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Predictors of Mood and Anxiety in Employed Mothers with Preschool Children
Get PDFThis research thesis examines the influence of maternal employment on both mothers and their preschool infants (aged 0 to 4 years).
Paper one is a literature review, examining twelves studies on the relationship between maternal employment and the attachment of preschool infants to their mothers. Maternal employment was measured by the timing of return to employment, employment hours per week and employment status. The findings suggest that maternal employment may have limited influence on the attachment of preschool infants to their mothers. However, the timing of returning to employment was found to be associated with infant-mother attachment although more research is needed to understand the direction of this relationship. Clinical and future research implications are discussed, which include consideration of the overreliance on white, middle-class American samples. It is recommended that future research is needed with diverse samples from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.
Paper two is an empirical study on internet-mediated research which investigated whether marital (cohabiting) status, number of preschool children, perfectionism, perceived social support and number of employment hours per week were predictors of mood and anxiety in employed mothers of preschool infants. The study explored whether perfectionism significantly moderated the relationship between two of the variables, perceived social support and marital status, and mood and anxiety. Perceived social support and perfectionism significantly predicted mood and anxiety, accounting for 40.6% and 31.6% of the variance, indicating that they may be risk factors for poorer mood and higher anxiety. Perfectionism was not a significant moderator. Employed mothers reported better mood, lower anxiety and perfectionism than anticipated. The implications of the findings, clinical and research implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Paper three is an executive summary that summarises the main points, findings and recommendations found in the empirical paper, ‘Predictors of Mood and Anxiety in Employed Mothers with Preschool Children.’ It is written to disseminate the findings of the empirical study to employed mothers and the general population
From Mini to Maxi Jobs? Low Pay, ‘Progression’, and the Duty to Work (Harder)
Get PDFAbstract. The scale of low pay and in-work poverty affecting the bottom three deciles of the labour market highlights the weaknesses in the two main mechanisms for assisting the low-paid: the statutory minimum wage provided for by the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and State in-work benefits, particularly Universal Credit (UC) as it operates under the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and Universal Credit Regulations 2013. Both mechanisms are failing badly. The paper argues for new approaches. On the Labour side of what may be called the Labour Law–Social Security Law interface these include reconstruction of the national minimum wage scheme in the 1998 Act so that there are two minimum wage floors: a primary floor based on the current national scheme; and a higher, secondary floor at sectoral level. Sectoral wage-setting, informed by support from a Low Pay Commission with an extended remit, could in time pave the way to wider-ranging, regulated sectoral collective bargaining and systems which align more closely and efficiently to what employers can afford, and relieve the growing fiscal pressures on in-work social security. On the Social Security side, remedial work on UC is urgently needed, particularly on the work allowances which set the earnings thresholds at which in-work State support starts to be withdrawn. If mandatory ‘progression’ requirements under the in-work progression (IWP) scheme are to continue—which is likely given the government’s concern that, without this, workers in low hours, low paid mini jobs will opt to stay parked in such highly subsidised work—then exemptions and protections need to be strengthened and put on a statutory footing (particularly for workers with family responsibilities). Introducing what would, in effect, be a ‘right not to work’ in prescribed cases—typically when requirements impact disproportionately on workers and their family members—would go some way to establishing the necessary safeguards. Clearly, both low pay mechanisms face a crisis of growing proportions: a crisis of coverage as dependence grows and newer groups look to the State for support; a fiscal crisis as costs rise and cuts to support impact on its effectiveness; and a political crisis as support for UC and the wider low pay regime erodes
A Bio-inspired Approach to Cyber Security
Get PDFOwing to a growing reliance on information, technology and connectivity, Cyberspace has become the lifeline and interactive place for modern life. As such, Cyber security challenges are a global phenomenon whose adverse implications are catastrophic. Cyberspace is complex and unpredictable; its global connectedness and an explosion of data increases the threat surface as cyber infrastructures become highly complex and dynamic. Managing, i.e. ensuring and assuring security in cyberspace requires inspiration from advanced complex systems. Through evolution, nature has developed natural propensities in complex systems (including animalia and plants) that enable survival through adaptation. Predation-avoidance and anti-predation techniques employed by non-extinct preys could be exploited/adopted as mechanisms for adaptation through their application in Cyber security. This chapter presents an overall review of the current state of the Cyber security landscape. In addition, it demonstrates through further review, significant trends towards bio-inspired approaches as unconventional solutions to problems in other fields. Drawing from survivable preys in nature, the chapter speculates solutions for Cyberspace and Cyber security as follows; given an old problem (Pold) with an old solutions (Sold), a new problem (Pnew) can be conceptualized with new partial and perhaps null solutions (Snew) in the solutions space Sold to Snew.
Keywords: Bio-inspired, Artificial Life, Cyber security, Cyberdefense, Autonomic Computing, Survivability, Cloud Computing, Machine Learning, Predator-Prey
Critical Encounters with Immersive Storytelling
Get PDFA uniquely interdisciplinary look at storytelling in digital, analogue, and hybridised contexts, this book traces different ways stories are experienced in our contemporary mediascape. It uses an engaging range of current examples to explore interactive and immersive narratives.
Critical Encounters with Immersive Storytelling considers exciting new forms of storytelling that are emerging in contemporary popular culture. Here, immersion is being facilitated in a variety of ways and in a multitude of contexts, from 3D cinema to street games, from immersive theatre plays to built environments such as theme parks, as well as in a multitude of digital formats. The book explores diverse modes and practices of immersive storytelling, discussing what is gained and lost in each of these ‘genres’. Building on notions of experience and immersion, it suggests a framework within which we might begin to understand the quality of being immersed. It also explores the practical and ethical aspects of this exciting and evolving terrain.
This accessible and lively study will be of great interest to students and researchers of media studies, digital culture, games studies, extended reality, experience design, and storytelling
The Biodiversity Value of Urban Hedges
Get PDFHuman populations are urbanising rapidly, and this is causing concern about the impact that a lack of contact with nature has on health and wellbeing. Including green infrastructure, such as hedges, in our towns and cities potentially provides space for wildlife whilst also improving human habitat. Urban hedges vary based on their establishment and management history and differ from rural hedgerows in species composition and quality but still provide habitat for birds, mammals, and invertebrates as well as increased floral biodiversity. Hedges are perceived by people to be more attractive than other boundary types and offer greater benefits to wellbeing. Urban hedges offer opportunities for experiences of nature and many other ecosystem services but managing them to maximise benefit for wildlife in a manner that is acceptable for the human population requires careful consideration
Zombies zombies everywhere, what is one to think?
Get PDFFor decades we have been besieged by a growing pop-culture phenomenon – a zombie themed phenomenon. True to themselves zombies seem to be multiplying and infecting all forms of cultural production and discourse! Zombies have found their way into everything from music videos to pornography – we won’t go there – and are even employed in academic studies where they have been used to test disease vectors, utilised in philosophical mind-games, and mobilised to extrapolate on theories of international relations. (Drezner 2011) Scholars have charted the evolution of the zombie and uncovered a myriad of meanings and signifiers. Recent scholarship has questioned whether the zombie represents our own prehistoric past, acts as a mirror reflecting present anxieties, and our fears of a post-human technological future. Or, perhaps more significantly, represents the repressed knowledge that we are a fated civilisation (Christe & Lauro, 2011)
Co collaboration methods in film and archaeology content creation of Holocaust sites In Europe
No full textThe aim was to apply the Production House film model to a co created World War Two narrative about Holocaust sites using for mass public dissemination.
Production House is a distinctive and multi-disciplinary creative practice-based approach to history and educational films created by Associate Professor Fiona Graham. These films are then used in the local community to allow narratives to be told and for dissemination to a wider group of audiences to be achieved.
Graham secured HEIF funding for the filmed research project in Poland to work in collaboration to create visual content, testimonials and produce drone footage with secured access, licenses and film permits at sites in Poland and at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
The Production House model draws on Graham’s own research into new history narratives and the embedding of dissemination into the production process itself.
The videos used on this website include personal testimonials, exterior footage, interior film footage of sites at Auschwitz Birkenau in Auschwitz 1 camps, and various interviews with experts and academics.
The multi disciplinary film technology team was led by Graham with film academic colleagues Paul Ottey and Dr Mel Lee, film graduate Tom Andrews and film undergraduates Natalie Argent and Tom Reid.
New narratives were co created with Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls and new content produced and edited with the Production House method within Staffordshire University's Centre of Archaeology where Graham is a research member.
The inter disciplinary approach with four film colleagues and students shows how a Production House model can be applied successfully not only to their own research but also to colleagues
Power Portraits, (2017) Computer Vision Art Gallery, ICCV 2019, Seoul, Korea
No full textFor this piece, a series of photographs of board members of major tech companies were passed through Google’s Vision API, and the resulting facial landmark datasets were printed as a set of posters. The posters were printed on brightly coloured backgrounds, to attract attention in the same way that advertising imagery often does. The face landmarks are represented as small circles and the outline boundary of the detected face is shown as a rectangle. Each face is shown at a similar scale and while the faces are represented in an abstracted way, the differences can be worked out by the viewer when the images are shown in a series, allowing visual comparison between them. In this work, the actual faces of the people who make decisions about the governance of companies that develop invasive or compulsive technologies had one of these technologies turned on their own images. I intended this to puncture the sense that board members of tech companies are themselves invisible and inscrutable, appearing only through their mediated image and through the products they are responsible for managing
Comparison of spatial regression models with Road Traffic Accidents Data
Get PDFRoad traffic accidents (RTA) cause severe problems for the societies in developed and developing countries and result in loss of lives and highly burden cost. Investigators have applied a wide variety of methodological techniques over the years in order to gain more understanding in this discipline. Spatial models, an elegant technique to model spatial data, has been applied to capture localisation effects and influencing factors on RTA. This study aims to compare the spatial lag model (SLM) and the spatial error model (SEM) with the Ordinary least square (OLS) model for the road traffic accident data in the Sultanate of Oman. To compare the performance and accuracy of the OLS, SLM and SEM models, the log-likelihood, Akaike information criterion (AIC), and Bayesian information criteria (BIC) have been used. The SLM model outperforms SEM and OLS models for the data and one of the most significant findings to emerge from this study as the SLM model provides the best values of log-likelihood, AIC and BIC comparing to the values from OLS and SEM model
FABRIK
Get PDFTwo works developed through the FACTORY project were selected for exhibition by curator Maj Sandell for the exhibition FABRIK, Gustavsbergs Konsthall, Stockholm. The opening was activated by two performances by Rita Floyd, Brownsword's long term collaborator https://www.varmdo.se/gustavsbergskonsthall/konsthallenstart/nyheterkonsthallen/arkivkonsthallen/performanceporslinsblommorpalopandeband.5.7587ff16d926d3b413574a.html
FABRIK focuses on memories, places, knowledge and narratives of former sites of craft industries in Europe; poses questions about the role of the individual as well as the collective, what’s promoted and what’s left out in these stories. Is there a connection between older craft industries in the western world and the contemporary craft arts?
If the knowledge and manufacturing of the old craft industrial sites was concerning everyday life, what is the relationship between history and craft today? Administer and develop – or oppose? Do we see a movement today, a desire for collective thinking and making – or are we just tiptoeing on the paths of nostalgia?
The gallery is situated in the historical industrial site that hosted Gustavsberg’s Porcelain Factory. In Gustavsberg also developed an important centre of craft, art and design. Through the artists and craft persons who currently work in the area, and the still active small-scale porcelain manufactory, the history remains apparent – and is constantly ongoing.
The Swedish and international artists that Gustavsbergs Konsthall have invited to FABRIK are suggesting different starting points for thinking, reflecting and fantasizing around former industrial sites, such as Gustavsberg in Sweden and Stoke-on-Trent in Great Britain – figuring the past, present and future. From a wide range of artistic perspectives a discussion on the heritage of deindustrialization is conducted, its influence on the contemporary craft and the way forward.
Participating artists:
Inger Andersson, Neil Brownsword, Matt Smith and Rejmyre Art Lab represented by Unndór Egill Jónsson, Daniel Peltz and Sissi Westerberg.
FABRIK is made possible through support by Swedish Art Council.
A catalogue documents the project with contributions from Brownsword:
Hedlin, E., and Brownsword, N., (2020) Obsolescence and Renewal
in Hedlin, E., FABRIK, Gustavsbergs Konsthall, p. 18-25, ISBN: 978-91-980286-8-
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