Minority Children Fund: Evaluation Report

This reports evaluates the efforts of The Minority Children Fund in Ireland. The Minority Children Fund is a one-year, once-off, grant scheme to support the inclusion of minority children in the activities and services of youth and sports organisations. The fund was set up and distributed in 2007. Seventeen organisations throughout Ireland were awarded a grant to promote the inclusion of minority children in their activities during 2008/9. A total of 525,735 was distributed in two funding streams: large grants and small grants. Three organisations received large grants amounting to 285,050 in total, equivalent to 54% of the fund. Fourteen organisations received small grants amounting to 240,685 in total, equivalent to 46% of the fund.In view of these two funding streams, it was decided to separately evaluate each stream while nevertheless providing an integrated summary and conclusion. As a result, the report is divided into four parts:Part One: Context for the EvaluationPart Two: Evaluation of Large GranteesPart Three: Evaluation of Small GranteesPart Four: Summary and Conclusion

Thermoelectrically-cooled quartz microbalance

Temperature of microbalance can be maintained at ambient temperature or held at some other desired temperature. Microbalance has tow-stage thermoelectric device that controls temperature of quartz crystal. Heat can be pumped to or from balance by Peltier effect

Alliances in action: Opportunities and threats to solidarity between workers and service users in health and social care disputes

This paper reflects upon the recent mental-health nurses' strike following the sacking of Karen Reissman by Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust. Nursing strikes are rare, though there is a significant strand of militancy in the history of nursing. Analysis of the Manchester dispute and associated media coverage is relied on as a point of departure for a more general discussion around issues of solidarity and connections between trade union and service-user activism. These issues are explored in a context of the industrial and social relations of mental-health care. It is argued that regressive, stereotypical representations of mental health, which appeal to fears surrounding public safety, are a feature of this industrial-relation territory. This paper proposes that social relations of work and connections with the wider community could be transformed by a dual strategy: pursuing a more progressive and inclusive understanding of mental health and building stronger alliances between trade union, community and service-user activists

Law student attitudes towards pro bono and voluntary work: The experience at Northumbria University

This study considers whether participation in pro bono legal work during a programme of academic study at Northumbria University increases the likelihood of future participation in pro bono activity amongst law students.This was a quantitative study in which an online survey, measuring altruistic attitudes, was sent to students enrolled on the M Law Exempting degree programme at Northumbria University. The author analysed the data by comparing the attitudes of those students who had engaged in pro bono activity during the fourth year of the programme against those students who had yet to engage in pro bono activity, being those students in Years 1, 2 and 3 of the programme.The data suggests that whilst the students value engagement in pro bono activity, this is principally due to the personal benefits which they gain. In particular, respondents reported improvement in legal skills and enhanced employability as a consequence of participation in pro bono work. The data indicates that there is an increased awareness of social and economic issues whilst engaged in pro bono work but this does not translate into a desire to continue pro bono work after graduation.It was therefore concluded that participation in pro bono work during the course of academic study does not increase the likelihood of future participation in pro bono activity following graduation

Spoken content retrieval: A survey of techniques and technologies

Speech media, that is, digital audio and video containing spoken content, has blossomed in recent years. Large collections are accruing on the Internet as well as in private and enterprise settings. This growth has motivated extensive research on techniques and technologies that facilitate reliable indexing and retrieval. Spoken content retrieval (SCR) requires the combination of audio and speech processing technologies with methods from information retrieval (IR). SCR research initially investigated planned speech structured in document-like units, but has subsequently shifted focus to more informal spoken content produced spontaneously, outside of the studio and in conversational settings. This survey provides an overview of the field of SCR encompassing component technologies, the relationship of SCR to text IR and automatic speech recognition and user interaction issues. It is aimed at researchers with backgrounds in speech technology or IR who are seeking deeper insight on how these fields are integrated to support research and development, thus addressing the core challenges of SCR

Receptions of Israelite nation-building: Modern Protestant natalism and Martin Luther

This is the author's PDF version of an article published in Dialog© 2010. The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.comThis article evaluates the claim that Martin Luther was the forerunner of natalism, looking at his references to reproduction in a historical and theological context

Neutrino Experiments

Recent studies of neutrino oscillations have established the existence of finite neutrino masses and mixing between generations of neutrinos [1]. The combined results from studies of atmospheric neutrinos, solar neutrinos, reactor antineutrinos and neutrinos produced at accelerators paint an intriguing picture that clearly requires modification of the standard model of particle physics. These results also provide clear motivation for future neutrino oscillation experiments as well as searches for direct neutrino mass and nuclear double-beta decay. I will discuss the program of new neutrino oscillation experiments aimed at completing our knowledge of the neutrino mixing matrix