OARS - Open Access Repository Suffolk
Not a member yet
2036 research outputs found
Sort by
A new species of krait of the genus Bungarus (Squamata, Elapidae) from Ratchaburi Province, western Thailand
Get PDFWe described a new species of elapid snake genus Bungarus from the Tenasserim Mountain Range in Ratchaburi Province, western
Thailand. Bungarus sagittatus sp. nov. can be distinguished from all congeners by having the combination of 15 dorsal scale rows; 215–
217 ventral scales; 48–56 undivided subcaudal; prefrontal suture 2.4–2.6 times length of internasal suture; anterior chin shields larger
than posterior chin shields; head of adult uniform black while juvenile black with small dim white patches on temporal and parietal areas;
dorsal body black, with 25–31 white narrow bands, white and black bands at midbody covering 1.5–3.0 and 4.5–6.0 vertebral scales, respectively; dorsal body black bands not intruding ventrals or intruding ventrals less than 0.5 times of width of outer dorsal scales; ventral
surface of body immaculate white; ventral side of tail white with a row of dark brown triangular patches on middle pointing posteriorly;
tail relatively long, tail length/total length 0.140–0.143. Genetically, the new species has uncorrected pairwise divergences of ≥ 8.29% of
the mitochondrial cytochrome b from other Bungarus species. Currently, the new species is only known from the type localit
Genome assembly of the milky mangrove Excoecaria agallocha
Get PDFThe milky mangrove Excoecaria agallocha is a latex-secreting mangrove that are distributed in tropical and subtropical regions. While its poisonous latex is regarded as a potential source of phytochemicals for biomedical applications, the genomic resources of E. agallocha remains limited. Here, we present a chromosomal level genome of E. agallocha, assembled from the combination of PacBio long-read sequencing and Omni-C data. The resulting assembly size is 1,332.45 Mb and has high contiguity and completeness with a scaffold N50 of 58.9 Mb and a BUSCO score of 98.4%, with 86.08% of sequences anchored to 18 pseudomolecules. 73,740 protein-coding genes were also predicted. The milky mangrove genome provides a useful resource for further understanding the biosynthesis of phytochemical compounds in E. agallocha
Conclusions on teaching European Union politics
No full textThis chapter recalls the purpose of the book and reflects on the contributions made in the context of turbulence in European politics and challenges to its ongoing scholarship. It argues the book offers readers as range of approaches to prompt reflection on how and what they teach, as well as techniques to build into their own learning and teaching practice. However the chapter also argues more needs to be done in the scholarship of learning and teaching in European politics, and advocates for continued research into the pedagogy of European Studies
Situating OnlyFans within wider landscapes of pornography
No full textThis article explores OnlyFans – a digital platform used to exchange sexually explicit content in the contemporary world. Traditionally, pornography has been director-led, with various individuals and organisations profiting from the production of pornographic content. However, in a technologically advanced world, and a post-covid market
economy, pornography has broadened in scope and self-produced adult content has risen in popularity. As such, the very definition and nature of pornography has evolved and now includes user-led platforms such as OnlyFans. This paper will offer considerations of how OnlyFans can be defined and discussed as a form of pornography, situating the platform within the wider landscape. Whilst pornographic content has been a feature of society for centuries, the use of digital technology and user-led platforms has increased its accessibility, therefore making it important to
consider the dynamics of self-produced pornography
Assessment of the upper limb function, strength, and mobility in treatment‐naive children with spinal muscular atrophy Types 2 and 3
Get PDFIntroduction/Aims: Current upper limb assessments in pediatric spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) may not adequately capture change with disease progression. Our aim was to examine the relationship between motor function, strength, and hand/finger mobility of the upper limb in treatment‐naïve children with SMA Types 2 and 3 to assess new methods to supplement current outcomes. Methods: The Revised Upper Limb Module (RULM), grip and pinch strength, and hand/finger mobility data were collected from 19 children with SMA Types 2 and 3 aged 5.2–16.9 years over a year. Results: A median loss between 0.5 and 2.5 points in the RULM was seen across all SMA subgroups with the biggest median loss recorded between 10 and 14 years of age. The grip strength loss was −0.06 kg (−4.69 to 3.49; IQR, 1.21); pinch improvement of 0.05 (−0.65 to 1.27; IQR, 0.48); hand/finger mobility test improvement of 4 points (−24 to 14; IQR, 6.75) for the whole cohort. Significant correlations were found between the RULM and grip strength (p < .001), RULM and pinch strength (p < .001), RULM and revised Brooke (p < .001), grip strength and pinch strength (p < .001). Discussion: The combined use of the RULM, dynamometry, and hand mobility provide insight about correlations between function and strength in children with SMA. The RULM and grip strength assessments captured a significant decline in upper limb function, whereas the pinch and finger/hand mobility showed an improvement over the course of 1 year and these results should be considered for future studies
Understanding the retention factors of Prison Officers within His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS)
Get PDFPurpose
Avoidable voluntary turnover negatively impacts an organisation’s workforce and decreases its sustainability and productivity. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service’s (HMPPS) leaving rates are among the highest in the public sector. The purpose of this study is, thus, to support HMPPS in improving Band 3 prison officers’ (POs) retention and in developing an effective employee retention strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded in retention literature, the present study uses a mixed-methods, cross-sectional, phenomenological research design. Primary data was gathered using an online qualitative survey, which was sent to POs working at a public sector prison in the Northwest of England with less than five years of work experience.
Findings
The results highlight the impact of career development and training and development due to their importance to POs in comparison to the POs’ dissatisfaction with HMPPS’ performance in both factors. Furthermore, most expectations of retention factors were only partially met, illustrating the need to reform the existing recruitment process and the translation of expectations into the reality of the role. In conclusion, HMPPS should focus attention on performance-improvement, especially in relation to career development and training and development, as well as investigating and reforming the current recruitment processes.
Practical implications
Recommendations to improve the retention of POs include the improved management of career plans, an increased selection of managers based on their management abilities, increasing training opportunities and equating staff's access to them, and evaluating the effect of payment boosts.
Originality/value
The role of POs and their professional environment has not previously been combined with contemporary retention literature. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research paper is the first of its kind using qualitative data to understand retention in the English and Welsh prison service
Investigating healthcare workforce recruitment and retention: a mixed-methods study protocol
Get PDFIntroduction
Although the sustainability of the health workforce has been identified as essential to achieving health and wider development objectives, challenges with securing and retaining the healthcare workforce persist. In the UK, there are notable shortages across a wide range of National Health Service (NHS) staff groups, with a high staff turnover indicating retention issues in the healthcare workforce. In addition, gaps exist in understanding the root cause of individual organisation’s workforce deficiencies and how their practice environment factors interact to impact workforce recruitment and retention.
Methods and analysis
An exploratory mixed-methods approach will be conducted to investigate the impact of organisational practice environment factors on healthcare workforce recruitment and retention in two Integrated Care Systems (ICS) in the East of England. We will conduct an online survey of newly qualified and established nurses and allied health professionals using a questionnaire adapted from two validated instruments. Our calculation suggests a sample size of 373 participants, we will aim to surpass this in our recruitment to strengthen the statistical analyses. Multilevel linear regression models will be fitted to evaluate the association between organisational practice environmental factors and staff recruitment and retention. The qualitative interviews will explore the experiences and perspectives of staff and senior leaders to explain the survey results and any significant associations therein. Also, the interviews will explore how to strengthen the partnership between higher education institutions, Health Education England, health and care service providers, NHS nursing and allied health professional staff to enhance recruiting and retaining staff. An exploratory inductive coding and analysis will follow Braun and Clarke’s recommendations to generate key themes from transcribed interview data.
Ethics and dissemination
Ethical approval has been obtained through the University of Suffolk Research Ethics Committee (approval number: RETH(S)22/051). Findings from our work will be disseminated through publications in peer-reviewed journals; presentations at stakeholders’ events, professional and academic conferences; and short reports for stakeholders, including participating ICSs
Deep labeller: automatic bounding box generation for synthetic violence detection datasets
Get PDFManually labelling datasets for training violence detection systems is time-consuming, expensive, and labor-intensive. Mind wandering, boredom, and short attention span can also cause labelling errors. Moreover, collecting and distributing sensitive images containing violence has ethical implications. Automation is the future for labelling sensitive image datasets. Deep labeller is a two-stage Deep Learning (DL) method that uses pre-trained DL object detection methods on MS-COCO for automatic labelling. The Deep Labeller method labels violent and nonviolent images in WVD and USI. In stage 1, WVD generates weak labels using synthetic images. In stage 2, the Deep labeller method is retrained on weak labels. USI dataset is used to test our method on real-world violence. Deep labeller generated weak and strong labels with an IoU of 0.80036 in stage 1 and 0.95 in stage 2 on the WVD. Automatically generated labels. To test our method’s generalisation power, violent and nonviolent image labels on USI dataset had a mean IoU of 0.7450
The birth experience of women in the Czech prison system
Get PDFBackground: Evidence regarding the incarceration of women generally indicates significant mental health challenges, particularly elevated depression and reduced self-esteem. However, in the Czech Republic, little research has been undertaken on the birth experiences of women in this population and indeed, more generally there is little research undertaken on this specific group of women.
Methods: A quantitative questionnaire-based cohort study was undertaken in a major women’s prison in the Czech Republic. The Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R), the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were administered to participants. Comparisons with normative data using the one-sample t-test, comparison between depression screen positive/negative groups using the independent t-test and correlational analysis was undertaken. A measure of postpartum posttraumatic stress disorder (PP-PTSD) was also administered.
Results: BSS-R sub-scale scores were observed to be either similar or higher than the non-custodial population. High screen positive rates of EPDS-assessed depression were observed and the study cohort was characterised by low RSES-assessed self-esteem. PP-PTSD levels approximated the non-custodial population.
Conclusions: Women in the Czech prison system report levels of birth satisfaction equal or better than non-custodial women. However, the mental health of this group is comparatively impoverished thus presenting a complex relationship between birth experience and mental health during the prison sentence. Limitations of the research is discussed and the direction of future research indicated
Implementing communication technologies to enhance learning efficiency at a technical vocational education and training college in Cape Town
Get PDFThis paper explores the impact of extending instructional time at technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges using WhatsApp's mobile social network (MSN) application. In South Africa, there is relatively little discussion on extending instructional time within the TVET sector, yet instructional time loss is consistently mentioned as one of the most significant challenges. During the study, the subject of Computer Programming was examined in light of poor learner performance. This study employed mixed-methods research following a pragmatic paradigm to formulate educational policies potentially dealing with TVET instructional time losses in South Africa. Data were collected from two TVET centres (FB1 and FB2) involving two lecturers and 48 students in Cape Town. Despite the study's mixed results, qualitative data reflected the need to extend instructional time and improve the efficiency of applications like WhatsApp. Quantitative data reflected an overall percentage pass rate of 56% and 100% for FB2 and FB1, respectively. The messaging application, however, has challenges, such as disrupting conversations. By participating in learner WhatsApp groups, the paper believes lecturers can reap positive benefits from these initiatives. This study adds voice to mixed-method practices. To maximise pedagogical efficiency, this study recommends that educators provide practical guidance on using MSN applications to increase instruction time