Parents’ Perceptions of Wraparound Services in Lancaster County, Nebraska

The role of parents in wraparound mental health systems of care for youth with emotional and behavioral disorders is evolving. The purpose of the present study was to identify variables that impact parents\u27 perceptions of systems of care. Parents in a countywide system of care (N = 213) were surveyed to determine their perceptions of barriers to effective services and service priorities. Parents identified the ability to pay for services, long waiting lists and periods, and lack of information about community services and resources as their top barriers. Respondents indicated services coordination, mental health outreach, and mentoring programs were their greatest priorities. Time involved in the system of care and the number of agencies with which families were involved were variables that were related to parents\u27 perceptions of barriers to services. Neither variable was found to impact parents\u27 perceptions of service priorities, however

Adapted DBT programme for individuals with intellectual disabilities and problems managing emotions: staff awareness training

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the development and evaluation of an original training package for staff members on an awareness of an adapted Dialectical behaviour Therapy programme, the ‘I Can Feel Good’ programme (Morrissey & Ingamells, 2014) designed for individuals with intellectual disabilities and problems managing emotions. The quality and effectiveness of the training was assessed and is reported in this paper. Design/methodology/approach The training was delivered for staff working with individuals with intellectual disabilities in a UK Medium Secure Psychiatric Hospital and was attended by nursing staff. The workshop consisted of six modules: ‘Introduction to the programme’, ‘Mindfulness’, ‘Managing feelings’, ‘Coping in crisis’, ‘People skills’ and ‘Application and summary’. Level of self-reported knowledge, confidence and motivation regarding seven aspects of the training was measured by an evaluation questionnaire completed pre and post training. Findings The results of this study showed that following the training there was a significant increase in self-reported knowledge, confidence and motivation regarding the seven aspects of the training. When perceptions of staff behaviours are observed, although in the right direction, this change was found not to be significant. Originality/value This study highlights the potential for staff training to increase awareness of newly adapted therapeutic programmes for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The staff training may increase their ability and willingness to facilitate the running of such programmes and ability to support learning transfer in group members

Risk communication approaches for preventing private groundwater contamination in the Republic of Ireland: a mixed-methods study of multidisciplinary expert opinion

The mechanisms of private-well groundwater contamination are uniquely complex, necessitating a multisector communicative approach to risk management, premised on behaviour promotion. In countries such as the Republic of Ireland (ROI), characterised by oftentimes high groundwater contamination risk and concurrently limited user awareness, incorporation of multidisciplinary, ‘expert-based’ knowledge may facilitate design of evidence-based, practical interventions. Expert interviews represent an efficient form of expert consultation, enabling ease of access to niche information and comparison of procedure, but remain under-utilised within the groundwater management literature. In response, the current study elicited opinion from 50 experts across four broad categories (communications, engineering/science, policy, and risk assessment) via a mixed-methods interview study. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were undertaken with experts from the ROI (n = 25) and European/North American countries (n = 25) and examined using thematic (qualitative) and bivariate statistical (quantitative) analyses. Experts noted financial cost, knowledge and social norms as primary barriers to adopting private-groundwater and other health risk-prevention behaviours. Lack of organisational knowledge as a communication barrier was significantly related to expert category (p = 0.034) and highlighted by a majority of communications experts (95%) compared to policy (75%), risk assessment (67%) and engineering/science (50%) experts. The most frequently suggested communication activities comprised events (24%), radio segments (22%), workshops (24%) and community meetings (30%), allied with family-oriented, discursive approaches to information delivery. Study findings may be used by both national (Irish) and international stakeholders in myriad hydrogeological contexts to develop educational outreach strategies and contribute to the existing groundwater-management-knowledge base

Preliminary Results of a Spatial Analysis of Dublin City’s Bike Rental Scheme

We present some initial observations on the usage and flow patterns of the DublinBikes (DB) bicycle rental scheme across Dublin city. In September 2009 Dublin City in conjunction with outdoor advertising company JC Decaux made 450 bicycles publicly available from 40 locations around the city in a scheme called DublinBikes (DB). Cycling, as a commuting mode forms an important part of the Irish Government's Transport policy for Ireland up to 2020 stating that "a culture of cycling will be developed by 2020 to envisage around 160,000 people cycling for their daily commute, up from 35,000 in 2006"(DOT, 2009). We follow Froehlich et al (2008) who find usage patterns from these bike rental schemes can "infer cultural and geographical aspects of the city and predict future bike station usage behaviour" when combined with geographical information and local knowledge. Data captured on DB and presented in this paper covers the period of September 20th 2009 to February 15th 2010 inclusive

Preliminary Results of a Spatial Analysis of Dublin City’s Bike Rental Scheme

We present some initial observations on the usage and flow patterns of the DublinBikes (DB) bicycle rental scheme across Dublin city. In September 2009 Dublin City in conjunction with outdoor advertising company JC Decaux made 450 bicycles publicly available from 40 locations around the city in a scheme called DublinBikes (DB). Cycling, as a commuting mode forms an important part of the Irish Government's Transport policy for Ireland up to 2020 stating that "a culture of cycling will be developed by 2020 to envisage around 160,000 people cycling for their daily commute, up from 35,000 in 2006"(DOT, 2009). We follow Froehlich et al (2008) who find usage patterns from these bike rental schemes can "infer cultural and geographical aspects of the city and predict future bike station usage behaviour" when combined with geographical information and local knowledge. Data captured on DB and presented in this paper covers the period of September 20th 2009 to February 15th 2010 inclusive

Private Groundwater Management and Risk Awareness: A cross-sectional analysis of two age-related subsets in the Republic of Ireland

Risk communication represents the optimal instrument for decreasing the incidence of private groundwater contamination and associated waterborne illnesses. However, despite attempts to promote voluntary well maintenance in high groundwater-reliant regions such as the Republic of Ireland, awareness levels of supply status (e.g. structural integrity) have remained low. As investigations of supply awareness are often thematically narrow and homogeneous with respect to sub-population, revised analyses of awareness among both current and future supply owners (i.e. adults of typical well owner and student age) are necessary. Accordingly, the current study utilised a national survey of well users and an age-based comparison of supply awareness. Awareness was measured among 560 Irish private well users using a multi-domain scoring framework and analysed in conjunction with experiential variables including experience of extreme weather events and previous household infections, and perceived self-efficacy in maintaining supply. Respondents displayed a median overall awareness score of 66.7%, with supply owners (n = 399) and students (n = 161) exhibiting median scores of 75% and 58.3%. Awareness among both combined respondent subsets and well owners was significantly related to gender, well use factors and self-perceived behavioural efficacy while awareness among students was not correlated with any independent variable. Cluster analysis identified three distinct respondent groups characterised by awareness score and gender in both current and future well owner subsets. Male well owners and students displayed higher perceived self-efficacy irrespective of awareness score while female well owners that demonstrated high awareness were significantly more likely to report postgraduate educational (p \u3c 0.001). Findings suggest that recent experience of extreme weather events does not significantly influence supply awareness and mirror previously identified knowledge differences between well owners and young adults

Compromised cardiovascular function in aged rats corresponds with increased expression and activity of calcium/calmodulin dependent protein kinase IIδ in aortic endothelium

Ageing is the greatest risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Calcium/calmodulin dependent protein kinase IIδ (CaMKIIδ) plays a fundamental role in the pathology of heart disease yet a potential role for CaMKIIδ in cardiovascular pathology associated with ageing remains unclear. Taking a combined in vivo and in vitro approach, we have for the first time investigated whether CaMKIIδ expression and CaMKII activity may be altered following age-related cardiovascular deterioration. Both cardiac contractility and aortic blood flow are compromised in aged rats and we have shown that this occurs in parallel with increased inflammation and crucially, autonomous activation of CaMKII. Endothelial cells isolated from young and aged aortae exhibit differences in cell phenotype and physiology. In line with observations in aortic tissue, aged aortic endothelial cells also show increased basal levels of pro-inflammatory markers and oxidative stress with concurrent increased basal activation of CaMKII. These results are the first to demonstrate that elevated CaMKIIδ expression and CaMKII activation occur in parallel with the pathological progression associated with ageing of the heart and vasculature. Specifically, CaMKIIδ expression is significantly increased and activated in the endothelium of aged aorta. As such, CaMKIIδ could serve as an important marker of endothelial dysfunction that accompanies the ageing process and may be an appropriate candidate for investigating targeted therapeutic intervention

Book Recommending Using Text Categorization with Extracted Information

Content-based recommender systems suggest documents, items, and services to users based on learning a profile of the user from rated examples containing information about the given items. Text categorization methods are very useful for this task but generally rely on unstructured text. We have developed a bookrecommending system that utilizes semi-structured information about items gathered from the web using simple information extraction techniques. Initial experimental results demonstrate that this approach can produce fairly accurate recommendations. Introduction There is a growing interest in recommender systems that suggest music, films, and other items and services to users (e.g. www.bignote.com, www.filmfinder.com) (Maes 1994; Resnik & Varian 1997). These systems generally make recommendations using a form of computerized matchmaking called collaborative filtering. The system maintains a database of the preferences of individual users, finds other users whose known preferenc..