'Give back the human': poetic collaboration and hibakusha poems

Testimonies are viewed as essential for recording the experience of atomic warfare. However, hibakusha Keiko Ogura expresses the need for something more than recording and translating these testimonies. She highlights the need for an understanding of the hibakusha experience through a form of virtual collaboration with hibakusha and their stories. Ogura states that this is best achieved via ‘literature, art and poetry’ (Ogura 2015: n.pag.).This paper discusses why and how we speak about the atomic bomb and argues that virtual collaboration with hibakusha, by writing poetry based on their experiences and publishing it online, encourages empathy and keeps the experience alive for future generations. This paper uses Brandon Shimoda’s curated issue—entitled ‘Hiroshima/Nagasaki’—of Evening Will Come, a monthly online journal of poetics, as a case study.

Collaboration and co-production of knowledge in healthcare: opportunities and challenges

Over time there has been a shift, at least in the rhetoric, from a pipeline conceptualisation of knowledge implementation, to one that recognises the potential of more collaboration, co-productive approaches to knowledge production and use. In this editorial, which is grounded in our research and collective experience, we highlight both the potential and challenge with collaboration and co-production. This includes issues about stakeholder engagement, governance arrangements, and capacity and capability for working in a co-productive way. Finally, we reflect on the fact that this approach is not a panacea, but is accompanied by some philosophical and practical challenges.

Current features of infective endocarditis in elderly patients: results of the International Collaboration on Endocarditis Prospective Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: Elderly patients are emerging as a population at high risk for infective endocarditis (IE). However, adequately sized prospective studies on the features of IE in elderly patients are lacking. METHODS: In this multinational, prospective, observational cohort study within the International Collaboration on Endocarditis, 2759 consecutive patients were enrolled from June 15, 2000, to December 1, 2005; 1056 patients with IE 65 years or older were compared with 1703 patients younger than 65 years. Risk factors, predisposing conditions, origin, clinical features, course, and outcome of IE were comprehensively analyzed. RESULTS: Elderly patients reported more frequently a hospitalization or an invasive procedure before IE onset. Diabetes mellitus and genitourinary and gastrointestinal cancer were the major predisposing conditions. Blood culture yield was higher among elderly patients with IE. The leading causative organism was Staphylococcus aureus, with a higher rate of methicillin resistance. Streptococcus bovis and enterococci were also significantly more prevalent. The clinical presentation of elderly patients with IE was remarkable for lower rates of embolism, immune-mediated phenomena, or septic complications. At both echocardiography and surgery, fewer vegetations and more abscesses were found, and the gain in the diagnostic yield of transesophageal echocardiography was significantly larger. Significantly fewer elderly patients underwent cardiac surgery (38.9% vs 53.5%; P < .001). Elderly patients with IE showed a higher rate of in-hospital death (24.9% vs 12.8%; P < .001), and age older than 65 years was an independent predictor of mortality. CONCLUSIONS: In this large prospective study, increasing age emerges as a major determinant of the clinical characteristics of IE. Lower rates of surgical treatment and high mortality are the most prominent features of elderly patients with IE. Efforts should be made to prevent health care-associated acquisition and improve outcomes in this major subgroup of patients with IE.

School autonomy, accountability and collaboration: a critical review

English education has recently experienced radical policy reform in the areas of school autonomy and accountability. The key focus of this paper is on how schools might best navigate through these policy moves. It highlights how these moves have constructed schools, teachers and students in problematic ways but also how they are offering possibilities for improving the quality of schools and schooling. The focus here is on the promise and scope of school collaboration. The difficulties of creating socially responsive and responsible collaboratives in the current ‘heterarchical’ and market-oriented policy environment are acknowledged. Guided by quality democratic governance, they are, nonetheless, presented as crucial in supporting schools to productively deal with the demands of this environment.

Academisation, school collaboration and the primary school sector in England: a story of six school leaders

This paper presents data from a study of five English primary schools. It examines some of the challenges associated with school autonomy and collaboration for state primary schools amid the uncertainty and complexity of governance in the present English education context. The paper features the voices of six leaders gathered from interviews that explored their thoughts about the academies movement. It highlights their fears that academisation, and particularly the imperative to join a large academy chain, will undermine their autonomy as individual schools. Accepting of the inevitability of academisation and the forms of network governance this reform offers, it highlights the head teachers’ moves to ensure their autonomy in terms of determining the timing and type of conversion. In relation to these moves, the paper reiterates the significance within effective collaboratives of member schools experiencing a sense of ownership, a common purpose, shared responsibility for students and their learning and relations of trust. The paper considers some of the tensions arising in this space in relation to competition, collaboration and school vulnerability.

Collaboration and student engagement in design education

One of the great paradoxes in design education is that undergraduate students are encouraged to study and model the behaviors and attitudes of famous designers, but without being aware that such esteemed individuals rarely work in isolation. The vast majority of designers work in teams, as part of both the conceptualization and production processes. Even 'design-auteurs' or 'artist-designers' must still interact with, respectively, clients, consultants and contractors, or patrons, curators and publishers. As a result of this, collaboration is widely considered an essential part of the design process and a critical skill for developing a career in the design industries. However, while design practitioners and the professional bodies that represent them acknowledge the importance of groups and teams, there has been a general reluctance (either an unwillingness or inability) to emphasize the importance or team processes, or em­bed the development of team skills, in undergraduate design curricula. There are many reasons for this situation existing, but we cannot underestimate the general attitude, implicit in much design education and promulgated through the design media, that creativity is an individual trait.

Intercultural dialogue through design (iDiDe ): a model of intercultural collaboration and student engagement

Intercultural dialogue through design, globally known as “iDiDe” pronounced i-dee-dee) was initiated by an Australian university in 2011 or architecture and built environment disciplines. Set within the context of international education and internationalisation, which are the focus of Australian universities this century, iDiDe offers a model of intercultural collaboration and student engagement. iDiDe is more than a generic international study tour. Firstly, there is collaborative academic leadership that comes from institutional partnerships between Australia and five Asian nations (Malaysia, Thailand, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka), secondly, intercultural dialogue and intercultural understanding underpin the pedagogical approach, and thirdly, iDiDe projects extend discipline specific learning into the realms of reality. This chapter is an expose of iDiDe. It seeks to determine what elements of the model contribute to intercultural collaboration and student engagement. Findings are evaluated for their impact upon participants. The potential for transformative learning and response to global citizenship are discussedalong with future research.

L'utilisation des connaissances liées aux problèmes à traiter en collaboration chez des étudiantes infirmières de niveau collégial

La présente étude est une recherche qualitative de type exploratoire. Elle avait pour but de vérifier l'utilisation des connaissances biomédicales de deux groupes d'étudiantes infirmières de niveau collégial. L'échantillon était composé de 56 sujets : un groupe de 38 étudiantes en début de la deuxième année du programme de soins infirmiers et un groupe de 18 étudiantes de troisième année, en fin de programme. La capacité de référer aux connaissances biomédicales a été évaluée à l'aide d'une grille d'observation des réponses des sujets, à des questions proposées suite à la lecture d'un scénario portant sur une situation clinique. La grille d'observation est une adaptation d'un outil élaboré par Doris Carnevali (1984) portant sur le «self-monitoring of diagnostic reasoning behaviors». Quant au scénario, il fut construit en tenant compte des connaissances des étudiantes et en fonction des objectifs de cette recherche. Ces outils ont été validés auprès d'enseignantes du programme de soins infirmiers et d'étudiantes de première année dans ce programme et auprès d'une experte en démarche de soins infirmiers. Ils ont été aussi pré-expérimentés auprès d'un groupe de six étudiantes ayant terminé leur première année. Les données portant sur les réponses écrites des étudiantes à propos de l'identification de problèmes à traiter en collaboration, via un scénario, ont été traitées par une méthode d'analyse qualitative de contenu. Les résultats font l'objet d'une analyse exhaustive. Ils ont permis de ressortir les catégories reliées au raisonnement diagnostique et aux processus cognitifs et tendent à démontrer que les étudiantes en soins infirmiers utilisent leurs connaissances biomédicales lorsqu'elles ont à résoudre un problème de soins infirmiers à l'aide d'une histoire de cas fictive. Les résultats semblent prometteurs quant au transfert des connaissances biomédicales et de soins infirmiers (théoriques et pratiques) des étudiantes dans un contexte de résolution de problèmes. Ils incitent à revoir nos approches pédagogiques quant à l'enseignement théorique des problèmes de santé abordés dans le programme de soins infirmiers. Ils invitent aussi à réexaminer des attitudes des enseignantes face à l'utilisation de ces connaissances dans un contexte de soins direct à la clientèle. De plus, ils ouvrent des avenues intéressantes pour la poursuite de la recherche dans le domaine de l'enseignement et de l'intervention infirmière.

Castilian and Portuguese merchants in collaboration (1580-1590). Has the Hispanic Monarchy favored Iberian commercial partnerships?

The Iberian Union allowed the existence of formal mechanisms of government authority in Portugal. In what concerns the Iberian trade dynamics, including the colonial circuits, the Habsburgs legislated according to those that would be the most politically convenient circumstances, making an impact on Iberian affairs. Over the last decade, historical literature has highlighted the transnational nature of Early Modern business partnerships. On the other hand, Iberian scholars have put forward many case studies that show formal or informal Portuguese participations in the Spanish Indies affairs. However, the inverse situation as not been considered yet. What was the role played by Castilian merchants in the Portuguese colonial trade? This paper aims to present data about the collaboration between Portuguese and Castilian merchants within the European and the overseas trade dynamics, approaching the Iberian Union as an event that favored these business partnerships. It also debates the formal or informal nature of these relationships. Were they promoted by the State’s policies or, alternatively, were they devised as a means to bypass the Crown’s monopolistic policies? For this propose, we will analyze Portuguese notarial records from the period between 1580 and 1590.