79 research outputs found
Carer impact on self-management by people with advanced cancer living with changing eating habits
No full textBackground: Internationally there is interest in supporting selfmanagement, as a way of enhancing the quality of life of people living with illness and reducing the economic cost of care. This is the first study to examine the impact of carers on self-management behaviour by cancerpatients. Methods: The research was an in-depth mixed methods study ofweight loss and eating difficulties in people with advanced cancer. The study participants included 32 patient-carer pairs receiving palliative home care inthe South of England in either 2003 or 2005. Semi-structured interviews were analysed using both content and thematic approaches, which revealed self-management of changing eating habits1. This paper reports aninterpretation of the way carers were found to impact on patient selfmanagement.Results: All carers wanted to help patients and many weretroubled by uncertainty about the adequacy of their caregiving. However, patients gave examples both of carer behaviours that promoted selfmanagement and conversely of those that were experienced as disabling. This paper critiques the patient focus of most intervention that aims to support self-management. Drawing on the example of people with advanced cancer managing eating difficulties, it argues that self-management might best be facilitated using a family focused approach to supportive cancer care.Conclusions: Further work is needed to establish the ways in which carers can be helped to support patient self-management. Acknowledgement: The author would like to thank Macmillan Cancer Support UK for funding this study
The Meaning of The Hajj Ritual: William R. Roff Thoughts and His Contribution to Islamic Studies in Indonesia
No full textThis article aims to analyze William R. Roff’s theoretical approach to Hajj and its contribution to Islamic studies in Indonesia. This contribution arose from his concern with the very few historians of religions who made functional, analytical categories for explaining religious phenomena. This paper is a literature study and uses William R. Roff’s writing, Theoretical Approaches to the Hajj, as the primary source and analyzes it using qualitative data analysis. The author found that William R. Roff explained the implementation of the pilgrimage and its meaning by elaborating on Arnold van Gennep’s theory and Victor Turner’s thesis. The pre-implementation stage of the pilgrimage means the separation contained in the ramalan ritual (extra-Islamic) to determine the best time for the pilgrims’ departure, apologies and prayers, preparation of supplies, repayment of debts, and their obligations before the pilgrimage. The stage of the hajj implementation means the transition that is contained in the peak performance of the hajj ritual. The post-implementation phase of the Hajj means togetherness in the change in attributes, understanding of the pilgrims, and their implementation in the community life where they live. William R. Roff’s theoretical contribution to the pilgrimage, the outcome of which was satisfactory to both parties, has been used as a model by scholars and researchers for studying other religious rituals in Islam. His interpretation of the hajj ritual falls into the third phase called new Islamic studies to approach
Encouraging survey participation among individuals seeking HIV prevention services: does a community identity match help or hurt?
No full textUnderstanding the behaviors and attitudes of at-risk populations is fundamental to controlling the spread of HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. The problem of nonresponse among these populations, however, plagues survey research designed to address these issues. Previous work undertaken to map out the dynamics of nonresponse--both non-contacts and refusals--have primarily focused on exploring the effectiveness of a single method of outreach. This analysis improves upon this prior research by comparing the effectiveness of two types of outreach strategies in a follow-up face-to-face survey of individuals seeking HIV prevention services in New Jersey during the period 1999-2001. Caseworkers from community-based organizations (CBOs) attempted to contact one set of respondents, while “outsider” researchers attempted to contact the second set. In brief, we find that in contrast to a CBO research affiliation, an outsider researcher status is associated with higher survey response rates.Peer reviewed."First published on May 31, 2006" according to publisher's website
Problems in the analysis of Indonesian ideology
No full textThis thesis was scanned from the print manuscript for digital preservation and is copyright the author.
Researchers can access this thesis by asking their local university, institution or public library to
make a request on their behalf. Monash staff and postgraduate students can use the link in the References field
CUNY Academic Works Visualizing History: Using Museum Skills to Teach Information Literacy to Undergraduates
No full textAbstract Baruch College began an information studies minor that reinforces the principles of information literacy. However, it did not employ the visual to teach information literacy skills. To fill this gap, a new course, using the process ofresearching and preparing an exhibit script to teach undergraduates information literacy skills, was developed. In this course students have the opportunity to become creative, while at the same time learning the organizational and research skills needed to compose exhibit proposals, write labels and press releases and finally to produce an exhibit script. beyond the written word and is concerned with all illustrative materials including but not limited to images, artifacts, pictures, maps, advertisements, and websites. The author felt that using exhibit planning which combines the visual with the written word, as a tool to teach information literacy would be a new and interesting addition to our department's course offerings. The elementary school trip to a local historical society or museum is something that is remembered by most individuals of their primary school education. Museums are considered essential to providing a well-rounded educational experience for children of 3 all ages by exposing them to a broad range of subject areas and experiences that can translate into excellent learning tools. Following a trip to an historical society or museum, the classroom teacher can incorporate into the curriculum what the museum educator presented to the students. These visual sources of information used for decades by schoolchildren can and should be integrated into the undergraduate experience to help enhance the research and writing skills of students. Stylianopoulos views the bigger picture of information literacy as" ... applying the concept to the research that is before you. A life-long learner should be able to adapt the training equally to visual or text driven research" (76). There are many published articles on information literacy and the visual, and they focus on topics such as incorporating digital images into library services and using visual images to promote student learning skills. Much of the literature views no role for the librarian in teaching visual literacy. Nelson states that "Teaching how images (such as a political poster dating back to the French Revolution) are constructed, organized or expressed to communicate meaning goes as much beyond the role oflibrarians as the teaching of any other discipline-specific content (such as Robespierre's concept ofliberty)" (2004, 8). She is not alone i
Proactive preparation for late life: A task oriented intervention for adult children and their aging parents
No full textConference Presentatio
How much can the orientation of G's eigenvectors tell us about genetic constraints?
No full textA key goal in evolutionary quantitative genetics is to understand how evolutionary trajectories are constrained by pleiotropic coupling among multiple traits. Because studying pleiotropic constraints directly at the molecular genetic level remains very difficult, several analytical approaches attempt to draw conclusions about constraints by relating the orientation of the eigenvectors of the traits' (co)variance matrix to vectors of multivariate selection. On the basis of explicit models of genetic architecture, I here argue that the value of such approaches is greatly overestimated. The reason is that eigenvector orientation can be highly unstable and lack a biologically meaningful relationship with the underlying traits' genetic architecture. Genetic constraints are more profitably explored through experimental approaches avoiding the mathematical abstraction inherent in eigenanalysis
Quantitative genetics of shape in cricket wings: Developmental integration in a functional structure
No full textThe role of developmental and genetic integration for evolution is contentious. One hypothesis states that integration acts as a constraint on evolution, whereas an alternative is that developmental and genetic systems evolve to match the functional modularity of organisms. This study examined a morphological structure, the cricket wing, where developmental and functional modules are discordant, making it possible to distinguish the two alternatives. Wing shape was characterized with geometric morphometrics, quantitative genetic informationwas extracted using a full-sibling breeding design, and patterns of developmental integration were inferred from fluctuating asymmetry of wing shape. The patterns of genetic, phenotypic, and developmental integration were clearly similar, but not identical. Heritabilities for different shape variables varied widely, but no shape variables were devoid of genetic variation. Simulated selection for specific shape changes produced predicted responses with marked deflections due to the genetic covariance structure. Three hypotheses of modularity according to the wing structures involved in sound production were inconsistentwith the genetic, phenotypic, or developmental covariance structure. Instead, there appears to be strong integration throughout thewing. The hypothesis that genetic and developmental integration evolve tomatch functional modularity can therefore be rejected for this example. © 2010 The Author(s). Journal compilation © 2010 The Society for the Study of Evolution
Gender differences in positive aspects of caregiving
No full textMen are expected to take on increasing roles in dementia caregiving in the future, but little is known about how they appraise such roles when compared with women.
We examined differences in measures of positive aspects of caregiving (PAC) among 141 male and 468 female caregiver s of individuals with Alzheimer's disease from the NIH Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer 's Care Health (REACH) study sites in Birmingham, Memphis and Philadelphia. Men reported higher scores on the self-affirmation subscale of the PAC measure [24.0 v 22.3, t (638) = 3.01, p<.01) but d id not differ on the out look on life subscale [12.0 v 11.9, t (638) = 0.31 , p=.75).
We then examined three categories of variables that might help explain the relationship between gender and self -affirmation - demographic characteristics o f the caregiver, psychosocial characteristics of the caregiver and characteristics related to the caregiving situation. Religiosity, anxiety, depression, behavioral bother and social support were related to both gender and the self -affirmation subscale.
Subsequent mediation analysis suggested t hat religiosity and social support suppressed the relationship between gender and self-affirmation and anxiety mediated this relationship. Sobel statistics for depression and behavioral bother indicated that neither variable had a statistically significant impact on the relationship between gender and self-affirmation. Our results suggest that the relationship between self -affirmation and gender is complex and partially masked by gender differences in religiosity and social support.This research was supported by the University of Alabama Center for Mental Health and AgingPoster Presentatio
Does egg production represent adult female copepod growth? A call to account for body weight changes
No full textAn almost universal assumption in determining growth in copepods is that, over short periods, an individual adult female's net growth is equal to the amount of material expelled as eggs. This assumption relies upon adult body mass being in steady-state between the start and end of the same period. We explore different situations where this assumption is violated. Initially, concepts of how adult body weight and egg output are coupled over time are addressed. Using a refined concept of growth, we show that using typical 24 h incubation methods to measure egg output in sac spawners or broadcasters that produce clutches of eggs with a periodicity of >1 d may give correct mean population growth rates, but erroneous individual rates (including maximum and minimum individual growth, and measurements of individual variability such as coefficient of variation). Measurements derived from laboratory and field studies are then used to explore errors associated with the steady-state assumption. Decoupling of egg production from assimilation, and non-steady-state body weight in large lipid-storing higher-latitude species are relatively well documented, yet growth estimates allowing for such changes have almost never been made. Errors are not limited only to such species, however, and changing adult body weights can occur in small temperate and tropical species too. Body weight can increase or decrease whether or not eggs are exuded over the same period. The errors that can arise if we assume that the output of eggs by females equals their net growth rate are large and variable; in our compilation they range from -208% (i.e. egg output being 9.7% of body carbon weight per day, but adult carbon weight simultaneously declining by 13.7% d-1) to +71% (i.e. egg output being 1.5% of body carbon weight per day, and adult carbon weight simultaneously increasing by 4.3% d-1). Using measurement of the natural variability in adult body weights, we determined that in order to be able to discriminate significant changes in body weight of 1 and 10% respectively, >1000 and <100 replicates are necessary, if applying typical sacrificial weighing methods. If we are to make accurate estimates of growth in adult copepods, then changes in body weight are of fundamental importance. We make initial recommendations for tackling these problems and reducing errors in the future.</p
- …
