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How clinicians detect and differentiate near misses from adverse events in health care is poorly understood. This study adopted a constructivist grounded theory approach and utilized document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 24 managers (middle and senior) and clinicians to examine the processes and factors associated with recognizing and recovering and learning from near misses in daily clinical practice. While safety science suggests that near misses are sources of learning to guide improvement efforts, the study identified how clinicians and managers cognitively downgrade and accept near misses as a routine part of daily practice. Such downgrading reduces the visibility of near misses and creates a paradoxical effect of promoting collective vigilance and increased safety while also encouraging violations in clinical practice. Three approaches to correcting and/or learning from near misses emerged: “doing a quick fix,” “going into the black hole,” and “closing off the swiss-cheese holes”; however, minimal organizational learning occurs. From these findings, two key paradoxes that undermine organization-level learning require further attention: (a) near misses are pervasive in everyday practice but many remain undetected and are missed learning opportunities, and (b) collective vigilance serves as both safety net and safety threat. Study findings suggest that organizational efforts are required to determine which near misses need to be reported. Organizations need to shift the culture from one of “doing a quick fix” to one that learns from near misses in daily practice; they should reinforce the benefits and reduce the risks of collective vigilance, and further encourage learning at the clinical microsystem level. Future research is required to provide insight into how individual, social, and organizational factors influence the recognition, recovery, and instructional value of near misses and safety threats in health care organizations’ daily practice.

Student Number : 9206749J - PhD thesis - School of Mathematics - Faculty of Science / For right near-rings the left representation has always been considered the natural one. A study of right representation for right distributively generated (d.g.) near-rings was initiated by Rahbari and this work is extended here to introduce radical-like objects in the near-ring R using right R-groups. The right radicals rJ0(R), rJ1/2(R) and rJ2(R) are defined as counterparts of the left radicals J0(R), J1/2(R) and J2(R) respectively, and their properties are discussed. Of particular interest are the relationships between the left and right radicals. It is shown for example that for all finite d.g. near-rings R with identity, J2(R) = rJ0(R) = rJ1/2(R) = rJ2(R). A right anti-radical, rSoi(R), is defined for d.g. near-rings with identity, using a construction that is analogous to that of the (left) socle-ideal, Soi(R). In particular, it is shown that for finite d.g. near-rings with identity, an ideal A is contained in rSoi(R) if and only if A \ J2(R) = (0). The relationship between the left and right socle-ideals is investigated, and it is established that rSoi(R) #18; Soi(R) for d.g. near-rings with identity and satisfying the descending chain condition for left R-subgroups.

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure healthcare professionals’ knowledge and attitudes about near-death experiences (NDEs) that would demonstrate acceptable psychometric properties. In consultation with a focus group of six NDE experts, I developed the 50-item Knowledge and Attitudes toward Near-Death Experiences Scale (KANDES), including the 24-item KANDES–Attitude subscale (KANDES-A) and the 26-item KANDES–Knowledge subscale (KANDES-K). Including a pilot administration in which feedback indicated no need for revision, a total of 256 professional and student counselors completed the KANDES. Separate reliability and validity analyses were conducted for each subscale. For the KANDES–A, Cronbach’s alpha was .909, and Pearson’s r for test-retest was .748, both indicating acceptable reliability. An exploratory factor analysis indicated four factors to retain and yielded a factor solution that explained 54.87% of the variance, an acceptable amount of variance to substantiate construct validity. For the KANDES–K, Cronbach’s alpha was .816, indicating acceptable reliability. For each of the scale’s three domains, Cronbach’s alpha was .816 for Domain 1: NDE Content, .817 for Domain 2: NDE Aftereffects, and .631 for Domain 3: Experiencer Characteristics, indicating acceptable reliability. Pearson’s r for test-retest on the total KANDES–K was .812, further demonstrating acceptable reliability.

The objective of this thesis is to analyse the British Mandate in Palestine with a view to developing a new understanding of the interconnections and dissonances between the principal agencies. Through a critical examination of British government papers the thesis argues that the moment of the British Mandate in Palestine signalled a new phase in the development of British imperialism constituting a rupture with the colonialist past and the advent of a new type of imperialist relationship. The encounter between this new-imperialism which developed from the end of the nineteenth century and a Palestinian society which was in the process of transformation between a predominantly pre-capitalist agricultural society into a commodity producing capitalist one engendered a conflictual environment dislocating the economic, social and political structures that existed. The Balfour Declaration constituted an agreement between British imperialism and organised Zionism which was the establishment of a symbiotic relationship emerging from the coalescence of two interdependent political goals. The British, intent on preserving their position as an imperial hegemon perceived the occupation of Palestine as a critical component of their strategy and a vital adjunct of their objective of remaining the dominant force in the region of the Near East. The combined aspects of this strategy cannot be reduced to but may be expressed as: a desire to retain untrammelled communications through the Suez Canal with the Empire at large; a pre-occupation with seeking to establish a dominant position in respect of the exploitation and marketisation of oil and the implantation of a colonising surrogate to act as the agency through which its objectives might be mediated. The Zionist objective, to create a National Home for the Jews, constituted a nationalist endeavour premised on the acquisition of an imperialist sponsor. The British course of action through the implementation of the Mandate constituted an intervention which distorted and gravely damaged the evolution of the economic, social and political life of the indigenous Palestinians. The thesis in analysing these events in a new way argues for a fresh appreciation of the origin and character of the British Mandate in Palestine.

Tsai Sam-Hip. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-60). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / Contents --- p.iv / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- Basic theory of infrared spectroscopy --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- History Chinese herbal drugs --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Identification of Chinese herbal drugs using traditional methods --- p.6 / Chapter 1.4 --- Identification of Chinese herbal drugs by spectral fingerprinting method --- p.8 / Chapter 1.5 --- Objectives of this research --- p.10 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- "Extraction and identification of Chinese herbal drugs using the ""Effective Peaks Matching"" method" / Chapter 2.1 --- Experimental --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2 --- Results and Discussions --- p.21 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Identification of Chinese herbal drugs using point-to-point spectral comparison method / Chapter 3.1 --- Experimental --- p.28 / Chapter 3.2 --- Results and Discussions --- p.34 / Conclusion --- p.55 / References --- p.56 / Appendices / Chapter A1 --- "VBA programs for the ""Effective Peaks Matching"" method" --- p.61 / Chapter A2 --- "VBA programs for ""point-to-point"" comparison method" --- p.74 / Chapter A3 --- Original spectra for database building --- p.79

<p> Evidence for violence is found in all periods of Mesopotamian history. Kingship, which was divine in origin, included the exercise of power and the legitimate use of violence. Mesopotamian violence reflects the culture's understanding of ontology, order, and justice. Although there is scant archaeological evidence for its actual practice, the worldview that allowed it to flourish can be reconstructed from myth, ritual, and historiography. </p><p> Approaching Mesopotamian conceptions of violence through these three modes of discourse, this study explores the behavior through the lens of theory, practice, and presentation. The investigation is guided by the following questions: </p><p> &bull; What do the myths say about violence? How is violence imagined and theorized? </p><p> &bull; How do the war rituals promote and normalize the practice of violence? </p><p> &bull; How and why is violence presented in the narrative(s) of the royal annals and in the visual program of the palace reliefs? </p><p> This study moves from offering a general account of Mesopotamian violence directed against the enemy "other" to analyzing the portrayal of a particular act. </p><p> Mesopotamian myths served as paradigms for successful kingship. It is argued that the thematic content, asymmetrical characterization, chronotypes, and emplotment observed in <i>Lugal-e, Bin &scaron;ar dadm&emacr;</i>, and <i>En&umacr;ma eli&scaron;</i> are also operative in the war rituals and the royal historiography. Central to Mesopotamian theorizing about violence is the concept of evil, which is best understood in relation to the culture's ideas about divine and social order. </p><p> Waging war in Mesopotamia entailed various practices that framed the conflict as part of the cosmic struggle against chaos. This study addresses the contexts in which these practices occur and the social structures that make them seem natural, necessary, and desirable. The so-called war rituals involved processes of socialization that allow violence to commence, escalate, and terminate. This symbolically loaded ritualized violence reflected and created (or destroyed) relationships, both natural and supernatural. </p><p> Finally, accounts of ritualized violence were strategically incorporated into the historiography of Mesopotamian rulers as expressions of royal ideology. This study analyzes the sources for the beheading of Teumman, arguing that variations in the textual and pictorial presentation were influenced by the Assyrian conflict with Egypt and Babylonia.</p><p>