New technology and new workplaces: call centre careers – a growing reality?

Research to date suggests that career advancement in call centres (CCs) is relatively uncommon with employees often viewing such employment as a stopgap measure before moving on to something better. This study set out to determine whether such scenarios have changed over time since CCs have become more established in their work organisation, information and communication technology (ICT) and management processes. This study particularly focused on training and development initiatives, how employees access training and development, and whether CCs support career development. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, these issues are examined within 10 Australian CCs of varying size from various sectors. Two-thirds of respondents stated that they intended to develop a career in the industry and 7 in 10 reported that they believed there were promotional opportunities emerging in their current organisation. Despite these findings, the evidence also suggests that more needs to be done both to create coherent career paths and to establish structured, accredited training programmes for CC employees.

How secure is a Newtonian paradigm for psychological and educational measurement?

From the early 1900s, some psychologists have attempted to establish their discipline as a quantitative science. In using quantitative methods to investigate their theories, they adopted their own special definition of measurement of attributes such as cognitive abilities, as though they were quantities of the type encountered in Newtonian science. Joel Michell has presented a carefully reasoned argument that psychological attributes lack additivity, and therefore cannot be quantities in the same way as the attributes of classical Newtonian physics. In the early decades of the 20th century, quantum theory superseded Newtonian mechanics as the best model of physical reality. This paper gives a brief, critical overview of the evolution of current measurement practices in psychology, and suggests the need for a transition from a Newtonian to a quantum theoretical paradigm for psychological measurement. Finally, a case study is presented that considers the implications of a quantum theoretical model for educational measurement. In particular, it is argued that, since the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is predicated on a Newtonian conception of measurement, this may constrain the extent to which it can make accurate comparisons of the achievements of different education systems.

The need for qualitative methodologies in cancer cachexia research

Background: Cancer cachexia is not well understood or managed in clinical practice (Delmore 2000; Poole and Froggatt 2002). Whilst a dedicated effort has been made towards understanding the biological processes of the syndrome, little attention has been paid to its multidimensional impact. This is despite previous qualitative research, enriching our understanding of the holistic impact of the syndrome which traditional quantitative methods could not have uncovered (Reid 2007).

Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the adequacy of the existing clinical knowledge base of cancer cachexia management.

Methods: A systematic critical review of the literature on cancer cachexia was undertaken.

Results: There is a need to develop protocols for care delivery, which move beyond a purely biological approach to care towards a more holistic approach. This can only be achieved by gaining the perspectives of those who are involved in care delivery to advanced cancer patients with cachexia and their families using qualitative methodologies.

Conclusions: Cancer cachexia is a complex, challenging syndrome, which must be understood from a holistic bio-psychosocial model of care in order to meet the multidimensional needs of this client population. The perspectives of those involved in care delivery is required in order to contribute to a knowledge base which will inform the development of interventions directed at empowering patients and their families to understand cancer cachexia and recognise it as part of the disease process.

Preschool Children's Awareness of and Attitudes Toward Difference: A Study of 3- and 4-Year-Old Children in Northern Ireland

This paper presents the findings of a large-scale survey (n = 1,049) of the ethnic awareness and attitudes of 3-4 year old children in Northern Ireland. In drawing upon and applying Bourdieu’s notion of habitus, the paper demonstrates how even at this age, the children are already beginning to embody and internalize the cultural habits and dispositions of their respective ethnic groups. This was found in relation to the children’s: friendships choices; preferences for particular national flags; and dispositions towards specific sports associated with their respective communities. Informed by the work of Bourdieu, the paper concludes by arguing for the need for greater use of quantitative methods employing multivariate and multilevel statistical analyses and for these to be based on a more open and meaningful engagement with the findings of indepth qualitative and ethnographic research in this area.

The Prenatal Distress Questionnaire:An investigation of factor structure in a high risk population

Background: The Prenatal Distress Questionnaire (PDQ) is a short measure designed to assess specific worries and concerns related to pregnancy. The aim of this study was to confirm the factor structure of the PDQ in a group of pregnant women with a small for gestational age infant (< 10th centile). Methods: The first PDQ assessment for each of 337 pregnant women participating in the Prospective Observational Trial to Optimise paediatric health (PORTO) study was analysed. All women enrolled in the study were identified as having a small for gestational age foetus (< 10th centile), thus representing an 'elevated risk' group. Data were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Three models of the PDQ were evaluated and compared in the current study: a theoretical uni-dimensional measurement model, a bi-dimensional model, and a three-factor model solution. Results: The three-factor model offered the best fit to the data while maintaining sound theoretical grounds(χ² (51df) = 128.52; CFI = 0.97; TLI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.07). Factor 1 contained items reflecting concerns about birth and the baby, factor 2 concerns about physical symptoms and body image and factor 3 concerns about emotions and relationships. Conclusions: CFA confirmed that the three-factor model provided the best fit, with the items in each factor reflecting the findings of an earlier exploratory data analysis. © 2013 Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology.

Is there really "nothing you can do"? Pathways to enhanced flood-risk preparedness

Whilst policy makers have tended to adopt an ‘information-deficit model’ to bolster levels of flood-risk preparedness primarily though communication strategies promoting awareness, the assumed causal relation between awareness and preparedness is empirically weak. As such, there is a growing interest amongst scholars and policy makers alike to better understand why at-risk individuals are underprepared. In this vein, empirical studies, typically employing quantitative methods, have tended to focus on exploring the extent to which flood-risk preparedness levels vary depending not only on socio-demographic variables, but also (and increasingly so) the perceptual factors that influence flood risk preparedness. This study builds upon and extends this body of research by offering a more solution-focused approach that seeks to identify how pathways to flood-risk preparedness can be opened up. Specifically, through application of a qualitative methodology, we seek to explore how the factors that negatively influence flood-risk preparedness can be addressed to foster a shift towards greater levels of mitigation behaviour. In doing so, we focus our analysis on an urban community in Ireland that is identified as ‘at risk’ of flash flooding and is currently undergoing significant flood relief works. In this regard, the case study offers an interesting laboratory to explore how attitudes towards flood-risk preparedness at the individual level are being influenced within the context of a flood relief scheme that is only partially constructed. In order to redress the dearth of theoretically informed qualitative studies in this field, we draw on Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to help guide our analysis and make sense of our results. Our findings demonstrate that flood-risk preparedness can be undermined by low levels of efficacy amongst individuals in terms of the preparedness measures available to them and their own personal capacity to implement them. We also elucidate that the ‘levee effect’ can occur before engineered flood defences are fully constructed as the flood relief works within our case study are beginning to affect people’s perception of flood risk in the case study area. We conclude by arguing that 1) individuals’ coping appraisals need to be enhanced through communication strategies and other interventions which highlight that future floods may not replicate past events; and 2) the concept of residual risk needs to be communicated at all stages of a flood relief scheme, not just upon completion.

Measurement of Quenching Coefficients and Developement of Calibration Methods for Quantitative Spectroscopy of Plasma at Elevated Pressures

Measurements of collisional de-excitation (quenching) coefficients required for the interpretation of emission and fluorescence spectroscopic measurements are reported. Particular attention is turned on argon transitions which are of interest for actinometric determinations of atomic ground state populations and on fluorescence lines originating from excited atoms and noble gases in connection with two-photon excitation (TALIF) of atomic radicals. A novel method is described which allows to infer quenching coefficients for collisions with molecular hydrogen of noble gas states in the energy range up to 24 eV. The excitation is performed in these experiments by collisions of energetic electrons in the sheath of an RF excited hydrogen plasma during the field reversal phase which lasts about 10 ns. We describe in addition a calibration method - including quenching effects - for the determination by TALIF of absolute atomic radical densities of hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen using two-photon resonances in noble gases close by the resonances of the species mentioned. The paper closes with first ideas on a novel technique to bypass quenching effects in TALIF by introducing an additional, controllable loss by photoionization that will allow quenching-free determination of absolute atomic densities with prevalent nanosecond laser systems in situations where collisional de-excitation dominates over spontaneous emission.

Revisiting the quantitative-qualitative debate:Implications for mixed-methods research

Health care research includes many studies that combine quantitative and qualitative methods. In this paper, we revisit the quantitative-qualitative debate and review the arguments for and against using mixed-methods. In addition, we discuss the implications stemming from our view, that the paradigms upon which the methods are based have a different view of reality and therefore a different view of the phenomenon under study. Because the two paradigms do not study the same phenomena, quantitative and qualitative methods cannot be combined for cross-validation or triangulation purposes. However, they can be combined for complementary purposes. Future standards for mixed-methods research should clearly reflect this recommendation.

Point-and-shoot: rapid quantitative detection methods for on-site food fraud analysis – moving out of the laboratory and into the food supply chain

Major food adulteration and contamination events occur with alarming regularity and are known to be episodic, with the question being not if but when another large-scale food safety/integrity incident will occur. Indeed, the challenges of maintaining food security are now internationally recognised. The ever increasing scale and complexity of food supply networks can lead to them becoming significantly more vulnerable to fraud and contamination, and potentially dysfunctional. This can make the task of deciding which analytical methods are more suitable to collect and analyse (bio)chemical data within complex food supply chains, at targeted points of vulnerability, that much more challenging. It is evident that those working within and associated with the food industry are seeking rapid, user-friendly methods to detect food fraud and contamination, and rapid/high-throughput screening methods for the analysis of food in general. In addition to being robust and reproducible, these methods should be portable and ideally handheld and/or remote sensor devices, that can be taken to or be positioned on/at-line at points of vulnerability along complex food supply networks and require a minimum amount of background training to acquire information rich data rapidly (ergo point-and-shoot). Here we briefly discuss a range of spectrometry and spectroscopy based approaches, many of which are commercially available, as well as other methods currently under development. We discuss a future perspective of how this range of detection methods in the growing sensor portfolio, along with developments in computational and information sciences such as predictive computing and the Internet of Things, will together form systems- and technology-based approaches that significantly reduce the areas of vulnerability to food crime within food supply chains. As food fraud is a problem of systems and therefore requires systems level solutions and thinking.

Quantitative analysis of MRP-8 in gingival crevicular fluid in periodontal health and disease using microbore HPLC.

BACKGROUND:

The protein components of GCF can be separated by reverse-phase microbore HPLC on a C18 column with detection on the basis of 214 nm absorbance. A single major symmetrical protein peak eluting with a retention time of 26 min (50% acetonitrile) was evident in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) from periodontitis patients but not in healthy GCF. This protein was identified as human MRP-8 by N-terminal amino acid sequencing and liquid chromatography quadropole mass spectrometry.

AIMS:

To quantify the amount of MRP-8 detectable in GCF from individual healthy, gingivitis and periodontitis affected sites and to study the relationship, if any, between the levels of this responsive protein and periodontal health and disease.

METHODS:

GCF was sampled (30 s) from healthy, gingivitis, and periodontitis sites in peridontitis subjects (n=15) and from controls (n=5) with clinically healthy gingiva and no periodontitis. Purified MRP-8 was sequenced by Edmann degradation and the phenylthiohydantoin (PTH) amino acid yield determined (by comparison of peak area with external PTH amino acid standards). This value was subsequently used to calculate the relative amount of protein in the peak eluting with a retention time of 26.0 min (MRP-8) in individual GCF chromatograms.

RESULTS:

Higher levels of MRP-8 were detected in inflammatory sites: periodontitis 457.0 (281.0) ng; gingivitis 413.5 (394.5) ng compared with periodontally healthy sites in diseased subjects 14.6 (14.3) ng and in controls 18.6 (18.5) ng, p=0.003. There was at least 20-fold more MRP-8 in the inflammatory compared with the healthy sites studied.

CONCLUSIONS:

The preliminary data indicate that MRP-8 is present in GCF, with significantly greater amounts present at diseased than healthy sites. A systematic study of the relationship of this protein to periodontal disease could prove useful in further clarifying whether MRP-8 could be a reliable GCF biomarker of gingivitis and periodontitis.