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Gendered dimensions of commercial agriculture and subjective wellbeing in rural Nepal
No full textAgricultural commercialisation is often portrayed as a way to improve the lives of rural people in low-income countries. However, its impacts are evaluated through agronomic yields and economic returns, with little attention paid to how it shapes people’s subjective wellbeing. This article addresses that omission by examining the relationship between cash‐crop production and life satisfaction using gendered linear regression analysis of data from 791 smallholders in rural Nepal. We measure subjective wellbeing using a single question on satisfaction with life and employ a range of quantitative techniques to isolate the association between commercial cardamom farming and life satisfaction. Our results reveal a robust, positive association: cardamom producers report significantly higher life satisfaction than non‐producers, even after controlling for landholding, assets, health, marital status, caste, and demographic variables. Gender‐disaggregated analyses show the effect holds for women and men, though women’s life satisfaction is also influenced by their involvement in decision‐making. Complementary qualitative insights attribute wellbeing gains not only to increased income and risk mitigation but also to reduced physical hardship compared with subsistence cropping. While quantitative wellbeing measures alone cannot fully encompass all relevant dimensions of gender equality, integrating gender-disaggregated subjective wellbeing measures into agricultural development assessments reveals hidden, social dimensions of commercialisation that are vital for gender‐sensitive, sustainable policy design
‘Being Real’ and ‘Being Boundaried’:A Qualitative Study of Practitioners' Provision of Authentic Care in a Service for Young Care Leavers
No full textThis study explores experiences of authentic care among practitioners and young people at The House Project, an organization supporting young people leaving care in the United Kingdom. We conducted observations, interviews and focus groups with a total of 41 practitioners and 37 young people in multiple local projects over the course of 2 years. The study offers three main findings. First, practitioners and young people place significant value on relationships of authentic care and perceive these as characterized by mutual self-disclosure, genuine emotional investment and practitioners' willingness to ‘go above and beyond’ in their work. Second, the provision of authentic care in a professional setting is subject to several challenges for practitioners: managing the heightened emotional impact of caring authentically for young people, maintaining balance and boundaries between work and home lives and navigating career transitions. Third, practitioners responded to these challenges through what we call ‘flexible boundary setting’ and by cultivating networks of support. Further research is needed to determine how to best support staff in the provision of authentic care.</p
Optimizing super-feature selection for machine learning-enhanced spectroscopic analysis in biomedical research
Get PDFPurposeMachine-learning-powered label-free infrared spectroscopic methods offer significant potential for diagnostic and biomedical applications. However, their applications have been limited by spectral noise, where critical features are often obscured by overlapping bands and data redundancy. Although various feature selection methods have been proposed, many suffer from limitations in consistency and interpretability. To address these challenges, we introduce a novel multi-model machine learning approach that integrates five distinct algorithms to identify a set of “super-features”—spectral features consistently deemed significant across all models.Principal resultsThis novel workflow outperforms traditional algorithms, achieving superior classification accuracy (>99%) in distinguishing infected from healthy cells, despite using fewer spectral features. To ensure robustness and generalizability, we developed a comprehensive validation strategy that includes independent classifier evaluations, label randomization, and unsupervised analyses. Importantly, the identified super-features accurately differentiated infection states across multiple time points and enhanced the biological interpretability of infection-associated biochemical changes.ConclusionsThese findings highlight the potential of advanced multi-model feature selection techniques to enhance the diagnostic power of spectroscopic data in biomedical research, offering high accuracy and valuable biological insights into infection progression
Kashmir Without History:Sheikh Abdullah, Jinnah and the Partition of India
Get PDFBefore 1947, Sheikh Abdullah, Kashmir’s leading thinker-politician and the arch-theorist of Indian federalism, produced a scalar conception of nationality which rested on a shared past. But the Partition of India required Abdullah to recalibrate his ideas for a new context. In a perverse acknowledgement of Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s anti-historical triumph, Abdullah realised that South Asians, compulsorily freed from the protracted narrative of India’s common inheritance, had to arrange their multi-ethnic unions on civic lines. And since India and Pakistan were suddenly at war over his Kashmiri homeland, Abdullah provided an especially intense meditation on Jinnah’s new-found intellectual hegemony, which had profound implications for multiple strains of Indian political thought. Forced to move beyond nature and history, Abdullah’s politics adopted a presentist accent, like Jinnah’s had from the very beginning of his career. As Abdullah contemplated Kashmiri futures from within (and outside) the Indian Union, he relied on conceptions of secular citizenship, self-determination, wealth redistribution, and socialist development. Therefore, Abdullah’s engagement with Jinnah was not restricted to a conceptual death of history alone, or even to disagreements on the twinned questions of federation and religious representation. It included a more foundational dispute: between their conflicting progressive and conservative political orientations
Characterisation of the UK domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) population for identification purposes using a forensically validated set of 13 autosomal STR markers
Get PDFCanine evidence in the UK is currently not being fully investigated, partly due to the lack of comprehensive genetic databases that are able to clarify the complexity of the highly inbred breeds that make up the canine population. The study here proposes the use of the CaDNAP markers, a forensically validated panel, to be applied to the wider UK canine population. For this purpose, over 1200 dogs have been genotyped for 13 STRs, belonging to 80 breeds. Mathematical corrections have been investigated to address the uneven breed distribution in the country in order to produce a more reliable allele frequency database for the whole UK canine population. In addition, a selection of the most common breeds (11) has been further investigated to produce allele frequency databases that are breed-specific with the aim of producing more accurate match probabilities should the breed of the animal of interest be known. The application of either set of frequencies has been scrutinized to evaluate their applicability in the field and are compared to current databases available in mainland Europe. A recommendation is made to use a minimum FST correction of 0.2 when estimating direct match likelihood ratios from whole country allele frequency databases.</p
Computational modelling reveals slower safety learning and threat extinction are associated with higher anxiety severity in remote fear conditioning
Get PDFAnxiety disorders are chronic, pervasive, and debilitating; characterised by a persistent or exaggerated response to distal or abstract threats. Impaired threat discrimination (distinguishing safe from threatening stimuli) and impaired threat extinction (learning a once threatening stimulus is now safe), are known risk factors in the development and persistence of anxiety disorders. These effects can be experimentally elicited through fear conditioning. First, repeated trials of paired aversive and neutral stimuli are delivered during a fear acquisition phase, followed by repeated trials with no aversive stimuli in a fear extinction phase. The effects are typically measured through comparison of end-phase data points, or simple descriptive or statistical models. Computational modelling, by contrast, can offer a hypothesis-driven, trial-by-trial mechanistic account of fear conditioning. This unmasks within subject task variance by estimating the rate of threat learning, safety learning, and threat extinction, examining individual differences in the cognitive mechanisms behind anxiety. A normative sample (n = 145) underwent a differential fear conditioning task on a bespoke smartphone app, in addition to completing an anxiety severity measure (GAD-7). Computational models fitted to task data estimated learning rates. Whilst the threat learning rate showed no association, the threat extinction and safety learning rates showed small negative associations with anxiety severity (ρ = –0.22, p = 0.01 & ρ = –0.21, p = 0.01 respectively). These findings are in keeping with prior studies using traditional analytical approaches, and indicate that anxious individuals are not quicker to develop fear of a stimulus, but take more time than their non-anxious counterparts to learn that a stimulus is safe. This study strengthens the evidence for impairments in fear extinction in those with anxiety, and the importance of learning rates as an index of anxiety severity, a previously hidden cognitive mechanism underlying anxiety persistence.</p
Relationship between Mediterranean diet and periodontal inflammation in a UK population:A cross-sectional study
No full textBackground: Evidence is emerging about the effects of a balanced nutrition in maintaining periodontal health. The aim of this project was to investigate the association between diet, severity of periodontitis, and periodontal and systemic inflammation. Methods: Two hundred consecutive hospital patients underwent a full periodontal assessment, had blood samples taken, and filled out a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Adherence to a Mediterranean-type diet was assessed through the FFQ. High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) serum levels of matrix metalloproteinases-8 (MMP-8), interleukin (IL)-1α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10, and IL-17 were analyzed. Correlation and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to test the relationships between dietary factors, inflammatory biomarkers, and clinical data. Results: A total of 195 patients had complete data, with 112 participants categorized as highly adherent to the Mediterranean diet. Multivariate analysis showed that low adherence to Mediterranean diet was associated to periodontitis stage III–IV (p = 0.055, odds ratio [OR] 0.35, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.12–0.89); among individual food groups, more frequent red meat consumption was independently associated with more severe periodontitis stage (p = 0.042, OR 2.75, 95% CI: 1.03–7.41). Periodontal disease severity showed moderate associations with both circulating hs-CRP and IL-6 in the univariate analysis, but only IL-6 association was confirmed after adjusting for confounders. Consumption of several plant-derived food groups was significantly inversely related to increased levels of hs-CRP, IL-1α, IL-6, IL-10, and IL-17. Conclusions: This study shows that low adherence to Mediterranean diet and higher red meat consumption may be associated with severity of periodontal disease. Studies with a larger sample size are needed to further clarify the current findings. Plain Language Summary: This study explored how everyday eating habits might impact gum health and overall inflammation. We evaluated 200 hospital patients by performing dental exams, taking blood samples, and asking them about their diets through questionnaires. In particular, we looked at how closely people followed a Mediterranean-style diet, known for its emphasis on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats. Our findings revealed that patients who did not follow the Mediterranean diet as closely tended to have more severe gum disease, especially if they consumed red meat frequently. We also observed that higher levels of a key inflammatory marker, such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), were linked to worse gum health, while diets rich in plant-based foods were associated with lower levels of various inflammatory markers. These results suggest that a balanced, Mediterranean-type diet could be important in reducing gum disease and systemic inflammation. Further studies with larger groups are needed to confirm these promising observations.</p
Optimal Design of Financial Rebates to Encourage Dental Visits
Get PDFObjectivesThe study seeks to assess the extent to which various levels of financial rebates affect the uptake of dental services.MethodsA total of 4400 adults from the Singapore Population Health Study were invited by mail to participate in a four-group experimental study. Each group was invited to complete a survey and offered a rebate (SGD 20, 50) for visiting a dental professional. The effect of rebates on dental uptake was assessed through modified Poisson regression and by tabulating average marginal effects. Subgroup analyses were carried out by sociodemographic factors. Log-log regression was carried out to assess rebate elasticity.ResultsThe overall survey response rate was 25.7 % (n = 1132). Dental uptake rates varied from 25.5 % (n = 65) for a 50 rebate. Compared to a 30 and 30 and above were associated with higher uptake rates among irregular dental attendees (Adj. PR 1.72 (95 % CI 1.08 – 2.74) and those staying in smaller public housing flats (Adj. PR 1.68 (95 % CI 1.07 – 2.66). The rebate elasticity was 0.36 (95 % CI 0.22 - 0.49).ConclusionsFinancial rebates have a positive impact on the uptake of dental services, particularly among irregular dental attendees and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups
Psychological Distress Predicts Disease Activity in Inflammatory Bowel Disease:Results from the Mind-Body IBD Longitudinal Study
Get PDFBackground & aims: Psychological distress (depression, anxiety, stress) is common in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and is linked to poorer outcomes, yet behavioural pathways and economic consequences remain unclear. This study tested a gut-brain-behaviour-outcome (GBBO) framework, testing: 1) reciprocal links between distress and disease activity; 2) whether health behaviours mediate distress-disease activity relationships; 3) if distress and self-reported disease activity (SRDA) predict adverse disease outcomes, controlling for inflammation and 4) whether disease activity mediates relationships between distress and adverse outcomes. Methods: IBD patients (n = 157) reported distress, health behaviours, SRDA, healthcare use and disease-related outcomes at 3 waves at 6-month intervals. Faecal calprotectin (FCP) was assayed at baseline and 6 months. Analyses were conducted using structural equation modelling and mixed-effects models. Results: Baseline distress predicted higher SRDA six months later (β = 0.16, p=.03) but did not predict FCP; reverse pathways were nonsignificant. Impaired sleep quality mediated 55 % of the effect of distress on future SRDA (β = 0.09, p=.04). Other behaviours were nonsignificant. Controlling for FCP, distress and SRDA independently predicted secondary healthcare usage (primary/secondary care) and disease-related outcomes (flare frequency/severity, absenteeism and productivity loss). FCP was positively related to flare frequency/severity and allied health practitioner visits only. Mediation analysis showed that SRDA partially mediated absenteeism. Conclusions: Psychological distress exacerbates symptoms and economic cost. Poor sleep partially mediates the relationship between distress and SRDA, but not inflammation. Psychological interventions that focus on improving sleep could be cost-effective ways to improve mental health and symptom burden, with downstream impact on healthcare utilisation and productivity losses.</p