Addressing the road trauma burden in China: Exploring attitudes, behaviours, risk perceptions and cultural uniqueness

As China continues to motorise rapidly, solutions are needed to reduce the burden of road trauma that is spread inequitably across the community. Little is currently known about how new drivers are trained to deal with on-road challenges, and little is also known about the perceptions, behaviours and attitudes of road users in China. This paper reports on a pilot study conducted in a driver retraining facility in one Chinese city where people who have had their licence suspended for accrual of 12 demerit points in a one year period must attend compulsory retraining in order to regain their licence. A sample of 239 suspended drivers responded to an anonymous questionnaire that sought information about preferred driving speeds and perceptions of safe driving speeds across two speed zones. Responses indicated that speeds higher than the posted limits were commonly reported, and that there was incongruence between preferred and safe speeds, such that a greater proportion of drivers reported preferred speeds that were substantially faster than what were reported as safe speeds. Participants with more driving experience reported significantly fewer crashes than newly licensed drivers (less than 2 years licensed) but no differences were found in offences when compared across groups with different levels of driving experience. Perceptions of risky behaviours were assessed by asking participants to describe what they considered to be the most dangerous on-road behaviours. Speeding and drink driving were the most commonly reported by far, followed by issues such as fatigue, ignoring traffic rules, not obeying traffic rules, phone use while driving, and non-use of seatbelts, which attracted an extremely low response which seems consistent with previously reported low belt wearing rates, unfavourable attitudes towards seatbelt use, and low levels of enforcement. Finally, observations about culturally specific considerations are made from previous research conducted by the authors and others. Specifically, issues of saving face and the importance and pervasiveness of social networks and social influence are discussed with particular regard to how any future countermeasures need to be informed by a thorough understanding of Chinese customs and culture.

Bloomsday: Copyright estates and cultural festivals

Copyright estates have been unduly empowered by the extension of the term of copyright protection in Europe, the United States, Australia and elsewhere. The Estate of the Irish novelist, James Joyce, has been particularly aggressive in policing his revived copyrights. The "keepers of the flame" have relied upon threats of legal action to discourage the production of derivative works based upon the canonical texts of the novelist. The Estate has also jealously guarded the reputation of the author by vetoing the use of his work in various scholarly productions. Most radically of all, the grandson Stephen Joyce threatened to take legal action to prevent the staging of "Rejoyce Dublin 2004", a festival celebrating the centenary of Bloomsday. In response, the Irish Parliament rushed through emergency legislation, entitled the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Act 2004 (Ireland) to safeguard the celebrations. The legislation clarified that a person could place literary and artistic works on public exhibition, without breaching the copyright vested in such cultural texts. Arguably, though, the ad hoc legislation passed by the Irish Parliament is inadequate. The Estate of James Joyce remains free to exercise its suite of economic and moral rights to control the use and adaptation of works of the Irish novelist. It is contended that copyright law needs to be revised to promote the interests of libraries and other cultural institutions. Most notably, the defence of fair dealing should be expanded to allow for the transformative use of copyright works, particularly in respect of adaptations and derived works. There should be greater scope for compulsory licensing and crown acquisition of revived copyrights.

Hosting asylum seekers and attitudes toward cultural diversity in Australia

In 2012, the Australian government in office introduced a novel scheme of housing asylum seekers as guests of Australians in the community. A number of Australians participated in the scheme and volunteered as hosts. This study compared those who volunteered to assist asylum seekers with general members of the community to explore the impact attitudes towards cultural diversity and demographic factors had upon willingness to support asylum seekers. Further, the two groups were combined to examine the factors that can contribute to positive attitudes to diversity in society in general. Participants (N = 142; aged from 24-79 years) completed online questionnaires assessing demographic variables, attitudes towards cultural diversity and acculturation. Various analysis of variance procedures, Chi-squared tests and correlations were conducted. Group comparisons indicated that volunteers’ attitudes did not impact on willingness to support asylum seekers. However, some demographic differences between groups emerged. Volunteers were more likely to be professionals with stable jobs, ethnically diverse and well-travelled individuals. Analyses on the combined groups indicated age, education and not having a strong religious affiliation enhanced Australians’ positive attitudes to cultural diversity. The findings have implications for promoting positive attitudes to diversity in individuals, organisations and communities. Potential opportunities for professionals and policy-makers to promote support for cultural diversity in the community are discussed.

An exploration of The Virtues Project: Ontological, educational and cross-cultural inquiries into a moral education program within a Mongolian school setting

This thesis explores The Virtues Project's ontological, educational and cross-cultural dimensions taking Charles Taylor's philosophical perspective of an anthropological account of the self and a phenomenological account of moral life and engagement. The experience of Mongolian schoolteachers implementing this moral education program is analyzed using a narrative inquiry method. The globally attractive project appears in moral education and virtues ethics research and surveys, yet no critical evaluation has been undertaken. Its conceptual features are appraised from a Taylorean perspective. The Listening Guide analysis of teacher experiences is presented in two narratives. The first is about the teachers' implementation experiences of moral flourishing as selves, in relationships and in community. The second is about their experience of becoming Mongolian in their modern day context. In conclusion, the project is coherent, constructive and potentially suitable cross-culturally.

Cultural factors: Understanding culture to design organisation structures and systems to optimise safety

Safety culture is a term with numerous definitions in the literature. Many authors advocate a prescriptive approach to safety culture in which if an organisation has certain levels of externally prescribed systems and structures in place it has a “good safety culture”. Conversely, other researchers suggest an anthropological approach of exploring deep meanings and understandings present within an organisation’s workforce. In a recent published review, the authors presented an alternative view to safety culture, in which the anthropological aspects of safety culture interact with the structures and systems in place within an organisation to result in behavioural patterns. This can be viewed as a human factors approach to safety culture in which, through understanding the specific interactions between the culture of a workforce and external organisational elements, organisational structures and systems can be optimised in order to shape worker behaviour and improve safety. This paper presents findings from a recent investigation of safety culture in the Australian heavy vehicle (transport) industry. Selected results are discussed to explore how understanding culture can provide direction to the optimisation of organisational structures and systems to match worker culture and thus improve safety. Specifically the value placed on personal experience and stories, as well as on both time and money are discussed, and interventions that are suited to these aspects of the culture are discussed. These findings demonstrate the importance of shifting beyond mere prescriptive and interpretive approaches to safety culture and instead to focus on the interaction between cultural and contextual elements to optimise organisational structures and systems.

Understanding the mental health of refugees: Trauma, stress, and the cultural context

Long considered important for professionals working with minority and under-represented populations, cross-cultural competency has become a requisite for all health care providers. As society in the US increasingly diversifies, there is a crucial need to prepare health care professionals to effectively treat this changing population. The Massachusetts General Hospital Textbook on Diversity and Cultural Sensitivity in Mental Health addresses the importance and relevance of cultural sensitivity in US mental health. Prominent researchers and clinicians examine the cultural and cross-cultural mental health issues of Native American, Latino, Asian, African American, Middle Eastern, Refugee and LGBQT communities. The discussion includes understanding the complexities in making mental health diagnoses and the various meanings it has for the socio-cultural group described, as well as biopsychosocial treatment options and challenges. In understanding the specific populations, the analysis delves into overarching concepts that may apply to specific populations and to those at the intersection of multiple cultures. An invaluable resource for mental health professionals, including clinicians, researchers, educators, leaders and advocates in the United States, The Massachusetts General Hospital Textbook on Diversity and Cultural Sensitivity in Mental Health provides the necessary understanding and insights for research and clinical practice in specific cultural and multicultural groups.

Disjecta: Material representations of an Indigenous and immigrant cultural legacy

This practice-led research explores family history and the on-going influence of cultural legacy on the individual and the artist. Homi Bhabha theorises that identity vacillates through society, shifting and changing form to create disjunctive historical spaces – spaces of slippage that allow for new narratives and understandings to occur. Using the notion of disjuncture that became apparent in this research, the practice outcomes seek to visualise my families' sometimes-occulted history at the intersection of euro-centric and Indigenous ideologies. Researched archival materials, government documents, interviews, collected objects and family photo-albums became primary source data for studio-based explorations. Scanners, glitch apps and photo-hacking were used to navigate through these materials, providing opportunities for photographic punctum and creating metaphors for the connections and disconnections that shape our sense of self.

Cultural adaptation and resilience: Controversies, issues and emerging models

What enables people to bounce back from stressful experiences? How do certain individuals maintain a sense of purpose and direction over the long term, even in the face of adversity? This is the first book to move beyond childhood and adolescence to explore resilience across the lifespan. Coverage ranges from genetic and physiological factors through personal, family, organizational, and community processes. Contributors examine how resilience contributes to health and well-being across the adult life cycle; why—and what happens when—resilience processes fail; ethnic and cultural dimensions of resilience; and ways to enhance adult resilience, including reviews of exemplary programs.

The hidden injuries of mining: Frontier cultural conflict

This chapter addresses a topic of growing significance to green criminology - the harmful effects of mining on local communities and the environment (Ruggiero and South 2013; White 2013a). While mining has long been recognised as an agent of environmental harm (White 2013a), less recognised is that its global expansion also has harmful effects on localised patterns of violence, work and community life in mining towns. Australia provides an excellent case study for exploring some of these mining impacts.

Spanish version of the screening Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire: A cross-cultural adaptation and validation

Background Spanish is one of the five most spoken languages in the world. There is currently no published Spanish version of the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire (OMPQ). The aim of the present study is to describe the process of translating the OMPQ into Spanish and to perform an analysis of reliability, internal structure, internal consistency and concurrent criterion-related validity. Methods Design: Translation and psychometric testing. Procedure: Two independent translators translated the OMPQ into Spanish. From both translations a consensus version was achieved. A backward translation was made to verify and resolve any semantic or conceptual problems. A total of 104 patients (67 men/37 women) with a mean age of 53.48 (±11.63), suffering from chronic musculoskeletal disorders, twice completed a Spanish version of the OMPQ. Statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the reliability, the internal structure, internal consistency and concurrent criterion-related validity with reference to the gold standard questionnaire SF-12v2. Results All variables except “Coping” showed a rate above 0.85 on reliability. The internal structure calculation through exploratory factor analysis indicated that 75.2% of the variance can be explained with six components with an eigenvalue higher than 1 and 52.1% with only three components higher than 10% of variance explained. In the concurrent criterion-related validity, several significant correlations were seen close to 0.6, exceeding that value in the correlation between general health and total value of the OMPQ. Conclusions The Spanish version of the screening questionnaire OMPQ can be used to identify Spanish patients with musculoskeletal pain at risk of developing a chronic disability.

The iconic and the critical

Theodor Adorno was opposed to the cinema because he felt it was too close to reality, and ipso facto an extension of ideological Capital, as he wrote in 1944 in Dialectic of Enlightenment. What troubled Adorno was the iconic nature of cinema – the semiotic category invented by C. S. Peirce where the signifier (sign) does not merely signify, in the arbitrary capacity attested by Saussure, but mimics the formal-visual qualities of its referent. Iconicity finds its perfect example in the film’s ingenuous surface illusion of an unmediated reality – its genealogy (the iconic), since classical antiquity, lay in the Greek term eikōn which meant “image,” to refer to the ancient portrait statues of victorious athletes which were thought to bear a direct similitude with their parent divinities. For the postwar, Hollywood-film spectator, Adorno said, “the world outside is an extension of the film he has just left,” because realism is a precise instrument for the manipulation of the mass spectator by the culture industry, for which the filmic image is an advertisement for the world unedited. Mimesis, or the reproduction of reality, is a “mere reproduction of the economic base.” It is precisely film’s iconicity, then, its “realist aesthetic . . . [that] makes it inseparable from its commodity character.”...

Postnatal depressive symptoms amongst women in Central Vietnam: A cross-sectional study investigating prevalence and associations with social, cultural and infant factors

Background This study investigated the prevalence and socio-cultural correlates of postnatal mood disturbance amongst women 18–45 years old in Central Vietnam. Son preference and traditional confinement practices were explored as well as factors such as poverty, parity, family and intimate partner relationships and infant health. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in twelve randomly selected Commune Health Centres from urban and rural districts of Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam. Mother-infant dyads one to six months postpartum were invited to participate. Questionnaires from 431 mothers (urban n = 216; rural n = 215) assessed demographic and family characteristics, traditional confinement practices, son preference, infant health and social capital. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and WHO5 Wellbeing Index indicated depressive symptoms and emotional wellbeing. Data were analysed using general linear models. Results Using an EPDS cut-off of 12/13, 18.1 % (n = 78, 95 % CI 14.6 - 22.1) of women had depressive symptoms (20.4 % urban; 15.8 % rural). Contrary to predictions, infant gender and traditional confinement were unrelated to depressive symptoms. Poverty, food insecurity, being frightened of family members, and intimate partner violence increased both depressive symptoms and lowered wellbeing. The first model accounted for 30.2 % of the variance in EPDS score and found being frightened of one’s husband, husband’s unemployment, breastfeeding difficulties, infant diarrhoea, and cognitive social capital were associated with higher EPDS scores. The second model had accounted for 22 % of the variance in WHO5 score. Living in Hue city, low education, poor maternal competence and a negative family response to the baby lowered maternal wellbeing. Conclusions Traditional confinement practices and son preference were not linked to depressive symptoms among mothers, but were correlates of family relationships and wellbeing. Poverty, food insecurity, violence, infant ill health, and discordant intimate and family relationships were linked with depressive symptoms in Central Vietnam.

Socio-cultural influences on vehicle defects in the Omani heavy vehicle industry

With recent economic growth in Oman there is increased use of heavy vehicles, presenting an increase in heavy vehicle crashes, associated fatalities and injuries. Vehicle defects cause a significant number of heavy vehicle crashes in Oman and increase the likelihood of fatalities. The aim of this study is to explore factors contributing to driving with vehicle defects in the Omani heavy vehicle industry. A series of qualitative participants observations were conducted in Oman with 49 drivers. These observations also involved discussion and interviews with drivers. The observations occurred at two road-side locations where heavy vehicle drivers gather for eating, resting, vehicle check-up, etc. Data collection was conducted over a three week period. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. A broad number of factors were identified as contributing to the driving of vehicles with defects. Participants indicated that tyres and vehicle mechanical faults were a common issue in the heavy vehicle industry. Participants regularly reported that their companies use cheap, poor quality standards parts and conducted minimal maintenance. Drivers also indicated that they felt powerless to resist company pressure to drive vehicles with known faults. In addition, drivers reported that traffic police were generally in effective and lacked skill to appropriately conduct roadside inspection on trucks. Further, participants stated that it was possible for companies to avoid being fined during annual or roadside vehicle inspections if members of the company knew the traffic police officer conducting the inspection. Moreover, fines issued by police are generally directed to the individual driver rather than being applied to the company, thus providing no incentive for companies to address vehicle faults. The implications of the findings are discussed.