Thesis (M.A. (Maatskaplike Werk)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Thesis (M.A. (Maatskaplike Werk)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Thesis (M.A. (Maatskaplike Werk)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

This research study is concerned with the projected, significant rise in the number of older people in the next 20 to 30 years with a consequent growth in demand for health, social care and specialised housing. There is also an added challenge of meeting this growing demand alongside government policy requirements on ‘choice’ and ‘voice’, as they operate in Wales, as well as current and projected fiscal challenges. In the context of the challenges posed by an increasing older people population this research study will explore the concept of choice and specifically whether housing choice exists for older people in maintaining their independence in old age. The significance of independent living in the context of this research study, relates to an individual’s ability to maintain choice and control over their daily lives within their home environment. The research findings indicate that decisions made, or not made, by individuals in terms of planning ahead for old age, can potentially impact on their ability to sustain independence as they age in the home of their choice. The tendency for older people to ‘discount the future’ is explored by the researcher highlighting the potential to influence such behaviour by encouraging older people to ‘count the future’ and plan for it in terms of their individual needs. The impact on individual housing choice of decisions made by organisations, in particular local authorities, the NHS and Registered Social Landlords, is also explored within the Literature Review and discussion of the research findings. The consequences of a growing elderly population will be explored by focusing on how the housing choices available to older people with a long term condition, and potentially increasing care needs as they age, may be influenced by decisions made at an individual and organisation level. The findings of this qualitative, exploratory study are based on data collected and analysed from 22 one to one, semi-structured interviews with 2 groups of older people. The Prospective Group (forward looking to potential changes in their housing needs) comprised 10 older people aged between 57 to 80 years, all of whom live in their own home in the community, and the Retrospective Group (looking back to the circumstances that prompted changes in their housing needs) comprised 12 older people aged between 66 to 84 years, all of whom have moved in to sheltered housing. The research findings were also reviewed and discussed with a number of community based groups and a Focus Group. Analysis and discussion of the research findings enabled the identification of a number of themes which the researcher has distilled in to 3 overarching themes: • Enabling informed choice • Issues for organisations • Issues for Individuals The findings of this research study are important because they illustrate that, while most if not all Individuals wish to remain independent in the home of their choice as they age, achievement of this outcome is usually left to chance. The researcher argues that this will continue to be the case unless action is taken at a national and local level to clarify the role of organisations and individuals in supporting and achieving independent living in to old age. The findings point to potentially significant implications for individuals and organisations in terms of an erosion of choices available for sustaining independence in to old age, at an individual level, and an inability to sustain services, at an organisation level. Emerging policy and continued national and local debate on the issues explored by this research study illustrate an increased focus on the consequences of an ageing population. The researcher suggests that future planning of housing and communities will need to more effectively reflect the diverse needs, wants and expectations of current and future generations of older people in terms of the homes they wish to live in.

International relations as well as multilingual organisations and institutions rely upon translation. In this particular field, translators are mostly concerned with different types of specialised documents, such as legal acts, technical reports and press statements. Due to the high precision and clarity requirements that are associated with these texts, terminology appears to be one of the most difficult aspects when it comes to translating specialised documents. This difficulty is the main focus of this study. More specifically, the aim is to describe and analyse how equivalents of specialised terms in the source language can be found in the target language and to study translation strategies that can be applied when translating international relations terminology. In order to obtain the primary data used in the study, NATO’s new strategic concept from 2010 was translated from French to Swedish. The concept is supposed to guide the organisation during a ten-year period. Throughout the translation process both lexical and textual sources were used. The analysis was made in the light of different translation theories and models, which include Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1977) “direct” and “indirect” translation techniques, as well as Cabré’s (1992) theories and methods on terminology. The results show the complexity of the subject, and most importantly, that parallel texts, that is to say specialised documentation, can play an important role when it comes to translating specialised terms, since many of them are not to be found in ordinary dictionaries.

Introduction: Arterial catherer placement by a general nurse at the departments of intensive care, resuscitation and anaesthesiology is still rather exceptional, despite the fact that this competence was defined in our legal system for the first time already in 2004 by the Decree no. 424/2004 Coll. of the Ministry of Health. The authorisation to execute this highly professional operation by a nurse specialised in intensive care is generally not reflected by the employer in the job description, although it might be one of the possible ways to increase the prestige of this profession. Objectives: The main objective of the thesis was to determine the current state in the area of arterial line placement from the perspective of intensive care nurses, to quantify their interest and clarify their readiness to execute the operation. Methodology: The quantitative method of anonymous questionnaire of own design was selected for the research survey. The questionnaire was distributed in electronic way to hospitals established by the Ministry of Health, regional government or private owners. We contacted one large hospital in every region, with the exception of Prague. The research sample consisted of general nurses working at the departments of intensive care, resuscitation and anaesthesiology, who at the same...

Antimicrobial resistant microorganisms are predicted to pose an existential threat to humanity inside of the next 3 decades. Characterisation of novel acting antimicrobial small molecules from microorganisms has historically counteracted this evolutionary arms race, however the bountiful source of pharmaceutically relevant bioactive specialised metabolites discovered in the Golden era of drug discovery has long since dried up. The clinicians' arsenal of useful antimicrobials is diminishing, and a fresh perspective on specialised metabolite discovery is necessary. This call to action is being answered, in part, through advances in genome sequencing, bioinformatics predictions and the development of next generation synthetic biology tools aiming to translate the biological sciences into an engineering discipline. To expedite our route to new pharmaceutically relevant specialised metabolites using the synthetic biology toolbox several bottlenecks need to be addressed, and are tackled here in. Biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) represent blueprints to pharmaceuticals, however to date the vast wealth of knowledge about biosynthetic gene clusters is inconsistently reported and sporadically disseminated throughout the literature and databases. To bring the reporting of BGCs in line with engineering principles we designed and built a community supported standard, the Minimum Information about a Biosynthetic Gene cluster (MIBiG), for reporting BGCs in a consistent manner, and centralised this information in an easy to operate and open access repository for rapid retrieval of information, an essential resource for the bioengineer. Prioritisation represents the next bottleneck in specialised metabolite discovery. Bioinformatics tools have predicted a cache of thousands of BGCs within publicly available genome sequences, however high experimental attrition rates drastically slows characterisation of the corresponding specialised metabolite. We designed and built an Output Ordering and Prioritisation System (OOPS), to rank thousands of BGCs in parallel against molecular biology relevant parameters, pairing BGCs with appropriate heterologous expression hosts and facilitating a judicious choice of BGCs for characterisation to reduce experimental attrition. To fully realise the potential of synthetic biology in specialised metabolite discovery a genetically amenable heterologous host, capable of completing rapid design-build-test-learn cycles, is necessary. This cannot be achieved for the pharmaceutically important type II polyketides, as their biosynthetic machinery is largely restricted to Actinobacteria. Using MIBiG datasets, antiSMASH and BLASTP we identify 5 sets of soluble type II polyketide synthases (PKS) in Escherichia coli for the first time. We construct and test the robustness of a plug-and-play scaffold for bioproduction of aromatic polyketides using one PKS in E. coli, yielding anthraquinones, dianthrones and benzoisochromanequinones intermediates. Through bioprospecting for biological 'parts' to expand the chemical diversity of our plug-and-play scaffold we describe a new lineage of type II PKSs predominantly from non-Actinobacteria. The standards, softwares, and plug-and-play scaffold and biosynthetic 'parts' described here-in will act as an engine for rapid and automated bioproduction of existing, and novel, pharmaceutically relevant aromatic polyketides in E. coli using the synthetic biology toolbox.

Objective: The aim of this work is to find out how a number of educators work when giving children support and opportunities for language development. Questions: What have preschool for policy to monitor/assess the children’s language development? What experiences do teachers have of children who need support in language development? How do educator’s regard support from specialised educator’s? Do these efforts support the children to enhance language development? Methods: Qualitative methodology, Interviews with six teachers and two specialised educators from three kindergartens in the municipality. Summary of conclusions: The municipality in which the survey was conducted has a document that provides guide lines on how to work with children’s language development in school and preschool. Pedagogical documentation is a tool that teachers use in nursery school which educators and parents can follow, which shows children’s learning processes and learn strategies. Research shows that through play, music, creative activities, photos, etc. and the educator’s ways of supporting and giving children context-rich words supported language development. This study shows that teachers use methods that research shows to be congenial to language development. Educators work in their own ways and use different methods to ultimately support the child in its language development. With various efforts from the preschool teacher, language teacher, parents, speech therapy and special education teachers, the educator seeks to support the child’s continued language development.

Specialised policing of critical incidents has previously been underexplored within scholarly research. Simultaneously, this type of policing has been recognised as a highly complex endeavour which hinges on an organisationalability to make sense of uncertainty and external contingencies. To build knowledge on the subject of specialised policing, the present thesis aims to explore processes of sensemaking and organising in the work context of specialised police units dedicated to the policing of high risk incidents. Two research questions have guided the thesis project viz.: 1) what ascribed meanings are coupled to specialised police unit work practice and; 2) how can organising of specialised police units be enacted in a reliable manner. These questions are empirically addressed through four part-studies: Study A amounts to a contextual literature study of previous research on specialised police units and aims at conceptual development of anomenclature describing police specialisation as a professional context. Study B in the thesis examines symbolic meanings connected to specialised police units and how such meanings relate to constructions of occupational identity of police officers working in a specialised police unit. With these studies as a contextual frame, study C within the thesis examines how leadership, management and ICT system within a specialised police unitimpacts organisational reliability and sensemaking during incident management. Finally, study D examines organisational reliability on an interpersonal level during incident management as it entails a study of collaboration between police practitioners conducting an intervention. The thesis employs a mainly ideographic and close practice approach to researchas the empirical examinations are focused upon one specific specialised police unit, namely the Swedish police’s National Counter-Terrorist Unit (NI). Using data collected through interviews, observations and archival sources, the thesis aims to contribute both to organisational developmentand to knowledge development within the scholarly community. In overview, the results of the thesis indicate that specialised policing on a level of ascribed meaning tend to be represented as exceptional, sensational and surrounded by inferences of elitism, machismo and violence. In extent, such representations inform serving police officers occupational identity workeither by spurring identification or dis-identification with prevailing accounts of meaning. On a level of organising, resilient policing of high risk incidents is shown to be dependent on an ability to favour flexibility, both through the organisational frameworks that frames incident management and in interpersonal enactment during task execution. This conclusion challenges day-to-day conceptualisation of specialised police units’ work practice as instrumental applications of coercion.

SUMMARY The aim of this study was to investigate the requirements for patients with dementia and optimization of activities for nursing. Methods of study – primary data were obtained from the databases of the K.Grinius nursing and supportive treatment hospital activities in 2002-2004, and using of nurses and patients relative’s interview data collected by the specific questionnaire. During 2002-2004 years all data was enrolled to the information database. Statistical analysis was performed using MS EXCEL 2000 standard statistical programming packets. Results. During 2002-2004, the part of patients with dementia among all patients statistically significantly increased, so significantly increased the part of bed-days. The duration of nursing and supportive treatment was without significant changes, but hospital lethality have tendency to increase in average by 2.3 % /yrs, while the number of patients have tendency to decrease during this years. During the investigated period, the expenses for one bed-day were without significant changes and in averaged per year accounted 50.61 Lt. The expenses of state for one bed-day during 2002-2004 accounted 41.54 Lt. The expenses of Lithuanian state for nutrition and drugs was without significant changes and respectively accounted 8.69 and 11.90 Lt. Detecting nursing personnel, working with dementive patients, occupational peculiarities evaluated, that majority of nursing respondents were in middle-age, majority of them working in night... [to full text]