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Jamaica Osorio’s Indigenous Poetics as a Challenge to Global Hybridity
Get PDFSpeaking at a TEDx event in Manoa, Oʻahu in 2013 kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) poet Jamaica Osorio declaimed “Global warming will break the foundation of the community/ without even shaking the penthouse suits/ whilst the men and women who finance the earth’s deterioration/ play the role of its saviour … tallying the brown bodies that float by.” In this article I introduce Osorio’s poetry as an example of indigenous ecocriticism interacting with global power flows as she astutely pinpoints an asymmetry of causation and impact dictated by economic and racial power. Her anger is rooted in her genealogy as a kanaka maoli woman, an American citizen, a queer poet and indigenous activist. Kānaka maoli trace their genealogy back to the islands of Hawaiʻi, and make little distinction between human and non-human family; many feel real fury at the environmental destruction capitalist-driven development has wreaked on their islands. Historian Arif Dirlik posited that indigenous epistemologies “assume strategic significance” as “counter resolutions to the contradictions of hybridity”. I suggest that Osorio’s career is metonymic of the techniques kānaka maoli have used for centuries to ensure cultural survival; remaining rooted in place whilst working to build audiences and allies internationally. Osorio’s poetry performances, watched on YouTube by thousands of people across the world, provide a lens through which contemporary indigeneity can be observed re-placing itself, using international networks, in a national system which continues to privilege movement over fixity regardless of the cost to the places it moves between
Complete book reviews (fiction, poetry and life-writing) Transnational Literature May 2018
Get PDFComplete fiction, poetry and life-writing book reviews for Transnational Literature, May 2018, in one file for ease of downloading or printin
An open trial of bedtime fading for sleep disturbances in preschool children: a parent group education approach
Get PDF© 2017 Elsevier BV. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (March 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyStudy Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of bedtime fading to reduce sleep disturbances in
preschool aged children, using a group parent education format.
Design: A repeated-measures design (pre-treatment, treatment, post-treatment and 2-year
follow-up).
Setting: Flinders University Child & Adolescent Sleep Clinic, Adelaide, South Australia
Participants: Participants were 21 children (mean age=3.0±0.80 years, range=1.5-4.0 yrs;
60% girls) identified as having difficulty initiating sleep, night waking, or a combination of
both, and their mothers (M age=36.1±4.2 years).
Interventions: Mothers attended two group sessions which included basic sleep education
(sleep needs, sleep architecture, sleep homeostasis) and bedtime fading instruction.
Measurements and Results: Primary outcome variables were sleep onset latency (SOL),
wake after sleep onset (WASO), and bedtime tantrums, measured using 2-week maternal
report sleep diaries. Immediate improvements were observed over pre-treatment to treatment
in average SOL per night (M=23.2±11.3min vs M=13.0±7.3min, d=0.91), average WASO per
night (M=32.4±23.1min vs. M=24.0±18.3min, d=0.41), and number of bedtime tantrums per
week (M=1.7±3.0 vs. M=0.4±0.7, d=0.43). Treatment gains were maintained at 2-year
follow-up. Mothers rated bedtime fading highly in terms of usefulness and satisfaction, and
could successfully re-implement treatment when needed.
Conclusions: Bedtime fading is a brief and promising intervention for pre-schoolers’ sleep
difficulties. This simple intervention can be easily implemented by parents in the home with
little instruction, resulting in improvements to sleep and bedtime tantrums
Educating professionals who will work with children in the early years: an evidence-informed interdisciplinary framework
Get PDF© 2018 TACTYC
“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Early Years on 6 July 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09575146.2018.1488819”
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (July 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThe first five years of a child’s life are irrefutably important, establishing life-long health, social and economic outcomes. To optimize these outcomes, global policy is directing professionals from a range of disciplinary backgrounds to work more collaboratively than ever before with children in the early years. Such collaborations have proven problematic as individual disciplines and pre-service education requirements vary widely. Using Community-Based Participatory Research and Diffusion of Innovation approaches, this study aimed to develop an educational framework for professionals working with children in the early years and their families, to begin a cultural change for interdisciplinary collaboration and participation across the early years. Systematic reviews, modified Delphi rounds and focus groups identified the diverse demands of multiple professions, qualification levels and workforce agendas, as well as highlighting shared outcomes, knowledge and intentions across disciplines
Health system barriers influencing perinatal survival in mountain villages of Nepal: implications for future policies and practices
Get PDFThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background
This paper aims to examine the health care contexts shaping perinatal survival in remote mountain villages of Nepal. Health care is provided through health services to a primary health care level—comprising district hospital, village health facilities and community-based health services. The paper discusses the implications for future policies and practice to improve health access and outcomes related to perinatal health. The study was conducted in two remote mountain villages in one of the most remote and disadvantaged mountain districts of Nepal. The district is reported to rank as the country’s lowest on the Human Development Index and to have the worst child survival rates. The two villages provided a diversity of socio-cultural and health service contexts within a highly disadvantaged region.
Methods
The study findings are based on a qualitative study of 42 interviews with women and their families who had experienced perinatal deaths. These interviews were supplemented with 20 interviews with health service providers, female health volunteers, local stakeholders, traditional healers and other support staff. The data were analysed by employing an inductive thematic analysis technique.
Results
Three key themes emerged from the study related to health care delivery contexts: (1) Primary health care approach: low focus on engagement and empowerment; (2) Quality of care: poor acceptance, feeling unsafe and uncomfortable in health facilities; and (3) Health governance: failures in delivering health services during pregnancy and childbirth.
Conclusions
The continuing high perinatal mortality rates in the mountains of Nepal are not being addressed due to declining standards in the primary health care approach, health providers’ professional misbehaviour, local health governance failures, and the lack of cultural acceptance of formalised care by the local communities. In order to further accelerate perinatal survival in the region, policy makers and programme implementers need to immediately address these contextual factors at local health service delivery points.The principal author (MP) received postgraduate scholarship and research student maintenance support for this study
Resting cranial and upper cervical muscle activity is increased in patients with migraine
Get PDFThis work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Flinders
Medical Centre Foundation, the Clinician’s Special
Purpose Fund of the Flinders Medical Centre, and an equipment grant from the
Wellcome Trust, London, U.K.Objective: To compare comprehensive measures of scalp-recorded muscle activity in
migraineurs and controls.
Method: We used whole-of-head high-density scalp electrical recordings, independent
component analysis (ICA) and spectral slope of the derived components, to define muscle
(electromyogram-containing) components. After projecting muscle components back to
scalp, we quantified scalp spectral power in the frequency range, 52-98 Hz, reflecting muscle
activation. We compared healthy subjects (n=65) and migraineurs during a non-headache
period (n=26). We also examined effects due to migraine severity, gender, scalp-region and
task (eyes-closed and eyes-open). We could not examine the effect of pre-ictal vs inter-ictal
vs post-ictal as this information was not available in the pre-existing dataset.
Results: There was more power due to muscle activity (mean ± SEM) in migraineurs than
controls (respectively, -13.61 ± 0.44 dB vs -14.73 ± 0.24 dB, p=0.028). Linear regression
showed no relationship between headache frequency and muscle activity in any combination
of region and task. There was more power during eyes-open than eyes-closed (respectively, -
13.42 ± 0.34 dB vs -14.92 ± 0.34 dB, p=0.002).
Conclusions: There is an increase in cranial and upper cervical muscle activity in non-ictal
migraineurs versus controls. This raises questions of the role of muscle in migraine, and the
possible differentiation of non-ictal phases.
Significance: This provides preliminary evidence to date of possible cranial muscle
involvement in migraine.
Keywords
Assessing levels of student nurse learning in community based health placement with vulnerable families: Knowledge development for future clinical practice
Get PDFBackground: Community services work with vulnerable families to assist them to link with
health, education and welfare services. Community placements provide nursing students
with understandings of the health impacts of social circumstances on broad population’s.
Nurses provide health care for vulnerable populations so it is important for students to gain
experience in dealing with various population groups in a variety of settings. Community
placements can increase student confidence to provide care for all people in the acute care
setting.
Objectives: The research project explored the use of a community placement to assist
nursing students in applying psychosocial theories to practice; determining the affect of
nursing students to the community service; and if the learning achieved in the placement
was applicable to their future nursing practice were also objectives of the research.
Design: The mixed methods design used placement suitability focused questionnaires, and
student, staff and clinical supervisor one-to-one interviews.
Settings: In 2015 a community based homelessness service which provides a home visiting
service approached the School of Nursing and Midwifery to provide a community placement
for nursing students.. The urban homelessness service caters for 350 homeless clients per
month.
Participants: Eight second year nursing students and six fulltime homelessness staff, mainly
social workers, participated in the surveys and interviews.
Methods: Nursing students were ‘buddied’ with a social worker and visited individuals and
families recently placed in emergency housing. The student nurses (8) and homelessness
staff (6) were surveyed and interviewed about their knowledge, skills and perceptions about
the value of community based placements.
Results: Findings indicate student’s recognition of the skills to be learned in a non-acute
setting are applicable to all clinical settings and enhance student knowledge and potential
future care. The staff in the homelessness service espouse the enhancement provided by
the expertise of the nursing students working with vulnerable populations. This paper
highlights the benefits as perceived by students on often undervalued community based
placements.
Conclusions: It is essential that universities collaborate with industry and consumers to
ensure that the undergraduate programs offer a high standard of care and address current
trends in the health care industry. There is a growing need for workforce development in
primary healthcare and an increased understanding about how adversity can lead to ill
health
A cell-based assay for the detection of pathogenic anti-voltage-gated calcium channel autoantibodies in immunoglobulin G from patients with type 1 diabetes
Get PDFRecent studies have postulated the presence of functional autoantibodies (Abs) against L-type voltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs) in the serum of patients with type 1 diabetes, with various proposed physiological consequences, both islet cell associated and extra-glandular. Arguably, the most potentially damaging effect reported for these Abs is induction of apoptosis in pancreatic beta (β) cells, yet a convincing pathogenic mechanism remains to be demonstrated. In the current study, we report an assay of reactive oxygen species (ROS) stress induction in the rat insulinoma cell line Rin A12, as determined by 2′, 7′-Dichlorofluorescein diacetate (DCF-DA) fluorescence detection by flow cytometry. We demonstrate that incubation of Rin A12 cells with immunoglobulin G (IgG) containing anti-VGCC activity from patients with T1D mediates a significant increase in ROS, with subsequent induction of apoptosis, as determined by positivity for annexin V expression. Neither T1D patient-derived IgG lacking anti-VGCC activity or IgG from healthy donors altered ROS or annexin V expression, indicating the new assay is specific for the detection of functional anti-VGCC Abs. Subsequent screening of IgG samples derived from individual patients indicated a prevalence of approximately 75% in a cohort of 20 patients with T1D. The new cell-based assay provides, for the first time, experimental evidence supporting a plausible pathophysiological mechanism underlying anti-VGCC Ab-mediated apoptosis induction in β cells. Additionally, the assay is a considerable advance on previously published methods for detecting and characterising the functional activity of anti-VGCC Abs in patient-derived samples
Angiogenic and Immunologic Proteins Identified by Deep Proteomic Profiling of Human Retinal and Choroidal Vascular Endothelial Cells: Potential Targets for New Biologic Drugs
Get PDFThis manuscript version is made
available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
This author accepted manuscript is made available following 12 month embargo from date of publication (March 2018) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyPurpose
Diseases that involve retinal or choroidal vascular endothelial cells are leading causes of vision loss: age-related macular degeneration, retinal ischemic vasculopathies, and noninfectious posterior uveitis. Proteins differentially expressed by these endothelial cell populations are potential drug targets. We used deep proteomic profiling to define the molecular phenotype of human retinal and choroidal endothelial cells at the protein level.
Methods
Retinal and choroidal vascular endothelial cells were separately isolated from 5 human eye pairs by selection on CD31. Total protein was extracted and digested, and peptide fractions were analyzed by reverse-phase liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Peptide sequences were assigned to fragment ion spectra, and proteins were inferred from openly accessible protein databases. Protein abundance was determined by spectral counting. Publicly available software packages were used to identify proteins that were differentially expressed between human retinal and choroidal endothelial cells, and to classify proteins that were highly abundant in each endothelial cell population.
Results
Human retinal and/or choroidal vascular endothelial cells expressed 5042 nonredundant proteins. Setting the differential expression false discovery rate at 0.05, 498 proteins of 3454 quantifiable proteins (14.4%) with minimum mean spectral counts of 2.5 were differentially abundant in the 2 cell populations. Retinal and choroidal endothelial cells were enriched in angiogenic proteins, and retinal endothelial cells were also enriched in immunologic proteins.
Conclusions
This work describes the different protein expression profiles of human retinal and choroidal vascular endothelial cells, and provides multiple candidates for further study as novel treatments or drug targets for posterior eye diseases.NOTE: Publication of this article is sponsored by the American Ophthalmological Society
Guided Web-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Perfectionism: Results From Two Different Randomized Controlled Trials
Get PDFOriginally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 26.04.2018.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Background: Perfectionism can become a debilitating condition that may negatively affect functioning in multiple areas, including mental health. Prior research has indicated that internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy can be beneficial, but few studies have included follow-up data.
Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the outcomes at follow-up of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy with guided self-help, delivered as 2 separate randomized controlled trials conducted in Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Methods: In total, 120 participants randomly assigned to internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy were included in both intention-to-treat and completer analyses: 78 in the Swedish trial and 62 in the UK trial. The primary outcome measure was the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, Concern over Mistakes subscale (FMPS CM). Secondary outcome measures varied between the trials and consisted of the Clinical Perfectionism Questionnaire (CPQ; both trials), the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; Swedish trial), the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7; Swedish trial), and the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21; UK trial). Follow-up occurred after 6 months for the UK trial and after 12 months for the Swedish trial.
Results: Analysis of covariance revealed a significant difference between pretreatment and follow-up in both studies. Intention-to-treat within-group Cohen d effect sizes were 1.21 (Swedish trial; 95% CI 0.86-1.54) and 1.24 (UK trial; 95% CI 0.85-1.62) for the FMPS CM. Furthermore, 29 (59%; Swedish trial) and 15 (43%; UK trial) of the participants met the criteria for recovery on the FMPS CM. Improvements were also significant for the CPQ, with effect sizes of 1.32 (Swedish trial; 95% CI 0.97-1.66) and 1.49 (UK trial; 95% CI 1.09-1.88); the PHQ-9, effect size 0.60 (95% CI 0.28-0.92); the GAD-7, effect size 0.67 (95% CI 0.34-0.99); and the DASS-21, effect size 0.50 (95% CI 0.13-0.85).
Conclusions: The results are promising for the use of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy as a way of targeting perfectionism, but the findings need to be replicated and include a comparison condition