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“I Feel Like A Neurotic Mother at Times”—a mixed methods study exploring online health information seeking behaviour in new parents
No full textBackground: In contemporary society, due to the exponential growth of technology and the online platform, data acquisition has never been so effortless. Subsequent accessibility to health information has been reported as having many positive and negative effects. Health anxiety is the apprehension of experiencing or developing an ailment due to symptomology misinterpretation. One such lifetime occurrence which causes increased anxiety is becoming a new parent. New parents often use the online platform to seek information which will educate them on how best to care for their child and to keep their child’s health at the optimum level.Methods: The online Pregnancy Questionnaire used within this study was inclusive of the Short HAI Health Anxiety Inventory (HAI) and was tailored for both pregnant women and new parents. This study focuses specifically on the results provided by the new parents. The research was disseminated and advertised on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and a purpose-built website named “A Healthy Search” which provided all information relevant to the study and participation. Quantitative data were analysed using a regression and qualitative data were thematically analysed.Results: Results shows that medical complications in pregnancy did not significantly predict health anxiety however medical care within the past year did. It can also be seen that frequency of searching online for self, did not significantly predict health anxiety, yet searching online for child did significantly predict health anxiety. Anxiety specific to pregnancy ceases when gravidity comes to an end and feelings of health anxiety then tend to be transferred from the mother (parent) to the child when one becomes a new parent. New parents strive to expand their own knowledge base, in regards to typical and atypical symptomology, so that they are better equipped to monitor development, care for, and make decisions on behalf of their child. The online platform was used as opposed to offline provisos due to inexperience, judgement and anonymity. Online health information seeking behaviour also has the probability of both increasing and decreasing levels of anxiety in new parents.Conclusions: This research recognised and reinforced positive and negative aspects of online health information seeking behaviour. It is recommended that further research be carried out into relevant, efficacious interventional techniques that may relieve health anxiety within new parents as contemporary technology has become a pivotal aspect of life
Drug and alcohol workers’ view of positive psychology in the treatment of coexisting problems
No full textPurpose - Positive psychology interventions have been suggested to be beneficial in the treatment of dual diagnosis. This exploratory study investigated the perspective of psychosocial intervention workers to explore the potential of a positive strengthsbased approach in dual diagnosis recovery.Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative approach was employed with psychosocial intervention workers who attended and observed a positive intervention delivered to dual diagnosis clients. A focus group explored what these practitioners are already doing that resembles positive psychology and their opinion regarding the utility of such interventions in recovery.Findings - Findings revealed that practitioners were already engaging in positive practice, however, randomly and infrequently with limited impact. Although this new approach was found valuable, potential challenges were identified and a possible discrepancy between staff views of clients and clients’ views of themselves in terms of their potential was detected.Research limitations – The study involved a small and homogeneous sample. Further research is necessary to investigate staff views and ways of integrating positive psychology with traditional treatment.Practical implications - Rather than merely attending to the psychological problems and dealing with symptoms, it is also necessary to directly target well-being to enable people to flourish with consideration of their readiness to change.Originality/value - Addressing a gap in the literature, the present study explored positive themes in current practice and forms part of the evaluation of a newly developed strengths-based approach for individuals with coexisting problems
Advanced technology integration in food manufacturing supply chain environment: pathway to sustainability and companies’ prosperity
No full textThe applicability of trends in industries' production, logistics and supply chain management has increased productivity, efficiency and less adverse environmental impact. Sustainability is one of the trends identified and precept by various researches as what every industry could consider ensuring a better future for the environment and prosperity in most sectors. Meanwhile, the application of different new technologies and the current digitalization is helping in achieving the said sustainability trends within the manufacturing industry. This study, therefore, aims to investigate through literature and a case study how well integration of advanced technology has impacted sustainability and growth within food manufacturing environment. Integration of advanced technology to aid sustainability within food manufacturing and supply chain environment will be investigated through a case study in an agricultural-livestock cooperative company in Andalusia, Spain. Meanwhile, with the combination of the literature review carried out and the explorative research through case study where specialists and experts in sustainability, food manufacturing and supply chain management were interviewed. The research was able to highlight the impacts of the innovations and integration of advanced technology within food manufacturing and supply chain environment with a brief sustainability evaluation using the analysis of the company’s KPI
Efficiency Improvement of a Class E2 Converter for Low Power Inductive Links
No full textThis work presents a model of a Class E2 converter for wireless medium power transfer applications. The converter operates at frequency of 200 kHz and consists of an inductive link with its primary coil driven by a class E inverter and the secondary coil with voltage driven class E synchronous rectifier. A 7th order linear time invariant LTI state-space model is used to obtain the eigenvalues of the system for the four modes caused by the operation of the converter switches. A participation factor for the four modes is used to find the actual operating point dominant poles for system response. A dynamic analysis is carried out to investigate the effect of changing separation distance between the two coils based on converter performance and the changes required of some circuit parameters to achieve optimum efficiency and stability. The results show an excellent achievement in terms of efficiency (90-98%) and maintaining constant output voltage by the use of a PI controller with dynamical change of capacitors in the inverter
Going to the dogs. A history of Greyhound racing in Britain, 1926-2017,
No full textBook review of "Going to the dogs. A history of Greyhound racing in Britain, 1926-2017" by Keith Laybourn, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 201
Research roadmap for information integration in construction
No full textThis Roadmap is developed for a challenging Global environment where fundamental paradigms such as data generation and analysis, are shifting at a seismic rate, while change in Construction Industries across the Globe is, in the main, confined to large-scale projects and slow. Against this background, the authors set out to also give a ‘voice’ to small-to-medium-scale projects through which the construction output Worldwide is delivered. Hence, project scale was one of the key considerations throughout this Roadmap.Moreover, the authors conceptualized data integration by taking the realities of ‘doing business’ in construction into consideration. The emergent framework facilitates the discussion of knowledge and data integration at organisational, team, operational and technical levels across key project phases. This approach recognizes that business is done through projects but change can only come about if appropriate organizational structures and processes are put in place.Last, but not least, the authors strived to ensure that data integration was not considered solely from a technical perspective. Organisational, team and individual aspects of data integration were integrated in the research framework. Through our work the individual’s willingness to collaborate emerged as a critical driver for high levels of integration, while our survey did identify “Reluctance to work across professional boundaries” as a major barrier to integration. Hence, we conclude that research on integration should pay due attention to the individual
Navigating the new degree apprenticeships: a facilitator’s perspective.
No full textThe degree apprenticeship was introduced in 2015 and touted as one of the biggest developments in the higher education sector in several decades (Rowe et al., 2016). A key aspect of the rationale for its introduction is the critical need for the UK to produce more commercially aware graduates. This approach is dependent on collaboration between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and key stakeholders such as employees, employers and professional bodies. HEIs need to be effective in how they identify potential partners and opportunities; in addition to identifying new partners, the HEI will seek to establish the partnership with the partner organisation, this involves identifying the relevant skills gap (s) and developing the appropriate academic content, material, schedule and platform of learning to meet stakeholder needs.These challenges have presented HEIs with a number of questions to be considered. In particular, is it the role of the academic staff to identify commercial opportunities and then to build and maintain those relationships? If it is the role of academic staff, then how are they being managed and developed in order to carry out these seemingly less academic but more commercial activities? Through a series of semi-structured interviews with an academic responsible for leading a newly developed Chartered Management Degree Apprenticeship (CMDA) at a UK university, the project has sought to investigate some of the opportunities and challenges experienced during programme development and delivery. Respondent feedback suggested that the degree apprenticeship represents a meaningful and dynamic delivery model but that any benefits must be balanced against some of the issues and anxieties potentially experienced by staff when transitioning into their new roles
What did the alternatives ever do for us? A five-part drama series, with commentary, exploring the emergence of alternative comedy
No full textThis thesis draws on an originally scripted TV drama series, ‘Open Mike’, which was written to explore the emergence of alternative comedy in the 1970s. Three of the hour-long episodes of this five-part drama are being submitted for this thesis. ‘Open Mike’ starts with Margaret Thatcher’s election victory in April 1979, which coincided with the opening of a new comedy venue, and ends with the Brixton riots in 1981. Aside from ‘Open Mike’ itself, a research artefact in its own right, there is a commentary that reflects on the nature of the process, combining personal memories and insights with historical and contemporary documents related to the period (newspapers and news programmes, Hansard, social histories, memoirs and autobiographies) and, finally, explorations of the nature of comedy, especially the particular variety known as ‘alternative’. By engaging in the process of practice-led research, involving repeated cycles of reflection, iteration and objective examination of the complexity of humour, the thesis examines the nature of alternative comedy. The work explores the impact of this form of comedy on feminism, class, race and sexuality and, more broadly, on humour itself. Undoubtedly, alternative comedy helped to shape perceptions of women, race and sexuality, besides helping to redefine an acceptable language with which to discuss these issues. Moreover, as demonstrated in the drama series, the pioneering alternative comics inspired minority groups to use humour as a form of social protest, leading individual performers to build sustainable careers for themselves.However, despite this influence, alternative comedy had little, if any, impact on the issue of social class, largely because class itself was ignored as a subject for debate.In this period drama series, ‘Open Mike’, which invites comparisons with contemporary society, the limited impact of this principled form of humour is laid bare and, in the process, the thesis provides novel insights into the paradoxical nature of humour to explain why alternative comedy’s impact was circumscribed
Social frailty: the importance of social and environmental factors in predicting frailty in older adults.
No full textFrailty can have multifaceted contributors, including physical, psychological, social and environmental elements. There is a lack of clarity surrounding frailty as it lacks a universal common definition, multiple factors are attributed to frailty and no definitive assessment tool is available. The evidence suggests that there is a lack of research to indicate causal relationships between the various determinants of frailty in ageing individuals. This review discusses the important role that social and environmental factors play in predicting the risk of frailty in older adults, as well as discussing the various signs of frailty. Health professionals in primary and community care settings are well placed to prevent and identify social frailty in the persons they care for
