Theory-based communication skills training for medicine counter assistants to improve consultations for non-prescription medicines

Context: Medicine counter assistants (MCAs) supply the majority of non-prescription medicines (NPMs) to consumers. Suboptimal communication during consultations between consumers and MCAs has been identified as a major cause of inappropriate supply. Evidence from medical consultations suggests that training in specified communication skills can change professional behaviour. Methods: A feasibility study was conducted to evaluate the effect of theory-based communication skills training for MCAs. Thirty MCAs were recruited from 21 community pharmacies in Grampian, Scotland. The intervention comprised 2 4-hour training sessions, held 1 month apart. The sessions were informed by results from previous studies and the Calgary−Cambridge evidence-based model of communication skills training. Strategies for guiding individuals through change were adopted from cognitive behavioural therapy techniques. The theory of planned behaviour was used to assess potential pathways to behaviour change. Recorded data were collected during covert visits to the pharmacies by simulated patients at baseline and 1 month after each training session. Communication performance was measured as the number and type of questions asked. Results: Compared with baseline measures, the total number of questions asked increased in the intervention group at both timepoints. No change was shown in the control group between baseline and follow-up 1, and a decrease was shown in the total number of questions from follow-up 1 to 2. The intervention appeared to have greater effect on consultations involving advice, compared with those concerning product requests. Discussion: Communication performance improved following training. Increased information exchange is associated with guideline-compliant supply of NPMs. A substantive randomised, controlled trial is now planned to assess the intervention.This study was funded by the Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Executive Health Department

The Southern 2MASS AGN Survey: spectroscopic follow-up with 6dF

The Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) has provided a uniform photometric catalog to search for previously unknown red AGN and QSOs. We have extended the search to the southern equatorial sky by obtaining spectra for 1182 AGN candidates using the 6dF multifibre spectrograph on the UK Schmidt Telescope. These were scheduled as auxiliary targets for the 6dF Galaxy Redshift Survey. The candidates were selected using a single color cut of J - Ks > 2 to Ks ~ 15.5 and a galactic latitude of |b|>30 deg. 432 spectra were of sufficient quality to enable a reliable classification. 116 sources (or ~27%) were securely classified as type 1 AGN, 20 as probable type 1s, and 57 as probable type 2 AGN. Most of them span the redshift range 0.05<z<0.5 and only 8 (or ~6%) were previously identified as AGN or QSOs. Our selection leads to a significantly higher AGN identification rate amongst local galaxies (>20%) than in any previous galaxy survey. A small fraction of the type 1 AGN could have their optical colors reddened by optically thin dust with A_V<2 mag relative to optically selected QSOs. A handful show evidence for excess far-IR emission. The equivalent width (EW) and color distributions of the type 1 and 2 AGN are consistent with AGN unified models. In particular, the EW of the [OIII] emission line weakly correlates with optical--near-IR color in each class of AGN, suggesting anisotropic obscuration of the AGN continuum. Overall, the optical properties of the 2MASS red AGN are not dramatically different from those of optically-selected QSOs. Our near-IR selection appears to detect the most near-IR luminous QSOs in the local universe to z~0.6 and provides incentive to extend the search to deeper near-IR surveys.Comment: 57 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables, to appear in vol.27/4 of Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA

Defining and assessing spiritual health : a comparative study among 13- to 15-year-old pupils attending secular schools, Anglican schools, and private Christian schools in England and Wales

This article argues that the nation's commitment to young people involves proper concern for their physical health, their psychological health, and their spiritual health. In this context the notion of spiritual health is clarified by a critique of John Fisher's model of spiritual health. Fisher developed a relational model of spiritual health, which defines good spiritual health in terms of an individual's relationship to four domains: the personal, the communal, the environmental, and the transcendental. In the present analysis, we make comparisons between pupils educated in three types of schools: publicly funded schools without religious foundation, publicly funded schools with an Anglican foundation, and new independent Christian schools (not publicly funded). Our findings draw attention to significant differences in the levels of spiritual health experienced by pupils within these three types of schools

Monitoring SO2 emission at the Soufriere Hills Volcano: implications for changes in erruptive conditions

FLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

XMM-Newton observations expose AGN in apparently normal galaxies

We have performed a detailed analysis of 3 optically normal galaxies extracted from the XMM Bright Serendipitous Source Sample. Thanks to the good statistics of the XMM-Newton data, we have unveiled the presence of an AGN in all of them. In particular, we detect both X-ray obscured (N_H>10^{22} cm^{-2}) and unobscured (N_H<10^{22} cm^{-2}) AGN with intrinsic 2--10 keV luminosities in the range between 10^{42} -- 10^{43} erg s^{-1}. We find that the X-ray and optical properties of the sources discussed here could be explained assuming a standard AGN hosted by galaxies with magnitudes M_R<M^*, taking properly into account the absorption associated with the AGN, the optical faintness of the nuclear emission with respect to the host galaxy, and the inadequate set--up and atmospheric conditions during the optical spectroscopic observations. Our new spectroscopic observations have revealed the expected AGN features also in the optical band. These results clearly show that optical spectroscopy sometimes can be inefficient in revealing the presence of an AGN, which instead is clearly found from an X-ray spectroscopic investigation. This remarks the importance of being careful in proposing the identification of X-ray sources (especially at faint fluxes) when only low quality optical spectra are in hand. This is particularly important for faint surveys (such as those with XMM-Newton and Chandra), in which optically dull but X-ray active objects are being found in sizeable numbers.Comment: Accepted for publication on A&A; 11 pages, 8 figure

The XMM-Newton Wide Angle Survey (XWAS): the X-ray spectrum of type-1 AGN

We discuss the broad band X-ray properties of one of the largest samples of X-ray selected type-1 AGN to date (487 objects in total), drawn from the XMM-Newton Wide Angle Survey. The objects cover 2-10 keV luminosities from ~10^{42}-10^{45} erg s^{-1} and are detected up to redshift ~4. We constrain the overall properties of the broad band continuum, soft excess and X-ray absorption, along with their dependence on the X-ray luminosity and redshift and we discuss the implications for models of AGN emission. We constrained the mean spectral index of the broad band X-ray continuum to =1.96+-0.02 with intrinsic dispersion sigma=0.27_{-0.02}^{+0.01}. The continuum becomes harder at faint fluxes and at higher redshifts and luminosities. The dependence of Gamma with flux is likely due to undetected absorption rather than to spectral variation. We found a strong dependence of the detection efficiency of objects on the spectral shape which can have a strong impact on the measured mean continuum shapes of sources at different redshifts and luminosities. We detected excess absorption in ~3% of our objects, with column densities ~a few x10^{22} cm^{-2}. The apparent mismatch between the optical classification and X-ray properties of these objects is a challenge for the standard AGN unification model. We found that the fraction of objects with detected soft excess is ~36%. Using a thermal model, we constrained the soft excess mean temperature and intrinsic dispersion to ~100 eV and sigma~34 eV. The origin of the soft excess as thermal emission from the accretion disk or Compton scattered disk emission is ruled out on the basis of the temperatures detected and the lack of correlation of the measured temperature with the X-ray luminosity (abridged).Comment: 13 pages, 24 figures, Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Get lucky? Luck and educational mobility in working-class young people’s lives from age 10–21

Scant sociological attention has been given to the role of luck within social mobility/reproduction. This paper helps address this conceptual gap, drawing on insights from over 200 longitudinal interviews conducted with 20 working-class young people and 22 of their parents over an 11-year period, from age 10–21. We explore the potential significance of luck within the trajectories of 13 educationally mobile young people who were the first in family to go to university, six young people who achieved similar educational levels to their parents and one young person whose status was less clear cut. Our analysis suggests that particular forms of luck may be instrumental in creating opportunities for social mobility, although the consequentiality of these are mediated through interplays of agency, structure, habitus and capital. We conclude that paying further attention to luck may help augment sociological understandings of structure/agency and Bourdieusian understandings of social reproduction

Reasons for not/choosing chemistry: Why advanced level chemistry students in England do/not pursue chemistry undergraduate degrees

There are international concerns about decreasing rates of chemistry degree enrolment. This article seeks to understand students' reasons for not/choosing to pursue a chemistry degree, drawing on (i) open-ended survey responses from a sample of 506 students in England aged 21–22 who had studied advanced level (“A level”) chemistry at age 18 (as either a full A level or a half “AS” level) and had either chosen (n = 70) or not chosen (n = 436) to pursue undergraduate chemistry and (ii) 185 interviews conducted with a subsample of 18 young people who had been longitudinally tracked from age 10 to 22 (with 17 of their parents) who took advanced level chemistry and then either did (n = 5), or did not (n = 13) go on to study for a chemistry degree. Analysis revealed four key reasons for not/choosing chemistry that were present to varying extents in both the quantitative and qualitative data (relative interest, connection and options; experiences of chemistry A level; feeling “not/clever enough”; and views of chemistry jobs). Four additional factors were predominantly found in the qualitative data (associations of chemistry with masculinity; encouragement from a significant adult; views of higher education; and chemistry work experience/outreach). Applying a sociological lens, we suggest that not/choosing chemistry was a relational process, produced through interactions of habitus, capital, and field. We identify conceptual and methodological implications and extrapolate reasons why chemistry degree enrolments may be declining, offering suggestions for how chemistry education might further support participation

The Importance of Time Congruity in the Organisation.

In 1991 Kaufman, Lane, and Lindquist proposed that time congruity in terms of an individual's time preferences and the time use methods of an organisation would lead to satisfactory performance and enhancement of quality of work and general life. The research reported here presents a study which uses commensurate person and job measures of time personality in an organisational setting to assess the effects of time congruity on one aspect of work life, job-related affective well-being. Results show that time personality and time congruity were found to have direct effects on well-being and the influence of time congruity was found to be mediated through time personality, thus contributing to the person–job (P–J) fit literature which suggests that direct effects are often more important than indirect effects. The study also provides some practical examples of ways to address some of the previously cited methodological issues in P–J fit research