Quality in home care for older people: factors to pay heed to

23 home care providers were interviewed concerning what promotes or impedes quality aspects of service-giving, as defined by older customers – like service from familiar staff or flexible help. The influence of Social Services purchasers and of structures for purchasing care proved notably important. Purchasers affected service quality through the amounts of time which they commissioned and through whether they would purchase help for customers’ quality of life as well as for their physical survival. Quality was affected through whether care was purchased through fixed quantities of time or through the fulfilment of specified tasks. Some purchasers controlled details of everyday care-giving which other purchasers left to providers’ discretion. Also influential was the attitude of providers themselves to giving miscellaneous occasional help like changing light-bulbs, finding reliable private tradesmen or taking customers with them on shopping trips. Some providers readily gave such help and found it unproblematic to do so. Others prohibited it, though this seemed not always implemented earnestly. The most marked differences in willingness to give flexible help occurred between different independent sector providers, rather than between independent and Social Services in-house providers. A third type of influence on quality of home care was ‘economic’ factors like the purchasing power of local home care pay rates within the local labour market, local geography and demography. Some questions are itemised which merit inclusion in any evaluation of the quality of a home care provider

Caring for the Whole Person: Home care for older people which promotes well-being and choice

This research project explored the factors which make a flexible, person-centred style of service possible. This publication reports the key influences identified, lists the conditions which promote this style of home care, and highlights much information pertinent to developing services in this direction

Morale and quality of life among frail older users of community care: key issues for the success of community care

Many Social Services Departments have successfully developed services which meet older people’s physical survival needs so that they can continue living in their own homes despite serious disabilities. An emerging priority is to support the morale and quality of life of the same individuals. Assisted by SPRU, a team of Social Services managers conducted a programme of interviews, designed to obtain the views of very old, frail home care clients about their services and their lives in general. Interviewees’ most common discontents concerned difficulties in travelling outside their homes, insufficient social contact, and loss of sources of interest and stimulation in everyday life. Factors included reduced mobility owing to ill-health and loss of valued pastimes like knitting or reading through eyesight problems or arthritis. A few interviewees expressed very low morale and this seemed to substantially reduce their ratings of satisfaction with the help they received. Some interviewees communicated high morale in spite of major physical disabilities. Possible reasons included good social support from family, neighbours, and home care and sheltered housing staff, and help which compensated for physical disability, like car excursions provided by relatives, or electric wheelchairs. There seemed unused opportunities to help other interviewees through similar assistance: sometimes interviewers themselves arranged interventions which brought evident improvements. While it is well established that disability and isolation are linked to depression in older people, it is rare that services systematically address these problems. Some practical strategies for this purpose are proposed as a result of this survey. These merit testing

Can managers research their own services? An experiment in consulting frail, older community care clients.

This article describes the test of a method for consulting frail older people about the quality of Social Services and their unmet needs. The method, home interviews by senior Social Services managers, was prompted by advice from older Social Services clients about how best to obtain their views. Results from the interview programme are presented, together with benefits arising specifically from using managers as interviewers and comments on future application of this approach

Adam, Satan, and the King of Tyre: The reception of Ezekiel 28:11-19 in Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity

The lament over the King of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:11-19 has presented scholars with a great many difficulties. This thesis is a fresh attempt to make sense of this extremely complex text through a detailed reassessment of the texts early transmission history and by analysing its reception among Jewish and Christian communities in Late Antiquity, a topic which has not previously been examined in full. The thesis re-examines the relationship between the Hebrew and Greek witnesses to Ezekiel in light of the manuscript data from Masada and Qumran. I conclude that the historical precedence of neither Hebrew nor Greek can be established and propose that two distinct recensions must have been in circulation concurrently. I then critically examine the Masoretic accentuation and vocalization of the Hebrew text as an interpretative layer and explore the possibilities for alternative meanings presented by a Gonsõnantal text. I then trace the evolution of the text in the Greek versions, asking how the Greek versions function as both translation and interpretation. The thesis then examines more explicitly interpretative material, beginning with the Targum and moving onto the classical rabbinic literature. The final chapter examines the contrasting interpretations of the early Church Fathers, particularly Origen and Jerome who interact polemically with Jewish traditions. In these different sources the central figure of the lament is variously understood to be a 'god' (consonantal Hebrew), the Israelite High Priest (Greek versions), a political exemplar (Targum), a mythical cherub (pointed Masoretic Hebrew), Adam or Hiram (Rabbis), and Satan (Church Fathers).Throughout I seek to ask not only how each community understood the text, but also why they understood it m that particular way. I seek to bring to light the methods of reading used, the results these produced, and the motivations underlying both of these. I conclude by making some preliminary suggestions as to how the historical study of reception history might inform contemporary discussions of hermeneutics

Olfactory organ morphology and ultrastructure of the larval Koh Tao Island caecilian (Ichthyophis kohtaoensis)

The olfactory system of living amphibians (Lissamphibia) undergoes major changes as it transitions from an aquatic to a terrestrial system during metamorphosis. Patterns of change in the cellular morphology of the nose have been examined for frogs (Anura) and salamanders (Caudata). However, it remains unknown if caecilians (Gymnophiona) have similar patterns of change in their nasal ultrastructure. In particular, no data on larval caecilian olfactory cell types are available. Here, using light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, I examined the olfactory organ of larvae of the caecilian Ichthyophis kohtaoensis, to establish the ultrastructure of the epithelium and compare it to that of other amphibians. I found that there are microvillar receptor cells, ciliated receptor cells, and secretory supporting cells in the main olfactory epithelium (MOE) of I. kohtaoensis. However, in the posterior portion of the main olfactory cavity (MOC), the cells appear disorderly and “loose” with a haphazard orientation, in comparison to the anterior portion of the cavity where cells are neatly arranged and closely packed. There are only ciliated receptor cells and secretory supporting cells in the posterior MOC. The vomeronasal organ (VNO) of I. kohtaoensis has microvillar receptor cells, secretory supporting cells, ciliated supporting cells, and supporting cells with both cilia and microvilli. Interestingly, similar cell types and a disorderly appearance of the posterior main olfactory epithelium have also been described in adult Typhlonectes compressicauda, the only other caecilian for which ultrastructural data exist. Apart from I. kohtaoensis not having any ciliated supporting cells in the main olfactory cavity, the epithelium of both the MOC and the VNO resembles that of other amphibian larvae

Evaluating the performance of iPhoto facial recognition at the biometric verification task

2012 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.The Faces feature of Apple's iPhoto '09 software uses facial recognition techniques to help people organize their digital photographs. This work seeks to measure the facial recognition performance of iPhoto Faces in order to gain insight into the progress of facial recognition systems in commercial software. A common performance evaluation protocol is explained and performance values are presented. The protocol is based on performance measurements of academic and biometric facial recognition systems performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It uses the data set developed for the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly Face Recognition Challenge Problem which contains images with varying levels of facial recognition difficulty. Results show high performance on the hardest faces to recognize, less than peak performance on the easier faces, and overall less variation in performance across varying levels of difficulty than is observed for alternative baseline algorithms

The Origins and Early Years of the Barossa Community Store, 1944-65

The Barossa Community Store in Nuriootpa is Australia’s largest and most successful surviving Rochdale co-operative store. It is located in the Barossa Valley, the centre of one of Australia’s major wine growing regions. This paper explores the origins of the store against the background of the German heritage of the Valley and the community movement that developed in the town and attracted both national and international interest. The early years of the store, which arose from the result of the mutualisation of a successful non-co-operative retailer, saw tensions between leaders of the co-operative and the broader community over whether surpluses should be retained by the co-operative or ploughed back into the community. The co-operative saw need to raise capital to grow by seeking additional sources of capital beyond members’ shares. Management also had to face the challenge of changing retail practices, which gradually saw the shift to self-service and the opening of its first supermarket under the Co-operative brand in December 1965.The symposium is organised on behalf of AAHANZBS by the Business and Labour History Group, The University of Sydney, with the financial support of the University’s Faculty of Economics and Business