Gender and entrepreneurship in pandemic time: what demands and what resources? An exploratory study

Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, global economies have suffered an exogenous shock never seen before with a strong economic and psychosocial impact on organizations. Italy, in the context of the research, has been severely affected. The economic crisis has mainly affected women. In this scenario, entrepreneurial perceived success (objective and subjective) is influenced by increasingly burdensome job demands that entrepreneurs have to face up. Using the job demand resources model, the study aims to broaden the knowledge of the determinants of entrepreneurial perceived success in the current emergency moment. In particular, as regards of the demands, alongside the specific entrepreneurial demands (time demands, uncertainty and risk, and responsibility), we also decided to include the negative interface family–work in both directions from-family-to-work (NEGWIF) and from-work-to-family (NEGFIW). Regarding the resources, we considered entrepreneurial self-efficacy (researching, planning, marshaling, implementing people, and implementing financial), proactive and elaborate social strategies (SS), and both directions of the positive interface: from-family-to-work (POSWIF) and from-work-to-family (POSFIW). All participants are women entrepreneurs (N = 137) who have completed a self-report questionnaire. We explored the associations between demands, resources, and the dimensions of success through hierarchical regressions. As for the demands, time demands, uncertainty and risk, NEGWIF, and NEGFIW negatively influenced the perceived entrepreneurial success. Regarding resources, planning, implementing financial, proactive and elaborate SS positively influenced the perceived entrepreneurial success

Supporting Maine’s Families: Recommendations from Maine\u27s Relatives as Parents Project

Maine is experiencing an increasing rate of children being raised by their grandparents or other relatives. The common reasons these individuals have taken on the responsibility of surrogate parenting, when the biological parents are unwilling or unable to do so include drug and alcohol abuse, child abuse and neglect, mental health problems, illness and death, incarceration and family violence. Under the vast majority of circumstances, relatives take responsibility for these children instead of the State Child Protective Services; this saves the State money but can be very burdensome to the family. Though relatives welcome the children, they often face unexpected lifestyle changes. The challenges they face can be physically, emotionally, and financially overwhelming, compromising their capacity to provide unconditional love, build trust, and serve as strong adult role models. It is in the interest of Maine’s children and families to support relatives in assuming this responsibility. These caregivers - often called kinship caregivers - take on this responsibility because they want to keep their families together; they love their grandchildren and want to keep them healthy and safe. The availability of responsive policies and programs have the capacity to alleviate stress and improve health and also help reduce the sense of isolation often felt by older adults raising children. During 2002-2003, the University of Maine Center on Aging, with a grant from Generations United, sponsored the Relatives as Parents Project Task Force to develop recommendations on how Maine can better support families in relative-headed households. Three subcommittees grew out of Maine’s RAPP Task Force and the recommendations presented here reflect the work of those three groups. The foci of these subcommittees were: financial security, community resources, and mental health and substance abuse issues

The Hot QCD White Paper: Exploring the Phases of QCD at RHIC and the LHC

The past decade has seen huge advances in experimental measurements made in heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and more recently at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These new data, in combination with theoretical advances from calculations made in a variety of frameworks, have led to a broad and deep knowledge of the properties of thermal QCD matter. Increasingly quantitative descriptions of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in these collisions have established that the QGP is a strongly coupled liquid with the lowest value of specific viscosity ever measured. However, much remains to be learned about the precise nature of the initial state from which this liquid forms, how its properties vary across its phase diagram and how, at a microscopic level, the collective properties of this liquid emerge from the interactions among the individual quarks and gluons that must be visible if the liquid is probed with sufficiently high resolution. This white paper, prepared by the Hot QCD Writing Group as part of the U.S. Long Range Plan for Nuclear Physics, reviews the recent progress in the field of hot QCD and outlines the scientific opportunities in the next decade for resolving the outstanding issues in the field.Comment: 110 pages, 33 figures, 429 references. Prepared as part of the U.S. Long-Range Plan for Nuclear Physic

Psychometric evaluation of the Questionnaire about the Process of Recovery (QPR)

Background: Supporting recovery is the aim of national mental health policy in many countries, including England. There is a need for standardised measures of recovery, to assess policy implementation and inform clinical practice. Only one measure of recovery has been developed in England: the Questionnaire about the Process of Recovery (QPR) which measures recovery from the perspective of adult mental health service users with a psychosis diagnosis. Aims: To independently evaluate the psychometric properties of the 15-item and 22-item versions of QPR. Method: Two samples were used: Dataset 1 (n=88) involved assessment of QPR at baseline, two weeks and three months. Dataset 2 (n=399; ISRCTN02507940) involved assessment of QPR at baseline and one year. Results: For the 15-item version, internal consistency was 0.89, convergent validity was 0.73, test-retest reliability was 0.74 and sensitivity to change was 0.40. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the 15-item version offered a good fit. For the 22 item version comprising two sub-scales, the Interpersonal sub-scale was found to under-perform and the Intrapersonal sub-scale overlaps substantially with the 15 item version. Conclusions: Both the 15-item and the Intrapersonal sub-scale of the 22-item versions of the QPR demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties. The 15-item version is slightly more robust and also less burdensome, so it can be recommended for use in research and clinical practice. Declaration of interest: None

Thoughts on opportunities in high-energy nuclear collisions

This document reflects thoughts on opportunities from high-energy nuclear collisions in the 2020s.Comment: 10 pages, pd

Association of Accelerometry-Measured Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Events in Mobility-Limited Older Adults: The LIFE (Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders) Study.

BACKGROUND:Data are sparse regarding the value of physical activity (PA) surveillance among older adults-particularly among those with mobility limitations. The objective of this study was to examine longitudinal associations between objectively measured daily PA and the incidence of cardiovascular events among older adults in the LIFE (Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders) study. METHODS AND RESULTS:Cardiovascular events were adjudicated based on medical records review, and cardiovascular risk factors were controlled for in the analysis. Home-based activity data were collected by hip-worn accelerometers at baseline and at 6, 12, and 24 months postrandomization to either a physical activity or health education intervention. LIFE study participants (n=1590; age 78.9±5.2 [SD] years; 67.2% women) at baseline had an 11% lower incidence of experiencing a subsequent cardiovascular event per 500 steps taken per day based on activity data (hazard ratio, 0.89; 95% confidence interval, 0.84-0.96; P=0.001). At baseline, every 30 minutes spent performing activities ≥500 counts per minute (hazard ratio, 0.75; confidence interval, 0.65-0.89 [P=0.001]) were also associated with a lower incidence of cardiovascular events. Throughout follow-up (6, 12, and 24 months), both the number of steps per day (per 500 steps; hazard ratio, 0.90, confidence interval, 0.85-0.96 [P=0.001]) and duration of activity ≥500 counts per minute (per 30 minutes; hazard ratio, 0.76; confidence interval, 0.63-0.90 [P=0.002]) were significantly associated with lower cardiovascular event rates. CONCLUSIONS:Objective measurements of physical activity via accelerometry were associated with cardiovascular events among older adults with limited mobility (summary score >10 on the Short Physical Performance Battery) both using baseline and longitudinal data. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION:URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01072500

Re-visioning ultrasound through women's accounts of pre-abortion care in England

Feminist scholarship has demonstrated the importance of sustained critical engagement with ultrasound visualizations of pregnant women’s bodies. In response to portrayals of these images as “objective” forms of knowledge about the fetus, it has drawn attention to the social practices through which the meanings of ultrasound are produced. This article makes a novel contribution to this project by addressing an empirical context that has been neglected in the existing feminist literature concerning ultrasound, namely, its use during pregnancies that women decide to terminate. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with women concerning their experiences of abortion in England, I explore how the meanings of having an ultrasound prior to terminating a pregnancy are discursively constructed. I argue that women’s accounts complicate dominant representations of ultrasound and that in so doing, they multiply the subject positions available to pregnant women