Connecting Rights to Reality: A Progressive Framework of Core Legal Protections for Women's Property Rights

This document presents information of how women in many countries are far less likely than men to own property and assets - key tools to gaining economic security and earning higher incomes. Though laws to protect women's property rights exist in most countries, gender and cultural constraints can prevent women from owning or inheriting property. In this series, ICRW suggests practical steps to promote, protect and fulfill women's property rights

Chronic intestinal inflammation: Inflammatory bowel disease and colitis-associated colon cancer

The inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), including Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are chronic inflammatory disorders of the intestine. The prevalence in the United States is greater than 200 cases per 100,000, with the total number of IBD patients between 1 and 1.5 million. CD may affect all parts of the gastrointestinal tract, from mouth to anus, but most commonly involves the distal part of the small intestine or ileum, and colon. UC results in colonic inflammation that can affect the rectum only, or can progress proximally to involve part of or the entire colon. Clinical symptoms include diarrhea, abdominal pain, gastrointestinal bleeding, and weight loss. A serious long-term complication of chronic inflammation is the development of colorectal cancer. A genetic basis for IBD had long been recognized based on the increased familial risk. However, significant discordance for CD in twins, and a much less robust phenotypic concordance for UC, suggested additional factors play a role in disease pathogenesis, including environmental factors. In the past several years, progress in understanding the molecular basis of IBD has accelerated, beginning with the generation of animal models of colitis and progressing to the identification of specific genetic markers from candidate gene, gene linkage, and genome-wide association analyses. Genetic studies have also resulted in the recognition of the importance of environmental factors, particularly the crucial role of the gut microbiota in CD and UC. Altered immune responses to the normal intestinal flora are key factors in IBD pathogenesis. In this research topic, the genetic basis of IBD, the genetic and cellular alterations associated with colitis-associated colon cancer, and the emerging role of the intestinal microbiota and other environmental factors will be reviewed

Gender, Assets, and Agricultural Development Programs: A Conceptual Framework

Being able to access, control, and own productive assets such as land, labor, finance, and social capital enables people to create stable and productive lives. Yet relatively little is known about how agricultural development programs can most effectively deliver these outcomes of well-being, empowerment, and higher income in a way that acknowledges differential access to and control over assets by men and women. After reviewing the literature on gender and assets, this paper offers a conceptual framework for understanding the gendered pathways through which asset accumulation occurs, including attention to not only men's and women's assets but also those they share in joint control and ownership. Unlike previous frameworks, this model depicts the gendered dimensions of each component of the pathway in recognition of the evidence that men and women not only control, own, or dispose of assets in different ways, but also access, control, and own different kinds of assets. The framework generates gender-specific hypotheses that can be tested empirically: i) Different types of assets enable different livelihoods, with a greater stock and diversity of assets being associated with more diverse livelihoods and better well-being outcomes; ii) Men and women use different types of assets to cope with different types of shocks; iii) Interventions that increase men's and women's stock of a particular asset improve the bargaining power of the individual(s) who control that asset; and iv) Interventions and policies that reduce the gender gap in assets are better able to achieve development outcomes related to food security, health, and nutrition and other aspects of well-being related to agency and empowerment. The implications of these gender differences for designing agricultural development interventions to increase asset growth and returns to assets as well as for value chain development are discussed. Based on this analysis, additional gaps in knowledge and possible investigations to address them are identified

‘They think we are delaying their outputs’. The challenges of interdisciplinary research: understanding power dynamics between social and biophysical scientists in international crop breeding teams

Public sector crop improvement for development programmes aims to produce varieties tailored to the needs of smallholder farmers and their environments. Understanding how social heterogeneity, including gender, drives trait preferences is essential to ensure that crop improvement objectives meet farmers’ and stakeholder demands. This requires an interdisciplinary approach, integrating social science knowledge with crop breeding. Although the necessity of interdisciplinary research is recognised and promoted, it is impeded by a multitude of challenges including ontological and epistemological differences, institutional and global hierarchies, disciplinary power relations and struggles for scientific authority. The Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) sector is marked by entrenched power differentials, including dominance of the biophysical sciences, a historical emphasis on technical solutions which ignores social contexts, and the underrepresentation of women scientists and farmers themselves. Nevertheless, there is limited theoretically informed analysis of power dynamics within AR4D settings. Drawing on qualitative, ethnographic observations of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement (ILCI), this article seeks to understand how power affects interdisciplinary research processes. Critical ethnography and power theory is used to analyse power within international crop breeding collaborations and the implications for inclusive knowledge production and research impact. The Powercube is used to examine how visible, hidden and invisible forms of power manifest within local, national, and international relationships across closed, invited and claimed spaces. Our findings suggest that these intersecting power dimensions, which include disciplinary, gendered, institutional and global hierarchies, constrain the contributions that individual researchers can make – particularly social scientists – thereby hindering disciplinary integration. The ILCI case study reveals the complex multi-dimensional dynamics that emerge within agricultural research teams and highlights structural limitations constraining efforts to build socially inclusive and gender-responsive crop improvement programmes. The article contributes to a small but growing literature studying the social construction of agricultural science, and provides insights that can enable interdisciplinary research strategies to more effectively meet the needs of farmers and other stakeholders

Nursing outcome indicator validation for patients with orthopedic problems

Estudo de validação de conteúdo, descritivo, transversal, com abordagem quantitativa, realizado num hospital universitário. Objetivou-se validar os indicadores de quatro resultados de enfermagem da Classificação dos Resultados de Enfermagem - NOC, para o diagnóstico de enfermagem Déficit no autocuidado: banho/higiene, apresentados por pacientes em pós-operatório de cirurgia ortopédica. Construiu-se um instrumento contendo os indicadores dos resultados Autocuidado: Atividades da Vida Diária, Autocuidado: Banho, Autocuidado: Higiene e Autocuidado: Higiene Oral, e uma escala Likert de cinco pontos (1=não relevante; 5=extremamente relevante). Os peritos foram enfermeiros que atendem esses pacientes há pelo menos um ano e utilizam diagnósticos de enfermagem. Para análise dos dados empregou-se estatística descritiva. Dos 34 indicadores pesquisados, 2 (6%) foram considerados indicadores principais provisórios, 22 (65%), secundários provisórios e 10 (29%) foram descartados. Os indicadores principais e secundários provisórios serão utilizados na observação do banho de pacientes em pós-operatório de Artroplastia Total de Quadril e terão suas evoluções monitoradas.Estudio de validación de contenido, descriptivo, transversal, con abordaje cuantitativo, realizado en un hospital universitario. Se objetivó validar los indicadores de cuatro resultados de enfermería de la Clasificación de Resultados de Enfermería - NOC para el diagnóstico de enfermería Déficit en el auto-cuidado: baño/higiene presentado por pacientes en post operatorio de cirugía ortopédica. Se construyó un instrumento conteniendo los indicadores de los resultados Auto-cuidado: Actividades de la Vida Diaria, Auto-cuidado: Baño, Autocuidado: Higiene y Auto-cuidado: Higiene Oral y una escala Likert de cinco puntos (1=no relevante, 5=extremadamente relevante). Los peritos fueron enfermeros que atienden a tales pacientes desde hace al menos un año y utilizan diagnósticos de enfermería. Para el análisis de los datos se empleó la estadística descriptiva. De los 34 indicadores investigados, 2 (6%) fueron considerados indicadores principales provisorios, 22 (65%) considerados secundarios provisorios, y 10 (29%) fueron descartados. Los indicadores principales y secundarios provisorios serán utilizados en la observación del baño del paciente en el post operatorio de Artroplastia Total de Cadera, y se monitorearán sus evoluciones.This is a descriptive, cross-sectional content validation study, with a quantitative approach, carried out in a university hospital. The objective of this study was to validate four nursing outcomes' indicators of the Nursing Outcomes Classification - NOC for the nursing diagnosis Selfcare Deficit: Bathing/Hygiene presented by patients in postoperative of orthopedic surgery. An instrument containing the outcomes indicators Selfcare: Activities of Daily Living, Selfcare: Bathing, Selfcare: Hygiene and Selfcare: Oral Hygiene was built, along with a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 (1=not important, 5=extremely important). The experts were nurses who care for these patients for at least a year and make use of nursing diagnoses. Descriptive statistics were used for the data analysis. Out of the 34 indicators studied, 2 (6%) were considered as main temporary indicators, 22 (65%) as secondary temporary indicators and 10 (29%) were discarded. The main and secondary temporary indicators will be used during the bathing observation of patients in postoperative of Total Hip Replacement, and their development will be monitored