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16p12.2 microdeletion has been associated with congenital heart defects and developmental delay. In this case, we describe the rare association between tetralogy of Fallot with an absent pulmonary valve a right-sided aortic arch and a retro-aortic innominate vein associated with a 16p12.2 microdeletion and epilepsy.
Refugees and asylum-seekers are typically exposed to multiple potentially traumatic events (PTEs) in the context of war, persecution and displacement, which confer elevated risk for psychopathology. There are significant limitations, however, in extant approaches to measuring these experiences in refugees. The current study aimed to identify profiles of PTE exposure, and the associations between these profiles and key demographics, contextual factors (including ongoing stressors, method of travel to Australia and separation from family), mental health and social outcomes, in a large sample of refugees resettled in Australia.
Methods
Participants were 1085 from Arabic, Farsi, Tamil and English-speaking refugee backgrounds who completed an online or pen-and-paper survey in their own language. Constructs measured included PTE exposure, demographics, pre-displacement factors, ongoing stressors, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, depression symptoms, anger reactions, plans of suicide and social engagement.
Results
Latent class analysis identified four profiles of PTE exposure, including the torture and pervasive trauma class, the violence exposure class, the deprivation exposure class and the low exposure class. Compared to the low exposure class, participants in the trauma-exposed classes were more likely to be male, highly educated, from Farsi and Tamil-speaking backgrounds, have travelled to Australia by boat, experience more ongoing stressors and report both greater psychological symptoms and social engagement.
Conclusions
This study found evidence for four distinct profiles of PTE exposure in a large sample of resettled refugees, and that these were associated with different demographic, psychological and social characteristics. These findings suggest that person-centred approaches represent an important potential avenue for investigation of PTE exposure in refugees, particularly with respect to identifying subgroups of refugees who may benefit from different types or levels of intervention according to their pre-migration PTE experiences.
This study investigated the impact of the Webinar on deep human learning of CHD.
Materials and methods:
This cross-sectional survey design study used an open and closed-ended questionnaire to assess the impact of the Webinar on deep learning of topical areas within the management of the post-operative tetralogy of Fallot patients. This was a quantitative research methodology using descriptive statistical analyses with a sequential explanatory design.
Results:
One thousand-three-hundred and seventy-four participants from 100 countries on 6 continents joined the Webinar, 557 (40%) of whom completed the questionnaire. Over 70% of participants reported that they “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the Webinar format promoted deep learning for each of the topics compared to other standard learning methods (textbook and journal learning). Two-thirds expressed a preference for attending a Webinar rather than an international conference. Over 80% of participants highlighted significant barriers to attending conferences including cost (79%), distance to travel (49%), time commitment (51%), and family commitments (35%). Strengths of the Webinar included expertise, concise high-quality presentations often discussing contentious issues, and the platform quality. The main weakness was a limited time for questions. Just over 53% expressed a concern for the carbon footprint involved in attending conferences and preferred to attend a Webinar.
Conclusion:
E-learning Webinars represent a disruptive innovation, which promotes deep learning, greater multidisciplinary participation, and greater attendee satisfaction with fewer barriers to participation. Although Webinars will never fully replace conferences, a hybrid approach may reduce the need for conferencing, reduce carbon footprint. and promote a “sustainable academia”.
Factors that facilitate transfer of training in paediatric echocardiography remain poorly understood. This study assessed whether high-variation training facilitated successful transfer in paediatric echocardiography.
Methods:
A mixed-methods study of transfer of technical and interpretive skill application amongst postgraduate trainees. Trainees were randomised to a low or high-variation training group. After a period of 8 weeks intensive echocardiography training, we video-recorded how trainees completed an echocardiogram in a complex cardiac lesion not previously encountered. Blinded quantitative analysis and scoring of trainee performance (echocardiogram performance, report, and technical proficiency) were performed using a validated assessment tool by a blinded cardiologist and senior cardiac physiologist. Qualitative interviews of the trainees were recorded to ascertain trainee experiences during the training and transfer process.
Results:
Sixteen trainees were enrolled in the study. For the cumulative score for all three components tested (echocardiogram performance, report, and technical proficiency), χ2 = 8.223, p = .016, which showed the high-variation group outperformed the low-variation group. Two common themes which assisted in the transfer emerged from interviews are as follows: (1) use of strategies described in variation theory to describe abnormal hearts, (2) the use of formative live feedback from trainers during hands-on training.
Conclusion:
Training strategies exposing trainees to high-variation training may aid transfer of paediatric echocardiography skills.
This chapter asks whether, given current environmental challenges, is it perverse of feminist environmental sociologists to seem to abandon the sociological ancestors and appeal instead to mushrooms, to call for making kin with other critters, to turn to telling different stories or to compos(t)ing ourselves differently as humans? We argued that not only is it not perverse it is urgently needed. We argue, however, that such a re-composting needed a serious engagement with the sociological traditions of understanding the roles of institutional arrangements and power, including political economic and discursive. We also consider the shadow side of framing humanity as the villain of climate change and argue sociological analysis has an indispensable role to play in disrupting the troubling potential for authoritarian and repressive politics in much of climate change discourse.
Refugees report a diverse array of psychological responses following persecution and displacement. Little is known, however, regarding the mechanisms that underlie differential psychological reactions in refugees. This study investigated the longitudinal impact of negative moral appraisals about one's own actions [i.e. moral injury-self (MI-self) appraisals] and others' actions [i.e. moral injury-other (MI-others) appraisals] on a variety of psychological symptoms over a period of 6 months.
Methods
Participants were 1085 Arabic, Farsi, Tamil, or English-speaking refugees who completed a survey at baseline and 6 months later either on-line or via pen-and-paper. The survey indexed demographic factors, exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs), exposure to ongoing stressors, MI-other appraisals, MI-self appraisals, re-experiencing and arousal symptoms, and feelings of sadness, anger and shame.
Results
Findings indicated that, after controlling for demographics, PTE exposure and ongoing stressors, MI-other appraisals predicted increased re-experiencing and hyperarousal symptoms, and feelings of sadness and shame. MI-self appraisals predicted decreased feelings of shame, and decreased re-experiencing symptoms. In contrast, psychological symptoms at baseline did not as strongly influence MI appraisals 6 months later.
Conclusions
These findings highlight the important role that cognitive appraisals of adverse events play in the longitudinal course of psychological symptoms. These results thus have important implications for the development of tailored psychological interventions to alleviate the mental health burden held by refugees.
Cocoa (Theobroma cacao) farmers in Sulawesi, Indonesia typically use subsidised, ammonium-based rice fertilisers that in combination with poor agricultural practices have resulted in soil acidification, loss of organic matter, aluminium toxicity and lower soil fertility. As a result, these soils are only marginally appropriate for replanting cocoa to boost production. A field experiment was performed to test alternative soil amendments for successful replanting of cocoa on these deficient soils. In a trial with a randomised block design, 6-month old seedlings, top-grafted with the local MCC02 clone, were planted under light Gliricidia sepium shade and after 3 months treated quarterly with two options of mineral fertilisers: either a customised fertiliser, consisting of Nitrabor (a combination of calcium nitrate and boron), dolomite, rock phosphate and KCl or a NPK/urea mix used by farmers, each supplied with or without ‘micronutrient’ rock salt, organic fertiliser and beneficial microorganisms or their culture medium, a mixture of chitin and amino acids (a total of 20 treatments). Over a 4-year period, the marginal mean rates of stem diameter increment and flowering score were higher in customised fertiliser than NPK/urea treatments. The average growth rate was highest in the first year and was increased by supplying organic fertiliser. A significant correlation (r = 0.22, p < 0.05) occurred between growth and available P, but concentrations of available P were higher in the NPK/urea plots, which also had lower mean growth rates. Combined supply of organic fertiliser and microbes increased available P, as well as growth rates, in both the customised and NPK/urea treatments. In contrast, NPK/urea-treated plots without these amendments demonstrated very low growth rates. The customised formulation was more effective with or without added organic fertiliser or inoculated microbes. Micronutrient supply stimulated flowering. Growth rates in trees supplied with NPK/urea were also promoted by micronutrients. Leaf flush production occurred in regular cycles and was unaffected by the nutrient amendments. After 3 years, the customised and organic fertiliser application increased soil pH and exchangeable Ca and Mg concentrations, although they remained below recommended levels for cocoa production. These treatments had little impact on soil C content (about 1.3%) which was also deficient. Exchangeable Al and total Zn concentrations were higher in soils amended with NPK/urea. The results of the trial provide evidence that utilisation of organic fertiliser in combination with customised nitrate-based formulations improves cocoa establishment, growth and soil properties and should be recommended as a replacement for the NPK/urea fertilisers traditionally used by farmers.
Researchers in the Physics Department of St. Olaf College are using a uniquely designed, integrated nanoindenter-quartz microbalance apparatus to bridge the gap between the fundamental science of friction and the engineering of practical micromechanical systems. This level of micro-research requires extreme stability for the microbalance instrumentation. Since 2001, the lab has used negative-stiffness vibration isolation to achieve a high level of isolation in multiple directions, custom tailoring resonant frequencies to 0.5 Hz vertically and horizontally.
This chapter traces the imperial history of racial and environmental medical research, the economic drivers behind public health initiatives, and the legacies of colonialism in medical research and public health interventions in Africa. Examining this history of African encounters with development interventions around health provides much-needed context for breaking down misconceptions about African resistance to or ignorance of Western biomedical aid. The development episteme has perpetuated the idea that Africa is a place of disease and that Africans are resistant to treatments and cures. The nineteenth-century ad hoc campaigns to protect Europeans and segregate the sick from the healthy grew into state-sponsored public health programs during the interwar period. By World War II colonial development discourses on African health had shifted from the “white man’s grave” to biopower as states harnessed healthy bodies for productive purposes. Medical studies on declining populations, outbreaks of sleeping sickness or tuberculosis, STIs, and maternity and childcare sought healthcare solutions that would increase the productivity of labor. New hospitals, maternity centers, child welfare centers, and dispensaries brought some people relief and others terror. Scientists and officials used public health interventions and biomedical research to bolster the norms of the development episteme.
The pictures show smiling children in western-style clothing, writing in school notebooks with their decorated pencils; one little girl wears a cross dangling from a silver chain and the headlines bleat “Invest in Uganda’s Youth” and “Investing in Ethiopia’s People.” Welcome to the Africa page of the World Bank website. The World Bank is the largest international financial institution dedicated to supporting global economic development through capitalist projects. A quick glance at the World Bank website offers some insight into how institutions with the economic means to determine international aid policies define development.
Enlightenment philosophy introduced the notion that social evolution and progress resulted from scientific inquiry and technological advancements. This view evolved out of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment idea that all societies progressed in a linear fashion toward modernity, the pinnacle of which was European civilization. In this construction “modern” or “progressive” societies were those that mimicked European cultural, social, economic, and political structures. Western missionaries’ efforts in the nineteenth century to bring “Christianity, commerce and civilization” set in motion a progressive ideology that led to modern development practice in Africa. These three words captured the Enlightenment ideology of social progress, the capitalism of the Industrial Revolution, and the mating of Christian doctrine with secular social Darwinian ideas. By defining poverty as a lack of access to capitalist systems “modern” societies defined any cultures not fully participating in capitalism as poor. These concepts are the bedrock of modern development theory. They presume that Western civilization is the highest form of social development, that all societies must progress in a linear fashion to attain this status, and that development will come through an economic transformation that will reshape social and cultural aspects of societies.
European colonial trade with Africa set the stage for international interventions to “modernize” African economies. Since the 1880s colonial economists pressed for modernization and industrialization in Africa, but only to the extent that this aided the extraction of resources through the use of inexpensive African labor. Modernization thus had its limits in Africa, and only very rarely emerged out of partnerships with Africans. Large-scale, colonial industrial projects supplied cheap raw materials and managerial jobs for Europeans. Colonial governments and Western-owned companies industrialized the mining sectors of segregated states in southern Africa in order to generate profit for themselves, and not necessarily to aid the “modernization” of local economies. Even in postcolonial and postapartheid African states, industrialization has helped the few rather than the masses. Yet Africans have established their own projects for developing agriculture, mining, and manufacturing in order to improve their societies. Africans have taken the initiative to modernize their economies and form partnerships with governments and private funders on mutually beneficial terms. Despite the long history of Western dominance over discourses on economic modernization, African industrialization and economic development does not always (and does not have to) look like Western modernity.
This chapter traces the shift in African development policies from the era of modernization in the 1950s to the emergence of Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) in the late twentieth century. As colonialism waned and African nation-states came into existence, international organizations and foreign governments replaced imperial powers as the primary investors in African development. The United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank were at the forefront of this movement. African nationalists and the leaders of newly independent countries forged permanent ties to international development agencies and wealthy donor nations such as the United States and the Soviet Union, the post–World War II superpowers hoping to convince African rulers to support their side of the Cold War. The internationalization of African development expanded during the 1980s when the now widely criticized SAPs of the IMF and the World Bank eroded both state power and state-sponsored social services in African countries. Rising political leaders who made big promises to their constituents in the era of independence during the 1960s found their hands tied by the internationalization of development and Cold War politics over the next two decades. Some, however, managed to play these politics to their advantage.
This chapter takes up the first of the four development “problems” highlighted in Part III. Whether in the name of civilization, modernity, or modernization, interventions to transform the composite materials, structural designs, and locations of African homes represented the development agenda to reform African domesticity and labor. Discourses on improvement masked the political and economic agendas at work and ignored the indigenous logic of African residential construction and organization. From the nineteenth century development efforts urged Africans to build square or rectangular houses in place of round huts. The scientific work of early twentieth-century urban planners set the stage for what “modern” urban spaces would look like in African cities. In the postcolonial era urbanization has far outpaced the ability of states and private enterprise to provide affordable, modern housing for citizens. Urban Africans have begun to fight back against the assumptions made about informal settlements by development specialists and city planners from the global north. These activists are challenging their governments to see urban residential areas as social spaces that belong to all citizens, not just wealthy ones. In their challenge, informal settlement dwellers are forcing the international development community to Africanize the development episteme.