Managing environments

Although a context might be solid - like a building - it has different meanings for the people who use it. The impact of the physical space is the focus for 'Managing environments'. Peace and Reynolds note that any one environment may be multifunctional. Taking an innovative approach to management, they argue that a residential care home, for example, may be simultaneously a place for living for residents, working for staff and managers and visiting for relatives and other professionals. The atmosphere in a care home makes a critical difference to the experience of service users who live there. The authors review how the environmental factors that influence care may be managed and how the careful design and us of space can contribute to improved quality of life in the management of care. Peace and Reynolds also consider relationships between people, places and quality, recognising the impact of the manager on caring environments. A focus on practice here emphasises the role of the manager in drawing out debates over values and best practice to help care workers feel supported and confident about the care they provide

Managing care environments: reflections from research and practice

This chapter considers the role of senior staff in managing the use of space and the physical environment within care settings. These day and residential settings come under the broad umbrella of social work and social care but the care may also be organized from within health. This is a subject that does not appear on the curriculum of many management courses in the UK, but arguably it is critical in relation to social work and social care where managers are involved with residential homes, day centres and other provision where the physical environment can enhance or be detrimental towards service users' wellbeing. In such settings many activities go on under one roof, particularly in group care or when the care is provided in a person's own home. The care environment is complex and can be bounded within space, place, time and behaviour. Activities and time available compete or have different meanings for the participants. Managers have different kinds of relationships with workers and with service users. The environment in which care takes place often frames these

The effect of relatedness on mating behavior in the satin bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus)

Behavior is a main component of sexual selection theory in which male competition and female mate choice influence the evolution of a species. Relatedness commonly affects behavioral interactions, but the potential for relatedness to influence sexual selection is often overlooked. Here I show that relatedness affects mating behaviors in satin bowerbirds. Bowerbirds are a model species for non-resource based mating systems in which males provide only sperm to females, and females are free to mate with their preferred males, typically resulting in high skews in male mating success. Males build stick structures (bowers) on the ground to attract, and copulate with, females. Males compete, in part, by destroying neighboring males' bowers. Females search among multiple adjacent bowers and then select subsets of these males for courtship and then copulation. Automated video monitoring of bowers allows identification of males that destroy bowers and females that visit bowers for courtship or copulation. Using microsatellite genetic markers to estimate relatedness, I show that paternity assignments based on observed copulations match the genetic sires of offspring, supporting the hypotheses that copulations occur only at bowers and that male reproductive success can be reliably estimated from observed copulations. Next, I report that competing males are less aggressive, in the form of bower destructions, towards relatives than non-relatives and that this restraining effect of relatedness on aggression favors the close spatial association of relatives' bowers. These results support the hypothesis that relatedness affects male competition and ability to maintain attractive displays for females. Lastly, I investigate the influence of relatedness on female mate choice. I show that females do not actively prefer or avoid relatives in mate choice. However, females bias the areas in which they search for mates to be inclusive of relatives and then mate randomly with respect to relatedness within their search areas, resulting in tendencies to mate with relatives in some years. This effect of relatedness on female mate searching may be due in part to the spatial association of related males, and highlights the influence of mate searching rather than active mate preferences on overall mate choice patterns

The Impact of Pedestrian Crossing Flags on Driver Yielding Behavior in Las Vegas, NV

Walking is the most affordable, accessible, and environmentally friendly method of transportation. However, the risk of pedestrian injury or death from motor vehicle crashes is significant, particularly in sprawling metropolitan areas. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of pedestrian crossing flags (PCFs) on driver yielding behaviors. Participants crossed a marked, midblock crosswalk on a multilane road in Las Vegas, Nevada, with and without PCFs, to determine if there were differences in driver yielding behaviors (n = 160 crossings). Trained observers recorded (1) the number of vehicles that passed in the nearest lane without yielding while the pedestrian waited at the curb and (2) the number of vehicles that passed through the crosswalk while the pedestrian was in the same half of the roadway. ANOVA revealed that drivers were significantly less likely to pass through the crosswalk with the pedestrian in the roadway when they were carrying a PCF (M = 0.20; M = 0.06); drivers were more likely to yield to the pedestrian waiting to enter the roadway when they were carrying a PCF (M = 1.38; M = 0.95). Pedestrian crossing flags are a low-tech, low-cost intervention that may improve pedestrian safety at marked mid-block crosswalks. Future research should examine driver fade-out effects and more advanced pedestrian safety alternatives

A Comparison of Skills Considered Important for Success as an Entry Level Manager in the Hospitality Industry vs. The Skills Recent Graduates Possess

This paper presents and discusses the findings of a study to determine if the historic gap between the skills industry and education consider important for success as an entry level manager still exists. A review of literature identified a list of skills considered important for success by both industry and higher education. Of the eighty nine skills identified, forty two showed no significant difference, six skills were considered more important by the recruiters and forty one skills were considered more important by the educators. The top 10 skills were the same for both groups; however their order is slightly different

Reality check: Asynchronous instruction works!

Never before had I asked a student to cite an emoticon. In traditional classroom instruction, it is unlikely that this would have come up at all. However, in an asynchronous course, you never know where an online threaded discussion on citation formats will lead. As library educators, we have the opportunity to have an impact on a student\u27s chances for success in locating and managing information. We must draw upon the students\u27 familiarity with new technologies and teach them how to effectively articulate their information need, identify appropriate resources, evaluate what has been retrieved, and redirect their continued searching. The challenge that confronts us is compounded by the fact that many students enter the library only through a virtual door. In recognition of the shifting paradigm involving information and new technologies, Purdue University\u27s Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) program asked the Purdue Libraries to develop a credit course that would teach the students how to effectively locate, evaluate, and present information. The course, Information Strategies, has been a required course in EET was designed and taught by the libraries\u27 faculty since 1993. It has subsequently been adapted to other disciplines, as well. As evolution of new technologies continued, course instructors proposed the development of an asynchronous version of this course to the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System (IHETS). The development grant was awarded and the first Web-based version of this course was offered Spring 1999. The purpose of the IHETS course development grant was to enhance and convert [the Information Strategies course] to a digital format, which will allow asynchronous statewide access. In July 1998, the investigators, Professors Sheila Curl, Leslie Reynolds, Brent Mai, and Alexius Smith, began adapting the traditional course for delivery over the Internet

Impact of age and race on outcomes of a program to prevent excess weight gain and disordered eating in adolescent girls

Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) prevents weight gain and reduces loss-of-control (LOC)-eating in adults. However, IPT was not superior to health-education (HE) for preventing excess weight gain and reducing LOC-eating over 1-year in adolescent girls at risk for excess weight gain and eating disorders. Limited data suggest that older and non-White youth may be especially responsive to IPT. In secondary analyses, we examined if age or race moderated weight and LOC-eating outcomes. The 113 participants (12–17 years; 56.6% White) from the original trial were re-contacted 3 years later for assessment. At baseline and follow-up visits through 3 years, we assessed BMI, adiposity by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, and LOC-eating presence. In linear mixed models, baseline age moderated 3-year BMI outcome; older girls in IPT had the lowest 3-year BMI gain compared to younger girls in IPT and all girls in HE, p = 0.04. A similar pattern was observed for adiposity. Race moderated 3-year LOC-eating; non-White girls in IPT were most likely to abstain from LOC-eating at 3 years compared to all other girls, p = 0.04. This hypothesis-generating analysis suggests future studies should determine if IPT is especially efficacious at reducing LOC-eating in older, non-White adolescents

MyD88 signaling inhibits protective immunity to the gastrointestinal helminth parasite heligmosomoides polygyrus

Helminth parasites remain one of the most common causes of infections worldwide, yet little is still known about the immune signaling pathways that control their expulsion. C57BL/6 mice are chronically susceptible to infection with the gastrointestinal helminth parasite Heligmosomoides polygyrus. In this article, we report that C57BL/6 mice lacking the adapter protein MyD88, which mediates signaling by TLRs and IL-1 family members, showed enhanced immunity to H. polygyrus infection. Alongside increased parasite expulsion, MyD88-deficient mice showed heightened IL-4 and IL-17A production from mesenteric lymph node CD4+ cells. In addition, MyD88-/- mice developed substantial numbers of intestinal granulomas around the site of infection, which were not seen in MyD88-sufficient C57BL/6 mice, nor when signaling through the adapter protein TRIF (TIR domain-containing adapter-inducing IFN-β adapter protein) was also ablated. Mice deficient solely in TLR2, TLR4, TLR5, or TLR9 did not show enhanced parasite expulsion, suggesting that these TLRs signal redundantly to maintain H. polygyrus susceptibility in wild-type mice. To further investigate signaling pathways that are MyD88 dependent, we infected IL-1R1-/- mice with H. polygyrus. This genotype displayed heightened granuloma numbers compared with wild-type mice, but without increased parasite expulsion. Thus, the IL-1R-MyD88 pathway is implicated in inhibiting granuloma formation; however, protective immunity in MyD88-deficient mice appears to be granuloma independent. Like IL-1R1-/- and MyD88-/- mice, animals lacking signaling through the type 1 IFN receptor (i.e., IFNAR1-/-) also developed intestinal granulomas. Hence, IL-1R1, MyD88, and type 1 IFN receptor signaling may provide pathways to impede granuloma formation in vivo, but additional MyD88-mediated signals are associated with inhibition of protective immunity in susceptible C57BL/6 mice