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Mapping the clinical practice of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine in oncology in Western countries : a multinational cross-sectional survey
No full textBackground: Many cancer patients seek adjunctive therapies to biomedical cancer treatments at some point of their disease trajectory. While acupuncture is increasingly recommended by leading oncological associations, limited evidence exists concerning the evidence-informed practice and adherence to current guidelines of traditional complementary and integrative medicine (TCIM) practitioners treating cancer patients. Methods: An international online-survey assessed the demographical data, clinical practice, and sources of information used by TCIM practitioners in Austria, Germany, United States of America, Australia, and New Zealand. Results: In total, 404 respondents completed the survey, of which 254 (62.9%) treated cancer patients. Most practitioners were acupuncturists and herbalists (57.1%), had (16.8 ± 9.9) years of clinical experience and see a median of 2 (1, 4) cancer patients per week. Breast cancer (61.8%) is the most common cancer type seen in TCIM clinics. Adjunctive TCIM treatments are frequently concurrent with the patient's cancer specific treatment (39.9%), which is also reflected by the main goal of a TCIM treatment to alleviate side effects (52.4%). However, only 28.0% of the respondents are in contact with the treating oncologist. According to the respondents, pain is most effectively treated using acupuncture, while herbal medicine is best for cancer-related fatigue. TCIM practitioners mostly use certified courses (33.1%) or online databases (28.3%) but often believe that experts are more reliable to inform their practice (37.0%) than research publications (32.7%). Conclusion: Acupuncturists and herbalists commonly treat cancer patients. Most practitioners use TCIM as an adjunct to biomedicine as supportive care and use it largely in accordance with current oncological guidelines
Caregivers' accounts of school searches for children with cerebral palsy in a developing sub-Saharan African context
No full textObjectives: Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurological condition caused by damage to the part of the brain known as the cerebral cortex and affecting the coordination and movement of individuals. The challenges faced by caregivers raising children with CP cannot be overemphasized. However, information regarding the accessibility of education for children with CP is scant or unreported. In this study, we investigated the experiences of parents in their efforts to enroll their children with CP in schools. Methods: Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with a cohort of 40 parents with children with CP who were observed for 5 years. The interviews were transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis. Results: The results that emerged from the thematic analysis demonstrated the difficulties faced by parents in searching for a school for their children with CP. According to the study participants, both special and regular schools were inaccessible to children with CP, due to unfriendly school environments, transportation problems, and high costs, as well as a lack of resources, qualified staff, and human resources. Conclusions: The findings underscore the urgent need for policymakers in Ghana to consider or make provisions for the education of children with CP. Without this, children with CP and their families could be entrapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, deprivation, and dependence on others for their livelihoods
Museum Practices and the Posthumanities: Curating for Planetary Habitability
No full textThis book critiques modern museologies and curatorial practices that have been complicit in emerging existential crises. It confidently presents novel, more-than-human curatorial visions, methods, frameworks, policies, and museologies radically refiguring the epistemological foundations of curatorial, museological thinking, and practice for a habitable planet. Modern curatorial and museological practices are dominated by modern humanism in which capital growth, social, technological advancement, hubris, extraction, speciest logics, and colonial domination predominate, often without reflection. While history, science, and technology museums and their engagement with non-human worlds have always been ecological as an empirical reality, the human-centred frameworks and forms of human agency that institutions deploy tend to be non-cognizant of this reality. Museum Practices and the Posthumanities: Curating for Planetary Habitability reveals how these practices are ill-equipped to deal with the contemporary world of rapid digital transformations, post-Covid living, climate change, and its impacts among other societal changes, and it shows how museums might best meet these challenges by thinking with and in more-than-human worlds. This book is aimed at museological scholars and museum professionals, and it will provide them with the inspiration to conduct research on and curate from a different ecological reference point to promote a world good enough for all things to thrive in radical co-existence
Can producers and consumers of color decolonize foodie culture? : an exploration through food media in settler colonies
No full textIn this paper, I examine the “Home Cooking” episode of Netflix series Ugly Delicious, and the “Toronto Truths with Foodies of Colour” episode of award‐winning Racist Sandwich podcast to uncover their mediation of a foodie and cosmopolitan person of color identity. By paying close attention to biographical details and the foregrounding of certain aspects of foodie and racialize identities, this paper addresses the question of performativity when it comes to food adventuring by using the mediated lens of the two chosen food shows. Are the hosts (and the semiotics of the programs) potentially challenging the archetype of the adventurous meat‐eating white male, or reinforcing the same by letting certain people into the fold? This analysis is necessary to understand if producers and consumers of color who are vested in exploring different food cultures through their practices do this any differently from dominant cultures
Stakeholder mapping and analysis of off-site construction projects : utilizing a power-interest matrix and the fuzzy logic theory
No full textStakeholder management is a crucial component in the implementation of off-site construction (OSC) projects, while stakeholder mapping serves as a practical technique to facilitate an in-depth understanding of different project stakeholders. Various topics have been explored in the OSC stakeholder management field, but research on OSC stakeholder analysis based on stakeholder mapping is still lacking. This study addresses this gap by developing two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) stakeholder mapping models. Data were collected from 167 stakeholders involved in OSC projects. The 2D model utilizes a power–interest matrix to classify 12 identified OSC stakeholder groups, while the 3D model further explores these groups by incorporating an additional dimension of stakeholder salience across different stages of project implementation. The results show that OSC stakeholders predominantly fall into the “key players” or “minimal effort” categories across various project stages. Key players include the client, modular manufacturer, main contractor, government, and designer, while the public and industry organizations generally require minimal effort. Additionally, stakeholders such as the supervision company, supplier, and subcontractor play key roles at specific stages, with varying levels of salience throughout the project lifecycle, reflecting shifts in their influence and involvement. The findings contribute to stakeholder management knowledge by providing an in-depth understanding of OSC stakeholders’ interrelationships during project implementation, especially through uncovered stakeholder mapping in the OSC field
Young people returning to alcohol and other drug services as incremental treatment
No full textYoung people who attend intensive alcohol and other drug (AoD) treatment commonly do so more than once. This paper aims to understand precipitators, enablers and barriers to young people's re-engagement in programs. Data come from a longitudinal qualitative study involving three waves of interviews with Australian young people recruited while attending intensive AoD programs (n = 38 at wave 1). We found that young people's ambitions for what they might achieve with a new stay and capacity to benefit from programs, evolved. Skills learnt in earlier stays or changed life circumstances often helped them achieve better outcomes subsequently. Ongoing contact with an AoD worker was the most important enabler to service re-engagement. Across the span of a year, we saw most young people in our study sample develop a stronger sense of wellbeing and control over substance use. While researchers tend to focus on evaluating outcomes associated with single stays at specific programs, young people think about their trajectories towards managing substance use and their lives as occurring more holistically, supported by engagements with a range of services. We argue that the notion of incremental treatment is useful in depicting the synergistic effects of service engagement over time
WeatherState
No full textWeatherState is an ongoing project that critically investigates senses of place within the vast heterotopias of the world oceans. In the face of the climate crisis, these enigmatic realms hold profound significance as regulators of global temperatures, absorbing carbon dioxide, shaping weather patterns, and world trade. They act as analogous spaces, as isomorphs for the complexity of embodied understandings of the interconnectedness and entanglements of our current times. Through data mapping and generative approaches, the WeatherState system maps the historical and cultural complexities of these heterotopias, and presents an immersive, generative screen experience of a complex relational set of data. As a dataecology, WeatherState interrogates the role of oceans as conduits for trade, climate change and cultural colonialism, by drawing on historical data sets (the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI)1880-2020), Global Ocean Temperatures (1901-2022) and the Ocean CO2 sink (1959-2022) combined with 21st century generative techniques, WeatherState presents a world of interconnected phenomena. The aim is for an embodied, sensorial experience of data that builds on current data visualisation practices and pays attention to the ecologies of practice that drive the data selection, presentation and mapping. WeatherState is a live multichannel experience that seeks to generate an affect of aliveness, challenging extractive modes of visualisation
Fatty infiltration in the musculoskeletal system : pathological mechanisms and clinical implications
No full textFatty infiltration denotes the anomalous accrual of adipocytes in non-adipose tissue, thereby generating toxic substances with the capacity to impede the ordinary physiological functions of various organs. With aging, the musculoskeletal system undergoes pronounced degenerative alterations, prompting heightened scrutiny regarding the contributory role of fatty infiltration in its pathophysiology. Several studies have demonstrated that fatty infiltration affects the normal metabolism of the musculoskeletal system, leading to substantial tissue damage. Nevertheless, a definitive and universally accepted generalization concerning the comprehensive effects of fatty infiltration on the musculoskeletal system remains elusive. As a result, this review summarizes the characteristics of different types of adipose tissue, the pathological mechanisms associated with fatty infiltration in bone, muscle, and the entirety of the musculoskeletal system, examines relevant clinical diseases, and explores potential therapeutic modalities. This review is intended to give researchers a better understanding of fatty infiltration and to contribute new ideas to the prevention and treatment of clinical musculoskeletal diseases
Magnetically circular layered triboelectric nanogenerators by advanced self-sensing composites
No full textThis paper provides a numerical simulation study of Magnetically Circular Layers of Triboelectric Nanogenerators (MCL-TENGs) for energy harvesting and self-powered sensing. The MCL-TENGs generate electrical energy by means of the conversion of mechanical energy into electrical energy through contact electrification and electrostatic induction. This paper concentrates on the numerical modeling of the copper/aluminum MCL-TENG and compares simulation results with experimental findings. The voltage comparison of copper MCL-TENGs (OC) between experimental and numerical simulations at 2000, 2500, and 3000 rpm showed Cu-EXP configuration voltages ranging from 4.1 to 4.4 V and Cu-FEM setup voltages ranging from 4 to 4.4 V. Meanwhile, aluminum MCL-TENGs showed Al-EXP configuration voltages ranging from 4.08 to 4.35 V and Al-FEM setup voltages ranging from 4 to 4.3 V across the third layer. The system can enhance the energy efficiency and sustainability of coastal bridge infrastructure by harvesting surplus energy from mechanical motion and converting it to electricity for self-powered sensing and monitoring systems
Introduction to digital pedagogy : a proposed framework for design and enactment
No full textThe discussion on the use of technology in education remains contentious even after decades of efforts in this area. One of the main challenges is digital pedagogy, which refers to the pedagogical applications of digital technologies. In this special issue, we highlighted the agentic actions of teachers that can be the catalysts of change in designing and enacting digital pedagogies in various contexts. We also contributed to this effort by proposing a digital pedagogy framework for the design and enactment of using technology in teaching and learning. This framework aims to bring researchers’ and educators’ attention to factors that could affect the design of technology integra tion into classrooms, including teacher pedagogical orientation, attitudes towards and competency of using educational technology, and identification of underpinning pedagogical theories or principles. It also examines the use of TPACK to design technology-mediated learning environments. The preparation of the enactment of the design can also be facilitated by identifying the potential observable students’ behaviours and other evidence for the achievement of intended outcomes. By bringing forth pedagogic expertise from various countries and contexts, we hope this special issue can support researchers and educators in enhancing learning mediated by a wide range of digital technologies