Using Sustainable Web Design Practices: Website Redesign for The ClimateMusic Project

Sustainable practices go beyond reducing, reusing, and recycling in the physical world. In the digital world, design has a high environmental impact, so the choices designers make can eat up electricity and raise their carbon footprint. Therefore, designing low-carbon sites through UX, imagery, and color, and using a sustainability host is very beneficial for both usability and the environment. The ClimateMusic Project is a non-profit organization that aims to raise climate change awareness through music. This organization seeks to reduce their carbon footprint as well as help raise awareness through their Take Action web page. For my senior project I will help them reach this goal by redesigning their website to be more sustainable and user friendly. This will also come with a branding guide to be used across all their platforms. I will also work to increase the activity on their Take Action page by redesigning it and creating an animated logo to generate brand awareness. To check the results, I plan to track the insights and activity on these pages as well as run the new website through an ecograder/ carbon emitter for websites

Mission-Focused Collections: Rebirth of the \u27Seminarbibliothek\u27 as an E-Book Collection

German universities built over the years highly specialized book collections for use by faculty and graduate students. The German term, “Seminarbibliothek,” is often applied to these types of collections, although examples can be found in universities across Europe. The purpose of this paper is to examine a similar type of collection using e-books in veterinary science and to compare this collection to the standard subject classified e-book collections. The study looks at how such a collection might be formed and defined and what possible effects this might have on the use of collections of this type

Analysis of volcanic activity patterns using MODIS thermal alerts

We investigate eruptive activity by analysis of thermal-alert data from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer) thermal infrared satellite instrument, detected by the MODVOLC (MODIS Volcano alert) algorithm. These data are openly available on a website, and easy to use. We show how such data can plug major gaps in the conventional monitoring record of volcanoes in an otherwise generally poorly-documented region (Melanesia), including: characterising the mechanism of lava effusion at Pago; demonstrating an earlier-than-realised onset of lava effusion at Lopevi; extending the known period of lava lake activity at Ambrym; and confirming on-going activity at Bagana, Langila and Tinakula. We also add to the record of activity even at some generally better-monitored volcanoes in Indonesia, but point out that care must be taken to recognise and exclude fires

Informal carers' health-related quality of life and patient experience in primary care: evidence from 195,364 carers in England responding to a national survey.

BACKGROUND: We aim to describe the health-related quality of life of informal carers and their experiences of primary care. METHODS: Responses from the 2011-12 English General Practice Patient Survey, including 195,364 informal carers, were analysed using mixed effect logistic regressions controlling for age, gender, ethnicity and social deprivation to describe carer health-related quality of life (mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain, and anxiety/depression, measured using EQ-5D) and primary care experience (access, continuity and communication). RESULTS: Informal carers reported poorer health-related quality of life than non-carers of similar age, gender, ethnicity and social deprivation. Increasing caring commitment was associated with worse EQ-5D scores, with carers of 50+ hours a week scoring 0.05 points lower than non-carers (95 % CI 0.05 to 0.04), equivalent to 18 fewer days of full health annually. Considering each domain of EQ-5D separately, carers of 50+ hours/week were more likely to report pain OR = 1.53 (1.50-1.57), p < 0.0001, and anxiety/depression OR = 1.69 (1.66-1.73), p < 0.0001, than non-carers. Younger carers scored lower on EQ-5D than non-carer peers but the converse was true among over-85s. In the most deprived areas carers reported the equivalent of 37 fewer days of full health annually than carers in the most affluent areas. On average, carers reported poorer patient experiences in all areas of primary care than non-carers (odds ratios 0.84-0.97), with this difference being most marked in the domain of access. CONCLUSIONS: Informal carers experience a double disadvantage of poorer health-related quality of life and poorer patient experience in primary care. We find no evidence for health benefits of caregiving. We recommend physicians identify and treat carer health problems, including pain and anxiety/depression, particularly among young, deprived and high time-commitment carers. Improving patient experience for carers, including access to primary care, should be a priority.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from BioMed Central via http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-015-0277-

EFFECTS OF SCHEMA-BASED INSTRUCTION DELIVERED THROUGH COMPUTER-BASED VIDEO INSTRUCTION ON MATHEMATICAL WORD PROBLEM SOLVING OF STUDENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER AND MODERATE INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

The Common Core State Standards initiative calls for all students to be college and career ready with 21st century skills by high school graduation, yet the question remains how to prepare students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and moderate intellectual disability (ID) with higher order mathematical concepts. Mathematical problem solving is a critical, higher order skill that students need to have in order to solve real-world problems, but there is currently limited research on teaching problem solving to students with ASD and moderate ID. This study investigated the effects of schema- based instruction (SBI) delivered through computer-based video instruction (CBVI) on the acquisition of mathematical problem solving skills, as well as the ability to discriminate problem type, to three elementary-aged students with ASD and moderate ID using a single-case multiple probe across participants design. The study also examined participant’s ability to generalize skills to a paper-and-pencil format. Results showed a functional relation between SBI delivered through CBVI and the participants’ mathematical word problem solving skills, ability to discriminate problem type, and generalization to novel problems in paper-and-pencil format. The findings of this study provide several implications for practice for using CBVI to teach higher order mathematical content to students with ASD and moderate ID, and offers suggestions for future research in this area

Book reviews

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Checklist for co-creating safe spaces with young people participating in research

Creating safe spaces in research As researchers, it is imperative that we provide safe spaces for young people to participate in research. This is particularly relevant to the field of mental health research, where participants may be asked to engage in activities that require them to discuss or reflect on experiences of poor mental health. Such activities can be upsetting for participants and so it is important to consider what actions can be taken to best reduce risks of negative experience for participants. This will also lead to improved research data quality. Currently, there is limited information to inform the creation of safe spaces for young people participating in research. We felt that there was a need to address this gap through the creation of a new checklist resource that was co-developed with young people. To facilitate this, we worked with the Institute for Mental Health’s Youth Advisory Group (IMH YAG), based at the University of Birmingham. The IMH YAG is made up of young people aged 18-25 with lived experience of mental health difficulty or experience of supporting a young person with lived experience of mental health difficulty. We identified three key themes: confidentiality and consent, fostering trust and feeling safe. Our checklist centres around how to best accommodate these needs and we have presented practical tips on how this can be addressed at three different stages of research participation: before, during and after.  We hope that this checklist will support researchers to consider what steps can be taken to ensure that children and young people participate in research that makes them feel safe and empowered.</p

Impact of vertical integration on patients’ use of hospital services in England

Background Debate surrounding the organisation and sustainability of primary care in England highlights the desirability of a more integrated approach to patient care across all settings. One such approach is ‘vertical integration’, where a provider of specialist care, such as a hospital, also runs general practices. Aim To quantify the impact of vertical integration on hospital use in England. Design & setting Analysis of activity data for NHS hospitals in England between April 2013 and March 2020. Method Analysis of NHS England data on hospital activity: Accident and Emergency Department (A&E) attendances; outpatient attendances; total inpatient admissions; inpatient admissions for ambulatory care sensitive conditions; emergency admissions; emergency readmissions; length of stay. We compare rates of hospital use by patients of vertically integrated practices and controls, before and after the former were vertically integrated. Results In the two years after a GP practice changes, for the population registered at that practice, compared with controls, vertical integration is associated modest reductions in rates of A&E attendances (2% reduction [incidence rate ratio (95% CI) of 0.98 (0.96–0.99), P<0.0001]), outpatient attendances (1% reduction [0.99 (0.99–1.00), P=0.0061]), emergency inpatient admissions (3% reduction [0.97 (0.95–0.99), P=0.0062]) and emergency readmissions within 30 days (5% reduction [0.95 (0.91–1.00), P=0.039]), with no impact on length of stay, overall inpatient admissions or inpatient admissions for ambulatory care sensitive conditions. Conclusion Vertical integration is associated with modest reductions in use of some hospital services and no change in others

Symptoms into words: how medical patients talk about fatigue

Fatigue, which is the central symptom of CFS/ME, is notoriously difficult to define. We describe an investigation in which we raise two questions. First, does the way people use fatigue-related language reflect distinctive patterns? Second, is there a particular pattern characteristic of CFS/ME? These questions can be asked with various theories of language and meaning in mind, as we discuss. Our orientation is towards the intersubjective realities revealed by language, rather than towards the neurological substrate of fatigue. We created a questionnaire including 105 items connected with the experience of fatigue. We then compared responses in samples of adults fulfilling clinical criteria for three conditions in which fatigue is described: CFS/ME, Parkinson ’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. Principal components factor analysis of the three groups together did suggest patterns that we think reflect different intersubjective realities connected with fatigue-related language. In the CFS/ME group, cluster analysis showed that the pattern of responses differed significantly from the other two diagnostic groups. Cluster analysis does not reveal the nature of differences but the CFS/ME respondents marked a higher number of questionnaire items as ‘exactly how I feel ’. We suggest that the language used by people diagnosed with CFS/ME represents less localised experiences than in the other two diagnoses. In the interpretation of symptoms it is helpful to make a distinction between a generalised feeling and an experience that is more readily localised in time and space