Local Organization : Confronting Contradition in a Smallholding District of Kenya

L'objectif de l'auteure est d'associer les changements intervenus dans les relations de production/reproduction entre les hommes et les femmes à ceux perceptibles au niveau de l'organisation villageoise. L'auteure démontre que la capacité des femmes à établir des réseaux au niveau des villages dans le district de Murang'a au Kenya a en fait agi comme contrepoids à la solidarité masculine. L'auteure relate des faits qui évoquent comment les femmes ont pu tisser une telle trame sociale, trame qui s'est perpétuée, avec quelques différences toutefois, au fil du temps.The objective in this paper is to link changes in productive/reproductive relations between women and men to changes in mode of local organization. It is argued that women's ability to organize local, non-kin networks at the extrahousehold level in Murang'a District, Kenya has, through time, served as a countertension to male solidarity. Evidence is presented to indicate how women have formed effective social bonds on the basis of spatial contiguity, a pattern that has been replicated through time, albeit altering as necessitated by changes in productive mode

Motherhood and Family Law

Throughout the broad sweep of history and related disciplines, including the law, can be found instruction with respect to the issue of motherhood. In one sense, it transcends culture; in another, it is a cultural construct. It is imbued with gender specificity and is profoundly important to children. This thesis explores motherhood’s relationship with family law and seeks to illustrate how, through uneasy tensions over time, it may have been compromised in modern child care law in New Zealand. It discusses whether parenting law should continue to adopt a gender neutral approach or whether, in considering a child’s welfare and best interests, there may be a case for greater recognition and restoration of gendered parenting relationships and perhaps, therefore, a repeal of s4(3) of the Care of Children Act 2004

The role of microbiology and pharmacy departments in the stewardship of antibiotic prescribing in European hospitals

This observational, cross-sectional study describes the role played by clinical microbiology and pharmacy departments in the stewardship of antibiotic prescribing in European hospitals. A total of 170 acute care hospitals from 32 European countries returned a questionnaire on antibiotic policies and practices implemented in 2001. Data on antibiotic use, expressed as De.ned Daily Doses per 100 occupied bed-days (DDD/100 BD) were provided by 139 hospitals from 30 countries. A total of 124 hospitals provided both datasets. 121 (71%) of Clinical Microbiology departments and 66 (41%) of Pharmacy departments provided out of hours clinical advice. 70 (41%) of microbiology/infectious disease specialists and 28 (16%) of pharmacists visited wards on a daily basis. The majority of laboratories provided monitoring of blood cultures more than once per day and summary data of antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) for empiric prescribing (86% and 73% respectively). Most of the key laboratory and pharmacy-led initiatives examined did not vary signi.cantly by geographical location. Hospitals from the North and West of Europe were more likely to examine blood cultures more than once daily compared with other regions (p < 0.01). Hospitals in the North were least likely routinely to report susceptibility results for restricted antibiotics compared to those in the South-East and Central/Eastern Europe (p < 0.01). Hospital wards in the North were more likely to hold antibiotic stocks (100%) compared with hospitals in the South-East which were least likely (39%) (p < 0.001). Conversely, hospital pharmacies in the North were least likely to dispense antibiotics on an individual patient basis (16%) compared with hospital pharmacies from Southern Europe (60%) (p = 0.01). Hospitals that routinely reported susceptibility results for restricted antibiotics had signi.cantly lower median total antibiotic use in 2001 (p < 0.01). Hospitals that provided prescribing advice outside normal working hours had signi.cantly higher antibiotic use compared with institutions that did not provide this service (p = 0.01). A wide range of antibiotic stewardship measures was practised in the participating hospitals in 2001, although there remains great scope for expansion of those overseen by pharmacy departments. Most hospitals had active antibiotic stewardship programmes led by specialists in infection, although there is no evidence that these were associated with reduced antibiotic consumption. There was also no evidence that pharmacy services reduced the amount of antibiotics prescribed.The ARPAC study was funded by the European Commission (project QLK2-CT-2001-00915). F.M. MacKenzie was supported by the European Study Group on Antibiotic Policies to write this manuscript

Institutional Fieldwork:CNoS@10, Group Exhibition, Northumbria University Gallery North, Experimental Studio and City Campus, Newcastle

Exhibition dates: 16th November – 1st December 2023 Exhibition venue: Northumbria University Gallery North, Experimental Studio and City Campus, NewcastleInstitutional Fieldworking: CNoS @10 is a three-week series of exhibitions and events celebrating the tenth anniversary of Northumbria University’s Cultural Negotiation of Science Research Group (CNoS). CNoS was inaugurated at the 2013 British Science Festival when three founder members developed the exhibition and networking event, Extraordinary Renditions, for BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. The event set out to explore the compelling questions thrown up when artists negotiate scientific practices; questions that require artists to perform ‘extraordinary renditions’ across the ethical and political spaces where personal vulnerability and risk-taking is impossible to avoid.CNoS has grown over the last ten years to bring together artists, academics and research students who engage with expert cultures across a broad spectrum of science and technology, including bio-medical, fundamental and environmental sciences. The ‘negotiations’ consider the creative, critical and ethical dimensions of working in and with the scientific realm, as a distinct contemporary art practice. The Institutional Fieldworking programme shares and tests our commitment to supporting innovative, practice-based methods to negotiate and re-vision the relationships between scientific and artistic research in ways that both unsettle and connect. The programme proposes our institution of Northumbria University as the ‘field’ in which we perform and make manifest examples of critical cross disciplinary research and practice via six ‘strands’ of activity that embody the authenticity of what it is to work together<br/

Institutional Fieldwork:CNoS@10, Group Exhibition, Northumbria University Gallery North, Experimental Studio and City Campus, Newcastle

Exhibition dates: 16th November – 1st December 2023 Exhibition venue: Northumbria University Gallery North, Experimental Studio and City Campus, NewcastleInstitutional Fieldworking: CNoS @10 is a three-week series of exhibitions and events celebrating the tenth anniversary of Northumbria University’s Cultural Negotiation of Science Research Group (CNoS). CNoS was inaugurated at the 2013 British Science Festival when three founder members developed the exhibition and networking event, Extraordinary Renditions, for BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. The event set out to explore the compelling questions thrown up when artists negotiate scientific practices; questions that require artists to perform ‘extraordinary renditions’ across the ethical and political spaces where personal vulnerability and risk-taking is impossible to avoid.CNoS has grown over the last ten years to bring together artists, academics and research students who engage with expert cultures across a broad spectrum of science and technology, including bio-medical, fundamental and environmental sciences. The ‘negotiations’ consider the creative, critical and ethical dimensions of working in and with the scientific realm, as a distinct contemporary art practice. The Institutional Fieldworking programme shares and tests our commitment to supporting innovative, practice-based methods to negotiate and re-vision the relationships between scientific and artistic research in ways that both unsettle and connect. The programme proposes our institution of Northumbria University as the ‘field’ in which we perform and make manifest examples of critical cross disciplinary research and practice via six ‘strands’ of activity that embody the authenticity of what it is to work together<br/

Ruptures and Wrong-Footings: Destabilizing Disciplinary Cultures

In this transcribed conversation, three artists from the research group The Cultural Negotiation of Science (UK) consult each other on the different generational perspectives they bring to the contested field of arts-science research. Traversing territories between art-practice, physics, genetics and critical theory, their practice-based strategies actively destabilize the binary nature of cross-disciplinary dialogue in productive ways, allowing the spaces between artistic and scientific modes of enquiry to become sites of learning, both within and beyond academic institutions

Intra-dance variation among waggle runs and the design of efficient protocols for honey bee dance decoding

Noise is universal in information transfer. In animal communication, this presents a challenge not only for intended signal receivers, but also to biologists studying the system. In honey bees, a forager communicates to nestmates the location of an important resource via the waggle dance. This vibrational signal is composed of repeating units (waggle runs) that are then averaged by nestmates to derive a single vector. Manual dance decoding is a powerful tool for studying bee foraging ecology, although the process is time-consuming: a forager may repeat the waggle run 1- >100 times within a dance. It is impractical to decode all of these to obtain the vector; however, intra-dance waggle runs vary, so it is important to decode enough to obtain a good average. Here we examine the variation among waggle runs made by foraging bees to devise a method of dance decoding. The first and last waggle runs within a dance are significantly more variable than the middle run. There was no trend in variation for the middle waggle runs. We recommend that any four consecutive waggle runs, not including the first and last runs, may be decoded, and we show that this methodology is suitable by demonstrating the goodness-of-fit between the decoded vectors from our subsamples with the vectors from the entire dances

An 8-month longitudinal exploration of body image and disordered eating in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic

Research suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic is negatively impacting mental health, with rates of eating disorder referrals in particular rising steeply during the pandemic. This study aimed to examine 8-month changes in body image and disordered eating during the COVID-19 pandemic, and explore whether any changes were moderated by gender, age, or eating disorder history. This study used a longitudinal survey design in which 587 adults living in the UK (85 % women; mean age = 32.87 years) completed assessments every two months over five timepoints from May/June 2020 to January/February 2021. Measures included body esteem, disordered eating, and psychological distress. Mixed effect models showed small but significant improvements in body esteem and disordered eating symptoms from May/June 2020 to January/February 2021. These improvements were independent of changes in psychological distress, and did not vary by gender, age or eating disorder history. Whilst poor body image and disordered eating may have been elevated in the early period of the pandemic, this study suggests improvements, rather than worsening, of these outcomes over time. This may reflect adaptation to this changing context