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Inclusion of higher education disabled students: a Q-methodology study of lecturers’ attitudes
No full textThis UK Q-Methodology study combining quantitative and qualitative techniques explores lecturers’ attitudes toward disability and inclusion of disabled higher education students. Disabled students are among those likelier to withdraw from university and have lower degree outcomes. One potential barrier impacting disabled students’ is lecturers’ attitudes and self-efficacy. Using Qmethod software, thirty-one lecturers sorted forty-five statements describing the spectrum of attitudes toward disability and inclusion and provided optional post-sort survey and interview data. Two stances about inclusion emerged from factor analysis and interpretation: cautiously committed with concerns and confidently committed with concerns. Both groups are committed to inclusion of disabled students. However, the majority group is more cautious and concerned about their expertise. The second group is more ableism aware and confident about implementing inclusion but shares group one’s concerns about training needs. Recommendations include further research and training on disability awareness and anti-ableist pedagogies plus allocation of time and resources
Effectiveness of an online acceptance and commitment therapy programme for perfectionism in soccer players: a randomized control trial
No full textThere is currently limited understanding of how to reduce perfectionism in sport. With research outside of sport as impetus, in the current study we evaluated the effectiveness of an online ACT-based intervention for reducing perfectionism and improving pre-competition emotions in soccer players. Following a pre-registered protocol, eighty-one female soccer players (M age = 24.28 years, SD = 6.77) were randomly allocated to either an intervention group (n = 41) or a waitlist control group (n = 40). The intervention group had access to a set of online ACT-based modules for 8-weeks. Athletes completed measures of trait perfectionism, perfectionism cognitions, and pre-competition emotions pre-intervention and post-intervention. A 2 (group) x 2 (time) ANOVA revealed significant interaction effects for trait perfectionism, perfectionism cognitions, and pre-competition emotions. Following the intervention, the two groups displayed significant mean differences for trait perfectionism, perfectionism cognitions, and almost all pre-competition emotions. However, due to lower reliability of some instruments, findings regarding post-competition emotions were discounted. The findings suggest that online ACT-based interventions may be a viable and effective way to reduce perfectionism in soccer players (but not necessarily improving pre-competition emotions)
Phosphorous-nitrogen-silicon modified graphene oxide based fire retardant coating for cotton fabric
No full textA facile and effective method to prepare novel phosphorylated amino graphene oxide (PA-GO) fire retardant material was discussed in this report. PA-GO was prepared using graphene oxide nanoparticle, (3-aminopropyl)trimethoxysilane (APTMS), formaldehyde, and hypophosphorous acid. PA-GO imparted excellent fire retardancy to the fabric when applied on cotton fabric by a dip coating method. The PA-GO coated cotton fabric (CTPA-GO) was tested using various characterization techniques to understand its morphology, composition, thermal stability, and combustion nature. When cotton fabric (control) and CTPA-GO (coated fabric) were exposed to a flame, control fabric burned rapidly producing ash, whereas coated fabric released little smoke at start but did not ignite and maintained its original shape and size even after exposing to flame for >160 s. The PA-GO coating cross-linked with cotton fabric at higher temperature formed thermally stable structure and opposed the exposure of fire to the underlined fibre. The limiting oxygen index (LOI) value for the coated fabric was 32.3 % as compared to the control sample 17.9 %. The tensile strength of the fabric was retained effectively after PA-GO treatment. Pigment acrymine binder paste was used to improve the durability of the coating on fabric inside water, which helped in maintaining the fire retardant properties after water soak test.[Display omitted]•Novel phosphorylated amino graphene oxide (PA-GO) was synthesized for fire retardant coating.•PA-GO was prepared via simple method and then dip-coated onto cotton fabric.•PA-GO coated fabric increased LOI to 32.3 % and reduced char length to 5.1 cm during VFT.•CTPA-GO with binder had lower weight loss during water soak test and maintained fire retardancy.•Coated fabric has huge potential to design advanced fire-retardant fabrics in textile industries
Secure supervised learning-based smart home authentication framework
No full textSmart home possesses the capability of facilitating home services to its users with the systematic advance in Internet of Things (IoT) and information and communication technologies (ICT) in the recent decades. The home service offered by the smart devices helps the users in utilizing maximized level of comfort for the objective of improving life quality. As the user and smart devices communicate through an insecure channel, the smart home environment is prone to security and privacy problems. A secure authentication protocol needs to be established between the smart devices and user, such that situation for device authentication can be made feasible in smart home environments. Most of the existing smart home authentication protocols was identified to fail in facilitating secure mutual authentication and increases the possibility of lunching the attacks of session key disclosure, impersonation and stolen smart device. In this paper, Secure Supervised Learning-based Smart Home Authentication Framework (SSL-SHAF) is proposed as the reliable mutual authentication that can be contextually imposed for better security. The formal analysis of the proposed SSL-SHAF confirmed better resistance against session key disclosure, impersonation and stolen smart device attack. The results of SSL-SHAF confirmed minimized computational costs and security compared to the baseline protocols considered for investigation
The social worker as the Good Samaritan: When my heart did the thinking
No full textProfessionally a social worker has to pay attention to both the society’s values and to a client’s personal values. However, a social worker’s personal values are not the least of importance and can’t be ignored. Where could a sharp line be drawn between professional and private values and acting? The problem of decision-making has been pondered over since ancient times when Socrates contended that ‘everyone desires the good.’ Could it then be that for some the profession becomes a calling? This paper uses a collaborative autoethnographic approach with the narrative told by the first author, a female Swedish social worker. The story is about her meeting with a male drug addict living on the streets of London and about the decision she made. As it turned out, her decision would have consequences far beyond her and his imagination. The Introduction was written by the second author in order to provide the scientific framework embedding the first author’s story. Finally, the Discussion was written mutually as an intervie
Medical regulation must be compassionate, supportive, and fair-how can we make this a reality?
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Group-based mindfulness interventions in prisons a selective critical review
No full textThe use of mindfulness interventions (MIs) as means to manage unwanted or undesirable affect and behaviour has increased in popularity recently. This has resulted in the trial of MIs as a means to benefit wellbeing within prisons, with some intention of reducing recidivism. This selective literature review aims to examine current research regarding the use of MIs within prisons.Fourteen studies were manually selected for review inclusion according to their determined eligibility. All studies were required to have taken place in a prison and to include an explicit mindfulness intervention, including mindfulness theory and practice.Most interventions reviewed demonstrated success, particularly when tailored to the unique needs of a prison environment. Positive changes reported included improvements in participant mental health symptoms, as well as reduced stress and increased mindfulness skills. Some preliminary evidence was provided to indicate the potential longevity of some of these benefits.This review further highlighted some significant questions regarding the generalisability of the proposed suitability of MIs within prison environments including practical delivery constraints and the lack of acknowledgment of the unique challenges and circumstances faced by prisoners.The findings of this review show positive potential for the use of Mindfulness Interventions (MIs) within prison populations, where these are well-linked to mindfulness theory and to the needs of inmates. The review also suggest that MIs should be investigated thoroughly, examining potential negative implications alongside positive changes. There needs to be further review of the role of MIs within prison populations to ensure their suitability in the custodial environment.MIs are somewhat inflated in terms of predicted outcomes and sometimes applied to potentially unsuitable groups. A significant gap within the literature also persists regarding potentially negative implications associated with MIs, particularly within unique prison populations. Prison treatment programmes should be developed with careful consideration of unique prisoner needs in comparison to a general population
Positive psychology: self-compassion and its role within mental health nursing
No full textThis is the eighth article in a series that explores the meaning of positive psychology and the importance of applying the latest research findings to improve the wellbeing of the mental health workforce. It will focus on the positive psychology intervention of developing self-compassion and considers how the workforce can experience its uplifting effects through contemporary use in the field of mental health nursing. This article will highlight the underpinning theoretical work of Kristen Neff, in relation to self-compassion. It will explain what the term self-compassion means and its effect on neurological changes when it is practised. Finally, it emphasises how the application of self-compassion can benefit the individual, the organisation and the client. The practical tasks provided in the boxes throughout the article will help the reader identify what self-compassion means for them and understand how to further develop its transferability through evidence–based, user friendly exercises
Interdisciplinary communication: paving the way for gamification in entrepreneurship education – a case study from a medium-sized UK university
No full textThis chapter presents a collaborative autoethnography study whereby two academics at a medium-sized UK university explore their experiences of teaching entrepreneurship in different business and law school departments to combine expertise and resources to develop interdisciplinary gamification solutions. The combined experiential reflections have contributed to the generation of ideas that will prompt future interdisciplinary content to be created to bridge together fields such as business, social, legal, and technical studies. The chapter concludes that critical factors limiting developments in interdisciplinary entrepreneurship games include a lack of focus on entrepreneurial skills in departments within HEIs other than business schools and a lack of cross-departmental communication and collaboration. Although all the required expertise and resources are present within the university, a genuinely holistic approach can only be developed if innovative teaching tools combine multidisciplinary content from all faculties
Traffic sign recognition for autonomous vehicle using optimized YOLOv7 and convolutional block attention module
No full textThe infrastructure and construction of roads are crucial for the economic and social development of a region, but traffic-related challenges like accidents and congestion persist. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have been used in road infrastructure and construction, particularly with the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Object detection in Computer Vision also plays a key role in improving road infrastructure and addressing traffic-related problems. This study aims to use You Only Look Once version 7 (YOLOv7), Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM), the most optimized object-detection algorithm, to detect and identify traffic signs, and analyze effective combinations of adaptive optimizers like Adaptive Moment estimation (Adam), Root Mean Squared Propagation (RMSprop) and Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) with the YOLOv7. Using a portion of German traffic signs for training, the study investigates the feasibility of adopting smaller datasets while maintaining high accuracy. The model proposed in this study not only improves traffic safety by detecting traffic signs but also has the potential to contribute to the rapid development of autonomous vehicle systems. The study results showed an impressive accuracy of 99.7% when using a batch size of 8 and the Adam optimizer. This high level of accuracy demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed model for the image classification task of traffic sign recognition