The iceberg of suicide and self-harm in Irish adolescents: a population-based study

PURPOSE Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents. Self-harm is the most important risk factor for suicide, yet the majority of self-harm does not come to the attention of health services. The purpose of this study was to establish the relative incidence of adolescent suicide, hospital-treated self-harm and self-harm in the community. METHODS Annual suicide rates were calculated for 15-17 year-old in the Cork and Kerry region in Ireland based on data from the Central Statistics Office. Rates of hospital-treated self-harm were collected by the Irish National Registry of Deliberate Self-Harm. Rates of self-harm in the community were assessed using a survey of 3,881 adolescents, the Child and Adolescent Self-harm in Europe study. RESULTS The annual suicide rate was 10/100,000. Suicide was six times more common among boys than girls. The annual incidence rate of hospital-treated self-harm was approximately 344/100,000, with the female rate almost twice the male rate. The rate of self-harm in the community was 5,551/100,000, and girls were almost four times more likely to report self-harm. For every boy who died by suicide, 16 presented to hospital with self-harm and 146 reported self-harm in the community. For every female suicide, 162 girls presented to hospital with self-harm and 3,296 reported self-harm. CONCLUSIONS Gender differences in relative rates of self-harm and suicide are very large, with boys who have harmed themselves at particularly high risk of suicide. Knowledge of the relative incidence of self-harm and suicide in adolescents can inform prevention programmes and services.

Self-Harm in Secondary Schools: What are the Perceptions and Experiences of Staff ?

The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions and experiences of secondary school staff with regard to adolescent self-harm. The research was conducted in a Local Authority where there were particular concerns about rising numbers of young people presenting with self-harm. While the majority of young people who self-harm are supported in the community and never access clinical services, surprisingly little research has considered the role of schools and their staff. The research that has been done suggests that school staff can feel underqualified and overwhelmed in their attempts to support young people who self-harm. Further, there is a growing evidence base that when young people experience negative attitudes towards self-harm it is distressing and reduces the chance of them seeking further help. To address this, qualitative exploratory research was conducted with thirteen members of staff working in secondary schools. Since the research was concerned not just with experiences, but also with perceptions of adolescent self-harm, the participants were from two groups: those with direct experience of supporting young people who have self-harmed and those without any direct experience. Data collection involved individual semi-structured interviews which were analysed using thematic analysis. The research indicated that secondary school staff are keen to help and understand young people who self-harm, but that they do not always feel skilled or confident enough to do so, often feeling that some kind of specialist is required and/or fearing that they might make a situation worse. Findings highlighted the emotional impact of this work and illustrated the importance of supporting staff, who expressed a desire for further training and other forms of professional support such as supervision.

Vector self-pulsing in erbium-doped fiber lasers

Insight into instabilities of fiber laser regimes leading to complex self-pulsing operations is an opportunity to unlock the high power and dynamic operation tunability of lasers. Though many models have been suggested, there is no complete covering of self-pulsing complexity observed experimentally. Here, I further generalized our previous vector model of erbium-doped fiber laser and, for the first time, to the best of my knowledge, map tunability of complex vector self-pulsing on Poincare sphere (limit cycles and double scroll polarization attractors) for laser parameters, e.g., power, ellipticity of the pump wave, and in-cavity birefringence. Analysis validated by extensive numerical simulations demonstrates good correspondence to the experimental results on complex self-pulsing regimes obtained by many authors during the last 20 years.

Methodology of Care Humanitude in Promoting Self-care in Dependent People: An Integrative Review

Abstract. The aging of the population has led to an increase in the prevalence of chronic degenerative diseases and dependence. We need to implement humanized health care that will improve the quality of life and well-being of these people and help maintain their autonomy and self-care. Objective: To identify the implications of the caring in Humanitude in promoting self-care in the dependent person. Methods: Integrative review of the literature of the period between 2007 and 2015, using the databases Medline, EBSCO and Google Scholar. In using the PI[C]OD methodology and criteria for inclusion and exclusion, we obtained 54 items where 7 were selected for analysis. Results: There are several health benefits in the promotion of self-care, by ap-plying the Humanitude caring philosophy, mainly regarding the relationship be-tween the nurse and the patient. Conclusions: It is essential to develop further studies focused on the implications of caring in Humanitude in self-care in the dependent person.

Self-care in Patients with Heart Failure

Objectives: To adapt for the Portuguese language the Self-Care of Heart Failure Index V6.2, analyse the self-care in maintenance, management skills and self-confidence of patients with heart failure who attend the nursing consultation of two Hospitals. Method: Explo- ratory study, sample 110 patients who frequented the nursing consultation for patients with heart failure of two Portuguese hospitals, conducted in the period of 6 months. He appea- led to the descriptive statistics and psychometric tests. Results: Internal consistency similar to the original scale. Mostly elderly, low literacy patients in self-care, low values associated with physical activity to the control of salt in meals taken away from home and inadequate control of signs and symptoms. Conclusion: Patients’ present difficulties in maintenance and management of the disease are self-confident face anyway. This instrument allows for individualized assessment leading to decision-making and action adjusted.

Self-care in older people with functional deficit: needs of long-term care.

The group of 65-year-olds is becoming more numerous and with greater needs for health care. So, is necessary the reflection about new models of provision, organization, and allocation of health resources. According to the United Nations Organization, 2015, in 2050 elderly people will reach two million people (20% of the world’s population), what mean that the number of people over 60 years old will exceed a population of young people under 15 years. Parallel to aging, less healthy lifestyles have contributed to the prevalence of chronic diseases, especially cerebrovascular diseases. Hypertension and diabetes mellitus are risk factors and increase predisposition to other diseases. With aging, there is an increased risk for developing chronic, oncological and degenerative diseases, which account for more than 50% of the burden of diseases, with profound implications on independency, use of health care and services.

Art and the sublime : the paradox of indeterminacy unknowing and (dis)orientation in the presentation of the unpresentable

the (dis)orientation of thought in its encounter with art can be understood as the direct result of an encounter with indeterminacy as a lack in meaning. As an artist I am aware of how this indeterminacy impacts on the perceived value and authority of the artistic voice and in particular its value as a research voice. This paper explores this indeterminacy of meaning, as a profound and disturbing unknowing characteristic of the sublime and argues its value to advanced thought and for any methodological understanding of practice-led research. Lyotard described the sublime as an ‘understanding’ through which art and its associated practices may be able to resist an all too easy assimilation by the public as just a consumer commodity. His thought represents an attempt to both politically and philosophically understand art’s, and particularly abstract painting’s, affect as a state of profound and positive unknowing. To talk of the sublime in art is to speak of the suspension of any comfortable certainty in being and instead to engage with the real as a limit to meaning and knowing. It is to talk of the presentation of the unpresentable as a momentary but significant dissolution of representation. This understanding of the sublime is then further explored through the cultural phenomena of the monochrome painting and applied to the work of the two contemporary artists, Franz Erhard Walter and Günter Umberg. Initially the monochrome was understood as an attempt to go beyond traditional representation and present the unpresentable. In the one hundred years or so since that initial move this understanding has broadened. The monochrome now presents itself as a genre or even project within visual art but it still has much to teach us. In the concretely abstract and performative artworks of Franz Erhard Walter and Günter Umberg, traces of this ambition remain and their work can be seen to pose questions probing our understandings and experiences of artistic meaning, its value and the real.

Does experience in creative art influence the written self-expression of the deaf child?

This paper discusses whether participation in creative art affects the hearing impaired child's self expression in written language.

Art in early childhood : the discourse of 'proper' teaching

This thesis is a problematisation of the teaching of art to young children. To problematise a domain of social endeavour, is, in Michel Foucault's terms, to ask how we come to believe that "something ... can and must be thought" (Foucault, 1985:7). The aim is to document what counts (i.e., what is sayable, thinkable, feelable) as proper art teaching in Queensland at this point ofhistorical time. In this sense, the thesis is a departure from more recognisable research on 'more effective' teaching, including critical studies of art teaching and early childhood teaching. It treats 'good teaching' as an effect of moral training made possible through disciplinary discourses organised around certain epistemic rules at a particular place and time. There are four key tasks accomplished within the thesis. The first is to describe an event which is not easily resolved by means of orthodox theories or explanations, either liberal-humanist or critical ones. The second is to indicate how poststructuralist understandings of the self and social practice enable fresh engagements with uneasy pedagogical moments. What follows this discussion is the documentation of an empirical investigation that was made into texts generated by early childhood teachers, artists and parents about what constitutes 'good practice' in art teaching. Twenty-two participants produced text to tell and re-tell the meaning of 'proper' art education, from different subject positions. Rather than attempting to capture 'typical' representations of art education in the early years, a pool of 'exemplary' teachers, artists and parents were chosen, using "purposeful sampling", and from this pool, three videos were filmed and later discussed by the audience of participants. The fourth aspect of the thesis involves developing a means of analysing these texts in such a way as to allow a 're-description' of the field of art teaching by attempting to foreground the epistemic rules through which such teacher-generated texts come to count as true ie, as propriety in art pedagogy. This analysis drew on Donna Haraway's (1995) understanding of 'ironic' categorisation to hold the tensions within the propositions inside the categories of analysis rather than setting these up as discursive oppositions. The analysis is therefore ironic in the sense that Richard Rorty (1989) understands the term to apply to social scientific research. Three 'ironic' categories were argued to inform the discursive construction of 'proper' art teaching. It is argued that a teacher should (a) Teach without teaching; (b) Manufacture the natural; and (c) Train for creativity. These ironic categories work to undo modernist assumptions about theory/practice gaps and finding a 'balance' between oppositional binary terms. They were produced through a discourse theoretical reading of the texts generated by the participants in the study, texts that these same individuals use as a means of discipline and self-training as they work to teach properly. In arguing the usefulness of such approaches to empirical data analysis, the thesis challenges early childhood research in arts education, in relation to its capacity to deal with ambiguity and to acknowledge contradiction in the work of teachers and in their explanations for what they do. It works as a challenge at a range of levels - at the level of theorising, of method and of analysis. In opening up thinking about normalised categories, and questioning traditional Western philosophy and the grand narratives of early childhood art pedagogy, it makes a space for re-thinking art pedagogy as "a game oftruth and error" (Foucault, 1985). In doing so, it opens up a space for thinking how art education might be otherwise.

At the Limits of Presentation : Coming-into-Presence and its Aesthetic Relevance in Jean-Luc Nancy's Philosophy

This study investigates the significance of art in Jean-Luc Nancy s philosophy. I argue that the notion of art contributes to some of Nancy s central ontological ideas. Therefore, I consider art s importance in its own right whether art does have ontological significance, and if so, how one should describe this with respect to the theme of presentation. According to my central argument, with his thinking on art Nancy attempts to give one viewpoint to what is called the metaphysics of presence and to its deconstruction. On which grounds, as I propose, may one say that art is not reducible to philosophy? The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part, Presentation as a Philosophical Theme, is a historical genesis of the central concepts associated with the birth of presentation in Nancy s philosophy. I examine this from the viewpoint of the differentiation between the ontological notions of presentation and representation by concentrating on the influence of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, as well as of Hegel and Kant. I give an overview of the way in which being or sense for Nancy is to be described as a coming-into-presence or presentation . Therefore, being takes place in its singular plurality. I argue that Nancy redevelops Heidegger s account of being in two principal ways: first, in rethinking the ontico-ontological difference, and secondly, by striving to radicalize the Heideggerian concept of Mitsein, being-with . I equally wish to show the importance of Derrida s notion of différance and its inherence in Nancy s questioning of being that rests on the unfoundedness of existence. The second part, From Ontology to Art, draws on the importance of art and the aesthetic. If, in Nancy, the question of art touches upon its own limit as the limit of nothingness, how is art able to open its own strangeness and our exposure to this strangeness? My aim is to investigate how Nancy s thinking on art finds its place within the conceptual realm of its inherent difference and interval. My central concern is the thought of originary ungroundedness and the plurality of art and of the arts. As for the question of the difference between art and philosophy, I wish to show that what differentiates art from thought is the fact that art exposes what is obvious but not apparent, if apparent is understood in the sense of givenness. As for art s ability to deconstruct Nancy s ontological notions, I suggest that in question in art is its original heterogeneity and diversity. Art is a matter of differing art occurs singularly, as a local difference. With this in mind, I point out that in reflecting on art in terms of spacing and interval, as a thinker of difference Nancy comes closer to Derrida and his idea of différance than to the structure of Heidegger s ontological difference.

The Role of Abduction in Self-Similarity

Based on the Aristotelian criterion referred to as 'abductio', Peirce suggests a method of hypothetical inference, which operates in a different way than the deductive and inductive methods. “Abduction is nothing but guessing” (Peirce, 7.219). This principle is of extreme value for the study of our understanding of mathematical self-similarity in both of its typical presentations: relative or absolute. For the first case, abduction incarnates the quantitative/qualitative relationships of a self-similar object or process; for the second case, abduction makes understandable the statistical treatment of self-similarity, 'guessing' the continuity of geometric features to the infinity through the use of a systematic stereotype (for instance, the assumption that the general shape of the Sierpiński triangle continuates identically into its particular shapes). The metaphor coined by Peirce, of an exact map containig itself the same exact map (a map of itself), is not only the most important precedent of Mandelbrot’s problem of measuring the boundaries of a continuous irregular surface with a logarithmic ruler, but also still being a useful abstraction for the conceptualisation of relative and absolute self-similarity, and its mechanisms of implementation. It is useful, also, for explaining some of the most basic geometric ontologies as mental constructions: in the notion of infinite convergence of points in the corners of a triangle, or the intuition for defining two parallel straight lines as two lines in a plane that 'never' intersect.

Self-heating effect in 1.3 mu m p-doped InAs/GaAs quantum dot vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

The self-heating effect in 1.3 mu m p-doped InAs/GaAs quantum dot (QD) vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) has been investigated using a self-consistent theoretical model. Good agreement is obtained between theoretical analysis and experimental results under pulsed operation. The results show that in p-doped QD VCSELs, the output power is significantly influenced by self-heating. About 60% of output power is limited by self-heating in a device with oxide aperture of 5x6 mu m(2). This value reduces to 55% and 48%, respectively, as the oxide aperture increases to 7x8 and 15x15 mu m(2). The temperature increase in the active region and injection efficiency of the QDs are calculated and discussed based on the different oxide aperture areas and duty cycle.

The use of cues for attention in ancient Greek art: aspects that influence concentration in the work of art and its elements

The goal of this study is to identify cues for the cognitive process of attention in ancient Greek art, aiming to find confirmation of its possible use by ancient Greek audiences and artists. Evidence of cues that trigger attention’s psychological dispositions was searched through content analysis of image reproductions of ancient Greek sculpture and fine vase painting from the archaic to the Hellenistic period - ca. 7th -1st cent. BC. Through this analysis, it was possible to observe the presence of cues that trigger orientation to the work of art (i.e. amplification, contrast, emotional salience, simplification, symmetry), of a cue that triggers a disseminate attention to the parts of the work (i.e. distribution of elements) and of cues that activate selective attention to specific elements in the work of art (i.e. contrast of elements, salient color, central positioning of elements, composition regarding the flow of elements and significant objects). Results support the universality of those dispositions, probably connected with basic competencies that are hard-wired in the nervous system and in the cognitive processes.

The exercise leader's gender and physique salience : effects on self-presentational concerns in an exercise context

Self-presentation is the process by which individuals attempt to monitor and control how others perceive and evaluate them (Leary, 1992; Leary & Kowalski, 1990). Self-presentational concerns have been shown to influence a number of exercise-related behaviours, cognitions, and affective responses to exercise (e.g., social anxiety). Social anxiety occurs when an individual wants to create a specific impression on others, but is unsure (s)he will be successful (Leary & Kowalski, 1995). Social physique anxiety (SPA) is a specific form of social anxiety related the evaluation of one's body (Hart, Leary, & Rejeski, 1989). Both social anxiety and SPA may act as deterrents to exercise (Lantz, Hardy, & Ainsworth, 1997; Leary, 1992), so it is important to examine factors that may influence social anxiety and SPA; one such factor is self-presentational efficacy (SPE). SPE is one's confidence in successfully making desired impressions on others (Leary & Atherton, 1986) and has been associated with social anxiety and SPA (Leary & Kowalski, 1995; Gammage, Martin Ginis, & Hall, 2004). Several aspects of the exercise environment, such as the presence of mirrors, clothing, and the exercise leader or other participant characteristics, may be manipulated to influence self-presentational concerns (e.g., Gammage, Martin Ginis et aI., 2004; Martin & Fox, 2001; Martin Ginis, Prapavessis, & Haase, 2005). Given that the exercise leader has been recognized as one of the most important influences in the group exercise context (Franklin, 1988), it is important to further examine how the leader may impact self-presentational concerns. The present study examined the impact of the exercise leader's gender and physique salience (i.e., the extent to which the body was emphasized) on SPE, state social anxiety (SSA), and state social physique anxiety (SPA-S) of women in a live exercise class. Eighty-seven college-aged female non- or infrequent exercisers (i.e., exercised 2 or fewer times per week) participated in a group exercise class led by one of four leaders: a female whose physique was salient; a female whose physique was non-salient; a male whose physique was salient; or a male whose physique was non-salient. Participants completed measures of SPE, SSA, and SPA-S prior to and following completion of a 30- minute group exercise class. In addition, a measure of social comparison to the exercise leader and other participants with respect to attractiveness, skill, and fitness was completed by participants following the exercise class. A MANOV A was conducted to examine differences between groups on postexercise variables. Results indicated that there were no significant differences between groups on measures ofSPE, SSA, or SPA-S (allp's > .05). However, when all participants were collapsed into one group, a MANOV A showed a significant time effect (F(3, 81) = 19.45,p < .05, 1')2= .419). Follow-up ANOVAs indicated that post-exercise SPE increased significantly, while SSA and SPA-S decreased significantly (SPE: F(I, 83) = 30.87,p < .001,1')2 = .27; SSA: F(I,83) = 11.09,p < .001, 1')2 = .12; SPA-S: F (1,83) = 42.79,p < .001, 1')2 = .34). Further, results of a MANOVA revealed that participants who believed they were less fit than other group members (i.e., made negative social comparisons) reported significantly more post-exercise SSA and SP A-S than those who believed they were more fit than the other participants (i.e., made positive comparisons; SSA: F(2, 84) = 3.46, p < .05, 1')2 = .08; SPA-S: F(2, 84) = 5.69, p < .05, 1')2 = .12). These results may indicate that successfully completing an exercise class may serve as a source of SPE and lead to reduced social anxiety and SPA-S in this population. Alternatively, characteristics of the exercise leader may be less important than characteristics of the other participants. These results also suggest that the types of social comparisons made may influence self-presentational concerns in this sample. Future research should examine how the type of social comparison (i.e., negative or positive) made to the other group members may either generate or reduce anxiety. Also, factors that contribute to the types of social comparisons made with other exercisers should be examined. Implications for practice and research are discussed.