An analysis of accommodation needs of adults with an intellectual disability in Toowoomba and surrounding areas

Introduction The objective of this study was to analyse the accommodation needs of people with intellectual disability over the age of 18 years in Toowoomba and contiguous shires. In 2004, a group of carers established Toowoomba Intellectual Disability Support Association (TIDSA) to address the issue of the lack of supported accommodation for people with intellectual disability over the age of 18 and the concerns of ageing carers. The Centre for Rural and Remote Area Health (CRRAH) was engaged by TIDSA to ascertain this need and undertook a research project funded by the Queensland Gambling Community Benefit Fund. While data specifically relating to people with intellectual disability and their carers are difficult to obtain, the Australian Bureau of Statistics report that carers of people with a disability are more likely to be female and at least 65 years of age. Projections by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) show that disability rates are increasing and carer rates are decreasing. Thus the problem of appropriate support to the increasing number of ageing carers and those who they care for will be a major challenge to policy makers and is an issue of immediate concern. In general, what was once the norm of accommodating people with intellectual disability in large institutions is now changing to accommodating into community-based residences (Annison, 2000; Young, Ashman, Sigafoos, & Grevell, 2001). However, in Toowoomba and contiguous shires, TIDSA have noted that the availability of suitable accommodation for people with intellectual disability over the age of 18 years is declining with no new options available in an environment of increasing demand. Most effort seemed to be directed towards crisis provision. Method This study employed two phases of data gathering, the first being the distribution of a questionnaire through local service providers and upon individual request to the carers of people with intellectual disability over the age of 18. The questionnaire comprised of Likert-type items intended to measure various aspects of current and future accommodation issues. Most questions were followed with space for free-response comments to provide the opportunity for carers to further clarify and expand on their responses. The second phase comprised semi-structured interviews conducted with ten carers and ten people with intellectual disability who had participated in the Phase One questionnaire. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to content analysis where major themes were explored. Results Age and gender Carer participants in this study totalled 150. The mean age of these carers was 61.5 years and ranged from 40 – 91 years. Females comprised 78% of the sample (mean age = 61.49; range from 40-91) and 22% were male (mean age = 61.7 range from 43-81). The mean age of people with intellectual disability in our study was 37.2 years ranging from 18 – 79 years with 40% female (mean age = 39.5; range from 19-79) and 60% male (mean age = 35.6; range from 18-59). The average age of carers caring for a person over the age of 18 who is living at home is 61 years. The average age of the carer who cares for a person who is living away from home is 62 years. The overall age range of both these groups of carers is between 40 and 81 years. The oldest group of carers (mean age = 70 years) were those where the person with intellectual disability lives away from home in a large residential facility. Almost one quarter of people with an intellectual disability who currently live at home is cared for by one primary carer and this is almost exclusively a parent.

Efficacy of praziquantel against Schistosoma japonicum: field evaluation in an area with repeated chemotherapy compared with a newly identified endemic focus in Hunan, China

This study conducted in 1999/2000 was designed to evaluate the efficacy of praziquantel against Schistosoma japonicum in an area with repeated chemotherapy (Area A) compared with a newly identified endemic focus (Area B) in Hunan Province, China. The population size was 2015 and 2180 in Areas A and B, respectively, of which 1129 and 1298 subjects received stool examination. A total of 230 subjects were identified by the Kato-Katz technique (4 smears per person) as being infected with S. japonicum, 124 in Area A (prevalence 11 %) and 106 in Area B (prevalence 8.2%). They were treated with a single oral dose of praziquantel (40 mg/kg) in the non-transmission season. A follow-up stool examination was made 50 days after treatment. Among the 220 cases followed, 22 were found stool-egg-positive, with an overall cure rate of 90 %, and 99 % reduction of infection intensity (eggs per gram stool). No significant difference was found in cure rates between the 2 areas (89.7% vs 90.3%). The efficacy of the drug in the area with repeated chemotherapy was not significantly different from that in the newly identified endemic focus. This study, therefore, suggests that the efficacy of praziquantel against S. japonicum has not changed in the Dongting Lake region after more than 14 years of mass chemotherapy, and there is no evidence of tolerance or resistance of S. japonicum against praziquantel.

Twisted sl(3, C)(k)((2)) current algebra: free field representation and screening currents

Motivated by application of twisted current algebra in description of the entropy of Ads(3) black hole, we investigate the simplest twisted current algebra sl(3, c)(k)((2)). Free field representation of the twisted algebra, and the corresponding twisted Sugawara energy-momentum tensor are obtained by using three (beta, gamma) pairs and two scalar fields. Primary fields and two screening currents of the first kind are presented. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

Introducing ethnomethodological analysis to the field of music education

In recent years qualitative research methods have been adopted within in the field of music education and have received widespread acceptance. However, the theoretical framework provided by ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1974, in R. Turner, Ethnomethodology , Penguin, Middlesex, UK) and the tools of conversational analysis (Sacks, 1992, Lectures on Conversation , edited by Gail Jefferson, Blackwell, Oxford, UK) have, to this point, been overlooked by researchers in the field of music education. In this paper I argue that the application of ethnomethodological and conversation analytical approaches in the field of research in music education can provide fresh insights into the work of music teachers and how this work is accomplished in institutional settings. Here I demonstrate how a conversation analytical perspective drawing on an ethnomethodological framework might be used to investigate transcripts of audio-recorded interview talk. This type of analysis can illuminate aspects of members' roles in relation to, and perceptions about music education in school settings that might be overlooked in other types of analysis. A conversation analytical approach to the examination of talk-in-interaction explicates in fine-grained detail how members orient to matters at hand in the context of research settings, as well as revealing features of the cultural world of music teaching. Further application of the approach to research problems in other school settings, I argue, will inform the field of music education in ways yet to be realised.

Beyond sex and cooking: Health education for individuals with intellectual disability

Issues of health education programming for people with intellectual disability are discussed. As environments in which such individuals live become more inclusive, and they are encouraged to make their own choices, the issue of whether current health education is sufficient to enable them to make healthy life choices is considered. More attention should be focused on programs in schools and the community to fulfill this need. Three aspects of health education programming are considered: physical activity, general health knowledge, and social supports for health. Continuity of information is viewed as important in policy development as well as in interprofessional coordination and cooperation to assure that these individuals are not further handicapped by poor health.

Ligand-field analysis of an Er(III) complex with a heptadentate tripodal N4O3 ligand

Polarized absorption and emission spectra of trigonal single crystals of an Er(III) complex coordinated to a heptadentate tripodal ligand are reported at temperatures between 8 and 298 K. The assigned energy levels below the onset of ligand absorption (< 25 000 cm(-1)) are fitted to a parametrized electronic Hamiltonian. The C-3 site symmetry of the Er(HI) ion requires eight parameters for a full description of the ligand field within a one-electron operator description. This compound shows unusually large splittings of the multiplets, and the fitted parameters imply that this heptadentate ligand imparts the largest ligand field reported for an Er(III) complex. The ligand field was also interpreted within the angular overlap model (AOM). We derive the AOM matrix to include both sigma and anisotropic pi bonding and show that a useful description of the C-3 ligand field can be made using only five parameters. The success of the AOM description is encouraging for applications on isomorphous complexes within the lanthanide series and in describing the ligand field of low-symmetry complexes with less parameters than in the usual spherical harmonic expansion.

Noise-free scattering of the quantized electromagnetic field from a dispersive linear dielectric

We study the scattering of the quantized electromagnetic field from a linear, dispersive dielectric using the scattering formalism for quantum fields. The medium is modeled as a collection of harmonic oscillators with a number of distinct resonance frequencies. This model corresponds to the Sellmeir expansion, which is widely used to describe experimental data for real dispersive media. The integral equation for the interpolating field in terms of the in field is solved and the solution used to find the out field. The relation between the ill and out creation and annihilation operators is found that allows one to calculate the S matrix for this system. In this model, we find that there are absorption bands, but the input-output relations are completely unitary. No additional quantum-noise terms are required.

SAR imaging of buried objects from MoM modelled scattered field

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images of resonant buried objects are modelled in the presence of ground surface clutter. The method of moments (MoM) is used to model scattered fields from a resonant buried conductor and clutter is modelled as a bivariant Gaussian distribution. A diffraction stack SAR imaging technique is applied to the ultra-wideband waveforms to give a bipolar signal image. A number of examples have been computed to illustrate the combined effects of SAR processing with resonant targets and clutter. SAR images of different targets show differences which may facilitate target identification. To maximise the peak signal-to-clutter ratio, an image correlation technique is applied and the results are shown.

Fluorescence spectrum of a two-level atom driven by a multiple modulated field

We investigate the fluorescence spectrum of a two-level atom driven by a multiple amplitude-modulated field. The driving held is modeled as a polychromatic field composed of a strong central (resonant) component and a large number of symmetrically detuned sideband fields displaced from the central component by integer multiples of a constant detuning. Spectra obtained here differ qualitatively from those observed for a single pair of modulating fields [B. Blind, P.R. Fontana, and P. Thomann, J. Phys. B 13, 2717 (1980)]. In the case of a small number of the modulating fields, a multipeaked spectrum is obtained with the spectral features located at fixed frequencies that are independent of the number of modulating fields and their Rabi frequencies. As the number of the modulating fields increases, the spectrum ultimately evolves to the well-known Mellow triplet with the sidebands shifted from the central component by an effective Rabi frequency whose magnitude depends on the initial relative phases of the components of the driving held. For equal relative phases, the effective Rabi frequency of the driving field can be reduced to zero resulting in the disappearance of fluorescence spectrum, i.e., the atom can stop interacting with the field. When the central component and the modulating fields are 180 degrees out of phase, the spectrum retains its triplet structure with the sidebands located at frequencies equal to the sum of the Rabi frequencies of the component of the driving field. Moreover, we shaw that the frequency of spontaneous emission can be controlled and switched from one frequency to another when the Rabi frequency or initial phase of the modulating fields are varied.