Widows and Wives in Pacific Politics: A Reliable Pathway for Women?

Understanding women’s pathways to political leadership remains a critical area of academic and public policy focus in the Pacific. In this In Brief, Baker and Palmieri consider an alternate and potentially rather ‘macabre’ pathway (Kincaid 1978), albeit one which sheds light on the cultural and political economies of elections in the Pacific and which they believe requires further elucidation: the election of wives and widows of former members of parliament.AusAI

Patience Ladies:Gender-Sensitive Parliamentary Responses in a Time of Crisis

In early 2020, in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, numerous parliaments played their rightful democratic role by following the advice of health and economic experts and swiftly passing emergency legislation and relief packages. This was, in many countries, an attempt to reach an equilibrium between saving lives and saving economic livelihoods, on the understanding that both were in serious jeopardy. In the face of public health measures many parliaments also found themselves having to reform their own rules, procedures and practices. In both cases – policy interventions and institutional redesign – it appears that parliamentary responses to the Covid-19 situation were less commonly based on the advice of gender experts or informed by considerations of gender inequalities. Few, if any, emergency packages were designed following a systematic consideration of existing, deeply entrenched gender inequalities, despite continuous public analysis and commentary about the disproportionate gender impacts of the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns; and no parliaments instituted (temporary) rule changes that prioritized the voices of women parliamentarians or constituents. In this article, which draws on our work drafting the UN Women Covid-19 Parliamentary Primer & Checklist, we revisit the democratic case for gender-sensitive parliaments, highlighting their particular relevance to the 2020 pandemic. We introduce our model for gender-sensitive crisis responses across four key stages of the parliamentary process presented in the Primer – representation, deliberation, legislation and scrutiny – and offer an initial assessment of what transpired in the world’s parliaments based on an IPU survey. We suggest that if parliaments are to be gender-sensitive institutions in times of crisis, they must not only change how they do politics but also develop and sustain a robust political culture that values gender equality and an ethic of caring that supports new rules, procedures and practices that better redress institutional gender deficiencies

Political Economy Analysis in Supporting Women’s Electoral Candidacy: Lessons from Nauru

With elections expected in Samoa and Tonga in 2021, and Papua New Guinea in 2022, development partners will have already turned their attention to women’s inclusion in those electoral processes as a means by which to reach international democratic standards. Political economy analysis (PEA) — an evidence-based assessment of the political dynamics between structures, institutions and actors in a given context, used to inform policy and programming (DFAT 2016) — has become a fundamental part of program design and implementation, but remains underutilised in the particular area of women’s electoral programming. In their 2016 review of women’s candidate training, Barbara and Baker pointed to the importance of individual women candidates conducting their own localised political economy analyses, preferably at the micro or ‘electorate level’ (p. 2). This In Brief presents a related, but separate form of gender-sensitive PEA, undertaken by a development program to inform the design of a candidate training workshop prior to the general election held in August 2019 in Nauru. Three key lessons for gender-sensitive PEA are presented.Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad

Women’s Candidate Training in the COVID Era: The 2021 Tonga Election

In late November 2021, 38,500 electors went to the polls across the 36 inhabited islands of Tonga. None of the women who stood for election were successful. In this In Brief the authors consider the mode of delivery of activities in support of women who chose to contest the election in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. They share the discussions of a locally organised candidate reflection session held during the campaign period to highlight the value — and, to privilege — Tongan women’s experiences in contesting an election.Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad

Intractable Barriers to Women’s Election in Tonga

In this In Brief the authors consider lessons learned in the aftermath of women candidates’ defeat in the 18 November 2021 general election. They identify five intractable barriers to women’s election in Tonga: voters’ expectations of reciprocity in exchange for electoral support; deeply entrenched perceptions of men’s legitimacy as political leaders; untimely support for women candidates; an inhospitable political environment for electoral gender quotas; and a lack of accountability on gender equality commitments.Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad

‘When I go back’: Experiences and expectations of PNG women scholarship graduates on return home

Supporting education through scholarships has been a long-term development strategy of the Australian Government, including in the Pacific region, most notably through the Australia Awards Linkages Framework (DFAT 2020). This sustained investment has been regularly monitored and evaluated with tracer studies of Australia Awards alumni undertaken through DFAT’s Global Tracer Facility (GTF). These studies consider alumni perceptions of their relationships with Australia, and the extent to which alumni consider they have made a development contribution on return home (Edwards et al. 2020). In contrast, there is a more limited academic literature on the experiences of Pacific scholars once they have returned home from overseas, and more particularly, the gendered nature of those experiences (Howard 2019, Howard et al. 2019). This research aims to fill this knowledge gap and asks three interrelated questions: 1.To what extent do alumnae (that is, women scholarship graduates) expect, andfeel they are able, to act as agents of change on return home? 2.What factors either support or hinder alumnae approaches to facilitate changeon return home? 3.What are the consequences of alumnae attempts at – and/or achievement of –change? In answering these questions, a small-scale pilot study was conducted with a group of women who were not only recipients of an Australia Award (AA), but had also participated in a niche enrichment program known as the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI). Since its inception in 2017, almost 130 Pacific women scholars have participated in the WLI, with half of these from Papua New Guinea (PNG), reflecting the larger pool of AA recipients from PNG.Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trad

Ocular tolerance and efficacy of short-term tamponade with double filling of polydimethyloxane and perfluoro-n-octane

Stefano Zenoni1, Mario R Romano2, Sonia Palmieri1, Natalia Comi1, Edoardo Fiorentini1, Piero Fontana11Ospedali Riuniti di Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy; 2Istituto Clinico Humanitas IRCSS, Rozzano, Milan, ItalyObjective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the ocular tolerance and efficacy of double filling with perfluoro-n-octane (n-C8F18) (PFO) and polydimethyloxane (PDMS) as a temporary vitreous substitute in patients with retinal detachment complicated by proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR).Material and methods: Tamponade was performed in 30 eyes of 30 patients by double filling with 30% PFO and 70% PDMS for an average of 23 (standard deviation 2.2) days. The follow-up visits were scheduled 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after surgery. The main outcome measures were visual acuity, intraocular pressure (IOP), PVR reproliferation, and electrophysiological parameters.Results: The primary success rate was 80% (24/30). Fourteen patients (46.7%) had a postoperative improvement in visual acuity, 12 patients (40.0%) maintained their preoperative visual acuity, and four patients (13.3%) experienced a reduction in visual acuity. The mean postoperative IOP was 19.7 mm Hg (11–32 mm Hg); nine cases (30.0%) developed an IOP increase that was treated with topical drops and/or systemic carbonic anhydrase inhibitors. The electroretinogram (ERG) and the bright flash electroretinogram (bf ERG) parameters showed a statistically significant difference of means between 4- and 8-week follow-up visits.Conclusion: Our experience with double filling in selected cases of retinal detachment has been positive. No electroretinographic signs of retinal toxicity and a low incidence of PVR reproliferation were observed.Keywords: double filling, proliferative vitreo-retinopathy, perfluoro-n-octane, polydimethyloxane, retinal detachment, retinal detachment electrophysiolog

Biomimetic and mesoporous nano-hydroxyapatite for bone tissue application: a short review

In the last decades, many research groups have experimented the synthesis of hydroxyapatite (HA) for bone tissue application obtaining products with different shapes and dimensions. This review aims to summarise and critically analyse the most used methods to prepare physiologic-like nano-HA, in the form of plates or rods, similar to the HA present in the human bones. Moreover, mesoporous HA has gained increasing interest in the biomedical field due its pecualiar structural features, such as high surface area and accessible mesoporous volume, which is known to confer enhanced biological behaviour and the possibility to act as nanocarriers of functional agents for bone-related therapies. For this reason, more recent studies related to the synthesis of mesoporous HA, with physiological-like morphology, are also considered in this review. Since a wide class of surfactant molecules plays an essential role both in the shape and size control of HA crystals and in the formation of mesoporosity, a section devoted to the mechanisms of action of several surfactants is also provided

Health-related quality of life and functional changes in DMD: A 12-month longitudinal cohort study

In Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) little has been reported on the association between clinical outcome measures and patient health-related quality of life (HRQOL) tools. Our study evaluated the relationship between 12 month changes on the Generic Core Scales (GCS), the Multidimensional Fatigue Scale and the Neuromuscular Module of the PedsQL\u2122 with several outcome measures (6 minute walk test, North Star Ambulatory Assessment and timed items) in ambulatory DMD. Ninety-eight ambulatory DMD in a multicentric setting were included in the study. At baseline, the PedsQL\u2122 inventories correlated with almost all the functional measures On the Child Self-Report there was a significant decrease between baseline and 12 months on the PedsQL\u2122 GCS and its first domain, in parallel with the decrement in the functional outcome measures. Correlation between the 12 month changes on the PedsQL\u2122 inventories and functional measures were almost all negligible. Similar results were obtained on the Parent Proxy-Report.In conclusion, PedsQL\u2122 correlates with the level of impairment at baseline, but this does not hold true when 12 month changes are considered. Further studies comparing different tools are needed to better elucidate the complexity of the relationship between HRQOL and functional performances

Quantifying neutralising antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 in dried blood spots (DBS) and paired sera

The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was initially managed by non-pharmaceutical interventions such as diagnostic testing, isolation of positive cases, physical distancing and lockdowns. The advent of vaccines has provided crucial protection against SARS-CoV-2. Neutralising antibody (nAb) responses are a key correlate of protection, and therefore measuring nAb responses is essential for monitoring vaccine efficacy. Fingerstick dried blood spots (DBS) are ideal for use in large-scale sero-surveillance because they are inexpensive, offer the option of self-collection and can be transported and stored at ambient temperatures. Such advantages also make DBS appealing to use in resource-limited settings and in potential future pandemics. In this study, nAb responses in sera, venous blood and fingerstick blood stored on filter paper were measured. Samples were collected from SARS-CoV-2 acutely infected individuals, SARS-CoV-2 convalescent individuals and SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated individuals. Good agreement was observed between the nAb responses measured in eluted DBS and paired sera. Stability of nAb responses was also observed in sera stored on filter paper at room temperature for 28 days. Overall, this study provides support for the use of filter paper as a viable sample collection method to study nAb responses.</p