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Healthcare professionals’ perceptions of risk management on pregnancy and childbirth: An integrative review
No full textBackground: Risk management in maternity care aims to reduce incidents and harm to women and babies, contributing to quality care. However, there is growing concern that risk management policies may lead to unnecessary interventions during pregnancy and childbirth, resulting in both short- and long-term morbidity for women and their babies. Aim: To evaluate healthcare professionals’ perceptions of the effect of risk management on pregnancy and childbirth. Methods: A five-stage methodological framework was utilised in this review. A comprehensive integrative review was undertaken using a computer-assisted database approach including CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE (Pubmed), PsycINFO and Scopus from 2016–2024. This review is reported in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Findings: The review identified five papers from four different countries. Two overarching themes were generated: The impact of the dominant medical model on risk management and decision-making in maternity care and the differences and similarities in healthcare professional’s perceptions of risk management. The increasing medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth shifts healthcare professionals’ focus towards documentation and administrative tasks, driven by liability fears, rather than addressing clinical risks and providing woman-centred care. Conclusion: Complex factors influence risk management in maternity care. Risk management is affecting the way healthcare professionals think and operate. This review reveals that the medical model significantly shapes healthcare professionals’ perceptions of risk management, often undermining midwives’ autonomy and impacting decision-making in pregnancy and childbirth. Education and training are essential to restore mid-wives’ autonomous roles, ensuring that women receive the most appropriate, safest and highest quality of care</p
Make live, make die, and let die: refusal to die in the terminal time of the Anthropocene
No full textThis thesis examines living conditions in a deathscape in ways that contribute to the more extensive discussion about life in the Anthropocene. Environmental issues like deforestation, pollution, and famine visible across the continent produce a compelling narrative of the visceral charge of enduring life in necropolitical sites of violence, displacement and resistance. Such sites become framed as deathscapes, a term Hugo Ka Canham uses to provoke a consideration of what it means to live with and despite ecological devastation and to reconsider survivance and freedom in blighted spaces. Contemporary African cultural texts effectively produce narratives of livingness that re-works the necropolitical governances of objectification. I argue that contemporary African cultural texts bear witness to the ongoing environmental catastrophe by documenting the material reality of deathscapes and exposing the living conditions of the ‘there’ that are framed as unimaginable. This analysis is established by close reading related to four genres: prose fiction, memoir, film and photography, in four African cultural texts: Helon Habila’s Oil on Water (2010), Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed (2006), Mora Kpai’s Arlit, Deuxième Paris (2005), Wanuri Kahiu’s Pumzi (2009), Nyaba Leon Ouedraogo’s The Hell of Copper (2008) and Fabrice Monteiro’s The Prophecy (2013). My selected cultural texts depart from the limits of representing climate change as a distant crisis and instead make the crisis legible by inventing ways of how it may play out by passive/active postcolonial subjects who cannot and will not abandon the desire to live even when faced with a certain death. This analysis shows that for more than a decade now, writers and artists from across the African continent have been addressing the effects of environmental degradation in ways that illuminate the scale of devastation in the lived reality of their people while also providing nuanced representations of everyday coping mechanisms for surviving and even imagining a future beyond this devastation. Postcolonial African subjects’ resistance and determination for survivance in a deathscape offer a more accurate, situated and potentially optimistic responses to environmental crisis from an African perspective in the terminal times of the Anthropocene era.</p
Consonant and dissonant sonic ecologies: navigating affective atmospheres on Bourbon Street, New Orleans
No full textIn this paper we interrogate how the resonances of a localized sonic ecology call forth a multiplicity of contingent emotions that might be used to negotiate spaces of the modern city. We listen, there-fore, for how sound impacts bodies in space, how it mediates the connections between people and place through affect and emotion, and how it reveals things that are not available to the other senses. We argue that while all sonic ecologies are resonant, some are consonant and experienced as being in the right place, whereas others are dissonant and result in a feeling of being out of place. We draw upon interdisciplinary work in urban geography, sound studies and interpretive consumer research to explicate issues involved in engaging emotionally with the sonic ecology of place. In our specific case, the place of interest is Bourbon Street in the Vieux Carré, New Orleans; a place steeped in music and sound, often depicted as exciting and unique, but sometimes with an undercurrent of danger.</p
What explains socioeconomic inequality in study abroad participation? New evidence from large-scale administrative data
No full textWhile studying abroad as part of a degree programme is increasingly common, there are widespread concerns around socioeconomic inequalities in participation. Using large-scale high-quality administrative data from Ireland, we show that students from affluent backgrounds are 1.5 times (46%) more likely to study abroad than non-affluent students. Applying a Gelbach decomposition, we find that prior academic performance and field of study explain most of the observed difference. We also show, for the first time, considerable heterogeneity in the relationship between participation and socioeconomic status by field of study and that inequalities are much greater for high-performing students.</p
Hygrothermal ageing effects on failure behaviour of fibre-reinforced polymer composite materials under in-situ SEM testing
No full textThis study aims to analyse the effects of hygrothermal ageing on mechanical properties, weight gain phenomena, and failure mechanisms of non-crimp fabric (NCF) based fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) epoxy composites following immersion in two different aqueous media – deionised water and seawater at 35 ◦C until complete saturation. A comparative analysis has been performed between the effect of hygrothermal ageing on moisture absorption characteristics, flexural properties, and corresponding failure mechanisms of NCF basalt FRP and NCF E-glass FRP composites with similar fibre-volume fraction of approx. 54 %. Specimens were tested in-situ using a JEOL JSM-5600 scanning electron microscope (SEM) fitted with a 3-point bend test fixture. Overall, NCF basalt FRP composites demonstrated relatively lower moisture absorption characteristics than NCF E-glass FRP com posites in deionised water and seawater. For both NCF basalt and NCF E-glass, moisture ageing significantly affected the flexural strength of composites. NCF basalt FRP demonstrated a reduction of approx. 30–35 % in flexural strength while for NCF E-glass, the reduction in flexural strength was relatively higher ranging to approx. 35–40 %. Flexural modulus of NCF basalt FRP was not significantly affected while for NCF E-glass, a reduction in flexural modulus by approx. 15 % was observed. However, during in-situ SEM testing, the failure mechanisms of moisture-aged NCF basalt and NCF E-glass FRP composites were similar, where failure initiated in the form of fibre/matrix debonding in the 90◦ sub-ply at the bottom ply on the tension side, but final failure took place due to fibre kinking in the 0◦ sub-ply of the top ply on the compression side.</p
The feasibility of assessing prognosis over 3 years in persons with a previous stroke/ transient ischemic attack in general practice
No full textBackground Stroke has devastating consequences for survivors. Hypertension is the most important modifiable risk factor, and its management largely takes place in primary care. However, most stroke-based research does not occur in this setting. Ongoing hypertension and a risk of further stroke are a major concern for both patients and their general practitioners. We aim to assess whether it is feasible to assess prognosis in persons, with a previous stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA), in general practice, and whether a well-powered observational study is possible. Methods We performed a search of the electronic health record of individuals previously identified as having had a stroke or TIA, to assess prognosis over 3 years. Feasibility was assessed by meeting five criteria: (1) all general practices approached participated, (2) greater than 90% of patient records were accessible, (3) all study outcomes were available to review, (4) that collection data was less than 15 min per patient, and (5) a power calculation for a planned observational study could take place. Results All six general practices approached participated freely, and 193/196 patients’ files were reidentified (98.5%). Twenty-eight cardiovascular events were recorded—most commonly a repeat TIA or ischemic stroke. Data collection took on average 5.5 min per file, and a power calculation for a planned observational study was completed. Conclusion This study demonstrates that the proposed methodology for a full cohort study within general practice of patients post-stroke/TIA is both acceptable to practices and feasible. An adequately powered, “time-to-event” study is possible.</p
Finding polarized communities and tracking information diffusion on Twitter: a network approach on the Irish Abortion Referendum
No full textThe analysis of social networks enables the understanding of social interactions, polarization of ideas and the spread of information, and therefore plays an important role in society. We use Twitter data—as it is a popular venue for the expression of opinion and dissemination of information —to identify opposing sides of a debate and, importantly, to observe how information spreads between these groups in our current polarized climate. To achieve this, we collected over 688 000 tweets from the Irish Abortion Referendum of 2018 to build a conversation network from users’ mentions with sentiment-based homophily. From this network, community detection methods allow us to isolate yes- or no-aligned supporters with high accuracy (90.9%). We supplement this by tracking how information cascades spread via over 31 000 retweet cascades. We found that very little information spread between polarized communities. This provides a valuable methodology for extracting and studying information diffusion on large networks by isolating ideologically polarized groups and exploring the propagation of information within and between these groups</p
Navigating times of change through communities of practice: A focus on teacher educators’ realities and professional learning
No full textTeacher education is influenced by the pervasive influence of neoliberalism. In this paper, we focused on a group of teacher educators, to examine if their participation in a community of practice influenced their realities and professional learning. Through a two-year period thirty-five online meetings were organised. The community of practice provided a collegial and supportive space, fostering professional learning through critical reflection, enabling teacher educators navigate feelings of fear and guilt. It could also be interpreted as an awakening from the unconscious silence prevailing in a neoliberal university to acknowledge its implications for teacher educators’ identity, pedagogy, and wellbeing.</p
Design thinking in cancer care: A systematic literature review
No full textObjective: Cancer can have a profound impact on the life of the patient, presenting challenges such as dealing with complex healthcare models and psychological burden. Implementing design thinking (DT) in cancer care can improve the quality of life for patients. Although DT has been used in healthcare, there is limited research highlighting use of DT in cancer care. The objective of this review is to explore the applications of DT within a cancer care context. Methods: We systematically searched databases (PubMed Central, Scopus, and Medline) for relevant papers published between January 2018 and March 2023. Articles were identified using keywords: ’cancer’, ’cancer care’, ’oncology’, ’design thinking’, and ’design science’. Studies meeting our inclusion criteria were included and data was collected on the focus of study (i.e., design thinking and cancer care), target condition, target intervention and objective of the study. Thematic analysis was performed to identify recurring themes across studies. Articles were evaluated by the lead author and cross verified by the other two authors to reduce the risk of bias. Results: Twenty studies were included out of the 160 articles identified whereby 11 focus on cancer care (5 patient-facing, 5 community-facing, and 1 provider-facing studies) and 9 on design thinking (5 patient-facing, 1 community-facing, and 3 provider-facing studies). Overall, seven themes were identified with several subthemes. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that design thinking has been successfully applied to improve patient experiences in cancer care. By involving various stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, and communities, design thinking helps better understand real world problems. However, there is a gap in design thinking research concerning the long-term evaluation and scalability of design thinking-based interventions. Additionally, our findings suggest that mixed methods approach for future studies would support to establish more empirical evidence in this domain.</p
Hydrothermal carbonization of digested sludge from wastewater treatment plants: processes, potential and key challenges
No full textThe presentation reviews hydrothermal carbonization of digested sludge as a complementary technology for sludge management at wastewater treatment plants. The motivation for expanding the knowledge of hydrothermal carboni?zation is the challenges of wastewater treatment plants: the increasing volume of sludge, high moisture content, the presence of organic and inorganic contaminants, rising disposal costs, and legislative amendments. Hydrothermal car?bonization makes it possible to convert wet sludge under conditions (160–250 °C,10–30 bar) into hydrophobic hydrochars, but also liquids and gases, eliminating the need for drying. The process also offers heat recovery and inte?gration into existing wastewater treatment plant infrastructure. A key aspect of implementing hydrothermal carboni?zation is understanding the impact of individual process parameters and their interactions on chemical reaction pathways, and optimizing operating conditions for specific applications. The presentation discusses two pathways for hydrochar utilization: as soil additives or as fuels in thermal processes, assessing their environmental and legal po?tential. Process liquids were evaluated as a source of valuable resources that can be recovered or used in situ. Despite the compatibility of hydrothermal carbonization with Green Deal policies, challenges related to energy efficiency, leg?islative compliance, public acceptance, and high investment costs for integrated thermal technologies still need to be addressed. Overcoming these barriers will enable the implementation of hydrothermal carbonization as a sustainable technology in a circular economy. </p