A comparison study looking at the impact of staff personality on recruitment and retention of staff working with children with complex disabilities and challenging behaviour, in a social care setting and an education setting

"This report is part of CWDC’s Practitioner-Led Research (PLR) programme. Now in its third year, the programme gives practitioners the opportunity to explore, describe and evaluate ways in which services are currently being delivered within the children’s workforce." "The findings from the study suggest that staff working in across both education and social care have similar personality characteristics, but tend to adapt and modify their natural characteristics at work – this was greater for those in social care. There was also evidence that the behaviour of staff in both teams changes significantly when they are under pressure and when experiencing high levels of emotional stress. This may be linked to the high levels of sickness-related absence from work." - Page 4

Micromechanical response of fibre-reinforced materials using the boundary element technique

The Boundary Element Method (BEM) and the Embedded Cell Approach (ECA) have been used to analyse the effects of constituent material properties and fibre spatial distribution on the localised behaviour of a transversely loaded, unidirectional fibre-reinforced composite. The geometrical structures examined were perfectly periodic, uniformly spaced fibre arrangements in square and hexagonal embedded cells and ten cells in which 60 fibres were randomly placed within the matrix. The models involve both elastic fibres and matrix, with the interfaces between the different phases being fully bonded. The results indicate that both the fibre packing and the material properties of the constituent phases have a significant effect on the overall stress distribution and the magnitude of localised stress concentrations within a composite. Non-periodic arrangements give rise to higher local stresses, and the magnitudes of these stress concentrations have a strong dependence on the ligament length (distance between the two neighbouring fibres that have a common high-stress region), and to a lesser extent on the angle relative to the applied load (angle between a plane containing the two fibre centres and the applied load). Furthermore, analysis of a three-phase composite, comprised of a mixture of both stiff and compliant fibres, had higher stress concentrations than the equivalent two-phase composites

The origins of journalism education at UPNG

Journalism education training was started at the University of PNG at the beginning of 1975, when the New Zealand Government agreed to fund a one-year Diploma in Journalism for an initial two-year period. Before this, the few national journalists employed in Papua New Guinea had been trained in-house by the two-principal employers of the time— the Office of Information and the National Broadcasting Commission.&nbsp

Normative contestation in the UNSC: (de)legitimising discourse

This study seeks to re-emphasise the importance of legitimacy when analysing normative contestation. Using empirical analysis, the discourse of the five permanent members of the UNSC is explored, revealing the legitimation practices used by actors to influence the collective legitimacy judgements of others and thus shape the normative conversation. Such rhetorical practices, adopted by each member of the P5, are used to both legitimise an actor’s own approach, whilst delegitimising the approach of others that do not share their interests. Actors adopt narratives which drive their own interests into the conversation; they are justified using references to authority, morals, history and their self-professed expertise. UNSC activity is shaped by this rhetoric, which, as a result of the power imbalance inside the UNSC, is primarily western. The western powers advocate for a humanitarian approach by utilising practices which evoke emotions and encourage the audience to adopt their morals. In response, those actors seeking to protect the former status quo rely on references to law and order, striving to ensure their interests remain relevant. The confidence shown by those seeking to reshape the international system is a reflection of their confidence as international players. The analysis demonstrates the importance of rhetorical analysis when studying normative contestation. Without paying attention to the legitimation practices used by actors to influence others, one is unable to understand how the normative conversation is shaped.https://www.ester.ee/record=b5380328*es

Shell nouns : in a systemic functional linguistics perspective

Tese de doutoramento, Linguística (Análise do Discurso), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras, 2015Shell nouns in a Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective. The aim of this thesis is to develop an account of shell nouns (Schmid, 2000) in a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective. Using a parallel corpus comprising five article submissions by Portuguese academics in the field of economics and five published articles on comparable topics, the ideational, interpersonal and textual functions of shell nouns are tagged at the strata of the lexicogrammar and discourse semantics using Corpus Tool version 2.7.4 (O’Donnell, 2008). The systems networks used to tag the corpus are grounded in SFL theory. The analysis shows that shell nouns constitute an important systemic resource for the writers of research articles, who need to build an argument, positioning themselves and their study to convince the discourse community that their paper makes a contribution to knowledge in their disciplinary field. They enable a text to unfold by compacting information realised as a clause or more elsewhere in the text. Thus they can help scaffold a text through hyper-Themes, hyper-News and internal conjunction. At the stratum of the lexicogrammar, anaphorically referring nominal groups with a shell noun as Head often compose Theme, where they constitute a shared point of departure for the clause. In a decoding relational clause whose Process is realised by a verb such as reveal, confirm, or suggest, an anaphorically referring shell noun that construes Token helps to explicitly build the writer’s argument. Shell nouns that construe the field of research, such as results and findings are common in this function. Mental, linguistic and factual shell nouns contribute to construing dialogic position, and coupling between interpersonal systems and textual systems enables the writer to align the reader with certain positions and disalign with others. Although most shell nouns are not field specific, because they can project a figure that instantiates an entity, they contribute to construing field, for example instantiating entities as the object of study of the empirical research. The capacity of shell nouns to function as described above derives from their status as semiotic abstractions, which can refer to text as fact or report and are grammatical metaphors. They can be seen as lying at the intersection of modality and the logico-semantic relations of projection and expansion, brought into being by the semogenic process of nominalisation. The writers of the published articles and article submissions are found to use shell nouns in all of the functions above, but there are differences in the relative shares of the functions, which may affect reader reactions to the text

Local cooling for relieving pain from perineal trauma sustained during childbirth

Background: Perineal trauma is common during childbirth and may be painful. Contemporary maternity practice includes offering women numerous forms of pain relief, including the local application of cooling treatments. Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness and side effects of localised cooling treatments compared with no treatment, other forms of cooling treatments and non-cooling treatments. Search strategy: We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's Trials Register (January 2007), CINAHL (1982 to January 2007) and contacted experts in the field. Selection criteria: Published and unpublished randomised and quasi-randomised trials (RCTs) that compared localised cooling treatment applied to the perineum with no treatment or other treatments applied to relieve pain related to perineal trauma sustained during childbirth. Data collection and analysis: At least two independent authors performed data extraction for each study. Analyses were performed on an intention-to-treat basis where data allowed. We sought additional information from the authors of three trials. Main results: Seven published RCTs were included, comparing local cooling treatments (ice packs, cold gel pads or cold/iced baths) with no treatment, hamamelis water (witch hazel), pulsed electromagnetic energy (PET), hydrocortisone/pramoxine foam [Epifoam] or warm baths. The RCTs reported on a total of 859 women. Ice packs provided improved pain relief 24 to 72 hours after birth compared with no treatment (risk ratio (RR) 0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.41 to 0.91). Women preferred the utility of the gel pads compared with ice packs or no treatment, although no differences in pain relief were detected between the treatments. None of our comparisons of treatments resulted in differences detected in perineal oedema or bruising. Women reported more pain (RR 5.60, 95% CI 2.35 to 13.33) and used more additional analgesia (RR 4.00, 95% CI 1.44 to 11.13) following the application of ice packs compared with PET. Authors' conclusions: There is only limited evidence to support the effectiveness of local cooling treatments (ice packs, cold gel pads, cold/iced baths) applied to the perineum following childbirth to relieve pain

MicroRNAs in the pathophysiology and treatment of status epilepticus

MicroRNA (miRNA) are an important class of non-coding RNA which function as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in cells, repressing and fine-tuning protein output. Prolonged seizures (status epilepticus, SE) can cause damage to brain regions such as the hippocampus and result in cognitive deficits and the pathogenesis of epilepsy. Emerging work in animal models has found that SE produces select changes to miRNAs within the brain. Similar changes in over 20 miRNAs have been found in the hippocampus in two or more studies, suggesting conserved miRNA responses after SE. The miRNA changes that accompany SE are predicted to impact levels of multiple proteins involved in neuronal morphology and function, gliosis, neuroinflammation, and cell death. miRNA expression also displays select changes in the blood after SE, supporting blood genomic profiling as potential molecular biomarkers of seizure-damage or epileptogenesis. Intracerebral delivery of chemically modified antisense oligonucleotides (antagomirs) has been shown to have potent, specific and long-lasting effects on brain levels of miRNAs. Targeting miR-34a, miR-132 and miR-184 has been reported to alter seizure-induced neuronal death, whereas targeting miR-134 was neuroprotective, reduced seizure severity during status epilepticus and reduced the later emergence of recurrent spontaneous seizures. These studies support roles for miRNAs in the pathophysiology of status epilepticus and miRNAs may represent novel therapeutic targets to reduce brain injury and epileptogenesis

An exploration of self-compassion within healthcare professionals

This portfolio thesis comprises of three parts: a systematic literature review, an empirical report and supporting appendices.Part one is a systematic literature review in which empirical papers investigating the effectiveness of interventions for cultivating self-compassion in healthcare professionals are reviewed. A systematic database search identified fifteen studies to be reviewed. A narrative synthesis of the findings pertaining to effectiveness is provided alongside a review of the methodological quality of the research in this area. The clinical implications for healthcare services and directions for future research are also discussed.Part two is an empirical paper combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies to explore compassion amongst healthcare professionals. The quantitative component sought to investigate whether the presence of occupational stressors and threats impacts on healthcare professionals’ ability to give compassion to others at work, and whether self-compassion and organisational compassion may moderate this relationship. In addition, thematic analysis was employed to investigate the most prominent troubles that healthcare professionals experience in relation to their work. The findings are discussed in relation to theory and implications for clinical practice and future research.Part three comprises the appendices supporting the systematic literature review and the empirical paper, but also includes a reflective statement focussing on the research process