Healing That Leads to Action : Restorative Justice, School Leadership, and Institutional Change

When immigrant youth are harmed by institutional policies and practices that reinforce idealized notions of nationalism and assimilation through subtractive and coercive strategies, school leaders can turn to restorative justice as a technology of resistance. This participatory action research study, with the author as a participant, captures four school leaders from Colorado, New York, and New Jersey, who interrogated institutional policies and practices and promoted authentic inclusion and equity for immigrant youth through restorative justice. As we participated in a process of collective restorative contemplation, we engaged in a form of personal healing that guided intentional and thoughtful action to transform our school environments into inclusive spaces. This year-long study emphasizes the critical role school leaders play when challenging institutional culture and negotiating policies and practices that harm immigrant youth

Fairness-Aware Ranking in Search & Recommendation Systems with Application to LinkedIn Talent Search

We present a framework for quantifying and mitigating algorithmic bias in mechanisms designed for ranking individuals, typically used as part of web-scale search and recommendation systems. We first propose complementary measures to quantify bias with respect to protected attributes such as gender and age. We then present algorithms for computing fairness-aware re-ranking of results. For a given search or recommendation task, our algorithms seek to achieve a desired distribution of top ranked results with respect to one or more protected attributes. We show that such a framework can be tailored to achieve fairness criteria such as equality of opportunity and demographic parity depending on the choice of the desired distribution. We evaluate the proposed algorithms via extensive simulations over different parameter choices, and study the effect of fairness-aware ranking on both bias and utility measures. We finally present the online A/B testing results from applying our framework towards representative ranking in LinkedIn Talent Search, and discuss the lessons learned in practice. Our approach resulted in tremendous improvement in the fairness metrics (nearly three fold increase in the number of search queries with representative results) without affecting the business metrics, which paved the way for deployment to 100% of LinkedIn Recruiter users worldwide. Ours is the first large-scale deployed framework for ensuring fairness in the hiring domain, with the potential positive impact for more than 630M LinkedIn members.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication at ACM KDD 201

Evidence for the effect of sorption enantioselectivity on the availability of chiral pesticide enantiomers in soil

8 páginas.-- 4 figuras.-- 4 tablas.-- referencias.-- Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2016.03.052.Although enantioselective sorption to soil particles has been proposed as a mechanism that can potentially influence the availability of individual chiral pesticide enantiomers in the environment, environmental fate studies generally overlook this possibility and assume that only biotic processes can be enantioselective, whereas abiotic processes, such as sorption, are non-enantioselective. In this work, we present direct evidence for the effect of the enantioselective sorption of a chiral pesticide in a natural soil on the availability of the single pesticide enantiomers for transport. Batch sorption experiments, with direct determination of the sorbed amounts, combined with column leaching tests confirmed previous observations that from non-racemic aqueous solutions the sorption of the chiral fungicide metalaxyl on the soil appeared to be enantioselective, and further demonstrated that the enantiomer that was sorbed to a greater extent (R-metalaxyl, Kd = 1.73 L/kg) exhibited retarded leaching compared to its optical isomer (S-metalaxyl, Kd = 1.15 L/kg). Interconversion and degradation of the pesticide enantiomers, which are potential experimental artifacts that can lead to erroneous estimates of sorption and its enantioselectivity, were discarded as possible causes of the observed enantioselective behavior. The results presented here may have very important implications for a correct assessment of the environmental fate of chiral pesticides that are incorporated into the environment as non-racemic mixtures, and also of aged chiral pesticide residues that have been transformed from racemic to non-racemic by biologically-mediated processes. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO Project AGL2014-51897-R) and Junta de Andalucía (Research Group AGR-264), with European FEDER funds (Operative Program 2014–2020).Peer reviewe

Plasma cholesteryl ester fatty acids do not mediate the association of ethnicity with type 2 diabetes: results from the HELIUS study

Scope: Ethnic minority groups have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) than the host population. Our aim was to identify whether plasma cholesteryl ester fatty acids (CEFA) mediate the ethnic differences in type 2 diabetes. Methods and results: We included 202 Dutch, 206 South-Asian Surinamese, 205 African Surinamese, 215 Turkish and 213 Moroccan origin participants of the HELIUS study (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). Logistic regression was used to determine the associations between plasma CEFA and T2D. Mediation analysis was used to identify whether CEFA contributed to the association between ethnicity and T2D. We adjusted for ethnicity, age, sex, smoking, physical activity and BMI. Associations between plasma CEFA and T2D were similar across all ethnic groups. Although differences in plasma CEFA across ethnic groups were observed, CEFA did not mediate the differences in T2D prevalence between ethnic groups. Conclusion: Although ethnic differences in plasma CEFA were found and CEFA were associated with T2D, CEFA did not contribute to the difference in T2D prevalence between ethnic groups. If confirmed, this implies that maintenance of the more beneficial CEFA profiles in the non-Dutch ethnic groups may be encouraged to prevent an even higher prevalence of T2D in these groups

Comportamiento del herbicida fluometurón en un suelo de olivar enmendado con organoarcilla bajo condiciones de campo

7 páginas, 6 figuras, 3 tablas, 19 referencias.-- Publicado en el capítulo Tema 2 – Propriedades e processos do solo.-- Congreso celebrado en septiembre de 2012, en Islas Azores, Portugal.Las arcillas modificadas con cationes orgánicos u organoarcillas suelen presentar buenas propiedades adsorbentes para muchos plaguicidas y se han propuesto en diferentes aplicaciones dirigidas a reducir la movilidad de estos compuestos tras su aplicación a los suelos agrícolas. En trabajos previos realizados en condiciones de laboratorio, observamos que la modificación de una montmorillonita de Wyoming (SWy- 2) con el catión orgánico de origen natural espermina (SPERM) daba lugar a una organoarcilla (SW- SPERM) con una afinidad muy elevada por el herbicida fluometurón y que la adición de SW-SPERM a suelos aumentaba el poder de retención de éstos y reducía la lixiviación del herbicida. El objetivo del presente trabajo ha sido evaluar el efecto de la adición de SW-SPERM a un suelo de olivar mediterráneo en la persistencia, lixiviación y escorrentía del herbicida fluometurón bajo condiciones reales de campo. Se utilizaron dos parcelas de 4 x 1 m, una sin enmendar y otra enmendada con SW-SPERM a 0.2 kg/m2, a las que se aplicó fluometurón a 3 kg/ha. Se tomaron muestras de suelo a diferentes tiempos y profundidades (0-5, 5-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm) y se determinó la cantidad de herbicida en las mismas así como en las aguas de escorrentía procedentes de cada parcela. En la parcela enmendada con SW-SPERM, el herbicida persistió durante más tiempo en los primeros 0-5 cm de suelo, presentando una menor lixiviación en comparación con la parcela sin enmendar. Las concentraciones de herbicida en las aguas de escorrentía de la parcela enmendada con SW-SPERM fueron superiores que en las aguas procedentes de la parcela sin enmendar, probablemente por la mayor persistencia del herbicida en el horizonte más superficial y el posible arrastre de herbicida asociado a partículas de arcilla. Los resultados apuntan a que SW-SPERM podría ser útil como enmienda de suelos para aumentar el tiempo de residencia de fluometurón en la zona radicular, controlando el posible riesgo por escorrentía del herbicida o aplicando la organoarcilla a una cierta profundidad en el suelo para protegerla de la escorrentía.Este trabajo ha sido financiado por la Junta de Andalucía a través del proyecto P07-AGR-03077, cofinanciado con fondos FEDER-FSE a través del programa Operativo de Andalucía 2007-2013. Beatriz Gámiz agradece a la Junta de Andalucía la concesión de una beca de Formación de Personal Investigador, cofinanciada con fondos FSE.Peer Reviewe

Enantioselective behavior of metalaxyl in soil under repeated applications

10 páginas.-- 5 imágenes.-- 2 tablas.-- 52 referenciasBACKGROUND: Soil incubation and column leaching experiments were conducted to address the question of whether the type of formulation (unsupported versus clay supported) and repeated applications of the chiral fungicide (RS)-metalaxyl affected the enantioselectivity of its dissipation and leaching in a slightly alkaline, loamy sand agricultural soil. RESULTS: Regardless of the type of formulation and the number of fungicide applications, the R-enantiomer of metalaxyl was degraded faster than the S-enantiomer, but the individual degradation rates of R- and S-metalaxyl were highly affected by the different application regimes assayed (t1/2 = 2-104 days). Repeated applications accelerated the degradation of the biologically active R-metalaxyl enantiomer, whereas they led to slower degradation of the non-active S-metalaxyl enantiomer. The type of formulation had less influence on the dissipation rates of the enantiomers. For all formulations tested, soil column leachates became increasingly enriched in S-enantiomer as the number of fungicide applications was increased, and application of metalaxyl to soil columns as clay-based formulations reduced the leaching of both enantiomers. CONCLUSION: Pesticide application conditions can greatly influence the enantioselective dissipation of chiral pesticides in soil, and hence are expected to exert a great impact on both the biological efficacy and the environmental chiral signatures of pesticides applied as mixtures of enantiomers or racemates to agricultural soils. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.This work has been financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO Project AGL2011-23779) and Junta de Andalucía (Research Group AGR-264), cofinanced by European FEDER-FSE funds (Operative Programme 2007-2013). Beatriz Gámiz thanks the Junta de Andalucía for a post-doctoral contract linked to the project P07-AGR-03077. María Adelino thanks MINECO for a predoctoral FPI fellowship. The authors also thank MJ Calderón (IRNAS, CSIC),MI Cardo (IRNAS, CSIC) and P Franco (Chiral Technologies Europe) for technical assistance, and Dr. S Redondo and Dr. E Mateos (University of Seville) for their help with the statistical treatment of the data.Peer reviewe

Assessing the Effect of Organoclays and Biochar on the Fate of Abscisic Acid in Soil

10 páginas.-- 6 figuras.-- 2 tablas.-- 56 referencias.-- The Supporting Information is available free of charge on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.6b03668The potential use of allelopathic and signaling compounds as environmentally friendly agrochemicals is a subject of increasing interest, but the fate of these compounds once they reach the soil environment is poorly understood. This work studied how the sorption, persistence, and leaching of the two enantiomers of the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) in agricultural soil was affected by the amendments of two organoclays (SA-HDTMA and Cloi10) and a biochar derived from apple wood (BC). In conventional 24-h batch sorption experiments, higher affinity toward ABA enantiomers was displayed by SA-HDTMA followed by Cloi10 and then BC. Desorption could be ascertained only in BC, where ABA enantiomers presented difficulties to be desorbed. Dissipation of ABA in the soil was enantioselective with S-ABA being degraded more quickly than R-ABA, and followed the order unamended > Cloi10-amended > BC-amended > SA-HDTMA-amended soil for both enantiomers. Sorption determined during the incubation experiment indicated some loss of sorption capacity with time in organoclay-amended soil and increasing sorption in BC-amended soil, suggesting surface sorption mechanisms for organoclays and slow (potentially pore filling) kinetics in BC-amended soil. The leaching of ABA enantiomers was delayed after amendment of soil to an extent that depended on the amendment sorption capacity, and it was almost completely suppressed by addition of BC due to its irreversible sorption. Organoclays and BC affected differently the final behavior and enantioselectivity of ABA in soil as a consequence of dissimilar sorption capacities and alterations in sorption with time, which will affect the plant and microbial availability of endogenous and exogenous ABA in the rhizosphere.This work has been financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO Project AGL2014- 51897-R), EU FACCE-JPI (Designchar4food Project), and Junta de Andalucıa (P011-AGR-7400 and Research Group ́ AGR-264), cofinanced with European FEDER funds. The use of trade, firm, or corporation names in this paper is for the information and convenience of the reader. Such use does not constitute an official endorsement or approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Agricultural Research Service, or the Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiologıa de Sevilla ́ (IRNAS-CSIC) of any product or service to the exclusion of others that may be suitablePeer reviewe