Balint groups: a doctor-student mutual investment company

Balint Groups were traditionally established as reflective groups by psychoanalyst Michael and Enid Balint for general practitioners to reflect on the doctor-patient relationship. Balint described components of this relationship between doctor and patient including the collusion of anonymity, the doctor as a drug and the mutual investment company. This paper discusses 2 case examples from the perspective of a junior doctor facilitating medical student Balint groups and from the junior doctor participating in a peer group. Comparisons between the doctor and student emotional expression, empathic ability and apparent preconceived ideas of the “doctor role” are discussed, with reflection on potential origins and contributing factors to such internalised views and responses. The author explores potential professional benefits of medical student Balint groups facilitated by junior doctors in influencing empathic response and internalised personas, as discussed through the eyes of Balint’s components of the interpersonal doctor-patient relationship

Audit of family support of 16-17 year olds with mental health needs

AbstractIntroduction: Mental health problems occur commonly and impact on quality of life. It is important to understand causal factors.Aims: To understand parental support available for 16-17 year olds with mental health needs.Method: An audit of all case notes open to an adolescent mental health team in June 2010Results: Notably 59.1% adolescents had family support and 40.9% lacked support. More males had family support than females, but more females had parental support. Case note documentation of family involvement is variable.Conclusion: Family support should be explored for each referral. Documentation of family involvement should to be improved

Challenging the stereotype? An analysis of the social and educational outcomes of the children of lone parents in the UK.

This thesis presents the results of a mixed methods study investigating the truth behind media claims that lone parenthood is detrimental to the social and educational outcomes of children. The research is informed by intersectionality theory, which I seek to apply to both methods used in the study, as well as theories about the power of the State from Marxist theorists Althusser and Gramsci. The first part of the study is a discourse analysis of how lone parenthood is discussed in the media, using articles referring to lone parents in The Times and The Guardian in 1993 and 2013. The analysis shows that while policy and media contexts use generic terminology to refer to lone parents, the more specific focus of the negative discourse on lone parenthood is on white, unmarried, young mothers who live on benefits and in social housing. These findings are reflected in the selected variables for the second phase of the research. The second part of the research investigates whether there are any differences in the outcomes of the children of lone mothers when compared to peers who have not experienced lone motherhood. The outcomes studied are two subscales from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and Key Stage 4 (GCSE) results. The United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey and British Household Panel Survey datasets are used for the analysis, together with linked National Pupil Database data. A series of multiple regression models investigate any association between lone motherhood and the outcome measures, with the inclusion of covariates which mirror the key identity factors uncovered in the discourse analysis. The models are additionally run controlling for demographic factors such as maternal education, household size and young person’s age and gender, with the addition of the IDACI and free school meals indicators for the educational outcomes analysis. The results of the quantitative analysis show that while there are initially some differences between the outcomes of children of lone mothers and their peers whose mothers have not experienced lone parenthood, this association lessens as additional factors are added into the model. Additionally, of the factors deemed important in the media discourse, marital status is not significant in any models, and maternal age in all but the Total Difficulties Score. Ethnicity is not significant for social outcomes, but is for educational outcomes, with White children performing worse at GCSE than children from other ethnic groups. In all models, social housing is associated with worse outcomes; that is, children whose mothers have ever lived in social housing achieved lower grades at GCSE and showed more behavioural difficulties than their contemporaries whose mothers had never lived in social housing, whether they were lone mothers or not. The possible reasons for these results are discussed in the final chapter, focussing on how lone mothers are unfairly blamed in media and policy circles for the antisocial behaviour and educational attainment of children in modern society. The study shows children from lower income families have poorer social and educational outcomes. Women, who are already disadvantaged due to an inherent gender bias in society, are at a greater risk of economic instability and uncertainty, particularly women who are single-handedly raising families. In conclusion, there is no evidence for the pervasive and perpetual stereotype of lone motherhood as a deficit model of parenting; poverty is more important in determining young people’s social and educational outcomes

Literacy, numeracy and disadvantage among older adults in England

This report sets findings from new research on the relationships between the literacy and numeracy levels of older adults and the extent of disadvantage in later life. The research consisted of a review of the literature and secondary analysis of a quantitative data source on older adults

Towards on-farm pig face recognition using convolutional neural networks

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. Identification of individual livestock such as pigs and cows has become a pressing issue in recent years as intensification practices continue to be adopted and precise objective measurements are required (e.g. weight). Current best practice involves the use of RFID tags which are time-consuming for the farmer and distressing for the animal to fit. To overcome this, non-invasive biometrics are proposed by using the face of the animal. We test this in a farm environment, on 10 individual pigs using three techniques adopted from the human face recognition literature: Fisherfaces, the VGG-Face pre-trained face convolutional neural network (CNN) model and our own CNN model that we train using an artificially augmented data set. Our results show that accurate individual pig recognition is possible with accuracy rates of 96.7% on 1553 images. Class Activated Mapping using Grad-CAM is used to show the regions that our network uses to discriminate between pigs

Exploring the linkages between education sector governance, inequity, conflict, and peacebuilding in South Sudan

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Literacy, numeracy and disadvantage among older adults in England: final report for Nuffield Foundation

This report sets out findings from new research on the relationships between the literacy and numeracy levels of older adults and the extent of disadvantage in later life. The research consisted of a review of the literature and secondary analysis of a quantitative data source on older adults. The new findings in this report are based on quantitative analysis of a large-scale data source, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). This survey, which began in 2002, contains information on many aspects of older adults' lives including work and retirement, health, wealth and well-being. ELSA contains tests of literacy and numeracy which can be related to a set of outcomes. Respondents have been followed up on several occasions since the initial survey. ELSA data can therefore be used as both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal data source

Metaproteomics Reveal That Rapid Perturbations in Organic Matter Prioritize Functional Restructuring Over Taxonomy In Western Arctic Ocean Microbiomes

We examined metaproteome profiles from two Arctic microbiomes during 10-day shipboard incubations to directly track early functional and taxonomic responses to a simulated algal bloom and an oligotrophic control. Using a novel peptide-based enrichment analysis, significant changes (p-value \u3c 0.01) in biological and molecular functions associated with carbon and nitrogen recycling were observed. Within the first day under both organic matter conditions, Bering Strait surface microbiomes increased protein synthesis, carbohydrate degradation, and cellular redox processes while decreasing C1 metabolism. Taxonomic assignments revealed that the core microbiome collectively responded to algal substrates by assimilating carbon before select taxa utilize and metabolize nitrogen intracellularly. Incubations of Chukchi Sea bottom water microbiomes showed similar, but delayed functional responses to identical treatments. Although 24 functional terms were shared between experimental treatments, the timing, and degree of the remaining responses were highly variable, showing that organic matter perturbation directs community functionality prior to alterations to the taxonomic distribution at the microbiome class level. The dynamic responses of these two oceanic microbial communities have important implications for timing and magnitude of responses to organic perturbations within the Arctic Ocean and how community-level functions may forecast biogeochemical gradients in oceans