Severe Disadvantage Research Articles

War in the camphor zone: Indigenous resistance to colonial capitalism in upland Taiwan, 1895–1915

Between 1895 and 1915, Japanese police and military forces invaded Taiwan’s Indigenous highlands for control of camphor. At the dawn of the twentieth century, camphor crystals were a vital natural resource used in the production of celluloid, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals. The consequences of this single commodity were far-reaching, as Japanese pacification armies shelled and burned Indigenous villages to the ground, forcibly relocated tens of thousands, and killed both resistance fighters and innocent civilians. This article examines patterns of frontier warfare in upland Taiwan, with a focus on the Japanese colonial state’s confrontations with the northeastern Atayal peoples (also spelled ‘Dayan’). Despite severe material disadvantages and continuous assaults on their communities, Atayal peoples fought back against the violence of dispossession, frustrating the economic designs of a major empire with numerically superior armies and advanced firepower. In revisiting this history, this article hopes to shed light on the dynamics of resistance, strategic accommodation, and conquest that defined relations between expanding capitalist states, their industries, and Indigenous peoples at the height of the imperialist era.

OPTIMIZATION OF AN NPK-FERTILIZER PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY

Ammoniac saltpeter is the most widespread in the world and effective nitric fertilizer. However, ammonia saltpeter has a severe disadvantage – fire risk and explosion hazard that causes some difficulties and restrictions of both its consumers and its manufacturers. The purpose of the present work consisted in the studying the possibility of production of NPК-fertilizers with improved agrochemical properties and a controlled ratio of nutrients N/Р2О5/К2О produced based on an ammonia saltpeter solution, ground phosphate rock, and potassium chloride. The laboratory and industrial experiments were continued using a rotatable planning method – the Box-Hunter second-order modeling technique. The article contains the research results on the regulation of nutritious elements (N/(Р2О5+K2O)) ratios in the NPК-containing fertilizers produced based on an ammonia saltpeter solution, a ground phosphate rock, and potassium chloride. The effect of independent variables – specific consumptions of ammonia saltpeter, a ground phosphate rock, and potassium chloride – was studied. The adequate regression equation of influence of these factors on an N/(Р2О5+K2O) ratio in the end products was obtained. Boundary values of the ammonia saltpeter, a ground phosphate rock and potassium chloride specific consumptions in the initial mixtures were found at which the total content of nutritious elements in the target products is from 30% to 33% and the N/(Р2О5+K2O) ratio has the optimum value (1.14 - 3.50).

Corrigendum to "FANCA knockout in human embryonic stem cells causes a severe growth disadvantage" [Stem Cell Res.13/2 (2014) 240-50

Corrigendum to "FANCA knockout in human embryonic stem cells causes a severe growth disadvantage" [Stem Cell Res.13/2 (2014) 240-50

Exploring the challenges of system leadership in the voluntary and community sector

ABSTRACTLankellyChase Foundation works to bring about change that will transform the quality of life of people who face severe and multiple disadvantage. It set up the ‘Promoting Change Network’ (PCN) to foster learning, and to support 40 or so organisations which receive funding from the Foundation. This was in recognition of the challenges they face in their work to alleviate severe and multiple disadvantages – combinations of problems around homelessness, substance abuse, mental health, domestic violence and abuse, and chronic poverty. Action learning was a supportive intervention commissioned by LankellyChase for PCN grantees, covering London and the North of England/Glasgow. Two Action Learning Sets met five and six times respectively between November 2014 and July 2015. The Sets demonstrated the importance and value of standing back and questioning your approach – when you are part of the (complex) health and care system you are aiming to change.

WITHDRAWN: Corrigendum to “FANCA knockout in human embryonic stem cells causes a severe growth disadvantage”

Available online The Publisher regrets that this article is an accidental duplication of an article that has already been published, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2020.101763 . The duplicate article has therefore been withdrawn. The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal .

Why Extended Time on Newstart is Unsuitable for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians Living with a Disability

ABSTRACTMany Australians living with a disability find themselves recipients of Newstart Allowance when applying for the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Newstart Allowance is designed as a short-term payment for people looking for work, with a lower fortnightly payment and limited medical and transport subsidies compared to the DSP. This paper describes the financial challenges of living with a disability while on Newstart Allowance. With a focus on the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians from two regional towns, qualitative semistructured interviews and focus groups documented experiences of 39 community members and 21 medical and nonmedical service providers supporting clients living with a disability on Newstart Allowance. Four themes were identified: (i) living with severe financial hardship, (ii) challenges complying with the DSP application, (iii) being financially penalised for not complying with Newstart Allowance conditions, and (iv) supporting community members to manage severe financial stress. Although people living with a disability on Newstart were experiencing severe hardship and poverty, there was limited participation of Centrelink-employed social workers within their described experiences with Centrelink. We argue that social workers can work to humanise human service settings and potentially help to mitigate these financial challenges.IMPLICATIONSIndigenous Australians living with a disability experience severe disadvantage and poverty while living on Newstart Allowance.Social workers must be easily accessible at Centrelink customer service centres and to Newstart Allowance recipients to help coordinate service engagement.Newstart Allowance should be increased to ensure recipients can respond to cost of living pressures.

Predicting collective action tendencies among Filipina domestic workers in Lebanon: Integrating the Social Identity Model of Collective Action and the role of fear

This study examined factors underlying collective action tendencies in a context of severe disadvantage and high repression. Drawing on the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA; van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2008), we tested the roles of group-based anger, participative efficacy, group identity—SIMCA variables—but also fear. Although SIMCA has been widely used in various social contexts, little is known about how well it applies to severely disadvantaged groups in highly repressive situations. In the study of female Filipina domestic workers ( N = 123) in Beirut, Lebanon, results provided partial support for SIMCA, such that identity indirectly and positively predicted collective action intentions via efficacy, but not anger. Importantly, fear modulated the paths from anger and efficacy to collective action intentions. Efficacy and anger positively predicted collective action tendencies among individuals low, but not high, in fear. These findings attest to the importance of studying political actions among underrepresented populations.

Attention-Passing Models for Robust and Data-Efficient End-to-End Speech Translation

Speech translation has traditionally been approached through cascaded models consisting of a speech recognizer trained on a corpus of transcribed speech, and a machine translation system trained on parallel texts. Several recent works have shown the feasibility of collapsing the cascade into a single, direct model that can be trained in an end-to-end fashion on a corpus of translated speech. However, experiments are inconclusive on whether the cascade or the direct model is stronger, and have only been conducted under the unrealistic assumption that both are trained on equal amounts of data, ignoring other available speech recognition and machine translation corpora. In this paper, we demonstrate that direct speech translation models require more data to perform well than cascaded models, and although they allow including auxiliary data through multi-task training, they are poor at exploiting such data, putting them at a severe disadvantage. As a remedy, we propose the use of end- to-end trainable models with two attention mechanisms, the first establishing source speech to source text alignments, the second modeling source to target text alignment. We show that such models naturally decompose into multi-task–trainable recognition and translation tasks and propose an attention-passing technique that alleviates error propagation issues in a previous formulation of a model with two attention stages. Our proposed model outperforms all examined baselines and is able to exploit auxiliary training data much more effectively than direct attentional models.

What is the profile of workers who build effective relationships with young people facing severe and multiple disadvantages?

Family-like professional helping relationships have the potential to alter the trajectories of young people facing significant disadvantage. This study seeks to identify the worker attributes that allow the formation of deep bonds with young people in these circumstances. Access to young people in difficult circumstances was secured via organisations that provided support to this population. Interviews about positive-helping relationships were conducted with young people (n = 30) and support workers (n = 35) from 11 UK and 5 US not-for-profit organisations. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Three sets of worker qualities were identified and linked to how relationships change young people's trajectories in the context of adversity. This study has implications for the selection, training, and support of workers who provide support to young people facing difficult challenges underscoring the qualities needed to provide support and change young people's outcomes.

A Recent Argument for the Use of Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection for Early Gastric Cancers.

Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) has become the standard treatment method for early gastric cancers (EGCs) due to the negligible risk for lymph node metastasis (LNM) in Eastern Asian countries. According to the guidelines, the curability of EGC after endoscopic resection was classified into three groups: curative resection, expanded curative resection, and noncurative resection. In Eastern Asian countries, a structured follow-up schedule is needed for patients undergoing curative resection and expanded curative resection. Conversely, in Western countries, additional surgery may be recommended for some patients undergoing expanded curative resection (ulcerated, undifferentiated, or slight submucosal invasion) due to the potential risk for LNM, even though specimens of ESD and surgery may not be handled with the same methodology as that used in Japan, which may lead to this slightly higher risk. In noncurative resection, additional surgery is the standard method after ESD because of the risk for LNM. However, in elderly patients and/or those with severe underlying diseases, the advantages and disadvantages of additional surgery should be considered when selecting a post-ESD treatment strategy for patients undergoing noncurative resection. Risk-scoring systems for LNM may facilitate clinical decisions for these patients. However, it should be noted that when recurrence was detected in patients who were followed up with no additional treatment after ESD with noncurative resection, most of them had a poor prognosis. To select an appropriate treatment method, especially in elderly patients undergoing ESD with noncurative resection, a new tool for evaluating the condition of patients should be established.

On the design of heat exchanger equipment for novel-type isobaric expansion engines

The recently proposed idea of displacer-type heat engines with dense working fluids revived the long-known concept of isobaric expansion (IE). Capable of overcoming some of the most severe disadvantages of gas-phase displacer-type heat engines and state-of-the art ORC plants, these engines offer a solution for future heat-to-power conversion and heat driven pumps or compressors. Effective heat regeneration and heat transfer in general are key issues of all types of displacer-type heat engines and thus, compact heat exchangers with minimum internal volume and pressure drop are required. This study is dedicated to the effects of regeneration on efficiency and considers efficiency-abating internal (dead) volumes and pressure drop. Printed Circuit Heat Exchangers (PCHE) are proposed for application in IE engines and a design procedure for these apparatuses is introduced. The results show that efficiencies close to the optimum can be obtained if the channel size is below 1 mm. Along with recently presented theoretical and experimental studies on such IE engines, this affirms the great potential of this heat conversion technology.

Bhlhe40 and Bhlhe41 transcription factors regulate alveolar macrophage self-renewal and identity.

Tissues in multicellular organisms are populated by resident macrophages, which perform both generic and tissue-specific functions. The latter are induced by signals from the microenvironment and rely on unique tissue-specific molecular programs requiring the combinatorial action of tissue-specific and broadly expressed transcriptional regulators. Here, we identify the transcription factors Bhlhe40 and Bhlhe41 as novel regulators of alveolar macrophages (AMs)-a population that provides the first line of immune defense and executes homeostatic functions in lung alveoli. In the absence of these factors, AMs exhibited decreased proliferation that resulted in a severe disadvantage of knockout AMs in a competitive setting. Gene expression analyses revealed a broad cell-intrinsic footprint of Bhlhe40/Bhlhe41 deficiency manifested by a downregulation of AM signature genes and induction of signature genes of other macrophage lineages. Genome-wide characterization of Bhlhe40 DNA binding suggested that these transcription factors directly repress the expression of lineage-inappropriate genes in AMs. Taken together, these results identify Bhlhe40 and Bhlhe41 as key regulators of AM self-renewal and guardians of their identity.

Dynamical system analysis at background and perturbation levels: Quintessence in severe disadvantage comparing to ΛCDM

We perform for the first time a dynamical system analysis of both the background and perturbation equations, of $\Lambda$CDM cosmology and quintessence scenario with an exponential potential. In the former case the perturbations do not change the stability of the late-time attractor of the background equations, and the system still results in the dark-energy dominated, de Sitter solution, having passed from the correct dark-matter era with $\gamma\approx6/11$. However, in the case of quintessence the incorporation of perturbations changes the stability and properties of the background evolution, and the only conditionally stable points present either an exponentially increasing matter clustering not favored by observations, or Laplacian instabilities, and thus not physically interesting. This result is a severe disadvantage of quintessence cosmology comparing to $\Lambda$CDM paradigm.

What aspects of the successful relationships with professional helpers enhance the lives of young people facing significant disadvantage?

A recent study (Sandu, under review) has identified a new set of characteristics of young people facing severe and multiple disadvantage and highlighted the role of emotions in the disconnection from support, which opened up unexplored avenues for intervention with this population. This study documented the ways in which professional helpers (n = 35) from 16 support organisations (United Kingdom = 11; United States = 5) built relationships with young people (n = 30) in these circumstances. Thematic analysis of the semi-structured interviews indicated that relationships in this context resembled family relationships, where the focus was on building a bond rather than dealing with risks or resolving conditions. Micro-processes characteristic of initiating, developing, and cementing these relationships have been described. Relating in this context demanded a different support approach from the workers who used personal ethics to maintain healthy boundaries in the relationships, not the guidance of professional organisations. The findings brought to the fore the role of social connection with its implications for policy and practice as a primary form of response to young people in great difficulty.

Benefits and limits of peer support for mothers with intellectual disability affected by domestic violence and child protection

It is established that parents with intellectual disability raise their children in conditions of severe socio-economic disadvantage, increasing the risk of child removal. Peer support can help vulnerable and isolated families engage with social services and assist parents to navigate the child protection system. Despite this, little is known about the experience of peer support for parents with intellectual disability. An inclusive research study involving 26 parents with intellectual disability was undertaken to understand their views of peer support. Inductive content analysis identified three themes. One theme, coping with adversity, explored peer support for a sub-group of parents (n = 10) who had experienced domestic and family violence or had a child removed from their care, in some cases both. Their experiences of peer support to cope with these challenges are discussed, as well as implications for research and practice.

Quantifying the individual auditory and visual brain response in 7-month-old infants watching a brief cartoon movie

Electroencephalography (EEG) continues to be the most popular method to investigate cognitive brain mechanisms in young children and infants. Most infant studies rely on the well-established and easy-to-use event-related brain potential (ERP). As a severe disadvantage, ERP computation requires a large number of repetitions of items from the same stimulus-category, compromising both ERPs’ reliability and their ecological validity in infant research. We here explore a way to investigate infant continuous EEG responses to an ongoing, engaging signal (i.e., “neural tracking”) by using multivariate temporal response functions (mTRFs), an approach increasingly popular in adult EEG research. N = 52 infants watched a 5-min episode of an age-appropriate cartoon while the EEG signal was recorded. We estimated and validated forward encoding models of auditory-envelope and visual-motion features. We compared individual and group-based (‘generic’) models of the infant brain response to comparison data from N = 28 adults. The generic model yielded clearly defined response functions for both, the auditory and the motion regressor. Importantly, this response profile was present also on an individual level, albeit with lower precision of the estimate but above-chance predictive accuracy for the modelled individual brain responses. In sum, we demonstrate that mTRFs are a feasible way of analyzing continuous EEG responses in infants. We observe robust response estimates both across and within participants from only 5 min of recorded EEG signal. Our results open ways for incorporating more engaging and more ecologically valid stimulus materials when probing cognitive, perceptual, and affective processes in infants and young children.

Holding it all together

Naomi Delap outlines ‘Holding it all together’, a project aimed at understanding the human rights issues experienced by perinatal women facing severe disadvantage

Protecting the Children’s Right to Nationality in Malaysia: An Appraisal

Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (CRC) obliges states to realize every child‘s right to acquire a nationality. Even though most human rights should be enjoyed by all persons, regardless of whether they have a nationality or not, in our modern world, nationality often operates as a legal or practical gateway to the enjoyment of other rights. Where a child lacks a nationality, this creates a situation of severe disadvantage and vulnerability. Statelessness undermines the enjoyment of childhood and the child‘s opportunity to develop to his or her full potential. Many stateless children are excluded from the benefits of education and are denied equal access to other rights. Such situation is definitely in contravention with the basic principle of best interest of the child as promulgated in Article 3 of the CRC. This paper addresses the extent of the rights of children in Malaysia to acquire nationality particularly in cases involving unregistered birth, illegitimate, foundling or abandoned child and where the immigration status of the parents is uncertain. This paper uses a qualitative data collection method where in-depth document analysis is carried out. Primary sources such as the Acts, Regulations, court orders and decision are scrutinized. On the other hand, secondary sources that are studied include international document reports from relevant websites, law reports, law reviews, legal periodical articles and newspaper reports. The paper is significant as it addresses crucial concerns raised in reference to the current laws relating to the protection of these children in Malaysia. The paper ends with some possible recommendations that may spur improvement to the present legislations towards achieving a sustainable future for the best interest of these children.

Coping amidst an assemblage of disadvantage: A qualitative metasynthesis of first-person accounts of managing severe mental illness while homeless.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Understanding what strategies individuals use to cope with serious mental illness is vital for enhancing their quality of life, mental well-beingand recovery, and effective use of services; An episode of homelessness can be a profoundly disruptive event that often leads to chronic stress, social isolation, a negative belief about oneselfand restricted access to care, among other adverse experiences; WHAT THE PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: In contrast to existing reviews of qualitative research focusing on escaping homelessness, managing problem substance use and growing resilience, the current review offers an in-depth, interpretive account of coping with serious mental illness during an episode of homelessness; This paper integrates evidence showing the diverse and intricate processes via which homelessness can impede an individual's ability to successfully cope with life stressorsand with chronic mental illness; Despite experiencing severe social disadvantage, many individuals demonstrate positive adaptation and coping, and even personal growth; WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: It is important to be aware of the many ways in which coping with serious mental illness can be influenced by adverse environmental factors such as poverty, homelessness, traumatic life experiences and institutional discrimination; Nursing practice should recognize that coping effortsby individuals facing multiple forms of social disadvantage may be shaped byacute adverse life events andinstitutional interactions, as well as by the stresses and strains of living on the streets; Nursing practice should focus not only on reducing clients' mental illness symptoms and facilitating positive coping behaviours, but alsoon helping create the conditions that aid clients in leveraging inner resources for personal growth and constructivemeaning-making. Abstract Introduction An evidence gappersists concerning the impact of extreme socio-structural disadvantage, such as homelessness, on the nature and effectiveness of coping with severe mental illness (SMI). While existing reviews of qualitative research into homelessness have focused on processes such as escaping homelessness and managing concurrent problem substance use, as well as on the experiences of specific vulnerable groups suchas women and youth, no analogical review has been dedicated tounderstanding the management of SMI during an episode of homelessness. Aim/Question A qualitative metasynthesis of first-person accounts was conducted to understand how individuals cope with SMI when experiencing homelessness. Method The systematic search strategy yielded 481 potentially eligible sources. Following the team-based full-text screening and the two-tiered quality appraisal, 14 studies involving 377 participants with lived experience were synthesized following Noblit and Hare's metaethnographic method. Results Seven third-order concepts were derived capturing the complex nature and processual character of coping, as well as theweb of contextual influences upon coping strategies. The resultant line-of-argument synthesis reveals the dialectical relationship between the two higher-order constructs-"the continuum of coping" and "the assemblage of disadvantage." Discussion Despite the profoundly adverse impacts of biographical and socio-structural conditions, many individuals mobilized internal and external resources to enable various coping processes. Coping in the context of multiple disadvantage is not a monolith but rather a multidimensional, contingent and fluid phenomenon. Implications for practice Nursing practice should espouse a humanizing, structurally competent, and strength- and meaning-oriented approach in order to meet the complex and multifaceted needs of such multiply disadvantaged persons.

Muslim by default or religious discrimination? Results from a cross-national field experiment on hiring discrimination

ABSTRACT We use data from a cross-nationally harmonised field experiment to examine discrimination towards Muslim job applicants in five European countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom). We focus on job applicants originating from countries that have a substantial Muslim population: of these, some signalled closeness to Islam in their job application while others did not. With this design, we can empirically disentangle anti-Muslim discrimination (a ‘disclosed Muslim’ effect) from the possible stigma of originating from countries where Islam is prevalent (a ‘Muslim by default’ effect). Our double-comparative design allows us to compare the extent of anti-Muslim discrimination faced by different origin groups in destination countries characterised by a varying history of church-state relations and distinctive approaches to grant cultural and religious rights to minorities. We find alarming levels of discrimination, especially towards male applicants from more visible groups. Anti-Muslim discrimination and origin-based discrimination independently contribute to the severe disadvantage faced by ethnic and religious minorities, a disadvantage that is especially severe in the Norwegian labour market.