Discourse Analysis and Activist Social Work: Investigating Practice Processes

Although discourse analysis methods have been used for the critical analysis of activist practice theories, the application of these methods to practice processes has remained a largely unchartered territory. A chief aim of this paper is to demonstrate the possibilities discourse analysis offers for the investigation of activist practice processes. The paper introduces a discourse model which combines poststructural discourse principles and conversation analysis methods. The model is then applied to the study of the effects of activist perspectives for service users and workers within a context of activist practice in which one of the authors has been involved as a social worker. This analysis reveals the local interactions amongst workers and service users to be considerably more complex than has been allowed within activist practice discourses

An overview of the nature of the preparation of practice educators in five health care disciplines

Practice education is a core element of all educational programmes that prepare health care professionals for academic award and registration to practice. Ensuring quality and effectiveness involves partnership working between Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) and health care providers, social care communities, voluntary and independent sectors offering client care throughout the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Clearly practitioners who support, supervise and assess learners for entry to their respective professions need to be well prepared and supported in their roles as practice educators. However it would appear that the nature of this support and preparation varies across disciplines and that good practice is not easily shared. With this in mind, the Making Practice Based Learning Work (MPBLW) project aims to make practitioners more effective at supporting and supervising students in the workplace across a range of health care disciplines namely Dietetics, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Radiology. The Department of Employment and Learning (Northern Ireland) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England has funded this collaborative project involving staff from Ulster, Northumbria and Bournemouth Universities. The outcomes for each phase of the project are: Phase One: • Identify and document good practice on how practitioners are prepared for their educational role. Phase Two: • Develop and evaluate learning materials for use by practitioners across five health care disciplines. • Make learning materials available in a number of efficient media, e.g. paper, electronic, CD-ROM and web-based. • Develop a programme applicable to interprofessional and uniprofessional contexts. • Widen access for a multicultural workforce. Phase Three: • Embed best educational practice through the establishment of an academicpractitioner network. • Disseminate a range of materials and processes across the wider academic and health and social care communities

The earliest Western talk analysis?: Ptahhotep's Instructions

This paper examines perhaps the earliest developed analysis of talk interactionin the Western world, the Ancient Egyptian Instructions of Ptahhotep. It fills a gap in the early history of social interaction analysis, is a socially-related account of talk, and it also had some influence on the rise of European talk-in-interaction instructions. To do justice to the complexity and wide coverage of the Instructions, this empirical study uses Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the text's social and contextual rhetoric, and Speech Act Analysis. Conversation Analysis (CA) is also used for a qualitative account of its instructions, broadening CA in line with recent scholarly work. The study hopes to answer two questions: socio-epistemically, what did Ptahhotep know about the analysis of naturally-occurring interactions? And socio-deontically, how did he incorporate this into his text, and make his instructions actionable

An ethnoarchaeological study of livestock dung fuels from cooking installations in northern Tunisia

Livestock dung is a valuable material in many rural communities worldwide. In our research area, the site of Althiburos and its surroundings, now el Médéïna, in northwestern Tunisia, dung is the main source of fuel for domestic purposes, primarily the processing and cooking of foods. Ovicaprine dung is daily used in traditional mud tannur type ovens, namely tabouna. The archaeological record shows that mud constructed cooking installations were common during the first millennium BC. Previous studies of phytoliths and dung spherulites at Numidian Althiburos suggested the use of vegetal and fecal matter for fuel purposes. We present here the results of the continuation study based on the comparison between archaeological results (a selection of cooking installations, six hearths and two mud ovens) and those obtained from the ethnographic study of dung fuel materials from the site area. The present study builds up on ethnographic observations and informal interviews (dung collection, management, storage, waste disposal and cooking and baking activities), temperature measurements within the burning fuel, as well as modern material sampling (fresh dung, burned pellets, dung ashes and fuel trash paths) which was followed by integrated studies of phytoliths and calcitic microfossil analyses (dung spherulites and wood ash pseudomorphs) for comparative purposes. The results obtained provided direct evidence regarding the type of fuel sources: dung, wood and a mixing of dung and vegetal matter (wood and agricultural by-products). Dung was used as source of fuel material across time (from the Early Numidian occupation phase, 10th–9th century BC, to the last centuries BC) and space (in different excavation areas and type of installations). Such integrated studies demonstrate the value of combining different microarchaeological techniques and the use of ethnoarchaeological material from site areas

Phylogeographical analysis of the dominant multidrug-resistant H58 clade of Salmonella Typhi identifies inter- and intracontinental transmission events.

The emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) typhoid is a major global health threat affecting many countries where the disease is endemic. Here whole-genome sequence analysis of 1,832 Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi) identifies a single dominant MDR lineage, H58, that has emerged and spread throughout Asia and Africa over the last 30 years. Our analysis identifies numerous transmissions of H58, including multiple transfers from Asia to Africa and an ongoing, unrecognized MDR epidemic within Africa itself. Notably, our analysis indicates that H58 lineages are displacing antibiotic-sensitive isolates, transforming the global population structure of this pathogen. H58 isolates can harbor a complex MDR element residing either on transmissible IncHI1 plasmids or within multiple chromosomal integration sites. We also identify new mutations that define the H58 lineage. This phylogeographical analysis provides a framework to facilitate global management of MDR typhoid and is applicable to similar MDR lineages emerging in other bacterial species

MUSiC : a model-unspecific search for new physics in proton-proton collisions at root s=13TeV

Results of the Model Unspecific Search in CMS (MUSiC), using proton-proton collision data recorded at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb(-1), are presented. The MUSiC analysis searches for anomalies that could be signatures of physics beyond the standard model. The analysis is based on the comparison of observed data with the standard model prediction, as determined from simulation, in several hundred final states and multiple kinematic distributions. Events containing at least one electron or muon are classified based on their final state topology, and an automated search algorithm surveys the observed data for deviations from the prediction. The sensitivity of the search is validated using multiple methods. No significant deviations from the predictions have been observed. For a wide range of final state topologies, agreement is found between the data and the standard model simulation. This analysis complements dedicated search analyses by significantly expanding the range of final states covered using a model independent approach with the largest data set to date to probe phase space regions beyond the reach of previous general searches.Peer reviewe

Measurement of prompt open-charm production cross sections in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

The production cross sections for prompt open-charm mesons in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV are reported. The measurement is performed using a data sample collected by the CMS experiment corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 29 nb(-1). The differential production cross sections of the D*(+/-), D-+/-, and D-0 ((D) over bar (0)) mesons are presented in ranges of transverse momentum and pseudorapidity 4 < p(T) < 100 GeV and vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2.1, respectively. The results are compared to several theoretical calculations and to previous measurements.Peer reviewe

Development and validation of HERWIG 7 tunes from CMS underlying-event measurements

This paper presents new sets of parameters (“tunes”) for the underlying-event model of the HERWIG7 event generator. These parameters control the description of multiple-parton interactions (MPI) and colour reconnection in HERWIG7, and are obtained from a fit to minimum-bias data collected by the CMS experiment at s=0.9, 7, and 13Te. The tunes are based on the NNPDF 3.1 next-to-next-to-leading-order parton distribution function (PDF) set for the parton shower, and either a leading-order or next-to-next-to-leading-order PDF set for the simulation of MPI and the beam remnants. Predictions utilizing the tunes are produced for event shape observables in electron-positron collisions, and for minimum-bias, inclusive jet, top quark pair, and Z and W boson events in proton-proton collisions, and are compared with data. Each of the new tunes describes the data at a reasonable level, and the tunes using a leading-order PDF for the simulation of MPI provide the best description of the dat

Reconstruction of signal amplitudes in the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter in the presence of overlapping proton-proton interactions

A template fitting technique for reconstructing the amplitude of signals produced by the lead tungstate crystals of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter is described. This novel approach is designed to suppress the contribution to the signal of the increased number of out-of-time interactions per beam crossing following the reduction of the accelerator bunch spacing from 50 to 25 ns at the start of Run 2 of the LHC. Execution of the algorithm is sufficiently fast for it to be employed in the CMS high-level trigger. It is also used in the offline event reconstruction. Results obtained from simulations and from Run 2 collision data (2015-2018) demonstrate a substantial improvement in the energy resolution of the calorimeter over a range of energies extending from a few GeV to several tens of GeV.Peer reviewe