26013 research outputs found
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Editorial: Promotion of quality of life in oncology patients and survivors through physical activity
Full text linkListen, act and support: An investigation into individual and organisational incivility management in veterinary practice
Full text linkBackground: This study investigates the impact of workplace and client incivility on veterinary staff wellbeing and job satisfaction, examining both individual responses and organisational support mechanisms to identify best practices for managing incivility. Method: A mixed‐methods approach was employed, involving a survey of 192 veterinary professionals from various roles and practice types. The survey measured experiences of incivility, individual factors (anxiety, stress, burnout, job satisfaction and turnover intention) and organisational factors (perceived organisational support, social support and civility climate). Results: Client incivility was a significant predictor of increased anxiety, burnout and stress, while co‐worker incivility was a significant predictor of increased anxiety. Organisational support and team civility were found to be significant predictors of job satisfaction and turnover intention, with organisational support mediating the impact of co‐worker incivility on anxiety. Qualitative analysis highlighted the importance of listening to staff concerns and taking proactive measures to address incivility. Limitations: The data are cross‐sectional and subjective, and the sample is predominantly female. Conclusion: Effective management of incivility in veterinary practices requires robust organisational support and clear policies. Practices should prioritise listening to staff, fostering a supportive environment and implementing training programs to mitigate the adverse effects of incivility on staff wellbeing and job satisfaction
Your Teeth, You Are in Control: A Process Evaluation of the Implementation of a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Intervention for Reducing Child Dental Anxiety
Full text linkAim: To explore the views of patients, caregivers, and dental professionals on the factors that influence implementation, processes, and effectiveness of a guided self‐help cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) intervention, ‘Your teeth, you are in control’ (YTYAIC), in the CALM trial. Methods: Semi‐structured interviews were conducted as part of this qualitative component of the process evaluation, and data were analysed using a framework approach based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) and the Five Areas Model of CBT. Results: Thirty‐seven participants were recruited. Potential mechanisms of action were identified using the Five Areas Model of CBT. Participants felt the intervention may exert change through targeting unhelpful thoughts and feelings (e.g., building trust and perceptions of control) and behaviours (e.g., encouraging effective communication and coping strategies) and facilitating a more positive situational context (e.g., developing more supportive relationships). Enablers (e.g., adaptability, design and delivery) and barriers (e.g., time/resource constraints, cost) to implementation were identified using the CFIR. Conclusions: This study revealed multiple potential mechanisms of action which could reduce dental anxiety and examined how implementation and contextual factors may influence this change process. The results of the research revealed that the intervention could be implemented in primary dental care and identified the potential barriers which should be addressed to aid successful implementation of the intervention in real world contexts. Trial Registration: This clinical trial has been registered with an international registry and has been allocated an International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN27579420
‘Let’s talk about the weather’: the activist curriculum and global climate change education
Full text linkActivist movements have garnered significant global attention on a range of sustainability issues,
often involving collectives of citizens coming together. Invoked is the idea of citizens informed to act,
emerging not from a common-sense understanding of everyday life, but rather from a deep political
understanding of the world - one that is underpinned by a level of civics knowledge that provides the
intellectual basis for engaging in public discussions and planning citizen action. Here, the possibility
of transformative activist curricular movements for climate education arises and whether to change
the curriculum, or to see curriculum as change in itself. This paper examines what schools and
teachers can do to develop children’s understanding of and engagement with the issues, and to address
their concerns, informed by John Dewey’s notion of social action and his ideas on democracy and
thinking. The discussion draws on a global movement in climate education, and a case of a group of
schools in England. The two cases, chosen as illustrative, are theorised by means of Maton’s semantic
variation theory to identify how the systems of meaning in these, and similar, contexts can be made
accessible. How the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of quality education (SDG4) and climate
action (SDG13) can be achieved, including the design of the curriculum by teachers, is examined. The
need for an activist curriculum is discussed, one that is integrated and embedded rather than inserted,
in which young people can engage with and respond to the issues that they face. Such a curriculum
posits the school as both democratic and open, in the sense of having boundaries that are fluid and
permeable to the concerns of society, while also giving access to disciplinary knowledge that is the
basis of conceptual understanding of the problems of, as well as the solutions to, climate change
A Comparative Analysis of Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques for Accurate Market Price Forecasting
Full text linkThis study compares three machine learning and deep learning models—Support Vector Regression (SVR), Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)—for predicting market prices using the NGX All-Share Index dataset. The models were evaluated using multiple error metrics, including Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Squared Error (MSE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Percentage Error (MPE), and R-squared. RNN and LSTM were tested with both 30 and 60-day windows, with performance compared to SVR. LSTM delivered better R-squared values, with a 60-day LSTM achieving the best accuracy (R-squared = 0.993) when using a combination of endogenous market data and technical indicators. SVR showed reliable results in certain scenarios but struggled in fold 2 with a sudden spike that shows a high probability of not capturing the entire underlying NGX pattern in the dataset correctly, as witnessed by the high validation loss during the period. Additionally, RNN faced the vanishing gradient problem that limits its long-term performance. Despite challenges, LSTM’s ability to handle temporal dependencies, especially with the inclusion of On-Balance Volume, led to significant improvements in prediction accuracy. The use of the Optuna optimisation framework further enhanced model training and hyperparameter tuning, contributing to the performance of the LSTM model
Life in green: Associations between greenspace availability and mental health over the lifecourse - A 40-year prospective birth cohort study.
Full text linkBackgroundThe beneficial impacts of greenspace availability on mental health are well-documented. However, longitudinal evidence using a spatial lifecourse perspective is rare, leaving the dynamics of how greenspace influences mental health across the lifecourse unclear. This study first uses prospective birth cohort data to examine the associations between greenspace availability in childhood (0-16 years) and mental health in adolescence (16 years) and between greenspace availability and mental health across adulthood (18-40 years).MethodData were obtained from the Christchurch Health and Development Study, comprised 1,265 cohort members born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1977. Mental health outcomes including depressive symptoms, anxiety disorders and suicidal ideation were assessed in adolescence (16 years), and in adulthood (18-40 years). Greenspace availability from birth to age 40 years was measured as the proportion of vegetated areas within circular buffers (radius from 100m to 3000m) around members' geocoded residential addresses using a time-series impervious surfaces data from 1985 to 2015. Bayesian Relevant Lifecourse exposure models examined the associations between childhood greenspace availability and adolescent mental health and tested for critical/sensitive age periods. Generalised Estimating Equation logistic regression models assessed the associations between greenspace availability and mental health across adulthood. These analyses were adjusted for various important individual, family, and area-level covariates.ResultsNo associations were found between childhood greenspace availability and any adolescent mental health conditions. However, in adulthood, a one standard deviation increase in greenspace availability within 1500m and 2000m buffers was associated with a 12% and 13% reduced risk of depressive symptoms, respectively, after adjusting for various covariates.DiscussionThis study supports the protective effects of greenspace on adult depressive symptoms, highlighting the significance of employing a spatial lifecourse epidemiology framework to examine the long-term effects of environmental factors on health over the lifecourse
A Blockchain-based Smart Healthcare System for Data Protection
Full text linkThe security of medical information has become a significant challenge with the move from traditional filing systems to electronic records. This study proposes the use of blockchain technology to address these concerns. The system registers patients and medical staff with unique IDs and stores patient diagnoses as immutable records on the blockchain. A central interplanetary file system stores the collected data, which can be accessed by authorized users like nurses, pharmacists, and patients via special access details. Users must log in before accessing medical records through the Electronic Record Management system. This approach can be scaled to multiple hospitals. After testing, the system showed some latency issues with 100 nodes, but performance improved with more nodes (300 to 500), demonstrating better scalability as the system handles more data and hospitals. Overall, the proposed blockchain-based system offers a secure, scalable solution for managing and accessing medical records
Towards an ecological dynamics theory of flow in sport
Full text linkFlow is an optimal state of absorption that may be experienced in appropriately challenging and intrinsically motivating activities such as sports. Flow may be an important concept for understanding the emergence and role of sport in society, yet theoretical explanations of flow have had limited success explaining, predicting, and facilitating flow in sport. Here, we use the ecological dynamics framework, seeking to resolve foundational issues in an explanation of flow, building towards a theory of flow in sport. To address this challenge, we highlight the utility of ecological conceptualisations of experience, intention, skill, attention, information, and temporality, in explanations of flow experiences in sport, before discussing some novel empirical predictions motivated by the theory. We suggest that a multiscale ecological dynamics approach is well equipped to explore flow in performer-environment systems that display interaction-dominant dynamics and conclude by outlining avenues for future research created by an ecological dynamics theory of flow in sport
Early Years Practitioners' and Public Health Consultants' Perspectives on the Use of Interactive Electronic Devices in Young Children: A Qualitative Study
Full text linkBackground
Interactive electronic devices (IEDs) are ubiquitous in young children's lives. However, research on their impact on learning and development is still limited. The aim of this study was to understand the perspectives of early years practitioners (EYPs) and public health consultants (PHCs) on the use of IEDs in children aged 3–5.
Methods
Using purposive sampling techniques, we recruited four EYPs and two PHCs from children's nurseries and a government organisation in the northwest of England. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data, which were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and anonymised. Data were analysed using reflective thematic analysis.
Results
EYPs and PHCs noted that although IEDs could negatively impact child development and behaviour, they could also aid in learning. EYPs expressed concerns about the impact of parents' own IED habits on children's communication and social skills. On the other hand, PHCs stressed that substituting outdoor play with the use of these devices could affect children's social and physical skills and reduce physical activity levels, which are crucial for development. Finally, both EYPs and PHCs agreed that there was a need to improve parents' and EYP's knowledge and to develop interactive interventions to promote an understanding of how IEDs should be used with young children.
Conclusion
EYPs and PHCs acknowledge the potential advantages of using IEDs as a teaching tool for children. However, they have concerns about the long-term effects on communication, social and physical skills and how children are impacted by their parents' use of these devices. To support policy statements, future research should offer further evidence of the benefits and harms of IED use
The other rules of the game: a normative social contract for English football
Full text linkPurpose
This paper aims to investigate the views of English football supporter representatives on the implicit club–supporter relationship, pertaining to a normative social contract which can be used to help improve football club governance.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted within an exploratory enquiry, intentionally investigating the fan perspective to understand supporters’ views without the influence of owner self-interest which often leads to commercialisation and/or mis-management.
Findings
Findings show evidence of a normative social contract that reflects many supporters’ dissatisfaction with current practice and provides guidance for the expectations of both parties.
Research limitations/implications
This research aims to stimulate further academic discussion on the underlying principles behind good club and industry governance. It provides a new lens with which to view the club–supporters relationship, adding to previous studies in the area of club governance.
Practical implications
There are implications for both clubs and the forthcoming Independent Football Regulator following a parliamentary Bill that recognises the community importance of clubs and supporters’ unique stakeholder position.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first academic paper linking social contract theory to football. By implementing the research findings, clubs can improve their governance, social capital, accountability and engagement practices in ways considered equitable by both parties