Elements of cultural competence in an Australian Aboriginal maternity program

Background

Pregnancy, labour and neonatal health outcomes for Australian Aboriginal women and their infants are frequently worse than those of the general population. Provision of culturally competent services may reduce these differences by improving access to timely and regular antenatal care. In an effort to address these issues, the Aboriginal Maternity Group Practice Program commenced in south metropolitan Perth, Western Australia, in 2011. The program employed Aboriginal Grandmothers, Aboriginal Health Officers and midwives working in a partnership model with pre-existing maternity services in the area.

Prevalence of and risk factors associated with cesarean section in Lebanon — A retrospective study based on a sample of 29,270 women

Background

During the last decades, there has been an alarming and dramatic increase in the number of cesarean births in both developed and undeveloped countries. This increase has not been clinically justified but, nevertheless, has raised an important number of issues.

Was <Emphasis Type="Italic">that</Emphasis> Racist? An Experimental Study of Microaggression Ambiguity and Emotional Reactions for Racial–Ethnic Minority and White Individuals

This study examined racial–ethnic minority and white identified participants’ perceptions of racial microaggressions in four video scenarios involving a white professor and a black student. Participants (N = 261) were randomly assigned to observe a one of the four video conditions. The video involved an interaction with no microaggression, a very ambiguous microaggression, an ambiguous microaggression, or an overt microaggression. Participants rated their observations of (a) negative emotions toward the committer (white professor) and receiver (black student) of the microaggression, (b) positive emotions toward the committer and receiver of the microaggression, (c) perceptions on the degree of biasedness of committer, and (d) degree of positive perceptions of the committer. Analysis compared ratings of two groups, including racial–ethnic minority and white observers. We found a significant difference between the overt condition and other three conditions on negative emotions, positive emotions, and attributions of the professor (i.e., cultural biasedness and positive perceptions). However, there were no differences between the no microaggression, very ambiguous, and ambiguous conditions. No significant differences between racial–ethnic minority and white participants’ ratings were detected. Implications for training, practice, and future research are offered in our discussion.     

Evaluating the Temporal Location of Feedback: Providing Feedback Following Performance vs. Prior to Performance

In order to make feedback as effective as possible, it is important to understand its function in the three-term contingency (TTC) and the impact of various factors involved in delivering feedback. Timing of feedback is one factor that can affect the impact of feedback on learner’s behavior. An analysis of timing of feeback may help us getting closer to better understanding how feedback functions in the TTC. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of feedback at different temporal locations. Specifically, feedback was provided either immediately (a) after a teaching session or (b) before the following teaching session, on teaching performance of undergraduate psychology students. The results indicated that feedback provided before the teaching session was more effective in improving teaching skills than feedback that was provided after the session. These findings suggest that feedback may function primarily as an antecedent to future performance and not necessarily as a consequence for past performance. However, the behavioral mechanism that explains these results is not yet clear. Future studies should investigate this further by manipulating the content of feedback prior to the teaching performance.     

Patterns of im/mobility,conflict and the re/making of identity narratives*

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the interrelationship between patterns of im/mobility on the one hand and the reconstitution of social collective identities and the related emergence or settlement of conflicts on the other. The main arguments are (1) that the im/mobility of a social or cultural group has major impact on how identity narratives, a sense of belonging and relationships to ‘others’ are shaped, and vice versa, and (2) that these dynamics are closely interlinked with mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion between groups and power structures that involve a broad variety of actors. Mainly looking at patterns of internal mobility such as ‘traditional’ or strategic mobilities and mobilities enforced by crisis, conflict or governmental programmes and regimes, the contribution provides the conceptual background for a special issue that aims to go beyond currently predominant issues of transnational migration. Established or emerging dynamics of (non-)integration and belonging, caused by im/mobility, are analysed on a cultural and political level, which involves questions of representation, indigeneity/autochthony, political rights and access to land and other resources. Conflict situations in contexts of mobility involve changes in the social understanding and renegotiation, reconstruction or reproduction of group identities and narratives with reference to certain socio-political and historical patterns. The legitimation of rights and access to various forms of citizenship and mobility need to be understood against the backdrop of emerging or established mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion between groups, which trigger or settle conflicts and make social identities to be constantly renegotiated.     

Interpreting conflict and integration through the reciprocity lens: mobility and settlement in a historical perspective on the Sierra Leonean coast

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Sierra Leone has witnessed intense population movements. During the civil war (1991–2002), many populations fled the fighting zones of the interior to take refuge on the coast. Since the conflict ended, new populations have reached the coastal area with the hope of accessing economic opportunities in the fishing business. Mobility, along with changing sociopolitical and economic conditions, has generated conflict between immigrants and Sherbro populations, who consider themselves autochthonous and deny migrants the freedom to access political and land rights. The paper argues that present dynamics of conflicts are rooted in long-term patterns of settlement and relationships of reciprocity between groups. Relations between migrants and local populations are grounded in a sociocultural idiom that implies the institutionalization of practices of reciprocity between local inhabitants (hosts) and later settlers (strangers). The host/stranger reciprocity system is an emic model of cultural action embedded in historical and power relations between groups. It implies the progressive integration of strangers into the host society. This paper highlights how, in a situation of conflict, long-established social relationships between groups are reevaluated with reference to norms of integration and reciprocity. The paper draws on Sherbro oral traditions to show how social memories about interethnic relations are reframed with reference to values and expectations of reciprocity, in order to explain the recent conflict that opposes Sherbros to immigrants. Sherbros use oral traditions to interpret these tensions in a long-term perspective, thereby expressing their own view on settlement, conflict and integration.     

Generating a smallest binary tree by proper selection of the longest edges to bisect in a unit simplex refinement

In several areas like global optimization using branch-and-bound methods for mixture design, the unit n-simplex is refined by longest edge bisection (LEB). This process provides a binary search tree. For \(n>2\), simplices appearing during the refinement process can have more than one longest edge (LE). The size of the resulting binary tree depends on the specific sequence of bisected longest edges. The questions are how to calculate the size of one of the smallest binary trees generated by LEB and how to find the corresponding sequence of LEs to bisect, which can be represented by a set of LE indices. Algorithms answering these questions are presented here. We focus on sets of LE indices that are repeated at a level of the binary tree. A set of LEs was presented in Aparicio et al. (Informatica 26(1):17–32, 2015), for \(n=3\). An additional question is whether this set is the best one under the so-called \(m_k\)-valid condition.