CSR initiatives by companies for employees through social protection measures

Poverty has always been the main concern globally as it alienates and distresses particular groups of citizen that affects their emotion and psychological behaviour, and may have impact on the socioeconomic aspect of the country. Hence, it is critical for the government to address the poverty problem, as this would lead to inequality. One way to minimise income inequality is through the provision of social protection to maintain the basic consumption and living standard of the needed members of the society.The government highlights the importance of increasing involvement of the private sector to improve social protection through their CSR programmes. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to unearth the concept of social protection and its role in minimising inequality in the society as well as to develop an instrument to measure the social protection dimension of companies’ CSR activities

“Cooperative Learning Does Not Work for Me”: Analysis of Its Implementation in Future Physical Education Teachers

Cooperative learning (CL) is one of the pedagogical models that has had more application in the area of Physical Education (PE), being highly worked in the initial training of teachers. The aim of the study is to check to what extent future PE teachers are able to apply in the classroom the PE training they have received at university, deepening their fears, insecurities and problems when carrying it out. Thirteen future PE teachers (7 girls and 6 boys) aged 20.87 ± 1.43 participated and, after having been trained in CL in various subjects, applied it in the classroom during their internship. They were selected through purposeful non-probability sampling. A qualitative methodology was used, being the interviews, the teaching diaries and the seminars with the tutor the instruments of data collection used. Three categories of analysis were used: (a) initial expectations in the application of the CL; (b) problems encountered in its implementation; (c) reflection about its application in the future. The results showed how the future teachers did not see their expectations of success fulfilled, encountering resistance from both students and teachers in PE. Furthermore, they reflect the need to continue training in a model that has infinite nuances so that it can be implemented satisfactorily. It is necessary to continue researching a pedagogical model with so many possibilities in the area of PE and with so much transversality on a social level

Parenting stress and resilience in parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Southeast Asia: a systematic review

Background: This paper aimed to review the literature on the factors associated with parenting stress and resilience among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the South East Asia (SEA) region. Methods: An extensive search of articles in multiple online databases (PsycNET, ProQuest, PudMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) resulted in 28 papers that met the inclusion criteria (i.e., conducted in the SEA region, specific to ASD only, published in a peer-reviewed journal, full text in English). Studies found were conducted in the following countries: Brunei, n = 1; Indonesia, n = 2; Malaysia, n = 12; Philippines, n = 5; Singapore, n = 5, Thailand, n = 2; and Vietnam, n = 1, but none from Cambodia, East Timor, Laos, and Myanmar were identified. Results: Across the studies, six main factors were found to be associated with parenting stress: social support, severity of autism symptoms, financial difficulty, parents' perception and understanding toward ASD, parents' anxiety and worries about their child's future, and religious beliefs. These six factors could also be categorized as either a source of parenting stress or a coping strategy/resilience mechanism that may attenuate parenting stress. Conclusion: The findings suggest that greater support services in Western countries may underlie the cultural differences observed in the SEA region. Limitations in the current review were identified. The limited number of studies yielded from the search suggests a need for expanded research on ASD and parenting stress, coping, and resilience in the SEA region especially in Cambodia, East Timor, Laos, and Myanmar. The identified stress and resilience factors may serve as sociocultural markers for clinicians, psychologists, and other professionals to consider when supporting parents of children with ASD

CSR initiatives by companies for employees through social protection measures

Poverty has always been the main concern globally as it alienates and distresses particular groups of citizen that affects their emotion and psychological behaviour, and may have impact on the socio-economic aspect of the country. Hence, it is critical for the government to address the poverty problem, as this would lead to inequality. One way to minimise income inequality is through the provision of social protection to maintain the basic consumption and living standard of the needed members of the society. The government highlights the importance of increasing involvement of the private sector to improve social protection through their CSR programmes. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to unearth the concept of social protection and its role in minimising inequality in the society as well as to develop an instrument to measure the social protection dimension of companies’ CSR activities

Association of ADRA2A and MTHFR gene polymorphisms with weight loss following antipsychotic switching to aripiprazole or ziprasidone

ObjectivesVarious genetic polymorphisms have been reported to be associated with antipsychotic-induced weight gain. In this study, we aimed to determine whether risk polymorphisms in 12 candidate genes are associated with reduction in body mass index (BMI) of patients following switching of antipsychotics to aripiprazole or ziprasidone. MethodsWe recruited 115 schizophrenia patients with metabolic abnormalities and who have been on at least 1year treatment with other antipsychotics; they were then switched to either aripiprazole or ziprasidone. They were genotyped, and their BMI monitored for 6months. ResultsSignificant associations with reduction in BMI at 6months following switching were found in two of these genes: with rs1800544 of the ADRA2A gene (CC+CG -0.321.41kg/m(2) vs GG -1.04 +/- 1.63kg/m(2), p=0.013) and with rs1801131 of the MTHFR gene (AA -0.36 +/- 1.53 vs AC+CC -1.07 +/- 1.53, p=0.015). ConclusionThe study data indicated that carriage of the ADRA2A rs1800544 GG genotype and the MTHFR rs1801131 C allele are associated with BMI reduction in this population following switching of antipsychotics to aripiprazole and ziprasidone. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Genetic association of LMAN2L gene in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and its interaction with ANK3 gene polymorphism

Recent studies have shown that bipolar disorder (BPD) and schizophrenia (SZ) share some common genetic risk factors. This study aimed to examine the association between candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) identified from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and risk of BPD and SZ. A total of 715 patients (244 BPD and 471 SZ) and 593 controls were genotyped using the Sequenom MassARRAY platform. We showed a positive association between LMAN2L (rs6746896) and risk of both BPD and SZ in a pooled population (P-value = 0.001 and 0.009, respectively). Following stratification by ethnicity, variants of the ANK3 gene (rs1938516 and rs10994336) were found to be associated with BPD in Malays (P-value = 0.001 and 0.006, respectively). Furthermore, an association exists between another variant of LMAN2L (rs2271893) and SZ in the Malay and Indian ethnic groups (P-value = 0.003 and 0.002, respectively). Gene–gene interaction analysis revealed a significant interaction between the ANK3 and LMAN2L genes (empirical P = 0.0107). Significant differences were shown between patients and controls for two haplotype frequencies of LMAN2L: GA (P = 0.015 and P = 0.010, for BPD and SZ, respectively) and GG (P = 0.013 for BPD). Our study showed a significant association between LMAN2L and risk of both BPD and SZ