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Chiral Lemniscate Formation in Magnetic Field Controlled Topological Fluid Flows
Full text linkHigh shear spinning top (ST) typhoon-like fluid flow in a rapidly rotating inclined tube within a vortex fluidic device (VFD) approaches homochirality throughout the liquid with toroids of bundled single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) twisted into stable chiral lemniscates (in the shape of Figure 8s), predominantly as the R-or S-structures, for the tube rotating clockwise (CW) or counterclockwise (CCW). However, this is impacted by the Earth's magnetic field (BE). Theory predicts 1–20 MPa pressure for their formation, with their absolute chirality determined from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) images. Thus, the resultant lemniscate structures establish the absolute chirality of the inner and outer components of the ST flow. These chiral flows and lemniscates can be flipped to the opposite chirality by changing the orientation of the tube relative to the inclination angle of BE, by moving the geographical location. Special conditions prevail where the tangential angle of the outer and inner flow of the ST becomes periodically aligned with BE, which respectively dramatically reduce the formation of toroids (and thus lemniscates) and formation of lemniscates from the toroids formed by the double-helical (DH) flow generated by side wall Coriolis forces and Faraday waves.fals
Amplifying Women's Voices in Menopause Research: The Importance of Inclusive Perspectives
Full text linkMenopause, a significant life transition for half the global population, intersects biological, cultural and social dimensions. Despite its universal occurrence, menopause research has historically been dominated by biomedical perspectives, often neglecting women's voices and diverse experiences. This article highlights the importance of including women's perspectives in menopause research to ensure relevance, accuracy and equity. It explores cultural variations in menopause experiences, the impact of socioeconomic status and the often-overlooked emotional and psychological dimensions. This article advocates for participatory approaches, emphasising that women's involvement enhances research design, implementation and policy development. Evidence-based interventions that are tailored to the individual can better address the diverse needs of menopausal women. The discussion extends to addressing health disparities, calling for inclusive research and policies to ensure equitable access to care. Ultimately, empowering women through co-designed research and inclusive policies can transform the menopause journey into an enriching life phase, promoting resilience and inclusivity across communities. This paradigm shift in menopause research and policy highlights the need for diversity, collaboration and evidence-based approaches to improve health outcomes and quality of life for all women.
PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: This article has been informed by a menopause service user group who discuss their experiences of menopause. The group was formed because of initial qualitative research and now meet on a regular basis to co-design and co-produce activities that inform ongoing research for the menopause taskforce.fals
A culture-centered exploration of India’s Community Health Workers’ meanings of the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of mobile technology in response strategies : a thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication and Journalism at Massey University, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE)
No full textDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, Community Health Workers (CHWs), particularly in developing countries such as India, played a crucial role in controlling the virus's spread (Niyati & Nelson Mandela, 2020). India imposed the world’s largest lockdown (Ghosh, 2020; Mathur, 2020), swiftly deploying its CHWs known as ASHA workers for community-level COVID-19 prevention and mitigation (Niyati & Nelson Mandela, 2020). Reports indicated that ASHAs in some states were required to purchase and use smartphones for COVID-19 tasks (Brar Singh, 2020; Hindustan Times, 2020b). This top-down approach to pandemic communication and mHealth initiatives (M. J. Dutta, S. Kaur-Gill, et al., 2018; Kumar & Anderson, 2015) sidelined ASHAs' their voices in mainstream discourse, despite their essential role.
Furthermore, while existing research in this area has identified the structural challenges faced by ASHAs—such as overwhelming workloads and inadequate compensation—these studies often treat these challenges in a reductionist manner (Lazarus, 2020; Nichols et al., 2022; Srivastava, 2021), often from the perspective of the researcher. This marginalisation of ASHAs' voices is particularly concerning in the context of public health emergencies, where they are thrust into frontline roles without adequate infrastructural and policy support. This thesis addresses this significant gap in research by foregrounding their voices and lived experiences as frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the Culture Centered Approach (CCA), a meta-theoretical framework particularly suited for research in marginalised settings, this study uses semi-structured interviews to explore ASHAs’ narratives, shedding light on how they navigated the pandemic and engaged with mHealth initiatives.
The study finds that ASHAs operate within intersecting layers of structural inequalities shaped by their socio-economic context and the neoliberal organisation of India’s healthcare system. This system reduces these marginalised female workers to ‘efficient’ subjects, using their labour to offload state responsibilities while offering minimal support and compensation.
Through this analysis, the research advances the theoretical framework of the CCA by deepening the understanding of the layering of structures upon structures and their simultaneous interaction with culture. While existing CCA literature addresses the structure culture dynamic, this study uniquely highlights how these layered structures intersect, reinforce, and sometimes contradict each other, intensifying marginalisation.
In the context of mHealth, the study uncovers the complex, multifaceted, and sometimes contradictory meanings of technology in marginalised spaces, ranging from the relevance of face-to-face communication and bottom-up uses of technology in rural healthcare, to issues surrounding data privacy, confidentiality, and digital burden in marginalised spaces.
By placing these evolving and often contradictory meanings at the center of theorising, this research challenges techno-optimism and prompts a critical re-evaluation of the role of technology in healthcare delivery, with mHealth as a key example.
Additionally, this study extends the concept of marginalised agency within the CCA by shifting away from binary understandings of resistance and submission, demonstrating how such agency is multidimensional and dynamic, shaped by an intricate web of cultural, social, religious, economic, and professional factors. This multilayered interaction forces ASHAs to continuously negotiate their positions, sometimes exercising their voices and demands, and at other times complying with top-down orders due to structural constraints, while drawing on cultural resources to navigate these structures.
The thesis concludes with recommendations for a communicative framework that integrates ASHAs into decision-making processes, fostering resilience among CHWs and the communities they serve in future health crises
Ethnic equity in Aotearoa New Zealand's COVID-19 response: A descriptive epidemiological study
Full text linkObjectives: Aotearoa New Zealand employed one of the most stringent public health pandemic responses internationally. We investigated whether ethnic health equity was achieved in the response and outcomes, from COVID-19 elimination in June 2020 through to Omicron-response easing, including international border reopening, in 2022.
Study design: Descriptive epidemiology study.
Methods: All COVID-19 cases, patients tested for SARS-CoV-2 and people vaccinated against COVID-19 between 9 June 2020 and 13 April 2022 were examined over three response periods: by demographic features and COVID-19 outcomes, transmission and vaccination patterns, time-to-vaccination and testing rates.
Results: There were 15,693 cases per 100,000, 138·7 hospitalisations per 100,000, and 9·8 deaths per 100,000 people. Pacific peoples and Indigenous Māori had, respectively, 9·3 to 35-fold and 1·5 to 8·3-fold higher risk of COVID-19, 5·1-fold and 2·6-fold higher age-standardised risk of hospitalisation and 9-fold and 4-fold higher age-standardised risk of death, than European or Other. Māori and Pacific peoples had lower vaccination coverage at critical points in the response, and slower access to vaccination (Adjusted Time Ratios for two doses 1·32 (95% CI 1·31–1·32) and 1·14 (1·14–1·14), respectively), than European or Other. Testing rates remained high, especially among Māori and Pacific peoples.
Conclusions: Despite achieving a low overall burden of disease by international comparisons, the multi-faceted New Zealand response did not prevent stark ethnic inequities in access to vaccination and COVID-19 outcomes. Policies which address disparities in upstream determinants, early vaccine programme planning and implementation with high-risk communities, and prioritisation that addresses systematic ethnic disadvantage and promotes health equity in response decisions is recommended.fals
Microfibres and health: State of the evidence and research gaps
Full text linkMicrofibres are ubiquitous in the environment and there has been an increasing focus on health harms from them in recent decades. The current WHO guidelines defining health risks from microfibres focus on just the subset of microfibres that are inorganic and respirable. Recent studies have revealed large volumes of textile microfibres are present throughout the environment and that non-plastic microfibres are as common or more common than plastic microfibres. However, these are rarely included in the analysis of harms. This narrative review of textile microfibres sets out the state of our understanding of exposure to and harms from textile microfibres. We found that the epidemiological research reviewed here does not support the continued focus solely on the respiratory route of exposure nor only on plastic microfibres as hazardous to health. In fact, gastrointestinal as well as upper airway effects may also be increased by exposure to textile microfibres. Importantly, microfibres behave differently in the environment, and within the body in comparison to non-fibre particles, and therefore warrant separate investigation from particles and microplastics. The conclusion of this cross-disciplinary review is an urgent call for greater investigation of textile microfibres, separately from the also important issue of microplastics, and therefore, the inclusion of non-plastic fibre types in research going forward.fals
Chair–CEO age dissimilarity and firm value – evidence from China
Full text linkPurpose: This study examines how age dissimilarity between the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer influences firm value. We also explore whether board monitoring intensity changes with the age dissimilarity between the Chair and CEO and whether it moderates the relationship between their age dissimilarity and firm value.
Design/methodology/approach: We test our hypothesis by analysing 37,200 firm-year observations from 3,870 unique Chinese Stock Exchange-listed firms (2001–2021) using OLS, 2SLS Heckman and PSM methods.
Findings: We find that higher age dissimilarity in firms is associated with decreased firm value. Additionally, increased age dissimilarity between the Chair and CEO is linked to lower board meeting frequency (low board monitoring intensity), negatively impacting firm value. This effect is more pronounced in firms with higher agency conflict, low concentration, dispersed ownership and non-SOE. Our findings are consistent and robust across alternative measures and endogeneity tests.
Research limitations/implications: Our findings stress the policy importance of increasing board meeting frequency to enhance internal monitoring, mitigating potential negative impacts on firm value from age dissimilarity in top leadership roles.
Originality/value: Our novel research emphasizes the unique influence of age diversity in top management roles (Chair and CEO) on firm strategy, coordination and communication – an understudied aspect of corporate governance. Our findings clarify the distinct impact of this factor on overall firm value.fals
Leveraging Synteny to Generate Reference Genomes for Conservation: Assembling the Genomes of Hector's and Māui Dolphins
Full text linkEscalating concern regarding the impacts of reduced genetic diversity on the conservation of endangered species has spurred efforts to obtain chromosome-level genomes through consortia such as the Vertebrate Genomes Project. However, assembling reference genomes for many threatened species remains challenging due to difficulties obtaining optimal input samples (e.g., fresh tissue, cell lines) that can characterise long-term conservation collections. Here, we present a pipeline that leverages genome synteny to construct high-quality genomes for species of conservation concern despite less-than-optimal samples and/or sequencing data, demonstrating its use on Hector's and Māui dolphins. These endemic New Zealand dolphins are threatened by human activities due to their coastal habitat and small population sizes. Hector's dolphins are classified as endangered by the IUCN, while the Māui dolphin is among the most critically endangered marine mammals. To assemble reference genomes for these dolphins, we created a pipeline combining de novo assembly tools with reference-guided techniques, utilising chromosome-level genomes of closely related species. The pipeline assembled highly contiguous chromosome-level genomes (scaffold N50: 110 MB, scaffold L50: 9, miniBUSCO completeness scores > 96.35%), despite non-optimal input tissue samples. We demonstrate that these genomes can provide insights relevant for conservation, including historical demography revealing long-term small population sizes, with subspecies divergence occurring ~20 kya, potentially linked to the Last Glacial Maximum. Māui dolphin heterozygosity was 40% lower than Hector's and comparable to other cetacean species noted for reduced genetic diversity. Through these exemplar genomes, we demonstrate that our pipeline can provide high-quality genomic resources to facilitate ongoing conservation genomics research.fals
Factors predicting parenting stress in the autism spectrum disorder context: A network analysis approach
Full text linkElevated levels of parenting stress have been reported in parents raising an Autistic child. Previous studies have identified a multitude of predictors of parenting stress, including both child-related and parent-related factors, though findings across studies are not always in agreement. In the present study we investigate the determinants of parenting stress using a Network Analysis approach, which is then used to inform a subsequent structural equation model. New Zealand parents (n = 490) of a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) provided data on their Autistic child (e.g., ASD core symptoms, problem behaviours) and themselves (i.e., parenting stress). The analysis revealed that both child and parent demographic factors were poor predictors of parenting stress, while the child’s current language and communication ability were correlated with diagnostic age and parenting stress. An earlier diagnostic age, in turn, suggested better behavioural and emotional outcomes for children. Overall, the Network Analysis showed itself to be an informative approach to understanding parenting stress in the ASD context. Findings further advocate for the implementation of ASD-related and language-related interventions as early as possible, and that language delays during early infancy justify prompt clinical assessment.fals
An exploratory study on impostor phenomenon among banking employees in New Zealand : a trait-state approach from a multi-generational perspective : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Health Science in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 12th March 2027
No full textEmbargoed until 12th March 2027The impostor phenomenon (IP) is a prevalent challenge that many individuals encounter at workplace, particularly in today’s rapidly evolving, uncertain, and multigenerational work environment driven by the technology revolution. However, little research has been conducted on the IP theoretical framework to apply these challenges and treat IP from both trait-state perspectives, rather than solely from a trait individualistic perspective. Unsurprisingly, a recent systematic review calls for more fine-grained research to better understanding of this phenomenon, its antecedents and consequences. Responding to this call, the researcher conducted a quantitative study in the competitive banking industry in New Zealand (NZ). Guided by self-determination theory (SDT), this study aims to explore the connection between generational identity (GI) and IP and the outcomes in terms of motivational behavioural intentions to which this connection may lead. The focus of this study is on the GI and IP constructs. The study further examines how different types of self-concept (i.e., self-doubt and internal locus of control) mediate the GI—IP relationship and how IP mediates the relationships between GI and motivational behavioural intentions (i.e. speak-up and promotion focus). In addition, this study examines how different leadership styles moderate the GI—IP relationship. The study recruited 285 employees from a major bank in NZ, including 55.79% females and 35.44% males. The majority identified as Caucasians and belonged to Generation X and Millennials. Over half of the participants had a Bachelor's degree or higher educational qualification and were in managerial positions. The study found no gender differences in scoring IP, while education level influenced IP. The study findings support the hypothesis that a negative relationship was found between generational identity and IP with a small size effect, with both types of self-concept being mediators. The generational cohort based on age was not related. While inclusive leadership moderated the relationship, transformational leadership did not. Additionally, a negative relationship was found between IP and the motivational behavioural intentions, speak-up, but not with the intention of promotion focus. This study’s findings showed the important effects of individual traits on IP in the current banking climate with ongoing transformational changes driven by technology disruption, and that effective leadership can support banking employees by fostering an inclusive environment where individuals can thrive. The study also opens a new dialogue about how generational identity (GI) could foster a sense of belonging, which is very important at times of uncertainty and change due to technological advancement in the multi-generational workplace