The burden of child maltreatment in China: a systematic review

Objective To estimate the health and economic burdens of child maltreatment in China. Methods We did a systematic review for studies on child maltreatment in China using PubMed, Embase, PsycInfo, CINAHL-EBSCO, ERIC and the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases. We did meta-analyses of studies that met inclusion criteria to estimate the prevalence of child neglect and child physical, emotional and sexual abuse. We used data from the 2010 global burden of disease estimates to calculate disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) lost as a result of child maltreatment. Findings From 68 studies we estimated that 26.6% of children under 18 years of age have suffered physical abuse, 19.6% emotional abuse, 8.7% sexual abuse and 26.0% neglect. We estimate that emotional abuse in childhood accounts for 26.3% of the DALYs lost because of mental disorders and 18.0% of those lost because of self-harm. Physical abuse in childhood accounts for 12.2% of DALYs lost because of depression, 17.0% of those lost to anxiety, 20.7% of those lost to problem drinking, 18.8% of those lost to illicit drug use and 18.3% of those lost to self-harm. The consequences of physical abuse of children costs China an estimated 0.84% of its gross domestic product – i.e. 50 billion United States dollars – in 2010. The corresponding losses attributable to emotional and sexual abuse in childhood were 0.47% and 0.39% of the gross domestic product, respectively. Conclusion In China, child maltreatment is common and associated with large economic losses because many maltreated children suffer substantial psychological distress and might adopt behaviours that increase their risk of chronic disease.

Development and validation of a questionnaire to measure health professionals' attitudes toward identification of female victimes of domestic violence

Background Domestic violence against women is a major public health problem and violations of women’s human rights. Health professionals could play an important role in screening for the victims. From the evidence to date, it is unclear whether health professionals do play an active role in identification of the victims. Objectives To develop a reliable and valid instrument to measure health professionals’ attitude to identifying female victims of domestic violence. Methods A primary questionnaire was constructed in accordance with established guidelines using the Theory of Planned Behaviour Ajzen (1975) to develop an instrument to measure health professionals’ attitudes in identifying female victim of DV. An expert panel was used to establish content validity. Focus groups amongst a group of health professionals (N = 5) of the target population were performed to confirm face validity. A pilot study (N = 30 nurses and doctors) was undertaken to elicit the feasibility and reliability of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was also administered a second time after one week to check the stability of the tests. Results Feedbacks of the expert panel’s and group discussion confirmed that the questionnaire had the content and face validity. Cronbach’s alpha values for all the items were greater than 0.7. Strong correlations between the direct and indirect measures confirmed that the indirect measures were well constructed. High test-retest correlations confirmed that the measures were reliable in the sense of temporal stability. Significance This tool has the potential to be used by researchers in expanding the knowledge base in this important area.

Domestic reflections, electric reflections: Towards design interventions against everyday energy mundanity in the home

For many years, Human-Computer Interaction and interaction design researchers have been exploring the potential for interactive technologies to encourage sustainable living practices. This paper examines existing literature concerning domestic energy feedback, interlacing past examples of domestic interventions into the discussion. It synthesises recent design research conducted around domestic energy-use and provides a discussion into household circumstances, everyday activities, and the use and role of design. The themes presented are threefold. First, the individual is contrasted to the household collective and in turn calls for the scope and scale of design interventions to be geared towards connection between household members. The second theme questions the everyday, and proposes new avenues of thought when designing for the mundanity of everyday life. Finally, I propose that a design approach which counteracts an affirmative design approach, such as critical design, is an appropriate fit when critiquing and evaluating the mundane, everyday aspects of domestic life.

Global Nursing Issues and Development: Analysis of World Health Organization Documents

Purpose To analyze World Health Organization (WHO) documents to identify global nursing issues and development. Design Qualitative content analysis. Methods Documents published by the six WHO regions between 2007 and 2012 and with key words related to nurse/midwife or nursing/midwifery were included. Themes, categories, and subcategories were derived. The final coding reached 80% agreement among three independent coders, and the final coding for the discrepant coding was reached by consensus. Findings Thirty-two documents from the regions of Europe (n = 19), the Americas (n = 6), the Western Pacific (n = 4), Africa (n = 1), the Eastern Mediterranean (n = 1), and Southeast Asia (n = 1) were examined. A total of 385 units of analysis dispersed in 31 subcategories under four themes were derived. The four themes derived (number of unit of analysis, %) were Management & Leadership (206, 53.5), Practice (75, 19.5), Education (70, 18.2), and Research (34, 8.8). Conclusions The key nursing issues of concern at the global level are workforce, the impacts of nursing in health care, professional status, and education of nurses. International alliances can help advance nursing, but the visibility of nursing in the WHO needs to be strengthened. Clinical Relevance Organizational leadership is important in order to optimize the use of nursing competence in practice and inform policy makers regarding the value of nursing to promote people's health.

The Context-integrity of the global carbon regime: The relevance and impact of the World Trade Organization

In the study of the integrity of the global carbon regime there are a number of institutions that must be considered for their impacts on this system. In particular, the subject matter of this chapter is concerned with the main international institution for trade, the World Trade Organization (the WTO). Otherwise stated, this chapter is concerned with how the institutional integrity of the global carbon regime aligns with the values and policy objectives of the WTO. This is done with a view to consider whether the global carbon regime aligns with these values and objectives in a way demonstrative of context-integrity. This alignment is not a single-sided undertaking and, therefore, it is essential that the underlying values of the WTO themselves align with the global carbon regime. I suggest this is particularly crucial given the importance of the objectives of the climate change regime, and the scientific predictions of the current climate projections.

Happily ever after: Romance, gender and the building blocks of domestic violence

My sister describes the state of something being a psychological or personal 'issue' - such as a trauma, compulsion, phobia, or obsession - as having 'brain spaghetti'. For example, apparently she has spaghetti about me pinning her down as a child and tickling her until she screamed for mercy. She knows this because when her spouse tried to do the same, the experience she had as a child came flooding back as a complex tangle of fears, feelings, and mental images. Notwithstanding the trauma inflicted on a sibling in my youth, the spaghetti metaphor is a simple but useful tool for explaining how complex our experiences are, and I bring it up here because I believe a lot of people have spaghetti about love. So much so, that often love becomes distorted, sometimes to the point of making one completely blind to manipulation and abuse. Part of the blame for 'love spaghetti' can be allotted to media depictions of romance and gender, which helps entrench and maintain our deeply held beliefs about what relationships should look like.

Romantic terrorism? Survivor narratives of psychological and emotional tactics of domestic violence

This paper draws on the theoretical arguments outlined in Hayes (2014) to frame critical analyses of two real life domestic violence narratives. The authors are both academic criminologists and victims/survivors of domestic violence, but within differing contexts – one a conventional heterosexual relationship, the other a female same-sex relationship. Their experiences are intertwined in an extensive collaborative auto-ethnographic analysis that spans seven years of working and socialising together, in which each provided a sounding board and support for the other. The analysis therefore documents two personal journeys. The academic and theoretical are intertwined with the personal and subjective to elicit an evocative and yet empirically validated study. The theoretical underpinnings of romantic love distortion, misogyny and sexism are used to frame these experiences of domestic violence and the differing sexualities of the authors provide a rich context for exploring the ways in which domestic violence victimisation experiences are impacted by gender, sexuality, and heteronormative discourses of love, sex and relationships.

Single household domestic water heater design and control utilising PV energy: The untapped energy storage solution

Photovoltaic (PV) panels and electric domestic water heater with storage (DWH) are widely used in households in many countries. However, DWH should be explored as an energy storage mechanism before batteries when households have excess PV energy. Through a residential case study in Queensland, Australia, this paper presents a new optimized design and control solution to reduce water heating costs by utilizing existing DWH energy storage capacity and increasing PV self-consumption for water heating. The solution is produced by evaluating the case study energy profile and numerically maximizing the use of PV for DWH. A conditional probability matrix for different solar insolation and hot water usage days is developed to test the solution. Compared to other tariffs, this solution shows cost reduction from 20.8% to 63.3% This new solution could encourage solar households move to a more economical and carbon neutral water heating method.

Individual process management: A first step towards the conceptualization of individual activities

Understanding activities of individuals is of major importance because their actions are the main foundation of economic activity. However, there is a lack of understanding with regard to how individual activities are characterised. Thus, we develop a first conceptual classification for individual activities extending the view on business processes. The classification scheme contains personal care, education, professional work, domestic work, leisure and travel as primary activities and individual organization, procurement, information gathering and self-expression as secondary activities. We extend mainly prior literature on customer management by structuring processes of individuals independently from their status as customer. This enables new theoretical insights in the way companies can design their offers from a strategic point of view. Companies can use IPM to systematically analyze individual processes independent from specific products and services which is assumed to foster the development of innovative product and service offers.

Foreign aid, domestic investment and welfare

This paper examines the welfare implications of temporary foreign aid in a simple two-period, two-country model of trade. Domestic investment is endogenous, providing an important link between aid in period one and the terms of trade in periods one and two. Transfer-induced changes in the terms of trade redistribute present and future income between the donor and the recipient. In the presence of barriers to international borrowing and lending, such redistribution gives rise to the possibility of temporary aid being both potentially and strictly Pareto improving.

Three-dimensional organization of fenestrae labyrinths in liver sinusoidal endothelial cells

- Background/Aims Liver sinusoidal endothelial cell (LSEC) fenestrae are membrane-bound pores that are grouped in sieve plates and act as a bidirectional guardian in regulating transendothelial liver transport. The high permeability of the endothelial lining is explained by the presence of fenestrae and by various membrane-bound transport vesicles. The question as to whether fenestrae relate to other transport compartments remains unclear and has been debated since their discovery almost 40 years ago. - Methods In this study, novel insights concerning the three-dimensional (3D) organization of the fenestrated cytoplasm were built on transmission electron tomographical observations on isolated and cultured whole-mount LSECs. Classical transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy imaging was performed to accumulate cross-correlative structural evidence. - Results and Conclusions The data presented here indicate that different arrangements of fenestrae have to be considered: i.e. open fenestrae that lack any structural obstruction mainly located in the thin peripheral cytoplasm and complexes of multifolded fenestrae organized as labyrinth-like structures that are found in the proximity of the perinuclear area. Fenestrae in labyrinths constitute about one-third of the total LSEC porosity. The 3D reconstructions also revealed that coated pits and small membrane-bound vesicles are exclusively interspersed in the non-fenestrated cytoplasmic arms.

Edge of Danger: electric light and the negotiation of public and private domestic space in Philip Johnson's Glass and Guest House

In the first half of the twentieth century the dematerializing of boundaries between enclosure and exposure problematized traditional expectations of the domestic environment. At the same time, as a space of escalating technological control, the modern domestic interior also offered new potential to redefine the meaning and means of habitation. The inherent tension between these opposing forces is particularly evident in the introduction of new electric lighting technology and applications into the modern domestic interior in the mid-twentieth century. Addressing this nexus of technology and domestic psychology, this article examines the critical role of electric lighting in regulating and framing both the public and private occupation of Philip Johnson's New Canaan estate. Exploring the dialectically paired transparent Glass House and opaque Guest House, this study illustrates how Johnson employed electric light to negotiate the visual environment of the estate as well as to help sustain a highly aestheticized domestic lifestyle. Contextualized within the existing literature, this analysis provides a more nuanced understanding of the New Canaan estate as an expression of Johnson's interests as a designer as well as a subversion of traditional suburban conventions.

Internet privatization, WikiLeaks, and free expression

In late 2010, the online nonprofit media organization WikiLeaks published classified documents detailing correspondence between the U.S. State Department and its diplomatic missions around the world, numbering around 250,000 cables. These diplomatic cables contained classified information with comments on world leaders, foreign states, and various international and domestic issues. Negative reactions to the publication of these cables came from both the U.S. political class (which was generally condemnatory of WikiLeaks, invoking national security concerns and the jeopardizing of U.S. interests abroad) and the corporate world, with various companies ceasing to continue to provide services to WikiLeaks despite no legal measure (e.g., a court injunction) forcing them to do so. This article focuses on the legal remedies available to WikiLeaks against this corporate suppression of its speech in the U.S. and Europe since these are the two principle arenas in which the actors concerned are operating. The transatlantic legal protection of free expression will be considered, yet, as will be explained in greater detail, the legal conception of this constitutional and fundamental right comes from a time when the state posed the greater threat to freedom. As a result, it is not generally enforceable against private, non-state entities interfering with speech and expression which is the case here. Other areas of law, namely antitrust/competition, contract and tort will then be examined to determine whether WikiLeaks and its partners can attempt to enforce their right indirectly through these other means. Finally, there will be some concluding thoughts about the implications of the corporate response to the WikiLeaks embassy cables leak for freedom of expression online.