Diverse Views Research Articles

Armed actor interventions in humanitarian and public health crises: examining perspectives of crisis-affected community members

BackgroundDespite frequently providing non-military services in times of crisis, little systematic research has examined the perspectives of crisis-affected community members on the role of armed actors responding to humanitarian crises and public health emergencies.MethodsTo address this research gap, 175 interviews were conducted (2020–2021) amongst humanitarian and public health practitioners; armed actors; and crisis-affected community members across three country and four crisis contexts. Specifically, this effort included an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; a refugee crisis on the Jordanian-Syrian border; and a volcanic eruption and COVID-19 outbreak in the Philippines. Data was analysed using grounded theory principles.ResultsCrisis-affected community members held diverse views. Non-state armed groups (NSAGs) and government armed actors were characterised as antagonists by some but supportive by others; gender issues were central to perceptions of armed actors, in ways that were both prejudicing and favourable. Overall perception was most closely linked to armed actor roles rather than the relative amount of conflict in a given area.ConclusionsFindings nuance the relevant literature characterizing NSAGs as disruptive agents, and also the relevant literature that does not fully consider the nuances of gender and armed actor roles as deeply relevant to crisis-affected community perspectives on armed actors. These findings have important implications for both policy and academic discourse on militarization and localization.

EHealth Data Security and Privacy: Perspectives from Diverse Stakeholders in Malawi

The development and adoption of eHealth in low- and middle-income countries has potential to advance the quality of care in healthcare settings that are challenged by weak infrastructure. Especially in the countries where HIV rates are high, there is need to implement electronic medical record systems to enhance care and improve treatment outcomes. Due to the sensitivity of HIV-related information, eHealth applications in HIV care necessitate the attention and prioritization of data security and privacy. We explored diverse stakeholders' views on data security and privacy in Malawi's public HIV care program to expand the understanding of gaps and opportunities in improving data protections. This work connects data security and privacy goals and practices with previous work on mobile device usage as well as global best practices for security and privacy in healthcare settings. A key finding articulated by stakeholders is the importance of establishing strong data security governance.

Enhancement of in-vitro cellular structure morphology imaging using multiwavelength confocal endoscopic scanner

Optical imaging is crucial for cell examination, but its instruments' bulky optics limit their flexibility, and a single wavelength provides limited sample information. This paper presents a fibre cantilever-based endoscopic scanner for multiwavelength reflectance confocal microscopy. The scanner utilises the dual-core fibre cantilever to produce Lissajous scans while accommodating two distinct wavelengths. Coloured surfaces were imaged at wavelengths of 520 nm, 635 nm and 850 nm, and verified with a colour chart and reflectance spectroscopy. Blue ink-stained plant stem cross-section samples were also imaged and compared. Furthermore, the scanner performed structure morphology imaging on cellular samples. The 520 nm and 635 nm wavelengths create low- and high-contrast images respectively, while the 850 nm wavelength delivers a sharper image while also capturing the surface profile of the target sample. The findings demonstrated the endoscopic scanner’s capability to extract information based on different wavelengths, providing a more diverse view of the sample and enhancing the surface profile. Using 635 nm and 850 nm, the reconstructed images have a contrast enhancement of 67.9% and 90.8% respectively from 520 nm. The smallest feature size measured on the cellular sample is 5 µm. The endoscopic scanner has the potential to study microfluidic and cell morphology.

The challenges of mathematizing in Swedish early childhood education

Even though there today is a solid view on early childhood mathematics education being of importance, there is a quite diverse view on how this education is to be realized. In many countries, both teaching and play are emphasized in the early childhood education curricula why the question of how to conduct play-oriented mathematics education is relevant. In this study, we empirically elaborate on mathematizing as a possible cross between play and mathematics education. Mathematizing, as developed by the Dutch mathematician Hans Freudenthal, implies seeing the world in the light of mathematics and being able to identify how mathematics contribute to solving everyday problems. In this study we empirically investigate the theoretical construct of mathematizing in a preschool setting, aiming to clarify when and how mathematizing is made possible, and what seem to be the constraints on it. Based on 15 observations of preschool teachers’ attempts to implement play-oriented mathematics education, the presence of a true problem and character of teachers’ questions stand out as the keys to making mathematizing, as a merge of play and teaching, possible.

A progressive growing generative adversarial network composed of enhanced style-consistent modulation for fetal ultrasound four-chamber view editing synthesis

Fetal ultrasound (US) four-chamber (FC) views are essential in diagnosing congenital heart defects (CHD). Gathering a sufficient number of diverse and high-quality fetal US FC views within a short period remains a significant challenge for training novice physicians or assisted-diagnosis intelligent models. As an effective data augmentation technique, medical image editing synthesis enables the synthesis of various structural views within specific regions as desired, thereby greatly facilitating the training of novice physicians and intelligent models. However, due to the high noise and artifacts within the views, the existing approaches do not necessarily synthesize perfect texture aligned with external guidance in editable areas while also struggling to maintain a contextual style consistent with preserved areas. To address this issue, we propose an enhanced style-consistent modulation (ESCM), a two-stage modulation technology that combines external semantic and sketch contours with contextual style to produce enhanced context-aware modulation parameters. We also develop an ESCM-based progressive growing generative adversarial network (ESCMPGGAN), which decomposes the synthetic process into three stages to synthesize faithful textures using a coarse-to-fine approach. Moreover, we propose a sketch mask loss that promotes the ESCMPGGAN’s emphasis on the background during training, thereby comprehensively exploiting sketch information to enhance the model’s capacity for learning background textures. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method successfully synthesizes high-quality views with a consistent contextual style between the editable and preserved regions and realistic appearance details. In addition, the synthesized views meet the requirements for clinical standards, confirming our approach’s effectiveness.

Involvement of Lay Assessors in the Inspection and Regulation of Public Services: A Systematic Review

Public services have increasingly sought to use lay assessors (often known as “experts by experience”) as members of inspection teams in health, social care, and education settings. This involvement has been credited as giving more influence to users over how services ought to run. Yet, little is known about the process or outcome of engaging with lay assessors. We conducted a systematic review to understand the benefits and challenges of involving lay assessors in the inspection of public services. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we searched the literature in English using five bibliographic databases with the date of publication limited to 2000 onward. Across 27 eligible studies, results suggest that including diverse views and perspectives is a strength, yet little consideration is given to issues of “representativeness” of lay assessors or the power differentials within mixed groups that can shape which perspectives gain dominance. Despite a frequent rehearsal of the many benefits of involving lay assessors in inspections as a potential force to drive up the quality of inspections and inspected services, the impact of including lay assessors in inspections in terms of improving services was hard to determine. When designing training for lay assessors, services needed to carefully consider the tension between maintaining the assessor’s “naive eye” versus becoming “professionalised.” It was also apparent that expectations are often not clearly shared over how lay perspectives could be included in final inspection reports, thus risking disengagement. Involving lay assessors is still a fairly novel, yet rich and meaningful way to improve services, yet a lack of clear expectations, and typical exclusion of lay assessors in setting standards for regulation, can still act as barriers to meaningful involvement, preventing lay views from being heard and acted upon.

Determinants Affecting the Reading Proficiency Among the Primary Pupils in Relation to Academic Performance: Basis for an Enhanced Reading Program

Reading is an extremely complex process that no one can explain satisfactorily. Those who are interested in reading have their fundamentally diverse views, which result from two different schools of psychology: behaviorism and cognitivism. This study aims to find out the determinants affecting the reading levels of the Grades 1, 2 and 3 learners of Cluster 3 as basis for a reading intervention. This study will use a Descriptive Statistic Design, a type of method that is basically used to calculate, describe, and summarize collected research data in a logical, meaningful, and efficient way (Vetter, 2017). The respondents of this study were Grades 1, 2, and 3, which was conducted in Cluster 3, District 2 of the Division of San Carlos, Negros Occidental. On the other hand, three hundred twelve (312) sampled pupils became the respondents. The actual samples for every school were determined using purposive sampling employing an odd-even number scheme. The findings suggest that there is a significant relationship between the factors affecting the reading level of pupils and their academic performance. The results present a comprehensive picture of the student demographic, showcasing diversity in age, gender, and socio-economic backgrounds. While learning strategies and motivation are positively regarded, there is a potential need for more emphasis on school instruction and family support to improve students' reading proficiency.

Consensus Affinity Graph Learning via Structure Graph Fusion and Block Diagonal Representation for Multiview Clustering

Learning a robust affinity graph is fundamental to graph-based clustering methods. However, some existing affinity graph learning methods have encountered the following problems. First, the constructed affinity graphs cannot capture the intrinsic structure of data well. Second, when fusing all view-specific affinity graphs, most of them obtain a fusion graph by simply taking the average of multiple views, or directly learning a common graph from multiple views, without considering the discriminative property among diverse views. Third, the fusion graph does not maintain an explicit cluster structure. To alleviate these problems, the adaptive neighbor graph learning approach and the data self-expression approach are first integrated into a structure graph fusion framework to obtain a view-specific structure affinity graph to capture the local and global structures of data. Then, all the structural affinity graphs are weighted dynamically into a consensus affinity graph, which not only effectively incorporates the complementary affinity structure of important views but also has the capability of preserving the consensus affinity structure that is shared by all views. Finally, a k–block diagonal regularizer is introduced for the consensus affinity graph to encourage it to have an explicit cluster structure. An efficient optimization algorithm is developed to tackle the resultant optimization problem. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets validate the superiority of the proposed method.

Parental Behaviors During Menstruation among female students

The study "Parental Behaviors during Menstruation among Female Students" embodies that good parental behavior involves talking openly about periods, giving girls the products they need, giving emotional support, and teaching them about staying clean and healthy during menstruation. How parents handle the stigma around periods also reflects their behavior. The purpose of the study is to examine the parental behaviors during the time of menstruation. Using quantitative and descriptive methods, the study selected 250 students by simple random sampling from the 650 enrolled on the two component sites. These campuses were chosen by convenience sampling from a pool of 22 in the Kathmandu Valley. Parents play a crucial role in providing emotional support, guidance, and education to their daughters about menstruation, empowering them to navigate this natural biological process with confidence and understanding. It examine that the diverse views on menstruation. While many respondent believed it as natural and don't limit activities, some follow traditional beliefs that restrict interactions with males and certain activities. Family practices also vary, from isolation to prioritizing hygiene. Such types of study can be done in affiliated campus and used qualitative research design.

Adaptive weighted multi-view evidential clustering with feature preference

Multi-view clustering has attracted substantial attention thanks to its ability to integrate information from diverse views. However, the existing methods can only generate hard or fuzzy partitions, which cannot effectively represent the uncertainty and imprecision when facing objects in overlapping clusters, thus increasing the risk of error. To solve the above problems, in this paper, we propose an adaptive weighted multi-view evidential clustering (WMVEC) method based on the theory of belief functions to characterize the uncertainty and imprecision in cluster assignment. Technically, we integrate view weight assignments and credal partition between objects and cluster prototypes into a joint learning framework. The credal partition offers a more comprehensive insight into the data by enabling objects to be associated with not only singleton clusters but also subsets of these clusters (termed meta-clusters) and the empty set, which represents a noise cluster. To avoid the interference of irrelevant and redundant features, we further present a weighted multi-view evidential clustering with feature preference (WMVEC-FP) to learn the importance of each feature under different views. We suggest the objective functions of WMVEC and WMVEC-FP and design alternating optimization schemes to obtain the optimal solutions, respectively. Through an extensive array of experiments, it has been demonstrated that our proposed clustering methods outperform other related and state-of-the-art methods in terms of their advantages and overall effectiveness.

Exploring Discursive Positionings and Negotiations of Gender Diversity in English Language Teaching Through the Lens of Critical Pedagogy

This study explores EFL students’ perceptions of gender diversity by analyzing their interactions about Chile’s same-sex marriage law in 2022. The study focused on fostering linguistic and critical skills through classroom discussions. A safe space for open conversations allowed students to express diverse views on gender diversity. While opinions varied, students’ discussions were navigated respectfully and indicated that the pedagogical approach used by the teacher encourages critical awareness of societal inequalities in Chile.

Challenges and potential improvements in the Accreditation Standards of the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation 2019 (ASK2019) derived through meta-evaluation: a cross-sectional study

This study aimed to identify challenges and potential improvements in Korea’s medical education accreditation process according to the Accreditation Standards of the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation 2019 (ASK2019). Meta-evaluation was conducted to survey the experiences and perceptions of stakeholders, including self-assessment committee members, site visit committee members, administrative staff, and medical school professors. A cross-sectional study was conducted using surveys sent to 40 medical schools. The 332 participants included self-assessment committee members, site visit team members, administrative staff, and medical school professors. The t-test, one-way analysis of variance and the chi-square test were used to analyze and compare opinions on medical education accreditation between the categories of participants. Site visit committee members placed greater importance on the necessity of accreditation than faculty members. A shared positive view on accreditation’s role in improving educational quality was seen among self-evaluation committee members and professors. Administrative staff highly regarded the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation’s reliability and objectivity, unlike the self-evaluation committee members. Site visit committee members positively perceived the clarity of accreditation standards, differing from self-assessment committee members. Administrative staff were most optimistic about implementing standards. However, the accreditation process encountered challenges, especially in duplicating content and preparing self-evaluation reports. Finally, perceptions regarding the accuracy of final site visit reports varied significantly between the self-evaluation committee members and the site visit committee members. This study revealed diverse views on medical education accreditation, highlighting the need for improved communication, expectation alignment, and stakeholder collaboration to refine the accreditation process and quality.

Introduction to Special Issue: Activism as the Asian Feminist Critical Race (AsianFemCrit) Praxis

The introduction article of the special issue draws from a rich history of Asian American feminist activism, highlights the evolution of this movement across various domains, and emphasizes the role of intersectionality in combating racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. We propose an Asian Feminist Critical Race (AsianFemCrit) framework with activism as its praxis. Asian American feminist activism is a form of resistance and a transformative practice aimed at dismantling systematic inequalities and advocating for solidarity and justice. Through AsianFemCrit praxis, we offer (a) listening and storytelling and (b) community care and collective intergenerational healing as new ways of understanding our relationships with ourselves, our community, and our integrity. Articles in this special issue present a blend of theoretical insights, empirical studies, and practical interventions, offering a diverse view of Asian American feminist activism’s past, present, and future trajectories. Through this lens, the special issue aims to advance understanding, inspire solidarity, and foster collective healing and liberation, underscoring the strength found in unity and celebrating the persistent spirit of Asian American feminist activism.

Persepsi Followers Terhadap Akun Instagram @Ammarzoni Pasca Tertangkap Narkoba Kedua Kali

Instagram is one of the platforms of choice that is now widely used by individuals to carry out personal branding, develop business, educate, and so on. This is what gave birth to the phenomenon of mentioning the word 'influencer' on social media. This influencer figure often receives criticism or judgment from his followers, which can be called interpersonal perception. This research focuses on the perceptions of Ammar Zoni's followers towards the Instagram account @ammarzoni because of the pros and cons of his second drug case. This research uses interpersonal perception theory which aims to determine the diverse perceptions or views of each individual. The research method used is a qualitative descriptive method in order to uncover and explain the phenomenon being studied clearly and in detail. The data collection techniques used in this research are documentation and in-depth interviews. The results of this research show that there are differences in the impressions of Ammar Zoni's Instagram followers regarding the Instagram @ammarzoni case after the second drug, starting from the mysterious impression displayed on the @ammarzoni Instagram account, the feeling of pity for Ammar Zoni's family and himself as a result of his Instagram posts. , a little disappointed but still applauded because in Instagram posts @ammarzoni still shows his responsibility towards his two children, @ammarzoni's Instagram account is bad because of his drug actions, so he feels that Ammar Zoni's Instagram account is fake.

281 Catalyzing Community and Stakeholder Engagement (CSE) in Research: Perspectives from Scientist and Stakeholder Experience

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Community and other stakeholder engagement (CSE) is critical for relevant and equitable clinical research, yet implementation poses challenges. This study delineates the perspectives of scientists and diverse stakeholders regarding facilitators and challenges in CSE, its perceived value, and their recommendations for successful CSE. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The Tufts CTSI Pilot Studies Program requires applicants to propose a plan for CSE while implementing the award, including which stakeholders (SHs)—community members, clinicians, and others affected by the research--will be involved and at what stages. This qualitative study assessed the experiences of both Principal Investigators (PIs) and SHs engaged in pilot projects from three cohorts of awardees (2019-21). Recruitment targeted one PI and one SH per project. Semi-structured interviews explored their CSE experiences, including facilitators, challenges, meaningfulness, perceived impact, intent to participate in CSE in future studies, as well as recommendations for funders, research support organizations, and investigators. Inductive consensus-based coding and thematic analysis was employed. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Fourteen PIs from different pilot projects and a SH from five of these projects participated. Almost all PIs (92%) had over six years of experience, but two-thirds (67%) had little or no experience with CSE. Four SHs self-identified as representatives of community organizations and one as a clinician scientist. CSE was a “win-win” for both PIs and SHs, and all PIs intended to involve SHs in other research studies. Three facilitators were identified as fostering effective CSE (e.g., PI access to CSE expertise while conducting the project), while four challenges hindered it (e.g., limits on SH capacity and CSE funding). SHs advised scientists to build authentic, sustained relationships, and PIs and SHs provided three actionable recommendations for funders and research support organizations to deepen and expand CSE. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Perspectives of scientists and SHs engaged in research projects are vital for expanding and sustaining effective CSE in research. Funders and research support organizations can enhance their strategies for CSE integration in clinical and translational research by incorporating these diverse views to ensure the research achieves maximal impact.

Multi-view contrastive clustering via integrating graph aggregation and confidence enhancement

Multi-view clustering endeavors to effectively uncover consistent clustering patterns across multiple data sources or feature spaces. This field grapples with two key challenges: (1) the effective integration and utilization of consistency and complementarity information from diverse view spaces, and (2) the capturing of structural correlations between data samples in the multi-view context. To address these challenges, this paper proposes the Multi-view contrAstive clustering with Graph Aggregation and confidence enhancement (MAGA) algorithm. Specifically, we employ a deep autoencoder network to learn embedded features for each independent view. To harness consistency and complementarity information, we introduce the Simple Cross-view Spectral Graph Aggregation module. This module utilizes graph convolutional layers to generate view-specific graph embeddings and subsequently aggregates these embeddings from different views into a unified feature space using a cross-view self-attention mechanism. To capture both inter-view and intra-view structural correlations among different samples, we propose a dual representation contrastive learning mechanism, which operates concurrently at both the instance and feature levels. Additionally, we introduce the maximizing cluster assignment confidence mechanism to obtain more compact clustering assignments. As a result, MAGA outperforms 20 competitive methods across nine benchmark datasets, showcasing its superior performance. Code: https://github.com/BJT-bjt/MAGA.

MSCS-ICP: point cloud registration method using multi-view spatial coordinate system–ICP

The effectiveness of point cloud registration critically determines three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction accuracy involving multi-view sensors. We introduce a multi-view point cloud registration method based on multi-view spatial coordinate system–ICP to solve the problem of 3D point cloud registration from different viewpoints. By integrating a spatial rotation axis line, our method successfully establishes the spatial coordinate system tailored for multi-view sensors, ensuring that 3D point clouds derived from various perspectives are optimally positioned initially. We employ the ICP technique for point cloud merging, facilitating a seamless transition from coarse to refined registration of these multi-view 3D point clouds. During the process of spatial rotation axis line fitting, we present a Ransac-based algorithm tailored for axis line fitting that effectively removes outliers, thus significantly improving the fitting precision. Experimental results from a standard sphere reconstruction reveal that within a measurement scope of 1.3–1.9 m, our proposed method boasts a maximum error of just 0.069 mm, an average absolute error of 0.039 mm, and a root mean square error of 0.043 mm. The speed of our point cloud registration outpaces that of alternative methods. Our method notably elevates the precision and velocity of 3D point cloud registration across diverse views, demonstrating commendable adaptability and resilience.

Understanding the Dynamics of Life Satisfaction in the Swedish Welfare State: A Multifaceted Analysis Integrating Quantitative, Qualitative, and Discourse Approaches

This interdisciplinary study investigates life satisfaction in the context of the Swedish welfare state, employing a mixed-methods approach to offer a comprehensive understanding. Quantitative analyses, utilizing World Values Survey data, reveal significant associations between work importance, household financial situation, and life satisfaction. However, the explanatory power of the models remains modest at 15.3%. The study emphasizes the need for a holistic approach, recognizing the interconnectedness of work and financial well-being with other determinants of life satisfaction. Qualitative insights, derived from interviews and focus groups, explore individual experiences, uncovering nuanced perspectives on well-being. Participants highlight the importance of resources, welfare benefits, work, and personal freedom, aligning with the capability approach. The conceptualization of well-being incorporates Chambers' notion of capabilities, Sen's emphasis on freedom, and Nussbaum's consideration of how individuals’ function. Discourse analysis enriches the study by examining language as a constitutive force, shaping perceptions, and influencing actions. A focus group discussion and blog analysis reveal diverse views on life satisfaction, emphasizing the significance of freedom and choice. The findings contribute to the broader understanding of life satisfaction, calling for future research that integrates quantitative, qualitative, and discourse analysis approaches. The study underscores the complexity of life satisfaction and its multifaceted determinants, urging policymakers and practitioners to adopt comprehensive strategies in promoting well-being in welfare states like Sweden.

Strain-specific evolution and host-specific regulation of transposable elements in the model plant symbiont Rhizophagus irregularis.

Transposable elements (TEs) are repetitive DNA that can create genome structure and regulation variability. The genome of Rhizophagus irregularis, a widely studied arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF), comprises ∼50% repetitive sequences that include TEs. Despite their abundance, two-thirds of TEs remain unclassified, and their regulation among AMF life stages remains unknown. Here, we aimed to improve our understanding of TE diversity and regulation in this model species by curating repeat datasets obtained from chromosome-level assemblies and by investigating their expression across multiple conditions. Our analyses uncovered new TE superfamilies and families in this model symbiont and revealed significant differences in how these sequences evolve both within and between R. irregularis strains. With this curated TE annotation, we also found that the number of upregulated TE families in colonized roots is 4 times higher than in the extraradical mycelium, and their overall expression differs depending on the plant host. This work provides a fine-scale view of TE diversity and evolution in model plant symbionts and highlights their transcriptional dynamism and specificity during host-microbe interactions. We also provide Hidden Markov Model profiles of TE domains for future manual curation of uncharacterized sequences (https://github.com/jordana-olive/TE-manual-curation/tree/main).

NASA PUNCH Outreach Creates Learning Activities that Celebrate Diverse Views of Our Sun, Eclipsed or Not

NASA PUNCH Outreach Creates Learning Activities that Celebrate Diverse Views of Our Sun, Eclipsed or Not