Problematising Civil Society- on What Terrain Does Xenophobia Flourish

Is there a need to reconceptualise civil society organisations (CSOs) given the fragmented, uneven, varied and sometimes contradictory responses of CSOs to the May 2008 violence

Measurement properties of fine motor scale of Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-Second Edition: A Rasch analysis

Objective:\ud To investigate the measurement properties (including rating scale performance, unidimensionality, and differential item functioning) of the fine motor scale of the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-Second Edition in children, by using the Rasch analysis. \ud \ud Design:\ud A total of 419 children (including 342 typically developing children and 77 children with fine motor delays or difficulties) were recruited in Taiwan for this prospective study. Each child was evaluated with the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-Second Edition that consists of 26-item grasping and 72-item visual-motor integration subtests. Partial credit Rasch analysis was used for all analyses.\ud \ud Results:\ud The Rasch analysis indicated that middle rating category for 19 grasping and 52 visual-motor integration items could be collapsed to allow only dichotomous response categories. Item fit analysis and principal component analysis suggested that the unidimensionality of the grasping and visual-motor integration subtests could be achieved after removal of two grasping and eight visual-motor integration misfitting items. All but 13 items in the composite scale\ud could form a unidimensional construct of overall fine motor ability. Furthermore, only a few items were found to show differential item functioning across sex (ten items) or fine motor status (seven items). However, significant ceiling effects were found in the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-Second Edition subtests and composite scale when applied to these typically developing children.\ud \ud Conclusions:\ud Our results suggest grounds for the revision of the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-Second Edition in a subsequent edition. Simplifying the rating scales and reducing the misfitting items in the subtests and composite scales might result in a unidimensional assessment of children’s fine motor ability. Clinicians and researchers could use the reduced Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-Second Edition as a criterion-referenced outcome measure to document changes; however, further work is needed to reduce the ceiling effects

Findings from the 2nd Set of Eurocode 7 Design Examples

Codes and Standard

Eurocode 7: Geotechnical Design. Worked examples

This document is a report with worked examples summarizing the general rules, basic design principles and design methods for geotechnical design following Eurocodes. It comprises an overview of Eurocode 7 with focus on the design requirements, actions and design situations, and limit states. Different aspects to be considered for designing shallow foundations, gravity walls, embedded walls and deep foundations are covered in the report. The provisions of Eurocode 7 for ground investigations and testing for geotechnical design, overall stability of and movements in the ground, slopes, hydraulic failure modes and verifications against them are also presented. The Annex contains worked examples to accompany the various chapters of this report. The materials were prepared and presented at the workshop “Eurocode 7: Geotechnical Design” held on 13-14 June 2013 in Dublin, Ireland. The workshop was organized by JRC with the support of DG ENTR and CEN, and in collaboration with CEN/TC250/Sub-Committee 7 and Ireland’s Department of the Environment, Community and Local government. The document is part of the Report Series ‘Support to the implementation, harmonization and further development of the Eurocodes’ prepared by JRC in collaboration with DG ENTR and CEN/TC250 “Structural Eurocodes”.JRC.G.5-European laboratory for structural assessmen

Parallel Serbian versions of blot test: An empirical examination

Logical Operations Test (BLOT) was developed for assessing the transition to formal operational thinking. BLOT is a 35 item multiple-choice test which examines all of the operations which comprise the logico-mathematical structure of formal operations in Piaget's theory. The test was translated into Serbian and used in previously reported research. This work deals with two additional parallel versions of the Serbian BLOT. For each original BLOT item two more parallel items have been constructed by changing the item content and leaving the logical structure of the item the same. Sample consisted of 517 primary and secondary school students. Rasch analysis confirmed that the vast majority of items maintained invariance across at least two test versions: for 19 original items both parallel items maintained their invariance, for 14 items one of the parallel items had similar parameters and only 2 items did not remain invariant in the parallel tests

A Soberania Sul-Africana em Questão: Crises Econômicas, Ecológicas, Subimperialismo e Resistências Sociais

The development of South Africa’s contemporary political economy occur- red in the context of a global capitalist order characterized by increasingly unequal political and economic relations between and within countries. Prior to liberation in 1994, many people around the world actively supported the struggle against apartheid. If the apartheid state was defeated, it retained enough strength to limit a radical tran- sition. Since 1994, diminished sovereignty means that the foreign influences of global capitalism amplify local socioeconomic contradictions in a way that is destructive to the vast majority of citizens. This is evident when one considers economic, ecological, geopolitical, and societal considerations.O desenvolvimento da economia política contemporânea da África do Sul ocorreu no contexto de uma ordem capitalista global caracterizada por relações políticas e econômicas cada vez mais desiguais entre e dentro dos países. Antes da libertação em 1994, muitas pessoas em todo o mundo apoiavam ativamente a luta contra o apartheid. Se o Estado do apartheid foi derrotado, manteve força suficiente para limitar uma transição radical. Desde 1994, a diminuição da soberania significa que as influências estrangeiras do capitalismo global amplificam as contradições socioeconômicas locais de uma forma destrutiva para a maioria dos cidadãos. Isso é evidente quando seconsideram aspectos econômicos, ecológicos, geopolíticos e societai

A New Generation of Collecting Priorities: Case Studies from the Northwest

The last twenty-five years have brought lively, important, and difficult discussions around heritage collections. We are called to broaden our collecting activities to be more inclusive of (among many things) all races, classes, and experiences. We have begun to move away from the troubled legacy of taking collections away from creators and toward empowering those same creators to steward their heritage. We confront a vast universe of current holdings and possible collections and have few models for assessing the opportunities. We also operate with some firm limitations on our budgets, personnel, and space that we have outdistanced with our collecting. The framework of responsible stewardship suggests that we must stop over-collecting. Broader cultural forces call us to make our collections more diverse and representative. Inevitably, both of these mean that we must stop or de-emphasize some collecting in order to make other types possible. Given that our collecting policies outline both our aspirations and limitations, what have we done or failed to do in terms of tending to the collecting policies that we inherited? How have we changed them–or kept them the same? And, moving forward, how do we go about implementing and making public big shifts in our collecting policies? We consider these questions through four case studies from the University of Oregon, Washington State University, Montana State University, and the Anchorage Museum that consider (respectively) two decades of work with LGBTQ+ and indigenous collections, current and clear changes in who is documented, and considerations of capacity as part of stewardship. First presented at the annual meeting of [organization] in May 2023, the case studies spurred lively conversations and are broadly applicable to archives across the west and beyond