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The role of equanimity in facilitating positive mental states and mental wellbeing
Get PDFRecently, the science behind mindfulness meditation has increasingly turned towards how and why its
practice can result in such varying change. Whether it is with attention, awareness or structural brain
change, research has moved more towards deconstructing mindfulness’s psychological attributes. This
research investigates and identifies equanimity as one of the key facets of mindfulness therapeutic care.
Therefore, the studies within this thesis were motivated by the lack of comprehensive empirical research
into the construct of equanimity within Mindfulness-Based Interventions [MBIs]. Often MBIs
implicitly cover equanimity; however, there are no specific psychometric scales that measure
equanimity or barriers to equanimity and no primary operational definition in Western science. This
restricts scientific research and understanding into the psychologically therapeutic elements of
mindfulness practice. Examining the non-judgmental aspect of mindfulness further, the thesis proposes
an operational definition of inner and outer equanimity, a ‘model of judgement’ and ‘naturally
occurring ignorance’ before validating the first scale to measure barriers to equanimity, henceforth
known as the Equanimity Barriers Scale [EBS]. Mindfulness research must be able to differentiate
attention, awareness and non-judgemental facets encompassed under the umbrella of mindfulness, in
order to achieve clarity over its psychological beneficence and aid further advancement in the field. The
proposed model of judgement and EBS was validated by 4 separate studies. The first Principal
Component Analysis (n=453) utilised in order to explore underlying factors associated with barriers to
equanimity. The second study refined the factors via Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n=108) and the
third study (n=302) tested convergent and discriminant validity of the scale. The final study (n=327)
tested differences between groups in relation to the EBS with age, anxiety, depression and mental
wellbeing. The findings demonstrate how a person with fewer barriers to equanimity is more likely to
be able to emotionally regulate, have greater self-compassion, mindfulness and mental wellbeing,
whereas a person who has higher barriers to equanimity has greater risk of anxiety, depression and difficulties in emotional regulation. The development of a new model and first-ever scale to measure
barriers to equanimity extends the body of knowledge of the existing literature and research related to
mindfulness, and more specifically, to the adoption of equanimity within person-centred therapy,
clinical psychology and general health and wellbeing. The thesis therefore provides both theoretical
and practical contributions to knowledge. This is critical given the current state of mental health in the
world as individuals face unique challenges in relation to their own distinctive patterns of experience
and individual differences on a psychological and social level. Understanding barriers to equanimity
enables individuals to strengthen mindfulness practice and continue advancement in wellbeing with
openness, acceptance and less discrimination. Therefore, the proposed thesis serves as a platform for a
closer insight into personal navigation of an often-polarised world
Positive psychology: gratitude and its role within mental health nursing
Get PDFThis is the fifth article in a series of articles that explores the meaning of positive psychology and the importance of applying the latest related research findings for the wellbeing of the mental health workforce. It will focus on gratitude as a positive psychology intervention in its present day use in mental health nursing. It will explain what gratitude is and what it is not combined with the complementary underpinning theoretical work of Robert Emmons. It reports on neurological changes when gratitude is practised and is applied to a contemporary event linked to trauma. Finally it emphasises the importance of effective leadership in how the application of gratitude can benefit the individual, the organisation and the client. The practical tasks provided in the boxes throughout the article will help the reader identify what gratitude means for them and understand how to further develop its transferability through evidence-based, user friendly exercises
The ethical issues of learning analytics in their historical context
Get PDFThe ethical context of Learning Analytics is framed by two related processes. Firstly, the amount of personal data available to organisations has been transformed by the computerisation and the subsequent development of the Internet. Secondly, the methods and ethical assumptions of Operations Research have been extended into new areas. Learning Analytics can be conceptualised as the extension of Operations Research methods to educational institutions, in a process facilitated by technological and social changes in the early twenty-first century. It is argued that the ethical discourse has viewed Learning Analytics as a discrete field, and focused on its internal processes, at the expense of its connections with the wider social context. As a result, contradictions arise in the practice of research ethics, and a number of urgent issues are not given due consideration. These include the partial erosion of the consensus around the Nuremberg code; the use of ethical waivers for quality improvement; the coercive extraction of data; the use of analytics as an enabling technology for management; and the educational implications of the relationship between surveillance and trust
Policy, classroom practice and teacher training in the education of children with calculation operation skills difficulties: a case study in South Western Nigeria
Get PDFThe author of this thesis is a lecturer in Special Education in a teacher education
institution in South Western Nigeria, and this research addresses problems which he
has observed in the course of his practice with teachers of children with calculation
operation skills difficulties. Some teachers were untrained and unprepared for the
challenges they face when teaching young learners with calculation operation
difficulties in mainstream classrooms. The research addressed this problem by
carrying out a training intervention, validated by research evidence, to introduce new
methods to teachers working in regular schools.
A multi-site case study was carried out in three schools, each in a different state in
South Western Nigeria, making use of a qualitative methodology. The investigation
was structured by Stake’s ‘countenance of education’ model, which provides a
method for the evaluation of educational interventions.
The main findings of the research are that there is a gap between policy and practice
in the support for learners with calculation operation difficulties in South-Western
Nigeria. Two particular barriers to learning are identified. Firstly, the use of English in
teaching learners with calculation operation difficulties is a problem for learners, and
it is recommended that teachers should switch between the first languages of the
learners and English, according to the pedagogic needs of the learner. The use of
abstract teaching methods also hinders learners in acquiring calculation operation
skills. The research shows that training can lead to changes in both the use of
language and in the use of abstract methods.
Two additional findings are that the way that education is organized in Nigeria makes
it very hard to obtain a clear picture of practice, and that the value of the Teaching
Practice Analysis Report checklist, which is widely used in South Western Nigeria,
should be reassessed
Design of high-performance Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs) for energy harvesting applications
Get PDFThe growing concerns around the long-term viability of the fossil fuel-based energy and its associated environmental cost are necessitating new research paradigms for energy generation and harvesting. An attractive and effective way to respond to the current energy crisis is through the harvesting of ambient mechanical energy from our environment. The conventional mechanical energy harvesting technologies are highly dependent on either the use of rare earth magnetic materials, high precision microfabrication techniques or composed of brittle materials, which are required to be driven at very high resonant frequencies, not frequently encountered beyond an industrial setting. Recently, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG), based on the triboelectrification and electrostatic induction effects, have been demonstrated as a novel harvesting technique to collect and transform ambient mechanical energy into electric power. Unlike the other mechanical energy harvesters, the low-cost TENGs fabricated using commodity polymers and facile fabrication techniques, operate at low frequencies (1-10 Hz) with a high energy conversion efficiency. One of the key areas in TENG research is the enhancement of their electrical output to make them suitable for either making a self-powered system viable or powering small portable electronics directly. Except for the judicious use of tribo-materials or the tribo-layer architecture optimisation, the rest of the methods for enhancing the TENG output are reliant on expensive equipment and complicated processing, that undermine the advantages of TENGs and may not provide the required stability and reliability. This PhD study aims to establish novel strategies to enhance output performance of TENG by developing new tribo-materials and phenomena such as coupling of tribo-piezoelectric effects to showcase potential applications of the TENG devices. The research work conducted and the achievements are summarized as follows. Firstly, a novel output performance improvement strategy of utilising stress-induced polarization effect of the piezoelectric materials was proposed. An interfacial layer of piezoelectric zinc oxide (ZnO) nanosheets was deposited to generate additional piezoelectric charge induced by the vertical contact-separate generation cycle. This extra piezoelectric charge is injected into the upper polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) tribo-negative layer for the enhancement of the surface charge density from ~110 μC.m-2 to ~225.7 μC.m-2. The introduction of the ZnO and Zn-Al:Layered Double Hydroxides (LDH), as charge injection layer and anionic clay, enhanced the instantaneous power output from ~11 W.m-2 to 47 W.m-2.
Subsequently, based on a similar principle, a novel composite of lead-free perovskite, zinc stannate (ZnSnO3), and a fluoropolymer, poly(vinylidene fluoride), PVDF, was proposed for the stress-polarisation tribo-negative behaviour with a simplified structure. The PVDF-ZnSnO3 composite membranes were realised through a facile phase-inversion technique leading to higher piezoelectric constant (76.3 pm.V-1) and β-phase (72%) for the composites. When applied to the TENG devices, the PVDF-ZnSnO3 membranes allowed spontaneous polarisation effects which led to significant enhancement of the electrical outputs, with maximum peak-to-peak voltage and effective transferred current density of ~600 V and ~206 µC.m-2, respectively. The surface charge enhancement and distribution of the composite membrane were also probed and demonstrated through the electrostatic force (EFM) and piezoelectric force microscopy (PFM). To overcome the difficulty in processing of the currently known most tribo-negative material, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), an emulsion electrospinning technique incorporating polyethene oxide (PEO) was introduced. It was observed that the subsequent thermal removal of PEO led to a significant degradation in the surface charge density of the obtained PTFE
nanofibrous membranes, which was overcome using a facile negative ion-injection process. The measured electrical outputs, with a maximum peak-to-peak voltage output of ~900 V and charge density of ∼149 μC.m−2, demonstrated the excellent effect of the enhanced contact area to the improvement of the outputs. The work eliminates the demonstrated need for surface micro structuring using reactive ion etching of PTFE surfaces by introducing a relatively simple, costeffective, and environmentally friendly technique for fabricating fibrous fluoropolymers tribonegative layer for the energy harvesting applications. Finally, a unique mouldable material, aniline formaldehyde resin (AFR) was synthesised and characterised. The synthesised AFR, as a resinous polymer with significant amine (-NH2) groups acquires the most surface positive charge, is applied as a tribo-positive material. The heatpressed AFR thin-film based TENG was subsequently tested to demonstrate its outstanding performance serving as a tribo-positive layer compared to the Polyamide 6 (PA6) and polyethene oxide (PEO), as one of the most common used tribo-positive materials. In addition, a Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) was subsequently employed to study the surface potential of the produced AFR layer and the surface potential change of the contact layers during the energy generation cycles. All of the produced high-performance TENGs (power output ranging from 9 - 47 W.m-2) have the potential to be utilised further in enabling self-powered systems and can serve as a new alternative energy harvesting source of great significance
Impacts of industry 4.0 in sustainable food manufacturing and supply chain
Get PDFIntegration of Sustainability and sustainable practices have been of paramount importance within most manufacturers' supply chain environment globally. Apart from the fact that every organisation now use this to improve on their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), this is also used as an opportunity to manage production and services within most firms efficiently. This sustainability is now a strategy adopted by most businesses to meet their customers' expectation considering the sustainable society awareness of which food manufacturing is not an exception. The use of several innovative strategies and incorporation of Industry 4.0 has been employed by some food manufacturers to meet up with this sustainability. This paper through a qualitative research study seeks to bridge the interconnection between Industry 4.0 and sustainable practices within food manufacturing supply chain
Sustainability Performance of Rice Manufacturing in Nigerian Supply Chains
No full textThe global battle of climate change is considered paramount, and one of the potential solutions to this could be the integration of sustainable practices at every level of operations in both manufacturing and service sectors. Adoption of sustainable practices is now of high importance in every industry, and various researchers have identified and precept sustainability as what every industry could consider ensuring a better future for better environment and prosperity within most sectors. Meanwhile, consideration of these sustainable practices within significant areas like food manufacturing industry will play a big role in improving the global environmental challenges and positively impact the economic and social aspect of most nations. This study, therefore, aims to evaluate sustainable food manufacturing supply chain environment proposing a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on the triple bottom line of sustainability. The study carries out a survey seeking opinions from the experts in the industry and implements the use of common mean method to analyse and evaluate sustainability performance. The study ranks the performance by evaluating the triple bottom line of sustainability using the level of importance associated with the identified indicators of general food industry. The result identifies the top set of key performance indicators peculiar to rice manufacturing in Nigeria
Remarkable Lives : Stacey Withington in conversation with Jerome Carson.
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to provide a profile of Stacey Withington.
In this Case Study Stacey provides a short account of her life and is then interviewed by Jerome.
Stacey details how she was able to transform her life, despite the traumas experienced in her life.
While many of us will not have experienced the difficulties that Stacey has, we are all able to empathise with her story. We now have the gift of her story, to borrow the phrase from Dr Julie Leibrich (Leibrich, 1999).
How many times must people complain about the delay in accessing counselling and mental health services, before something is done to tackle the problem?
A Mum, a partner and a son, backed up by wonderful tutors and friends, helped Stacey find the strength and talent she possessed within.
Stacey is the first person featured in this series to be called a SHEro. In truth and as Patricia Deegan has stated, “try and see the person with mental health problems that you are working with as a hero,” (Deegan, 1996). As Pat also says, “Could you have survived what that person has survived?” Stacey has not just survived, she is now flourishing
Exploring the effects of postpartum depression on relationships and how healthcare services can be improved
Get PDFThe aim of this dissertation is to examine the effects of postnatal depression upon relationships within the family and how healthcare services can be improved. This library-based dissertation consists of a collection of secondary research in and around the discussion of postpartum depression. This study found that there are significant impacts of maternal depression that has a substantial effect upon the mother and other family members including children. The effects can cause a decline in development within children and adult growth. Overall, through thorough evaluation and analysis of fifteen literature reviews this thesis has concluded that the healthcare services must increase their levels of support and introduce more early interventions in order to maintain a healthier experience of motherhood and childhood. This will increase the mental health for both parents and children as it has proven to have a catastrophic impact on relationships and home environments