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Different Backgrounds (different + background)
Selected AbstractsTexts, Tensions, Subtexts, and Implied Agendas: My Quest for Cultural Pluralism in a Decade of WritingCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 2 2004Carola Conle ABSTRACT Scanning my own academic work to discover hidden agendas revealed underlying issues that seemed important in cultural pluralism. They included the need for recognition and for public spaces in culturally pluralistic environments where the experiences of individuals from very different background are listened to and valued. It was particularly interesting that such settings seemed to be highly conducive to inquiry. The differences among people's experiences intensified an implicit inquiry dynamic when narrative was the medium of choice rather than argumentative discussion. In those settings, as well as in the reexamination of my own writing, becoming clearer about what was only indirectly expressed earlier brought greater clarity about important issues. [source] Recent advances in vertebrate aging research 2009AGING CELL, Issue 3 2010Steven Austad Summary Among the notable trends seen in this year's highlights in mammalian aging research is an awakening of interest in the assessment of age-related measures of mouse health in addition to the traditional focus on longevity. One finding of note is that overexpression of telomerase extended life and improved several indices of health in mice that had previously been genetically rendered cancer resistant. In another study, resveratrol supplementation led to amelioration of several degenerative conditions without affecting mouse lifespan. A primate dietary restriction (DR) study found that restriction led to major improvements in glucoregulatory status along with provocative but less striking effects on survival. Visceral fat removal in rats improved their survival, although not as dramatically as DR. An unexpected result showing the power of genetic background effects was that DR shortened the lifespan of long-lived mice bearing Prop1df, whereas a previous report in a different background had found DR to extend the lifespan of Prop1df mice. Treatment with the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor, rapamycin, enhanced the survival of even elderly mice and improved their vaccine response. Genetic inhibition of a TOR target made female, but not male, mice live longer. This year saw the mTOR network firmly established as a major modulator of mammalian lifespan. [source] Michael Polanyi and the discovery of co-catalysis: Discussion of an autobiographical letter from Michael Polanyi, FRS to Peter H. Plesch of 17 December 1963JOURNAL OF POLYMER SCIENCE (IN TWO SECTIONS), Issue 7 2004P. H. Plesch Abstract The origin of this memoir was a letter from Michael Polanyi (M. P.) to the present writer (P. H. P.) about their researches in the mid-1940s into the mechanism of what are now called cationic polymerizations, at the University of Manchester (England). M. P. analyzes his tactics and the mistakes made in directing this research. When the Manchester-trained researchers made little progress with what was a very recalcitrant problem, M. P. thinking that scientists from a different background might be more sucessful, got P. H. P., from Cambridge, to work with an Oxford-trained chemist. They recognized that the likely cause of the irreproducibility of these polymerizations was the apparatus used which permitted access of atmospheric moisture to the reaction mixtures containing the moisture-sensitive catalytic metal halides. Because the only method for following the very fast polymerizations was by monitoring the accompanying temperature rise, and the reactions had to be done below ambient temperature, the reaction vessel needed to be adiabatic, that is a Dewar (Thermos) flask; hence the problem of how to cool its contents. The solution was P. H. P.'s invention of the pseudo-Dewar vessel, the Dewar space of which, instead of being evacuated permanently, could be filled with air or evacuated. This device permitted the reaction mixture to be made up and cooled, and the reactions to be started without contact with the atmosphere. Thus it was found that isobutene polymerizations, which had stopped unaccountably, could be restarted by water vapor. P. H. P. termed water a "co-catalyst". The consequent "Manchester" theory recognized the monohydrate of TiCl4 as a protonic acid and saw the initiation as due to the protonation of the monomer, with the formation of a tert -carbenium ion, and these ions, formed repetitively, became the propagating species. The Manchester theory was rapidly accepted because it could also explain observations on other related reactions. The involvement of ions established a link with non-aqueous electrochemistry. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 1537,1546, 2004 [source] Possibilities of using near infrared reflectance/transmittance spectroscopy for determination of polymeric protein in wheatJOURNAL OF THE SCIENCE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, Issue 8 2007Éva Scholz Abstract Possibilities of using near-infrared reflectance and near-infrared transmittance (NIR/NIT) spectroscopic techniques for detecting differences in amount and size distribution of polymeric proteins in wheat were investigated. To evaluate whether differences in polymeric protein due to genetic or environmental variations were detectable by NIR/NIT techniques, wheat materials of different background were used. Size-exclusion high-performance liquid chromatography was applied to detect variation in polymeric protein. Partial least squares regression gave high R2 values between many protein parameters and NIR/NIT spectra (particularly second-derivative spectra of NIR 1100,2500 nm region) of flours, while no such relationship was found for whole wheat grains. Most and highest correlations were found for total amount of extractable and unextractable proteins and monomer/polymer protein ratio. Some positive relationships were found between percentage of total unextractable polymeric protein in the total polymeric protein and percentage of large unextractable polymeric protein in the total large polymeric protein and NIR/NIT spectra. Thus, it was possible to detect differences in polymeric proteins with NIR/NIT techniques. The highest amount of positive correlations between NIR/NIT spectra and protein parameters was found to be due to environmental influences. Some correlations were found for breeding lines with a broad variation in gluten strength and polymeric protein composition, while a more homogeneous sample showed less correlation. Thereby, detection of variation in amount and size distribution of polymeric protein due to cultivar differences with NIR/NIT methods might be difficult. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry [source] Training program and learning curve in experimental microsurgery during the residency in plastic surgeryMICROSURGERY, Issue 4 2007Ioan Lascar M.D., Ph.D. This article presents a comparison of microsurgical training of groups with different background. A protocol based on the rat femoral arterial anastomoses was used to provide an objective representation of the microsurgical skills progress. The performance is assessed by consistent (×4) patency of a standardized anastomosis. Three groups of beginner residents with progressive microsurgical experience and one group of experienced surgeons were observed. The patency curve of the beginner-groups was as an abrupt learning curve, and then a plateau was reached. There was no statistically significant difference in the patency rate between the beginner-groups after their first 32 anastomoses. No statistically significant difference was noted when the patency of the advanced group was compared with beginner-groups after different numbers of anastomoses (inverse proportional with their training experience). A slight or a plateau learning curve was found among the experienced group. The learning curve is a useful adjunct in the assessment of training. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Microsurgery 2007. [source] Should the law on anonymity of organ donation be changed?CLINICAL TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 3 2009The perception of liver transplant recipients Abstract:,Background:, Belgian politicians submitted a proposal to rescind the law on anonymity of organ donation and transplantation and facilitate contact between donor families and recipients. It remains uncertain if recipients support this proposal. Methodology:, One liver transplant patient organization (n = 176/249) answered and provided comments on two questions: (i) how satisfied are you with the current principle of anonymity of the identity of the donor and (ii) the law about anonymity should be changed to allow the donor family and the patient to meet. Results:, Seventy percent were satisfied/very satisfied with the present law, because of anxiety for emotional involvement or feeling obliged to do something in return, feelings of guilt, and out of mutual respect. Nineteen percent was dissatisfied/very dissatisfied and want to obtain some information about the donor, and directly express their gratitude. Forty-two percent disagreed with a change, because of anxiety for manipulation, feelings of guilt, respect for the privacy, and worry about the donor having a different background. Thirty-six percent wanted to change the law out of curiosity, to express their gratitude, or to facilitate their coping process. Discussion:, Prudence to change the law is warranted, as only a minority of patients are in favor of rescinding the anonymity. [source] Learning with an active e-course in the Knowledge Grid environmentCONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 3 2006Hai Zhuge Abstract An active e-course is an open, self-representable and self-organizable media mechanism. Its kernel idea is to organize learning materials in a concept space rather than in a page space. The tailored content and flexible structure of the e-courses can be dynamically formed to cater for different learners with different backgrounds, capabilities and expectations, at different times and venues. The active e-course can also assess learners' learning performances and give appropriate suggestions to guide them in further learning. An authoring tool for constructing course ontology and a system prototype have been developed to support an active e-course, enabling a learner-centred, highly interactive and adaptive learning approach. The results of an empirical study show that the system can help enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of learning. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Ventral otic cell lines as developmental models of auditory epithelial and neural precursorsDEVELOPMENTAL DYNAMICS, Issue 4 2004G. Lawoko-Kerali Abstract Conditionally immortal cell lines were established from the ventral otocyst of the Immortomouse at embryonic day 10.5 and selected to represent precursors of auditory sensory neural and epithelial cells. Selection was based upon dissection, tissue-specific markers, and expression of the transcription factor GATA3. Two cell lines expressed GATA3 but possessed intrinsically different genetic programs under differentiating conditions. US/VOT-E36 represented epithelial progenitors with potential to differentiate into sensory and nonsensory epithelial cells. US/VOT-N33 represented migrating neuroblasts. Under differentiating conditions in vitro the cell lines expressed very different gene expression profiles. Expression of several cell- and tissue-specific markers, including the transcription factors Pax2, GATA3, and NeuroD, differed between the cell lines in a pattern consistent with that observed between their counterparts in vivo. We suggest that these and other conditionally immortal cell lines can be used to study transient events in development against different backgrounds of cell competence. Developmental Dynamics 231:801,814, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Is Teaching Experience Necessary for Reliable Scoring of Extended English Questions?EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT: ISSUES AND PRACTICE, Issue 2 2009Lucy Royal-Dawson Hundreds of thousands of raters are recruited internationally to score examinations, but little research has been conducted on the selection criteria for these raters. Many countries insist upon teaching experience as a selection criterion and this has frequently become embedded in the cultural expectations surrounding the tests. Shortages in raters for some of England's national examinations has led to non-teachers being hired to score a small minority of items and changes in technology have fostered this approach. For a National Curriculum test in English taken at age 14, this study investigated whether teaching experience was a necessary selection criterion for all aspects of the examination. Fifty-seven raters with different backgrounds were trained in the normal manner and scored the same 97 students' work. Accuracy was investigated using a cross-classified multilevel model of absolute score differences with accuracy measures at level 1 and raters crossed with candidates at level 2. By comparing the scoring accuracy of graduates with a degree in English, teacher trainees, experienced teachers and experienced raters, this study found that teaching experience was not a necessary selection criterion. A rudimentary model for allocation of raters to different question types is proposed and further research to investigate the limits of necessary qualifications for scoring is suggested. [source] The Bold and the Variable: Fish with High Heterozygosity Act Recklessly in the Vicinity of PredatorsETHOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Sampsa Vilhunen Variation in the innate behavioral response to predation threat is often assumed to reflect genetic differences among the prey individuals. To date, no published results, however, exist that would offer explanation for the origin of this behavioral variation within populations. Using microsatellites as markers, we estimated the genetic variability of juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta) individuals whose behavior had been individually recorded in a trade-off situation where both predator chemical cues and food were present. Mean overall heterozygosity and the internal relatedness of fish associated significantly with their activity and foraging, so that the genetically more variable individuals showed more risk-prone behavior under predation risk. No association between genetic variability and behavior was found in trials where predator odors were not present. These results were consistent over the three study populations of brown trout with different backgrounds, suggesting that the phenomenon is of general nature in this species. Of the possible mechanisms suggested to enable the existence of the positive association between neutral microsatellite variation and fitness-related trait, the local effect hypothesis gained more support from our data than the general effect hypothesis. [source] Disruption of the palatal rugae pattern in Tabby (eda) mutant miceEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ORAL SCIENCES, Issue 6 2007Cyril Charles The eda mouse gene is linked with anomalies of ectodermal derivatives, such as hair, glands, and teeth. The palatal rugae (oral mucosa foldings on the hard palate) are also ectodermal derivatives. Therefore, we searched for and compared palatal rugae anomalies of Tabby mice bearing a mutation in the eda gene with their wild-type counterparts. We compared the number and shape of palatal rugae in 179 mutant and 102 wild-type mice from four different stocks of Tabby mice. Palatal rugae anomalies were documented at a low frequency in wild-type mice of different backgrounds, which may reflect a lack of robustness of palatal rugae development. However, the proportion of anomalies observed in the C57BL/6J background makes us recommend avoiding its use in further palate studies. We showed statistically that the phenotypic variability seen in wild-type animals is further increased in Tabby mutants. The anomalies mainly included various forms of reduction, with rugae IV,VI being more frequently affected. Those rugae were shortened, dotted or absent (mainly ruga V). By analogy to the role played by eda in other ectodermal derivatives, we propose that it might play a role in defining the pattern of the palatal rugae. [source] Living Yeast Cells as a Controllable Biosynthesizer for Fluorescent Quantum DotsADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS, Issue 15 2009Ran Cui Abstract There are currently some problems in the field of chemical synthesis, such as environmental impact, energy loss, and safety, that need to be tackled urgently. An interdisciplinary approach, based on different backgrounds, may succeed in solving these problems. Organisms can be chosen as potential platforms for materials fabrication, since biosystems are natural and highly efficient. Here, an example of how to solve some of these chemical problems through biology, namely, through a novel biological strategy of coupling intracellular irrelated biochemical reactions for controllable synthesis of multicolor CdSe quantum dots (QDs) using living yeast cells as a biosynthesizer, is demonstrated. The unique fluorescence properties of CdSe QDs can be utilized to directly and visually judge the biosynthesis phase to fully demonstrate this strategy. By such a method, CdSe QDs, emitting at a variety of single fluorescence wavelengths, can be intracellularly, controllably synthesized at just 30°C instead of at 300°C with combustible, explosive, and toxic organic reagents. This green biosynthetic route is a novel strategy of coupling, with biochemical reactions taking place irrelatedly, both in time and space. It involves a remarkable decrease in reaction temperature, from around 300 °C to 30 °C and excellent color controllability of CdSe photoluminescence. It is well known that to control the size of nanocrystals is a mojor challenge in the biosynthesis of high-quality nanomaterials. The present work demonstrates clearly that biological systems can be creatively utilized to realize controllable unnatural biosynthesis that normally does not exist, offering new insights for sustainable chemistry. [source] PATHS IN TRANSNATIONAL TIME-SPACE: REPRESENTING MOBILITY BIOGRAPHIES OF YOUNG SWEDESGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2008Lotta Frändberg ABSTRACT. This article sets out to capture and describe individual transnational mobility from a long-term, biographical perspective. The purpose is to discuss the use of a time-geographical form of notation to represent people's transnational mobility as paths in time and space, and to demonstrate how such representations can contribute to explaining some of the dynamics of longdistance mobility. An advantage of using time-space paths is that several aspects of an individual's travel biography can be represented in a single image: intensity and extensity are immediately evident, and the temporal and spatial relationships between the various mobility actions are made visible. Using data describing all transnational trips taken during childhood and adolescence by sixty-two Swedish youth with different backgrounds, three aspects of how trajectories develop over time are discussed in more detail. The first concerns overall change in travel pattern with time. A dominant pattern of increase in travel with increasing age is observed, indicating the importance of further investigating how travel behaviour is related to experience and life-course transitions. Second, sequential relationships between migration and temporary mobility are examined. In spite of the relatively small number of respondents, a wide range of such relationships are disclosed in the material. Third, regularity and repetition in long-distance travel patterns is discussed as an increasingly important aspect of contemporary transnational mobility. Among these young people, highly regular travel is often motivated by enduring long-distance social relationships, but is also generated by leisure or holiday travel alone. [source] Mother, Martyr and Mary Magdalene: German Female Pamphleteers and their Self-imagesHISTORY, Issue 291 2003Ulrike Zitzlsperger Female pamphleteers who involved themselves in the German Reformation faced a double challenge: they had to argue why a lay person needed to enter into public debate and, still more controversially, why a woman should brave the consequences of going into print. In this article two noblewomen, Argula von Grumbach and Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Lüneburg, and two middle-class Protestants, Katharina Schütz Zell and Ursula Weida, serve as case studies of how women with noticeably different backgrounds dealt with the challenge. The article focuses on the images they projected of themselves. While some of these images derived from traditional idealized and biblical female figures, others show a creative attempt to argue the case for long-term participation in public debate. The most striking concept within this second category is Katharina Schütz Zell's role as ,Kirchenmutter' (Churchmother). The impact of such an image becomes obvious when Katharina Schütz Zell is compared with the Nuremberg shoemaker-poet, Hans Sachs. An equally outspoken lay participant of the Reformation, his mounting disappointment with religious politics and the decline of his home town led him to withdraw into privacy. In contrast, Katharina Schütz Zell, whose remit was the more closely defined Strasbourg parish, remained actively involved until her death. [source] Integrating ergonomics into engineering: Empirical evidence and implications for the ergonomistsHUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS IN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE INDUSTRIES, Issue 4 2007Ole Broberg Engineering design is a strong determinant of workplace ergonomics. A survey among 680 engineers in 20 Danish enterprises indicated that engineers are not aware that they influence the work environment of other people. Ergonomics had a low rating among engineers, perhaps because neither management nor safety organizations expressed any expectations in this area. The study further indicated that effects of ergonomics training in engineering schools were very limited. The engineering cultures in enterprises, together with other organizational factors, are suggested to be of greater importance than the professional training. The implications for industrial ergonomists might be an acknowledgement of the role as change agent when trying to integrate ergonomics into engineering. In doing so, they need also to acknowledge that engineers are widely different. They have different backgrounds and a "sensitivity" to ergonomics depending on their current engineering domain, tasks, organizational position, and the industrial branch of their organization. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 17: 353,366, 2007. [source] Development of a knowledge-based system for nonpowered hand tools (Tool Expert): Part I,The scientific basisHUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS IN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE INDUSTRIES, Issue 3 2004Berman Kayis The need for developing a clear and concise guide for designing, selecting, and using hand tools would minimize if not eliminate acute,chronic trauma exposure factors and help improve efficiency, well-being, and morale. Despite several research efforts devoted to the exploration and understanding of the interrelation between human capabilities, task requirements, nature of tasks, and ergonomically designed hand tools, there appear to be several problems in utilizing existing knowledge in practical use. One of the most important barriers is the lack of interaction of several specialists from different backgrounds. In this article, TOOL-EXPERT, a knowledge-based system developed to assert the ergonomical nonpowered hand tool design, selection, and use, is explained, which will provide a guideline to several users from various backgrounds. The system is designed to run in any IBM-compatible personal computer system. Knowledge from several domains was included. The type of knowledge used in the research was selected to be a declarative knowledge. Altogether it includes 423 goals, 35 questions, and 40 rules. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 14: 257,268, 2004. [source] Parent-Adolescent Language Use and Relationships Among Immigrant Families With East Asian, Filipino, and Latin American BackgroundsJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 2 2000Vivian Tseng This study examined differences in the quality of relationships between immigrant parents and their adolescent children as a function of the languages with which they speak to one another. Over 620 adolescents with East Asian, Filipino, and Latin American backgrounds completed measures on parent-adolescent language use and relationships. Adolescents who spoke in different languages with their parents reported less cohesion and discussion with their mothers and fathers than did their peers who spoke the same language with their parents. Adolescents who mutually communicated in the native language with their parents reported the highest levels of cohesion and discussion. Longitudinal analyses indicated that whereas language use did not predict differential changes in parent-adolescent relationships over a 2-year period, the quality of relationships did predict changes in language use. The associations between language use and relationships generally existed regardless of the families' ethnic and demographic backgrounds, and these associations did not vary across families of different backgrounds. [source] Managements' perception of community nurses' decision-making processes when referring older adults to an emergency departmentJOURNAL OF NURSING MANAGEMENT, Issue 6 2006A. KIHLGREN MSc In Sweden, older adults are living and being cared for under the responsibility of their respective community. Extensive reorganizations in the community led to management having different backgrounds, which may have caused uncertainty among community nurses, especially in decision-making processes. The aim was to understand how 10 nurses, 10 doctors and 10 home care assistants as leaders for the nurses conceptualized the decision-making processes of community nurses, when referring older persons to Emergency Departments, and whether perceptual differences and/or similarities exist. Narrative interviews and content analysis were performed. The managers had differing views, but all felt there was a need to feel secure in order to trust professional decisions as being correct, thus avoiding inappropriate referrals. Management could see nurses' exposed position, but had varying solutions. This might lead to different messages being given regarding what is important and might explain why the nurses reported that the managers did not understand them. [source] Personalized recommendation with adaptive mixture of markov modelsJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 12 2007Yang Liu With more and more information available on the Internet, the task of making personalized recommendations to assist the user's navigation has become increasingly important. Considering there might be millions of users with different backgrounds accessing a Web site everyday, it is infeasible to build a separate recommendation system for each user. To address this problem, clustering techniques can first be employed to discover user groups. Then, user navigation patterns for each group can be discovered, to allow the adaptation of a Web site to the interest of each individual group. In this paper, we propose to model user access sequences as stochastic processes, and a mixture of Markov models based approach is taken to cluster users and to capture the sequential relationships inherent in user access histories. Several important issues that arise in constructing the Markov models are also addressed. The first issue lies in the complexity of the mixture of Markov models. To improve the efficiency of building/maintaining the mixture of Markov models, we develop a lightweight adapt-ive algorithm to update the model parameters without recomputing model parameters from scratch. The second issue concerns the proper selection of training data for building the mixture of Markov models. We investigate two different training data selection strategies and perform extensive experiments to compare their effectiveness on a real dataset that is generated by a Web-based knowledge management system, Livelink. [source] Computer-aided calibration for visual estimation of vegetation coverJOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE, Issue 6 2009Åsa Gallegos Torell Abstract Question: What precision and accuracy of visual cover estimations can be achieved after repeated calibration with images of vegetation in which the true cover is known, and what factors influence the results? Methods: Digital images were created, in which the true cover of vegetation was digitally calculated. Fifteen observers made repeated estimates with immediate feedback on the true cover. The effects on precision and accuracy through time were evaluated with repeated proficiency tests. In a field trial, cover estimates, before and after calibration, were compared with point frequency data. Results: Even a short time of calibration greatly improves precision and accuracy of the estimates, and can also reduce the influence of different backgrounds, aggregation patterns and experience. Experienced observers had a stronger tendency to underestimate the cover of narrow-leaved grasses before calibration. The field trial showed positive effects of computer-based calibration on precision, in that it led to considerably less between-observer variation for one of the two species groups. Conclusions: Computer-aided calibration of vegetation cover estimation is simple, self-explanatory and time-efficient, and might possibly reduce biases and drifts in estimate levels over time. Such calibration can also reduce between-observer variation in field estimates, at least for some species. However, the effects of calibration on estimations in the field must be further evaluated, especially for multilayered vegetation. [source] 2004 ASM Conference on the New Phage Biology: the ,Phage Summit'MOLECULAR MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 5 2005Sankar Adhya Summary In August, more than 350 conferees from 24 countries attended the ASM Conference on the New Phage Biology, in Key Biscayne, Florida. This meeting, also called the Phage Summit, was the first major international gathering in decades devoted exclusively to phage biology. What emerged from the 5 days of the Summit was a clear perspective on the explosive resurgence of interest in all aspects of bacteriophage biology. The classic phage systems like , and T4, reinvigorated by structural biology, bioinformatics and new molecular and cell biology tools, remain model systems of unequalled power and facility for studying fundamental biological issues. In addition, the New Phage Biology is also populated by basic and applied scientists focused on ecology, evolution, nanotechnology, bacterial pathogenesis and phage-based immunologics, therapeutics and diagnostics, resulting in a heightened interest in bacteriophages per se, rather than as a model system. Besides constituting another landmark in the long history of a field begun by d'Herelle and Twort during the early 20th century, the Summit provided a unique venue for establishment of new interactive networks for collaborative efforts between scientists of many different backgrounds, interests and expertise. [source] History for a practice professionNURSING INQUIRY, Issue 4 2006Patricia D'Antonio This essay explores the meaning of history for a practice profession. It argues that our clinical backgrounds suggest particular kinds of historical questions that colleagues with different backgrounds would not think to ask. This essay poses three possible questions as examples. What if we place the day after day work of caring for the sick , that which is nursing , at the center of an institution's history? What if we were to embrace a sense of nurses and nursing work as truly diverse and different? What if we were to analytically engage the reluctance of the large number of nurses to formally embrace feminism? This essay acknowledges that these are not the only possible questions and, in the end, they most likely will not even be the important ones. But this essay does argue that we, who are both clinicians and historians, need to more seriously consider the implications of our questions for disciplinary practice and research. It argues, in the end, that the meaning of history to a practice profession lies in our questions: questions that are different than those raised by other methods, and questions that may escape notice in the press of daily practice and research. [source] The reasons why young children are placed for adoption: findings from a recently placed sample and a discussion of implications for subsequent identity developmentCHILD & FAMILY SOCIAL WORK, Issue 4 2000E. Neil It is widely accepted that the processing of identity issues can be problematic for some adopted children. Needing to know why placement for adoption was necessary is often central to adopted people's identity concerns. Adoption practices have altered and children are now placed for adoption for different reasons and from different backgrounds than were children in the past. This study aims to present an up to date picture of the reasons why children are placed for adoption. Using information from questionnaires completed by social workers, the circumstances of a sample of 168 young (mean age at placement = 18 months), recently adopted children are examined. Children fall into three groups according to the reason for their adoption: relinquished infants (14%), those whose parents had requested adoption in complex circumstances (24%), and those children required to be adopted by social services and the courts (62%). Child and birthparent characteristics and openness arrangements are examined and are found to differ significantly between the three groups, indicating that children will have different types of information to appraise and differing capacities to make sense of their personal histories. Because of the multiplicity of difficulties in children's backgrounds, it is concluded that resolving identity issues is likely to be challenging for many children, and professionals will need to take this into account when working with adopters and birth relatives. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||