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‘Active non-alignment’ in outer space: Brazil’s hedging strategy in the Sino-American space race
Get PDFThe emerging rivalry between the U.S. and China is poised to be the most significant factor shaping international politics in the coming decades. As both great powers aim to safeguard and advance their national interests, research has largely focused on how this rivalry will impact regional dynamics on Earth. However, outer space – due to its critical security and economic significance – will also be a key stage of this geopolitical rivalry. Brazil, with its unique geographic position, long-standing engagement in space activities, and political ambition to become a leading space actor, is positioned as a significant player in South America. Despite its historical relationships with both the U.S. and China in the development of its space program, the intensifying Sino-American rivalry is polarizing the geopolitical landscape. In response, Brazil has adopted a policy of ‘active non-alignment’ as a hedging strategy. This approach allows Brazil to navigate the growing polarization by maintaining strategic flexibility, minimizing risks, and maximizing opportunities, while seeking to establish itself as a leading space power in South America. This paper explores how Brazil’s ‘active non-alignment’ embodies the core principles of hedging in the context of the Sino-American rivalry in outer space
Delving into the effectiveness and limits of economic rhetoric in 17th-century Spain On the use and misuse of tropes in monetary treatises (1600–1642)
No full textThe rhetoric in economic treatises featuring proposed solutions to the economic
problems faced by 17th-century Castille, followed similar trends as the literature and
poetry of the baroque. These treatises are interesting from a semiotic point of view as
an array of tropes, particularly metaphors and simile, are commonplace in economic
literature. Drawing from the late Scholastics of the School of Salamanca (16th century), 17th-century treatises present a view of the whole economy, with a special focus on problems that required urgent solutions. Following a series of coin debasements carried out by Phillip III (1578–1621) and Phillip IV (1605–1665), 17th-century Castille went through decades of monetary instability and was in constant need of monetary reforms. This chapter presents a collection of tropes found in monetary writings. A fuller picture of the perception and the portrayal of monetary problems in 17th-century Castille has been sought by integrating a semiotic perspective to the analysis of rhetoric in economic treatises
Meal mutability: Understanding how variations in meal concepts and recipe flexibility relate to food provisioning
Get PDFThis short communication introduces the meal mutability concept. This concept aims to describe how recipes and the ideal meals they refer to are flexibly interpreted and enacted as cooked dishes by consumers in practice. This flexibility may be linked to relations between provisioning and cooking in households, among other things. These features are explored using qualitative data originally analysed as part of a project focussing on quantitative modelling of household food and packaging waste. Meal mutability is intended to assist the development of modelling of the environmental consequences of particular foods and cooking methods
Audience evaluations of news videos made with various levels of automation: A population-based survey experiment
Get PDFThe use of automation in news content creation is expanding from the written to the audio-visual medium with news organizations including Reuters turning to video automation services provided by companies such as Wibbitz. Although researchers have explored audience perceptions of text-based news automation, to date no published study has examined how news consumers perceive automated news videos. We conducted a between-subjects online survey experiment to compare how a socio-demographically representative sample ( n = 4200) of online news consumers in the UK perceived human-made, partly automated, and highly automated short-form online news videos on 14 different story topics. Our findings show that human-made videos received on average more favourable responses on some evaluation variables, although the differences were not large. We also found some significant differences in the relative evaluation of automated and human-made news videos across different individual stories. For practitioners our results suggest partly automated news videos with post-automation human editing can be well received. For researchers our results show the need to use reasonably large sets of experimental stimuli, and suggest that ensuring socio-demographic variation within samples of respondents is worthwhile
Typology of Mental Health Peer Support Work Components: Systematised Review and Expert Consultation
Get PDFThe employment of mental health peer support (PS) is recommended in national and international mental health policy, and widely implemented across many countries. The key components of PS remain to be identified. This study aimed to develop a typology of components involved in one-to-one PS for adults in mental health services. A systematised review was performed to establish a preliminary long list of candidate components, followed by expert consultation (n = 21) to refine the list. Forty-two publications were full-text reviewed, comprising 26 trial reports, nine training manuals, and seven change model papers. Two hundred forty-two candidate components were identified, which were thematically synthesised to 16 components and eight sub-components, categorised into four themes: recruitment, preparation, practice, and PS worker wellbeing. Our typology can inform reflection and planning of PS practice, and allow more rigorous and synthesised studies, such as component network meta-analyses, to characterise the impact of each component and their interactions
The Unexpected Politics of ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Maps: (De)constructing Queer Utopias/Dystopias
Get PDFRecently, we have seen a proliferation of maps visualising the global state of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, plus (LGBTQI+) rights. Whilst they represent a productive advocacy tool for activists, we critically examine the politics embedded and reinforced by the way indexes are constructed and represented. By exploring the discrepancies between the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Maps and the lived experiences of LGBTQI+ people within Europe, we argue that these maps reproduce hierarchies often mediated by Eurocentric understandings of linear progress, while discounting the importance that an interpenetration of legal and social aspects has in evaluating national contexts in which LGBTQI+ persons live. The emphasis on legislative frameworks, thus, in part displaces lived experiences of LGBTQI+ people in Europe – projecting both Queer Utopias and Dystopias onto different geographical localities feeding into existing homonationalist discourses. With such findings, we argue against the fetishization of legislation within LGBTQI+ activism and academia
Analysis of the Effect of Skin Pigmentation and Oxygen Saturation on Monte Carlo-Simulated Reflectance Photoplethysmography Signals
Get PDFThe effect of skin pigmentation on photoplethysmography and, specifically, pulse oximetry has recently received a significant amount of attention amongst researchers, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. With most computational studies observing overestimation of arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2) in individuals with darker skin, this study seeks to further investigate the root causes of these discrepancies. This study analysed intensity changes from Monte Carlo-simulated reflectance PPG signals across light, moderate, and dark skin types at oxygen saturations of 70% and 100% in MATLAB R2024a. With simulated intensity reflecting PPG amplitude, the results showed that systolic intensity decreased by 3–4% as pigmentation increased at 660 nm. It was also shown that the impact at 940 nm is minimal (<0.2%), indicating that the increased absorption of red light by melanin has a greater effect on the ratio of ratios calculations. These results suggest that in-built adjustments may be required for data collected from red-light sources in pulse oximeters that do not currently have the necessary post-processing algorithms to account for this difference between diverse skin populations
Modelo de atenção em centros de parto normal peri-hospitalares brasileiros: uma revisão de escopo
Get PDFFreestanding birth centers (FBCs) in Brazil are regulated to provide care for women with a straightforward pregnancy. The systematization of the literature on FBCs can broaden our knowledge of these facilities. We conducted a scoping review to answer the following research question: “What are the characteristics of the model of care in freestanding birth centers in Brazil?”. Relevant studies covering any period and in any language were included. Searches were performed of platforms, databases, repositories, and institutional websites. The searches followed the stages set out in the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis and the review protocol was registered with the OSF. A total of 85 documents were selected, involving ten FBCs. The maternal and neonatal outcomes described by the studies were categorized as follows: respect for women’s autonomy and needs; humanized evidenced-based care; feeling safe with and confident in care providers; use of integrative and complementary health practices; positive maternal experience and neonatal outcomes; and welcoming and comfortable environment. The findings reinforce that care delivery in FBCs is grounded in the biopsychosocial model of health care and that the physical environment and organization of these facilities and approach to childbirth are structured around the needs of pregnant people and their babies
Prospective Memory and Quality of life in Older and Younger Autistic Adults
Get PDFAgeing in late adulthood is generally accompanied by diminished prospective memory (PM), which itself is associated with declining quality of life (QoL). Given that autistic individuals are often reported as having PM difficulties and diminished QoL, we aimed to establish whether these measures are also associated in these individuals as they grow older. We administered questionnaire measures of prospective and retrospective memory (PM and RM) and of overall and health-related quality of life (QoL) and experimental measures of time-based and event-based PM (TBPM and EBPM) to 35 autistic and 22 non-autistic adults aged from 23-80 years. The autistic participants reported higher levels of PM and RM difficulties than non-autistic participants but that these reports did not correlate with age nor with the experimental TBPM or EBPM measures in either group. Age correlated negatively with two of the experimental measures of TBPM for the non-autistic participants, replicating earlier studies. Autistic participants showed diminished performance on the TBPM but not the EBPM measures, replicating the majority of earlier PM studies in autism. Autistic participants also reported lower overall and health-related QoL, but there were no age-related differences for either measure in either diagnostic group. Self-reported PM and RM correlated significantly with health-related QoL in both the autistic and non-autistic participants. Overall QoL was positively associated with TBPM accuracy in the non-autistic participants. In addition to confirming earlier findings showing that autistic individuals have greater difficulties with TBPM compared to EBPM, our findings suggest that neither EBPM nor TBPM difficulties appear to adversely affect their overall or health-related QoL. The patterning of the autistic participants’ results also suggests that the mechanisms underlying their performance on the tasks used in this study may differ from those of the non-autistic participants, pointing to the need for careful task analysis when designing future investigations
Complementarities in the Production of Child Health
Get PDFWe estimate flexible child health production functions to investigate whether more hygienic environments, characterized by better water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practices, make nutrition intake more productive for the physical growth of children aged 6–24 months. Using ten rounds of exceptionally rich longitudinal Filipino cohort data, we estimate value-added production functions with a control function approach.We show that WASH and nutrition are complements in the formation of child height and weight. Nutritional and WASH conditions faced by sample children are similar to those currently encountered by poor children in low-income settings with comparable stunting rates
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