11913 research outputs found
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Neurodiversity and Fabricated or Induced Illness: A conversation with Cathie Long
No full textIn this episode, Professor Sarah Lonbay and Dr Lesley Deacon speak with experienced independent social worker Cathie Long about her professional and personal journey in the field of neurodiversity, and her research into the contentious and deeply impactful issue of Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII).
Cathie shares how her work with autistic and ADHD individuals evolved from her early career in child protection and mental health, alongside her own later-life diagnosis of autism and ADHD. The conversation explores the frequent misdiagnosis of autistic women with Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (formerly Borderline Personality Disorder), the stigma that follows such labels, and the critical need for practitioners to challenge assumptions and see the person beyond the diagnosis.
This conversation is an important listen for social workers, health professionals, and anyone interested in neurodiversity, safeguarding, and systemic change in practice
Improving pubertal health education for adolescent girls through a gamified learning approach
Full text linkBackground
Adolescence is a crucial phase in a person's life. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of gamification in the education of teenage females on pubertal health.
Methods
This clinical trial, conducted on 90 adolescent girls in Babol, Iran, during the 2023-2024 year, used a multistage cluster sampling method to assign participants randomly to intervention and control groups. The intervention group received weekly puberty health education over 4 weeks through a gamification platform. Data collection involved a socio-demographic questionnaire as well as puberty awareness and practice assessments, completed by both groups before the intervention, immediately, and 1 month after study.
Findings
The average puberty awareness and practice scores of the students in the intervention group significantly increased significantly, immediately and 4-week after the intervention compared to the control group (P < .001). The standardized effect sizes for awareness and practice were 0.74 and 0.25, respectively. In the intervention group, puberty awareness siginificanlty increased by 5.28 (95% CI: 4.51-6.06) and 5.06 points (95% CI: 4.31-5.82) when comparing the two time periods before and immediately after, and before and 4 weeks after the intervention, respectively. Similarly, the puberty practice score significanly increased by 6.82 (95% CI: 4.24-9.40) and 8.73 points (95% CI: 5.94-11.51) in the same time comparisons (P < .001).
Conclusion
This study demonstrated the effectiveness of using gamification in puberty health education on increasing puberty awareness and practice among adolescent girls. This innovative educational approach can enhance puberty health education programs, leading to better health outcomes for adolescent girls
How Adolescence is highlighting the communication gap between parents, their children, and an online threat
No full textUniversity of Sunderland expert perspective on Netflix show Adolescence
Correction: Esfandi et al. Energy, Exergy, Economic, and Exergoenvironmental Analyses of a Novel Hybrid System to Produce Electricity, Cooling, and Syngas. Energies 2020, 13, 6453
Full text linkThere was an error in the original publication [1].
References [3,4,6,10,11,17] were incorrectly cited and they have been removed. The remaining references have been renumbered.
Reference [43] has also been added to be cited in Section 2.2, Paragraph 6.
“Mass and energy balances and energy efficiencies for each component of the proposed system are summarized in Table 2 [34,40,41,45–47]” has been changed to “Mass and energy balances and energy efficiencies for each component of the proposed system are summarized in Table 2 [28,34,35,38–41]”.
Reference [43] was removed from Section 2.2. Paragraphs 2 and 3. With this correction, the order of original references 43 and 44 have been switched accordingly to reorder the references.
To make the “Author Contributions” part more clear, some commas have been updated to full stops. The updated version is below:
Author Contributions: S.E.: Conceptualization and Methodology. S.B.: Software and Visualization. M.A.: Conceptualization and Project administration. M.A.E.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Visualization, and Writing—Original Draft. A.A.: Methodology, Software, Visualization, and Writing—Original Draft. A.A.R.: Project administration and Writing—review and Editing. B.D.: Writing—review and editing. V.A.F.C.: Writing—review and editing. A.D.: Software, Writing—review and editing and Supervision. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
The authors state that the scientific conclusions are unaffected. This correction was approved by the Academic Editor. The original publication has also been updated.
Reference
Esfandi, S.; Baloochzadeh, S.; Asayesh, M.; Ehyaei, M.A.; Ahmadi, A.; Rabanian, A.A.; Das, B.; Costa, V.A.F.; Davarpanah, A. Energy, Exergy, Economic, and Exergoenvironmental Analyses of a Novel Hybrid System to Produce Electricity, Cooling, and Syngas. Energies 2020, 13, 6453. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef
The development of police first-line leaders: An international comparison between Australia, England and Wales
Full text linkPolice first-line leaders (sergeants/team leaders/supervisors) have significant impact on the workforce, as such there is the need for leaders to be effectively developed for their role and engage in ongoing learning. This paper focuses on the professional development of police first-line leaders. Comparing and contrasting approaches to knowledge, understanding and skills development within both the classrooms and workplaces across the policing jurisdictions of Australia, England and Wales. The paper explores the part education and training plays within leadership development, approaches to formal educational recognition and challenges which may affect the adoption of national and standardised approaches to leadership development
A Multi-label Chest X-Ray Image Classification Algorithm Based on Multi-Scale and Attribute-Aware Semantic Graph
Full text linkMulti-label Chest X-Ray classification is crucial for intelligent diagnosis, yet existing algorithms usually ignore lesion-scale heterogeneity and attribute conditioned label dependencies, limiting their clinical generalizability. To address these issues, this paper proposes MSASG, a multi-label Chest XRay image classification algorithm based on Multi-Scale and Attribute-aware Semantic Graph which enhances discriminative power and semantic consistency. Firstly, a Multi-scale Feature Partitioning and Reconstruction method is proposed to capture lesion patterns at different scales. Secondly, a Label guided Multi-scale Semantic Alignment method is proposed to improve visual–semantic alignment by integrating label embeddings into feature extraction and using a Transformer to model high-order cross-modal dependencies.
Finally, an Attribute-aware Graph Convolutional Network method is proposed to construct attribute-specific label co-occurrence matrices and dynamically select relevant structures during inference, enabling personalized characterization of label dependencies. Experiments on ChestX-ray14 and CheXpert show that MSASG outperforms state-of-the-art methods in recognizing complex lesion co-occurrence and adapting to heterogeneous population
Performing social work: Young fathers’ reflections on social work
Full text linkYoung fathers are marginalized by parenting discourses which focus on women and negative discourses about young people as parents. In this study, young fathers explored their discursive constructions of their own and social workers’ identities and considered their perceptions of social workers as professionals involved in their children’s lives, as well as their thoughts about how they felt social workers view their role as fathers. The study applied Butler’s performativity and gender performances with young fathers to explore how they think social workers perform social work and used critical discourse analysis to examine data from an online focus group of young fathers. While the fathers demonstrated capacity to recognize their own parenting and how this has evolved, they explained social workers expect them to reproduce negative parenting stereotypes and inhabit a role less deserving of support than mothers. This study highlights how young dads experience intersectional discrimination as young people and fathers and concludes by recommending that safe spaces are needed for relationships of trust to be developed between social workers and young dads where their own needs for support can be voiced. Meeting these needs is critical if fathers are to be encouraged and recognized as involved parents
An adaptable framework for remotely controlling a telepresence robot in a dynamic environment
Full text linkThis paper presents a framework for telepresence robot navigation in dynamic environments with network-induced time delays. The proposed system introduces a predictive control model that processes sensor data, implements real-time control algorithms, and transmits commands to enable robust remote navigation. To address visual and control discrepancies caused by latency, a state estimation model is employed to minimise the visual disparity between the robot’s actual and perceived positions. Additionally, a simulation-based predictive controller anticipates operator commands to improve teleoperation accuracy. A key contribution of this work is the development of a low-cost, simulation-based telepresence platform that enables controlled experiments without relying on expensive physical infrastructure. The system is designed for flexibility, allowing parameter adjustments to suit a range of experimental conditions. By integrating predictive technologies and addressing latency-related challenges, this research advances the state-of-the-art in telepresence robotics and provides a practical, reproducible foundation for future studies in remote robot navigation
Quantitative precision in cardiac sarcoidosis imaging: the emerging role of myocardial-to-background ratio in FDG-PET
Full text linkEditoria
AI-Driven Transformations in Smart Buildings: A Review of Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Operations
Full text linkThis comprehensive review examines the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on smart buildings and real estate management through a systematic narrative analysis of peer-reviewed articles and industry reports published between 2016-2024. Using a thematic synthesis approach across five primary domains, property valuation, predictive maintenance, tenant screening, marketing and sales, and smart building operations, we investigated AI's role in enhancing energy efficiency and sustainable operations. Key findings reveal that AI-powered systems achieve remarkable performance improvements: valuation accuracy increased from 70% to 95%, operational costs reduced by 17.6%, maintenance costs decreased by 13.2%, and energy savings reached 14% while maintaining 91% resident satisfaction. Our analysis identifies critical implementation barriers including data quality challenges, algorithmic bias risks, substantial upfront investments, and skills gaps. The review reveals that ensemble machine learning techniques achieve 85-100% accuracy in energy forecasting, while IoT-integrated predictive maintenance systems extend equipment lifespan by 25-30%. Despite promising benefits, ethical considerations around privacy, transparency, and fairness demand immediate attention. This review contributes novel insights into the economic-environmental nexus of AI adoption, demonstrating that sustainable building operations and profitability are not mutually exclusive but rather synergistic outcomes of intelligent system integration