253 research outputs found
Participatory Research, Planning and Evaluation Process in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar Hotspots Summary Results: Participatory Action Research
IDS and Praxis supported eleven action research groups in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The groups identified their research enquiries based on a joint analysis of the life stories at the Collective Story Analysis workshop 13–16 May 2015. The aim of the action groups was to develop ideas for pilot interventions, including encouragement and support of the researchers, but without additional project funding. This allowed people to explore ideas and to mobilise resources outside the operational programmes.Freedom Fun
Participatory Statistics to Measure Prevalence in Bonded Labour Hotspots in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar: Report of Preliminary Findings of the Baseline Study
The Institute of Development Studies has been carrying out a programme of research, learning and evaluation in relation to the Freedom Fund ‘hotspot’ in northern India, a project that seeks to reduce bonded labour in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The work for this baseline study builds upon scoping visits comprising interviews with NGOs, focus groups with community members, field observations, the participatory collection and analysis of 353 life stories to identify the most significant indicators of change, and the generation of a baseline of participatory statistics of 3466 households across 82 hamlets in locations covered by 14 NGOs. This will be followed by the rollout of a systemic action research programme which combines stakeholders analysing and developing solutions to their problems with follow-up participatory statistical analysis. We will conduct an end-line survey two years after the data collection for this study has been completed.
The aim of the study was to estimate the prevalence of bonded labour in the selected intervention communities of the Freedom Fund hotspot in northern India. Prevalence data help mainly to understand the profile of families in bonded labour and any correlations with different variables. The analysis of life stories provided a better insight into the life situations of families in bonded labour and explored questions of why and how. With clear causal factors emerging from the life story analysis, the current prevalence study was able to focus on these important indicators. The team facilitated a discussion on the results at the end of the data collection process in each site. These discussions focused on the reasons for the differences in prevalence results using the tallied-up data to explore how gender, age and caste dynamics shape bonded labour, with most adults in bonded labour working inside the village; most boys in bondage working outside the village; and a group of families with all members in bonded labour working outside the village.Freedom Fun
More than half of persons with lower limb amputation suffer from chronic back pain or residual limb pain:a systematic review with meta-analysis
Purpose: The aim of this study is to systematically review and critically assess the methodological quality of literature regarding prevalence, characteristics and factors influencing pain, other than phantom limb pain (PLP) in persons with lower limb amputation (LLA). Materials and methods: A systematic review was performed (PROSPERO CRD42019138018). Literature was searched using PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and PEDro. Studies were included if describing pain other than PLP at least three months after amputation. For residual limb pain (RLP) and back pain, a meta-regression was performed. Results: Fifty-one studies were included in which predominantly young males with a unilateral traumatic amputation using a prosthesis were investigated. Pooled prevalence of RLP was 0.51 (95% CI 0.40-0.62) with a positive association with presence of back pain (p = 0.044) in the univariate meta-regression. Pooled prevalence of back pain was 0.55 (95% CI 0.45-0.64), with a positive association of time since amputation (p <0.001) and co-occurrence of RLP (p = 0.050). Conclusions: Back pain and RLP are common after LLA. The prevalence of back pain was positively associated with the presence of RLP, and vice versa. Future studies should give more attention to other chronic pain types, to persons with a diabetic or vascular cause of amputation, and to pain-related interference
The Hurricane Exposure, Adversity, and Recovery Tool (HEART): Developing and Validating a Risk Screening Instrument for Youth Exposed to Hurricane Harvey
Given the increasing regularity with which severe (named) hurricanes arise, there is a need for valid, practically useful measures that facilitate child-centered post-hurricane situation analysis and needs assessment. Measures that accurately assess the most potent hurricane-related risk factors are essential to identifying youth at risk for developing posttraumatic stress reactions and providing them with effective post-disaster support. With feedback from community stakeholders (e.g., school personnel, physicians and hospital staff, community clinicians), we developed the Hurricane Exposure, Adversity, and Recovery Tool (HEART), a 29-item self-report measure of hurricane risk factors. Test development procedures included: (1) Reviewing the literature regarding hurricane exposure-related risk factors in youth; (2) Generating a developmentally-informed test item pool; (3) Conducting interviews with clinicians, as well as youth impacted by Hurricane Harvey, to evaluate the comprehensibility and acceptability of candidate items; and (4) evaluating endorsement rates for hurricane exposure-related risk factors among (N = 107) youth in an outpatient clinic specializing in the treatment of childhood trauma and loss. Disaster-related exposure, pre-existing indicators of risk, and ongoing post-disaster adversities were correlated with posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms. These results provide support for an integrative approach to post-hurricane screening for both hurricane-specific (e.g., witnessing injuries) and non-specific (e.g., prior trauma) factors
Some Systematics of Galactic Globular Clusters
The global properties of all known Galactic globular clusters are examined.
The relationship between the luminosities and the metallicities of Galactic
globular clusters is found to be complex. Among luminous clusters there is a
correlation in the sense that the oldest clusters are slightly more metal
deficient than are younger clusters. However, no such clear-cut relationship is
found among the faintest globular clusters. The central concentration index C
of globular clusters is seen to be independent of metallicity. The dependence
of the half-light radii of globular clusters on their Galactocentric distances
can be approximated by the relation . Clusters with
collapsed cores are mostly situated close to the Galactic nucleus. For kpc the luminosities and the radii of clusters appear to be uncorrelated.
The Galaxy differs from the LMC and the SMC in that it appears to lack highly
flattened luminous clusters. Galactic globular clusters with ages 13.0
Gyr are all of Oosterhoff type II, whereas almost all of those with ages
13.0 Gyr have been assigned to Oosterhoff type I. Globular clusters with ages
11.5 Gyr are all located in the outer Galactic halo, have below-average
luminosities and above-average radii. On the other hand the very old globular
cluster NGC 6522 is situated close to the Galactic nucleus.Comment: PASP, in pres
Patterns and Dynamics of Slavery and Bonded Labour in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh: Findings from Life Story Analysis
This report summarises the findings of the analysis of multiple life stories collected across the Freedom Fund slavery hotspot in North India by NGO representatives at the Collective Story Analysis workshop 13-16 May 2015. The authors outline the major findings and key system dynamics that emerged in the story analysis. NGO representatives were asked to collect many hundreds of life stories between them. The life story does not depict every aspect of a person’s life, but rather important episodes and transitions in their lives that they want to talk about.Freedom Fun
Time-Series Photometry of Globular Clusters: M62 (NGC 6266), the Most RR Lyrae-Rich Globular Cluster in the Galaxy?
We present new time-series CCD photometry, in the B and V bands, for the
moderately metal-rich ([Fe/H] ~ -1.3) Galactic globular cluster (GC) M62 (NGC
6266). The present dataset is the largest obtained so far for this cluster, and
consists of 168 images per filter, obtained with the Warsaw 1.3m telescope at
the Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) and the 1.3m telescope of the Cerro Tololo
Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), in two separate runs over the time span of
three months. The procedure adopted to detect the variable stars was the
optimal image subtraction method (ISIS v2.2), as implemented by Alard. The
photometry was performed using both ISIS and DAOPHOT/ALLFRAME. We have
identified 245 variable stars in the cluster fields that have been analyzed so
far, of which 179 are new discoveries. Of these variables, 133 are fundamental
mode RR Lyrae stars (RRab), 76 are first overtone (RRc) pulsators, 4 are type
II Cepheids, 25 are long-period variables (LPV), 1 is an eclipsing binary, and
6 are not yet well classified. Such a large number of RR Lyrae stars places M62
among the top two most RR Lyrae-rich (in the sense of total number of RR Lyrae
stars present) GCs known in the Galaxy, second only to M3 (NGC 5272) with a
total of 230 known RR Lyrae stars. Since this study covers most but not all of
the cluster area, it is not unlikely that M62 is in fact the most RR Lyrae-rich
GC in the Galaxy. In like vein, we were also able to detect the largest sample
of LPV's known in a Galactic GC. We analyze a variety of Oosterhoff type
indicators for the cluster, and conclude that M62 is an Oosterhoff type I
system. This is in good agreement with the moderately high metallicity of the
cluster, in spite of its predominantly blue horizontal branch morphology --
which is more typical of Oosterhoff type II systems. We thus conclude that
metallicity plays a key role in defining Oosterhoff type. [abridged]Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures (emulateapj format). AJ, in pres
Discovery of > 200 RR Lyrae Variables in M62: An Oosterhoff I Globular Cluster with a Predominantly Blue HB
We report on the discovery of a large number of RR Lyrae variable stars in
the moderately metal-rich Galactic globular cluster M62 (NGC 6266), which
places it among the top three most RR Lyrae-rich globular clusters known.
Likely members of the cluster in our studied field, from our preliminary number
counts, include about 130 fundamental-mode (RRab) pulsators, with =
0.548 d, and about 75 first-overtone (RRc) pulsators, with = 0.300 d.
The average periods and the position of the RRab variables with well-defined
light curves in the Bailey diagram both suggest that the cluster is of
Oosterhoff type I. However, the morphology of the cluster's horizontal branch
(HB) is strikingly similar to that of the Oosterhoff type II globular cluster
M15 (NGC 7078), with a dominant blue HB component and a very extended blue
tail. Since M15 and M62 differ in metallicity by about one dex, we conclude
that metallicity, at a fixed HB type, is a key parameter determining the
Oosterhoff status of a globular cluster and the position of its variables in
the Bailey diagram.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. ApJ Letters, in pres
Another Faint UV Object Associated with a Globular Cluster X-Ray Source: The Case of M92
The core of the metal poor Galactic Globular Cluster M92 (NGC 6341) has been
observed with WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope through visual, blue and
mid-UV filters in a program devoted to study the evolved stellar population in
a selected sample of Galactic Globular Clusters. In the UV color magnitude diagram we have discovered a faint `UV-dominant'
object. This star lies within the error box of a Low Luminosity Globular
Cluster X-ray source (LLGCX) recently found in the core of M92. The properties
of the UV star discovered in M92 are very similar to those of other UV stars
found in the core of some clusters (M13, 47 Tuc, M80, etc)---all of them are
brighter in the UV than in the visible and are located in the vicinity of a
LLGCX. We suggest that these stars are a new sub-class of cataclysmic
variables.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures. Astrophysical journal in pres
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