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Sparse Literature (sparse + literature)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	40%
Humanities and Social Sciences	40%

Selected Abstracts

,Schools without walls?' Developments and challenges in dental outreach teaching , report of a recent symposium

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DENTAL EDUCATION, Issue 4 2006
K. A. Eaton
Abstract, During the 2004 annual meeting of the International Association for Dental Research, the Education Research Group held a symposium on dental outreach teaching. After a brief introduction, which reviews relevant aspects of the relatively sparse literature, this paper summarises the proceedings, the themes and conclusions that emerged and the research issues that were identified. It aims to describe aspects of current practice around the world and to promote future discussion. Presenters gave details of outreach programmes for dental undergraduates in Australia, Finland, Malaysia (and Southeast Asia), the United Kingdom and the United States. From these presentations four themes emerged. They were: reasons for the introduction of outreach teaching, its perceived beneficial effects, organisational issues, educational issues. The reasons included a recognition of the need to educate dental undergraduates as members of ,care teams' in the environments and communities where they were ultimately like to work and the current shortage of both suitable patients and teachers (faculty) in many dental schools. A wide range of potential benefits and some disadvantages were identified. The organisational issues were, in the main, seen to relate to finance and administration. The educational issues included the need to train and monitor the performance of teachers at outreach clinics and to assess the performance of the undergraduates whilst at the outreach locations. It was concluded that new technology made it easier to teach at a distance and it was possible to create a dental ,school without walls'. It was recognised that few evaluations of dental outreach teaching have been carried out and that there were many research questions to be answered, including: whether it should be a voluntary or compulsory part of the undergraduate curriculum, how long it should last and what type of outcomes should be assessed. [source]

Moving up, moving down: Political careers across territorial levels

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2003
Klaus Stolz
In the sparse literature on political careers in federal systems, regional positions are often seen as mere stepping stones on the way to federal office. But are they really? The recent professionalization of state politics in federal systems and the regionalization of former unitary states point to the strengthening of the regional level as a career arena in its own right. Could this lead to the emergence of a regional political class with a set of career interests distinct from those of national politicians? This article takes a first, comparative look at current patterns of career movements between regional and national parliaments in a wide range of federal and newly regionalized systems. The study shows that, contrary to general belief, the number of deputies actually moving from the regional to federal level is generally relatively low. While some cases show fairly integrated career structures, others exhibit a pattern of career development in which state or regional office functions as the main focus of political careers. The territorial structure of the political class is dependent upon a whole range of social, cultural and institutional factors. At the same time, it is also an important factor in the mechanics and institutional development of each federal system in question. [source]

Capacity building: A concept analysis of the term applied to research

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NURSING PRACTICE, Issue 5 2007
Sarah L Condell RGN RM RNT BNS MA
Recent policy developments in Ireland have led to a focus on research capacity building as a means of consolidating nurse and midwifery education in the Irish academic setting. This follows similar initiatives in the United Kingdom and Australia. However, sparse literature and a lack of clarity of the term ,research capacity building' leads to some confusion. A concept analysis using Rodgers' framework was conducted. The literature examined included ,grey' literature, policy documents and indexed papers across a range of disciplines, derived from CINAHL/PubMed searches. The concept of research capacity building was deemed to imply a funded, dynamic intervention operationalized through a range of foci and levels to augment ability to achieve objectives in the research field over the long-term, with aspects of social change as an ultimate outcome. This is presented as an interim statement because of the evolutionary nature of the concept and the limitations of the exercise. [source]

The Spread of Primary Schooling in sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for Fertility Change

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2000
Cynthia B. Lloyd
In 1980 Caldwell hypothesized that the time of the onset of the fertility transition in developing countries would be linked with the achievement of "mass formal schooling." This article applies Demographic and Health Survey data to assess schooling patterns and trends for 23 sub-Saharan African countries, using the percentage of 15,19-year olds who have completed at least four years of schooling as an indicator of progress in education. As background to that assessment, the article includes a review of the sparse literature on the links between children's schooling and fertility decline. The analysis strongly supports Caldwell's hypothesis with empirical evidence of the much stronger negative relationship between fertility decline and grade 4 attainment in those countries that have attained mass-schooling levels than in those that have not yet achieved such levels. [source]

Empirical evidence on the use and effectiveness of telepsychiatry via videoconferencing: Implications for forensic and correctional psychiatry

BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 3 2008
Diana J. Antonacci M.D.
A growing body of literature now suggests that use of telepsychiatry to provide mental health services has the potential to solve the workforce shortage problem that directly affects access to care, especially in remote and underserved areas. Live interactive two-way audio,video communication,videoconferencing,is the modality most applicable to psychiatry and has become synonymous with telepsychiatry involving patient care, distance education, and administration. This article reviews empirical evidence on the use and effectiveness of videoconferencing in providing diagnostic and treatment services in mental health settings that serve child, adolescent, and adult populations. Descriptive reports, case studies, research articles, and randomized controlled trials related to clinical outcomes were identified and reviewed independently by two authors. Articles related to cost-effectiveness, technological issues, or legal or ethical aspects of telepsychiatry were excluded. The review of the evidence broadly covers mental health service provision in all settings, including forensic settings. Given the sparse literature on telepsychiatry in forensic settings, we discuss implications for mental health care across settings and populations and comment on future directions and potential uses in forensic or correctional psychiatry. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]