20 research outputs found
Gender and Transgender in Modern Paganism
Get PDFOpen Source Alexandrian and Witches’ Order of the Golden Dawn Collections.
New Age Movements, Occultism, and Spiritualism Research Library. Individual ArchivesPreface / Gina Pond (Little Crow) -- Gender and transgender in the Pagan community / Sarah Thompson -- The Goddess and transphobia / Amethyst Moonwater -- Who is Lilith's tribe / Anya Kless -- Response to the topic of Pantheacon, gender and the Amazon Rite of Lilith / Come As You Are Coven -- Witchcraft and sexuality : the last taboos / Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone -- Against duality / Jacobo Polanshek -- Polarity without gender / Helix -- Awakening the transsexual gods / Foxfetch -- Gender polarity in ritual and metaphysics / Kat Lunoe -- See me now / D.M. Atkins -- Boys shorts : an experience of gender and modern paganism / Lance Moore -- Walkers between worlds / Michael R. Gorman -- God as multigender deity / Philip Tanner -- The third voice / Raven Kaldera -- Twenty years in the Dianic Traditions / Ryiah Nevo -- Snapshots : musings on polarity and flow / T. Thorn Coyle -- Religious freedom : a Dianic perspective / Ruth Barrett -- Afterword / Sarah Thompson -- Glossary of terms -- Author biographies
Author Correction: Common variants in Alzheimer’s disease and risk stratification by polygenic risk scores (Nature Communications, (2021), 12, 1, (3417), 10.1038/s41467-021-22491-8)
No full textThe original version of this Article omitted from the author list the 212th author Patrizia Mecocci, who is from the Institute of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Department of Medicine, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy. Consequently, the “Sample Contribution” section of Author Contributions was updated to add “P.M” between “P.D.” and “R.C.”. Additionally, the original version of this Article contained the incorrect affiliation for author Patrick Gavin Kehoe, which incorrectly read “German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Berlin, Germany”. The correct version replaces this affiliation with “Bristol Medical School (THS), University of Bristol, Southmead Hospital, Bristol, UK”. This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article. © The Author(s) 2023
Inflation and economic activity in Suriname
Get PDFAbctract. Maintaining a low rate of inflation and sustainable economic growth are at the core of monetary policymaking. Price stability is considered a condition for a healthy macroeconomic environment which promotes sustainable growth and a low rate of inflation is necessary to maintain stability in the financial sector as well as to boost investment activities. Motivated by the largely-discussed relationship between inflation and output, this paper examines this relationship for the economy of Suriname over the period 1975 to 2015, utilizing a vector autoregressive model and impulse response functions. The findings of the study reveal how the various sources of inflation impact on the economy of Suriname. Domestic price shocks and money-supply shocks, in particular, seem to substantially impact on economic activity. Exchange-rate shocks are detrimental to domestic prices. Based on the findings of this study, it is highly recommended for the Central Bank of Suriname to continue its prudent monetary policies in order to maintain a stable exchange rate and price stability. The study advocates for maintaining a healthy macroeconomic climate with price stability, which is a crucial condition for Suriname to follow a sustained path for economic growth and development.Keywords. Economic growth, Inflation, Time-series models.JEL. C32, E31, E47
Using and evaluating CASE tools : from software engineering to phenomenology
Get PDFCASE (Computer-Aided Systems Engineering) is a recent addition to the long line of
"silver bullets" that promise to transform information systems development, delivering
new levels of quality and productivity. CASE is particularly intriguing because
information systems (IS) practitioners spend their working lives applying information
technology (IT) to other people's work, and now they are applying it to themselves.
CASE research to date has been dominated by accounts of tool development,
normative writings (for example practitioner success stories) and surveys recording
IT specialists' perceptions. There have been very few in-depth studies of tool use,
and very few attempts to quantify benefits, therefore the essence of the CASE process
remains largely unexplored, and the views of stakeholders other than the IT specialists
have yet to be heard.
The research presented here addresses these concerns by adopting a hybrid research
approach combining action research, grounded theory and phenoinenology and using
both qualitative and quantitative data in order to tell the story of a system developer's
experience in using CASE tools in three information systems projects for a major UK
car manufacturer over a four year period. The author was the lead developer on all
three projects. Action research is a learning process, the researcher is an explorer.
At the start of this project it was assumed that the tools would be the focus of the
work. As the research progressed it became evident that the tools were but part of
a richer organisational context in which culture, politics, history, external initiatives
and cognitive limitations played important roles. The author continued to record
experiences and impressions of tool use in the project diary together with quality and
productivity metrics. But the diary also became home to a story of organisational
developments that had not originally been foreseen.
The principal contribution made by the work is to identity the narrow positivistic
nature of CASE knowledge, and to show via the research stories the overwhelming
importance of organisational context to systems development success and how the
exploration of context is poorly supported by the tools. Sixteen further contributions
are listed in the Conclusions to the thesis, including a major extension to Wynekoop
and Conger's CASE research taxonomy, an identification of the potentially
misleading nature of quantitative IS assessment and further evidence of the limitations
of the "scientific" approach to systems development.
The thesis is completed by two proposals for further work. The first seeks to
advance IS theory by developing further a number of emerging process models of IS
development. The second seeks to advance IS practice by asking the question "How
can CASE tools be used to stimulate awareness and debate about the effects of
organisational context?", and outlines a programme of research in this area
The progress of female police officers?An empirical analysis of organisational commitment and tenure explanations in two UK police forces
Get PDFPurpose of paper.
Although the number of women in UK police forces has grown rapidly, it appears that they continue to be under-represented in senior ranks. This research paper aims to establish empirically whether there is any foundation in the premise that female officers' lesser tenure and or lower levels of commitment than men explain their lack of career progress.
Methodology.
Using whole population surveys of two county police in the UK we compare the promotion of men and women police officers controlling for tenure. We then compare the organisational commitment of male and female officers and analyse whether female officers experience managerial and organisational influences that undermine their organisational commitment compared to men.
Findings.
The findings refute some of the widespread beliefs about reasons for female officers’ lack of progress in their policing careers since the analysis indicates that gender differences in length of tenure and organisational commitment can be discounted as possible explanations for lack of advancement in these two police forces. Overall, our results clearly show that female officers are just as committed as male officers and thus cannot be justified as a reason for lack of career progression. Managerial variables were found to be the strongest influence on organisational commitment and it appeared that there was no evidence that management support or organisational support were different for female officers compared to their male colleagues.
Research Implications/Limitations.
We accept that survey methods such as ours do not capture the entirety of employee feelings and responses since they tend to homogenise male and female working experiences. However, survey methods do have the advantage that it is possible to generalise from the results and thus these two studies allow us to suggest that our findings can be viewed as providing insights to other UK police forces in particular and to the broader field of the antecedents of organisational commitment in general.
Practical implications.
The relatively low levels of organisational commitment found should be a cause for concern for senior managers in the Police. The key importance that management has in influencing organisational commitment has been shown by our findings and this indicates the importance of the current Police Leadership Development Board’s agenda to improve workforce management skills to encourage transformational leadership styles. Moreover, there clearly remains much to be done to make police HRM policies more effective in achieving equality in promotion opportunities since the data presented shows that women’s careers are lagging behind even when tenure is taken into account.
Value and originality of the paper. The paper make an original contribution by refuting widely held assumptions about the reasons for under-representation of female officers in senior ranks. It also contributes to the sparse literature that examines organisational commitment in the police and its antecedents
Analysis of immune-related loci identifies 48 new susceptibility variants for multiple sclerosis
Get PDFUsing the ImmunoChip custom genotyping array, we analyzed 14,498 subjects with multiple sclerosis and 24,091 healthy controls for 161,311 autosomal variants and identified 135 potentially associated regions (P < 1.0 × 10−4). In a replication phase, we combined these data with previous genome-wide association study (GWAS) data from an independent 14,802 subjects with multiple sclerosis and 26,703 healthy controls. In these 80,094 individuals of European ancestry, we identified 48 new susceptibility variants (P < 5.0 × 10−8), 3 of which we found after conditioning on previously identified variants. Thus, there are now 110 established multiple sclerosis risk variants at 103 discrete loci outside of the major histocompatibility complex. With high-resolution Bayesian fine mapping, we identified five regions where one variant accounted for more than 50% of the posterior probability of association. This study enhances the catalog of multiple sclerosis risk variants and illustrates the value of fine mapping in the resolution of GWAS signals
The role of the international patent system in the transfer of technology to West Africa : case studies : Ghana and Nigeria
Get PDFThe principal aim of this thesis is to undertake a critical
examination of the role of the international patent system in the
transfer of technology to West Africa, particularly Ghana and Nigeria.
It focuses mainly on the patent systans and technology regulatory
regimes of the two countries. The study is intended to identify and
evaluate the impact of the international patent system on the transfer
and development of technology in this area.
The first chapter provides a theoretical foundation to some of
the more practical issues to be discussed in the subsequent chapters.
The Paris Convention and the diplomatic revision exercise thereof, as
well as other efforts and policies regarding patents and technology
transfer at various levels are discussed in Chapter Two. Chapters
Three to Eight consider the two case-studies undertaken in this
thesis. Chapter Three begins with the historical development of the
patent system in both Ghana and Nigeria, and the remaining chapters
continue with a discussion of the present patent and technology
regulatory regimes of both countries. Based on facts and figures the
two case-studies examine critically the patent law and systems and
technology transfer laws of these two countries including other
related institutional measures highlighting their strengths and
weaknesses.
The study argues that if the patent systems of both countries
are to play a meaningful role in the transfer and developnent of
technology they nust be utilized as a tool of economic policy and also
be related to the technology transfer regimes which nust necessarily
be integrated into the national technology policy which should, in
turn, be made an integral part of the entire national developnent
plan. It is concluded that it is only in this way that the patent
system can effectively contribute to the transfer of technology and
the development of indigenous technological capabilities in the two countries
Mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention in a sample of pregnant women in a rural area.
No full textIn this study, nine pregnant women in a rural area were assessed for a range of affective and mood disorders, as well as for coping self-efficacy and use of mindfulness in daily life. A mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention was implemented using “Healing Rhythms”, a commercially available computer-based mindfulness software programme, which uses biofeedback to assist in teaching self-regulation and mindfulness-based approaches for reducing stress. The programme was supplied already loaded onto laptops which were lent to participants for the study. Most participants showed improvements on measures of Trait anxiety and coping self-efficacy, with two participants whose scores at baseline met clinical criteria for depression dropping significantly to a non-clinical score at the end of the programme. Participants were interviewed and most reported satisfaction with using the programme, and a belief that it could be useful for other pregnant women especially where women felt challenged by stressors during pregnancy. The aim of the study was to identify whether a computer-based mindfulness programme for stress reduction would have utility and efficacy in a rural population. The results suggest that there were measureable gains for most participants, and that such a programme could be a supportive and helpful option for rural women who wish to learn how to better manage perinatal stress
Optical polarimetry studies of Seyfert galaxies
Get PDFOptical imaging polarimetry has been performed on seven nearby Seyfert galaxies, three with face-on and four with edge-on host galaxies of various morphological classifications. Observations in V, R, B and H(_a) wavebands are presented as maps of total intensity and of polarized intensity, overlaid with polarization vectors. Independent determinations of the interstellar polarization (ISP) contribution from our own galaxy are made where possible, and are used to produce ISP corrected maps. The polarization patterns seen in the maps show evidence of either dichroic extinction, which indicates the presence of non-spherical dust grains in large-scale galactic magnetic fields, or scattering, which is due to the illumination of regions of dust grains or electrons. The polarization features, which are observed at the different wavebands, are then compared to recent models of polarization in external galaxies. Estimates of the intrinsic Seyfert nuclear polarization are made where possible by correcting for ISP and for an approximation of the dilution due to the host galaxy flux by using values from previous studies. Both the measured and the corrected nuclear polarizations are compared with previously published values, and are discussed in the context of the standard models of Seyfert galaxies. Most of the observed galaxies show evidence of polarization, both from the host galaxy and from the intrinsic Seyfert nucleus. In particular, distinct polarization features: bands of polarization consistent with extended dusty disks aligned with the dusty tori proposed in Seyferts, and regions of polarization corresponding to scattering of the nuclear continuum along the biconical extended Seyfert emission-line regions, have been identified in several of the observed galaxies
An exploration of the psychosocial factors affecting the development and delivery of school-based sex and relationships education in Tanzania
No full textEmploying a mixed methods research design, in which both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used, the research in this thesis has explored the feasibility for the development and implementation of school-based sex and
relationships education (SRE) in Tanzania by (a) assessing the attitudes of parents, teachers and students towards the provision of SRE in schools and (b) analysing national school policy and curriculum frameworks with a view to identifying the
status and place of SRE in the national school curriculum.The results show that a majority of parents (more than 70%), teachers (more than 90%) and students (more than 80%) supported the provision of SRE in schools and, despite resistance to a few controversial topics, the inclusion of a wide range of SRE topics in a school-based SRE curriculum. These results suggest that, contrary to popular belief that, particularly among policy makers, parents and other stakeholders are opposed to the provision of SRE in schools, it is not the opposition itself, but the unfounded fear of opposition that has thwarted the provision of school-based SRE in Tanzania.The results of the content analysis of the national school curriculum revealed a limited and somewhat disorganised representation of SRE, with more focus on the biological
facts and information about HIV transmission and prevention than other aspects of sexual health, such as attitudes, skills and relationships. It has been argued, however, that putting HIV/AIDS in the national school curriculum provides the possibility of
opening the way for a wider provision of SRE in schools in future (Harrison, 2000). In light of the results of this research, the author has recommended several steps to be considered in introducing SRE in schools, as well as future research directions in the field of sexual health, and SRE in particular, in Tanzania
