Sound absorption by clamped poroelastic plates

Measurements and predictions have been made of the absorption coefficient and the surface acoustic impedance of poroelastic plates clamped in a large impedance tube and separated from the rigid termination by an air gap. The measured and predicted absorption coefficient and surface impedance spectra exhibit low frequency peaks. The peak frequencies observed in the absorption coefficient are close to those predicted and measured in the deflection spectra of the clamped poroelastic plates. The influences of the rigidity of the clamping conditions and the width of the air gap have been investigated. Both influences are found to be important. Increasing the rigidity of clamping reduces the low frequency absorption peaks compared with those measured for simply supported plates or plates in an intermediate clamping condition. Results for a closed cell foam plate and for two open cell foam plates made from recycled materials are presented. For identical clamping conditions and width of air gap, the results for the different materials differ as a consequence mainly of their different elasticity, thickness, and cell structure

The impact of Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) revalidation on the professional identity of academic staff in a higher education institution: A qualitative study

Aims: To explore Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) revalidation as a process experienced by nursing and midwifery academics and its impact on their sense of professional identity. Background: The introduction of revalidation nurses and midwives in the UK in 2016 caused some anxiety amongst registrants in higher education. Design: A qualitative study using a purposeful sample involving thematic analysis of semi‐structured interviews with academic staff. Methods: Ten registrants completed a semi‐structured interview in a higher education institution. Results/Findings Clinical credibility: participants were self‐conscious about time away from practice but retained strong links with clinical settings reviewing evidence and reports of current practice. The revalidation process: staff were generally positive about NMC revalidation. Professional identity: participants identified as nurses and midwives first and academics second. Conclusions The findings replicate previous studies about professional identity among healthcare professionals in higher education; this study reports the contribution of revalidation amongst nurses and midwives in higher education institutions

Nursing on the edge: nursing identity in liminal spaces

This contextual statement is focussed on nursing in clinical practice and higher education encapsulated in a selected body of published work, illustrating a career of over thirty years. This journey spans a political and policy context that includes the expansion of higher education in the 1970s, the closure of the Victorian psychiatric hospitals in the 1990’s, the move of nursing from apprentice-style training into higher education in 1995, and the partial decoupling of nurse education from the NHS. Drawing on theories of liminality and Michael Lipsky’s Street Level Bureaucracy, the statement proposes innovative approaches to raising the profile of nursing, beyond a liminal position. The public works are produced from liminal spaces in clinical practice to the liminal space occupied by nursing in higher education. Whilst accepting the essence of nursing as a caring profession, the statement suggests how societal views about nursing are stereotyped and heavily influenced by the position of women generally. This is compounded by the reluctance of feminism to embrace nursing, and nostalgic views about the profession portrayed in the media and articulated at all levels, including in government. The works indicate how this has contributed to nursing occupying a liminal space in higher education. Focussing on nursing at the margins of society, early papers cover the period of deinstitutionalisation from the large psychiatric hospitals. Further papers focus on influencing the education, identity, and values of nurses, including how the rise of service user involvement can transform curricula. Later papers consider the views and experiences of nurse academics and students about professional identity and how this is expressed in learning and teaching; with insight into how identity and values are shaped by both clinical and educational experiences. The liminal experience of nursing in higher education is explored, alongside the dual identity experienced by nurses who move from clinical practice to the academy. The final group of papers examine the place of work-based learning in higher education, with the paradoxical discovery that although learning in healthcare is abundant, identifying learning opportunities can be elusive. Produced on the margins of clinical and academic practice, the works illuminate hidden areas that are not sufficiently valued. The statement and works provide a platform to raise the position and profile of nursing overall

Nurses as educators: creating teachable moments in practice

Effective workplace teaching is increasingly important in healthcare, with all staff being potential educators. The introduction of new roles and the need to create capacity for increased numbers of students can make it difficult to create a good learning experience. Despite the richness of clinical practice as a learning environment, creating capacity for teaching can be challenging. This article explores the possibilities for identifying and creating teachable moments in busy clinical environments and suggests a developmental model for incorporating these learning opportunities. Teachable moments linked directly to optimal patient care can potentially influence and shape a positive learning culture in clinical environments

The nurses that roared: nurses from history who found their voices and challenged the status quo

In this article we explore how nurses from history challenged norms of nursing and society, and consider how they can influence and inspire nurses today. We discuss the role of nurses in the fight for women’s suffrage, campaigning for the vote and caring for women who suffered in their fight to achieve it, and present examples of outstanding bravery in the past and present day. The article contains examples of the bravery of some relatively unknown nurses in wartime, who also fought for equality and inclusion, and nurses who challenged the care of marginalised groups, campaigning for improved treatment, sometimes at great personal cost. Finally we consider the courage of present-day nurses. Drawing on the global campaign of “Nursing Now”, we suggest that learning from these exceptional nurses and acknowledging and highlighting their contribution can inspire us to strengthen and promote nursing and to empower women globally

Acoustic propagation over periodic and quasi-periodic rough surfaces

Transport noise is an ever present concern in urban areas affecting the quality of life for millions of people. The traditional noise barrier is not always a convenient method of noise control and can divide communities. Deliberate introduction of small scale (0.3 m high or less) periodic roughness on otherwise acoustically-hard ground has been investigated as a way of reducing noise near to a surface transport corridor. The roughness alters the effective surface impedance of the ground and thereby creates a 'soft' ground effect. Moreover the effectiveness if the rough surface is not reduced significantly if there are pathways through it. However the rough ground also creates surface waves that must be absorbed for the noise reduction to be effective. An alternative way of reducing surface waves may be to alter the periodicity. The effects of altering the periodicity of circular rods placed on a hard surface in the laboratory have been investigated. Predictions of multiple scattering theory and a boundary element code have been compared with the experimental data

Diversity in immunocompromised children: the gut microbiome and T cell receptor repertoire

In this thesis, I apply bioinformatic methods and statistical techniques to three data sets found in immunocompromised paediatric patients, who are receiving haematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT) or HIV treatment. In the first part, I examine aspects of the gut microbiome with targeted metagenomics using the 16S rRNA gene. In Chapter 3, I focus on how pre-processing affects the outcomes, and I present and implement a systematic method to identify and remove probable contaminants, leaving the data ready for analysis in Chapter 4. I then examine the changes in the gut microbiomes of a set of paediatric patients undergoing transplants. Many different factors, including specific antibiotic regimes and gut-associated viral infections (i.e. not the transplant alone), appear to affect gut microbiota. Some taxa are differentially abundant when separated by the patients' outcome. In the second part, I analyse aspects of the T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire using high-throughput sequencing. In Chapter 5, I examine the effects of the different methods on the sequenced TCR repertoire. I conclude that biomedical status can affect library size, an effect which would be concealed by subsampling. I find that some clonotypes come from distinct recombination events. In Chapter 6, I track TCR repertoire diversity following transplants from umbilical cord blood (UCB). The recovery of TCR diversity was highly variable, although the majority of patients returned to normality around 12 months post-transplant. This study contributes to the characterisation of the recovery trajectory from UCB HSCT, and supports UCB as a viable source for HSCT. In Chapter 7, I examine the effects of a planned treatment interruption for children living with HIV. While the immune profile returned in many respects to a pattern similar to that of children without an interruption, there may be some long-term effects on the diversity of the TCR repertoire

The Political Legitimacy of Company Law and Regulation

Two interrelated objectives are pursued in this article: the first concerns the relationship and interaction between the UK’s company law and market-based regulation; the second explores the legitimacy of marketbased regulation in light of its potential to mould and influence the substantive law. Although the article finds that the two systems retain carefully defined, essentially consistent and mutually complementary roles, it submits that market-based formations run the risk of not readily or plausibly lending themselves to dominant political and democratic accounts, which are deployed customarily to substantiate the legitimacy of state interventionist techniques. Simultaneously, the deployment of a rival conception of legitimacy, conceived as technocratic expertise and market consensus and conformity, is problematic for a number of theoretical and practical reasons. This has implications for the effects and outcomes of the UK’s company law and governance