The Great Book of Ireland - Leabhar Mór na hÉireann

The Great Book of Ireland, Leabhar Mór na hÉireann, is an extraordinary modern vellum manuscript in a single volume which comprises the original work of 120 artists, 140 poets and nine composers. Produced in Dublin between 1989 and 1991, it has been acquired by University College Cork to be preserved in posterity on behalf of the Irish people. Conceived originally as a venture to create a saleable artefact which would help to fund the development plans of two arts organizations in Ireland, the original architects of the idea and editors of the end product were Theo Dorgan of Poetry Ireland and Gene Lambert of Clashganna Mills, with Eamonn Martin as business manager. Out of their initial meeting in March 1989 came the first tentative idea of producing an original artefact that would raise substantial funds for their charitable-status arts organizations, while at the same time being a venture worthwhile in itself. What was to emerge was a project of breath-taking ambition and scale – The Great Book of Ireland, Leabhar Mór na hÉireann, completed in 1991. Artists, poets, and composers were asked to contribute in their own medium what they believed represented their hopes, fears, dreams, or imaginings in the Ireland of that particular time, and which would have resonance in a thousand years - as the longevity of vellum allows. Each page of The Great Book is a unique artefact in itself, often multi-layered or palimpsestial in nature. The whole “united” in design by the work of the scribe, Denis Brown. This paper will describes the creation process of the book, its subsequent history, and future plans for the book at University College Cork.

The contribution of community enterprise to British urban regeneration in a period of state retrenchment

This chapter discusses the growth and nature of community enterprise and in particular the sub-set of asset-based community development trusts and reviews their contribution to urban regeneration in Britain. Three models are presented and illustrated with case studies.

Market reforms and privatisation in the English National Health Service

The article examines developments in the marketisation and privatisation of the English National Health Service, primarily since 1997. It explores the use of competition and contracting out in ancillary services and the levering into public services of private finance for capital developments through the Private Finance Initiative. A substantial part of the article examines the repeated restructuring of the health service as a market in clinical services, initially as an internal market but subsequently as a market increasing opened up to private sector involvement. Some of the implications of market processes for NHS staff and for increased privatisation are discussed. The article examines one episode of popular resistance to these developments, namely the movement of opposition to the 2011 health and social care legislative proposals. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these system reforms for the founding principles of the NHS and the sustainability of the service.

Transitions in Contentious Behaviour in Infancy and Later Aggressive Conduct Problems

Background. Individual trajectories toward aggression originate in early infancy, before there is intent to harm. We focused on infants who were contentious, i.e., prone to engage in anger and use of physical force with other people, and examined change in levels of contentiousness between 6 and 12 months of age with reference to later aggressive conduct problems.
Sample. The CCDS is a nationally representative sample of 321 firstborn children whose families were recruited from antenatal clinics in two National Health Service Trusts.
Method. Mothers, fathers, and a third family member or friend who knew infants well completed the Cardiff Infant Contentiousness Scale (CICS) at 6 months, which was stable form 6 to 12 months, and validated by direct observation of infants’ use of force against peers. Primary caregivers again completed the CICS at 12 months, and up to three informants completed the Child Behaviour Check List at mean ages of 36 and 84 months. We used Latent Transition Analysis to identify different groups of infants in respect to their patterns of contentiousness from 6 to 12 months.
Results
Three ordered classes of contentiousness from low to high were found at 6 and 12 months. Infants exposed to greater family adversity were more likely to move into the high-contentious class from 6 to 12 months. Higher contentiousness in infancy predicted more aggressive conduct problems at 33 months and thereafter.
Conclusions
Infants exposed to family adversity are already at disadvantage by 6 months and likely to escalate in their anger and aggressiveness over time.

Ernest Mercier, le pétrole et la France

Ernest Mercier est l’un des patrons les plus influents de l'entre-deux-guerres en France. Ses différentes activités industrielles l'ont conduit à siéger sur de vastes pans de l’économie française, notamment du secteur énergétique. La thèse retrace la carrière pétrolière d'un homme qui a joué un rôle central pour le développement d'une industrie devenue stratégique, mais qui est embryonnaire lorsqu'il rejoint ce secteur après la Première Guerre mondiale. Mercier assiste et assure la création d'une industrie pétrolière nationale. Les obstacles se font légion contre les ambitions pétrolières de la France. Elle se présente bien tard sur un marché étroitement contrôlé par de puissants trusts. La recherche et l'exploitation pétrolière demandent d'importantes ressources, et aucune société française n'a les moyens d'une politique indépendante. Certaines banques se lancent alors dans les affaires de pétrole en s'alliant aux grands trusts internationaux. C'est le cas de Paribas; la gestion de ses avoirs roumains représente la première expérience de Mercier dans ce secteur. L'État s'intéresse aussi au pétrole, il devient un acteur incontournable. Le gouvernement français n'a pourtant pas les moyens de ses ambitions dans le domaine pétrolier. La politique nationale mise en place durant l'entre-deux-guerres doit faire appel à l'épargne privée française. La création d'une compagnie nationale, la Compagnie française des pétroles, en 1924 regroupe ainsi les différentes banques et sociétés intéressées au pétrole. Mercier est personnellement choisi par le président Raymond Poincaré pour mener à bien cette mission. Cette carrière s'articule donc autour d'un fragile équilibre entre milieux privés et gouvernement. Mercier devient rapidement l'intermédiaire incontournable qui régit ces relations. La thèse s'appuie sur les archives bancaires et industrielles, mais aussi sur celles du gouvernement français et de ses différents ministères. Cette analyse de la carrière d'Ernest Mercier permet de retracer les origines du secteur pétrolier français et l'action déterminante d'un homme. Elle expose les mécanismes d'influence d'une puissante banque d'affaires et les conflits d'intérêts qu'engendre l'exploitation pétrolière.

REITs: Structure and Performance

[Excerpt] REITs are attractive to investors, particularly institutional investors, due to their high dividend payouts and ability to provide more liquidity to the underlying market for direct real estate investment. This chapter analyzes the performance of real estate investment trusts (REITs). It compares the returns on REITs with those on more traditional asset classes, specifically bonds and mid-cap equities, and surveys the academic literature dealing with the diverse issues related to valuation. The chapter also examines the linkages between REIT performance and the behavior of the underlying real estate market. Because the chapter takes the perspective of a U.S.-based investor, it does not directly address the broader issues of global REITs.

Evaluation of a Brief Intervention to Assist Health Visitors and Community Practitioners to Engage with Fathers as Part of the Healthy Child Initiative

Aims: To improve engagement of Health Visitors and Community Practitioners delivering the Healthy Child Programme with fathers. To evaluate a one-day, father-focused workshop with a supporting handbook for Practitioners. To identify institutional and organisational barriers to engagement with fathers. Background: The UK government policy encourages health professionals to engage with fathers. This derives from robust evidence that fathers’ early involvement with their children impacts positively on emotional, behavioural and educational development. Yet, there is little evidence that the importance of engaging fathers is reflected in Health Visitor training or that primary-care services are wholly embracing father-inclusive practice. The Fatherhood Institute (FI), a UK charity, has developed a workshop for Practitioners delivering the Healthy Child Programme. Method: A ‘before and after’ evaluation study, comprising a survey followed by telephone interviews, evaluated the impact of the FI workshop on Health Visitors’ and Community Practitioners’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour in practice. A total of 134 Health Visitors and Community Practitioners from eight NHS Trusts in England attended the workshop from November 2011 to January 2014 at 12 sites. A specially constructed survey, incorporating a validated questionnaire, was administered before the workshop, immediately afterwards and three months later. Telephone interviews further explored participants’ responses. Findings: Analysis of the questionnaire data showed that the workshop and handbook improved participants’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour in practice. This was sustained over a three-month period. In telephone interviews, most participants said that the workshop had raised their awareness of engaging fathers and offered them helpful strategies. However, they also spoke of barriers to engagement with fathers. NHS Trusts need to review the training and education of Health Visitors and Community Practitioners and take a more strategic approach towards father-inclusive practice and extend services to meet the needs of fathers.

Agency, Financial Flexibility, and Firm Value: Evidence from REITs

We show empirically that the use of unsecured debt, whose standard covenants commit management to the preservation of debt capacity, leads to lower and more stable leverage. We then show that firm value is sensitive to leverage levels and leverage stability, decreasing in the former and increasing in the latter. Our results support a liquidity-centric version of Jensen's (1986) free cash flow argument. In this version, self-serving managerial tendencies are reigned in without raising leverage indiscriminately, so that financial flexibility is preserved.

Joint Leverage and Maturity Choices in Real Estate Firms: The Role of the REIT Status

We explore the interdependence of leverage and debt maturity choices in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and unregulated listed real estate investment companies in the U.S. for the period 1973-2011. We find that the leverage and maturity choices of all listed real estate firms are interdependent, but in contrast to industrial firms, they are not made simultaneously. Across the different types of real estate firms considered, we find substantial differences in the nature of the relationship between leverage and maturity. Leverage determines maturity in non-REITs, whereas maturity is a determinant of leverage in REITs. We suggest that the observed differences reflect the effects of the REIT regulation, rather than solely being a function of real estate as the underlying asset class. We also present novel evidence that the relationship between leverage and maturity in both firm types can be used to moderate the effects of other exogenous financing policies.

On the Capital Structure of Real Estate Firms

The leverage and debt maturity choices of real estate companies are interdependent, and are not made separately as is often assumed in the literature. We use three-stage least squares (3SLS) regression analysis to explore this interdependence for a sample of listed U.S. real estate companies and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) traded between 1973 and 2006.We find substantial differences in the nature of the relationship between leverage and maturity for the two firm types. Leverage is a determinant of maturity for non-REITs, whereas maturity is a determinant of leverage for REITs. We also find that the drivers of capital structure choices in real estate companies and REITs clearly reflect the effects of the REIT regulation.

Why do Women Sue?

Statistics published by the National Health Service Litigation Authority relating to ten years of maternity claims provoke a sharp intake of breath. The total value of these claims over the first decade of the 21st century was £3,117,649,888 (NHS Litigation Authority 2012). The United Kingdom is not the only country to witness an astronomical increase in the level of litigation relating to maternity services. As far afield as Saudi Arabia (Henary et al 2012) and the United States (Berkowitz 2011), reports are being published of the demands on maternity budgets as a result of dissatisfaction with care received during pregnancy, labour and birth. The papers referenced above attribute adverse outcomes to negligence, misdiagnosis, surgical blunders and inefficient administration. Berkowitz(2011:7) suggests that what is needed is wholesale and whole-hearted adoption of ‘…electronic fetal monitoring [EFM] certification for all staff working on their Labor and Delivery floor, protocols for managing common clinical scenarios, simulation drills for dealing with uncommon dangerous events, and pre-procedure checklists’. The NHS Litigation Authority (2012:5) recommends that Trusts ‘…engage with the risk management process at all levels; provide suitable learning and training; ensure appropriate supervision and support; have in place up-to-date protocols and guidance with which staff are familiar; learn lessons from claims’. It is relatively easy to ensure that staff are sent on fetal heart rate (FHR) training days (although whether use of EFM produces better outcomes has, of course, never been clearly demonstrated (Alfirevic et al 2013) and that protocols for managing events during labour and birth are drawn up and even put into practice. It’s uncertain, however, whether doing so will make the problem of maternity litigation go away. There is something ‘rotten in the state of Denmark’ that is fuelling women’s dissatisfaction and which ‘the system’ has not been able to get its head round.

Perpetual private land conservation: the case for outdoor recreation and functional leisure

As natural areas, agricultural lands, and open spaces continue to be developed at unprecedented rates, it is important for land conservation professionals to understand the individuals who might play a role in permanently protecting these lands and their ecological services. Many factors have been shown to influence land protection decisions among private owners, including land-use activities, demographic characteristics, and environmental intention and behavior. With the hypothesis that individuals already involved in land conservation programs would be candidates for permanent protection, we set out to model conservation easement decisions within a group of participants in southern Indiana’s Classified Forest and Wildlands Program (ICFWP). We used a mailed questionnaire to survey 500 landowners, garnering 308 responses, about their interest in conservation easements. Our results indicated significant positive relationships between interest in conservation easements with variables representing perception of landscape change, outdoor recreation behavior as an adult, and environmental organization membership. By better understanding the ways these factors promote permanent land-use decisions, land conservation professionals can better allocate limited resources through strategic investments in targeting and outreach.

Evaluating a School Community Linked Physical Activity Intervention Programme: a Multi-level Analysis.

Previous research has highlighted the importance of positive physical activity (PA) behaviors during childhood to promote sustained active lifestyles throughout the lifespan (Telama et al. 2005; 2014). It is in this context that the role of schools and teachers in facilitating PA education is promoted. Research suggests that teachers play an important role in the attitudes of children towards PA (Figley 1985) and schools may be an efficient vehicle for PA provision and promotion (McGinnis, Kanner and DeGraw, 1991; Wechsler, Deveraux, Davis and Collins, 2000). Yet despite consensus that schools represent an ideal setting from which to ‘reach’ young people (Department of Health and Human Services, UK, 2012) there remains conceptual (e.g. multi-component intervention) and methodological (e.g. duration, intensity, family involvement) ambiguity regarding the mechanisms of change claimed by PA intervention programmes. This may, in part, contribute to research findings that suggest that PA interventions have had limited impact on children’s overall activity levels and thereby limited impact in reducing children’s metabolic health (Metcalf, Henley & Wilkin, 2012). A marked criticism of the health promotion field has been the focus on behavioural change while failing to acknowledge the impact of context in influencing health outcomes (Golden & Earp, 2011). For years, the trans-theoretical model of behaviour change has been ‘the dominant model for health behaviour change’ (Armitage, 2009); this model focusses primarily on the individual and the psychology of the change process. Arguably, this model is limited by the individual’s decision-making ability and degree of self-efficacy in order to achieve sustained behavioural change and does not take account of external factors that may hinder their ability to realise change. Similar to the trans-theoretical model, socio-ecological models identify the individual at the focal point of change but also emphasises the importance of connecting multiple impacting variables, in particular, the connections between the social environment, the physical environment and public policy in facilitating behavioural change (REF). In this research, a social-ecological framework was used to connect the ways a PA intervention programme had an impact (or not) on participants, and to make explicit the foundational features of the programme that facilitated positive change. In this study, we examined the evaluation of a multi-agency approach to a PA intervention programme which aimed to increase physical activity, and awareness of the importance of physical activity to key stage 2 (age 7-12) pupils in three UK primary schools. The agencies involved were the local health authority, a community based charitable organisation, a local health administrative agency, and the city school district. In examining the impact of the intervention, we adopted a process evaluation model in order to better understand the mechanisms and context that facilitated change. Therefore, the aim of this evaluation was to describe the provision, process and impact of the intervention by 1) assessing changes in physical activity levels 2) assessing changes in the student’s attitudes towards physical activity, 3) examining student’s perceptions of the child size fitness equipment in school and their likelihood of using the equipment outside of school and 4) exploring staff perceptions, specifically the challenges and benefits, of facilitating equipment based exercise sessions in the school environment. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used Evaluation of the intervention was designed as a matched-control study and was undertaken over a seven-month period. The school-based intervention involved 3 intervention schools (n =436; 224 boys) and one control school (n=123; 70 boys) in a low socioeconomic and multicultural urban setting. The PA intervention was separated into two phases: a motivation DVD and 10 days of circuit based exercise sessions (Phase 1) followed by a maintenance phase (Phase 2) that incorporated a PA reward program and the use of specialist kid’s gym equipment located at each school for a period of 4 wk. Outcome measures were measured at baseline (January) and endpoint (July; end of academic school year) using reliable and valid self-report measures. The children’s attitudes towards PA were assessed using the Children’s Attitudes towards Physical Activity (CATPA) questionnaire. The Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children (PAQ-C), a 7-day recall questionnaire, was used to assess PA levels over a school week. A standardised test battery (Fitnessgram®) was used to assess cardiovascular fitness, body composition, muscular strength and endurance, and flexibility. After the 4 wk period, similar kid’s equipment was available for general access at local community facilities. The control school did not receive any of the interventions. All physical fitness tests and PA questionnaires were administered and collected prior to the start of the intervention (January) and following the intervention period (July) by an independent evaluation team. Evaluation testing took place at the individual schools over 2-3 consecutive days (depending on the number of children to be tested at the school). Staff (n=19) and student perceptions (n = 436) of the child sized fitness equipment were assessed via questionnaires post-intervention. Students completed a questionnaire to assess enjoyment, usage, ease of use and equipment assess and usage in the community. A questionnaire assessed staff perceptions on the delivery of the exercise sessions, classroom engagement and student perceptions. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Findings showed that both the intervention (16.4%) and control groups increased their PAQ-C score by post-intervention (p < 0.05); with the intervention (17.8%) and control (21.3%) boys showing the greatest increase in physical activity levels. At post-intervention, there was a 5.5% decline in the intervention girls’ attitudes toward PA in the aesthetic subdomains (p = 0.009); whereas the control boys had an increase in positive attitudes in the health domain (p = 0.003). No significant differences in attitudes towards physical activity were observed in any other domain for either group at post-intervention (p > 0.05). The results of the equipment questionnaire, 96% of the children stated they enjoyed using the equipment and would like to use the equipment again in the future; however at post-intervention only 27% reported using the equipment outside of school in the last 7 days. Students identified the ski walker (34%) and cycle (32%) as their favorite pieces of equipment; with the single joint exercises such as leg extension and bicep/tricep machine (<3%) as their least favorite. Key themes from staff were that the equipment sessions were enjoyable, a novel activity, children felt very grown-up, and the activity was linked to a real fitness experience. They also expressed the need for more support to deliver the sessions and more time required for each session. Findings from this study suggest that a more integrated approach within the various agencies is required, particularly more support to increase teachers pedagogical content knowledge in physical activity instruction which is age appropriate. Future recommendations for successful implementation include sufficient time period for all students to access and engage with the equipment; increased access and marketing of facilities to parents within the local community, and professional teacher support strategies to facilitate the exercise sessions.

A signaling visualization toolkit to support rational design of combination therapies and biomarker discovery: SiViT

Targeted cancer therapy aims to disrupt aberrant cellular signalling pathways. Biomarkers are surrogates of pathway state, but there is limited success in translating candidate biomarkers to clinical practice due to the intrinsic complexity of pathway networks. Systems biology approaches afford better understanding of complex, dynamical interactions in signalling pathways targeted by anticancer drugs. However, adoption of dynamical modelling by clinicians and biologists is impeded by model inaccessibility. Drawing on computer games technology, we present a novel visualisation toolkit, SiViT, that converts systems biology models of cancer cell signalling into interactive simulations that can be used without specialist computational expertise. SiViT allows clinicians and biologists to directly introduce for example loss of function mutations and specific inhibitors. SiViT animates the effects of these introductions on pathway dynamics, suggesting further experiments and assessing candidate biomarker effectiveness. In a systems biology model of Her2 signalling we experimentally validated predictions using SiViT, revealing the dynamics of biomarkers of drug resistance and highlighting the role of pathway crosstalk. No model is ever complete: the iteration of real data and simulation facilitates continued evolution of more accurate, useful models. SiViT will make accessible libraries of models to support preclinical research, combinatorial strategy design and biomarker discovery.

Vítimas de violência no namoro

Projeto de Graduação apresentado à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de licenciada em Criminologia