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In Portuguese. 334p. Index.
Creation myths are the deepest and most important of all myths because they are concerned with both the basic patterns of existence and the ultimate meaning of life. In this book, an eminent Jungian analyst examines the recurring motifs that appear in creation myths from around the world and shows what they teach us about the mysteries of creativity. | https://diatropebooks.com/tag/psychotherapy/ |
dc.description.abstract The majority of western art, jazz, popular and indeed most music of the world is positioned within a mono-metric system. Furthermore, multiples of ‘4’ often predominate in musical structures, particularly in popular music, whether in subdivisions of a 4/4 metre or in groupings of units that constitute form. Examples of bi-metricism, however, have existed from Renaissance Spanish dance music through to contemporary metal, but compositions of any genre comprising of three simultaneous metres from beginning to end remain rare. This research, in tandem with the creative portfolio, presents an investigation into a formalization process concerning the design of three-part polymetre. It is an attempt to overcome challenges presented in rhythmic and harmonic displacement of recurring motivic cycles of differing lengths. These cycles are layered over polymetric structures while aspiring toward an apparent simplicity within a complex web of “cycles-within-cycles-within-cycles” (Fink 2005, p47). Consequently, this body of work concerns more frequent application of irregular metres. It asks, for example, how a 3/4-4/4-7/4 polymetric piece can be constructed so that, at all points of its eighty-four beat timeline, it synchronizes or ‘grooves’ as congruously as its mono-metric predecessors. This research also investigates how harmonic changes are affected over parallel bars of varying lengths and how musicians cope with unfamiliar realignment of reference points. I use the term comprovisation, an elision of composition and improvisation, in order to establish how this juxtaposition works. It is a relatively new term used to characterize the interrelationships between premeditated material and real-time spontaneity in a music context. The virtually uncharted field of ‘polycyclic comprovisation’ fosters the act of improvisation upon composed cyclic motifs in varying but complementary time signatures that occur and interact simultaneously. Through comprehensive investigation of theoretical precedents and musical analysis of the accompanying scores and four CDs of my compositions, I will examine the inner-workings and performance issues surrounding polycyclic design and improvisation within three broadly defined genres, while advocating well-constructed form as a prerequisite to successfully navigating complex structures. | https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/handle/10523/6874?show=full |
You are viewing documentation for the legacy WPF Scheduler control. If you're starting a new project, we strongly recommend that you use a new control declared in the DevExpress.Xpf.Scheduling namespace. If you decide to upgrade an existing project in order to switch to the updated scheduler control, see the Migration Guidelines document.
This document introduces the main concepts behind the creation and use of recurring appointments in your scheduling application. The SchedulerControl can process end-user appointments based on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly recurrence pattern, either with an end condition or without any end date. You're also able to create exceptions to these recurring series, and this makes using recurring appointments more useful in real scheduling applications.
All appointments within the SchedulerControl can be either simple (non-recurring), occurring only once in the specified time interval, or recurring many times in the same interval. Whether an appointment is recurring or not is identified by the Appointment.IsRecurring value.
Recurring appointments can be of different types. Note that the type of any particular appointment is accessed via its Appointment.Type property. The following image demonstrates the possible types of recurring appointments.
So, a recurring appointment can either be a base (a Pattern), or an occurrence. Occurring appointments can either be a simple Occurrence, or an exception (a ChangedOccurrence or a DeletedOccurrence). The following sections describe the differences between these recurring appointments.
Every series of a recurring appointment is specified by its base appointment (Pattern), which is returned by the Appointment.RecurrencePattern property of all other appointments in the series. The Pattern appointment contains information about a recurrence. Actually, it sets the start date and time of the recurrence series and specifies a rule, according to which a series is repeated. This recurrence rule is accessed via the pattern's Appointment.RecurrenceInfo property.
The Pattern appointment is stored in the AppointmentStorage collection. All other Occurrence appointments (except for ChangedOccurrence and DeletedOccurrence) are not stored in any collection. They are automatically generated at runtime according to the RecurrenceInfo of the pattern appointment.
A series of recurring appointments can be either finite or infinite. Occurrence appointments are not stored in any collection, to avoid stack overflow for infinitive recurring series.
End-users can edit the recurrence pattern of any appointment at runtime via the Appointment Recurrence form. The image below demonstrates the common appearance of this dialog.
There are different types of recurrence patterns which can be used to specify the rule for recurring series. The following table describes what properties of the RecurrenceInfo are used for different recurrence patterns.
You can use the OccurrenceCalculator instance to calculate occurrences. The OccurrenceCalculator.CalcOccurrences method creates a sequence of appointments for the specified pattern within the specified time interval.
As stated above, from all the recurring series only the Pattern appointment is stored in the SchedulerStorage.AppointmentStorage collection. Others (Occurrence) are usually generated at runtime, to avoid excessive use of system memory.
However, every Pattern appointment contains a collection of exceptions. Exceptions are the Occurrence appointments which have either been changed or deleted, and so no longer meet the common recurrence rule specified by the pattern appointment.
All occurrences within a recurring series are associated with the same resource. A changed occurrence can differ from its pattern by a subject, description, label, status, start time, end time, but not by a resource.
A collection of exceptions for a particular recurrence pattern is returned via the pattern's Appointment.GetExceptions method. This collection contains both appointments of the AppointmentType.ChangedOccurrence and AppointmentType.DeletedOccurrence types. Note that if an appointment is contained in this collection, then in this case, the corresponding Occurrence appointment will not be generated.
To stop an appointment from being an exception, you should call the Appointment.RestoreOccurrence method for it. | https://documentation.devexpress.com/WPF/8709/Controls-and-Libraries/Scheduler-legacy/Fundamentals/Appointments/Recurring-Appointments-and-Exceptions |
This collection was born from experimenting with colouring metals using enamels and patina. Each piece is hand finished, set in sterling silver and unique.
artifacts
The pieces in this collection were made using the ancient techniques of etching & oxidation to achieve the look and texture of medallions. Inspired by ancient adornments and recovered artifacts from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, each piece is hand finished and unique.
Sterling Silver & 24ct gold leaf
Sterling Silver
star struck
Islamic decorative patterns rely on the use of recurring motifs or "tessellations". Built from a combination of geometric shapes, these are interlaced to form intricate patterns which can be associated with notions of infinity as they expand indefinitely. This collection uses the 8-pointed star which began to appear in the Middle Ages and is referred to as as khatim or khatim-sulayman, meaning "seal of the prophets". | https://www.atelierleana.com/collections |
These everyday snapshots, assembled from a variety of sources by collector Robert E. Jackson, capture people throughout the 20th century proudly posing with vinyl records.
Jackson, who has amassed more than 12,000 pieces of vernacular photo ephemera over two decades, often finds recurring patterns and motifs among the images, from displays of patriotism to goofy photo-manipulated decapitations.
These faded prints and Polaroids recall a time when a new record was a physical work of art to be admired and cherished. | http://vnbusinessforum.com/2016/10/15/20th-century-snapshots-capture-people-proudly-showing-off-their-vinyl-records/ |
Hen Coleman is a British artist, born in Venezuela and now based in London and Oxfordshire. She is a masters graduate of the Royal College of Art and a current printmaking tutor at The Royal Academy Schools. Her work has been shown in various London galleries and is included in private and public collections in the UK and the USA.
Her drawings depict altered territories informed by landscape in which the protagonist’s role is carried by recurring motifs of vessels as containers and layered natural forms in transformed states. ‘The contrast between a terrain of ‘chaotic and abundant nature’ and the more measured environment of our ideas and behaviour presents itself as a dialectic which it feels interesting to deal with. It’s a third territory, not necessarily geographical or historical but as an unfolding space or stage for playing out memories, responses and reactions.’
Hen Coleman is an MA Printmaking graduate of the Royal College of Art and currently teaches printmaking at the Royal Academy Schools. Her work is drawing-based and uses recurring motifs of water, natural forms and vessels, forming complex landscapes and environments which create a narrative of events, a state of mind or layered memory. Many of her references, particularly to nature, are influenced by her life until the age of 18 in Venezuela.
Hen’s work is held in many private collections and the V&A Museum Print Archive. She has been a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. Her 2014 residencies include projects in Barcelona and Southern Turkey. She has also recently begun a two-year drawing residency with an Oxford-based apiarist looking at communication systems and community behaviour patterns in bees. Hen is based in Homerton. | https://www.artistic-uk.org/hens-gallery |
Tom Hammick Article in Elephant magazine
"By infusing his work with the spirituality of East Asian art forms, Tom Hammick delivers his own exuberant take on traditional depictions of the English landscape. His new woodcuts commemorate the raw authenticity of the unblemished countryside, and employs recurring motifs of simple architectural structures contrasted against the natural environment.
The flatness of the composition is ideal for creating a panoramic narrative across the surface of Hammick's woodcuts, thus enabling him to achieve a minimalist style that subtly conveys the intimate relationship between human existence and nature. As identical figures are repeatedly featured through some of his compositions, a conventional understanding of time is also thwarted and the viewer experiences these works as a cyclical journey.
Drawing inspiration from accounts by Po Chi-I, Kamo No Chomei and Matsuo Basho that describe the joy experienced through living ascetically in the wilderness, Hammick transforms the rustic rolling hills of East Sussex into colourful dreamlike realms. In line with Eastern philosophy, Hammick's woodcuts embody the recognition of our own mortality as well as the fleeting beauty of natural phenomena."
Hammick's woodcuts will show at Flowers Gallery in London from 21 March to 20 April. | https://www.flowersgallery.com/news/578-tom-hammick-article-in-elephant-magazine/ |
Frances Hodgkins (1869 - 1947) was ahead of her time in her choice of lifestyle, making her mere existence extremely challenging at times. Despite these challenges, she achieved greatness as one of Britain's great modernist artists and New Zealand's most celebrated women artists.
Leitmotif is a fascinating illustration of the artist's recurring use of motifs and techniques, particularly her still lifes. Favourite jugs, bowls, plants and pieces of fabric appear again and again, in some instances with only slight changes in composition, and yet such is Hodgkins skill that each work has a form and charm of its own. | https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/exhibition/frances-hodgkins-leitmotif |
The NHS and the government have committed to investing £1 billion in health IT to improve data sharing between care professionals and patients.
According to The Information Daily, the £1 billion will be invested into the creation of health IT such as EHRs, patient portals to streamline health services and reduce the amount of paperwork. These systems would allow patients to access to their health records, book GP appointments and e-prescribe recurring prescriptions. Currently, only 12% of hospitals have an e-prescribing system in place.
It will also provide the NHS with the interoperability to allow healthcare professionals to access their patient’s records across the country to increase patient engagement and quality of care.
According to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the government is aiming for a ‘paperless NHS’ by 2018, and every patient to have access to an online medical record by 2015 projected to save £5 billion a year. The system would give staff instant access to patients for faster diagnostic treatment and reduce the hospital occupancy rates.
Tim Kelsey, National Director for Patients and Information for NHS England said:
“A single patient record will help make the patient journey from hospital to home seamless, giving professionals from different health and care organisations access to information when they need it most, without patients having to repeat themselves every time they speak to a different doctor, nurse or care professional”.
Given the recent NHS political and financial issues, the transition to a paperless system can potentially reduce the £80 billion chronic care deficit while delivering a better quality of patient care. | https://hitconsultant.net/2013/09/05/nhs-government-commits-invest-1-billion-health/ |
New Information Standard aims to reduce medication errors and improve patient safety
A new Information Standard has been published to support improved medication and allergy/intolerance information sharing across healthcare services in England.
The new Information Standard will standardise medication message content, enabling transfer of prescription information across health and care settings in England to help reduce medicines related errors and improve patient safety.
The Standard will enable medicines information to be more efficiently shared between NHS and social care organisations, including primary and secondary care – from hospitals and GP practices to residential care homes, mental health trusts, and pharmacies. It will be particularly beneficial in reducing medication errors when patients transfer between care locations.
As well as providing clinicians with a more detailed and consistent source of medicines related information across all care settings, the Standard will also enable healthcare professionals to obtain medicines information in a quicker, more efficient manner, saving valuable time and improving patient care.
NHS Digital Clinical Lead for the Interoperable Medicines Programme, Shahzad Ali, said:
“Having access to good quality information is critical for clinicians when making decisions about the patients in their care. As a practising clinician, I have seen first-hand the burden clinicians can face when medicines information is incomplete or inconsistent.
“This new Standard will save healthcare professionals valuable time accessing key medicines information, provide clinicians with access to a richer source of information, consistent across all care settings, and, in turn, help reduce potential medicines related errors and improve patient safety.”
Dr Simon Eccles, Deputy CEO of NHSX and National Chief Clinical Information Officer said:
“This new standard will make medicine prescribing safer for patients and easier for clinicians, reducing errors in prescription and improving the monitoring of medications that can cause harm.
“This is the result of a true collaborative effort between NHSX, NHS Digital, industry and the frontline that will make a real difference to the care and support local clinicians can provide to their patients.”
The Standard was commissioned by NHSX and developed by NHSX and NHS Digital in consultation with INTEROPen, The Professional Record Standards Body, UK FHIR and The Interoperable Medicine Standards Working Group which has over 150 members from the NHS including users, developers, and IT system suppliers.
The Standard came into effect this month and NHS and social care organisations will need to be compliant with it by 31 March 2023.
View the Standard here. | https://digital.nhs.uk/news/2021/new-information-standard-aims-to-reduce-medication-errors-and-improve-patient-safety |
CMS proposes to ease burdens on providers.
When it comes to the ever-changing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) agency rules and regulations, one can’t help but be reminded of the classic tune by The Byrds: “to everything (turn, turn, turn), there is a season (turn, turn, turn).”
The last several decades have been fraught with increasing documentation requirements. Yet recently we saw the CMS proposal to eliminate documentation requirements for providers in office evaluation and management (E&M) documentation, as the agency continues its proposal trend with the latest rendering of less being more.
On Sept. 17, CMS sent out a proposed rule under the catchy title “CMS Proposes to Lift Unnecessary Regulations and Ease Burden on Providers.” According to CMS, this new proposed rule will save $1.12 billion per year, cut “red tape,” and reduce “burdensome regulations,” as requested of the agency by Donald Trump, the 45th and current President. This proposal may be found online at https://downloads.cms.gov/files/MedicareBurdenReductionfinal.pdf
According to CMS, “this proposed rule would increase the ability of healthcare professionals to devote resources to improving patient care by eliminating or reducing requirements that impede quality patient care or that divert resources away from furnishing high-quality patient care.”
The proposal includes three categories: 1) Proposals that simplify and streamline processes; 2) proposals that reduce the frequency of activities and revise timelines; and 3) proposals that are obsolete, duplicative, or that contain unnecessary requirements.
The proposals that may impact providers can be found in 1) Proposals that simplify and streamline processes:
There are many other proposals that are part of this document that address Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), community mental health, and hospice, as well as transplant programs and home health.
If you are one of the lucky ones who has been in this business as long as I have, the saying “what goes around, comes around” can be appropriately applied to healthcare here.
To read the proposal in its entirety, go online to the Federal Register: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2018-19599.pdf
Comments may be submitted electronically through e-Regulation website here: https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Regulations-and-Policies/eRulemaking/index.html?redirect=/eRulemaking. | https://www.icd10monitor.com/cms-proposal-to-reduce-documentation-requirements |
Written evidence submitted by Philips UKI (CBP0064)
Overview:
Q4: How might the organisation and work of the NHS and care services be reformed in order to effectively deal with the backlog, in the short-term, medium-term, and long-term?
Recommendations:
● Philips recommends that immediate steps are taken to embrace the use of health technology throughout the NHS. It is also key that steps are taken to ensure the NHS is ready to adopt existing and future technologies.
● Philips has recommended that HM Government should explore the clinical applications of data integration, remote digital monitoring, and AI and how these innovations could improve people’s lives and reduce health inequalities
● Patients should be offered the opportunity to actively participate in the monitoring, evaluation and personalisation of their care using digital applications.
● The integration of care needs at all stages of a patient’s journey must be coordinated in a more “joined up way” by ensuring digital systems are used to their full potential with efficient sharing of accurate patient information between providers and settings
● DHSC and NHS England should mandate health providers at all levels to meet a set standard for the digital collection and sharing of patient data which promotes patient data protection while enabling interoperability / care integration.
● In addition, diagnostic capacity of the NHS should be expanded through Community Diagnostic Centres. Investing in and supporting the rollout of CDCs will improve access for vulnerable communities and reduce the need for patients to visit acute NHS settings, where the backlog is being felt most.
● It is critical that new patient pathways are implemented to help alleviate the increasing pressures on imaging services and patient backlogs. Examples such as ROCC demonstrate how innovation can be utilised to support healthcare providers and therefore greater consideration should be given to solutions such as these.
Q5: What positive lessons can be learnt from how healthcare services have been redesigned during the pandemic? How could this support the future work of the NHS and care services?
Recommendations:
● Considering the rapid move to telehealth and digital solutions during Covid-19 combined with the possible positive outcomes for patient care, HM Government should capitalise on the advances made by making telemedicine and remote monitoring more widespread, personalised and proactive at community, primary and secondary care levels
● This is an opportune moment to capitalise on the momentum towards a digital NHS, which will in turn help to address health inequalities in the UK. It is vital that steps are taken to ensure digital solutions are made available to all communities and areas.
● Philips recommends that steps are taken to involve communities and local authorities in the development and implementation of new strategies that address the social determinants of health
● Philips also recommends extending the capacity of radiology and pathology hubs to streamline and bolster patient care while also backing the introduction of regional radiology and pathology ‘hubs’ supported by state-of-the-art digital technology to improve the quality, efficiency and safety of care delivered to the NHS
● Philips believes that it is essential that the adoption of digital healthcare technologies within the NHS is considered from the perspective of all users, not just the most digitally engaged.
Q7: What can the Department of Health & Social Care, national bodies and local systems do to facilitate innovation as services evolve to meet emerging challenges? | https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/38671/html/ |
Southeast Asia’s healthcare access ecosystem is now at a critical juncture. To improve access for the long term, Joseph shares why healthcare stakeholders in the public and private sectors must enhance sustainability around the key aspects of finance, treatment and health systems.
Southeast Asia's healthcare landscape has irrevocably changed. Due to the demographic shifts the region has been experiencing such as ageing populations1 and the rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs)2 governments and healthcare stakeholders must now reassess3 healthcare expenditure and reforms to not only improve health ecosystems in terms of equitable access, but also sustainability.
However, a major challenge to these is that the healthcare ecosystem has not evolved in tandem with broader socio-economic development4, especially in Southeast Asia's emerging markets. This challenge was exacerbated further due to COVID-19, which spotlighted the gaps5 within the region's healthcare access ecosystem.
Southeast Asia's healthcare access ecosystem is now at a critical juncture. To improve access for the long term, healthcare stakeholders both in the public and private sectors must focus on enhancing sustainability around the key aspects of finance, treatment and health systems. Achieving this requires placing patient-centricity at the core, namely by striving to achieve better health outcomes for them.
Generating better outcomes for patients requires supporting them throughout their treatment journey even at the very beginning. This can be done by ensuring that access needs to be a core component of every pharmaceutical company's overall strategy. It is a crucial step before implementing any access solution; it must be considered during the planning process and not just as an afterthought.
Providers need to deploy more patient-centric approaches that involve patients throughout their healthcare journey. This can be done by ensuring those solutions are specifically tailored to them and consider them as individuals, as access is being redefined from a short-term, one-off strategy to a long-term solution.
To do so, patient-based solutions must focus on the entire patient journey, starting with access to diagnosis. Before being able to access6 treatment, many patients face a long process to get referred to the right specialist, get misdiagnosed or cannot afford the diagnostic tests especially for rare diseases. Improving diagnosis access thus requires disease awareness and physician capacity building, in addition to giving patients more financial support to access diagnostic testing.
Additionally, solutions must also consider treatment affordability. Many people in Southeast Asia are particularly vulnerable in terms of healthcare financing7 and governments have been working on health financing reforms8 to reduce dependence on out-of-pocket payments. As much as these efforts are important and significant, they are not sufficient to cater for all health care needs. The private sector can play a supportive role here via cost-sharing programmes9 and tools that measure patients' financial capabilities10 to help determine how much monetary assistance patients need to follow through on their treatment in the long term.
Healthcare ecosystem stakeholders can also offer services to support patients throughout their treatment journey to ensure patients receive the full course of treatment and maximise treatment benefits. This is as non-adherence rates are rising across the region, even in more mature markets like Singapore11 and Malaysia12. If left unchecked, the long-term effectiveness of treatments would be compromised and may critically affect a population's overall quality of life. Better health outcomes for patients can be achieved by making adherence interventions more effective, as studies13 note that doing so can potentially generate more impact on a patient's health more so than making improvements in specific treatments. This is as medical advances would inevitably face obstacles in fulfilling their potential to reduce illness burdens, especially for chronic cases, if a system that addresses adherence determinants does not exist. Essentially, treating diseases successfully requires doing more than just improving access to medications. This is why interventions are essential. A multi-sectoral approach will help improve medical outcomes by making it easy for patients to track and manage their treatment via Patient Support Programs (PSPs).
Another focal point is ensuring robust compliance with access initiatives. Unsafe medical care contributes to poor patient outcomes, a challenge that is especially pertinent in emerging markets14 within Southeast Asia. Patient access programmes must go beyond being just well-designed. Program management must fully comply with the region's best practices in standard operating procedures (SOPs), data security conformity with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and local data privacy policies in each country, patient consent, and pharmacovigilance15.
Existing healthcare infrastructures, particularly hospitals, are now being stretched to their limits. Simultaneously, populations are growing and healthcare demands are rising pressure points growing even before COVID-19, which has further exacerbated this dire situation16. Hence, the proliferation of digital tools and solutions outside of hospitals (namely, those that can complement existing services) must be raised.
Today, digital healthcare solutions are being promoted in advanced markets like Singapore17 and even in more emerging economies, such as Thailand18, which uses more advanced technologies such as 5G to improve telehealth services. More can be done to stimulate similar advancements but promoting the use of digital tools that can enable effective out-of-hospital services must also be taken on by private sector healthcare ecosystem actors to help reduce patient reliance on in-hospital services. This is a crucial step in building a digital ecosystem that connects different stakeholders in the patient's journey in the programmes they are in including the patient themselves, the physician, the pharmacist, the pharmaceutical companies, civil society groups such as charities, as well as labs and distributors.
When designing digital solutions, patients must remain at the core; patient centricity must be maintained amid the move to making processes faster, simpler and easily accessible for them and to improve engagement between healthcare system stakeholders. This can ultimately lead to an increase in adherence in health programmes.
Diagnosis, access and adherence programmes that are digitally delivered and personalised can also facilitate and expedite the patient journey. While ensuring the human interaction still plays an important part, the greater proliferation of data can help improve decision making and programmes improvements. Real-world insights gleaned from access programmes can help deliver breakthrough insights on disease evolution, treatment, patients' perceptions, outcomes and cost.
The creation of an access ecosystem can generate greater financial, treatment and health system sustainability. Here, multi-sectoral collaboration is crucial in supporting governments that have long been stretched in improving access by themselves.
When access initiatives are designed with the patient in mind over the long term, we can attain the following three pillars of healthcare sustainability:
Financial sustainability
By designing initiatives that are personalised to the patient, the financial support provided is no longer limited to budget constraints of the government, pharmaceutical company or the patient. The multistakeholder collaboration allows the initiatives to be financially sustainable and can be scalable over time to reach as many patients as possible, while the patients don't eventually need to pay out-ofpocket amounts that are beyond their means.
Treatment sustainability
By addressing both affordability and adherence challenges, more patients can stay on their prescribed treatment for as long as medically necessary, ensuring they are getting the maximum benefit from their treatment. At the same time, physicians would have a greater capacity to treat more patients.
Health system sustainability
By complementing the healthcare system with patient management mechanisms implemented outside of health institutions (i.e., hospitals), burdens can be lifted from the healthcare system, enabling it to cope with the increasing older population, improves the cost-effectiveness of healthcare interventions, ensuring better health outcomes, and allows the healthcare system to expand, keeping the expenditures in proportion to the GDP sustainable.
When we address access holistically, we achieve this trifecta of sustainable access. We have seen this first-hand in Axios-managed Patient Support Programs. For instance, we collaborated with a multinational pharmaceutical company to develop their 'access to medicine strategy', ensuring that access was not an afterthought. Together we designed a shared payment access programme. The programme is focused on improving access to treatment for selected haematological and gastroenterological conditions. It was important to go beyond just reimbursement and identify a more tailored approach that segments the patient population.
This programme uses Axios' Patient Financial Eligibility Tool (PFET) that considers both formal and informal income sources enabling patients to complete their prescribed treatment even if they can't afford to pay for it in full. By understanding the individual patient's circumstances, we can define a quantity of payment comfortably within their means and ensure that only those who need the support benefit from it. The company was able to reach its average discount goal without reducing the price. At the same time patients only paid what they could afford and so it became financially sustainable.
The cost-sharing has significantly reduced the financial burden, resulting in larger patient enrolment in the programme with more patients able to stay on treatment, which significantly improved the duration of treatment, reaching optimal medical outcomes. In fact, in 75 per cent of cases, a higher-than-expected duration of treatment was reached. Concurrently, this led to broader healthcare provider satisfaction and so enrolment accelerated. Here, treatment sustainability was reached.
The programme was then able to scale globally now supporting patients in Asia, Africa, Europe, Middle East and Latin America. For some countries, our suite of digital tools has connected patients to their healthcare providers outside of the hospital care setting while integrating stakeholder coordination into one seamless ecosystem, which became essential during the pandemic. With many more patients able to access and stay on treatment longer, while having an out-of-hospital support system to complete the HCP efforts, the burden on the healthcare system is lighter, especially as patients adhering to treatment means less complications and less hospitalisations. By doing so, we keep the healthcare system sustainable and ready to extend care to more patients.
Southeast Asia's healthcare access ecosystem is being strained to the point that it cannot quickly adapt to patients' ever-evolving needs. The region's population is growing at a rate of knots, and the increasing population density means the healthcare system cannot rely solely on hospital care anymore; Because hospitals are not equipped to care alone for patients living with lifelong conditions or chronic diseases requiring long-term treatment forever. The patient must return home at some point, so there is a considerable gap in care because HCPs cannot be everywhere. If patients are on treatment that requires technical expertise like a self-administered injection, they need to be supported, or adherence rates will drop, patients will not get the full medical benefits from the treatment, and their condition could worsen. We must build and extend healthcare capabilities beyond the hospital while keeping patients connected to facilitate the patient journey. By conservative estimates, the pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of healthcare by at least five years, and technology is essential to integrating all components of a multi-faceted ecosystem that reaches patients wherever they are. Patient support programmes include medication management and counselling, significantly improve care and overall patient experience in chronic disease states, especially with complex therapies. The goal is to generate more, improved health outcomes for the region's patients in the long term, supported by a robust network that plays to the strengths of every collaborating stakeholder.
True healthcare access sustainability can be achieved through such outcomes, but a multi-sectoral, multidimensional response must support the process. This call has to be taken actioned by access specialists in both the public and private sectors and by placing patients at the centre of their healthcare access strategies.
References: | https://www.asianhhm.com/healthcare-management/patient-centricity-ecosystem-southeast-asia |
As chair of the Group of 20 major economies (G20), Indonesia has begun discussions with members on standardizing health standards for travel, stressing the importance of harmonizing rules and technology as travel world resume in earnest.
The standardization of health regulations for travel is crucial, as certifications issued in one country may currently be incompatible with each other, making international travel more complicated than it should be.
Indonesia recommends that standardization follow various countries’ COVID-19 regulations, including whether vaccines, tests or testing authorities would be recognized. It also proposes to streamline travel rules between the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
In an exclusive interview with Mohit Sagar, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of OpenGov Asia, Setiaji, Head of Digital Transformation Office at Ministry of Health, Indonesia explained the standardization of the G20 health protocol and how G20 member countries will benefit from it.
The role of technology in healthcare
Public and private sector organizations have accelerated their digital transformation to meet the challenges caused by the global pandemic. The adoption of technologies such as IoT, AI, and robotics has increased dramatically due to the digital transformation journey, catalyzing beneficial change.
“Technology and associated systems can help find diseases and prevent their spread, but the most important thing is to first prevent diseases from happening,” says Setiaji. “As a first response, the government can use a variety of new technologies and Indonesia has already greatly minimized the impact of the pandemic by using technology.”
The potential benefits of digital transformation have been carefully considered by the Indonesian government. The country is eager to deploy the use of digital technology to engage citizens in governance, economic recovery and overall development.
Indonesia’s rapid urbanization makes it an ideal candidate for smart city innovations. The country is unique in its rapidly depleting coal reserves, moving away from status as the world’s largest recycler of plastic waste and striving to support economic growth through digitalization, with incentives to encourage people to build more sustainable cities.
“Health care is a basic need for Indonesians, as it is for the whole world,” acknowledges Setiaji. “The Indonesian Ministry of Health is focused on accelerating the country’s healthcare system for the benefit of the public.”
The country recently unveiled its first digital health plan, laying the groundwork for digitizing the country’s health services to expand inclusive healthcare coverage to its 270 million citizens. The plan guides the government to use digital technologies to advance its national goal of providing universal, affordable, equitable and high-quality healthcare to all Indonesians.
The digital health plan lays the foundation for the development of Indonesia’s enterprise architecture for health technology. It is supported by important pillars such as the digital integration of patient and healthcare provider health information and the coordinated development of digital health infrastructure.
Setiaji, who oversees the digital and information team, says improvements in health technologies are being used to modernize the health sector and help bridge the gap between urban and rural areas. Additionally, the Indonesian government is aggressively attacking the country’s health data system.
New technologies such as smartphone apps and other types of telemedicine are improving the quality of health care in Indonesia and making it easier to access services for people in the more remote areas of the archipelago.
A good example is the mobile contact tracing app – PeduliLindungi – used as part of a plan to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
Standardization of the G20 health protocol
In its role as chair of the Group of Twenty (G20), Indonesia has begun discussions with members of the group to establish standardized health protocols for international travel, as nations cautiously gradually lift border restrictions.
“We need a standard COVID-19 vaccine passport to recognize other people’s countries and to move around and recover from pandemics faster,” says Setiaji. “Synchronized and harmonized global health protocols are needed for safer international travel and to accelerate permanent social and economic recovery.”
Indonesia is keen to ensure that safe and healthy travel procedures are the same everywhere, especially regarding the recognition of COVID-19 vaccination certificates. A plan was recently announced to make digital certificates of COVID-19 vaccines more uniform by using a WHO-compliant universal verifier. The system is web-based and can be used on any device. Each country does not have to change the way QR codes are used or the system itself.
Health guidelines vary from country to country, with some being stricter than others. Thus, each country has the freedom to use the health protocols that suit it, with clear and universal rules. This strengthens the global health system and facilitates travel between countries.
Additionally, health protocols must be synchronized so that health information can flow between systems. This process is likely to start in countries that are part of the G20 and then spread to other countries. They are also looking for a third party to manage the system independently.
If successful, Setiaji believes similar regulations can be adopted by ASEAN countries. “This vision is not just about the G20 countries; it is also for the rest of the world. To this end, we have already begun to establish partnerships with other countries.
Data in the healthcare space
Digitization is reshaping the way the healthcare sector interacts with healthcare professionals, medical data is shared or decisions are made in the context of treatment and outcomes. Some examples of healthcare digitization are artificial intelligence powered medical devices, telemedicine, blockchain, remote patient monitoring, and electronic health records.
The primary goal of healthcare innovation is to streamline the work of healthcare professionals, optimize medical software systems, reduce human error, improve patient outcomes and reduce costs through integrated web and mobile experiences. However, to achieve the best outcomes for patients, it is necessary to share their data. There are ways to do this while maintaining patient privacy and data security, according to Setiaji.
Setiaji emphasizes that security by design is necessary to create a new, more secure hardware and software ecosystem. This will radically update the foundations of the insecure digital IT infrastructure. It also requires security standards whose main objective is to reduce risks, in particular by preventing or mitigating cyberattacks.
The adoption of information systems in public health management in Indonesia aims to properly manage data to improve the efficiency of health service delivery. “We are also working with other government agencies and partners to secure data in the healthcare sector,” Setiaji reveals.
Data in the field of health must always be available. So, as part of the country’s health technology transformation pillar, the Indonesian Ministry of Health recently launched the Indonesian Health Service Platform.
The SATUSEHAT platform aims to support the implementation of other Indonesian health systems transformation pillars, such as primary services transformation, referral services transformation, health resilience systems transformation, health financing and the transformation of human resources in the health sector.
This comes as the ministry aims to integrate the platform into 8,000 health facilities across the country by the end of this year.
For the healthcare industry to continue its digital transformation, Setiaji believes the entire nation must have a clear understanding of its mission and vision. The road to successful digital transformation is paved with courageous leadership decisions, political consensus and the support of the people at large. “Collaboration is also essential, as the transformation process cannot be led by a single individual or a single party.”
Setiaji is convinced that the digital transformation of the health sector in Indonesia in the next three to five years is possible by establishing a solid foundation within the health system. Its goals include producing more mobile health apps for public accessibility, improving health policy and system, and building businesses with unicorn status that grow rapidly. He is confident that the future of health care and patient outcomes in Indonesia is bright given the nation’s focus and dedication to serving its citizens. | https://travels2greece.com/training-for-government-officials-to-secure-indian-cyberspace-opengov-asia/ |
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Our vision
Improved patient outcome
We support caregivers and patients to ensure optimal results. We make sure patients and professionals have access to the right products and the right knowledge at the right time in order to facilitate treatments and achieve the best outcomes.
Reduced total costs of care
We reduce the cost burden for society by improving efficiency in the healthcare system. We not only reduce costs by providing purchase power to the healthcare providers – we also reduce costs by contributing to increased efficiency of treatments and process.
Fair and sustainable value chain
We improve people’s health and care for the world around us. We offer safe, high-quality products and services, while taking responsibility for a fair and sustainable value chain. | https://minbevilling.onemed.dk/en/About-onemed |
Even as we are moving into the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals across the globe continue to face unrelenting workloads and acute staff shortages. Over time, the continued rise of chronic infections, increasing healthcare costs, broadening inequalities, and climate change have only added to the strain. Meanwhile, patient and consumer expectations of healthcare are altering. Health systems now need to provide care that is more accessible, scalable, affordable, and equitable, while preserving the health of the planet.
Key features:
- The pandemic increased the demand for home healthcare equipment. Digitally enabled care can be considered as the core basis in healthcare transformation.
- Healthcare continues to experience the momentum of driving innovation.
- Owing to the changing landscape, healthcare industry leaders need to reflect on the upcoming trends and recognize the shifts that can be implemented in healthcare in 2022.
The healthcare industry has undergone significant growth and changes over a few years. The industry is encountering a massive wave of investment, innovation, and new entrants from varied industries. Here are the top trends in healthcare that will continue to advance through 2022.
Top Healthcare Trends to Look Out for in 2022:
1) ESG Strategies Focused on Innovation
The life science industry is moving towards employing a model of social impact focusing on ESG (environment, sustainability, governance) and customizing treatments for specific patients. As healthcare sectors continue to grow and expand, companies are turning to strategic initiatives to bring innovations.
Big pharma and biotech companies are facing difficulties managing the execution of these in-house programs and supporting their intentions of staying relevant. To overcome these hurdles, they must scrutinize and streamline processes that are socially responsible and support environmental goals. This may help to not only meet their financial benchmarks but also enable them to set patient-centric standards that will likely take hold in the future.
2) Data Analytics to Accelerate Innovation
With our growing awareness of genetics and disease, the life sciences industry is relying on data analytics more than ever. It can be utilized to enhance drug development & manufacturing processes, identify the patterns in clinical trial study results, predict patients’ responses to medications, and analyze diagnostic results.
a) Data: The Key Factor in Optimizing Operations
Even with the advancements including artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, 5G connectivity, and the Internet of things (IoT), data remains the very central core of healthcare. The industry is finally understanding how data can benefit in delivering financial and clinical success.
With the pandemic, the world witnessed how global healthcare systems managed personal protection equipment (PPE), payers addressed social determinants of health (SDOH), and how providers leveraged remote vitals to deliver treatments with real-world insights. Through effective optimization, healthcare professionals can leverage predictive analytics to allow leaders to make more precise and valuable data-driven decisions.
Healthcare Data Analytics will play a major role in developing an ecosystem of shared knowledge and communications. Employing a 360° approach to Healthcare Analytics will present new opportunities and advancements essential for tomorrow’s medicine.
Read more: “$1.72 Billion”: How Alternative Data Is Transforming Investment Research
b) Employing data analytics and visualization to address patient’s health:
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the spotlight on data analytics, bringing to light the immense decision-making challenge faced by the healthcare sector in real-time. Medical professionals are leveraging machine learning algorithms to examine effective outcomes, driving future development efforts. Data analytics with AI promises to track the effects of different therapies on groups of patients over time. Utilizing the advantage of both technology and partnerships, providers and researchers are working to improve patient care, under rapidly changing conditions.
Enforcing the right tools can help streamline the innovation of actionable, data-informed decisions, but accomplishing these fast-changing circumstances is a bigger challenge.
Read more: Healthcare Analytics Consulting: Are You AI-Ready?
3) Telemedicine and Digital Care Solutions
With the healthcare landscape changing, providers are embracing technology to improve and support patient outcomes. This is specifically applicable when it comes to acute and chronic disease management. Telemedicine and virtual care programs are enabling doctors to monitor patients remotely by employing sensors to track vital signs, health records, and patient data.
Telemedicine has the potential to enhance access to healthcare in a world where half of its population does not have access to fundamental services. Situations may arise where many people still consider an in-person interaction with healthcare professionals, so healthcare providers will need to regard this when implementing the services.
Employing more consumer-facing solutions with hybrid models, including both face-to-face and telemedicine, could be the future of healthcare, making telemedicine more mainstream and improving consumer access. While the challenges continue to arise, irrespective of employing the best way to use telemedicine effectively, the shift is likely to undergo enhancements.
4) Influence of AI
AI is redefining the healthcare industry by enhancing the quality of patient care, outcomes, and reducing the costs of hospitals, for insurance and payers alike. Artificial intelligence is swiftly extending its reach across several sectors in healthcare. Technology has the potential to accelerate multiple operations and reduce costs. AI is also being employed to analyze large quantities of patient data, thereby increasing the accuracy of disease detection.
Read more: Top AI Trends to Watch Out for in 2022
These 2022 healthcare trends demonstrate how analytical and sustainable innovation can help us reach that goal.
A Year of Recovery and Expansion
Healthcare, in the last two years, suffered an enormous disruption and has undergone comprehensive innovation. COVID-19 has exposed the challenges and deep-seated cracks across the healthcare sector.
With the entire world standing still, healthcare was propelled to reevaluate its operationalities across the continuum of care. The pressing reality brought to light that the need for innovation in healthcare is far more extensive and rapid. It magnified the necessity to fast-track a slow pace of innovation.
Technology is a great equalizer. While the pandemic intensified disparities, it also ushered in an age of digital transformation. Developing technologies are enabling healthcare to reach more patients in new ways and empowering community healthcare workers by expanding their access to expertise.
The healthcare industry is gradually but certainly embracing the new healthcare trends, which highlights that the sector that fails to incorporate modern technology will be, surely, left behind. With clinical, operational, and financial seismic changes occurring over the past few months, the momentum to truly transform healthcare has finally taken root.
Read more: Wearable Tech: A Promise to Revolutionize Healthcare
Foreseeing more Accessible and Responsive Healthcare
The pandemic has disrupted the healthcare sector, exposing underlying weaknesses and initiating long-standing changes. With its cracks exposed, the healthcare industry must now look inward and implement deep-seated reforms to address the challenges and enhance efficiency.
With the focus shifting from innovation to digital transformation, there is a crucial need to eliminate what has held us back. While coping with the new normal, healthcare providers need to leverage technology to facilitate greater access across dispersed teams, timely healthcare delivery, improved productivity, and faster R&D cycles. Healthcare needs to continue on this path of recovery while simultaneously seeking modes to enhance efficiency, intelligence, and connectivity.
While 2021 was focused on learning and implementing new strategies into the long-standing and outdated healthcare system, 2022 will require us to continue to innovate and adapt to the ever-changing ecosystem. We can only advance if we commit to scaling this digital transformation to enhance continuity, quality, and access to care.
With the paradigm shifting towards a new era of digital care, everyone is now looking forward to experiencing what’s on the horizon for healthcare in 2022.
To develop an equitable health technology culture, adopting future-focused solutions can help to support the capabilities and flexibility healthcare enterprises require for delivering the right care at the right place and time.
In 2022 and years ahead, the medical research and healthcare sector is likely to become more agile to deliver new treatments. Organizations are envisioning increasing their investments in technologies, workflows, and management capabilities to shorten development cycles. The emerging trends are pointing to a future distinguished by more profound employment of smart data, adaptable workflows, and advanced technologies.
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Healthcare is essential to everyone and must be considered as a human right available to everybody. Despite being essential, it is one of the most expensive needs of Americans and other citizens. A patient care system provides health care services that meet needs of individuals. To improve patient-centered care, the entire U.S. healthcare system is undergoing a dramatic change. The change is also driven by the need to deliver health services in cost-effective ways. Healthcare professionals are the key pillars of the patient care delivery system. Therefore, it is vital to identify and understand the transformation taking place within the healthcare systems, as well as the role played by healthcare profession. In other words, when discussing challenges faced with patient care, there is a need to highlight challenges faced by the system, as well as challenges faced by healthcare professionals. This paper highlights the challenges faced with patient care from various perspectives and then discusses the impacts of the challenges alongside with their remedies.
Challenges Faced with Patient Care
Patient care entails services rendered by health professionals for the purpose of restoring, promoting, monitoring, and maintaining health of a patient. Broadly speaking, patient care involves prevention, treatment, and management of diseases, as well as preservation of the physical and mental well-being through services delivered by medical and related health professionals. Improving patient care is increasingly becoming one of the priority areas for health care providers with the aim of improving patient satisfaction. This change is propelled by factors such as medical malpractice, healthcare regulation, technological advancements, competition, demand for better care, and increased public awareness. Millions of American citizens receive quality patient care services because the U.S. has one of the world’s greatest research institutions, healthcare facilities, as well as medical and allied health professionals. However, the quality of patient care provided is often substandard. Frequently, patients receive services that undermine the quality of patient care and needlessly increase costs. In some scenarios, patients do not receive healthcare services that have been demonstrated to be effective at reducing costs and improving health outcomes. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highlighted that 5% of inpatients tend to develop a health-associated infection (HAI). HAIs are not only prevalent, but also costly and ranging in the tens of thousands of dollars (CDC, 2009). The quality of patient care is essentially determined by the quality of training, quality of infrastructure, efficiency of operational systems, and competence of the personnel. Similarly, the delivery of patient care depends on the same factors. Effective patient care delivery requires clinical knowledge and practices that identify and address new issues facing the delivery of service. In other words, proficient patient care requires understanding of issues that foster physical therapy practice and influence the delivery of care. This paper discusses some challenges facing patient care in the United States.
Literature Review: Challenges Faced With Patient Care
Patient care is largely delivered by nurses (Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), 2008). When providing patient care, health professionals are expected to deliver quality service to the standards of practice. In the same line, healthcare professionals must follow the professional code of ethics (NMC, 2008). Further, they must follow the code to ensure that they use the right principles to optimize healthcare. It is also the responsibility of the healthcare professionals to assess patients. Assessment entails collecting all-inclusive information relevant to the patient’s situation or health. Healthcare professionals are also responsible for implementing care after the assessment of a patient (Ammenwerth, Schnell-Inderst, Machan, & Siebert, 2008). Furthermore, they ensure that the recommended plan of patient care is completed. It follows that most of the challenges faced with patient care are directly linked to the challenges faced by professional nurses and other healthcare professionals. Having done an overview of the role of health professionals in the delivery of patient care, the section that follows explores some of the challenge faced by healthcare professionals and other stakeholders while delivering patient care. In a recent study conducted by Kamra, Singh, and De (2015) to establish factors that affect patient satisfaction and their link to the demographics of patients, the authors have found that several factors influence the patient outcome and the resultant patient satisfaction. Some of the factors highlighted include staff and nursing care, behavior of doctors, professionalism of doctors, convenience and affordability of the patient care, fulfillment of clinical requirements, administrative procedures, amenities and infrastructure, and facilities at the out-patient department or the reception area (Rosseter, 2014).
The study has also revealed that there was a variation in patient care and satisfaction along demographical lines such as education, occupation, and residence (Kamra et al., 2015). Given that patient care is directly linked to patient satisfaction, it would also be logical to highlight challenges faced with patient care from the perspective of patient satisfaction. From this study, it is quite clear that inequalities in healthcare affect patient care and ultimate patient satisfaction (Swayne, Duncan, & Ginter, 2012). Ideally, all patients should receive similar patient care services for similar cases. In that respect, there would be no variations in patient care delivery. To have a clear understanding of the challenges faced with patient care, the following section reviews different challenges from various perspectives. The ever-increasing sophistication in disease diagnosis and treatment of the medical condition contributes to the escalation of patient care cost (American College of Healthcare Executives (CHE), 2014). In the same line, there is a proliferation of costly drugs for patients, especially those with chronic conditions. Besides diagnosis, treatments, and medication, the growing aging population also contributes to the surging cost of patient care (Swayne e al., 2012).
Other factors that further increase the high cost of patient care include technological advancements and the increasing number of people with chronic illnesses. According to an annual survey by the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), financial challenges are ranked as one of the most challenging issues faced by hospitals, thereby affecting the delivery of patient care (ACHE, 2014). As noted by the ACHE (2014), taking care of patients and improving their safety, as well as the quality of patient care are considered to be the highest priority in the hospital. In the same line, healthcare leaders and managers acknowledge that these priorities must be addressed in the current environment of government mandates, dwindling reimbursement, and complex payment reform (Swayne et al., 2012). Health care in the United States is very expensive, meaning that most people do not have adequate access to healthcare. In most states, the poorest adults without children do not get Medicaid. Affordable Care Act (ACA) was meant to fix this problem, but that has not been the case in most states because the Supreme Court’s decision made Medicaid expansion optional. In that respect, some states have not adopted the program fully. Besides, parents in some states have to be extremely poor to be eligible for Medicaid. As noted by Allen and Carr (2009), the costs of acquiring and implementing digitized healthcare systems are significant, especially for medical practitioners and health facilities. The other financial challenge attached to the implementation of technologies that improve patient care is training and maintenance costs attached to the systems. The misaligned cost burden for adopting patient-centered systems is also an impediment to the delivery of quality patient care (Sydnor & Perl, 2011).
For instance, for an effective EHR system to be functional and interoperable across the country, there must be an active clinical information systems in place (Swayne et al., 2012). This translates to a financial burden to the government and implementers in the private sector. Challenges such as hospital acquired infection (HAIs) also increase the cost of healthcare to insurance companies and the individual covering avoidable extra medical bills incurred when patients are readmitted or overstay in hospitals (Sydnor & Perl, 2011). To that line, the quality of health is affected because the pressure is induced on the infrastructure, facilities, and the healthcare personnel. Furthering the impact of hospital overstays and readmissions, the lack of access to health services has a detrimental impact on the functioning of the entire healthcare system (Ammenwerth et al., 2008). In this context, access is not limited to geographical or physical location of health facilities, but is expanded to cover finance, knowledge, and time resources because they impact the behavior of both patients and patient care service providers (Sydnor & Perl, 2011). Observably, financial challenges and accessibility issues have a significant impact on the health of an individual and the well-being of the society. Effective interventions to improve the quality of primary care are well known. However, progress is slow because of poor access and the high cost of healthcare services (World Health Organization (WHO), 2009).
Improving the quality of primary health services is a key programmatic challenge in the United States due to resource constraints. Political commitment or will to address primary health issues in the U.S. is inadequate. Although the government has developed several policies and it is committed to improving primary health, there is a gap between formulated policies and their implementation. Additionally, there is a lack of coordination between health staff and policy makers (Swayne et al., 2012). Ineffective management of health systems hampers the quality of service and renders the existing referral system as ineffective. The United States also lacks an enabling policy setting with supportive laws and health management reforms, which are vital in addressing supply barriers to core lifesaving services (Swayne et al., 2012). Political commitment in executive government branches and the health sector must be improved to increase the allocation of resources to reach rural settings, provide finances to address inequalities, and provide safety nets to poor taxpayers. The widespread application of evidence-based medicine has been proven to help healthcare professionals facilitate their utilization of healthcare technologies to improve patient outcome (Allen & Carr, 2009). However, there are numerous challenges to the deployment and adoption of electronic health record (EHR). Central to this review is the fact that there is cultural resistance to Evidence-Based Medicine from various entities that are yet to validate the facts about the EBM (Allen & Carr, 2009). Almost a decade ago, a report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on the quality of Healthcare in the United State found that approximately 44,000 to 90,000 American patients could die annually due to medical errors (Allen & Carr, 2009).
Since the release of this report, the U.S. healthcare sector has continued to suffer from the distinction of delivering less optimal patient care service and patient outcomes at a high cost. Medical errors highlighted in the report were largely linked to human error. According to the Federal Drugs Administration (FDA), medication errors are preventable events that cause or lead to an inappropriate use of medication or patient harm (FDA, 2015). These errors are noted when the medication is under control of either the patient or the health professional. In line with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, other factors linked to medical errors include poor nomenclature, prescribing, packaging, and labeling. A review of the impact of using the digitized system for prescribing, administering, and monitoring medication processes has indicated that there is a 99% reduction in medications errors (Ammenwerth et al., 2008). Despite the continued demonstration of the effectiveness of the digitized system (Radley, Wasserman, Olsho, Shoemaker, Spranca, & Bradshaw, 2013), there is a considerable resistance to digital transformation (Allen & Carr, 2009). The cultural resistance is regarding concerns about patient safety and privacy issues. Patient heath care-related equity can be explored from two dimensions: equity in patient health financing and equity in service delivery. Inequities exist in the United States because there are disparities in health financing and delivery of health services (Sydnor & Perl, 2011). Inequities in the U.S. are marked by disparities in socio-economic groups as characterized by aspects such as occupation, gender, wealth/income, geographic location, education, and race/ethnicity. Scientific evidence points out that the availability of good healthcare is inversely related to its demand in developed countries like the USA. For this reason, the achievement of equal and fair access to healthcare is likely to be compromised if the prevalence of variations to the access of health is not addressed properly (Radley et al., 2013). Evidently, poor Americans are at a higher risk of inaccessibility to basic health service. In the same line, these poor people meet various barriers to utilization of health services. Due to poor structures and management of patient care among the uninsured or the underinsured, this population segment has limited access to health information and services. Underserved groups such as the homeless, the uninsured, and the underinsured are likely to have unmet needs (Sydnor & Perl, 2011).
For this reason, the U.S. government should target the most vulnerable groups by improving access to information and utilization of primary health services. The extent to which patient care for American citizens is efficient, timely, and appropriate for a specific individual depends on the characteristics of the healthcare service delivery system. Kamra et al. (2015) have considered some structural barriers, process inefficiencies, and systems failures that are serious impediments to the delivery of quality patient care and limit the delivery of highly efficient, effective, and evidence-based patient care. The patient care culture is focused on individual health professionals because it influences the way they behave (Porter & Teisberg, 2006). Their behaviors depict the way they are educated, hired, as well as their reliance on the demanding healthcare environment. If change is to be realized in patient care, these roots must be addressed. Observably, the culture of health providers in the United States is marked by clashes between competing forces (Radley et al., 2013). That is to say, stakeholders oppose each other to obtain competitive advantages instead of collaborating to improve the delivery of patient care. For the United States to achieve an improvement in the delivery of patient care, competitive clashes should be transformed to positive competition in which stakeholders combine resources to achieve patient-centered results (Rosseter, 2014). The continuous and disruptive change in the U.S. health sector limits efforts of health professionals to scale up their data handling efforts (Sydnor & Perl, 2011).
The enormous data from discoveries in areas such as genetics, proteomics, and genomics should be archived and analyzed to mine the intelligence in the data. According to Porter and Teisberg (2006), stakeholders in the U.S. healthcare industry compete in a zero-sum playfield. The U.S. healthcare system is marked by clashes among competing forces. For instance, health professionals focus on their autonomy and remunerations. In turn, care facilities focus on profitability and reduction of costs. Further, suppliers force on volume and intellectual property protection. Simultaneously, patients focus on affordable and accessible services. Insurance companies seek the right to select the cost and limit of a risk. These clashes raise some cultural barriers to high-quality patient care. Besides, incentives are not aligned (Norris, 2007). Healthcare providers are often paid more for overuse of resources. Moreover, providers are paid more for an episodic task and little for coordinative and cognitive work (Sydnor & Perl, 2011). Healthcare leaders also have limited authority because of the autonomy of physicians and high completion among health facilities for physicians. The distrust among stakeholders also contributes to poor quality of patient care. The federal and state governments are devoted to improving health and healthcare of all American citizens irrespective of their race, age, genders, and income levels (HRSA, 2011).
Central to this commitment is transforming the way healthcare is delivered in hospitals to reduce the shortage of nurses in public healthcare institutions and to advance the quality of patient or nursing care (Rosseter, 2014). Registered nurses educate the public and patients about health conditions, coordinate patient care, and provide emotional support to patients and the society (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). They work in nursing care facilities, hospitals, military, and correctional facilities. Visibly, nurses form one of the key pillars in the provision of high-quality patient care. To attract and retain highly-qualified nurses, adjustments must be made in the use of Information Technology and organization of work, hospital culture and leadership approaches, and physical design (Swayne et al., 2012). Working alongside with other stakeholders, healthcare policy makers should garner support for improved public health care facilities that mirror the reality and needs of the current world. That is, hospitals where efficiencies are optimized, patients’ safety is assured and the staff are motivated and actively supported in their profession. In response to the ever-growing demand for high-quality patient care as a result of healthcare reforms and the growth of the population of the aging people, healthcare professionals are needed more than ever (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014).
The contemporary healthcare system faces numerous problems, motivating the nursing fraternity to engage in the formulation of regulations and policies that transform the healthcare system. The United States is projected to continue confronting the cyclic shortage of registered nurses as the demand for healthcare grows (Rosseter, 2014). The problem is complicated because nursing schools also struggle to deliver nurses in synchrony with the rising demand for quality care because of the national healthcare reforms, particularly the Obamacare Act. Nurses form the largest segment of healthcare professionals providing patient care in healthcare facilities. In the same respect, the quality of patient care is closely related to the performance of the nursing workforce (Swayne et al., 2012). The supply of nurses never balances the industry demand. For this reason, there are never enough nursing personnel to meet the current demand. The need to cover the cyclic shortage of healthcare professionals implies that there are numerous opportunities for healthcare professions (Rosseter, 2014).
Impact on Health
The secondary goal of this paper is to explore the impact of the challenges faced with patient care on health. Given that health is a universal issue, this section will also explore the impact of these challenges on individuals, families, and communities. The literature on patient care financing is either business-oriented, emphasizing financial systems within the healthcare industry, or the line that emphasizes financing of service delivery (Allen & Carr, 2009). With the U.S. spending more on patient care than any other country, there is a growing notion that the high health care costs have a negative impact on the quality of care. In the same line, there is an argument that high cost of healthcare in the U.S. induces variations in patient services and patient outcomes (Norris, 2007). The United States’ healthcare cost per capita is among the highest globally. Furthermore, the review above has indicated that significant aspects of the U.S. healthcare are ineffective or redundant. Additionally, a major cost of the U.S. healthcare is channeled toward administrative processing. The other challenge that faces the U.S. patient care delivery outcomes is the growing aging population and the population of uninsured individuals. A major challenge of information technology as a cost-saving initiative in patient care is resistance to change from providers (Sydnor & Perl, 2011).
Patient care providers cannot exercise their functions outside of FDA-approved drugs and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) because failure amounts to malpractice (Allen & Carr, 2009). Where multiple alternatives for treatment are available, regional and local health professionals’ cultural norms tend to influence variations in some aspects of the medical protocol delivered such as imaging exams performed and ordered lab tests. In other words, patient care service providers must rely on limited information and clinical trials even though there are evidence-based medications or options available in electronic forms (Sydnor & Perl, 2011). Furthermore, conventional systems limit speed and accuracy in which standards can be improved. As of consequence, resistance by providers affects the quality healthcare. As the U.S. government strives to mitigate health inequalities, the United States’ public sector is inclined to support provision of subsidized or free services to both middle-income and lower-income classes of citizens (Rosseter, 2014). Unfortunately, the United States’ private sector lacks tangible incentives to reach women in lower-income groups. Luckily, NGOs and donor communities have a comparative advantage of the private health sector in mobilizing and reaching poor groups. However, the nongovernmental sector is limited regarding human resources, geographical coverage, and technical skills. Lack of technical expertise occurs due to the fact that while the NGOs make progress in improving primary health and reducing Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) on a national level, there are hidden discrepancies across various income groups (Allen & Carr, 2009).
The growing trend in health inequities, especially in the delivery of basic healthcare is likely to jeopardize the effort of the United States’ government relating to its healthcare goal of equitable and fair access to affordable healthcare (Allen & Carr, 2009). To counteract the inequities, the U.S. government should increase the coverage of primary health services in deprived population groups through effective delivery strategies and appropriate targeting mechanisms. Improving the quality of service entails training the staff, developing technical capacity and expertise, providing adequate supplies and equipment, providing continuous supervision, and establishing accreditation process and quality of standards. The U.S. government acknowledges that improving the quality of primary, secondary, and tertiary health services goes beyond improving standards and technical competence (Rosseter, 2014). In that respect, the government should provide information, education, and counseling, improve provider-client interactions, and provide a variety of services to the underinsured or the uninsured. Further, the government should provide finances to various public health institutions to improve access and use of services, improve technical quality, ensure client satisfaction, and improve referral to emergency care (Norris, 2007). By refining information and monitoring systems linked to logistics and health, the U.S. government progresses primary health by improving management. One of the challenges facing U.S. patient care quality is staff shortages and poor distribution of skilled care providers. The burnout among healthcare professionals in the U.S. has a negative impact on the services delivered and the government's efforts to address variation in quality and patient outcome (Radley et al., 2013).
In addressing these challenges, the U.S government should continue to fund the use of medical care and skilled attendance staff shortage is a result of several factors, including economic constraints, limited training capacity of nursing and medical schools, and emigration of professionals to the private sector, urban areas, and developed countries (Radley et al., 2013). For this reason, the U.S government should strive to harmonize remuneration of health professionals to attract talented individuals and retain them in the public sector. The government should also improve staff incentives and remuneration in training and promotion. Further, the government should develop staff rotation and deployment policies to improve management of the health sector. Government and private partnerships are critical and central to addressing challenges facing patient healthcare. The federal and state governments should continuously strengthen its partnership with donors and private health sector. Community-based organizations and NGOs can be brought onboard as legitimate partners, thereby improving the delivery of healthcare services (Radley et al., 2013). Through partnerships, the U.S. government can tap the potential of the private sector regarding accreditation, regulation, contracting, skills development, and inclusion of private health facilities in the referral system (Sydnor & Perl, 2011). To address the issue of inter-hospital competition for physicians, the government should improve career development, upgrade training, harmonize public and private sector pay grades, and acknowledge hardworking professionals. | https://essays-lab.net/essays/free-essays/challenges-faced-with-patient-care.html |
Supporting Learning Health Systems With CMS dQMs
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has been on a path to move from paper-based capture of quality measures to electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) toward digital quality measures (dQMs). Their goal is to not only capture all quality measures digitally, but to create standards and a repository that would go beyond reporting to sharing healthcare data related to quality improvement use cases. Ultimately, their objective is to support learning health systems (LHS) to optimize patient safety, outcomes, and experience.
But can dQMs and the CMS roadmap help provider organizations deliver more excellent healthcare? We provide a roadmap update, outlining the benefits to those organizations that are advancing on the “learning health system " path.
What are dQMs and eCQMs?
dQMs, or digital quality measures, are organized as self-contained measure specifications and code packages. They may use one or more sources of health information and are transmitted electronically via interoperable systems.
CMS quality measures have two purposes: to promote quality and reduce waste, and to improve decision-making. They specifically do this through incentivizing good performance and disincentivizing poor performance via public reporting and value-based payment programs. These measures support clinicians and hospitals in tracking their performance and in surfacing public data that can be used to make decisions like how to launch a health equity strategy or population health program.
Quality measures have been evolving from paper-based collection via claims, manual chart extractions, and patient surveys to electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs). This quality data is primarily garnered from electronic health records (EHRs). Ultimately, the objective is to reduce administrative burden and improve timeliness of feedback to providers on quality of care by collecting all quality measures from digital sources, including data from EHRs, registries, health information exchanges (HIEs), claims and surveys.
What is CMS's goal for digital quality measurement and supporting learning health systems?
This new course, transitioning to digital quality measures, is part of a larger objective to support provider organizations in becoming learning health systems (LHS). Through technologies like Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) and application programming interfaces (APIs), coupled with data standardization, hospitals and health systems can streamline data capture, sharing, and quality measure management. Additionally, they can enhance quality improvement initiatives and support clinical decision-making through a broader cohort of quality and performance data across organizations.
Access to a broader ecosystem of quality and performance information supports each provider organization's unique data analysis and quality improvement goals. CMS's goal is to make that continuous cycle of quality improvement easier and more robust, which holds promise to improve all healthcare quality in the U.S. Learning health systems deliver high-quality patient care utilizing rapid-cycle feedback and continuous improvement, usable and timely data from multiple sources, and reliable and valid measurement.
How does dQM support CMS's national quality strategy?
CMS developed a strategic roadmap for advancing digital quality measurement centered around four domains:
- Advance technology
- Enable measure alignment (including measures, data, and tools)
- Improving data quality
- Optimizing data aggregation
The dQM roadmap supports CMS's eight national healthcare quality strategy goals:
- Embed quality across the care journey, extending quality across payer types
- Advance health equity
- Promote safety to prevent harm and death
- Foster engagement with stakeholders with focus on person- and family-centered care
- Strengthen resiliency in the healthcare system
- Embrace the digital age
- Incentivize scientific innovation and technology
- Increase alignment to promote seamless and coordinated care
- Foundational to dQM and these national goals is achieving data standardization
Data standardization is the first step towards dQM and creating Learning Health Systems
According to CMS, learning health systems generate knowledge from data captured during routine care. Data standardization transforms that data into a common format, ensuring quality, allowing data sharing, and supporting programmatic use of data.
While dQM focuses on quality measurement for performance reporting and analysis, CMS's goal is to use standardized data models to support broader interoperability of patient health data, healthcare data analytics, and research.
However, for provider organizations to achieve more structured and standardized data, they must overcome barriers to implementing dQMs. These include slow adoption of current standards, lack of provider data mapping and quality assurance of required data, as well as managing change in clinical workflows.
How could dQMs support learning health systems?
With greater provider adoption and standardization, dQM implementation can be seamless. Automated data extraction can be enabled through FHIR and using the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) standards, as well as supplemental standards like USCDI+. These facilitate valid and reliable data mapping, making data auditing easier. Advanced technologies also eliminate many workflow changes only requiring them for QI priorities.
dQM supports the learning health system
Health systems and provider organizations can benefit from CMS's goal to achieve greater interoperability and the capture and sharing of dQM in four ways:
- Creating standards for sharing data from EHRs, registries, HIEs, claims, patient experience surveys, etc.
- Giving them quality and other data for analysis from other provider organizations for delivering quality care, quality improvement, benchmarking and PHM
- Streamline and reduce the burden of capturing and submitting quality measures when they are completely digital/electronic
- Produce reliable and valid measurement results common across multiple programs and payers
Learning health systems need streamlined digital data capture across multiple sources to realize a data-driven enterprise of care. With it, provider organizations can collaborate with partners better, harmonize data for quality and performance analysis, and improve health outcomes.
Get ready for dQM to foster data-driven learning health systems
RTI Health Advance employs data scientists, clinical and healthcare operations experts, and technologies to support data-driven quality and performance initiatives. Contact us.
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From 2020 to 2021, life expectancy in the US declined while rebounding in most comparable countries. Life expectancy is directly associated with the quality of medical services. Revolutionizing how healthcare providers treat patients should be the utmost priority for healthcare facilities now and in the future.
The quality of patient care is made up of various factors, such as:
- quality of medical infrastructure
- education and competence of medical staff
- sufficiency of training for healthcare providers
- efficiency of clinic management operations
- use of new technologies
Maximizing all these factors improves patient treatment quality and patient satisfaction. In this article, we provide you with nine valuable solutions to boost patient care in your facility. But first, let’s look at…
Most frequent errors in hospitals
Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that in the US, more than 250,000 deaths per year can be attributed to medical errors. Unfortunately, in the healthcare field, medical errors can have huge costs and lead to destructive consequences for patients. Look at these common types of medical mistakes in clinics:
- Communication issues. Lack of communication or poor communication among physicians, clinical staff, nurses, and others can result in medical errors.
- Poor medical data flow. When patient-related information is broken up, incomplete, or obsolete, it only gives physicians a partial picture of a patient’s history and can result in wrong diagnoses and prescribed medications.
- Human errors. These errors happen when medical workers violate obligatory healthcare regulations, standards, and procedures, or when a healthcare provider lacks the knowledge to provide a specific type of care.
- Patient-related mistakes. These errors occur when a patient has been insufficiently examined or diagnosed or received unclear instructions from their physician about how to take medicines or adhere to their care regimen.
- Lack of education. This occurs when facilities don’t have an efficient education system for medical personnel, including training and regular assessments of healthcare providers’ performance.
- Staffing shortages. The lack of a proficient medical workforce may increase the likelihood of clinical mistakes.
- Inefficient policies and regulations. Occasionally, the root of medical errors can be poor documentation processes in a hospital and inadequate keeping of medical records.
- Technical issues. These can be problems with medical equipment, devices, or programs, or they can be cybersecurity issues.
Implementing clinic software into your healthcare practice can reduce and prevent medical errors. In the USA, according to the National Library of Medicine, it’s been calculated that medication errors harm at least 1.5 million patients annually, with about 400,000 preventable adverse events. Hospitals that have implemented automated documents, records, data entry, and medical decision-making support experience lower healthcare costs and lower death rates.
Consider implementing clinic management software such as ExpertBox. ExpertBox is HIPAA-compliant and supports electronic health records, document automation, payment automation, and patient management to ensure safe and quality patient care.
9 ways to take better care of your patients
If you truly want to improve patient care and make it more coordinated, higher quality, and more accessible, read on to learn how you can do it quickly and efficiently:
#1 Switch to a patient-oriented approach
Patient-centered care empowers patients to be involved in their own healthcare and actively participate in healthcare decision-making. To take a patient-oriented approach, physicians and other medical staff need to build more effective relationships with patients, show empathy, be compassionate, and consider each patient’s specific personality and needs.
Healthcare providers who are ready to adopt patient-oriented care need to:
- understand what is essential to their patients when receiving healthcare
- emphasize communication with patients and involve them in decision-making
- make patients feel comfortable and create a friendly atmosphere
- consider cultural, psychological, and socio-economic factors while prescribing medicines or evaluating a care plan
#2 Improve access to healthcare
Many patients have concerns regarding rising healthcare costs. The percentage of Americans who report skipping care in the prior three months because of its cost tripled from 10% in March 2021 to 30% in October 2021.
Digital solutions, remote patient monitoring, and mobile clinics allow today’s healthcare providers to make patient care more cost-effective and accessible by providing medical services to those who can’t afford them due to geographical, financial, or personal barriers. Broadband technology can be an obstacle to telehealth adoption in rural areas. In the US, 63% of rural regions now have access to high-speed internet, and this percentage is growing. Additionally, 71% of people in rural areas have smartphones that let them connect to a telehealth platform via an app and mobile networks and become better educated on primary healthcare services.
Telehealth also mitigates staff shortages by letting hospitals hire medical specialists (with permission to practice outside of their state) to deliver care remotely.
However, many patients don’t know how to use technology to get healthcare information or reach their physician. It’s essential to create healthcare services that include supporting materials, resources, and programs and educate staff on how to teach and help patients so every patient can get quality medical care.
Download this checklist with 9 helpful tips on preparing patients for telehealth and making their first experience with telemedicine successful.
#3 Focus on employee engagement
Employee engagement affects the patient’s overall experience. Interactions with nurses, administrative staff, and front desk staff may shape a patient’s perception of the entire facility. A report by the National Library of Medicine shows that employees with high satisfaction/engagement with their job tend to give high patient satisfaction scores. For example, over the course of two years, higher nurses' satisfaction with their work led to an 87% decrease in patient infection rate, according to data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators.
Employees who are satisfied with their job, compassionate, helpful, and seek to reach the best patient health outcomes earn higher patient trust and perform better. Engaged clinic employees:
- take initiative in every task
- understand facility goals and values
- are confident when approaching new responsibilities and tasks
Since employee engagement is vital to the successful growth of a healthcare facility, what are some tips for improving employee engagement?
- Create a succession plan for each employee.
- Acknowledge high-performing staff members and implement a reward system.
- Offer continuous education and career development opportunities.
- Provide regular feedback.
- Network with your employees to create a family-like facility culture.
- Ensure your staff understands and values your facility’s goals and wants to achieve the best results.
#4 Track patient satisfaction
You can measure patient satisfaction in various ways, such as by:
- directly asking patients to evaluate your healthcare services
- sending questionnaires
- discussing patients’ thoughts during follow-up appointments
However, the most practical way to track patient satisfaction is to send automated and customizable feedback forms that let patients evaluate and rate your facility. Collecting feedback helps close the gap between how clinicians see their healthcare services and the quality of these services from the patient’s perspective.
Clinicians can use this relevant data to:
- raise the quality of healthcare services
- prevent potential human mistakes
- monitor the patient satisfaction rate
- become more patient-oriented
- test changes in healthcare services
- make well-informed decisions about improvements
Look at how collecting patient feedback can improve patient experience and care at scale.
#5 Use telemedicine
Telemedicine allows physicians to deliver care to a large number of patients. According to the 2021 NCHS survey, the percentage of adults who used telemedicine increased from 29.4% among adults aged 18–29 and from 43.3% among people aged 65 and over. Many people can benefit from video appointments that allow them to stay at home, preventing potential illnesses due to infection risk. Patients can also use online appointments for regular and annual check-ups to maintain good physical and mental health. Patients can also use online appointments for regular and annual check-ups to maintain good physical and mental health.
By adopting telehealth technology, you can extend the capacity of your healthcare providers and medical staff, tackle staff shortages, and automate your facility’s workflow, reducing administrative burden and paperwork.
Consider clinic management software like ExpertBox to efficiently manage your schedule, let patients book appointments in one click, and securely interact with patients via video calls, chat, and a patient portal.
#6 Invest in modern technology and equipment
Technology is a catalyst for improved patient care. Electronic health records (EHRs) allow for secure collection, sharing, and storage of medical data. This assures continuous patient care and gives physicians constant access to up-to-date information. Providers can be sure their decisions regarding patients’ treatments and medications match patients’ needs and specific health conditions, such as allergies or high blood pressure.
If you use clinic software like ExpertBox, you can send automated reminders and other notifications to your patients ensuring their medical adherence. With reminders, patients will be less likely to miss their appointment or forget a scheduled examination.
Another way technology can improve patient care is through modern equipment and diagnostic systems. With AI, robotics, and healthcare imaging equipment, hospitals can provide quick testing and diagnose patients within a shorter amount of time.
Technology automation also helps hospitals comply with industry regulations and guarantee patient safety and information security. With progressive technology, you can securely work with electronic health records, protect your hospital’s systems from security threats and cyber attacks, train your personnel on adopting security standards, and run regular security assessments.
In this article, you can explore how technology in healthcare helps clinics exceed their medical delivery goals, improve patient education, and decrease medical errors.
#7 Train your staff
You should fill the gaps in your medical staff’s knowledge and technical expertise using various training methods and programs, such as webinars, interactive online sessions, and offline one-day training. You can also launch dedicated training programs for specific employees, such as nurses or facility administrators.
#8 Educate patients about their health
Physicians should help patients become more proactive in their own healthcare. Consider what information you can deliver to patients to raise their medical literacy and awareness and how you will provide it. Quality education improves patient care, health, and well-being, whether you help a new mother learn about her postpartum mood disorder or provide information on living with their condition to a patient with a chronic illness.
#9 Reduce medical errors with data-based decision-making
Real-time data provides insights that allow hospitals to improve clinical services, save costs, and boost medical staff performance. Using the right data analytics tools and clinic management software, healthcare providers can make data-driven and evidence-based decisions to minimize the number of medical errors and effectively plan future healthcare services.
As a result, your facility can improve clinical triage and financial capacity and provide more accurate patient care and diagnoses minimizing the risk to patients’ health.
Summing up
Improving patient care is a continuous process that requires constant physician involvement. In order to make a substantial difference in patient care, you need to rely on sophisticated technology that will help you improve each aspect of patient treatment and empower your medical teams.
Try ExpertBox clinic management software to switch to patient-centered healthcare, reduce administrative burden, and streamline your healthcare business.
FAQ
-
Let's look at what can lead to medical errors in clinics:
- Communication issues
- Poor medical data flow
- Human errors
- Patient-related mistakes
- Lack of quality education
- Staffing shortages
- Absence of efficient policies and regulations
- Technical issues
-
If you want to improve patient care and make it more coordinated, higher quality, and more accessible, read on to figure out how you can do this quickly and efficiently by:
- Switching to a patient-oriented approach
- Improving access to healthcare
- Focusing on employee engagement
- Tracking patient satisfaction
- Using telemedicine
- Investing in modern technology and equipment
- Training your staff
- Educating patients about their health
- Reducing medical errors with data-based decision-making
-
Patient-centered care empowers patients to be involved in their own healthcare and actively participate in healthcare decision-making. To take a patient-oriented approach, physicians and other medical staff need to build more effective relationships with patients, show empathy, be compassionate, and consider each patient’s specific personality type and needs. | https://expertbox.io/ways-to-improve-patient-care |
Communication issues in the healthcare industry can be detrimental to patient care, waste time and negatively affect a provider's bottom line.
During an Aug. 29 webinar sponsored by Pulsara and hosted by Becker's Hospital Review, James Woodson, MD, founder and CEO of Pulsara, and William Atkinson, PhD, president of Guidon Healthcare Consulting, discussed several communication inefficiencies in healthcare and offered a solution to streamline communication across providers, improve patient outcomes and reduce waste.
Healthcare's communication problem
Medical errors cause up to 400,000 deaths per year and nearly 10,000 serious medical complications each day, explained Dr. Woodson.
"When you take a step back and look at these [errors], studies show that 80 percent of them result from miscommunications between caregivers during transitions of care," he said.
Studies also show hospitals waste $12 billion per year, or about 2 percent of revenue, as a result of poor communication, according to Dr. Woodson.
The healthcare industry's inefficient communication practices stem from several issues, including aging technologies, department specific communication protocols and the silos between prehospital, intrafacility, and interfacility care teams.
What's with the 'ancient' technologies
There are numerous communication tools used in healthcare, including emails, modems, radios, fax machines, pagers, secure messaging and phones. However, many of these technologies do not offer quick, effective communication because they are incompatible with one another or they are one-to-one communication methods that result in wasted time because information must often be repeated, Dr. Woodson explained.
"Most communication we relay in real time is vapor. It's said and it disappears. So we repeat the same thing over and over again," Dr. Woodson said.
Moreover, many providers focus on the patient, tasks and to-do lists right in front of them, instead of focusing on the providers downstream that need the most up-to-date information.
Dr. Atkinson added that quick, up-to-date and meaningful communication is especially important to patient outcomes in critical, emergency situations.
"As all of us know who have worked in emergency medicine or emergency care, time matters … and [sometimes] much of the effort that could have been used to the benefit of the patient or the teams have been lost due to communication failures."
Silos as a barrier to communication
A patient's care journey often transcends multiple healthcare entities or several departments in a hospital. However, many of these different departments and health systems use different communication technologies and have varying communication protocols, which results in having siloed, isolated teams.
Further, many of today's communication solutions solve or evaluate the problems in silos by focusing on a solution for a single service line or attempting to bridge a single gap between two silos, Dr. Woodson explained.
"We may just look at prehospital communication ... or just focus on interfacility communication care. We aren't taking a step back and trying to unite these," he added.
Dr. Atkinson added, "We've had some great solutions to individual problems, but the coordination of those solutions have been the problem."
So, what's the solution?
The solution to ineffective communication in healthcare is unified technology that presents real time data across healthcare entities to streamline communication and close any potential information gaps. This solution must be accessible to teams across all departments, health systems and prehospital networks. With a unified, coordinated communication network, teams can focus on the patient journey from start to end without disruptions.
There are three key steps to Pulsara's communication solution:
1. Create a dedicated patient channel for any condition, any method of patient arrival and any healthcare entity.
2. Build a team to access that channel. This includes adding Emergency Medical Service providers, transfer centers, hospitals, specific individuals or specific departments. Once they have access, they will be able to securely view messages.
3. Communicate with the team. Once the team is built, providers on the patient case can communicate via text messaging, phone or video calls, sending audio clips, photos and lab results.
To listen to the webinar, click here
To learn more about Pulsara's communication solution, click here. | https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/communication-how-to-solve-one-of-healthcare-s-biggest-problems.html |
Learning Objectives:
- State the Principles of Toyota Production System
- Describe the need for application of Toyota Principles in Healthcare
- Explain the integration of Toyota Principles with key elements of Healthcare
Toyota Production System (TPS) is a manufacturing philosophy created by one of the leading automobile manufacturing companies called “Toyota” during post World War II Japan. TPS uses a process-oriented approach focusing on respect for people, teamwork, mutual trust and commitment, elimination of waste, and continuous quality improvement. The principles of TPS are all statements of beliefs and values focused on Philosophy, Process, People, and Problem Solving. In contrast to traditional hierarchical management structures, TPS values the importance of partnerships between management and employees at all levels.
Similar to manufacturing organizations, healthcare is facing challenges from rising labor and material costs, intense competition, scarce human resources, customer demand for impeccable quality, and stringent safety and performance standards. Integration of TPS in Healthcare helps to create an environment to do the right things – improve flow, improve quality of life of people, reduce waste and focus on continuous improvement. Virginia Mason was the first Health System to integrate Toyota management philosophy throughout its entire system. They created Virginia Mason Production System (VPMS) by combining TPS and elements from the philosophies of kaizen (see PSQI Hot Topic January, 2020; S.Tyzik) and lean to improve quality and safety, reduce the burden of work for team members, and decrease the cost of providing care.
In general, application of TPS in Healthcare is mainly focused on operational aspects using lean tools. A more integrative approach focused on task, structural, and cultural level of the organization is discussed below for successful implementation of TPS in Healthcare:
- All work must be highly specified as to content, sequence, timing, and outcome – accurate documentation of Patient’s medical record, developing processes to streamline the workflow, and tracking patient-centered outcome measures.
- Every customer-supplier connection must be direct, and there must be an unambiguous yes-or-no way to send requests and receive responses – direct communication between the patient and the caregiver, improved communication between caregivers regarding the patient’s condition and plan of care, and secured access to patient information.
- The pathway for every product and service must be simple and direct – develop and implement “Clinical Pathway” for each treatment initiative based on the “best practice” methodology.
- Any improvement must be made in accordance with the scientific method, under the guidance of a teacher, at the lowest possible level of the organization – identify quality improvement projects that focus on improving the workflow of front-line staff and patient safety.
The principles listed above specify how the work is performed (focused on patient care), how knowledge is transferred between workers and within the system (improving the quality of life of caregivers), how production is coordinated between tasks and services (improved flow within the system), and how the process is controlled, measured, and sustained (reduce waste and focus on continuous improvement). Therefore, approaching improvement efforts in healthcare using the principles listed above will create an environment for achieving the organization’s strategic goals much like Toyota – think, develop processes, develop people, and solve problems.
References:
- Jeffrey K Liker, Michael Hoseus “Toyota Culture – The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way”, edition 2008.
- Kevin F Collins, Senthil Kumar Muthusamy “Applying the Toyota Production System to a Healthcare Organization: Case Study on a Rural Community Healthcare Provider”, Quality Management Journal, 2007.
- Gabriela S Spagnol, Li Li Min, and David Newbold “Lean Principles in Healthcare: An Overview of Challenges and Improvements”, IFAC, 2013.
- Joanne Farley Serembus, Faye Meloy, and Bobbie Posmontier “Learning from Business: Incorporating the Toyota Production System into Nursing Curricula”, 2012.
- David M Clark, Kate Silvester, and Simon Knowles “Lean Management Systems: Creating a Culture of Continuous Quality Improvement”, 2013. | https://www.mitemmc.org/monthly-tips/integration-of-toyota-principles-in-healthcare-for-quality-improvement/ |
Healthcare is a vital part of life, with a complex network of facilities, manufacturers, institutions, professionals, and businesses that facilitate virtually every aspect of the practice. So, it is no surprise that this essential need has caused the rise of one of the biggest sectors of the market.
In the United States alone, around 18% of the country’s GDP was spent on healthcare—one of the highest percentages among OECD countries.
In the wake of the global pandemic and the current state of the market, it is critical for healthcare businesses to strike a balance between providing quality service and long-term growth and profitability. Identifying the possible obstacles to sustainable healthcare is a step towards building a lasting business that can meet the demands of a health-conscious public.
Given the complexity of the healthcare system, complications and obstacles can arise from the processes, structures, and labor involved in providing services.
Healthcare systems are continuously evolving and incorporating innovations and new strategies to streamline and improve processes. This can span the range of using software for managing healthcare data to conducting telemedicine consultations.
Bottlenecks can occur when employees and other healthcare professionals are unable or unwilling to adapt to these upgrades. In-house training for the new systems can help bridge possible knowledge gaps but can be costly and time-consuming.
Outsourcing these processes can ensure a smooth transition for the changes and a team of trained professionals who have an in-depth understanding of the new systems.
The healthcare system has increasingly relied on data for more than just improving patient care. This data is collected, managed, and analyzed by sustainable healthcare businesses to gain large-scale insights and trends in providing treatments, addressing healthcare concerns, and anticipating future needs.
One clear obstacle to this is acquiring and maintaining the necessary infrastructure to handle healthcare data. To better reach sustainability, healthcare businesses can opt to work with reputable outsourcing providers.
Not only do these providers have the means to store and collect patient data, but they can also perform data analytics that streamlines processes and lessen the risk of errors.
Read: 5 Benefits of Outsourcing Your Healthcare Analytics
Aside from providing care and other related services, it is critical for healthcare businesses to focus on their revenue cycle management (RCM). Following up payments, coordinating claims submissions, and compliance with billing requirements are necessary to ensure the sustainability of a healthcare business.
Upskilling current employees may pose a challenge for healthcare businesses, requiring both specialized knowledge and full-time dedication to the necessary tasks. Working with an outsourcing provider for RCM guarantees that skilled professionals fulfill these duties, avoid errors, and increase overall revenue.
Read: RCM Outsourcing Equals Healthcare Business Stability
In this increasingly digital age, cybersecurity has become a serious concern across industries. For the healthcare sector, collecting and managing patient data is not enough—it also must be protected. Safety measures for patient databases should be in place both within the existing data framework and employee standard operating procedures.
Failure to cover both fronts can result in catastrophic losses, such as the 2018 and 2021 data breaches under the United Kingdom’s National Health Services (NHS). Confidential patient records from thousands of people were wrongly shared with strangers, resulting in the NHS paying compensation to those affected.
A reliable outsourcing provider has the necessary protocols, certifications, and standards compliance to protect patient data from malicious third parties. They also have the necessary knowledge and skillset for prioritizing data security.
Read: How to Empower Patients while Securing Data in Healthcare
Patients look to healthcare businesses and providers for quality service that addresses their needs in a streamlined and straightforward manner. Aiming for sustainable healthcare involves creating a patient experience that inspires trust and nurtures a positive relationship between patient and provider.
Partnering with a specialized outsourcing provider makes it easier for healthcare businesses to sustain efforts to provide and improve the patient experience while remaining cost-effective.
Sustainable healthcare businesses understand the potential obstacles in their current system and address them by leveraging the latest technology and innovations in the industry. Outsourcing these technical needs can help companies to scale operations properly while remaining cost-effective.
The key to successfully outsourcing these requirements is to find the right outsourcing provider. Infinit-O can provide healthcare business solutions tailored to your needs. Key benefits of partnering with Infinit-O include:
With a roster of professionals and a highly communicative and collaborative process, your healthcare business can jumpstart its growth.
Start small. Exceed expectations. Think infinitely. Think Infinit-O.
Building a sustainable healthcare business in the digital age is not easy. Here are 5 bottlenecks to expect and how outsourcing can help you overcome each one. | https://resourcecenter.infinit-o.com/blog/bottlenecks-to-a-sustainable-healthcare-business/ |
COVID-19 has transformed the practices of healthcare professionals as well as the patient journey, leaving lasting impacts on the Quadruple Aim — cost, patient experience, population health and healthcare provider (HCP)/staff support.
As independent, private medical groups have seen a 60% decrease in patient volume through the COVID-19 outbreak, physicians are moving their practices to payer or health system models. Health systems deliver patient care as “payviders,” the combination of a payer and a provider, while also serving as the center of delivery for the Quadruple Aim. Payviders may become the central model for care delivery post-COVID-19 as financial gain encourages health systems to shift from volume to value-based care.
COVID-19 has also raised awareness of the need to improve population health by reducing comorbid conditions, such as obesity, and population health disparities in Black communities and other communities of color.
In an effort to limit patient and provider exposures during the pandemic, telehealth policies have been pushed to approval, providing greater treatment access to patients and improving patient/provider safety.
The final goal of the Quadruple Aim is to improve support for healthcare providers, clinicians and their staff to reduce burnout and increase job satisfaction. While practitioner burnout was reported before COVID-19, the pandemic has elevated this healthcare issue.
Read the full article by Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard Stefanacci to learn more about the effects of COVID-19 on the Quadruple Aim and what this means for the future of healthcare. | https://www.eversana.com/insights/impact-of-covid-19-on-the-quadruple-aim/ |
Our role is to deliver medical solutions that significantly improve peoples lives now, even as we develop innovations for the future.
Our approach is to develop local solutions, in partnership with local stake-holders, tailored to local needs, to provide sustainable improvements in health and in healthcare.
Our aim is for every person who needs our products to be able to access and benefit from them.
3
Access to healthcare
Access to healthcare
A global challengeSignificant breakthroughs in diagnosing and treating serious diseases, as well as improvements in the delivery of healthcare, have steadily improved health outcomes and increased life expectancy in recent decades. However, universal access to medical innovation and quality healthcare remains a global challenge.Healthcare resources and the demands on those resources vary widely from country to country, and even within countries. In some regions, the most sophisticated new medicines and diagnostic tests are readily available, while in others the healthcare infrastructure is so limited that basic medical care is still a luxury. These gaps may be growing as a rise in chronic diseases, combined with an ageing population, increased unemployment and economic pressures further aggravate inequalities in access to healthcare.
Improving access to effective, quality healthcare requires a combination of products, services, systems and resources in order to preserve or improve health, including: adequate awareness and understanding of disease, functioning healthcare systems and services (e.g. hospitals, clinics and laboratories), trained healthcare
workers, along with screening and patient support programmes, safe and effective medicines and diagnostics, clinical guidelines how to use them and reliable supply
channels, financial resources and government commitment to prioritise healthcare.
Improved health outcomes
Res
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& Health
care
Disease
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Diagnostic tools& Medicines
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7 11Our primary contribution is to develop new medicines and diagnostics that deliver significantly better treatment than those currently available. Our aim is to provide sustainable value by improving peoples health and by bringing clear medical and economic benefit to healthcare systems and society.
As affordability can be a barrier for patients and healthcare systems, we work closely with payers and other stakeholders to demonstrate the value of our products and determine reimbursement. We are also exploring new pricing models to help public and private payers, as well as self-pay patients afford treatment.
Helping uninsured patients with access
Treating Hepatitis C infection
Supporting cancer awareness
Educating healthcare workers
Access to breast cancer treatment
No-profit pricing for HIV medicines
Strengthening diagnostic capabilities
Delivering innovation Improving affordability
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Helping children with arthritis 25
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20 13
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Some of our activities around the world
No patents in least developed countries
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Combating HIV/AIDSin infants15
Establishing cancer insurance
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Access to healthcare
Jointly addressing the barriers
Shared responsibilityFinding equitable and sustainable solutions to the global barriers to healthcare can only be achieved through persistent commitment and action by multiple stakeholders. It requires all players public authorities, non-governmental stakeholders, local communities and the healthcare industry to work closely together.
Whilst governments have primary responsibility for establishing and maintaining healthcare systems, the healthcare industry plays an important role in improving health. As a global healthcare company, Roche shares a responsibility to tackle the challenges of improving health outcomes.
To succeed, we must jointly develop innovative, sustainable ways to bring effective and affordable healthcare to people and improve health outcomes.
Sustainable solutions, tailored locally Our products only benefit patients if they can access them. To achieve this, we work in various capacities with many different partners to reduce barriers that prevent people from being diagnosed or treated with our medicines. Our overriding objective is improved health outcomes.
Rather than adopting a single global approach, we pursue sustainable and comprehensive solutions that are tailored to local healthcare needs. These include a range of products and services, taking into account income levels, disease patterns and causes, political commitment to healthcare and healthcare infrastructure.
We seek to maintain a business model that is financially sustainable, balancing the needs of all stakeholders with our commitment to improve access. We focus our activities in the following areas:
Delivering innovation Improving affordability Strengthening healthcare infrastructure Increasing awareness and patient support
Access to breast cancer treatment
Functional healthcare systems, availability of facilities and trained healthcare professionals are critical for the effective use of tests, medicines and the delivery of quality care. We support a number of programmes aimed at making lasting improvements in local capabilities and help in developing sustainable healthcare systems.
Health education and patient support is as important to a patients outcome as proper medical diagnosis and treatment. We help increase public health awareness and advance the prevention, early detection and monitoring of diseases. Our aim is to empower people to safeguard and manage their own health.
Increasing awareness and patient support
Strengthening healthcare infrastructure
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Sustainable valueFor nearly 120 years, Roches primary contribution to improving global healthcare has been researching and developing new medicines and diagnostic tests that deliver significantly better treatment than those currently available. Only by continuing to create value through innovation can we continue to redefine the standard of care and continue to improve health outcomes.
Our products deliver value through therapeutic as well as economic benefits. For example, many of our products can make healthcare delivery more efficient through improving the mode of administration, or reducing the time patients spend in hospital. In addition, advances in science have led to Personalised Healthcare (PHC), where an accompanying diagnostic test is used to identify patients most likely to respond. This helps us to optimise the benefit for patients and ensure more efficient use of healthcare resources.
Our aim is to provide sustainable value by improving peoples health and by bringing clear medical and economic benefit to healthcare systems and society.
Delivering innovation
Access to healthcare | Delivering innovation
Access to healthcare | Delivering innovation
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Innovating science in areas of high medical needOur research and development (R&D) efforts are focused on translating our scientific understandings into new treatments in the areas of oncology, infectious diseases, cardiovascular diseases, metabolism and neuroscience. These disease areas are of epidemic concern globally. As life expectancy rises and lifestyles change they are expected to remain among the greatest burdens, affecting millions of people worldwide. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the biggest threat to health in low- and middle-income countries will be posed by chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and mental disorders.
Roche is helping drive global efforts to reduce the burden caused by these diseases. Read more about our R&D activities (www.roche.com/research_and_development)
Using Personalised Healthcare to target treatmentPersonalised Healthcare (PHC) aims to provide therapies that are tailored to different subgroups of patients. For some diseases, our diagnostic tests can identify those patients most likely to respond to a specific treatment or those more at risk of side effects caused by specific drug interventions. This helps physicians decide whom, how and when to treat their patients to deliver safer, more efficient treatment alternatives and ensure more efficient use of healthcare resources.
Diagnostics play a key role in developing targeted medicines and in combining drugs with sophisticated tests that assess whether a patient is likely to respond to treatment. Today, over 60% of our new compounds are developed in conjunction with a diagnostic test. Read more about PHC at Roche (www.roche.com/personalised_healthcare)
Helping patients access new medicines Each of our medicines must undergo a series of robust clinical trials to determine its safety and effectiveness before receiving approval by regulatory authorities. Every year around 320,000 people worldwide participate in our clinical trials, receiving standard of care treatment and potential access to our new medicines.
It is not possible, however, for all patients who might benefit from a new medicine to enrol in a clinical trial. Similarly, it is not possible to have clinical trials for all potential disease settings. | https://dokumen.tips/documents/improving-access-overcoming-barriers-roches-improving-access-overcoming.html |
Pioneering global best practices in atopic dermatitis (AD) and implementing them in the clinic are important steps towards optimising patient care. This satellite symposium, held as part of the 2020 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Virtual Congress, featured a panel of leading dermatology experts who discussed key findings from the recently published Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative.
Purpose and Mission of the Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative
Professor Emma Guttman
For many years, AD has been deprioritised in favour of services deemed more medically urgent. New systemic therapies that are able to effectively treat both the disease and its comorbidities have also become available. More recently, patient advocates have taken important steps to increase awareness of AD. However, to reap the full benefits from these changes, Prof Guttman explained that AD care itself must also evolve.
Against this backdrop, the Global Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative was conceived.1 Its vision is to demonstrate the imperative for, and to improve the quality of, AD care worldwide. The mission of the initiative is to catalogue, analyse, and report the challenges to and best practices for quality AD care from renowned healthcare centres around the world. These key findings will then be disseminated to educate other healthcare providers on the priorities and best practices needed to improve and maintain quality care in AD.
The Global Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative was overseen by an international steering group consisting of four leading AD experts with responsibility for guiding the initiative, providing practical clinical input, and evaluating the ensuing information. The study was conducted by KPMG, who carried out the collection, study, analysis, and interpretation of the data, as well as the preparation of the final report, which was commissioned and funded by Sanofi Genzyme and Regeneron.
The methodology of the initiative involved a five-step process.1 Firstly, a stringent literature review was carried out to understand current challenges and good practices in AD care. This was augmented by in-person site visits to leading international centres using structured interviews to document key data with the aim of learning good practice directly from medical leaders in the field. A total of 32 centres from 17 countries around the world were visited, including sites in the USA, Europe, South America, and Asia. The next step was the documentation of good practice interventions for AD care using specially created centre-specific reports and good practice case studies. These findings were then reviewed by the steering committee to ensure challenges and good practices were accurately captured and articulated. The final stage in the process was preparation of the finalised, comprehensive report, which is available online.
Global Challenges of Atopic Dermatitis and the Opportunities They Present to Improve Quality Care
Professor Mette Deleuran
Prof Deleuran discussed the four main challenges to quality of care that currently exist across the patient pathway in AD.
The first challenge is misconceptions regarding the causes and triggers of AD; people with AD can experience stigmatisation and isolation because of misconceptions that AD is contagious and are frequently affected by social and sexual issues. AD is also underappreciated by patients and often dismissed as simply a childhood disease. Even for healthcare professionals (HCP), AD can be difficult to explain and prone to misconceptions, not least because physicians themselves may have received limited training on the disease despite its prevalence. These issues are illustrated by findings from the Global Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative, in which the vast majority of centres (91%) acknowledged that patient knowledge of, and education on, AD is lacking. Over one-half of centres (56%) also reported a need for dedicated programmes to further enhance HCP education.1 Collectively, these medical and societal misconceptions around AD can often combine to exert a negative impact on a patient’s quality of life (QoL).
The second key obstacle to quality of care in AD is delayed referral and access to AD specialists. Across healthcare systems, primary care referral is typically required to secure access to an AD specialist; however, the referral process itself is often inefficient and swamped by overwhelming demand. Prof Deleuran explained that in many parts of the world it can be very difficult, or even impossible, to obtain an appointment with an AD specialist. Consequently, primary care physicians (PCP) remain the HCP most likely to encounter patients with AD, and misdiagnosis is commonplace. Several different diseases can mimic AD presentation, and individual patients often display widely disparate clinical manifestations. Accurately determining AD severity can prove particularly challenging for PCP. Together, these gaps in PCP education and healthcare system capabilities may hinder the ability of patients to receive timely referral and access to AD specialists.
The third critical issue is poor patient access to AD treatments coupled with suboptimal adherence. AD is associated with a significant treatment burden and patients often grow tired of regular and rigorous application of topicals that can be greasy, malodorous, and damaging to clothing. Fear of treatment side effects, in particular corticophobia, is another issue that can drive poor adherence and underdosing. Evidence indicates that corticophobia, which relates to worries and negative beliefs concerning topical corticosteroids, is present among both parents of children with AD and the HCP involved in caring for them.2 In some healthcare settings, AD treatment may also carry a direct financial burden for patients. For HCP, time constraints are a perpetual problem resulting in limited capacity for patient education, particularly on dosage expectations. Prof Deleuran conceded that the biggest challenge in a busy practice can often be finding time to talk to patients and parents and answer all of their questions. In this respect, nurses can prove a vital resource for improving channels of communication with patients. Within healthcare systems, there may be limited, variable, or indeed any coverage of or reimbursement for AD therapies, with limited treatment options for paediatric patients. Collectively, these shortcomings across healthcare systems lead to limited treatment options and access for patients with AD.
The fourth and final challenge to quality of care in AD is managing disease complexity and comorbidities to reduce the burden on patients. Prof Deleuran explained that there has been an increasing realisation in recent years that AD is a multisystem disease driven by type 2 inflammation and is associated with multiple comorbidities. It is important for HCP to recognise and respond to such potential comorbidities, including asthma and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, as well as mental health disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. For patients with AD, comorbidities can have an impact on multiple components of their QoL. The lifelong requirement for medical management also exerts a heavy toll on patients. Within healthcare systems, managing complexity of AD and its comorbidities may be confounded by limited availability or access to relevant specialists within the setting of a multidisciplinary team (MDT). The overall result is that HCP, patients, and healthcare systems alike are all adversely impacted by the intricate nature of AD health management.
Good Practice Implementation Priorities that Optimise Quality of Care in Atopic Dermatitis
Professor Eric Simpson
The Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative identified key challenges in achieving quality of care in AD that resonated with HCP globally. Prof Simpson reviewed five data-driven, good practice interventions devised to address these challenges and highlighted the important benefits they may yield. Interventions were organised into easy, difficult, and advanced steps that practising physicians can take to improve overall clinical care for their patients with AD.
Intervention 1 related to the clinical assessment and diagnosis of AD; easy steps that physicians could take to improve this aspect of care include taking a more nuanced clinical history, performing a thorough clinical assessment and evaluation of treatment response (what has worked, what has not, and why), and taking into consideration the psychological impact of AD. Prof Simpson stressed the importance of clinical assessment that encompasses the whole patient, focussing on accurately evaluating AD severity and understanding key disease drivers. More difficult next steps could include additional diagnostic assessments, such as patch testing for challenging cases or biopsy to rule out cutaneous T-cell lymphoma; shorter disease assessment tools; and consideration of the holistic impact of AD. Advanced interventions may involve diagnostic criteria assessments, comprehensive disease assessment tools, and a focus on the long-term impact of AD.
Prof Simpson highlighted patient-reported outcomes as particularly useful assessment tools for clinicians and noted that validated ‘AD control’ instruments are now available online that can help to objectively determine if a patient’s disease is well controlled. The potential benefits of improved clinical assessment and diagnosis for patients with AD include more timely and accurate diagnosis, quicker access to care, faster symptom relief, and improved QoL. In turn, HCP and healthcare systems stand to benefit from a reduced burden of misdiagnosis and costs, alongside an optimised disease management approach. Prof Simpson concluded that, above all, it is vital to ensure patients with AD receive a timely and accurate evaluation, diagnosis, and assessment of their disease using established instruments which will, in turn, accelerate access to care and prevent disease progression.
Intervention 2 aimed to wield the advantages afforded by a co-ordinated and structured MDT. Easy steps to enhance MDT collaboration include identifying appropriate specialists, pinpointing those providers who would make good AD team members, and assessing relevant comorbidities in clinical consultations. More difficult MDT implementation strategies could involve participating in meetings and training with external specialists, and collaborating in cross-speciality research. Multidisciplinary clinics, cross-speciality units, specialist patient teleconsultations, and cross-speciality patient group events represent examples of advanced MDT collaboration. Prof Simpson highlighted a number of examples of best practice in the area of MDT at all levels of intervention from participating centres in the study. These included increased involvement of nurse practitioners (Utrecht, the Netherlands), paediatric- and adult psychologist-led consultation and support groups (Sao Paulo, Brazil), and input from pharmacists to boost adherence to topical steroids (Barcelona, Spain). Patients managed in an MDT setting gain better access to diagnostic tests and advice from experts in their field, expedited treatment initiation, and a reduced travel burden. In turn, HCP and healthcare systems benefit from streamlined referrals and more efficient patient management, improved communications, a reduced burden on resources, less duplication, increased effectiveness, and lower costs. Prof Simpson concluded that MDT involvement is vital for complex patients. This would include a structured and co-ordinated approach that provides holistic patient care and co-ordination between treating HCP and specialists, who serve to streamline and improve patient health management.
Medicine is increasingly focussed on assessing delivered quality of care, noted Prof Simpson, and good-practice Intervention 3 reflects this by monitoring and evaluating care quality. Easy steps towards achieving this include defining care goals, processes, and outcomes; analysis of patient outcomes; and implementation of patient surveys and satisfaction questionnaires. More difficult and advanced approaches could include cross-centre evaluation and HCP assessment, ongoing patient databases, patient dashboards, and external audit of services. Implementing measures to monitor and evaluate care quality gives patients the opportunity to provide direct input that can improve their quality of care, thereby instilling greater confidence in the care provided. HCP benefit from improved patient outcomes, increased patient satisfaction, and better care efficiency, as well as the ability to deliver consistent standards of care. Overall, monitoring and evaluation within centres and amongst wider networks allow for continuous improvement, explained Prof Simpson. Consistent standards of care raise awareness of improvement areas yielding better patient outcomes, patient satisfaction, and care efficiency.
Intervention 4 centres on the important area of patient education and communication, with the aim of improving patient and caregiver understanding of AD and its effective management. Consultant-led patient education, patient intervention plans, referral to patient support groups, and question and answer opportunities are all simple patient education strategies that can be easily applied in daily clinical practice. More difficult and advanced approaches could include intensive educational initiatives, in-house patient support groups and technologies (e.g., bespoke digital apps), patient games and role play, expert patients, and satellite clinics. The benefits of better patient and caregiver education and communication are obvious, said Prof Simpson, because when patients understand something, adherence is greater and, in turn, outcomes are improved. HCP and healthcare systems therefore benefit from a reduced demand on time, services, and resources. Therefore, overall, better patient involvement in case decisions decreases the burden on patients, HCP, and healthcare systems alike, Prof Simpson concluded.
The final change identified by the Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative focusses on the importance of collaboration and exchange with patient groups. The simplest and easiest approach, which can be adopted anywhere, is for all AD treatment centres to routinely direct patients to patient advocacy groups, and vice versa. Prof Simpson emphasised that working collaboratively and exchanging information with patient groups educates and empowers patients and caregivers to actively participate in their AD. Patient access to the resources of patient groups also improves self-management, which in turn decreases clinical and healthcare system burden.
A detailed summary of these key high-priority good practice interventions is contained in the Quality of Care Initiative report.1
Launching the Global Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative
Professor Emma Guttman
Prof Guttman discussed the launch of the Global Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative, explaining that the final report from the initiative capturing best practice quality of care from all 32 involved treatment centres is now launched and available online.1
This interactive website contains all key results from the report, logically presented and fully searchable. Prof Guttman described the report as having very useful applications for everyday clinical practice, in particular for improving clinical care for patients with AD and stepping up treatment where required to maximise QoL and reduce the burden on both patients and wider society. The report also provides the opportunity to compare and contrast clinical practice in AD from around the world, noted Prof Guttman, allowing clinicians to understand regional differences and embrace examples of good practices wherever they occur.
Discussion
During discussions, all experts agreed that a shift in the landscape of care for AD is urgently needed and that the Global Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative will have an important role in delivering this. The availability of the report as a free reference tool accessible by all will also help to raise wider awareness of AD, which panel members highlighted as a key priority. Prof Simpson pointed out that the amalgamated experiences from 32 centres across 17 different countries show that similar clinical challenges in AD are being faced around the world and that the five key strategies outlined in the report can be used successfully to overcome these.
The panel agreed that AD care is entering an exciting era with the availability of improved treatment options but that more needs to be done to optimise outcomes from this expanding therapeutic armoury. Prof Guttman explained that a common misconception amongst patients, fuelled by short-duration clinical trials, is that AD is not a chronic disease and that symptoms will resolve, and treatment can be stopped within a set timeframe (6–12 weeks). Another challenge is that patients with very severe AD can tolerate a high disease burden, so even a slight improvement in symptoms may be seen as treatment success. There is a need to educate patients on these critical issues, said Prof Guttman, to ensure that adherence is maintained over the long term and treatment outcomes improve. On the subject of patient education, experts agreed that this is particularly important at the outset of the patient journey, when it is vital to outline good practices and treatment expectations. Prof Deleuran suggested that it was worth investing more time in education upfront and adopting a holistic approach involving nurses, dietitians, and other members of the MDT to improve overall outcomes for patients. Enhanced collaboration with patient groups and patient organisations was also highlighted as a key focus area by the panel, who emphasised the importance of ensuring teenage and adult patients are not overlooked. “As dermatologists, it is essential that we partner with patient organisations,” stressed Prof Guttman, “because, ultimately, to bring new drugs to patients we need to listen to the patients’ voices and understand the direction they want to go in.”
Considering comorbidities of AD, in particular the mental health impact, Prof Guttman explained that patients with depression can experience improvements in their depressive symptoms when they receive effective systemic AD therapies, especially if they present with severe AD that affects multiple aspects of their life. Therefore, it is important to understand that some of the comorbidities of AD are induced by the severity of the disease and once the condition is well controlled, these can be minimised or even resolved. Prof Simpson agreed that use of more aggressive therapy can often mitigate the impact of comorbidities on patients, in particular the mental health effects that can be directly attributed to the severity of skin disease.
All panel members acknowledged that primary care doctors currently have the biggest role in treating AD in the USA and Europe because of a lack of dermatologists. A key priority for specialists is therefore to educate general practitioners so that they can better help patients with AD in the primary care system. Disease severity assessment, rather than diagnosis per se, represents one of the biggest challenges currently faced in AD management. It needs to be emphasised that, irrespective of time constraints, assessing the full body surface area is key, said Prof Guttman. This is the single most important factor that indicates the need to step-up treatment from topicals. Prof Simpson concurred, explaining that by making better therapeutic decisions for patients, QoL will be significantly improved and ultimately lead to a cost burden reduction for the healthcare system if patients are well controlled.
Drawing the symposium to an end, panel members issued a call to colleagues around the world to access and read the Global Atopic Dermatitis Quality of Care Initiative report. Even those who are considered experts in AD can learn something from this initiative, concluded Prof Guttman, who stated that there is always scope to evolve and improve our practices to help all AD patients globally benefit from the best care possible. | https://www.emjreviews.com/dermatology/symposium/pioneering-best-practices-in-atopic-dermatitis-results-from-the-quality-of-care-initiative-j190221/ |
Part two of a two-part series on digital healthcare explores the patient journey and opportunities that arise from end-to-end transparency across health ecosystems.
Part one of this series set out the logic of putting patients at the centre of healthcare, describing the better outcomes — financially and medically — that accompany this shift. Another natural consequence is a focus on the patient’s journey, which may traverse different professionals, carers and organisations along the way. Here, in Part two, we explore the opportunities that arise when the patient’s journey is transparent and managed end-to-end.
Opening access to electronic patient records (EPR) in real time for health and care workers using everyday digital devices is the starting point in creating a view of a patient’s journey that’s transparent and visible, end-to-end. Augmenting care with capabilities such as scanning bar-coded objects from smartphones (enabling devices, drugs and patients within hospitals to be tracked), along with deep learning algorithms and augmented reality, yields a host of innovative healthcare scenarios.
Digital connects the patient journey
Will Smart, former chief information officer of the National Health Service (NHS) and now global director of Customer Engagement, Healthcare and Life Sciences at DXC Technology, sets the scene of how patient care looks when managed in this way. At present, healthcare is organised and managed episodically, consisting of a visit to the general practitioner (GP), an operation in hospital, and a series of community care visits, for example. All of these healthcare episodes are treated as discrete events, says Smart, whereas a well-managed healthcare system seeks to organise the patient journey as a set of “connected points of contact towards one destination.”
Admissions of elderly residents from care homes are one example of frequent and costly occurrences, as Smart describes. “Often care homes don’t have clinical professionals on-site. A common situation is for a resident to become acutely unwell, be taken to the emergency unit and be admitted for treatment. Often care homes don’t have clinical professionals on-site, meaning that the opportunity to intervene is lost before the resident becomes too unwell to stay at home because their health is not routinely monitored.”
Open the window into home-based care
As was described in part one of this series, consumer devices such as smartphones, either on their own or together with medical equipment plug-ins, mean that carers or patients can monitor temperature, blood pressure and pulse at home. If a pattern of physiological measurements indicates, or a threshold is breached, a district nurse or general practitioner could be called to intervene, potentially avoiding an expensive and distressing hospitalisation.
Digital devices can be used as part of a virtual ward to remotely monitor the health of patients who would otherwise be admitted to the hospital, enabling them to stay at home. Clinicians would have access to the patient’s physiological measurements, captured through a telehealth platform, and could see whether and when they need to intervene. The virtual ward is a better experience for the patient and makes a better use of expensive hospital resources.
In both of these scenarios, the first port of call is no longer the hospital, and the sharing of real-time data with health and social care professionals involved in a citizen’s care will bring wholesale changes to the patient journey.
Social determinants inform the journey
The World Health Organisation and other institutes confirm the powerful role that social determinants play in health outcomes: according to the Health Foundation, social isolation is associated with a 30 per cent increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Digital technologies promise to cheaply and effectively connect patients with agencies and professionals from different spheres, improving their health and employment chances, and creating a lifelong well-being journey.
Smart explains that if about 20 per cent of an individual’s well-being is related to the quality of healthcare and clinicians, then the other 80 per cent is influenced by social factors such as employment, housing, networks and neighbourhood. “The more we can understand and engage each citizen, the greater the opportunity to nudge individuals to make [the] right decisions to support their own health and well-being.”
It might be about taking medicine regularly, but equally it will be about accessing and engaging with services within their community. As Smart points out, “We have a medicalised view of healthcare and think it’s about doctors doing clever things. But it’s about so much more — helping people get access to services so they can live as healthy a life as possible.”
Societal benefits arise from joined-up journeys
The bigger, and equally exciting, picture of the digitally connected and transparent patient journey is one of a vastly reduced national health bill, and greater economic prosperity. Eliminating duplication or “counter-prescriptions” (that act against each other) of medication by unconnected parties is wasteful, while non-adherence is costly. Making earlier interventions in healthcare also produces better outcomes, liberating money for new research and treatments.
Connected ecosystems are financially beneficial because they enable different agencies to work better together and share the rewards of patient outcomes; professionals and agencies working across one network can share the economies yielded by disease prevention and avoidance of hospitalisations. Health workers, patients and supply chain members, enabled by consumer devices, can work together transparently across networks to deliver economies in new models that may peg healthcare costs to patient outcomes.
Shared ecosystems improve employee experiences
A final, but by no means trivial, aspect of a seamless and transparent patient journey is the higher levels of satisfaction it affords for patients and health workers. Says Smart. “When patients are surveyed, the scores spike at the touch points when they interact with clinicians — typically the process of administration and appointment management would score badly. Using digital to get the patient in front of right clinician would potentially be an easy win for patient experience.”
Equally, the aspects of their job that health workers like least are those where they think they add the least value. So, taking the paperwork and bureaucratic drudgery out of managing patients and letting the workers deliver care would improve the satisfaction of employees, too. Removing bureaucracy from the system would drive efficiency, making health systems more streamlined and liberating healthcare professionals to focus on care.
Digitally enabled patient journeys and care ecosystems are part of a new terrain and present fresh challenges that must be navigated. These include handling data privacy and patient consent securely, and sharing healthcare costs and savings (from better outcomes) equitably among healthcare actors. The advantages of moving from mammoth and separate healthcare systems to extended and connected patient journeys are huge — and the journey has already started. | https://thrive.dxc.technology/eur/2020/07/15/from-separate-to-connected-improve-care-on-patient-journey/ |
Abstract:
We proposed that individuals from upper-class backgrounds are more effective at job search than their working-class counterparts in the white-collar labor market. We further proposed that this is partly because upper-class individuals adopt different job search strategies. Our predictions were tested with a time-lagged multisource survey (Study 1) and a 4-wave, 2-month longitudinal survey (Study 2) of business student job seekers. Study 1 found that parental income strengthened the relationship between job search intensity and job search success and that this interaction was mediated by a less haphazard job search strategy. Parental income also strengthened the relationship between job interviews and job offers. Study 2 mostly replicated these findings while showing that the effects generalize to other facets of class background. Study 2 additionally explored mechanisms for why working-class individuals use a more haphazard job search strategy. Although class background positively predicted social capital and social capital negatively predicted a haphazard strategy, social capital did not mediate the negative relationship between class background and a haphazard strategy. Finally, although working-class individuals use a more haphazard strategy on average, exploratory analyses show that those with high psychological capital start with a more haphazard strategy but progress to a low haphazard strategy within two months - on par with upper-class individuals. Conversely, working-class individuals with low psychological capital maintained a more haphazard approach over time. Our findings add new insights into how individuals can conduct a more effective job search and why class inequality remains so durable.
Share the Gain but Shun the Pain: Workplace Inequality in Pay Growth
Jie He, Lei Li & Tao Shu
Federal Reserve Working Paper, November 2020
Abstract:
Using granular, individual-level compensation data, we study the within-firm difference in pay growth between executives and non-executive employees (i.e., “pay growth gap”). Our results reveal an asymmetric relation between a firm’s pay growth gap and the “skill” (idiosyncratic) component of its stock returns, suggesting that executives, relative to employees, are rewarded by high pay growth when firms perform well but not penalized as much by pay cuts when firms perform poorly. This asymmetric relation becomes more pronounced when firms have weaker corporate governance. Our evidence suggests that managerial rent extraction is an important driver of the within-firm pay growth inequality.
Are They All Like Bill, Mark, and Steve? The Education Premium for Entrepreneurs
Claudio Michelacci & Fabiano Schivardi
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We calculate the average yearly income obtained by entrepreneurs during their venture using the Survey of Consumer Finances since the late 1980s. We find that the premium for postgraduate education has increased substantially more for entrepreneurs than for employees. Today an entrepreneur with a postgraduate degree earns on average $100,000 a year more than one with a college degree. The difference more than doubles at the higher quantiles of the income distribution. In the late 1980s, differences were close to zero. The rise in the postgraduate premium is mainly due to increased complementarity between higher education and past labor market experience.
Corporate Taxation and the Distribution of Income
James Hines
NBER Working Paper, October 2020
Abstract:
Higher corporate taxes reduce corporate business operations, replacing them with operations by noncorporate businesses that are risky and have undiversified ownership. This shift contributes to income dispersion, with effects so large that higher corporate taxes can increase income inequality even when the corporate tax burden falls entirely on capital owned disproportionately by the rich. Estimates suggest that the riskiness of U.S. noncorporate business increases by 12.3% the aggregate income of the top one percent, and that income dispersion created by a higher U.S. corporate tax rate offsets more than half of the distributional effects of reducing average returns to capital.
Trends in US Income and Wealth Inequality: Revising After the Revisionists
Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman
NBER Working Paper, October 2020
Abstract:
Recent studies argue that US inequality has increased less than previously thought, in particular due to a more modest rise of wealth and capital income at the top (Smith et al., 2019; Smith, Zidar and Zwick, 2020; Auten and Splinter, 2019). We examine the claims made in these papers point by point, separating genuine improvements from arguments that do not appear to us well grounded empirically or conceptually. Taking stock of this body of work, and factoring in other improvements, we provide a comprehensive update of our estimates of US income and wealth inequality. Although some of the points raised by the revisionists are valuable, the core quantitative findings of this literature do not appear to be supported by the data. The low capital share of private business income estimated in Smith et al. (2019) is not consistent with the large capital stock of these businesses. In Smith, Zidar and Zwick (2020), the interest rate assigned to the wealthy is higher than in the datasets where both income and wealth can be observed, leading to downward biased top wealth shares; capitalizing equities using almost only dividends dramatically underestimates the wealth of billionaires relative to the Forbes 400. In Auten and Splinter (2019), business profits earned by the top 1% but not taxable (due in particular to generous depreciation rules) are classified as tax evasion; tax evasion is then allocated to the bottom 99% based on an erroneous reading of random audit data. Our revised series show a rise of inequality similar to Saez and Zucman (2016) and Piketty, Saez, and Zucman (2018) while allowing for a more granular depiction of the composition of wealth and income at the top.
The changing geography of social mobility in the United States
Dylan Shane Connor & Michael Storper
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
New evidence shows that intergenerational social mobility - the rate at which children born into poverty climb the income ladder - varies considerably across the United States. Is this current geography of opportunity something new or does it reflect a continuation of long-term trends? We answer this question by constructing data on the levels and determinants of social mobility across American regions over the 20th century. We find that the changing geography of opportunity-generating economic activity restructures the landscape of intergenerational mobility, but factors associated with specific regional structures of interpersonal and racial inequality that have “deep roots” generate persistence. This is evident in the sharp decline in social mobility in the Midwest as economic activity has shifted away from it and the consistently low levels of opportunity in the South even as economic activity has shifted toward it. We conclude that the long-term geography of social mobility can be understood through the deep roots and changing economic fortunes of places.
The Direct Effect of Taxes and Transfers on Changes in the U.S. Income Distribution, 1967-2015
Christopher Wimer et al.
Demography, October 2020, Pages 1833-1851
Abstract:
Scholars have increasingly drawn attention to rising levels of income inequality in the United States. However, prior studies have provided an incomplete account of how changes to specific transfer programs have contributed to changes in income growth across the distribution. Our study decomposes the direct effects of tax and transfer programs on changes in the household income distribution from 1967 to 2015. We show that despite a rising Gini coefficient, lower-tail inequality (the ratio of the 50th to 10th percentile) declined in the United States during this period due to the rise of in-kind and tax-based transfers. Food assistance and refundable tax credits account for nearly all the income growth between 1967 and 2015 at the 5th percentile and roughly one-half the growth at the 10th percentile. Moreover, income gains near the bottom of the distribution are concentrated among households with children. Changes in the income distribution were far less progressive among households without children.
Social Security and the increasing longevity gap
Eytan Sheshinski & Frank Caliendo
Journal of Public Economic Theory, forthcoming
Abstract:
Growth in overall life expectancy is straining the Social Security budget, and the gap in life expectancy between the rich and poor is widening. Motivated by these facts, this paper does four things. First, we develop a simple way to summarize the degree of progressivity in a Social Security system. Second, we show that growth in the life expectancy gap over the last few decades unwinds three‐quarters of the progressivity of the Social Security system. Third, we develop simple reforms to Social Security that maintain the progressivity of the system and restore fiscal solvency. Fourth, we estimate the welfare effects of these potential reforms.
The Association of Perceived Neighborhood Safety and Inequality with Personality
Curtis Dunkel et al.
Evolutionary Psychological Science, December 2020, Pages 354-366
Abstract:
The relationship between neighborhood quality and personality was explored using a large nationally representative sample of midlife adults, namely, the data from the Midlife in the United States Longitudinal Study of Health and Well-Being. A multilevel approach was used to track correlations between fluctuations in perceived neighborhood safety and inequality and personality across three points in time. As predicted from life history theory, personality fluctuated along with perceived neighborhood safety and inequality such that the general factor of personality decreased as neighborhood safety decreased and neighborhood inequality increased. In a second set of analyses, monozygotic twin difference scores were used to control for possible genetic confounds. It was found that the twin who reported the greatest neighborhood safety and least neighborhood inequality also had the highest general factor of personality. Future research could be directed at identifying and remediating the specific aspects of the neighborhood that may increase the risk of negative changes in functioning.
Internal Migration, Education, and Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from American History
Zachary Ward
Journal of Human Resources, forthcoming
Abstract:
To what extent does internal migration lead to upward mobility? Using within-brother variation and a new linked dataset from the early 20th century, I show that internal migration led to significant gains in economic status. On average, the effect of migration was three-to-four times the effect of one year of education; for those raised in poorer households, the effect was up to ten times that of education. The evidence suggests that internal migration was a key strategy for intergenerational progress in a context of rapid industrialization, large rural-to-urban flows and wide interregional income gaps.
Conflict, what conflict?: Evidence that playing down ‘conflict’ can be a weapon of choice for high‐status groups
Andrew Livingstone, Joseph Sweetman & Alexander Haslam
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three studies using pre‐existing (Studies 1 and 3) and minimal (Study 2) groups tested the hypothesis that ingroup status shapes whether ‘conflict’ with an outgroup is strategically acknowledged or downplayed. As predicted, high (vs. low) ingroup status led group members to downplay conflict, but only to an outgroup rather than ingroup audience (Studies 1 & 2; Ns = 127 & 292), and only when the status difference was unstable (vs. stable) and the outgroup’s action was perceived as illegitimate (Study 2). High‐status group members also collectively communicated with the outgroup in a manner designed to defuse conflict (Study 2). Survey data of industrial (manager‐worker) relations further indicated that company managers (high‐status) characterized manager-worker relations as less conflictual than did workers (low‐status) in the same companies (Study 3; N = 24,661). Findings imply that high‐status groups play down conflict as a ‘benevolent’ (but unacknowledged) means of maintaining intergroup status hierarchies.
Neurobiological origins of individual differences in mathematical ability
Michael Skeide et al.
PLoS ONE, October 2020
Abstract:
Mathematical ability is heritable and related to several genes expressing proteins in the brain. It is unknown, however, which intermediate neural phenotypes could explain how these genes relate to mathematical ability. Here, we examined genetic effects on cerebral cortical volume of 3-6-year-old children without mathematical training to predict mathematical ability in school at 7-9 years of age. To this end, we followed an exploration sample (n = 101) and an independent replication sample (n = 77). We found that ROBO1, a gene known to regulate prenatal growth of cerebral cortical layers, is associated with the volume of the right parietal cortex, a key region for quantity representation. Individual volume differences in this region predicted up to a fifth of the behavioral variance in mathematical ability. Our findings indicate that a fundamental genetic component of the quantity processing system is rooted in the early development of the parietal cortex.
Economic Threat Heightens Conflict Detection: sLORETA evidence
Kyle Nash et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, September 2020, Pages 981-990
Abstract:
Economic threat has far-reaching emotional and social consequences, yet the impact of economic threat on neurocognitive processes has received little empirical scrutiny. Here, we examined the causal relationship between economic threat and conflict detection, a critical process in cognitive control associated with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Participants (N = 103) were first randomly assigned to read about a gloomy economic forecast (Economic Threat condition) or a stable economic forecast (No-Threat Control condition). Notably, these forecasts were based on real, publicly available economic predictions. Participants then completed a passive auditory oddball task comprised of frequent standard tones and infrequent, aversive white-noise bursts, a task that elicits the N2, an event-related potential (ERP) component linked to conflict detection. Results revealed that participants in the Economic Threat condition evidenced increased activation source localized to the ACC during the N2 to white-noise stimuli. Further, ACC activation to conflict mediated an effect of Economic Threat on increased justification for personal wealth. Economic threat thus has implications for basic neurocognitive function. Discussion centers on how effects on conflict detection could shed light on the broader emotional and social consequences of economic threat. | https://www.nationalaffairs.com/blog/detail/findings-a-daily-roundup/sharing-economy |
Despite social inequality in health being well documented, it is still debated which causal mechanism best explains the negative association between socioeconomic position (SEP) and health. This paper is concerned with testing the explanatory power of three widely proposed causal explanations for social inequality in health in adulthood: the social causation hypothesis (SEP determines health), the health selection hypothesis (health determines SEP) and the indirect selection hypothesis (no causal relationship). We employ dynamic data of respondents aged 30 to 60 from the last nine waves of the British Household Panel Survey. Household income and location on the Cambridge Scale is included as measures of different dimensions of SEP and health is measured as a latent factor score. The causal hypotheses are tested using a time-based Granger approach by estimating dynamic fixed effects panel regression models following the method suggested by Anderson and Hsiao. We propose using this method to estimate the associations over time since it allows one to control for all unobserved time-invariant factors and hence lower the chances of biased estimates due to unobserved heterogeneity. The results showed no proof of the social causation hypothesis over a one to five year period and limited support for the health selection hypothesis was seen only for men in relation to HH income. These findings were robust in multiple sensitivity analysis. We conclude that the indirect selection hypothesis may be the most important in explaining social inequality in health in adulthood, indicating that the well-known cross-sectional correlations between health and SEP in adulthood seem not to be driven by a causal relationship, but instead by dynamics and influences in place before the respondents turn 30 years old that affect both their health and SEP onwards. The conclusion is limited in that we do not consider the effect of specific diseases and causal relationships in adulthood may be present over a longer timespan than 5 years. | https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/publications/524299 |
It is often pointed out that conclusions about intergenerational (parent–child) mobility can differ depending on whether we base them on studies of class or income. We analyze empirically the degree of overlap in income and social mobility; we demonstrate mathematically the nature of their relationship; and we show, using simulations, how intergenerational income correlations relate to relative social mobility rates. Analyzing Swedish longitudinal register data on the incomes and occupations of over 300,000 parent–child pairs, we find that social mobility accounts for up to 49 percent of the observed intergenerational income correlations. This figure is somewhat greater for a fine-graded micro-class classification than a five-class schema and somewhat greater for women than men. There is a positive relationship between intergenerational social fluidity and income correlations, but it is relatively weak. Our empirical results, and our simulations verify that the overlap between income mobility and social mobility leaves ample room for the two indicators to move in different directions over time or show diverse patterns across countries. We explain the circumstances in which income and social mobility will change together or co-vary positively and the circumstances in which they will diverge.
We study the biases that arise in estimates of social inequalities in children's cognitive ability test scores due to (i) children's misreporting of socio-economic origin and (ii) parents' nonresponse. Unlike most previous studies, we are able to draw on linked register data with high reliability and almost no missingness and thereby jointly consider the impact of measurement error and nonresponse. Using data on 14-year-olds (n = 18,716) from a new survey conducted in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden (Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries), we find that child reports on parental occupation are well aligned with parents' reports in all countries, but reports on parental education less so. This leads to underestimation of socio-economic disparities when child reports of education are used, but not occupation. Selective nonresponse among parents turns out to be a real problem, resulting in similar underestimation. We also investigate conditional estimates of immigrant-non-immigrant disparities, which are surprisingly little affected by measurement error or nonresponse in socio-economic control variables. We conclude that school-based surveys on teenagers are well advised to include questions on parental occupation, while the costs for carrying out parental questionnaires may outweigh the gains.
Drawing on comparative analyses from nine Western countries, we ask whether local-born children from a wide range of immigrant groups show patterns of female advantage in education that are similar to those prevalent in their host Western societies. We consider five outcomes throughout the educational career: test scores or grades at age 15, continuation after compulsory schooling, choice of academic track in upper-secondary education, completion of upper secondary, and completion of tertiary education. Despite great variation in gender gaps in education in immigrants’ origin countries (with advantages for males in many cases), we find that the female advantage in education observed among the majority population is usually present among second-generation immigrants. We interpret these findings in light of ideas about gender role socialization and immigrant selectivity.
Previous studies have found that intergenerational income persistence is relatively high in the United States and Britain, especially as compared to Nordic countries. We compare the association between family income and sons' earnings in the United States (National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979), Britain (British Cohort Study 1970), and Sweden (Population Register Data, 1965 cohort), and find that both income elasticities and rank-order correlations are highest in the United States, followed by Britain, with Sweden being clearly more equal. We ask whether differences in educational inequality and in return to qualifications can explain these cross-country differences. Surprisingly, we find that this is not the case, even though returns to education are higher in the United States. Instead, the low income mobility in the United States and Britain is almost entirely due to the part of the parent-son association that is not mediated by educational attainment. In the United States and especially Britain, parental income is far more important for earnings at a given level of education than in Sweden, a result that holds also when controlling for cognitive ability. This goes against widespread ideas of the United States as a country where the role of ascription is limited and meritocratic stratification prevails.
The authors ask whether choice-driven education systems, with comprehensive schools and mass education at the secondary and tertiary level, represented in this article by England and Sweden, provide educational opportunities for ethnic minorities. In studying educational attainment, the authors make a theoretical distinction between mechanisms connected with school performance on the one hand (primary effects) and educational choice, given performance, on the other (secondary effects). Using large national data sets and recently developed methods, they show that performance effects tend to depress the educational attainment of most, although not all, ethnic minorities, whereas choice effects increase the transition rates of these students. This pattern is repeated at the transition to university education. These results are true for many immigrant categories in both England and Sweden, although immigrant students are a heterogeneous group. Black Caribbean students in England and children of Turkish and South American descent in Sweden fare worst, while several Asian groups do extremely well. The authors conclude that it may be a generic feature of choice-driven school systems in Western societies to benefit non-European immigrants, and they discuss some possible explanations for this.
In many countries there have been massive changes toward support for the expansionist view, most recently during the 1990s and onwards, where politicians in England and Sweden have gone so far as to claim that at least half of a cohort should pursue tertiary level education. In fact, equality and expansion are intrinsically intertwined, but not because expansion leads to equality. Instead, what is argued here is that, if university education is to expand at the same time as academic standards are upheld, equalization is a necessary condition. It is the aim of this chapter to summarize recent sociological theory and empirical evidence on social and ethnic inequality in education in order to highlight the relation between equalization and expansion. In doing that, I will also discuss what potential institutional changes in the educational system have for the pursuit of educational expansion.
We ask whether a social contrast mechanism depresses the educational aspirations of students with high-achieving peers. We study two entire cohorts of students in the final grade of the Swedish comprehensive school with matched information on social origin and achievements (160,417 students, 829 schools). Controlling for school fixed effects and observed characteristics of students and families, we find that the propensity to make a high-aspiring choice of upper-secondary school program is lower for students with high-achieving schoolmates, given own achievement. While theoretically interesting, the effect is small compared to that of own achievement: Moving an average student from an average school to a school that lies one standard deviation lower in achievement increases the probability of a high-aspiring choice by three percentage points.
Summary
• Has poverty increased or decreased in Sweden during the last two decades? The answer to this question depends on the definition of poverty. In relative terms poverty has increased due to increasing income differences.
• Between 5 and 11 per cent of the population ended up in absolute poverty between 1991 and 2007. The proportions were much higher for those living alone, for young adults, and for immigrants, particularly those newly arrived.
• Half of the poor leave poverty already the year after entry. The group of poor therefore is composed to a large extent by those who are long-term poor. For those who have once been poor, the risk is high to return to poverty.
• Poverty is strongly associated with economic recession and growth. When the macroeconomic conditions are favourable fewer become poor and the persistence in poverty decreases.
• Long-term poverty, defined in absolute terms, has decreased but become more concentrated to those living alone and to immigrants. Among immigrants, persistence is higher than among those born in Sweden.
• An individual’s incomes and risk of poverty are associated with the household incomes during childhood. Those who grow up poor have excess risks for ending up poor as adults. The probability of ending up as high-income earners is much higher for those who grew up under such advantaged conditions themselves as compared to others.
• Intergenerational income mobility increased between 1995 and 2005, approximately, but whereas inequality of opportunity thus decreased the economic consequences of the income background grew.
We study cross-sectional and long-term poverty in Sweden over a period spanning two recessions, and discuss changes in the policy context. We find large increases in absolute poverty and deprivation during the 1990’s recession but much smaller increases in 2008-2010. While increases in non-employment contributed to increasing poverty in the 1990’s, the temporary poverty increase 2008-2010 was entirely due to growing poverty among non-employed. Relative poverty has increased with little variation across business cycles. Outflow from poverty and long-term poverty respond quickly to macro-economic recovery, but around one percent of the working-aged are quite resistant to such improvements.
We ask how the advantages and disadvantages in the educational careers of children of immigrants in Sweden are produced, making a theoretical distinction between mechanisms connected with school performance on one hand, and educational choice on the other. Using a new data set, covering six full cohorts of Swedish-born ninth-graders in 1998–2003 (N¼612,730), with matched school-Census information, we show that children of non-European immigrant origin are disadvantaged in their school performance but advantaged in their choice of academic upper secondary education. They have lower and more often incomplete grades, which force a sizeable proportion—10–20 per cent—into non-meritorious tracks or lead them to leave school. Given grades, children of non-European background make heterogeneous choices: many do not enrol in upper secondary education, but among those who do the propensity is high that they choose academic studies before vocational. In contrast, children of the ‘old’ (chiefly Nordic) labour immigrants are similar to the majority group in their equal preference for these two routes. A school system where choice plays a significant role appears to be advantageous for the often high-aspiring second-generation immigrant students, but greater efforts to reduce early achievement differences may still alleviate ethnic minority disadvantages.
We propose a strategy for studying the level of living of young people based on survey information from children themselves, combined with information from parents and administrative records. In this way, children become the prime informants of their own conditions, at the same time as we get reliable information on their family context, such as the household economy and parental characteristics, from other sources. We base our over-arching theoretical idea on a definition of level of living in terms of command over resources in several areas of life; resources with which children can actively shape their own lives, according to age and maturity. The focus on scope of action leads us to prefer descriptive rather than evaluative indicators. We define empirical indicators along eight broad dimensions of the level of living of young people which we use in a survey of 10–18-year-olds, the Swedish Child-LNU (n = 1,304, response rate = 76,6%), connected to the Level-of-Living Survey, LNU2000, done on adults, i.e., the children’s parents. We report descriptive results showing that the overall level of living of young people in Sweden is very high, but that children to lone parents and immigrants lag behind on some indicators. A worry for the future is the relatively high incidence of poor psychological well-being and psychosomatic problems.
Children of immigrant background, despite problems with acculturation, poverty, and discrimination, have better mental health than children of native parents. We asked whether this is a result of immigrant families' characteristics such as family structure and relations. Using a new comparative study on the integration of immigrant-background youth conducted in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden (N= 18,716), particularly strong associations with mental health (internalizing and externalizing problems) were found for family structure, family cohesion, and parental warmth. Overall, half of the advantage in internalizing and externalizing problems among immigrant-background youth could be accounted for by our measures of family structure and family relations, with family cohesion being particularly important.
Poverty is commonly defined as a lack of economic resources that has negative social consequences, but surprisingly little is known about the importance of economic hardship for social outcomes. This article offers an empirical investigation into this issue. We apply panel data methods on longitudinal data from the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey 2000 and 2010 (n = 3089) to study whether poverty affects four social outcomes-close social relations (social support), other social relations (friends and relatives), political participation, and activity in organizations. We also compare these effects across five different poverty indicators. Our main conclusion is that poverty in general has negative effects on social life. It has more harmful effects for relations with friends and relatives than for social support; and more for political participation than organizational activity. The poverty indicator that shows the greatest impact is material deprivation (lack of cash margin), while the most prevalent poverty indicators-absolute income poverty, and especially relative income poverty-appear to have the least effect on social outcomes.
We use several family-based indicators of household poverty as well as child-reported economic resources and problems to unravel child poverty trends in Sweden. Our results show that absolute (bread-line) household income poverty, as well as economic deprivation, increased with the recession 1991–96, then reduced and has remained largely unchanged since 2006. Relative income poverty has however increased since the mid-1990s. When we measure child poverty by young people’s own reports, we find few trends between 2000 and 2011. The material conditions appear to have improved and relative poverty has changed very little if at all, contrasting the development of household relative poverty. This contradictory pattern may be a consequence of poor parents distributing relatively more of the household income to their children in times of economic duress, but future studies should scrutinze potentially delayed negative consequences as poor children are lagging behind their non-poor peers. Our methodological conclusion is that although parental and child reports are partly substitutable, they are also complementary, and the simultaneous reporting of different measures is crucial to get a full understanding of trends in child poverty.
This chapter analyses the role of cognitive ability, personality traits, and physical characteristics in transmission of socioeconomic status – measured as the intergenerational correlation between father’s and sons’ income and educational attainment, respectively. We find that the intergenerational educational correlation is mostly mediated by cognitive ability, while personality traits and physical characteristics are of little importance. The income correlation is mediated by cognitive ability too, but also by personality traits – and our analyses suggest that characteristics such as social maturity, emotional stability, and leadership capacity gain their importance directly in the labour market rather than through schooling. An interesting finding is that father’s income has a persistent and non-negligible effect on sons’ income despite very extensive controls for other parental characteristics (such as education, social class and occupation) and for other important mediators.
The mental health of children of immigrant background compared to their majority peers is an important indicator of integration. We analyse internalizing and externalizing problems in 14–15-year-olds from England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden (n = 18,716), using new comparative data (Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries). Studying more than 30 different origin countries, we find that despite potential problems with acculturation and social stress, children of immigrants—particularly from geographically and culturally distant countries—report systematically fewer internalizing and externalizing problems than the majority population, thus supporting the ‘immigrant health paradox’ found in some studies. However, surprisingly, we do not find that this minority advantage changes with time in the destination country. Externalizing problems are most prevalent in our English sample, and overall Swedish adolescents show the least mental health problems. A plausible account of our results is that there is a positive selection of immigrants on some persistent and intergenerationally transferable characteristic that invokes resilience in children.
Increasing immigration and school ethnic segregation have raised concerns about the social integration of minority students. We examined the role of immigrant status in social exclusion and the moderating effect of classroom immigrant density among Swedish 14-15-year olds (n = 4795, 51 % females), extending conventional models of exclusion by studying multiple outcomes: victimization, isolation, and rejection. Students with immigrant backgrounds were rejected more than majority youth and first generation non-European immigrants were more isolated. Immigrants generally experienced more social exclusion in immigrant sparse than immigrant dense classrooms, and victimization increased with higher immigrant density for majority youth. The findings demonstrate that, in addition to victimization, subtle forms of exclusion may impede the social integration of immigrant youth but that time in the host country alleviates some risks for exclusion.
We ask whether ethnic density in Swedish comprehensive schools affect teacher-assigned school grades in ninth grade (age 16). The data, based on two entire cohorts who graduated in 1998 and 1999 (188,000 pupils and 1,043 schools), link school information with Census data on social origin, and enable us to distinguish first- from second generation immigrants.
Using multilevel analysis we find the proportion of first, but not the second, generation immigrant pupils in a school to depress grades in general, but particularly for (first generation) immigrant pupils. Passing a threshold of more than 40 percent immigrants reduces grades with around a fifth of a standard deviation, affecting fourteen percent of immigrant children. Our main results are robust to model specifications which address omitted variable bias both at individual- and school-level. One policy implication of our results is that desegregation policies which concentrated on the two per cent most segregated schools would probably improve school results and reduce ethnic inequality. | http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/resultList.jsf?af=%5B%5D&aq=%5B%5B%7B%22personId%22%3A%22Janne%22%7D%5D%5D&aqe=%5B%5D&aq2=%5B%5B%5D%5D&language=en&query= |
Abstract:
Throughout the world people differ in the magnitude with which they value strong family ties or heightened religiosity. We propose that this cross-cultural variation is a result of a contingent psychological adaptation that facilitates in-group assortative sociality in the face of high levels of parasite-stress while devaluing in-group assortative sociality in areas with low levels of parasite-stress. This is because in-group assortative sociality is more important for the avoidance of infection from novel parasites and for the management of infection in regions with high levels of parasite-stress compared with regions of low infectious disease stress. We examined this hypothesis by testing the predictions that there would be a positive association between parasite-stress and strength of family ties or religiosity. We conducted this study by comparing among nations and among states in the United States of America. We found for both the international and the interstate analyses that in-group assortative sociality was positively associated with parasite-stress. This was true when controlling for potentially confounding factors such as human freedom and economic development. The findings support the parasite-stress theory of sociality, that is, the proposal that parasite-stress is central to the evolution of social life in humans and other animals.
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Do Economic Equality and Generalized Trust Inhibit Academic Dishonesty? Evidence From State-Level Search-Engine Queries
Lukas Neville
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
What effect does economic inequality have on academic integrity? Using data from search-engine queries made between 2003 and 2011 on Google and state-level measures of income inequality and generalized trust, I found that academically dishonest searches (queries seeking term-paper mills and help with cheating) were more likely to come from states with higher income inequality and lower levels of generalized trust. These relations persisted even when controlling for contextual variables, such as average income and the number of colleges per capita. The relation between income inequality and academic dishonesty was fully mediated by generalized trust. When there is higher economic inequality, people are less likely to view one another as trustworthy. This lower generalized trust, in turn, is associated with a greater prevalence of academic dishonesty. These results might explain previous findings on the effectiveness of honor codes.
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Social Class Predicts Generalized Trust But Only in Wealthy Societies
Takeshi Hamamura
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, April 2012, Pages 498-509
Abstract:
This research examined the relationship between social class and generalized trust, or a belief that others have a benign intention in social interactions, in a diverse set of societies represented in the World Values Survey. The strength of the relationship varied significantly across societies: Although social class was a positive predictor of generalized trust in wealthy countries, as reported in past research, among less wealthy countries social class was uncorrelated with trust. These results indicate that resources available to individuals of high social class may make a trusting belief more rewarding; nevertheless, in less wealthy societies, the socio-political-economic infrastructure that supports generalized trust is unavailable, and therefore even individuals of high social class are reluctant to trust others. This finding extends prior theorizing on trust in finding the interactive relationship between an individual-level factor and a society-level factor in shaping individuals' inclination toward trust.
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The Correlation between Human Capital and Morality and its Effect on Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence
David Balan & Stephen Knack
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this paper we analyze the relationship between the correlation between morality and human capital ("ability") on the one hand and aggregate economic performance on the other. Morality is defined as an aversion to consuming goods obtained through appropriative rather than productive activities. In our empirical analysis we adapt the well-known regression framework of Rodrik, Subramanian and Trebbi (2004), using the World Values Survey as a source of proxies for morality. Using our preferred proxy, we find evidence that higher within-country correlation between morality and ability, holding constant the levels of morality and ability, increases per-capita income levels. Under our preferred specification, a one-standard-deviation increase in the correlation between morality and ability raises the log of per-capita income by about one-fourth of a standard deviation, equal to approximately $3600 for the median income country in our sample. Results are robust to correcting for endogeneity and to changes in sample and specification. Results are mixed when we use alternative morality proxies, but the coefficient on the morality-ability correlation is still usually positive and statistically significant. We also develop a simple static general equilibrium model to serve as a possible framework for understanding the empirical results.
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Culture and the body: East-west differences in visceral perception
Christine Ma-Kellams, Jim Blascovich & Cade McCall
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, April 2012, Pages 718-728
Abstract:
This research investigated cross-cultural differences in the accuracy of individuals' perceptions of internal visceral states. We conducted 4 studies to test the hypothesis that Asians are less sensitive to internal physiological cues relative to European Americans. Studies 1 and 2 assessed cultural differences in visceral perception via tests of misattributions of arousal: Study 1 involved false heart rate feedback during an emotionally evocative slideshow and examined subsequent self-reported affective changes; Study 2 manipulated apparent physiological arousal and measured its effects on attraction via an immersive virtual environment. Study 3 directly assessed visceral perception using a heartbeat detection task. All 3 studies found Asians to be less viscerally perceptive than European Americans. Study 4 examined one possible cultural mechanism for the observed difference and found evidence for contextual dependency as a mediator of the culture-visceral perception link.
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Social Capital, Economic Development, and Homicide: A Cross-National Investigation
Blaine Robbins & David Pettinicchio
Social Indicators Research, February 2012, Pages 519-540
Abstract:
This article draws from an ongoing debate over explanations of homicide. Within this debate, we investigate the pro-social effects of civil society and social capital. Few cross-national studies explore whether elements of social capital either increase or decrease homicide. The cross-national work that does is often characterized by small, homogeneous samples and the use of inappropriate statistical techniques. Replicating elements of Lederman et al.'s (Econ Dev Cult Change 50:509-539, 2002) original study but with wave IV World Values Survey data and negative binomial regression, we find weak support for the beneficial consequences of social capital on homicide. One dimension of social capital, however, does exhibit a significant negative association with homicide rates, net of other influences: social activism. We also fail to support the Durkheimian hypothesis that the negative effect of social capital on homicide is conditional on modernization. We explore the implications of the findings along with avenues for future research.
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Garry Gelade
British Journal of Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the distribution of national personality dimensions in geographical space. The relationship between geographical location and aggregate personality in a wide range of nations is quantified using spatial autocorrelation, and it is found that the personalities of nations that are geographical neighbours are more similar than those that are far apart. The five factors of both the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and the Big Five Inventory (BFI), all show a significant degree of spatial organization. The personality factors most strongly associated with geographical location are NEO-PI-R extraversion and BFI conscientiousness; both vary with position around the globe about as much as the physical climate. These findings support previous research suggesting associations between aggregate personality and geography, and imply that the sources of variation in national personality are themselves geographically organized.
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The Influence of World Societal Forces on Social Tolerance. A Time Comparative Study of Prejudices in 32 Countries
Markus Hadler
Sociological Quarterly, Spring 2012, Pages 211-237
Abstract:
Societal variation in xenophobia, homophobia, and other prejudices is frequently explained by the economic background and political history of different countries. This article expands these explanations by considering the influence of world societal factors on individual attitudes. The empirical analysis is based on survey data collected within the World Value Survey and European Values Study framework between 1989 and 2010. Data are combined to a three-wave cross-sectional design including about 130,000 respondents from 32 countries. Results show that xenophobia and homophobia are influenced by the national political history, societal affluence, and the presence of international organizations. Global forces, however, are of particular importance for homophobia.
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Culture, Visual Perspective, and the Effect of Material Success on Perceived Life Quality
Derrick Wirtz & Christie Napa Scollon
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, April 2012, Pages 367-372
Abstract:
Is a life characterized by material success one that will be seen favorably by others? In two studies, we explored the effect of a target person's material success on perceptions of the target's life quality. Participants viewed a survey ostensibly completed by another person - which experimentally varied the target's material success in the form of income - before globally rating the target's life. Study 1 provided a cross-cultural comparison, finding that Singaporeans, but not Americans, rated a target high in material success as having a life of greater quality than a target low in material success. Study 2 investigated the moderating effect of visual perspective among Singaporeans, hypothesizing that adopting another's perspective emphasizes the shared belief that material success is an indicator of life quality. Consistent with this reasoning, participants who adopted a third-person visual perspective rated a target high in material success as having a life of greater quality than a target low in material success, but those who adopted a first-person visual perspective did not rate targets differently based on material success.
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The structure of cross-cultural musical diversity
Tom Rzeszutek, Patrick Savage & Steven Brown
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 22 April 2012, Pages 1606-1612
Abstract:
Human cultural traits, such as languages, musics, rituals and material objects, vary widely across cultures. However, the majority of comparative analyses of human cultural diversity focus on between-culture variation without consideration for within-culture variation. In contrast, biological approaches to genetic diversity, such as the analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) framework, partition genetic diversity into both within- and between-population components. We attempt here for the first time to quantify both components of cultural diversity by applying the AMOVA model to music. By employing this approach with 421 traditional songs from 16 Austronesian-speaking populations, we show that the vast majority of musical variability is due to differences within populations rather than differences between. This demonstrates a striking parallel to the structure of genetic diversity in humans. A neighbour-net analysis of pairwise population musical divergence shows a large amount of reticulation, indicating the pervasive occurrence of borrowing and/or convergent evolution of musical features across populations.
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Communication Behavior and Relationship Satisfaction Among American and Chinese Newlywed Couples
Hannah Williamson et al.
Journal of Family Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Most research on couple communication patterns comes from North America and Europe and suggests cross-cultural universality in effects, but emerging studies suggest that couple communication takes different forms depending on the cultural context in which it occurs. The current study addressed this discrepancy by comparing the observed social support behaviors of 50 newlywed American couples and 41 newlywed Mainland Chinese couples, first on mean levels of positivity and negativity and second on behavior-satisfaction associations. Consistent with predictions derived from observational work by Tsai and Levenson (1997), Chinese couples were observed displaying significantly more negative behavior than American couples, even after controlling for relationship satisfaction; the 2 groups did not differ in observed positive behaviors. Tests of the moderating role of culture on behavior-satisfaction associations showed that positivity was significantly related to relationship satisfaction only for American husbands, whereas negativity was significantly associated with relationship satisfaction only for Chinese husbands. We speculate that cultural contexts may influence the display and evaluation of behavior in intimate relationships, suggesting the need for caution when generalizing models and associated interventions to non-Western couples.
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Motivation and social contexts: A cross-national pilot study of achievement, power, and affiliation motives
Xiaoyan Xu et al.
International Journal of Psychology, March/April 2012, Pages 111-117
Abstract:
Previous research suggests that there is a relationship between social contexts (e.g., economic growth, engagement in wars) and motives within populations. In particular, high achievement motive is associated with subsequent economic growth, which in turn increases power motive. Increased national achievement and power motives have been argued to precede social changes that lead to decreased affiliation motives, and engagement in wars. The present study aimed to examine differences in achievement, power, and affiliation motives between 266 college students in China (a nation with sustained high economic growth) and 255 college students in the USA (a nation with previously strong but now slowing economic growth, and engaged in war). Analysis of personal strivings suggested that Chinese college students showed significantly higher levels of achievement motive than the American college students, but American college students showed significantly higher levels of affiliation motive than Chinese college students. Overall, males exhibited higher achievement motivation than females. No significant interaction effects were found for gender by location for any of the three motives. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research.
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The Chinese Classroom Paradox: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Teacher Controlling Behaviors
Ning Zhou, Shui-Fong Lam & Kam Chi Chan
Journal of Educational Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Chinese classrooms present an intriguing paradox to the claim of self-determination theory that autonomy facilitates learning. Chinese teachers appear to be controlling, but Chinese students do not have poor academic performance in international comparisons. The present study addressed this paradox by examining the cultural differences in students' interpretation of teacher controlling behaviors. Affective meanings of teacher controlling behaviors were solicited from 158 Chinese 5th graders and 115 American 5th graders. It was found that the same controlling behaviors of teachers had different affective meanings for different cultural groups (Chinese vs. American) and for groups with different levels of social-emotional relatedness with teachers (high vs. low). Chinese children perceived the behaviors as less controlling than American children and, in turn, reported that they were more motivated in their teachers' class than American children. Regardless of culture, children with high social-emotional relatedness with teachers perceived the behaviors as less controlling than children with low social-emotional relatedness with teachers. It was also found that internalization mediated the relation between social-emotional relatedness and children's learning motivation in both cultures. The findings revealed cultural differences as well as similarities in the psychological process of internalization.
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Culture and Stereotype Communication: Are People From Eastern Cultures More Stereotypical in Communication?
Victoria Wai Lan Yeung & Yoshihisa Kashima
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, April 2012, Pages 446-463
Abstract:
This article presents an ecological approach to communication of stereotype-relevant information. We propose that communicating more stereotype-consistent (SC) and less stereotype-inconsistent (SI) information is a default strategy used by Easterners to fulfill their culturally installed goal - namely, to maintain harmonious relationships with others. And communicating informative information (both SC and SI information, and even more SI information) is a default strategy used by Westerners to fulfill their culturally installed goal - namely, to be accurate. When Easterners and Westerners were asked to communicate a firsthand stereotype-relevant story to a purported (Study 1) and a real (Study 2) communication partner without specifying a clear communication goal, they resorted to their cultural default strategy. However, when they were instructed to have a clear communication goal indicating the inappropriateness of the use of the default strategy, their communication pattern changed (Study 3). Results are discussed in terms of societal constraints of individualistic and collectivistic societies.
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Socioeconomical and sociopolitical correlates of interpersonal forgiveness: A three-level meta-analysis of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory across 13 societies
Katja Hanke & Ronald Fischer
International Journal of Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We report a meta-analysis on the country-level correlates of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI), to address (1) whether there are differences in forgiveness between societies, (2) what society-level context variables can account for these differences, and (3) whether conceptual relationships of forgiveness found at the individual level can be replicated at the societal level. We found sizeable differences between societies that are associated with democracy, peacefulness, socioeconomic development, and postmaterialism indices of a society. Replicating individual-level results, subjective wellbeing was positively related to forgiveness. We discuss the importance of macro-level contextual variables for understanding levels of forgiveness.
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The impact of culture and gender on sexual motives: Differences between Chinese and North Americans
Nu Tang, Lisamarie Bensman & Elaine Hatfield
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, March 2012, Pages 286-294
Abstract:
Recently, social scientists have begun to investigate the myriad of reasons why young men and women engage in sexual activities. As yet, however, they have not begun to investigate the impact of culture on people's sexual motivations. In this paper, we will address three questions: Does culture have an impact on sexual motives? Does gender have an impact? Do culture and gender interact in shaping sexual motives? In this study, we asked Chinese and North American college students to indicate the extent to which communal and individualistic sexual motives had influenced their decision to participate in sexual activities. As predicted, both culture and gender had an impact on young people's endorsement of various sexual motives. In a few cases the findings were not entirely as we had predicted, however.
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Blinded by taboo words in L1 but not L2
Katie Colbeck & Jeffrey Bowers
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present study compares the emotionality of English taboo words in native English speakers and native Chinese speakers who learned English as a second language. Neutral and taboo/sexual words were included in a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) task as to-be-ignored distracters in a short- and long-lag condition. Compared with neutral distracters, taboo/sexual distracters impaired the performance in the short-lag condition only. Of critical note, however, is that the performance of Chinese speakers was less impaired by taboo/sexual distracters. This supports the view that a first language is more emotional than a second language, even when words are processed quickly and automatically.
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Influencing and adjusting in daily emotional situations: A comparison of European and Asian American action styles
Michael Boiger et al.
Cognition & Emotion, February 2012, Pages 332-340
Abstract:
Emotions are for action, but action styles in emotional episodes may vary across cultural contexts. Based on culturally different models of agency, we expected that those who engage in European-American contexts will use more influence in emotional situations, while those who engage in East-Asian contexts will use more adjustment. European-American (N=60) and Asian-American (N=44) college students reported their action style during emotional episodes four times a day during a week. Asian Americans adjusted more than European Americans, whereas both used influence to a similar extent. These cultural differences in action style varied across types of emotion experienced. Moreover, influencing was associated with life satisfaction for European Americans, but not for Asian Americans.
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Eric Gleave, Blaine Robbins & Beth Kolko
International Political Science Review, March 2012, Pages 209-229
Abstract:
Although trust is a lively area of research, it is rarely investigated in countries outside of commonly available cross-national public-opinion datasets. In an effort to fill this empirical void and to draw conclusions concerning the general determinants of trust, the current article employs detailed survey data from a frequently overlooked Central Asian country, Uzbekistan, to test the relationship between particularized trust and demographic traits previously identified as influential. While a number of Uzbek demographic characteristics coincide with previously identified determinants of trust, age and education yield negative effects not previously found. Interestingly, individual-level demographic variables become insignificant when controlling for regional, religious, and linguistic variation. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications.
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Cattle Cults of the Arabian Neolithic and Early Territorial Societies
Joy McCorriston et al.
American Anthropologist, March 2012, Pages 45-63
Abstract:
At the cusp of food production, Near Eastern societies adopted new territorial practices, including archaeologically visible sedentism and nonsedentary social defenses more challenging to identify archaeologically. New archaeological and paleoenvironmental evidence for Arabia's earliest-known sacrifices points to territorial maintenance in arid highland southern Yemen. Here sedentism was not an option prior to agriculture. Seasonally mobile pastoralists developed alternate practices to reify cohesive identities, maintain alliances, and defend territories. Archaeological and paleoenvironmental evidence implies cattle sacrifices were commemorated with a ring of more than 42 cattle skulls and a stone platform buried by 6,400-year-old floodplain sediments. Associated with numerous hearths, these cattle rites suggest feasting by a large gathering, with important sociopolitical ramifications for territories. A GIS analysis of the early Holocene landscape indicates constrained pasturage supporting small resident human populations. Cattle sacrifice in southern Arabia suggests a model of mid-Holocene Neolithic territorial pastoralism under environmental and cultural conditions that made sedentism unsustainable.
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Emotion and support perceptions in everyday social interaction: Testing the "less is more" hypothesis in two cultures
Konstantinos Kafetsios & John Nezlek
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, March 2012, Pages 165-184
Abstract:
The study examined emotional experience and perceived social support during naturally occurring social interactions in Greece and Britain. Multilevel analyses found that people in Greece (a more interdependent culture) perceived less support and experienced less positive and more negative affect in social interactions than those in the UK (a more independent culture). Positive relationships between positive affect and perceptions of support were stronger in Greece than in the UK. Global perceptions of social support did not differ between the two samples, and global perceptions were weakly related to perceived support in interaction. The results support the "less is more" hypothesis (Oishi, S., Diener, E., Choi, D. W., Kim-Prieto, C., & Choi, I. (2007). The dynamics of daily events and well-being across cultures: When less is more. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 685-698) concerning cultural differences in social support and distal and proximal antecedents of interaction-level relational processes. | https://www.nationalaffairs.com/blog/detail/findings-a-daily-roundup/culturally-grounded |
Social Orders & Social Practices
Based on empirical research on human actions, the department engages in studies of culturally specific ideas and values that form the foundation of social orders.
For example, acts of exchange depend on the moral concepts of a society while at the same time revealing social equality or inequality and shedding light on individual strategies and practices. One research focus is the interplay between social orders created by humans on the basis of kinship ties, gender relations, and bureaucratic or state-based orders. In that context, the so-called “new kinship studies” are an important field of research because they look into the impact of state legislation and new reproduction technologies on concepts and practices of “being relatives”.
Global as well as local processes of change pose a challenge to existing social orders and social practices whose dynamics (emergence, establishment, and abandonment or disintegration) are studied at the department. This includes, for example, research on cultural and political actors throughout the world who use the “invention of traditions”, the adaption of global discourses, or the spread of – usually religion-based – expectations of salvation for their visions of statehood, society, or community.
Materiality & Representation
The study of “materiality” focuses on ways of dealing with objects, goods, or technological aspects, as well as on the diverse manners in which they are culturally appropriated.
The qualities, properties, and meanings that are attributed to everyday objects due to their specific materiality are a major research focus. “Representation”, in turn, includes the use of material culture – for example, in and by museums as well as in the social environment – as a means of inward and outward (self-)representation. This includes contemporary non-European art, tourism, and representation in the media. An important field of research is the study of the immaterial aspects of material culture. For example, the department not only engages in research on the impact of intellectual property rights, particularly in the global and (post-)colonial context, but also on the production of knowledge and impacts of, and on, indigeneity and ethnicity. In many respects, these studies require close cooperation with archaeologists and historians.
Mobility, Development & Plural Societies
This field of research results from the observation that the increasing mobility both of humans and of the social networks surrounding them gives rise to a translocal, or transnational, movement of things, capital, knowledge, ideas, and practices.
These complex phenomena, their causes and their impact on the patterns of action and diversity of contemporary societies, are studied at the department. This is done, for example, on the basis of socio-cultural practices and biographies of migrants, or by looking at competing world orders or at discourses on changes caused by environmental, political, or economic factors. This also spawns research on the various types of transnationalism, development work, and the effect, or impact, of migration both on people themselves and on their living together in increasingly plural societies. This ethnic and cultural diversity cannot be separated from other dimensions of social difference, such as gender, sexuality, class, and racialized identities.
Religion & Ritual
In many societies religious, or cosmological, concepts are closely interconnected with social, economic, and political aspects, as well as with people’s definitions of their identity.
Studies in this field of research address the social meaning of rituals and performances, the relationship between state and religion, as well as the currently observable “resurgence” of religion(s). Hence, the focus of research is on concrete phenomena such as pilgrimages, religious (mega-)events, and discourses on sacral practices, as well as on global conflicts that are associated with the vigorous emergence and politicization of religious identity (e.g., Islamism, Hindutva, Zionism). Another particular emphasis of research is on the economic preconditions for ritual practice, as well as on the impact of rituals on economic concepts and actions. | https://www.goethe-university-frankfurt.de/61842804/IE |
in World Development: the Multi-Disciplinary International Journal Devoted to the Study and Promotion of World Development (in press)
We investigate the impact of three large-scale social-protection schemes in Ethiopia, India, and Peru on multidimensional poverty. Using data from the Young Lives cohort study, we show the trend, changes and evolution of multidimensional poverty for individuals in program participant households. We follow a number of strategies to produce estimates that deal with non-random program placement. Our findings show that both the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty declined in all three countries over the period 2006 - 2016, more so for program participants than non-participants. We find positive short-term impact on asset formation, livestock holding, and some living standard indicators. In all three countries these positive impacts are sustained even in the medium and longer-term.
in Journal of Mathematical Economics (in press)
We present a unified approach to the design of social index numbers. Our starting point is a model that employs an exogenously given partition of the population into subgroups. Three classes of group-dependent measures of deprivation are characterized. The three groups are nested and, beginning with the largest of these, we narrow them down by successively adding two additional axioms. This leads to a parameterized class the members of which are based on the differences between the income (or wealth) levels of an individual and those who are better off. We then proceed to show that our measures are sufficiently general to accommodate a plethora of indices, including measures of inequality and polarization as well as distance-based measures of phenomena such as diversity and fractionalization.
in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (in press)
We use annual data on over 150 countries between 2005 and 2018 to look at the relationship between subjective well-being (both cognitive and affective) and the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI appears to be more closely related to cognitive than affective well-being. We also consider the relationships between the three HDI components (the Income, Health and Education Indices) and well-being, and find that, on average, the Income Index has the strongest predictive power. Importantly, we find that the three HDI components only matter equally in Western and rich countries. Our analysis contributes to the discussion about cultural sensitivity in paradigms of societal development in two ways. We first show that differences in preferences towards development aims exist. Second, we propose a weighting procedure for a culturally-sensitive version of the HDI.
in Economics Letters (in press)
This paper examines the empirical relationship between individuals’ cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and COVID-19 compliance behaviors using cross-country data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). We find that both cognitive and non-cognitive skills predict responsible health behaviors during the COVID-19 crisis. Episodic memory is the most important cognitive skill, while conscientiousness and neuroticism are the most significant personality traits. There is also some evidence of a role for an internal locus of control in compliance.
in Information Technology and People (in press)
Purpose – The authors track the well-being of individuals across five European countries during the course of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and relate their well-being to working from home. The authors also consider the role of pandemic-policy stringency in affecting well-being in Europe. Design/methodology/approach – The authors have four waves of novel harmonised longitudinal data in France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Sweden, covering the period May–November 2020. Well-being is measured in five dimensions: life satisfaction, a worthwhile life, loneliness, depression and anxiety. A retrospective diary indicates whether the individual was working in each month since February 2020 and if so whether at home or not at home. Policy stringency is matched in per country at the daily level. The authors consider both cross- section and panel regressions and the mediating and moderating effects of control variables, including household variables and income. Findings – Well-being among workers is lower for those who work from home, and those who are not working have the lowest well-being of all. The panel results are more mitigated, with switching into working at home yielding a small drop in anxiety. The panel and cross-section difference could reflect adaptation or the selection of certain types of individuals into working at home. Policy stringency is always negatively correlated with well-being. The authors find no mediation effects. The well-being penalty from working at home is larger for the older, the better-educated, those with young children and those with more crowded housing. Originality/value – The harmonised cross-country panel data on individuals’ experiences during COVID-19 are novel. The authors relate working from home and policy stringency to multiple well-being measures. The authors emphasise the effect of working from home on not only the level of well-being but also its distribution.
in Journal of Economic Inequality (2021), 19(2), 293-313
Income volatility and wealth volatility are central objects of investigation for the literature on income and wealth inequality and dynamics. Here we analyse the two concepts in a comparative perspective for the same individuals in Italy and the U.S. over the last two decades. We find that in both countries wealth volatility reaches significantly higher values than income volatility, the effect being mostly driven by changes in the market value of real estate assets. We also show that there is more volatility in both dimensions in the U.S. and that the overall trend in both countries is increasing over time. We conclude by exploring volatility in consumption.
Poster (2021, May 21)
Report (2021)
in Willems, Helmut Erich; Samuel, Robin; Vögele, Claus; Heinen, Andreas (Eds.) Well-being and health-related behavior of adolescents. Disciplinary concepts, empirical findings, international perspectives, and practical approaches (working title) (2021)
in Willems, Helmut Erich; Samuel, Robin; Vögele, Claus; Heinen, Andreas (Eds.) Well-being and health-related behavior of adolescents. Disciplinary concepts, empirical findings, international perspectives, and practical approaches (working title) (2021)
in Journal of Economic Inequality (2021), 19
We here use panel data from the COME-HERE survey to track income inequality during COVID-19 in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Relative inequality in equivalent household disposable income among individuals changed in a hump-shaped way between January 2020 and January 2021, with an initial rise from January to May 2020 being more than reversed by September 2020. Absolute inequality also fell over this period. Due to the pandemic some households lost more than others, and government compensation schemes were targeted towards the poorest, implying that on average income differences decreased. Generalized Lorenz domination reveals that these distributive changes reduced welfare in Italy.
in Gradín, Carlos; Leibbrandt, Murray; Tarp, Finn (Eds.) Inequality in the Developing World (2021)
We use repeated cross-section data from the Afrobarometer, Asianbarometer Latinobarometer, and Eurobarometer to analyse the variables that are correlated with current and future evaluations of standards of living. We consider resource comparisons (the gap in resources between richer and poorer individuals) and the normative evaluation of distribution (conditional on these gaps), given by the Gini coefficient. The ‘typical’ pattern of a negative effect of gaps on the better-off but a positive effect of gaps on the worse-off is found only in Europe: gaps for the better-off in Africa and America have no correlation with current life evaluations and are associated with more positive expectations of the future. There is no positive estimated coefficient for gaps to the worse-off in Asia. The Gini coefficient is negatively correlated with current life evaluation only in Asia. On the contrary, future life evaluations are more positive in more unequal countries in Africa and America.
in Scandinavian Journal of Economics (2021), 123
We here consider the link between individual financial profiles over time and well-being, as measured by life satisfaction. We in particular look at annual self-reported financial worsening and improvement information for over 25,000 individuals in Australian panel data from 2002 to 2017. We first find that satisfaction falls (rises) with a contemporaneous major financial worsening (improvement), with the the largest correlation being with financial worsening. Second, the experience of these financial events in the past continues to be linked to current well-being. Last, only the order of financial-improvement spells relates to well-being: a given number of past years where finances deteriorated has the same association with current well-being whether the deterioration occurred in one continuous spell or was interrupted. We last show that these associations are heterogeneous over the distribution of well-being.
in Health Economics (2021), 30
We here consider the cognitive and non-cognitive consequences on young adults of growing up with a mother who reported experiencing major financial problems. We use UK data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to show that early childhood financial problems are associated with worse adolescent cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, controlling for both income and a set of standard variables, and in value-added models controlling for children’s earlier age-5 outcomes. The estimated effect of financial problems is almost always larger in size than that of income. Around one-quarter to one-half of the effect of financial problems on the non-cognitive outcomes seems to transit through mother’s mental health.
in Economics and Human Biology (2021), 41
We consider the effects of major prenatal economic shocks experienced by mothers on two indicators of newborn-infant health, birth weight and head circumference, using detailed microdata from the UK ALSPAC survey. Controlling for physiological and socioeconomic factors, an economic shock in the first 18 weeks of gestation lowers birth weight by 40-70 grams and head circumference by 2-3mm. We find evidence of transmission via poorer maternal health due to absolute material deprivation and tobacco and alcohol consumption, but not for the endocrinological effects of increased psychosocial anxiety. The fragile-male hypothesis holds for birth weight but not for head circumference, as predicted by recent theories on gender differences in prenatal development.
in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2021), 183
We here consider the relationship between workplace gender measures and employees’ perceived job quality, where the former cover both the gender mix of workers with the same job title and the gender of the immediate boss. Data from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey show that men’s job evaluation is higher in gender-balanced job positions at the workplace, while that of women is higher in either gender-balanced or male-dominated positions. The gender of the immediate boss plays no significant role in employee job evaluation. There is some evidence that these correlations differ by job-quality domains. We introduce co-worker support and help, gender discrimination, and unwanted sexual attention as possible mediators of the gender-mix correlations: these change the estimated coefficients only little. Our estimated correlations could therefore reflect a pure preference for job-position gender composition. Last, we use a bounding approach to show that our main results are robust to the potential influence of unobservables. Overall, job-position gender diversity is associated with higher worker well-being.
in Review of Income and Wealth (2021), 67
We examine some ordinal measures of inequality that are familiar from the literature. These measures have a quite simple structure in that their values are determined by combinations of specific summary statistics such as the extreme values and the arithmetic mean of a distribution. In spite of their common appearance, there seem to be no axiomatizations available so far, and this paper is intended to fill that gap. In particular, we consider the absolute and relative variants of the range; the max-mean and the mean-min orderings; and quantile-based measures. In addition, we provide some empirical observations that are intended to illustrate that, although these orderings are straightforward to define, some of them display a surprisingly high correlation with alternative (more complex) measures.
in Journal of Economic Inequality (2020), 18
The paper discusses a one-parameter generalization of individual relative deprivation measures to a two-period setting that differs from earlier approaches. The parameter is, by definition, independent of the income distributions under consideration—it is to be chosen by a social planner. Its value has an intuitive interpretation: it represents the additional weight assigned to the income shortfalls associated with agents who passed the individual in question when moving from yesterday’s income distribution to today’s. Therefore, the choice of this parameter represents an important value judgment on the part of a social planner regarding the relative impact of being left behind. As a special case, it is illustrated how the well-known Yitzhaki index can be extended to this environment.
in Social Indicators Research (2020), 148
We examine the complex relationship between money and happiness. We find that both permanent income and wealth are better predictors of life satisfaction than current income and wealth. They matter not only in absolute terms but also in comparative terms. However, their relative impacts differ. The first exerts a comparison effect – the higher the permanent income of the reference group, the lower life satisfaction – the second exerts an information effect – the higher the permanent wealth of the reference group, the higher life satisfaction. We also show that negative transitory shocks to income reduce life satisfaction while transitory shocks to wealth have no effect. Lastly, we analyse the effects of their components and find that not all of them predict life satisfaction: permanent taxes do not matter, while only the value of permanent real estate, financial and business assets do. Finally, we use quantile regression and analyse to what extent our results vary along the well-being distribution, finding the impacts to be larger at lower levels of life satisfaction.
in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (2020), 21
The role of twins in research is evolving as we move further into the post-genomic era. With the re-definition of what a gene is, it is becoming clear that biological family members who share a specific genetic variant may well not have a similar risk for future disease. This has somewhat invalidated the prior rationale for twin studies. Case co-twin study designs, however, are slowly emerging as the ideal tool to identify both environmentally induced epigenetic marks and epigenetic disease-associated processes. Here, we propose that twin lives are not as identical as commonly assumed and that the case co-twin study design can be used to investigate the effects of the adult social environment. We present the elements in the (social) environment that are likely to affect the epigenome and measures in which twins may diverge. Using data from the German TwinLife registry, we confirm divergence in both the events that occur and the salience for the individual start as early as age 11. Case co-twin studies allow for the exploitation of these divergences, permitting the investigation of the role of not only the adult social environment, but also the salience of an event or environment for the individual, in determining lifelong health trajectories. In cases like social adversity where it is clearly not possible to perform a randomised-controlled trial, we propose that the case cotwin study design is the most rigorous manner with which to investigate epigenetic mechanisms encoding environmental exposure. The role of the case co-twin design will continue to evolve, as we argue that it will permit causal inference from observational data.
in Journal of Economic Theory (2020), 189
Resilience has become an important topic in many social sciences. Numerous individual choices and economic and demographic outcomes are likely to be influenced by people’s resilience. School performance, work absenteeism and burnout, longevity, the quality of sleep and health-risk behaviors such as substance abuse are some examples. Similarly, it is of high policy relevance to understand the determinants of both individual resilience (such as educational, marital and occupational status) and ecological resilience (such as climate change). Empirical work designed to uncover such relationships suffers from the absence of a resilience measure applicable in the context of large data sets. We fill this gap by proposing a specific measure that is characterized by a set of natural properties. After an introduction to the notion of resilience and its attributes, we argue why these conditions have intuitive appeal. Finally, we provide illustrating examples and derive our main characterization result.
in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2020), 176
This paper develops normative approaches for measuring individual-level income insecurity. Using concepts derived from Expected Utility Theory and Prospect Theory, we build a suite of measures designed to capture various facets of psychologically distressing income risk. We present an application for the US and Germany from 1993-2013, employing conditionally heteroskedastic fixed-effects models to generate predictive densities for future incomes. Our results reveal much higher levels of income risk in the US relative to Germany, which can be mostly attributed to a higher level of autonomous, time-invariant volatility. State-by-state variations in liberal/conservative political administrations partially explain our results, and we find some evidence that trade exposure is a contributing factor in the US.
in Dasgupta, Indraneel; Mitra, Manipushpak (Eds.) Deprivation, Inequality and Polarization: Essays in Honour of Satya Ranjan Chakravarty (2019)
This paper analyzes the effects of the inclusion of past experiences in measuring current material deprivation. The method followed generalizes the proposal of Bossert, Ceriani, Chakravarty and D'Ambrosio (2014) by adapting the class of indices on the measurement of poverty over time of Dutta, Roope and Zank (2013). An application to the analysis of material deprivation within EU countries is then provided. Following the path of material deprivation experienced by each individual over time yields a picture which differs from that in the annual results. Since the measurement of material deprivation is used by the EU member states and the European Commission to monitor national and EU progress in the fight against poverty and social exclusion, the results suggest that time cannot be neglected. Countries should not only be compared based on their year-by-year results, but additional information is gained by following individuals over time and producing an aggregate measure once dynamic considerations are taken into consideration.
in South African Journal of Economics (2019), 87
We here use five rounds of Afrobarometer data covering more than 100,000 individuals over the 2004-2016 period to explore the link between individual self-reported measures of living conditions and access to four basic needs. We not only consider own access to these needs, but also various indices of their deprivation, satisfaction and inequality. We find some evidence of comparisons to those who are better off and to those who are worse off, in terms of access to basic needs, in the evaluation of current living conditions. Overall, however, subjective living conditions are mostly absolute in African countries. There is notable heterogeneity by level of development, with the effect of lack of access to basic needs being more pronounced in poorer countries. Equally, comparisons to the better-off are associated with better living conditions in poorer countries, suggesting the existence of a tunnel effect: this latter disappears with economic development.
Article for general public (2019)
in Social Science and Medicine - Population Health (2019), 7
We here consider the relationship between the individual time profile of crime victimisation and sleep quality. Sleep quality worsens with contemporaneous crime victimisation, with physical violence having a larger effect than property crime. But crime history also matters, and past victimisation experience continues to reduce current sleep quality. Last, there is some evidence that the order of victimisation spells plays a role: consecutive years of crime victimisation affect sleep quality more adversely than the same number of years when not contiguous.
in Review of Income and Wealth (2019), 65(4), 785-803
An indicator of pro-poorness of a growth profile associated with a distribution of income is a measure of the extent to which growth is biased towards the poor. This paper proposes a general approach to pro-poorness, called the progressive sequential averaging principle (PSA), relaxing the requirement of rank preservation due to growth. An endogenous benchmark for evaluating the growth of poor comes out naturally from this principle. A dominance relation on the basis of the above approach for a class of growth profiles is introduced through a simple device, called the PSA curve and its properties are examined in relation to the standard dominances in terms of the generalized Lorenz curve and the inverse generalized Lorenz curve. The paper concludes with an application to evaluate growth profiles experienced by the United States between 2001-2007 and 2007-2013.
in Labour Economics (2018), 51
We here consider the effect of the level of income that individuals consider to be fair for the job they do, which we take as measure of comparison income, on both subjective well-being and objective future job quitting. In six waves of German Socio-Economic Panel data, the extent to which own labour income is perceived to be unfair is significantly negatively correlated with subjective well-being, both in terms of cognitive evaluations (life and job satisfaction) and affect (the frequency of feeling happy, sad and angry). Perceived unfairness also translates into objective labour-market behaviour, with current unfair income predicting future job quits.
in Economica (2018), 85
Scientific Conference (2017, June 29)
Introduction: The diabetes mellitus (DM) prevalence in Rwanda is estimated at 3.5%. In 2013, there were only one medical doctor and one nurse per 15,000 and 1,200 people respectively in Rwanda. A new programme employing frontline workers (Home-Based Community Practitioners (HBCPs)) is currently piloted, aiming at following-up patients with non-communicable diseases in their communities. We hypothesise that the management of DM at community level will improve following the introduction of a HBCP programme with regular monthly assessments and disease management, coupled with integration of a mobile health (mHealth) application with patient diaries, notifications and educational material. Objective: The aim of the study is to determine the efficacy of such an integrated programme in Rwanda. Methods: The study is designed as a one-year, open-label cluster trial of two interventions (arm1: HBCP programme, arm2: HBCP programme + mHealth application) and usual care (control). The primary outcomes will be changes in glycated haemoglobin levels and health-related quality of life. Mortality, complications, health literacy, mental well-being and treatment adherence will be assessed as secondary outcomes. Measurements will be conducted at baseline, 6 and 12 months. An intention-to-treat approach will be used to evaluate outcomes. Before trial onset, ethical approval will be sought in Rwanda, Luxembourg and Denmark, and a cross-cultural adaptation of questionnaires and a pilot will be carried out. Relevance: The project will provide evidence on the efficacy of innovative approaches for integrated management of DM and may spur the development of similar solutions for other chronic diseases in low-resource settings.
in Tachibanaki, Toshiaki (Ed.) Advances in Happiness Research: A Comparative Perspective (2016)
Traditional economic modeling has neglected the basic fact that individual well-being depends on one’s own life course and on comparisons with others. These assumptions have been challenged by an increasing number of contributions in the income-distribution literature on the measurement of individual well-being. These have proposed various indices which allow different aspects of past experiences to be brought into the analysis of the phenomenon under consideration. This chapter is a review of these measures with the aim of offering some guidance to the recent developments of the parallel literature on happiness.
in Health Economics (2016), 25
This paper identifies a family of absolute consistent inequality indices using a weakly decomposable postulate suggested by Ebert (2010). Since one member employs an Atkinson (1970) type aggregation we refer to it as the Atkinson index of consistent inequality. A second member of this family parallels the Kolm (1976) index of inequality. Two innovative features of these indices are that no specific structure is imposed on the form of the index at the outset and no transformation of any existing index is considered to ensure consistency. Each of them regards an achievement distribution as equally unequal as the corresponding shortfall distribution. We apply these indices to study inequality in grip strength among 50+ year-old Europeans.
in Social Choice and Welfare (2016), 46
We provide a characterization of a class of rank-mobility measures. These measures generalize the Kemeny measure that is well-known from the literature on measuring the distance between orderings. We use replication invariance to ensure that our measures are applicable in variable-population settings. The rank-based approach to mobility has a natural connection with the study of social status. Rank-based measures are widely applied in empirical research but their theoretical foundation is still in need of further investigation, and we consider our approach to be a contribution towards this objective.
in Review of Economics and Statistics (2016), 98
We consider the link between poverty and subjective well-being, and focus in particular on potential adaptation to poverty. We use panel data on almost 54,000 individuals living in Germany from 1985 to 2012 to show first that life satisfaction falls with both the incidence and intensity of contemporaneous poverty. We then reveal that there is little evidence of adaptation within a poverty spell: poverty starts bad and stays bad in terms of subjective well-being. We cannot identify any cause of poverty entry which explains the overall lack of poverty adaptation.
in Applied Research in Quality of Life (2016), 11
It is frequently hypothesized that feelings of social isolation are detrimental for an individual's mental health, however standard statistical models cannot estimate this effect due to reverse causality between the independent and dependent variables. In this paper we present endogeneity-corrected estimates of the mental health consequences of isolation (based on self-assessed loneliness scores) using Australian panel data. The central identification strategy comes from a natural source of variation where some people within our sample are required by work or study commitments to move home. This relocation may break individuals' social ties, resulting in significantly higher reported feelings of loneliness and consequently may lower mental health scores. The method gives results that are significant, robust and pass a battery of diagnostic tests. Estimates indicate that feelings of isolation have large negative consequences for psychological well-being, and that the effects are larger for women and older people. The results suggest that at current levels, a 10% reduction applied to all individuals would reduce annual expenditure on mental illness in Australia by approximately $3B AUD, or around $150 AUD per person.
in Atkinson, A.B.; Bourguignon, F. (Eds.) Handbook of Income Distribution (2015)
We review the findings in surveys and experiments from the literature on attitudes to income inequality. We interpret the latter as any disparity in incomes between individuals. We classify these contributions into two broad groups of individual attitudes to income distribution in a society: the normative and the comparative view. The first can be thought of as the individual's disinterested evaluation of income inequality; on the contrary, the second view reflects self-interest, as individual’s inequality attitudes depend not only on how much income they receive but also on how much they receive compared to others. We conclude with a number of extensions, outstanding issues and suggestions for future research.
in Wright, James (Ed.) International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition (2015)
in Journal of Public Economic Theory (2015), 17
We examine the measurement of social polarization with categorical and ordinal data. This is particularly useful in many contexts where cardinal data are not available. The new measures we propose are characterized axiomatically. We partition the society into groups on the basis of salient social characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, and we take into account the extent to which these groups are clustered in certain regions of an attribute’s distribution.
in SOLIDAR (Ed.) Progressive Structural Reforms. Proposals for European reforms to reduce inequalities and promote jobs, growth and social investment (2015)
in Research on Economic Inequality (2015), 23
We consider the link between poverty and subjective well-being, and focus in particular on the role of time. We use panel data on 49,000 individuals living in Germany from 1992 to 2012 to uncover three empirical relationships. First, life satisfaction falls with both the incidence and intensity of contemporaneous poverty. Second, poverty scars: those who have been poor in the past report lower life satisfaction today, even when out of poverty. Last, the order of poverty spells matters: for a given number of years in poverty, satisfaction is lower when the years are linked together. As such, poverty persistence reduces well-being. These effects differ by population subgroups.
in Michalos, A.C (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research (2014)
in Economics Letters (2014), 122
We propose and characterize a generalization of the classical linear index of individual deprivation based on income shortfalls. Unlike the original measure, our class allows for increases in the income of a higher-income individual to have a stronger impact on a person’s deprivation the closer they occur to the income of the individual whose deprivation is being assessed. The subclass of our measures with this property is axiomatized in our second result.
in Review of Income and Wealth (2014), 60(S1), 33-52
We estimate the distribution of economic insecurity in Italy and the USA using data from 1994 to 2010. Economic insecurity for each individual is assumed to depend on both current wealth and the changes in wealth that have been experienced in the past. The first element plays the role of the buffer stock that can be relied on in the case of an adverse future event. The second element reflects the individual's confidence in his ability to overcome any losses in the future. With respect to this second element, experiences in the recent past are given greater weight than experiences that occurred in the more distant past. The results confirm that the great recession has had a dramatic effect on the distribution of economic insecurity in both countries with the effect being much stronger in the USA.
in Journal of Economic Inequality (2014), 12
An index of richness in a society is a measure of the extent of its affluence. This paper presents an analytical discussion on several indices of richness and their properties. It also develops criteria for ordering alternative distributions of income in terms of their richness. Given a line of richness, an income level above which a person is regarded as rich, and depending on the redistributive principle, it is shown that the ranking relation can be implemented by seeking dominance with respect to the generalized Lorenz curve of the rich or the affluence pro file of the society. When the line of richness is assumed to be variable, we need to employ the stochastic dominance conditions for ordering the income distributions.
in Betti, Gianni; Lemmi, Achille (Eds.) Poverty and Social Exclusion (2014)
Individual well-being is multidimensional and various aspects of the quality of life need to be jointly considered in its measurement. The literature on the subject has proposed many indices of multidimensional poverty and deprivation and explored the properties that are at the basis of these measures. The purpose of this chapter is to add intertemporal considerations to the analysis of material deprivation. We employ the EU-SILC panel data set, which includes information on different aspects of well-being over time. EU countries are compared based on measures that take this additional intertemporal information into consideration. If we follow the path of material deprivation experienced by each individual over time we obtain a picture which differs from the annual results. Since the measurement of material deprivation is used by the EU member states and the European Commission to monitor national and EU progress in the fight against poverty and social exclusion, our results suggest that time cannot be neglected. Countries should not only be compared based on their year by year results but additional information is gained by following individuals over time and producing an aggregate measure once time is taken into account.
in Bresson, Florent; Berenger, Valerie (Eds.) Poverty and Social Exclusion Around the Mediterranean Sea (2013)
This paper characterizes a family of subgroup decomposable unit consistent multidimensional poverty indices. Unit consistency requires that poverty rankings should remain unaltered when dimensions are expressed in different measurement units. The characterized family is a simple generalization of a family of unit consistent income poverty index suggested by Zheng (2007a).
in Economic Modelling (2013), 35
A poverty reduction failure index is a measure of the extent of inability of a society to reduce its poverty level. This paper develops an ordering for ranking alternative income distributions in terms of poverty reduction failures. The ordering can be easily implemented using the generalized Lorenz or the Three I’s of poverty (TIP) curve dominance criterion. We also characterize an existing index of poverty reduction failure using an axiomatic structure.
in International Economic Review (2013), 54
We provide an axiomatic treatment of the measurement of economic insecurity, assuming that individual insecurity depends on the current wealth level and its variations experienced in the past. The first component plays the role of a buffer stock to rely on in case of an adverse future event. The second component determines the confidence an individual has on her ability to overcome a loss in the future. Two classes of linear measures are characterized with sets of plausible and intuitive axioms and, for each of these classes, an important subclass is identified.
in Rivista Italiana degli Economisti (2013), 18
The Italian health care system is managed mainly at the regional level. For this reason health care may diff er depending on region of residence. The aim of this note is to take a rigorous ex-ante approach and test for equality of health opportunities as opposed to health outcomes, which are the ex-post results. We perform non-parametric tests to evaluate if the probability of reaching the same health status di ffers by region of residence, after controlling for other influential factors such as age, gender and income. The results underline that the geographical distribution of opportunities in health is unequal, and therefore, that regional differences in outcomes are more likely to be expected.
in Review of Income and Wealth (2013), 59
We propose a characterization of a popular index of multidimensional poverty which, as a special case, generates a measure of material deprivation. This index is the weighted sum of the functioning failures. The important feature of the variables that may be relevant for poverty assessments is that they are discrete in nature. Thus, poverty measures based on continuous variables are not suitable in this setting and the assumption of a discrete domain is mandatory. We apply the measure to European Union member states where the concept of material deprivation was initiated and illustrate how its recommendations differ from those obtained from poverty measures based exclusively on income considerations.
in Keio Economic Studies (2012), 48
in Economica (2012), 79
We explore the determinants of individual wellbeing as measured by self-reported levels of satisfaction with income and life. Making use of the German Socio-Economic Panel, we provide empirical evidence for wellbeing depending on absolute and relative income levels in a dynamic framework where status and signal effects play a role. This finding holds after controlling for other factors in a multivariate setting. The main novelty is the consideration of dynamic aspects: the individual’s own history and the relative income performance with respect to other society members play major roles in the assessment of individual wellbeing.
in Journal of Economic Inequality (2012), 10
We examine the measurement of individual poverty in an intertemporal context. Our aim is to capture the importance of persistence in a state of poverty and we characterize a corresponding individual intertemporal poverty measure. Our first axiom requires that intertemporal poverty is identical to static poverty in the degenerate single-period case. The remaining two properties express decomposability requirements within poverty spells and across spells in order to reflect the persistence issue. In addition, we axiomatize an aggregation procedure to obtain an intertemporal poverty measure for societies and we illustrate our new index with an application to EU countries.
in Social Indicators Research (2011), 104
This paper aims at investigating empirically the relationship between self-declared satisfaction with life and an individual’s well-being as measured by the indices of deprivation and social exclusion proposed in the income distribution literature. Results on European countries show that life satisfaction decreases with an increase in deprivation and exclusion after controlling for individual’s income, relative income and other influential factors in a multivariate setting.
in Gonzales, Jason (Ed.) Economics of Wealth in the 21st Century (2011)
Recent work has documented a rising degree of wealth inequality in the United States between 1983 and 2004. In this paper, we compare the increase in the spread of the distribution with another dimension, polarization. Using alternative approaches proposed in the literature, we examine whether a similar pattern exists with regard to trends in wealth polarization over this period. Perhaps, our most notable finding is the huge increase in wealth polarization that occurred in the U.S. from 1983 to 2004, particularly from 1998 to 2004. In contrast, the Gini coefficient shows an increase in wealth inequality from 1983 to 1989 and little change thereafter.
in Applied Economics (2011), 43
This article has three goals. First, we wish to compare three multidimensional approaches to poverty and check to what extent they identify the same households as poor. Second, we aim at better understanding the determinants of poverty by estimating logit regressions with five categories of explanatory variables: size of the household, age of the head of the household, her gender, marital status and status at work. Third, we introduce a decomposition procedure proposed recently in the literature, the so-called Shapley decomposition, in order to determine the exact marginal impact of each of the categories of explanatory variables. Our empirical analysis is based on data made available by the European Community Household Panel (ECPH). We used its third wave and selected five countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
in Economica (2011), 78
This paper characterizes an index that is informationally richer than the commonly used ethno-linguistic fractionalization (ELF) index. Our measure of fractionalization takes as a primitive the individuals, as opposed to ethnic groups, and uses information on the similarities among them. Compared to existing indices, our measure does not require that individuals are pre-assigned to exogenously determined categories or groups. We provided an empirical illustration of how our index can be operationalized and what difference it makes as compared to the standard ELF index. This application pertains to the pattern of fractionalization in the USA.
in Silber, Jacques (Ed.) The Measurement of Individual Well-Being and Group Inequalities: Essays in Memory of Z.M. Berrebi (2010)
in Review of Income and Wealth (2010), 56(1), 47-64
This paper considers an intermediate notion of polarization which is defined as a convex mix of relative and absolute concepts of polarization. While absolute polarization indices remain unchanged under equal absolute augmentation in all incomes, relative indices do not change under equiproportionate variations in all incomes. We then identify the class of intermediate polarization indices whose orderings of alternative income distributions agree with the rankings generated by intermediate polarization curves. The ranking relation developed is implemented by a simple graphical device. Finally, a numerical illustration of the results developed in the paper is provided using data from Southern European countries.
in Journal of Economic Inequality (2009), 7
in Politica Economica (2009), 15
Using a measure of material deprivation, the paper shows that the well-being of individuals living in the South of Italy is consistently lower than the well-being of those residing elsewhere in the country. The correspondence between income poverty and material deprivation is almost perfect. Regional social policies were not effective not only for the insufficient budget involved but also for the method of implementation followed, being mostly based on temporary measures. There is the urgent need of the introduction of a system that guarantees minimum levels of assistance to every citizen independent of its region of residence.
in Research on Economic Inequality (2009), 17
This article axiomatically derives a class of numerical indices of integration (equality) in the distribution of different types of workers across occupations. The associated segregation (inequality) indices parallel one form of multidimensional generalized Gini inequality indices. A comparison is made with the other Gini-related segregation indices. A numerical illustration of the family of indices is also provided using US occupational data.
in Schmollers Jahrbuch (2009), 129
The relationship between an individual's economic well-being and satisfaction with own life has been the focus of many studies both within and across countries, in one period of time and over time. As a proxy of economic well-being household income both adjusted and unadjusted for household needs has been generally used. The aim of the present paper is to propose a more comprehensive measure of well-being considering the role that wealth and permanent income play in simultaneously determining satisfaction with life. The results, based on representative microdata from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), suggest that both income and wealth increase satisfaction, that long-run income is more appropriate than short-term income and that satisfaction with life is particularly high for those who are at the top of both the income and wealth distributions. | https://orbilu.uni.lu/widget?query=%28%28uid%3A50001453%29%29&chars=100&etal=3&list=3&language=en&data=pr&format=apa&css=%2Ffiles%2Fcss%2Fwl.css&sort_by0=1&order0=DESC&sort_by1=3&order1=ASC&sort_by2=2&order2=ASC |
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The existence of inequality—a property of the population in question—thus has important consequences for the health of individuals and groups. Better understanding of the mechanisms involved may suggest concrete ways to improve the health of both individuals and population subgroups.
Social environments that are less divisive, less undermining of self-confidence, less productive of social antagonism, and more supportive of developing skills and abilities are likely to contribute to the overall health and welfare of the population.
Socioeconomic Factors Influencing Health An extensive literature, dating back more than a century Sorokin, ; Antonovsky, ; Bunker et al. These hierarchies have usually been defined by household income, years of education, and occupational prestige or grade.
In both industrialized and less industrialized countries, persons of higher socioeconomic status SES live longer and have lower rates of most diseases than their less favored counterparts Behm, ; Grosse and Auffrey, ; Holzer et al.
Some studies from less industrialized countries, such as a study of Nigerian civil servants Markovic et al. This may reflect differences in the historical time period across societies in the secular distribution of disease.
In the United States, for example, higher position in the SES hierarchy was associated with greater prevalence of heart disease earlier this century, but SES is currently inversely related to cardiovascular risk Morgenstern, Thus, apparently discrepant findings highlight the importance of attending to broader social and historical contexts.
Of particular importance is a gradient in the relationship between SES and health: Most of the evidence supporting this relationship derives from European and North American populations, where the data are consistent and robust.
At the same time, several studies document that the gradient is nonetheless characterized by a threshold, usually around the median for income, where additional increases in SES have a diminished effect in reducing morbidity and mortality rates Kitagawa and Hauser, ; Pappas et al.
Research is needed to provide greater understanding of the conditions under which particular markers of SES manifest patterns of linear or nonlinear associations with health status.
We need to identify the thresholds after which weaker SES effects are observed and to characterize the social, psychological, and material risks and resources that are associated with each level of the SES hierarchy. A growing body of research also reveals that even though overall mortality rates have been declining, socioeconomic differentials in mortality have been widening in recent decades.
Comparing data from the s to those for the late s and s, U. Similarly, widening socioeconomic differentials in mortality have been observed in England, Wales, France, Finland, Norway, and the Netherlands Department of Health and Social Security, ; Kunst and Mackenbach, ; Mackenbach et al.
Widening health disparities appear to be primarily driven by larger improvements in the health of high-SES groups compared to their lower-SES counterparts.
For some health conditions, however, there has been no change in health or worsening health status over time for economically disadvantaged populations Williams and Collins, Although differences between SES groups in access, utilization, and the quality of medical care probably play some role in the widening health inequality Makenbach et al.
A high degree of inequality in a given location e. The countries with the smallest spread of incomes and the smallest proportion of the population in relative poverty have the longest life expectancies Wilkinson, Evidence from multiple sources suggests that the greater the concentration of income at the upper end of the income distribution, the higher the mortality and morbidity rates Wilkinson, ; Kaplan et al.
Socioeconomic inequality also affects health in more complicated ways. It is widely recognized that at the aggregate level average health is negatively correlated to the degree of income inequality.
However, if health status depends not on absolute income but on income relative to that of some reference group, then the relationship between income and health is determined by the relative size of within-group and between-group inequality Deaton, When the ratio of between-group to within-group inequality changes, the mix of high- and low-income status in any particular group changes.
This change alters the measure of the relationship between health and income.Health, Income, and Inequality. NBER Reporter: Lower mortality and morbidity is associated with almost any positive indicator of socioeconomic status, a relationship that has come to be known as "the gradient." and the adverse health effects of lower permanent income accumulate over children's lives, so that the children of poorer.
Health and wealth have always been closely related (Wilkinson, ), and economically disadvantaged racial/ethnic minority populations in the United States experience worse health status on multiple indicators of physical health (Williams, in press).
Futhermore, the addition of both PA and NA revealed some attenuation of the effects of oral health status, socio-economic status, and dental visiting pattern indicating that some of the association of these variables with health-related quality of life reflects underlying mood states.
The literature makes it clear that positive and negative affect may have value for understanding the effects of health indicators such as symptom distress, depression, functional status, and health . Some positive health outcomes linked to demographic indicators show that disease rates are less in some parts of the world because of new vaccines but there are more negative health outcomes linked to demographic indicators.
Some positive health outcomes linked to demographic indicators show that disease rates are less in some parts of the world because of new vaccines but there are more negative health outcomes linked to demographic indicators. | https://mynipacijypyn.kaja-net.com/some-positive-and-negative-health-outcomes-linked-to-demographic-indicators-27362hx.html |
Public spending represents the annual expenditure by the federal government to achieve some macro-economic objectives which may include poverty reduction, increase in national productivity and macro-economic stability in the system.
Since the late 1980’s, an increase in public spending has become a major instrument in Nigeria. This was attributed to the following reasons as the major causes of an increase in government expenditure in Nigeria. First is the dominant role of public sector in major economic activities in Nigeria. This could be attributed to several factors among them are oil boom of the early 1970’s, the need for reconstruction of war affected areas after Nigerian civil war in 1970, the industrialization strategy adopted at that time by the federal government (import substitution strategy) and the need to raise gross domestic product (GDP).
On the other hand, the collapse of oil prices in and general mismanagement of the economy in 1980’s brought the issue of poverty eradication in Nigeria. Furthermore, the recent flood disaster in Nigeria has re-awakened the fight against poverty in Nigeria. In the mid 1980s, it was observed that the private sectors were declining in economic activities as measured by aggregate output, industrial production, non oil exports etc. were all showing decreasing signs. Above all, there widespread evidence of massive poverty in the economy despite of the growing public expenditure and fiscal deficit in the economy (library of congress country studies 1980’s).
In 1986, all major socio-economic indicators were showing downwards which brought high rate of unemployment and decreased in purchasing power. Poverty was spending among Nigerians especially the low income earners and economic growth was downward sloping.
Poverty in Nigeria did not become an issue of great concern until after the oil boom when the international oil price crashed and there was an international economic slump. The continuous downward trend in the oil prices in the international market increased the poverty level in Nigeria. The over-dependency on oil revenue and inadequate efforts to mobilize funds from non oil sources led to a serious decline in government revenue. External reserve deteriorated, and cause huge accumulated trade arrears and thereby limiting government effort in provision of basic amenities and social facilities.
Thus the poverty level in Nigeria continues to be on the increased over the past few decades. The 1991 world development report (WDR) showed that Nigeria the most populous country in Africa has a significant number of her population categorized as poor people.
In recognition of the adverse effect of poverty in Nigeria, federal government set up Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) to reduce over
dependency on oil and to provide food to all Nigerians. This had been followed by the introduction of other policies such as national FADAMA programs. Furthermore, the federal government made poverty reduction the core objectives of its annual budget and also initiated various policies measures aimed at promoting people’s welfare and reducing poverty in the economy.
Poverty become an issue of global dimension with nations striving either to reduce or outright poverty in there economy. The complexity of the phenomenon and its impacts on national economics has attracted the attention of international organizations and agencies with government in different nations embarking on policies aimed at reducing poverty. Consequently, Nigerian fiscal policies especially as regard expenses in the areas that have positive impact on the well being of the poor, have progressively being on the increase over the years. Recently, the Imo State government took a bold step towards poverty reduction by introducing free education to all the indigenes of the state up to the tertiary level.
Finally, the extent to which government spending have impacted on the well being of the people prompted this study.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In Nigeria, poverty has been on the increase which can be attributed to inequality existing in the economy such as corruption, macro-economic instability and inconsistency in government policies. In an ordinary framework, poverty is concern with absolute, modulate or relatively standard of living or inability to attain a minimal standard of living. Poverty is found to be at the worst in the rural areas. Which is characterized by malnutrition lack of standard education, low life expectancy and sub-standard housing? In attempt to alleviate these problems, three actors are observed in the literature as being involved in any giving country. Namely; the three ties of government (federal, state and local government), international organizations and nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s).
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION
i To what extent has public expenditure affected the levels of poverty and economic growth in Nigeria?
ii What is the direction of relationship between public expenditure and poverty reduction in Nigeria?
1.4 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
In the context of this study, the following objectives will be achieved.
i To evaluate the impact of public expenditure on poverty reduction in Nigeria
ii To determine the direction of relationship between public expenditure and poverty alleviation in Nigeria.
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHENSIS
Ho: Public expenditure has no impact poverty reduction in Nigeria
Ho: There is no direction of relationship between public expenditure and poverty reduction in Nigeria.
1.7 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY
A research to investigate the impact and relationship between public expenditure and poverty reduction in Nigeria occupies an important detail which cannot be over-emphasized. The parastatas responsible for poverty reduction in Nigeria will find this study useful as it will unveil the current poverty profile and better strategies to alleviate them.
In the other hand, the federal government will benefit from this because it will help them to channel public fund on the economy judiciously.
Finally, the rural dwellers whose represent gross poverty in Nigeria remains the most beneficiaries of this study because it will help government to make policies that will promote their standard of living.
1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
This study is limited to analyze the impact of public expenditure and poverty reduction in Nigeria from 1980-2011. The choice of this period based on the economic history. The 1980s witnessed a radical change in Nigerian economy, which led to the introduction of structural adjustment program (SAP). It also the period when the standard of living index fell, was resulting in further rise in the incidence of poverty.
Furthermore, looking at how government expenditure helps in reducing of poverty, not all sectors of the economy were used. The sectors are those that have direct impact on people’s welfare, which include agriculture and water resources, health, housing and environment, education, transportation and communication.
This research work suffered some limitations because research in economics has never been easy with the researchers. In most cases the researcher is threaten to a number of factors such as; the mobility of involve in this research was stressful; the time required to carry out this research was highly limited as the researcher required time for other academic activities.
Finally, despite of the above problems encounted, by the special grace of God, the objective of this study will be achieved. | https://researchbase.com.ng/the-impact-of-public-spending-on-poverty-reduction-in-nigeria/ |
The contribution of taxation to any economy globally cannot be overemphasized. Apart from the revenue function it performs for the government, it is also used to assist the national government to achieve the country’s macroeconomic objectives in areas of fiscal and monetary policies. Past documentations have revealed that revenue from taxes in developed nations have high impact on its economic growth and development which is clearly seen by the amenities provided and improvements in living standards by such nations. Thus, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the relationship between taxation in Nigeria her economic growth and development. Time series data were applied in carrying out this research work. The research design adopted in the study is the Ex-post facto method of research. Hence, Simple linear regression analysis was used to analyse the data by the use of Pearson Product Moment Model, while T-test was used to test validity and reliability of instrument. The study tried to treat two hypotheses, one of which states that Taxation has no positive, significant relationship with employment in Nigeria. Findings revealed that company income tax, value added tax and custom & excise duties and petroleum profit & royalties tax, have no positive significant relationship with employment in Nigeria. Therefore, a conclusion was drawn highlighting there is no significant relationship between tax revenue and Total employment in Nigeria with a view to selected taxes used. It is however, recommended that tax revenue be used effectively to pursue economic development in terms of employment by investing in key sectors of the Nigerian economy which will transform the economy positively.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Nigeria as a nation has the vision of becoming one among the world's twenty biggest economies in the year 2020; this obviously, is the brain behind the priority attention the present administration is directing at infrastructural development which is essential for economic growth and development. A developed economy is one with the ingredient to stimulate investment and create wealth, this by implication offers an atmosphere that is favorable for business and has the potentials to realize its vision for 2020. The desired outcome requires a lot of money and resources to put the economy in a position that stimulates investment, therefore, tax policies need to attract potential investors, and the revenue from tax should be sufficient enough to meet the infrastructural expenditures of the government.
Tosun and Abizadeh (2005) acknowledged that taxes are used as proxy for fiscal policy. They outlined five possible mechanisms by which taxes can affect economic growth, first, taxes can inhibit investment rate through such taxes as corporate and personal income, capital gains tax, second, taxes can slow down growth in labour supply by disposing labour leisure choice in favor of leisure. Third, tax policy can have effect on research and development expenditure; fourth, taxes can lead to a flow of resources to other sectors that may have lower productivity. Finally, high taxes on labour supply can distort the efficient use of human capital high tax burdens even though they have high social productivity.
Governments in all parts of the world and at all points in history have faced similar challenges when it comes to finding their ambitions. We do not believe that government in the past nor in today’s developing world are any less rational compared to those in today’s developed world.
But important as it is, economic development does not mechanically translate into more uses in the tax take. Even in fast growing economies, such as India and China, decisions by the state are needed to yield a dividend in the form of a higher tax share in GDP.
Sustainable economic development is one of the fundamental objectives which every government mostly in developing economy seeks to achieve. The pursuit of this goal underlines the rationale behind the identification of ways of raising revenue. Nigeria just like every numerous countries through which revenue is sourced in order to finance developmental projects in the economy.
As the Nigerian economy is in recession period, there are inconsistencies in our tax laws which had made it difficult for the tax body to administer and even for the tax payer to follow. The federal government had the intension to maintain a uniform tax system but the economic condition of each state has given room for divergence system. The most important thing one should have in mind is that taxation is supposed to be an instrument of social change which is not answering as much as it should be doing presently in Nigeria. The purpose of this study is to evaluate taxation as a tool for economic growth and development in Nigeria.
1.2. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
In developing countries, the government has to play an active role in promoting economic growth and development because private initiative and capital are limited. Fiscal policy or budget has become an important instrument in promoting growth and development in such economies.
Taxation is an important part of fiscal policy which can be used effectively by government and developing economies. Taxation play a vital role in the economic development and growth of a country which include: resources mobilization, reduction in inequalities of income, improvement in social welfare, foreign exchange, regional development, control inflation.
According to the classical economist, the only objective of taxation was to raise government revenue. But with the change in circumstances and ideologies, the aim of taxes has also been changed. These days apart from the objectives of raising the public revenue, taxes level affect consumption, production and distribution with a view to ensuring the social welfare through the economic development of a country, tax can be used as an important tool in the following manner: optimum allocation of available resources, raising government revenue, encouraging savings and investment, acceleration of economic growth, price stability, control mechanism and others. One of the major problems to be addressed is "the poor fiscal discipline in the allocation of resources and the operations of an ineffective tax regime in Nigeria". Therefore, this study examines whether taxation can serve as a tool for economic growth and development in Nigeria.
1.3. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This study generally seeks to identify the extent to which taxation can be used as an instrument for economic growth and development in Nigeria. While the specific objectives are as follows:
i. To investigate, the extent to which taxation has relationship with the Gross domestic product in Nigeria.
ii. To examine, the role of taxation on employment in Nigeria.
1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
i. Has taxation related with the Gross domestic product in Nigeria.
ii. Does taxation play any role on employment in Nigeria.
1.5. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
Hypothesis 1:
H0; Taxation has no significant relationship with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Nigeria.
H1; Taxation has significant relationship with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Nigeria.
Hypothesis II:
H0; Taxation does not have positive significant relationship with employment in Nigeria.
H1; Taxation has a positive significant relationship with employment in Nigeria.
1.6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Government: This study is of immense significance at all levels of government including both the federal, state and local governments, as it depicts the relationships and impacts of taxation on economic growth and development of Nigeria.
Relevance of Tax Collection: The essence of this research work is to evaluate taxation as a tool for economic growth and development in Nigeria. Thus, this study will at a wide range be beneficial to the federal, state and local governments as well as international communities, as it will highlight the relevance of taxation in the society.
Granting more experience on Tax Payments: This study would also be of immense benefit to employees of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), who has been at the fore front of experiencing incorporation of tax payers by paying their taxes promptly.
Encouraging Tax Remittance: This study would be beneficial to the public, private sectors, individuals, business owners will find it necessary by encouraging them to comply by remitting their taxes.
Further Studies: It would also be of huge benefits to students of higher institutions who may wish to carry out further research on similar topics.
1.7. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study is concerned with the evaluation of taxation as a tool for economic growth and development in Nigeria. The study will also consider, how taxation has affected the Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria and also the effect of taxation on employment in Nigeria from 2006-2015
1.8. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The limitation encountered in this study includes the following;
Hoarding of Data: The inability of the researcher to collect adequate data in Enugu, which brought about the need to travel down to Abuja, so as to gather data's needed for the study in National Bureau of Statistics.
Existing Data’s: The gathered materials and data's are not essentially, the one formulated personally by researcher; they are already formulated information’s and data’s that were used for this study.
Country Barrier: The results of this study can only be restricted to Nigerians and no other parts of the world as it only gives a general overview of Nigeria and no other countries.
1.9. DEFINITION OF TERMS
Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): it is the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period. Though, GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis, it can be calculated on a quarterly basis as well.
Taxation: it is a compulsory levy imposed on a subject or upon his property by the government to provide security, social amenities and other amenities for the well-being of the society.
Petroleum profit tax act (PPTA): it is an act that regulates the petroleum profit tax and also specifies how profit from petroleum will be taxed.
Economic Growth: Economic Growth is an increase in a country’s physical output over a long period of time
Economic Development: Economic Development is the elimination or reduction in poverty, inequality and unemployment within the context of a growing economy; there might be growth without economic development
Economy: Economy is the large set of interrelated production and consumption activities that aid in determining how scarce resources are allocated.
Development: development is the systematic use of scientific and technical knowledge to meet specific objectives or requirements.
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Short Abstract:
Focused on developing countries that seek to end poverty and to pursue high growth, the panel will address the tension between structural change, associated with rising disparities between the rich and poor, and inclusive growth that is shared across society so that poverty reduction in maximised
Long Abstract
Most of the world's poor live in countries that have since the Cold War experienced rapid economic growth and substantial rises in average income per capita, unequivocal structural change of GDP, employment and exports away from agriculture, and an increase in income disparities between the richest and the poor. The UN goal of ending global poverty by 2030 will require that high growth rates are sustained and that growth is inclusive and shared across society. High and sustained growth is best driven by structural change. However, structural change is associated with rising disparities between the rich and poor. In contrast, inclusive growth is best achieved with steady or falling inequality to maximize poverty reduction. How to manage this tension or trade-off between structural change and inclusive growth is a crucial contemporary question for developing countries as they seek to end poverty as well as to pursue economic development.
The proposed panel will address this tension through the following questions: What model of economic development would ensure rapid growth and structural change with an expanding share of income for the poor? How are governments to use policies to manage this tension? Where is political mass support for the processes that drive structural change to come from? Which economic and institutional arrangements mediate the trade-offs of structural transformations in the most equitable way?
Accepted papers:
Authors:Amrita Saha (IDS, University of Sussex)
Tommaso Ciarli (University of Sussex)
Paper short abstract:
There is little evidence in the literature on the three-way relations between innovation, structural change and inclusion. With a structural model for a short panel of developing countries over 13 years, we advance a first exercise in this direction.
Paper long abstract:
Structural change can be both, a cause or a consequence of innovation, while structural change and innovations are usually accompanied by short-term outcomes of social inclusion or exclusion. Inclusion may in turn have an impact on further innovations. Yet, the authors find little evidence in the literature on the three way relations between innovation, structural change and inclusion. This paper advances a first exercise in this direction. Given the multidimensionality of each (innovation, structural change, and inclusion), the authors extract the underlying unobserved common factor structure from various well-known macro indicators. With a structural vector auto regression model for a short panel of developing countries over 13 years, the authors find the following main results. First, the authors confirm the virtuous cycle between innovation and structural change, aligning with existing literature. Second, the strongest result is the positive effect of inclusion on both innovation and structural change, that suggests policy to improve inclusion beyond poverty and inequality. Third, on decomposing the innovation index (formal, firm-level and ICT), the authors find each related differently to both structural change and inclusion, that suggests specific policy roles in their influence on inclusion and structural change.
Author:Kundan Mishra (University of Massachusetts Boston)
Paper short abstract:
The structural explanations of economic growth extended to rural-urban undermine the agency of migrants. Through a review of the structural approaches to rural-urban migration, this paper highlights the knowledge gaps regarding agency of migrants and proposes a framework that addresses concerns.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I review the literature on rural-urban migration to understand two key aspects of rural-urban migration. First, how has the theoretical relationship evolved with the changing narrative on economic development? I revisit the key efforts that understand and problematize rural-urban migration, according to the changing narratives of economic development. Second, this paper critiques the conceptualizations of agency in the theorizing of migration and highlights the lack of research on the interaction between agency and structure. Further, I argue that the household as a unit of analysis is under-researched. To this end, I summarize key empirical works to highlight the relationship between their ontological and epistemological focus. Subsequently, I argue that the household represents the interaction between structural changes and agency of migrants. With a review of human capital and human security approaches to rural-urban migration, this paper problematizes the decision to migrate in the absence of any notable improvement in well-being, exemplified by the case of seasonal migration. Through this review, the paper identifies how capabilities approach is suited to understand the agency of migrants at individual, household and community level. The paper proposes a framework to capture agency of migrants through the negotiation between the agency of a migrant household and its well-being. The paper then presents key questions towards a research agenda around the agency of migrants. While the second section lays emphasis on rural-urban migration, it also elaborates on how the framework can be adapted for other contexts of forced and voluntary migration.
Authors:Emmanuel Buadi Mensah (UNU-MERIT)
Solomon Owusu (UNU-MERIT)
Adam Szirmai (UNU-MERIT/Maastricht University)
Neil Foster-McGregor (UNU-MERIT)
Paper short abstract:
The paper uses new and expanded sector database to analyse the role of structural transformation on the economic growth of Africa. In addition to decomposing labor productivity growth into within and structural change components, we compute the labor market turbulence effect of structural change.
Paper long abstract:
Since the construction of the Africa Sector Database (ASD) at the Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC), there has been a wave of statistical reforms in some of the countries in the ASD leading to significant revaluations of GDP. These reforms have provided a clearer picture of the size and structure of production of the countries involved (Sy, 2015). We update the ASD to reflect these statistical changes. Most importantly, following the methodology of ASD, we expand the ASD by constructing sectoral data for seven new African countries. This has resulted in an expanded database (from the 1960s to 2015) covering about 80% of GDP in Sub-Sahara Africa. With this Expanded Africa Sector Database (EASD), we decompose productivity growth in Africa taking inspiration from McMillan et al (2014); and De Vries et al (2015). Productivity growth has been generally low since the 1960s with moderate contributions from structural change during the import-substitution era and the MDGs era. Although productivity growth from structural change is generally low, regional comparison show that structural change is more rapid in East Africa than the other regions of SSA. To understand whether this moderate structural change contributes to raising the income of the poor, we compute the labor market turbulence effect of structural change. Thus, are poor agricultural workers moving to high income sectors or low income sectors? We then analyze how Employment Protection Legislation affects job reallocation to low and high income sectors and its implication on poverty reduction.
Author:Christina Wolf (Kingston University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates how macroeconomic policy, in particular redistributive policies and government spending, can act in support of domestic market formation and therefore ultimately in support of structural transformation in developing countries.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates how macroeconomic demand-side policies can act in support of structural transformation in low-income countries. With the noticeable exception of export-demand, demand-side conditions necessary to sustain profitable commodity production have not been the explicit focus of research on industrial development and policy. This paper argues that the question how domestic markets form and under which conditions demand for commodity production remains or becomes expansionary is of particular relevance for late-industrialisers given reconfigurations of global export markets. While aggregate export earnings of many developing economies increased as a result of the commodity price boom between 2000 and 2015, export markets served less and less as outlets for manufacturing products. Asset-driven wealth accumulation (financialisation) in developed economies crowds out long-term productive investment and tends to worsen the distribution of income and wealth thereby depressing consumer demand. What is more, intense price and wage competition between developing countries for the same export markets has resulted in declining terms of trade for low value-added manufacturing products. Against this global economic context tending towards systemic deficient demand, the mobilisation of domestic sources of demand for manufacturing outlets becomes a key challenge of late-industrialisation. This paper explores demand-side dynamics relevant for manufacturing sector growth, stressing that supporting the growth of domestic markets is among other things a function of income distribution and government spending.
Authors:Manasi Bera (Indian Institute of Dalit Studies)
Amaresh Dubey (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Paper short abstract:
This study analyses the inclusiveness of the growth process underway in the rural economy of India by focusing on the changes in long term activity of the households and their current economic wellbeing and how the opportunities are being accessed by different social groups.
Paper long abstract:
Indian economy has undergone important structural changes leading to high growth and poverty reduction in the last few decades. Rural economy has also registered significant changes during this period. Important among them is the decline in the share of agriculture and allied sector to one third of rural NDP. However, this has not been followed by a proportional shift of workforce. This study attempts to analyse the nature and inclusiveness of structural transformation process underway in rural India since 1990s. The specific questions it asks are: How the structure of household income is changing in rural India. Whether the prosperity is shared by different social groups? What determines the shift in the main source of income of households? Two nationally representative data sources - NSS and IHDS - has been used for analysis. Findings are based on descriptive statistics and Logistic regression. Results show that though there is growth in income, and poverty rate has declined, fruits have not been distributed equally across social groups. Mobility towards more remunerative activity has been different across social groups. Marginalised social groups (SC and OBC) households show a greater shift towards other labour work (lateral mobility), Upper caste households towards better opportunities in the non-farm sector (vertical mobility), while tribal households continue to depend on land based activities. Social identity, education, land ownership, number of adults in household, occupation, and location are found to be important determinants of shift towards non-farm opportunities.
Authors:C. Nila Warda (The SMERU Research Institute)
Elza Elmira (SMERU Research Institute)
Paper short abstract:
The study shows that structural transformation among rural people, mostly poor farmers, significantly improve their welfare. Considering their skill-gap, the village government could establish village-owned enterprises under Village Law to facilitate and empower the farmers to acquire the new skills
Paper long abstract:
Previous study showed that to let the poor equally benefit from economic growth, the right sources of growth must be identified first. In rural areas, service growth is identified to have significant impact to reduce poverty compared to agriculture or manufacture. Given that the majority of people in rural areas are working in agriculture, it remains unclear whether shifting to non-agricultural sector, particularly services, would improve their welfare considerably. This paper evaluates the impact on individual welfare in rural areas based on their decision to shift working from agricultural to non-agricultural sector in the mid-term (7 years) and the long-term (14 years). Utilizing longitudinal data, Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) 1993, 1997, 2000, 2007, and 2014, we performed Propensity Score Matching (PSM), Double Difference-in-Difference (DDID), as well as generating bounds on treatment effect to address the selection bias. The findings show that in micro level the employment structural transformation in rural areas is able to significantly improve both the income and the consumption level. Therefore rural farmers, lying in bottom 15% of rural income, might catch up with the average income growth level which eventually flatten out rural inequality. This may lead to overall inequality since the majority of poor people are concentrated in rural areas. In light of this, we should also consider the skill-gap in shifting to non-agricultural job, in which the village government could utilize Village Law No. 6/2014 to establish the village-owned enterprises which could facilitate and empower the farmers to acquire the new skills.
Author:David Potts (University of Bradford)
Paper short abstract:
This paper reviews evidence on structural change and trends in inequality in a range of Sub-Saharan African economies that have experienced varying rates of economic growth in the last twenty years.
Paper long abstract:
This paper reviews evidence on structural change and trends in inequality for a range of Sub-Saharan African economies that have experienced varying rates of economic growth in the last twenty years. The paper follows up an earlier paper that focused on a smaller number of economies and widens the scope to cover a larger selection of economies that includes both low growth economies and some Francophone countries. Comparisons will be made with between the different economies to establish potential causes of any observed differences. The paper will consider:
To what extent has economic growth been associated with structural change in the countries under consideration?
To what extent has such structural change been accompanied by changes in inequality?
Are there any structural factors that can be associated with differences in the share of economic growth accruing to the poorest groups?
Are there any common factors that explain the differences in economic performance?
Author:Grace Kite (Gracious Economics)
Paper short abstract:
Modern structural change often involves information technology. India has a head-start relative to other developing countries but has this contributed to development, or only benefited a few already well-off people? This paper evaluates and quantifies linkages into Indian firms and households.
Paper long abstract:
Literature on India's software and information technology services (SWIS) sector is doubtful about its role in development because it finds that the sector's forward and backward linkages predominantly lead abroad. The only beneficiaries are the already well-educated workers in the SWIS sector itself and some SWIS firms. Using new data, this paper re-evaluates the sector's role and finds that there is now much more room for optimism. Domestic forward linkages have been growing very quickly and they are responsible for significant output and productivity gains in Indian sectors like telecoms, banking, and retail. Additionally, backward linkages from the sector and its employees stimulate demand for domestically produced goods and services like construction, catering, and travel. There is an increasing knock on effect on creation of low skilled jobs. Together, these effects add up to a significant contribution to India's economy, and increasingly India's people too. | https://nomadit.co.uk/dsa/dsa2018/conferencesuite.php/panels/6355 |
TMA04 – Introduction to Social Science Question: Compare and contrast two social science views about the ordering of social life Understanding social order is central to social sciences as it largely determines human behaviour and allows individuals live together, sharing a common space. As a concept, social order can be interpreted as a social condition in which stability and consistency are maintained through a set of rules of conduct, often implicit, inducing people exercise self-control within life situations. It differs over time and place, and tends to be restored immediately when it is breached I looked at the main differences and similarities between the two theorists Michel Foucault and Erwing Goffman? If we now compare and contrast Goffman’s and Foucault’s explanations of how social order is made and remade. I looked at Goffman’s theory, he believes social order is produced through actions of individuals and their practises through living there lives.
The Case Study Approach Deciding to write a case study researcher should think about the method itself; along with how it can be used as a tool plus the reasons to use the case study approach. Does it convey truly what they are wanted to get across? Before they start working on a case study; have they thought of all the advantages and disadvantages to using this approach to getting a theory or information out to the world. Once they have reached this point then the researcher must decide how to collect the data/information in which they want to share with the real world. The Case Study Method and Tool Case studies are methods in which usually an individual is observed but sometimes can be a setting such as a school, business, or neighborhood.
Vushaj SOC 150-05 September 6, 2013 Writing assignment #1 Sociology is the study of society and social interaction. Sociology takes a broad approach at helping one understand how people interact in different societies. On the contrary, other social sciences look deeper into specific areas of society, rather than society as a whole. Classical sociologists Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, each contributed to the scientific study of sociology. Marx believed that societies grew and changed due to struggles of different social classes.
Giddens (2009 p.6) defined sociology as ‘‘the scientific study of human life, social groups, whole societies and the human world as such’’. He argued further about sociology by suggesting that, ‘‘it is a dazzling and compelling enterprise, as its subject matter is our own behaviour as social beings’’. Hence, it is opined that sociology is an academic tool that broadly looks at human organisms’ lives in order to explain why they act the way they do. Black (1979 p.18) defines common sense as ‘‘the style of discourse by which people understand reality in everyday life”. Sociology is in one way or another related to science and common sense but it is also in many ways distinct from the two.
Use of the Scientific Method in Sociology Sociologists are social scientists who observe the human society. As sociology is also the field of science, it needs to be studied with the application of scientific method. Scientific method is a systematic approach to researching questions and problems through objective and accurate observation, collection and analysis of data, direct experimentation, and replication of these procedures. The principles of the scientific method are mostly concerned with the way of conducting the observations. Sociologists who use scientific method should develop a hypothesis that is falsifiable and when observing the social phenomena they want to study, he or she should not put their personal beliefs in their observation.
Social facts, positivists argue, can be observed, measured, and quantified, (hence why positivism is also known as Quantitative) producing data/statistics which, when analysed can reveal correlations, patterns of behaviour, causes (cause and effect), and ultimately, laws of human behaviour. By creating data through research methods such as structured interviews, questionnaires, and social surveys using a deductive approach to the relationship between theory and results, the emphasis is placed on the testing of theories. They also believe that it is important to examine society as a whole, using a large scale (macro) methodology, and consider social facts (institutions, beliefs, norms &values of society) to have an external existence to a person, but having an influence on behaviour, and the way a person acts. Therefore, it could be said that human beings essentially are directed by social facts, by norms, values and beliefs, and are part of wider society. Durkheim’s study of suicide being an example of this, he gathered data on suicide (social fact) and members of different religious beliefs (set), by analysis of such data and found a link between Protestantism and a high rate of suicide.
How this will be accomplished will be by comparing and contrasting their assumptions. Then I will state my opinion on which of the two better fits my personal sociological views. Functionalism and the conflict theory are sociological perspectives that present different assertions of studying the society and how the resultant perspectives of the society are enhanced. The functionalist perspective perceives the society as a system and on a large scale. The functionalist perspective presents social moulding of an individual rather than use of force to the individual in order to carry out societal roles.
At the other end of the spectrum, Ground Theory is a systematic form of enquiry which generates social theory through the study of social systems present in human relations and although there are differences between the two, they both have much in common. In respect to the similarities that exist between the two, both theories adopt an interpretivivst approach, in which the researcher seeks to explore real life situations, which requires much more interaction between persons and this takes the form of interviews or observation etc. both theorist collect and analyses data from participants perspectives and try to ensure their findings are not influenced by preconceived ideas, to achieve they must involve participants in data analysis to increase trustworthiness of the findings. In brief, Grounded and Phenomenologists Theorist seeks to explore, individuals experience in the context of the world we live in. Phenomenologists emerged from Philosophy, primary influenced by E. Husseri and M. Heidegger, it aims to describe and explore experiences which can only be done by collecting data, from individuals who have lived through those experiences.
Social Influences on Behavior Social influences on behavior This paper will attempt to explore and explain basic concepts of human interactions regarding a perspective on psychology and examples given regarding how human behaviors change based on different social situations, including specific behaviors, environments in which the behaviors occurred, associated phenomenon associated with behaviors, and if the behavior exhibits any necessary therapeutic intervention. Social Influences on Behavior Social psychology and sociology are very similar and travel the same path. Conformity may make a new situation easier and combining the identity to a group is a social identity theory. An individual’s behavior often changes by changing the individual’s environment or group setting. Humans crave social interactions; to withhold social interaction is a squandered effort.
Studying Human Society: The Sociological Approach 1. Describe one similarity and two differences between structural and action theories. (187 Words) When comparing Structural theories, such as Marxism, Functionalism and Feminism(s), and Social Action theories such as Interactionist theory, we see there is a similarity in their foundation desire to understand and interpret the roles and behaviour of people in society. However, when considering contrasts within these theories we see marked differences; for example, structural theories are deterministic, believing people to be the products of the society they live in, their status the result of social prescriptivism. Whereas, action theorists expressly believe we have free-will and are capable of choosing our own path; that society should be and is defined by the opinions and actions of those individuals who form it. | https://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/Evaluate-The-View-That-People-Act-295918.html |
PublisherThe University of Arizona.
RightsCopyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
AbstractThe income inequality hypothesis is one of the most influential ideas in public health. It posits that in the affluent world income inequality per se has a direct, independent and detrimental effect on health. This hypothesis, established in the 1990s, led to the publication of hundreds of articles across multiple disciplines. This hypothesis is also rather controversial. Debates surround the actual effect of income inequality and the hypothesized mechanisms. The evidence is consistently inconsistent. I argue that several conceptual and methodological limitations afflict this literature and hinder our understanding of the relationship between income inequality and health. In particular, I highlight four limitations: 1) simplistic treatment of inequality and poverty; 2) reliance on cross-national ecological comparisons that do not adequately consider the contributions of unusual cases; 3) reliance on cross-sectional comparisons; 4) reliance on a limited use of indicators. These limitations prompted the present dissertation research, which comprises three empirical studies. In the first study, I reanalyze publicly available data on income inequality and health across 20 affluent countries and 50 U.S. states. Drawing on the analytical difference between gap and headcount measures of income distributions, I argue that income inequality and poverty are dependent but distinct, and I estimate the extent to which poverty rates modify the relationship between income inequality and health. Across countries, the interaction of income inequality and poverty has a significant and adverse effect on health. Across U.S. states, instead, the interaction is not significant because the effect of poverty completely nullifies the effect of income inequality. In the second study, I delve into the interaction observed when comparing affluent countries in the first study. I use a recently developed methodology that decomposes regression coefficient estimates into unique case-specific contributions. I focus on the most frequently used measure of population health, life expectancy. I estimate OLS regression models with four different model specifications, which I then decompose. Four cases make major contributions to the coefficient estimates in all of the models. Two of these cases, Denmark and Japan, are particularly important because they challenge theoretical expectations: Denmark shows remarkably low life expectancy despite low levels of income inequality and poverty; Japan has the highest life expectancy despite relatively high levels of poverty. Denmark’s low life expectancy is explained by the high mortality risk of women born between WWI and WWII, who exhibited a lifelong high propensity to smoke. Japan’s high life expectancy is due to a concerted series of government initiatives (e.g., establishment of universal health insurance coverage, salt reduction campaigns, cost-effective antihypertensive drugs, dietary guidelines) that promoted healthy lifestyles and dietary habits. In the third and final study, I examine the income inequality hypothesis longitudinally. I estimate the effect of three indicators of income inequality (Gini coefficient, top 0.1% income share, and Theil index) on four outcomes (death rates for suicide, drug poisoning, homicide and heart disease) across the 50 U.S. states in 2000-2015. I estimate fixed-effects models that account for unobserved heterogeneity and omitted variable bias. My findings show no effect of income inequality on health. Lastly, I estimate mediation models that assess the indirect effect of income inequality on health via welfare generosity (in particular, the SNAP program, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program.) Across all specifications, income inequality has a negative indirect effect on mortality. Income inequality increases welfare generosity, which improves population health. As a whole, this dissertation shows that in the affluent world, income inequality has no direct or independent effect on health. Supporting individuals and household with no or low income might be a better way to improve population health than just reducing income inequality.
Typetext
Electronic Dissertation
Degree NamePh.D. | https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/628406 |
Income inequality is a major concern globally. Income inequality is a measure of income distribution among a population. The measure assesses the gap between the rich and the poor by examining the income distribution among a population. In the last three decades, income inequality has grown remarkably in the United States. This means that the rich are becoming richer while the poor remain worse off. Widening income gaps reflect diminishing income opportunities and mobility among the population. This is an indication that certain segments of the population are disadvantaged. High levels of income inequality in the economy may have severe consequences on the growth and development of the economy. Policymakers should implement income redistribution measures to ensure that the gap between the rich and the poor closes.
Slide 3
High levels of income inequality may lead to large social costs. Large income inequalities in the population can affect the ability of the individuals to access education opportunities and consequently influence their career choices negatively. High levels of income inequality may hinder the larger segment of the poor population from accessing educational opportunities, which translates to large social costs. High levels of income inequality in the economy may discourage the poor from working hard to close the income gap. In such a case, the poor may result to seeking favors or protection from the few who are rich, leading to high levels of corruption, nepotism, resource misallocation, and other vices. Poor income distribution affects growth and development of a country. According to Dabla-Norris et al. (2015), there exist an inverse relationship between marginal gain of income among the rich and the economic growth of a country. Lastly, income inequality affects key growth drivers such as physical and human capital accumulation.
Slide 4
Education can greatly help reduce income inequality in the society. Education determines the occupational choice of individuals (Dabla-Norris et al., 2015. Through education, individuals gain knowledge on different occupations and field of practice, enabling them to earn an income in the future. Education gives people access to jobs. Educated people are able to find jobs and improve the standards of living by earning an income. Education promotes entrepreneurship in the economy. Educated people are more likely to develop their own entrepreneurial ventures and thus create employment in the economy. This can help reduce the income gap as more people become involved in production. Rajan (2015) contends that education is the key to attaining wealth in society (as cited in Dabla-Norris et al., 2015). However, it has become unaffordable to majority of individuals in the middle class.
Slide 5
Studies have shown that high levels of income inequality leads to erosion of democratic values held by individuals. According to Griffin (2015), democratic values are highly regarded in countries having low income inequalities. In countries with high-income inequalities, support for democracy tends to be low. Income inequality leads to political protest or unrests. In the last decade, various countries have experienced political protest owing to widening gaps between the rich and the poor. Some of these countries include Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Greece, Turkey, and among others. A study by Griffin (2015), concludes that countries with high levels of income inequality experience polarization among citizens, which spur nonviolent protests. High levels of income inequality lead to low political participation among the poor. According to Solt (2008), the poor often become uninvolved in political engagements since they feel powerless. In addition, they perceive that involvement in politics does not improve their living standards.
Slide 6
The question at issue relates to the problem or issue at hand (Ahuna & Tinnesz, 2003). The question posed must be clear and relevant in order to guide thinking. When vague questions are posed, the answer will most likely lack distinctness and clarity. In answering the three questions at issue, a number of aspects were taken into consideration with regard to the standard. First is the analysis of the complexity of the questions. If the question is complex, detailed answers may be required. The other consideration is whether the questions are clear. All the questions were clear and thus distinct answers provided. In answering the question, it was also important to consider their particular domain. For instance, the three questions are in economical, educational, and political domains. In answering the question, the standard provokes one to examine what they need to do in order to answer the question correctly. For instance, one is able to consider whether there is need to collect data.
Slide 7
Inference refers to the conclusions that one draws from analyzing the issue at hand. Interpretation refers to the mental representation of a particular situation, which involves drawing meanings (Ahuna & Tinnesz, 2003). Inferences are drawn from the evidence presented. The standard helps assess the conclusions or inference that one makes in a particular situation. This standard is important since it helps gauge whether the conclusions made are logical. The standard helps determine whether the conclusions reached follow the data used in referring. The standard also helps examine whether there are other alternative or suitable conclusions. The standard is important in determining the suitable mechanisms to use during interpretation of data. Lastly, it helps determine the best possible conclusion during the examination of a particular issue.
Slide 8
Point of view is important in answering questions. The standard represents the focus or angle that an individual takes in answering questions. The standard is important in this context since it enabled me to identify the appropriate viewpoints and use them in the analysis (Ahuna & Tinnesz, 2003). The standard is critical in helping one assess multiple viewpoints regarding an issue. Thus, one is able to draw comparisons between his or her own thinking and the thinking of others. The standard enables one to identify faults in own thinking or judgment. For instance, one may be in denial that a particular situation is true despite evidence from data showing otherwise. The standard is important in the context since it can help one to identify the most reasonable argument. This is important in drawing a logical conclusion.
SLide 9
Question of facts refers to those questions whose answer should have backing from relevant data or evidence. The above is a question of fact since it requires one to find data comparing income inequality to the economic growth or performance of a country. When answering questions of fact, an individual makes inferences from the available facts. It is possible to proof or disproof a question of fact by referring to particular standards of evidence or proof. Proof about the questions of fact may merely require factual points to be more against the opposing views, while in other cases there is need for proof beyond any reasonable doubt (Ahuna & Tinnesz, 2003). In the question above, there is need for proof from statistical analysis of available data on income gap and performance of the economy.
Slide 10
This is a question of judgment. Questions of judgment require reasoning and the answers may vary. There are no standard answers for questions of judgment. The answers to the above questions are debatable and depend on how well arguments are constructed concerning the role of education in bridging income gaps. If arguments are supported using relevant evidence or data, they are more likely to be accepted. Assessment of questions of judgment involves looking at various intellectual standards such as depth of arguments and logic (Ahuna & Tinnesz, 2003). In analyzing the effectiveness of the answers, one may choose the best answer from a range of possibilities.
Slide 11
This is also a question of fact. As earlier mentioned, questions of fact require one to substantiate his or her claims using data. This question requires a researcher to analyze data on how income inequality alters the political landscape of a country. Answering the question requires the use of standards of evidence (Ahuna & Tinnesz, 2003). The consideration of this problem demonstrates deep learning by expanding my knowledge on income inequality in the U.S. and other parts of the world.
Slide 13
In conclusion, income inequality has been a major challenge facing most countries in the world. Income inequality reflects widening gap between the rich and the poor. Widening income gaps reflect diminishing income opportunities and mobility among the population, which is detrimental to the health of the economy. Consideration of the problem enabled me gain new insights about impacts of income inequality in the economy of the United States. Additionally, it helped in developing different perspectives regarding the issue. | https://samplepapers.us/income-inequality-critical-thinking/ |
Ask Eartha: What’s all the fuss about endangered species?
Ask Eartha
Dear Eartha,
I recently attended a lecture given by a National Geographic photographer discussing his work on endangered species. Can you explain why it’s important to protect endangered species and what individuals can do to help?
— Judy, Breckenridge
Your question is quite timely, Judy, not only because of the lecture you attended, but also because of recent congressional talk of weakening the Endangered Species Act, the federal law that protects threatened and endangered species. Although extinction might not be something we think about on a regular basis, it’s a very real problem with serious consequences for human life.
We are living through the sixth massive extinction event in the history of the world. The fifth took place 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs were wiped out. What makes this an “event?” Consider that the natural rate of extinction is about one to five species a year. Right now, we’re losing species at 1,000 times that rate — upwards of a dozen species per day. In fact, we’re losing species so quickly that many scientists refer to this extinction not as an event, but as a crisis.
And what makes the current extinction particularly unique is that unlike past extinction events caused by meteors, volcanoes, natural climate changes, etc., the current wave of extinctions is overwhelmingly caused by human activity. Habitat loss, over-exploitation, introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change are all human factors that negatively impact the ability of the natural world to thrive.
But what’s another insect or amphibian vanished from the Earth, right? And what was the dodo good for, anyway?
Well, the answer is that the web of life is complex, and all organisms play roles in their home ecosystems, however small. Biodiversity, defined as the variety of life on Earth, is important to the healthy functioning of ecosystems. And we humans, even if we don’t realize it, depend upon ecosystem services for our own health and livelihoods.
Ecosystems provide us with important services, like water purification, soil formation, erosion and flood control, coastal protection and pollination. In fact, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates that the monetary value humans receive from goods and services provided by ecosystems each year is $33 trillion.
These services are the result of all species in an ecosystem working together, and studies show that ecosystem functioning decreases as the number of species in the biological community decreases. Think of it like a stock portfolio: The more diversified your account, the better you can weather the ups and downs of the market.
The same is true for ecosystems — the more variety of species, the more resilient and stable an ecosystem will be. So, it’s important to conserve nature not only for nature’s sake, but also our own.
Wondering how to support biodiversity in your own ecological community? It’s not as daunting a task as you might think. You can visit the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website to learn about endangered and threatened species in Colorado; call your Congressional representatives to ask that they support conservation legislation and wildlife-friendly land management practices; never purchase products made from derivatives of endangered or threatened species; purchase products made with recycled or sustainably harvested content to avoid habitat destruction; and finally, you can take matters into your own hands by making sure your backyard is part of the solution.
Across the globe, scientists and keen observers have noted significant decreases in global pollinator populations over the past few decades. At risk due to exposure to pesticides and loss of habitat, over 30 pollinators native to the U.S. are endangered.
But you can help by providing a welcoming backyard habitat for pollinators. Now is a great time to research pollen-rich, pollinator-friendly native plants and to purchase wildflower mixes to sow in springtime. Equally important, avoid using pesticides on your lawn or garden as these hurt pollinators and other beneficial insects. For guidance, the Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group, has a website full of information about gardening for pollinators.
Species loss, especially when it doesn’t involve a cuddly animal like the giant panda or the gray wolf, can be an abstract concept because we aren’t faced with it every day, yet extinction can have a profound impact on our lives.
After all, without pollinators, our diets would be pretty boring. It’s up to us to be stewards of the natural environment to ensure the healthy functioning of our local and global ecosystems, so that all who reside in them — ourselves included — are free to thrive. It might still be winter, but I’m already looking forward to planting a beautiful flower garden full of colorful native plants and buzzing with biodiversity.
Ask Eartha Steward is written by the staff at the High Country Conservation Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sustainable food, waste reduction and resource conservation. Submit questions to Eartha at [email protected].
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted. | https://www.summitdaily.com/explore-summit/ask-eartha-whats-all-the-fuss-about-endangered-species/ |
Land fragmentation is the process by which land is divided into smaller portions to suit the need of the communities around and the parties involved. However, many biologists know that there are many possible effects related to the loss of habitat. Any time the habitat is fragmented; there is very serious impact on the land surface. The habitat is where animals live. The organisms also thrive in such enabling environments (Berry, 1999).
Whenever, the community changes the way they use land, species have difficulties because their habitat is destroyed. When the habitat is also destroyed or overused, organism have problems thriving, the diminishing nature of the habitat makes it further hard. The encroachment of the human population into these lands is one of the main worries of the lands administrators and botanists. Another notable degradation of the habitat is the urbanization trend in the current environment where people tend to build industries and malls
Hypothesis: Habitat fragmentation has negative impact on forest food webs and the ecosystem
Methods
2. The team developed a computer model and fragmented the visual land into pieces in terms of 25%, 50% and 75% fragmented, respectively. Then the team introduced the species into the land in turn and made their observations.
Results
The species were affected by the habitat fragmentation, the Spiny fire grass (SFG) were destroyed in the process of fragmentation and Blue bunch wheat flower (BBWF) were also affected because the thicket covering were removed s and they were exposed to the direct sunlight that destroyed them. Then population of the elks increased by 25% because they depend on the SFG as their main source of food. The population numbers of both Blue bunch wheat flower (BBWF) and SFG reduced.
However, when the wolves were introduced into the ecosystem, their population increased as they got ready food eating the elks. The population of the elks reduced while that of the wolves increased. Accordingly, the population of the SFG and that of the BBWF started increasing. Unfortunately, the elks diminished and the population of the wolves decreased
When the land was fragmented, the population of the BBWF and the SFG reduced, this has a domino effect on the overall population of the elks and the wolves, but with the reduction in the population of the wolves the population of the Look at your results table.
What were impacts of fragmentation on each species’ population numbers when all four were present?
Fragmentation had negative impact on the population of each species. For example, fragmentation reduced the sprouting area of the BBWF and the SFG; the plants could not grow beyond the fragmented area. Fragmentation affected the elks negatively. In addition, the wolves were affected because the elks were moved to other fragmentation therefore they had less elks to eat. They starved and died (Brooks, 2000).
Do you accept or reject your hypothesis?
I accept the hypothesis because the ecosystem was self-sustaining; however, fragmentation interfered with a stable and self-perpetuating environment. If the SFG and the BBWF were not cleared, the elks would still have something to eat on and the wolves would have the elks to eat
3. Did you observe any thresholds of fragmentation beyond which a species’ population number rapidly declined?
Yes
Did the effects of any such threshold on one species cascade through the community to affect other species
Yes
The population of the wolves increased, thereby increasing competition for elks, when the population of the elks reduced drastically. The wolves starved to death.
4. What were the impacts of competition on each species?
Fragmentation reduced the sprouting area of the BBWF and the SFG, the plants could not grow beyond the fragmented area. On the other hand, the elks were negatively affected as the fragmentation reduced the grazing areas. Moreover, the wolves were affected because the elk’s were moved to other fragmentation therefore they had less elks to eat. They starved and died
How did the addition of BBWF, elk and wolves affect the populations of the other species?
The addition of the se species reduced the population of the BBWF and the SFG
Discussion
5. Which species appear to benefit from increasing fragmentation? Which species are negatively impacted?
6. The species that were impacted by fragmentation were the elks and the SFG
When the land was fragmented, the elks fed on the SFG but could not feed on the BBWF, however, the community of the wolves increased and fed on the elks
7. How do your findings relate to relevant theories in environmental science? Specifically:
a. Do your results indicate that any of the species are keystone species?
Yes
Do they support the theory of bottom-up or top-down control of population dynamics in ecosystems?
Yes
Explain: the bottom up control of the population is supported because the wolves could, only be eliminated by eliminating the SFG
b. How do deforestation and urban sprawl affect the greater food web?
Deforestation destroys the keystone that established the support for the ecosystem
Do your results support idea that trophic cascades occur in nature
Yes
Explain. The tropic cascades occur in nature by virtue of the interdependence between the food chains.
The food chain is highly interconnected therefore, if one part of the food web is destroyed, the whole system is affected.
a. Does your results and the readings how might the environmental impacts of deforestation and sprawl affect the human community of Pinchot
If the land is cleared, the plants are also destroyed and the elks would die without food and the wolves would die without elk meat
Conclusions and Management Recommendations
The Pinchot shoulder consider the 75% fragmentation so that all the species can be supported in the system
References
Brooks M., (2000). Competition between Alien Annual Grasses and native; Annual Plants in the
Mojave Desert Am. Midl: Nat, 144: 92–108
Berry K., (1999). Ecology and management of alien annual plants in the CalEPPC News: California Exotic Pest Plant Council, 7(3/4): 4 – 6. | https://www.wowessays.com/free-samples/course-work-on-land-use-in-pinchot/ |
Context: Homogenization of land uses causes a decline in biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. The species composition of plants in small remnant habitats may overlap to some extent with species composition in decreasing species-rich key habitats, e.g. semi-natural grasslands, and therefore buffer the decline of species in intensively managed landscapes. Since plant species composition determines many ecosystem functions, small remnant habitats may provide essential contributions to ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes where semi-natural grasslands are rare.
Questions: To what extent does the plant community in forest edges and on midfield islets (remnant habitats of grasslands) overlap in composition with the plant species composition in semi-natural grasslands?
How important are these two types of remnant habitats for harboring plant communities utilized by a diversity of pollinators and frugivores, and does this importance vary during the growing season? And finally, does surrounding landscape type (agricultural intensity) or local environment (canopy openness) affect the function of the plant community characteristic’s associated with attracting frugivorous and pollinators?
Methods: We sampled plants, including trees and shrubs, and in 13 semi-natural grasslands, 50 forest edges and 132 midfield islets in agricultural landscapes in south-eastern Sweden. We investigated distribution and richness of plant traits (fleshy vs. dry fruits, flower morphology) in relation to habitat type, openness and surrounding agricultural management.
Results: Midfield islets had higher richness of plant species and flower shapes, and were more similar in composition to semi-natural grassland than forest edges. Species richness in midfield islets increased with habitat openness and in more intensively used (more open) agricultural landscapes. Midfield islets are important habitats for a diversity of nectar/pollen providing flowers from mid-summer and later in the growing season. Forest edges have a higher frequency of fleshy fruits and are an important source of nectar/pollen early in the season.
Conclusions: In landscapes with few other semi-natural habitats, small remnant habitats can contribute to species richness of plants, fleshy fruits and flower shapes. However they are not able to fully compensate for the decrease of semi-natural grasslands. Viewed over the whole growing season, several different habitats are needed to maintain foraging possibilities for pollinators in the landscape. Through habitat complementarity, midfield islets and forest edges with deciduous trees and shrubs, contribute to this function.
The world-wide intensification of agriculture has led to a decline in species richness due to land use change, isolation, and fragmentation of natural and semi-natural habitats in agricultural and forestry landscapes. As a consequence, there is a current landscape management focus on the importance of green infrastructure to mitigate biodiversity decline and preserve ecosystem functions e.g. pollination services and pest control. Even though intensification in agriculture has been ongoing for several hundreds of years, remnant habitats from earlier management practices may still be remaining with a surprisingly high plant richness. Preserving these habitats could help conserving plant species richness in agricultural landscapes, as well as other organisms that are dependent on plants for food and shelter.
In this thesis I focus on two small remnant habitats; midfield islets and borders between managed forest and crop field in southeastern Sweden. In the past, both habitats were included in the grazing system and therefore often still have remnant population of grassland specialist species left today. I have used these two remnant habitats as model habitats to investigate the effect of landscape factors and local factors on species richness of plants, flower morphologies and plants with fleshy fruits. Additively, I analysed the effect of surrounding landscape and local openness on the functions; pollination success, biological pest control of aphids and seed predation on midfield islets.
One of my studies showed that spatial distribution and size of the habitat affected plant species richness. Larger habitat size and higher connectivity between habitats increased species richness of plants in the habitats. Openness of the habitats was shown to be an important factor to increase species richness and richness of flower morphologies, both on midfield islets and in forest borders. Even though midfield islets had the highest species and morphology richness, both habitat types are needed for habitat complementary as forest borders have more plants with fleshy fruits and a higher richness of plant species that flowers in spring/early summer. It was also shown that a more complex forest border, not just with gaps in the canopy, but also with high variation in tree stem sizes increases plant species richness in the field layer. The conclusion is that by managing small remnant habitats to remain or become more semi-open and complex in their structure, would increase species richness of plants, grassland specialist species, and flower morphologies. It would also increase some ecosystem functions as seed predation and biologic pest control of aphids are more effective close to trees. If both midfield islets and forest borders would be managed to be semi-open, the area and connectivity of semi-open habitat would increase in the agricultural landscape, which may also improve pollination success as the connectivity between populations has a possibility to increase. Grassland specialist species are clearly abundant in the small remnant habitats. As the decline of semi-natural grasslands is causing a decline in grassland specialists’ species, not only plants, I recommend that small remnant habitats are included in conservation and management plans and strategies to improve habitat availability and connectivity for grassland species in agricultural landscapes.
Research funder Ekoklim. Project:4339602.
At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript. | http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:1154525 |
1. Functional diversity (FD) of pollinators can increase plant reproductive output and the stability of plant-pollinator communities. Yet, in times of worldwide pollinator declines, effects of global change on pollinator FD remain poorly understood. Loss of natural habitat and exotic plant invasions are two major drivers of global change that particularly threaten pollinator diversity. 2. In a subtropical South African landscape, we investigated changes in the FD of flower visitor assemblages on native and exotic plants along gradients of natural habitat loss and relative abundance of exotic plants. We used a dataset of 1434 flower visitor individuals sampled on 131 focal plants and calculated the FD in three flower visitor traits that are strongly related to plant-flower visitor interactions and pollination processes: proboscis length, proboscis diameter and body length. 3. Multivariate FD of flower visitors decreased with both increasing natural habitat loss and relative exotic abundance. Importantly, changes in FD went beyond those in flower visitor richness. Furthermore, flower visitor richness was not related to either natural habitat loss or relative exotic abundance. Loss in multivariate FD seemed to be mediated by complementary reductions of FD in proboscis length with natural habitat loss and of FD in body length with both global change drivers. Correspondingly, we recorded lower abundances of long-tongued flower visitors with natural habitat loss and reduced variance in body size with both drivers. In contrast, FD in proboscis diameter was unaffected by either driver. All effects of the two global change drivers were non-interactive. 4. Our results show that both natural habitat loss and exotic plants negatively affect flower visitor FD, which may imperil pollination of specialised plant species in degraded habitats. In contrast, flower visitor richness may not cover all facets of flower visitor FD that are relevant to pollination processes, and here future studies are needed. Distinct responses of visitor traits to the two drivers suggest limited options to infer relations of one trait to another. Finally, additive effects of natural habitat loss and exotic plant invasions highlight the need to consider multiple drivers of global change when investigating ecosystem processes at a community scale. | https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.fb96h |
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to list the prostrate milkweed, a rare flowering plant native to south Texas and northeastern Mexico, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service is also proposing 691 acres of critical habitat in two Texas counties.
This listing and critical habitat proposal is based on the best available science, including a species status assessment that included input and review from academia and state agencies. ESA protections will help raise awareness about the threats to this plant and inspire diverse partnerships on its behalf.
“Prostrate milkweed’s flowers attract and support native pollinators, especially large bees and wasps, and it is a host plant for monarch butterflies,” said Chris Best, state botanist for the Service in Texas. “Unfortunately, this species is negatively impacted by competition from introduced buffelgrass and increased development in its native Tamaulipan shrubland habitat. Fortunately, prostrate milkweed appears to be very compatible with livestock grazing on rangeland.”
Other threats to prostrate milkweed include habitat loss and degradation from root-plowing; habitat loss from energy development, road and utility construction, and right-of-way maintenance; habitat loss from border security and enforcement activities; and the demographic and genetic consequences of small population sizes.
Proposed critical habitat for prostrate milkweed occurs in eight occupied areas that are particularly important for the conservation of the species in Starr and Zapata counties near the Rio Grande.
Critical habitat is defined by the ESA as the geographic areas containing features essential for the conservation of a listed species and that may require special management considerations or protection. Designation of critical habitat does not affect land ownership, establish a refuge or preserve, and has no impact on private landowners taking actions on their land that do not require federal funding or permits.
Prostrate milkweed was petitioned for listing in 2007, and in 2009 the Service found the petition presented substantial information that listing may be warranted.
This proposed rule will publish in the Federal Register on Feb. 15, 2022 and public comments will be accepted until April 18, 2022. We encourage the public, academia, federal and state agencies, industry and other stakeholders to review the proposal and provide comments.
America’s fish, wildlife and plant resources belong to all citizens, and ensuring the health of imperiled species and their habitats is a shared responsibility. The Service is working to actively engage conservation partners and the public in the search for improved and innovative ways to conserve and recover imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which they depend. | https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2022-02/service-proposes-endangered-status-and-designation-critical-habitat-rare |
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The invasion of non-native plant species has resulted in significant environmental damage and economic costs worldwide. Invasive plants have been shown to alter ecosystem processes, ecological interactions, and habitat quality in their novel environments. Although plant chemical defenses are thought to play an important role in the impacts, invasion success, and management of invasive plants, often little is known about natural variation in the allelochemicals of these plants. Such is the case for Dalmatian toadflax, Linaria dalmatica (Plantaginaceae), which produces iridoid glycosides, a group of terpenoid secondary metabolites that have been shown to act as defense compounds against herbivores and pathogens. To investigate the chemical ecology of L. dalmatica, I conducted field and greenhouse studies, which examined: (1) quantitative variation in iridoid glycoside concentrations, (2) factors that contribute to this variation, and (3) plant interactions with two toadflax biological control agents, Calophasia lunula (Noctuidae) and Mecinus janthinus (Curculionidae).
The results of these studies showed that, overall, L. dalmatica plants can contain high levels of iridoid glycosides (up to 15-20% dry weight). Moreover, research indicated that C. lunula sequesters one iridoid glycoside, antirrhinoside, from L. dalmatica, at levels ranging from 2.7 to 7.5% dry weight. There was no evidence of sequestration by Mecinus janthinus. However, research demonstrated that this biocontrol agent had a negative effect on the defensive chemistry and reproduction of L. dalmatica. Field studies showed that plant iridoid glycoside concentrations are highly variable within and among populations and also depend on a number of factors. For example, iridoid glycoside concentrations decreased with increased plant age, increased soil nitrogen availability, and plant injury by M. janthinus larvae. Linaria dalmatica also showed within-plant patterns of iridoid variation, with the highest iridoid glycoside concentrations in leaves and flowers and lowest concentrations in stems.
Greenhouse experiments investigating the effects of soil nitrogen (N) enrichment on L. dalmatica and C. lunula revealed that the consequences of increased N availability can be complex and context dependent. For L. dalmatica, N enrichment increased plant growth and reproduction, but the effects on iridoid glycosides were more complicated. Increased N availability decreased shoot (leaves + stems) iridoid glycoside concentrations for pre-flowering plants by approximately 30%. However, for plants that were in the flowering stage of development, increased N availability decreased flower iridoids, dramatically increased root iridoids, but did not affect shoot iridoid glycoside concentrations. For C. lunula, N enrichment increased larval growth, decreased development time to pupation, and decreased larval iridoid glycoside concentrations.
Human alteration of the nitrogen cycle represents a major global change and anthropogenic N inputs continue to increase at a rapid rate. My dissertation research documents direct effects of N enrichment on an ecologically and economically important invasive plant species and indirect effects on one of its biocontrol agents. Moreover, this research represents the first quantitative investigation of the defense compounds and chemical ecology of L. dalmatica and its specialist herbivores, which may help provide important insights into the impacts, invasion success, and management of this invasive plant.
|Advisor:||Bowers, M. Deane, Seastedt, Timothy R.|
|Commitee:||Beatty, Susan, Bowman, William D., Linhart, Yan B.|
|School:||University of Colorado at Boulder|
|Department:||Ecology and Evolutionary Biology|
|School Location:||United States -- Colorado|
|Source:||DAI-B 71/06, Dissertation Abstracts International|
|Source Type:||DISSERTATION|
|Subjects:||Plant biology, Ecology, Entomology|
|Keywords:||Calophasia lunula, Chemical defenses, Herbivores, Invasive plants, Linaria dalmatica, Mecinus janthinus, Plant-herbivore interactions|
|Publication Number:||3404048|
|ISBN:||9781109782264|
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Ecosystem services: changes in global value
It is well recorded that ecosystems are becoming more stressed over time, with pressures such as human population increases leading to biodiversity and habitat loss. The provision of ecosystem services from habitats and communities is vital to human well-being. It is important to understand the benefits ecosystem services provide to society and how they have changed over time to build an understanding of our reliance on the natural world and what needs to be done to ensure we can continue to benefit from these services in the future. Building on estimates of the global value of ecosystem services in 1997, a recent paper in Global Environmental Change by Robert Costanza et al. highlight the impact that global land use changes have had on ecosystem services. They estimate that between 1997 and 2011, ecosystem services to the value of $4.3-$20.2 trillion per year have been lost.
The goods and services we use in our daily lives derive from 5 types of capital: financial, manufactured, social, human, and natural. Natural capital encompasses the elements of nature that directly and indirectly produce value to people. These can include specific species, minerals, and ecological communities, as well as natural processes and functions. Understanding how these stocks and the ecosystem service assets that flow from them change over time is key in assessing whether services are used sustainably and the impact land-use change may have on these.
The concept of ecosystem services has become more widespread since the publication of the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005, and Costanza et al. highlight that the widespread recognition of ecosystem services has reframed the relationship between humans and the rest of nature. Natural capital is becoming a well-known concept in the UK across academia, business and Government. In 2012, the Natural Capital Committee was established to provide independent advice to Government on England’s natural capital. The Natural Capital Initiative, of which the BES is a founding partner, is working to bring together academia, business, and policy-making to give constructive action.
Valuations of ecosystem services must be reassessed periodically as natural capital is not a static resource, and ecosystem service values can change depending on the quality and quantity of habitats. The authors’ valuation of global ecosystem services in 1997 was $33 trillion per year. Using the same methods but with updated data, global ecosystem services in 2011 were valued at $125 trillion per year, taking into account both changes in valuation and size of biomes. Comparatively, GDP was $46.3 trillion per year in 1997 and $75.2 trillion per year in 2011.
Despite the pressures of increased global population and habitat loss, per hectare values of most habitats were higher in 2011 than 1997. The authors attribute the increase in unit values to improved techniques that give a more comprehensive overview. This just highlights the importance of revisiting estimates. Uncertainty around the unit value for habitats gives rise to the wide estimate of the loss of ecosystem services due to land use change – $4.3-$20.2 trillion per year from 1997 to 2011.
The authors highlight issues around valuation, emphasising that valuation of ecosystem services is not the same as commodification or privatisation. They also reason that as ecosystem services as often common goods, conventional markets may not be the best framework to manage them. Another issue that is considered is the fact that although ecosystem services benefit human well-being, they are only the relative contribution of natural capital to human well-being and do not flow directly. Only through interaction with other forms of capital can human well-being be achieved.
This recent paper highlights the extent to which we rely on the natural world for our goods and services. It is vital that all types of capital are used sustainably – all other types of capital are dependent on natural capital to some degree, and all types of capital interact with each other to give human well-being. The global estimates of ecosystem service loss between 1997 and 2011 show the impact of habitat loss across a range of biomes, and the consequences this has for human well-being. At a local level, these losses will have a profound impact on many parts of society. Further loss of habitat in vulnerable biomes such as tropical forest will only exacerbate these changes in ecosystem service provision.
Like what we stand for?
Support our mission and help develop the next generation of ecologists by donating to the British Ecological Society. | https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/ecosystem-services-changes-in-global-value/ |
When time and funding permit, each flower (each plant species) will have its own page, and its own PDF, and eventually its own PPT so that professors and students have plenty of material on Guatemala (and Honduras, etc) to study.
Heliconia adflexa, Coban, Guatemala, Hotel Monja Blanca, FLAAR, by Nicholas Hellmuth
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|Botanical glossary, habit vs habitat, ecosystem biodiversity (in Peten, Guatemala)|
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Definition of botanical habit (especially for Peten, Guatemala); distinction from plant habitat
As a layperson, a habitat is the kind of ecosystem and location of where you are visiting or studying; habitat for where a certain plant or animal does best. In distinction, a habit for a layperson is things you do automatically without always planning or thinking. But a habit for a botanist is the structure of the flora: botanists working in Belize, Central America, Balick, Nee and Atha (2000: 23), use the terms:
They call palms palms because in botanical classification their structure is not a tree. That said, 100% of the lists of “Trees of Tikal, Trees of Yaxha, or trees of anywhere else” includes palms. Would need to smile when I see how the palms that are clearly vines are classified? This majestic climbing bayal palm vine, Desmoncus species, is very common in Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo. Some botan palms (Sabal species) are taller than most other trees around them (these palms have to reach the sun).
In the tabulation below, when I cite Balick, Nee and Atha 2000, I abbreviate them as B,N,A 2000.
Annotated List of Plant Habits from United States Department of Agriculture
The USDA has a nice chart. I eliminate the Federal Georgraphic Data Committee (FGDC) column with their comments because my focus is on plants and other aspects of flora of the Neotropical areas of Peten, Guatemala, specifically the diverse flora we are finding in Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo (PNYNN). Most definitions are by botanists or ecologists who have not hiked through the Peten, not to mention the other awesome ecosystems of remarkable plants of Guatemala such as the Cuchumatanes Mountains (Sierra de los Cuchumatanes). But let’s look at a generic list of plant habits. We hope to find comparable lists from botanical research gardens in the future. But let’s start with basics.
References cited: | https://www.maya-ethnobotany.org/biodiversity-mayan-plants-research-mesoamerica/definition-glossary-botanical-plant-habit-vs-habitat.php |
Understanding factors influencing patterns of genetic diversity and the population genetic structure of species is of particular importance in the current era of global climate change and habitat loss. These factors include the evolutionary history of a species as well as heterogeneity in the environment it occupies, which in turn can change across time. Most studies investigating spatio-temporal genetic patterns have focused on patterns across wide geographical areas rather than local variation, but the latter...
Reduced host-plant specialization is associated with the rapid range expansion of a Mediterranean butterflyAnika Neu, Stefan Lötters, Linda Nörenberg, Martin Wiemers & Klaus Fischer
Aim: Species ranges are highly dynamic, shifting in space and time as a result of complex ecological and evolutionary processes. Disentangling the relative contribution of both processes is challenging but of primary importance for forecasting species distributions under climate change. Here, we use the spectacular range expansion (ca. 1,000 km poleward shift within 10 years) of the butterfly Pieris mannii to unravel the factors underlying range dynamics, specifically the role of (i) niche evolution (changes...
Data related to: Bottom-up effects of fungicides on tadpoles of the European common frog (Rana temporaria)Mirco Bundschuh, Jochen Zubrod, Theo Wernicke, Marco Konschak, Leon Werner, Carsten Brühl, Patrick Baudy & Ralf Schulz
We have uploaded a range of files informding about ergosterol and bacteria levels on leaf litter (LeafMicrobes.xlsx); the feces production, leaf consumption and legnth development of tadpoles during the study and among the two experimental phases as detailed in the mansucript (FecesFeedingLength.xlxs); composition of fatty acids in tadpoles and leaf litter (NFLA.xlxs); metamophoses event (Metamorphosis.xlsx) Paper abstract as submitted: Biodiversity is under pressure world-wide, with amphibians being particularly threatened. Stressors related to human activity, such...
Eutrophic status influences the impact of pesticide mixtures and predation on Daphnia pulex populationsAndreu Rico, Talles Oliveira Dos Anjos, Francesco Polazzo, Alba Arenas-Sánchez, Laura Cherta, Roberto Ascari, Sonia Migliorati & Marco Vighi
Pesticides, nutrients, and ecological stressors such as competition or predation co-occur in freshwater ecosystems impacted by agricultural pollution. The extent to which combinations of these stressors affect aquatic populations and the role of nutrients availability in modulating these responses requires further understanding. In this study, we assessed how pesticides affecting different taxonomic groups and predation influence the response of Daphnia pulex populations under different trophic conditions. An outdoor experiment was designed following a factorial design,...
Data from: Divergent clades or cryptic species? Mito-nuclear discordance in a Daphnia species complexAnne Thielsch, Alexis Knell, Ali Mohammadyari, Adam Petrusek & Klaus Schwenk
Background: Genetically divergent cryptic species are frequently detected by molecular methods. These discoveries are often a byproduct of molecular barcoding studies in which fragments of a selected marker are used for species identification. Highly divergent mitochondrial lineages and putative cryptic species are even detected in intensively studied animal taxa, such as the crustacean genus Daphnia. Recently, eleven such lineages, exhibiting genetic distances comparable to levels observed among well-defined species, were recorded in the D. longispina...
Data from: Landscape complexity promotes hoverflies across different types of semi-natural habitats in farmlandJens Schirmel, Matthias Albrecht, Philipp-Martin Bauer, Louis Sutter, Sonja C. Pfister & Martin H. Entling
1. Semi-natural habitats (SNH) provide essential resources for many organisms in agricultural landscapes and can increase biodiversity at the local and landscape scale. For the management of ecosystem services, it is crucial to understand how local characteristics of SNH and the surrounding landscape complexity affect beneficial species. 2. We investigated this for hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae), an important functional group providing both pest control and pollination services, in a total of 138 SNH in 35 agricultural...
Analyse von Konzeptionen früher mathematischer BildungStephanie Schuler & Gerald Wittmann
Für die frühe mathematische Bildung existieren zahlreiche Konzeptionen, die unterschiedlich theoretisch fundiert sind, das Gebiet jeweils anders strukturieren und damit auch je andere Schwerpunkte setzen. Im Beitrag werden solche Kon-zeptionen mittels qualitativer Inhaltsanalyse untersucht, wodurch sich vier Typen herausarbeiten lassen. Die Charakterisierung und Diskussion der Typen mündet in einen Vorschlag für ein eigenes Kompetenzmodell für die frühe mathematische Bildung, das sowohl anschlussfähig ist an die Kindheitspädagogik und damit die Besonderheiten frühkindlichen (Mathematik-)Lernens als auch an...
Data from: Is there an interaction of the effects of salinity and pesticides on the community structure of macroinvertebrates?Eduard Szöcs, Ben J. Kefford & Ralf B. Schäfer
Salinization of freshwater ecosystems is a global problem affecting many regions worldwide and can co-occur with pesticides in agricultural regions. Given that both stressors are potent to affect macroinvertebrate communities, their effects could interact. We investigated the effects of salinity and pesticides at 24 sites in an agricultural region of southern Victoria, South-East Australia. We used distance-based redundancy analysis to determine the influence of pesticides, salinity and other environmental variables on the composition of macroinvertebrate...
The effectiveness of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control, pollination services and crop yield: a quantitative synthesisMatthias Albrecht, David Kleijn, Neal Williams, Matthias Tschumi, Brett Blaauw, Riccardo Bommarco, Alistair Campbell, Matteo Dainese, Frank Drummond, Martin Entling, Dominik Ganser, Arjen De Groot, David Goulson, Heather Grab, Hannah Hamilton, Felix Herzog, Rufus Isaacs, Katja Jacot, Philippe Jeanneret, Mattias Jonsson, Eva Knop, Claire Kremen, Doug Landis, Greg Loeb, Lorenzo Marini … & Louis Sutter
Floral plantings are promoted to foster ecological intensification of agriculture through provisioning of ecosystem services. However, a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of different floral plantings, their characteristics and consequences for crop yield is lacking. Here we quantified the impacts of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control (18 studies) and pollination services (17 studies) in adjacent crops in North America, Europe and New Zealand. Flower strips, but not hedgerows, enhanced pest control services in...
Dataset 2 for Large‐ and small‐scale geographic structures affecting genetic patterns across populations of an Alpine butterflyDaronja Trense, Ary Hoffmann & Klaus Fischer
Understanding factors influencing patterns of genetic diversity and the population genetic structure of species is of particular importance in the current era of global climate change and habitat loss. These factors include the evolutionary history of a species as well as heterogeneity in the environment it occupies, which in turn can change across time. Most studies investigating spatio-temporal genetic patterns have focused on patterns across wide geographical areas rather than local variation, but the latter...
Contrasting genetic responses to habitat fragmentation for two Lycaenid butterfly speciesDaronja Trense, Jan Christian Habel, Aline Finger & Klaus Fischer
Biodiversity is currently declining at the global scale. Apart from species declines and lowered abundances, the loss of genetic diversity is equally concerning as it may undermine fitness and the potential to adapt to future environmental change. We compared genetic diversity of historical and recent Alpine populations of two butterfly species, Lycaena helle and L. hippothoe, over a period of about 10 years. Using microsatellite markers, we found no changes over time in L. helle,...
Nitrogen fertilization and high plant growing temperature increase herbivore performanceAnge Raharivololoniaina, Svenja Berweiler & Klaus Fischer
Global environmental change exerts growing pressure on biodiversity. Anthropogenic climate and land use change are particularly important drivers of biodiversity loss. While their effects on biodiversity have been widely studied individually, interactions among them are poorly understood. Here, we investigate the effects of two common drivers of global change, increased temperature and nitrogen fertilization, on host-plant quality and herbivore performance in the butterfly Lycaena tityrus. We show that butterfly performance was positively affected by plants...
Den (LEGO-)Stein ins Rollen bringenFriederike Eichhorn-Remmel
In context of social transformations of communication biblical Learning is challenged to assure its own relevance. Dealing with the example of a biblical brickfilm this article will show the chances of (de)constructivistical learning for the perception of the diversity of biblical readings. Learners get aware of the constructive part of interpretations and will be able to identify restricted perspectives. The process of aesthetical production and the attendant reflection of this production will empower learners to...
Data from: Review on the effects of toxicants on freshwater ecosystem functionsKatharina Peters, Mirco Bundschuh & Ralf B. Schäfer
We reviewed 122 peer-reviewed studies on the effects of organic toxicants and heavy metals on three fundamental ecosystem functions in freshwater ecosystems, i.e. leaf litter breakdown, primary production and community respiration. From each study meeting the inclusion criteria, the concentration resulting in a reduction of at least 20% in an ecosystem function was standardized based on median effect concentrations of standard test organisms (i.e. algae and daphnids). For pesticides, more than one third of observations...
Data from: Contrasting effects of aquatic subsidies on a terrestrial trophic cascadeNadin Graf, Roman Bucher, Ralf B. Schaefer & Martin H. Entling
Subsidies from adjacent ecosystems can alter recipient food webs and ecosystem functions, such as herbivory. Emerging aquatic insects from streams can be an important prey in the riparian zone. Such aquatic subsidies can enhance predator abundances or cause predators to switch prey, depending on the herbivores. This can lead to an increase or decrease of in situ herbivores and herbivory. We examined the effects of aquatic subsidies on a simplified terrestrial food web consisting of...
Data from: Discrimination of hybrid classes using cross-species amplification of microsatellite loci: methodological challenges and solutions in DaphniaAnne Thielsch, Elke Völker, Robert H. S. Kraus & Klaus Schwenk
Microsatellite markers are important tools in population, conservation and forensic studies and are frequently used for species delineation, the detection of hybridization and introgression. Therefore, marker sets that amplify variable DNA regions in two species are required; however, cross-species amplification is often difficult, as genotyping errors such as null alleles may occur. In order to estimate the level of potential misidentifications based on genotyping errors, we compared the occurrence of parental alleles in laboratory and...
Data from: Pros and cons of external swabbing of amphibians for genetic analysesAntonia S. Müller, Patrick P. Lenhardt & Kathrin Theissinger
Non-invasive DNA sampling is an important tool in amphibian conservation. Buccal swabs are nowadays replacing the wounding toe-clipping method. Skin and cloaca swabbing are even less invasive and easier to handle than buccal swabbing, but could result in contaminations of genetic material. Therefore, we test if external skin and cloaca swabs are as reliable as buccal swabs for genetic analysis of amphibians. We analysed eight microsatellite loci for the common frog (Rana temporaria, Linnaeus 1758)...
Data from: Tailored flower strips promote natural enemy biodiversity and pest control in potato cropsMatthias Tschumi, Matthias Albrecht, Jana Collatz, Viktor Dubsky, Martin H. Entling, Adriana J. Najar-Rodriguez & Katja Jacot
1. Sown flower strips are increasingly implemented within agri-environment schemes (AES) to increase functional biodiversity and ecosystem services such as pollination or natural pest control, but their effectiveness in achieving these goals remains poorly studied. 2. We tested the performance of experimentally sown annual flower strips specifically designed to promote natural enemies of aphids and their pest control services (tailored flower strips) in adjacent potato crops (n=8) compared to control fields (n=10). Flower strips consisted...
Along-shelf connectivity and circumpolar gene flow in Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma antarctica)Jilda Alicia Caccavo, Chiara Papetti, , Rainer Knust, Julian R. Ashford & Lorenzo Zane
The Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma antarctica) is a critically important forage species with a circumpolar distribution and is unique among other notothenioid species for its wholly pelagic life cycle. Previous studies have provided mixed evidence of population structure over regional and circumpolar scales. The aim of the present study was to test the recent population hypothesis for Antarctic silverfish, which emphasizes the interplay between life history and hydrography in shaping connectivity. A total of 1067 individuals...
Data from: Ecological requirements drive the variable responses of wheat pests and natural enemies to the landscape contextEzequiel Gonzalez, Felix J.J.A. Bianchi, Philipp Eckerter, Verena Pfaff, Sarah Weiler & Martin H. Entling
1. Semi-natural habitats (SNH) are considered essential for pest suppressive landscapes, but their influence on crop pests and natural enemies can be highly variable. Instead of SNH per se, the availability of resources, such as pollen and nectar, may be more relevant for supporting pest control. 2. Here, we assessed the spatio-temporal variation of multiple insect pests (cereal leaf beetles and aphids) and natural enemies (predators and aphid parasitoids) in wheat fields and their responses...
Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung in Orientierungs- und Wertekursen? Ein österreichisch-deutscher KursbuchvergleichBarbara Pusch
Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE) impliziert Lebenslanges Lernen und soll „alle[n] Lernenden die notwendigen Kenntnisse und Qualifikationen zur Förderung nachhaltiger Entwicklung“ (Vereinte Nationen 2015: 19) ermöglichen. Damit ist BNE auch für Bildungsmaßnahmen im Integrationsbereich, wie Orientierungs- und Wertekurse für Geflüchtete relevant. Ausgehend von der Unterscheidung von politischer Bildung und Erziehung geht der Beitrag der Frage nach, ob – und wenn ja wie – österreichische und deutsche Werte- und Orientierungskursbücher Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitsthemen aufgreifen.
Carbon dioxide, heat and water vapor exchange in the boreal spruce and peatland ecosystemsS. V. Zagirova, O. A. Mikhailov & Ju. Schneider
The mass and energy exchange between the terrestrial ecosystem and the atmosphere depends on the structure and functioning of vegetation and soil cover. The aim of the work was to compare the ecosystem CO2 , heat and water vapor exchange in the old-growth spruce forest and meso-oligotrophic peatland, typical ecosystems of the middle taiga landscapes on the European Russia. The study was made by using the eddy-covariance method. In the warm period of the year,... | https://search.datacite.org/works?affiliation-id=ror.org%2F01j9f6752 |
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Distribution Update Report
About PLANTS Distribution Update
View the Plant Profile page for
Carex frankii
Individual Report for
Carex frankii
Submission ID:
391
Plant Name:
Scientific Name:
Carex frankii
Common Name:
Frank's sedge
Plant Symbol:
CAFR3
Plant Location:
State/County:
Kentucky (Jefferson)
Location Method:
Geographical Information System
Area (Acres):
1-5
Density or abundance
Uncommon
Supporting Information:
Submission Type:
Observation
Habitat from Observation:
Along creek, in understory of Boxelder, Green Ash, and White Mulberry
Vegetative:
Yes
Observation Date:
June 2, 2006
Flower:
Yes
Flower Color:
Green
Fruit
Photo(s) Submitted:
Observation Notes:
I was walking along the creek to check on a revegetation planting and I saw a sedge with a very distinctive oblong fruiting structure. I took it to the botanist for the Olmsted Conservancy, and she identified it as Carex frankii.
Native:
Native
Extripated:
Identification Confidence:
Very confident
Identification Method: | https://plants.usda.gov/plants-du-report/report?report_number=391 |
The Three Mile Island near nuclear disaster 1. The cloud contained 15 metric tons of methyl isocyanate MICcovering an area of more than 30 square miles.
Basins with a significant groundwater component may be less responsive to climate change than indicated here. Consequences and Likelihoods of Changes Courtesy of NOAA Reservoir systems have multiple objectives, including irrigation, municipal and industrial use, hydropower production, flood control, and preservation of habitat for aquatic species.
These reduced flows will require more tradeoffs among objectives of the whole system of reservoirs, 32 especially with the added challenges of summer increases in electric power demand for cooling 33 and additional water consumption by crops and forests.
However, over-allocation of existing water supply, conflicting objectives, limited management flexibility caused by rigid water allocation and operating rules, and other institutional barriers to changing operations continue to limit progress towards adaptation in many parts of the Columbia River basin.
In highly managed rivers, release of deeper, colder water from reservoirs could offer one of the few direct strategies to lower water temperatures downstream. Some species may be able to change behavior or take advantage of cold-water refuges.
Coastal Vulnerabilities In the coastal zone, the effects of sea level rise, erosion, inundation, threats to infrastructure and habitat, and increasing ocean acidity collectively pose a major threat to the region.
The authors and several dozen collaborators undertook a risk evaluation of the impacts of climate change in the Northwest that informed the development of the four key messages in this chapter see also Ch. The qualitative comparative risk assessment underlying the key messages in the Northwest chapter was informed by the Northwest Regional Climate Risk Framing workshop December 2,in Portland, OR.
The workshop brought together stakeholders and scientistsfrom a cross-section of sectors and jurisdictions within the region to discuss and rank the likelihood and consequences for key climate risks facing the Northwest region and previously identified in the Oregon Climate Change Adaptation Framework.
These included careful review of the foundational technical input report 13 and approximately 80 additional technical inputs provided to the NCA by the public, as well additional published literature. They also drew heavily from two state climate assessment reports.
The key regionally consequential risks thus identified are those deriving from projected changes in streamflow timing in particular, warming-related impacts in watersheds where snowmelt is an important contributor to flow ; coastal consequences of the combined impact of sea level rise and other climate-related drivers; and changes in Northwest forest ecosystems.
The Northwest chapter therefore focuses on the implications of these risks for Northwest water resources, key aquatic species, coastal systems, and forest ecosystems, as well as climate impacts on the regionally important, climate-sensitive agricultural sector.
These syntheses were followed by expert deliberation of draft key messages by the Anthropogenic impact to oceanic biodiversity wherein each key message was defended before the entire author team before this key message was selected for inclusion in the report. Evidence for observed global eustatic sea level rise and regional sea level change derives from satellite altimetry and coastal tide gauges.
Evidence for projected global sea level rise is described in Ch. West Coast, and Parris et al. Evidence for erosion and inundation associated with projected sea level rise is based on observations and mapping of coastal elevations and geospatial analyses of the extent and location of inundation associated with various sea level rise and storm surge scenarios.
Vulnerability of coastal transportation infrastructure to climate change has been assessed by combining geospatial risk analyses with expert judgment of asset sensitivity to climate risk and criticality to the transportation system in Washington State and by assessing transportation infrastructure exposure to climate risks associated with sea level rise and river flooding in the region as a whole.
Evidence for impacts of climate change on coastal habitat is based on: Evidence for historical increases in ocean acidification is from observations of changes in coastal ocean conditions, which also indicate high spatial and temporal variability.
Evidence for marine species responses to climate change derives from observations of shifts in marine plankton, fish, and seabird species associated with historical changes in ocean conditions, including temperature and availability of preferred foods.
Evidence for low adaptive capacity is from observations of extent of degraded or fragmented coastal habitat, existence of few options for mitigating changes in marine chemical properties, observed extent of barriers to inland habitat migration, narrow coastal transportation corridors, and limited transportation alternatives for rural coastal towns.
However, there is virtually no uncertainty in the direction sign of global sea level rise. There is also a solid understanding of the primary contributing factors and mechanisms causing sea level rise.
Other details concerning uncertainty in global sea level rise are treated elsewhere for example, NRC 53 and in Ch. Regional uncertainty in projected Northwest sea level rise results primarily from global factors such as ice sheet mass balance and local vertical land movement affecting relative sea level rise.
An accurate determination of vertical land deformation requires a sufficient density of monitoring sites for example, NOAA tide gauges and permanent GPS sites that monitor deformation to capture variations in land deformation over short spatial scales, and in many Northwest coastal locations such dense networks do not exist.
There is a general trend, however, of observed uplift along the northwestern portion of the Olympic Peninsula and of subsidence within the Puget Sound region GPS data gathered from PBO data sets -- http: There is also considerable uncertainty about potential impacts of climate change on processes that influence storminess and affect coastal erosion in the Northwest.
These uncertainties relate to system complexity and the limited number of studies and lack of consensus on future atmospheric and oceanic conditions that will drive changes in regional wind fields.
Continued collection and assessment of meteorological data at ocean buoy locations and via remote sensing should improve our understanding of these processes. Uncertainty in future patterns of sediment delivery to the coastal system limit projections of future inundation, erosion, and changes in tidal marsh.
However, there are areas in the Northwest where it is clear that man-made structures have interrupted sediment supply and there is little uncertainty that shallow water habitat will be lost.
Although relatively well-bounded, uncertainty over the rate of projected relative sea level rise limits our ability to assess whether any particular coastal habitat will be able to keep pace with future changes through adaptation for example, through accretion.
The specific implications of the combined factors of sea level rise, coastal climate change, and ocean acidification for coastal ecosystems and specific individual species remain uncertain due to the complexity of ecosystem response.
However, there is general agreement throughout the peer-reviewed literature that negative impacts for a number of marine calcifying organisms are projected, particularly during juvenile life stages.
Projections of future coastal ocean conditions for example, temperature, nutrients, pH, and productivity are limited, in part, by uncertainty over future changes in upwelling — climate model scenarios show inconsistent projections for likely future upwelling conditions.
Considerable uncertainty also remains in whether, and how, higher average ocean temperatures will influence geographical ranges, abundances, and diversity of marine species, although evidence of changes in pelagic fish species ranges and in production associated with Pacific Ocean temperature variability during cyclical events have been important indicators for potential species responses to climate change in the future.
Consequences from ocean acidification for commercial fisheries and marine food web dynamics are potentially very high — while the trend of increasing acidification is very likely, the rate of change and spatial variability within coastal waters are largely unknown and are the subject of ongoing and numerous nascent research efforts.
Assessment of confidence based on evidence and agreement or, if defensible, estimates of the likelihood of impact or consequence There is very high confidence in the global upward trend of sea level rise SLR and ocean acidification OA.
There is high confidence that SLR over the next century will remain under an upper bound of approximately 2 meters.
Projections for SLR and OA at specific locations are much less certain medium to low because of the high spatial variability and multiple factors influencing both phenomena at regional and sub-regional scales. Human impact on biodiversity and ecosysytem loss Magdaléna Jilečková The English College in Prague Abstract Biodiversity and ecosystem are crucial issues that have an impact to the human well-being now and in the urbanagricultureinitiative.comersity depends on many factors but the most influentive is the habitat loss which influences the biodiversity worldwide.
"The ocean comprises a large portion of Earth's biosphere [and] hosts a vast diversity of flora and fauna that are critical to Earth's biogeochemical cycles and serve as an important source of food and pharmaceuticals.
Human influence on marine biota has increased dramatically, threatening the. OMICS International publishes + Open Access Journals in the fields of Clinical, Medical, Life Science, Pharma, Environmental, Engineering and Management. The link between climate change and biodiversity has long been established.
Although throughout Earth’s history the climate has always changed with ecosystems and species coming and going, rapid climate change affects ecosystems and species ability to adapt and so biodiversity loss increases.
oceanic archipelago and insights into the anthropogenic extinction process biodiversity loss on these islands are likely to be different from those in the past. but so far this impact has not spread to the other islands (24).
Because of this unique history, the terrestrial gastropod fauna. Human impact on the environment or anthropogenic impact on the environment includes changes to biophysical environments and ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans, including global warming, environmental degradation (such as ocean acidification), mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. | https://lisizepohohilihob.urbanagricultureinitiative.com/anthropogenic-impact-to-oceanic-biodiversity-6388tq.html |
- The Inírida flower, known as flor de Inírida, grows in a small area along the Colombian-Venezuelan border.
- An Indigenous leader and botanist successfully worked together to domesticate this rare and little-known flower.
- Its conservation helps ensure the long-term protection of other species while offering potential bioremediation against contaminated soil.
- Inírida’s commercialization plays a vital role in the region’s green economy, bringing in revenues for Indigenous families.
INÍRIDA, Colombia –– Carolina Mora Gaitan takes one of the striking-looking flowers from the blue bucket lying at her feet and shakes off the excess water. Using a toothbrush, she scrubs away any trace of dirt and proceeds to peel away an unsightly brown leaf with a pair of tweezers. Sitting opposite, her daughter-in-law mirrors her actions.
Alongside them, Carolina’s husband and son clip, classify and box the fuchsia-colored flowers with meticulous precision. They have been involved in the Inírida flower trade in Colombia’s eastern Guainía department since it began more than a decade ago. The trade has changed significantly from its early days when the flower was freshly picked from the wild. Today, a successful process of domestication once considered impossible ensures its long-term preservation, while simultaneously contributing to conservation efforts in this unique region.
The Guacamaya superba or the Inírida Winter flower grows throughout Guainía’s long rainy season, eventually giving way to the smaller Schoenocephalium teretifolium or the Inírida Summer flower, which blooms during the rest of the year. Both are known as flores eternas (everlasting flowers), on account of their ability to resist extreme weather conditions, and their natural propensity to keep their physical shape, long after their vibrant colors have faded.
Carolina and her family are members of Colombia’s Sikuani people — one of the country’s 87 recognized Indigenous groups and also one of the most displaced by the armed conflict.
Twenty-five years earlier, Carolina’s family were forced to leave their home and land during the 1997 massacre of Mapiripán, a small fluvial town in central Colombia, in which at least 30 civilians were brutally murdered by right-wing paramilitaries. Overnight, Carolina and her family were left destitute. Indigenous people account for 80% of the population in Guainía, which has a large intake of migrants due to forced internal displacement, as well as migrants from Venezuela.
They eventually settled in the small port town of Inírida, capital of Guainía – “land of many waters” in the Yurí language — in the remote northeastern edges of the Colombian Amazon, on the Venezuelan border. Initially, they survived thanks to the local landfill. What others discarded, they treasured: a pair of well-worn shoes, a rusty bike, a bag of old clothes. Informal waste picking provided the family with an economic lifeline.
It was through her recycling work that Carolina first met Martha Toledo, a teacher and founder of Akayú, a not-for-profit focused on sustainable development and education.
Working with Indigenous women, Toledo launched a recycling scheme where they collected and sorted the town’s waste, which was then returned to the capital for treatment. This brought in modest revenues for families while also reducing the town’s plastic problem — the result of its reliance on imports.
Guainía has more to offer than just sifting through imported waste, however. Working with the environmental government agency Corporation for the Sustainable Development of the Northern and Eastern Amazon (CDA), Toledo was awarded a license to sell the Inírida flower.
“The idea has always been to demonstrate that the region is capable of being productive,” says Toledo.
For the longest time, Guainía has been overlooked by the rest of the country and communities forgotten about: “We needed something to put us on the map,” she says.
The Flor de Inírida, with its eye-catching, exotic beauty, was an opportunity to do just that. “If the world can’t come to Inírida, then Inírida must go to the world,” says Toledo. The flowers are sold through LIWI, the commercial arm of Akayú, translating to flower in Curripaco.
Despite serving as the official town symbol, many people have never heard of Inírida, much less its namesake flower, taken from the Puinave word meaning espejito de sol (little sun mirror).
The flower proved popular, with orders coming in from major cities across the country and interest from abroad. ”We had many families involved, from planting, harvesting, and prepping,” says Toledo.
Picking flowers from their natural habitat, however, was not a viable long-term solution. It became clear that they needed to figure out a way to domesticate Inírida.
At the time, Inírida’s remote location and Colombia’s complex history meant few scientists had researched the area and its ecosystem at length. The few limited studies focused on the flower had concluded it was impossible to grow.
Cultivation process
Rubén Darío Carianil, Toledo’s husband and a Curripaco community leader, believed otherwise. He knew how rare the Inírida flower was and could pinpoint the few locations dotted around Guainía where it flourished.
“Everything I know about the environment, I was taught by my father and grandfather [well-respected sabedores or savants]. Like other communities here, our knowledge as Curripaco and Indigenous custodians of the land goes back millennia,” says Carianil.
This included knowing the Earth’s natural harvesting cycle and following the guidance of the stars in order to know when it is time to seed or sow, he says.
Paramount in their Indigenous cosmology is the role of lunar constellations in determining the agricultural cycle. From an agronomy perspective, Guainía offers challenging terrain for farmers. Yet, over the course of generations, Indigenous communities like the Curripaco, Puinave, Piapoco, and Tucano have perfected their practices to get the most from the nutrient-poor soil, producing high crop yields in relatively small parcels of land. Such knowledge systems are cumulative and the result of generations of lived experiences stored in the collective memory and passed orally from parents to children.
“I knew if we could apply that knowledge, we stood a chance,” says Carianil.
With the help of Mateo Fernández Lucero, today a biologist at the Humboldt Institute, they conducted a series of experiments combining ancestral knowledge and scientific theory. A plot of land apt for propagation was identified and subsequently bought. Eventually, the two men deciphered the Flor de Inírida’s biological secrets. Cuttings from lateral shoots spaced out in a raised bed and a tailored water regime yielded the best results, achieving a mortality rate of less than 1% in their dedicated nursery, while elsewhere, some threatened populations were even restored.
“When you visit, you shouldn’t even notice you’re in the middle of a plantation,” says Carianil.
So effective is the distribution, the rows, arranged diagonally, are only noticeable once pointed out: “It’s supposed to look and feel like the natural environment in which it grows, which is to say the wild,” adds Fernández Lucero.
Thanks to the Cerros de Mavecure, Inírida is slowly emerging as a tourist destination (although many still remain unaware of its existence). The three giant monoliths are located 50 km south of Inírida, on the Atabapo River, and are the main attraction for travelers wanting to go off the beaten path.
The Inírida flower flourishes in the shadow of the Cerros (hills), one of the world’s richest biodiversity hotspots. At 1.7 billion years old, they are also among the world’s oldest rock formations. Specifically, the Flor de Inírida finds refuge in the fine white sand savannas of the Estrella Fluvial (Fluvial Star) Ramsar site, the designation making it one of the most biologically important wetlands on the planet. The almost powder-like grains of sand are the product of a process of erosion lasting millions of years.
“These lands have very particular fertility conditions, whereby the absence of nutrients predominates; a thin topsoil offers very low rates of fertility, often with very high concentrations of aluminum,” says Fernández Lucero. “Add to that the area’s adverse weather conditions, resulting in flooding, fires, and drought these flowers have learned to adapt to their inhospitable environment.”
According to research published by Fernández Lucero and colleagues, the concentration of noxious metals was up to six times higher in the flowers than in the surrounding soil, suggesting a natural capacity to extract high levels of aluminum. Due to this resistance, they concluded that the Inírida flower “could help bioremediate and decontaminate soils affected, anthropogenically, by this metal. Taking into account that aluminum inhibits root growth and proliferation in most plants, this would be an important ecological contribution to restore degraded areas”.
The Flor de Inírida is, in conservation terms, an umbrella species: protecting Inírida indirectly protects the many other, often less charismatic species — as many as 94 of them, including the Bactris campestris Poepp. palm tree — that make up the ecological community within its unique ecosystem.
“We wanted to demonstrate that it was possible — even in a place such as Guainía – to contribute to a model that was greener and more sustainable. But also realistic, because there can be no sustainable development if people are hungry — hunger leads to more invasive and extractive practices,” says Fernandez Lucero.
“In order to decrease pressure on local, natural resources, you find a way to render those same resources sufficiently productive for a maximum number of vulnerable people, thus ensuring the ecosystem’s preservation.”
Step outside the “productive reserve,” as Fernández Lucero refers to it, and there is ample evidence of anthropogenic change, with land use being transformed for construction and grazing. While there is nothing to indicate that the Inírida flower is at risk of extinction, this transformation of soil in the heart of Inírida territory (which is naturally so very small), represents a very real threat to its survival.
Back in the cool shelter of LIWI, the last of the flowers have been packed, ready to be shipped in tomorrow’s flight to Bogota, where the price averages 4,000-5,000 COP a head. Bought directly in Inírida, however, the Winter flower sells for 1,600 and the smaller Summer flower for 1,000. LIWI typically sells 60,000 flowers a year. Last year, despite the pandemic, they sold 89,000 of them.
Carolina –- still affected by the trauma of being dispossessed from her land and home –- says the flower has helped transform the lives of her family. In Inírida, where the median income is 40,000 pesos for a full day’s work, Carolina can earn 50,000 in just half.
“I am a very modest woman. I don’t have much of an education,” she says, apologetically. “But [through Inírida] I’ve been able to help put my children through school.”
The flor de Inírida has adapted to survive against the odds. Through its domestication, Akayú and LIWI aim to demonstrate Guainía’s untapped potential and provide the region with a much-needed green alternative.
Banner image: A beetle on an Inírida flower. Image courtesy of Soraya Kishtwari for Mongabay.
Related listening from Mongabay’s podcast: A conversation with Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Zack Romo about Indigenous rights and the future of biodiversity conservation. Listen here:
FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page. | https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/how-a-rare-colombian-flower-cultivated-with-indigenous-know-how-is-changing-lives/ |
Decision makers need reliable information that they can understand and integrate with other information to evaluate options for management action. In 2004 NASCO agreed guidelines for incorporating social and economic factors in decisions under the Precautionary Approach. Evaluation of economic and social benefits requires specialised skills. For example, the European Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Advisory Commission (EIFAAC) describes a range of techniques for evaluating the benefits of recreational fisheries (Parkkila et al., 2010). Environmental economics is a growing field reflecting not only the need for better information but also the capacity provided by increased computing power for data analysis and modelling.
How is the evaluation to be used? Before starting any evaluation, it should be made clear why it is being done and the context in which the evaluation will be used. Sometimes the purpose is strategic, to inform regional or national policy like the recent Canadian study published in 2011 (Gardner Pinfold, 2011). This comprehensive study evaluated the economic activity associated with different areas of salmon-related expenditure. It also assessed the willingness of the public to pay for a sustained programme of stock restoration and the economic impact of the expanded recreational fishery this would support.
Alternatively, an evaluation may be needed to understand the consequences of a change in local fisheries management or an impact on habitat, perhaps as part of a cost-benefit analysis. Ideally, a full-scale study should be commissioned to evaluate the specific change proposed. Due to resource constraints, this is often impractical. Where they exist, strategic regional or national models can provide average values to evaluate local changes. For example, this has been done in parts of the United Kingdom to assess the impact on regional employment and household income of changes in angling activity (Mawle and Peirson, 2009). Without a full local study or regional model, the other option is to extrapolate from studies elsewhere, adapting values to reflect local circumstances. This practice known as ‘benefits transfer’ may be less reliable.
‘It’s the economy’: Decision makers often focus primarily on economic impact, local changes in jobs and income. Whilst highly relevant in many circumstances, it can be misleading if not foolish to ignore other aspects of value. For informed decisions, an evaluation should consider and convey changes in economic impact and economic value as well as social aspects, sometimes termed ‘human dimensions’.
Ecosystems services: Salmon are part of ecosystems, both marine and freshwater, that provide a range of benefits to society. So salmon and the benefits they provide should not be considered in isolation or indeed ignored in decisions affecting other aspects of their ecosystems. Rather an evaluation of benefits should consider all ecosystem services that would be affected.
Geographical Scale: Depending on the issue being considered, it may be appropriate to evaluate economic and social impacts to provide perspectives at local, regional, national, or even international scales. Decision makers will be helped by an understanding of how costs and benefits are distributed. What may be a good option at one scale, could be a poor one at another.
Timescale: The costs and benefits associated with any decision may be unevenly distributed over time as well as geographically and socially. One way of addressing this is the concept of 'Net Present Value' whereby the future stream of costs and benefits can be capitalised at their current value.
Bioeconomic modelling: Ideally, models should be developed that can relate changes in ecosystems to changes in stocks, to changes in fisheries and harvests, or other ecosystem services, to changes in economic value. Given the limited accuracy with which we can predict stock changes, the outputs of such models should be used with caution. Nevertheless, one of the key benefits of building such models is they require us to develop our understanding of the dynamic processes supporting salmon stocks and associated benefits to society.
Assumptions: An evaluation of changes in economic and social benefits is a prediction. As such it should make clear the assumptions (physical, biological, economic and social) on which it is based. Usually the current position is taken as the yardstick but it should be considered whether that is appropriate. For example, where a salmon stock is recovering from long-term damage, its current status and the associated benefits might be a poor indicator of potential future status and benefits.
Simpson, D. and Willis, K. (2004). Method for assessing the heritage value of net fisheries. Environment Agency Report. ISBN 1-84432-307-2. Environment Agency, Bristol, UK. 104pp. | http://www.nasco.int/value_measuring.html |
Reasons: Cypripedium reginae has an extensive range throughout much of eastern North America, but is infrequent or only very locally abundant throughout this range. The species is found from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and eastern Saskatchewan south to Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Dakota. It is impacted by hydrologic disturbance and water contamination, collecting, and many other threats (although occurrences exist on many protected areas).
Range Extent Comments: Cypripedium reginae has an extensive range throughout much of eastern North America. The species is found from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and eastern Saskatchewan south to Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Dakota.
Population Size Comments: The species is widely distributed with numerous large populations (>1000) individuals still extant in portions of its range. Most populations have 10-100 plants.
Overall Threat Impact Comments: Primary threats include hydrologic disturbance (drainage of wetland areas; contamination of water sources, e.g. road salt run-off, infiltration of groundwater by brines brought up from drilling operations) and habitat disruption (logging impact, peat mining, soil compaction, canopy closure). Also threatened by loss of habitat, herbivory, and wildflower picking. Horticulturally traded, though advertised by several distributors as available laboratory-propagated. As noted by Judziewicz (2001), may be particularly vulnerable to local reduction due to herbivory from overly abundant deer.
Short-term Trend Comments: Cypripedium reginae is still abundant over large portions of its range, particularly in the north, but is rare or is becoming rare on the periphery of its range. This is particularly true in the southern and eastern portions of its range. This species is still declining or disappearing in many areas due to various threats, especially collection by humans and loss of habitat to development.
Intrinsic Vulnerability Comments: The species is sensitive to canopy closure and alteration of water supply.
Global Range: Cypripedium reginae has an extensive range throughout much of eastern North America. The species is found from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and eastern Saskatchewan south to Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Dakota.
Basic Description: North America's largest northern orchid. Herbaceous perennial to 1m; strong, fibrous root system; large leaves; flower showy, white- to rose-colored, petals and sepals broadly ovate and obtuse.
Habitat Comments: The habitat of Cypripedium reginae consists of cold northern wetlands (e.g., mossy conifer swamps of Thuja occidentalis, Picea mariana, or Larix laricina), swampy thickets, bogs, woodland glades, ravines, stream and lake edges, seepages on limestone or sandstone bluffs, damp calcareous slopes or shores, limestone quarries, wet calcareous meadows, circumneutral seep springs, forested fens, shrub borders of fens, sandy shorelines, and algific talus slopes. (Almendinger 1993, MO NHI 1993, W.R. Smith 1993, WPC 1993b, Homoya 1992, Labrecque 1992, NH NHI 1992, OH NHP 1992, VT NHP 1992, Gleason and Cronquist 1991, Roosa et al. 1989, Nekola 1987, Fernald 1970, Rickett 1963, Steyermark 1963, Gleason 1952, Deam 1940). Cypripedium reginae grows in soils ranging from slightly acidic to slightly alkaline. It has been observed growing in sphagnum as long as its roots are able to penetrate into deeper substrate layers that have a higher pH. It also prefers constant moisture and full sun to semi-shaded conditions associated plant species vary considerably between habitat type and across the range of the species.
Stewardship Overview: Cypripedium reginae ranges widely throughout eastern North America. There is extensive knowledge of habitat and associated species. Due to this knowledge, there is a strong understanding of the population trends and dynamics of this species. Most of the life history knowledge concerning C. reginae focuses on flowering, germination ecology and seedling development. There are numerous persistent threats to this species, including harvesting of the flowers and rootstocks for commercial and personal use, alteration of habitat through physical modification, alteration of hydrology, grazing pressure and encroachment by trees and shrubs. The major management requirement is maintenance of the hydrological integrity within occupied habitat and the prevention of over-collection. Monitoring programs are needed to track the status of existing populations with respect to on-going management practices. C. reginae is sensitive to prolonged dry conditions and excessive shade. Draw-down of water tables may likely lead to failures in recruitment and encroachment of shrubs and trees. Deer and cattle need to be controlled where browsing, grazing, and trampling is a problem, perhaps by erecting an enclosure around the affected population.
Restoration Potential: The restoration potential of C. reginae is largely unknown, although research efforts have been underway to address the complicated and difficult germination requirements of the species. In proper habitat and in the presence of appropriate myccorhizae fungi, long-term restoration may be likely. Seed germination, tissue culture, root division and transplantation may prove successful in restoration efforts. Cuttings do not survive well. Root division is a slow process, as plants typically produce only one or two plants per year. Laboratory culture is perhaps the only method that can produce fast results (Soucy 1979). Transplantation Successful growth and expansion of transplanted C. reginae individuals was obtained in an artificial bog constructed in garden settings. For a description and sketch of this structure, see Holman (1976). Olver (1981) had success growing transplanted individuals in controlled environmental conditions. See Olver (1981) for a description of her methods. Seed Collection, Germination and Growth Collection of seed while the pod is still green is necessary to reduce fungal and bacterial contamination of the seeds (Soucy 1979). Both immature and mature seeds germinate well (Linden 1980). Seeds require a darkness treatment in order to germinate. Cold stratification is apparently not required; immature seeds germinate well without a cold treatment, but mature seeds germinate better with one (Linden 1980). The temperate Cypripedium orchids possess impermeable seed coats that must be digested by bacteria or fungi prior to germination. In nature, this coat prevents premature germination and subsequent freezing. Seeds germinate poorly when sown in soil, but germinate well on Hyponex and also modified Curtis solution (Oliva and Arditti 1984). Formulation of the growth medium requires a precise mixture of all the major and minor nutrients required for optimum plant growth. Plant hormones also must be incorporated into the medium (Soucy 1979).
Preserve Selection & Design Considerations: The protection of wetland habitat and related ecological processes should be considered when designing preserves. Buffer areas should be incorporated to help maintain the integrity of orchid habitat. The size of preserves should be large enough to enable natural disturbance processes to occur (such as blowdown of trees in forest sites, that enable C. reginae to colonize suitable habitat). If habitats undergo succession or are not large enough to provide for expansion/colonization, management may be required to maintain openings.
Management Requirements: Education of the public is needed to curb picking and digging of plants (Lenz 1993b, Gawler 1992). In states where the species is protected by law, law enforcement agencies need to be made aware of the magnitude of this problem and devote more of their efforts toward controlling these activities. Deer and cattle need to be controlled where browsing, grazing, and trampling is a problem, perhaps by erecting an enclosure around the affected population. This would also deter human disturbance such as picking, poaching and trampling (Lenz 1993b, West Virginia Natural Heritage Program 1992). Maintenance of the hydrological integrity of occupied habitat is essential for the long-term existence of a population. Cypripedium reginae is sensitive to dry conditions and excessive shade, particularly if they are prolonged. Prolonged draw-down of water tables may likely lead to failures in recruitment and encroachment of shrubs and trees.
Monitoring Requirements: Depending on the rarity of the species within respective states/provinces, states may wish to implement monitoring programs to track the status of populations with respect to on- going management programs. Information pertaining to population size and status, number of individuals, reproductive success, habitat quality and threats should be gathered (Lenz 1993b, Ozark National Forest 1993, Cusick 1992, Gawler 1992).
Monitoring Programs: Amateur botanists are watching C. reginae sites in Missouri (Ladd 1993). Apparently, stem counts are being made on an annual basis. Contact: Doug Ladd, Director of Science, Stewardship and Registry, The Nature Conservancy, Missouri Field Office, 2800 S. Brentwood Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63144. Telephone: (314) 968-1105. The single occurrence in New Jersey is monitored by counting the number of stems and flowers present (Snyder 1993). Contact: David Snyder, Botanist, New Jersey Natural Heritage Program, Office of Natural Lands Management, 501 E. State St., CN404, Trenton, NJ 08625. Telephone: (609) 984-7849. Minimal monitoring of C. reginae populations is occurring in Pennsylvania through annual visits coupled with "eyeball" appraisals. Contact: Paul G. Wiegman, Director of Natural Science and Stewardship, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Natural Areas Program, 316 Fourth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15222. Telephone: (412) 288-2774.
Management Research Programs: Warren Stoutamire at the University of Akron (Ohio) works on the propagation of this species. Contact: Warren Stoutamire, University of Akron, Akron, OH. Telephone: (216) 375-7162. Mary DePauw is completing a M.S. thesis involving germination factors and tissue culture of several species of orchids, including C. reginae. Contact: Mary DePauw, Department of Plant Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2. Telephone: (204) 479-8195.
Management Research Needs: Other management research needs include studying the effects of different management regimes on C. reginae, and developing management guidelines for the species. Examples include selective thinning, deer exclosures, rerouting human traffic around populations and hand pollination (Dobberpuhl 1992, Gawler 1992). There is a need to learn about the degree (if any) to which deer browsing limits populations (Dobberpuhl 1992, Gawler 1992). How long will an occurrence persist if the flowers are eaten each year?
Additional topics: The glandular hairs of the foliage contains a substance that can cause serious eczema or contact dermatitis, similar to that of poison ivy (WPC 1993b, Brackley 1985, Fernald 1970, Steyermark 1963, Correll 1950). Apparently the maximum effect of the irritant is reached during the formation of the capsule. Illustrations of C. reginae can be found in the following sources: W. R. Smith (1993), Vogt (1990), Summers (1987), Soucy (1979), Reyburn (1978: culture), Roedner et al. (1978), Teuscher (1977), Holman (1976), Luer (1975), Harvais (1973: culture, 1980), Peterson and McKenny (1968), Braun (1967), Gibson (1964), Stoutamire (1964: seeds and seedlings, 1967), Rickett (1963), Steyermark (1963), Gleason (1952), Correll (1950), Waterman (1949, 1950: plant and habitat) and Small (1933).
NatureServe Conservation Status Factors Author: Ostlie, W.R. (1994); S.L. Neid (1998).
Management Information Edition Author: AMBROSE, DONN M. OSTLIE, WAYNE R. SCHUEN, DAVID WALTER PENSKAR, MICHAEL R.
Management Information Acknowledgments: We are indebted to all the botanists, ecologists, information managers and others who took the time to provide the information necessary for the preparation of this and many other Element Stewardship Abstracts.
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Brackley, F.E. 1985. The orchids of New Hampshire. Rhodora 87: 15-17, 111-117.
Braun, E. L. 1967. The Monocotyledonae: Cattails to Orchids. The Ohio State University Press. Columbus, OH. 464 pp.
Bright, J. 1936. In Quest of the Rare Ones. Trillia 10:22- 27.
Bright, J. 1939. In Quest of the Rare Ones. Trillia 10:22- 27. A39BRI01PAUS.
Britton, N. L. and A. B. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada, and the British Possessions. 2nd Edition in 3 Volumes. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. B13BRI01PAUS.
Britton, N. L. and A. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada. 3 vol. Dover Publications, Inc., N. Y. 2052 pp.
Britton, N.L. and A. Brown. 1970. An illustrated flora of the northern United States and Canada. Dover Edition. Volume I. p549.
Bruce-Grey Plant Committee (Owen Sound Field Naturalists). . A Guide to the Orchids of Bruce and Grey Counties, Ontario. Stan Brown Printers Limited, Owen Sound, Ontario. 105 pp.
Case, F. W. 1987. Orchids of the Western Great Lakes Region. Cranbrook Institue of Science.
Case, F.W. 1987. Orchids of the western Great Lakes region. Bull. 48. Cranbrook Institute of Science: Cranbrook. 252 pages.
Correll, D.S. 1950 . Native orchids of North America north of Mexico. Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, California. 400 pp.
Curtis, J. T. 1943. Germination and seedling development in five species of Cypripedium L. American Journal of Botany 30:199-205.
Curtis, J. T. 1954. Annual fluctuation in rate of flower production by native Cypripediums during two decades. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 81:340-352.
Curtis, J.T. 1954. Annual Fluctuation in Rate of Flower Production by Native Cypripediums During Two Decades. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 81 (4): 340-352. A54CUR01PAUS.
Elliott, V. 1984. White form of the showy lady-slipper (Cypripedium reginae forma albolabium) discovered in Grey County.. Plant Press 2 (2).
Emerson, C.S. 1950. The Story of My Prize Showy Ladyslipper. Wildflower 26:79-80.
Emerson, C.S. 1950. The Story of My Prize Showy Ladyslipper. Wildflower 26:79-80. A50EME01PAUS.
Gates, F.C. 1912. The vegetation of the beach area in northeastern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin. Bull. Ill. State Lab. Nat. Hist. 9:255-372.
Gleason, H.A. & Cronquist, A. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Second Edition. The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY 10458. U.S.A. B91GLE01PAUS.
Guignard, J.A. 1886. Insects and orchids. Annual Rep. Eut. Soc. Ont. 16:39-48.
Harvais, G. 1973. Growth requirements and development of Cypripedium reginae in axenic culture. Canadian Journal of Botany 51 2 (2):327-332.
Harvais, G. 1974. Notes on the biology of some native orchids of Thunder Bay, their endophytes and symbionts. Can.J.Bot. 52: 451-460.
Harvais, G. 1980. Scientific notes on a Cypripedium reginae of northwestern Ontario, Canada. American Orchid Society Bulletin 49 (3): 237-244.
Harvais, G. 1980. Scientific notes on a Cypripedium reginae of northwestern Ontario, Canada. Bull. Amer. Orchid Soc. 49(3): 237-244.
Harvill, A.M., Jr, T.R. Bradley, C.E. Stevens, T.F. Wieboldt, D.M.E. Ware, and D.W. Ogle. 1986. Atlas of the Virginia Flora, 2nd edition. Virginia Botanical Associates, Farmville, Virginia.
Holman, R.T. 1976. Cultivation of Cypripedium calceolus and Cypripedium reginae. Bull. Amer. Orchid Soc. 45(5): 415-422.
Holman, R.T. 1976. Orchid Conservation: Cultivation of Cypripedium calceolus and Cypripedium reginae. American Orchid Society Bulletin May: 415-422.
Johnson, L. 1988. Orchid hunting in shield country. Wildflower 4(1): 28-31.
Johnson, L.P. 1995. A new color form of Amerorchis rotundifolia for the Sibley Peninsula of Lake Superior. Lindleyana 10(1): 1.
Judziewicz, E. J. 2001. Flora and vegetation of the Grand Traverse Islands (Lake Michigan), Wisconsin and Michigan. Michigan Botanist 40: 81-208.
McCance, R.M. and Burns, J.F. eds 1984. Ohio Endangered and Threatened Vascular Plants: Abstracts of State-Listed Taxa, Division of Natural Areas and Preserves. Department of Natural Resources, Columbus, Ohio 635p. B84MCC01PAUS.
Mohlenbrock, R. H. 1975. Guide to the vascular flora of Illinois. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. 494 pp.
Mohlenbrock, R.H. 1975. Guide to the vascular flora of Illinois. Southern Illinois University Press. 494 pp.
Mosquin, T. 1986. A management plan for the showy lady's slipper, (Cypripedium reginae), in the Purdon Conservation Area, Lanark County, Ontario. Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority. 87 pp.
Ogle, D.W. 1989. Barns Chapel Swamp: An unusual arbor-vitae (Thuja occidentalis L.) site in Washinton County, Virginia. Castanea 54(3): 200-202.
Oliva, A.P. and J. Arditti. 1984. Seed germination of North American Orchids, II: Native California and related species of Aplectrum, Cypripedium, and Spiranthes. Bot. Gaz. 145(4): 495-501.
Pepoon, H.S. 1916. Peculiar plant distributions. Trans. Ill. State Acad. Sci. 9:128-137.
Radford, A.E., Ahles, H.E., and Bell, C.R. 1978. Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. The Univ. of North Carolina Press. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. B78RAD01PAUS.
Roedner, B.J., D.A. Hamilton, and K.E. Evans. 1978. Rare plants of the Ozark Plateau--A field identification guide. U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, North Central Forest Experiment Station, St. Paul, MN 238 pp.
Rooney, S.C. undated. Element Sterwardship Abstract for Cypripedium reginae (showy lady-slipper). The Nature Conservancy. 4 pp.
Scoggan, H.J. 1978. The Flora of Canada (Part 2 Pteridophyta, Gynospermae, and monocotyledoneae). National Museums of Canada. 456 pp.
Small, J.K. 1933. Manual of the southeastern flora. Science Press Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. 1554 pp.
Smith, E. B. 1988b. An atlas and annotated list of the vascular plants of Arkansas, 2nd edition. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
Smith, W.R. 1993. Orchids of Minnesota. University of Minnesota press, Minneapolis. 172pp.
Soucy, D.S. 1979. Saving our native orchids. Am. Hort. 58(5): 20-21, 43.
Steyermark, J. A. 1977. Flora of Missouri. Iowa State University Press, Ames, IA. 1728 pp.
Stoutamire, W. P. 1964. Seeds and seedlings of native orchids. Michigan Bot. 3: 107-119.
Stoutamire, W. P. 1967. Flower biology of the lady's-slippers (Orchidaceae: Cypripedium). Michigan Botanist 6:159-175.
Stoutamire, W.P. 1967. Flower Biology of the Lady's Slippers (Orchidaceae: Cypripedium) in The Michigan Botanist 6: 159-175. A67STO01PAUS.
Stoutmaire, W.P. 1964. Seeds and seedlings of native orchids. Mich. Bot. 3: 107-119.
Stoutmaire, W.P. 1967. Flower biology of the lady's-slippers (Orchidaceae: Cypripedium). Michigan Botanist 6: 159-175.
Summers, B. 1987. Missouri Orchids. Missouric Department of Conservation. Jefferson City, MO.
Vance, F.R. 1977. First Saskatchewan record of showy lady's slipper. Blue Jay 35(3): 41.
Vogt, C.A. 1990. Pollination in Cypripedium reginae (Orchidaceae). Lindleyana 5(3): 145-150.
Waterman, W.G. 1948. The Showy Ladyslipper can be Saved. Wildflower 24:43-47. A48WAT01PAUS.
Waterman, W.G. 1948. The Showy Ladyslipper can be saved. Wildflower 24:43-47.
Waterman, W.G. 1950. Habitats of Cypripedium reginae Walt. in North Central Michigan. Bull. Amer. Orchid Soc. 19: 588-594.
Waterman, W.O. 1949. CYPRIPEDIUM REGINAE, Walt., The showy lady's slipper. Amer. Orchid Soc. Bull. 18:90-97.
White, D.J. 1988. An interesting fen at the Purdon Conservation Area, Lanark County. Trail & Landscape 22 (2): 44-47.
Windus, J.L. 1987. Tracking the showy lady's-slipper. Ohio Department of Natural Resources Newsletter 9 (4). | http://explorer.natureserve.org/servlet/NatureServe?searchName=Cypripedium+reginae |
Written by Dr. Robert Lusardi, the California Trout-UC Davis Wild and Coldwater Fish Scientist – republished from The Current Winter 2019 issue
California has been ravaged by an increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires. During 2018, there were more than 8,400 wildfires that burned nearly two million acres across the state, the most in recorded history. The increase in fire frequency is the result of an interaction between climate change and increased fuel loads and fire suppression over the last century, among other factors. Despite the recent increase in wildfires throughout the state, we know relatively little about how they affect salmonids. Understanding the effects of wildfire on salmonids, however, is important. Wildfire was found to be one of the primary anthropogenic threats affecting inland salmonids in the recent State of the Salmonids Report. Further, recent fires such as the Carr Fire near Redding, California and its proximity to the remaining population of winter-run Chinook salmon suggest we need to better understand the various ways wildfire can affect vulnerable species or populations.
Similar to many large-scale ecological processes, the magnitude of effects of wildfire on salmonids are context specific and depend on numerous factors. Such factors include the location of the fire within the watershed, the amount of area burned, the intensity of the fire, the species and/or populations affected and their status, and the condition of the watershed prior to fire. Similar to droughts and floods, wildfires also represent important disturbances on the landscape that salmonids have evolved to over millions of years. While the short-term effects of wildfire on salmonids can negatively affect populations in numerous ways, similar to floods and drought, some of the long-term effects can be beneficial to salmonids.
Short-term Effects
The most notable short-term effects of wildfire on salmonids include a loss of riparian habitat (and subsequent shading) and an influx of fine sediment. Riparian habitat loss affects both stream water temperature and increases sediment delivery to rivers. In turn, significant increases in fine sediment to watersheds affected by fire have been shown to reduce salmonid spawning and rearing habitat principally through a loss of viable egg habitat. Local hydrology and water chemistry can also be greatly impacted by fire as runoff and overland flow increase with an abrupt loss of riparian vegetation. For instance, Oliver et al. (2012) found that runoff occurred earlier in recently burned areas in California and that the delivery of nutrients, such as nitrate and phosphorous, increased. In general, intense wildfires adjacent to streams can alter local hydrology and change sediment delivery patterns and in some cases even lead to the direct mortality of fish. Bozek and Young (1994) found that a combination of intense rainfall immediately after a wildfire and increased sedimentation lead to the direct mortality of salmonids in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Yet, even in these instances, recolonization of recently impacted habitats can be relatively quick and largely depends on the location of viable source populations. For instance, Rieman et al. (1995) found that most stream reaches affected by wildfire were repopulated within the first year and approached densities of unimpaired stream reaches in one to three years.
Wildfires can also positively affect salmonid habitat. Flitcroft et al. (2015) recently found that large wood recruitment increased in recently burned watersheds and improved overwintering habitat for juvenile salmonids through the creation of complex pool habitats. Increased delivery of nutrients, as documented by Oliver et al. (2012) and others, may also improve ecosystem productivity by stimulating stream food webs and improving the quantity and quality of prey resources. Changes in hydrology and increases in overland flow may also lead to large debris flows in upstream tributaries which, as a result, may deliver larger, cobble-size sediments to spawning areas to help improve spawning habitat. Similar to the effects of flooding, wildfires can also promote and even enhance instream processes known to benefit salmonids, yet this often occurs over longer time periods.
However, as with floods, there’s an important caveat with wildfires and the evolution of salmonids. Much like dams have harnessed rivers throughout California and changed the frequency and magnitude of ecologically important flood events with dire consequences for salmonids, climate change combined with increased fuel loads and fire suppression have likely accomplished the same for wildfires with similar consequences. Historically, both floods and wildfires negatively affected salmonids in the short-term, but abundant and diverse populations enabled these fishes to recolonize disturbed habitats quickly and allow them to persist in the long-term. Changes in the frequency and intensity of wildfire combined with a general loss of population diversity across the landscape may, inevitably, create a phenomenon where salmonids lack the tools to recover and ultimately adapt to the new wildfire regime we are currently witnessing in California. Our best bet to confront this new threat is to enhance population diversity and adaptive capacity in order to improve species resilience and provide salmonids with the tools necessary to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape.
Further Reading
Bozek, M.A., and M.K. Young. 1994. Fish mortality resulting from delayed effects of fire in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Great Basin Naturalist 54: 91-95.
Flitcroft, R.L., Falke, J.A., Reeves, G.H., Hessburg, P.F., McNyset, K.M., and L. Benda. 2016. Wildfire may increase habitat quality for spring Chinook salmon in the Wenatchee River subbasin, WA, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 359: 126-140.
Oliver, A.A., Bogan, M.T., Herbst, D.B., and R.A. Dahlgren. 2012. Short-term changes in-stream macroinvertebrate communities following a sever fire in the Lake Tahoe basin, California. Hydrobiologia 694: 117-130.
Rieman, B., Lee, D., Chandler, G., and D. Meyers. 1995. Does wildfire threaten extinction for salmonids? Responses of redband trout and bull trout following recent large fires on the Boise National Forest. Conference Proceedings – Fire Effects on Rare and Endangered Species and Habitats. Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. Pages 47-57. | https://caltrout.org/tag/science/ |
The highly compact TR5048 VNA is a 4.8 GHz, 2-port 1-path instrument, capable of 120 dB dynamic range and designed for operation with any Windows PC or laptop. Thanks to its unmatched portability, TR5048 can be shared easily within a team or brought to test sites. The free, lightweight VNA application connects to the TR5048 with a standard USB cable, creating a future-proof solution that significantly enhances ease of use compared with conventional instruments.
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In this webinar, Palintest USA’s Bob Banker talks through water testing for pools and spas, discussing the use of digital methods to help ensure maximum safety and efficiency.
View our pool and spa chemistry webinar here.
18th November 2020
Lightweight and handheld, our new Lumiso pool photometers are designed for complete portability to perform testing, anywhere.
18th November 2020
Our compact Pooltest photometers will be discontinued. Find out when this is happening and what they are being replaced by. | https://www.palintest.com/content-hub/webinar-using-photometers-for-pool-spa-water-testing/ |
Syqwest Hydrobox Hydrographic Echo Sounders is a portable high- resolution, shallow water echo sounder. Designed for inshore and coastal hydrographic marine surveys up to 1000 meters of water depth. Extreme ease of use, portability, and cost efficiency make this device the perfect choice for shallow water hydrography. The sensor is extremely compact, interfaces directly to a standard laptop PC (interface software supplied) and is available with a light- weight and efficient acoustic transducer. | https://www.builders.ph/product/syqwest-hydrobox-hydrographic-echo-sounders/ |
ioSafe Rugged USB 3.0 Portable Drive ReviewPosted on 2011-06-07 16:46:20 by Thomas De Maesschalck
Today I will be looking at the all new ioSafe Rugged Portable 750GB. Unlike the the SoloPro, this device is meant for the portable storage niche; as such it is a much more compact and much easier to carry device. While it is smaller, it is still has all the impressive features which the SoloPro has become famous for; namely fire, water and shock protection. Thus the biggest question I have about the ioSafe Rugged Portable, is it a SoloPro in a more user friendly form factor? Read on to find out.
Verdict: With its combination of ease of use, portability and great speeds (thanks to its use of a 7200rpm hard drive), the ioSafe Rugged Portable is very good storage solution for anyone who is "risk adverse" when it comes to their data; yet need a device which can easily be transported from point A to point B. | https://www.dvhardware.net/review/63727 |
The dehumidifier is the best solution to drying out buildings. It removes dampness and moisture from walls, plaster, screed and timber work. The unit has wheels for portability and must be kept upright.
Make: Dri-eaz
Model: DRIZAIR 1200
View Specifications
Download Manual
Large electric fan for use in large spaces to produce a flow of air to reduce the room temperature.
Model: F259
A basic three speed fan used for an office
Make: HSC
Model: 12DF
This electric fan heater is lightweight, compact and designed to be fully stackable. Ideal for quickly heating on site. | http://www.hirelinkuk.co.uk/product/large-dehumidifier/ |
ScaLAPACK is a library of high-performance linear algebra routines for parallel
distributed memory machines. ScaLAPACK solves dense and banded linear systems,
least squares problems, eigenvalue problems, and singular value problems.
The key ideas incorporated into ScaLAPACK include the use of
* a block cyclic data distribution for dense matrices and a block data
distribution for banded matrices, parametrizable at runtime;
* block-partitioned algorithms to ensure high levels of data reuse;
* well-designed low-level modular components that simplify the task of
parallelizing the high level routines by making their source code the
same as in the sequential case.
The goals of the ScaLAPACK project are the same than the one’s of LAPACK, namely:
* efficiency (to run as fast as possible),
* scalability (as the problem size and number of processors grow),
* reliability (including error bounds),
* portability (across all important parallel machines),
* flexibility (so users can construct new routines from well-designed parts),
* and ease of use (by making the interface to LAPACK and ScaLAPACK look as similar as possible).
Many of these goals, particularly portability, are aided by developing and promoting
standards, especially for low-level communication and computation routines. We have
been successful in attaining these goals, limiting most machine dependencies to three
standard libraries called the BLAS, or Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms, LAPACK and BLACS,
or Basic Linear Algebra Communication Subprograms. LAPACK will run on any machine where
the BLAS are available, and ScaLAPACK will run on any machine where BLAS, LAPACK and the
BLACS are available.
The library is currently written in Fortran (with the exception of a few symmetric
eigenproblem auxiliary routines written in C). The name ScaLAPACK is an acronym for
Scalable Linear Algebra PACKage, or Scalable LAPACK. The most recent version of
ScaLAPACK is 2.1.0.0, released in November 16, 2019. | https://www.hpc.cineca.it/software/scalapack |
Portability means that a student’s identification of giftedness transfers to any district in the state. Gifted programming must continue according to the receiving district’s resources and programming options. Portability of gifted identification is a student’s right, so information about his or her giftedness becomes part of his or her permanent record.
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The transfer process may include secure electronic file transfers or mailing of the student’s record to the new district or school. When gifted students leave Estes Park School District R-3 to transfer to another district, we send a cumulative file, which is a formal record of their educational history. Included in this information are the students’ areas of identified giftedness, their ALPs and, when possible, their BOEs. A copy of each year’s new ALP is given to each building secretary and added to the appropriate student’s cumulative file, so it is always current.
Similarly, we can expect to receive such information for any student transferring here from other school districts with in Colorado. This is not true, however, of school districts in other states. One notable exception is for students of military families.
The Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children created legislation signed into law in all 50 states to ease school-to-school transfers for military children. The intent of the Compact is to minimize the disruption in education when a military child is forced to move as a result of a transfer or deployment of his or her parent. The Compact states:
The receiving state school shall initially honor placement of the student in educational programs based on current educational assessments conducted at the school in the sending state or participation/placement in like programs in the sending state. Such programs include, but are not limited to: 1) gifted and talented programs; and 2) English as a second language (ESL). This does not preclude the school in the receiving state from performing subsequent evaluations to ensure the appropriate placement of the student. | https://www.estesschools.org/Page/820 |
AbstractDESCRIPTION (Provided by Applicant): The aim of this project is to develop a portable, low cost, fast and easy-to-use device for the quantitative assessment of bone quality that is suitable for mass screening and early identification of those at risk for osteoporosis. The device will detect changes in the composition and micro-architectural properties of bone by measuring the ultrasound velocity, attenuation, spectral, and non-linear acoustic (NLA) parameters of bone at multiple sites along the skeleton with varied proportion of spongy and compact bone components. The manual scanning probe operating in surface pulse transmission mode will be used to obtain ultrasonic profiles in tested skeletal area. The diagnostic potential of NLA spectroscopy as a novel method for detecting the accumulation of microdamage in living bone will be evaluated. The feasibility of the proposed methods and devices has been proven in laboratory model studies and in pilot clinical trials. In Phase II of the project designed during Phase I will be developed into a fully functional and compact bone ultrasonometer with the manual scanning and NLA modes of operation, and clinically tested. Indexes of bone quality composed of several ultrasonic parameters will be developed for differential diagnostics of osteoporosis and mixed osteopenia. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: Early evaluation and monitoring of osteoporosis is imperative for timely and effective treatment of the disease. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation [1998 Report] the current economic burden associated with osteoporosis-related fractures is estimated at about $13.8 billion annually. There is an urgent need for advancement of the existing diagnostic techniques. The Proposed multi-site ultrasonometer offers higher diagnostic efficacy and specificity, lower cost, portability, and ease of operation. Developed device is ideally suited for the mass screening of osteoporosis and primary monitoring of population with high fracture risk. | https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/97713 |
SKU:
This Marine Whale Leather Travel Journalhas four pieces including a leather style cover, and random TWO between grid, monthly plan, lined and blank inserts and a storage insert. These inserts can all be refilled. The design is super lightweight and is perfect for compact portability as well. | https://www.plannersalleyway.com.au/store/p338/Marine_Whale_Leather_Cover_Travel_Journal.html |
The Mini Pro is designed to productively clean carpet with less effort, resulting in time-saving productivity gains. In interest of simplicity this machine requires minimal service. It is lightweight and compact for ease of use and transport ability. Compact deep cleaning solution. | https://www.sanitarysupplycorp.com/p-3363-windsor-karcher-mini-pro-4-gallon-compact-extractor-10080390-sold-as-each.aspx |
CASE KNIFE 147 CALIBER LOCKBACK
Small lockback. Easy to handle, compact size, lightweight, versatile and convenient. Combines the strength and control of a fixed blade with the portability of a folding knife. Stainless steel clip blade. Black Zytel handle.
Product Specifications
- SKU: 16680062
- Mfg Part Number: 147
- Dimensions: | https://www.littlehardware.com/inet/storefront/store.php?mode=showproductdetail&product=4247 |
The Greenlee 7804-SB Hydraulic Knockout Driver (7804-SB-M4) is part of Greenlee's premium collection of tools and accessories. This flex-hydraulic driver assembly has a compact, lightweight design for portability and fast, easy one-person operation. It develops 8 tons of hydraulic force for easy punching, and it can be used with non-round punches within the capacity of the tool. | https://www.plumbersstock.com/greenlee-7804-sb-driverhydraulic-ko-7804-sb-m4.html |
The AQ1200 Multi Field Tester OTDR is a compact and lightweight handheld OTDR optimized for the installation and maintenance of optical fiber cables. Designed with ease of use in mind to simplify field testing, improve work efficiency and ensure qualify results. Seven models are offered, each with unique wavelength(s) based on their specific application.
Speed, ease-of-use, increased efficiency of optical network testing is exactly what the AQ7260 provides to simplify your application processes.
The AQ7275 is one of the best selling OTDRs in the world. Model lineup has been expanded to a total of 9 models to choose from with a dynamic range of up to 45dB . Wavelength capability spans from 850nm (MMF) to 1650nm (SMF). An impressive 0.8m event dead zone makes this model an excellent choice for FTTH and metro, core networks.
Optical test equipment or optical measuring instruments are used to measure and characterize the physical properties of light.
An optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) is a precision instrument used to locate events or faults along a fiber link, typically within an optical communications network. | https://tmi.yokogawa.com/nz/library/resources/faqs/is-the-aq7932-viewer-software-compatible-with-windows-7/ |
2 temperature settings (750 degrees and 1000 degrees) for a variety of applications. Built-in stand for easy cool down. Lightweight and compact design for ease of use and handling. | https://www.fredmeyer.com/p/black-decker-dual-temperature-heat-gun/0088591122171?fulfillment=SHIP |
This lens was developed as a product in the same series as the FD28-55mm f/3.5-4.5 wide-angle zoom lens (released in December 1983) and the FD35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 standard zoom lens (released in March 1983), which are both highly regarded for being compact and offering good lens performance.
The optical system uses a 3-group zoom optical system, and together with streamlining of the barrel structure and the implementation of the new material called engineering plastic, the lens provides high image quality while being significantly lighter and more compact, and at an affordable price of under 50,000 yen.
It has a zoom ratio of approximately 2.7x covering focal lengths from 75mm to 200mm, and with a wide macro mechanism enabling close shooting down to approximately 55cm from the film plane at wide angle. It also has excellent cost performance, and combined with the good portability and operability resulting from the lightweight and compact design, the lens is effective in a wide range of shooting as a telephoto zoom lens that can easily be used by anyone. | https://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/nfd251.html |
The ASI2080 is a USB output pressure transducer offering high-accuracy measurements of ±0.1% FSO. It is ideal for use with laptops and data recorders for portable applications.
Its compact and lightweight design facilitates ease of installation within space-constrained environments. | https://www.servoflo.com/sensors/asi2080 |
Other Editions of This Title:
Digital Audiobook (9/24/2018)
Paperback (8/15/2017)
Description
Interweaving stories from past and present, All We Have Left brings one of the most important days in our recent history--September 11th--to life, showing that love and hope will always triumph.
Now:
Sixteen-year-old Jesse is used to living with the echoes of the past. Her older brother died in the September 11th attacks, and her dad since has filled their home with anger and grief. When Jesse gets caught up with the wrong crowd, one momentary hate-fueled decision turns her life upside down. The only way to make amends is to face the past, starting Jesse on a journey that will reveal the truth about how her brother died.
Then:
In 2001, sixteen-year-old Alia is proud to be Muslim . . . it's being a teenager that she finds difficult. After being grounded for a stupid mistake, Alia decides to confront her father at his Manhattan office, putting her in danger she never could have imagined. When the planes collide into the Twin Towers, Alia is trapped inside one of the buildings. In the final hours, she meets a boy who will change everything for her as the flames rage around them . . .
A Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2016 selection
Praise For All We Have Left…
"[A] beautifully written coming-of-age story. . . . This outstanding, touching look at a national tragedy promotes healing and understanding and belongs in every library." - starred review, School Library Journal
"The author elegantly transitions between the gripping descriptions of Alia and Travis trying to survive and Jesse almost falling into the abyss of generational hatred of Islam. In doing so, she artfully educates readers on both the aspects of Islam used as hateful stereotypes and the ruinous effects of Islamophobia. With almost poetic language, the author compassionately renders both the realistic lives, loves, passions, and struggles of Alia . . . and Jesse . . . as both deal with the fallout of that tragic day. Both a poignant contemplation on 9/11 and a necessary intervention in this current political climate." - starred review, Kirkus Reviews
"Harrowing and realistic, highlighting bravery and courage against impossible odds. Mills movingly examines how easily pain can metastasize into hate, while demonstrating the power of compassion, hope, and forgiveness with equal force." - Publishers Weekly
"Thoughtful, poignant . . . An important topic that deserves more dialogue than it receives. A moving portrait and important look at the lasting effects of one of our country’s greatest tragedies." - Booklist
"A timely plea for reconciliation suited to teens whose entire lives have unfolded in the lingering aftermath of 9/11." - BCCB
"Poignantly heartbreaking. . . . While likely to evoke more than a few tears, the story is also hopeful, suggesting that even in the wake of unimaginable tragedy, love can outweigh hate, friendship can counter fear, and compassion and understanding can begin the healing process." - VOYA
"Mills’s narrative mission--to portray the experiences of characters from very different backgrounds while bringing the horrific tragedy and its aftermath to life for contemporary teens--is fully accomplished. . . . [a] timely, ultimately hopeful story of love, courage, and human goodness when it matters most" - The Horn Book Magazine
"Teens will appreciate this carefully researched and authentic exposé of a difficult subject. . . . A heartfelt, three-hankie exploration of a topic all too many teens must confront." - Kirkus Reviews on POSITIVELY BEAUTIFUL
"Highly appealing to teens who would be interested in a more modern take on a well-trod genre." - SLJ on POSITIVELY BEAUTIFUL
"The emotional core of the novel is convincingly powerful . . . teens will likely appreciate the well-researched depiction of losing a loved one to cancer." - Booklist on POSITIVELY BEAUTIFUL
Bloomsbury USA Childrens, 9781619633438, 368pp.
Publication Date: August 9, 2016
About the Author
Wendy Mills is the author of Positively Beautiful and All We Have Left. She was born on the edge of the water and has never left it. She now lives with her family on a tropical island off the southwest coast of Florida, where she spends her time writing and dodging hurricanes. | https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781619633438 |
“Readers will be riveted.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The Ethan I Was Before is an award-winning story of love and loss, wonder and adventure, and ultimately of hope.
Lost in the Sun meets The Thing About Jellyfish in Ali Standish’s breathtaking debut. A poignant middle grade novel of friendship and forgiveness, this is a classic in the making. | http://www.feedbooks.com/item/1822983/the-ethan-i-was-before |
Beyond the Masque is Kae’s first novel, and one where the importance of believability was all encompassing in uniting word with page. It is a sequel to Gaston Leroux’s beloved story of The Phantom of the Opera.
The book opens with a devastated Phantom (Erik) just returned from his final interview with the Persian, as referred to in the closing pages of Leroux’s work. Christine left days ago with Raoul de Chagny, having made her choice after being given her freedom by Erik to do so. Erik is resigned to dying, contented and gratefully happy for the ‘taste’ of consideration Christine bestowed upon him. Then the once predictable becomes twisted when she returns to him as the unimaginable begins to form a foundation of possibility. Beyond the Masque ignites the late 1800s through inclusion into the historical places of Paris, Amiens, and the Breaton coast of France. And from there, the story develops into one of redemption, trust, friendship, forgiveness, and ultimately, love. Change is a constant as Erik Gautier strives to deserve the woman who has finally seen past the surface—his monstrous face and past—to realize her love of the man. | http://www.ldspublisher.com/2009/07/beyond-the-mask-by-kae-d-jacobs/ |
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sonstheir love, their sacrifices, their lies.
The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvases of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subjectthe devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut. | https://www.akademibokhandeln.se/bok/the-kite-runner/9781594632204/ |
Madeline Miller’s sophomore novel, Circe, is moving in both scale and depth. The story is Miller’s reimagining of the Greek mythology featured in Homer’s Odyssey, as told through the eyes of the witch, Circe. The book is a striking exploration of the universal struggle women face in claiming their power, as well as the suffering that unfolds when they are entrapped and the beauty that unfolds when they break free.
Having made the mistake of angering her father, Helios, by turning her mortal lover into a god (and then transforming the nymph he chose over her into a sea monster), Circe is banished to the isle of Aiaia. Initially, she finds a sort of solace there, but ultimately realizes that even there at the end of world she isn’t safe from assault in all forms, as both gods and men continue to involve her in their games.
Miller expertly displays the nuances and complexities of the human condition by imagining what may have motivated Circe to do the seemingly evil things she did (including turning sailors who were shipwrecked on her island into pigs). She invites us to consider the importance of what we don’t know when it comes to judging our fellow humans’ behaviors.
But it’s in Miller’s poignant descriptions of the complex emotions and experiences inherent in motherhood that we are blessed most by her talent with words. Upon seeing her sleeping child (a son she bore by Odysseus), Miller imbues Circe with:
“a love so sharp it seemed my flesh lay open. I made a list of all the things I would do for him. Scald off my skin. Tear out my eyes. Walk my feet to bones, if only he would be happy and well.”
Final Verdict
Circe is a moving tale of the power of compassion, of personal growth, and ultimately of love. 5/5, highly recommend. | https://danvillepubliclibrary.org/tag/madeline-miller/ |
There are images and ideas in Martin Scorsese’s SILENCE that are likely to resound in many viewers’ hearts and minds long after they leave the movie theater. A cinematic rendering of Shusaku Endo’s novel (same title), it is powerful and heartbreaking. Exposing the atrocity of religious persecution SILENCE’S theatrical release couldn’t be more timely. In that context, it poses important ethical and spiritual questions that warrant ongoing discussion among religious and secularists alike. It deserves to find a wide audience. But viewers be warned: there are benefits and burdens in watching the film. Scorsese’s devotion to Endo’s book has compelled this director and co-screenwriter to give practically every page of the novel its cinematic equivalent. This may be too much for the average filmgoer in terms of length but more so because of the graphic violence in its depiction of persecuted Christians.
The context of SILENCE is historical: In 17th century Japan, the ruling class decided it best for its national interest to eradicate Christianity from their country. The faith was closely associated with (and at times in complete cooperation with) Western Imperialism, Colonialism, Slavery and various manipulations of international trade. Worse, the infighting among Christians, between denominations and nationalities scandalized the Japanese and caused them grave concern.
Prior to the film’s time frame, the Japanese government sanctioned the arrest, torture and execution of Catholic priests to intimidate the Christian faithful. But the priests’ refusal to recant their faith and subsequent martyrdom strengthened the Japanese Christians’ faith and inspired growing number of converts. In retaliation, officials evolved alternative measures: mercilessly torturing Christian hostages in front of priests who could only stop the assault by publicly denying Christ. Should the priest refuse to deny his faith, the Japanese continued to subject Christians to excruciating torment, to slow and painful deaths with pastors forced to watch the proceedings. This is the historical and ethically abhorrent situation SILENCE explores and the implications are mind boggling.
How can a religious leader in conscience dictate martyrdom to his flock? To do so would be an offence against free will, against personal integrity. Catholic priests of the 17th and any century would be fully cognizant of the centrality of free will as the divine spark that makes each person in the image of God. And yet for a priest to apostatize is to betray his life, his vocation and the faith that those poor tortured souls embraced.
Most viewers would know, a steadfast confession of faith under threat of torture and death is a solemn and courageous act. For Christians, martyrdom witnesses to the promises of Christ–the reality of heaven, of resurrection and life in the world to come. It exemplifies the value of suffering for a greater truth beyond worldly comfort at the same time it personifies personal integrity—confirming integrity as a value to believer and nonbeliever alike. Delving deeper into this issue SILENCE not only explores the motivations and choices the priests make but asks “What would each viewer do?” If the characters make decisions that do not correspond to the viewer’s own, what then? This is the magnetic power of SILENCE. It is intent in engaging an audience into this segment of world history to ask that very question. What’s more, the film repeats the insistence of the novel that viewers refrain from judging the priests as much as humanly possible. The heart of Endo’s novel and Scorsese’s film is a cry toward compassion, not judgment. In that it is a very contemporary approach to a 17th Century phenomenon, flavoring it with the seasons of this age: tolerance and a strong sensibility of “to each his own.”
Our age of Enlightenment notwithstanding, Christianity continues to uphold the martyrs as among our greatest heroes. In imitation of Christ on the Cross, each martyr exhibits a willful surrender to God, to faith and personal integrity, refusing to get co-opted into the violence of the world. In contrast, the world honors secular heroes for their physical prowess, a Spartan grace that outwits and overpowers their enemies by fighting fire with fire, sword with sword, blade with blade to the point that, in modern cinema, whoever has the better machine gun wins. The context of the martyrs, of course, is quite different. They are held hostage by their captors with no recourse to anything but their faith. Yes, God is silent, but that is because God will not manipulate human beings, deferring (as God has from the beginning) to each person’s free will, allowing the consequences of each choice fall where they may. In honoring her martyrs, Christianity redefines “hero” and overturns Western Civilization relentless recourse to violence. No wonder the Japanese feared a Christian influence. Yet even Western Civilization questions the principle that “might makes right,” and for centuries its poets and philosophers have asked “What Price Glory?” Homer’s ILLIAD, in fact, after highlighting both bravery and bravado of the Trojan War heroes, ultimately asked: “What are we fighting for? For riches, for power, for control of land and resources? Yet all men die.” The modern, existential response is “we live and die for nothing, so live your life as you see fit.” The Christian response is “we live for God. We are not afraid of death. This life is but a stepping stone unto eternity as per the promises of Christ.”
The many martyrs in SILENCE are presented as truly heroic figures. But the central narrative focuses instead on three individuals who compromise their faith—one out of weakness and fear, the others out of compassion for the tortured souls crying out in painful delirium before them. Moreover, Endo and Scorsese suggest these priests may have apostatized because they believed Jesus Himself would have had them save lives rather destroy them. After all, Jesus did not insist his apostles be martyred alongside him. That comparison, however, would not be a fair one for it would mitigate the primacy of Christ in the story of salvation. Instead, there is irony in the fact that because the Apostles and other disciples fled in fear, Christianity survived because only the Apostles and other faithful disciples would witness the Resurrection—the crowning glory of the Christian faith. Likewise, there’s irony in the fact that the small but significant Catholic faith in Japan exists today, in part (and only “in part,”) because its ancestors denied their faith, stepped on the fumie (an icon used to reduce Christianity to “vapor”) renouncing Christianity to survive. But these apostates, too, would have experienced a dimension of Resurrection through the forgiveness of sin and eventual return to the Christian community as the character Kichijiro (expertly portrayed by actor Yôsuke Kubozuka) repeatedly makes clear. Indeed, many of the Japanese apostates would be forgiven because although they renounced their faith publicly, they became “secret Christians” until that time Japan allowed freedom of religion. Of course, eventually new missionaries would be allowed into the country, and fresh converts of new generations emerged with no connection to their Catholic ancestors other than spiritual ones. Complicated, isn’t it? Add to this, the film does not arouse any feeling of anger or hatred toward the Japanese persecutors. Beyond their ethnicity and culture is a sense that these men simply represent the world and the abuse of power evident in every time, in every place. The officials justify their actions with worldly logic that sounds rather rationale in alarming, matter of fact ways. Consider the ways violence and killing are reported and discussed in the public arena today.
Let’s look again at the “fallen,” characters in SILENCE more closely. Kichijiro is a central figure identified as a coward and apostate early on. He not only represents apostasy but prefigures choices two priests will make, choices the film scrutinizes in depth. But, as noted, the film is equally interested in the reactions of its viewers. SILENCE asks all: “How do you respond to those who regard life itself as the ultimate value–one that supersedes faith?” The story questions the human penchant for judgment and condemnation of those weak in faith, those who doubt and refuse to be martyred. It’s as if Endo and Scorsese were asking every Christian: How literally do you take Jesus’ words in his Sermon on the plain: “Stop judging, and you will not be judged. Stop condemning, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven?” (Luke 6:37) And consider these words of Jesus: “Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven. (Luke 12:10)
Biblical scholars and Church tradition concur on this latter passage’s meaning: to blaspheme the Holy Spirit is not to “curse God and die” but rather to insist that God’s forgiveness toward humanity – the work, the dynamism attributed to the Holy Spirit –is limited or does not exist. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to assert that God’s forgiveness is somehow not available or not true. In short, to refuse forgiveness, to deny its application and its benefits to all, in all circumstances, puts a person in the position of not receiving it or benefitting from it. In the Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation, the words of absolution spoken by the priest to the penitent are: ‘God, the Father of Mercy, through the death and resurrection of His Son, sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.” The plot presses further into this tenet of faith: To what extent do Christians (and all viewers) believe in a merciful God?
Religious sensibilities often hold apostasy (denying one’s faith in public) as among the greatest of sins. Most religions acknowledge and revere the courageous acts of the martyrs at the same time they acknowledge the choice for martyrdom rests in free will–each person’s capacity to achieve a perfect integrity, synthesis of faith fully integrated and manifested in body as well as in spirit. To this must be added a capacity for suffering and infusion of God’s grace that alone empowers the glorious impossible. Moreover, both the reality of human frailty, fear and weakness and the mystery of grace as that which is not bestowed on a recipient because of his or her virtue or “strength of will” maintain Christianity’s recourse to reconciliation and forgiveness which are foundational. Similarly, SILENCE invites us to expand our notions of a merciful God, insisting that God offers redemption to all.
Throughout SILENCE the narrative evokes the character of Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles. Judas, who, within a different context, and with implied but no clearly stated motives, handed Jesus over to religious authorities who in turn, handed him over to government officials who exercised their power to crucify him. In despair, Judas hangs himself—a decision that indicates that Jesus’ death was not Judas’ intent. Still, for centuries Christians have highlighted Judas as the one unforgiven soul, patron of betrayal (13th Century poet Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy places those guilty of betrayals in the lowest strata of hell–furthest from the realm of God). Yet in an almost contradictory way, Judas is also the representative of all who despair and /or commit suicide.
Even though the biblical and traditional treatment of Judas over the centuries belies it, Christian doctrine in many ways affirmed God’s all-encompassing love, asserting God as a God of mercy, bountiful in forgiveness—perpetuating our Jewish roots. Sometimes, however, Christian practice deferred more to tradition and culture than to doctrine when the “sins of Judas” were committed by others. For centuries, suicides were refused the rites of sacramental funerals and burials; betrayers and apostates were condemned to hell along with heretics. Vatican II, however, institutionalized a move toward compassion that had taken hold of the faithful much earlier, surrendering the judgment of the inner workings of a person’s heart and mind to God alone. Offering great comfort to the bereaved relatives and friends, the Church officially welcomed suicide’s victims to Christian funerals and burials in Catholic cemeteries, and excommunications have become extremely rare. Furthermore, theologians have debated the fate of Judas with an emphasis on compassion citing sporadic discourse on Judas’ betrayal and death from Christian writers through the centuries. SILENCE urges its audience to place the story’s protagonists-and Judas himself—in the light of that truth, exposing centuries of prejudice and condemnations justified by what can only be appreciated in hindsight as misguided righteousness.
SILENCE, of course, focuses on Judas’ betrayal (not his suicide) and keeps our responses to its characters’ betrayals front and center. Whatever the distinction between faith in the heart and faith on the lips, does Jesus’ acceptance of suffering on the Cross insist we accept suffering, too? Or does his cross and resurrection which offer the blessed assurance that love and forgiveness are inseparable entities within God’s essence assure salvation even to those who choose a form of humanism over faith? In that sense, God never demands or commands suffering. Only this world does. And suffering is often the consequence of insisting on truth, remaining faithful to one’s faith and convictions. But, the film asserts, so do the betrayers suffer, so do the weak, the fallible and the fearful. As God silently allows the consequences of every human action to play themselves out, SILENCE puts the responsibility on us to conform our wills to the compassionate Jesus who forgives the repentant thief crucified alongside him on Calvary.
In an interview at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, University, Scorsese said he continually asks himself: How does one express and live true Christian life in a hostile world? He believes that the truth of Christianity is in our behavior. . . The tribal medieval thinking (i.e. “be faithful or die”) is mitigated by people living their faith in fallible human terms. The result is that no one is damned for life, there’s always hope – implying that people of faith must be ever patient with each other as the God of the Bible evidences relentless patience with God’s people.
Also at Fuller Theological Seminary, CA, a round table discussion by professors highlighted the insights of Makoto Fujimura, a Japanese convert to Christianity, director of Brehm Center for Worship, Theology and the Arts. As author of the book SILENCE & BEAUTY (a commentary on Shusaku Endo’s novel), Makoto is convinced that a listening stance and compassion toward the sinner are the central ways Christianity must manifest itself in the present age.
There is great truth in those statements, but also an invitation to expound on related topics such as limits on human freedom, personal accountability and responsibility toward others.
Without those, emphasis on compassion alone presents quite a dilemma. It seems to diffuse the integrity of a staunch, uncompromising faith, the sacrifice of the martyrs and excuse us from enthusiasm and courage in living out our faith.
For that reason, Bishop Robert Barron of WORD ON FIRE fame, takes umbrage with the film. He sees it yet another example of Hollywood’s preference for ambiguity regarding faith and religion. The Bishop bemoans the fact that many producers and directors often cast faith more as problem than source of inspiration in their work. His YouTube includes scenes from the film and spoilers but you may wish to check it out to keep that part of the conversation alive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Th7Tiz1cEk&t=1s
Bishop Barron’s sensibility of “weakened Christianity in films” addresses other aspects of what it means to be Christian. Some say Vatican II has whitewashed evangelization–the directive to share our faith in Jesus Christ with those of other religions and those who have none. The film’s emphasis on God’s Mercy could be interpreted that no one need risk his or her life to share the Gospel. Vatican II rightfully asserted that God loves all, forgives all; all religions have validity and share in God’s goodness. Moreover, diversity among peoples must be honored as it mirrors God’s grandeur in Nature, and respects the God-given gift of Free Will. In that sense, there is no need for all to be one in one universal Church, one faith in Christ. True faith, whatever the faith, must be satisfied to cultivate humility and reverence for Religious Pluralism.
For all that, the Gospel compulsion to share “Good News of Jesus Christ” remains. We need to address the cultural compulsion to make people of faith “Anonymous,” exposing the myth that insists for the sake of peace we need a world of “Anonymous Christians, Anonymous Jews, Anonymous Buddhists, Anonymous Muslims, Anonymous Hindus,” etc. The myth does not acknowledge the loss of hope, of vision, inspiration, of morals and ethics in such a world.
Respecting diversity, perhaps the Christian obligation to evangelize means promoting religious discourse in the public square. For starters, that would give Christianity greater acceptance if not credence in today’s secular culture: No proselytizing, no arguing who or which is “more right,” no encouraging much less insisting on conversions. As Christians engage in religious dialogue, we witness to Christ through loving service, cultivating commonality on essential truths found in all religions thus building trust and solidarity in which God’s spirit thrives. What better way to exemplify our trust in Providence and God’s gift of free will –the Divine Spark in every human being.
JESUS: “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give hislife as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45
“I am among you as the one who serves. Luke 22:27
Thus, in imitation of Christ, we can serve others by confirming their goodness and affirming our shared values. We serve others inviting heartfelt conversation on ethics—the ways to respond to one another when we might harm ourselves and others, addressing problems together without focusing on blame. We serve others by listening to the importance of their faiths or philosophies or the reasons why they rejected faith or organized religions. The more we invite others to highlight commonalities among all faiths, the more we let Providence open proper paths for us to share our Christianity. In this way, more people would welcome us to share our faith because we cultivated a comfortability in listening to them share theirs. Essentially, we will have become more conscious of the fact that evangelization is God’s work, not ours—as it was from the very beginning.
Even with this more humble, patient approach to faith sharing, there are no guarantees that this “new evangelizers” will avoid arousing conflict in the public square or be free from persecution. Western Humanism prefers the privatization of religion because of the violence shrouded in religious discord in the past. Christian overtures toward humble faith-sharing could alleviate these fears and reveal faith’s ability to inspire hope and reconciliation. Discussing SILENCE in churches, homes, at work, schools, universities and other venues is but one accessible entrée into just that kind of witness.
The film SILENCE offers a topic to which many can relate and all religions address in some shape or form: the ways we treat the fallen, the broken–from the good person who makes a terrible mistake, to the hardened criminal, the coward, the bitter and disillusioned, the ignorant, misguided and the scorned. SILENCE inspires a compassionate stance toward all. But it also invites us to explore topics such as the evils of religious persecution and the importance of personal integrity and courage and the principle of non-violence.
I trust your response, and mine, will not be one of silence. | https://frjamesdiluzio.com/2017/02/08/a-spiritual-reflection-on-silence-a-martin-scorsese-film-by-fr-james-diluzio-c-s-p/ |
Download The History of Mischief by Rebecca Higgie ePub novel free. The “The History of Mischief” is an emotional roller coaster of a story, which unfolds in a non- linear manner. Secrets are revealed almost to the end. The novel is filled with secrets, betrayal, loss, death, forgiveness, redemption, with love shining through. | https://goodfileshare.com/the-history-of-mischief-by-rebecca-higgie-epub-pdf-free-download/ |
Download Alex Rider by Anthony Horowitz ePub novel free. The “Alex Rider” is an emotional roller coaster of a story, which unfolds in a non- linear manner. Secrets are revealed almost to the end. The novel is filled with secrets, betrayal, loss, death, forgiveness, redemption, with love shining through. | https://goodfileshare.com/alex-rider-by-anthony-horowitz-epub-pdf-free-download/ |
Download The Jaded King by Jovee Winters ePub novel free. The “The Jaded King” is an emotional roller coaster of a story, which unfolds in a non- linear manner. Secrets are revealed almost to the end. The novel is filled with secrets, betrayal, loss, death, forgiveness, redemption, with love shining through. | https://aloegg.com/the-jaded-king-by-jovee-winters-epub-pdf-free-download/ |
Download The Hills Have Spies by Mercedes Lackey ePub novel free. The “The Hills Have Spies” is an emotional roller coaster of a story, which unfolds in a non- linear manner. Secrets are revealed almost to the end. The novel is filled with secrets, betrayal, loss, death, forgiveness, redemption, with love shining through. | https://goodfileshare.com/the-hills-have-spies-by-mercedes-lackey-epub-pdf-free-download/ |
Together we will discover what makes each of the country’s foods so delectable and so different from each other. Get ready to tantalize your taste buds and explore spices you never thought of using in unique ways. You will learn some history of foods from other nations and why they are becoming increasingly popular in other parts of the world. The best part is that you can cook these foods at home! With a little patience, a love for cook and trying new foods as well as the right tools, soon you will be chopping, stirring, sautéing, brazing, flanking, searing, boiling, baking, and cooking up a storm! Happy Eating! | https://www.2knowandvote.com/tag/worlds-most-popular-food/ |
Provides how-to articles on different dish preparations including artichokes, breads, and international cuisines.
Cooking encyclopedia presenting information about thousands of cooking ingredients such as fruits, vegetables, grain products, and baking supplies.
Presents a collection of tips, techniques, and recipes for freeze-ahead foods and meals.
Provides details which help to foster the preservation of the art of Black Pot Cooking.
Culinary guide presents recipes, how-to articles, cooking tools, and information on ingredients.
Insights on how to do short time sautéing. With information on sautéing cookware, recipes, and specialty foods. | https://botw.org/top/Home/Cooking/Techniques/ |
CARTS112 - Advanced Cooking Techniques
Advanced concepts of food preparation and presentation techniques. Reinforces and advances techniques, terminology and course material.
Credits: 5
Distribution: Hospitality
Offered: Fall, Spring
Outcomes
- Practice and demonstrate a variety of specialized cooking techniques that challenge current abilities.
- Demonstrate special presentation techniques needed for a variety of foods both in a banquet/buffet presentation and in individual plate presentations.
- Define, demonstrate and evaluate for quality various cooking techniques and processes including, sautéing, pan frying, deep frying, shallow poaching, simmering, grilling, broiling, roasting, baking and combination cooking methods.
- Prepare and present a variety of breakfast, lunch, dinner and appetizer items in both a buffet/banquet and in individual plate presentations. | https://www.batestech.edu/course-details/?guid=%7B93992BF8-3D7D-4B2D-8875-95A48EB96A14%7D&program=Culinary%20Arts |
Culinary Art and Nutrition Education aims to train students to be senior professional talents who have good command of basic theories, good cooking techniques ans special skills, and a good knowledge of nutrition science. The graduates will be qualified to teach in college, or to be catering business managers, or be head chefs.
The bachelor program is a four year program. Every semester contains four courses which run for 16 weeks per semester. Every schoolday there are four 1-hour classes, a total of 20 hours per week. This totals 320 hours of instruction per semester. At the end of the program, there is a final course, 64 hours, conducted as an externship.
The core curriculum is composed of the following subjects:
- Gastronomy Essentials
- Nutrition,
- Gastronomy Hygiene,
- Science of Gastronomy Materials,
- Gastronomy Techniques,
- Pastry Techniques,
- Famous Chinese Cuisines,
- Famous Anhui Cuisines,
- Banquet Design,
- East Asian Food Techniques,
- Western Food techniques
- Gastronomy Science, and Restaurant Management.
Examlpes of the program's courses
GUSTRONOMY ESSENTIALS
Course Highlights
• Knife skills
• Food safety and sanitation
• Culinary math
• Product identification
• Palate development
• Ingredient pairing
NOUTRITION:
Introduction to meat, fish and poultry.This course is about techniques of protein fabrication. All types of meat and fish are included.
Course Highlights:
• Beef/veal identification and fabrication
• Pork fabrication
• Poultry fabrication
• Fish and shellfish
SOUPS AND SAUCES
Course Highlights:
• Grand sauces
• Compound sauces
• Emulsified sauces
• Contemporary sauces
• Consommé
• Vegetable-based soups
• Reductions
• Roux-based soups and bisques
DRY-HEAT COOKING METHODS
Course Highlights:
• Sautéing proteins, starches, and vegetables
• Pan-frying proteins, starches, and vegetables
• Deep-frying proteins, starches, and vegetables
• Grilling proteins, starches, and vegetables
• Roasting proteins, starches, and vegetables
MOIST-HEAT COOKING METHODS
Course Highlights:
• Braising proteins and vegetables
• Stewing proteins, starches, and vegetables
• Shallow poaching proteins
• Steaming proteins and vegetables
• Deep-poaching proteins and vegetables
BREAKFAST, BRUNCH, AND LUNCH
Course Highlights:
• Chinese Egg specialties
• Chinese Griddle specialties
• Cereals
• Chinese Crêpes
• Breakfast meats
INTERNATIONAL CUISINE 1
In this course students become familiar with characteristic ingredients, methods and dishes from Provence, Burgundy, Normandy, and Alsace and Italy
INTERNATIONAL CUISINE 2
In this course students with learn the essential dishes of India, China, Japan, and Thailand.
PASTRY & BAKING ESSENTIALS
Even the most basic preparations in the pastry chef's repertoire require practice and skill to master. Silky custards, delicate tarts, and flaky croissants all rely on mastery of the essential skills of rolling, kneading, mixing, and forming. These concepts are emphasized in the comprehensive introduction to baking basics.
Course Highlights: | http://feyzeddin.com/f8/a5/c49a63653/page.htm |
How do you put cooking skills on a resume?
Types of Cooking skills to add in your resume:
- Techniques: Baking, Cooking, Grilling, Ingredient Selection, Food Preparation, Knife Skills, Pastry, etc.
- Recipe Design.
- Menu Design.
- Ordering and Operations.
- Food Safety.
- Food Regulations.
- Food Science.
- Kitchen Management.
How would you describe a cook job?
Cook Job Summary
The cook will prepare meals and follow establishment recipes. Duties include preparing ingredients, adhering to the restaurant menu, and following food health and safety procedures. Cook, clean, assist other cooks and staff and deliver food in a fast-paced environment.
How do I put my line cook on my resume?
When applying for a position as a line cook, consider writing a cover letter to go along with your resume. In your cover letter, you can explain how your work contributed to a kitchen that was able to please guests and deliver exceptional meals to diners.
Can we write cooking in resume?
While cooking may not be the most relevant of interests to put on a resume (unless you’re applying for a food-related occupation), it can show an ability to follow instructions, improvise, and manage time-sensitive projects.
What are examples of cooking skills?
Kneading dough, peeling vegetables, folding in ingredients, simmering, boiling and creaming are other examples of culinary skills. Broiling, barbecuing or searing also contribute to basic cooking.
What is a first Cook job description?
A first cook works with the kitchen team throughout a breakfast, lunch, and dinner service. In this career, you provide food to diners and learn the fundamental elements of the culinary arts. … A first cook must exhibit leadership abilities and have strong time management skills.
What is a second Cook job description?
Second Cooks are responsible to clean, prepare, and cook in accordance with planned menus, assuring meals are fresh and hot at serving time. Assist with baking duties; prepare night lunches and box lunches for field parties. … Prepare tables for meals and cleans up after meals.
What are kitchen skills?
8 Basic Cooking Skills Every Budding Chef Must Know
- Knife Skills. …
- Making the Perfect Stock. …
- Mastering the Five Mother Sauces. …
- Becoming an Egg Expert. …
- Meat, Poultry & Fish. …
- Vegetable Sanitation. …
- Kneading the Dough. …
- Staying Safe in the Kitchen.
How would you describe cooking as a hobby?
Cooking as a hobby means that you’re going to read several recipes and online guides from around the world. By doing this, you’re going to learn more about different cultures and tastes from different countries.
What are technical skills in cooking?
Basic techniques include measuring and weighing food, and converting a recipe into larger or smaller batches. Essential cooking techniques include braising, baking, roasting, grilling, poaching, pan roasting, stewing, sautéing and frying.
Can cooking be considered as a hobby?
There are plenty of reasons to take up cooking as a hobby. … Aside from health benefits, cooking is also a great way to explore other cultures. Trying new foods from different cultures can lead you to find new favorite dishes, but it can also lead you to a deeper appreciation of the culture and the people. | https://donkeybakery.com/baking/how-do-you-describe-being-a-cook-on-a-resume.html |
There are many ways to cook food. The outcome of a dish varies nearly as much through cooking methods as it does through the ingredients. Different cultures tend to have their own unique ways of cooking. These differences often come from historical necessities. Cooking techniques can generally be divided into dry and wet methods of cooking.
Dry methods:
- Baking
Shirring
- Broiling
- Frying
Deep fat frying
Sautéing and pan-frying
Stir-Frying
Deglazing
- Grilling
- Roasting
Roasting Nuts
- Microwaving
Wet methods: | http://cuisine.satimis.com/how-to-cook-faire-la-cuisine/ |
.You’ll learn a variety of cooking techniques such as sautéing, sous vide (what’s that? You’ll have to sign up to find out!). We’ll discuss baking times and temperatures as we get a lesson on grilling, too!
Fri 5/17/19 6:30 - 9:00 p.m. | https://kcculinary.rezclick.com/event.php?c=5769 |
Deep-frying is a dry-heat cooking method, utilizing fat or oil to cook pieces of food. The process works by completely submerging food in hot liquid.
Is frying dry heat or moist cooking method?
Deep-fat frying or Deep Frying is not considered a moist-heat method but rather a dry heat method because fat is used instead of water. The fat or oil allows for much higher temperatures than water because of their higher boiling temperature.
What are examples of dry heat cooking?
Grilling, broiling, baking, roasting, sautéing or stir-frying, and searing are the different ways to cook using dry heat:
- Grilling. Grilling uses heat from underneath to cook the food. …
- Broiling. …
- Baking. …
- Roasting. …
- Sautéing. …
- Searing. …
- You may also be interested in:
What type of cooking method is frying?
Frying is a method of cooking in which food is cooked in a bath of hot oil or fat, typically between 350 and 375ºF. Depending on the type of frying, food is either partially or fully submerged in the fat until the food has turned golden brown with a crisp outer layer and moist interior.
Is Pan frying a dry heat method?
Pan-frying is a dry heat method of cooking, by relying on oil or fat as the heat transfer medium. The oil creates steam which helps cooks the meat while the exposed topside allows any steam to escape. Direct contact with the bottom of the pan creates greater browning and crisping.
What does dry heat mean?
Definition of dry heat
: hot temperatures with little moisture in the air the desert’s dry heat.
Is stir fry a dry cooking method?
Stir-fry is a cooking method closely related to sauté. Like sauté, it is a quick-cooking, dry-heat method. than that used for sautéing or stir-frying.
What are the 3 types of cooking methods?
The three types of cooking methods are dry heat cooking, moist heat cooking, and combination cooking. Each of these methods uses heat to affect foods in a different way. All cooking techniques, from grilling to steaming, can be grouped under one of these three methods.
Is pan fried the same as fried?
If you fry chicken in a pan with oil that comes halfway up the sides of the pieces, then turning them partway through cooking, you’re pan-frying—here’s more on how to do it. Deep-frying, of course, is when your food is completely submerged in the oil—here’s more on that technique.
What are the 5 methods of cooking?
Here are the most basic cooking techniques to help you survive your first culinary year as a university student.
- #1 Baking. This involves applying a dry convection heat to your food in an enclosed environment. …
- #2 Frying. …
- #3 Roasting. …
- #4 Grilling. …
- #5 Steaming. …
- #6 Poaching. …
- #7 Simmering. …
- #8 Broiling.
How hot are deep fryers?
What is the normal temperature range for deep frying? Deep frying is done at high temperatures, usually between 350 and 375 °F. Since you’re heating the oil much higher than it gets in a pan or the oven, it’s super important to choose the right type of cooking fat.
What is deep frying temperature?
Temperature is very important. You’ll need a deep-fry or candy thermometer. Bring the heat up slowly until the oil is between 350 and 375 degrees F — too low and you’ll get greasy food, too high and it’ll burn.
What’s the meaning of deep fry?
Deep frying (also referred to as deep fat frying) is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, traditionally lard but today most commonly oil, as opposed to the shallow oil used in conventional frying done in a frying pan. … Deep frying is classified as a hot-fat cooking method.
What is considered moist heat?
What is Moist Heat? Moist heat therapy includes a wet heat source used to soothe and relax sore muscles, joints and ligaments. This could include hot water bottles, steam towels, hot baths, or moist heating packs.
How do you deep fry things?
How to Deep Fry
- Place a deep-fry thermometer in the oil and heat over medium-high heat to 360 degrees F. …
- Pat your food dry. …
- Carefully lower the battered food into the hot oil and stir gently to separate. …
- Remove the food, using a spider or slotted spoon, and transfer to a wire rack set over paper towels. | https://alattewithotta.com/other-coocing/is-deep-frying-a-dry-heat-cooking-method.html |
Food is one of the basic necessities of life. Food contains nutrients—substances essential for the growth, repair, and maintenance of body tissues and for the regulation of vital processes. Nutrients provide the energy our bodies need to function. The energy in food is measured in units called calories.
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures’ diet.
The calorie is a unit of energy that originated from the obsolete caloric theory of heat. For historical reasons, two main definitions of “calorie” are in wide use.
A cookie, or a biscuit, is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nuts, etc.
Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, reflecting local conditions.
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures.
Frying is the cooking of food in oil or another fat. Similar to sautéing, pan-fried foods are generally turned over once or twice during cooking to make sure that the food is well-made, using tongs or a spatula, while sautéed foods are cooked by “tossing in the pan”. A large variety of foods may be fried.
Popcorn is a variety of corn kernel which expands and puffs up when heated; the same names also refer to the foodstuff produced by the expansion. A popcorn kernel’s strong hull contains the seed’s hard, starchy shell endosperm with 14–20% moisture, which turns to steam as the kernel is heated. | https://qu5.org/questions/categories/food |
If you’ve been following this series, by this time, you know your ingredients, you have gathered your essential kitchen tools, and you know how to prep meat, seafood and vegetables.
You’re finally ready to cook!
For this lesson, we will discuss boiling, frying and sautéing. Mastering these three basic cooking methods will allow you to cook countless dishes. You will be able to make soups, cook fried chicken and make simple sautéed vegetable dishes. And, by combining two of these methods (sautéing and boiling, for example), you can cook an even larger number of dishes.
It’s true. That’s why people who can boil eggs correctly are actually imbued with the most basic cooking knowledge.
Essentially, boiling means heating up liquid and cooking your ingredients in it. The liquid can be water or broth.
It is rarely the case, however, that you need to keep the cooking liquid on a rolling boil for the entire duration of the cooking. If you do that, the solid ingredients you drop into the liquid will fall apart because of the high amount of agitation caused by the boiling liquid. Usually, you begin with briskly boiling liquid, you add the ingredients and, when the liquid begins to boil once more, you lower the heat and simmer the food.
In other words, while “boiling” may sound simple, you need to know when the liquid has actually reached boiling point. After that, you need to know how to keep the temperature constant with the least amount of agitation.
The easiest way not to mess up is to use a kitchen thermometer. You clip it on the side of the pan and it will tell you the temperature of the liquid at any point during cooking. Convenient. No guessing games.
I can tell you, however, that while a kitchen thermometer is quite useful, it is not absolutely essential. I prefer that a cook be able to look at hot liquid in a pot on the stove and be able to tell — just by looking with the naked eye — if it is just starting to simmer, simmering, starting to boil or if it is on a rolling boil.
See an illustration of the various stages in boiling water.
Why is it important to be able to identify the various stages?
Because recipes may call for poaching which requires the liquid to be at that stage when it has not even reached simmering point. Other recipes say that the liquid needs to be boiling profusely while most will require simmering.
So, you have to know.
What delicious dishes can you cook just by knowing how to boil?
To start with, you will be able to make bone broth. From there, the possibilities are endless.
The clueless may argue that cooking in hot oil is not much different from boiling because oil is a liquid too.
It is true that oil is also a liquid. Even if you use animal fat, you still have to heat it until it liquefies into oil before you can fry in it.
The difference between boiling and frying is that with frying, you are aiming for Maillard reaction whereby sugars and proteins of the food break down to give it a brownish color and a complex flavor.
Thorough crispiness is not an essential characteristic of fried food. This may come as a surprise to many, especially Filipinos who define fried food as “malutong”. There are people who expect fried food to be crispy from the surface all the way down to the core. That is a very incorrect notion because frying is simply cooking in oil. Stir fried food is fried food. When you melt a knob of butter and cook pancake in it, it is essentially frying. Even sautéing is frying (but more on that later).
There are three things you need to remember to fry successfully.
First. The amount of oil you need depends on the fried dish you’re making. In other words, frying doesn’t always mean deep-frying.
Pan frying, shallow frying and deep frying: what’s the difference?
Second. While the general frying temperature is 350F, sautéing requires a lower temperature while stir frying calls for a much higher temperature.
Third. Some fats / oils reach smoking point before they reach 350F (butter, for example) which doesn’t make them ideal for some forms of frying.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again anyway. Sautéing is NOT about a combination of ingredients. Sautéing is a cooking method.
Why do I have to mention this? Isn’t it obvious? Not for some people.
Years ago, a reader emailed me asking why, in some recipes, the onions and tomatoes are sautéed ahead of the garlic. That’s very wrong, according to her, because the garlic always goes in first.
I cocked an eyebrow when I read that. If we’re going to be logical about it, garlic burns faster than onion and tomato. Minced garlic will burn in less than a minute.
But I had to take that reader’s comment in context and relate it with many other comments scattered around the blog that, when sautéing, there is a strict order by which the vegetables go into the pan — garlic, onion and tomato.
I understand that in Filipino cooking, sautéing often means frying garlic, onion and tomatoes in a little oil. That’s the way so many of our local dishes begin. So, I understand the mindset. Some people even believe that, when sautéing, the garlic goes in first followed by the onions and, finally, the tomatoes. Beyond that, there are people who think that every dish, to be correctly cooked, must necessarily begin with sautéing — like this high school teacher in my daughter’s school… But never mind.
So much misunderstanding. So many misconceptions.
So, again, sautéing is a cooking method — not a trinity of ingredients — and it is not exclusive to Filipino cooking. A cook can sauté ginger and nothing else. Or garlic and chili without onion nor tomato.
Sautéing is NOT a necessary step for cooking all dishes.
Some dishes require sautéing vegetables or spices, or both, as a preliminary step to form a flavor base.
Some dishes call for sautéing all ingredients together.
Some dishes don’t require sautéing at all.
Why is sautéing included in basic cooking methods?
As I mentioned before, by combining sautéing with boiling or frying, your repertoire of dishes simply multiply. That means more variety in the meals you cook and serve at home which translates to more colors, flavors and textures.
Pechay guisado, for example, is a combination of pan frying and sautéing.
Sinigang (chicken, shrimp or prawn, fish or pork) combines sautéing and simmering.
Try mastering boiling, frying and sautéing before venturing into more complex cooking methods. | https://casaveneracion.com/how-to-cook-lesson-5-basic-cooking-methods/ |
How to Sauté Mushrooms 'Til They're Deliciously Tender
Sautéing is a quick, versatile way to cook any kind of mushroom, including basic button, cremini, shiitake, portobello, and even morel mushrooms. (Better yet, cook up a combo of your favorites.) Once you know how to cook mushrooms, savor them as a side dish, try them seasoned simply with sea salt and cracked black pepper, or use them to top pizza and pasta. When sautéing mushrooms, start the process with the freshest fungi you can find, and use our pointers for cleaning and slicing them.
How to Sauté Mushrooms
For four side-dish servings, start with about 8 ounces (3 cups) sliced mushrooms and 2 Tbsp. oil or butter. To sauté mushrooms, heat oil or butter over medium-high heat in a large skillet ($25, Target). When the oil or melted butter is hot, add the mushrooms. You should hear a sizzle. If the fat isn't hot enough, the mushrooms will start to water out and steam instead of sautéing. Cook the mushrooms 4 to 5 minutes or until they're tender and lightly browned. For even cooking, stir mushrooms occasionally with a heatproof spatula ($11, Crate & Barrel) or wooden spoon.
Test Kitchen Tip: Make sure not to crowd the mushrooms in the pan or they'll steam instead of sautéing. A single layer with space between the mushrooms is ideal. Be sure the pan you're cooking in is large enough.
Start with Clean and Dry Mushrooms
The steps for cleaning mushrooms are the same for almost every type, except morels (learn more about that on our page about how to clean mushrooms). Avoid placing them under running water, and don't soak fresh mushrooms in water or they'll absorb water and become soggy, making browning difficult. The key to perfectly sautéed mushrooms is to get them as dry as possible after cleaning.
Cut Mushrooms for Sautéing
After cleaning, trim off the end of each stem. On a cutting surface, use a sharp knife ($15, Bed Bath & Beyond) to slice the mushrooms into halves, quarters, or slices. The larger cuts do well in dishes for mushroom-lovers because you get more robust flavor than when they're diced or sliced.
Ways to Enjoy Sautéed Mushrooms
Once you've perfected sautéing mushrooms, there are plenty of mushroom recipes to enjoy those tender fungi on. Season your mushrooms with thyme, salt, and ground black pepper before spreading over cheesy sourdough toasts (pictured above). Grill or broil your favorite cut of steak or pork chops, then top with a scoop of sautéed mushrooms. Or you can begin by sautéing, then cooking the mushrooms with a pan sauce for the final few minutes. Fill an omelet. Toss with cooked spaghetti, olive oil, and grated Parmesan cheese. For even more flavor, add a bit of cooked and chopped bacon to the mix. The possibilities for using sautéed mushrooms in your dishes are endless. | https://www.bhg.com/recipes/how-to/cooking-basics/how-to-saute-mushrooms/ |
What are 4 different ways to cook fruit?
Cooked fruits can be served as side dishes, desserts, sauces, compotes or main dish components. Fruit can be cooked using moist- or dry-heat methods. Poaching, stewing and other moist-heat methods are wonderful for dressing up plain fruit. Sauces and compotes are usually made using moist-heat cooking.
What are the common methods of cooking fruits and vegetables?
Different cooking methods may include grilling, sautéing, boiling and baking. Below are two simple recipes that use different cooking methods (sautéing and grilling) which will help you add extra servings of fruits and vegetables to your plate.
What cooking methods for fruits and vegetables are the healthiest?
Healthy cooking methods include:
- Steam, bake, grill, braise, boil or microwave your foods.
- Modify or eliminate recipes that include butter or ask you to deep fry or sauté in animal fat.
- Avoid added oils and butter; use non-stick cookware instead.
- Don’t add salt to food as it is cooking.
What are the alternatives for fruits?
Vegetables, raw or cooked; if your child won’t eat fresh fruits, try dried fruits such as apricots, pears, raisins, cherries, mango, pineapple, and bananas, and gradually introduce fresh fruits; make pureed sauces for yogurt with fresh or frozen fruit and gradually introduce chunks of whole fruit; serve applesauce …
What are three ways to cook fruit?
Poaching, stewing, sauces, or compotes (fruit cooked in a sugar syrup with spices) are examples of moist cooking. Fruits commonly cooked using these methods are pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, plums, and apricots.
What are the 7 cooking methods for vegetables?
To get you started, here are 7 basic methods of cooking vegetables!
- Chopping. Chopping is about as basic as you can get, and it’s something that seasoned home cooks might take for granted. …
- Steaming. Steaming is an age-old technique for preparing veggies. …
- Boiling. …
- Sautéing. …
- Marinating. …
- Roasting. …
- Quick Pickling.
What are four common fruits that can be poached?
Pears, apples and peaches are the most common poaching fruits, but experiment with any fruits you have handy. If you are buying fruits specifically for poaching, you want to look for firm, almost hard, fruit.
What are the ways of cooking vegetable dishes?
Here are our favourite methods of cooking vegetables, along with some simple yet tasty recipes that make the most of these techniques.
- Boiling. Boiling is fast and easy to control. …
- Steaming. Steaming vegetables is the best way of retaining flavour, colour and vital nutrients. …
- Blanching. …
- Roasting. …
- Stir-frying. …
- Griddling.
What is the healthiest cooking method?
What is the healthiest cooking method?
- Steaming. This is a healthy and simple option. …
- Stir-frying and sautéing. …
- Microwaving. …
- Baking. …
- Boiling. …
- Grilling and barbecuing. …
- Frying.
What is the best form of cooking?
The Methods
- Microwaving. Some research suggests that nuking may be the healthiest way to cook because of its short cooking times, which results in minimal nutrient destruction. …
- Boiling. …
- Steaming. …
- Poaching. …
- Broiling. …
- Grilling. …
- Sautéeing. …
- No Cooking (Raw)
Which way of cooking is best?
Steaming and boiling
Moist-heat cooking methods, such as boiling and steaming, are the healthiest ways to prepare meats and produce because they’re done at lower temperatures.
Can I substitute fruits for vegetables?
Although fruits and vegetables are both good for your health, fruits cannot replace vegetables under most circumstances. From a nutrition perspective, the biggest differences between them are sugar content and nutrient ratio. Usually fruits contain a higher level of sugar from 5% to 15%.
What are the examples of food substitute?
Tips for healthy food substitutes
- Use applesauce instead of oil when baking. …
- Eat brown rice instead of white rice. …
- Use egg whites instead of whole eggs. …
- Choose multigrain or whole wheat pasta instead of white pasta. …
- Select low-fat cheese over full-fat cheese.
How do you make up without eating fruit?
Follow these simple tips from Hoch to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables you eat each day.
- Add fruits and vegetables to your favorite dishes. …
- Clean out your junk food cabinet. …
- Make a list of your favorite vegetable-rich recipes. …
- Try new things. …
- Cook vegetarian. …
- Snack away. | https://coffeyscoffee.com/fry/your-question-what-are-other-options-for-cooking-fruits.html |
Students will write and revise essays that demonstrate their ability to read and think critically, to incorporate evidence into the development of their ideas, and to articulate their responses persuasively. Readings may include essays, articles, literature, or literary criticism. Basic concepts of information literacy will be introduced. Grammar, usage, and mechanics will be reviewed as necessary.
This course covers the basic mathematical skills that will be utilized in the curricula. Topics include problem solving with fractions and decimals, unit conversion, percentages, ratio and proportion, and introductory algebra concepts.
An introduction to food production practices governed by changing federal and state regulations. Topics to be covered include prevention of food-borne illness through proper handling of potentially hazardous foods, HACCP procedures, legal guidelines, kitchen safety, facility sanitation, and guidelines for safe food preparation, storing, and reheating. Students will also take the National Restaurant Association ServSafe examination for certification.
This course will give students the tools to understand ingredient selection as well as inspire them to explore and understand our food system. The focus will be on contemporary methods of production, distribution, consumption, and waste. These components will be examined from an environmental perspective with the objective of understanding the resource-intensive nature of the current food system. The course will also allow students to demonstrate their ability to read, understand, and analyze our food system. It is hoped that through the experience of this course, students will contribute to food sustainability by practicing the responsible sourcing of ingredients.
Year 1 - Semester 1
An introduction to the application and development of fundamental cooking theories and techniques. Topics of study include tasting, kitchen equipment, knife skills, classical vegetable cuts, stock production, thickening agents, soup preparation, grand sauces, timing and multi-tasking, station organization, palate development, culinary French terms, and food costing. The course also introduces the student to fundamental concepts and techniques of basic protein, starch, and vegetable cookery. Emphasis is placed upon the study of ingredients and an introduction to small sauces will be given.
This culinary examination tests knowledge and proficiency in the principles of cooking and certain fundamental cooking methods-roasting, sautéing, frying, stewing, poaching, braising, and broiling. Students will be given an assignment (which includes a soup, protein, vegetable, and starch) to prepare, present, taste, and explain. (High Pass/Pass/Fail grading).
The foundation of cooking techniques and theories from Culinary Fundamentals will be applied in a production setting. Emphasis is placed on individual as well as team production. The focus is on cooking fundamentals, ratios, and formulas in a professional kitchen. Multi-course menus will be prepared, with a focus on batch cooking as executed in an à la carte-style service. (Prerequisite: Culinary Fundamentals)
An introduction to the social, historical, and cultural forces that have affected or will affect the culinary as well as the baking and pastry professions. Topics include the contemporary challenges facing food professionals in the twenty-first century and etiquette as a social and professional discipline. Students will be expected to complete several written assignments and present a group research project. | https://www.singaporetech.edu.sg/modules/2602 |
Isn't this picture pretty?! My family and I made this one night while we were traveling. It's as easy as it looks and consists of my mom's chili recipe, brown rice (more nutritious than white), sautéed spinach, and sweet potato. It's also gluten-free AND dairy-free.
If you are a kid and making the chili, you might need to get help with cutting the onion, and sautéing the meat and spinach. Here are some tips so your meal is all ready at the same time.
While the chili is cooking, make the brown rice and/or start baking the sweet potato. You can also put the sweet potato in the microwave if you would like. Make sure to wash it first then pierce it with a fork a few times so it doesn't explode. If you microwave it, wrap it with a wet paper towel.
Add a little bit of salt and pepper when you sauté spinach; it really makes it taste better. When you are all finished cooking everything, start by adding the cooked brown rice to the bottom of the bowl. Next add your homemade chili and cooked vegetables. I hope you enjoy this lovely meal with your family or friends! | https://www.katiecooksgf.com/blog/2018/03/colorful-healthy-gluten-free-family-dinner.html |
When I started sharing my Whole 30 adventure at the beginning of January, I received several questions from Kinder Craze Instagram followers and well as readers of the blog. People wanted to know how my Whole30 was going and if I could share some of my favorite foods from my new dietary lifestyle. My time in the kitchen brings me very little joy (and I’m so thankful that Rob enjoys cooking), but this was MY Whole30 and Rob isn’t usually around to cook for me during the week. In many ways, this healthy venture was truly was my responsibility.
UPDATE: We are now married and Rob is around to cook for me during the week! He wrote a blog post about how to support your partner on the Whole30 with his thoughts and tips on living with someone doing the Whole30. I also wrote an in-depth post with all my essential tips on what cookbooks to use, where to shop and what to buy when you are doing the Whole30.
Before the Whole30, my breakfast consisted of a vanilla greek yogurt with granola sprinkled on top every single day. Unfortunately, my yogurt parfait broke several of the Whole30 rules: it included sugar, grains AND dairy. Breakfast was the single-greatest source of worry for me as I prepared for my 30 days of eating well.
Fortunately, I saw a post on Instagram from Erica Bohrer (who was a few days ahead of me on her own Whole30) in which she shared an egg bake that she made and prepped for the week. I thought it was genius. Right then and there, I shifted my breakfast habits for the better. I am definitely not a food blogger. In fact, I generally dislike any time spent in the kitchen and away from my passions, but I knew this post would prove to be helpful to any reader that is trying to eat well and short on time in the morning so I decided to bite the bullet and share my breakfast prep with you.
To make this dish, you will need about a dozen eggs (I usually use 10), some Aidells Chicken and Apple Sausage (it’s not necessary, but the sausage is GOOD and amazingly sugar free), and LOTS of vegetables. I have made this dish every Sunday for seven weeks straight and every single batch has been unique. I always use whatever vegetables I have on hand.
On this particular Sunday, I had a zucchini, a yellow bell pepper, half an onion, a handful of asparagus and a box of chopped spinach. I always try to use 4-5 whole fresh vegetables and a box of frozen chopped spinach. Organic veggies and cage free eggs are best, but do the best you can.
I always start by chopping up the veggies. To ahead and dice them into bite size pieces (I usually like mine to be pretty small). While I am busy chopping, I peel the paper off the box of frozen spinach, put the box in a bowl, and start defrosting the spinach in the microwave. The chopped spinach produces a lot of water as it thaws. I usually take a few minutes to squeeze the box and remove as much excess water as I can. Be careful, because some parts can be very HOT.
When my vegetables are all chopped and ready to go, I put a little fat into a large pan and start sautéing! Any kind of healthy fat will do. I prefer to use ghee (which is just clarified butter), but I have also used extra light olive oil.
While the veggies sauté, I slice a few Chicken & Apple Sausages from Aidells. It is one of the only breakfast meats on the market that doesn’t have any added sugar. The sausage tastes delicious and it was a HUGE part of my Whole30 diet. I usually add 2 sausages to my breakfast dish each week.
Even though the sausage is already fully cooked, and it will be baked in the oven, I always add the slices to my vegetables and let them sauté for a few minutes as well.
While the vegetables sauté, I take a few minutes to crack and scramble the eggs for the casserole. You can use as many as you want, but I always use 10. My breakfast bake is intended to last 5 mornings so I figure 2 eggs, plus a little breakfast sausage mixed in is enough protein in each serving.
I crack the eggs into a bowl (yolks and all) and whisk them together. Then I add the veggies and sausage bites that had been sautéing and sprinkle on a little salt & pepper.
Grease a 9×12 baking dish and set the oven to 350 degrees. I never tried to find compliant cooking spray, so I always just coated the bottom and sides of the baking dish with ghee. Once the dish is greased, I dump in the egg mixture and bake it in the oven for 30 minutes.
The first time I made this dish, I was worried that there were way too many vegetables and not nearly enough eggs, but the eggs fluffed as they cooked and were not overpowered by the veggies. The ratio was just right.
The completed casserole looks like this and is positively delicious. I wait an hour or so for the dish to cool fully, then cover and place the dish in the refrigerator.
Each morning throughout the week, I cut myself a slice of the baked eggs and heat it in the microwave for 2 minutes. It’s easy and delicious. Not to mention filling and healthy!
I have eaten a hearty breakfast like this every single morning for the past 46 days. I am never “starving” while I wait to go to lunch and I have actually lost a few inches in my waistline. I know my body is healthier and running more efficiently and I don’t miss my former yogurt with granola breakfasts one bit. The best part is that prepping the meal ahead of time allows me to still eat healthy without giving up any of my precious time in the morning.
Need a simple recipe? Here you Go!
Whole 30 Breakfast Recipe
Need the recipe in traditional form? Here you go!
INGREDIENTS:
Five generous servings of vegetables – diced (I like onion, pepper, spinach, zucchini and broccoli)
Two links of Aidells Chicken Apple Sausage* – cut into thin, round slices
Ten eggs (preferably cage free)
4 tablespoons of ghee (can substitute light tasting olive oil)
salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
Dice all vegetables into small pieces – thoroughly thaw and strain all frozen vegetables
Coat the bottom of a 9×12 clear glass baking dish with 2 tablespoons ghee
Melt 2 tablespoons ghee in the bottom of a large skillet
Sautee vegetables for 10 minutes, season with salt and pepper to taste
Add chicken apple sausage and sauté for 5 minutes
In a large bowl, crack and beat the 10 eggs.
Add sautéed vegetables to raw eggs and stir to combine.
Pour egg/vegetable mixture into greased baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until casserole turns golden on the edges.
*Make sure you use the big links of Aidells chicken apple sausage – the smaller ones are not Whole30 compliant!
Do yourself a huge favor and pin this post to your Whole 30 or Healthy Eating Pinterest Board. You can thank me later!
If you’re unfamiliar with the Whole30, it’s a thirty-day dietary challenge that cuts out ALL sugar, grains, dairy, legumes and alcohol. No cheating is permitted. It’s based on the book It Starts with Food and as crazy as it sounds there are very good reasons for cutting out all of those items. The book does an excellent job of explaining the negative effects that those foods could have on your health. I highly recommend it, even if you have no interest in cutting any of those foods out of your diet.
Easy and Delicious Whole 30 Breakfast Recipe
One of the most challenging aspects of my Whole 30 was finding a way to have a satisfying, compliant breakfast that didn’t take up too much time during my morning routine. Once I discovered this delicious egg bake that’s loaded with veggies and a little chicken apple sausage, I never looked back! I make a batch every Sunday and it last through the workweek. Check out the blog post for the full recipe.
Where to Shop and What to Buy for Your Whole 30
Overwhelmed by all of the rules and label reading as you get ready to begin the Whole 30? The process becomes a LOT more simple once you know where to look and can find a few basic packaged ingredients to get you through. I rounded up my favorite places to shop and essential foods to stock up on for the Whole 30. The list includes my favorite online retailers, because ain’t nobody got time to run around town for random ingredients. Check out the post and get ready to make your life a whole lot simpler. | https://crazytogether.com/easy-delicious-breakfast-saved-whole-30/ |
Food Safety experts (including us at USDA) do not recommend washing raw meat and poultry before cooking. Many bacteria are quite loosely attached and when you rinse these foods the bacteria will be spread around your kitchen. … Water can splash bacteria up to 3 feet surrounding your sink, which can lead to illnesses.
Do we need to wash fish?
Fish. Fish is in the same category as poultry and red meat: If you wash it, you will spread bacteria around your kitchen. Cook it off instead. The only exceptions to this rule are clams, oysters, mussels, and scallops that you get fresh.
Why is it essential to wash fresh fish?
Cleaning is important for two main reasons, the prevention of food poisoning and the reduction of spoilage. Bacteria that cause food poisoning are for the most part transferred to the fish, mainly from human beings, during processing, but occasionally some may be present on the fish when caught.
Do you rinse Cod before baking?
Regardless of what you’re making, you’ll need to first rinse and soak it in several changes of cold water for 12 to 36 hours to rehydrate it and remove enough salt to make it palatable.
Can you cook a fish without cleaning it?
Depending on your situation, you don’t have to necessarily gut the fish, but in that case should cook it much longer than you otherwise would. Parasites are a concern, and the innards will make it harder for heat to propagate through the meat.
What does soaking fish in milk do?
Milk doesn’t mask the smell or soak it up from the fish; instead, it actually reverses the chemical reaction that created the odors in the first place. Soaking a thin fillet for as few as 10 to 15 minutes can make it taste milder, and for thicker fillets or steaks, you can fearlessly double the soaking time.
Should you rinse frozen fish before cooking?
You don’t need to rinse fish, chicken, pork, or any other meat before cooking. Not only does it not get rid of bacteria, it spreads bacteria (if water splashes from the sink in the process of rinsing).
Should fish be room temperature before cooking?
Putting a chilled (or worse, frozen) fillet in a frying pan can cook the fish unevenly. To keep it from drying out on the outside and staying cold on the inside, let it come to room temperature on the counter for 15 minutes before you cook it.
How do you properly clean a fish?
Spread the body open and remove all of the entrails, locate the fish’s anus and cut this out in a “V” or notch shape. Some fish have a kidney by the backbone. Remove it by scraping it out with a spoon or your thumbnail. Rinse the cavity out with a good stream of water and wash the skin.
What is the best cooking method for fish?
Basic Fish Cooking Techniques
- Sautéing. Sautéing is probably the easiest way to prepare fish. …
- Baking or Roasting. Baking is done at a more moderate temperature (350) and roasting at a much higher temperature (400 to 500). …
- Broiling. …
- Poaching. …
- Grilling.
Do I wash Cod?
Raw fish. As with raw poultry and meat, avoid washing raw fish in order to reduce the risk of spreading bacteria all around your kitchen.
Do you wash tuna before cooking?
Before cooking tuna steaks, check for scales. If any are present, rinse with cool water. Pat dry with paper towels. … Fresh tuna steaks love a good marinade recipe, which flavors this fairly mild fish and helps keep it moist during cooking.
Should you wash dried fruit before baking?
When using dried fruit in a baking recipe, soak it first. If not done, it will absorb a lot of water from the recipe’s ingredients, which results in a drier outcome. | https://foodieandthechef.com/boil/should-you-wash-your-fish-before-cooking.html |
In this beginner series of 5 classes*, your child will learn fundamentals of cooking: boiling & simmering, sautéing & frying, roasting, baking, and other important skills. Kitchen safety and proper food handling will also be discussed. We will begin with child safety knives and work our way up to standard kitchen knives (if appropriate for your child).
By the end of this series, your child will have the skills to cook basic, healthy meals at home with some assistance. (Every parent's dream, right?)
Skills build upon one another, so we recommend all 5 classes for best results, but individual classes may be purchased. | https://fun4tampakids.com/calendar/eventdetail/248715/-/fit-kids-cooking-i-can-cook-series-ages-8-13 |
Don't be a-scared... cooking a great piece of salmon or halibut is pretty straightforward. Here are some methods for you to try.
Basic spices for salmon and halibut: rosemary, lemon, dill, garlic fresh or powder, onion, basil, pesto, salt, pepper, you can use any combination of these spices. Try one of our own World Famous seafood spices.
Broiling or grilling - Remove any charred particles from grill. Wipe grate with lightly oiled towel. Cut fish into pieces of even thickness. Cook until desired doneness. For salmon and halibut approximately 8 min on the front side and 5 minutes on the back.
Baking or roasting - Portion the fish and arrange in a well-oiled or buttered pan. Place pan in preheated oven. Bake at 400* for approximately 15 minutes, basting half way through.
Sautéing - Cut or portion fish. Heat a sauté pan over med heat. Add enough oil or butter to cover the bottom of the pan. Sauté the fish for 7 min on each side or until flaky.
Steaming - Portion fish to appropriate size. Prepare the cooking liquid and bring to a boil. Place fish on steaming rack and cover tightly. Steam the fish for approximately 5 min or until desired doneness.
Poaching - Heat fish stock or seasoned water to 180*-190* degrees and place fish in liquid. Be sure to cover the fish entirely. Poach fish until desired doneness. Do not boil. | https://pikeplacefish.com/blogs/recipes/cooking-salmon-or-halibut.html |
The Best Fluffy Pancakes recipe you will fall in love with. Full of tips and tricks to help you make the best pancakes.
Cooking or cookery is the art, science, and craft of using heat to prepare food for consumption. … Cooking can also occur through chemical reactions without the presence of heat, such as in ceviche, a traditional South American dish where fish is cooked with the acids in lemon or lime juice or orange juice.
Can you cook something without heat?
When people think about cooking, they mostly think about heat. But there’s one sort of dish that is cooked without any heat. … The dish is ceviche, and the secret is acidity. Soak fish or shellfish in vinegar or lemon or lime juice, and the meat turns opaque and the texture firms up, almost as if it has been cooked.
What are the different ways of cooking?
Grilling, broiling, baking, roasting, sautéing or stir-frying, and searing are the different ways to cook using dry heat:
- Grilling. Grilling uses heat from underneath to cook the food. …
- Broiling. …
- Baking. …
- Roast. …
- Sauteing. …
- Searing. …
- You may also be interested in:
13 yun. 2018 g.
How does heat affect cooking?
Plant- and animal-based foods are made up of long molecules called proteins. When they’re heated, the proteins break up and lose moisture. This makes them change from a liquid (or semi-liquid) to a solid in a process called coagulation in food.
What is the difference between cookery and simple cooking at home?
When used as nouns, cookery means the art and practice of preparing food for consumption, especially by the application of heat, whereas cooking means the process of preparing food by using heat.
What food can you make without cooking?
20 Delicious Dishes You Can Easily Prepare Without Cooking!
- Peanut butter pie. This delicious dessert is the perfect getaway to the guilt-filled wonderland. …
- Tropical sherbet. …
- Fresh strawberry pie. …
- Chicken and guacamole toast. …
- Spicy tuna wraps. …
- Creamy avocado and white bean wrap. …
- BBQ chicken sandwiches and pickled cucumber. …
- Tuna, tomato, red onion and olive pita.
7 авг. 2015 g.
What to do without cooking?
43 No-Cook Meals to Make for Dinner
- 15-Minute Gazpacho with Cucumber, Red Pepper and Basil. …
- Chopped Greek Chickpea Salad. …
- Rainbow Collard Wraps with Peanut Butter Dipping Sauce. …
- Burrata Arugula Berry Salad. …
- Kelp and Zucchini Noodle Pad Thai. …
- The Lighter Cheese Board. …
- Zucchini Salad with Lemon and Parmesan. …
- Greek Yogurt Chicken Salad Stuffed Peppers.
17 yule. 2020 g.
What are the 3 cooking methods?
The three types of cooking methods are dry heat cooking, moist heat cooking, and combination cooking. Each of these methods uses heat to affect foods in a different way. All cooking techniques, from grilling to steaming, can be grouped under one of these three methods.
What are the 14 cooking methods?
Here are the most basic cooking techniques to help you survive your first culinary year as a university student.
- #1 Baking. This involves applying a dry convection heat to your food in an enclosed environment. …
- #2 Frying. …
- #3 Roast. …
- #4 Grilling. …
- #5 Steaming. …
- #6 Poaching. …
- #7 Simmer. …
- #8 Broiling.
What is the best cooking method?
steaming and boiling
Moist-heat cooking methods, such as boiling and steaming, are the healthiest ways to prepare meats and produce because they’re done at lower temperatures.
What are the 4 types of heat transfer?
Various heat transfer mechanisms exist, including convection, conduction, thermal radiation, and evaporative cooling.
What is it for to heat food?
Heating food destroys potentially harmful bacteria and other microorganisms, which makes food safe to eat and easier to digest. When food or liquids become hot, their molecules absorb energy, begin vibrating rapidly, and start to bounce off of each other.
How do you manage heat when cooking?
Tips to keep in mind while sautéing over high heat:
- Don’t overcrowd the bread. Since the goal here is to get some color on your food, be sure to add only what fits in a single layer. …
- Don’t stir too often. …
- Heat the bread before adding your fat. …
- Use a neutral oil such as safflower or peanut, which have high smoking points.
Why is cooking at home better?
Research finds that people who eat home-cooked meals on a regular basis tend to be happier and healthier and consume less sugar and processed foods, which can result in higher energy levels and better mental health. … Those mental health benefits increase considerably when we eat home-cooked meals with other people.
What are 5 benefits to cooking at home?
6 Benefits of Homemade Meals + 7 Recipes
- Save money. Eating homemade foods is usually much cheaper than eating at a restaurant or buying processed foods from the market. …
- Save time. …
- Healthier ingredients. …
- Avoid food allergies and sensitivities. …
- Portion control. …
- Brings family together. …
- 15 Thoughts on “6 Benefits of Homemade Meals + 7 Recipes”
6 March 2015 g.
Why do we cook food give 5 reasons?
It makes food more appetizing and palatable. It makes food easier to digest. It makes food safe to eat. Cooking destroys many harmful micro-organisms or germs in the food. | https://checkfoodmenuprices.com/your-questions/does-cooking-always-involve-heat/ |
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