Across Towns and Across Times: Library Service to Young People in Rural Libraries

published or submitted for publicatio

Exploring the impact of traumatic brain injury on moral reasoning and how this relates to executive functioning, empathy and emotion-based decision making.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) leads to cognitive, behaviour, and social functioning difficulties. It has also been associated with offending behaviour. The common area of damage is to the fronto-temporal brain regions (Salmond et al, 2006). These are considered important for moral reasoning. Moral reasoning is believed to be important for upholding social function and preventing delinquent behaviour (Gibbs, 2010). It is suggested that TBI may disrupt moral reasoning and contribute to social and behaviour deficits (Anderson & Catroppa, 2006). Studies to date have indicated that there are greater difficulties in moral reasoning following a childhood TBI than adulthood TBI. Studies have been small and have not examined the impact of childhood TBI in early adulthood. Fewer studies have explored the neurocognitive processes underpinning moral reasoning. This study compared moral reasoning, measured by the Sociomoral Reflection Measure - Short Form (SRM-SF, Gibbs, Basinger & Fuller, 1992) in a group of 20 survivors of TBI aged between 17 and 25 years and a group of 34 healthy individuals. It also explored the relationships between moral reasoning and executive functions, cognitive flexibility, inhibition; empathy and emotion-based decision making. The healthy comparison group demonstrated significantly higher moral reasoning. This was maintained when the groups were matched on age, sex, socioeconomic status and when intellectual functioning was controlled. The study revealed significant relationships between moral reasoning and cognitive flexibility, inhibition, executive function difficulties and empathy in the healthy comparison group. Only one significant correlation was revealed in the TBI group; between cognitive flexibility and moral reasoning. This was attributed to insufficient power to detect other significant findings. The study concluded that TBI sustained during childhood does disrupt moral development. It also indicated that executive function processes and empathy may be involved iii in moral reasoning. These findings were considered in relation to theories of moral reasoning, brain development and methodological rigour. Further research is suggested

Enhancing reflective practice among clinical psychologists and trainees

The role of the Clinical Psychologist has developed to incorporate that of the reflective practitioner. This thesis aims to consider how reflective practice is incorporated into personal and professional development by clinical psychologists and trainees, and what impact it may have upon clinical practice. The first chapter of the thesis reviews the relevant literature from the past 10 years relating to the use of personal therapy among therapists and the links to reflective practice. The findings suggest that a number of studies demonstrate some benefits of personal therapy for therapists. However, the literature lacks a unified theoretical explanation of the processes that occur during personal therapy and of their influence on the development of reflective practice. This chapter offers a critique of the literature and proposes a potential model for understanding the development of reflexivity through personal therapy. Chapter Two is an exploratory study of clinical psychologists’ experiences of personal development groups whilst in training. The study adopts an interpretive phenomenological approach to the analysis and results are presented through four super-ordinate themes. The results suggest that personal development groups are seen as an effective method of developing reflective practice by participants. The processes which encourage and hinder this are also explored. The research suggests that engaging in reflective practice may become a luxury after training in some cases and this may result in an increased strain on the therapist. The clinical and research implications of the study are discussed. Chapter Three provides a reflective account of the author’s experience of the research process including; choosing the research topic, developing the research question, relationship to the research and personal experiences of personal development groups. The paper comments on the presence of bias within the research, the impact of conducting the study on the researcher and reflections on themes arising from the empirical paper

William H. Wigg to Unknown Person, November 1, 1792

William H. Wigg wrote to Unknown Person, unaddressed. Wigg wrote to an unknown person, probably John Kean, about a payment made on his behalf to William and John Norton. People included: William Norton, John Norton.https://digitalcommons.kean.edu/lhc_1790s/1435/thumbnail.jp

Improving Data Quality by Rules: A Numismatic Example

The archaeological data dealt with in our database solution Antike Fundmünzen in Europa (AFE), which records finds of ancient coins, is entered by humans. Based on the Linked Open Data (LOD) approach, we link our data to Nomisma.org concepts, as well as to other resources like Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE). Since information such as denomination, material, etc. is recorded for each single coin, this information should be identical for coins of the same type. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, mostly due to human errors. Based on rules that we implemented, we were able to make use of this redundant information in order to detect possible errors within AFE, and were even able to correct errors in Nomimsa.org. However, the approach had the weakness that it was necessary to transform the data into an internal data model. In a second step, we therefore developed our rules within the Linked Open Data world. The rules can now be applied to datasets following the Nomisma. org modelling approach, as we demonstrated with data held by Corpus Nummorum Thracorum (CNT). We believe that the use of methods like this to increase the data quality of individual databases, as well as across different data sources and up to the higher levels of OCRE and Nomisma.org, is mandatory in order to increase trust in them

Reconsidering the Morality of Deterrence

In 1983, at one of the more intense moments of the Cold War period, the United States Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter addressing the moral implications of the deterrence doctrine. The letter observed that the mass attack plans on which the operational practice of deterrence was based could not be reconciled with traditional just war principles and declared that the practice was only provisionally acceptable in moral terms. That formulation expressed reluctant deference to the prevailing belief that national security depended on the deterrent effect of a massively destructive threat actively deployed and that there was no viable alternative. A decade later, after the alliance confrontation that defined the Cold War had dissolved, the bishops issued a commentary on the original letter. They reaffirmed their original judgment on deterrence and broadened their discussion to address the problems of civil conflict and basic human rights then emerging into greater prominence. They reiterated their support for policies that would restrain the practice of deterrence, but they did not intensify their moral prescription. They acknowledged differing judgments regarding the strategic justification of the deterrence doctrine and set no time limit on provisional moral acceptance. They did not issue a moral mandate to transform the legacy practice. Nearly three decades after the pastoral letter, the practice of deterrence continues essentially unaltered. The number of operationally deployed nuclear weapons has been substantially reduced, but their destructive potential has not been proportionately affected. Urban industrial infrastructure and human population concentrations are nearly as vulnerable as they ever were. If the mass attack plans embedded in continuously alert deterrent forces were ever implemented, they would inflict tens of millions of immediate casualties and so damage social capacity that recovery would be a distant and uncertain question. The potential destructiveness of contemporary deterrent forces poses by far the greatest immediate physical threat to human life as we know it. As a result the security of all people and all countries fundamentally depends on the justifying doctrine – that is, on the assumption that continuously wielding a massive threat reliably assures it will never be carried out. Because of its central importance and potential consequence, the deterrence doctrine has become both an axiom of security policy and a matter of intense personal belief. In both countries primarily engaged in the operational practice of deterrence – The Russian Federation and the United States -- the doctrine has evolved beyond the status of a justifying assumption and is generally treated as an elemental truth not open to meaningful doubt. But that is an attitude not an assured reality, and there are strong reasons not only to question the core validity of the basic deterrent assumption but also to fear that prevailing operational practice involves an unacceptable and unnecessary risk of catastrophe. That in turn implies that provisional moral acceptance of the doctrine needs to be reconsidered

goDesign Express 2011 Workshop

The goDesign Express 2011 Workshop was a design immersion workshop run by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Built Environment and Engineering Faculty during three weeks of 70-minute art class periods/sessions in August/September 2011 at Morayfield State High School, for 80 Grade 10 and 64 Grade 11 art students and two teachers, and October 2011 at Narangba Valley State High School for 60 Grade 10 and 30 Grade 11 art students and two teachers. Funded and administrated through QUT’s Widening Participation Program, which supports outreach activities to increase tertiary enrolments for under represented groups (such as low-SES, rural and indigenous students), the program utilised two activities from Day 1 of the highly successful 3-day goDesign Travelling Workshop Program for Regional Secondary Students (http://eprints.qut.edu.au/47747/). In contrast to this program, which was facilitated by two tertiary design educators, the goDesign Express 2011 Workshop was facilitated primarily by three tertiary interior design/architecture students, with assistance from a design educator. This action research study aimed to facilitate an awareness in young people, of the value of design thinking skills in generating strategies to solve local community challenges. It also aimed to investigate the value of collaboration between secondary school students and teachers, and tertiary design students and educators, in inspiring post-secondary pathways for school students, professional development for schoolteachers, and alternative career prospects and leadership skills for tertiary design students. During the workshop, secondary students and teachers explored, analysed and reimagined their local community through a series of scaffolded problem solving activities around the theme of ‘place’. Students worked individually and in groups designing graphics, fashion and products, and utilising sketching, making, communication, collaboration and presentation skills to improve their design process, while considering social, cultural and environmental opportunities for their local community. The workshop was mentioned in a news article in the local Caboolture Shire Herald newspaper

Liver Disease in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a substantially higher prevalence of liver disease than non-Indigenous Australians. Cirrhosis and its complications were the sixth leading cause of mortality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in 2020. Liver disease has been estimated to be the third leading cause of the mortality gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous people due to chronic disease, accounting for 11% of this gap. While current trends show reducing mortality rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for conditions including circulatory disease, diabetes and kidney disease, there are no data to suggest a similar decline for liver disease. This review highlights the common causes of liver disease affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which include hepatitis B, hepatitis C, alcohol related liver disease, metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease, and cirrhosis and its complications including hepatocellular carcinoma. Current treatments including liver transplantation as well as suggestions for improving detection, treatment and access to liver care will also be discussed. Recent revolutions in the detection and treatment of liver disease make efforts to improve access to treatment and outcomes an urgent priority for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

The Linked Open Data revolution in numismatics: Nomisma.org and the European Coin Find Network

I Międzynarodowa Konferencja Humanistyki Cyfrowej - nowoczesne technologie w badaniach humanistycznych DARIAH.PL, 27 XI 2014 Warszawa.Agnieszka Uziębł

Coupling the INDRA and VAMOS multi-detectors for symmetry energy studies

The study of the symmetry energy under well controlled laboratory conditions serves to provide constraints for theoretical models covering a wide range of physical phenomena, from the neutron skin thickness of 208Pb to the structure and dynamics of neutron stars. Of particular interest at the present time is the density dependence of the symmetry energy. The INDRA-VAMOS (E503) experiment intends to extract constraints on the density dependence of the symmetry energy at low densities using isotopic scaling and isospin diffusion measurements. In this report the physics motivation and experiment will be discussed in detail, as well as the calibration of the detectors and recent changes to the analysis code