Gender Transformative Philanthropy

As foundations and other philanthropic institutions assess where they can maximize the social return on their charitable investments, many are looking at issues of gender norms and gender equity. One program officer put it this way: "Our grantees and staff get race and class; some are even starting to get sexual orientation. What I want to know is -- what happened to gender? Where is the gender analysis?" Over two decades of research has now shown that challenging harmful codes of masculinity and femininity is a major key to improving outcomes in reproductive health and gender-based violence. Yet the field continues to mostly overlook gender norms. As the same time, studies have shown conclusively that having a strong gender analysis of the disparate impacts on women and men is crucial to increasing the effectiveness of civic engagement organizing. However, many non-profits in this space either ignore gender equity, or marginalize it as a "women's issue." As one experienced program officer put it, "Grantees need to see gender and race together. Gender impacts every issue they work on. But grantees are not being challenged to do innovative work around gender [in a way that parallels their work on race or class concerns]. This accessible overview will help program officers who want to integrate a stronger gender focus into their giving and their grantees' work and analysis

Sampling Schemes for Policy Analyses Using Computer Simulation Experiments

Evaluating the environmental and Economic impacts of agricultural policies is not a simple task. A systematic approach to evaluation would include the effect of policy-dependent factors (such as tillage practices, crop rotations, and chemical use) as well as the effect of policy independent covariates (such as weather, topography, and soil attributes) on response variables (such as amount of soil eroded or chemical leached into the groundwater). For comparison purposes, the effects of these input combinations on the response variable would have to be assessed under competing policy scenarios. Because the number of input combinations is high in most problems, and because policies to be evaluated are often not in use at the time of the study, practitioners have resorted to simulation experiments to generate data. But generating data from simulation models is often costly and time consuming; thus, the number of input combinations in a study may be limiting even in simulation experiments. In this paper, we discuss the problem of designing computer simulation experiments that require generating data for just a fraction of the possible input combinations. We propose an approach that is based on subsampling the 1992 National Resources Inventory (NRI) points. We illustrate the procedure by assessing soil erosion in a situation where there are observed data (reported by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)) for comparison. Estimates for soil erosion obtained using the procedure we propose are in good agreement with NRCS reported values

Compañeros del andamio : La construcción del aula-taller

La Escuela Graduada “Joaquín Víctor González”, fue creada por Decreto del Poder Ejecutivo del 24 de enero de 1906, como escuela anexa a la Sección Pedagógica de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales. Esto motivó que el imaginario platense la identifique como escuela Anexa. Con ella se integró por primera vez en nuestro país la enseñanza completa desde una Universidad Nacional, posibilitando un proceso educativo armónico y continuo en las distintas etapas de la enseñanza: primaria, secundaria y universitaria. Las clases se iniciaron el 12 de marzo de 1906, bajo la dirección del Profesor Dionisio San Sebastián, con 303 alumnos distribuidos en seis grados. (Párrafo extraído del texto a modo de resumen)Eje: Historia, Archivos y Patrimonio UniversitarioRed de Museos de la Universidad Nacional de La Plat

Compañeros del andamio : La construcción del aula-taller

La Escuela Graduada “Joaquín Víctor González”, fue creada por Decreto del Poder Ejecutivo del 24 de enero de 1906, como escuela anexa a la Sección Pedagógica de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales. Esto motivó que el imaginario platense la identifique como escuela Anexa. Con ella se integró por primera vez en nuestro país la enseñanza completa desde una Universidad Nacional, posibilitando un proceso educativo armónico y continuo en las distintas etapas de la enseñanza: primaria, secundaria y universitaria. Las clases se iniciaron el 12 de marzo de 1906, bajo la dirección del Profesor Dionisio San Sebastián, con 303 alumnos distribuidos en seis grados. (Párrafo extraído del texto a modo de resumen)Eje: Historia, Archivos y Patrimonio UniversitarioRed de Museos de la Universidad Nacional de La Plat

Hot Surface Ignition

Undesirable hot surface ignition of flammable liquids is one of the hazards in ground and air transportation vehicles, which primarily occurs in the engine compartment. In order to evaluate the safety and sustainability of candidate replacement fuels with respect to hot surface ignition, a baseline low lead fuel (Avgas 100 LL) and four experimental unleaded aviation fuels recommended for reciprocating aviation engines were considered. In addition, hot surface ignition properties of the gas turbine fuels Jet-A, JP-8, and JP-5 were measured. A test apparatus capable of providing reproducible data was designed and fabricated to experimentally investigate the hot surface ignition characteristics. A uniform surface temperature stainless steel plate simulating the wall of a typical exhaust manifold of an aircraft engine was used as the hot surface. Temperature uniformity of ±5°C was achieved on the stainless steel plate by virtue of its being bolted to a copper plate in which five automatically controlled 1000 W electrical cartridge heaters were inserted. A programmable syringe pump was used to dispense ~25 μL fuel drops onto the hot surface. Testing was performed in a quiescent environment with the exception of a mild upward flow created by an exhaust fan aiding the buoyant plume created by the hot plate. Ignition and flame propagation events were recorded using visible and mid-infrared still and video imaging. The ignition and flame propagation events are transient and occur at randomly distributed locations on the hot surface. To characterize the ignition event statistically, the surface temperature leading to at least one ignition out of the number of drops and the surface temperature resulting in the ignition of all of the drops were recorded. The results of the experiment confirmed that the experimental variations in the drop size, drop velocity, plume characteristics, surface properties including temperature changes, and the nonlinear dependence of temperature of the chemical reaction rate lead to the probabilistic nature of the ignition event. The results of the experiment are of practical value in designing vehicular ignition and safety systems

A Deep Search for Prompt Radio Emission from Thermonuclear Supernovae with the Very Large Array

Searches for circumstellar material around Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are one of the most powerful tests of the nature of SN Ia progenitors, and radio observations provide a particularly sensitive probe of this material. Here we report radio observations for SNe Ia and their lower-luminosity thermonuclear cousins. We present the largest, most sensitive, and spectroscopically diverse study of prompt (delta t <~ 1 yr) radio observations of 85 thermonuclear SNe, including 25 obtained by our team with the unprecedented depth of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. With these observations, SN 2012cg joins SN 2011fe and SN 2014J as a SN Ia with remarkably deep radio limits and excellent temporal coverage (six epochs, spanning 5--216 days after explosion, yielding Mdot/v_w <~ 5 x 10^-9 M_sun/yr / (100 km/s), assuming epsilon_B = 0.1 and epsilon_e = 0.1). All observations yield non-detections, placing strong constraints on the presence of circumstellar material. We present analytical models for the temporal and spectral evolution of prompt radio emission from thermonuclear SNe as expected from interaction with either wind-stratified or uniform density media. These models allow us to constrain the progenitor mass loss rates, with limits ranging from Mdot <~ 10^-9--10^-4 M_sun/yr, assuming a wind velocity v_w=100 km/s. We compare our radio constraints with measurements of Galactic symbiotic binaries to conclude that <~10% of thermonuclear SNe have red giant companions.Comment: Submitted to Ap

Genetic Targeting of Adult Renshaw Cells Using a Calbindin 1 Destabilized Cre Allele for Intersection With Parvalbumin or Engrailed1

Renshaw cells (RCs) are one of the most studied spinal interneurons; however, their roles in motor control remain enigmatic in part due to the lack of experimental models to interfere with RC function, specifically in adults. To overcome this limitation, we leveraged the distinct temporal regulation of Calbindin (Calb1) expression in RCs to create genetic models for timed RC manipulation. We used a Calb1 allele expressing a destabilized Cre (dgCre) theoretically active only upon trimethoprim (TMP) administration. TMP timing and dose influenced RC targeting efficiency, which was highest within the first three postnatal weeks, but specificity was low with many other spinal neurons also targeted. In addition, dgCre showed TMP-independent activity resulting in spontaneous recombination events that accumulated with age. Combining Calb1-dgCre with Parvalbumin (Pvalb) or Engrailed1 (En1) Flpo alleles in dual conditional systems increased cellular and timing specificity. Under optimal conditions, Calb1-dgCre/Pvalb-Flpo mice targeted 90% of RCs and few dorsal horn neurons; Calb1-dgCre/En1-Flpo mice showed higher specificity, but only a maximum of 70% of RCs targeted. Both models targeted neurons throughout the brain. Restricted spinal expression was obtained by injecting intraspinally AAVs carrying dual conditional genes. These results describe the first models to genetically target RCs bypassing development

Instrumental Uncertainty as a Determinant of Behavior Under Interval Schedules of Reinforcement

Interval schedules of reinforcement are known to generate habitual behavior, the performance of which is less sensitive to revaluation of the earned reward and to alterations in the action-outcome contingency. Here we report results from experiments using different types of interval schedules of reinforcement in mice to assess the effect of uncertainty, in the time of reward availability, on habit formation. After limited training, lever pressing under fixed interval (FI, low interval uncertainty) or random interval schedules (RI, higher interval uncertainty) was sensitive to devaluation, but with more extended training, performance of animals trained under RI schedules became more habitual, i.e. no longer sensitive to devaluation, whereas performance of those trained under FI schedules remained goal-directed. When the press-reward contingency was reversed by omitting reward after pressing but presenting reward in the absence of pressing, lever pressing in mice previously trained under FI decreased more rapidly than that of mice trained under RI schedules. Further analysis revealed that action-reward contiguity is significantly reduced in lever pressing under RI schedules, whereas action-reward correlation is similar for the different schedules. Thus the extent of goal-directedness could vary as a function of uncertainty about the time of reward availability. We hypothesize that the reduced action-reward contiguity found in behavior generated under high uncertainty is responsible for habit formation