Women’s Empowerment Mitigates the Negative Effects of Low Production Diversity on Maternal and Child Nutrition in Nepal

Abstract

We use household survey data from Nepal to investigate relationships between women’s empowerment in agriculture and production diversity on maternal and child dietary diversity and anthropometric outcomes. Production diversity is positively associated with maternal and child dietary diversity, and weight-for-height z-scores. Women’s group membership, control over income, reduced workload, and overall empowerment are positively associated with better maternal nutrition. Control over income is positively associated with height-for-age z-scores (HAZ), and a lower gender parity gap improves children’s diets and HAZ. Women’s empowerment mitigates the negative effect of low production diversity on maternal and child dietary diversity and HAZ.     

‘Our Culture's Not for Sale!’: Music and the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca in Mexico

The Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), a social movement that emerged in June 2006, was a response to severe government repression of a teachers' strike in Oaxaca, Mexico. This article focuses on the movement participants' involvement with music, and the innovative ways in which songs associated with APPO were shared and circulated during the conflict. APPO's engagement with musical activities created spaces in which the political significance of regional culture was reinterpreted and re-signified. APPO, despite failing in its primary political objectives, thus generated new ways of relating to the performance, representation, politics and consumption of musical traditions.     

The effect of chlorine and hydrogen chloride on latent fingermark evidence

Exposure of forensic evidence to either hydrogen chloride or chlorine can result in acidification to such an extent that enhancement of fingermarks with ninhydrin or cyanoacrylate is inhibited. Under these circumstances, pretreatment of samples with volatile bases such as triethylamine or ethanolamine prior to using these enhancement techniques can lead to successful visualization of fingermarks. Alternatively, physical enhancement techniques such as powder dusting or small particle reagent can be used on acidified non-porous substrates, although the former technique is subject to increased background under such conditions.     

A Pretty Fine Line: Life, Death, Autonomy and Letting it B

The cases of Diane Pretty and Ms B. raise crucial issues about decision-making and autonomy at the end of life. Ms B. was permitted her wish to die rather than live permanently dependent upon a ventilator because her case was constructed as one about withholding consent to medical treatment, which every adult with capacity has a right to do. Mrs Pretty, however, sought active intervention to end her life. Requiring assistance to die, and claiming that this was her human right, she sought an assurance that her husband would not be prosecuted if he helped her. Her claim was rejected and the assurance refused. The cases prompt questions about the nature of autonomy, the influence of others and the different way sin which medical and legal decisions are made. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Development of a methodology for the standardisation and improvement of ‘Smartphone’ photography of patterned bruises and other cutaneous injuries

Human bite-mark analyses can play a prominent role in forensic case investigations, including those involving sexual assault. High-quality photographs routinely secure a link between a bite-mark and an individual's dentition. Access to around the clock forensic photography, however, is often limited, resulting in delay and/or missed opportunities to record valuable evidence. The emergence of Smartphone high-quality photographic technology now provides a previously unimagined opportunity to gather timely forensic photographic evidence. Problems can arise, however, due to the relatively poor quality of the photographs, as a result of many of those taking photographs having received little or no forensic photography training. This study compares unassisted photography with assisted photography, by a specifically developed camera application (App), to provide a standardised method for taking forensic photographs. An App, written in Java, was hosted on the Google Android Operating System, on a Samsung Galaxy SII Smartphone. Twenty-four volunteers participated in a study to photograph a pseudo bite-mark using three methods, (1) unassisted (as a control), (2) assisted by an ABFO No.2 right-angled photographic reference scale and (3) assisted by the App. The App, method (3), was shown to consistently outperform methods (1) and (2), demonstrating greater standardisation and precision (p < 0.001). Analysis of the data showed the extent to which acquiring an accurate photograph depends on the image being orthogonal to the camera. It appears likely that the relatively inaccurate photographs acquired by methods (1) and (2), were as a result of deviation from the plane, orthogonal to the bite-mark. Therefore, the App was successful in ensuring that the camera was both orthogonal and at an appropriate distance, relative to the bite-mark. Thus, the App enhanced the abilities of non-experts to acquire more accurate photographs and created the potential to significantly improve the quality of forensic photographs.     

Participatory technology development in agricultural mechanisation in Nepal: how it happened and lessons learned

International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center (CIMMYT) projects on new resource-conservation technologies (RCTs) in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of Nepal aimed to strengthen equity of access, poverty reduction, and gender orientation in current rural mechanisation processes – more specifically, to promote machine-based resource conservation and drudgery-reduction technologies among smallholder farmers. These projects, together with other projects and other actors, gave rise to an informal ‘coalition’ project, which used participatory technology development (PTD) approaches, where farmers, engineers, scientists, and other partners worked towards equitable access to new RCTs. This experience showed that PTD projects need to be flexible, making use of learning and change approaches. Once successful adoption is occurring, then what? Such projects need to ensure that everyone is benefiting in terms of social inclusion and equity; this might necessitate new unforeseen work.     

The tools to understand: community as co-researcher on culture-specific protective factors for Alaska Natives

A collaborative research process engaging Alaska Native communities in the study of protective factors in Alaska Native sobriety and the design of a preventative intervention using its findings is described. Study 1 was discovery oriented qualitative research whose objectives were identification of protective factors and development of a heuristic model. Study 2 involved quantitative survey methods to develop and test ameasure of protective factors identified by the qualitative study. Empirical data from these studies is presented, and the role of Alaska Native co-researchers who did not possess specialist research training is described in the design and implementation of the study, interpretation of findings, and design of the intervention model and tools. Benefits that emerged from co-researcher involvement in this process, to the community and to the co-researchers themselves, are described.