Darwin-inspired population thinking suggests approaching culture as a population of items of different types, whose relative frequencies may change over time. Three nested subtypes of populational models can be distinguished: evolutionary, selectional and replicative. Substantial progress has been made in the study of cultural evolution by modelling it within the selectional frame. This progres...

Models of cultural evolution study how the distribution of cultural traits changes over time. The dynamics of cultural evolution strongly depends on the way these traits are transmitted between individuals by social learning. Two prominent forms of social learning are payoff-based learning (imitating others that have higher payoffs) and conformist learning (imitating locally common behaviours)....

This decade is witnessing the proliferation of large-scale population-based biobanks. Many biobanks have reached the stage of offering access to their collection of data and samples to the scientific community. This, however, requires that access arrangements be established to govern the relationship between biobanks and users. Access arrangements capture the convergence of all normative elemen...

PROBLEM In response to an identified need, a specialist antenatal clinic for women from refugee backgrounds was introduced in 2008, with an evaluation planned and completed in 2010. QUESTION Can maternity care experiences for women from refugee backgrounds, attending a specialist antenatal clinic in a tertiary Australian public hospital, be improved? METHODS The evaluation employed mixed me...

OBJECTIVES to undertake the cultural adaptation of, and to evaluate the measurement properties of, the Brazilian version of the Self-efficacy for Appropriate Medication Adherence Scale in coronary heart disease (CHD) patients, with outpatient monitoring at a teaching hospital. METHOD the process of cultural adaptation was undertaken in accordance with the international literature. The data we...

Collaborative management of natural resources involves two or more parties working together to govern and/or manage a set of resources within a defined area. Although a number of collaborative management frameworks have been developed for protected area and fisheries management, few exist for freshwater resources that enable their comparative analysis. We present a framework of collaborative ma...

Health interventions and research initiatives focused on the Indian HIV/AIDS epidemic have often neglected the critical relationship between disease and its cultural contexts. This study synthesises and builds upon current understandings of how cultures and HIV/AIDS interact in India, whilst highlighting significant gaps in knowledge. Cultural dynamics shape the trajectory of the epidemic, comm...

Past clinical trials addressing behavior modification for cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention have not been culturally appropriate for African Americans. This supposition is borne out by the continued challenges researchers face not only in recruiting and retaining African Americans in clinical trials, but also in achieving the desired outcomes among this population. Investigators have limi...

The challenge of recognising the ward-based patient at risk of rapid deterioration is discussed frequently within the literature. As their role enables them to be in constant contact with patients, nurses are in a prime position to identify problems at an early stage with the use of systematic patient assessment. This means appropriate treatment can be initiated quickly, potentially saving the ...