Abstract
Details
Keywords
Philippe Stoesslé and Francisco Gonzalez-Salazar
Undocumented Central American migrants in Mexico are legally eligible for free access to the public health system through the new Instituto para la Salud y el Bienestar (INSABI…
Abstract
Purpose
Undocumented Central American migrants in Mexico are legally eligible for free access to the public health system through the new Instituto para la Salud y el Bienestar (INSABI) health program, but many experience structural vulnerability and stigmatization that prevent them from accessing health-care facilities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the discrepancy between the migrants’ Human Right to health, proclaimed by the Mexican Government and supposedly guaranteed by law, and the reality of the migration process.
Design/methodology/approach
This study reviewed relevant literature on the health risk factors, social and structural vulnerability, stigmatization and structural violence experienced by undocumented migrants as obstacles to their Human Right to health. It also reviews the current legal framework in Mexico and internationally.
Findings
This review demonstrates the lack of implementation of the current legal framework in Mexico and identifies a set of complex obstacles to effective access to health for undocumented migrants. Although the migration process itself was not found to be directly associated with major health issues, the social conditions of the migratory journey expose the migrants to serious threats, especially sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.
Practical implications
This paper makes 10 practical recommendations for interventions collectively involving the state, international and civil organizations and the migrant community. These are especially relevant since the implementation of the INSABI health program in 2020.
Social implications
The paper lays the basis for influencing Mexican health system stakeholders to improve the health of migrants.
Originality/value
The sociological barriers to health access for undocumented populations in Mexico have not been fully explored. In addition, this paper provides a unique reflection on opportunities and challenges linked to the 2020 health system reform.
Details
Keywords
Adela Deaconu and Dan Dacian Cuzdriorean
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate stakeholders’ salience on accounting and in particular to assess the magnitude of state influence in Romania, an emerging context.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate stakeholders’ salience on accounting and in particular to assess the magnitude of state influence in Romania, an emerging context.
Design/methodology/approach
This research integrates stakeholders’ theory and an empirical approach based on a survey administrated to professional accountants as preparers of accounts on the financial reporting market.
Findings
The findings confirm the hypothesis of Mitchell et al. (1997) that the importance of stakeholders is high if attributes like power, legitimacy and claims urgency are perceived as current. In the Romanian emergent context, for the period 1991-2010, a relatively strong tax-accounting linkage is still identified according to Lamb et al.’s (1998) hierarchy. However, as compared to the absolute dominance observed for the early post-communist stage, the state holds the second position in terms of values of stakeholder attributes, after the shareholders.
Practical implications
An increased influence of the accounting bodies, academics and business representatives, who should communicate effectively and constructively with the public structures with respect to enforcement of accounting regulations and the type of organizations involved. The higher focus on IFRS in the EU and in Romania and the evolution of Romanian economic and legal structures lead to the reassessment of the usefulness of IFRS, at least in the case of certain types of organizations. This is also due to the fact that the new IASB framework takes into consideration other types of stakeholders than (actual) shareholders along with the providers of finance from the entity and stewardship perspective.
Originality/value
This paper argues that one of the factors of state influence in accounting is the tax-accounting linkage who is still occurs in this context in present. Also, refers to another factor that caused the watering down of the state’ position, namely, the growing impact of IFRS on Romanian financial reporting.
Details
Keywords
This paper's aim is to examine whether there is a causal link between “race” hate, particularly Islamophobia (defined as anti‐Muslim feeling and violence based on “race” and/or…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper's aim is to examine whether there is a causal link between “race” hate, particularly Islamophobia (defined as anti‐Muslim feeling and violence based on “race” and/or religion), and government treatment of Muslim communities in Britain in recent years.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper looks at recent legislation and other state controls to deal with terror activities.
Findings
The paper argues that government policy towards Muslim communities, including policies developed to deal with suspected terrorists has some responsibility for cultivating a hostile climate towards such communities. Moreover, this generalised hostile environment allows “race” hate and violence to thrive among sections of Britain's male white working class communities, especially where disaffection, socio‐economic exclusion and challenges to traditional forms of masculinities is evident.
Practical implications
The paper demonstrates that “race” hate and routine attacks on Muslim communities appears to be increasing and needs to be addressed by developing strategies that are inclusive of all disadvantaged communities.
Originality/value
The paper adds to the literature on “race” hate by examining these theories in the light of recent and ongoing terror attacks and their impact on Muslim communities in Britain.
Details
Keywords
In this chapter, the author makes the case for how disability affects a family and, therefore, that clinicians should adopt a wider lens when providing treatment to disabled…
Abstract
In this chapter, the author makes the case for how disability affects a family and, therefore, that clinicians should adopt a wider lens when providing treatment to disabled clients. In the review of research findings on disability in the family, there are three parts: (a) models of disability, (b) disabled children, and (c) disabled adults. In the next section, the author presents ideas from medical family therapy (MFT) and discusses family systems models that provide a structure for thinking about a family’s response to disability in any of its members. Brief case examples throughout the chapter illustrate how families are involved in an individual member’s disability. Implications for clinicians include knowing the core tenets and common factors of family systems therapy; familiarity with disability affirmative therapy; attention to the reality of microaggressions and courtesy stigma; comfort with disability topics such as pain, fatigue, and sexuality; having an accessible practice; thinking systemically; and the ability to hold all the parts of the family and the disability in one place.
Details
Keywords
Edina Kovács, Hedviga Haficova, Tatiana Dubayova, Tímea Ceglédi, Katalin Godó and Martin Kaleja
The aim of our research is to examine network of support persons of the students from marginalized Roma communities in Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovak Republic. By conducting…
Abstract
The aim of our research is to examine network of support persons of the students from marginalized Roma communities in Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovak Republic. By conducting a qualitative analysis of the examples of good practice, that is, students who have managed to successfully study at a university despite their difficult family backgrounds, we have surveyed the type of support the students received during their studies and the persons who supported them at individual education levels. In the research part, we also analyze the factors which had an impact on the development of their resilient personality and the sources of support which helped them overcome barriers during their studies. The primary support persons were the members of their nuclear families whose emotional, informational, instrumental, and appraisal support was particularly crucial at the primary school. At the next education levels, especially important for respondents was the emotional support they received in the form of encouragement and improvement of respondents’ self-confidence. Teachers are mentioned in the narratives of our respondents as persons engaging in their support and education at the primary and the secondary school. Their supportive influence fades away at the university, which is a pity for our group of students because it is the university environment which is completely unknown to them and so they must rely on the help of peers. A good strategy applied particularly in Hungary is the creation of support groups led by a lecturer-mentor for students coming from marginalized Roma communities which help them during the first days at university. School achievements of respondents were also influenced by other persons who helped them at all levels based on personal sympathies and the established relationships. At the beginning, such persons occur in their life narratives incidentally, but later respondents learned to actively build networks of support relationships as part of their resilient behavior.
Details
Keywords
Josep Maria Brunetti and Roberto García
The growing volumes of semantic data available in the web result in the need for handling the information overload phenomenon. The potential of this amount of data is enormous but…
Abstract
Purpose
The growing volumes of semantic data available in the web result in the need for handling the information overload phenomenon. The potential of this amount of data is enormous but in most cases it is very difficult for users to visualize, explore and use this data, especially for lay-users without experience with Semantic Web technologies. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The Visual Information-Seeking Mantra “Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand” proposed by Shneiderman describes how data should be presented in different stages to achieve an effective exploration. The overview is the first user task when dealing with a data set. The objective is that the user is capable of getting an idea about the overall structure of the data set. Different information architecture (IA) components supporting the overview tasks have been developed, so they are automatically generated from semantic data, and evaluated with end-users.
Findings
The chosen IA components are well known to web users, as they are present in most web pages: navigation bars, site maps and site indexes. The authors complement them with Treemaps, a visualization technique for displaying hierarchical data. These components have been developed following an iterative User-Centered Design methodology. Evaluations with end-users have shown that they get easily used to them despite the fact that they are generated automatically from structured data, without requiring knowledge about the underlying semantic technologies, and that the different overview components complement each other as they focus on different information search needs.
Originality/value
Obtaining semantic data sets overviews cannot be easily done with the current semantic web browsers. Overviews become difficult to achieve with large heterogeneous data sets, which is typical in the Semantic Web, because traditional IA techniques do not easily scale to large data sets. There is little or no support to obtain overview information quickly and easily at the beginning of the exploration of a new data set. This can be a serious limitation when exploring a data set for the first time, especially for lay-users. The proposal is to reuse and adapt existing IA components to provide this overview to users and show that they can be generated automatically from the thesaurus and ontologies that structure semantic data while providing a comparable user experience to traditional web sites.
Details
Keywords
Veronika Fenyves, Kinga Emese Zsido, Ioan Bircea and Tibor Tarnoczi
Changes in food retailing (globalization, concentration) have negative impacts on smaller, “traditional” food retail businesses. Their market share decreasing year by year. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Changes in food retailing (globalization, concentration) have negative impacts on smaller, “traditional” food retail businesses. Their market share decreasing year by year. The purpose of this study is to examine and compare the financial performances of these businesses under the given circumstances and current economic environment in a Hungarian and a Romanian county.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on two complete databases, including all companies that behoove retail food activity (considering the NACE cod) in the counties of Hajdu-Bihar (Hungary) and Cluj (Romania). The database analyzed contains the financial statements for five consecutive years for 212 and 690 businesses. Databases were examined by the most typical financial indicators using the multivariate and univariate analysis of variance and the k-medoid cluster analysis methods.
Findings
The results of the analysis have shown that there are differences in the number of retail food companies in the case of two counties, both in number and in financial performance. Companies in Hajdú-Bihar county perform better in terms of financial ratios than those in Cluj county. The groups created by k-medoids cluster analysis are relatively well distinguished in the case of Hajdú-Bihar county, while the picture is much more mixed in the case of Kolozs county. However, it is also important to note that the companies analyzed should generally perform better to survive.
Research limitations/implications
Among the limitations of the study, it is important to note that the findings are relevant only to the two counties examined. Another limiting factor is that quite several companies had to be excluded from the analysis due to missing data or outliers.
Practical implications
The study presents for the corporate decision-makers the current performance of the companies of the sector examined in the two counties. The results of the study highlight the business areas of concern in management. The findings show that they need to change this performance to strengthen their market position. We believe that it is not enough to complain about the expansion of the supermarket chains, but they should take appropriate actions to improve their situation. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that there is a need to improve the financial efficiency of retail food companies in both counties to survive in the long run. This improvement is essential because retailers can play an important role in smaller settlements and narrower residential environments.
Originality/value
Comparative analysis of retail food companies in similar counties in these two neighboring countries has not been conducted using complex financial analysis. The study revealed the common and/or individual characteristics of these companies.
Details
Keywords
Hisham Tariq, Chaminda Pathirage and Terrence Fernando
Decision-makers, practitioners and community members have a need to assess the disaster resilience of their communities and to understand their own capacities in disaster…
Abstract
Purpose
Decision-makers, practitioners and community members have a need to assess the disaster resilience of their communities and to understand their own capacities in disaster situations. There is a lack of consensus among researchers as to what resilience means and how it can be measured. This paper proposes a novel technique to achieve consensus among stakeholders on definitions, objectives and indicators for measuring a key dimension of community disaster resilience (CDR), physical infrastructure (PI).
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a five-step approach utilizing Q-methods to contextualize a resilience index for PI. Interviews, focus groups and Q-sorting workshops were conducted to develop a tool that ranked measures according to stakeholder preference. A total of 84 participants took part in the workshops across four countries (United Kingdom, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka).
Findings
The initial set of 317 measures was reduced to 128 and divided into the three community capacities of anticipatory, absorptive and restorative. The physical infrastructure capacity assessment tool (PI-CAT) was then finalized to have 38 indicators that were also ranked in order of importance by the participants.
Practical implications
The PI-CAT can be useful for local governments and communities to measure their own resilience. The tool allows stakeholders to be confident that the metrics being used are ones that are relevant, important and meet their requirements.
Originality/value
The Q-method approach helps stakeholders to develop and use a community capacity assessment tool that is appropriate for their context. The PI-CAT can be used to identify effective investments that will enhance CDR.
Details
Keywords
Akhtar Alam, M. Sultan Bhat, Hakim Farooq, Bashir Ahmad, Shabir Ahmad and Ashaq H. Sheikh
Risk assessment is imperative for disaster risk reduction. The risk is rooted to various physical, social, economic, demographic and environmental factors that determine the…
Abstract
Purpose
Risk assessment is imperative for disaster risk reduction. The risk is rooted to various physical, social, economic, demographic and environmental factors that determine the probable magnitude of loss during an extreme event. By way of bringing a conceptual model into practice, this paper aims to examine the flood risk of the Srinagar city.
Design/methodology/approach
The “risk triangle” model has been adopted in the present investigation evaluating parameters, reflective of hazard (intensity), exposure (spatial) and vulnerability (sensitivity) using Landsat-8 operational land imager scene (10 September 2014), global positioning system, Cartosat-1 digital elevation model and socioeconomic and demographic data (Census of India, 2011). The authors characterise flood hazard intensity on the basis of variability in water depth during a recent event (September 2014 Kashmir flood); spatial exposure as a function of terrain elevation; and socioeconomic structure and demographic composition of each municipal ward of the city as a determinant factor of the vulnerability. Statistical evaluation and geographic information system-based systematic integration of all the multi-resolution data layers helped to develop composite flood risk score of each ward of the city.
Findings
Principal deliverable of this study is flood risk map of the Srinagar city. The results reveal that approximately 46 per cent of the city comprising 33 municipal wards is at high risk, while rest of the area, i.e. 17 and 37 per cent, exhibit moderate and low levels of risk, constituting 23 and 12 municipal wards, respectively. It is very likely that the municipal wards expressing high risk may witness comparatively more damage (impact) during any future flood event. Thus, there is a need of planned interventions (structural and non-structural) to minimise the emergent risk.
Originality/value
Very rare attempts have been made to bring theoretical models of disaster research in practice; this is mainly because of the complexities associated with the data (selection, availability and subjectivity), methodology (integration, quantification) and resolution (spatial scales). In this direction, this work is expected to have considerable impact, as it provides a clear foundation to overcome such issues for the studies aiming at disaster risk assessment. Furthermore, using varied primary and secondary data, this paper demonstrates the relative (municipal wards) flood risk status of the Srinagar city, which is one of the key aspects for flood hazard mitigation.