The learning experiences of health and social care paraprofessionals on a foundation degree

Foundation degrees have been developed in the UK as a means of meeting the learning needs of paraprofessionals in health and social care and the services within which they work in a cost-effective fashion. Workplace learning is an intrinsic component to these degrees. Taking a socio-cultural perspective, this paper examines how the students' workplaces, life circumstances and sense of career trajectory shaped their learning experience and motivation. A small-scale evaluation study, using semi-structured interviews, focused on the learning experiences of a group of paraprofessionals enrolled in a foundation degree in health and social care. Data revealed fragmented employment patterns, underpinned by consistent vocational drives. While the study resonated with vocation, participants were ambivalent or lacked information about career progression. Workplace conditions, relationships and limited time shaped learning and coping strategies. A strategic and focused approach to student learning is required and includes attention to career pathways, workforce development strategy, the requirements of a range of stakeholders, workplace supervision and support for learning

Building a traceable climate model hierarchy with multi-level emulators

To study climate change on multi-millennial timescales or to explore a model’s parameter space, efficient models with simplified and parameterised processes are required. However, the reduction in explicitly modelled processes can lead to underestimation of some atmospheric responses that are essential to the understanding of the climate system. While more complex general circulations are available and capable of simulating a more realistic climate, they are too computationally intensive for these purposes. In this work, we propose a multi-level Gaussian emulation technique to efficiently estimate the outputs of steady-state simulations of an expensive atmospheric model in response to changes in boundary forcing. The link between a computationally expensive atmospheric model, PLASIM (Planet Simulator), and a cheaper model, EMBM (energy–moisture balance model), is established through the common boundary condition specified by an ocean model, allowing for information to be propagated from one to the other. This technique allows PLASIM emulators to be built at a low cost. The method is first demonstrated by emulating a scalar summary quantity, the global mean surface air temperature. It is then employed to emulate the dimensionally reduced 2-D surface air temperature field. Even though the two atmospheric models chosen are structurally unrelated, Gaussian process emulators of PLASIM atmospheric variables are successfully constructed using EMBM as a fast approximation. With the extra information gained from the cheap model, the multi-level emulator of PLASIM’s 2-D surface air temperature field is built using only one-third the amount of expensive data required by the normal single-level technique. The constructed emulator is shown to capture 93.2% of the variance across the validation ensemble, with the averaged RMSE of 1.33 °C. Using the method proposed, quantities from PLASIM can be constructed and used to study the effects introduced by PLASIM’s atmosphere

Foreign policy and political possibility

This article explores the relationship between foreign policy and political possibility in two parts. First, the relationship between foreign policy and political possibility is theorized around three analytical moments: political possibility is linked to the framing of conceivable, communicable and coercive foreign policy. Second, this framework is developed and demonstrated through a brief analysis of Coalition foreign policy in the War on Terror, considering American, British and Australian foreign policy between 2001 and 2003. This analysis dissects distinct and divergent Coalition foreign policies through a linked three-part conceptualization of political possibility. It enables an understanding of how the War on Terror was rendered possible through the construction of foreign policy in thinkable, resonant and ultimately dominant terms. The article concludes by looking to the wider analytical applicability of this particular theorization of the relationship between foreign policy and political possibility

Howard's War on Terror: A Conceivable, Communicable and Coercive Foreign Policy Discourse

This article explores the relationship between language and political possibility. It is argued that John Howard’s language from 11 September 2001 to mid 2003 helped to enable the ‘War on Terror’ in an Australian context in three principal ways. Firstly, through contingent and contestable constructions of Australia, the world and their relationship, Howard’s language made interventionism conceivable. Secondly, emphasising shared values, mateship and mutual sacrifice in war, Howard embedded his foreign policy discourse in the cultural terrain of ‘mainstream Australia’, specifically framing a foreign policy discourse that was communicable to ‘battlers’ and disillusioned ‘Hansonites’. Thirdly, positioning alternatives as ‘un-Australian’, Howard’s language was particularly coercive, silencing potential oppositional voices

Geographically touring the eastern bloc: British geography, travel cultures and the Cold War

This paper considers the role of travel in the generation of geographical knowledge of the eastern bloc by British geographers. Based on oral history and surveys of published work, the paper examines the roles of three kinds of travel experience: individual private travels, tours via state tourist agencies, and tours by academic delegations. Examples are drawn from across the eastern bloc, including the USSR, Poland, Romania, East Germany and Albania. The relationship between travel and publication is addressed, notably within textbooks, and in the Geographical Magazine. The study argues for the extension of accounts of cultures of geographical travel, and seeks to supplement the existing historiography of Cold War geography

Disorder-specific functional abnormalities during sustained attention in youth with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and with Autism

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are often comorbid and share behavioural-cognitive abnormalities in sustained attention. A key question is whether this shared cognitive phenotype is based on common or different underlying pathophysiologies. To elucidate this question, we compared 20 boys with ADHD to 20 age and IQ matched ASD and 20 healthy boys using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a parametrically modulated vigilance task with a progressively increasing load of sustained attention. ADHD and ASD boys had significantly reduced activation relative to controls in bilateral striato–thalamic regions, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and superior parietal cortex. Both groups also displayed significantly increased precuneus activation relative to controls. Precuneus was negatively correlated with the DLPFC activation, and progressively more deactivated with increasing attention load in controls, but not patients, suggesting problems with deactivation of a task-related default mode network in both disorders. However, left DLPFC underactivation was significantly more pronounced in ADHD relative to ASD boys, which furthermore was associated with sustained performance measures that were only impaired in ADHD patients. ASD boys, on the other hand, had disorder-specific enhanced cerebellar activation relative to both ADHD and control boys, presumably reflecting compensation. The findings show that ADHD and ASD boys have both shared and disorder-specific abnormalities in brain function during sustained attention. Shared deficits were in fronto–striato–parietal activation and default mode suppression. Differences were a more severe DLPFC dysfunction in ADHD and a disorder-specific fronto–striato–cerebellar dysregulation in ASD