The importance of diet and exercise in preventing type 2 diabetes

Diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions globally with estimates of 374 million people worldwide (WHO 2014 ) and impacts on the people with the condition, their families and on health service resources. While type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, the causes of type 2 diabetes are more multi-factorial. In the UK there are about 2.9 million with diabetes of whom approximately 90% will have type 2. It is also estimated that there are about 850,000 people in the UK who have type 2 diabetes but have not as yet been diagnosed ( NHS UK 2014). Coupled with this, there are people who have known risk factors for developing diabetes. This article aims to consider the role of diet in adults in preventing those who are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and to present the evidence and practical application for nurses

A Black Swan in a Sea of White Noise: Using Technology-Enhanced Learning to Afford Educational Inclusivity for Learners with Asperger’s Syndrome

Against a backdrop of increasingly vocation-focussed course provision within higher education, of widening participation initiatives intended to promote greater inclusion for learners affected by learning difficulties, and of moves towards greater use of social and collaborative forms of learning, this paper discusses the case of an undergraduate Computing student affected by Asperger’s Syndrome (AS).While there is recognition in the literature of problems associated with face-to-face dialogue for persons affected by AS, there is a paucity of research both into the experience of students in higher education, and around the issue of participation in group-work activities increasingly found in creative aspects of computing. This paper highlights a tension between moves towards collaborative learning and UK disabilities legislation in relation to learners with AS. Employing a qualitative case-study methodology, the investigation revealed how a technology-enhanced learning intervention afforded an AS-diagnosed learner greater opportunities to participate in group-work in a higher education context. The findings suggest that not only can computer-mediated communications afford AS-diagnosed learners opportunities to participate meaningfully in group-work, but also that the learner demonstrated higher levels of collective-inclusive versus individual-exclusive phraseology than neurotypical peers, thereby challenging assumptions around participation in collaborative learning activities and assimilation of peer-feedback

Nurses\u27 Job Satisfaction in Northwest Arkansas

During the month of October 2013, approximately 450 registered nurses working at a hospital in Northwest Arkansas were surveyed. All registered nurses were included in the study and were given the survey with instructions to complete it and return it within 30 days. A modified version of the McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale by Tourangeau was utilized, evaluating factors as they related to job satisfaction such as control and responsibility, scheduling, professional opportunities, praise and recognition, balance of family and work, relationship with coworkers, salary/vacation/benefits, maternity leave/child care, care delivery, social contact, research opportunities, and decision making. These variables were all rated individually using the scale of seven factors. Ninety-three were returned, giving a response rate just over twenty percent, 20.67%. Of the 93 returned, 14 were incomplete, approximately 15.1%. After receiving the surveys, the data was entered into an excel spreadsheet. Demographics such as gender, employment status, were given numeric values. Analyses were completed using the IBM SPSS Statistics version 20. Demographics were analyzed along with factors affecting job satisfaction and factors affecting likelihood to remain at the hospital or in their current position. The only two statistically significant subscales included satisfaction with work conditions and supervisor support and satisfaction with collegial relationships and support. When grouped as likely or unlikely to remain working at the current hospital until retirement, 39 of the 80 RNs (49%) who responded to this item did not intend to stay until retirement. From these findings, the hospital will be able to improve retention strategies. The limitations of this study were that a better response rate would have been achieved had we been able to mail out the surveys and a reminder to return them after a certain amount of time, as well as the fact that the median age of those surveyed was 28 years, so it was unrealistic to ask if they planned on staying until retirement. Overall, a great deal can be taken away from this study and used to improve nursing turnover in this particular hospitals and in hospitals elsewhere

\u3ci\u3eTypocerus Deceptus\u3c/i\u3e in Southern Illinois (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae)

The lepturine cerambycid Typocerus deceptus is reported from southern Illinois for the first time. It was collected in association with T. v. velutinus near, or in oak- hickory forest stands on Hydrangea arborescens, a new host plant record

From the help desk

Welcome to From the help desk. From the help desk is written by the people in Technical Services at StataCorp and deals with issues that they have found to be of concern to a large fraction of Stata users. It is the rare column in this series that deals with sophisticated programming issues because such issues, by definition, are not of concern to a large fraction of Stata users. From the help desk discusses the use of sophisticated programs and the use of sophisticated statistics. Copyright 2001 by Stata Corporation.internet, web, ado-files, Stata executable installation, updates, downloading, user-written additions, packages, search, find

'The designer', 'the teacher' and 'the assessor': changing academic identities

This paper explores the assessment practices of a group of academics working in the subject area of Design in a post-1992 university in the UK. We are interested in how academics assess and why they assess in the ways that they do. We focus on interview data collected from a design lecturer during the Assessment Environments and Cultures project in order to undertake the analysis. We examine the interview texts in terms of the positions that are taken up by this lecturer and the positions this makes available to ‘the student’. This analysis draws attention to the material effects of discourse. We suggest that there are multiple discourses in circulation in this school, which position academics and students in different ways, and that these different positionings (at times) create tension. The implications in terms of changing academic identities and assessment practices are discussed

From the help desk: Polynomial distributed lag models

Polynomial distributed lag models (PDLs) are finite-order distributed lag models with the impulse-response function constrained to lie on a polynomial of known degree. You can estimate the parameters of a PDL directly via constrained ordinary least squares, or you can derive a reduced form of the model via a linear transformation of the structural model, estimate the reduced-form parameters, and recover estimates of the structural parameters via an inverse linear transformation of the reduced-form parameter estimates. This article demonstrates both methods using Stata. Copyright 2004 by StataCorp LP.polynomial distributed lag, Almon, Lagrangian interpolation polynomials

Analysing assessment practice in higher education: how useful is the summative/formative divide as a tool?

A view of assessment as 'naturally' divided into the categories of formative and summative has become a taken-for-granted way of thinking about, talking about and organising assessment in universities, at least in the UK where the division is inscribed in national, institutional and departmental policy and guidance (eg. Quality Assurance Agency, http://www.qaa.ac.uk). In these documents summative and formative assessment tend to be understood as serving separate purposes with summative assessment understood as summing up the level of performance and formative assessment as feeding into future learning. We question the utility of the division in terms of better understanding assessment practices on the basis of an empirical study undertaken in a higher education institution in the UK. The aim of the Assessment Environments & Cultures project is to gain a better understanding of how academics assess and why they assess in the ways that they do. Interview and observational data have been collected from academics working in three subject areas: Design, Business and Applied Sciences. Initial analysis has focussed on the discourses in use and the subject positions taken up by academics when they talk about and undertake assessment. Analysis of our data suggests that, whilst academics used the categories of formative and summative to talk about their assessment practices, the distinction between assessment purposes may be 'messier' than the separate categories imply. Various examples from the project will be introduced to illustrate this point. This raises a number of questions in terms of researching assessment practices that will be raised for discussion at the roundtable. For example:Might it be useful to understand formative and summative assessment as occupying a shared and contested space rather than as distinct categories