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Examining the effect of removing banknotes and implementing Goods and Services Tax on access to healthcare in India
No full textThis paper explores the effect of the banknote ban and GST, which were implemented within a span of 8 months in 2016-2017, on self-reported illnesses and healthcare consumption in India. The findings show that the increasing trend of self-reported illness from 1995-96 to 2014, reversed in 2017-2018. The reduction in healthcare consumption between 2014 and 2017-2018 is primarily within the private care sector rather than public care, indicating economic duress induced by the banknote ban and GST as its cause. The reduction in self-reported illness and healthcare consumption is more prolonged among the occupationally vulnerable. The reduction in reporting of illnesses, healthcare consumption, and out-of-pocket expenditure on health continued even after one-and-half years of the banknote ban; this may also have been exacerbated later by the implementation of GST. Data indicate that the condition of public healthcare deteriorated between 2014 to 2018. As a result, even though the weaker sections’ access to private healthcare diminished, they could not turn to public healthcare either, resulting in a reduction in overall healthcare consumption. The findings of this paper call for a robust, functioning, affordable public healthcare system in India for greater crisis resilience
Effect of a supportive leadership initiative on nurse leaders’ work performance in Malawi: A presentation of qualitative findings
No full textBackground: Nurses with inadequate clinical experience assume leadership positions as first-line managers in hospitals in Malawi due to shortage of Registered Nurses. It is presumed with support from senior nurse leaders, inexperienced nurses can lead successfully. Research suggests Supportive Leadership (SL) can positively influence performance. The study examined the effect of SL (mentoring, relationship building, team working, and positive work environment) on performance of Inexperienced Nurse Leaders (INLs) in the Central West Quality Satellite Zone Hospitals of Malawi. Methods: A convergent mixed methods design was used, with qualitative findings being presented. The sample was selected using purposive sampling. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 10 Senior Nursing Officers (SNOs) and 10 INLs and was analysed using Collaizi’s thematic method. Ethical approval was granted by the National Commission for Science and Technology in Malawi. Results: SL promoted the performance of INLs. Mentoring empowered the INLs to lead though it was done inconsistently. The INLs acknowledged the presence of work relationships and collaborative healthcare teams in the wards/units. The work relationships and teams eased work and the INLs felt supported. The work environment was positive in some wards and non-conducive in others. The main challenges were a shortage of nurses, financial and material resources. Conclusion: The research results have shown the importance of SL of SNOs in the CWQSZ hospitals of Malawi despite the existing shortage of nurses, material, and financial resources. The leadership style promoted the performance of INLs. The results contribute to the existing limited body of knowledge of SL in nursing
Understanding Latine perceptions of gun violence prevention strategies across New Mexico: A conceptual paper
No full textGun violence within Latine communities in New Mexico is on the rise and shows no signs of slowing down. The disparities in gun violence experiences mirror the structural and social position factors which negatively and disproportionately impact Latine people. In response to firearm-related deaths nearly doubling over the last decade, New Mexican legislators have been pressured to implement gun violence prevention policies. However well intended, these strategies often fail to address the structural inequities that underlie the rise in gun violence within Latine communities. There is an urgent need for research to better understand the unique experiences of Latine persons and their experiences in both gun violence and prevention. From a social ecological perspective, examining the structural barriers and facilitators which impede Latine involvement in gun violence prevention is critical to interrupting the cycles which render this group more susceptible. A deeper understanding of the factors associated with both gun violence and prevention is crucial for developing informed and culturally sensitive policies and interventions. This conceptual paper explores theory and research to better understand how gun violence impacts Latine communities and creates a conceptual framework to improve healthcare workers’ ability to encourage empowerment and efficacy regarding Latine engagement in gun violence prevention efforts. The objective of this paper is to analyze research from disciplines in the social and health sciences focusing on the experiences of Latine persons and groups experiencing gun violence and engaging in gun violence prevention
Energy Literacies: Co-creation for Interdisciplinary Research
No full textIn October 2022, A/P Justin Leontini (Dept. of Mechanical and Product Design Engineering) and A/P Max Schleser (Dept. of Film, Games and Animation) ran a mobile storytelling workshop with a regional primary school in Victoria, Australia. Pupils learned digital storytelling and rookie smartphone filmmaking basics to engage in a discussion about energy. The co-created (Auguiste 2020) mobile stories are part of the development of an Energy Literacy Community Toolkit, which is developed by Schleser, Wheeler, Leontini and the Social Innovation Research Institute at Swinburne University of Technology for Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance in connection with the Donald & Tarnagulla Microgrid Feasibility & Demonstration study. This study is supported by Centre for New Energy Technologies (C4NET) and the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (CVGA 2022) in Victoria, Australia.
This research creation project Where does Power come from? illustrates the Community Engagement: Donald and Tarnagulla Microgrid Feasibility Study project’s process and the co-created understanding for the next generation of power end-users. The research objective was to develop a community voice in the microgrid feasibility study. The co-created mobile stories are developed with an interest-based model (McCosker et al. 2018). Through understanding the communities’ perspectives and perceptions, this research worked with micro, horizontal hierarchies and ‘open space’ storytelling approaches (Zimmermann and De Michiel 2018, 2, 33 and 31). The theoretical underpinning draws upon a legacy of community arts (Dunn and Leeson 1997) and activism notion of ‘nothing about us without us’ (Charlton 2000). The co-created method enables to develop an understanding about particular thematic through applying a community point of view or language to develop a resource for the community.
Mobile story making (Schleser 2018) is a conversation starter. The pupil’s, their parents, neighbours and other community members will ‘like’ these videos because they are featured in these stories (Gondry 2008). The project shifts the conversation to the heart of the community and provides new community engagement touch points. Understanding local community needs such as reliability, cost and self-sufficiency is a key element in setting up a community microgrid.
Rural and regional communities tend to be at the end of the grid or have long distribution lines, leading to quality deterioration of the electricity supply. These communities and their businesses are seeking a balance of reliable, sustainable and low-cost electricity tailored to their needs (C4Net 2022)
Collaboratively Reimagining Spaces Through Socially-Engaged Creative Practices
No full textIn November-December 2022, Khoj, a not-for-profit contemporary arts organization based in New Delhi, India, presented a bilingual exhibition (Hindi and English), “Threading the Horizon: Propositions on Worldmaking through Socially Engaged Art Practice”. The stimulus for this paper comes from the encounter with the fourteen research-driven, community-based projects curated at the gallery. In particular, I explore ‘the how and why’ of five artists/activists and their three projects – how they intervene in the everyday experience of negotiating violence through invisibilities, rights, inequality, and leisure by women and gendered others in the capital city, how the projects in the gallery act as sites of conversation and reflection, and why is it significant to delve into the everyday urban and digital context in which these projects unfold. The artists’/activists’ site-specific placemaking interventions are characterized by transformative processes that emerge from their close, long-term engagement, dialogue, and collaboration with participating communities and other artists/curators/designers.
The first project is 5 Bigha Zameen (1 Acre Land) by the architect and artist/activist Swati Janu in collaboration with the Social Design Collaborative. The year-long project, based in Yamuna Khadar, Delhi, sought to actively support the women farmers’ rights to lives and livelihoods on the floodplains of the Yamuna River. Fursat ki Fizayen (Spaces for Leisure) by the spatial design practitioners Divya Chopra and Rwitee Mandal emerged from the leisure experience of women in Madanpur Khadar, an urban village in South Delhi. Rarely seen occupying public spaces for leisure, women reclaimed a small terrace to sit and have tea together – women whose lives were occupied mainly by household responsibilities and work outside. The third community-based project is Aao, Jagah Banaye! (Come, Let’s Make Space!) by the co-founders of City Sabha, Saleha Sapra and Riddhi T. Batra. It sought to empower informal women vendor groups in Raghubir Nagar, New Delhi, facing spatial injustice in an everyday context riddled with deeply-entrenched patriarchy.
Drawing on de Certeau’s understanding of “the procedures of everyday creativity” and a Lefebvrian framework to look at spaces, the qualitative study examines women’s (artists/activists’ and the communities’) endeavours to (i) resiliently (re)imagine Delhi as an urban setting; (ii) (re)claim public spaces for leisure, and (iii) (re)configure real and online spaces (on Instagram) through the entanglements of socially engaged creative practices with quotidian experiences.
The paper emphasizes the complex power relations between the artists/activists and their communities/collaborators, the bonds of care and compassion formed in and through the projects, and how they can carry forward during the various production, curation and exhibition processes. It raises the following questions: (i) How can tracing the artists/activists’ entangled praxis with diverse everyday environments and the alternative production of urban/rural, physical/online spaces and imaginaries help us expand our understanding of socially engaged creative practices? (ii) How may the artists/activists pay attention to their human collaborators and the non-human environment to create more inclusive projects, develop nuanced ways to strengthen their voices, and share their collective ideas and experiences
My body is a soft clay temple - selected poems
No full textPardis Aliakbarkhani\u27s selected poems, My body is a soft clay temple is an exploration in fat personal history, fat love, and connection to the body
Obesity Paradox
No full textThe “obesity paradox” is a medical hypothesis that states that the higher rate of survival for fat folks facing medical events such as heart attacks or cancer is but a paradox. The specific usage of the word “paradox” is what this poem aims to trouble. The description of this pattern as a “paradox” indicates that found evidence of fatness being positively correlated with lower mortality rates in the face of medical ailments must only be understood as contradictory. In referring to this phenomenon as a paradox, we run the very real risk of furthering the deeply insular narrative that fatness exists only as a danger to one’s health and furthermore, that any fact that does not confirm the association of fatness as a health concern must exist paradoxically. This poem, in form and content, aims to mimic the contradictory nature through which the idea of this phenomenon as a paradox further perpetuates fatphobia and anti-fat propaganda
Cover Art - "Superbloom"
No full textInformation about the cover art, Superbloom, and the cover artist, Kat Max. 
Table of Contents
No full textThe Table of Contents for the inaugural issue of Excessive Bodies 
Numerical investigation of thermal flow characteristics in compact plate heat exchanger with various surface patterns
No full textPlate heat exchangers (PHEs) are being widely used in various applications, including space and nuclear technologies. The surface pattern of the plates is critical in increasing heat transfer and reducing pressure drop in PHEs. In this study, lung, fish gill, trachea, sea wave patterns were designed on the plate surface of a PHE with the highest possible compactness using a biomimicry approach. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted to investigate the thermo-hydraulic performance of PHEs designed using a biomimetic method consisting of three plates. The findings indicate that the introduction of fish gill-inspired PHE, lung-inspired PHE, trachea-inspired PHE and sea-wave PHE into flow channels results in increased fluid turbulence and heat transfer rates. Moreover, the total temperature change on the hot and cold sides increases with higher turbulence values. The lung-inspired PHE and sea wave-inspired PHE exhibit 28% and 12% higher heat transfer rates, respectively. However, the various PHEs inspired by biomimetic principles have a higher pressure drop due to their complex and narrow channels