Cultural justice, ethics and practice: Summary of presentation

The following cases and remarks are based on the author’s employment over six years in the Department of Social Welfare in Rotorua Specialist Services. The author discusses definitions that relate to the topic of cultural justice, ethics, and practice and our awareness and understanding of the issues; and presents three case studies from practitioner experience

Whanau Whakapakari: a Māori-centred approach to child rearing and Parent-training programmes

The goal of this Whanau Whakapakari (Strengthening Families) research was to define critical aspects of Māori experiences and views on child-rearing practices, and to describe whanau (extended family) values and expectations for tamariki (children) and mokopuna (grandchildren). Furthermore, these Māori views were included in culturally adapted parent-training programmes. The overall aim was to devise an approach to emphasise client strengths and provide best outcomes for research participants. Qualitative aspects included discussing the research processes in the Māori community by acknowledging the roles of whanau, hapu (sub-tribal), and iwi (tribal) structures. I also identified the importance of pan-tribal and urban Māori groups in the current research. As the project developed, an ongoing consultation and feedback protocol was established to ensure that Māori views on the research and the written outcomes were recognised. In-depth interviews with kaumatua (elders), and focus groups with Māori service providers and Māori parents were analysed qualitatively to establish Māori values in child rearing and parenting, and the knowledge and skills that contribute to effective parenting and family functioning. Values identified from these participants confirmed the central role of whanaungatanga (family connections), whakapapa (genealogy), and awhinatanga (support) for Māori. Two culturally adapted parent-training programmes, the Matuatanga (Parenting) Relationships Model and the Matuatanga Values Model programmes, were developed and compared with a Standard Parent Training programme. The Matuatanga Relationships Model programme emphasised the importance of child, parent and whanau relationships and interactions. The Matuatanga Values Model programme emphasised Māori values derived from the qualitative data - whanaungatanga, whakapapa and awhinatanga. A range of pre- and post-training measures were undertaken to identify acceptable and appropriate measures for quantifying parent-training outcomes. These included questions on support networks, parent expectations of children, parental self-efficacy, parental self-rating, critical-incident scenarios, and programme evaluation. While 78 participants attended at least one of the research sessions 22 participants provided pre- and post-training measures for the Whanau Whakapakari programmes. Results showed that there was a medium effect size improvement across all Standard Parent Training and Matuatanga Model programmes and a statistically significant improvement in the Standard Parent Training and Matuatanga Relationship Model programmes. There were no statistically significant differences between the outcomes of the different programmes but qualitative differences from evaluation and feedback data were considered in identifying specific skills acquisition, general understanding and enjoyment components in the programmes. Results from the different measures indicated that parent expectations and critical-incident scenario measures provided the most information on post-training changes. Analysis of the outcome data with the attendance patterns confirmed the value of parent-training programmes per se and indicated that at least in the short term, parent effectiveness scores continued to improve for participants who continued to attend for more than one programme. Programme follow-ups considered natural whanau supports in the Māori community and issues of social and cultural validity. Integration of standard parent-training concepts and cultural concepts suggest a multi-dimensional approach which recognises parenting skills acquisition and cultural validation of whanau concepts relevant to parenting for Māori

Geometrical effects on energy transfer in disordered open quantum systems

We explore various design principles for efficient excitation energy transport in complex quantum systems. We investigate energy transfer efficiency in randomly disordered geometries consisting of up to 20 chromophores to explore spatial and spectral properties of small natural/artificial Light-Harvesting Complexes (LHC). We find significant statistical correlations among highly efficient random structures with respect to ground state properties, excitonic energy gaps, multichromophoric spatial connectivity, and path strengths. These correlations can even exist beyond the optimal regime of environment-assisted quantum transport. For random configurations embedded in spatial dimensions of 30 A and 50 A, we observe that the transport efficiency saturates to its maximum value if the systems contain 7 and 14 chromophores respectively. Remarkably, these optimum values coincide with the number of chlorophylls in (Fenna-Matthews-Olson) FMO protein complex and LHC II monomers, respectively, suggesting a potential natural optimization with respect to chromophoric density.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures. Expanded from the former appendix to arXiv:1104.481

Ua Ola Loko i Ke Aloha (Love Gives Life Within): Mindful Forgiveness with Aloha

Aloha is more than a greeting of “hello” and “good-bye.” Native Hawaiians believe Aloha is a foundational cultural value encompassing love, compassion, and respect. Mindful Forgiveness is a process of releasing negative emotions and thoughts towards a person, or persons, or event (e.g., COVID, cancer) who has caused a grievance, harm, or offense to increase feelings of hope and peace. In this paper, we explore the role of Aloha in enhancing the Mindful Forgiveness process. Via a peer support group with individuals practicing Mindful Forgiveness, we found that incorporating Aloha values and practices into the forgiveness process helped participants let go of resentment and anger towards the grievance and offender and led to increased feelings of peace and well-being in a cultural context. Moʻolelo (stories) and our lived experiences and other findings suggest that incorporating the values and practices of Aloha into Mindful Forgiveness may deeply enhance the therapeutic benefits of releasing grievances and facilitating healing. Further research is needed to fully understand the potentiality of Aloha in promoting Mindful Forgiveness with Aloha in healing grievances and kaumaha (heavy grief).   &nbsp

Promiscuity and the Evolution of Sexual Transmitted Diseases

We study the relation between different social behaviors and the onset of epidemics in a model for the dynamics of sexual transmitted diseases. The model considers the society as a system of individual sexuated agents that can be organized in couples and interact with each other. The different social behaviors are incorporated assigning what we call a promiscuity value to each individual agent. The individual promiscuity is taken from a distributions and represents the daily probability of going out to look for a sexual partner, abandoning its eventual mate. In terms of this parameter we find a threshold for the epidemic which is much lower than the classical fully mixed model prediction, i.e. $R_0$ (basic reproductive number) $= 1$. Different forms for the distribution of the population promiscuity are considered showing that the threshold is weakly sensitive to them. We study the homosexual and the heterosexual case as well.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Energy-scales convergence for optimal and robust quantum transport in photosynthetic complexes

Underlying physical principles for the high efficiency of excitation energy transfer in light-harvesting complexes are not fully understood. Notably, the degree of robustness of these systems for transporting energy is not known considering their realistic interactions with vibrational and radiative environments within the surrounding solvent and scaffold proteins. In this work, we employ an efficient technique to estimate energy transfer efficiency of such complex excitonic systems. We observe that the dynamics of the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex leads to optimal and robust energy transport due to a convergence of energy scales among all important internal and external parameters. In particular, we show that the FMO energy transfer efficiency is optimum and stable with respect to the relevant parameters of environmental interactions and Frenkel-exciton Hamiltonian including reorganization energy $\lambda$, bath frequency cutoff $\gamma$, temperature $T$, bath spatial correlations, initial excitations, dissipation rate, trapping rate, disorders, and dipole moments orientations. We identify the ratio of \lambda T/\gamma\*g as a single key parameter governing quantum transport efficiency, where g is the average excitonic energy gap.Comment: minor revisions, removing some figures, 19 pages, 19 figure

A comparison of student usage of traditional verses ICT learning resources in the Life Sciences

The aim of the present study was to quantify the use of different teaching and learning resources in a mixed learning environment and evaluate whether students had different preferences for ICT and traditional modes of delivery to support specific aspects of their learning. We were interested in determining the extent to which students were using traditional learning resources, on-line modules and communications technologies, such as peer collaboration by email, and whether these differing resources were being used by students to learn new knowledge, to consolidate their knowledge, for exam revision and/or for personal interest

Efficient estimation of energy transfer efficiency in light-harvesting complexes

The fundamental physical mechanisms of energy transfer in photosynthetic complexes is not yet fully understood. In particular, the degree of efficiency or sensitivity of these systems for energy transfer is not known given their non-perturbative and non-Markovian interactions with proteins backbone and surrounding photonic and phononic environments. One major problem in studying light-harvesting complexes has been the lack of an efficient method for simulation of their dynamics in biological environments. To this end, here we revisit the second-order time-convolution (TC2) master equation and examine its reliability beyond extreme Markovian and perturbative limits. In particular, we present a derivation of TC2 without making the usual weak system-bath coupling assumption. Using this equation, we explore the long time behaviour of exciton dynamics of Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) protein complex. Moreover, we introduce a constructive error analysis to estimate the accuracy of TC2 equation in calculating energy transfer efficiency, exhibiting reliable performance for environments with weak and intermediate memory and strength. Furthermore, we numerically show that energy transfer efficiency is optimal and robust for the FMO protein complex of green sulphur bacteria with respect to variations in reorganization energy and bath correlation time-scales.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, modified version, updated appendices and reference lis

Transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome in dynamical small-world networks

The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is still threatening the world because of a possible resurgence. In the current situation that effective medical treatments such as antiviral drugs are not discovered yet, dynamical features of the epidemics should be clarified for establishing strategies for tracing, quarantine, isolation, and regulating social behavior of the public at appropriate costs. Here we propose a network model for SARS epidemics and discuss why superspreaders emerged and why SARS spread especially in hospitals, which were key factors of the recent outbreak. We suggest that superspreaders are biologically contagious patients, and they may amplify the spreads by going to potentially contagious places such as hospitals. To avoid mass transmission in hospitals, it may be a good measure to treat suspected cases without hospitalizing them. Finally, we indicate that SARS probably propagates in small-world networks associated with human contacts and that the biological nature of individuals and social group properties are factors more important than the heterogeneous rates of social contacts among individuals. This is in marked contrast with epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases or computer viruses to which scale-free network models often apply.Comment: 4 figure