Enabling learning through technology: Some institutional imperatives

This paper considers the importance of the institution as the dynamic interpretative element on which will depend the successful integration of the learning technology developed through our national initiatives into the academic curricula of Higher‐Education institutions. Based on our experience of working on teaching technology programmes, within the framework of national and institutional initiatives, it is evident that the establishment of an institutional strategy, and its implementation in a supporting university‐wide programme of staff development and training, together with strong commitment at the senior managerial level, are imperatives which determine the successful integration of learning technology within academic institutions

Distant Drums And Thunderous Cannon: Sounding Authority In Traditional Malay Society

Pre-modern Malay society was intensely oral and aural, and the texts that are now read were always intended for group recitation and performance. Studies of auditory history in other societies have emphasised that in the past, sounds were experienced differently from the way they are heard today. At the very basic level, thunder—the voice of the heavens—established the benchmark and the basis for comparison for awe-inspiring sounds that humans could attempt to replicate, notably in the beating of drums and the firing of cannon. Together with the noseflute, the drum is the oldest and most indigenous Malay instrument, and the drums that were included in royal regalia were accorded personalities of their own

Book Review – The Factory Of The English East India Company At Bantam, 1602–1682

David Kenneth Bassett (1931–1989) spent several years teaching at the University of Malaya (which was then in Singapore), and at the same institution following its relocation to Kuala Lumpur. In 1965 he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Hull, where he served as Director of the Centre for South-East Asian Studies until 1988, a year before his premature death in 1989 at the age of 59. Bassett's career thus spans a formative period in Southeast Asian studies. In 1950, a Department of Southeast Asian History was established in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, and two years later Bassett entered the programme as a doctoral candidate. His dissertation, "The Factory of the East India Company at Bantam 1602–1682," was submitted in 1955, the same year that D.G.E. Hall published his History of South-East Asia, which represents the first attempt at a regional coverage. As one of the early SOAS graduates, Bassett was a pioneer in the embryonic field of Southeast Asian studies, continuing on to become a world-renowned specialist on European trade in the Malay world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Read all about it: newspaper partnerships that pay off

In some cases not-for-profit theatres and newspapers share values, challenges and \u27audiences\u27 which could lead to mutually beneficial partnerships. Understanding and valuing these can assist in building relationships that will give you increased power despite decreasing budgets

Fall Prevention in an Acute Care Hospital: The Challenges Encountered by Patients, Staff and Administrators

Abstract Falls are frequent and often serious events that take place in hospitals. Healthcare providers find it challenging to minimize fall risk factors. In fact, just being in a hospital is a risk factor in itself! The aim of this thesis was to investigate the reasons behind patient falls, identify gaps in prevention strategies and suggest additional recommendations to improve patient safety. A mixed method approach was used to interpret the data and uncover the reasons for falls. The first study was a secondary data analysis where 7,721 patient falls were examined. The data were taken from the hospital’s central incident reporting system between 2009 and 2014. Most falls occurred in the medicine and neurosciences units. The highest frequency of falls (901) occurred between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., a time when staff were generally preoccupied with multiple tasks. Although most falls were not serious, there were 2,275 falls resulting in an injury and 16 resulted in death as a result of the fall. These findings and others were the impetus to follow-up with the next study concentrating on the validity of the fall risk assessment tool. The second study was a predictive validity study examining 500 patient scores obtained from the Morse Falls Scale (MFS) on medicine units in the hospital. The MFS was used to assess patient risk for falling. Using a cut-off score of 25, the sensitivity was 98 percent, however, the specificity was only 8 percent. An MFS cut-off point of 55 provided the most balanced measure of sensitivity (87%) and specificity (34%) for accurate identification of fall risk, however still low. These results showed that a change on how the hospital assessed falls risk was indicated. The third study was a multiple case analysis of patient falls in the same acute care hospital. The findings from eleven cases from two previous studies were explored further to identify key contributing factors which led to the falls. Findings included inadequate hospital policies, lack of staff education and patient cognitive and mobility issues while in hospital. A change in practice across all defense layers was recommended. KEY WORDS Patient falls, hospital incident reporting systems, fall prevention strategies, falls risk assessment tools, patient fall case studie

The critical spectrum: Major interpretation of Keats\u27 Beauty-truth reltionship in the Ode on a Grecian urn

The year 1819 was one of the high achievements for John Keats, a young man only twenty-four years old. Between January and May he composed a series of poems that have made him a poet of lasting fame. Among these are “The Eve of St. Agnes,” “The Eve of St. Marl,” “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” and the famous odes—“Ode to Psyche,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on Melancholy,” “Ode of a Grecian Urn” and “Ode on Indolence.

Identifying longitudinal sustainable hierarchies in activities of daily living

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Activities of daily living serve as an indicator of progression in disability and rehabilitation. It is know that some of the measurement scales used show hierarchical properties indicating that activities of daily living are lost and gained in a consistent pattern. Few studies have investigated the extent to which these patterns are sustained across time and across a range of disability. The study aimed to investigate the hierarchical properties of the activity of daily living items in the ValGraf functional ability scale, to establish if there is a hierarchy of items in the scale and to study the sustainability of the hierarchy over time. Secondary analysis of a retrospective database from 13,113 people over 65 years in 105 nursing homes in northern Italy, between 2008 and 2013 was conducted. Data were gathered 6-monthly and analysed using Mokken scaling to identify a hierarchy of items in the scale and if this was sustainable over time. A sustainable hierarchy of items was observed running in difficulty from urinary incontinence to feeding. The hierarchical structure of the activities of daily living observed in the present study is stable over time meaning that changes in total score for these items can be compared meaningfully across time