Invisible Worker(s), Invisible Hazards: An Examination of Psychological and Physical Safety Amongst Frontline Workers in Long-term Residential Care Facilities in the 'New' Global Economy

Research has consistently demonstrated that the long-term residential care (LTRC) frontline workforce encounters a range of serious health and safety hazards and risks that result in physical and psychological injury, illness, absenteeism, and related costs. Using the lens of feminist political economy, this dissertation explores the risks workers encounter on the frontlines of LTRC, how these workplace risks are shaped by broader social, economic, political, and historical factors, as well as the ways frontline workers resist, challenge, or shape the conditions of their work in this setting. My analysis of primary data is informed by interviews with 17 frontline workers working within for-profit, non-profit, and municipal LTRC facilities within Ontario and 2 key informants. Restructuring and reform of health and social care services under neoliberalism have profoundly transformed the character, funding, organization, and delivery of LTRC. These changes have serious implications for workforce configurations, the conditions of work and care, workplace health and safety, worker control over their labour, and capacities for worker resistance to the conditions of their work. Within the LTRC organizational hierarchy, frontline workers are of marginal status. The frontline workforce is composed predominately of women and increasingly marginalized immigrants and racialized groups, whose care labour on the frontlines is often naturalized, undervalued, and treated as unskilled and safe. This research provides evidence that restructuring and work reorganization processes, policies, and practices constitute a form of structural violence, which contribute to, intensify, and/or give rise to new sources of struggle, inequity, risk, violence, alienation, and exploitation on the everyday/everynight frontlines of LTRC

Law as a Social Science

Law is offered as an undergraduate social science discipline at Carleton University. Students may take programmes leading to both Major and Honours B.A. degrees in law or may also undertake the study of law in a combined Major or Honours programme in conjunction with another discipline. Successful completion of any programme does not qualify the graduate for admission to any bar admission programme nor is any credit given towards a law degree for courses taken at Carleton.\u27 The purpose of the programme is to promote an awareness of the place of rules respecting human conduct in political, social and economic environment and to provide insights of other disciplines relevant to particular legal problems. The purpose of this paper is to discuss certain aspects of Carleton\u27s law programme. These include the impact of being part of the Faculty of Social Sciences, the development of the programme, and the format of a recent survey of the Department\u27s graduates

Gamma-butyrobetaine does not restore beta-hydroxybutyrate inhibition of hepatic ketogenesis in diabetic, untreated ewes

A possible insulin-independent regulatory mechanism of hepatic ketogenesis was studied in eight experiments on five ewes surgically catheterized in hepatic, portal, and mesenteric veins, and femoral artery and femoral vein. Ewes were made diabetic with alloxan (50 mg/kg bw, iv) . Euglycemia was maintained with daily insulin injections (Iletin-100 ~35 lU/d) until three days prior to each experiment, when injections were withheld to induce ketosis. Ewes were housed in 1.8 X 3.0 m indoor pens under natural lighting in a thermoneutral environment. Experiments consisted of three infusion periods: (1) para-aminohippurate (1.5% @ 0.764 ml/min) infusion into the common mesenteric vein (control); (2) para-aminohippurate as in (1) and beta-hydroxybutyrate (1.18 mmol/min) into the common mesenteric vein; and (3) paraaminohippurate and beta-hydroxybutyrate as in (2) and gamma-butyrobetaine (1.18 mmol/min) into the common mesenteric vein. For each period, each infusate was allowed to equilibrate for one hour and then three blood samples were taken simultaneously from the hepatic, portal, and femoral veins and femoral artery at thirty minute intervals and analyzed for beta-hydroxybutyrate, acetoacetate, non-esterified fatty acids, glucose, and para-aminohippurate. Blood flows were calculated by measuring downstream dilution of para-aminohippurate and net fluxes were calculated by multiplying tissue veno-arterial concentrations by tissue blood flow. Blood glucose (~10 mM) was unaffected by infusion. Beta-hydroxybutyrate decreased hepatic flow (3.6 to 2.5 L/min, P\u3c.01), but did not change portal flow. Consequently, portal flow contribution to the liver increased from 73 to 83% (P\u3c.01) during beta-hydroxybutyrate infusion. Relative to control, beta-hydroxybutyrate infusion decreased (P\u3c.01) non-esterified fatty acid arterial concentrations (2.1 to 1.1 mM) and hepatic (0.7 to 0.2 mmol/min) and total splanchnic (0.6 to 0.2 mmol/min) net uptakes. Beta-hydroxybutyrate infusion increased acetoacetate arterial concentrations (1.2 to 1.5 mM, P\u3c.05) and decreased (P\u3c.05) hepatic release (0.5 to 0.1 mmol/min)(i.e., decreased ketogenesis) and total splanchnic release (0.6 to 0.1 mmol/min). Similar to its effects on acetoacetate, beta-hydroxybutyrate infusion increased beta-hydroxybutyrate arterial concentrations (7.6 to 12.3 mM, P\u3c.01) but decreased net hepatic release (1.6 to 0.7 mmol/min, P\u3c.01) and total splanchnic release (2.1 to 1.3 mmol/min, P\u3c.1). Gamma-butyrobetaine infusion did not reverse any beta-hydroxybutyrate effects. According to this data beta-hydroxybutyrate may regulate ketogenesis by decreasing hepatic non-esterified fatty acid uptake and subsequent conversion to acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate. Gamma-butyrobetaine, in contrast, had no effect on hepatic ketogenesis nor nonesterified fatty acid uptake, suggesting that beta-hydroxybutyrate inhibition was not at the carnitine acyltransferase level or that gamma-butyrobetaine may not be extracted by the liver in quantities sufficient to counteract observed effects of beta-hydroxybutyrate

Gender Bias In The Technical Disciplines

This study investigates how women are affected by gender bias in the workplace. Despite the increasing numbers of women in the workforce, women are still under-represented and under-valued in workplaces, which, in part, is due to their gender stereotype. This study demonstrates how gender bias in the workplace has been proven to limit women in their careers and potential in their occupational roles. The media’s negative depiction of women in their gender stereotype reinforces and perpetuates this image as a cultural norm in society. Women both conform and are judged and evaluated according to their weak and submissive gender stereotype. Women face challenges and problems in the workplace when they are evaluated and appraised by their female gender stereotype. Women have been prevented from acquiring jobs and positions, have been denied promotions and advancements, failed to be perceived as desiring of and capable of leadership or management positions, as well as typically receive lower paid than their male counterparts. Furthermore, women’s unique, indirect, and congenial conversational methods are perceived as unconfident, incompetent, and thus, incapable in the masculine organizational culture of most workplaces. Through the investigation of gender bias in the workplace, professionals and employers will gain an awareness of how gender bias and socially-prescribed gender roles can affect the workplace and interfere with women’s success in their career. Technical communicators and other educators will have a better understanding of how to overcome gender stereotyping and be encouraged to teach students on how to be gender-neutral in their communications in the workplace, perhaps striving for a more egalitarian society

Just community a model of congregational development founded in catholic social teaching

This project identifies the benefits of integrating the Congregational Building Campaign with Catholic Social Teaching as a means of supporting the Catholic parish in responding to Second Vatican Council\u27s call for social engagement on behalf of the parish. It includes a literature review of the necessity of lay leadership in the Catholic Church, the importance of understanding Catholic Social Teaching and parish social ministry, and the benefits of participation in community organizing. Data consists of a survey of parish participation in social ministry and case study summaries of participating churches in the Campaign. The author makes recommendations for a pilot program entitled Just Community aimed to increase participation of Catholic parishes in social ministry

MS

thesisThe Nurse Practitioner Pilot Project (Senate Bill 198) was initiated in June 1980 in Utah. Senate Bill 198 legalized prescriptive practice for specific nurse practitioners for a three-year period. Protocols selected for guidelines in practice were required for use by pilot project members. Two evaluations were conducted studying compliance to protocols by pilot project participants. The purpose of the research was to determine if the remaining 44 nurse practitioners were adhering to protocols. General systems theory was used to describe prescriptive practices by nurse practitioners. The focal system was the relationship between the nurse and the health care needs of the cultural suprasystem. Input from the patient consists of information concerning the health problem. The nurse practitioners process information through adaptation and throughput to construct a management plan. The output of the nurse practitioner is primary care, including prescribing medications. A random chart review was conducted in the practice of each nurse practitioner. All information recorded in the client's chart to justify the appropriate diagnosis and use of medications was noted. Eight-four percent of the sample were practicing at the level required for the project participation. Nurse practitioners educated at the Bachelor's level in Adult Practice received the highest total performance scores

Active Assessment of U.S. Livestock Biosecurity and Policies

Effective livestock disease management is a fundamental necessity for producers to provide and the government to guarantee a safe and secure food supply for consumers. It is the responsibility of both parties to ensure that the industry is appropriately protected from Foreign Animal Diseases (FADs). Producers, consumers, communities, businesses, and the environment can all suffer when an FAD outbreak occurs. To what extent an outbreak can be damaging depends greatly on the level of biosecurity producers have in place and the livestock disease management procedures government officials have created. Currently in the United States, more work can be done on both sides. This study looks at what producers are currently doing in regard to disease prevention on their operations, what they prefer, and what they are willing to improve upon.Livestock producers were surveyed, and their responses were analyzed in efforts to answer two separate questions: What are poultry producers’ willingness to pay (WTP) to adopt on-farm carcass disposal capabilities, and what indemnity policy do feedlot operators prefer. Preventative biosecurity at the farm level is covered thoroughly throughout the literature, however, a minimal amount of research has been conducted on producers’ preferences and decision-making processes post-FAD outbreak, which is the focus of this work. Individual operation characteristics provided additional factors for the econometric analysis of each study. A one and one-half bound dichotomous choice question allowed an interval regression model to be estimated for poultry producers WTP for on-farm carcass disposal showing poultry producers were willing to pay $15,651 on average (one-time payment). Producers ranked four different indemnity policies in order of preference, which allowed a ranked-order probit model to estimate what policies are preferred by feedlot operators and the factors contributing to that policy. In general, livestock insurance with government subsidized premiums was the second-best choice behind status quo policy potentially providing a next best option in terms of producer preferences. By analyzing this type of producer information, policy writers and industry leaders can create new policies that both encourage early disease reporting and incentivize greater biosecurity implementation, which will reduce the effects of FAD outbreaks when they occur