The Traditional Roles of Caring for Elders: Views from First Nations Elders Regarding Health, Violence, and Elder Abuse

This study sought to respectfully understand Northern British Columbia First Nations Elders\u27 views regarding health of communities, intergenerational relationships, Elder roles, and violence towards Elders. Injuries, both intentional and unintentional, are a leading cause of death for First Nations Peoples. Information regarding Elder abuse in First Nations communities is lacking, though family violence has been identified as a problem within First Nations communities. The goal of this research was to understand the point of view and Elders\u27 reality through the creation of a dialogue with Elders, and to discern the interface between Traditional First Nations\u27 belief systems, healing methods, and current legal and health care systems within Canada. This study used a community-based participatory research design to explore social and cultural context through the views of Carrier Sekani Elders in the Ts\u27il Kaz Koh community. The design acted to support the aims of the study which were: To explore how First Nations Elders understand violence in their communities, to explore what First Nations Elders believe gives rise to violence in First Nations communities; to illuminate the factors that First Nations Elder view as affecting the safety and well-being of Elders living in First Nations communities; to explore First Nations Elders\u27 narration of intergenerational relationships before and after contact; and to make clear factors which First Nations Elders view as required for Elders to remain safe and stay within their respective communities. The study followed the CIHR Guidelines for Research with Aboriginal Peoples. Approval was obtained from Carrier Sekani Family Services\u27 Research Review Committee, from the Ts\u27il Kaz Koh Chief and Council and Ts\u27il Kaz Koh Community, the Ethics Review Board of the University of Northern British Columbia, and the Institutional Review Board of the University of Tennessee. Informed consent was obtained both from the Ts\u27il Kaz Koh community and from participating Elders, utilizing Ts\u27il Kaz Koh cultural protocol. Six Ts\u27il Kaz Koh Elders residing in Northern British Columbia participated in interviews utilizing an interview guide. Interviews were then read, categorized, and coded according to identified concepts, allowing for retrieval of themes. Codes were submitted to two committee members for review and consensus regarding the categories of each code for reliability. Both a domain analysis and a taxonomic analysis were performed on the data. A convergent analysis of themes was performed to assure internal and external validity. The findings were presented to the Elders at each step of the analysis to ensure validity and reliability. The final document was presented to the community to ensure that all information was accurate and acceptable to the community. Limitations of the study include the limited sample of Elders solely from the Ts\u27il Kaz Koh (Burns Lake) community. This limitation is also viewed as an opportunity for the Ts\u27il Kaz Koh to request program development funding as a pilot initiative. This sample limited to one First Nations community prohibits the generalization of findings to other communities until further research occurs with other communities. Themes related to the problems of violence were multiple, including changes from Traditional way of living to contemporary way of life, changes from the Residential School experience, loss of Traditional roles, and change in community from communal structure to that of nuclear family units, and the influence of alcohol and drugs on individuals and families. Sub-themes related to violence included the loss of intergenerational relationships, changes in Elder roles from the past, and the change in roles and behavior from the past across all ages. Also identified as sub-themes were the influences of change from that of communal caring, to individuals watching out for their own welfare, and the change from hard work being valued within Traditional roles to lack of value for hard work in contemporary society. Disruption of intergeneration roles within the community was also identified as a theme related to violence. Recommendations from this study include the need to further research the views of Elders surrounding violence and Elder abuse in other First Nations communities, with translation to clinical practice and the development of a culturally appropriate screening tool for First Nations Elder safety and abuse. Further research with other First Nations communities will allow generalization of results to be utilized in program development and evaluation. This study supports the utilization of the health determinants model in program planning and the developing of capacity for First Nations to control their health care services. The findings of this study also support the need for funding of Youth-Elder initiatives which foster the re-establishment of intergenerational relationships and the concurrent translation of Elders\u27 Traditional knowledge. Utilizing Elders as leaders and a source of Traditional health knowledge is part of a viable model of combining contemporary and Traditional health care practices. The Elders\u27 views supported the importance of a strength-based approach to healing with the prior work of McCormick who found that effective healing for First Nations people must have a focus on interconnectedness rather than personal autonomy in order for communities to heal. This study would like to acknowledge the strength of these Elders and the Ts\u27il Kaz Koh community to deal with the historical trauma of Residential Schools and the effects on individual, family and community health

The role of expectations in the FRB/US macroeconomic model

In the past year, the staff of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System began using a new macroeconomic model of the U.S. economy referred to as the FRB/US model. This system of mathematical equations, describing interactions among economic measures such as inflation, interest rates, and gross domestic product, is one of the tools used in economic forecasting and the analysis of macroeconomic policy issues at the Board. The FRB/US model replaces the MPS model, which, with periodic revisions, had been used at the Federal Reserve Board since the early 1970s. A key feature of the new model is that expectations of future economic conditions are explicit in many of its equations. Because of this clear delineation of expectations, the FRB/US model can be used to study issues that would be difficult or impossible to study with the MPS model. For example, the new model can show how the economy's response to specific events, such as a reduction in defense spending, may vary considerably with the speed at which the public recognizes that the event has occurred or will occur.Econometric models ; Federal Reserve System ; Forecasting

Excavations at 178 Prince George's Street, the Back Area of the Brice House, 18AP38, Annapolis, Maryland

During the spring of 1986, two weeks of archaeological excavations were performed behind 178 Prince George Street, Annapolis, Maryland. This area is considered to be the back area of the Brice House, 18AP38. A brick and stone foundations was recovered. Data from its builder's trench dates this feature to the early first half of the 18th-century, predating by several decades the construction of the Brice House. The structure was probably a stable that may have been incorporated, and rebuilt by Brice

Transparent Things: A Cabinet

For too long, the Earth has been used to ground thought instead of bending it; such grounding leaves the planet as nothing but a stage for phenomenology, deconstruction, or other forms of anthropocentric philosophy. In far too much continental philosophy, the Earth is a cold, dead place enlivened only by human thought—either as a thing to be exploited, or as an object of nostalgia. Geophilosophy seeks instead to question the ground of thinking itself, the relation of the inorganic to the capacities and limits of thought. This book constructs an eclectic variant of geophilosophy through engagements with digging machines, nuclear waste, cyclones and volcanoes, giant worms, secret vessels, decay, subterranean cities, hell, demon souls, black suns, and xenoarcheaology, via continental theory (Nietzsche, Schelling, Deleuze, et alia) and various cultural objects such as horror films, videogames, and weird Lovecraftian fictions, with special attention to Speculative Realism and the work of Reza Negarestani. In a time where the earth as a whole is threatened by ecological collapse, On an Ungrounded Earth generates a perversely realist account of the earth as a dynamic engine materially invading and upsetting our attempts to reduce it to merely the ground beneath our feet

Coal Petrology of the Tulameen Coalfield, South Central British Columbia

The Tulameen Coalfield lies in a small, southeast plunging syncline in the Intermontane Belt of the Canadian Cordillera in south central British Columbia. The coal is interbedded with fluvial and lacustrine sediments of the Eocene Allenby Formation of the Princeton Group. The abundance of tephra and bentonite indicates volcanic activity was contemporaneous with coal and sediment deposition. Although coal occurs on both sides of the basin, its economic importance is currently restricted to a 15-21 meter thick coal seam on the southwestern limb of the syncline. The coal is predominantly vitrain and clarain composed of greater than 90 percent vitrinite. Clean coal has 14 percent ash (mostly kaolinite and quartz) and low sulphur. The coal is interbedded with bentonite, mudstone and shale partings which increase in number from south to north. The partings are montmorillonite and/or kaolinite rich. Coal rank along the southwestern limb of the basin was determined by measuring the percent maximum reflectance of vitrinite. Vitrinite reflectance increases laterally from .62 in the north to .86 in the south but shows no significant vertical variation. According to the A.S.T.M. classification, coal rank ranges from High Volatile C Bituminous to High Volatile B Bituminous. Field relations indicate partial post-deformation coalification. Petrographic study of the coal suggests the coal-forming peat developed in a predominantly forest moor swamp environment

Lindsey Collen’s The Rape of Sita: Re-writing as Ethics

This article purports to show how The Rape of Sita re-writes the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, which is recontextualised in contemporary Mauritian time and space in order to make a subversive political comment on Western patriarchal society. Through the posing of ethical questions, language becomes a form of social action, a re-signifying practice, which calls for change by generating another story

Excavations at the State House Inn Site, 18AP42, 15 State Circle, Annapolis, Maryland

During the spring of 1985, archaeological excavations were conducted at the State House Inn, 18AP42, 15 State Circle, Annapolis, Maryland. Work was conducted by "Archaeology in Annapolis," a cooperative project between Historic Annapolis, Inc. and the University of Maryland, College Park. This site is located within zone seven of the Maryland Archaeological Research Units (Figures 1, 2 & 3). A two-week program of testing in March, 1985 was carried out in the yard on State Circle. On the basis of positive results from this testing, six more weeks of excavations were carried out. This report summarizes the results of both phases of the excavations. Excavations were directed by Joseph W. Hopkins III, with the assistance of Donald Creveling and Paul Shackel. These excavations were part of a larger investigation of the Baroque town plan of Annapolis, laid out by Governor Francis Nicholson in 1695. This plan served as a framework around which the town grew over the next three centuries. Available historic records do not adequately document the development of the plan to its present form. The excavation program was a first step in a program to recover information about the gradual change of the city plan

Axonal stress kinase activation and tau misbehavior induced by kinesin-1 transport defects

Many neurodegenerative diseases exhibit axonal pathology, transport defects, and aberrant phosphorylation and aggregation of the microtubule binding protein tau. While mutant tau protein in frontotemporal dementia and parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP17) causes aberrant microtubule binding and assembly of tau into filaments, the pathways leading to tau-mediated neurotoxicity in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders in which tau protein is not genetically modified remain unknown. To test the hypothesis that axonal transport defects alone can cause pathological abnormalities in tau protein and neurodegeneration in the absence of mutant tau or amyloid β deposits, we induced transport defects by deletion of the kinesin light chain 1 (KLC1) subunit of the anterograde motor kinesin-1. We found that upon aging, early selective axonal transport defects in mice lacking the KLC1 protein (KLC1-/-) led to axonopathies with cytoskeletal disorganization and abnormal cargo accumulation. In addition, increased c-jun N-terminal stress kinase activation colocalized with aberrant tau in dystrophic axons. Surprisingly, swollen dystrophic axons exhibited abnormal tau hyperphosphorylation and accumulation. Thus, directly interfering with axonal transport is sufficient to activate stress kinase pathways initiating a biochemical cascade that drives normal tau protein into a pathological state found in a variety of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease.Fil: Falzone, Tomas Luis. Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres"; ArgentinaFil: Stokin, Gorazd B.. University Psychiatric Hospital; EsloveniaFil: Lillo, Concepción. University of California at San Diego; Estados UnidosFil: Rodrigues, Elizabeth M.. Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Estados UnidosFil: Westerman, Eileen L.. Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Estados UnidosFil: Williams, David S.. University of California at San Diego; Estados UnidosFil: Goldstein, Lawrence S. B.. Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Estados Unido