15 research outputs found
Exploring the Interplay between Family Factors and Mental Health Outcomes
No full textThis thesis explored the interplay between family factors and outcomes in those experiencing significant mental health difficulties. It reports on a systematic review of the literature surrounding a broad range of family-related factors and their relationship with clinical social, occupational, and relational outcomes in first-episode psychosis (FEP). The review identified 15 relevant studies, which indicated significant associations between family factors and outcomes in FEP. In addition, the review highlighted the need for a model reflecting family distress experienced as a result of FEP and the impact of this on family dynamics and processes. In essence, these findings underscore the importance of reorienting the understanding and priorities surrounding the systemic approach within mental health services to deliver effective support to individuals experiencing FEP and their families. Open Dialogue (OD) is a systemic approach, which supports individuals experiencing mental health crises, and their networks. This thesis reports on an empirical study which explored the feasibility of conducting an RCT to examine the effectiveness of OD approach interventions. Across two sites, fifteen participants were recruited (7 in the OD group, and 8 in the TAU group), constituting 35% of the required sample size for an RCT in this field. A retention rate of 53% was noted, with only 8 participants completing pre- and post-assessments. Substantial obstacles to conducting large-scale research in this area were identified along with potential solutions to overcome those barriers. The overall findings of this thesis outline the significance of integrating the connection between family factors and outcomes into clinical practice. While OD proves effective in supporting individuals and families during mental health crises, a need for further research, with increased sample sizes is indicated, in order to ensure the further implementation of OD across mental health services
Impeachment: An Online Discussion of its use in the United States and its British Origins
No full textJoin us for a thought-provoking discussion on the use of impeachment in the United States and its British Origins. The speakers are leading experts on impeachment, politics, and history. The speakers have all contributed to British Origins and American Practice of Impeachment (which was published by Routledge in 2024.
The speakers are:
Professor Jack Rakove, Coe Professor of History and American Studies and Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, Stanford University. He is the author of six books, including Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (1996), which won the Pulitzer Prize in History, and Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America (2010), which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize, and the editor of seven others, including The Unfinished Election of 2000 (2001).
Dr Clodagh Harrington is a Lecturer in American politics in the Departments of History and Government and Politics at University College Cork. Previously, she was Associate Professor of Politics at De Montfort University in Leicester where she taught American Politics and History since 2006.
Professor Daniel Plesch is Professor of Diplomacy and Strategy at SOAS University of London and is a 'door tenant' at the legal chambers of 9 Bedford Row, in London. His most recent research Women and the UN: a new history of women’s international human rights with Professor Rebecca Adami is published in 2021. He is the author of Human Rights After Hitler - featured on Netflix, reported on US National Public Radio and in other international media. His previous books include: America Hitler and the UN, Wartime Origins and the Future UN (with Prof. Weiss) and the Beauty Queen's Guide to World Peace.
Dr Chris Monaghan is a Principal Lecturer in Law at the University of Worcester. He co-edited British Origins and American Practice of Impeachment (with Matthew Flinders) which was published by Routledge in 2024. He also wrote Accountability, Impeachment and the Constitution: The Case for a Modernised Process in the United Kingdom which was published by Routledge in 2022
Evoking the Possibility of Presence:Textual and Ideological Effects of Linguistic Negation in Written Discourse
No full textThis thesis explores the textual and ideological effects of linguistic negation in written texts. It argues that when language users process negation, understanding its use in context is as much about the possibility of presence as it is about the actuality of absence. This gives rise to a variety of effects in texts from contributing to the construction of fictional characters to potentially influencing readers’/hearers’ view of the world they inhabit. This thesis brings together research on the theoretical aspects of how negation works to present a new approach to linguistic negation in written discourse. It also demonstrates how this approach can be applied in the analysis of the conceptual practice of negating. The approach presented is made up of three main elements; negation is presuppositional, is realised through a wide variety of linguistic forms beyond the morphosyntactic core forms (not, no, never, none, un-, in-, and so on) and includes semantic and pragmatically implied forms. These two elements combine to give rise to implied meaning in context. Having outlined this approach to negation, it is then applied in the analysis of literary and non-literary texts to explain the textual and ideological effects that arise from its use
Investigating the ‘empire of secrecy’ — three decades of reporting on the secret state
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University LondonIt has often been argued that journalism has been the most effective means of holding the intelligence services to account in western democracies. This thesis examines whether that proposition holds true in the United Kingdom and if so, whether such oversight has been consistent. Accountability by the news media is compared with the expanding range of UK official oversight mechanisms. The author utilises a body or work from over three decades of reporting on the intelligence services and further research on accountability to examine these questions. The author suggests this work is timely, given the controversy prompted by the former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden, who leaked a substantial archive of secret intelligence documents. This thesis concludes that the news media were often effective, if not consistent, in bringing intelligence to account in the second half of the 20th century. Since the start of the 21st century monitoring the secret state has become more challenging as a result of a changing economic, global and national political environment. Government legislation and technology makes it increasingly difficult for journalists to obtain confidential sources and then undertake their Fourth Estate role. Finding new methodologies is an urgent task for journalists, as history reveals that if intelligence agencies operate without scrutiny from outside government, abuses take place. Never before has government and its intelligence services had such powers and techniques of invasive mass surveillance available, and thus the potential to control the population and particularly those who dissent
Development of natural language processing techniques and resources for Old Irish; with an application for the detection of authors in the Würzburg Glosses
No full textOld Irish is lacking in digital resources compared to even other historical European languages, and relatively few attempts have been made to apply well-established natural language processing techniques to the language. Where attempts have been made, either to create resources or apply modern computational techniques, it has become apparent that certain roadblocks exist in relation to Old Irish which do not obstruct similar efforts in other languages. These roadblocks are not clearly identified in the literature, however, this research suggests that issues relating to tokenisation, part-of-speech tagging, and associated grammatical implications are among the most significant. Little focus has been given to these factors until now, and a conclusive review detailing their impact on attempts to create digital resources for Old Irish has never been carried out. Moreover, no attempt has been made to demonstrate that removing these roadblocks can enable the successful application of established natural language processing techniques to Old Irish text.
This research addresses major factors limiting success in the digitisation of Old Irish text and the application of established natural language processing techniques to it. Moreover, it is demonstrated that these factors can be overcome. This necessitates an assessment of common practice in text digitisation and natural language processing techniques as applied to other languages, and an assessment of both the manuscript orthography and the grammatical tradition which has been built up around Old Irish. Where other languages have seen success in digitisation and natural language processing projects, the linguistic features which distinguish these languages from Old Irish are examined in an attempt to mitigate their effect on success rates when attempting such projects for Old Irish text. It is demonstrated that many of the factors limiting success rates can be alleviated by moving away from the conventions of Old Irish grammar which were formalised at the turn of the last century, at least, on a sub-surface, computational level. That is to say that it is possible to process the text in a manner which deviates from the traditional grammar of Old Irish, but still represent it to an end user in a more conventional manner.
Certain assumptions regarding the nature of written language are inherent in the formats of many of the most common frameworks for the collection of annotated digital text, and hence, are inherent in natural language processing techniques which depend upon this type of text data. Many of these assumptions, though fundamental enough to have been overlooked in some cases, are shown to be mismatched with either the orthographic reality of Old Irish text, or with the grammatical tradition of the language. A tokenisation and part-of-speech tagging standard was developed for Old Irish in an attempt to overcome these mismatched expectations of the language. In this thesis it is demonstrated that this new standard for word separation is more suitable for the digital representation of Old Irish text than any which has come before it. It is shown to enable the successful application of certain natural language processing techniques to the language for the first time, as well as enabling the creation of a machine-readable lexicon of Old Irish tokens, which has not been possible until now as a result of disagreement between scholars regarding word boundaries and subsequent inconsistencies between resources created. A case study in the suitability of this standard is detailed in which it is shown that the application of well documented author recognition techniques, with a proven track record in other languages, to the text of the Würzburg glosses enables the successful separation of the work of the three scribal hands. The results of this experiment not only demonstrate the suitability of the tokenisation and part-of-speech tagging standard applied, but also add evidence to the debate on the authorship and composition of Old Irish gloss material.University of Galway (Digital Arts and Humanities Scholarship, 2017-2019) and the Irish Research Council (Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, GOIPG/2019/3694)
De-mystifying the Muslimah: Exploring Different Perceptions of Selected Young Muslim Women in Britain
No full textIn this research I argue that although Islam as a faith is inherently emancipatory, Muslim
women are doubly marginalised: by patriarchal interpretations of their faith within Muslim
communities and by pluralist society that often does not understand the faith-based values
and practices of Muslim women. The empowerment of Muslim women is crucial not just for
the women themselves but also for socio-political dynamics within the Muslim community
and its relationships in pluralist society. It is from this context, and acknowledging the paucity
of academic literature written by Muslim women, that I set out to give voice to them, so that
their opinions may be heard in discourses that they think are relevant to their lives. By
encouraging Muslim women to take voice and by facilitating mechanisms for these voices to
be heard, this research presents alternate narratives of Muslim women that challenge
dominant media imagery of the oppressed and subjugated Muslim woman. These narratives,
which are by and for Muslim women, portray instead the inherent diversity in the category
'Muslim woman' and thus add more facets to the category 'woman'.
I used an ethnographic methodology that involved participants as contributors in the creation
of new knowledge. Semi-structured interviews with 45 young university-educated Muslim
women and 7 group discussions were used as initial data-gathering tools. The penultimate
ethnographic stage involved Muslim women creating 3-minute long self-representational
digital stories (DSTs), which consist of an autobiographical narrative accompanied by still
pictures. This was a process of self-reflection for the women and an opportunity to take voice
and to be heard. The subsequent screening of these DSTs to audiences who were not
Muslim resulted in discussion and active debate about the reasons for prevalent
(mis)understandings of Muslim women and stereotypes were challenged. In its initiation of
more balanced representations of Muslim women this research empowers Muslim women,
and by contributing to dialogue and cohesion it also empowers pluralist society as a whole.
This research clarifies the overlapping priorities and identities of young British Muslim
women and initiates new discourses, as narrated by the women, on subjects including
religious interpretation and practice, feminism, media representation and social cohesion. In
the research findings I propose an evolving British-Muslim identity among Muslim youth (in
this case young women) which is distinct from that of their parents; a theological articulation
of a 'feminist' struggle for women's rights; and the need to engage with the media and others
to create positive representations of Muslim women. Experiences with DSTs indicate the
potential of personal narratives and interaction for the purposes of inter-community dialogue
Psychosocial interventions to reduce alcohol consumption in concurrent problem alcohol and illicit drug users
No full textBackground: Problem alcohol use is common among illicit drug users and is associated with adverse health outcomes. It is also an important factor in poor prognosis among drug users with hepatitis C virus (HCV) as it impacts on progression to hepatic cirrhosis or opiate overdose in opioid users.Objectives: To assess the effects of psychosocial interventions for problem alcohol use in illicit drug users (principally problem drug users of opiates and stimulants).Search methods: We searched the Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Group trials register (November 2011), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library, Issue 11, November 2011), PUBMED (1966 to 2011); EMBASE (1974 to 2011); CINAHL (1982 to 2011); PsycINFO (1872 to 2011) and reference list of articles. We also searched: 1) conference proceedings (online archives only) of the Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA), International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), International Conference on Alcohol Harm Reduction (ICAHR), and American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD); 2) online registers of clinical trials, Current Controlled Trials (CCT), Clinical Trials.org, Center Watch and International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP).Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials comparing psychosocial interventions with another therapy (other psychosocial treatment, including non-pharmacological therapies or placebo) in adult (over the age of 18 years) illicit drug users with concurrent problem alcohol use.Data collection and analysis: Two review authors independently assessed risk of bias and extracted data from included trials.Main results: Four studies, 594 participants, were included. Half of the trials were rated as having high or unclear risk of bias. They considered six different psychosocial interventions grouped into four comparisons: (1) cognitive-behavioural coping skills training versus 12-step facilitation (N = 41), (2) brief intervention versus treatment as usual (N = 110), (3) hepatitis health promotion versus motivational interviewing (N = 256), and (4) brief motivational intervention versus assessment-only group (N = 187). Differences between studies precluded any pooling of data. Findings are described for each trial individually:comparison 1: no significant difference; comparison 2: higher rates of decreased alcohol use at three months (risk ratio (RR) 0.32; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.19 to 0.54) and nine months (RR 0.16; 95% CI 0.08 to 0.33) in the treatment as usual group; comparison 3 (group and individual format): no significant difference; comparison 4: more people reduced alcohol use (by seven or more days in the past 30 days at 6 months) in the brief motivational intervention compared to controls (RR 1.67; 95% CI 1.08 to 2.60).Authors' conclusions: Very little evidence exists that there is no difference in the effectiveness between different types of interventions and that brief interventions are not superior to assessment only or treatment as usual. No conclusion can be made because of the paucity of the data and the low quality of the retrieved studies.Cochrane Training Fellowship awarded to the lead author by Health Research Board of Ireland (Grant No. CTF-2010-9)19/11/1
Memory, language and trauma in the work of Félix Grande
No full textPhDMy thesis explores how memory and trauma permeate the work of the poet Félix Grande
(Mérida, Spain, 1937). It addresses the question of how his particular understanding of
memory is opposed to a rather bleak view of it held by many other Spanish poets of the
time. Grande does not yield to a generalized discrediting of memory. On the contrary,
memory is the driving force behind his writing, and this thesis constitutes an analysis of
its mechanisms. The originality of Grande’s work stems from the ways in which it shares
common ground with contemporary research carried out by disciplines that integrate
Memory and Trauma Studies. His poetic voice struggles to grasp aspects of memory
whose articulation proves traumatic. These elements resist symbolic translation and turn
his poetry into a work of constant rumination without closure. Grande’s work illustrates
that literature is both inextricably linked to memory, and is well equipped to deal with
trauma, as the labour carried out by memory, weaving and un-weaving, especially in its
attempts to mourn, is at the heart of his artistic production. Finally, his work instantiates a
relationship with language and memory which, while recognising the limits of language
to express and of memory to retrieve the past, goes beyond this initial distrust to offer a
positive perspective on these faculties, as the means for establishing modes of survival
and rethinking our connections to the unknown
An Environmental Scan of Advanced Practice Radiation Therapy in the United States: A PESTEL Analysis
No full textPurpose: In 2021, the Advanced Practice Radiation Therapy Working Group (APRTWG) was established in the United States as a grassroots alliance of multidisciplinary radiation oncology professionals—radiation therapists, physicians, dosimetrists, and administrators—located across the country, interested in studying and establishing the Advanced Practice Radiation Therapist (APRT) level of practice in the United States. The APRT model has shown success in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and other countries, documenting the value of the APRT to the quality and advancement of clinical care. In the United States, the APRTWG seeks to coordinate activities, align resources, and drive the national agenda to collectively develop and define novel models of care using APRT in line with the evolving needs of patients and the radiation therapy profession. This environmental scan aims to examine the context of radiation oncology medical practice in the United States to inform pathways ahead for a proposed APRT model through a Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal (PESTEL) analysis.Methods and Materials: A literature search was conducted to understand the chronological timeline of the development of APRT during the past 25 years. Items that included the activities, scope of practice, and implementation of APRT nationally and internationally were identified. Papers describing advanced practitioner roles that are commonly found in the multidisciplinary team in radiation oncology both in the United States and internationally, such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners, were excluded.Results: Despite the environmental scan outcome, it is acknowledged that data collation and analysis was not as robust as that anticipated by undertaking a systematic review. Papers were identified by the lead author that aligned with each of the PESTEL factors. Defined broadly, a new care model can adjust how health services are delivered by incorporating best practices in patient care for a specific population, person, or patient cohort. As patients enter different stages of their disease, the purpose of a new model is to provide individuals with the right care, at the right time, by the right team, in the right place. It is clear that the opportunity for positive change and impact on the current state of practice in radiation oncology exists.Conclusion: The environmental scan findings demonstrate the complexities associated with implementing APRT in the United States, with multifactorial political, environmental, societal, technological, economic, and legal aspects to consider. The APRTWG will continue to lead and participate in such activities to demonstrate and identify APRT role opportunities in the United States and drive the nationwide implementation of the APRT level of practice in this country.</p
