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Diaspora tourism and well-being over life-courses
Get PDFThis research reconceptualises the linkages between tourism and well-being by considering well-being as dynamic assemblages that exist dependent on performative impacts of place, age, time, and contextual events. Adopting a biographical approach, we examined life histories of 26 Chinese migrants, and explored how diasporic return shaped their subjective well-being over life-courses. Based on their own articulations of home return experiences, meanings, feelings, and life purposes, four patterns of how the effects of diaspora tourism change over life-courses were identified, depending on individual's early exposures to home place and culture, age of first and later return, change of life purposes and conceptions of well-being. The findings encourage further debates over temporal variability in possible linkages between tourism and subjective well-being
An intelligent fuzzy logic-based content and channel aware downlink scheduler for scalable video over OFDMA wireless systems
Get PDFWe consider the problem of scheduling for multi-user scalable video streaming over downlink OFDMA channels. The video streams are precoded using an SVC scheme which offers temporal scalability. We propose a new fuzzy-logic controller-based scheduling algorithm, which prioritizes the transmissions to different users by considering video contents, deadline requirements, and channel conditions. A novel analytical model and a new performance metric have been developed for the performance analysis of the proposed scheduling algorithm. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the content-blind, channel aware scheduling with a gain of as much as 19% in terms of the number of supported users. The algorithm allows for a fairer allocation of resources among users across the entire sector coverage, allowing for the enhancement of video quality at edges of the cell while minimizing the degradation to users closer to the BS. The performance penalty is reduced by allowing additional delays or increased buffering at the users
The influence of different factors on building
Get PDFShear walls are structural members in buildings that are used extensively in reinforced concrete frame buildings, and almost exclusively in the UK, regardless of whether or not they are actually required. In recent years, the UK construction industry, led by the Concrete Centre, has questioned the need for such structural elements in low to mid-rise reinforced concrete frame buildings. In this context, a typical modern, 5-storey residential building is studied, and its existing shear walls are replaced with columns as used elsewhere in the building. The aim is to investigate the impact of several design variables, including concrete grade, column size, column shape and slab thickness, on the building’s structural performance, considering two punching shear limits (VEd/VRd,c), lateral drift and accelerations, to evaluate its maximum possible height under wind actions without the inclusion of shear walls. To facilitate this study, a numerical model has been developed using the ETABS software. The results demonstrate that the building examined does not require shear walls in the design and has no lateral displacement or acceleration issues. In fact, with further analysis, it is shown that a similar building could be constructed up to 13 and 16 storeys high for 2 and 2.5 punching shear ratios (VEd/VRd,c), respectively, with adequate serviceability and strength, without the need for shear walls, albeit with thicker columns.
Keywords: High-rise RC buildings; wind actions; Concrete grade; Concrete section size; Column shape; Slab thickness; Shear wal
Character adaptations: recurrence and return
Get PDFThis paper examines recurring character storytelling as the most prodigiously successful tradition in fiction of the last two hundred years. James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales and Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie humaine are proposed as significant precursors that embody two dominant trends within recurring character storytelling: the central protagonist series, and the populous storyworld. The foundations of recurring character storytelling are traced in a range of determinants including: increasing literacy and the rise of popular genres; modes of serial publication, and the development and enforcement of copyright law. Finally, focusing upon the central protagonist variant, the age and aging of recurring characters is discussed as a necessary consideration for the makers and adapters of such series. Several are analysed, including James Bond, Sharpe, the Morse franchise, and Midsomer Murders, to illuminate how makers handle chronology, the passage of time, and related issues in adaptation. As part of an assessment of the ‘affordances’ of recurring character fictions, nostalgia and familiarity are discussed as significant dimensions of the experience they furnish
International consensus on quality indicators for comprehensive assessment of dementia in young adults using a modified e‐Delphi approach
Get PDFObjective
To develop guidance for clinicians about essential elements that can support clinical decision‐making in the diagnostic workup of young onset dementia.
Methods/design
Three iterations of a modified e‐Delphi consensus survey comprising 23 international expert clinicians specialising in diagnosis of young onset dementia.
Outcome measures
A priori consensus was pre‐defined as 80% of experts ranking statements in the upper threshold on a seven‐point Likert scale that ranged from “not important at all” to “absolutely essential” to diagnosis.
Results
80% consensus was reached on 48 statements that were rated as “absolutely essential” or “very important” to a comprehensive assessment of dementia in a younger adult. In order to inform a subsequent audit of clinical records in which compliance with these statements was assessed, the statements were divided into a Minimum Standard, (consisting of the 15 statements voted by all experts as being “absolutely essential” or “very important”) and a Gold Standard where 48 statements were voted by 80% of the experts as being “absolutely essential” or “very important”. The experts’ response rate across the three rounds was 91.3%.
Conclusion
A Minimum Standard and Gold Standard have been created for the diagnostic workup of young onset dementia. The standards provide a clinically useful tool for decision‐making, particularly for generalists and those with less experience in the field. The standards will be used to inform a UK case note audit of recently diagnosed patients with young onset dementia
A feasibility study of a psycho‐educational support intervention for men with prostate cancer on active surveillance
Get PDFBackground: PROACTIVE is a psycho-educational support intervention for prostate cancer patients managed on Active Surveillance. PROACTIVE is comprised of two interdependent components: group workshops and internet delivered information modules. We conducted a feasibility study to determine the practicality of delivering PROACTIVE at two prostate cancer centres.
Methods: The feasibility study was a mixed methods randomized parallel-group exploratory trial. Participants were randomised using a ratio of 3:1 PROACTIVE group to treatment as usual. Qualitative semi-structured interviews and quantitative measures were completed at baseline, intervention completion (week 6), and at 6-months follow-up. Interview transcripts were analysed thematically using Framework analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to examine recruitment and retention rates, and changing trends in outcome measures.
Results: Most aspects of the research design and PROACTIVE intervention were acceptable to those participating in the study. In particular participants valued the opportunity to share and discuss experiences with other prostate cancer patients on Active Surveillance, and receive detailed authoritative information. However, three issues were identified:
1. a low response rate (13 participants recruited, response rate 16%)
2. low utilisation of internet delivered information modules
3. self-perceived low levels of anxiety amongst participants with the majority perceiving their cancer as not impacting on their day-to-day life or causing anxiety.
Conclusions: Due to these significant research design issues it is not recommended PROACTIVE be evaluated in a large scale randomised controlled trial. Further research is required to explore the impact of Active Surveillance on anxiety amongst men with localized prostate cancer managed by Active Surveillance
Interview: Sophie Muller
Get PDFSince her early videos for Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics, Sophie Muller has grown to be one of the most prominent pop music video directors in the world. She has shot over three hundred music videos through her prolific and celebrated career. Her work has won numerous awards, including a Grammy, multiple MTV and CMT awards, a Brit Award, a Music Week Award, and the MVPA Director of the Year Award. Muller’s extensive body of work includes music videos for Rihanna, Radiohead, Gwen Stefani, Beyoncé, Bjork, Coldplay, Bebe Rexha, P!nk, The Cure, Kings of Leon, Nelly Furtado, Maroon 5, Alicia Keys, The Killers, Morrisey, Blur and Beck. She has also shot stills campaigns and album covers for artist including Sade, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Gwen Stefani, and art-directed live tours, concert films and commercials
Exploring the challenges of patient flow in acute hospital settings: a Delphi study
Get PDFThere is a global increase in the number of emergency department (ED) admissions due to various factors such as ageing population, comorbidities, improved healthcare system, changing clinical practice, winter pressure and emergence of new diseases and infection such as the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic. The impact of rising demand for services include prolonged ED stay, delayed admissions, cancelled elective procedures, lack of bed availability, poor patient experience and pressure on other departments1,2,3,6. To address this growing problem, waiting time is a key measure of performance and a four-hour target for ED is recommended3,
Wandering the wards: an ethnography of hospital care and its consequences for people living with dementia
Get PDFWandering the Wards provides a detailed and unflinching ethnographic examination of life within the contemporary hospital. It reveals the institutional and ward cultures that inform the organisation and delivery of everyday care for one of the largest populations within them: people living with dementia who require urgent unscheduled hospital care.
Drawing on five years of research embedded in acute wards in the UK, the authors follow people living with dementia through their admission, shadowing hospital staff as they interact with them during and across shifts. In a major contribution to the tradition of hospital ethnography, this book provides a valuable analysis of the organisation and delivery of routine care and everyday interactions at the bedside, which reveal the powerful continuities and durability of ward cultures of care and their impacts on people living with dementia
EMPLOYEE VOICE BEHAVIOUR AND NORMATIVE COMMITMENT: INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO CONSTRUCTS IN THE LITERATURE
No full textThe study established a significant relationship between Employee Voice Behaviour (EVB) and
Normative Commitment (NC). A total of 43 relevant studies; 18 EVB and 25 NC studies were
systematically selected from Business Source Complete, Emerald Insight, Oxford Brookes University
Library Search, and Google Scholar databases. NVivo computer software was used to arrange the
material, and content analysis was conducted. Nine words emerged as the most used by both sets of
researchers; EVB and NC researchers. The researchers established that EVB and NC are connected by
‘employees’, ‘relationships’, ‘organisational’, ‘study’, ‘results’, ‘psychological’, ‘data’, ‘support’ and
‘job/role’. Despite these words being few and other limitations associated with vigorous selection of
relevant studies, the findings of this study are important and should be considered by relevant scholars
and practitioners. However, future researchers should consider primary studies to establish the
outcome of this study.
Keyword: Employee Voice Behaviour; Normative Commitment; Relationship; Systematic Revie