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Don Paterson
No full textDon Paterson is one of Britain’s leading contemporary poets. A popular writer as well as a formidably intelligent one, he has won both a dedicated readership and most of Britain's major poetry prizes, including the T. S. Eliot Prize on two occasions, the Forward Prize in every category, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. In this first comprehensive study of Paterson’s poetry, Ben Wilkinson presents him as a modern-day metaphysical, whose work is characterised by guileful use of form, musicality, colloquial diction and playful wit, in pursuit of poetry as a moral and philosophical project. Drawing on a wide range of commentators, Wilkinson traces Paterson’s development from collection to collection, providing detailed close readings of the poems framed by theoretical and literary contexts. An essential guide for students, specialists, and the general reader of contemporary poetry, it presents Paterson as a major lyric poet
Positive psychology: resilience and its role within mental health nursing
No full textThis is the ninth article in a series that explores the meaning of positive psychology and the importance it has on the wellbeing of the mental health workforce. It will focus on positive psychology interventions that help to develop resilience and to consider how the uplifting effect of resilience through contemporary use in the field of mental health nursing can be experienced. This article will explain what the term resilience means and how it is embedded in the practice of positive psychological interventions. Finally, it will emphasise how the application of positive psychological interventions can benefit the individual and the organisation. The practical tasks provided in the boxes throughout the article will help the reader identify what resilience means for them and understand how to further develop its transferability through evidence-based, user-friendly exercises
Cartesian and complexity science in quantitative risk management in Zimbabwean banks
Get PDFThis thesis aims to examine critically the extent of Zimbabwean banks’ compliance to cartesian (Basel II/III) and complexity science theories in Quantitative Risk Management. Traditionally, Quantitative Risk Management in banks is examined within the dichotomy of cartesianism and interpretivism where probability and subjective tools are applied respectively. However, the emergence of complexity science from natural and engineering sciences, offers a new perspective. Quantitative Risk Management in Zimbabwean banks is an unexplored field.
Mixed methods are employed to answer objectives of testing and examining critically the usefulness of cartesian and complexity science theories’ adoption in Zimbabwean banks. Data are collected from sixteen banks with structured questionnaires completed by 120 Risk Managers, and archival analysis on 112 annual audited financial statements and 20 reports from past surveys. Data analysis is done with descriptive statistics and hermeneutic methods for triangulation, complementarity, better evidence, and to obtain a holistic picture.
The study empirically discovers that to a large extent Zimbabwean banks have adopted Basel II/III and complexity science with the same speed and in the same direction. However, there is an unbalanced implementation of both theories due to information asymmetries. For instance, Basel II/III implementation reveals stronger compliance to calculative idealism (Pillar 1) than supervision (Pillar 2) and market discipline (Pillar 3). Similarly, complexity science shows stronger adoption of dynamic risk management framework than modeling methods. While all banks in Zimbabwe are compliant to Basel II/III capital modeling methods regardless of size thus creating a level plain field of competition, its usefulness in promoting financial stability is refuted because of diverging regulatory and economic capital. Furthermore, complexity science is found to be more useful where pattern-based management is a prerequisite.
This thesis contributes to knowledge in four specific ways. First, it provides empirical confirmation to laissez-faire theory that cartesian regulation is not useful in bank capitalisation. Second, it pioneers the application of complexity science theory from natural sciences to Quantitative Risk Management of banks within developing country settings. Third, it proposes a dynamic risk management framework and lastly, offers national policy recommendations to improve capital management in Zimbabwean banks
The Professional Literacy tutor; An investigation into the perceptions of knowledge and skills required by trainee and newly qualified subject specialist Literacy/ESOL tutors
Get PDFThe meaning and concept of ‘professionalism’ for Literacy tutors in the Further Education or
Learning and Skills Sector became a government focus in 1990’s following the publication of
the Moser report and has been the subject of ongoing change since this point. The New
Labour Government proposed a qualification reform including professional standards and
subject specialist awards in 2002 and this was brought in under the new inspection
framework of Ofsted in 2002. This new structure identified the need for those teaching
Literacy and ESOL to have subject specialist qualifications that would be delivered alongside
their generic teacher training. This was necessary to meet the needs of the learners.
The focus of this study is to examine Trainee and Novice teachers of Literacy perceptions of
how well prepared they feel to teach in the sector following their course of study on a Post
Graduate Certificate or Certificate of Education qualification Initial Teacher Training course.
The work also examines the background of the development of the Literacy subject
specialist qualifications and why they need to be in existence; the definitions of Literacy
standards and the reasons for the definitions; why learners have not acquired skills in
Literacy by the time they reach adulthood; and what Literacy actually means for learners in
the post compulsory sector. The study follows two cohorts of NTs through from their
perceptions as they begin their studies through to their perceptions on completion of their
studies and six months into their roles as Novice teachers. The methodology involved focus
groups, observation of classes to collect quantitative data, questionnaires and interviews.
The findings revealed the trainee teachers placed significant value on the knowledge of a
literacy teacher and there is evidence that they considered individual personality traits and
characteristics to be important in their role as a professional tutor. There is significant
evidence that the trainees did not feel that they are fully prepared for the diverse sector that
they will work in and there is particular emphasis on the lack of coverage of the GCSE
curriculum and the concept of being a specialist in what is evolving into three distinct areas,
those of Literacy, ESOL and GCSE English.
The implications of the study are that the standards for Initial Teacher Training for Literacy
specialists, and thus the teaching qualifications that these are built on, have not developed
in line with the needs of the sector. One clear aspect that emerges from the study is this
mismatch between the needs of the sector and the preparation of trainee teachers. The
researcher approached the study from a stance of being firmly committed to the need for
prescribed national standards for teachers of Literacy
Development of conducting polymer for application in Biosensor
Get PDFWhen conducting polymers were discovered, their use as low-cost electrocatalysts was
investigated, but their low conductivity, poor environmental stability and poor solution
processibility limit their possible applications. However, with impressive mechanical and
electronic properties of carbon nanomaterials (such as graphene and carbon nanotubes),
remarkable contributions have been made by researchers to fabricate conducting polymers
composites by introducing carbon nanomaterials, especially carbon nanotubes into conducting
polymers so as to combine synergistically the merits of individual components. One of the
major key areas in biosensor field is the enhancement of electrochemical properties of
composite material to make them suitable for use as an active sensing layer during sensor
fabrication. Various techniques and methods have been employed when using these composite
materials as a sensing layer in fabricating biosensor but the majority of these techniques rely
on expensive equipment and complicated processes which would limit the sensor stability and
reliability.
In this work, a novel, low-cost and high performance electrochemical biosensor prototype for
selective determination and amperometric detection of tetracycline hydrochloride (THC)
antibiotics in aqueous media has been developed. This is based on conducting polymer
composites containing functionalised carbon nanotubes and prepared using a unique analytical
amperometry method. Tetracycline was selected as the target analyte because it is one of the
antibiotics most commonly used to treat infections in both human and animals and its residues
in water and food products have become a global problem. Amperometry technique is adopted
in this work to eliminate cost and complicated process that comes with other techniques so as
to achieve highly sensitive and reproducible electroanalytical response. Also, important
drawbacks like electrode fouling and high potential value associated with other techniques have
been successfully eliminated using amperometric detection technique (amperometric i-t curve).
Polyaniline (PANI), a conjugated polymer, was adopted as the sensing layer for amperometric
detection of tetracycline by using its excellent electrochemical sensing properties. A new
method of synthesis of the material was first developed to resolve the problem of polyaniline’s
poor processibility. Polyaniline was synthesised at room temperature via organic/aqueous
interfacial polymerization to yield uniform, pure and template-free nanostructured polyaniline
in bulk quantities, which is readily dispersed in water, invariably facilitating environmentally
friendly processing and superior performance in chemical sensor applications. Subsequently, a polyaniline-based composite containing multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) was
developed. Multiwalled carbon nanotubes were functionalised before the composite was
formed so as to get a good stable dispersion of filler within the polymer matrix. Such a
fabricated composite material was in a powder form which was characterised by a number of
techniques including DC-conductivity measurement, thermal analysis, Fourier transform
infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, cyclic
voltammetry and amperometric detection test, etc. Characterisation results show that the
molecular weight, crystallinity, thermal stability and electrical conductivity of the fabricated
polyaniline powder as well as the composite material were independent of the polymerisation
temperature. Furthermore, the experimental result demonstrates that the composite shows
dramatically improved performance compared to each of the individual components. Increase
in electrical conductivity with the increase of carbon nanotube contents in the composite was
observed, although the composite performance became poorer at higher loading content of
carbon nanotubes.
Electrical conductive thin films were first prepared from the composite material to investigate
their redox potentials and electrochemical properties. The composite was further tested for its
potential applications in detecting antibiotics in aqueous media. A prototype of biosensor was
fabricated by drop casting the composite solution in m-cresol on a glass carbon electrode at
room temperature. M-cresol was used as the processing solvent as compared to other
processing solvents based on the findings in published literature. Moreover, carboxylated
multiwall carbon nanotubes played an important role in obtaining the thin and uniform coating
of polyaniline resulting in the improved amperometric sensor response. The performance of
the sensor was characterized electrochemically and all variables involved during fabrication
process were optimized. Under optimal conditions, the synergistic properties of
PANI/MWCNTs nanocomposite such as the ion-electron transducing capability, hydrophobic
property and active tetracycline binding sites in polyaniline demonstrated high sensitivity,
excellent detection limit, high electrochemical redox activity, fast response time, good
biocompatibility and stability up to 20 days.
This research work has contributed to the development of highly sensitive and stale biosensor
to detect antibiotics in fish farm water spiked with tetracycline. The great potential of this
development was fully demonstrated using PANI/F-MWCNT nanocomposite through a fast,
unique and easy to use analytical method (Amperometry technique). Interfacial polymerisation
makes it possible to improve the porosity of the polymer, and the fabricated nanocomposite
thin film is sufficiently stable under the experimental condition. The GCE electrode modified with the nanocomposite thin film was able to detect antibiotics in the fish farm water due to
hydrophobic property of F-MWCNT and active redox activity of PANI. It is believed that these
findings are important in the field of antibiotics detection and analysis in the future
Pregnancy in a pandemic: generalised anxiety disorder and health anxiety prevalence
No full textAnxieties can be typical to pregnancy. At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, pregnant women were classified as at risk and advised to shield. This may have caused increased generalised anxiety disorder and health anxiety across the demographic. This study aimed to explore current, actual and perceived levels of generalised anxiety disorder and health anxiety in pregnant women during the COVID-19 outbreak. A sample of 674 participants completed an online questionnaire consisting of demographic and pregnancy related questions, the GAD-7 and HAI. The COVID-19 outbreak has increased self-reported levels of general anxiety and health anxiety in pregnant women. Of the sample, 633 (94%) agreed that the outbreak had increased their general anxiety; 607 (90.1%) also reported increased health anxiety. Due to the negative effects that anxieties may cause during pregnancy, it is recommended that reintroducing normality to pre- and postnatal healthcare, where safe to do so, will be beneficial
Effect of compatibilizers on lignin/bio-polyamide blend carbon precursor filament properties and their potential for thermostabilisation and carbonisation
Get PDFBiobased blends from hydroxypropyl modified lignin (TcC) and a biobased polyamide (PA1010) were produced by continuous sub-pilot scale melt spinning process. A reactive compatibilization was employed with the help of two different compatibilizers (ethylene-acrylic ester-maleic anhydride (MA) and ethylene-methyl acrylate-glycidyl methacrylate (GMA)) to enhance the compatibility between the TcC and PA1010. The enhanced compatibility between the TcC and PA1010 achieved by reaction between hydroxyl groups with maleic anhydride groups in the MA compatibilizer or epoxy groups in the GMA compatibilizer via nucleophilic substitution, was confirmed by chemical (Fourier infrared measurements), physical (glass transition, melting and crystallization behaviour), rheological, morphological and tensile properties of the filaments from compatibilized blends. MA compatibilizer required a higher concentration (2 phr) than GMA (1 phr) to achieve an optimal performance because of the difference in the reactive group's concentration within the each compatibilizer. The MA compatibilizer though was more effective than GMA. The precursor blended filaments were successfully carbonized in a lab scale experiment to yield coherent carbon fibres with tensile stress values of 192 ± 77 and 159 ± 95 MPa; and moduli of 16.2 and 13.9 GPa respectively for uncompatibilised and 2% MA compatibilized blends. That the compatibilized carbon fibre properties are slightly inferior may be attributed to the need to accurately control and optimise applied stress during the thermostabilisation and carbonization stages. Notwithstanding, these differences, the results indicate the potential benefit of using compatibilized TcC/PA1010 blend filaments as carbon fibre precursors
Developing the understanding of data-relationships and digital surveillance through collaborative activities between an IT professional and users of communications technologies
Get PDFThis research revolves around the civil liberties issue of attainment of insight into digital surveillance. Thanks to recurring news headlines featuring Wikileaks, GCHQ, Edward Snowden, Russian hacking, Cambridge Analytica, and fake news, public discourse around privacy, surveillance, and trust has been nurtured. Experts in this discourse argue that digital-surveillance by both business and state should be a concern to individuals and that they should have an insight into what is happening to the data they generate.
This research is grounded in work as an I.T. professional working in the higher education domain. The thesis describes activities that provide an insight into data analysis practices and documents the journey of understanding how these activities can become an intervention that makes technology politically 'real'. Using a critical realist perspective, the researcher is able to identify phenomena and aspects of the problem domain, recontextualising them to produce new models of understanding.
Among the outputs of this research are repeatable strategies for running activities to develop the understanding of digital surveillance. During the development of these strategies, it was found that an approach of merely teaching how openly available statistical methods work does not appear to engage the vast majority of learners. The thesis puts forward a type of intervention where freely available statistical methods are applied to community-created data from the digital-commons.
The new models of understanding and intervention strategies can form the basis of an effective model for active engagement in issues facing society