Women volunteers in an Australian breastfeeding association experiencing changing expectations for their roles

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.NO FULL TEXT AVAILABLE. The hardcopy may be available for consultation at the UTS Library. ----- This study of the experiences of women volunteers in an Australian breastfeeding association was undertaken in a socio-political context where there has been a decrease in state provision of welfare services in favour of private volunteer agencies. Public health budgets have been stretched and a decline in public funded welfare services has led to a need for more volunteers. According to Australian statistics changing lifestyles impact on who volunteers and where they volunteer, particularly in major cities of a multicultural Australian society. The Australian Association for Breastfeeding (AAB), a pseudonym used in this thesis for confidentiality, has a history over some decades of providing services to breastfeeding women using volunteers and has been affected by these kinds of shifts in the socio-political sphere. This research was undertaken to explore the concerns and types of support experienced by women in their ongoing work as volunteer breastfeeding educators. There has been little research on volunteerism in women's self-help breastfeeding associations and no studies of women's experiences as volunteer breastfeeding educators in Australia. The study aimed to investigate their commitment and concerns at a time of changing expectations in their volunteer roles of providing free, community-based education for mothers' breastfeeding needs in Australia, so that these volunteer roles could be sustained in the future. Key issues impacting on the experiences of being a volunteer breastfeeding educator in the AAB were expressed in the thesis as an original explanatory conceptual framework of constructs from socio-political conceptual factors and aspects from volunteer education self-help practice. This framework was used to interpret the volunteers' perspectives of their experiences in an exploratory/qualitative research design. As a volunteer with the AAB myself, I was an insider researcher and conducted face-to-face interviews along the eastern seaboard of Australia with 15 women volunteer breastfeeding educators who responded to circulated notices in the AAB. The findings from seven of the 15 were analysed in-depth as a generational cohort for their perspectives based on their experiences in: (i) volunteer work; (ii) volunteer education; and (iii) sense of identity that offered a window into how strategic changes occur in the AAB in response to changing times. Thus, this research shows that the experiences of these seven volunteer breastfeeding educators working in a not-for-profit self-help association analysed in depth gave them a normative commitment to help mothers who contact them. Their commitment was expressed as agentic and communal values or motives to provide a relevant service and achieve their tasks in the roles they have as volunteers. They took on a variety of leadership roles in the AAB and experienced stress and frustrations in balancing volunteering and work/family life. It was found that their volunteer work for a cause they believed in was not a mere pastime and influenced their sense of identity as informed, collegial, co-operative and accomplished members of Australian society. Their views shed light on how the AAB might be proactive in becoming a multicultural Association. Findings from their perspectives on changing expectations for their volunteer roles in a self-help association led to recommendations for guiding learning and growth in not-for-profit organisations that manage volunteers

Meeting the education and training needs of a professional youth and community work workforce in challenging times: Austerity Britain and the fight to survive

As we face the challenges of enforced austerity, and their cumulative effects on the most disadvantaged in society, the profession of youth and community work has never been needed more, and yet it faces an uncertain future in both the academe and publicly-funded social services. Drawing on the recent history of professional education and training for youth and community workers in England, and the validation processes that have developed to support this, the paper will offer a view on the current challenges faced by educators, practitioners and students who are looking to protect this area of professional practice and ensure it continues to be supported and valued. We will look at the lessons that can be drawn from the validation and endorsement processes for youth and community work education and training in England, and the more recent development of the Joint Education and Training Standards committee for England, Scotland, Wales and the island of Ireland. The paper will highlight the competing and contradictory messages that make for uncertainty and confusion, whilst also celebrating the opportunities that are emerging. It will explain the key agencies, policies and organisations which are shaping the current debates, and assert the need for an educated and research-informed set of professionals to work in this new and challenging environment. Using examples from youth and community work provision offered by Leeds Beckett University (both under and post-graduate) , alongside the competing expectations placed on academics, practitioners and students, the paper will seek to highlight particular curriculum developments currently underway which present interesting and exciting opportunities for those who educate and train future youth and community workers and associated social welfare professionals. Finally, in taking a more outward-looking view, the paper will discuss new and emerging areas of practice and pan-European collaborations which reflect an increasing desire to draw on a rich and diverse set of traditions that can shape the future education and training of locally active, globally connected youth and community workers who are committed to working with young people, communities and the voiceless in society

The human salivary microbiome exhibits temporal stability in bacterial diversity

The temporal variability of the human microbiome may be an important factor in determining its relationship with health and disease. In this study, the saliva of 40 participants was collected every 2 months over a one-year period to determine the temporal variability of the human salivary microbiome. Salivary pH and 16S rRNA gene copy number were measured for all participants, with the microbiome of 10 participants assessed through 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. In February 2013, 16S rRNA gene copy number was significantly (P < 0.001) higher, with individual changes between time points significant (P = 0.003). Salivary pH levels were significantly (P < 0.001) higher in December 2012 than in October 2012 and February 2013, with significant (P < 0.001) individual variations seen throughout. Bacterial α-diversity showed significant differences between participants (P < 0.001), but not sampling periods (P = 0.801), and a significant positive correlation with salivary pH (R(2) = 7.8%; P = 0.019). At the phylum level, significant differences were evident between participants in the Actinobacteria (P < 0.001), Bacteroidetes (P < 0.001), Firmicutes (P = 0.008), Fusobacteria (P < 0.001), Proteobacteria (P < 0.001), Synergistetes (P < 0.001) and Spirochaetes (P = 0.003) phyla. This study charted the temporal variability of the salivary microbiome, suggesting that bacterial diversity is stable, but that 16S rRNA gene copy number may be subject to seasonal flux

Cosmogenic-neutron activation of TeO2 and implications for neutrinoless double- β decay experiments

Flux-averaged cross sections for cosmogenic-neutron activation of natural tellurium were measured using a neutron beam containing neutrons of kinetic energies up to ∼800 MeV and having an energy spectrum similar to that of cosmic-ray neutrons at sea level. Analysis of the radioisotopes produced reveals that Ag110m will be a dominant contributor to the cosmogenic-activation background in experiments searching for neutrinoless double-β decay of Te130, such as the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Plus (SNO+). An estimate of the cosmogenic-activation background in the CUORE experiment has been obtained using the results of this measurement and cross-section measurements of proton activation of tellurium. Additionally, the measured cross sections in this work are also compared with results from semiempirical cross-section calculations

Employment status and health after privatisation in white collar civil servants: prospective cohort study

Objectives To determine whether employment status after job loss due to privatisation influences health and use of health services and whether financial strain, psychosocial measures, or health related behaviours can explain any findings.Design Data collected before and 18 months after privatisation.Setting One department of the civil service that was sold to the private sector,Participants 666 employees during baseline screening in the department to be privatised.Main outcome measures Health and health service outcomes associated with insecure re-employment, permanent exit from paid employment, and unemployment after privatisation compared with outcomes associated with secure re-employmentResults Insecure re-employment and unemployment were associated with relative increases in minor psychiatric morbidity (mean difference 1.56 (95% confidence intervals interval 1.0 to 2.2) and 1.25 (0.6 to 2.0) respectively) and having four or more consultations with a general practitioner in the past year (odds ratio 2.04 (1.1 to 3.8) and 2.39 (1.3 to 4.7) respectively). Health outcomes for respondents permanently out of paid employment closely resembled those in secure re-employment, except for a substantial relative increase in longstanding illness (2.25; 1.1 to 4.4), Financial strain and change in psychosocial measures and health related behaviours accounted for little of the observed associations. Adjustment for change in minor psychiatric morbidity attenuated the association between insecure re-employment or unemployment and general practitioner consultations by 26% and 27%, respectively.Conclusions Insecure re-employment and unemployment after privatisation result in increases in minor psychiatric morbidity and consultations with a general practitioner, which are possibly due to the increased minor psychiatric morbidity

In vitro and in vivo modification of Neisseria gonorrhoeae lipooligosaccharide epitope structure by sialylation.

After growth of gonococci in the presence of cytidine monophospho-N-acetyl-neuraminic acid (CMP-NANA), their 4.5-kD lipooligosaccharide (LOS) component was increased by approximately 400 daltons, whereas the LOS of strains lacking the 4.5-kD component were unaffected. Expression of mAb-defined epitopes on the 4.5-kD component was decreased on LOS of strains grown in CMP-NANA, and treatment of the LOS with neuraminidase reversed this affect. Gonococci incubated with human PMNs also had decreased expression of the 4.5-kD+ epitopes. A detergent extract of gonococci incorporated radiolabeled NANA in the LOS, suggesting the presence of a sialyltransferase in gonococci. Exogenous sialyltransferases also could use LOS as an acceptor

Emissions from village cookstoves in Haryana, India, and their potential impacts on air quality

Air quality in rural India is impacted by residential cooking and heating with biomass fuels. In this study, emissions of CO, CO2, and 76 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) were quantified to better understand the relationship between cook fire emissions and ambient ozone and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Cooking was carried out by a local cook, and traditional dishes were prepared on locally built chulha or angithi cookstoves using brushwood or dung fuels. Cook fire emissions were collected throughout the cooking event in a Kynar bag (VOCs) and on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) filters (PM2.5). Gas samples were transferred from a Kynar bag to previously evacuated stainless-steel canisters and analyzed using gas chromatography coupled to flame ionization, electron capture, and mass spectrometry detectors. VOC emission factors were calculated from the measured mixing ratios using the carbon-balance method, which assumes that all carbon in the fuel is converted to CO2, CO, VOCs, and PM2.5 when the fuel is burned. Filter samples were weighed to calculate PM2.5 emission factors. Dung fuels and angithi cookstoves resulted in significantly higher emissions of most VOCs (p &lt; 0.05). Utilizing dung-angithi cook fires resulted in twice as much of the measured VOCs compared to dung-chulha and 4 times as much as brushwood-chulha, with 84.0, 43.2, and 17.2g measured VOCkgg fuel carbon, respectively. This matches expectations, as the use of dung fuels and angithi cookstoves results in lower modified combustion efficiencies compared to brushwood fuels and chulha cookstoves. Alkynes and benzene were exceptions and had significantly higher emissions when cooking using a chulha as opposed to an angithi with dung fuel (for example, benzene emission factors were 3.18gkgg fuel carbon for dung-chulha and 2.38gkgg fuel carbon for dung-angithi). This study estimated that 3 times as much SOA and ozone in the maximum incremental reactivity (MIR) regime may be produced from dung-chulha as opposed to brushwood-chulha cook fires. Aromatic compounds dominated as SOA precursors from all types of cook fires, but benzene was responsible for the majority of SOA formation potential from all chulha cook fire VOCs, while substituted aromatics were more important for dung-angithi. Future studies should investigate benzene exposures from different stove and fuel combinations and model SOA formation from cook fire VOCs to verify public health and air quality impacts from cook fires

Point‐of‐care lung ultrasound in patients with COVID‐19 – a narrative review

Ultrasound imaging of the lung and associated tissues may play an important role in the management of patients with COVID‐19–associated lung injury. Compared with other monitoring modalities, such as auscultation or radiographic imaging, we argue lung ultrasound has high diagnostic accuracy, is ergonomically favourable and has fewer infection control implications. By informing the initiation, escalation, titration and weaning of respiratory support, lung ultrasound can be integrated into COVID‐19 care pathways for patients with respiratory failure. Given the unprecedented pressure on healthcare services currently, supporting and educating clinicians is a key enabler of the wider implementation of lung ultrasound. This narrative review provides a summary of evidence and clinical guidance for the use and interpretation of lung ultrasound for patients with moderate, severe and critical COVID‐19–associated lung injury. Mechanisms by which the potential lung ultrasound workforce can be deployed are explored, including a pragmatic approach to training, governance, imaging, interpretation of images and implementation of lung ultrasound into routine clinical practice