250 research outputs found

    Meals for All Seasons: the Best of Contemporary Irish Cooking

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    One of Ireland\u27s most popular writers on food and cooking. Georgina Campbell has produced a cookbook that gives the lie to today\u27s popular notion of different foods being good or bad for you. In her book all food has the potential to be good food. She particularly looks at sugar, making the point that it is an essential ingredient in many recipes, with a whole range of different properties Taken from sleeve. Published by Wolfhound Press, 68 Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1at a cost of €14.99. ISBN: 086327322Xhttps://arrow.tudublin.ie/irckbooks/1032/thumbnail.jp

    Researching a whole-year EE program: some methodological issues

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    A P-12 school in regional Victoria has an environmental theme throughout its Year Four program with classes located in a purpose- built Environmental Centre in a separate location within the school&rsquo;s grounds. The authors report here on a one-year case study of the grade four thematic integrated curriculum at the school. They reflect on and describe some of the methodological issues that arose during the interviews, direct observations, photography and video-recording. Some of the practical considerations associated with case-study methodology are discussed. The paper concludes with a summary of emerging substantive issues and a prospective view to further research.<br /

    Nurse Education and Enteral Feedings in Mechanically Ventilated Patients

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    https://jdc.jefferson.edu/nurseresidencyposters/1001/thumbnail.jp

    Incentive competitions as a policy tool for technological innovation

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    Thesis (S.M. in Technology and Policy)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-78).Large incentive competitions are becoming increasingly popular amongst policymakers and philanthropists as a mission-orientated tool for inducing innovation, particularly in areas of national priority where market incentives and conventional tools such as patents and procurements tend not to be sufficient. Using inducement mechanisms (motivators) such as a large financial reward, demanding deliverables, and technical support, incentive competitions seek to motivate innovators to exert effort and develop creative solutions to pre-defined problems. According to the literature, these motivators can be powerful mechanisms for influencing effort and creativity but their effectiveness very much depends on the combination of motivators used and conditions under which they are executed. There is a serious lack of empirical evidence on the motivators and conditions of large incentive competitions and their effectiveness to influence behaviour and outcomes. Therefore, we cannot fully appreciate the role of large incentive competitions in the innovation policy tool kit. A small body of empirical data exists on the impact of motivators within small online prizes but these prizes are very different to large incentive competitions in terms of the intended motivators incorporated and the competition environment. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of one large incentive competition- the Progressive Automotive XPRIZE (PIAXP), this thesis aims to explore the motivators incorporated into PIAXP and their ability to orient people towards a specified mission and induce innovative behaviour. In turn, this thesis aims to 1) better understand the role incentive prizes as an innovation tool and 2) identify the motivators and prize design that can be used in incentive competitions to promote desired outcomes. My research identifies two unique features of PIAXP, which can provide insight into large incentive competitions in general. 1) PIAXP effectively attracted and focused a diverse set of solvers on a specific problem, who otherwise would not or could not pursue the prize objective(s). For example, 35% of teams did not exist before. Of those teams that did exist, 30% were informal and 17% were non-vehicle- related, all turning to formal vehicle teams for the PIAXP; 2) PIAXP facilitated the development of participating teams and ideas, and actively induced innovative behaviour during the competition. These findings emphasize the important of motivators and prize design to attract and support the development of solvers and solutions. In terms of competition design, participants and organizations were influenced in different ways. Influential motivators included: recognition (validation, publicity, and personal pride), performance accelerators (business and personal), and intrinsic passion for the cause. Other elements of design that influenced entry levels and behaviour included: structure (length/ barriers to entry), categories (broad, specific or multiple), collaborative events, and support (for the organization and individual). Success within PIAXP was positively correlated with compensation and competition but negatively correlated with recognition. Effort was positively correlated with reputation but negatively correlated with fun.by Georgina A. Campbell.S.M.in Technology and Polic

    Effectiveness of hand hygiene interventions in reducing illness absence among children in educational settings:A systematic review and meta-analysis

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    OBJECTIVE: To undertake a systematic review and meta-analysis to establish the effectiveness of handwashing in reducing absence and/or the spread of respiratory tract (RT) and/or gastrointestinal (GI) infection among school-aged children and/or staff in educational settings. DESIGN: Randomised-controlled trials (RCTs). SETTING: Schools and other settings with a formal educational component in any country. PATIENTS: Children aged 3–11 years, and/or staff working with them. INTERVENTION: Interventions with a hand hygiene component. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Incidence of RT or GI infections or symptoms related to such infections; absenteeism; laboratory results of RT and/or GI infections. RESULTS: Eighteen cluster RCTs were identified; 13 school-based, 5 in child day care facilities or preschools. Studies were heterogeneous and had significant quality issues including small numbers of clusters and participants and inadequate randomisation. Individual study results suggest interventions may reduce children's absence, RT infection incidence and symptoms, and laboratory confirmed influenza-like illness. Evidence of impact on GI infection or symptoms was equivocal. CONCLUSIONS: Studies are generally not well executed or reported. Despite updating existing systematic reviews and identifying new studies, evidence of the effect of hand hygiene interventions on infection incidence in educational settings is mostly equivocal but they may decrease RT infection among children. These results update and add to knowledge about this crucial public health issue in key settings with a vulnerable population. More robust, well reported cluster RCTs which learn from existing studies, are required

    Qualitative evaluation of web-based digital intervention to prevent and reduce excessive alcohol use and harm among young people age 14-15 years:A ‘Think-Aloud’ study

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    BACKGROUND: In the United Kingdom, despite some downward trends in alcohol use among young people, over one-fifth of young people reported excessive alcohol use in the past month, which is associated with short- and long-term harm to health. Digital interventions to reduce alcohol use, such as websites, among young people present an appealing and cost-effective mode of intervention that can be integrated into the education system. However, relatively few school-based digital alcohol-focused interventions have been developed and evaluated for young people in the United Kingdom. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop a novel web-based intervention, Rethink Alcohol, to prevent and reduce excessive alcohol use and related harm among young people aged between 14 and 15 years, and explore the views of young people, teachers, and youth workers in relation to the content, design, and usability of the intervention. METHODS: Intervention development followed the person-based approach, using theories of social norms and social influence. Qualitative "Think-Aloud" interviews, either one-to-one or paired, were conducted while participants perused and worked through the web-based intervention, talking aloud. Participants included 20 young people (12 female, 8 male), 5 youth workers (4 female, 1 male), 3 teachers (2 male, 1 female), and 1 (male) clinical professional, recruited via youth groups and professional networks. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed thematically. RESULTS: The prototype web-based intervention included normative feedback, information, a quiz, interactive activities, and scenarios. On a rating scale of impressions from poor (1) to excellent (5), participants gave an average score of 3.6/5. A total of 5 themes were identified: content, credibility of the website, making the website easy to understand, design and navigation, and suitability for the audience. These themes reflected views that the content was interesting, credible, informative, and embodied a neutral and nonjudgmental tone, but stronger messaging was needed regarding social pressures and short-term risks regarding safety and risk behavior alongside clarity around pathways of risk; credibility and trustworthiness of information were critical features, determined in part, by the professionalism of design and referencing of sources of information provided; and messages should be succinct and come to life through design and interactive features. CONCLUSIONS: Together, the data illustrated the importance and challenge of communicating nuanced alcohol-focused public health messages to young people in concise, clear, nonjudgmental, and appealing ways. Young people report interest in clear, credible, neutral, and interactive messages regarding social pressures and short-term risks of alcohol use via a web-based intervention. There is scope for optimization and feasibility testing of the Rethink Alcohol intervention

    Inferring copy number and genotype in tumour exome data

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    Background: Using whole exome sequencing to predict aberrations in tumours is a cost effective alternative to whole genome sequencing, however is predominantly used for variant detection and infrequently utilised for detection of somatic copy number variation. Results: We propose a new method to infer copy number and genotypes using whole exome data from paired tumour/normal samples. Our algorithm uses two Hidden Markov Models to predict copy number and genotypes and computationally resolves polyploidy/aneuploidy, normal cell contamination and signal baseline shift. Our method makes explicit detection on chromosome arm level events, which are commonly found in tumour samples. The methods are combined into a package named ADTEx (Aberration Detection in Tumour Exome). We applied our algorithm to a cohort of 17 in-house generated and 18 TCGA paired ovarian cancer/normal exomes and evaluated the performance by comparing against the copy number variations and genotypes predicted using Affymetrix SNP 6.0 data of the same samples. Further, we carried out a comparison study to show that ADTEx outperformed its competitors in terms of precision and F-measure. Conclusions: Our proposed method, ADTEx, uses both depth of coverage ratios and B allele frequencies calculated from whole exome sequencing data, to predict copy number variations along with their genotypes. ADTEx is implemented as a user friendly software package using Python and R statistical language. Source code and sample data are freely available under GNU license (GPLv3) at http://adtex.sourceforge.net/
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