Women Exiting Prostitution: Reports of Coercive Control in Intimate Relationships

There is burgeoning research on intimate partner violence (IPV) experiences among women globally. However, there is a dearth of research on IPV experiences among marginalized populations in Western countries. Over the past decade, IPV research has shifted from a focus only on physical and sexual violence to include coercive control experiences. These include a continuum of nonviolent behaviors centered on maintaining dominance over one’s partner. However, the empirical literature on examining coercive control among women in prostitution within non-commercial intimate partners is lacking. In this study, we analyzed interviews with 17 women exiting prostitution and examined reported IPV sexual, physical, and coercive control experiences perpetrated by intimate partners. Our findings revealed that participants experienced extensive physical and sexual IPV as well as physical and non-physical coercive control within non-commercial partner relationships. Coercive control was the most frequent type of abuse reported. All nine investigated coercive control tactics were represented within participants’ descriptions. Of these, exploitation (36%), intimidation (16.3%), degradation (12.5%), and deception (10.0%) were the most commonly identified. Understanding and assessing violent actions and control dynamics within non-commercial intimate partner relationships among women exiting prostitution have important implications for various stakeholders within the criminal justice system

Indigenous land management as primary health care: qualitative analysis from the Interplay research project in remote Australia

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: For Indigenous Australians, health transcends the absence of disease, and includes the health and wellbeing of their community and Country: their whole physical, cultural and spiritual environment. Stronger relationships with Country and greater involvement in cultural practices enhance the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians, and those in more remote regions have greater access to their Country and higher levels of wellbeing. However this does not translate into improvements in clinical indicators, and Indigenous Australians in more remote regions suffer higher levels of morbidity and mortality than Indigenous people in non-remote areas, and other Australians. The Interplay research project aimed to explore how Indigenous Australians in remote regions experience high levels of wellbeing despite poor health statistics, and how services could more effectively enhance both health and wellbeing. Methods: Indigenous Australians in remote regions, together with researchers and government representatives developed a wellbeing framework, comprising government and community priorities: education, employment and health, and community, culture and empowerment respectively. To explore these priorities Indigenous community researchers recruited participants from diverse Indigenous organizations, including Indigenous land management, art, business development, education, employment, health and municipal services. Fourteen focus groups and seven interviews, involving 75 Indigenous and ten non-Indigenous service providers and users were conducted. These were recorded, transcribed and analyzed, using thematic analysis, based on the wellbeing framework. Results: Research participants highlighted Indigenous land management as a source of wellbeing, through strengthened identity and empowerment, access to traditional food sources, enjoyable physical activity, and escape from communities where high levels of alcohol are consumed. Participants described how collaboration and partnerships between services, and recognition of Indigenous languages could enhance wellbeing, while competition between services undermines wellbeing. Indigenous land management programs work across different sectors and promote collaboration between services, serving as a source of comprehensive primary health care. Conclusions: Developing primary health care to reflect distinctive health needs of Indigenous Australians will enhance their health and wellbeing, which includes their communities and Country. Indigenous land management consolidates aspects of comprehensive primary health care, providing both clinical benefits and wellbeing, and can provide a focus for service collaboration.Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP, hosted by Ninti One Limited). Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation, through the Royal Australasian College of Physician

One Year Out: An Assessment of DADT Repeal’s Impact on Military Readiness

Prior to the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) on September 20, 2011, many observers predicted that allowing lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) troops to serve openly would harm the military. This study is the first scholarly effort to assess the accuracy of such predictions about the impact of DADT repeal on military readiness. Our conclusions are based on a consideration of all of the evidence that was available to us at the time our research was conducted, the half- year period starting six months after repeal and concluding at the one-year mark. We sought to maximize the likelihood of identifying evidence of damage caused by repeal by pursuing ten separate research strategies, each of which was designed to uncover data indicating that repeal has undermined the military. Our research strategies included outreach to 553 generals and admirals who predicted that repeal would undermine the military, to all major activists and expert opponents of DADT repeal and to 18 watchdog organizations, including opponents and advocates of repeal, who are known for their ability to monitor Pentagon operations. In addition, we conducted in-depth interviews with 18 scholars and practitioners and 62 active-duty heterosexual, lesbian, gay and bisexual troops from every service branch, as well as on-site field observations of four military units. We analyzed relevant media articles published during the research period, administered two surveys and conducted secondary source analysis of surveys independently administered by outside organizations. Our vigorous effort to collect data from opponents of DADT repeal, including anti-repeal generals and admirals, activists, academic experts, service members and watchdog organizations, should sustain confidence in the validity and impartiality of our findings. Our study team includes distinguished scholars from the US Military Academy, US Air Force Academy, US Naval Academy and US Marine Corps War College, as well as scholars with internationally recognized expertise on the issue of gays in the military. Several members advised the Pentagon’s 2010 DADT working group, and one member led the team that drafted the Defense Department’s plan for implementing DADT repeal

Pentagon Officials Misled Congress on Transgender Troops by Asserting Falsehoods that DoD’s Own Data Contradict, and by Calling Equal Treatment "Special" Treatment

Two senior Pentagon officials testified on February 27, 2019 before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel in defense of President Trump’s proposed ban on transgender service members, which the Defense Department plans to reinstate once permitted by courts. In their testimony, James N. Stewart, performing the duties of Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and Vice Admiral Raquel Bono, Director of the Defense Health Agency, misled Congress by asserting falsehoods about readiness and deployment and by saying that applying a single standard of fitness equally to all service members means giving transgender troops “special accommodations.” Their mischaracterizations echoed many of the main points in DoD’s 2018 “Report and Recommendations on Military Service by Transgender Persons,” known as the “Mattis Report.” Both the written and verbal testimony introduced deceptive, erroneous, and false assertions about the ostensible risk that gender dysphoria poses to readiness and deployment and about standards that DoD plans to apply to transgender service members. DoD witnesses deemed gender dysphoria a risk despite the fact that 1) every Service Chief testified in Congress that inclusive policy has not compromised readiness; 2) no evidence supports the assertion; 3) a global medical consensus finds the medical condition is treatable and should not be disqualifying; and 4) DoD’s own data concerning the successful deployment of hundreds of service members with the diagnosis contradict the claim. DoD witnesses defined transgender individuals as a deployment risk and then blamed them for being “unwilling” to adhere to standards written specifically to exclude them from service

Geminin-Deficient Neural Stem Cells Exhibit Normal Cell Division and Normal Neurogenesis

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are the progenitors of neurons and glial cells during both embryonic development and adult life. The unstable regulatory protein Geminin (Gmnn) is thought to maintain neural stem cells in an undifferentiated state while they proliferate. Geminin inhibits neuronal differentiation in cultured cells by antagonizing interactions between the chromatin remodeling protein Brg1 and the neural-specific transcription factors Neurogenin and NeuroD. Geminin is widely expressed in the CNS during throughout embryonic development, and Geminin expression is down-regulated when neuronal precursor cells undergo terminal differentiation. Over-expression of Geminin in gastrula-stage Xenopus embryos can expand the size of the neural plate. The role of Geminin in regulating vertebrate neurogenesis in vivo has not been rigorously examined. To address this question, we created a strain of Nestin-Cre/Gmnnfl/fl mice in which the Geminin gene was specifically deleted from NSCs. Interestingly, we found no major defects in the development or function of the central nervous system. Neural-specific GmnnΔ/Δ mice are viable and fertile and display no obvious neurological or neuroanatomical abnormalities. They have normal numbers of BrdU+ NSCs in the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus, and GmnnΔ/Δ NSCs give rise to normal numbers of mature neurons in pulse-chase experiments. GmnnΔ/Δ neurosphere cells differentiate normally into both neurons and glial cells when grown in growth factor-deficient medium. Both the growth rate and the cell cycle distribution of cultured GmnnΔ/Δ neurosphere cells are indistinguishable from controls. We conclude that Geminin is largely dispensable for most of embryonic and adult mammalian neurogenesis

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead