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The flexural strength of zirconia after immersion in acidic drink.
No full textAcidic beverages can produce erosion of natural dentition in humans when consumed frequently or excessively. The aim of the present study was to investigate the flexural strength of Zirconia after immersion in acidic drink. Zirlux® anterior multi (Zirlux®, Zahn Dental, Langden, Germany) Zirconia was tested. Thirty specimens of Zirconia were divided into 3 groups (n=10): specimens of group 1 were used as a control group that were immersed in ionised water for 7days, specimens of group 2 were immersed in 50 ml of Coca-Cola for 4 days, and specimens of group 3 were immersed in 50 ml of Coca-Cola for 7 days. The flexural strength was measured for each material using an Instron Universal Testing Machine. The Data was subjected to statistical analysis. After acidic drink immersion, no significant differences were reported between control group 1, group 2 and group 3. After immersion periods of 4 and 7 days, there was no statistical reduction in flexural strength value due to immersion in acidic drink
Risk and opportunity reports of German banks in accordance with German accounting standards: an empirical analysis of adoption, development, and determinants of extent
No full textObjective - On the basis of economic and sociological theories, the study presents empirical evidence of the extent to which the requirements of German Accounting Standard 20 for the risk report and the opportunity report (Management Report)—which have been in force since 2013—have been adopted, how reporting on opportunities and risks has developed over time, and which economic and sociological determinants can influence the scope of reporting.Research Design - The study follows a post-positivist research design since both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to answer the research questions. Based on a detailed content analysis of the management reports of German banks, a meaningful adoption index, a risk disclosure index, and an opportunity disclosure index for the period 2012 (one year before obligatory first-time adoption) to 2016 (most recent financial year for which all annual financial statements of the relevant banks have been disclosed up to the completion of this thesis) were developed. In the present study, 141 management reports are evaluated. This is followed by an investigation based on statistical methods to identify the economic determinants often used in the literature which could have a significant influence on the scope of risk and opportunity reporting.The quantitative results are compared to the results of a questionnaire given to key stakeholders in German banks. The results of the non-parametric questionnaire are analysed using statistical methods and are validated by qualitative interviews with relevant decision-makers. The interviews focus especially on the identification of possible sociological determinants for the scope of opportunity reporting and are analysed using qualitative content analysis.Results - The results show that the scope of risk reporting is essentially in line with the basic considerations of principal-agent theory and supports the premises of homo economicus. The scope of the opportunity reporting can be specifically documented with the findings of the stewardship theory and the stakeholder theory.The empirical findings show that the quantitative adoption index is at a low level in the years under review and that the fundamental requirements of GAS 20 for management reporting on opportunities and risks are not met. It is especially striking that the required balance between risk and opportunity reporting is largely not met by the German banks. The clear focus of their reporting is on risks. The evaluations of the disclosure indices confirm these results—the Risk Disclosure Index has consistently remained at a high level in the years under study while the Opportunity Disclosure Index is at a very low level with a rising trend.The extent of risk reporting correlates positively with the size of banks and negatively with the debt ratio of banks in all the years examined. No clear economic determinants could be identified for the opportunity report. The evaluation of the questionnaires and the performed interviews highlights the social determinants ‘interest of the shareholder’, ‘uncertainty’, and ‘intention’ in particular. It could not be clearly proved that the opportunity report is used as a corporate government instrument.Potential Implications - The empirical findings have various implications for the main stakeholders of German banks. Based on the results, the banks can question their own reporting patterns, investors can better estimate the scope of management reporting, and the standardsetters can receive information regarding possible adjustments to GAS 20.Originality - No prior research has been conducted on the economic and/or sociological determinants of risk and opportunity disclosure in German banks, making this the first study to investigate the determinants of risk and opportunity disclosure in the context of Germany.In this context, a concrete catalogue of criteria based on GAS 20 for risk and opportunity reporting by German banks has been drawn up and tested for the first time. In the second and third parts of the study, the quantitative and qualitative survey methodology were used for the first time by means of a systematically prepared questionnaire and interviews to analyse, in particular, social determinants on the extent of opportunity reporting. A qualitative investigation of the influence of various determinants on the scope of the management reporting of German banks is not yet available
Prioritising carbon reduction in UK public sector flood and coastal risk management
No full textThe UK construction industry has seen an overall increase in CO2 levels from 1990 to 2017 (Statista, 2020), with UK public sector Flood and Coastal Risk Management (FCRM) having contributed to this increase. The establishment and development of organisational systems and culture is well documented within current literature, along with the influence it can have upon the embedding of new initiatives. The UK construction industry has demonstrated little progress on embedding low carbon practices. This study investigates the prioritisation of low carbon, in the context of UK public sector FCRM construction, through the implementation and development of a whole life carbon planning tool (WLCPT). The research adopts a main survey and action research activities as its research strategy within a UK public sector FCRM organisation. The survey was undertaken within a leading government organisation, where its role in implementing, prioritising and promoting low carbon is investigated and a number of action research activities have been undertaken to improve practice, with the outputs from the WLCPT utilised for analysis.The main objectives of this study (survey) investigated whether demography of participants (OB1); organisational change (OB2); organisational leadership (OB3); quality of training (OB4) and organisational culture (OB5) influences low carbon prioritisation. The action research objectives of this study investigated whether cost (OB6), quality of implementation of a WLCPT (OB7) and type of training (OB8) influence tonne of carbon and whether low carbon promotion influences organisational culture (OB9). The key findings infer, null hypotheses cannot be rejected, there is no relationship for OB1, OB3, OB6, OB7 and OB8.For OB2, OB4, OB5 and OB9, the null hypotheses are rejected; there is a relationship between the variables within this study.This research study has made an original contribution to knowledge, through ‘research in action’ how a WLCPT can be implemented within a client construction organisation and its supply chain; how continuous improvement can be undertaken; what works, what doesn’t and the reasons why. This key contribution builds upon limited information currently available on how to implement low carbon initiatives and tools, providing an insight on how to make the implementation of a WLCPT more efficient, building on knowledge by promoting and sharing a common message. The action of implementation to build up knowledge, is through the contribution to publicly available information in terms of a WLCPT, training, case studies and factsheet. Along with a ‘collaborative democratic partnership’ with the organisation and its supply chain is evidenced; how they were part of the cyclical process outlined; how they engaged with the choice of research and the knowledge, becoming part of the knowledge solution. Through the ‘sequence of events’, approach, trial and error and review to problem solving in a complex adaptive organisation, the maturity of the organisation on the journey is not only about evidence through outputs, but practical steps to implementation with learning outcomes.This thesis reflects the changing nature of low carbon solutions within UK public sector FCRM construction and the role the author has played in its development. It offers an understanding of challenges in implementing new systems and processes within an organisation and its supply chain, and is directly related to wider learning across industry. The processes of thinking, acting and making sense of author’s work, the narration of the processes and the changes that have taken place in author’s actions, show how low carbon knowledge can support a Complex Adaptive System (CAS), providing practical evidence to support complexity theory; this utilises continued improvement loops of positive and negative feedback that is always being reformulated, reworked and continually improved upon, in order to achieve the aim of the study.The gaps and imitations within this study challenge the thesis findings, whereby the process of quality of implementation of WLCPT and type of training are diminished due to the consistency in governance and compliance at both project and contract level. The action research outputs also challenge the results for OB6 whereby the unit ‘tonne of carbon’ does not influence cost. The basis of the test is the utilisation of the organisation’s cost data and outputs from the WLCPT, where the initial and final cost and carbon data is analysed. The initial cost estimate is primarily based on initial budget allocation and not a defined or formal cost estimate, therefore the results identify no relationship. However, evidence from the WLCPT supporting documents, utilised for knowledge sharing and training, identify through case studies a clear correlation that low carbon does leads to low cost and therefore a relationship is identified
Fire resistant light weight sandwich composites for marine applications
No full textSandwich composites being lightweight materials, are increasingly being used in high-performance applications such as in transportation (aviation, marine and railway) due to their high specific stiffness, strength, fatigue, corrosion resistance and thermal insulation. Despite these favourable properties, their poor fire resistance is a major limiting factor for their usage in many engineering applications. Sandwich structures are generally composed of thin composite laminates as skins and thick, low-density materials (e.g. balsa, foam) as cores. Fibres such as glass/carbon used for reinforcement in composite skins are non-flammable and can retain their chemical and physical stability at relatively high temperatures. So, flammability of skins of composites arises mainly from the resin (matrix) part. Hence the preferred way to control the flammability of composites is to choose a resin of low flammability or reduce its flammability by adding additive or reactive flame-retardant chemicals. Blending of a flammable resin with an inherently flame-retardant resin is another simple and effective physical way to reduce its flammability.The main aim of this research was to investigate the thermal properties and fire resistance of some light weight sandwich composites, that could be potentially used in marine applications.To achieve this, firstly, resins commonly used for marine and aerospace applications (unsaturated polyester (UP), vinyl ester (VE), epoxy) and some inherently fire-resistant resins (e.g. phenolic resins), which could be used alone or blended with UP and/or VE were selected.These resins were cast into plaques and characterised for their thermal properties via thermogravimetric analysis and fire performances by means of pyrolysis combustion flow calorimetry and cone calorimetry. The fire safety assessment diagram (total heat release plotted against the flashover propensity values, calculated by dividing peak heat release rate by time-to-ignition) from the cone tests gave an indication of the overall fire safety, the trend being phenolics followed by UP, VE and epoxy, in descending order of fire safety. The fire safety of blends was in between those of the respective phenolic and UP/VE resins. The correlations between several fire parameters collected from different test methods were also assessed.In the second step, sandwich composites with similar components (glass fibre-reinforced UP composite laminates as skins and balsa wood as a core) but with different compositions were prepared. The design variables consisted of: two different thicknesses of core materials (12.7 mm (0.5 inch) and 25.4 mm (1 inch)), lay-ups (skins on one side or on both sides) and three different sample preparation techniques (resin infused laminates as skins on both sides, hand lay-up laminates as skins on both sides, and hand lay-up sandwich structure in one go). Their fire performances were evaluated by two different standard fire tests - cone calorimetry and propane burner testing at heat fluxes of 50 and 113 kW/m2 , respectively. In both tests, temperatures through the thickness of the samples were measured using thermocouples from which their thermal barrier performances could be studied. The results indicated that there was a minimal effect of the cone heater orientation or sample preparation technique, however, samples containing thicker balsa core or composite laminates on both sides showed better thermal barrier performances (lower heat transfer), the behaviour in the former was due to the physical and thermal thickness of the thick core sample, giving rise to a larger volume of the charred wood. In spite of similar flammability of composite laminates on one side or on both sides, the glass fabric on rear side in the latter reduced the rate of burning, therefore resulted in a lower mass loss rate. Following these observations, the design selected for further study was:composite laminates on both sides, balsa core thickness of 25.4 mm (1 inch), and sample preparation technique involving hand lay-up sandwich structure in one go.A number of sandwich composites were then prepared using different resins and resin blends/combinations impregnated as matrices for skins, keeping all other composition variables constant. This also included skins prepared from three layers of UP or UP/VE impregnated glass with a top glass fibre layer impregnated with a phenolic resin. Their fire and thermal barrier properties were studied and results analysed to select parameters that could be used to assess their overall fire-resistant properties. During cone and propane burner tests, the temperature differences in the top and back skin surfaces (measured using thermocouples) were used to calculate apparent thermal conductivities and resistivity values of the sandwich composite’s charred residue, which gave an insight into the thermal barrier properties of the chars from different resin types. The overall fire performances indicated that introducing phenolic resins, either incorporated as blends with UP or VE, or applied as a top layer, helped in reducing the flammability of the composite, the latter approach giving the best results. Using cone parameters the same as those used for cast plaques, fire safety plots were obtained, from which overall flammability of different resin types and their blends could be ranked. However, this approach does not include heat transfer through the thickness of the samples, which affects the time to burn-through in a composite. Therefore, a novel thermal barrier efficiency index, including cone parameters of peak heat release rate, time-to-ignition, and also time taken for the back surface temperature to reach 300 °C in cone or propane burner test, was proposed to combine both the fire and thermal barrier properties, and plotted against total heat release values from cone tests for all sandwich composites. This changed the trend previously seen from cone parameters only.UP or VE/phenolic blended resins, while performing very well in cone and other flammability tests such as UL-94, show relatively poorer performance in the burn-through test. This was attributed to the higher thermal conductivity of the highly crosslinked char from the phenolic component. Hence, considering both fire and thermal barrier performances, while phenolic blends were still safer than UP or VE resins, the difference was less than that judged on the basis just the burning behaviour.Among different designs, the best fire performance was exhibited by the sandwich composite prepared with both skins comprising one layer of phenolic resin on top of three UP or VE layered structures. The thin layer of phenolic skin seemed to be very effective in improving the overall flammability of the sandwich structure by either preventing or delaying ignition, whereas it had a minimal effect on the thermal barrier performance (burn-through property) of the composite
Developing trainee nursing associates towards embodiment
No full textThe development of professional values is a current issue in nursing. The newly regulated Nursing Associate (NA) education programme was developed following significant UK service failings in the past decade. A previous study had explored new students' self-rating and associated rationale of professional values and their meaning. That showed a perceived lack of understanding of the terminology used around this. This paper reports on a further study to explore learners' accounts of professional values to provide insights into the embodiment of these after one year of learning.Findings revealed that respondents defined the terms about professional values (honesty, compassion, conscientious, caring, and competent) majoring on compassionate practice as allied with thinking about being person-focused. Conscientious Care delivery is understood as being accountable and committed whilst competent practice is grounded in being both accountable and educated. Honesty was defined as being truthful and open. Caring was reported as a characteristic, suggesting embodiment of a value and something that was performed, i.e. it translates intention into practice. This might indicate a 'job to be done' rather than an embodied characteristic. Emotions were also reported as a minor aspect of caring, perhaps indicating that learning to become professional includes keeping control of emotional expression, which is compounded by kindness reported as a minor feature in compassion and caring descriptions.This study contributes insights for programme teams to inform curriculum interventions to develop professional values and highlights a need to have a close alignment with practice educator counterparts so that the student experience of professional values is consistent. Compared to previous research [1] this indicates that over one year students have progressed to develop a view of what a professional (NA) looks like - i.e. an accountable, committed and educated, person-focused individual who has an identity of performing care. It also suggests a learning development from understanding and performing professional values leading to internalization and embodiment by the point of registration
The Case for Integrating Multi-Source Data for a Fairer and Holistic Judgement of Competence in Medical Education & Training Tackling Differential Attainment in Medical Professions - Bridging the Gap Workshop Series 2020
No full textBeing a doctor in the 21st Century requires a diverse range of skills, a broad base of knowledge and a suite of professional values and attitudes that enable the clinical practice to be safe, effective and caring. Doctors, irrespective of their speciality, need to be knowledgeable and skilful not just in their area of expertise but also need a range of generic skills and capabilities such as communication, leadership, academic scholarship and research, teaching, quality improvement, advocacy, digital literacy to name a few. These capabilities, all relevant to clinical practice, are assessed routinely in clinical settings. This rich information about trainees, available from their formative assessments, does not inform high-stakes judgements about progression. Instead, these judgements are usually made on the basis of summative examinations conducted in simulated settings.
Unfortunately, these summative assessments have consistently delivered results with a large magnitude of the differential between the outcomes of candidates, based on factors such as ethnicity, gender, other protected characteristics and also the country of primary medical qualification. Formative assessment during training, however, is individualised and tends not to show this level of difference; leading to a situation where failure in summative examinations comes as a surprise to both trainees and to training programme directors.
There is evidence that periodic assessment of trainees’ acquisition of core capabilities can help make balanced, informed judgements about readiness for progression. The move from a pass/fail categorisation to a yet/not yet categorisation when coupled with appropriate remedial measures can improve, both the validity, as well as the fairness of assessments.
The large magnitude of the differential in outcomes of high-stakes assessments cannot be fixed by tweaking current assessment systems. Instead, there needs to be a recognition that high-level of capabilities consistently demonstrated in the workplace need to play a role in judgements about progression. Failure to do so is unfair, wasteful of public finances, and in breach of the trust places by the public, in training safe and competent clinicians
Sex Pistols: The End is Near, 25.12.77, Kevin Cummins (2020)
No full textReview of:
Sex Pistols: The End is Near 25.12.77
, Kevin Cummins (2020)
New York: ACC Art Books, 176 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-78884-061-3, h/bk, £3
Brass Roots; Whit Friday in Saddleworth, "the Greatest Free Show on Earth"
No full textThe article explores the history of the Brass Band movement in part of Yorkshire, England and attempts to explain why the small village communities of Saddleworth became such a stronghold of Brass Band activities; and how what started there as a small scale local event in 1884 one Whit Friday, became a festival that attracts both national and international interest
Potential Synergism between Novel Metal Complexes and Polymeric Brominated Flame Retardants in Polyamide 6.6
No full textWhile environmental concerns have caused polymeric brominated primary flame retardants (PolyBrFRs) to be effective replacement monomeric species, few alternatives for antimony trioxide (ATO) have been developed beyond the zinc stannates (ZnSs). Previous research, which explored the interactions of aluminium (AlW), tin (II) (SnW) and zinc (ZnW) tungstates with several phosphorus-containing flame retardants in polyamide 6.6 (PA66), is extended to two PolyBrFRs: brominated polystyrene (BrPS), and poly(pentabromobenzyl acrylate) (BrPBz). On assessing the effect of each tungstate on the thermal degradation and flammability in combination with each PolyBrFR using TGA, UL94, LOI, cone calorimetry and TGA-FTIR, only ZnW and SnW showed significant increases in LOI (>26 vol.%). Both ZnW-BrPS- and ZnW-BrPBz-containing formulations yielded average UL94 ratings ≥ V-2 and TGA char residues (corrected for metals content at 500 °C) in air > 15 wt.%. BrPS-containing samples, especially those containing ZnW and SnW, generated peak heat release rates approximately 50% lower than the equivalent BrPBz samples. These reductions did not correlate with respective increases in LOI, suggesting that tungstate-PolyBrFR combinations influence pre-ignition differently to post-ignition behaviour. Calculated synergistic effectivities indicate that ZnW functions as a synergist in both pre- and post-ignition stages, especially with BrPS. TGA-FTIR and char analyses showed that, in addition to the vapour-phase activity normally associated with PolyBrFRs, condensed-phase processes occurred, especially for the ZnW-PolyBrFR combinations. Additionally, ZnW demonstrated significant smoke-suppressing properties comparable with zinc stannate (ZnS)
Our lives in three parts: an autoethnographic account of two undergraduates and their respective psychiatric careers.
No full textPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an autoethnographic account of the stories of a mental health professional and a mental health survivor.Design/methodology/approach – Using the autoethnographic approach, Andrew and Jerome provide summaries of their respective psychiatric careers in three parts.Findings – Andrew and Jerome studied at the same University, Reading. Andrew failed his Politics finals and embarked on a trajectory as a mental patient. Jerome graduated in Psychology and trained as a clinical psychologist. The recovery movement brought them together and they have now established an educational and personal bond.Research limitations/implications – These are of course only two accounts, yet both authors have played a role in developing the recovery model in Britain. The accounts and story show the benefits of adopting a partnership approach between professional and service user.Practical implications – Both accounts are recovery journeys in their own way. Both highlight the value of education for recovery.Social implications – There is no doubt that clinical psychologists are both highly valued and well paid for their expertise. However, the expertise gained through Andrew’s life experience is equally invaluable for today’s mental health professionals to learn from, but perhaps not as well remunerated? Originality/value – Both accounts stretch back over 45 years and have covered the move from institutional to community care. This paper presents two contrasting perspectives on these changes and the lives of the two people involved