42228 research outputs found
Sort by
Screening for learning disability in primary care: an examination of feasibility against the Wilson-Jungner criteria
Full text linkPeople with learning disabilities face major health inequities and reducing these requires the learning disability to be recognised in the first place. There are screening tools designed to support primary care professionals to identify who, from among their patients, is likely to have a learning disability. These individuals can then undergo a full assessment and, if needed, receive support and interventions such as annual health checks. One question that arises is whether routine screening for learning disability in primary care is feasible. In this article, the authors examine the feasibility of routine screening for learning disability in primary care against the Wilson-Jungner criteria, which are the gold standard for appraising screening programmes
The introduction and development of a mental health integrated support unit within an English Prison: clinical, care staff and Operational Officer perspectives
Full text linkPurpose
There is clear evidence that prison can be detrimental to mental health and that wider society has tended to assume “out of sight, out of mind” for prisoners in mental distress. The lack of access to effective mental health care in prisons along with increasingly lower numbers of prison officers, or Operational Officers (OOs), has created a negative culture that requires the development of specialist services. With this comes a need to conduct evaluations, and investigations, into the roles of OOs and mental health-care staff. This study aims to report on a commissioned evaluation around the introduction and development of an HMP Mental Health Unit, named the integrated support unit (ISU), in the North of England. This study’s section of the wider evaluation focuses on the early team building, working practice and development of mental health registered nurses, other care staff and OOs within the ISU.
Design/methodology/approach
Three focus groups incorporating two professional groups took place on the ISU. The first of six Mental Health Workers (MHW) including Registered Mental Health Nurses and support workers; the second of two sets of two ISU dedicated OOs. The areas addressed within each of the groups concerned why staff wanted to work in the ISU, as well as how they would measure its potential success, and the necessary skills competencies and training they thought were required to prepare them to work in the area.
Findings
Overall, the participants expressed an interest or enthusiasm for their work having actively chosen to work in the ISU. There was a strong sense of a wish for the unit to succeed; in fact, success was a motivating drive for all. Both OOs and MHW emphasised the importance of teamworking, autonomy and freedom as well as information sharing. Analysis also revealed many areas of practice that were challenging. The findings are optimistic for the development of such special units as evaluated here. The drivers for different professions along with their measures of success in the field are discussed in detail. The relationship, expectations, hopes and needs of both MHW and prison officers working in a multidisciplinary unit provide useful information to support both policy and practice in the field. The authors make recommendations around training regimes and how they can effectively coordinate the different symbiotic professional roles. The ISU is a new initiative in offender management within prisons and is reviewed as a model of mental health practice in prison settings.
Practical implications
The value in recruiting to the ISU dedicated OOs, with committed interests in mental health. A continued emphasis on the ongoing development of team working, focussing on issues of risk, trust and treatment. The development (by nurses) of a formal/mandatory period of training for new OO’s prior to taking up a role on the ISU. For mental health nurses to embrace team leadership/educator roles in the areas of mental health awareness, team building and conflict resolution. To capture and formulate and develop the specific range of mental health interventions offered within the ISU.
Originality/value
The presented research explores and evaluates the introduction of a new mental health wing (ISU) for 11 patients in a Northern UK prison. It does this through the consideration of group discussions with both MHW and OOs on this wing. This work is part of a larger study
Hysteresis effect on austenite-martensite interface in Ni-Mn-Ga single crystal
Full text linkThe experiments on Ni-Mn-Ga single crystal shape memory alloy under a heating-cooling cycle demonstrate that the automatically generated twin laminate structure of the compatible austenite-martensite interface in the forward martensitic phase transition is significantly different from that in the reverse phase transition, even though the temperature hysteresis is small (As - Ms around 4 ◦C). Moreover, after the cooling-induced austenite → martensite transition, the remaining twin laminate is so fine (layer width around 1 μm) that the neighbouring twin boundaries merge with each other and disappear, making the fine twin laminate evolve into a single martensite variant (i.e., spontaneous detwinning). These observations provide insights into the relation betweenthe hysteresis (phase-transition driving forces), austenite-martensite interface, and the basic material parameters such as twin boundary energy and softening modulus during the phase transition
Writing Doctors and Writing Health in the Long Eighteenth Century
Full text linkThis introduction to the special issue ‘Writing Doctors and Writing Health in the Long Eighteenth Century’ explores the various types of literary and visual creativity enacted by medical practitioners as they sought new ways of communicating and engaging with the public. Focusing on the shift from Latin to vernacular publishing in elite medical circles, we examine the proliferation of new opportunities open to physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, medical artists, midwives, and other women practitioners to express themselves. Novels, drama, poetry, artworks, almanacs, and letters, to name but a few creative products of the period, allowed new ideas and underrepresented voices to be heard for the first time, changing forever the way creative and empirical cultures would intertwine. Stemming from the Leverhulme Trust Research Project Writing Doctors: Medical Representation and Personality, ca. 1660–1832 (2018–22), this research has undoubtedly been impacted by the rapidly changing nature of public healthcare in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic that was still ongoing when this issue went to print. We value and celebrate connections made between the past and present that continue to assist us in understanding and caring for our bodies
‘Make the Medick Art my Whole Concern’: Poetry as Women's Literary Medical Practice
Full text linkThe act of writing has long been acknowledged as integral to eighteenth-century medical practice, with medical practitioners relying on their ability to communicate via the written word for professional success. Partly as a result of their literary activities, the achievements of male physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries are frequently well-documented, yet the same cannot be said of women engaging in medical work. This essay argues that eighteenth-century women's medical practice extended into their creative writing, with numerous women writers utilising poetry as a central form of authoritative expression on matters of health. Verse offered opportunities to scrutinise, advise on, and influence medical knowledge and practice. Print and manuscript works by authors Jane Barker (1652-1732), Martha Hodges (fl.1675-1725), and Susanna Blamire (1747-94), serve a variety of functions, including arguing for women's medical education, reimagining the workings of the body, and advocating holistic forms of practice that unite physical and emotional forms of care
Insights of energy and its trade networking impacts on sustainable economic development
Full text linkOil and gold are considered as the most vigor influencer for any economy. In this research volatility spillover networking among the oil (energy), gold, and Asian leading emerging stock markets are constructed by the coalescence of two approaches BEKK-GARCH and complex networking. The data consists of the daily return of sixteen Asian countries’ stock markets, an index of the Asia Pacific, and future prices of oil and gold contracts for the period of 01–01-2010 to 31-05-2020. It covers all the recent shocks of the current decade to study the impact of these crises. The data is further divided into four sub-periods as well for this research. The results of our total period detect that commodities of oil and gold receive more volatility spillover than transfer it to stock indices of Asia Pacific countries. Moreover, it is also observed that, as compared to oil, gold had more strong significant spillover linkages. Among all Asian economies, the Chinese stock markets had more influence on the price movement of oil and gold. Whereas, India had more significant correlations with other neighboring stock indices. The results of this research not only provide the facts about the interconnection of oil, gold, and Asian Pacific countries in the current scenarios but also give very useful directions for future researchers, investors, and hedgers, as well as for policymakers interested in the Asian region
A three-layer joint distributionally robust chance-constrained framework for optimal day-ahead scheduling of e-mobility ecosystem
Full text linkA high number of electric vehicles (EVs) in the transportation sector necessitates an advanced scheduling framework for e-mobility ecosystem operation to overcome range anxiety and create a viable business model for charging stations (CSs). The framework must account for the stochastic nature of all stakeholders’ operations, including EV drivers, CSs, and retailers and their mutual interactions. In this paper, a three-layer joint distributionally robust chance-constrained (DRCC) model is proposed to plan day-ahead grid-to-vehicle (G2V) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) operations for e-mobility ecosystems. The proposed three-layer joint DRCC framework formulates the interactions of the stochastic behaviour of the stakeholders in an uncertain environment with unknown probability distributions. The proposed stochastic model does not rely on a specific probability distribution for stochastic parameters. An iterative process is proposed to solve the problem using joint DRCC formulation. To achieve computational tractability, the second-order cone programming reformulation is implemented for double-sided and single-sided chance constraints (CCs). Furthermore, the impact of the temporal correlation of uncertain PV generation on CSs operation is considered in the formulation. A simulation study is carried out for an ecosystem of three retailers, nine CSs, and 600 EVs based on real data from San Francisco, USA. The simulation results show the necessity and applicability of such a scheduling framework for the e-mobility ecosystem in an uncertain environment, e.g., by reducing the number of unique EVs that failed to reach their destination from 272 to 61. In addition, the choice of confidence level significantly affects the cost and revenue of the stakeholders as well as the accuracy of the schedules in real-time operation, e.g., for a low-risk case study, the total net cost of EVs increased by 247.3% compared to a high-risk case study. Also, the total net revenue of CSs and retailers decreased by 26.6% and 10.6%, respectively
A grounded theory of information exclusion and information inclusion: framing the information experience of people seeking asylum
Full text linkPurpose
This paper discusses an original theory of information exclusion and information inclusion, which explains how information interactions can be structured in ways that either exclude or include people seeking asylum.
Design/methodology/approach
This theory was developed through an ethnographic study of the information experience of people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. Fieldwork involved participant observations, participatory research workshops and semi-structured interviews, analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach.
Findings
People seeking asylum are confronted with two main information environments: the asylum system and the local third sector. Each environment frames contrasting information access, sharing and literacy practice modalities: the former produces information deprivation, information sharing agency denial and a fracturing information literacy practice; the latter facilitates multiple information affordances, information sharing agency promotion, and both local and heritage information literacy practice promotion. Our theory of information exclusion and information inclusion describes how through these modalities, an information environment can either promote or preclude inclusion.
Originality/value
Previous information studies of migration tend to conceptualise social ex/inclusion as a linear journey. Our theory originally frames this as a non-straightforward and conflicting process, allowing to better understand the experience of people who are not simply either socially excluded or included, but may experience both states depending on context. It also shows that exclusion is not a matter of fact and is not fundamental to asylum systems: it is produced by specific policies and procedures and can therefore be changed. Thus, this theory provides conceptual tools for researchers to investigate the information experience of individuals moving between conflicting information practices, and for civil society actors and policymakers to document exclusionary information practices and design inclusive ones
Ageing Well with Creative Arts and Pets: The HenPower Story
Full text linkHenPower is a programme that enables older people who live with dementia in care homes to take part in hen-keeping and hen-related creative activities. It was introduced into UK care homes to address evidence suggesting older adults who live with dementia in care homes can experience diminished personal wellbeing. This study aimed to 1) assess the impact of HenPower on people who have dementia who are living in a care home and 2) explore care home staff views and experiences of the HenPower programme. A nested qualitative design was adopted, utilizing observation of 29 older people who live in a care home and 25 staff individual and small-group interviews. Five themes emerged: ongoing meaningful engagement with hens, self-expression through creative activities, improved mood and participation, improved social interaction, and enhanced living environment. HenPower offers potential wellbeing benefits to older people living in care homes, many of which echo with existing evidence on non-pharmacological approaches
The relevance of gunshot residues in forensic science
Full text linkGunshot residues (GSR) are routinely exploited by forensic scientists in the investigation of firearm-related events. While many new techniques are daily reported in the literature for the analysis of GSR, there is still a significant lack of data on the transfer, persistence, and prevalence of GSR. Such fundamental knowledge is essential to fully exploit the information potential of GSR for investigation or in Court. This article provides an overview of the relevant questions related to GSR, more particularly to infer about the trace's origin (i.e., is it from a firearm discharge?) and the activity that caused transfer (e.g., primary, secondary, or subsequent transfer). GSR production and composition will be briefly described, considering both inorganic and organic components. Then, the available knowledge about the primary transfer, the secondary transfer, and the persistence of GSR will be outlined, as well as the prevalence (background level) of the targeted elements and/or compounds in the environment, more particularly on the hands of people unrelated to firearm incidents. Finally, the methods developed for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of GSR will be discussed. A holistic approach combining fundamental forensic science knowledge about GSR transfer, persistence, and prevalence together with other available information is discussed as a path forward to increase the relevance and value of the GSR trace in practice