Staff members' negotiation of power in client engagement: analysis of practice within an Australian aged care service

With increasing focus on client control and active client roles in aged care service provision, client engagement is highlighted as fundamental to contemporary care practice. Client engagement itself, however, is complex and is impacted by a range of issues including the relationships and power dynamics inherent in the care context. These dynamics do not simply reflect the roles that are available to or taken up by clients; just as important are the roles and positions that staff of aged care services are offered, and take up, in client engagement. This paper presents the findings of a study that explored client engagement practice within a large Australian service provider. Analysis of interview and focus group discussions addressed the ways in which staff were positioned – by both themselves and by clients – in terms of the roles that they hold within engagement practice and the power relations inherent within these. Analysis of power from the dominant policy perspective of choice and control, and the alternative perspective of an ethic of care suggests that power relations within the care context are dynamic, complex and involve on-going negotiation and regulation by clients and staff members in aged care. The use of these two contrasting perspectives reveals a more dynamic and complex understanding of power in care practice than dominant uni-dimensional approaches to critique suggest

Beyond coming out: lesbians’ (alternative) stories of sexual identity told in post-Apartheid South Africa

Over the last several decades, the ‘coming out’i story has become entrenched as the central narrative with which lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people can narrate their experiences of claiming a sexual identity and storying their lives in general (Bacon, 1998; Blackburn, 2009). It has developed into a “canonical narrative” (Bruner, 1987, p. 15), or a culturally recognisable story for LGB people, in that it involves the recounting of a series of familiar events in moving from a place of shame to one of self-acceptance about one’s sexual identity (Cohler & Hammack, 2007; Plummer, 1995). The ‘coming out’ canonical narrative additionally operates as a counter-narrative, which has enabled LGB people to voice their sexuality within heterosexist and heteronormative confines (Blackburn, 2009). Nevertheless, there are limitations (and limiting effects) to this narrative, and further refinement of how we understand sexual identity narratives is required. To illustrate this argument, we draw on a narrative-discursive study of eight lesbians’ stories of sexual identity in post-apartheid South Africa

(Dis)allowances of lesbians’ sexual identities: Lesbian identity construction in racialised, classed, familial, and institutional spaces

This article explores how lesbian identity construction is facilitated and constrained by the raced, classed, gendered, familial, and geographical spaces that women occupy. We present a narrative-discursive analysis of eight lesbians’ stories of sexuality, told within a historically white university in South Africa. Three interpretative repertoires that emerged in the narratives are discussed. The ‘disallowance of lesbian identity in particular racialised and class-based spaces’ repertoire, deployed by black lesbians only, was used to account for their de-emphasis of a lesbian identity through the invocation of a threat of danger and stereotyping. The ‘disjuncture of the (heterosexual) family and lesbian identity’ repertoire emphasised how the expectation of support and care within a family does not necessarily extend to acceptance of a lesbian identity

The life-history trade-off between fertility and child survival.

Evolutionary models of human reproduction argue that variation in fertility can be understood as the local optimization of a life-history trade-off between offspring quantity and 'quality'. Child survival is a fundamental dimension of quality in these models as early-life mortality represents a crucial selective bottleneck in human evolution. This perspective is well-rehearsed, but current literature presents mixed evidence for a trade-off between fertility and child survival, and little empirical ground to evaluate how socioecological and individual characteristics influence the benefits of fertility limitation. By compiling demographic survey data, we demonstrate robust negative relationships between fertility and child survival across 27 sub-Saharan African countries. Our analyses suggest this relationship is primarily accounted for by offspring competition for parental investment, rather than by reverse causal mechanisms. We also find that the trade-off increases in relative magnitude as national mortality declines and maternal somatic (height) and extrasomatic (education) capital increase. This supports the idea that socioeconomic development, and associated reductions in extrinsic child mortality, favour reduced fertility by increasing the relative returns to parental investment. Observed fertility, however, falls considerably short of predicted optima for maximizing total offspring survivorship, strongly suggesting that additional unmeasured costs of reproduction ultimately constrain the evolution of human family size

The prebiotic effect of α-1,2 branched, low molecular weight dextran in the batch and continuous faecal fermentation system

The aim of this study was to establish the effect of smaller molecular weight (0.5 and 1.0 kDa) on prebiotic efficacy and its putative sustainability in the human gut. The prebiotic effect of α-1,2 branched, 0.5 and 1 kDa dextrans were evaluated in faecal batch fermentations as compared with inulin. Both dextrans induce similar selectivity towards Bifidobacterium sp., Lactobacillus/Enterococcus and Bacteroides/Prevotella, and producing similar concentrations of short chain fatty acids. However, the 0.5 kDa dextran was fermented faster than the 1 kDa dextran, where both produced lower amount of gas than inulin. The fermentation of 1 kDa dextran was further investigated in continuous gut models. The dextran increased Bifidobacterium and Roseburia sp. populations in the final vessel, while decreasing Clostridium histolyticum and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. Overall, the α-1,2 branched, 1 kDa dextran induced selective effect on the gut microbiota and stimulated short chain fatty acids, indicating prebiotic sustainability in distal regions of the gut

Appreciating the world of autism through the lens of VIG-Exploring perceptions, experiences and emerging narratives on autism

D. App. Ed. Psy.The current research volume encompasses three chapters; initially considering existing literature, then methodological considerations, followed by the current empirical research project. Initially a systematic synthesis of literature was conducted to explore how video has been applied as an active intervention tool in interaction-focused interventions for children labelled with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The synthesis highlighted the tentative promise of using Video Interactive Guidance (VIG) to promote synrhythmia and attunement between parents and children with ASD. Following this the bridging document allowed for a more specific consideration of epistemological, methodological and ethical factors in preparation for the empirical research. The final chapter outlines the empirical research which aimed to identify understandings and narratives around ASD through the application of VIG. Findings of the current study suggest that VIG offers an effective tool for in-depth exploration of complex, multi-storied understandings of ASD and the perceived parental role. The intervention was perceived to promote greater awareness of the child‘s communication skills, beyond the ‗common‘ understandings of ASD, by providing a novel outsider perspective on interactions. The intervention also promoted parental efficacy through recognition of parenting skills in supporting the development of strength-based narratives. VIG was seen to provide a platform for an exploration of existing narratives and the construction of new, preferred realities

Transcriptomes of post-mitotic neurons identify the usage of alternative pathways during adult and embryonic neuronal differentiation

Original Panther analysis tool data tables showing values and p -values for overrepresentation data sets. (XLSX 21 kb

Isolation of Angola-like Marburg virus from Egyptian rousette bats from West Africa.

Marburg virus (MARV) causes sporadic outbreaks of severe Marburg virus disease (MVD). Most MVD outbreaks originated in East Africa and field studies in East Africa, South Africa, Zambia, and Gabon identified the Egyptian rousette bat (ERB; Rousettus aegyptiacus) as a natural reservoir. However, the largest recorded MVD outbreak with the highest case-fatality ratio happened in 2005 in Angola, where direct spillover from bats was not  shown. Here, collaborative studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Njala University, University of California, Davis USAID-PREDICT, and the University of Makeni identify MARV circulating in ERBs in Sierra Leone. PCR, antibody and virus isolation data from 1755 bats of 42 species shows active MARV infection in approximately 2.5% of ERBs. Phylogenetic analysis identifies MARVs that are similar to the Angola strain. These results provide evidence of MARV circulation in West Africa and demonstrate the value of pathogen surveillance to identify previously undetected threats

Social Transmission and the Spread of Modern Contraception in Rural Ethiopia

Socio-economic development has proven to be insufficient to explain the time and pace of the human demographic transition. Shifts to low fertility norms have thus been thought to result from social diffusion, yet to date, micro-level studies are limited and are often unable to disentangle the effect of social transmission from that of extrinsic factors. We used data which included the first ever use of modern contraception among a population of over 900 women in four villages in rural Ethiopia, where contraceptive prevalence is still low (<20%). We investigated whether the time of adoption of modern contraception is predicted by (i) the proportion of ever-users/non ever-users within both women and their husbands' friendships networks and (ii) the geographic distance to contraceptive ever-users. Using a model comparison approach, we found that individual socio-demographic characteristics (e.g. parity, education) and a religious norm are the most likely explanatory factors of temporal and spatial patterns of contraceptive uptake, while the role of person-to-person contact through either friendship or spatial networks remains marginal. Our study has broad implications for understanding the processes that initiate transitions to low fertility and the uptake of birth control technologies in the developing world