Interlinked Factors Research Articles

Gangs and the Culture of Violence in El Salvador (What role did the US play?)

Gang violence in El Salvador has resulted in conditions that have perpetuated an environment of terror and culture of violence. This paper aims to understand the emergence of transnational gangs in El Salvador and the US involvement in this process. The article is divided into the following subtitles; 1980s civil war and the repercussions of US involvement, Salvadorans migration to the US and reverse migration (with a focus on Los Angeles and San Salvador), and US exportation of heavy-handed policies to El Salvador’s institutionalized use of political violence. The paper concludes that US involvement in El Salvador created a foundation for a culture of violence and through interlinked factors US influence and actions instigated circumstances for gang proliferated in El Salvador.

"Caught in Each Other's Traps": Factors Perpetuating Incentive-Linked Prescribing Deals Between Physicians and the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Despite known adverse impacts on patients and health systems, "incentive-linked prescribing," which describes the prescribing of medicines that result in personal benefits for the prescriber, remains a widespread and hidden impediment to quality of healthcare. We investigated factors perpetuating incentive-linked prescribing among primary care physicians in for-profit practices (referred to as private doctors - PDs), using Pakistan as a case study. Our mixed-methods study synthesised insights from a survey of 419 systematically sampled PDs and 68 semi-structured interviews with PDs (n=28), pharmaceutical sales representatives (SRs) (n=12), and provincial and national policy actors (n=28). For the survey, we built a verified database of all registered PDs within Karachi, Pakistan's most populous city, administered an electronic questionnaire in-person and descriptively analysed the data. Semi-structured interviews incorporated a vignette-based exercise and data was analysed using an interpretive approach. Our survey showed that 90% of PDs met pharmaceutical SRs weekly. Three interlinked factors perpetuating incentive-linked prescribing we identified were: gaps in understanding of conflicts of interest and loss of values among doctors; financial pressures on doctors operating in a (largely) privately financed health-system, exacerbated by competition with unqualified healthcare providers; and aggressive incentivisation by pharmaceutical companies, linked to low political will to regulate an over-saturated pharmaceutical market. Regular interactions between pharmaceutical companies and PDs are normalised in our study setting. Progress on regulating these is hindered by the substantial role of incentive-linked prescribing in the financial success of physicians and pharmaceutical industry employees. A first step towards addressing the entrenchment of incentive-linked prescribing may be to reduce opposition to restrictions on incentivisation of physicians from stakeholders within the pharmaceutical industry, physicians themselves, and policy-makers concerned about curtailing growth of the pharmaceutical industry.

EXAMINING INTERRELATED DRIVING FORCES FOR SUSTAINABLE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

This research is part of a comprehensive project whose goal is to analyze and activate the interconnected elements within the education system that foster student empowerment in the Sultanate of Oman. The project proposed that sustained enhancements in the education system hinge on a collection of interlinked subsystems or factors that collectively boost overall school performance and student learning (Osman, 2023). The primary aim of this investigation was to scrutinize the interrelated elements capable of expanding the educational environment and contributing to long-lasting improvements in schools. The study adopted a descriptive-analytical approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques. The study's sample comprised 110 educators and administrators from the participating experimental schools. The results indicate that the 13 factors examined in the proposed model make significant contributions to viable school improvement. Nevertheless, the importance of these factors varies from one to another. Based on these findings, it can be argued that activating all interrelated elements within the education system is imperative for achieving enduring improvements in student learning over time. Therefore, it is crucial to systemically enhance the performance of all interconnected factors within the education system.

Integrated analytical hierarchy process-grey relational analysis approach for mechanical recycling scenarios of plastics waste in India.

Mechanical recycling is an indispensable tool for plastic waste (PW) recycling and has the highest share in the PW recycling sector in India. The transition to the circular economy of plastics (CEoP) needs a systemic perspective on the mechanical recycling processes. Nevertheless, the assessment of multiple parameters influencing the mechanical recycling of PW is a complex decision-making problem for the development of triple-bottom-line mechanical recycling. A systemic perspective of various mechanical recycling scenarios was performed by employing a multi-criteria decision-making approach to examine the complexity of interlinked factors in the present investigation. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) integrated with grey relational analysis (GRA) was used to evaluate the criteria that directly influence quality-oriented mechanical recycling. Data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews using a framed questionnaire in stakeholder engagement with mechanical recyclers of PW. The first level hierarchy included economy, technical, resource consumption and environmental criteria. These criteria were further categorized into various significant indices such as quality of recyclate, recyclability, water and energy consumption during recycling. The results of the integrated grey relational analysis indicated that the technical parameters including quality of recyclate, resource efficiency, PW processing rate and recyclability have a significant influence on mechanical recycling. Based on AHP-GRA, scenario MR6, i.e. manufacturing of PET strap from recycled PET flakes, was ranked the optimal mechanical process amongst the various scenarios. MR6 was followed by Straps and Films at the second and third rank. The lowest ranking was observed for polymer blend recycling. These processes with higher ranks produced good quality recyclate with better efficiency and recyclability. Moreover, these processes consumed optimal resources during manufacturing. These processes also exhibited less maintenance cost, high production rate, low chemical consumption and waste generation as well as implemented pollution control practices.

Sociocultural environmental factors and childhood stunting: qualitative studies – a protocol for the Shared Values theme of the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub

IntroductionStunting is a significant and growing global problem that is resisting scientific attempts to understand it in terms of direct nutrition-related determinants. In recent years, research included more complex, indirect...

Complimentary Computational Cues for Water Electrocatalysis: A DFT and ML Perspective

AbstractHeterogenous electrocatalysis continues to witness propagating interest in a plethora of non‐limiting electrochemical fields. Of which, water electrolysis has moved from lab‐scale systems to commercial electrolyzers albeit high dependence on historic benchmark noble‐metal based catalysts is still the status quo. Notwithstanding, advances in material groups such as single‐atom catalysts, perovskites, high‐entropy alloys, among others continue to see an increased interest toward utilization in next‐generation electrolyzers. To that end, progress in electrocatalyst discovery techniques is revolutionized through synergistically combining density functional theory (DFT) and machine learning (ML) techniques. The success of ML herein depends on numerous interlinked factors such as the algorithm employed, data availability and accuracy, with descriptors being critical to encapsulate physicochemical perspectives. Historic utilization of ML frameworks in areas other than materials discovery has left a lack of standardization toward appropriating suitable methods of high‐throughput DFT, ML approaches, and feature engineering that bridge the gap between activity‐structure‐electronic relationships. This review outlines needed considerations toward DFT calculations, important criteria during filtering out screened surfaces, and synergistic approaches toward utilizing theoretical and/or experimental datasets for formulating effective ML frameworks. Persisting challenges, perspectives, and recommendations thereof are highlighted to expedite and generalize future work pertaining to high‐volume water electrocatalysis discovery.

Sensory processing in humans and mice fluctuates between external and internal modes.

Perception is known to cycle through periods of enhanced and reduced sensitivity to external information. Here, we asked whether such slow fluctuations arise as a noise-related epiphenomenon of limited processing capacity or, alternatively, represent a structured mechanism of perceptual inference. Using 2 large-scale datasets, we found that humans and mice alternate between externally and internally oriented modes of sensory analysis. During external mode, perception aligns more closely with the external sensory information, whereas internal mode is characterized by enhanced biases toward perceptual history. Computational modeling indicated that dynamic changes in mode are enabled by 2 interlinked factors: (i) the integration of subsequent inputs over time and (ii) slow antiphase oscillations in the impact of external sensory information versus internal predictions that are provided by perceptual history. We propose that between-mode fluctuations generate unambiguous error signals that enable optimal inference in volatile environments.

Organic carbon stocks of Great British saltmarshes

Coastal wetlands, such as saltmarshes, are globally widespread and highly effective at capturing and storing ‘blue carbon’ and have the potential to regulate climate over varying timescales. Yet only Australia and the United States of America have national inventories of organic carbon held within saltmarsh habitats, hindering the development of policies and management strategies to protect and preserve these organic carbon stores. Here we couple a new observational dataset with 4,797 samples from 26 saltmarshes across Great Britain to spatially model organic carbon stored in the soil and the above and belowground biomass of Great British saltmarshes. Using average values derived from the 26 marshes, we deliver first-order estimates of organic carbon stocks across Great Britain’s 448 saltmarshes (451.66 km2). The saltmarshes of Great Britain contain 5.20 ± 0.65 Mt of organic carbon, 93% of which is in the soil. On average, the saltmarshes store 11.55 ± 1.56 kg C m-2 with values ranging between 2.24 kg C m-2 and 40.51 kg C m-2 depending on interlinked factors such as geomorphology, organic carbon source, sediment type (mud vs sand), sediment supply, and relative sea level history. These findings affirm that saltmarshes represent the largest intertidal blue carbon store in Great Britain, yet remain an unaccounted for component of the United Kingdom’s natural carbon stores.

Local Geographic Variations in Children’s School Readiness - A Multilevel Analysis of the Development Gaps in England

The educational attainment levels of children in state-funded schools in England are lower than in many countries with comparable levels of economic development. There are also striking differences at the local level across England. To understand these differences it is important to examine children’s development in their early years. This research uses multilevel analysis of the National Pupil Database to investigate child development at ages 4 and 5 years old at the individual, school and local levels including within a case study urban area. Child development is assessed using teachers’ observations to measure what is termed School Readiness. This is based on a child’s communication, literacy and numeracy skills and their physical, personal and social development. The findings reveal substantial differences in School Readiness at the individual, school and local area levels including in terms of sex, ethnic background, age in the school year, welfare benefit entitlement and local area income deprivation level. Such differences are also evident across the separate Early Learning Goals that are used to assess School Readiness. Between local areas children with similar backgrounds can vary considerably in their likelihood of being categorised as School Ready. Many children face multiple disadvantages as a consequence of different interlinked factors including where they live. The gap in the levels of School Readiness has long-term implications for the individuals themselves and for society more widely. Whilst increasing the levels of School Readiness is a key target in the UK Government’s Levelling Up policy, tackling the stark inequalities will take considerable investment, highly targeted support and engagement across the home and school learning environments.

US Recession Analysis Based on Ordinary Least Squares Regression

The United States is the first developed economy that rebounded from the 2008 global financial. Theoretically, US economic cycle is influenced by several factors, this paper mainly focuses on the linkage of the US economic growth and The correlation between the unemployment rate and the U.S. federal funds rate. Between times with rising economic activity, known as expansions. Whereas, the periods of diminishing economic activity is known as recessions. The economic climate constantly shifts throughout time. Firstly, the rate of employment and the rate of federal funding are cointegrated. The findings of a regression analysis demonstrate that there is a negative concurrent correlation between the federal funds rate and unemployment rate. Secondly, in order to verify the linkage, through an in-depth review of the data, several interlinked and external factors behind the pattern of such correlation related to the variation on economic growth also need to be elaborated.

Welsh Health Equity Solutions Platform

Abstract Health inequities are a longstanding issue in Wales, as they are across the globe. They disproportionately affect the health& wellbeing outcomes of disadvantaged groups, restricting opportunities to live full and prosperous lives. Post COVID-19 new groups are emerging with disproportionately higher risk of poor health and premature death and disease, especially those with unmet needs and vulnerabilities. More recently, the rising cost of living is amplifying health inequities. Despite their prevalence, health inequities are avoidable. Caused by multiple, interlinked factors; efforts to reduce health inequities thus require action on all the social determinants of health across the life course. Improved understanding of the key drivers of health gaps is needed to address the problem& provide support for solutions-driven action to break down the barriers to health equity. The Welsh Health Equity Solutions Platform (WHESP) is a new innovative tool developed around the WHO Health Equity Status Report initiative framework of the ‘five essential conditions’ for healthy, prosperous lives for all. WHESP aims to inform and facilitate policy and decision making to improve population health and address the increasing health gap. WHESP is an online gateway to data, health economics and modelling, policies, resources and innovative tools on health equity. Emerging evidence is highlighted to identify tools and solutions for achieving healthy prosperous lives for all in Wales and beyond. WHESP will be linked with and feed into a WHO health equity gateway, providing an example and inspiration for countries to learn and follow, as well as to contribute and share. WHESP recognises that there is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach. It provides an extensive body of evidence to inform evidence-based decision making to reduce the health gap, improve overall population health and wellbeing, and achieve inclusive and sustainable economic growth and prosperity for all. Key messages • Efforts to reduce health inequalities require action across all of the social determinants of health. • WHESP provides extensive evidence to facilitate cross-sectoral action and policy change.

Are californians willing to use shared automated vehicles (SAV) & renounce existing vehicles? An empirical analysis of factors determining SAV use & household vehicle ownership

Future smart transportation systems are anticipated to integrate automation and sharing of vehicles. Responding to the expected changes in shared mobility services, this study used representative data from over 4100 households in California to examine consumers' affinity to use shared automated vehicles (SAV) and their willingness to renounce existing vehicle(s) in the presence of SAVs - two interlinked factors determining the long-term success of SAVs. Results of the study showed that around 50 % of the households reported willingness to use SAVs but unwillingness to renounce their current vehicle(s). As innovators, another 9.1 % stated their affinity to use SAVs and renounce existing vehicle(s) but with heterogeneity across vehicle ownership levels. Random parameter logit models revealed that households using existing vehicles to work for ride hailing companies were significantly less likely to use SAVs and renounce their current vehicle(s). Households who had high awareness about self-driving cars, possessed full electric vehicles, used sustainable work travel modes (bike, e-bike, bikeshare), had greater number of leased vehicles and ridesharing trips were more likely to use SAVs and renounce current vehicle(s). Significant unobserved preference heterogeneity was recorded in the effects of behavioral and sociodemographic correlates. The study contributes by shedding new light on the behavioral determinants of the vehicle ownership impacts of SAVs. We discuss policy implications of the key findings.

Intersectional Making of the ‘Sri Lankan Case’: The Racialization of Domestic Violence in the Swiss Police Force

Abstract This article uses an intersectional lens to ethnographically analyze police treatment of domestic violence in Switzerland. The analysis suggests three interlinked explanatory factors to understand the differential treatment of domestic violence for white Swiss/European nationals on the one hand, and racialized non-European migrants on the other. These factors are (1) prevailing generalized representations of the racialization of violence against women in Switzerland, (2) the police professional logic used to categorize sections of the public, and (3) the specific police institutional memory of two emblematic cases of domestic violence involving families of Sri Lankan nationality. The article discusses the implications of this differential treatment not only for racialized non-Europeans but also for Swiss and white European women subjected to domestic violence.

The Future Dreams of Ireland’s Youth: Possibilities for Rural Regeneration and Generational Renewal

The renewal of younger generations in farming and rural areas is a key European policy concern and rural sustainability issue. European literature discusses what drives young people from rural areas while identifying diverse and often interlinked factors as responsible. This study uses a future foresight approach to understand what would facilitate young people to remain in or return to rural areas. Targeting youth aged 18 to 30 and examining their personal dream futures in 2035, this paper presents the ideal lifestyle and livelihoods young people envision for themselves in rural Ireland. However, future approaches to alleviate rural decline, support regeneration, and the wider issue of generational renewal must consider the wider impact on rural sustainability. Generational renewal is just one challenging part of rural decline, including wider social, environmental, economic, and cultural issues. Driven by this wider concern, this paper also explores the implications of the youth’s future dreams for rural regeneration and generational renewal from a broad rural resilience perspective. The results identify a range of issues. However, rural jobs emerge as a key issue, and the paper outlines how policy attention is particularly needed here for improved resilient rural regeneration and generational renewal.

Factors influencing access to and participation in rehabilitation for people with lower limb amputation in East, South, and Southeast Asian developing countries: the perspective of rehabilitation professionals – a qualitative study

Purpose To identify barriers and enablers for access to and participation in rehabilitation for people with LLA in East, South, and Southeast Asian developing countries from the perspective of rehabilitation professionals. Material and methods A mixed-method study involving an anonymous cross-sectional screening survey followed by in-depth interviews of rehabilitation professionals in these regions following the COREQ guidelines. Participants were surveyed online using convenience and snowball sampling techniques to inform a purposive heterogenic sample for semi-structured online interviews, between September 2021 to February 2022. Interview transcripts were analysed and thematically coded using the modified Health Care Delivery System Approach (HCDSA) framework. Results A total of 201 quantitative survey responses shaped the interview questions and participation of 28 participants from 13 countries for the qualitative investigation. Important factors at the patient level were sex, economics, health issues, language differences, and lack of awareness; at the care team level, peer and/or family support, referrals, and the gender of the professional; at the organizational level, service availability, resources, and quality; and at the environmental level, policies, supports, and physical and/or social accessibility. Conclusions Identified interlinked factors at multiple levels of the HCDSA underpin the need for a systems approach to develop and address regional rehabilitation service provision but requires contextually adapted policy.

Intrahousehold power inequalities and cooperation: Unpacking household responses to nutrition-sensitive agriculture interventions in rural India.

Nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) interventions offer a means to improve the dietary quality of rural, undernourished populations. Their effectiveness could be further increased by understanding how household dynamics enable or inhibit the uptake of NSA behaviours. We used a convergent parallel mixed-methods design to describe the links between household dynamics-specifically intrahousehold power inequalities and intrahousehold cooperation-and dietary quality and to explore whether household dynamics mediated or modified the effects of NSA interventions tested in a cluster-randomized trial, Upscaling Participatory Action and Videos for Agriculture and Nutrition(UPAVAN). We use quantitative data from cross-sectional surveys in 148 village clusters at UPAVAN's baseline and 32 months afterwards (endline), and qualitative data from family case studies and focus group discussions with intervention participants and facilitators. We found that households cooperated to grow and buy nutritious foods, and gendered power inequalities were associated with women's dietary quality, but cooperation and women's use of power was inhibited by several interlinked factors. UPAVAN interventions were more successful in more supportive, cooperative households, and in some cases, the interventions increased women's decision-making power. However, women's decisions to enter into negotiations with family members depended on whether women deemed the practices promoted by UPAVAN interventions to be feasible, as well as women's confidenceand previous cultivation success. We conclude that interventions may be more effective if they can elicit cooperation from the whole household. This will require a move towards more family-centric intervention models that empower women while involving other family members and accounting for the varied ways that families cooperate and negotiate.

Biologically inspired robotic perception-action for soft fruit harvesting in vertical growing environments

Multiple interlinked factors like demographics, migration patterns, and economics are presently leading to the critical shortage of labour available for low-skilled, physically demanding tasks like soft fruit harvesting. This paper presents a biomimetic robotic solution covering the full ‘Perception-Action’ loop targeting harvesting of strawberries in a state-of-the-art vertical growing environment. The novelty emerges from both dealing with crop/environment variance as well as configuring the robot action system to deal with a range of runtime task constraints. Unlike the commonly used deep neural networks, the proposed perception system uses conditional Generative Adversarial Networks to identify the ripe fruit using synthetic data. The network can effectively train the synthetic data using the image-to-image translation concept, thereby avoiding the tedious work of collecting and labelling the real dataset. Once the harvest-ready fruit is localised using point cloud data generated by a stereo camera, our platform’s action system can coordinate the arm to reach/cut the stem using the Passive Motion Paradigm framework inspired by studies on neural control of movement in the brain. Results from field trials for strawberry detection, reaching/cutting the stem of the fruit, and extension to analysing complex canopy structures/bimanual coordination (searching/picking) are presented. While this article focuses on strawberry harvesting, ongoing research towards adaptation of the architecture to other crops such as tomatoes and sweet peppers is briefly described.

Rehabilitation professionals' perspectives of factors influencing return to occupation for people with lower limb amputation in East, South, and Southeast Asian developing countries: A qualitative study.

To identify barriers and enablers for return to occupation (RTO) for people with lower limb amputation (LLA) in East, South, and Southeast Asian developing countries from the perspective of rehabilitation professionals. A convenience sample of rehabilitation professionals working in Asian developing countries participated in online in-depth interviews between September 2021 and February 2022. Interview transcripts were analyzed and thematically coded to the modified Health Care Delivery System Approach (HCDSA) framework. COREQ guidelines were followed. Twenty-eight interviewees from 13 countries shared their experiences of factors related to RTO for people with LLA. Identified factors described barriers and facilitators for RTO at all four HCDSA framework levels. The "environmental" level had the most identified factors (n = 56) and the "care team" level the least (n = 31). Common environmental RTO challenges included cultural attitudes to women; lack of rural/remote services; inadequate numbers and regulation of rehabilitation professionals; inappropriate prosthesis; limited government support for rehabilitation, and reliance on charitable models. Despite varied cultural, religious, and geographical characteristics, consistent factors impacting RTO were identified within these thirteen countries. Identified barriers to RTO underline the need for improvements throughout service systems from the acute-care focus on saving life without consideration of RTO, the rehabilitation focused primarily on mobility, to the lack of occupational rehabilitation services and supporting policy in these countries. These interlinked factors at different levels of healthcare service systems reinforce the importance of systems approaches to best utilize limited resources toward improving RTO in this region.

Long-term spatiotemporal variability of precipitation and its linkages with atmospheric teleconnections in the Yellow River Basin, China

AbstractPrecipitation is widely considered as a crucial index toward the apprehension of global climate change. Hence, it becomes imperative to explore spatiotemporal patterns and the interlinked factors of precipitation in the basin. In the study, the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation and the individual or integrated effects of various atmospheric teleconnections on precipitation variations are explored in the Yellow River Basin. The total precipitation showed a slightly declining tendency during 1950–2019 and the dependence relationship of precipitation gradient on latitude and longitude is different in various seasons and elevations. The spatiotemporal variability of precipitation is more sensitive to the latitude gradient. For each 1-degree increase in longitude and latitude, the average annual precipitation increases/decreases by 10.73 and 57.24 mm, respectively. Moreover, the precipitation spatiotemporal patterns could be interpreted by four empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) modes about 71.9% of precipitation variations. The strength of the linkages between various circulation factors and precipitation varied at different time scales. The integrated effects of multiple factors should be taken into consideration in explaining precipitation variability at all time scales. It is expected that the study can be helpful for understanding the internal mechanism of the hydrological cycle in the YRB.

Child food portion sizes in the home environment: how do parents decide?

The consumption of larger portion sizes (PS) of food has been implicated in the increased prevalence of childhood obesity. The home is usually the first place children learn about food, however, little is known about how parents determine child PS in the home environment. This narrative review aimed to explore parental beliefs, decisions, strategies and barriers to the provision of appropriate food PS for children in the home environment. Results indicate that parental decisions on child food PS are based on the amounts they serve themselves, personal intuition and knowledge of child appetite. Owing to the habitual nature of food provision, parental decisions on child PS may be taken without conscious thought and/or could be part of a complex decision-making process influenced by several interlinked factors, including parental childhood mealtime experiences, other family members and child weight status. Strategies to determine child-appropriate PS include modelling the desired PS behaviour, use of unit-based food packaging and PS estimation aids, and providing the child with a degree of autonomy to rely on their own appetite cues. A lack of knowledge/awareness of PS guidance is a key barrier identified by parents to the provision of age-appropriate PS, warranting the inclusion of salient child-appropriate PS guidance within national dietary recommendations. Further home-based interventions to improve the provision of appropriate child PS are required, leveraged on parental strategies already in use, as outlined in this review.