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Australian fathers and the adoption of their biological child:Disenfranchisement, impact and life-long consequences
No full textInternational adoption literature has revealed much about the impact of an adoption process on birth mothers and birth parents. However, published research insufficiently reflects separately on the experiences of birth fathers, a significantly marginalised and silent population. Grief similar to that of birth mothers associated with the adoption of a child experienced by birth fathers is complicated by feelings of disenfranchisement, shame, guilt, and stigma. This is also compounded by the continued psychological presence of the child in their lives. This paper reports on Australian birth fathers’ experiences of the adoption of their biological child. Interviews were conducted with twenty-six participants. An interpretivist model informed by a hermeneutic phenomenological approach enhanced the analysis of data from in-depth qualitative interviews and qualitative responses. Key findings highlighted the long- term permanent impact of the adoption events on birth fathers. Birth fathers’ exclusion, invisibility and disenfranchisement worsened their often-negative experiences. The lack of acknowledgement of their fatherhood on the birth certificate was a significant issue of dissatisfaction. Later-life contact and reunion were identified as issues with the potential to alleviate complicated grief and feelings of ambiguous loss. This research contributes helpful insights to assist governments, policy makers and practitioners in future adoption practices.</p
On the Periodic Service Scheduling Problem with Non-Uniform Demands
Get PDFThis paper introduces the Periodic Service Scheduling Problem with Non-uniform Demands, in which the best service policy for a set of customers with periodically recurring demand through a given finite planning horizon has to be determined. Service to customers is provided at every time period by a set of potential service providers, each of them with an activation cost and a capacity. The decisions to be made include the servers to be activated at each time period together with a service schedule and server allocation for every customer that respect the periodicity of customer demand and the capacity of the activated servers, which minimize the total cost of the activated servers. We give a first Integer Linear Programming formulation with one set of decision variables associated with each of the decisions of the problem. Afterwards, we develop a logic-based Benders reformulation where one set of variables is projected out and constraints that guarantee the feasibility of the solutions are introduced. The separation problem for the new set of constraints is studied, and an exact Branch & Logic-Benders-Cut algorithm for the reformulation is proposed together with several variations and enhancements. The particular cases in which all servers are identical and in which all parameters are time-invariant are also studied. Extensive computational experiments assess the superiority of the logic-based Benders reformulation over the first formulation
AI & collective memory
Get PDFIn this review, I show how Generative AI (GAI) utterly transforms how we represent, access, expose and cover, find and lose, sanitise and toxify, use and abuse, and communicate with, the past. The term ‘collective memory’ has become common parlance for an array of constructive and nefarious uses of the shared past. It is often seen as related to the lifespan of an individual, or a group or generation who lived through or experienced a particular era or event, affording some kind of shared experience that is strengthened by the presence of or connection to others in common. In this way, the collective, as with an individual's memory has its limits, it dies out. However, particularly since the late twentieth century, the term has acquired a mythical form, with publics, institutions and scholars, imagining in its nature, function and extended duration, for a variety of ends. These imaginaries are often tied to assumptions around the unifying nature of the technologies and media of memory of the day. I argue here that today's agentic turn by contrast offers no such prospects for collective memory, mythical or otherwise. Rather, Generative and Agentic AI's extracting, remixing and replaying of interactions, shards you and your identities anew, rendering it difficult to imagine a group, experience or event, around which a collective memory could cohere. Instead, individuals and societies are subject to a black box memory of impossible provenance, where human agency in shaping what the past becomes is in retreat.</p
Validating the children's eating behaviour questionnaire in a UK sample:A suitable tool for mothers and fathers
No full textChildren's eating behaviour is a complex construct linked to various health, social, and psychological outcomes. The Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ)assesses parents' perceptions of children's eating behaviours across eight subscales: food fussiness, enjoyment of food, food responsiveness, satiety responsiveness, desire to drink, slowness in eating, and emotional under- and overeating. Given that the initial validation of the CEBQ dates back to the early 2000s, this study aimed to (1) evaluate the psychometric properties of the CEBQ in a UK sample using current psychometric recommendations and (2) examine its measurement invariance based on parental sex. A total of 994 caregivers (196 fathers and 798 mothers) of children aged 3–5 years completed the questionnaire. The performance of the scale revealed that 23 items exhibited ceiling or floor effects or failed to meet recommended item-total correlation coefficients. Exploratory factor analysis supported an eight-factor, 34-item structure, which was confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis: X2 = 2129.845 (df = 499; p &lt; 0.001), TLI = 0.911, CFI = 0.921, RMSEA = 0.083 (90 % CI 0.079–0.087) and SRMR = 0.080. All factors demonstrated adequate internal consistency (omega 3 values over 0.7). Measurement invariance testing confirmed strict invariance by parental sex, indicating the instrument performs equivalently for mothers and fathers. These findings support the use of the revised 34-item CEBQ with its eight original factors for both maternal and paternal respondents. However, future research should consider revising certain CEBQ items included to strengthen its capacity to capture variations in children's eating behaviour, and to provide a more accurate evaluation of the construct.</p
Does understanding moderate aesthetic appraisals of proofs?
Get PDFThe relationship between understanding and aesthetic appraisal in mathematics is an open question, with implications for both the philosophy of mathematics and mathematics education. In this study, we investigated how undergraduate students’ understanding of a mathematical proof relates to their perception of its aesthetic value. Participants were asked to evaluate the proof's aesthetics and to complete three different assessments of their understanding. The results reveal that self-reported understanding was moderately associated with aesthetic appraisals, while two performance-based measures of understanding showed close-to-zero relationships. These findings challenge the view that aesthetic judgements in mathematics are merely disguised epistemic judgements, and suggest that future research should focus on exploring the non-epistemic factors that shape aesthetic judgements. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for educational practices that seek to promote aesthetic experiences.</p
Gender, sexuality and viral safety: A mixed-methods examination of the negotiation of risk and precautions through dating apps during a pandemic
No full textThis paper examines the role of dating apps as mediators of intimacy and risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing quantitative and qualitative data from a UK based study of heterosexual and LGBQ+ people’s (lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer plus ‘other’ identified) dating app use, we investigate how users navigated the tensions between their desires for intimate and social connections and the imperatives of viral safety. Existing studies of dating app use tend to be based on samples of mostly heterosexual people, with unidentified or small numbers of LGBQ+ people. This undermines a fuller understanding of the potentially diverse ways in which gender and sexuality interact to shape the negotiation of risk. The paper examines study participants’ practices in negotiating viral risk in app-based interactions, and positions dating apps as actors within broader sociocultural and public health contexts. We argue that while dating apps have potential to facilitate intimacy and viral safety in future pandemics, their use raises sidelined challenges for health promotion that are linked partially to the interaction of gender and sexuality, but more so to trust
EARLY LIFE ENRICHMENT AND CHICK BEHAVIOR : The effect of light during incubation and dark shelter enrichment on chick growth and behavior
No full textEarly-life conditions can influence chick development and welfare. In this study, we investigated the effect of light exposure during incubation, and a post-hatch dark shelter enrichment, on layer chick growth and behavior. White Leghorn chicken eggs were incubated under either full-spectrum white light (24L:0D) or darkness (0L:24D) in temperature-compensated photoperiodic boxes. After hatching, chicks were reared in either standard pens or pens with a dark shelter enrichment. The study was conducted using four cohorts of chicks, resulting in eight replicates per treatment combination. All cohorts were used to assess chick growth; three cohorts were used to measure behavioral time budgets and interaction with the dark shelter, and the final cohort was used to examine behavior while inside the dark shelter. Chick behavioral time budgets and dark shelter use was continuously recorded via video over four weeks and quantified. Hatching success was not affected by light during incubation but there were age- and sex-specific effects on body weight by four weeks, female chicks incubated under light, tended to be heavier than those incubated under dark conditions. The dark shelter enrichment reduced overall chick activity and foraging while increasing resting behavior, with effects dependent on incubation treatment and age. In response to enrichment, light-incubated chicks showed decreased activity and foraging, and increased resting, compared to dark-incubated chicks. In contrast, in standard pens, light-incubated chicks were more active and foraged more than dark-incubated chicks. Our novel findings show that light exposure during incubation shapes early-life behavior in layer chicks and modulates their responses to dark shelter enrichment. Further research is required to determine whether lighted incubation and post-hatch dark shelter enrichment improve layer pullet long-term welfare
The race for carbon pricing among firms
No full textAlthough carbon pricing should have a nontrivial impact on environmental performance of firms, prior studies have paid little attention to the type and number of carbon pricing mechanisms (CPMs) that firms deploy simultaneously. In this study, we analyze multiple CPMs within a single framework: mandatory CPMs including carbon trading on compliance markets and carbon tax as well as a voluntary CPM, i.e., internal carbon pricing. Using a sample of 2303 firms with one or more CPMs, we capture the relative impact of the presence of single and multiple CPMs on firms' environmental performance measured through carbon intensity, energy intensity, and environmental score. The results show that while carbon tax can independently provide significant improvements in environmental performance, carbon trading and internal carbon pricing are ineffective on their own, and can even be detrimental in some cases. Our findings suggest that voluntary action is most impactful when embedded within a credible regulatory framework, reinforcing the need for well-designed, predictable, and enforceable carbon pricing policies. A hybrid approach that integrates both mandatory instruments and voluntary corporate initiatives offers the most promising pathway toward effective decarbonization.</p
Cerebral ischaemic stroke results in altered mucosal antibody responses and host-commensal microbiota interactions
Get PDFStroke is a devastating neurological event with a high risk of mortality that results in long-term sequalae that extend beyond the central nervous system. Notably these include gastrointestinal dysfunction and altered composition of the commensal microbiota in both patients and mouse models, which have been suggested to contribute to secondary infection and poor clinical outcomes following stroke. Strikingly, changes in commensal microbial community composition occur rapidly following stroke and correlate with disease severity. Despite these observations, the underpinning mechanisms that drive perturbation of the microbiota post-stroke remain poorly understood. The gastrointestinal tract is home to a complex network of tissue-resident immune cells that maintain homeostatic interactions with commensal microbes and prevent bacterial-driven inflammation. Here we demonstrate mice subjected to ischaemic stroke exhibit alterations in the intestinal immune system, most notably in class switched germinal centre B cells and the production of Immunoglobulin A (IgA) - a major effector response against commensal microbes. Mice lacking secretory antibodies, including IgA, exhibited a partial reversion of stroke-induced changes in microbiota composition. Together these findings demonstrate stroke is associated with dysregulation of antibody producing immune responses, which may in part explain changes in the intestinal microbiota. A mechanistic understanding of the immunological basis of stroke-associated pathologies in the periphery may open new avenues to manage the secondary complications and long-term prognosis of patients suffering from neurological disease.</p
Metastatic gastric squamous cell carcinoma in a western grey kangaroo
Get PDFAn adult male western grey kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus) developed lameness, a stiff gait, and weight loss, and deteriorated despite medical treatment. Postmortem examination revealed a primary gastric squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) with associated cardiac, pulmonary, diaphragmatic, hepatic, and vertebral metastases with lytic bone lesions. Before histologic examination, the macroscopic appearance of the liver lesions had raised concerns about mycobacteriosis. Metastatic gastric SCC has not been reported previously in a western grey kangaroo, to our knowledge
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