Deconstructing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender victim of sex trafficking: Harm, exceptionality and religion–sexuality tensions

Contrary to widespread belief, sex trafficking also targets lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) communities. Contemporary social and political constructions of victimhood lie at the heart of regulatory policies on sex trafficking. Led by the US Department of State, knowledge about LGBT victims of trafficking constitutes the newest frontier in the expansion of criminalization measures. These measures represent a crucial shift. From a burgeoning range of preemptive measures enacted to protect an amorphous class of ‘all potential victims’, now policies are heavily premised on the risk posed by traffickers to ‘victims of special interest’. These constructed identities, however, are at odds with established structures. Drawing on a range of literatures, the core task of this article is to confront some of the complexities and tensions surrounding constructions of LGBT trafficking victims. Specifically, the article argues that discourses of ‘exceptional vulnerability’ and the polarized notions of ‘innocence’ and ‘guilt’ inform hierarchies of victimhood. Based on these insights, the article argues for the need to move beyond monolithic understandings of victims, by reframing the politics of harm accordingly

Bootstrapping the energy flow in the beginning of life.

This paper suggests that the energy flow on which all living structures depend only started up slowly, the low-energy, initial phase starting up a second, slightly more energetic phase, and so on. In this way, the build up of the energy flow follows a bootstrapping process similar to that found in the development of computers, the first generation making possible the calculations necessary for constructing the second one, etc. In the biogenetic upstart of an energy flow, non-metals in the lower periods of the Periodic Table of Elements would have constituted the most primitive systems, their operation being enhanced and later supplanted by elements in the higher periods that demand more energy. This bootstrapping process would put the development of the metabolisms based on the second period elements carbon, nitrogen and oxygen at the end of the evolutionary process rather than at, or even before, the biogenetic even

Pre-test of questions on health-related resource use and expenditure, using behaviour coding and cognitive interviewing techniques

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Validated instruments collecting data on health-related resource use are lacking, but required, for example, to investigate predictors of healthcare use or for health economic evaluation.</p> <p>The objective of the study was to develop, test and refine a questionnaire collecting data on health-related resource use and expenditure in patients with diabetes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The questionnaire was tested in 43 patients with diabetes mellitus types 1 and 2 in Germany. Response behaviour suggestive of problems with questions (item non-response, request for clarification, comments, inadequate answer, “don’t know”) was systematically registered. Cognitive interviews focusing on information retrieval and comprehension problems were carried out.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Many participants had difficulties answering questions pertaining to frequency of visits to the general practitioner (26%), time spent receiving healthcare services (39%), regular medication currently taken (35%) and out of pocket expenditure on medication (42%). These difficulties seem to result mainly from poor memory. A number of comprehension problems were established and relevant questions were revised accordingly.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The questionnaire on health-related resource use and expenditure for use in diabetes research in Germany was developed and refined after careful testing. Ideally, the questionnaire should be externally validated for different modes of administration and recall periods within a variety of populations.</p

Perfil sociodemográfico de mulheres em situação de violência assistidas nas delegacias especializadas Perfil socio-demográfico de mujeres en situación de violencia asistidas en comisarías especializadas Socio-demographic profile for women who faces the violence and get the support at specialized police stations

Pesquisa quantitativa, descritiva, do tipo série histórica, que teve como objetivos: caracterizar a demanda assistida nas Delegacias Especializadas de Atendimento à Mulher (DEAMs) na região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro quanto ao perfil sociodemográfico, tipo de violência e relação da mulher com o acusado da agressão; e analisar estes dados diante da situação da violência de gênero à luz da discussão temática. Os dados foram coletados a partir de 38.009 registros de ocorrência de violência à mulher no período de 2003 a 2008, cedidos pelo Instituto de Segurança Pública após aprovação pelo Comitê de Ética. As mulheres eram jovens, brancas, com ensino fundamental completo, solteiras e com ocupação. A maioria residia na zona norte da cidade. O local de ocorrência do delito foi a residência. Predominou a agressão psicológica. Os agressores eram membros próximos da família. Violência é uma forma de expressão dessas famílias, sendo necessária mudança de paradigma de civilização.<br>Investigación cuantitativa, descriptiva, del tipo serie histórica, que tuvo como objetivos: caracterizar la demanda de asistencia en los Departamentos de Policía Especializada para Atención a la Mujer (DEAM) en la región metropolitana de Rio de Janeiro sobre el perfil socio-demográfico, el tipo de la violencia y la relación de la mujer con los acusados del asalto, y analizar los datos sobre la situación de violencia de género a la luz del tema de discusión. Se recogieron datos de 38.009 registros de ocurrencia de la violencia a las mujeres en el período 2003 a 2008, asignados por la Oficina de Seguridad Pública después de la aprobación por el Comité de Ética. Las mujeres eran jóvenes, blancas, con escuela primaria completa, solteras y con ocupación. La mayoría reside en la región norte de la ciudad. El lugar de la ocurrencia de la infracción fue la propia residencia de ellas. La agresión psicológica fue la más predominante. Los autores son miembros cercanos de la familia. La violencia es una forma de expresión de estas familias, que requiere un cambio de paradigma de la civilización.<br>It's a historic, quantitative and descriptive research, whose goals are: characterize the demand assisted at Specialized Police Stations in Assistance to Women (DEAMs) located in the city of Rio de Janeiro according to the socio-demographic profile, type of violence and the relationship between the woman and the accused of the assault, and analyze these data on a situation of violence to get a thematic discussion. Data were collected through 38,009 records of violence reports to women during the period of 2003 to 2008, provided by the Public Safety Institute after the approval from the Ethics Committee. The women were young, white, have completed the elementary school, unmarried and employed. The majority lives in the northern area of the city. The place where the crime occurred was their residence. Psychological aggression was predominant. The aggressors are close family members. Violence is the way these families use to express, which requires a paradigm change on the civilization

Distributed Dynamic Spectrum Access in Multichannel Random Access Networks with Selfish Users

Dynamic spectrum allocation schemes enable users to share spectrum resources by exploiting the variations in spectrum demand over time and space. Performing dynamic spectrum allocation centrally can be prohibitively complex. Therefore distributed schemes in which users can access the available channels independently may be preferable to centralized allocation. However, in distributed dynamic spectrum access, the lack of central coordination makes it difficult to utilize the system resources efficiently. Furthermore, if some or all of the users decide to deviate selfishly from the commonly agreed access procedure, this may have a decisive effect on system performance. In this paper we investigate the effect of incomplete information and selfish behavior on system performance in wireless access systems. We extend previous work by studying a distributed multichannel wireless random access system. Using a game-theoretic approach, we analyze the behavior of users in the selfish system and derive the transmission strategies at the Nash equilibrium. Our results show that lack of information leads to substantial degredation in performance of cooperative systems. We also show that there is a large incentive for selfish behavior in such cooperative systems. Selfish behavior of all users, however, causes further performance degradation, particularly in high load settings.QC 20111208. © 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. QC 20111207</p