Sustainable Livelihoods Enhancement and Diversification (SLED): A Manual for Practitioners

The aim of this document is to provide development practitioners with an introduction to the SLED process as well as guidance for practitioners facilitating that process. The Sustainable Livelihoods Enhancement and Diversification (SLED) approach has been developed by Integrated Marine Management Ltd (IMM) through building on the lessons of past livelihoods research projects as well as worldwide experience in livelihood improvement and participatory development practice. It aims to provide a set of guidelines for development and conservation practitioners whose task it is to assist people in enhancing and diversifying their livelihoods. Under the Coral Reefs and Livelihoods Initiative (CORALI), this approach has been field tested and further developed in very different circumstances and institutional settings, in six sites across South Asia and Indonesia. While this process of testing and refining SLED has been carried out specifically in the context of efforts to manage coastal and marine resources, it is an approach that can be applied widely wherever natural resources are facing degradation because of unsustainable human use. The SLED approach provides a framework within which diverse local contexts and the local complexities of livelihood change can be accommodated

Localizing Lying in Llama: Understanding Instructed Dishonesty on True-False Questions Through Prompting, Probing, and Patching

Large language models (LLMs) demonstrate significant knowledge through their outputs, though it is often unclear whether false outputs are due to a lack of knowledge or dishonesty. In this paper, we investigate instructed dishonesty, wherein we explicitly prompt LLaMA-2-70b-chat to lie. We perform prompt engineering to find which prompts best induce lying behavior, and then use mechanistic interpretability approaches to localize where in the network this behavior occurs. Using linear probing and activation patching, we localize five layers that appear especially important for lying. We then find just 46 attention heads within these layers that enable us to causally intervene such that the lying model instead answers honestly. We show that these interventions work robustly across many prompts and dataset splits. Overall, our work contributes a greater understanding of dishonesty in LLMs so that we may hope to prevent it.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figure

QUANTIFYING LANDING IMPACTS DURING A LEG STRENGTH CIRCUIT IN MALE ARTISTIC GYMNASTS - A PILOT STUDY

Measuring landing impacts in gymnastics has previously been difficult and has rarely taken place in the daily training environment. The aim of this pilot research was to quantify the number and magnitude of landing impacts experienced by elite level male gymnasts when completing a leg strength circuit that they regularly perform in training. Acceleration data revealed gymnasts were being exposed to a high number of very high magnitude landing impacts (up to 9 landings/exercise and \u3e10 g) during the leg strength circuit. These results prompted the development of two alternate leg strength circuits, specifically developed for gymnasts recovering from injury, which do not include the high loading exercises. Tibial acceleration is a promising method for the measurement of landing impacts during gymnastics training

A Role for the PPARγ in Cancer Therapy

In 1997, the first published reports highlighted PPARγ as a novel cancer therapeutic target regulating differentiation of cancer cells. A subsequent flurry of papers described these activities more widely and fuelled further enthusiasm for differentiation therapy, as the ligands for the PPARγ were seen as well tolerated and in several cases well-established in other therapeutic contexts. This initial enthusiasm and promise was somewhat tempered by contradictory findings in several murine cancer models and equivocal trial findings. As more understanding has emerged in recent years, a renaissance has occurred in targeting PPARγ within the context of either chemoprevention or chemotherapy. This clarity has arisen in part through a clearer understanding of PPARγ biology, how the receptor interacts with other proteins and signaling events, and the mechanisms that modulate its transcriptional actions. Equally greater translational understanding of this target has arisen from a clearer understanding of in vivo murine cancer models. Clinical exploitation will most likely require precise and quantifiable description of PPARγ actions, and resolution of which targets are the most beneficial to target combined with an understanding of the mechanisms that limits its anticancer effectiveness

Thriving in Student Affairs Professionals: An Exploration of Supporting Constructs

Student affairs professionals provide vital services to college students while also facing various challenges that impact their ability to thrive at work. This study examined overall thriving, its constructs and a set of predictors that impact thriving in student affairs professionals. Seligman’s (PERMA) theory of thriving provided the conceptual foundation for this study. Understanding the constructs that support thriving for student affairs professionals will help institutional leaders and professional organizations develop work environments and strategies that promote thriving. A global pandemic occurred during the time of this research, allowing exploration of how COVID-19 impacted thriving. This study also included variables of generation and functional areas to explore if there were variations of thriving. To test the research questions, an existing survey was modified for use in this study’s population. The original source of the survey was the Thriving Project at Azusa Pacific University under the leadership of Dr. Laurie Schreiner. The survey included questions related to PERMA (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment) constructs, along with predictors of thriving (sense of community, spirituality, institutional integrity and commitment to staff welfare). The survey was administered to student affairs professionals at a mid-sized public university in the Midwest. The results supported the conclusion that student affairs professionals at this institution were experiencing a higher level of thriving. Pearson correlation revealed a positive relationship between all the PERMA constructs and overall thriving. A multiple regression revealed three of the four predictors contributed to overall thriving with commitment to staff welfare not having an impact. Results of two one-way ANOVAs revealed there was not a significant relationship of generation or functional area to overall thriving. However, the COVID-19 global pandemic was found to significantly impact thriving. Overall, the results of this study suggested that student affairs professionals at this public university were thriving and provided ways to further support thriving. This study included recommendations on ways this and other institutions could continue to bolster thriving among student affairs professionals