Power Disparities Research Articles

Side information embedding scheme for PTS based PAPR reduction in OFDM systems

Partial transmit sequence (PTS) is one of the well-known probabilistic schemes in reducing peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal. In our paper, we address the two major concerns of the PTS–OFDM system: side information (SI) free transmission from transmitter end and complexity reduction of the generated candidates. In the proposed scheme, side information is embedded on the locations of higher power subcarriers at specific partitions within the data block and at the receiver side extraction of SI is based on the power disparity among data symbols in the partitions. The error performance of the proposed scheme over the AWGN channel is analyzed mathematically. Besides, time efficiency of the proposed algorithm has been estimated in respect of computations required for finding the optimal candidates. Simulation results confirm that our proposed SI free transmission scheme performs well in terms of low BER degradations over the AWGN and Rayleigh fading channels, better SI error detection probability, lesser computations and improved PAPR reductions of the OFDM signals.

To feel and talk in a language of conflict: distinct emotional experience and expression of bilinguals among disadvantaged minority members

ABSTRACT Research conducted on emotionality in bilinguals suggests that language use modulates emotional expression. The current study examines bilingual disadvantaged minority members’ emotional experience and expression as shaped by the group relations in a conflict area. We hypothesised that, in general, greater emotionality will be found in one’s native language. Moreover, since the second language is imposed and acquired in a negative context, there may be differential effects on negative and positive language. A novel ecological paradigm was used: Twenty-eight Palestinian citizens of Israel were videotaped while recounting emotional stories in both Arabic (L1) and Hebrew (L2), resulting in 212 videos. Two studies followed: In Study 1 we compared participants’ emotional ratings (1a) and analyzed the content of emotional expression (1b). In Study 2, American participants rated emotional expressiveness. In Study 1, an interaction effect was found between language and valence, with less positive emotions and expressions in L2. In Study 2, a general difference in expressiveness was found in favour of L1. These studies show an effect of power disparities on the emotional load of the second language, thus highlighting the emotional costs of using a second language acquired in a conflict area.

Applied Anthropology in Latin America: Towards a Hemispheric Dialogue

While practicing applied anthropology reflects nation-based interests and contradictions regarding the use of knowledge in the realms of academia, policy, and politics, the interpenetration of knowledge is also influenced by power disparities across countries. This special issue employs a historical and hemispherical perspective to understand Latin American applied anthropology by (1) sharing recent work by Latin American applied anthropologists in English; (2) identifying themes that encourage dialogue with counterparts in the Global North; and (3) suggesting ways to use knowledge that could link anthropology from the North and the South in the American continent. Illustrating with applied work in six Latin American countries, this issue reflects my long commitment to encouraging greater discourse among applied anthropologists in the Americas.

Increased workplace bullying against nurses during COVID-19: A health and safety issue

Nurses are the backbone of healthcare organizations. However, as frontline workers, nurses are regularly exposed to perilous conditions and workplace harassment, with a few or no avenues to report or seek adequate support. This causes frustration and stress among nurses and can eventually lead to compromised patient care. This also contributes to workplace bullying, which results in a toxic and stressful work environment. This problem is a global health and safety issue due to its highly negative impact on both individuals and organizations. Recent studies indicate that the COVID 19 pandemic has significantly increased incidents of workplace bullying against nurses. Several contributing factors have been highlighted, when considering the underlying causes of workplace bullying against nurses, including power disparity, organizational attributes, and the image of nurses, as portrayed in the media. Because the pandemic has brought the challenge of creating a safe work environment for nurses to the fore, now more than ever, healthcare organizations need to take bold actions to protect nurses. Nursing management needs to implement bullying prevention interventions that provide nurses with a safe work environment. Using empirical and theoretical literature as its basis, this paper aims to discuss workplace bullying against nurses and consider how this problem has been impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic. This paper recommends the application of a Socio Ecological Model (SEM), which provides evidence-based interventions intended to reduce workplace bullying against nurses.

Stowing parachutes, strengthening science

Stowing parachutes, strengthening science

Response to COVID-19 in the Central African Republic: Coping Strategies Combined With China's Experience.

Objectives: The weak health system, domestic political unrest, poverty, and many other factors in the Central African Republic (CAR) have left the country underprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a greater health threat to the entire country. Rapid measures must therefore be taken to prevent the further spread of COVID-19. Methods: This work encompassed a review of relevant literature. We aim to analyze how far Chinese COVID measures can be transferred to the context of the CAR. Results: We argue that the measure that the CAR can learn from China’s success is the involvement of community workers and that greater investment in this model may be the optimal solution. Help from the international community is urgently needed. Conclusion: The CAR can benefit from China’s successful experience in fighting the epidemic, but the disparity in the combined power of the two countries does not allow for simple replication of China’s strategy.

What is needed to sustain improvements in hospital practices post-COVID-19? a qualitative study of interprofessional dissonance in hospital infection prevention and control

BackgroundHospital infection prevention and control (IPC) depends on consistent practice to achieve its purpose. Standard precautions are embedded in modern healthcare policies, but not uniformly observed by all clinicians. Well-documented differences in attitudes to IPC, between doctors and nurses, contribute to suboptimal IPC practices and persistence of preventable healthcare-associated infections. The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected healthcare professionals’ work-practices, lives and health and increased awareness and observance of IPC. Successful transition of health services to a ‘post-COVID-19’ future, will depend on sustainable integration of lessons learnt into routine practice.MethodsThe aim of this pre-COVID-19 qualitative study was to investigate factors influencing doctors’ IPC attitudes and practices, whether they differ from those of nurses and, if so, how this affects interprofessional relationships. We hypothesised that better understanding would guide new strategies to achieve more effective IPC. We interviewed 26 senior clinicians (16 doctors and 10 nurses) from a range of specialties, at a large Australian tertiary hospital. Interview transcripts were reviewed iteratively, and themes identified inductively, using reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsParticipants from both professions painted clichéd portraits of ‘typical’ doctors and nurses and recounted unflattering anecdotes of their IPC behaviours. Doctors were described as self-directed and often unaware or disdainful of IPC rules; while nurses were portrayed as slavishly following rules, ostensibly to protect patients, irrespective of risk or evidence. Many participants believed that doctors object to being reminded of IPC requirements by nurses, despite many senior doctors having limited knowledge of correct IPC practice. Overall, participants’ comments suggested that the ‘doctor-nurse game’—described in the 1960s, to exemplify the complex power disparity between professions—is still in play, despite changes in both professions, in the interim.ConclusionsThe results suggest that interprofessional differences and inconsistencies constrain IPC practice improvement. IPC inconsistencies and failures can be catastrophic, but the common threat of COVID-19 has promoted focus and unity. Appropriate implementation of IPC policies should be context-specific and respect the needs and expertise of all stakeholders. We propose an ethical framework to guide interprofessional collaboration in establishing a path towards sustained improvements in IPC and bio-preparedness.

Unequal Distribution of the State Power, Political Leadership and Regional Disparities in Odisha

This article critically examines the dynamics of state power and political leadership in connection to the regional disparities of Odisha in a historical and present context, using both historical and empirical data. It finds a pattern of highly dominant, discriminatory and exclusionary politics and leadership. That resulted in regular and frequent control of state power by ‘Brahmin–Karan–Khandayat’ of the eastern region in collaboration with the upper-caste feudal and landlord rulers of the western region. Thus it is argued that the eastern regional upper castes dominated state power derived maximum advantage over the western region in the creation, distribution and utilisation of state resources. On the other hand, the western region has remained under the control of upper-caste feudalists and landlords while by sharing the power with their eastern partners for self-gain but did not do much for the progressive transformation in the redistribution of resources.

An exploration of two supervisors’ engagement in a transcultural supervision exercise to support culturally responsive supervision with trainee educational psychologists (TEPs)

ABSTRACT The paper explores the impact of an exercise used to promote culturally sensitive supervision on supervisors. It begins with an overview of the role of power dynamics and cultural awareness within supervision. Two supervisors’ experiences of engaging in a transcultural supervision activity with their respective supervisees, trainee educational psychologists (TEPs), are then analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The two supervisors found engaging in the transcultural supervision exercise initially led to feelings of apprehension but overall was a positive experience. It had a constructive impact on the supervisory relationship; increasing the supervisors’ feelings of connection, developing a trusting relationship, and presenting an opportunity to share and understand each other’s values. It also promoted an ethnorelative way of working, increased supervisors’ cultural awareness, attended to power disparities within supervision, widened perspective taking, and had potential impact on wider practice.

International Capacity Building in Psychological Science: Reflections on Student Involvement and Endeavors

Internationalization in psychology provides unique opportunities for students worldwide and promises to build a more inclusive, representative, and culturally sensitive discipline. Far from passive recipients of the internationalization process, students are actively involved in promoting opportunities for cross-cultural collaborations, international learning, and the creation of international networks. This paper reviews opportunities for student involvement in internationalization related efforts in psychology. Students’ roles within international and regional psychology organizations are explored to highlight the unique contributions and opportunities afforded by more independent and fully student-led organizations and initiatives. This paper discusses the barriers to establishing student-led organizations and to student involvement in international endeavors, including power imbalances, language barriers, and disparities in students’ ability to access financial resources and mentorship depending on their geographical location. Recommendations are offered, to both students and professional members, to foster student contributions to the internationalization of psychology and support the creation of sustainable student-led international organizations.

(Un)making the established-outsiders figuration in anti-racist and migrant rights activism

The article discusses recent anti-racist and migrant rights activism in Finland with the help of Norbert Elias’ figurational sociology and the concept of the established-outsiders figuration. The mobilisation of ‘outsiders’ (racialised minorities and migrants) has reordered the contemporary field and challenged the ‘established’ majority activists to reflect on their own practices. Through combining figurational and cultural perspectives, I compare the extent to which established liberal and left-libertarian activists, with their distinct ideological positions, have succeeded in transforming the power ratio between themselves and the outsiders. This article advances the use of the established-outsiders conceptualisation in cases where the established support, in principle, the outsiders’ inclusion. This helps to shed light on both the more covert and subtle ways through which the established reproduce their power as well as their agency in dismantling the power disparity.

Effectual entrepreneurship, ethics and suboptimal service designs

PurposeThis study aims to respond to repeated calls for more process-focused research on effectual entrepreneurship. It illustrates how effectuation takes place, particularly through gaining the commitment of actors with diverse resources, knowledge and needs in a context characterized by power disparities. It illuminates the ethical concerns faced by effectual entrepreneurs and the impact these concerns could have on the service design.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative investigation involved in-depth interviews with 30 intercultural trainers-entrepreneurs delivering repatriation training in the context of international assignments. The authors supplemented primary data with the analysis of training and promotional materials.FindingsThe authors identify four key elements of the effectual process, in which entrepreneurs aim to elicit commitment while reconciling potentially conflicting demands of the actors involved: surfacing needs; value framing; co-creation; and joint affordable loss. The authors show how the acquisition of commitment has a consequential impact on subsequent steps of effectual entrepreneurship. The authors highlight how the interdependence of entrepreneurs, their services, clients and end-users impacts the availability of means and goals. More importantly, the authors also demonstrate how resource dependence, knowledge disparities and power imbalance between actors partaking in effectual entrepreneurship can lead to numerous ethical concerns and result in suboptimal service designs.Originality/valueThis study demonstrates the dark side of effectual entrepreneurship in a resource-constrained environment. The authors show how power disparities and resource-dependence can lead to ethical dilemmas and inferior service designs, where entrepreneurs follow the lead of influential and resource-abundant stakeholders at the expense of the end-users.

Working With the Encounter: A Descriptive Account and Case Analysis of School-Based Collaborative Mental Health Care for Refugee Children in Leuven, Belgium.

Scholars increasingly point toward schools as meaningful contexts in which to provide psychosocial care for refugee children. Collaborative mental health care in school forms a particular practice of school-based mental health care provision. Developed in Canada and inspired by systemic intervention approaches, collaborative mental health care in schools involves the formation of an interdisciplinary care network, in which mental health care providers and school partners collaborate with each other and the refugee family in a joint assessment of child development and mental health, as well as joint intervention planning and provision. It aims to move away from an individual perspective on refugee children’s development, toward an engagement with refugee families’ perspectives on their migration histories, cultural background and social condition in shaping assessment and intervention, as such fostering refugee empowerment, equality, and participation in the host society. Relating to the first stage of van Yperen’s four-stage model for establishing evidence-based youth care, this article aims to engage in an initial exploration of the effectiveness of a developing school-based collaborative mental health care practice in Leuven, Belgium. First, we propose a detailed description, co-developed through reflection on case documents, written process reflections, intervision, an initial identification of intervention themes, and articulating interconnections with scholarly literature on transcultural and systemic refugee trauma care. Second, we engage in an in-depth exploration of processes and working mechanisms, obtained through co-constructed clinical case analysis of case work collected through our practice in schools in Leuven, Belgium. Our descriptive analysis indicates the role of central processes that may operate as working mechanisms in school-based collaborative mental health care and points to how collaborative mental health care may mobilize the school and the family-school interaction as a vehicle of restoring safety and stability in the aftermath of cumulative traumatization. Our analysis furthermore forms an important starting point for reflections on future research opportunities, and central clinical dynamics touching upon power disparities and low-threshold access to mental health care for refugee families.

Medicine, structural racism, and systems

Medicine is having a reckoning with systemic racism. While some continue to believe medicine is apolitical and grounded purely in science, history and research reveal that medicine is inseparable from underlying systems, laws, and policies. Obesity is a useful case study. Weight loss trials have shown the immense difficulty in achieving and sustaining weight loss without addressing overlying systems. Barriers are double for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) with obesity, who must contend with multiple layers of oppressive systems. Increasingly, illness is not a matter of bad luck, but is a function of oppressive structures. COVID-19 likely originates in a deteriorating environment, we have an increasing global burden of disease from oppressive sales of food, sugar, alcohol, guns, nicotine, and other harmful products, and social inequality and resource hoarding are at a peak. Medicine can and must participate in redefining these systems. In doing so, it must center the experiences of BIPOC and push change that alleviates power disparities.

Tracing two faces of extended visibility: a bibliometric analysis of transparency discussions in social sciences

Modern governance is the product of constant efforts to make the entire society visible, calculable and manageable. Transparency has emerged as the central ethics to manage public visibility in market and governance. Its celebration or refusal has been associated with technological and political evolution. Using bibliometric analyses of academic literature concerning transparency, this paper traces the interactions of the ethics of transparency with external environments. Guided by historiography and co-occurrence analyses, I map out the major shifts in academic attention and thematic associations related to the ethics of transparency. The modern aspiration of more visibility has been prominent in the finance market, corporate management, public governance, and policy communication. The greater visibility has been associated with accountability, anti-corruption, trust, and participation, as the cure for information asymmetry and power disparity. However, the extended visibility may lessen the human capacity to apprehend reality, which concerns the recent discussions of transparency in higher education, policy communications, and new virtual spaces. By contextualizing the primary themes in transparency discourse, I summarize the three sources of the new risks embedded in extended visibility: the organizational operations decoupled from the intended goals of transparency; the uncovered power relations in the politics of disclosure; and blind reliance on decontextualized digital data.

Child welfare, Indigenous parents, and judicial mediation

AbstractCan judicial mediation within a settler state's justice system improve the experience of dealing with child welfare services for Indigenous parents? Interviews with social workers, lawyers, and judges in the Canadian province of Quebec yield little basis for optimism. Adapting judicial mediation will not suffice to decolonize dispute resolution between Indigenous individuals and the state. Mediation fits uneasily with the severe power disparity in this setting. Moreover, the cautious nature of participants’ recommendations signals the limited adaptive capacity of the settler state's system of civil justice. The recommendations exemplify relatively superficial accommodation, rather than deep engagement with legal pluralism and Indigenous difference. Constraints on the state system's ability to adapt are both legal and cultural. This study contributes to literatures on Indigenous and colonial legal cultures in relation to child welfare, on access to justice for Indigenous peoples, and on mediation in Canada and elsewhere.

Sexual Harassment and Assault During Field Research

ABSTRACTPolitical scientists have recently taken great strides to expose and address sexual harassment and assault in our academic departments and professional conferences. Little has been said, however, of the sexual violence and discrimination that political scientists confront during field research. Female field researchers may encounter a number of power disparities that put them at acute risk for sexual violence during fieldwork, and evidence suggests that experiences of sexual misconduct in the field are both pervasive and professionally devastating. This article challenges the discipline to break its silence on sexual violence during fieldwork, remove the stigma of incompetency assigned to survivors, and support field researchers in confronting sexual harassment and assault in the field.

Who Gets to Be in The Guild?

While media studies have frequently assessed the importance of representation, research in this area has often been siloed by institutional and methodological norms that define academics as “gender”, “race”, or “class” scholars, rather than inclusive scholars of all these and more. This paper thus responds to recent calls for more intersectional work by simultaneously addressing the overlapping representations of race, gender, and gamer identity, and their relation to Lorde’s concept of the mythical norm, in the popular webseries, The Guild (YouTube, 2007-2013). Via a detailed, inductive thematic analysis of the show’s two characters of color, Zaboo and Tinkerballa, we find a doubly problematic intersection between standard “gamer identity” tropes and gendered Asian/American stereotypes. The show forecloses on its potential to be truly diverse and reinforces the oppressive, marginalizing practices it tries to mock, suggesting that gaming culture will not change until we address its intersecting axes of power and exclusion. This research also demonstrates how the constructed identity of media audiences-- in this case, stereotypical “gamer” identity-- can exacerbate and reaffirm existing power disparities in representation. We suggest that media scholars remain attentive to the intersecting articulations of media consumer and individual identities in considering how representation can influence systems of inclusion and exclusion, as well as viewers’ lived outcomes.

Income inequality, financial development, and ecological footprint: fresh evidence from an asymmetric analysis.

The emerging environmental concerns are entrenched in social issues, largely stem from income differences and power disparity. Income distribution and environmental disruption are increasingly pointed as obstacles in securing sustainable development goals and environmental preservation. The existing empirical studies have explored the environmental pollution impact of income inequality. However, the results are conflicting, and little attention has been paid to explore the short and long-run environmental impacts from a national viewpoint. Similarly, the role of aggregate income and financial sector for environmental quality has attracted considerable attention and many studies have provided conflicting empirical evidence. The literature generally ignores the importance of relative income in explaining environmental outcomes and also assumes symmetric association, ignoring asymmetric shocks. The present study explores the role of nonlinear associations in forming the links between income distribution and environmental quality using linear and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models from 1972 to 2018. The study follows the extended environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) approach. The results suggest that inequality promotes environmental pollution. Further financial development also escalates carbon emissions. The nonlinear analysis confirms the asymmetric effect of inequality on ecological footprint. The EKC, however, is not validated for Pakistan. The results suggest important policy implications.

Unsilenced Employee Voice in South Africa: Social Media Misconduct Dismissals as Evidence of E-Voice

Social media has transformed various aspects of daily life, particularly influencing communication and interaction in both physical and digital spaces. The South African employment relationship is no exception. Social media also creates opportunities for the articulation of employee voice. Through the content analysis of 118 South African first-instance social media misconduct dismissal decisions, this paper argues that employees use social media as a mechanism to express dissenting employee voice. There is evidence of individual employee voice notwithstanding employers implementing rules and social media policies to curtail expressions of dissent. It also persists despite the dismissal of employees for expressing employee voice through social media. Significantly, employee voice in the form of racialised speech badmouthing and cyber-criticising employers continues in the digital realm despite the legislative prohibition of hate speech. Despite high power disparities, the sample reveals a perfusion of individual e-voice by South African employees.