Disability, Desire and Society: The Establishment of a New, Individualistic Definition of Disability and its Practical Uses in Everyday Life

Abstract In deriving a new definition of disability, it was first necessary to examine disability from an independent perspective which, while it took into account previous medical and social definitions, did not start from the basis of either. Thus, disability was considered first as a generally purposive term, and then examined in its application to humans. In this application, though social factors and the thinking of the medical profession were addressed, it was concluded that disability was an intrinsic state of the self, which could be distinguished as independent from social interactions. This state was characterized by its effect upon the disabled person’s ability to fulfil desires, both in terms of its direct preclusion of some desires, and its ability to make other desires require extra effort. The question of normality was then addressed, and it was concluded that disability could be defined organically as any involuntary state of a person’s biological or psychological self that resulted in detrimental effects upon desire fulfilment as compared to other individuals in a similar environment. The question of individuals with cognitive impairments and others unconscious of their disabled state was then addressed, and, though there has been comparatively little written about such individuals, their lives and ability to fulfil desires were examined in detail. It was concluded that people who are cognitively impaired should be considered as temporally impaired, and thus possessing the status of children when the definition was used to consider the fulfilment of their desires. The desire based definition was then used to address several issues common to the practical experience of disability including accessibility: the use of environmental adaptations and non-human aids for the fulfilment of desires, human or animal assistance, and the problems inherent in the power relations between disabled and non-disabled individuals. The question of when desires could legitimately be modified to make their fulfilment possible under the conditions of disability was then also considered, which led finally into a discussion of social attitudes to disabled people;since, though according to the desire based definition disability was not identical with such attitudes, it could be heavily affected by them. Some recommendations for the consideration and conduct of disabled and non-disabled individuals were suggested. These began with a discussion of a disabled individual’s need to develop competency in dealing with their disability, and a corresponding problem of society’s insistence upon perceiving disabled individuals as intrinsically different beings. It was suggested that the possible establishment of independent adjudication, in cases where the assessment of a disabled individual’s capabilities was subject to bias, would help to alleviate this damaging social perception. Finally, it was affirmed that disability, though a negative state, was not an uncommon one; it constituted a basic relationship between a person’s involuntary physical or psychological makeup, their desires and the world, and one which most people would at some time experience. Thus it was recommended that the concept of disability needs to be considered as no longer a specialist one, but one that should be part of our usual, everyday relations to our environment, our desires and their fulfilment.

The Variational Homoencoder: Learning to learn high capacity generative models from few examples

Hierarchical Bayesian methods can unify many related tasks (e.g. k-shot classification, conditional and unconditional generation) as inference within a single generative model. However, when this generative model is expressed as a powerful neural network such as a PixelCNN, we show that existing learning techniques typically fail to effectively use latent variables. To address this, we develop a modification of the Variational Autoencoder in which encoded observations are decoded to new elements from the same class. This technique, which we call a Variational Homoencoder (VHE), produces a hierarchical latent variable model which better utilises latent variables. We use the VHE framework to learn a hierarchical PixelCNN on the Omniglot dataset, which outperforms all existing models on test set likelihood and achieves strong performance on one-shot generation and classification tasks. We additionally validate the VHE on natural images from the YouTube Faces database. Finally, we develop extensions of the model that apply to richer dataset structures such as factorial and hierarchical categories.Comment: UAI 2018 oral presentatio

Multilevel population-based cross-sectional study examining school substance-misuse policy and the use of cannabis, mephedrone and novel psychoactive substances among students aged 11-16 years in schools in Wales

Objectives To examine whether young peoples’ risk of cannabis, mephedrone and novel psychoactive substances (NPS) use is associated with school substance-misuse policy. Design A cross-sectional survey of secondary school students combined with a School Environment Questionnaire and independently coded school substance-misuse policies (2015/6). Setting 66 secondary schools in Wales. Participants Students aged 11–16 years (n=18 939). Results The prevalence of lifetime, past 30-day and daily cannabis use was 4.8%, 2.6% and 0.7%, respectively; lifetime prevalence of mephedrone use was 1.1% and NPS use was 1.5%. Across 66 schools, 95.5% (n=63) reported having a substance-misuse policy, 93.9% (n=62) reported having a referral pathway for drug using students, such that we were insufficiently powered to undertake an analysis. We found little evidence of a beneficial association between lifetime cannabis use and involving students in policy development including student council consultation (OR=1.24, 95% CI 0.89 to 1.73), other student consultation (OR=1.42, 95% CI 0.94 to 2.14) or with the use of isolation (OR=0.98, 95% CI 0.67 to 1.43), with similar results for cannabis use in past 30 days, daily and the lifetime use of mephedrone and NPS. The School Environment Questionnaires found that 39.4% (n=26) schools reported no student involvement in policy development, 42.4% (n=28) reported student council consultation, 18.2% (n=12) used other student consultations and 9.7% (n=3) mentioned isolation. The independently coded content of policies found that no school policy recommended abstinence, one mentioned methods on harm minimisation, 16.1% (n=5) policies mentioned student involvement and 9.7% (n=3) mentioned isolation. Conclusions Policy development involving students is widely recommended, but we found no beneficial associations between student involvement in policy development and student drug use. This paper has highlighted the need for further contextual understanding around the policy-development process and how schools manage drug misuse

Young people’s online communication and its association with mental wellbeing: Results from the 2019 Student Health and Wellbeing Survey

Background Online communication has become an integral aspect of daily life for young people internationally. Very little research has examined whether the association between social media use and well-being depends on who young people engage with (i.e. real, or virtual friendships). Methods Data were drawn from a subsample of students (N = 38,736) who took part in the School Health Research Network (SHRN) 2019 Student Health and Well-being (SHW) survey. A series of multivariable regression models were used to assess the association between who adolescents were communicating with online and well-being, controlling for confounders: passive social media use; friendship quality; and cyberbullying. We also tested whether these associations were modified based on gender. Results Students are highly engaged on social networking sites, and these sites are used to communicate with existing friendship groups and develop virtual friendships. Frequent online communication with best friends (b = .340, p < .001) and bigger friendship groups (b = .397; p < .001) was associated with higher levels of well-being. However, the frequency of online contact with virtual friends made online was negatively and significantly associated with well-being (b = −.760; p < .001), with a larger negative association for girls than boys. Conclusions Online communication with virtual friendship networks were associated with lower mental well-being, with stronger associations for girls than boys; however, frequent online communication with ‘real’ friends was associated with better well-being. Our results indicate the importance of considering the nature of adolescent online communication, rather than just its quantity, in developing interventions to improve adolescent well-being

Paid parental leave evaluation: Phase 1

From 1 January 2011, Australian families in which a mother was in the paid workforce before the birth or adoption of a baby may be eligible for a new Australian Government-funded Paid Parental Leave (PPL)1 scheme. The scheme provides eligible parents with up to 18 weeks of Parental Leave Pay (PLP), paid at the National Minimum Wage, following the birth of a child. The PPL scheme brings Australia into line with all other OECD countries, except the United States, in having a national scheme for paid leave available to mothers following childbirth. [Executive summary extract

Choosing the target difference ('effect size') for a randomised controlled trial - DELTA(2) guidance protocol

BACKGROUND: A key step in the design of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) is the estimation of the number of participants needed. By far the most common approach is to specify a target difference and then estimate the corresponding sample size; this sample size is chosen to provide reassurance that the trial will have high statistical power to detect such a difference between the randomised groups (at the planned statistical significance level). The sample size has many implications for the conduct of the study, as well as carrying scientific and ethical aspects to its choice. Despite the critical role of the target difference for the primary outcome in the design of an RCT, the manner in which it is determined has received little attention. This article reports the protocol of the Difference ELicitation in TriAls (DELTA(2)) project, which will produce guidance on the specification and reporting of the target difference for the primary outcome in a sample size calculation for RCTs. METHODS/DESIGN: The DELTA(2) project has five components: systematic literature reviews of recent methodological developments (stage 1) and existing funder guidance (stage 2); a Delphi study (stage 3); a 2-day consensus meeting bringing together researchers, funders and patient representatives, as well as one-off engagement sessions at relevant stakeholder meetings (stage 4); and the preparation and dissemination of a guidance document (stage 5). DISCUSSION: Specification of the target difference for the primary outcome is a key component of the design of an RCT. There is a need for better guidance for researchers and funders regarding specification and reporting of this aspect of trial design. The aim of this project is to produce consensus based guidance for researchers and funders