower degree, and generalized Yang-Mills-Born-Infeld fields (with the plus sign or with the minus sign) on manifolds. When $F(t)=t, \frac 1p(2t)^{\frac p2}, \sqrt{1+2t} -1,$ and $1-\sqrt{1-2t},$ the $F$-Yang-Mills field becomes an ordinary Yang-Mills field, $p$-Yang-Mills field, a generalized Yang-Mills-Born-Infeld field with the plus sign, and a generalized Yang-Mills-Born-Infeld field with the minus sign on a manifold respectively. We also introduce the $E_{F,g}-$energy functional (resp. $F$-Yang-Mills functional) and derive the first variational formula of the $E_{F,g}-$energy functional (resp. $F$-Yang-Mills functional) with applications. In a more general frame, we use a unified method to study the stress-energy tensors that arise from calculating the rate of change of various functionals when the metric of the domain or base manifold is changed. These stress-energy tensors, linked to $F$-conservation laws yield monotonicity formulae. A "macroscopic" version of these monotonicity inequalities enables us to derive some Liouville type results and vanishing theorems for $p-$forms with values in vector bundles, and to investigate constant Dirichlet boundary value problems for 1-forms. In particular, we obtain Liouville theorems for $F-$harmonic maps (e.g. $p$-harmonic maps), and $F-$Yang-Mills fields (e.g. generalized Yang-Mills-Born-Infeld fields on manifolds). We also obtain generalized Chern type results for constant mean curvature type equations for $p-$forms on $\Bbb{R}^m$ and on manifolds $M$ with the global doubling property by a different approach. The case $p=0$ and $M=\mathbb{R}^m$ is due to Chern.Comment: 1. This is a revised version with several new sections and an appendix that will appear in Communications in Mathematical Physics. 2. A "microscopic" approach to some of these monotonicity formulae leads to celebrated blow-up techniques and regularity theory in geometric measure theory. 3. Our unique solution of the Dirichlet problems generalizes the work of Karcher and Wood on harmonic map

Goal-setting intervention to reduce occupational sedentary behaviour

Introduction: Occupational sedentary behaviour is an emerging public health concern. Office-based workplaces provide an ideal setting to implement an intervention due to the large proportion of sitting time reported during work hours. Previous sedentary behaviour interventions have included goal-setting as a behaviour change strategy with promising results. The aim of the current study was to explore the most and least effective goals as perceived by office-based workers for reducing occupational sedentary behaviour. Methods: Twenty-Seven University-based office workers participated in the study. Participants were invited to participate in an interview after the completion of a 6-week intervention where participants self-determined six incremental goals. The interview was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Following this, the data was thematically analysed. Results: As a collective group, the goals which were considered to be the most effective included walking further or up/down stairs to attend amenities, standing when the phone rang and/or standing for the duration of the phone call, walking further to fill water bottle, walking during a break or walking to visit colleagues or to a specific area. Coincidentally, the least effective goals included standing while on the phone and walking during the day. Conclusions: The findings suggest that the same goal can be considered to be the most or least effective for an individual. This indicated that sedentary behaviour goal-setting interventions need to account for individual preference and match the level of willingness of the participant as a 'one size fits all' approach is unlikely to be effective

How ‘demos’ met ‘cracy’: debt, inequality, money

The recurrence of ever more destructive economic crises and patterns of pervasive indebtedness and inequality threaten the social fabric of our societies. Our main responses to these trends have been partial, focusing on symptoms rather than causes, often exacerbating rather than improving the underlying socio-economic dynamics. To reflect on these conditions and on ‘what needs to be done’ this article turns to a similar socio-economic malaise faced by the city-state of Athens in the 6th century BC. Most historical studies dealing with this crisis focus on the comprehensive debt relief policy (seisachteia) implemented by Solon. We argue that this debt relief, although necessary, was the least important of Solon’s reforms. Solon read the problem of debt as a problem of money so he went on to reform the monetary and exchange system. However, he did not think that these reforms alone could restore socioeconomic sustainability. For this, a redefinition of what was counted as valuable economic activity and as income had also to take place. Moreover, for all these to work, citizens had to be involved more in the commons. Far from only achieving socioeconomic sustainability, these reforms gave rise gradually to the demos that we meet in the golden age of Democracy. Such a broad historical horizon may help us grasp better the problems, stakes and challenges of our times

Remembering, Reflecting, Returning: A Return to Professional Practice Journey Through Poetry, Music and Images:A Return to Professional Practice Journey Through Poetry, Music and Images

<p>Our composition brings together poetry, music, images and personal narratives based around the experiences of an occupational therapist, Karen, who following a family career break, returned to her profession. Our work demonstrates collaborative research practices and illuminates our experiences and journeying as practitioner-artists/researchers/teachers.</p> <p>This autoethnographic inquiry employs bricolage, drawing on theory and hybridized methods, inspired by the notion of ‘returning to practice’. The conversations of Karen and Katherine (mentee and mentor) as qualitative data, analyzed, interpreted and made accessible through poetry and images – along with Peter’s musical and autobiographical compositions – explore possibilities to re-examine and share alternative avenues of scholarship and theoretical understanding, not least in redefining what contribution to knowledge that artistic processes and ‘artwork’ makes methodologically, pedagogically, aesthetically, and therapeutically. Our intention is to engage the reader-viewer-listener to (re)think, take notice, disrupt, re-examine and extend personal meanings about return to practice journeys, enabling each of us to benefit and be (re)inspired.</p> <p>We recast aspects of ‘knowing and experience’ metaphorically, to consider and express our sense of being and becoming in the world. Importantly, we seek to explore how arts informed ways of knowing and learning about the self and other can serve to enhance our students/researchers/practitioners learning experiences.</p