Beyond Basic Eductaion: Towards a pragmatarian justification for education as a human right

Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) confers on the human person, the right to free education in society. This implies that the human person is morally empowered and therefore justified to demand an access to education. By insisting that education be made free, Article 26 of the UDHR has made access to education a matter of right, since human rights are free conferment of nature. However, the education that Article 26 tried to justify here using the traditional moral rights arguments is the basic or elementary and fundamental stages of education. Postbasic education which includes technical and professional education and other advanced institutional learning, and which contributes more to a person’s socio-political, economic and technological development, would according to Article 26 “…be made generally available…and accessible to all on the basis of merit”. This caveat, the paper contends, places this level of education in need of further justification, so as to provide a moral basis for the citizens’ claim and indeed access to education generally, beyond the level of basic education. To achieve this, the essay deploys arguments from the pragmatic and utilitarian theories to philosophically justify professional and technical education, as well as advanced institutional learning, as a way of validating the citizens’ right to education in modern human society, beyond the level of basic education.Key words: Education, Justification, Right, Pragmatism, Utilitarianism

Penerapan Metode Open Vpn-access Server sebagai Rancangan Jaringan Wide Area Network

The development of information technology has developed rapidly from year to year. The use of the Internet as a very useful addition to mediation communications but still has weaknesses in its security.Ecosystem service assurance is one unit of work on solution division convergance PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Tbk. can not be separated from the use of networks and the Internet for Operational work Units. kendal faced by the few employees Units Ecosystem Service Assurance often get assignments meetings and training outside of town. Sometimes employees get into trouble when had to send the data documentation of meetings and training to upload a file in a web application portal Unit Ecosystem Service Assurance by using email, copy and save the file first before uploading, this method is not very safe and effective. needed a way to connect the mobile intranet access with the existing LAN network at the central office in order to perform data access easily and safely. Solutions that can be used for this problem is to build a network Wide Area Network (WAN) technology with a Virtual Private network applications that can use OpenVPN Access Server. OpenVPN Access Server delivers ease and security in forming a network of virtual private networ

Antiretroviral Therapy‑related Problems among Human Immunodeficiency Virus‑infected Patients: A Focus on Medication Adherence and Pill Burden

Background: There are problems associated with antiretroviral therapy despite its achievement. Poor medication adherence and inability to tolerate large pill burden are major problems facing patients with chronic illnesses. These drug therapy problems are under-studied among people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Nigeria. We evaluated adherence and pill burden among this set of patients in a tertiary hospital in Lagos. Methods: Data for eligible HIV‑infected adults were documented from case notes and through interviews using a well‑structured  questionnaire. Important details extracted were sociodemographics, pills information, and CD4 counts. The main outcome measures were drug adherence, as assessed by the four‑item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale and pill burden, as measured by daily pill >5. Results: Of the 296 patients, 219 (74%) were females. Median age (interquartile range) was 40 (35.0–47.7) years. Majority (262; 88.5%) were married, had at least a secondary education (142:48.0%), and CD4 count >500 cells/ml (215; 72.6%). Pill burden >5 pills/day was observed in 12.2% of the patients, while adherence was documented for 83.4% of the patients. Majority (259; 87.5%) were receiving fixed‑dose  combination of antiretroviral drugs. Forgetfulness (16.5%) and being too busy to take pills (10.5%) were the most common reasons for nonadherence. Pill burden in those who were not receiving fixed‑dose combination was significantly associated with medication nonadherence. However, only pill burden was found to be an independent prognosticator of non-adherance. (Odd ratio = 0.67, confidenceinterval = 0.03–1.66, P < 0.00). Conclusion: Medication nonadherence and pill burden were observed in more than one‑tenth of patients. These were the two major  antiretroviral therapy‑related problems reported in this study. Keywords: Adherence, antiretroviral therapy, human immunodeficiency virus, people living with human immunodeficiency virus/acquiredimmunodeficiency syndrome, pill burde

Improving health worker performance through text messaging: A mixed-methods evaluation of a pilot intervention designed to increase coverage of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy in West Nile, Uganda

Poor health worker performance is a well-documented obstacle to quality service provision. Due to the increasingly widespread availability of mobile devices, mobile health (mHealth) has received growing attention as a service improvement tool. This pilot study explored feasibility, acceptability and outcomes of an mHealth intervention designed to increase coverage of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy (IPTp) in two districts of West Nile, Uganda. In both districts, selected health workers (N = 48) received classroom training on malaria in pregnancy. All health workers in one district (N = 49) subsequently received 24 text messages reinforcing the training content. The intervention was evaluated using a mixed-methods approach, including four focus group discussions with health workers and three in-depth interviews with district health officials, health worker knowledge assessments one month (N = 90) and six months (N = 89) after the classroom training, and calculation of IPTp coverage from participating health facilities’ (N = 16) antenatal care registers covering six months pre- and post-intervention. Complementing classroom training with text messaging was found to be a feasible, acceptable and inexpensive approach to improving health worker performance. The messages served as reminders to those who had attended the classroom training and helped spread information to those who had not. Health workers in the district where text messages were sent had significantly better knowledge of IPTp, achieving an increased composite knowledge score of 6.00 points (maximum score: 40) compared with those in the district where only classroom training was provided. Average facility coverage of three doses of IPTp was also significantly higher where text messages were sent (85.8%) compared with the district where only classroom training was provided (54.1%). This intervention shows promise for the improvement of health worker performance for delivery of IPTp, and could have significant broader application

Community structure and diversity of tropical forest mammals: Data from a global camera trap network

Terrestrial mammals are a key component of tropical forest communities as indicators of ecosystem health and providers of important ecosystem services. However, there is little quantitative information about how they change with local, regional and global threats. In this paper, the first standardized pantropical forest terrestrial mammal community study, we examine several aspects of terrestrial mammal species and community diversity (species richness, species diversity, evenness, dominance, functional diversity and community structure) at seven sites around the globe using a single standardized camera trapping methodology approach. The sites-located in Uganda, Tanzania, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Suriname, Brazil and Costa Rica-are surrounded by different landscape configurations, from continuous forests to highly fragmented forests. We obtained more than 51 000 images and detected 105 species of mammals with a total sampling effort of 12 687 camera trap days. We find thatmammal communities from highly fragmented sites have lower species richness, species diversity, functional diversity and higher dominance when compared with sites in partially fragmented and continuous forest. We emphasize the importance of standardized camera trapping approaches for obtaining baselines for monitoring forest mammal communities so as to adequately understand the effect of global, regional and local threats and appropriately inform conservation actions. © 2011 The Royal Society

An estimate of the number of tropical tree species

The high species richness of tropical forests has long been recognized, yet there remains substantial uncertainty regarding the actual number of tropical tree species. Using a pantropical tree inventory database from closed canopy forests, consisting of 657,630 trees belonging to 11,371 species, we use a fitted value of Fisher’s alpha and an approximate pantropical stem total to estimate the minimum number of tropical forest tree species to fall between ∼40,000 and ∼53,000, i.e. at the high end of previous estimates. Contrary to common assumption, the Indo-Pacific region was found to be as species-rich as the Neotropics, with both regions having a minimum of ∼19,000–25,000 tree species. Continental Africa is relatively depauperate with a minimum of ∼4,500–6,000 tree species. Very few species are shared among the African, American, and the Indo-Pacific regions. We provide a methodological framework for estimating species richness in trees that may help refine species richness estimates of tree-dependent taxa

The global abundance of tree palms

Aim Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and in terms of responses to climate change. We quantified global patterns of tree palm relative abundance to help improve understanding of tropical forests and reduce uncertainty about these ecosystems under climate change. Location Tropical and subtropical moist forests. Time period Current. Major taxa studied Palms (Arecaceae). Methods We assembled a pantropical dataset of 2,548 forest plots (covering 1,191 ha) and quantified tree palm (i.e., ≥10 cm diameter at breast height) abundance relative to co‐occurring non‐palm trees. We compared the relative abundance of tree palms across biogeographical realms and tested for associations with palaeoclimate stability, current climate, edaphic conditions and metrics of forest structure. Results On average, the relative abundance of tree palms was more than five times larger between Neotropical locations and other biogeographical realms. Tree palms were absent in most locations outside the Neotropics but present in >80% of Neotropical locations. The relative abundance of tree palms was more strongly associated with local conditions (e.g., higher mean annual precipitation, lower soil fertility, shallower water table and lower plot mean wood density) than metrics of long‐term climate stability. Life‐form diversity also influenced the patterns; palm assemblages outside the Neotropics comprise many non‐tree (e.g., climbing) palms. Finally, we show that tree palms can influence estimates of above‐ground biomass, but the magnitude and direction of the effect require additional work. Conclusions Tree palms are not only quintessentially tropical, but they are also overwhelmingly Neotropical. Future work to understand the contributions of tree palms to biomass estimates and carbon cycling will be particularly crucial in Neotropical forests

Standardized Assessment of Biodiversity Trends in Tropical Forest Protected Areas: The End Is Not in Sight

Extinction rates in the Anthropocene are three orders of magnitude higher than background and disproportionately occur in the tropics, home of half the world’s species. Despite global efforts to combat tropical species extinctions, lack of high-quality, objective information on tropical biodiversity has hampered quantitative evaluation of conservation strategies. In particular, the scarcity of population-level monitoring in tropical forests has stymied assessment of biodiversity outcomes, such as the status and trends of animal populations in protected areas. Here, we evaluate occupancy trends for 511 populations of terrestrial mammals and birds, representing 244 species from 15 tropical forest protected areas on three continents. For the first time to our knowledge, we use annual surveys from tropical forests worldwide that employ a standardized camera trapping protocol, and we compute data analytics that correct for imperfect detection. We found that occupancy declined in 22%, increased in 17%, and exhibited no change in 22% of populations during the last 3–8 years, while 39% of populations were detected too infrequently to assess occupancy changes. Despite extensive variability in occupancy trends, these 15 tropical protected areas have not exhibited systematic declines in biodiversity (i.e., occupancy, richness, or evenness) at the community level. Our results differ from reports of widespread biodiversity declines based on aggregated secondary data and expert opinion and suggest less extreme deterioration in tropical forest protected areas. We simultaneously fill an important conservation data gap and demonstrate the value of large-scale monitoring infrastructure and powerful analytics, which can be scaled to incorporate additional sites, ecosystems, and monitoring methods. In an era of catastrophic biodiversity loss, robust indicators produced from standardized monitoring infrastructure are critical to accurately assess population outcomes and identify conservation strategies that can avert biodiversity collapse. © 2016 Beaudrot et al

African golden cats, citizen science, and serendipity: tapping the camera trap revolution

The use of camera traps for wildlife research and monitoring is increasing and this is yielding significant observations at an accelerating pace. Yet many potentially valuable observations are overlooked, misinterpreted or withheld. Using our first-ever images of a wild African golden cat (Caracal aurata) catching prey, we consider practical challenges and opportunities for more effective image management systems. In particular we highlight the benefits of online image archives and assessments