10667 research outputs found
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Striving for gender equality: one step forward, two steps back?
No full textGender equality is a fundamental human right. Article 1 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women defines discrimination against women as: “any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.” It is essential that women are provided with equal access to essential public services, including education, housing and healthcare. Yet, too often women and girls are restricted or denied access from such services. There is still much work to be done to overcome discrimination and gender disparities in these areas.
Research suggests that women remain hugely disadvantaged, with the austerity agenda disproportionately affecting women. In addition to this, women are continually underrepresented in senior positions within both the public and the private sector and the gender pay gap also remains stubbornly high. Sexual violence, harassment and overt sex discrimination are still apparent and, arguably, have increased due to the seeming legitimisation of misogynist behaviour by those with power in public spheres, such as Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Milo Yiannopoulos. The #MeToo campaign took off on social media in 2017 and increased awareness as to the scale of sexual violence and harassment.
However, these issues are not new and yet, with the #MeToo and #Everydaysexism campaigns, have only recently become part of the public discourse.
The aims of this stream are to discuss gender disparities, sexual violence and discrimination both within public services and the private sector. This includes defining and challenging existing conceptions of empowerment and dominant discourses relating to gender equality. Too often research and discourses around gender equality view women as primary changemakers and problem solvers and require women to take action to address the disadvantages and discrimination they endure. This approach ignores the responsibility of men in addressing gender inequalities and violence as well as trivialising the role of historical, engrained disadvantage and institutional discrimination. The stream aims to discuss the extent and nature of progress in relation to gender equality. There has been more publicity and media attention recently, but this is reactive and is unlikely to provide solutions. Once the media furore dies down, how far will we have actually come in moving gender equality forward?
We would welcome papers which showcase research and activism around gender inequalities, particularly if they have implications for transforming organisational policies, procedures and structures and attempt to address institutional discrimination and gender based violence
Building communities and sharing knowledge: a study into teachers working together across national boundaries
No full textThis dissertation explores the types of professional communities that are built when teachers work in initiatives that, in various forms, link them to teachers from other countries. In doing so it explores the types of knowledge that may be exchanged by the building of these communities and the value that teachers put upon these different forms of knowledge. Therefore, this study is situated in the broad theoretical context of discussions related to the building of professional communities but explores this within a specifically international context. The most significant findings that this dissertation identifies are: that the teachers involved built the professional communities that are most important to them in more exploratory ways and with more agency than is suggested by other related research, and in connection to this that those professional communities that the participants attached most significance to were consistently alternative to the immediate workplace. It was also found that whilst the teachers involved in this study problematised the possibility of directly transferring specific classroom strategies, stories about teaching were seen by all to be useful vehicles for exchanging other forms of knowledge, for enabling affirmation and for co-constructing moral purpose. These findings have potential implications for policy and practice as they indicate that structures that focus exclusively on developing communities within schools may need to be enriched by those that provide teachers with the flexibility to discover and build communities in alternative ways too. The primary data collection method used when conducting this research was interview. The participants who were interviewed came from two countries, namely England and Macedonia. This entirely qualitative approach is positioned within an interpretivist paradigm. However, it is argued that contributions to theoretical debates regarding the nature of professional communities can still be made
SDQ: enabling rapid QoE experimentation using Software Defined Networking
No full textThe emerging network paradigm of Software Defined Networking (SDN) has been increasingly adopted to improve the Quality of Experiences (QoE) across multiple HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) instances. However, there is currently a gap between research and reality in this field. QoE models, which offer user-level context to network management processes, are often tested in a simulation environment. Such environments do not consider the effects that network protocols, client programs, and other real world factors may have on the outcomes. Ultimately, this can lead to models not functioning as expected in real networks. On the other hand, setting up an experiment that reflects reality is a time consuming process requiring expert knowledge. This paper shares designs and guidelines of an SDN experimentation framework (SDQ), which offers rapid evaluation of QoE models using real network infrastructures
An evolutionary history of defensins: a role for copy number variation in maximizing host innate and adaptive immune responses
Full text linkDefensins represent an evolutionary ancient family of antimicrobial peptides that play diverse roles in human health and disease. Defensins are cationic cysteine-containing multifunctional peptides predominantly expressed by epithelial cells or neutrophils. Defensins play a key role in host innate immune responses to infection and, in addition to their classically described role as antimicrobial peptides, have also been implicated in immune modulation, fertility, development, and wound healing. Aberrant expression of defensins is important in a number of inflammatory diseases as well as modulating host immune responses to bacteria, unicellular pathogens, and viruses. In parallel with their role in immunity, in other species, defensins have evolved alternative functions, including the control of coat color in dogs. Defensin genes reside in complex genomic regions that are prone to structural variations and some defensin family members exhibit copy number variation (CNV). Structural variations have mediated, and continue to influence, the diversification and expression of defensin family members. This review highlights the work currently being done to better understand the genomic architecture of the β-defensin locus. It evaluates current evidence linking defensin CNV to autoimmune disease (i.e., Crohn’s disease and psoriasis) as well as the contribution CNV has in influencing immune responses to HIV infection
Understanding the factors influencing consumers’ behaviour towards autonomous vehicles adoption
Full text linkIn this study, the key determinants or factors influencing consumers’ behavioural intention to accept autonomous vehicles (AVs) have been explored and tested. Although, there is a plethora of studies in the literature evaluating various technologies, most of the models of technology acceptance and theories selected are applied on barriers of successful IT implementation in organisations or generally on technologies that have long been deployed. There are very few studies conducted on disruptive technologies such as AV. In this paper, this issue has been addressed with the identification of context-related constructs partly re-trieved from existing literature, that describe a modelling process for a technol-ogy acceptance attempting to explain the main factors influencing people behav-ioural intention to adopt autonomous vehicle technology. Constructs such as trust, self-efficacy, anxiety, perceived safety and legal regulation have been con-sidered. The main contribution of the study is the detailed exploration on the us-ers’ acceptance of AV. We propose a theoretical model called Autonomous Ve-hicle Technology Acceptance Model (AVTAM) that gives us a better under-standing of what will eventually influence future AV customers. The main find-ings of this work suggest that users’ safety on the road, the cost associated to the technology and the trust on car manufacturers will play a very important role for large scale AV adoption
Resilience in mental health nurses working in secure environments
Full text linkThis study explored aspects of resilience as experienced by mental health nurses in a high secure service. The aim of this research was to explore resilience for the participants and to develop a concept analysis of resilience in settings of this kind. There have been many studies on the occupational challenges for nurses (Sabo 2006, Van Den Tooren and De Jonge 2008, Riahi 2011) although relatively few have focussed exclusively on mental health nurses (Jones et al 1987, Dunn and Ritter 1995, Nihiwatiwa 2001, Gilbody et al 2006). Several studies have noted distinct features of the work which are particular to mental health nurses: the intense nature of the interactions with patients (Cronin-Stubbs and Brophy 1985); the regular confrontation of difficult and challenging behaviours (Sullivan 1993); violence and threats from patients and relatives (Tillett 2003); and resources and staffing (Alexander et al 1998). Caring for patients with a personality disorder is noted in the literature as being particularly challenging and demanding for mental health nurses (Murphy and McVey 2003, Bowers 2002, Wright, Haigh and McKeown 2007, Westwood and Baker 2010, Bodner et al 2015, Dickens et al 2015, Dickens et al 2016. Mixed methodology was used to profile nurses’ resilience in this environment, using a validated questionnaire. In-depth semi-structured interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). A concept analysis of resilience in this environment was developed using the data gathered in this way, synthesised with existing literature. The profile of resilience demonstrated that that the majority of the respondents felt in control, enjoy a challenge, work to achieve goals and take pride in their achievements. The characteristics of ‘hardiness’, ‘bounce back’ and ‘cognitive appraisal’ emerged as key characteristics associated with resilience. Four superordinate themes emerged from the analysis of the staff interviews: management of emotions, teamwork, understanding and work-life balance. The theme of management of emotions highlighted that boundaries were necessary, and it was essential not to get caught up in the patients’ emotions. ‘Giving care’ rather than caring personally was felt to be important. Team work emerged as a key issue, and involved the need to talk things over with trusted colleagues, the expectation that team members and managers would notice and intervene when someone appeared to be in need of support; and having managers who were approachable and available. The theme of understanding included an awareness of the nature of personality disorders and the effect this can have on interactions; and a need for reflection, supervision and coping with interpersonal challenges was highlighted. All of the participants spoke of the need for a work-life balance, making a conscious effort to keep the worlds of work and home separate, keeping physically healthy, and spending time with family and friends. This was embodied in the phrase ‘leaving it at the gate’ which was used to characterise the separation of the two worlds. A concept analysis of resilience was developed by synthesising new empirical data along with existing literature. The study developed a practice-based definition of resilience in the context of working with personality disordered patients in a secure environment, together with the identification of characteristics of the workplace environment that can assist with and facilitate the capacity for ‘bouncing back’. The three main findings of the study were that the constituents of resilience in this staff group are hardiness, bounce back and cognitive appraisal. This adds new perspectives about what helps staff to work positively with challenging patients in mental health nursing. These new contributions to knowledge and practice can be used by organisations to develop targeted interventions in promoting wellbeing at work, reducing work related stress, and aiding recruitment and retention. In secure environments mental health nurses need organisational support and assistance with developing ways of managing difficult experiences with patients, systems that promote recovery, and the educational and supervisory support to help understand and process the effects on them
A comparison of protocols for measuring forces during landing on competition mats in gymnastics
Full text linkDuring apparatus dismounts gymnasts land from up to 4 m above the landing surface. The gymnast needs to withstand high impact forces and the use of landing mats allows gymnasts to attenuate the forces with their landing strategy and interaction with the landing mats. Competition landings from various gymnastics apparatus involve the use of a 200 mm thick landing mat, with an additional 100 mm thick mat placed on top. The purpose of this research was to investigate the experimental protocols for measuring forces using force platforms during landings on competition mats. Three experimental protocols were compared, each of which used a force platform underneath landing mats in various set-ups. In Protocol 1 the mats were placed directly onto the force platform; in Protocol 2 the mats were placed on an enlarged raised extension; in Protocol 3 smaller mats were used with the extension. Differences between the vertical landing velocities calculated from kinematic data and from force platform data were used to assess how much impulse was transferred to the force platform in each of the protocols. Protocol 3 was the preferred method for collecting landing forces and resulted in a mean percentage velocity absolute difference of less than 2% for both one-mat and two-mat conditions. This study demonstrates the importance of keeping the landing mats clear of the force platform surroundings during the whole of the landing phase
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