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The Dynamics of Immigration and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Japan: How and Why Changes in Immigrant share Affect Attitudes towards Immigration in a Newly Diversifying Society
No full textExtensive research investigates how immigration shapes natives’ anti-immigrant sentiment. However, several areas require further scrutiny. This paper explores how processes of immigration affect anti-immigrant sentiment in a new immigration destination country – Japan – drawing on longitudinal data to examine these processes over time, and explicitly testing the mechanisms of perceived-threat and intergroup-contact posited to underpin this relationship. Through this analysis the paper aims to: examine how generalizable the immigrant share/immigration attitudes theoretical framework is to non-Western societies; refine our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning this relationship; and more robustly test its causal assumptions. To pursue these aims the study draws on two sets of nationally-representative Japanese data, designed to generate complementary insights, including: four-waves of longitudinal panel data (2008-2014) and a unique cross-sectional dataset containing measures of perceived-threat and contact. Applying multilevel and fixed-effects panel data approaches, the findings demonstrate that as immigration increases in Japanese prefectures and municipalities, residents become increasingly averse towards immigration (although there is some evidence of non-linearity at the municipality-level, with sentiment improving again in high immigrant share environments). This overall relationship appears largely driven by two competing processes. In higher immigrant share environments, perceived-threat is higher, increasing anti-immigrant sentiment. However, concurrently, intergroup contact also increases in these environments, reducing anti-immigrant sentiment. Therefore, despite the overall negative relationship (driven primarily by perceived-threat), rising contact exerts a countervailing positive effect as immigration increases. Taken together, this research demonstrates that theories of attitudinal-change with higher immigration, developed within Western-contexts, also appear salient for newer-destination, non-Western societies
Data protection, information governance and the potential erosion of ethnographic methods in healthcare?
No full textWith the most recent developments to the European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) introduced in May 2018, the resulting legislation meant a new set of considerations for study approvers and healthcare researchers. Compared to previous legislation in the UK (The Data Protection Act, 1998), it introduced more extensive and directive principles, requiring anybody ‘processing’ personal data to specifically define how this data will be obtained, stored, used and destroyed. Importantly, it also emphasised the principle of accountability, which meant that data controllers and processors could no longer just state that they planned to adhere to lawful data protection principles, they also had to demonstrate compliance. New questions and concerns around accountability now appear to have increased levels of scrutiny in all areas of Information Governance (IG), especially with regards to processing confidential patient information. This article explores our experiences of gaining required ethical and regulatory approvals for an ethnographic study in a UK healthcare setting, the implications that the common law duty of confidentiality had for this research, and the ways in which IG challenges were overcome. The purpose of this article is to equip researchers embarking on similar projects to be able to navigate the potentially problematic and complex journey to approval
Assessing the Risk of Resistance to Cationic Biocides incorporating Realism-based and Biophysical Approaches
No full textThe control of microorganisms is a key objective in disease prevention and in medical, industrial, domestic and food-production environments. Whilst the effectiveness of biocides in these contexts is well-evidenced, debate continues about the resistance risks associated with their use. This has driven an increased regulatory burden, which in turn could result in a reduction of both the deployment of current biocides and the development of new compounds and formulas. Efforts to balance risk and benefit are therefore of critical importance and should be underpinned by realistic methods and a multi-disciplinary approach, and through objective and critical analyses of the literature. The current literature on this topic can be difficult to navigate. Much of the evidence for potential issues of resistance generation by biocides is based on either correlation analysis of isolated bacteria, where reports of treatment failure are generally uncommon, or laboratory studies that do not necessarily represent real biocide applications. This is complicated by inconsistencies in the definition of the term resistance. Similar uncertainties also apply to co-resistance between biocides and antibiotics. Risk assessment studies that can better inform practice are required. The resulting knowledge can be utilised by multiple stakeholders including those tasked with new product development, regulatory authorities, clinical practitioners, and the public. This review considers current evidence for resistance and co-resistance and outlines efforts to increase realism in risk assessment. This is done in the background of the discussion of the mode of application of biocides and the demonstrable benefits as well as the potential risks
Measurements of the diffuse Galactic synchrotron spectral index and curvature from MeerKLASS pilot data
No full text21cm intensity mapping experiments are bringing an influx of high spectral resolution observational data in the ∼ 100 MHz – 1 GHz regime. We use pilot 971 − 1075 MHz data from MeerKAT in single-dish mode, recently used to test the calibration and data reduction scheme of the upcoming MeerKLASS survey, to probe the spectral index of diffuse synchrotron emission below 1 GHz within 145◦ < 𝛼 < 180◦, −1◦ < 𝛿 < 8◦. Through comparisons with datafrom the OVRO Long Wavelength Array and the Maipu and MU surveys, we find an average spectral index of −2.75 < 𝛽 < −2.71 between 45 and 1055 MHz. By fitting for spectral curvature with a spectral index of the form 𝛽 + 𝑐 ln(𝜈/73 MHz), we measure 𝛽 = −2.55±0.13 and 𝑐 = −0.12 ± 0.05 within our target field. Our results are in good agreement (within 1𝜎) with existing measurements from experiments such as ARCADE2 and EDGES. These results show the calibration accuracy of current data and demonstrate that MeerKLASS will also be capable of achieving a secondary science goal of probing the interstellar medium
Structuralist Analysis For Neural Network System Diagrams
No full textThis paper examines diagrams describing neural network systems in academic conference proceedings. Many aspects of scholarly communication are controlled, particularly with relation to text and for- matting, but often diagrams are not centrally curated beyond a peer review. Using a corpus-based approach, we argue that the heterogeneous diagrammatic notations used for neural network systems have implications for signification in this domain. We divide this into two questions (i) what content is being represented and (ii) how relations are encoded. Using a novel structuralist framework, we use a corpus analysis to quantitatively cluster diagrams according to the author's representational choices. This quantitative diagram classification in a heterogeneous domain may provide a foundation for categorising representational properties of diagrams
Hybridization as practice: clinical engagement with performance metrics and accounting technologies in the English NHS
No full textPurpose: This study aims to investigate the hybridization practices which medical managers engage with to promote accounting and performance measurement in the hybrid setting of healthcare. In doing so, the authors explore how medical managers enact and become practitioners of hybridity.Design/methodology/approach: The authors adopt a practice lens to conceptualize hybridization as an emergent, situated practice and capture the micro-activities that medical managers engage with when they enact hybridity. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with medical managers, business managers and coding professionals and collected documents at an English NHS hospital over the course of five years.Findings: The findings accentuate two emergent practices through which medical managers instil hybridity to individuals who are hesitant or resistant to hybridization. Medical managers engage in equivocalizing and destigmatizing practices to broaden the understandings, further diversify or reconcile the teleologies of clinicians in non-managerial roles. In doing so, they signal the merits of accounting in improving care outcomes and remove the stigma associated to clinical engagement with costs.Originality/value: The study contributes to hybridization and practice theory literature via capturing how hybridity is enacted in practice in a healthcare setting. As medical managers engage with and promote accounting information and performance measurement technologies in their practice environment, they transcend professional boundaries and hybridize the professional spaces that surround them
A Systematic Review of Randomised Controlled Trials of Psychosocial Interventions for Acute Mental Health Inpatients
No full textQuenched Local Limit Theorem for Random Walks Among Time-Dependent Ergodic Degenerate Weights
No full textWe establish a quenched local central limit theorem for the dynamic random conductance model on Zd only assuming ergodicity with respect to spacetime shifts and a moment condition. As a key analytic ingredient we show H¨older continuity estimates for solutions to the heat equation for discrete finite difference operators in divergence form with time-dependent degenerate weights. The proof is based on De Giorgi’s iteration technique. In addition, we also derive a quenched local central limit theorem for the static random conductance model on a class of random graphs with degenerate ergodic weights
Substrate sulfoxidation by a biomimetic cytochrome P450 Compound I mimic: How do porphyrin and phthalocyanine equatorial ligand compare?
No full textThe cytochrome P450 enzymes are important enzymes in the liver that trigger drug metabolism reactions. In biotechnology and biomimetic chemistry, synthetic models of the active species of P450 have been developed and designed and often react differently. Here, we investigate a biomimetic P450 model complex with phthalocyanine equatorial ligand rather than heme or porphyrin and with and without four tert-butyl substituents to the periphery of the ligand. Density functional theory studies on the electronic properties of the iron(IV)-oxo ligand cation radical species and its reactivity in oxygen atom transfer were studied. The work shows that a phthalocyanine equatorial ligand rather than porphyrin leads to a dramatic effect on the orbital energy levels of the iron(IV)-oxo species and creates a species with close-lying doublet and quartet spin states with two unpaired electrons in *xz and *yz for the FeO interaction coupled to a ligand radical in an a1u-type orbital. The latter contrasts P450 Compound I that has the a1u orbital doubly occupied and a singly occupied a2u orbital instead, As a consequence, our biomimetic model gives a reduced redox potential as compared to a system with a porphyrin-based ligand. Nevertheless, the iron(IV)-oxo cation radical species with phthalocyanine ligand is shown to react with para-X-substituted thioanisole (X = CH3, Cl, CN, H, NO2, OCH3) substrates with small oxygen atom transfer barriers that align with the -Hammett parameter. The reactions are concerted with a single barrier leading to sulfoxide products