A community within the community : talking about life in a retirement village : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

The recent emergence in New Zealand of commercially operated retirement villages has provided older adults with the opportunity to live independently in a community specially planned for their age group. The current generation of older New Zealanders is the first to live in this way, and little is known about the psychology of this lifestyle. It is well recognised that environment influences well-being, and the present study aimed to investigate the broad psychology of living in a retirement village. The data was collected from twelve people living independently in a retirement village in a provincial New Zealand city. They were asked to talk about their decision to move into the village, and their experience of living in such a community. Verbatim transcripts of the interviews were examined using Potter & Wetherell's (1987) method of discourse analysis. Five themes were analysed: the decision to move, active ageing, company, privacy, and security. Overall, the analysis showed the ways in which the participants constructed their move to a retirement village as a positive and proactive part of the ageing process. Predominantly, this was achieved by highlighting the positive aspects of a retirement village community in contrast to constructions of the wider community, and by choosing contrasting features of the village lifestyle to construct different versions of the village

Improving Educational Outcomes for Children Looked after at Home : The Perspectives of Designated Managers for Looked after Children

The educational attainment of looked after children in Scotland remains low compared with children who are not looked after, especially for children who are looked after at home. This briefing describes an action research programme led by CELCIS, exploring how the barriers to looked after children’s learning can be overcome. Designated Managers for looked after children (DMs), pastoral staff and education officers in four local authorities were asked to describe the learning journey of the looked after children within their schools. Staff from early-years’ centres, primary schools and secondary schools were consulted. The consultation was intended to inform current work by CELCIS using improvement methodology to test practice aimed at achieving positive educational outcomes for looked after children

GesturalOrigins : a bottom-up framework for establishing systematic gesture data across ape species

Funding: This research received funding from the European Union’s 8th Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, under grant agreement no 802719.Current methodologies present significant hurdles to understanding patterns in the gestural communication of individuals, populations, and species. To address this issue, we present a bottom-up data collection framework for the study of gesture: GesturalOrigins. By “bottom-up”, we mean that we minimise a priori structural choices, allowing researchers to define larger concepts (such as ‘gesture types’, ‘response latencies’, or ‘gesture sequences’) flexibly once coding is complete. Data can easily be re-organised to provide replication of, and comparison with, a wide range of datasets in published and planned analyses. We present packages, templates, and instructions for the complete data collection and coding process. We illustrate the flexibility that our methodological tool offers with worked examples of (great ape) gestural communication, demonstrating differences in the duration of action phases across distinct gesture action types and showing how species variation in the latency to respond to gestural requests may be revealed or masked by methodological choices. While GesturalOrigins is built from an ape-centred perspective, the basic framework can be adapted across a range of species and potentially to other communication systems. By making our gesture coding methods transparent and open access, we hope to enable a more direct comparison of findings across research groups, improve collaborations, and advance the field to tackle some of the long-standing questions in comparative gesture research.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The Nippon Foundation—GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project: The Quest to See the World’s Oceans Completely Mapped by 2030

Despite many of years of mapping effort, only a small fraction of the world ocean’s seafloor has been sampled for depth, greatly limiting our ability to explore and understand critical ocean and seafloor processes. Recognizing this poor state of our knowledge of ocean depths and the critical role such knowledge plays in understanding and maintaining our planet, GEBCO and the Nippon Foundation have joined forces to establish the Nippon Foundation GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, an international effort with the objective of facilitating the complete mapping of the world ocean by 2030. The Seabed 2030 Project will establish globally distributed regional data assembly and coordination centers (RDACCs) that will identify existing data from their assigned regions that are not currently in publicly available databases and seek to make these data available. They will develop protocols for data collection (including resolution goals) and common software and other tools to assemble and attribute appropriate metadata as they assimilate regional grids using standardized techniques. A Global Data Assembly and Coordination Center (GDACC) will integrate the regional grids into a global grid and distribute to users world-wide. The GDACC will also act as the central focal point for the coordination of common data standards and processing tools as well as the outreach coordinator for Seabed 2030 efforts. The GDACC and RDACCs will collaborate with existing data centers and bathymetric compilation efforts. Finally, the Nippon Foundation GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project will encourage and help coordinate and track new survey efforts and facilitate the development of new and innovative technologies that can increase the efficiency of seafloor mapping and thus make the ambitious goals of Seabed 2030 more likely to be achieved

Partnership approaches to the evaluation of complex policy initiatives : qualitative research as key to building effective relationships

Peer reviewedPostprin

The Sexual Exploitation of Looked After Children in Scotland : a study conducted for the Care Inspectorate

Report of a short study commissioned by the Care Inspectorate to investigate Sexual Exploitation of Looked After Children in Scotland. Child sexual exploitation within society is of great concern. Sexual exploitation is something which tends to be hidden and official data is scarce and may underestimate the scale of the issue. Looked after children are a diverse group and their risk of being sexually exploited can depend on a range of factors. The report found that children and young people who have experience of the care system can be particularly at risk. This report gives us urgent insight and raises critical questions about the sexual exploitation of a vulnerable group and the information from this study will strengthen inspection activity across all the relevant services

Management of primary hypothyroidism: statement by the British Thyroid Association Executive Committee

The management of primary hypothyroidism with levothyroxine (L-T4) is simple, effective and safe, and most patients report improved well-being on initiation of treatment. However, a proportion of individuals continue to suffer with symptoms despite achieving adequate biochemical correction. The management of such individuals has been the subject of controversy and of considerable public interest. The American Thyroid Association (ATA) and the European Thyroid Association (ETA) have recently published guidelines on the diagnosis and management of hypothyroidism. These guidelines have been based on extensive reviews of the medical literature and include sections on the role of combination therapy with L-T4 and liothyronine (L-T3) in individuals who are persistently dissatisfied with L-T4 therapy. This position statement by the British Thyroid Association (BTA) summarises the key points in these guidelines and makes recommendations on the management of primary hypothyroidism based on the current literature, review of the published positions of the ETA and ATA, and in line with best principles of good medical practice. The statement is endorsed by the Association of Clinical Biochemistry, (ACB), British Thyroid Foundation, (BTF), Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and Society for Endocrinology (SFE)

Exploring a novel linked dataset and building linked data analytics skills in Public Health Intelligence teams in Sussex

Objectives Public health intelligence teams in Sussex wanted to use newly linked health and social care data, to gain insights into local patterns of multi-morbidity, service use, service provision and socio-demographic data. In this study we report initial exploration of this new linked dataset, in a partnership between university and local authority analysts. Approach The Sussex Integrated Dataset (SID) comprises person-level health and social care data on residents and services users across Sussex. During a 6-month secondment, two analysts evaluated the number of data sources available for each individual, evaluated data quality for identifying long-term conditions, developed presentation methods to compare SID outputs on demographics and condition prevalence with open source or expected distributions, and identified the skills-mix and infrastructure required in local authorities for future work. They worked alongside the SID data processing team to inform and improve data quality; and with university data-scientists to learn prediction modelling. Results Analysts established an efficient querying system to investigate the breadth of data available, more thoroughly focusing on encounters and demographic data in all sources. Long-term conditions were identified through code lists in a range of NHS data sources, to enable consideration of multi-morbidity by demographic. A range of quality issues were identified, such as non-current patients being uploaded into the SID, distorting prevalence estimates, and GP practice populations that did not match expected figures published by NHS digital. Results were represented in multi-morbidity plots, maps, and theographs. Through this data exploration, we have been able to identify the skills-mix needed for local Public Health Intelligence teams to maximise the use of linked data to achieve Public Health objectives. Conclusion We have made many conceptual breakthroughs, particularly in understanding data quality, however still need a more complete understanding of quality issues in SID for public health outputs to have meaningful use. Further investigation into the patterns of service use, as well as modelling of multi-morbidity to make predictions and target interventions, will be key next steps

Safety and immunogenicity of therapeutic DNA vaccination in individuals treated with antiretroviral therapy during acute/early HIV-1 infection

Background: An effective therapeutic vaccine that could augment immune control of HIV-1 replication may abrogate or delay the need for antiretroviral therapy. AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) A5187 was a phase I/II, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded trial to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of an HIV-1 DNA vaccine (VRC-HVDNA 009-00-VP) in subjects treated with antiretroviral therapy during acute/early HIV-1 infection. (clinicaltrials.gov NCT00125099) Methods: Twenty healthy HIV-1 infected subjects who were treated with antiretroviral therapy during acute/early HIV-1 infection and had HIV-1 RNA<50 copies/mL were randomized to receive either vaccine or placebo. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine. Following vaccination, subjects interrupted antiretroviral treatment, and set-point HIV-1 viral loads and CD4 T cell counts were determined 17–23 weeks after treatment discontinuation. Results: Twenty subjects received all scheduled vaccinations and discontinued antiretroviral therapy at week 30. No subject met a primary safety endpoint. No evidence of differences in immunogenicity were detected in subjects receiving vaccine versus placebo. There were also no significant differences in set-point HIV-1 viral loads or CD4 T cell counts following treatment discontinuation. Median set-point HIV-1 viral loads after treatment discontinuation in vaccine and placebo recipients were 3.5 and 3.7 log[sub]10 HIV-1 RNA copies/mL, respectively. Conclusions: The HIV-1 DNA vaccine (VRC-HIVDNA 009-00-VP) was safe but poorly immunogenic in subjects treated with antiretroviral therapy during acute/early HIV-1 infection. Viral set-points were similar between vaccine and placebo recipients following treatment interruption. However, median viral load set-points in both groups were lower than in historical controls, suggesting a possible role for antiretroviral therapy in persons with acute or early HIV-1 infection and supporting the safety of discontinuing treatment in this group. Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT0012509

The Type Ia Supernova Rate in Redshift 0.5--0.9 Galaxy Clusters

Supernova (SN) rates are potentially powerful diagnostics of metal enrichment and SN physics, particularly in galaxy clusters with their deep, metal-retaining potentials and relatively simple star-formation histories. We have carried out a survey for supernovae (SNe) in galaxy clusters, at a redshift range 0.5<z<0.9, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope. We reimaged a sample of 15 clusters that were previously imaged by ACS, thus obtaining two to three epochs per cluster, in which we discovered five likely cluster SNe, six possible cluster SNe Ia, two hostless SN candidates, and several background and foreground events. Keck spectra of the host galaxies were obtained to establish cluster membership. We conducted detailed efficiency simulations, and measured the stellar luminosities of the clusters using Subaru images. We derive a cluster SN rate of 0.35 SNuB +0.17/-0.12 (statistical) \pm0.13 (classification) \pm0.01 (systematic) [where SNuB = SNe (100 yr 10^10 L_B_sun)^-1] and 0.112 SNuM +0.055/-0.039 (statistical) \pm0.042 (classification) \pm0.005 (systematic) [where SNuM = SNe (100 yr 10^10 M_sun)^-1]. As in previous measurements of cluster SN rates, the uncertainties are dominated by small-number statistics. The SN rate in this redshift bin is consistent with the SN rate in clusters at lower redshifts (to within the uncertainties), and shows that there is, at most, only a slight increase of cluster SN rate with increasing redshift. The low and fairly constant SN Ia rate out to z~1 implies that the bulk of the iron mass in clusters was already in place by z~1. The recently observed doubling of iron abundances in the intracluster medium between z=1 and 0, if real, is likely the result of redistribution of existing iron, rather than new production of iron.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. Full resolution version available at http://kicp.uchicago.edu/~kerens/HSTclusterSNe