8383 research outputs found
Sort by
The efficacy of appropriate paper-based technology for Kenyan children with cerebral palsy
Get PDFThis is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology on 19/10/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/17483107.2020.1830442Appropriate paper-based technology (APT) is used to provide postural support for children with cerebral palsy (CP) in low-resourced settings. This pilot study aimed to evaluate the impact of APT on the children’s and families’ lives.
Materials and methods: A convenience sample of children with CP and their families participated. Inclusion was based on the Gross Motor Function
Classification System levels IV and V. APT seating or standing frames were provided for six months. A mixed methods impact of APT devices on the children and families included the Family Impact Assistive Technology Scale for Adaptive
Seating (FIATS-AS); the Child Engagement in Daily Life (CEDL) questionnaire; and a qualitative assessment from diary/log and semi-structured interviews.
Results: Ten children (median 3 years, range 9 months - 7 years). Baseline to follow-up median (IQR) FIATS-AS were: 22.7 (9.3) and 30.3 (10.2), respectively (p = 0.002). Similarly mean (SD) CEDL scores for “frequency” changed from 30.5 (13.2) to 42.08 (5.96) (p=0.021) and children’s enjoyment scores from 2.23 (0.93) to 2.91 (0.79) (p = 0.019). CEDL questionnaire for self-care was not
discriminatory; seven families scored zero at both baseline and 6 months. Qualitative interviews revealed three key findings; that APT improved functional ability, involvement/interaction in daily-life situations, and a reduced family burden of care.
Conclusion: APT devices used in Kenyan children with non-ambulant CP had a meaningful positive effect on both the children’s and their families’ lives
Reflecting on the characteristics and values of military nurses: war zone qualitative research
Get PDFBackground. Between 2001 and 2014, British military nurses served in Afghanistan caring for both Service personnel and local nationals of all ages. However, there have been few research studies assessing the effectiveness of the military nurses’ operational role and no papers naming the core values and characteristics. This paper is the only qualitative nursing study completed in this period where data was collected in the War Zone.
Objective. To explore the characteristics and values that are intrinsic to military nurses in undertaking their operational role.
Design. A Constructivist Grounded Theory was utilised. The first author designed the interview schedule, then conducted and transcribed the discussions. Informed consent and UK Ministry of Defence Research Ethical Committee approval was obtained.
Setting. Camp Bastion Hospital, Afghanistan, in 2013.
Method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 British Armed Forces nurses.
Results. A theoretical model was developed that identifies the intrinsic characteristics and values required to be a military nurse. Nursing care delivered within the operational environment was perceived as outstanding. Nurses consciously detached themselves from any legal processes and treated each casualty as a vulnerable patient, resulting in care, compassion and dignity being provided for all patients, irrespective of their background, beliefs or affiliations.
Conclusion. The study findings provides military nurses with a framework for a realistic personal development plan that will allow them to build upon their strengths as well as to identify and ameliorate potential areas of weakness. Placing nurses first, with a model that focusses on the requirements of a good nurse has the potential to lead to better patient care, and improve the quality of the tour for defence nurses. These findings have international implications and have the potential for transferability to any level of military or civilian nursing practice
Two high-order time discretization schemes for subdiffusion problems with nonsmooth data
Get PDFTwo new high-order time discretization schemes for solving subdiffusion problems with nonsmooth data are developed based on the corrections of the existing time discretization schemes in literature. Without the corrections, the schemes have only a first order of accuracy for both smooth and nonsmooth data. After correcting some starting steps and some weights of the schemes, the optimal convergence orders and with can be restored for any fixed time for both smooth and nonsmooth data, respectively. The error estimates for these two new high-order schemes are proved by using Laplace transform method for both homogeneous and inhomogeneous problem. Numerical examples are given to show that the numerical results are consistent with the theoretical results
Aging and Recovery After Resistance-Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage: Current Evidence and Implications for Future Research
Get PDFAccepted author manuscript version reprinted, by permission, from Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 2021, 29(3): 544-551, https://doi.org/10.1123/japa.2020-0201. © Human Kinetics, Inc.Aging is anecdotally associated with a prolonged recovery from resistance training, though current literature remains equivocal. This brief review considers the effects of resistance training on indirect markers of muscle damage and recovery (i.e., muscle soreness, blood markers, and muscle strength) in older males. With no date restrictions, four databases were searched for articles relating to aging, muscle damage, and recovery. Data from 11 studies were extracted for review. Of these, four reported worse symptoms in older compared with younger populations, while two have observed the opposite, and the remaining studies (n = 6) proposed no differences between age groups. It appears that resistance training can be practiced in older populations without concern for impaired recovery. To improve current knowledge, researchers are urged to utilize more ecologically valid muscle-damaging bouts and investigate the mechanisms which underpin the recovery of muscle soreness and strength after exercise in older populations
Professional Development Implications for Counsellors Who Have Worked in The English Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Programme
Get PDFBackground: Prior to the implementation of the IAPT programme by NHS England in 2008, counsellors were commonly employed to deliver psychological therapy in English NHS Primary Care Mental Health (PCMH) services. Pre-IAPT, professional development for PCMH practitioners, like the therapeutic approaches they offered, was non-standardised. Post-IAPT, PCMH provision became standardised, utilising manualised therapies alongside a commitment to outcome data completion. IAPT operates a highly structured approach to PCMH provision, arguably a treatment paradigm, in which ontological and epistemological entities are controlled. The model allows minimal flexibility in relation to what should, and how it should be treated; what data should, and how it should be gathered, and how outcomes should be interpreted. Clinical Commissioning Groups, contract to deliver IAPT services to any qualified providers, using IAPT data to determine performance. Arguably, IAPT has franchised PCMH in England. Professional development of IAPT practitioners is confined to training that supports the delivery of its aims. Consequently, service investment in training is focussed towards NICE approved approaches that are considered to be evidence-based. These approaches are epistemologically nomothetic, creating ideological challenges to counsellors who are epistemologically idiographic. This incommensurability between the IAPT treatment paradigm and counsellors, can affect professional development.
Objectives: This research focusses on implications for professional development of counsellors who have worked in IAPT. Conducted amongst ex-IAPT counsellors, to explore: the degree to which counsellors engage in IAPT professional development opportunities; how facilitative IAPT service is to professional development; how counsellors conceptualise and respond to those professional development opportunities.
Method: Semi-structured interviews of eight participants who had worked in different IAPT services across England were completed and analysed utilising an Applied Thematic Analysis.
Findings: Three themes were identified, exposing many implications for counsellor professional development, influenced by: the IAPT Business and Clinical Models, and Participants Responses to those influences, reflecting both external and internal ideological challenges towards professional development.
Conclusions: Ideological incommensurability, can result in both positive and negative professional development outcomes. Business and clinical models contributed to the struggle to identify, secure, or adapt to formal opportunities that are ideologically incompatible. However, participants capitalised on informal professional development opportunities. Exposure to the IAPT program, and the working environment of primary care mental health, enhanced knowledge and experience, administrative competence, and provided valuable exposure to wide-ranging variety of type and complexity in clinical presentation. This was identified as contributing to the development of a notable level of pluralistic practices. Participants did not disclose planned professional development strategies (appearing to respond intuitively to opportunity), suggesting that professional development was lacking intent. Therefore, counsellors are encouraged to reflect upon the type of psychological therapist they wish to become; contemplate the benefit of a structured professional development plan to achieve that aim; recognise the rich potential IAPT offers, and consider how IAPT might contribute to their professional development
Multimodal Shear Wave Deicing Using Fibre Piezoelectric Actuator on Composite for Aircraft Wings
No full textThe formation and accretion of ice on aircraft wings during flight can be potentially disastrous and existing in-flight deicing methods are either bulky or power consuming. This paper investigates the use of shear wave deicing driven by a macro fibre piezoelectric composite actuator on a composite plate typically used for aircraft wings. While the few existing research on this novel deicing approach focused on either theoretical studies or single frequency mode optimization that required high-excitation amplitudes, this study revealed that the use of multimodal excitation through broadband frequency sweeps has the potential to promote the chance of shear stress induced deicing at a relatively small excitation amplitude. The results reported here form the foundation for a pathway towards low power and lightweight deicing mechanism for in-flight aircraft wings
Constructing Self-Dual Codes from Group Rings and Reverse Circulant Matrices
Get PDFThis is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Advances in Mathematics of Communications following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Gildea, J., Abidin, K., Adrian, K. & Bahattin, Y. (2020). Constructing Self-Dual Codes from Group Rings and Reverse Circulant Matrices. Advances in Mathematics of Communications. is available online at: https://www.aimsciences.org/article/doi/10.3934/amc.2020077?viewType=htmlIn this work, we describe a construction for self-dual codes in which we employ
group rings and reverse circulant matrices. By applying the construction directly over
different alphabets, and by employing the well known extension and neighbor methods
we were able to obtain extremal binary self-dual codes of different lengths of which
some have parameters that were not known in the literature before. In particular, we
constructed three new codes of length 64, twenty-two new codes of length 68, twelve
new codes of length 80 and four new codes of length 92
A wordbook of rare mithers: Anan-flaskered
No full textA quarterly column exploring Cheshire, its dialect and feelings that they both help us to understand that standard English cannot
A wordbook of rare mithers: Gowd forging
No full textA quarterly periodical exploring Cheshire and its dialec
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage ChesterRep? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!