42228 research outputs found
Sort by
Adapted Suicide Safety Plans to Address Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Behaviours in Autistic Adults: Protocol for a Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial
Get PDFBackgroundSuicide prevention is a national priority for the UK government. Autistic people are at greater risk of experiencing self-harm and suicidal thoughts and behaviours than the general population. Safety plans are widely used in suicide prevention but have not yet been designed with and for autistic people. We developed the first safety plan specifically targeting suicidality in autistic adults: the Autism Adapted Safety Plan (AASP). It consists of a prioritised list of hierarchical steps that can be used prior to or during a crisis to mitigate risk of self-harm and suicidal behaviour. This is a pilot study that aims to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the AASPs and the research processes, including the response rates, potential barriers and reach of AASPs, methods of recruitment, what comprises usual care, and economic evaluation methods/tools.MethodsThis is an external pilot randomised controlled trial of a suicide prevention tool aimed at mitigating the risk of self-harm and suicidal behaviour in autistic adults: AASPs. Participants will be assessed at baseline and followed up 1 month and 6 months later. Assessments include questions about self-harm, suicidality, service use, and their experience of the AASP/taking part in the study. Autistic adults who have a clinical autism diagnosis and self-reported history of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, or suicidal behaviours within the last 6 months will be invited to take part in the study. Informed consent will be obtained. Participants will be recruited via community and third sector services (including community settings, autism charities, and mental health charities). They may also “self-refer” into the study through social media recruitment and word of mouth. Ninety participants will be randomised to either develop an AASP or receive their usual care in a 1:1 ratio.DiscussionThe present study will provide an evaluation of the suitability of the processes that would be undertaken in a larger definitive study, including recruitment, randomisation, methods, questionnaires, outcome measures, treatment, and follow-up assessments.Trial registrationISRCTN70594445, Protocol v4: 8/2/22
Buffering against academic loneliness: The benefits of social media-based peer support during postgraduate study
Get PDFAlthough the support provided by social relationships may be essential to a successful student transition, the transition to postgraduate study has had little consideration from a social support perspective. The study described in this article investigated the role played by social support in postgraduate taught students’ adjustment to university, and how social media contributes to this support. Thematic analysis indicated that participants benefitted most from specialised support from peers dealing with similar academic challenges. Facebook Groups showed potential as a platform for building supportive peer networks. However, the heightened visibility of communications on this platform led some participants towards Facebook Messenger as a medium for peer contact. The study suggested that, in order to meet postgraduates’ needs, institutions could ensure postgraduate students have sufficient opportunity for collaboration within their cohorts. Additionally, while social media may aid this process, students’ individual communication preferences may inevitably influence their engagement with particular platforms
The Effect of Education on Homeownership: Evidence from 20th Century School Attendance Laws in the United States
Get PDFThis article examines the causal impact of schooling on the probability of homeownership using decennial US Census data between 1960 and 2000. This is done by employing an instrumental variable approach that exploits historical changes in state mandatory schooling and child labour laws which affected the educational attainment of individuals with relatively low levels of schooling. Aggregate results suggest that policy-induced increases in schooling at the bottom of the educational distribution have a positive impact on homeownership rates of 1.9 percentage points. Disaggregated results reveal that the impact of education is highest among individuals who are located in the middle and top terciles of the income distribution with no effect of additional education in the lowest tercile. These results add to the growing body of literature which suggests that education may lead to positive outcomes beyond labour market earnings
Only a paper moon: The Artemis Accords and future human settlements
No full textProject Artemis was announced in 2017 planning to send women and men back to the Moon. Through this project, the United States is seeking to create an enduring and sustainable presence on the Moon in partnership between NASA, the private sector, and international collaborators. The announcement of the Artemis Accords at the virtual 71st International Astronautical Congress was the result of a concerted diplomatic effort and the Accords are seeking to codify the way in which a sustained presence on the Moon would comport within established international agreements. Foundational principles for regulating the activities of states in outer space were laid down in the Outer Space Treaty 1967. But the Treaty contains no real detail of how humans might establish a society in space beyond a prohibition on State appropriation of outer space and celestial bodies (Article II), forbidding military bases (Article IV), and making states internationally responsible for their national space activities, including non-governmental entities (Article VI). The Moon Agreement of 1979 attempted to codify provisions relating to exploration and the management of resources, but this was largely repudiated by the international community, including China, Russia, and the United States.There has been considerable academic discussion of the way in which the Accords interact with the existing international law. This discussion will touch upon that, whilst seeking to address the broader question about the evolution of space law. The question of the significance of the Accords will be addressed giving consideration as to the role that the Accords could have in shaping the way in which future human settlements might be governed beyond the terms of existing space treaties. It has been identified that a key problem, when considering any form of off-world governance, is the lack of an underpinning shared value system upon which to base any subsequent regulatory or governance structure. As much as the Accords may represent a new epoch in space law, it is timely to ask whether they are another step towards identifying areas of commonality around which new space settlements can coalesce
Designing graded fuel cell electrodes for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells with recurrent neural network (RNN) approaches
Get PDFThe graded distribution of Pt loading in the catalyst layer (CL) and the porosity of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) significantly affect the spatial distributions of electrochemical reaction and mass transport rates, thus influencing the cell performance and durability. A sophisticated physics-based model is established to study the influence of graded Pt loading and GDL porosity at the cathode, with their distribution function obeying the elliptic equation along the in-plane and through-plane directions, on the current density and its uniformity at a given cell voltage. To reduce the computational time and resources, an RNN algorithm-based data-driven surrogate model is developed to assist in the identification of the relationship between the design parameters and the objective functions. Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method is implemented for sampling and then the initial data acquisition is conducted for training and testing the surrogate model. Results show that the machine learning (ML) algorithm could effectively assist the optimal design of the functionally graded electrode, and the surrogate model achieves > 97.9 prediction accuracy for current density and < 0.13 root mean square error (RMSE) for current homogeneity. Both the individual variation of Pt loading and GDL porosity and their interaction are respectively analysed. Results also indicate that the inhomogeneous Pt distribution improves the current density. On the contrary, GDL porosity has a greater impact on the cell performance since current density monotonically increases with the homogeneous GDL porosity. When both the inhomogeneous distributions of Pt loading and GDL porosity are simultaneously considered, the homogeneity of current density is improved. However, the improvement of the homogeneity of current density (increases by 54) sacrifices the maximum current density (reduces by 22)
Pressure Driven Adsorption Cycle Integrated with Thermal Desalination
Get PDFThe canned food market is growing at an annually average rate of 3.6% due to easy access and awareness of dietary requirements, leading to a surge in water withdrawal and an estimated supply-demand gap of 40% by 2030. The conventional desalination processes are not sustainable due to high energy requirements and chemicals injection. The adsorption cycle is an emerging technology for desalination due to its temperature operation. It has many advantages over conventional desalination processes including integration synergy to improve overall performance. The conventional AD cycle processes, however, have lower performance due to inefficient packing of adsorbent in the beds and heat transfer losses to their massive heat exchangers. In this article, we propose an innovative pressure driven adsorption (PDAD) cycle to overcome conventional AD cycle limitations. In PDAD, firstly, low pressure steam is used to regenerate the adsorbent which eliminates the huge infrastructure requirement of water circulation and secondly, steam selectively extracts water vapours from pores, reducing energy consumption. We have tested the PDAD pilot and showed successful regeneration of silica gel at motive steam pressure of 2–5 bar. We also demonstrate that discharge steam from the PDAD at 65 °C can be used as a heat source for a multi effect desalination system when operating in hybrid mode to overcome its operational limitations. Our experiments show that the MED + PDAD cycle increases water production by up to 22% as compared to an earlier hybrid MEDAD cycle. The proposed system has excellent thermodynamic synergy with the combined CCGT power and desalination plant, where low-pressure bleed steam can be utilized more efficiently
Life after lockdown: The experiences of older adults in a contactless digital world
Get PDFIntroduction: The digital response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its effects on the lives of older adults has been well-documented, but less is known about how they experienced the post-lockdown re-emergence into a relatively contactless digital society.
Methods: We report the findings from a qualitative survey (n = 93) and subsequent interviews (n = 9) with older adults aged 50+, where they describe their struggles with some of the newly implemented digital interactions. These struggles cover a range of settings but include using contactless payments, QR codes and apps to facilitate transactions in cafes, bars, and restaurants.
Results: A thematic analysis of our data revealed the intrinsic (e.g. digital literacy) and extrinsic (e.g. malfunctioning technology) factors that limited social inclusion for these participants, and that sometimes even led to moments of public humiliation.
Discussion: Our findings shed light on some of the motivational factors that underpin the age-related digital divide, whilst also highlighting the role of self-directed agism in limiting motivations to learn new digital routines
Reframing commitment in authentic leadership: Untangling relationship–outcome processes
Get PDFAffective organizational commitment is theorized and empirically tested as a key mediator between authentic leadership and desirable employee outcomes. The results of a two-wave survey of 830 business people in Australia support a serial mediation model of authentic leadership efficacy. Followers' perceptions of authentic leadership behavior influence their personal identification and affect-based trust in the leader, which in turn are mediated by affective organizational commitment to positively influence their work engagement and job satisfaction. These findings reinforce previous work that positions personal identification and affect-based trust as the two primary mediating mechanisms of authentic leadership. This paper extends prior research by demonstrating the important role of followers' affective bonds with their organization in the operation of authentic leadership, moving beyond the dyad in our understanding of follower outcomes
Futures of Fracking and the Everyday: Hydrocarbon Infrastructures, Unruly Materialities and Conspiracies
Get PDFDrawing on ethnographic research in two locations facing the prospect of shale gas exploration in Poland and the UK, I analyse how the future can be simultaneously predetermined and undetermined. Local actors handle this complex experience by relating to fracking infrastructures, fixing the materialities of shale gas as well as cultivating an air of conspiracy around the intricacies of gas developments. I focus on the everyday to broaden the scope of recent scholarly writing on resource indeterminacy that explores how corporate strategies create the futures of resource extraction. The contradictory temporalities that these strategies generate have to be reconciled at the sites of extraction. I call for opening our theorisations up to how resource indeterminacy and assertions of predetermined futures are mediated in the everyday contexts of noncorporate actors. By considering these daily forms of engagement with resource exploration, we gain a more realistic perspective on the potentialities of extraction