Including People with Disabilities in Emergency Relief Efforts

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 15 per cent of the world’s population, or one billion people, have some form of disability. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 80 per cent live in poor countries, where communities are already more vulnerable to disasters and crises such as the current Ebola epidemic, with people with disabilities often disproportionately affected. More must be done to ensure the needs and rights of people with disabilities are fully recognised in disaster risk reduction and emergency responses. Accelerating progress will require inclusive humanitarian programming and the use of technological solutions to be effectively promoted and incentivised, and people with disabilities and their organisations to be involved from the outset in the design and implementation of policies and programmes.UK Department for International Developmen

Addressing Sexual Violence in and beyond the 'Warzone'

Conflict-related sexual violence remains pervasive across the globe, and its widespread use has been reported in Rwanda, Liberia, Northern Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. As world leaders prepare to gather in London for the Global Summit on Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict, it is important that they focus their attention on the multiple forms of sexual violence that occur in all conflict and conflict-affected settings, not just on its use as a ‘weapon of war’. This will be critical to ensuring that access to care and support for all survivors of sexual violence is improved and that these essential resources are delivered across state, humanitarian and development agencies, avoiding the creation of parallel and hierarchical support systems.UK Department for International Developmen

The Hurricane Exposure, Adversity, and Recovery Tool (HEART): Developing and Validating a Risk Screening Instrument for Youth Exposed to Hurricane Harvey

Given the increasing regularity with which severe (named) hurricanes arise, there is a need for valid, practically useful measures that facilitate child-centered post-hurricane situation analysis and needs assessment. Measures that accurately assess the most potent hurricane-related risk factors are essential to identifying youth at risk for developing posttraumatic stress reactions and providing them with effective post-disaster support. With feedback from community stakeholders (e.g., school personnel, physicians and hospital staff, community clinicians), we developed the Hurricane Exposure, Adversity, and Recovery Tool (HEART), a 29-item self-report measure of hurricane risk factors. Test development procedures included: (1) Reviewing the literature regarding hurricane exposure-related risk factors in youth; (2) Generating a developmentally-informed test item pool; (3) Conducting interviews with clinicians, as well as youth impacted by Hurricane Harvey, to evaluate the comprehensibility and acceptability of candidate items; and (4) evaluating endorsement rates for hurricane exposure-related risk factors among (N = 107) youth in an outpatient clinic specializing in the treatment of childhood trauma and loss. Disaster-related exposure, pre-existing indicators of risk, and ongoing post-disaster adversities were correlated with posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms. These results provide support for an integrative approach to post-hurricane screening for both hurricane-specific (e.g., witnessing injuries) and non-specific (e.g., prior trauma) factors

A Semi-Empirical Study of the Mass Distribution of Horizontal Branch Stars in M3 (NGC 5272)

Horizontal branch (HB) stars in globular clusters offer us a probe of the mass loss mechanisms taking place in red giants. For M3 (NGC 5272), different shapes for the HB mass distribution have been suggested, including Gaussian and sharply bimodal alternatives. Here we study the mass distribution of HB stars in M3 by comparing evolutionary tracks and photometric observations. Our approach is thus of a semi-empirical nature, describing as it does the mass distribution that is favored from the standpoint of canonical stellar evolutionary predictions for the distribution of stars across the CMD. We locate, for each individual HB star, the evolutionary track whose distance from the star's observed color and magnitude is a minimum. Artificial tests reveal that our method would be able to detect a bimodal mass distribution, if present. We study the impact of different procedures for taking into account the evolutionary speed, and conclude that they have but a small effect upon the inferred mass distribution. We find that a Gaussian shape, though providing a reasonable first approximation, fails to account for the detailed shape of M3's HB mass distribution: the latter may have skewness and kurtosis that deviate slightly from a perfectly Gaussian solution. Alternatively, the excess of stars towards the wings of the distribution may also be accounted for in terms of a bimodal distribution in which both the low- and the high-mass modes are normal, the former being significantly wider than the latter. However, we also show that the inferred distribution of evolutionary times is inconsistent with theoretical expectations. This result is confirmed on the basis of three independent sets of HB models, suggesting that the latter underestimate the effects of evolution away from the zero-age HB. (abridged)Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures. A&A, in pres

Pulsating B-type stars in the young open cluster h Persei (NGC 869)

We announce the discovery of six Beta Cephei stars and many other variable stars in the young open cluster h Persei (NGC 869). The cluster seems to be very rich in variable B-type stars, similarly to its twin, Chi Persei (NGC 884).Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Proc. HELAS-II conference, Goettingen, 20-24 August 200

The Effects of Social Assistance Interventions on Gender, Familial and Household Relations Among Refugees and Displaced Populations: A Review of the Literature on Interventions in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon

This literature review aims to explore the evidence on the effects of social assistance on gender, familial, and household relations and power dynamics among refugees and (internally) displaced populations in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. It examines the findings from an intersectional gender perspective allowing the authors to build on the knowledge of ‘what works’ in interventions in general and hopefully improve gender equality and social inclusion. Out of 1,564 papers initially identified and screened, 22 were included in the final stage. A question that emerged as the papers were analysed was whether the arduous work of targeting individuals was efficient or necessary, given that the available evidence suggests that beneficiaries generally tend to share their stipend with other family members for the collective good. Most studies tended to conflate gender with women and girls – making distinctions between widowed, married, unmarried and divorced women – but ignoring other dimensions such as class, health status, religion, ethnicity, education, prior work experience, political affiliation, and civil participation. Many programmes and research fail to disaggregate data. Social assistance programmes focus on individuals and households, with little attention to the wider context and overall conflict. Most studies paid negligible attention to familial infrastructures and strategies for sustainable interventions. Access to, and use of, cash transfers are part of broader familial strategies to mobilise or increase resources including, for example, (male) migration in pursuit of remittances, or (female) dependency on ‘community charity’. Short-term cash transfers can, in some circumstances, disrupt individuals’ and families’ access to more sustainable income or ‘charity’. Thus, important questions are raised about the purpose of social assistance: does it aim to preserve or transform families through targeting

RR Lyrae Stars in the Andromeda Halo from Deep Imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys

We present a complete census of RR Lyrae stars in a halo field of the Andromeda galaxy. These deep observations, taken as part of a program to measure the star formation history in the halo, spanned a period of 41 days with sampling on a variety of time scales, enabling the identification of short and long period variables. Although the long period variables cannot be fully characterized within the time span of this program, the enormous advance in sensitivity provided by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope allows accurate characterization of the RR Lyrae population in this field. We find 29 RRab stars with a mean period of 0.594 days, 25 RRc stars with a mean period of 0.316 days, and 1 RRd star with a fundamental period of 0.473 days and a first overtone period of 0.353 days. These 55 RR Lyrae stars imply a specific frequency S_RR=5.6, which is large given the high mean metallicity of the halo, but not surprising given that these stars arise from the old, metal-poor tail of the distribution. This old population in the Andromeda halo cannot be clearly placed into one of the Oosterhoff types: the ratio of RRc/RRabc stars is within the range seen in Oosterhoff II globular clusters, the mean RRab period is in the gap between Oosterhoff types, and the mean RRc period is in the range seen in Oosterhoff I globular clusters. The periods of these RR Lyraes suggest a mean metallicity of [Fe/H]=-1.6, while their brightness implies a distance modulus to Andromeda of 24.5+/-0.1, in good agreement with the Cepheid distance.Comment: 15 pages, latex. Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

Risk factors for musculoskeletal injuries in elite junior tennis players: a systematic review

Item does not contain fulltextThe objective was to systematically review the literature on risk factors and prevention programs for musculoskeletal injuries among tennis players. PubmedMedline, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane, SportDiscus were searched up to February 2017. Experts in clinical and epidemiological medicine were contacted to obtain additional studies. For risk factors, prospective cohort studies (n > 20) with a statistical analysis for injured and non-injured players were included and studies with a RCT design for prevention programs. Downs&Black checklist was assessed for risk of bias for risk factors. From a total of 4067 articles, five articles met our inclusion criteria for risk factors. No studies on effectiveness of prevention programs were identified. Quality of studies included varied from fair to excellent. Best evidence synthesis revealed moderate evidence for previous injury regardless of body location in general and fewer years of tennis experience for the occurrence of upper extremity injuries. Moderate evidence was found for lower back injuries, a previous back injury, playing >6hours/week and low lateral flexion of the neck for risk factors. Limited evidence was found for male gender as a risk factor. The risk factors identified can assist clinicians in developing prevention-strategies. Further studies should focus on risk factor evaluation in recreational adult tennis players

Evidence for Distinct Components of the Galactic Stellar Halo from 838 RR Lyrae Stars Discovered in the LONEOS-I Survey

We present 838 ab-type RR Lyrae stars from the Lowell Observatory Near Earth Objects Survey Phase I (LONEOS-I). These objects cover 1430 deg^2 and span distances ranging from 3-30 kpc from the Galactic Center. Object selection is based on phased, photometric data with 28-50 epochs. We use this large sample to explore the bulk properties of the stellar halo, including the spatial distribution. The period-amplitude distribution of this sample shows that the majority of these RR Lyrae stars resemble Oosterhoff type I, but there is a significant fraction (26 %) which have longer periods and appear to be Oosterhoff type II. We find that the radial distributions of these two populations have significantly different profiles (rho_{OoI} ~ R^(-2.26 +- 0.07) and rho_{OoII} ~ R^(-2.88 +- 0.11). This suggests that the stellar halo was formed by at least two distinct accretion processes and supports dual-halo models.Comment: 18 pages, 28 figures, apjemulated, minor corrections and clarifications. Accepted to ApJ on Jan 21, 200