Empowerment and resistance resources for immigrant women : A case study of implementing the salutogenic theory in practice

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Experiences among migrant parents with a disabled child when interacting with professionals : recognition as an inclusionary and exclusionary mechanism in Finnish public health and social services

This article examines migrant parents' experiences with public health and social services in Finland, relying on data from interviews with 20 parents. We apply the theory of recognition as the theoretical framework for this research. Our focus is on the recognition of and services for disabled persons for two reasons. Firstly, research on disability in the migration context remains lacking. Secondly, whilst many theoretical discussions about recognition exist, empirical studies relying on theory have received less attention. Here, we aim to explore the practical forms of recognition to parents' everyday lives. We rely on theory-guided content analysis as an analytical tool. Based on the results of this research, parents face multiple challenges when encountering public service professionals. This drained parents' resources and hampered their integration into Finnish society. Regardless of problems related to services, parents employed different strategies to gain recognition based on their own resources. Points of interest This research examines in detail how the migrant parents of a disabled child related with Finnish public health and social service professionals. Most parents in this study experienced problems obtaining services, caused by the lack of a shared language and an unfamiliarity with the service system. All parents wanted professionals to recognise their concerns regarding their child's disability, to take into account the parents' views about their child's treatment and treat parents with respect. When parents felt unrecognised, they refused to accept it in many ways. For example, they could resist professionals' plan during meetings or consulted repeatedly emergency room service. This research demonstrates how a delayed or an inappropriate health and social service influenced parents' every-day lives. Consequently, it created long-lasting stress and hampered their integration process into the new country.Peer reviewe

A pragmatic look at deep imitation learning

The introduction of the generative adversarial imitation learning (GAIL) algorithm has spurred the development of scalable imitation learning approaches using deep neural networks. The GAIL objective can be thought of as 1) matching the expert policy's state distribution; 2) penalising the learned policy's state distribution; and 3) maximising entropy. While theoretically motivated, in practice GAIL can be difficult to apply, not least due to the instabilities of adversarial training. In this paper, we take a pragmatic look at GAIL and related imitation learning algorithms. We implement and automatically tune a range of algorithms in a unified experimental setup, presenting a fair evaluation between the competing methods. From our results, our primary recommendation is to consider non-adversarial methods. Furthermore, we discuss the common components of imitation learning objectives, and present promising avenues for future research

A Pragmatic Look at Deep Imitation Learning

The introduction of the generative adversarial imitation learning (GAIL) algorithm has spurred the development of scalable imitation learning approaches using deep neural networks. Many of the algorithms that followed used a similar procedure, combining on-policy actor-critic algorithms with inverse reinforcement learning. More recently there have been an even larger breadth of approaches, most of which use off-policy algorithms. However, with the breadth of algorithms, everything from datasets to base reinforcement learning algorithms to evaluation settings can vary, making it difficult to fairly compare them. In this work we re-implement 6 different IL algorithms, updating 3 of them to be off-policy, base them on a common off-policy algorithm (SAC), and evaluate them on a widely-used expert trajectory dataset (D4RL) for the most common benchmark (MuJoCo). After giving all algorithms the same hyperparameter optimisation budget, we compare their results for a range of expert trajectories. In summary, GAIL, with all of its improvements, consistently performs well across a range of sample sizes, AdRIL is a simple contender that performs well with one important hyperparameter to tune, and behavioural cloning remains a strong baseline when data is more plentiful.Comment: Asian Conference on Machine Learning, 202

Att kämpa för oberoende – om förtida sjukpensionering i finländska kvinnors självbiografier

Artikeln handlar om vad och hur finländska kvinnor diagnostiserade med kronisk ryggsjukdom skrev om förtida pensionering i sina självbiografiska berättelser. Det empiriska materialet insamlades via nationell skrivtävling och artikeln bygger på 26 berättelser. Via empatisk läsning som kvalitativ analys har tre olika former av narrativa identiteter identifierats; ”handikappets paradox”, ”kamp för överlevnad” och ”ambivalens i relation till självet och samhället”. Berättelserna visar hur förtida pensionering upplevdes som ett ifrågasättande av individuellt oberoende. Kampen för oberoende blir central då den kulturella normen utpekar oberoende som förmer än kroppslig bräcklighet och därför att det saknas social praxis för att diskutera beroende på ett värdigt sätt

Trust, vacillation and neglect - Refugee women's experiences regarding pregnancy and birth giving in Finland

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Partisanship and positionality in qualitative research: Exploring the influences of the researcher’s experiences of serious crime on the research process

Debates on positionality and partisanship in the research process are long-standing, complex and often highly contentious. Engaging with, and contributing to both these key debates, this paper introduces the concept of victim-as-researcher. There is a growing body of literature which engages with participatory research undertaken with victims of crime. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of literature which speaks to the experiences of victims of serious, violent crime who subsequently engage in qualitative research with offenders who have been convicted of offences similar to the ones experienced by the researcher and which, therefore, can elicit trauma whilst in the field and through analysis. In reflecting on the dilemmas and challenges navigated by the victim-as-researcher seeking to produce an authentic, appreciative account that foregrounds the voices of offenders and seeks to humanise them, this paper engages with a number of key issues including, emotional labour, victimology and reflexivity. Following this discussion of relevant concepts and ideas, the second part of the paper focusses on practical tips to help others who share a positionality as victim-as-researcher. Thus, this paper aims to extend the literature on positionality and victimology by foregrounding the victim-as-researcher as an important category in reflexive sociological and criminological research

NFC-Ett nytt sätt att betala

Detta examensarbete handlar om NFC-betalningar, dvs. kontaktlösa betalningar. Akronymen NFC står för Near Field Communication och NFC-betalningarna går ut på att man kan betala inköp av lågt värde (<25€) med att endast föra betalningsföremålet framför en läsare som registerar köpet. En undersökning om attityder, möjligheter och eventuella rädslor gällande temat NFC-betalningar är syftet för detta arbete. Sammanlagt har nio respondenter intervjuats. Som arbetets uppdragsgivare fungerade S-Banken AB. Arbetet består av tre delar: den inledande, empiriska och avslutande delen. I den inledande delen presenteras tekniken och teorier, som sedan används som stöd i den empiriska delen. I den avslutande delen analyseras de åstadkomna resultaten och de jämförs med de presenterade teorierna. I arbetet undersöktes två olika fokusgrupper: barnlösa heltidsstuderanden och personer som arbetar heltid och som har barn. Som teoretisk referensram i arbetet har använts teorier om spridning av innovationer, värdeskapande åt konsumenten samt lärande och minne. Ett delsyfte med undersökningen var att få reda på om det finns skillnader mellan dessa två gruppers attityder gentemot NFC-betalandet. I undersökningen kom det fram att de nuvarande betalningssätten är rätt så djupt inrotade i respondenternas beteendemodeller. Resultaten visade också att de som arbetade heltid hade en positivare och mer mottagande attityd gentemot NFC-betalningar, än vad gruppen med studerande hade. Detta även om de studerande mer frekvent i sin vardag befinner i situationer där de kunde eventuellt dra nytta av NFC-betalningar.This thesis is about NFC payments, i.e. contactless payments. The acronym NFC stands for Near Field Communication. With the NFC payments method the consumer is able to pay purchases of low value (<25 €) by only waving the payment object in front of a reader, which registers the purchase. This is a survey of attitudes, opportunities and possible fears regarding NFC payments. It was assigned by the S-Bank Ltd and a total of nine respondents were interviewed. This thesis consists of three parts: introduction, empirical and closure. In the introduction part I will present theories, which are then used as support in the empirical part. In the closure I will analyze the outcome of the interviews, and compare them with the theories presented. In the empirical part I interviewed two different focus groups: childless full-time students and people who work full time and have children. As a theoretical framework for this thesis I have been using theories of diffusion of innovations, creating consumer value, and learning and memory. Another reason to conduct the survey was to find out whether there are differences in attitudes between the two groups interviewed. The study showed that the current payment methods are quite deeply ingrained in the respondents' behavioral models. The results also showed that those who worked full-time had a more positive attitude towards NFC payments, than the group of students had. This even though the students more frequently find themselves in situations, where they could take advantage of NFC payments.Tämä opinnäytetyö käsittelee NFC-maksamista, eli toisin sanoen kontaktitonta maksamista. NFC on akronyymi sanoista Near Field Communication ja sillä voi hoitaa maksut siten, että maksuelementtiä vain vilautetaan lukijan edessä, joka rekisteröi ostokset. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus on selvittää haastateltavien asenteita, pelkoja ja ajatuksia mahdollisuuksista mitä NFC-maksuihin tulee. Tämän lisäksi tarkoituksena on myös saada selville, mikäli haastateltujen ryhmien välillä on eroja. Tutkimuksessa on haastateltu yhteensä yhdeksää henkilöä. Työn toimeksiantajana toimi S-Pankki Oy. Opinnäytetyö koostuu kolmesta osasta: johdannosta, empiirisestä osasta sekä päätösosasta. Johdannossa esitellään itse tekniikka ja teorioita, joita sitten sovelletaan empiirisessä osassa. Päätösosassa analysoidaan saatuja tuloksia ja niitä verrataan esiteltyihin teorioihin. Tutkimuksessa suoritettiin kaksi fokusryhmähaastattelua. Fokusryhmä 1 koostui lapsettomista, täyspäiväisistä opiskelijoista ja Fokusryhmä 2 täyspäiväisesti töissä käyvistä henkilöistä joilla on lapsia. Teoreettisena viitekehyksenä tutkimuksessa esitellään teorioita innovaatioiden leviämisestä, arvon luomisesta kuluttajalle sekä oppimisesta ja muistista. Tutkimuksessa kävi ilmi, että nykyiset maksamisen mallit ovat melko syvästi juurtuneet haastateltavien käytös- ja toimintamalleihin. Tämän lisäksi selvisi, että täyspäiväisesi töissä käyvillä oli positiivisempi suhtautuminen NFC-maksuihin, kuin opiskelijoilla. Tämä siitä huolimatta, että opiskelijat tutkimuksen mukaan hyötyisivät arkipäivässään useammin NFC-maksamisesta kuin työssäkäyvä

The complexities of 'otherness': reflections on embodiment of a young White British woman engaged in cross-generation research involving older people in Indonesia

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.If interviews are to be considered embodied experiences, than the potential influence of the embodied researcher must be explored. A focus on specific attributes such as age or ethnicity belies the complex and negotiated space that both researcher and participant inhabit simultaneously. Drawing on empirical research with stroke survivors in an ethnically mixed area of Indonesia, this paper highlights the importance of considering embodiment as a specific methodological concern. Three specific interactions are described and analysed, illustrating the active nature of the embodied researcher in narrative production and development. The intersectionality of embodied features is evident, alongside their fluctuating influence in time and place. These interactions draw attention to the need to consider the researcher within the interview process and the subsequent analysis and presentation of narrative findings. The paper concludes with a reinforcement of the importance of ongoing and meaningful reflexivity in research, a need to consider the researcher as the other participant, and specifically a call to engage with and present the dynamic nature of embodiment

Digital primary care visits designed for different patient segments in the pre-pandemic era: A scoping review

Digital healthcare services have been implemented increasingly during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. They have been expected to improve access, reduce inefficiencies, improve the quality of care, lower the cost of healthcare, and provide more personalised care. This study focuses on digital visits: digital health care services that replace a general practitioner (GP) appointment in primary care. The aim of this review is to assess the perspectives used in studying digital visits, and to describe the services studied in terms of modalities used and patient segments targeted. We aim to find how digital visits were studied prior to their becoming a necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a scoping review of English language papers published between 1.1.2010-31.5.2020. The papers were eligible for the review if they focused on a digital primary care visit which replaced a face-to-face appointment with a GP. In total, 36 papers were included. Ten of the studies described services tailored to the needs of a patient segment. The rest of the studies (26/36) did not differentiate between patient segments. The most often-used perspective was that of the clinician (16/36 studies). Fifteen studies were descriptive. The costs and outcomes were rarely utilised as a perspective: the costs were used in only one study and outcomes in six. Patient experience was the perspective chosen in 11 studies. Among all the interventions, the most common modality was by phone call (20), and the second most common was asynchronous messaging and video consultation (10 each). Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital visits had mostly been developed for the entire population instead of a particular segment of patients. We argue that developing them to fit the needs of a patient segment would help make them more acceptable and suitable for patients. More studies from the patient perspective are needed to develop these services to better fit the needs of patients. The situation is likely to have changed during the pandemic, as a large number of studies has been published since May 2020