I Accidentally This Thesis Because East: The Influence of the Internet on Spoken Language in Eastspeak

This thesis examines the variety of English spoken in East Dorm at Harvey Mudd College. It describes aspects of the syntax and phonology of Eastspeak, focusing in particular on how Eastspeak has been influenced by the language of the internet. This includes tendencies toward brevity and language play, as well as the use of specific constructions used on the internet, and playful pronunciations that are influenced by creative misspellings used online. Specific Eastspeak phenomena discussed include conversion, deletion, and unusual determiner and quantifier use

Responding to research: An interview study of the teacher wellbeing support being offered in ten English schools

Purpose: Responding to research reporting low-levels of teacher wellbeing in England, policy makers have begun to implement strategies to support wellbeing. Given the recent introduction of such policy, this exploratory study describes the wellbeing support being offered to teachers, and perceptions of its impact on wellbeing. Method: A purposeful sample of ten schools (primary and secondary) in Greater London beginning to offer wellbeing support was selected and fifteen teachers were interviewed. Findings: Teachers describe a range of wellbeing support strategies being implemented in their schools and report, in some cases, activities designed with good intentions can harm their wellbeing. We apply the capabilities approach to analyse the interviews and argue wellbeing support should be matched to the needs of recipients and support should increase teachers’ freedoms to act, rather than simply mitigating in the moment feelings of stress. Limitations: Findings of this small-scale study cannot be generalised to other contexts

An analysis of the research team–service user relationship from the service user perspective: a consideration of ‘The Three Rs’ (roles, relations, and responsibilities) for healthcare research organisations

Background This article debates interview data from service users who engaged with the work of a Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC). The evidence base, to date, concerning the nature of CLAHRC work at the frontline (i.e. What is it actually like to do CLAHRC work?) is meagre; thus, this article represents an original contribution to that literature. Further, this article analyses service users' participation in research – as members of the research team – and so contributes to the body of developing literature regarding involvement too. Objective This article explores the nature of the Research Team–Service User relationship, plus associated roles, relations and responsibilities of collaborative health research. Design Qualitative social science research was undertaken in a health-care research organization utilizing interview method and a medical sociology and organizational sociology theoretical framework for analysis. Data utilized originate from a larger evaluation study that focuses on the CLAHRC as an iterative organization and explores members' experiences. Results There can be a disparity between initial expectations and actual experiences of involvement for service users. Therefore, as structured via ‘The Three Rs’ (Roles, Relations and Responsibilities), aspects of the relationship are evaluated (e.g. motivation, altruism, satisfaction, transparency, scope, feedback, communication, time). Regarding the inclusion of service users in health research teams, a careful consideration of ‘The Three Rs’ is required to ensure expectations match experiences

A Linked Coptic Dictionary Online

We describe a new project publishing a freely available online dictionary for Coptic. The dictionary encompasses comprehensive cross-referencing mechanisms, including linking entries to an online scanned edition of Crum’s Coptic Dictionary, internal cross-references and etymological information, translated searchable definitions in English, French and German, and linked corpus data which provides frequencies and corpus look-up for headwords and multiword expressions. Headwords are available for linking in external projects using a REST API. We describe the challenges in encoding our dictionary using TEI XML and implementing linking mechanisms to construct a Web interface querying frequency information, which draw on NLP tools to recognize inflected forms in context. We evaluate our dictionary’s coverage using digital corpora of Coptic available online

Evaluation of the Cwm Taf University Health Board Domiciliary Medicines Use Review (Dom-MUR) Service

The Medicines Use Review (MUR) Service is an Advanced Service in the community pharmacy contract in the United Kingdom (UK). It involves the pharmacist reviewing a patient’s use of their medication whose purpose is to improve patient understanding and adherence to medication and reduce medication waste. Since November 2012, the Cwm Taf University Health Board (UHB) in Wales has commissioned a domiciliary MUR (Dom-MUR) service, thereby providing housebound patients with equal access to MURs to those able to visit a community pharmacy. We aimed to identify the types of issues and interventions carried out by pharmacists as part of the Dom-MUR service. A database of Dom-MUR entries from December 2012 – March 2014 was obtained from the UHB. Issues and outcomes arising from Dom-MURs were categorised. Data was quantitatively analysed using Microsoft Excel® and GraphPad Prism®. Data from 194 Dom-MURs was included in the database. The mean number of issues identified per patient was 1.96 (SD±1.41). The three most commonly identified issues were related to ‘Patient Adherence (29%, n=110), ‘Patient Education/ Monitoring’ (21%, n=79) and ‘Medication Excess in Home’ (12%, n=47). The mean number of outcomes per patient was 1.97 (SD±1.48). Of the outcomes, 32% (n=122) involved the pharmacist contacting the GP surgery i.e. they could not resolve these issues themselves. Issues assigned to ‘Issues with Patient’s Condition’ were statistically less likely to be resolved by the pharmacist. The Cwm Taf UHB Dom-MUR service has the potential to be of value in terms of more appropriate and cost effective care. Developments within community pharmacy, such as access to patients’ health records and pharmacist independent prescribing, may benefit this service with the potential for pharmacists to resolve more issues themselves

Capturing the Real Impact of Clinical Academics in Practice

The Clinical Academic Careers Framework proposes an over-arching structure to develop the clinical academic workforce whose activities have patient benefit within a clear UK programme. Traditionally this has centred on professionals from medicine and dentistry, but in the last ten years has developed into a more inclusive career framework for non-medical health professions which includes Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Professionals (NMAHPs) and Healthcare Scientists (HCSs) that provide NHS services. As such, it is reported that clinical academic NMAHPs and HCSs can contribute to the generation and translation of new knowledge to help improve outcomes and experiences for patients. In this article, we explore key issues relating to the impact of clinical academic NMAHPs and HCSs on clinical practice in a UK context, as well as some measurements of impact, including the value and limitations of currently used metrics (such as Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs). We report that measuring the learning in practice of this novel role will need to include smart metrics alongside a person-centred approach. We share four national case studies, all of which are drawn from clinical academic researchers from different UK settings to show the real variety and differences in roles. We argue that this is the key both to learning in practice about this role, and to witnessing the real differences clinical academics make

Large trees are keystone structures in urban parks

Large trees are considered keystone structures in agricultural and forestry production landscapes, but research demonstrating this in urban landscapes is urgently needed. If large trees are keystone structures in urban parks, it is imperative that this is recognized in policy to ensure their ongoing existence. We studied the role of large native trees for birds in urban parks in Canberra, Australia. We found that (1) large trees had a consistent, strong, and positive relationship with five measures of bird diversity, and (2) as trees became larger in size, their positive effect on bird diversity increased. Large urban trees are therefore keystone structures that provide crucial habitat resources for wildlife. Hence, it is vital that they are managed appropriately. With evidence-based tree preservation policies that recognize biodiversity values, and proactive planning for future large trees, the protection and perpetuation of these important keystone structures can be achieved