Parachute Science in Hawaiʻi: Assessing Local Connectivity of Hawaiʻi Based Marine and Coastal Research

As a site with some of the highest levels of tropical marine endemism on the planet, the Hawaiian Islands have attracted marine and coastal researchers for decades. Much of this research has been conducted by scientists from outside states or countries, typically with high financial and scientific resources, who travel to Hawaiʻi to collect data and produce results that ultimately fail to circulate back to the communities from which the data was collected. This model of reearch is commonly known as “parachute science” or “colonial science.” Studies of parachute science in other places around the globe show that Indigenous communities typically carry the burden of these extractive research models, while simultaneously stewarding a majority of the worldʻs biodiversity with innovative biocultural techniques. To begin to unravel the historical extent of parachute research in Hawaiʻi, we analyzed the percentage of Hawaiʻi-based versus externally-located authors on coastal and marine research publications using data from Hawaiʻi. While Hawaiʻi-based authorship does not solelly determine whether a project is contributing to extractive science, this pilot effort attempts to determine how research data in Hawaiʻi is utilized, and by whom. We find that while the total amount of research done in the Hawaiian islands has increased over the past 30 years, a majority of this increase derives from an increase in the number of externally-based publications. Hawaiʻi-based authorship has remained relatively constant—and low—over this time period. We will present on the implications of this finding for Hawaiʻi researchers, as well as future directions that explore the potential drivers of these research disparities

Lessons from Aloha ʻĀina Activism: Visioning and Planning for Our Islands and Communities in the Wake of COVID-19

The essay offers intergenerational perspectives on the lessons of aloha ʻāina activism rising from Kanaloa Kahoʻolawe to Wao Kele O Puna and Mauna a Wākea for responding to the Hulihia generated by climate change. Resilience and sustainability are achieved through reverence for akua (natural elements), honoring Natural Law, and employing ancestral Hawaiian science

A study of awareness, usage and satisfaction of selected student services by foreign (international) and domestic students at Oregon State University

This study examined the utilization of selected student services by domestic and foreign students in their sophomore, junior, or senior year at Oregon State University during Winter 1994 to find out if differences in awareness, usage, and satisfaction existed between them. It also examined if differences in awareness, usage, and satisfaction existed between groups within the variables of gender, age, and academic status; marital status was included in the questionnaire for demographic profile purposes only. Thirty-one services provided by the six departments under the Vice Provost for Student Affairs were selected for the study. A comparison of quality ratings was made between Student Affairs Departments that used a formal process of evaluation and those that did not. The Student Services Awareness and Usage Questionnaire was developed and used. A sample of 150 domestic students and 150 foreign students were randomly selected, with equal representation by gender and academic status. A total of 193 questionnaires (64%) were returned, 116 from domestic students and 77 from foreign students. The five null hypotheses were tested using either the chi-square test, t-test, or Fisher's exact test. The study found that a majority of domestic respondents (97%) were aware of more services than a majority of foreign respondents (77%). A majority of each group used only about one-third of the services, with the domestic respondents using one service more than the foreign respondents. Seventeen percent of the domestic respondents and 20% of the foreign respondents were satisfied, while 83% of the domestic respondents and 80% of the foreign respondents were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Neither group indicated being very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, or very satisfied with any of the services. The findings from the other variables yielded varying results. The use of a formal process of evaluation by some service departments did not result in their obtaining higher quality ratings than the rest. Recommendations for administration and further research were included to address the issues involving student services and how they can be delivered more efficiently and effectively to benefit the university's diverse student population

The Impacts of School Climate on Teachers’ Job Satisfaction: An Analysis of Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018 National Data

This study aims to assess and examine secondary school teachers' perceptions of school climate and job satisfaction in five diverse countries: Japan, Korea, Finland, the United States of America (USA), and Australia. It explores the impact of school climate on teachers' job satisfaction, a pivotal factor influencing teacher retention, mobility, and professional development. In order to improve teachers’ skills and abilities in the classroom, improving teachers’ job satisfaction and understanding the factors that influence it is highly critical. Utilizing secondary data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018, this study provides valuable insights. The findings reveal that teachers in all five countries generally hold positive perceptions of school climates and report high job satisfaction. However, teachers in Japan and Korea express comparatively lower job satisfaction levels when contrasted with their counterparts in Finland, the USA, and Australia. Furthermore, their perceptions of school climate also rank lower. Consequently, this study concludes that a positive correlation exists between favorable perceptions of school climate and elevated job satisfaction. This assertion is supported by regression analyses, individual country data, and aggregate data from all five countries

SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING AMONG SECONDARY EDUCATION STUDENTS SPECIALIZING IN ENGLISH AT UM DIGOS COLLEGE, PHILIPPINES

Self-directed learning is essential in learning a second language since it allows students to accomplish as much as possible in their language learning. This study aimed to determine the level of self-directed learning among secondary education students specializing in English teaching. Furthermore, this study used a descriptive survey involving 133 major English students. Data revealed that the self-directed learning of English language students is high. However, no significant difference was found in the level of self-directed learning among English language students when analyzed by year level, gender, and socioeconomic status. Hence, the researchers highly encouraged self-directed learning as enhancement or innovation on set assessments that can help develop the optimum potential of the learners, as well as integration of the strategy to the teaching learning process based on the study result.  Article visualizations

Algoriphagus machipongonensis sp. nov., co-isolated with a colonial choanoflagellate

A Gram-negative, non-motile, non-spore-forming bacterial strain, PR1[superscript T], was isolated from a mud core sample containing colonial choanoflagellates near Hog Island, Virginia, USA. Strain PR1[superscript T] grew optimally at 30 °C and with 3 % (w/v) NaCl. Strain PR1[superscript T] contained MK-7 as the major menaquinone as well as carotenoids but lacked pigments of the flexirubin-type. The predominant fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0 (29.4 %), iso-C17 : 1ω9c (18.5 %) and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω6c and/or C16 : 1ω7c; 11.3 %). The major polar lipids detected in strain PR1[superscript T] were phosphatidylethanolamine, an unknown phospholipid, an aminophospholipid, an aminolipid and two lipids of unknown character. The DNA G+C content was 38.7 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain PR1[superscript T] fell within the cluster comprising the genus Algoriphagus and was most closely related to Algoriphagus halophilus JC 2051[superscript T] (95.4 % sequence similarity) and Algoriphagus lutimaris S1-3[superscript T] (95.3 % sequence similarity). The 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity between strain PR1[superscript T] and the type strains of other species of the genus Algoriphagus were in the range 91–95 %. Differential phenotypic properties and phylogenetic and genetic distinctiveness of strain PR1[superscript T] demonstrated that this strain was distinct from other members of the genus Algoriphagus, including its closest relative, A. halophilus. Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic, phylogenetic and genomic data, strain PR1[superscript T] should be placed in the genus Algoriphagus as a representative of a novel species, for which the name Algoriphagus machipongonensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is PR1[superscript T] ( = ATCC BAA-2233[superscript T]  = DSM 24695[superscript T]).Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (Investigator Award (581))National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH National Research Service Award and Fellowship grant (5F32GM086054))United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA Astrobiology Institute (NNA08CN84A

(Re)construir servicios públicos frente a la gobernanza neoliberal : prácticas de sistemas asociativos en torno al agua en las comunidades urbanas pobres de Metro Manila

In the sprawling megalopolis of Metro Manila, the failure or inability of centralized public and privatized water service utilities to connect outlying and poor communities within their service areas led to the emergence of community-owned water providers run by cooperatives and neighborhood associations, often led and initiated by women. Born out of necessity and daily struggles to provide water for their households, communities organize themselves as water service cooperatives or associative water systems that assume the traditional role of the state as duty-bearers in ensuring universal access and human rights to water. Employing long-term ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, key informant interviews and literature review, this paper critically examines urban poor communities' experimentations of water service provisioning whereby women have taken on the cudgels to effectively deliver water to their own people and in the process, practice self-governance and autonomy. Using neo-institutionalist (Ostrom and Cox, 2010) and critical socio-institutionalist frameworks (Cleaver, 2002), we critically interrogate the praxes of women-led assoanguage Languciative water systems, a model whereby water consumers both control and own the service in their capacity as consumers, using the cases of Bagong Silang and Recomville Two water service cooperatives located in Caloocan City. By illustrating on-the-ground experiences, we stress the crucial role that waterless citizens and communities play in bridging the gap in the country's water service provision, thereby expanding the private/public dichotomies that often dominate water governance debates. Through these case studies, we argue that associative water systems were borne out of collective desire to have safe, clean, and affordable water to flow to waterless communities.As Metro Manila remains under a privatized water set up, these community-owned initiatives are legitimate expressions of social transformation.We problematize how these women-led associative water systems progress in the face of neoliberal governance marked by hegemonic power of private and public actors.We also investigate how democracy is exercised -or not- within these systems as well as surface the various contestations they face. This paper therefore scrutinizes the principles and pitfalls of, the ups and downs and lessons learnt from associative water systems in providing piped connections to waterless communities. Our aim is to shed light on the reconstruction of public services anchored on collective action.We find that the political possibility for collective self-organization and bottom-up social governance are facilitated or constrained by a combination of political, socioeconomic factors such as access to technical inputs and financing, social acceptability and legitimacy of the cooperative, sustained social organizing, and understanding of micro-politics and power in the community.Afterall, community-led initiatives operate in a highly contentious local politics marked by clientelism and heterogeneity. We posit that the successes of associative water systems lie on their ability to practice democracy, transparency, and accountability as well as mobilize social capital, trust, and cooperation. However, the experiences of urban poor communities in Caloocan City reveal a more complicated picture in which water service cooperatives are plagued by multiple governance issues, internal corruption, power struggles, and affordability issues.The process of building cooperatives is tension-laden, revealing the challenges of creating the commons through sociopolitical and institutional arrangements on the ground.The paper further reveals how state and market institutions successfully managed to define the terms of engagement with the urban poor communities that constrain the latter's capability to expand water service in their areas, on one hand. On the other, private and public actors have distanced themselves from the people and obscured their objectives and economic interests from the communities they are supposed to serve. This generated a situation where dissatisfaction and capitalistic exploitation are directed toward cooperatives, instead, further redefining social relations within communities (Cheng, 2014; Chng, 2008). The paper is organized into six sections.The first parts provide a short introduction of the topic as well as a brief overview of the history and socio-political underpinnings of Metro Manila's water privatization and neoliberal undercurrents that gave way to the rise of associative water systems. The second section outlines methodological considerations that detail our general approach in gathering empirical material.The third part offers a conceptual and literature review of associative water systems in theory and practice, outlining the positive and promising principles as well as the pitfalls of the model as commons or bottom-up social governance. Examples from Bolivia and the Philippines are mentioned that offered inspiration for urban poor communities in Caloocan City to embark on their own cooperative-building and water service provisioning. The fourth part narrates the dynamics, history, and experiences of Bagong Silang and Recomville Two water service cooperatives, underlining the similarities in the contexts where they operate as well as the various tensions and challenges they faced in the process of creating cooperatives and delivering quality and safe water to the urban poor households. We pay special attention to the role of women as leaders and changemakers amid a generally masculinized culture. The part played by two NGOs as wayfinders and supporters that accompanied the cooperatives accentuate the importance of having allies and partners in the process.We also detail how the uneven and inequitable relationship between Maynilad and the cooperatives produced a culture of payment for water which partially contributed to strained social relationships in the community. This culture restructured the roles and responsibilities among community, state, and market actors. The fifth part sketches the lessons learnt from these experiences, underlining the communities' struggle for self-governance and autonomy to remake public services through collective action and participation in water service provision and stressing the crucial role that women played in the process. This section also identifies three challenges around issues of non-participation, power, and outcomes/impacts, underscoring the dangers of fetishizing communities (Cleaver, 2002) as homogenous, idealized forms or sources of social innovation. Divided along the lines of gender and class, women empowerment facilitated by the cooperative through trainings and skills enhancement did not sit well with some men in the communities. Further, the capacity to pay for water of the urban poor that is greatly tied to precarity of work and informality affects the operations and management of the system. We conclude by reiterating the pivotal role played by communities in enabling water to flow to their homes. But associative water systems are far from perfect. As on-going works-in-progress, the urban poor's desired water services can only be discovered and constructed through daily -democratic- political struggles, collective action, and contestations.The praxes of associative water systems accentuate what Dahl and Soss (2012, as mentioned in McDonald, 2016) argue that "democratic conceptions of the common good will always be partial and provisional, never universal or static" (p.4).En la megalópolis en expansión de Metro Manila, el fracaso o la incapacidad de los servicios públicos centralizados y privatizados de los servicios de agua para conectar a las comunidades pobres y periféricas dentro de sus áreas de servicio llevó al surgimiento de proveedores de agua de propiedad comunitaria administrados por cooperativas y asociaciones de vecinos, lo que entendemos como sistemas de agua asociados, que a menudo son dirigidos e iniciados por mujeres. A través de un trabajo de campo etnográfico, la observación participante, entrevistas con sujetos clave y mediante una revisión de la literatura, nuestro artículo investiga críticamente las prácticas de los sistemas de agua asociativos dirigidos por mujeres, anclados en la acción colectiva, entendidos como alternativa a las fallas del estado y del mercado. Utilizando marcos neoinstitucionalistas y socioinstitucionalistas críticos, enfocamos nuestro trabajo en dos comunidades sin agua ubicadas en la ciudad de Caloocan y subrayamos sus luchas diarias por el autogobierno y el compromiso crítico con los límites de la publicidad. Encontramos que la posibilidad política de autoorganización colectiva y de gobernanza social bottom-up, se ve facilitada o restringida por una combinación de factores políticos y socioeconómicos, tales como: el acceso a insumos técnicos y financiación, aceptación y legitimidad social de la cooperativa, sostenibilidad en el tiempo, así como la confrontación de micropolíticas y relaciones de poder dentro de la comunidad. Las iniciativas lideradas por la comunidad operan en una política local altamente polémica marcada por el clientelismo, la heterogeneidad, así como por las dinámicas de clase y género. El documento también demuestra el papel fundamental de las mujeres —a menudo desatendidas tanto en la vida como en la política de la comunidad—, como vanguardistas en la realización del derecho humano al agua de las comunidades. Las cooperativas entendidas como vehículos de empoderamiento para las mujeres ayudaron a la promoción de su movilidad social y de su reconocimiento como miembros importantes, reconstruyeron sus identidades y relaciones tanto dentro de la comunidad, como de la familia, a través de expresiones diferenciadas de agencia humana y acción colectiva. Por último, los casos estudiados, ofrecen lecciones y desafíos importantes sobre la (re)creación de servicios públicos, implorando a los profesionales, los responsables políticos y los activistas que analicen los beneficios y los límites de tales formas en el contexto de la gobernabilidad neoliberal y las desigualdades continuas

A bacterial sulfonolipid triggers multicellular development in the closest living relatives of animals

Bacterially-produced small molecules exert profound influences on animal health, morphogenesis, and evolution through poorly understood mechanisms. In one of the closest living relatives of animals, the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta, we find that rosette colony development is induced by the prey bacterium Algoriphagus machipongonensis and its close relatives in the Bacteroidetes phylum. Here we show that a rosette inducing factor (RIF-1) produced by A. machipongonensis belongs to the small class of sulfonolipids, obscure relatives of the better known sphingolipids that play important roles in signal transmission in plants, animals, and fungi. RIF-1 has extraordinary potency (femtomolar, or $10^{−15}$ M) and S. rosetta can respond to it over a broad dynamic range—nine orders of magnitude. This study provides a prototypical example of bacterial sulfonolipids triggering eukaryotic morphogenesis and suggests molecular mechanisms through which bacteria may have contributed to the evolution of animals