Parental confidence in managing food allergy:development of the Food Allergy Self-Efficacy Scale for parents (FASE-P)

Background: Food allergy is often a life-long condition that requires constant vigilance in order to prevent accidental exposure and avoid potentially life-threatening symptoms. Parents’ confidence in managing their child’s food allergy may relate to the poor quality of life anxiety and worry reported by parents of food allergic children. Objective: The aim of the current study was to develop and validate the first scale to measure parental confidence (self-efficacy) in managing food allergy in their child. Methods: The Food Allergy Self-Efficacy Scale for Parents (FASE-P) was developed through interviews with 53 parents, consultation of the literature and experts in the area. The FASE-P was then completed by 434 parents of food allergic children from a general population sample in addition to the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES), the Food Allergy Quality of Life Parental Burden Scale (FAQL-PB), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ12) and the Food Allergy Impact Measure (FAIM). A total of 250 parents completed the re-test of the FASE-P. Results: Factor and reliability analysis resulted in a 21 item scale with 5 sub-scales. The overall scale and sub-scales has good to excellent internal consistency (α’s of 0.63-0.89) and the scale is stable over time. There were low to moderate significant correlations with the GSES, FAIM and GHQ12 and strong correlations with the FAQL-PB, with better parental confidence relating to better general self-efficacy, better quality of life and better mental health in the parent. Poorer self-efficacy was related to egg and milk allergy; self-efficacy was not related to severity of allergy. Conclusions and clinical relevance: The FASE-P is a reliable and valid scale for use with parents from a general population. Its application within clinical settings could aid provision of advice and improve targeted interventions by identifying areas where parents have less confidence in managing their child’s food allergy.

The effectiveness of workplace coaching:A meta-analysis of learning and performance outcomes; scale development; theoretical model of individual differences and longitudinal study

The extant literature on workplace coaching is characterised by a lack of theoretical and empirical understanding regarding the effectiveness of coaching as a learning and development tool; the types of outcomes one can expect from coaching; the tools that can be used to measure coaching outcomes; the underlying processes that explain why and how coaching works and the factors that may impact on coaching effectiveness. This thesis sought to address these substantial gaps in the literature with three linked studies. Firstly, a meta-analysis of workplace coaching effectiveness (k = 17), synthesizing the existing research was presented. A framework of coaching outcomes was developed and utilised to code the studies. Analysis indicated that coaching had positive effects on all outcomes. Next, the framework of outcomes was utilised as the deductive start-point to the development of the scale measuring perceived coaching effectiveness. Utilising a multi-stage approach (n = 201), the analysis indicated that perceived coaching effectiveness may be organised into a six factor structure: career clarity; team performance; work well-being; performance; planning and organizing and personal effectiveness and adaptability. The final study was a longitudinal field experiment to test a theoretical model of individual differences and coaching effectiveness developed in this thesis. An organizational sample of 84 employees each participated in a coaching intervention, completed self-report surveys, and had their job performance rated by peers, direct reports and supervisors (a total of 352 employees provided data on participant performance). The results demonstrate that compared to a control group, the coaching intervention generated a number of positive outcomes. The analysis indicated that coachees’ enthusiasm, intellect and orderliness influenced the impact of coaching on outcomes. Mediation analysis suggested that mastery goal orientation, performance goal orientation and approach motivation in the form of behavioural activation system (BAS) drive, were significant mediators between personality and outcomes. Overall, the findings of this thesis make an original contribution to the understanding of the types of outcomes that can be expected from coaching, and the magnitude of impact coaching has on outcomes. The thesis also provides a tool for reliably measuring coaching effectiveness and a theoretical model to understand the influence of coachee individual differences on coaching outcomes.

A magyar átalakulás és fejlődés néhány általánosítható elméleti tanulsága = Some generalizable theoretical lessons of the Hungarian transformation and development

A világgazdasági válság óta eltelt nyolc évtizedben Magyarországon számos rendszerváltozás ment végbe a gazdaságban és a politikában. Sokak szerint a szabadpiactól a szabadpiacig vezető kör bezárult, és ismét rendszerválság előtt állunk. Míg a jövő természetesen bizonytalanságokkal terhes, és így értelemszerűen nem kiszámítható, a múlt egyértelmű tanulsága az, hogy a közéletet végig formáló felzárkózási törekvés egészében sikertelennek bizonyult. Ennek alapja elemzésünk központi rejtélye egy régi fejlődéselméleti feladvány: miért van az, hogy Argentínához vagy újabban Olaszországhoz és Portugáliához hasonlóan a jó politika rossz eredményekkel jár(t), és fordítva? Miért szakadt el végletesen és történetileg is a gazdasági és a politikai ésszerűség egymástól? __________________ Hungary has undergone several changes of economic and political system in the eighty years since the Great Depression. According to many, the circle from market economy to market economy has closed and we face another systemic crisis. Although the future is naturally full of uncertainties and is not by its very nature predictable, the clear lesson from the past is that the effort to catch up, which shaped public life throughout, has been unsuccessful on the whole. The basis for this and the central riddle in this analysis is an old puzzle in development theory: how is it that good policies had bad results and vice versa, as was the case in Argentina, and recently in Italy and Portugal? Why did economic and political rationality part company for good, even in historical terms?

Implications of a theoretical framework on stress and burnout for the development of graduate nursing education curricula

This study had two purposes: (a) to develop a theoretical framework integrating and synthesizing findings of prior research regarding stress and burnout among critical care nurses (CCRNs), and (b) to validate the theoretical framework with an empirical study to assure a theory/research based teaching-learning process for graduate courses preparing nursing clinical specialists and administrators.^ The methods used to test the theoretical framework included: (a) adopting instruments with reported validity, (b) conducting a pilot study, (c) revising instruments using results of the pilot study and following concurrence of a panel of experts, and (d) establishing correlations within predetermined parameters. The reliability of the tool was determined through the use of Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient with a resulting range from.68 to.88 for all measures.^ The findings supported all the research hypotheses. Correlations were established at r =.23 for statistically significant alphas at the.01 level and r =.16 for alphas.05. The conclusions indicated three areas of strong correlation among the theoretical variables: (a) work environment stressor antecedents and specific stressor events were correlated significantly with subjective work stress and burnout; (b) subjective work stress (perceived work related stress) was a function of the work environment stressor antecedents and specific stressor events, and (c) emotional exhaustion, the first phase of burnout, was confirmed to be related to stressor antecedents and specific stressor events. This dimension was found to be a function of the work environment stressor antecedents, modified by the individual characteristics of work and non-work related social support, non-work daily stress, and the number of hours worked per week. The implications of the study for nursing graduate curricula, nursing practice and nursing education were discussed. Recommendations for further research were enumerated. ^

The Path between Pedagogy and Technology: Establishing a Theoretical Basis for the Development of Educational Game Environments

The power of computer game technology is currently being harnessed to produce “serious games”. These “games” are targeted at the education and training marketplace, and employ various key game-engine components such as the graphics and physics engines to produce realistic “digital-world” simulations of the real “physical world”. Many approaches are driven by the technology and often lack a consideration of a firm pedagogical underpinning. The authors believe that an analysis and deployment of both the technological and pedagogical dimensions should occur together, with the pedagogical dimension providing the lead. This chapter explores the relationship between these two dimensions, and explores how “pedagogy may inform the use of technology”, how various learning theories may be mapped onto the use of the affordances of computer game engines. Autonomous and collaborative learning approaches are discussed. The design of a serious game is broken down into spatial and temporal elements. The spatial dimension is related to the theories of knowledge structures, especially “concept maps”. The temporal dimension is related to “experiential learning”, especially the approach of Kolb. The multi-player aspect of serious games is related to theories of “collaborative learning” which is broken down into a discussion of “discourse” versus “dialogue”. Several general guiding principles are explored, such as the use of “metaphor” (including metaphors of space, embodiment, systems thinking, the internet and emergence). The topological design of a serious game is also highlighted. The discussion of pedagogy is related to various serious games we have recently produced and researched, and is presented in the hope of informing the “serious game community”.

Design and development of distributed feedback transistor lasers

The transistor laser is a unique three-port device that operates simultaneously as a transistor and a laser. With quantum wells incorporated in the base regions of heterojunction bipolar transistors, the transistor laser possesses advantageous characteristics of fast base spontaneous carrier lifetime, high differential optical gain, and electrical-optical characteristics for direct “read-out” of its optical properties. These devices have demonstrated many useful features such as high-speed optical transmission without the limitations of resonance, non-linear mixing, frequency multiplication, negative resistance, and photon-assisted switching. To date, all of these devices operate as multi-mode lasers without any type of wavelength selection or stabilizing mechanisms. Stable single-mode distributed feedback diode laser sources are important in many applications including spectroscopy, as pump sources for amplifiers and solid-state lasers, for use in coherent communication systems, and now as TLs potentially for integrated optoelectronics. The subject of this work is to expand the future applications of the transistor laser by demonstrating the theoretical background, process development and device design necessary to achieve singlelongitudinal- mode operation in a three-port transistor laser. A third-order distributed feedback surface grating is fabricated in the top emitter AlGaAs confining layers using soft photocurable nanoimprint lithography. The device produces continuous wave laser operation with a peak wavelength of 959.75 nm and threshold current of 13 mA operating at -70 °C. For devices with cleaved ends a side-mode suppression ratio greater than 25 dB has been achieved.

The development of planar high-K/III-V p-channel MOSFETs for post-silicon CMOS

Conventional Si complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) scaling is fast approaching its limits. The extension of the logic device roadmap for future enhancements in transistor performance requires non-Si materials and new device architectures. III-V materials, due to their superior electron transport properties, are well poised to replace Si as the channel material beyond the 10nm technology node to mitigate the performance loss of Si transistors from further reductions in supply voltage to minimise power dissipation in logic circuits. However several key challenges, including a high quality dielectric/III-V gate stack, a low-resistance source/drain (S/D) technology, heterointegration onto a Si platform and a viable III-V p-metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (MOSFET), need to be addressed before III-Vs can be employed in CMOS. This Thesis specifically addressed the development and demonstration of planar III-V p-MOSFETs, to complement the n-MOSFET, thereby enabling an all III-V CMOS technology to be realised. This work explored the application of InGaAs and InGaSb material systems as the channel, in conjunction with Al2O3/metal gate stacks, for p-MOSFET development based on the buried-channel flatband device architecture. The body of work undertaken comprised material development, process module development and integration into a robust fabrication flow for the demonstration of p-channel devices. The parameter space in the design of the device layer structure, based around the III-V channel/barrier material options of In_x≥0.53Ga_1-xAs/In_0.52Al_0.48As and In_x≥0.1Ga_1-xSb/AlSb, was systematically examined to improve hole channel transport. A mobility of 433 cmp>2p>/Vs, the highest room temperature hole mobility of any InGaAs quantum-well channel reported to date, was obtained for the In_0.85Ga_0.15As (2.1% strain) structure. S/D ohmic contacts were developed based on thermally annealed Au/Zn/Au metallisation and validated using transmission line model test structures. The effects of metallisation thickness, diffusion barriers and de-oxidation conditions were examined. Contacts to InGaSb-channel structures were found to be sensitive to de-oxidation conditions. A fabrication process, based on a lithographically-aligned double ohmic patterning approach, was realised for deep submicron gate-to-source/drain gap (L_side) scaling to minimise the access resistance, thereby mitigating the effects of parasitic S/D series resistance on transistor performance. The developed process yielded gaps as small as 20nm. For high-k integration on GaSb, ex-situ ammonium sulphide ((NH₄)₂S) treatments, in the range 1%-22%, for 10min at 295K were systematically explored for improving the electrical properties of the Al₂O₃/GaSb interface. Electrical and physical characterisation indicated the 1% treatment to be most effective with interface trap densities in the range of 4 - 10×10p>12p>cmp>-2p>eVp>-1p> in the lower half of the bandgap. An extended study, comprising additional immersion times at each sulphide concentration, was further undertaken to determine the surface roughness and the etching nature of the treatments on GaSb. A number of p-MOSFETs based on III-V-channels with the most promising hole transport and integration of the developed process modules were successfully demonstrated in this work. Although the non-inverted InGaAs-channel devices showed good current modulation and switch-off characteristics, several aspects of performance were non-ideal; depletion-mode operation, modest drive current (I_d,sat=1.14mA/mm), double peaked transconductance (g_m=1.06mS/mm), high subthreshold swing (SS=301mV/dec) and high on-resistance (R_on=845kΩ.μm). Despite demonstrating substantial improvement in the on-state metrics of I_d,sat (11×), g_m (5.5×) and R_on (5.6×), inverted devices did not switch-off. Scaling gate-to-source/drain gap (L_side) from 1μm down to 70nm improved I_d,sat (72.4mA/mm) by a factor of 3.6 and gm (25.8mS/mm) by a factor of 4.1 in inverted InGaAs-channel devices. Well-controlled current modulation and good saturation behaviour was observed for InGaSb-channel devices. In the on-state In_0.3Ga_0.7Sb-channel (I_d,sat=49.4mA/mm, g_m=12.3mS/mm, R_on=31.7kΩ.μm) and In_0.4Ga_0.6Sb-channel (I_d,sat=38mA/mm, g_m=11.9mS/mm, R_on=73.5kΩ.μm) devices outperformed the InGaAs-channel devices. However the devices could not be switched off. These findings indicate that III-V p-MOSFETs based on InGaSb as opposed to InGaAs channels are more suited as the p-channel option for post-Si CMOS.

Ray-theoretical modeling of secondary microseism P-waves

Secondary microseism sources are pressure fluctuations close to the ocean surface. They generate acoustic P-waves that propagate in water down to the ocean bottom where they are partly reflected, and partly transmitted into the crust to continue their propagation through the Earth. We present the theory for computing the displacement power spectral density of secondary microseism P-waves recorded by receivers in the far field. In the frequency domain, the P-wave displacement can be modeled as the product of (1) the pressure source, (2) the source site effect that accounts for the constructive interference of multiply reflected P-waves in the ocean, (3) the propagation from the ocean bottom to the stations, (4) the receiver site effect. Secondary microseism P-waves have weak amplitudes, but they can be investigated by beamforming analysis. We validate our approach by analyzing the seismic signals generated by Typhoon Ioke (2006) and recorded by the Southern California Seismic Network. Back projecting the beam onto the ocean surface enables to follow the source motion. The observed beam centroid is in the vicinity of the pressure source derived from the ocean wave model WAVEWATCH IIIR. The pressure source is then used for modeling the beam and a good agreement is obtained between measured and modeled beam amplitude variation over time. This modeling approach can be used to invert P-wave noise data and retrieve the source intensity and lateral extent.

Safety culture research, lead indicators, and the development of safety effectiveness indicators in the construction sector

Construction sector application of Lead Indicators generally and Positive Performance Indicators (PPIs) particularly, are largely seen by the sector as not providing generalizable indicators of safety effectiveness. Similarly, safety culture is often cited as an essential factor in improving safety performance, yet there is no known reliable way of measuring safety culture. This paper proposes that the accurate measurement of safety effectiveness and safety culture is a requirement for assessing safe behaviours, safety knowledge, effective communication and safety performance. Currently there are no standard national or international safety effectiveness indicators (SEIs) that are accepted by the construction industry. The challenge is that quantitative survey instruments developed for measuring safety culture and/ or safety climate are inherently flawed methodologically and do not produce reliable and representative data concerning attitudes to safety. Measures that combine quantitative and qualitative components are needed to provide a clear utility for safety effectiveness indicators.

Safer construction : the development of a voluntary code of practice to improve safety performance in the Australian construction industry

In Australia, between 1994 and 2000, 50 construction workers were killed each year as a result of their work, the industry fatality rate, at 10.4 per 100,000 persons, is similar to the national road toll fatality rate and the rate of serious injury is 50% higher than the all industries average. This poor performance represents a significant threat to the industry’s social sustainability. Despite the best efforts of regulators and policy makers at both State and Federal levels, the incidence of death, injury and illness in the Australian construction industry has remained intransigently high, prompting an industry-led initiative to improve the occupational health and safety (OHS) performance of the Australian construction industry. The ‘Safer Construction’ project involves the development of an evidence-based Voluntary Code of Practice for OHS in the industry.