Genotypic Resistance Tests Sequences Reveal the Role of Marginalized Populations in HIV-1 Transmission in Switzerland.

Targeting hard-to-reach/marginalized populations is essential for preventing HIV-transmission. A unique opportunity to identify such populations in Switzerland is provided by a database of all genotypic-resistance-tests from Switzerland, including both sequences from the Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS) and non-cohort sequences. A phylogenetic tree was built using 11,127 SHCS and 2,875 Swiss non-SHCS sequences. Demographics were imputed for non-SHCS patients using a phylogenetic proximity approach. Factors associated with non-cohort outbreaks were determined using logistic regression. Non-B subtype (univariable odds-ratio (OR): 1.9; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.8-2.1), female gender (OR: 1.6; 95% CI: 1.4-1.7), black ethnicity (OR: 1.9; 95% CI: 1.7-2.1) and heterosexual transmission group (OR:1.8; 95% CI: 1.6-2.0), were all associated with underrepresentation in the SHCS. We found 344 purely non-SHCS transmission clusters, however, these outbreaks were small (median 2, maximum 7 patients) with a strong overlap with the SHCS'. 65% of non-SHCS sequences were part of clusters composed of >= 50% SHCS sequences. Our data suggests that marginalized-populations are underrepresented in the SHCS. However, the limited size of outbreaks among non-SHCS patients in-care implies that no major HIV outbreak in Switzerland was missed by the SHCS surveillance. This study demonstrates the potential of sequence data to assess and extend the scope of infectious-disease surveillance.

Are marginalized women being left behind? A population-based study of institutional deliveries in Karnataka, India

Background While India has made significant progress in reducing maternal mortality, attaining further declines will require increased skilled birth attendance and institutional delivery among marginalized and difficult to reach populations. Methods A population-based survey was carried out among 16 randomly selected rural villages in rural Mysore District in Karnataka, India between August and September 2008. All households in selected villages were enumerated and women with children 6 years of age or younger underwent an interviewer-administered questionnaire on antenatal care and institutional delivery. Results Institutional deliveries in rural areas of Mysore District increased from 51% to 70% between 2002 and 2008. While increasing numbers of women were accessing antenatal care and delivering in hospitals, large disparities were found in uptake of these services among different castes. Mothers belonging to general castes were almost twice as likely to have an institutional birth as compared to scheduled castes and tribes. Mothers belonging to other backward caste or general castes had 1.8 times higher odds (95% CI: 1.21, 2.89) of having an institutional delivery as compared to scheduled castes and tribes. In multivariable analysis, which adjusted for inter- and intra-village variance, Below Poverty Line status, caste, and receiving antenatal care were all associated with institutional delivery. Conclusion The results of the study suggest that while the Indian Government has made significant progress in increasing antenatal care and institutional deliveries among rural populations, further success in lowering maternal mortality will likely hinge on the success of NRHM programs focused on serving marginalized groups. Health interventions which target SC/ST may also have to address both perceived and actual stigma and discrimination, in addition to providing needed services. Strategies for overcoming these barriers may include sensitization of healthcare workers, targeted health education and outreach, and culturally appropriate community-level interventions. Addressing the needs of these communities will be critical to achieving Millennium Development Goal Five by 2015.

Co-creative media : theorising digital storytelling as a platform for researching and developing participatory culture

This paper considers the question, ‘what is co-creative media, and why is it a useful idea in social media research’? The term ‘co-creative media’ is now used by Creative Industries researchers at QUT to describe their digital storytelling practices. Digital storytelling is a set of collaborative digital media production techniques that have been used to facilitate social participation in numerous Australian and international contexts. Digital storytelling has been adapted by Creative Industries researchers at QUT as a platform for researching the potential of vernacular creativity in a variety of contexts, including social inclusion of marginalized and disadvantaged groups; inclusion in public histories of narratives that might be overlooked; and articulation of voices that otherwise remain silent in the formulation of social and economic development strategies. The adaption of digital storytelling to different contexts has been shaped by the reflexive, recursive, and pragmatic requirements of action research. Amongst other things, this activity draws attention to the agency of researchers in facilitating these kinds of participatory media processes and outcomes. This discussion serves to problematise concepts of participatory media by introducing the term ‘co-creative media’ and differentiating these from other social media production practices.

Spaces of care in the third sector : Understanding the effects of professionalization

Increasingly the health and welfare needs of individuals and communities are being met by third sector, or not-for-profit, organizations. Since the 1980s third sector organizations have been subject to significant, sector-wide changes, such as the development of contractual funding and an increasing need to collaborate with governments and other sectors. In particular, the processes of ‘professionalization’ and ‘bureaucratization’ have received significant attention and are now well documented in third sector literature. These processes are often understood to create barriers between organizations and their community groups and neutralize alternative forms of service provision. In this article we provide a case study of an Australian third sector organization undergoing professionalization. The case study draws on ethnographic and qualitative interviews with staff and volunteers at a health-based third sector organization involved in service provision to marginalized community groups. We examine how professionalization alters organizational spaces and dynamics and conclude that professionalized third sector spaces may still be ‘community’ spaces where individuals may give and receive care and services. Moreover, we suggest that these community spaces hold potential for resisting the neutralizing effects of contracting.

Visuacy, imagination, and engagement

Australia’s National Review of Visual Education (DEEWR, 2009) asserts the primacy of visual language ability, or ‘visuacy” in problem-solving. This paper reports on a recent university/schools research project with ‘at risk’ middle school students in which visuacy was promoted as a primary medium for obtaining data relating to issues of immediate concern to the students. Using a students-as-researchers approach, the project investigated middle school students’ perspectives on school engagement and disengagement. In this project, novice researchers used a variety of data gathering methods including photography, video interviews and drawn images as well as more traditional verbal methods, such as interviews, and quantitative methods, such as questionnaires. Engaging student imagination was a key focus of the approach taken by the project, acknowledging that student participants may be reluctant to enter dialogue with teachers and researchers on matters to which they have previously had little input. Students who have previously been marginalized and prevented from contributing their voices to educational forums often have difficulty in adjusting to the novelty of collaborative research with adults (Rudduck, 2003) and may be uncertain of their own place in the relationship that defines teacher/student interactions. It is argued that the project’s promotion of visuacy, alongside more traditional literacies and numeracy in education research, helped to overcome these concerns, engaged the imaginations of the student researchers, and provided a medium for the expression of the voices of marginalised young people.

Australian horror movies

The Australian horror film is a fascinating specimen. While a tradition has antecedents in the silent era of cinema, and at times has produced popular and commercially successful titles, Australian horror films have existed among the shadows of Australian cinema. Within a national cinema funded by public subsidy to foster a sense of national identity, emphasizing ‘quality’ cultural films and refusing to recognize popular movie genres in attempt to differentiate itself from Hollywood, generic and low-culture horror films have been in opposition to these objectives. Consequently, horror movies have been heavily marginalized within public funding environments and mainstream film culture, and either ignored or despised by mainstream critics. The chapter provides a historical introduction to Australian horror cinema before reviewing a selection of recent Aussie horror titles, namely: Wolf Creek, Undead, Black Water, Dying Breed, Lost Things, Prey, Cut, Rogue and Storm Warning.

Impact of music therapy to promote positive parenting and child development

The effectiveness of a 10-week group music therapy program for marginalized parents and their children aged 0–5 years was examined. Musical activities were used to promote positive parent–child relationships and children’s behavioral, communicative and social development. Participants were 358 parents and children from families facing social disadvantage, young parents or parents of a child with a disability. Significant improvements were found for therapist-observed parent and child behaviors, and parent-reported irritable parenting, educational activities in the home, parent mental health and child communication and social play skills. This study provides evidence of the potential effectiveness of music therapy for early intervention.

The Hindraf saga : media and citizenship in Malaysia

In the early part of 2008, a major political upset was pulled off in the Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia when the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (National Front), lost its long-held parliamentary majority after the general elections. Given the astonishingly high profile of political bloggers and relatively well established alternative online new sites within the nation, it was not surprising that many new media proponents saw the result as a major triumph of the medium. Through a brief account of the Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) saga and the socio-political dissent nursed, in part, through new media in contemporary Malaysia, this paper seeks to lend context to the events that precede and surround the election as an example of the relationship between media and citizenship in praxis. In so doing it argues that the political turnaround, if indeed it proves to be, cannot be considered the consequence of new media alone. Rather, that to comprehensively assess the implications of new media for citizenship is to take into account the specific histories, conditions and actions (or lack of) of the various social actors involved.

Contesting lost ground for the middle years in Australia : using the case study of Queensland

Over the past twenty years Australia has witnessed an extraordinary rise of the middle year’s movement. In more recent years, however, there is concern that middle years has fallen from the mainstream education agenda (Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, 2011). At a national level, evidence of this fall can be seen in the new national curriculum frameworks where reference to middle years is significantly absent, such as The Shape of the Australian Curriculum Version 2.0, (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2010). Evidence of the fall at a state level can be seen in Queensland Government’s 2015 commencement of junior secondary, rather than middle years, as outlined in A Flying Start for Queensland children: Why year 7 will be part of high school from 2015 (Queensland Government, 2011a). This announcement came after the Queensland government had undertaken an extensive consultation period exploring the possible uptake of middle years at a systemic level. While some may argue that middle years practices can be seen to be embedded in both the national curriculum and the junior secondary reform – it is the fact that middle years practices and philosophies are implicitly embedded (hidden) rather than being made explicitly and systematically mainstreamed (broadly accepted), that causes us grave concern. As such, we argue that this is clear indication that the middle years are being marginalized from the overarching educational agendas in Australia.

The nature of juristic paradigms : exploring the theoretical and conceptual relationship between adversarialism and therapeutic jurisprudence

Problem solving courts appear to achieve outcomes which are not common in mainstream courts. There are increasing calls for the adoption of more “therapeutic” and “problem solving” practices by mainstream judges in civil and criminal courts in a number of jurisdictions, most notably in the United States and Australia. Currently, a judge who sets out to exercise a significant therapeutic function is quite likely to be doing so in a specialist court or jurisdiction, outside the mainstream court system, and, arguably, from outside the adversarial paradigm itself. To some extent, his work is tolerated but marginalized. But do therapeutic and problem solving functions have the potential to define, rather than complement, the role of judicial officers? The basic question addressed in this paper is, therefore, whether the judicial role could evolve to be not just less adversarial, but fundamentally non-adversarial. In other words, could we see--or are we seeing--a paradigm shift not just in the colloquial, casual sense of the word, but in the strong, worldview changing sense meant by Thomas Kuhn?

Transforming habitus: Changing self, changing school

Since 2004, Australian Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) students at a low socioeconomic area Australian urban secondary school have used participatory action research to investigate issues of disengagement and absenteeism among their peers. Their research revealed that Indigenous students, who made up about 8% to 10% of the school’s population lacked a sense of belonging to the school. The researchers also revealed an apparent official disregard of the academic or sporting achievements of Indigenous students and, more disturbingly, their presence within the school. The young researchers followed up their findings with action to address the issues. These actions have resulted in a positive change of culture across the whole school, with Indigenous students now able to express pride in their heritage and feel some degree of ownership of the school.

Friedman Economic Policies, Social Exclusion and Crime: Toward a Gendered Left Realist Subcultural Theory.

Left realists contend that people lacking legitimate means of solving the problem of relative deprivation may come into contact with other frustrated disenfranchised people and form subcultures, which in turn, encourage criminal behaviors. Absent from this theory is an attempt to address how, today, subcultural development in North America and elsewhere is heavily shaped simultaneously by the recent destructive consequences of right-wing Friedman or Chicago School economic policies and marginalized men's attempts to live up to the principles of hegemonic masculinity. The purpose of this paper, then, is to offer a new left realist theory that emphasizes the contribution of these two key determinants.