Can understanding worldviews help promote a more positive culture of science in Kuwait?

by Martin W. Bauer, Mohammad Sartawi & Gordon Sammut  Formulating policy in any science-related field – health, clean energy, the environment – is not without its challenges. This is particularly true for Kuwait where, despite the abundance of policy papers written by competent bodies, very little implementation and impact is felt on the ground. Social psychology could perhaps provide solutions from its massive body of theories and concepts, and guide more effective policy formulation that would see better uptake by populations and impact on the ground. Specifically, social psychology could offer some insights into the receptivity of various individuals to different types of themes that may be present in the discourse of a given policy area

Socio-economic Assessing of Researchers Perceptions and Farmers Willingness to Adopt Silage Technology in Palestine-West Bank

In this paper the animal breeder in Palestine has many challenges including high feed prices, high-cost input, low-quality pasture, limited access to rangeland with high quality, and high cost of feed. In Tubas and Tulkarm areas, extensive irrigated agriculture is dominant. Large quantities of agricultural by-products are wasted. As one of the important interventions to decrease feeding costs, the study focused on silage technology adoption from the view of researchers and farmers. It meant using these agricultural by-products to make them beneficial and eatable for the animal. On the one hand, we removed these by-products from the environment and second, we fed to animals and ultimately, we reduced the input cost of animal feed. The main objective is to improve dissemination strategies and approaches that promote the adoption of silage technologies by identifying both researcher and farmer perceptions and constraints. A field `survey was conducted targeting 70 farmers (35 have knowledge and practice silage technology and 35 do not) from Tubas and Tulkarm areas. The binary logistic model was used for analysis in SPSS and Excel was used for data analysis. The main finding was that age and education play a very important role in the level of adoption, both have negative effects, and access to credit and land tenure may increase the chance of adoption. farming experience has a less negative impact on the level of adoption, while family size has also a negative impact, family size also affects the level of adoption. People in the targeted area try to diversify their income and educated people to leave their parents, either settle outside or come home at the weekend. The study recommended that being a member of a community-based organization increases your chance of access to new technology and increases your chance of adoption. Public awareness and approaches to CBO are crucial for the adoption of this technology. The size of the herd is important for adoption and cost analysis

Assessment of the performance of CHROMagar KPC and Xpert Carba-R assay for the detection of carbapenem-resistant bacteria in rectal swabs: First comparative study from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

© 2019 International Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of CHROMagar™ KPC compared with Xpert® Carba-R assay for the detection of carbapenem-resistant bacterial isolates from rectal swabs. Methods: Rectal swabs were obtained from patients admitted to Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) over a period of 7 months and were screened for carbapenem resistance by either culture on CHROMagar KPC or carbapenemase production using the Xpert Carba-R molecular method. Further testing for carbapenem susceptibility of isolates recovered from CHROMagar KPC was performed using VITEK®2. Results: A total of 1813 rectal swabs were screened, of which 61 (3.4%) were positive for carbapenem resistance by either one or both methods. Both methods were equally efficient in detecting carbapenem resistance in 37/61 swabs (60.7%), mostly positive for Klebsiella pneumoniae (22 isolates), of which 40.9% (9/22) carried blaOXA-48-like and blaNDM. Xpert Carba-R assay detected 12 additional swabs with negative CHROMagar KPC culture and revealed additional carbapenemase-producing organisms carrying blaOXA-48-like and/or blaNDM. CHROMagar KPC recovered organisms in nine swabs not detected by the genotypic method, 44.4% of which were K. pneumoniae. Three swabs yielded false-positive results (carbapenem-susceptible organisms) by both methods. Sensitivity and specificity were, respectively, 75.4% and 99.8% for CHROMagar KPC and 80% and 99.8% for Xpert Carba-R. Conclusion: This comparative study of CHROMagar KPC versus Xpert Carba-R in rectal swabs showed a slightly higher sensitivity for the PCR-based method. Whilst CHROMagar KPC provides a less expensive screening method, Xpert Carba-R may be more accurate and faster

Commentary: Social influence and social change: states and strategies of social capital

About the book: This book brings together social sciencists to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic of social change as a cultural process. Culture is as much about novelty as it is about tradition, as much about change as it is about stability. This dynamic tension is analyzed in collective protests, intergroup dynamics, language, mass media, science, community participation, art, and social transitions to capitalism, among others contexts. These diverse cases illustrate a number of key factors that can propel, slow-down and retract social change. An emancipatory and integrative social science is developed in this book, which offers a new explanatory model of human behavior and thought under conditions of institutional and societal change

Worldviews and attitudes to science in Kuwait: the engagement threshold hypothesis

Between 2021–3, a research project was undertaken to explore more effective ways to design policy in science-related domains such as clean energy, the environment, and public health. The project involved two studies; one that analysed existing policy documents and media coverage concerned with the environment and public health, and the other that surveyed Kuwaiti attitudes towards science and explored their worldviews (the ways in which individuals make sense of and experience the world in general). The researchers hypothesised that a mismatch between worldviews held by the public and those represented in policy will result in less effective policies. In addition, the researchers sought to explore the current state of science culture in Kuwait (interest in science, engagement with science, promise and reserve toward science) and whether people with different worldviews differ in their attitudes toward science. Research findings indicate that there is indeed a mismatch between worldviews held by the public and those represented in policy documents and the media. In addition, differences among worldview types in attitudes towards science only appeared among those who are more interested in and engaged with science. These findings can be a useful guide to future policy design in any science-related policy domain

Everyday life in London's mosques : Islam, identities, and everyday practices

It is often hypothesized that at times of social change and identity confusion, lslamist and reactivist ideologies gain ground. Is this true for British Muslims? Are the difficulties and contradictions experienced in the midst of multidimensional forms of discrimination, creating fertile ground for reactivist ideas to take root? This thesis explored the everyday lives of Muslims in London in their places of worship to answer these questions by employing the ethnographic method. Part of the study analyzes fundamentalist, lslamist, and reactivist texts, along with core Islamic texts such as the Quran and Hadeeth, in order to uncover the points of connection and contention between them. The other part explores the role of Islam and Islamic institutions in informing identity processes and everyday practices on individual, inter-personal, and inter-group levels. The diversity of Muslim communities and Muslims' relationships to Islam is investigated on all three levels. The hypothesis that the situation of Muslims in London is heading towards an upsurge of reactivist ideologies was found not to hold. On the contrary, it was found that local Muslim populations, particularly those born in London, have created ethno-geographical clusters. Within one of these clusters, an emergence of a local British Islam and Muslim community that identifies strongly with its Britishness was found. In addition, the lslamism adopted by this particular community has driven its members towards participation in local politics. In the community's attempts to better its situation, it has built institutions organized according to British models and standards. The thesis concludes that following the failure of reactivist ideologies, British Muslims in London, particularly those that are 2"d (or more) generation, have adopted an lslamism that is a positive force in their integration and advancement within British society. Far from being reactivist, their relationship to Islam still informs every aspect of their lives; private, public, and political.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Persistent candidemia despite appropriate fungal therapy: First case of Candida auris from the United Arab Emirates

In this case, we report an elderly patient with multiple chronic conditions and prolonged intensive care unit (ICU) stays who had recurrent Candida auris (C. auris) in blood despite antifungal therapy. C. auris was misidentified using conventional automated identification system as Candida haemulonii resulting in delayed diagnosis. The isolate showed increasing minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) to different antifungal drugs and persisted in the patient’s blood before the patient deceased. This is the first case of C. auris reported from the United Arab Emirates (UAE); laboratories should be aware of this Candida species and should confirm suspected cases since it is an emerging multi-drug resistant and health-care associated Candida. Keywords: Candida auris, Multidrug resistant, Healthcare- associate

Commentary: We don't share! The social representation approach, enactivism and the fundamental incompatibilities between the two

Underlying all theories are philosophical presuppositions that lend themselves to different epistemological approaches, which need to be unfurled when comparing theories and offering alternative explanations. Contrary to Verheggen and Baerveldt's (2007) promulgation that `enactivism' may be an adequate alternative for Wagner's social representation approach, this commentary outlines how this may be a misguided position. Enactivism, following an outward trajectory from nervous systems, to minds, to `(inter)action', to social enactivism, is incompatible with the dialogical epistemology underpinning social representations theory. Social representations are not reducible to individual minds, and dialogical interaction is not reducible to operationally closed `systems' in (inter)action. The difference between the two approaches lies in the fundamental paradigmatic distinction between molar and molecular explanatory frameworks. Offering one as an alternative to the other overlooks the epistemological differences between the two and fails to appreciate the discrepancies between different levels of analysis, explanatory frameworks and the very phenomena that theories problematize