Encouraging re-employability and discouraging bias

The paper discusses the need for more IT professionals and the need to retain those taking career breaks. The paper discusses the current situation in the UK for unemployed and under-employed computing professionals; and the view of professionals about the need for regular updating of their skills, particularly if they are currently unemployed. The needs of those taking an extended career break, of say five years are also discussed, together with help to encourage and assist those returning to the computing industry. The paper discusses the actions that have been undertaken by the BCS Quality Specialist Group, BCS Women and Hampshire Branch to provide free training courses, together with the BCS Unconscious Bias Training for all BCS committee members. The comments of those attending these various BCS training courses are discussed

Designing mediation for Scottish Civil Courts : Options and Opportunity

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The Long-Term Impact of Chemotherapy on Neurogenesis and the Potential Use of Fluoxetine As Preventative Treatment

The present study attempts to investigate a potential underlying mechanism that contributes to cognitive impairments associated with chemotherapy treatment. In addition, it looks to investigate the potential preventative treatment using an antidepressant agent (Fluoxetine) to reduce the effects observed by chemotherapy treatment. One proposed explanation for Chemo Brain is a reduction in the proliferation of new brain cells. This study was designed to investigate this mechanism and was conducted in a series of two experiments. In experiment 1, 37 C57BL/6J male mice were administered saline or one of two chemotherapy agents; Cyclophosphamide or Doxorubicin over the course of eight days. Neural tissue was examined at 56 days and 6 months post chemotherapy administration to evaluate the effects of chemotherapy on cellular proliferation. A two-way ANOVA was performed on the 56 day and 6 month data. Analysis revealed no significant effect of treatment at either time point. A significant effect of day was observed. In experiment two, 41 C57BL/6J male mice underwent treatment of saline, the chemotherapy agent 5-FU and saline, or an administration of Fluoxetine followed by an administration of 5-FU. Similarly, cellular proliferation in the neural tissue was measured at 56 days and 6 months post chemotherapy administration. A two-way ANOVA revealed no significant effect of treatment at either time point but a significant effect of time was observed. Overall, our results indicate that further research is needed to fully understand the long-term impacts of chemotherapy on neurogenesis and the potential use of neuroprotectant Fluoxetine as a preventative treatment. While the results of this study do not directly support the hypothesis that chemotherapy agents are capable of altering neurogenesis, more work will be required to identify the conditions under which such effects do or do not occur

Going beyond the individual: How state-level characteristics relate to HPV vaccine rates in the United States

Abstract Background The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is an underutilized cancer control practice in the United States. Although individual contextual factors are known to impact HPV vaccine coverage rates, the impact of macro-level elements are still unclear. The aim of this analysis was to use HPV vaccination rates to explore the underuse of an evidence-based cancer control intervention and explore broader-level correlates influencing completion rates. Methods A comprehensive database was developed using individual-level date from the National Immunization Survey (NIS)-Teen (2016) and state-level data collected from publically available sources to analyze HPV vaccine completion. Multi-level logistic models were fit to identify significant correlates. Level-1 (individual) and level-2 (state) correlates were fitted to a random intercept model. Deviance and AIC assessed model fit and sampling weights were applied. Results The analysis included 20,495 adolescents from 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Teen age, gender, race/ethnicity, and maternal education were significant individual predictors of HPV completion rates. Significant state-level predictors included sex education policy, religiosity, and HPV vaccine mandate. States with the lowest HPV coverage rates were found to be conservative and highly religious. Little variation in vaccine exemptions and enacted sex and abstinence education polices were observed between states with high and low HPV vaccine coverage suggesting various contextual and situational factors impact HPV vaccine completion rates. Conclusions Given that gender, religiosity, political ideology, and education policies are predictors of HPV vaccine completion, the interaction and underlying mechanism of these factors can be used to address the underutilization of the HPV vaccine

Australian Aboriginal Oral Traditions

In 1988 non-Aboriginal Australians will celebrate two hundred years' occupation of a country which had previously been home to an Aboriginal population of about 300,000 people. They probably spoke more than two hundred different languages and most individuals were multilingual (Dixon 1980). They had a rich culture, whose traditions were centrally concerned with the celebration of three basic types of religious ritual-rites of fertility, initiation, and death (Maddock 1982:105-57). In many parts of Australia, particularly in the south where white settlement was earliest and densest, Aboriginal traditional life has largely disappeared, although the memory of it has been passed down the generations. Nowadays all Aborigines, even in the most traditional parts of the north, such as Arnhem Land, are affected to a greater or lesser extent by the Australian version of Western culture, and must preserve their own traditions by a combination of holding strategies. Thus in 1988 many Aboriginal Australians will be inclined to mourn the Bicentenary with its reminder to them of all they have lost.--Page 231-232.Margaret Clunies Ross, a member of the English department at the University of Sydney, has for some time had a special interest in the oral traditions of the Australian Aborigines. She has carried on fieldwork, particularly in North Arnhem Land, and has written numerous articles and monographs on this area

Embedding mediation in Scottish Civil Justice : Riding the tide for a cultural shift?

The author is grateful to Abbe Brown, Charlie Irvine, David Parratt and two anonymous reviewers for comments on a working version of this paper.Peer reviewedPostprin