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Experiencing event management during the coronavirus pandemic: a public sector perspective
Get PDFEvents have played a significant role in the way in which the Coronavirus pandemic has been experienced and known around the world. Little is known though about how the pandemic has impacted on supporting, managing and governing events in municipal (i.e., local) authorities as key stakeholders, nor how events have featured in the opening-up of localities. This paper reports on empirical research with senior events officers for local authorities in the UK on these key knowledge gaps. Specifically, it examines events officers' unfolding experiences of the pandemic. The paper points to unpreparedness for a crisis of this scale and magnitude, and the roles of innovation, adaptation and co-production in the emergent response. It highlights the transformative nature of the pandemic through reconsiderations of the purpose of public sector involvement in events and, from a policy perspective, how relatively smaller-scale, more agile and lower-risk arts events and performances can figure in local recovery. Finally, while the effects on, and response of, the body corporate (the local authority) to crises is an obvious focus, it is important to recognise those of the individuals who manage the response and drive change
Why do French women refuse to have Down's syndrome screening by maternal serum testing? A mixed methods study
Get PDFPurpose:
The study aims to analyse the reasons underpinning women's refusal to undertake Down's syndrome screening (DSS) by maternal serum testing (MST).
Methods:
A retrospective, mixed methods sequential approach was used. An online survey on women's experience of prenatal testing followed by in-depth interviews were conducted, with women over 18 years old, who had been pregnant within five years prior to the study. Altogether, 1726 responses were gathered, of which 217 related to women who had refused MST. The study compares the women who refused MST with women who accepted it on sociodemographic characteristics, the evolution and experience of the pregnancy, their knowledge about Down's syndrome (DS). It also utilises survey comments and five in-depth interviews to explore, using Thematic Analysis, the reasons for refusing MST.
Results:
To refuse MST is cognitively demanding. Indeed, women who refused MST were better educated, knew more about prenatal diagnosis sequences and DS than women who accepted it. This position is also emotionally challenging as women's interactions with practitioners can put them in difficult situations, where they have to defend their point of view. Reasons for refusing MST go beyond religious beliefs, negative attitudes towards abortion and/or medicalisation of pregnancy. Rather, women's position appears to be driven by a holistic conception of care-based monitoring, values of inclusivity and a desire to remain in control of their pregnancy.
Conclusions:
It is essential that women feel accepted and supported in their choice to refuse MST. Consequently, it is important for professionals to remain cognisant of the diversity of factors underpinning women's decision, the pressure this position generates and the challenges that come with it
Cooperative SWIPT MIMO-NOMA for reliable THz 6G communications
Get PDFIn this paper, cooperative simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) terahertz (THz) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are considered. The aim is to improve wireless connectivity, resource management, scalability, and user fairness, as well as to enhance the overall performance of wireless communications and reliability. We optimized the current wireless communication systems by utilizing MIMO-NOMA technology and THz frequencies, exploring the performance and gains obtained. Hence, we developed a path-selection mechanism for the far user to enhance the system performance. The EH SWIPT approach used to improve THz communications performance was investigated. Moreover, we proposed a reliable transmission mechanism with a non-LoS (NLoS) line of THz communications for open areas or any location where the intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) cannot be deployed, in addition to using the cheap decode-forward (DF) relaying instead of IRS. The performance and scalability of the upgradeable system were examined, using adjustable parameters and the simplest modulation scheme. The system presents a noticeable improvement in energy efficiency (EE) and spectral efficiency (SE), in addition to reliability. Accordingly, the outcome showed an improvement in the overall reliability, SE, EE, and outage probability as compared to the conventional cooperative networks of the recent related work (e.g., cooperative MIMO-NOMA with THz) by multiple times with a simpler design, whereas it outperformed our previous work, i.e., cooperative SWIPT SISO-NOMA with THz, by more than 50%, with a doubled individual user gain. This system reduces the transceiver hardware and improves reliability with increasing transmission rates
Correct application of colloquial plant terminology may help to combat food & nutrition insecurity
Get PDFGenetic diversity in commercial food crops is decreasing, leading to a higher exposure to food & nutrition security threats, mainly: (1) diseases, (2) climate change (3) soil depletion. Reversal may occur through identification and supply chain reintroduction of underutilised edible plants with unaltered genotypes, from the pre-war era. Feasibility of the assignment is dependent on the correct application of specific definitions in archival literature research and the possibility of commercial exploitation of the definitions in supply chain diversification. The aim of this research is to quantify and define colloquial terminologies for ‘forgotten edibles’ to provide practical application across the food industry.
A linguistic corpus search and a systematic literature review were applied using the 5 key terms related to ‘forgotten edibles’, these were: traditional, heirloom, heritage, landrace and orphan. This search allowed for quantitative data generation on the frequency and context of the distinct lexical items. The data was presented in numerical and tabular formats.
Results from academic data bases indicate that heirloom, heritage, landrace and orphan are terms used to describe ‘naturalised’ & ‘indigenised’ food crops with strong affiliation to selective plant breading by farmers. On the other hand, findings from colloquial resources led towards the use of ‘traditional’ as an overarching term. Contextualising the terms was found as ‘arbitrary’ and ‘undefinable’ due to their continuing evolvement in the socially accepted form of language.
More frequent application of the above terms in all sectors of the food industry would lead to an increase in agrobiodiversity, resulting in higher level of food & nutrition security. Current consumers’ trends towards ‘planet health’ can be exploited using these terms, to impose new sustainable practices across the industry
Duty of care for business travel: how do employers assess and manage business travel risk?
Get PDFThis study explores the risk factors that employers consider when assessing an employee’s business travel (BT) assignment and the risk treatment, crisis response, and recovery strategies they employ to discharge their BT duty of care.
An exploratory approach is taken with in-depth interviews of twenty-one executives, travel managers, and insurance brokers involved with the management of BT in four international hotel groups. Twelve follow-up interviews were conducted to assess the possible COVID-19 impact on BT risk management processes.
Employers assess BT assignments considering the travel’s characteristics including the destination’s risk profile against seven types of risks (health, political, transport, natural, crime, technology and kidnap), length of stay, travel mode, and activities undertaken in the destination as well as the traveler’s profile which includes diversity and travel experience. Accordingly, they develop a range of duty of care strategies for BT risk treatment, crisis response, and recovery.
BT practitioners can use the proposed framework to develop risk assessment methodologies based on more accurate destination and traveler profiles and pursue targeted risk treatment strategies and insurance policies. The proposed duty of care approach can be used as a blueprint for organizations to design and manage BT policies.
BT risk is an under-researched area. The extant research looks predominantly at travel risks and their assessment taking the traveler’s perspective. This study looks at business travel risk and explores it from an employer’s risk management perspective offering a BT risk assessment framework and a BT duty of care plan
An interventionist sociologist: Stuart Hall, public engagement and racism
Get PDFWhile Stuart Hall is often acknowledged as a public intellectual, it is argued here that a better way of understanding his practice is as an interventionist, whose public engagements are always set in a specific context. This way of seeing Hall is draws on his own words and from approaches to intellectual work that foreground how scholars present themselves. Combining this approach with Hall’s own reading of Gramsci as a grounded intellectual, this article then illustrates the idea of Hall as an interventionist sociologist through three examples of his public works on race and racism, exemplifying his well-known use of conjunctural analysis. Thus, the purpose of this article is twofold: first it seeks to ‘disambiguate’ Hall from the public intellectual label; and secondly in resituating him it highlights his public engagements on race as interventions in and as sociology
Work-family conflict and mental distress of black women in employment in South Africa: a template analysis
Get PDFWork–family conflict causes stress, and exposure to it may lead to mental distress. Yet little is known about work–family conflict and mental distress in Africa. This study reports on the perceptions of black South African women in employment on work–family conflict and the mental distress women may experience when exposed to this conflict. The study utilised interpretative phenomenological analysis as a research design. Data were collected with the help of a semi-structured interview schedule. A total of 20 individual interviews and four focus group interviews comprising five participants each were conducted. All interviews were audio-recorded, and the data obtained were transcribed verbatim and analysed using template analysis. Two level-one theme codes emerged from the data analysis: antecedents of work–family conflict and work–family conflict manifestations. The findings of the study point to the need for managers to work in partnership with employees using family-friendly initiatives such as family supportive supervision for promoting mental well-being
What fuels suboptimal care of peripheral intravenous catheter-related infections in hospitals? A qualitative study of decision-making among Spanish nurses
Get PDFBackground
Peripheral intravenous catheters (PIVC) are commonly used in hospital worldwide. However, PIVC are not exempt from complications. Catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSI) increase morbidity and mortality rates, and costs for the healthcare organization. PIVC care is shaped by the complex mix of professional and organizational culture, such as knowledge gaps, low perception of impact of PIVCs on patient safety, or lack of hospital guidelines.
Aim
To explore determinants of decision-making about the prevention of PIVC-BSI among nurses in Spanish hospitals.
Methods
We conducted a descriptive qualitative study with semi-structured interviews in three public hospitals, the Balearic Islands Health Care Service in Spain. We considered hospital ward nurses working routinely with inpatients at any of the three hospitals for enrolment in the study. We approached relevant informants to identify suitable participants who recruited other participants through a ‘snowball’ technique. Fourteen inpatient nurses from the hospital took part in this study between September and November 2018. We employed several triangulation strategies to underpin the methodological rigour of our analysis and conducted the member checking, showing the information and codes applied in the recording of the interviews to identify the coherence and any discrepancies of the discourse by participants. We used the COREQ checklist for this study.
Findings
We identified four major themes in the analysis related to determinants of care: The fog of decision-making in PIVC; The taskification of PIVC care; PIVC care is accepted to be suboptimal, yet irrelevant; and chasms between perceived determinants of poor PIVC care and its solutions.
Conclusion
The clinical management of PIVCs appear ambiguous, unclear, and fragmented, with no clear professional responsibility and no nurse leadership, causing a gap in preventing infections. Furthermore, the perception of low risk on PIVC care impact can cause a relevant lack of adherence to the best evidence and patient safety. Implementing facilitation strategies could improve the fidelity of the best available evidence regarding PIVC care and raise awareness among nurses of impact that excellence of care
Unsupervised classification of human activity with hidden semi-Markov models
Get PDFThe modern sedentary lifestyle is negatively influencing human health, and the current guidelines recommend at least 150 min of moderate activity per week. However, the challenge is how to measure human activity in a practical way. While accelerometers are the most common tools to measure activity, current activity classification methods require calibration studies or labelled datasets—requirements that slow the research progress. Therefore, there is a pressing need to classify and quantify human activity efficiently. In this work, we propose an unsupervised approach to classify activities from accelerometer data using hidden semi-Markov models. We tune and infer the model parameters on accelerometer data from the UK Biobank and select the optimal model based on features used and informativeness of the prior. The best model achieves an average correlation of 0.4 between the inferred activities and the reference ones, with the overall physical activity obtaining a correlation of 0.8. Additionally, to prove the clinical significance of the method, we validate it by performing a linear regression between the inferred activities and anthropometric measures such as BMI and waist circumference. We show that for a sedentary behaviour and total physical activity, the proposed method achieves comparable regression coefficients to the reference labelled dataset. Moreover, the proposed method achieves a good agreement with a labelled dataset for daily time spent in a sedentary behaviour and total physical activity. The unsupervised nature of the method allows for a data-driven classification that does not require calibration studies or labelled datasets and can thus facilitate both clinical research as well as lifestyle recommendations
Personas: New Data, New Trends
Get PDFPersonas has evolved since Alan Cooper coined the term in 1999, moving into new domains, new ways of collecting data, and with novel ways of presenting the persona profiles. From the beginning, personas was linked to software design, expressing the need for empathy with end-users. This is still the case today, but we want to show how this is executed in different domains, not only in software, and how different forms of presentation relate to empathy. Thus, the persona course investigates the relationship between data collection, the representation of data as persona profiles, and empathy