Exploring the long-term influence of the family nurse partnership on the lives of young mothers

Background The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is an intensive nurse led home-visiting programme for first-time mothers under 19 years old and their babies, run by the English Government. This small qualitative study is part of a larger study which examined the key outcomes of the programme in one UK location. Few studies have explored the experiences of young mothers after graduating from the FNP. The aim of this study was to explore mother’s own experiences of the programme and particularly how the FNP programme has had an impact upon parents and their children post-graduation from the programme. Methods Data was collected using face to face, semi-structured interviews with a purposeful sample of 12 mothers who had graduated from the FNP programme. Mothers were asked about their experience of the programme and their subsequent life-course. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed verbatim. Analysis of the data was conducted using a constant comparative approach. Results The mothers who had participated in the FNP program were very positive about their experiences and talked about the continued impact the programme has had on their lives. Themes emerging from the data included the importance of the supportive nature of the relationship with the family nurse and how participating in the FNP had increased their self-confidence and has empowered them to make positive changes in their lives. Conclusions The interviews found that mothers valued the intervention and it had a long-term impact on the mothers. In addition ways in which the FNP intervention has influenced the lives of clients and their families, that are not routinely measured by the programme were identified. Researchers are now working with the programme providers to support its development of a more flexible intervention model of parenting support so that the beneficial effects of the programme can reach more vulnerable parents. Key messages: •Mothers value the FNP intervention and continue to benefit from the programme after it has finished •Further development and evolution of the model is being undertaken which aims to reach more parents and should be researched.Ripple

New Applications of Resummation in Non-Abelian Gauge Theories: QED X QCD Exponentiation for LHC Physics, IR-Improved DGLAP Theory and Resummed Quantum Gravity

We present the elements of three applications of resummation methods in non-Abelian gauge theories: (1), QED X QCD exponentiation and shower/ME matching for LHC physics; (2), IR improvement of DGLAP theory; (3), resummed quantum gravity and the final state of Hawking radiation. In all cases, the extension of the YFS approach, originally introduced for Abelian gauge theory, to non-Abelian gauge theories, QCD and quantum general relativity, leads to new results and solutions which we briefly summarize.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, presented at RADCOR05, Kanagawa, Japan, Oct., 200

Macroscopic electromagnetic stress tensor for ionized media

Following the arguments presented by Mansuripur [Opt. Express 16, 14821-14835 (2008)], we suggest a form for the macroscopic electromagnetic stress tensor appropriate for ionized media. The generalized Lorentz force includes the effects of polarization forces as well as those on the free charge and current densities. The resulting tensor is written in terms of the fields D, B, E, and H. Its expression for a fully ionized medium subject to an external electromagnetic field is discussed, as are the plasma conservation equations. An apparatus is suggested for its experimental discrimination.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, fixed some nonsense with the tubular source, to appear in JP

The Assessment of Engineering Student Public Speaking Ability : What, How and Issues

This paper discusses the assessment of public speaking as a generic skill in engineering students. The assessment is far from a new topic however there are a few fundamental questions surrounding this generic skill that remain unclear and subject to a number of measurement issues. The paper commences on the premise that public speaking is actually a meta competence which sits in the middle of a hierarchy of skill definitions under the general umbrella of communication. Below it are skills such as: the ability to convey a technical subject to a lay audience; the ability to convey a technical subject to a technical audience; and a number of other variants. The paper then considers some of the issues with measuring it as a skill starting with why, as academics, we should measure it and what any statement of ability means. It looks at issues of measurement reliability and validity and some of the common sources of conscious and unconscious measurement bias. The paper will draw on the findings of 3 years experimental research at the University into the use of a marking rubric and how effective this is compared to the more common overall assessment methods. It will also report on the need for assessment of how well the student can defend their presentation and the more controversial question of whether, if a student shows complete incompetence in being able to defend their presentation whether they should pass or fail the overall presentation

Structuring International Financial Support for Climate Change Mitigation in Developing Countries

In the Copenhagen Accord of December 2009, developed countries agreed to provide start-up finance for adaptation in developing countries and expressed the ambition to scale this up to $100 billion per year by 2020. The financial mechanisms to deliver this support have to be tailored to country and sector specific needs so as to enable domestic policy processes and self sustaining business models, and to limit policy risk exposure for investors while complying with budgetary constraints in OECD countries. This paper structures the available financial mechanisms according to the needs they can address, and reports on experience with their application in bilateral and multilateral settings.Financial mechanism, risk guarantee, development, climate policy

An inter-cloud architecture for future internet infrastructures

In latest years, the concept of interconnecting clouds to allow common service coordination has gained significant attention mainly because of the increasing utilization of cloud resources from Internet users. An efficient common management between different clouds is essential benefit, like boundless elasticity and scalability. Yet, issues related with different standards led to interoperability problems. For this reason, the definition of the open cloud-computing interface defines a set of open community-lead specifications along with a flexible API to build cloud systems. Today, there are cloud systems like OpenStack, OpenNebula, Amazon Web Services and VMWare VCloud that expose APIs for inter-cloud communication. In this work we aim to explore an inter-cloud model by creating a new cloud platform service to act as a mediator among OpenStack, FI-WARE datacenter resource management and Amazon Web Service cloud architectures, therefore to orchestrate communication of various cloud environments. The model is based on the FI-WARE and will be offered as a reusable enabler with an open specification to allow interoperable service coordination

A theoretical study of the response of vascular tumours to different types of chemotherapy

In this paper we formulate and explore a mathematical model to study continuous infusion of a vascular tumour with isolated and combined blood-borne chemotherapies. The mathematical model comprises a system of nonlinear partial differential equations that describe the evolution of the healthy (host) cells, the tumour cells and the tumour vasculature, coupled with distribution of a generic angiogenic stimulant (TAF) and blood-borne oxygen. A novel aspect of our model is the presence of blood-borne chemotherapeutic drugs which target different aspects of tumour growth (cf. proliferating cells, the angiogenic stimulant or the tumour vasculature). We run exhaustive numerical simulations in order to compare vascular tumour growth before and following therapy. Our results suggest that continuous exposure to anti-proliferative drug will result in the vascular tumour being cleared, becoming growth-arrested or growing at a reduced rate, the outcome depending on the drug’s potency and its rate of uptake. When the angiogenic stimulant or the tumour vasculature are targeted by the therapy, tumour elimination can not occur: at best vascular growth is retarded and the tumour reverts to an avascular form. Application of a combined treatment that destroys the vasculature and the TAF, yields results that resemble those achieved following successful treatment with anti-TAF or anti-vascular therapy. In contrast, combining anti-proliferative therapy with anti-TAF or antivascular therapy can eliminate the vascular tumour. In conclusion, our results suggest that tumour growth and the time of tumour clearance are highly sensitive to the specific combinations of anti-proliferative, anti-TAF and anti-vascular drugs

Social work as a career choice (a study of selected variables in the choice of social work as a career)

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit