Linfield College: Study Abroad in France

This letter from returnee Virginia (Zander) Anderson explains the value of studying abroad in France

Traumatic injury and dementia in New Zealand : a Palmerston North Hospital case-control study : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Health Science in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Little is known about the relationship between traumatic injury (TI) and dementia. The increasing prevalence of both conditions in the world and in New Zealand (NZ) drove the Author to want to investigate whether the pathophysiological consequences of major trauma of any kind - mostly due to falls in the dementia population - and not just traumatic brain injury (TBI), may result in dementia. Both TI and dementia constitute major health and socio-economic problems contributing to long-term disability worldwide and have important implications for health service delivery and for medico-legal compensation issues. The first specific objective was to determine whether dementia was associated with an increased risk and incidence of trauma in the past and whether such an association might be explained by the injuries or by medical comorbidities. The second specific objective was to identify whether there were any differences in the mechanisms of injury and type of discharge from hospital between cases and controls. The research was a non-experimental, retrospective, hospital-based, case-control study. Cases and controls were selected from the Palmerston North Hospital (PNH) acute admissions database and were matched in terms of exposure to traumatic injury, sex, age, ethnicity, and recorded comordibites. Statistical and epidemiological analyses were done using RaosoftR and MedCalcR softwares. All medical conditions were operationally defined using the current World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). The results showed that a history of TI was more frequently found in cases with dementia than in the controls. Patients with dementia and TI were more likely to have preexisting comorbidities and were more unlikely to be discharged to their previous habitual residence. The findings strongly indicate that the brain is affected by the way the body responds to TI both locally and systemically. The conclusion was that the direct and indirect consequences of TI, mostly due to falls, could constitute a plausible risk factor for the development or progression of dementia but that further research is needed to assess what type of trauma and what type of dementia could be involved in the association, one that is likely to be multifactorial in the elderly population

Use of Communal Nest Entrances by \u3ci\u3eOsmia Simillima\u3c/i\u3e (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

Six Osmia simillima females used communal nest entrances to gain access to their nests in a piece of buried wood. Some nest characteristics are described

Clem Johnson\u27s General Store

I reckon that that there buildin\u27 across the way jes\u27 looks like a pile of old boards to you folks, the old man at the filling station said as he wiped the car windows. I looked across the road and saw what seemed to be a dingy, run-down loafing place for all the idlers and farmers of the community. Well, it ain\u27t what you\u27re a-thinkin\u27, ma\u27am. That store is Clem\u27s whole life. See, you can tell it\u27s Clem\u27s store \u27cause it says so right up over the door in big red letters, Clem Johnson\u27s General Store. \u27Course, now the sign\u27s kinda faded \u27cause it ain\u27t been painted for nearly twenty years or so, jes\u27 like the whole dern buildin\u27. Clem\u27s been a-managin\u27 that store ever since his pa died when Clem was eighteen. It used to be a right-nice lookin\u27 place

Responsible Autonomy

As intelligent systems are increasingly making decisions that directly affect society, perhaps the most important upcoming research direction in AI is to rethink the ethical implications of their actions. Means are needed to integrate moral, societal and legal values with technological developments in AI, both during the design process as well as part of the deliberation algorithms employed by these systems. In this paper, we describe leading ethics theories and propose alternative ways to ensure ethical behavior by artificial systems. Given that ethics are dependent on the socio-cultural context and are often only implicit in deliberation processes, methodologies are needed to elicit the values held by designers and stakeholders, and to make these explicit leading to better understanding and trust on artificial autonomous systems.Comment: IJCAI2017 (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Capacity building and disaster response : a case study of NGOs' response to Cyclone Evan in Samoa : a research report presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Masters of International Development at Massey University, New Zealand

With natural disasters increasing both in number and economic impact, the challenge for governments is to effectively respond to the needs of affected communities. In difficult conditions, and often with resource constraints, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have contributed to meeting the needs of affected communities during disaster responses. NGOs usually have flexible structures, which enable them to respond to a rapidly changing environment. They also often have strong links to the communities in which they work, which creates good synergies when responding to disasters. The involvement of NGOs in a disaster response has been discussed widely in the international community. The challenge is to ensure that NGOs have the capacity to respond effectively when the need arises. This report has a particular focus on Samoa and uses a capacity building lens to investigate a disaster response. It looks closely at the ability of NGOs to assist the Samoan government in a disaster response. The report used a document analysis and semi-structured interviews, with representatives from NGOs involved in the response to Cyclone Evan in 2012, to investigate capacity building in NGOs with a view to enabling them to respond effectively in disaster. The key finding of the report is that the ability of NGOs to form relationships with other stakeholders and to maintain those relationships between disaster responses is important to building partnerships that contribute to the effectiveness of a response

Turnover rate of staff nurses

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Disintegrating Democracy at Work

[Excerpt] This book is about the role that labor unions can and should play in modern service workplaces. Its central motivating question is whether strong and cooperative industrial relations institutions characteristic of social Europe have the potential to give service workers similar benefits to those achieved in the golden age of postwar manufacturing: productive and stable employment characterized by high job quality and low wage inequality. Past academic and policy debates on the relationship between national institutions, management strategies, and worker outcomes have focused overwhelmingly on large export-oriented sectors such as the global auto industry. Institutions in most service industries look a lot less coherent than those described in these accounts. Union membership and works council presence are much lower in services than in manufacturing. Service workers are also less likely to be covered by a union contract or to have traditional occupational training, and their jobs tend to be lower paid and less secure