“You Traded Your Mother for an Unripe Mango”: Playing with Insults in an Angolan Refugee Community

This article draws on material gathered in a community of Angolan refugee camps to describe and analyze the content of a children\u27s verbal insulting game, called estiga-sein local Portuguese-language slang. The game takes a form similar to verbal insulting games in other parts of the world but also invokes local understandings of what it means to be a good person. Using examples from children asked about the game, this analysis offers a typology of insults used in the community and interprets how those types illustrate local norms and meanings. While some of the insults targeted familiar personal traits in creative ways (e.g., Your chest is like a biscuit, when you try to concentrate it breaks ), it was more common for children to target behaviors and social roles (e.g., Your father used witchcraft to steal bread from children or You traded your mother for an unripe mango ). The insults ultimately highlight a necessary balance between individual ambition and collective expectations for appropriate behavior within familiar social roles

Activities, Advantages, and Inequalities: The Theory and Practice of Sports, Arts, and Service in Catholic High Schools

Catholic schools have a particular tradition of excellence in the types of sports, arts, and service activities that have a prominent role in contemporary American education and youth culture. When Sports Illustrated magazine, for example, rated the top High School athletic programs in the United States over half (13 of the 25) were Catholic schools, despite the fact that only about three percent of American secondary schools are Catholic. Likewise, though other types of activity programs are harder to quantify, many Catholic schools have extensive and high quality offerings in music, drama, community service, and other domains that serve to build community, engage students, and attract attention—sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. This paper offers a selective review of literature and recent research to address several questions deriving from the prominence of these activities in Catholic schools. What are some of the social, historical, and educational reasons for the particular role of activities in Catholic education? And what does the contemporary prominence of these activities mean for the developmental and educational experiences of students in Catholic school contexts? The broad argument here, drawing primarily on existing scholarly literature while also being informed by field research with activity programs in Catholic high schools, is that extracurricular activities are co-constitutive of educational contexts in ways that matter to fulfilling school missions and addressing socioeconomic inequality

Understanding employee resourcing in construction organizations

In recent years the literature on employee resourcing has consistently advocated the importance of adopting a holistic, strategic approach to employee deployment decision making rather than adopting a reactive needs-based approach. This is particularly problematic in construction where the multi-project environment leads to constantly changing resource requirements and to changing demands over a project's life cycle. This can lead to inappropriate decisions, which fail to meet the longer-term needs of both construction organizations and their employees. A structured and comprehensive understanding of the current project team deployment practices within large construction organizations was developed. Project deployment practices were examined within seven case study contracting firms. The emergent themes that shaped the decision-making processes were grouped into five broad clusters comprising human resource planning, performance/career management, team deployment, employee involvement and training and development. The research confirms that a reactive and ad hoc approach to the function prevails within the firms investigated. This suggests a weak relationship between the deployment process and human resource planning, team deployment, performance management, employee involvement and training and development activities. It is suggested that strategic HR-business partnering could engender more transparent and productive relationships in this crucial area

Women’s experiences of receiving care for pelvic organ prolapse: a qualitative study

Background Pelvic organ prolapse is a common urogenital condition affecting 41–50% of women over the age of 40. To achieve early diagnosis and appropriate treatment, it is important that care is sensitive to and meets women’s needs, throughout their patient journey. This study explored women’s experiences of seeking diagnosis and treatment for prolapse and their needs and priorities for improving person-centred care. Methods Twenty-two women receiving prolapse care through urogynaecology services across three purposefully selected NHS UK sites took part in three focus groups and four telephone interviews. A topic guide facilitated discussions about women’s experiences of prolapse, diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, interactions with healthcare professionals, overall service delivery, and ideals for future services to meet their needs. Data were analysed thematically. Results Three themes emerged relating to women’s experiences of a) Evaluating what is normal b) Hobson’s choice of treatment decisions, and c) The trial and error of treatment and technique. Women often delayed seeking help for their symptoms due to lack of awareness, embarrassment and stigma. When presented to GPs, their symptoms were often dismissed and unaddressed until they became more severe. Women reported receiving little or no choice in treatment decisions. Choices were often influenced by health professionals’ preferences which were subtly reflected through the framing of the offer. Women’s embodied knowledge of their condition and treatment was largely unheeded, resulting in decisions that were inconsistent with women’s preferences and needs. Physiotherapy based interventions were reported as helping women regain control over their symptoms and life. A need for greater awareness of prolapse and physiotherapy interventions among women, GPs and consultants was identified alongside greater focus on prevention, early diagnosis and regular follow-up. Greater choice and involvement in treatment decision making was desired. Conclusions As prolapse treatment options expand to include more conservative choices, greater awareness and education is needed among women and professionals about these as a first line treatment and preventive measure, alongside a multi-professional team approach to treatment decision making. Women presenting with prolapse symptoms need to be listened to by the health care team, offered better information about treatment choices, and supported to make a decision that is right for them

What the World Happiness Report doesn’t see: The sociocultural contours of wellbeing in northern Tanzania

This paper presents a mixed methods approach to understanding wellbeing in the Kilimanjaro region of northern Tanzania—a country consistently ranked by the World Happiness Report as one of the least happy in the world.  A primary objective is to demonstrate how qualitative data offering bottom-up perspectives on wellbeing offer a necessary complement to quantitative self-report measures, allowing for more nuanced cultural understandings of lived experience and wellbeing that recognize diversity both globally and locally. The research contextualized responses to standardized life evaluations (including the Cantril ladder question used by the World Happiness Report) through observations and interviews along with culturally sensitive measures of emotional experience.  Findings show Kilimanjaro to have more positive life evaluations than Tanzania as a whole, and significant within-region demographic variation driven particularly by lower levels of wellbeing for nonprofessional women compared with nonprofessional men and professionals.  In part because such demographic groups were often unfamiliar with standardized self-report measures, it was only through interviews, case studies, and culturally sensitive reports of emotional experience that we were able to recognize the diverse and nuanced life circumstances which individuals and groups were navigating and how those circumstances interacted with wellbeing.  Drawing on the example of nonprofessional women for illustration, we describe how key sociocultural factors – particularly, family stability, parenting circumstances, social relationships, and meeting life course expectations -- intersect with economic realities to create varied experiences of wellbeing. The complex picture of locally understood wellbeing that emerged from this research presents an alternative picture to global perspectives reliant on survey self-reports. It serves as a reminder of the importance of methodological choices in global wellbeing research and urges the addition of local perspectives and paradigms to inform policy and practice

Multipole interaction between atoms and their photonic environment

Macroscopic field quantization is presented for a nondispersive photonic dielectric environment, both in the absence and presence of guest atoms. Starting with a minimal-coupling Lagrangian, a careful look at functional derivatives shows how to obtain Maxwell's equations before and after choosing a suitable gauge. A Hamiltonian is derived with a multipolar interaction between the guest atoms and the electromagnetic field. Canonical variables and fields are determined and in particular the field canonically conjugate to the vector potential is identified by functional differentiation as minus the full displacement field. An important result is that inside the dielectric a dipole couples to a field that is neither the (transverse) electric nor the macroscopic displacement field. The dielectric function is different from the bulk dielectric function at the position of the dipole, so that local-field effects must be taken into account.Comment: 17 pages, to be published in Physical Review

The incidence of myocardial injury following post-operative Goal Directed Therapy.

BACKGROUND: Studies suggest that Goal Directed Therapy (GDT) results in improved outcome following major surgery. However, there is concern that pre-emptive use of inotropic therapy may lead to an increased incidence of myocardial ischaemia and infarction. METHODS: Post hoc analysis of data collected prospectively during a randomised controlled trial of the effects of post-operative GDT in high-risk general surgical patients. Serum troponin T concentrations were measured at baseline and on day 1 and day 2 following surgery. Continuous ECG monitoring was performed during the eight hour intervention period. Patients were followed up for predefined cardiac complications. A univariate analysis was performed to identify any associations between potential risk factors for myocardial injury and elevated troponin T concentrations. RESULTS: GDT was associated with fewer complications, and a reduced duration of hospital stay. Troponin T concentrations above 0.01 microg l-1 were identified in eight patients in the GDT group and six in the control group. Values increased above 0.05 microg l-1 in four patients in the GDT group and two patients in the control group. There were no overall differences in the incidence of elevated troponin T concentrations. The incidence of cardiovascular complications was also similar. None of the patients, in whom troponin T concentrations were elevated, developed ECG changes indicating myocardial ischaemia during the intervention period. The only factor to be associated with elevated troponin T concentrations following surgery was end-stage renal failure. CONCLUSION: The use of post-operative GDT does not result in an increased incidence of myocardial injury

TWEAK/Fn14 signalling promotes cholangiocarcinoma niche formation and progression.

Background & Aims: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a cancer of the hepatic bile ducts that is rarely resectable and is associated with poor prognosis. Tumour necrosis factor-like weak inducer of apoptosis (TWEAK) is known to signal via its receptor fibroblast growth factor-inducible 14 (Fn14) and induce cholangiocyte and myofibroblast proliferation in liver injury. We aimed to characterise its role in CCA. Methods: The expression of the TWEAK ligand and Fn14 receptor was assessed immunohistochemically and by bulk RNA and single cell transcriptomics of human liver tissue. Spatiotemporal dynamics of pathway regulation were comprehensively analysed in rat and mouse models of thioacetamide (TAA)-mediated CCA. Flow cytometry, qPCR and proteomic analyses of CCA cell lines and conditioned medium experiments with primary macrophages were performed to evaluate the downstream functions of TWEAK/Fn14. In vivo pathway manipulation was assessed via TWEAK overexpression in NICD/AKT-induced CCA or genetic Fn14 knockout during TAA-mediated carcinogenesis. Results: Our data reveal TWEAK and Fn14 overexpression in multiple human CCA cohorts, and Fn14 upregulation in early TAA-induced carcinogenesis. TWEAK regulated the secretion of factors from CC-SW-1 and SNU-1079 CCA cells, inducing polarisation of proinflammatory CD206+ macrophages. Pharmacological blocking of the TWEAK downstream target chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1 or CCL2) significantly reduced CCA xenograft growth, while TWEAK overexpression drove cancer-associated fibroblast proliferation and collagen deposition in the tumour niche. Genetic Fn14 ablation significantly reduced inflammatory, fibrogenic and ductular responses during carcinogenic TAA-mediated injury. Conclusion: These novel data provide evidence for the action of TWEAK/Fn14 on macrophage recruitment and phenotype, and cancer-associated fibroblast proliferation in CCA. Targeting TWEAK/Fn14 and its downstream signals may provide a means to inhibit CCA niche development and tumour growth. Lay summary: Cholangiocarcinoma is an aggressive, chemotherapy-resistant liver cancer. Interactions between tumour cells and cells that form a supportive environment for the tumour to grow are a source of this aggressiveness and resistance to chemotherapy. Herein, we describe interactions between tumour cells and their supportive environment via a chemical messenger, TWEAK and its receptor Fn14. TWEAK/Fn14 alters the recruitment and type of immune cells in tumours, increases the growth of cancer-associated fibroblasts in the tumour environment, and is a potential target to reduce tumour formation

Do organizational climate and competitive strategy moderate the relationship between human resource management and productivity?

This study examined whether the effectiveness of human resource management (HRM)practices is contingent on organizational climate and competitive strategy The concepts of internol and external fit suggest that the positive relationship between HRM and subsequent productivity will be stronger for firms with a positive organizational climate and for firms using differentiation strategies. Resource allocation theories of motivation, on the other hand, predict that the relationship between HRM and productivity will be stronger for firms with a poor climate because employees working in these firms should have the greatest amount of spare capacity. The results supported the resource allocation argument