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Factors influencing perceived stress in middle leaders of education
Get PDFLambert, S., Factors influencing perceived stress in middle leaders of education, Management in Education (Journal Volume Number 39 and Issue Number 4) pp. 179-184. Copyright © [2023] (2023 British Educational Leadership, Management & Administration Society (BELMAS)). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.The role of middle leaders, that is those who report to a member of the organisation’s senior leadership, in bringing about improvements to schools is well documented. Yet middle leadership is often considered one of the most challenging roles within educational leadership, often under-conceptualised and theorised. Before we can look at the literature on resilience and any potential role it has in mediating against stress within the workplace, we need to know what stressors middle leaders in education experience. This paper outlines some initial findings from a study of 62 middle leaders, in England, exploring the key stressors they experience in their role. All participants were asked to complete a short online survey where they could enter free text when asked to identify the 5 stressors they most commonly experienced. Participants felt that staffing issues, followed by a lack of time and increasing workloads as the most prevalent issues. Commonly cited stressors such as inspections did not score highly, due to the temporary nature of the stress being induced. This is particularly important if staff are to be encouraged into leadership roles and senior leaders are to provide support for those already occupying middle leadership positions
City neighbourhood branding and new urban tourism
Get PDFThis is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Current Issues in Tourism on 24/05/2023, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2023.2214719City authorities worldwide have sought to rejuvenate and diversify their tourism product offerings by dispersing visitors into less familiar and frequented locales. Despite calls to understand such ‘new tourism areas’ (NTAs) in urban areas, few researchers have examined visitor responses to the implementation of NTA strategies, particularly outside Europe. This quantitative approach considers the profiles, attitudes and behaviours of NTA visitors in an Asian city that was undertaking dispersal efforts pre-pandemic in the context of mass inbound Chinese visitation. Distinct profiles are found for NTA visitors relative to other city arrivals in response to Hong Kong’s branding propositions. It is found that NTAs appeal to repeat visitors seeking cosmopolitan experiences and may help tourist dispersal and product differentiation, though the proposition that NTA visitors are more highly educated was not supported.Hospitality and Tourism Research Centre; Grant(s): ZVBUAAM added to record 05/09/2023
Ret-gadgets in RISC-V-based Binaries Resulting in Traps for Hijackers
Get PDFThe presence of instructions within executable programs is what makes the binaries executable. However, attackers leverage on the same to achieve some form of Control Flow Hijacking (CFH). Such code re-use attacks have also been found to lead to Denial of Service (DoS). An example of code re-use attack is Return Oriented Programming (ROP) which is caused by passing input crafted as chained sequences of instructions that are already existing as subroutines in the target program. The instructions are called gadgets and they would normally end with ret. The ret instructions enable the flow of hijacked execution from one set of instruction to another within the attacker’s control. There could however be exceptions depending on the structure of the chained gadgets where the chained gadget fails to run its course due to inability of specific gadgets to replace the value in the return address (ra) register. The dangers of chained gadgets are not a new idea but the possibility for an attacker’s gadget chain to fall into a trap during a ROP attack is not commonly addressed. In addition to this, recent studies have revealed that understanding the behaviours of gadgets would be useful for building information base in training machine learning (ML) models to combat ROP. This study explains the behaviour of certain ROP gadgets showing the possibility of occurrence of a loop in execution during exploitation. A sample program which accesses gadgets from the GNU C library (glibc) is used to demonstrate the findings. Gadgets identified with this possibility are poor for chaining as they do not contain instructions to load or move new values to the ra register and would produce unreliable exploits. This would result in a trap for the chained gadgets instead of arbitrary code execution, and DoS on the path of the user. This implies that the impact that a ROP chain could have on a targeted process does not only rely on the underlying system architecture but also on relies on the structure of the chained gadget. In this paper, the RISC-V architecture is the focus, new gadget finders (scripts are available) are presented, and sample of chained gadgets are analysed on a RISC-V -based binary
Enemy Encounters in Modern Warfare
Get PDFDuring the First World War, enemy soldiers and civilians died not just on the battlefield, but also on the home front. This chapter considers the case of some 3,000 Germans who lost their lives in wartime Britain. Its starting point is the multiple ways that the enemy died at home. Some of these men died in direct combat, drowning on sinking ships or plummeting to earth on downed aeroplanes, while others succumbed to illness or disease in internment camps. This chapter argues that regardless of the cause, death had the effect of altering British perceptions of the enemy. Where the Germans had once been a threatening faceless mass, the subject of invasion literature or spy fever, death blunted these fears, and the British had to confront their subjugated enemy in a very different way. The Germans now gained an identity, receiving individual funerals, a grave and a wooden cross inscribed with their name. Once interred in local communities throughout Britain, the German dead gradually blurred into rural landscapes, no longer in opposition to this space, but at one with it
Still a rite of passage? A perspective on current therapeutic attitudes and interventions in relation to cyberbullying
No full textThis article is not available on ChesterRepThis paper examines cyberbullying concerning therapeutic interventions. A section on bullying and how bullying impacts the therapeutic environment is included. The author provides his definition of bullying to incorporate cyberbullying and how it is no longer a “new issue” but an evolving one. The current status of therapeutic interventions used to support victims of cyberbullying has been explored, emphasising their effectiveness in assisting those experiencing bullying. A segment has been implemented to comprehend whether practitioners fully understand the potential implications of cyberbullying on clients, whether bullying is still seen as a “rite of passage” and what the possible consequences of this could be. Peer interventions and support groups concerning cyberbullying have been referenced, including The KiVa Programme, the Shared Concern Method and The Circle of Friends Method. These have highlighted specific examples of therapeutic and nontherapeutic approaches to intervene with cyberbullying. A section on potential further training is presented for practitioners working within educational environments. Moreover, physical, psychological, sexual and relational bullying are discussed in the article when applicable, with the umbrella term “bullying” used to discuss all forms of bullying at once. The paper has uncovered two key messages: (1) cyberbullying requires more awareness in counselling and is no longer a new issue and (2) more extensive training is required to assist therapists to work with cyberbullying victims
Facile and Scalable Rotation-Based Microfluidics for Controllable Production of Emulsions, Microparticles, and Microfibers
Get PDFThis document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in [Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research], copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see [https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.iecr.2c03622].A rotation-based microfluidic system with simple device setup and flow manipulation is developed for facile production of controllable emulsion droplets and liquid jets as well as functional microparticles and microfibers. The system consists of a vertically fixed injection tube and a rotating container. This system allows controllable production of single emulsion droplets and single-phase jets with adjustable uniform sizes, and predictable scale-up performance via numbering-up capillary to achieve an enhanced production rate. By flexibly changing the capillary geometry, this system can controllably produce single emulsion droplets with dual-phasic and triphasic morphologies, double emulsion droplets with core–shell and multicore–shell morphologies, and dual-phasic Janus jets. Moreover, this system can controllably fabricate versatile microparticles and microfibers from their droplet and jet templates via fast solidification without microchannel blocking in the open container. This work provides a powerful platform for promoting the wide-scale impact of microfluidics in material science, chemical, and biological fields
Engaging parents and carers with Sure Start New Steps
Get PDFCopyright © Centre for Public Health Research
University of ChesterSure Start New Steps is one of five local programmes in Halton. It is a fifth round programme, established in 2002, and is based at Kingsway Learning Centre, Widnes. The staff at Sure Start New Steps have had some concerns about the number of families they are reaching. A recent parent satisfaction survey indicated that although general awareness of Sure Start New Steps was high, 18 respondents (12% of those taking part in the survey) were unaware of the Sure Start programme in their area, although 14 of this group had actually used Sure Start New Steps services. Anecdotal information reported by staff at Sure Start New Steps also suggests that a number of eligible families are not registered with the programme and are unaware of its existence. Concerns have therefore been raised about the strategies used to inform parents and carers about Sure Start New Steps and how systematically and effectively its activities are introduced and promoted by health professionals and others working with the eligible population. The aim of this study was therefore to explore how Sure Start New Steps is promoted and publicised to parents and carers, in order to inform future marketing strategies
Reinvestigating the U.S. Consumption Function: A Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lags Approach
Get PDF© 2023 the author(s), published by De GruyterThis article examines the asymmetric aspect of U.S. consumption using disaggregated quarterly consumption expenditure data, including durables, nondurables, and services from 1994 to 2019. We apply a novel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag analysis considering a regime-switching mechanism and find that U.S. consumers behave differently during economic upturns and downturns, with asymmetry existing for the consumption of durables (in the long run) and services (in both the short and long-run), but not for nondurables. Since services account for more than 40% of U.S. aggregate output, the slow adjustment toward equilibrium and the elasticity less than unity proves that services are more of a necessity than a luxury for U.S. consumers. The results indicate that the consumption of services is the primary determinant of U.S. consumer behavior, and monetary policy has a limited effect on U.S. consumption
Having a positive attitude or doing good deeds? An experimental investigation of poker players’ responses to the Gambling Fallacies Measure
Get PDFGambling fallacies are irrational beliefs about how gambling works, which are common among disordered gamblers, and measured by questionnaires such as the Gambling Fallacies Measure (GFM). Less is known about the potentially rational cognitions of some skilled gamblers, such as professional poker players. The present research experimentally manipulated item 5 from the GFM, “A positive attitude or doing good deeds increases your likelihood of winning money when gambling”, by comparing two new versions focusing only on a “positive attitude” or “doing good deeds” to the original version (control). Item 5 is scored so that “disagree” is the non-fallacious correct answer, but it was hypothesized that the words “a positive attitude” might increase rates of poker players selecting “agree” in a non-fallacious manner. Online experiments were conducted on samples of professional poker players (N = 379), and a broad sample of poker players with no inclusion criteria (N = 1,510). Participants’ responses to item 5 were associated with the rest of their GFM scores (GFM-9). Participants in both samples were more likely to disagree with the good deeds version, and less likely to disagree with the positive attitude version, compared to control. In comparison to the other conditions, good deeds responses were most strongly associated with GFM-9 scores among professionals, while positive attitude responses were least strongly associated with GFM-9 scores among the broad sample. The good deeds version of item 5 has advantageous measurement properties among professional poker players. New approaches are needed to better understand the potentially rational cognitions of skilled gamblers
Therapeutic Residential Interventions for Harmful Sexual Behaviour - A Theory of Change
Get PDFThe numbers of children who are removed from their families and looked after by the state is rising in the UK. Whilst approximately 90% of these are eventually placed in foster care, the remainder are a very diverse population with complex needs that often require care delivered in a residential setting, usually with therapeutic input and purpose. Some of these young people will have extensive experiences of trauma and abuse and will have engaged in Harmful Sexual Behaviour (HSB). Therapeutic residential interventions to meet the needs of this group come at an especially high cost to the public purse, but despite this, outcomes for this group of looked after children are statistically poor. This is across primary and mental health, employment, education, housing and welfare, and offending measures.
In this context identifying and promoting good practice is important but a challenge in this regard is assessing the effectiveness of residential interventions when there are so many confounding and competing variables in play. The individual pathway into residential care means that young people have very different starting points and needs; young people might receive a range of different therapies and interventions during their time in care; there are often ongoing and dynamic forces in the wider system around a young person; and continuation of resources or timing of moves might be driven by economic reasons rather than need or the precepts of good practice.
Conversely, theory-based approaches offer a potential route to defining and evaluating practice by shifting the focus from ‘what works’ to required activities and how these are expected to work. In response, this study draws on the field of theory led evaluation, specifically Mayne’s (2001) Contribution Analysis (CA) to create a Theory of Change (ToC) to explain how capacity, opportunity and motivation to change behaviour can be promoted in therapeutic residential settings for children and young people who have engaged in HSB Drawing on interviews with service providers and adult males who received interventions, it providers an account of the activities and processes that are considered to have generative potential in terms of promoting good outcomes in therapeutic residential settings for boys who have engaged in HSB.
Haigh’s (2013) ‘quintessences’ (attachment, containment, open communication, participation and agency) and Kennard’s (1998) ‘common features of a therapeutic community’ emerge as key theoretical frameworks to understand data from staff and former resident interviews. Within the ToC that is finally developed there is a focus on the role, relevance and contribution of relationships to better outcomes and how structures and processes can be used to underpin therapeutic change. This is the first time that a model like this has been created to describe and navigate a therapeutic residential journey. The model provides the foundation stage for theory-based evaluation of such services and for further iterations and adaptation for use in other complex relational systems and interventions
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