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Sleep issues and burnout in Irish farmers: A cross sectional survey
Get PDFFarming can be a demanding, solitary, and unpredictable occupation. As a result, farmers may be more susceptible to sleep issues and burnout than workers in other occupations. However, economic and social pressures that may cause burnout and sleep issues in farmers vary greatly between nationalities. There is a lack of research on sleep and burnout in European, and specifically Irish, farmers using reliable psychometric tests. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional prevalence assessment of sleep issues and burnout with a population sample of 351 Irish farmers. Using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), a subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and the Short Form Health Survey-12 (SFHS), we identified how farmers’ sleep and burnout were correlated with their mental and physical health and identified the role of individual differences such as socioeconomic status, age, and gender. Irish farmers reported frequent burnout (23.6%) and widespread sleep issues (50.1%), with burnt out farmers reporting especially poor sleep. This has serious implications for farmers’ health, as burnt out farmers and farmers with poor sleep both reported worse mental and physical health. We identified age and parenthood as risk factors for burnout but identified no gender differences. While these exploratory findings are constrained by our cross-sectional design, they extend literature on occupational health risks in European agriculture to cover poor sleep and burnout. Irish farmers as a population need health intervention targeting sleep and burnout; especially in older and parent populations
‘Holding on’ in a crisis: theorising campus sexual violence activism within precarious labour relations
Get PDFA ‘rape crisis’ has been identified in universities in the Anglophone North, and responses usually take the form of institutional discipline and governance despite well-established assessments of the failings of both carceral and procedural approaches. In these responses, institutional reputation and risk management overdetermines, elevates and captures particular types of white feminist activism. This article theorises these dynamics, using precarity as a lens on the relations within which campus sexual violence is addressed. I trace the material connections between sexual violence and precarious labour, and the intersecting narratives of crisis focused on both issues in contemporary higher education, which reflect ‘genres of crisis’ in the wider politico-cultural sphere. In this context, persistent attachments to discipline and governance within the campus sexual violence movement can be theorised at least partly as a political flight from vulnerability, a ‘holding on’ to whatever one can find, that is ripe for exploitation by liability-focused institutional agendas. Such procedural enactments of security are possible because bureaucracy is the institutional ‘water in which we swim’, which creates a strong impetus to reduce politics to paperwork relations. This is especially manifest in risk-averse and compliance-driven ‘safeguarding’ modalities, securitarian regimes that serve mainly to interpellate the dangerous Other and safeguard the institution. I argue for the cultivation of more susceptible relations which are difficult to achieve within disembodied bureaucratic codes and which require a retreat from both narratives of crisis and procedural attempts at calm
Time Series Analysis for Tractor Sales using SARIMAX and Deep Learning Models
No full textTime series forecasting is known for playing vital role in many industries to make important decisions and strategies. This study concentrates on providing accurate insights that can help manufactures and stakeholders of agriculture machinery industry on future sales of tractors by applying both traditional and deep learning models like SARIMAX which is extension of SARIMA and deep learning models. Research starts by observing history data which include years of tractor sales then preprocess the data to find its quality and stationarity further applying SARIMAX model to find trends and seasons and cycles in the data and this model is evaluated by famous metrics like Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE).Deep learning models like Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Bidirectional LSTM, CNN LSTM Encoder Decoder, Convolutional Neural networks (CNN). They can help in enhancing the forecasting accuracy by handling all the non-linear relationships and their dependencies in the timeseries and this study will provide comparative analysis of deep learning models and SARIMAX model. Where SARIMAX outperformed the deep learning models with RMSE score 0.01 and provide forecast of next year’s tractor sales using SARIMAX model from the study and use q-q plot, residual plots and ACF and PACF graphs to make sure forecast was done accurately
Re-evaluating the assessment of phonetic skills: what we learned during the pandemic
No full textThe sudden move to online teaching and assessment during the pandemic proved a challenge for many subjects; this was no less the case for phonetics. This paper describes how we
endeavoured to devise comparable online assessment tasks for the evaluation of two aspects, articulatory phonetic skills and understanding of phonetics theory, and our evaluation of the success of the online tasks. Normally assessed under exam conditions with no access to external resources, we altered and developed our assessments so that students could complete the tasks online. Scores from the outcomes of these assessments are compared with pre-pandemic scores. We discuss what we have learned from moving these assessments
online, implications for students, and consider whether we will continue with these methods of assessment outside of lockdown conditions
Volunteering during Covid-19: Leadership Matters – The Case of Scrubs
Get PDFThe Covid-19 pandemic has tested every area of daily life for the world’s population. This narrative study will be of value and interest to an emerging body of empirical evidence that will explore the leadership of spontaneous volunteer activity during a global pandemic. Participants told their stories, and these narratives form the focus of this research, exploring leadership in this group. Empirical evidence confirms that leadership was effective in producing successful results, and resulted from, a knowledge of the community, leader skill, authentic behaviours, and an adaptive style, however no one style of leadership is identified. There is a need for further research into this area of leadership, to understand how leadership of spontaneous volunteers can be effective to the community, in crises and disaster response
Physical Activity in Adults with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder: A Large Cross-Sectional Survey Exploring Patterns, Preferences, Barriers, and Motivating Factors
Get PDFAdults with severe mental ill health may have specific attitudes toward physical activity. To inform intervention development, we conducted a survey to assess the physical activity patterns, preferences, barriers and motivations of adults with severe mental ill health living in the community. Data were summarised using descriptive statistics and logistic regressions were used to explore relationships between physical activity status and participant characteristics. Five-hundred and twenty-nine participants (58% male, mean age 49.3 years) completed the survey. Large proportions were insufficiently active and excessively sedentary. Self-reported levels of physical activity below that recommended in national guidelines was associated with professional inactivity, consumption of fewer than five portions of fruit and vegetables per day, older age, and poor mental health. Participants indicated a preference for low-intensity activities and physical activity that they can do on their own, at their own time and pace, and close to home. The most commonly endorsed source of support was social support from family and friends. Common motivations included improving mental health, physical fitness and energy levels. However, poor mental and physical health and being too tired were also common barriers. These findings can inform the development of physical activity interventions for this group of people.
Keywords: exercise; sedentary behaviour; cross-sectional study; survey; determinants; preferences; severe mental illnes
The Construction of Safe Space: Empowerment and the Perception of Vulnerability at Anglican Foundation Universities in England
Get PDFYoung adults in university environments are increasingly exploring gender variant identities and challenging binary constructions. Knowledge about the lived experiences of trans and non-binary (TNB) young people in higher education, however, is partial. Our research into Anglican Foundation Universities (AFUs) in England begins to address this lacuna. In particular, chaplains may find themselves acting as a bridge between the equality, diversity and inclusivity policies of universities and the Anglican Church’s official rejection of both same-sex marriage and the writing of new liturgies for trans folk; this may be especially the case for queer students who have personal connections with the Christian faith. We argue there is need for deeper reflection on the notion of safe space and the cis-construction of TNB folk as vulnerable and we ask whether protection and vulnerability discourses create contradictions that undermine agency and positive visibility for TNB young people. This article adds to research in the field by bringing together religious and gendered identities at UK universities; it draws on interviews with TNB folk to explore experiences of chaplaincies and campus spaces