Learning from triads: training undergraduates in counselling skills

Background: Research has shown that counselling skills training in undergraduate programmes is effective. However, there is potential that premature intimacy and disclosures during triad work may impact on relationships which must be maintained out-with the counselling component of the course. Little research has examined individual pedagogical practices within training. Aim: The aim of this research was to explore the experience of the practical skills training component of a counselling course for a cohort of undergraduate students, and the impact of this learning experience. The objective being an evaluation of the use of this approach for this group and of the impact of personal sharing within cohorts of undergraduates. Method: Semi-structured interviews focusing on the experience of skills training and self-disclosure during training were carried out on 12 undergraduates taking counselling skills modules as part of their BSc Psychology and Counselling degree. Thematic analysis was carried out on the interview transcripts. Results: As a result of engagement in skills training and acting as ‘clients’ for one another, individuals perceived the formation of a positive group identity with implicit ‘rules’, but also an impact of training on relationships within the group which relied on the ability to maintain boundaries and personal identities with peers, and this influenced the learning experience. The ability to manage their engagement on the programme was dependent on ongoing support and guidance from tutors. Discussion: While this pedagogical approach appears appropriate for facilitating learning and potentially provides a rich learning journey for undergraduate students, tutors must act proactively to ensure a safe learning environment.

Rola Unii Europejskiej w budowie nowego ładu międzynarodowego - stan obecny i perspekytywy

W nauce o stosunkach międzynarodowych porządek, czy też ład międzynarodowy, to zbiór podmiotów państwowych i niepaństwowych złączonych wzajemnymi relacjami o różnorodnym charakterze i działających według wspólnie wypracowanych lub narzuconych z zewnątrz reguł. Po zakończeniu zimnej wojny i utracie na znaczeniu ładu jałtańskiego rozgorzała dyskusja nad kształtem jaki ma przybrać ład postzimnowojenny. Z poczynionych rozważań wynika, że polityczny i gospodarczy ład międzynarodowy w najbliższych dekadach będzie wielobiegunowy. Szczególne znaczenie odgrywać w nim będą USA, Chiny , a także Unia Europejska, Japonia, Indie i Brazylia. Obecnie UE odgrywa jedną z najważniejszych ról w budowie ładu międzynarodowego. Widać to zwłaszcza pod względem gospodarczym jako że Unia UE jest obecnie największym światowym eksporterem i drugim (po USA) importerem. Wydaje się jednak, że tradycyjne opisywanie Unii Europejskiej jako przykładu obszaru sukcesu gospodarczego może w najbliższym czasie ulec zmianie. Europa w długiej perspektywie ulegnie marginalizacji jeśli nie wróci do projektów ściślejszej integracji, nie wykorzysta lepiej swojego potencjału intelektualnego i gospodarczego oraz nie przyspieszy rozwoju poprzez stawianie na nowe technologie. Dla podtrzymania swojej pozycji powinna ona aktywniej współpracować z USA, utrzymywać poprawne stosunki z krajami azjatyckimi a także zaangażować się we współpracę z organizacjami między- i pozarządowymi, które w najbliższych latach będą zyskiwać na znaczeniu

Twierdzenia o punktach stałych pewnych klas operatorów nieliniowych wraz z ich zastosowaniami

Wydział Matematyki i Informatyki

Autsajder literacki w niemieckiej i rosyjskiej prozie XIX-XI wieku. Badania narratologiczne

Wydział Neofilologii: Instytut Filologii Germańskiej

Integrative motivation and global language (English) acquisition in Poland

This study investigated the consistency of a measure of integrative motivation in the prediction of achievement in English as a foreign language in 18 samples of Polish school students. The results are shown to have implications for concerns expressed that integrative motivation might not be appropriate to the acquisition of English because it is a global language and moreover that other factors such as the gender of the student or the environment of the class might also influence its predictability. Results of a hierarchical linear modeling analysis indicated that for the older samples, integrative motivation was a consistent predictor of grades in English, unaffected by either the gender of the student or class environment acting as covariates. Comparable results were obtained for the younger samples except that student gender also contributed to the prediction of grades in English. Examination of the correlations of the elements of the integrative motivation score with English grades demonstrated that the aggregate score is the more consistent correlate from sample to sample than the elements themselves. Such results lead to the hypothesis that integrative motivation is a multi-dimensional construct and different aspects of the motivational complex come into play for each individual. That is, two individuals can hold the same level of integrative motivation and thus attain the same level of achievement but one might be higher in some elements and lower in others than another individual, resulting in consistent correlations of the aggregate but less so for the elements.

Narracyjne i antynarracyjne modele egzystencji w naukach humanistycznych i praktyce literackiej

Wydział Nauk Społecznych

Abandono e absentismo escolar no concelho de Ponta Delgada

Dissertação apresentada à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciências da Educação: Educação Especial, área de especialização em Domínio Emocional e da Personalidade

Novas Insulinas

Projeto de Pós-Graduação/Dissertação apresentado à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciências Farmacêuticas

Anestésicos locais

Projeto de Pós-Graduação/Dissertação apresentado à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciências Farmacêuticas

Estratégias terapêuticas baseadas na modulação da atividade enzimática das caspases

Projeto de Pós-Graduação/Dissertação apresentado à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciências Farmacêuticas

Abuso infantil

Projeto de Pós-Graduação/Dissertação apresentado à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Medicina Dentária

Complying with the NIH Public Access Policy - Copyright Considerations and Options

On January 11, 2008, the National Institutes of Health ('NIH') adopted a revised Public Access Policy for peer-reviewed journal articles reporting research supported in whole or in part by NIH funds. Under the revised policy, the grantee shall ensure that a copy of the author's final manuscript, including any revisions made during the peer review process, be electronically submitted to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central ('PMC') archive and that the person submitting the manuscript will designate a time not later than 12 months after publication at which NIH may make the full text of the manuscript publicly accessible in PMC. NIH adopted this policy to implement a new statutory requirement under which: The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law. This White Paper is written primarily for policymaking staff in universities and other institutional recipients of NIH support responsible for ensuring compliance with the Public Access Policy. The January 11, 2008, Public Access Policy imposes two new compliance mandates. First, the grantee must ensure proper manuscript submission. The version of the article to be submitted is the final version over which the author has control, which must include all revisions made after peer review. The statutory command directs that the manuscript be submitted to PMC 'upon acceptance for publication.' That is, the author's final manuscript should be submitted to PMC at the same time that it is sent to the publisher for final formatting and copy editing. Proper submission is a two-stage process. The electronic manuscript must first be submitted through a process that requires input of additional information concerning the article, the author(s), and the nature of NIH support for the research reported. NIH then formats the manuscript into a uniform, XML-based format used for PMC versions of articles. In the second stage of the submission process, NIH sends a notice to the Principal Investigator requesting that the PMC-formatted version be reviewed and approved. Only after such approval has grantee's manuscript submission obligation been satisfied. Second, the grantee also has a distinct obligation to grant NIH copyright permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible through PMC not later than 12 months after the date of publication. This obligation is connected to manuscript submission because the author, or the person submitting the manuscript on the author's behalf, must have the necessary rights under copyright at the time of submission to give NIH the copyright permission it requires. This White Paper explains and analyzes only the scope of the grantee's copyright-related obligations under the revised Public Access Policy and suggests six options for compliance with that aspect of the grantee's obligation. Time is of the essence for NIH grantees. As a practical matter, the grantee should have a compliance process in place no later than April 7, 2008. More specifically, the new Public Access Policy applies to any article accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008 if the article arose under (1) an NIH Grant or Cooperative Agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008, (2) direct funding from an NIH Contract signed after April 7, 2008, (3) direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or (4) from an NIH employee. In addition, effective May 25, 2008, anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC reference number when citing articles arising from their NIH funded research. (This includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 and subsequent due dates.) Conceptually, the compliance challenge that the Public Access Policy poses for grantees is easily described. The grantee must depend to some extent upon the author(s) to take the necessary actions to ensure that the grantee is in compliance with the Public Access Policy because the electronic manuscripts and the copyrights in those manuscripts are initially under the control of the author(s). As a result, any compliance option will require an explicit understanding between the author(s) and the grantee about how the manuscript and the copyright in the manuscript are managed. It is useful to conceptually keep separate the grantee's manuscript submission obligation from its copyright permission obligation because the compliance personnel concerned with manuscript management may differ from those responsible for overseeing the author's copyright management. With respect to copyright management, the grantee has the following six options: (1) rely on authors to manage copyright but also to request or to require that these authors take responsibility for amending publication agreements that call for transfer of too many rights to enable the author to grant NIH permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible ('the Public Access License'); (2) take a more active role in assisting authors in negotiating the scope of any copyright transfer to a publisher by (a) providing advice to authors concerning their negotiations or (b) by acting as the author's agent in such negotiations; (3) enter into a side agreement with NIH-funded authors that grants a non-exclusive copyright license to the grantee sufficient to grant NIH the Public Access License; (4) enter into a side agreement with NIH-funded authors that grants a non-exclusive copyright license to the grantee sufficient to grant NIH the Public Access License and also grants a license to the grantee to make certain uses of the article, including posting a copy in the grantee's publicly accessible digital archive or repository and authorizing the article to be used in connection with teaching by university faculty; (5) negotiate a more systematic and comprehensive agreement with the biomedical publishers to ensure either that the publisher has a binding obligation to submit the manuscript and to grant NIH permission to make the manuscript publicly accessible or that the author retains sufficient rights to do so; or (6) instruct NIH-funded authors to submit manuscripts only to journals with binding deposit agreements with NIH or to journals whose copyright agreements permit authors to retain sufficient rights to authorize NIH to make manuscripts publicly accessible.

Measuring the Behavior of a World-Wide Web Server

Server performance has become a crucial issue for improving the overall performance of the World-Wide Web. This paper describes Webmonitor, a tool for evaluating and understanding server performance, and presents new results for a realistic workload. Webmonitor measures activity and resource consumption, both within the kernel and in HTTP processes running in user space. Webmonitor is implemented using an efficient combination of sampling and event-driven techniques that exhibit low overhead. Our initial implementation is for the Apache World-Wide Web server running on the Linux operating system. We demonstrate the utility of Webmonitor by measuring and understanding the performance of a Pentium-based PC acting as a dedicated WWW server. Our workload uses a file size distribution with a heavy tail. This captures the fact that Web servers must concurrently handle some requests for large audio and video files, and a large number of requests for small documents, containing text or images. Our results show that in a Web server saturated by client requests, over 90% of the time spent handling HTTP requests is spent in the kernel. Furthermore, keeping TCP connections open, as required by TCP, causes a factor of 2-9 increase in the elapsed time required to service an HTTP request. Data gathered from Webmonitor provide insight into the causes of this performance penalty. Specifically, we observe a significant increase in resource consumption along three dimensions: the number of HTTP processes running at the same time, CPU utilization, and memory utilization. These results emphasize the important role of operating system and network protocol implementation in determining Web server performance.

On the Interaction Between an Operating System and Web Server

This paper examines how and why web server performance changes as the workload at the server varies. We measure the performance of a PC acting as a standalone web server, running Apache on top of Linux. We use two important tools to understand what aspects of software architecture and implementation determine performance at the server. The first is a tool that we developed, called WebMonitor, which measures activity and resource consumption, both in the operating system and in the web server. The second is the kernel profiling facility distributed as part of Linux. We vary the workload at the server along two important dimensions: the number of clients concurrently accessing the server, and the size of the documents stored on the server. Our results quantify and show how more clients and larger files stress the web server and operating system in different and surprising ways. Our results also show the importance of fixed costs (i.e., opening and closing TCP connections, and updating the server log) in determining web server performance.

Trade & Cap: A Customer-Managed, Market-Based System for Trading Bandwidth Allowances at a Shared Link

We propose Trade & Cap (T&C), an economics-inspired mechanism that incentivizes users to voluntarily coordinate their consumption of the bandwidth of a shared resource (e.g., a DSLAM link) so as to converge on what they perceive to be an equitable allocation, while ensuring efficient resource utilization. Under T&C, rather than acting as an arbiter, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) acts as an enforcer of what the community of rational users sharing the resource decides is a fair allocation of that resource. Our T&C mechanism proceeds in two phases. In the first, software agents acting on behalf of users engage in a strategic trading game in which each user agent selfishly chooses bandwidth slots to reserve in support of primary, interactive network usage activities. In the second phase, each user is allowed to acquire additional bandwidth slots in support of presumed open-ended need for fluid bandwidth, catering to secondary applications. The acquisition of this fluid bandwidth is subject to the remaining "buying power" of each user and by prevalent "market prices" – both of which are determined by the results of the trading phase and a desirable aggregate cap on link utilization. We present analytical results that establish the underpinnings of our T&C mechanism, including game-theoretic results pertaining to the trading phase, and pricing of fluid bandwidth allocation pertaining to the capping phase. Using real network traces, we present extensive experimental results that demonstrate the benefits of our scheme, which we also show to be practical by highlighting the salient features of an efficient implementation architecture.