Assessing the Societal Impact of Research: The Relational Engagement Approach

Marketing and policy researchers seeking to increase the societal impact of their scholarship should engage directly with relevant stakeholders. For maximum societal effect, this engagement needs to occur both within the research process and throughout the complex process of knowledge transfer. A relational engagement approach to research impact is proposed as complementary and building upon traditional approaches. Traditional approaches to impact employ bibliometric measures and focus on the creation and use of journal articles by scholarly audiences, an important but incomplete part of the academic process. The authors suggest expanding the strategies and measures of impact to include process assessments for specific stakeholders across the entire course of impact: from the creation, awareness, and use of knowledge to societal impact. This relational engagement approach involves the co-creation of research with audiences beyond academia. The authors hope to begin a dialogue on the strategies researchers can make to increase the potential societal benefits of their research.

Measuring children’s experience of their right to participate in school and community: a rights-based approach

This paper discusses the development of a children’s rights-based measure of participation and the findings from its use in a survey of 10 to 11 year old children (n= 3773). The measure, which was developed in collaboration with a group of children, had a high reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .89). Findings suggest that children’s positive experience of their participation rights is higher in school than in community, and higher for girls compared to boys. It is argued that involving children in the ‘measurement’ of their own lives has the potential to generate more authentic data on children’s lived experiences.

Undertaking Sensitive Interviews: a Researcher’s Experience of Interviewing Bereaved Parents and Family GPs

The presentation describes the researcher’s experience of undertaking sensitive interviews. Background The interviews form part of a current study that is examining bereaved parents’ experience of caring for their child at home as well as the experience of their GP. This study builds on earlier work that found general practitioners (GPs) were at times uncertain of their role in paediatric palliative care and questioned whether their involvement had been beneficial to the child and family. The rarity of childhood cancer deaths makes it difficult for GPs to develop or maintain palliative care knowledge and skills yet the GP is perceived as the gatekeeper for care within the community. Presentation aim To describe the process of both the preparation for, and undertaking of, sensitive interviews. Study methodology The methodology incorporates tape-recorded semi-structured interviews, thematic framework analysis and Q methodology (QM). QM will be used to capture the experiences of GPs who have cared for a child with cancer receiving palliative care as well the perspectives of care experienced by the families. The semi-structured interview sample comprises 10 families (parents/guardians) whose child has been treated at a regional childhood cancer centre and their GPs. A further 40-60 GPs will be involved in the QM. Findings The preparation for these interviews will be discussed and compared to the supportive bereavement visits undertaken within the researcher’s role as a paediatric Macmillan nurse. The experience of undertaking the interviews will be exemplified with findings from the initial and the current, study. Papers’ contribution The researcher’s experience of preparing for and undertaking sensitive interviews may prove beneficial to other researchers.

From global advocacy to local resistance. Benin's experience of competency-based school curriculum

In the vein of the "Education for All" campaign to promote access to education, a wave of curriculum revision along the competency-based approach has swept francophone countries in sub-Sahara Africa, thus Benin. The current study documents local actors' various interactions with the curricular reform in the course of its implementation. Secondary data supplemented with qualitative research techniques such as semi-structured interviews with teachers, and focus group discussions with parents enable to relate the patterns of change, the challenges and resistance to change. The actors spectrum generated illustrates advocacy on one hand and resistance on the other. Advocacy of local actors reflects the global optimistic discourse on education and resistance is favoured by disappointing policy outcomes as well as contextual constraints. (DIPF/Orig.)

Heroism and Adventurism: Can Applied Theatre Practices Give Participants the Experience of Being the Heroes and Heroines of Their Own Stories?

Move on Up! is part of a series of widening participation interactive Theatre in Education programmes at The University of Worcester, designed to raise educational aspirations. It was conceived for year 6 pupils about to go up to secondary school, to reflect on this transition and the challenges and pitfalls it presented to them. I searched for stimulus material to create the dynamic of an adventure story that reflected and generated the excitement and fear of change. The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne provided the structure of this classic genre with characters stranded on a desert island. Directing a team of four student actors and a stage manager I sought to promote the heroic ideal of using the skills needed to survive against adversity and to transpose it to a school context. The four characters discover talents and interests on the year 6 school trip and they endeavour to become the best version of themselves at their secondary school where these attributes have to be tested in a new environment. Using interactive voting software helped to determine whether pupils could achieve the sense of control and ownership outlined in Boal’s theatre practice. The programme provides a number of points of intervention where participants could vote and influence the shape of the character’s stories and perhaps create heroes or anti – heroes depending on the decisions they make. Boal wants participants to become the outspoken protagonists of their own stories or specactors. This paper will investigate whether applied theatre practice can give participants a heroic experience by exploring the process of creating Move on Up! and the response to the programme from year 6 pupils in West Midlands schools.

The Multi-Faceted Experience of Empathy in Intellectual Disability Settings: An IPA Study

This research thesis explored the concept of empathy. The specific purpose was to further understand the idea of empathy in relation to the experience of male support workers who provide residential care to adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) and challenging behaviour. The thesis aimed to provide some insights into how support workers develop and extract meaning from their experiences of relationships with clients and the impact of this on their own self-care, namely, self-compassion. Since personal accounts of experience were required, a qualitative methodology was employed, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith, 2004). This methodology was selected as it allows for the exploration and interpretation of idiographic lived experience and meaning making. 8 experienced support workers were interviewed using a semi structured interview. Four superordinate themes emerged from the data. These included: 1. Making sense of the others inner world; 2. Processes that enhance empathic practice; 3. Tensions and conflicts, and 4. Management of distressing feelings. Differing accounts of interpreting the needs of clients were identified which helped participants understand, make sense of their interpersonal experience and participate in their role. These included utilising academic knowledge and senses, particularly sight and hearing, which were seemingly complemented by a level of reflective practice. Additionally, to make sense of the experience of a client, they appeared to put themselves in their position, suggesting a form of empathy. Participants appeared to engage in a process of reflection on their relationships with clients, which helped them think about what they had learned about the person’s needs, moreover, this process enabled them to identify some of their own responses and feelings. However, participants seemed to struggle to recognise the occurrence or impact of distressing emotional experience and to express their feelings, possibly in response to a deep sense of responsibility and fear of transferring emotional distress to others. This dilemma of holding two potentially conflicting views of experience seemed to inhibit self-compassion. Although not specifically testing theories of empathy, from the overall findings, it could be suggested that empathy may be a dynamic, transient process that is influenced by reflexivity, values and context. The context in which participants discussed their practice, and situated within their accounts, suggested a sense of confusion and uncertainty. Consequently, it is suggested this impacted on how participants understood and related to clients, and to themselves. There were some specific implications for Counselling Psychology practice, mostly concerning training and supervision. These included recommendations for staff training and supervision, systemic organisational intervention, policy development, recommendations for revisions to models of specialist care frameworks and clinical training.

The perceived experience of supervision within the PACE trial

This study was set within the UK inter-professional multi-centre randomized controlled PACE trial of manual based therapy (White et al 2007). The aim of supervision within “the trial” was to maintain specificity, sustain retention, manage quality control and assurance, monitor competence in delivering therapy and enhance professional development. The rationale for the ancillary study was that the approach to supervision within the trial appeared to be different from the previous experience of supervision for many of the therapists (Clouder & Sellars 2004, Sellars 2004, Sweeney et al 2001). A review of the literature on supervision and reflective practice highlighted that there are many models, methods, approaches and factors that influence the effectiveness of supervision (Edwards et al 2005, van Ooijen 2000).

Flexible bronchoscopy contribution in the approach of diagnosis and treatment of children’s respiratory diseases: the experience of a unique pediatric unit in Tunisia.

Objective: Our study aimed at assessing the role of flexible bronchoscopy (FB) in improving diagnosis and management of children’s respiratory conditions in the pediatric unit of FB, newly created and unique in Tunisia. Methods: Retrospective study including all the FB achieved in our pediatric unit from 2009 to 2014. Results: We performed 365 FB in 333 patients aged 46 months on average (1 month - 15 years), often under conscious anesthesia (81.6%). FB was performed for diagnostic purposes in 341 cases and for therapeutic purposes in 24 cases. Eight anatomical abnormalities were revealed in 22 patients. An intraluminal bronchial obstruction was found in 71 FB, mainly due to a foreign body (n=36). A vascular anomaly was responsible for nine cases out of 17 extraluminal obstructions. Airways malacia was observed in 60 FB. Bronchoalveolar lavage was performed in 196 cases. It was determinant in 43.9% of the cases. FB was of great diagnostic value in 74.8% of the cases. It influenced the management of the patients in 58% of the cases. The FB for therapeutic purposes was beneficial in all cases. Few complications occurred (5.5%). Conclusion: FB is a safe tool providing precious diagnostic and/or therapeutic help for the clinician. Keywords:

Demand and supply oriented input-output models: a linkage analysis for Portugal.

Doutoramento em Economia.

Mapping the Liminal Experience of Eastern Europe in Selected American Works, 1965-2002

The purpose of this dissertation is to study literary representations of Eastern Europe in the works of celebrated and less-known American authors, who visited and narrated the region between the mid-1960s and early 2000s. The main critical body focuses on Eastern Europe before 1989 and encompasses three major voices of American literature: John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Roth. However, in the last chapter I also explore American literary perceptions of the area following the collapse of communism. Importantly, the term “Eastern Europe” as used in this dissertation is charged with significance. I approach it not only as a space on the map or the geopolitical construct which emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War, but rather as a conceptual category and a repository of meanings built out of fact and fantasy: specific historical, political and cultural realities interlaced with subjective worldviews, preconceptions, and mental images. The critical framework of this dissertation is twofold. I reach for the concept of liminality to elucidate the indeterminacy and malleability which lies at the heart of the object of study—the idea, image, and experience of Eastern Europe. Bearing in mind the nature of the works under analysis, all of which were inspired by actual visits behind the Iron Curtain, I propose to interpret these transatlantic literary journeys in terms of generative experience, where Eastern Europe is mapped as a liminal space of possibility; a contact zone between cultures and, potentially, the locus of self-discovery and individual transformation. If liminality is the metaphor or a lens that I employ in order to account for the nature of the analyzed works and the complex terrain they map, imagology, whose purpose is to study the processes of constructing selfhood and otherness in literature, provides me with the method and the critical vocabulary for analyzing selected literary representations. The dissertation is divided into six chapters, the last of which serves as coda to the previous discussion. The first two chapters constitute the critical foundation of this work. Then, in chapters 3, 4, and 5 I study American images of Eastern Europe in the works written by John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Roth, respectively. The last, sixth chapter of this dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first one, I discuss new critical perspectives and avenues of research in the study of Eastern Europe following the collapse of communism. Then, I carry out a joint analysis of four works written after 1989 by Eva Hoffman, Arthur Phillips, John Beckman, and Gary Shteyngart. The dissertation ends with conclusions in which I summarize my findings and reflections, and suggest implications for future research. As this dissertation seeks to demonstrate, Eastern Europe portrayed in the analyzed works oscillates between contradictory representations which are contingent upon a number of factors, most importantly who maps it and in what context. Even though each experience of Eastern Europe is distinct and fueled by the profiles, identities, and interests of the characters and their creators, I have found out that certain patterns of othering are present in all the works. Thus, my research seems to suggest that there is something of a recurrent literary image of Eastern Europe, which goes beyond the context of the Cold War. Accordingly, while this dissertation hopes to be a valid contribution to the study of literary and cultural mappings of Eastern Europe, it also generates new questions regarding the current, post-communist representation of the area and its relationship to the national tropes explored in my work.

Developing a Process to Create and Validate an Instrument Assessing Student Attainment of Competencies at an Intercultural University in Mexico

This study took place at one of the intercultural universities (IUs) of Mexico that serve primarily indigenous students. The IUs are pioneers in higher education despite their numerous challenges (Bertely, 1998; Dietz, 2008; Pineda & Landorf, 2010; Schmelkes, 2009). To overcome educational inequalities among their students (Ahuja, Berumen, Casillas, Crispín, Delgado et al., 2004; Schmelkes, 2009), the IUs have embraced performance-based assessment (PBA; Casillas & Santini, 2006). PBA allows a shared model of power and control related to learning and evaluation (Anderson, 1998). While conducting a review on PBA strategies of the IUs, the researcher did not find a PBA instrument with valid and reliable estimates. The purpose of this study was to develop a process to create a PBA instrument, an analytic general rubric, with acceptable validity and reliability estimates to assess students’ attainment of competencies in one of the IU’s majors, Intercultural Development Management. The Human Capabilities Approach (HCA) was the theoretical framework and a sequential mixed method (Creswell, 2003; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009) was the research design. IU participants created a rubric during two focus groups, and seven Spanish-speaking professors in Mexico and the US piloted using students’ research projects. The evidence that demonstrates the attainment of competencies at the IU is a complex set of actual, potential and/or desired performances or achievements, also conceptualized as “functional capabilities” (FCs; Walker, 2008), that can be used to develop a rubric. Results indicate that the rubric’s validity and reliability estimates reached acceptable estimates of 80% agreement, surpassing minimum requirements (Newman, Newman, & Newman, 2011). Implications for practice involve the use of PBA within a formative assessment framework, and dynamic inclusion of constituencies. Recommendations for further research include introducing this study’s instrument-development process to other IUs, conducting parallel mixed design studies exploring the intersection between HCA and assessment, and conducting a case study exploring assessment in intercultural settings. Education articulated through the HCA empowers students (Unterhalter & Brighouse, 2007; Walker, 2008). This study aimed to contribute to the quality of student learning assessment at the IUs by providing a participatory process to develop a PBA instrument.

Development and application of a computer-based methodology for design for additive manufacturing of automotive components

The research project aims to improve the Design for Additive Manufacturing of metal components. Firstly, the scenario of Additive Manufacturing is depicted, describing its role in Industry 4.0 and in particular focusing on Metal Additive Manufacturing technologies and the Automotive sector applications. Secondly, the state of the art in Design for Additive Manufacturing is described, contextualizing the methodologies, and classifying guidelines, rules, and approaches. The key phases of product design and process design to achieve lightweight functional designs and reliable processes are deepened together with the Computer-Aided Technologies to support the approaches implementation. Therefore, a general Design for Additive Manufacturing workflow based on product and process optimization has been systematically defined. From the analysis of the state of the art, the use of a holistic approach has been considered fundamental and thus the use of integrated product-process design platforms has been evaluated as a key element for its development. Indeed, a computer-based methodology exploiting integrated tools and numerical simulations to drive the product and process optimization has been proposed. A validation of CAD platform-based approaches has been performed, as well as potentials offered by integrated tools have been evaluated. Concerning product optimization, systematic approaches to integrate topology optimization in the design have been proposed and validated through product optimization of an automotive case study. Concerning process optimization, the use of process simulation techniques to prevent manufacturing flaws related to the high thermal gradients of metal processes is developed, providing case studies to validate results compared to experimental data, and application to process optimization of an automotive case study. Finally, an example of the product and process design through the proposed simulation-driven integrated approach is provided to prove the method's suitability for effective redesigns of Additive Manufacturing based high-performance metal products. The results are then outlined, and further developments are discussed.

Simultaneous optimization by neuro-genetic approach for analysis of plant materials by laser induced breakdown spectroscopy

A simultaneous optimization strategy based on a neuro-genetic approach is proposed for selection of laser induced breakdown spectroscopy operational conditions for the simultaneous determination of macronutrients (Ca, Mg and P), micro-nutrients (B, Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn), Al and Si in plant samples. A laser induced breakdown spectroscopy system equipped with a 10 Hz Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (12 ns, 532 nm, 140 mJ) and an Echelle spectrometer with intensified coupled-charge device was used. Integration time gate, delay time, amplification gain and number of pulses were optimized. Pellets of spinach leaves (NIST 1570a) were employed as laboratory samples. In order to find a model that could correlate laser induced breakdown spectroscopy operational conditions with compromised high peak areas of all elements simultaneously, a Bayesian Regularized Artificial Neural Network approach was employed. Subsequently, a genetic algorithm was applied to find optimal conditions for the neural network model, in an approach called neuro-genetic, A single laser induced breakdown spectroscopy working condition that maximizes peak areas of all elements simultaneously, was obtained with the following optimized parameters: 9.0 mu s integration time gate, 1.1 mu s delay time, 225 (a.u.) amplification gain and 30 accumulated laser pulses. The proposed approach is a useful and a suitable tool for the optimization process of such a complex analytical problem. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

One size doesn't fit all: Research methodologies in a language variation study of Sudanese teens

The research reported here draws on a study of five teenagers from a Dinka-speaking community of Sudanese settling in Australia. A range of factors including language proficiency, social network structure and language attitudes are examined as possible causes for the variability of language use. The results and discussion illustrate how the use of a triangular research approach captured the complexity of the participants' language situation and was critical to developing a full understanding of the interplay of factors influencing the teens' language maintenance and shift in a way that no single method could. Further, it shows that employment of different methodologies allowed for flexibility in data collection to ensure the fullest response from participants. Overall, this research suggests that for studies of non-standard communities, variability in research methods may prove more of a strength that the use of standardised instruments and approaches.

Gastroesophageal reflux disease in children: efficacy of Nissen fundoplication in treating digestive and respiratory symptoms. Experience of a single center

Fundoplication has been commonly performed in neurologically impaired and normal children with complicated gastroesophageal reflux disease. The relationship between gastroesophageal reflux disease and respiratory diseases is still unclear. We aimed to compare results of open and laparoscopic procedures, as well as the impact of fundoplication over digestive and respiratory symptoms. From January 2000 to June 2007, 151 children underwent Nissen fundoplication. Data were prospectively collected regarding age at surgery, presence of neurologic handicap, symptoms related to reflux (digestive or respiratory, including recurrent lung infections and reactive airways disease), surgical approach, concomitant procedures, complications, and results. Mean age was 6 years and 9 months. Eighty-two children (54.3%) had neurological handicaps. The surgical approach was laparoscopy in 118 cases and laparotomy in 33. Dysphagia occurred in 23 patients submitted to laparoscopic and none to open procedure (P = 0.01). A total of 86.6% of patients with digestive symptoms had complete resolution or significant improvement of the problems after the surgery. A total of 62.2% of children with recurrent lung infections showed any reduction in the frequency of pneumonias. Only 45.2% of patients with reactive airway disease had any relief from bronchospasm episodes after fundoplication. The comparisons demonstrated that Nissen fundoplication was more effective for the resolution of digestive symptoms than to respiratory manifestations (P = 0.04). Open or laparoscopic fundoplication are safe procedures with acceptable complication indices and the results of the surgery are better for digestive than for respiratory symptoms.