Women and Domestic violence in the professional experience of Italian General Practitioners

A number of studies have investigated the roots of the destructive power acting within the couple (Welzer Lang, 1991; Walker, 1979, 2000). Danis and Lockhart (2003) highlighted how social workers’ best practices, are not frequently used, especially in regards to contact with the victims of intimate-partner violence. We investigated how Italian general practitioners (IGPs) deal with this issue within their professional practice. A snowball sample of 268 IGPs was taken, in order to collect their beliefs concerning the victim, the aggressor and the violent couple’s relationship. Furthermore the experience in coping with both suspected and actual cases of domestic violence, as well as the GP’s needs and expectations was taken in consideration

Combatting intimate partner violence: representations of social and healthcare personnel working with gender-based violence interventions

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been declared a global epidemic by the World Health Organization. Although the attention paid to both the perpetrators and victims of gender-based violence has increased, scientific research is still lacking in regard to the representations of operators involved in interventions and management. Therefore, the following study explores how the representations of operators affect how gender violence can be managed and combatted through an ecological approach to this phenomenon, in addition to highlighting the roles of organizationallevel services and their cultural and symbolic substrates. In total, 35 health and social professionals were interviewed and textual materials were analyzed by thematic analysis. The evidence suggests that services contrasting gender-based violence utilize different representations and management approaches. The authors hope that these differences can become a resource, rather than a limitation, when combatting gender-based violence through the construction of more integrated networks and a greater dialogue among different services, in order to make interventions designed to combat gender-based violence more effective

Violence Against Women: A Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) Phenomenon

This study investigated the social and cultural representations that employees of the Municipality of Naples hold concerning violence against women. The aim of this research was to explore if and how they attribute blame for gender-based violence and their perception of the effectiveness of resolution strategies focused on either preventing or actively combating violence against women. Their results showed that when respondents attribute violence to sociocultural factors, they recognize the importance of implementing effective resolution strategies. Conversely, those who primarily place the blame for violence against women on male individual characteristics generally do not support and propose strategies to stop this kind of violence. Moreover, violence perpetrators not resulting in the work context or in the neighborhood of the respondents and implications of these data will be further discussed

Children witnessing domestic violence in the voice of health and social professionals dealing with contrasting gender violence

Witnessing domestic violence (WDV) is recognized by the Istanbul Convention as psychological abuse that has dramatic consequences on the psychophysical health of children. Therefore, professionals who form the support network for WDV victims play a very fundamental role. In order to draw up useful guidelines for services dealing with WDV, and to give children more awareness of supportive settings, this study analyzes WDV in the perception of health and welfare professionals to enhance their skills and strategies for contrasting gender violence. Sixteen Neapolitan specialists dealing with WDV children were interviewed. A theoretical intentional sampling was used. Narrative focused interviews were carried out, transcribed verbatim and analyzed through the grounded theory methodology, using the ATLAS.ti 8 software (Scientific Software Development GmbH, Berlin, Germany). We assigned 319 codes and grouped these into 10 categories and 4 macro-categories. The analysis of the texts led to the definition of the core category as “The Crystal Fortress”. It summarizes the image of the WDV children as described by the professionals working in contrasting domestic violence. In this structure the parental roles of protection and care (fortress) are suspended and everything is extremely rigid, fragile and always at risk of a catastrophe. It also symbolizes the difficult role of health professionals in dealing with such children and their families. For WDV children, protective factors guarantee solid development and supportive settings help them to learn proper emotional responsiveness and expressiveness and to develop their skills in talking with adults while avoiding negative consequences

Quasi-equilibrium lattice Boltzmann method

Abstract.: A general lattice Boltzmann method for simulation of fluids with tailored transport coefficients is presented. It is based on the recently introduced quasi-equilibrium kinetic models, and a general lattice Boltzmann implementation is developed. Lattice Boltzmann models for isothermal binary mixtures with a given Schmidt number, and for a weakly compressible flow with a given Prandtl number are derived and validate

Study on the Effect of Preheating Temperatures on Melt Pool Stability in Inconel 718 Components Processed by Laser Powder Bed Fusion

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) is one of the most widespread, versatile, and promising metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques. L-PBF allows for the manufacturing of geometrically complex parts with good surface characteristics. In this process, in order to minimize the heat loss in the first layers of printing, the building platform is preheated to a temperature ranging between 80 and 250 °C. This aspect turns out to be very critical, and further investigation is needed for situations where the part to be printed is only a few layers high, as is the case in sensor printing. This work aims to investigate the melt pool stability under a variation in the preheating temperatures. We investigate the distance from the building platform, considering the number of layers printed. This is where the melt pool reaches its stability in terms of depth and width. This aspect turns out to be of remarkable importance for ensuring the structural integrity of parts with a few layers of height that are processed through L-PBF, such as sensors, which are proliferating in different industries. Thus, two case studies were carried out on IN718 superalloys at 40 and 60 microns of layer thickness and a preheating temperature of 170 °C on the machine. The results obtained show that after 1.2 mm of distance from the building platform, the melt pool reached its stability in terms of width and depth dimensions and consequently for the melting regime

Does Affirmative Action Lead to Mismatch? A New Test and Evidence

We argue that once we take into account the students' rational enrollment decisions, mismatch in the sense that the intended beneficiary of affirmative action admission policies are made worse off could occur only if selective universities possess private information about students' post-enrollment treatment effects. This necessary condition for mismatch provides the basis for a new test. We propose an empirical methodology to test for private information in such a setting. The test is implemented using data from Campus Life and Learning Project (CLL) at Duke. Evidence shows that Duke does possess private information that is a statistically significant predictor of the students' post-enrollment academic performance. We also propose strategies to evaluate more conclusively whether the evidence of Duke private information has generated mismatch.

“Kept in Check”: Representations and Feelings of Social and Health Professionals Facing Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Social and health professionals facing gender-based violence in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) express feelings and thoughts closely connected to their place of work and the users of their services. However, research on professionals’ reflexivity and their implications has not been closely investigated. Therefore, this article will describe representations of IPV among social and health professionals facing gender-based violence as well as their personal feelings in accomplishing their job. Fifty interviews with health and social professionals were analyzed using grounded theory methodology supported by Atlas.ti 8.4. Five macrocategories will describe this phenomenon, leading to the final explicative core category that summarizes professionals’ attitudes toward it. Being “kept in check” among partners, partners and families, services, and institutional duties is the core category that best expressed their feelings. Therefore, implications for services and training will be further discussed

Downside: The perpetrator of violence in the representations of social and health professionals

Gender-based violence is a widespread phenomenon and pandemic that affects women’s lives. Many interventions have been activated for perpetrators, but the dropout rate is still high. In order to draw up guidelines for responsibly and sustainably dealing with the phenomenon, this study is aimed at investigating the professionals’ perception of the perpetrator as a useful element in designing innovative intervention policies. Open interviews were carried out with welfare and health professionals and the Grounded Theory Methodology was used to analyze the collected data. These results detect attitudes of social health personnel and their feelings of impotence towards gender-based perpetrators because of the emergence of an inevitable repetitiveness of the violent behavior, as well as the “normality of violence” in a patriarchal culture and its “transversality”. This reflective knowledge allows for the opportunity to develop best transformative attitudes toward the phenomenon. According to the results, it is urgent to establish an active and convinced alliance with the healthy part of the man, through specific prevention paths, in order to activate an authentic motivation for change and its sustainability