Pediatric Nurses’ Information and Applications Related To Ethical Codes

Background: Ethics is defined as the entirety of moral principles that form the basis of individuals’ behavior; it can also be defined as “moral theory” or “theoretical ethics”. Objectives: To determinate information and applications related to ethical codes of pediatric nurses. Patients and Methods: Participants were nurses attending the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Nursing Course and the Pediatric Nursing Course conducted in Istanbul between September 2011 and December 2012. A total of nurses attending the courses at the specified dates and who agreed to participate in the study were included in the analysis. Data were collected through a questionnaire that we developed in accordance with current literature on nursing ethics. Results: 140 nurses participated in this study. Information and applications were related to ethical codes of nurses including four categories; autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice. The principle of confidentiality/keeping secrets. Exactly 64.3% of nurses reported having heard of nursing ethical codes. The best-known ethical code was the principle of justice. Furthermore, while the rates were generally low, some nurses engaged in unethical practices such as patient discrimination and prioritizing acquaintances. Conclusions: We conclude that most nurses working in pediatric clinics act in compliance with ethical codes. We also found that the majority of nurses wanted to learn about ethical codes. For this reason, we recommended that nurses working in clinics and future nurses in training be informed of the appropriate ethical behavior and codes.

Interactive storytelling to improve the listening skill of 8th grade at INAN High School

Este trabajo de investigación se trata de Cuentacuentos de respuesta física total y su influencia en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de Inglés como segunda lengua de los estudiantes del octavo grado de Educación General Básica del Colegio "INTEGRACIÓN ANDINA" en la ciudad de Cuenca en el Año Lectivo 2014 y 2015. Es necesario un nuevo sistema educativo para responder a las necesidades de la sociedad actual para permitir el desarrollo general de la educación, implementando un nuevo programa de enseñanza en el aprendizaje del Inglés a través de la narración. La búsqueda de una mejor manera de aprender y enseñar es responsabilidad ineludible de todos los maestros que deben enfrentar los desafíos con entusiasmo mientras se mira hacia innovaciones futuras permitiendo a los estudiantes mejorar sus habilidades de escucha y demás destrezas. Dado que el 90% de conocimiento de un nuevo idioma se adquiere a través de la lectura; el uso de Cuentacuentos ayuda a los estudiantes a adquirir el conocimiento necesario que será la base para un alto nivel cultural, tanto en el aprendizaje y en el desarrollo de habilidades de lenguaje, la lectura es un medio esencial para el desarrollo cultural en Educación. La falta de preparación en la lectura obstaculiza los esfuerzos del maestro secundario para lograr una formación integral en el alumno. Es necesario implementar estrategias para tratar de superar la falta de lectura, mediante el uso de la narración de cuentos en clase para animar a los estudiantes a leer en casa.

Traditional games are recovered from generation to generation

Communities, neighborhoods, and other environments are currently immersed in a series of situations and problems that have favored the deterioration of social, cultural and spiritual values, which are essential for harmony with oneself, others, and the environment. Stereotypes have captured minds and settings have been reduced to indoor spaces, hemmed in by security bars and protective devices.  Peace, fraternity and happiness are diminishing.  It is at this point that the social, spiritual and professional work of specialists in the recreational field contributes to rescue and restructure society. Traditional games and singing games are then the tools used to facilitate relationships, contribute to the learning process, and exhibit skills.  They are fundamental in a person’s life since they are a social and cultural expression of how humans have adapted to their environment (Maestro, 2005).  They do not take ethnicity, age, sex or social conditions into consideration.  Traditional games are also a way of promoting health, improving motor, cognitive and emotional skills and a means of encouraging creativity and imagination and developing a sense of rhythm.  Their goal is to attain a state of personal well-being.  They are a way to release tension and accumulated energy and to get away from the daily routine.  They represent a bridge to learn about oneself, the environment, values, habits, and traditions. In this document, readers will learn how traditional games are transmitted, what their characteristics are, why they are an important tool in today’s society, how they are prepared, and how they can be revived and preserved.

Video technology as pedagogy: past teacher education students speak to current students through performed research

This paper reports the use of video representations of first-year teachers’ experiences in teacher education workshops that focus on the transition to teaching. This use of video technology is a responsive act that draws on the notion of looking back, where graduates ‘speak to’ current students. Video footage of the performed research ‘The First Time’ shaped activities and discussions in the unit. Workshop/video themes included teacher identity discourses; epiphanic and revelatory moments of transition to becoming a teacher; and preparing for job applications and interviews. A range of data including semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students upon completion of the workshops were analysed within a phenomenographic paradigm, with the aim of describing variations of conception that people have of a particular phenomenon (Sin, 2010). The investigation of the use of video technology as a pedagogical approach to promote critical thinking about the transition to teaching revealed a range of conceptual meanings. These meanings were classified into categories according to their similarities and differences concerning the effectiveness of the technological tool in assisting undergraduates in their transition to teaching. Participants’ conceptions of the phenomenon are individual and relational, and as such results were quite varied. Emergent varied themes include: ‘I now know what it is that I need to learn’; ‘Is this theory or practice?’; and ‘I don’t do drama’. Similarities include: ‘Preparing for the unexpected’. The use of video technology was deemed effective in creating workshop content from the past, in order to teach for tomorrow.

Design and conduct of a pragmatic randomized controlled trial to enhance smoking-cessation outcomes with exercise: The Fit2Quit study

Background: Most smokers want to stop smoking and many try to quit. However abstinence rates are low and most smokers do not manage to abstain for even a week. Relapse to smoking can be related to the occurrence of tobacco withdrawal symptoms (e.g., sleep disturbance, irritability, and craving) and weight gain. If regular exercise mitigates these effects it could have potential as an aid to smoking cessation. The aim of the Fit2Quit study is to determine the effects of a home and community-based exercise intervention on smoking abstinence at six months when used as an adjunct to usual care (telephone smoking-cessation counseling and nicotine replacement therapy; NRT). Methods/design: A prospective parallel two-arm randomized controlled trial. Participants (n = 1400, 700 per arm) will be randomized to a structured home and community-based exercise program plus usual care (behavioral counseling and NRT) or to usual-care alone. It is targeted that at least 25% of the sample will be of Mori ethnicity (New Zealand indigenous). Outcomes to be measured using intention-to-treat analysis include: seven-day point prevalence of smoking abstinence verified by salivary cotinine (primary outcome); 6 months continuous abstinence; body mass index (BMI); cardio-respiratory fitness; physical activity levels; and cost effectiveness. Discussion: The Fit2Quit study is an example of a large, pragmatic randomized controlled trial in a community setting. Specific components of the exercise intervention are outlined in detail. Trial registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12609000637246.

"Ready to acquire": the IT resources required for a growth-by-acquisition business strategy

This article describes the experiences of Danisco (a global food ingredients company) as it followed a growth-by-acquisition business strategy, focusing on how a new CIO built the IT resources to ensure the IT organization was "ready to acquire." We illustrate how these IT capabilities expedited the IT integration following two acquisitions, one of which involved Danisco expanding the scale of its business and the other extending the scope. Based on insights gained from Danisco, we provide lessons for CIOs to realize business benefits when managing post-acquisition IT integration.

A collaborative development of quality mathematics assessment tasks to promote preservice teachers’ professional eye

The Mathematics Teacher Education Collective (MTEC) — a self-study group based at the University of British Columbia, Canada — collaborates to enhance our pedagogical practice in mathematics teacher education through analysing, constructing, and reflecting on variations to assessment tasks. The theoretical framework underlying the establishment of the MTEC is based on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) view of learning through a Community of Practice (CoP). “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (Wenger-Trayner, 2011, http://wenger-trayner.com/theory/). Three characteristics are viewed as crucial to the CoP: domain, community, and practice. The shared domain for MTEC is a commitment to gaining a deeper understanding of practice as mathematics teacher educators. In particular, as members we are interested in better understanding the role and development of tasks for learning to teach mathematics. As a community MTEC engages “in joint activities and discussions, [that] help each other, and share information” (Wenger-Trayner, 2011, http://wenger-trayner.com/theory/), with the goal to build relationships that provide members with opportunities to learn from one other. MTEC members are practitioners in the field. The success of the MTEC is based on the sharing, evaluation and critical reflection of assessment tasks and pedagogical approaches refined by the CoP.

Intersubjectivity and sentiment:from language to knowledge

Intersubjectivity is an important concept in psychology and sociology. It refers to sharing conceptualizations through social interactions in a community and using such shared conceptualization as a resource to interpret things that happen in everyday life. In this work, we make use of intersubjectivity as the basis to model shared stance and subjectivity for sentiment analysis. We construct an intersubjectivity network which links review writers, terms they used, as well as the polarities of the terms. Based on this network model, we propose a method to learn writer embeddings which are subsequently incorporated into a convolutional neural network for sentiment analysis. Evaluations on the IMDB, Yelp 2013 and Yelp 2014 datasets show that the proposed approach has achieved the state-of-the-art performance.

A literary approach to teaching english language in a multicultural classroom

Literature is not generally considered as a coherent branch of the curriculum in relation to language development in either native or foreign language teaching. As teachers of English in multicultural Indian classrooms, we come across students with varying degrees of competence in English language learning. Although language learning is a natural process for natives, students of other languages put in colossal efforts to learn it. Despite their sincere efforts, they face challenges regarding pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary. Indian classrooms are a microcosm of the larger society, so teaching English language in a manner that equips the students to face the cutthroat competition has become a necessity and a challenge for English language teachers. English today has become the key determinant for being successful in their careers. The hackneyed and stereotypical methods of teaching are not acceptable now. Teachers are no longer arbitrary dispensers of knowledge, but they are playing the role of a guide and facilitator for the students. Teachers of English are using innovative ideas to make English language teaching and learning interesting and simple. Teachers have started using literary texts and their analyses to explore and ignite the imagination and creative skills of the students. One needs to think and rethink the contribution of literature to intelligent thinking as well as its role in the process of teaching/learning. This article is, therefore, an attempt at exploring the nature of the literary experience in the present-day classrooms and the broader role of literature in life.

From human capacity development to national capacity development : a report on capacity development in the economic and public sectors of PNG during 2006-2013

This Report concerns capacity development in the economic and public sectors of PNG. In particular, it focuses on the use of advisers to develop the capacity of PNG counterparts in economic and public sector agencies. Such advisers were funded by the Government of Australia and completed or commenced their placements during the period 2006–2013. The research was commissioned by (then) AusAID and commenced in mid-2012. It was completed in mid-2014 under the auspices of Australian Aid, Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade. The project was overseen by the Economic and Public Sector Program administered by Coffey International. The research addressed several research questions about adviser-counterpart placements: What are the advisers’ and counterparts’ views of the success or otherwise of their partnerships in achieving their placements’ stated aims? What approaches were adopted to enable counterparts to learn what was required to fulfil their placements’ aims? What were the main things learned by counterparts? What can be understood from these experiences and how might capacity development be improved? What were the main enablers of and impediments to the success of the placements? What have been the outcomes of the introduction of other modalities of capacity development including short-term consultants, twinning arrangements, targeted training, grants and research? Do these modalities provide increased efficiencies and effectiveness compared to adviser-counterpart placements? What are the main improvements that can be made to ensure the success of future adviser-counterpart placements? What do major stakeholders in PNG conclude from the evidence produced by this study about the impact and success of adviser-counterpart placements? What may be asserted from the evidence of the worth or otherwise of adviser-counterpart placements and other capacity development modalities undertaken since 2006? What suggestions or recommendations may be made for the future?

Promoting critical thinking to high school students when teaching about climate change through a participatory approach

New paradigms in science education are focused on moving towards a sustainable society, meaning redefining the educational practices and developing new methods in order to establish better relationships among individuals, groups, and the society. Being able to reflect upon developing new pedagogic strategies, that support collective action, is crucial to favour social change. Education in the twenty-first century should be based on critical and social theories of the environment and development, in order to link the prospects for sustainability to new forms of economy, social welfare, governance and education (Barraza et al., Environ Educ Res 9(3):347-357, 2003). The nature of contemporary knowledge and knowledge construction demands increasing collaboration and communication between once isolated disciplines. Curriculum integration can reduce curriculum fragmentation, promoting a better awareness of the way different forms of knowledge work and contribute to collaborative knowledge construction, stimulating a critical and a reflexive perspective in their learners. This chapter will focus on the pedagogic strategies used in a research project aiming to provide potential young scientists from rural communities of Mexico and Alaska with a unique opportunity to learn more about their own local knowledge whilst gaining a better understanding of how it intersects with global processes. The project has helped students make cognitive links between their scientific knowledge and life experience, and has established affective and behavioral links which have intensified the ways in which they value their environment, culture, traditions and communities (Tytler et al. 2010; Bodenhorn, Learning about environmental research in a context of climate change: an international scholastic interchange (pilot project). Final report. BASC (Barrow Arctic Science Consortium)). The conjunction of collaborative, interdisciplinary work and multiple pedagogic strategies applied in this specific educational practice has shown the potential of implementing research group initiatives in science education. We believe that educational approaches that create spaces for students to work together towards a goal defined as a common good, can contribute significantly to develop effective science programs in schools.

A to Z safari

An alphabet app designed by Deakin University researchers specialising in literacy education, IT and graphic design to support children beginning to learn letter-sound relationships using research into memory retention. Tested with Australian primary school students, the ‘form-taking’ images used in this app have been found to be more effective at assisting children to learn common letter-sound relationships than images that are not form-taking (e.g. integrated images). A to Z Safari offers engaging mini-games to explore and reinforce letter-sound relationships, along with a password-protected admin/data area where students’ progress and gameplay statistics are recorded – data which can be emailed directly to the teacher. A to Z Safari has not been designed to replace classroom activities, but was designed as an electronic application to complement them. An A3-sized alphabet chart accompanies the app in the teacher area so that teachers can print the charts out to place on their students’ tables for their reference outside of game play.

Expatriate career intentions: links to career adaptability and cultural intelligence

Given the increasing rate of global mobility, it is important to have a greater understanding ofthe factors that influence intentions for expatriate careers. Guided by the Career ConstructionTheory and Intelligence Theory, this study takes the view that self-initiated expatriation as aform of global mobility is an adaptive vocational behavior driven by an individual's self-regulatorycapacity to thrive in another country and work to build one's career. This study positsthat individuals who want to work overseas rely mainly on their adaptive resources to developtheir careers. Additionally, career adaptability, as a self-regulatory competency, is posited to bereinforced by an individual's intercultural capability (i.e., cultural intelligence). To test these assertions,data were collected in a sample of university students (n = 514) in the Philippines, acountry reported to have high rates of overseas migration for economic and career-related reasons.Career adaptability was found to be positively and significantly related to overseas careerintentions. In addition, cultural intelligence was found to moderate the said relationship. Theseresults offer the groundwork for understanding the earlier stages of expatriate careers and, inparticular, how the intention to have a career in another country is developed and influencedby the interaction between the self-regulatory characteristics and intercultural capability ofindividuals.

Colour polymorphism is likely to be disadvantageous to some populations and species due to genetic architecture and morph interactions

Polymorphism describes two or more distinct, genetically determined, phenotypes that co-occur in the same population, where the rarest morph is maintained at a frequency above the mutation rate (Ford 1945; Huxley 1955). In a recent opinion piece, we explored a new idea regarding the role of genetic architectures and morph interactions in colour polymorphisms and how this can negatively affect population performance (Bolton et al. 2015). In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Forsman (2016) thoroughly discusses the current evidence for polymorphisms enhancing population performance and critiques the validity of the definitions of polymorphism we use in our original paper. We respond by clarifying that the negative consequences of polymorphisms that we discussed are likely to be most pertinent in species that have a particular set of characteristics, such as strong sexual or social interactions between morphs and discrete genetic architectures. Although it was not our intention to redefine polymorphism, we do believe that there should be further discussion about refining or characterizing balanced polymorphisms with respect to the degree of morph sympatry, discreteness of traits and their underlying genetic architecture, and the types of selection that drive and maintain the variation. The latter describes whether polymorphism is primarily maintained by external factors such as predation pressure or internal factors such as interactions with members of the same species. The contribution of Forsman (2016) is useful to this discussion, and we hope that our exchange of opinions will inspire new empirical and theoretical ideas on the origin and maintenance of colour polymorphisms.

Communication across cultures? An intercultural approach to customer service in the hotel industry: a study with globally branded hotels in the United Kingdom

In a professional and business-social context such as that of global hotel brands in the United Kingdom, intercultural communication, contacts and relationships are found at the heart of daily operations and of customer service. A large part of the clientele base of hotels in the United Kingdom is formed by individuals who belong to different cultural groups that travel in the country either for leisure or business. At the same time, the global workforce which is recruited in the hotel industry in the United Kingdom is a reality here to stay. Global travelling and labor work mobility are phenomena which have been generated by changes which occur on a socio-economic, cultural and political level due to the phenomenon of globalization. The hotel industry is therefore well acquainted with the essence of different cultures either to be accommodated within hotel premises, as in the case of external customers, or of diversity management where different cultures are recruited in the hotel industry, as in the case of internal customers. This thesis derives from research conducted on eight different global hotel brands in the United Kingdom in particular, with reference to three, four and five star categories. The research aimed to answer the question of how hotels are organized in order to address issues of intercultural communication during customer service and if intercultural barriers arise during the intercultural interaction of hotel staff and global customers. So as to understand how global hotel brands operate the research carried out focused in three main areas relating to each hotel: organizational culture, customer service–customer care and intercultural issues. The study utilized qualitative interviews with hotel management staff and non-management staff from different cultural backgrounds, public space observations between customers and staff during check-in and checkout in the reception area and during dining at the café-bar and restaurant. Thematic analysis was also applied to the official web page of each hotel and to job advertisements to enhance the findings from the interviews and the observations. For the process of analysis of the data interpretive (hermeneutic) phenomenology of Martin Heidegger has been applied. Generally, it was found that hotel staff quite often feel perplexed by how to deal with and how to overcome, for instance, language barriers and religious issues and how to interpret non verbal behaviors or matters on food culture relating to the intercultural aspect of customer service. In addition, it was interesting to find that attention to excellent customer service on the part of hotel staff is a top organizational value and customer care is a priority. Despite that, the participating hotel brands appear to have not yet, realized how intercultural barriers can affect the daily operation of the hotel, the job performance and the psychology of hotel staff. Employees indicated that they were keen to receive diversity training, provided by their organizations, so as to learn about different cultural needs and expand their intercultural skills. The notion of diversity training in global hotel brands is based on the sense that one of the multiple aims of diversity management as a practice and policy in the workplace of hotels is the better understanding of intercultural differences. Therefore global hotel brands can consider diversity training as a practice which will benefit their hotel staff and clientele base at the same time. This can have a distinctive organizational advantage for organizational affairs in the hotel industry, with potential to influence the effectiveness and performance of hotels.