Major Health Constraints and Ethno-Vet Practices of Small-Scale and Backyard Chicken Production in Some Selected Regions of Ethiopia

A study was conducted with the aim of assessing the major health constraints facing the small-scale and backyard chicken producers and ethno-vet practices exercised in five regions of the country: Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Oromia, Southern region, and Tigray. Household respondents were purposively selected and interviewed. Data were collected through pretesting, semi-structural questionnaires, and field observation. The overall frequency of diseases reported as the main health constraint was Newcastle disease (64%) followed by gastrointestinal infection (34%), respiratory syndrome (22%), internal and external parasites (16%), coccidiosis (15%), and fowl pox (5%). They had no awareness how to manage chicken diseases (91.5%), and their flocks were not vaccinated (84%). High disease occurrence is reported in long rainy season (59%). Ethno-vet practice was experienced by the majority of the interviewed households (51.9%). A total of 19 medicinal plants were reported as being used as a traditional medicine. The main causes of losses were identified as disease (67%) and predator attack (32%). Poor disease prevention and control and the lack of knowledge and management skills were the major constraints of poultry production in the study areas. Research and extension efforts should be directed at the identified constraints. Farmer training and improvement of veterinary services are important

The Impact of Technical Innovation on Voter Registration and Turnout

Research on provisional ballots is nearly nonexistent and research on military and overseas civilian absentee ballots is limited. While the percentages of those voters are small, they are still substantial enough to swing close elections, so ensuring that every eligible voter has his or her vote counted is essential and research is needed in order to identify ways to improve processes for these voters. By the 2012 Presidential General election, the Maryland State Board of Elections (SBE) had implemented Online Voter Registration (OLVR), Electronic (or paperless) Motor Voter (EMV), and Online Absentee Request (OAR). Maryland also did a redesign of the Online Ballot Delivery system for UOCAVA voters (OBD), including a ballot marking wizard as an option. These systems were implemented with the intention of reducing provisional ballots and reducing the late ballots for UOCAVA voters. Because these types of systems are so new to the U.S. election administrations, no research on their effectiveness has yet been published. This research project briefly describes each of the new technologies and analyzes registration and turnout statistics in order to determine if the new systems achieved the Maryland SBE’s goals. The results show that the voter registration systems effectively reach all demographics, although unaffiliated voters show a greater likelihood of using OLVR. While provisional turnout was not reduced, voters who made use of the new registration systems were less likely to vote provisionally. The results also show that OBD reduces ballot transit time and allows ballots sent later than by mail to still be returned on time. More research is needed to fully evaluate the effectiveness of the new systems because Maryland did not have a large enough population of UOCAVA voters for a strong analysis and because discrepancies in the ways other states reported UOCAVA data on the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) statistical report prevent a solid cross-state analysis. Also, more research on provisional voting is needed to determine the full impact of the new registration methods. However, initially the systems appeared to achieve their stated goals by improving the likelihood that provisional ballots and UOCAVA absentee ballots would be accepted

Stories of African American male principals following the intra district desegregation plan

Consequences of school desegregation on African American families, educators, and communities in the United States are well documented in education research today. The State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center-St. Louis located at the University of Missouri-St. Louis encompasses multiple records of school desegregation. The symbolic 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision which determined the dual education system of St. Louis City illegal had a lasting impact upon the students, teachers, and principals it served. The work of this dissertation is to tell of the stories in writing of specific African American men who served as principals during the 1960s through the 1980s in the St. Louis Public Schools. The terms African American and Black will be used interchangeably throughout this research study when describing this racial group. These stories allow a lens to learn of experiences while serving as principal during this time period. While select archival data is available and was consulted in this research, it is important to write and tell about the history from primary resources so that others inclusive of historians and educators are able to learn of interactions, daily decisions, thoughts, and context of which these former African American male principals endured. Critical Race Theory (CRT) has served as the theoretical framework in which this study was developed and examined. The findings of these untold written stories of five Black male former principals who served post the United States Supreme Court landmark case of Brown v Board of Education in St. Louis Public Schools has added to the body of knowledge in the field of education. Consistent findings depicted a singular focus on improving academic achievement, informal communication between central office administration and principals relative to desegregation efforts, personnel decisions regarding selection and placement of principals and teachers as well as student discipline. Clear tenets of CRT are embedded in the interviewees’ stories and past experiences

A Manual of Expected Milestones in Childhood and Occupation-Based Interventions

The purpose of this scholarly project was to develop a manual for parents of children ages birth to five years. The manual includes significant milestones and provides age-appropriate activities which can be used to facilitate development. A literature review was conducted to identify how play is used to achieve developmental milestones. Resources included journal articles and textbooks from the disciplines of occupational therapy, psychology, education, and medicine. A manual for parents was created and consists of a discussion on the importance of play in development, expected milestones, occupation-based interventions, and resources regarding child development. This manual is intended for distribution to parents at a group educational seminar lead by an occupational therapist. The components of this manual are guided by the Ecology of Human Performance Model. Child development can be optimized through the use of play activities to develop physical, social, emotional, and cognitive skills. Experiences in early childhood can hinder-or enhance developmental achievement later in life. The parent-manual product of this project will provide developmentally-appropriate occupation-based activities which can be incorporated into daily routines for children ages birth to five years

Farming, Education and Migration

Farming, Education and Migratio

Sedimentological and geochemical investigations on borehole cores of the Lower Ecca Group black shales, for their gas potential : Karoo basin, South Africa

In the recent years, the shale gas discourse has become central to discussions about future energy supply in South Africa. In particular, the Permian black shales of the Lower Ecca Group formations in the Karoo Basin are considered potential source rocks for shale gas. The research presented in this thesis advances the understanding of the shale gas potential of mainly the Prince Albert, Whitehill and Tierberg/Collingham Formations. These shale sequences were sampled from eight deep boreholes spread across the main Karoo Basin and geochemically analysed at the GFZ - Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, Germany. Three key questions guided the study, these are: (i) what is the lithology of the sequence; (ii) where in the basin do the shale sequences attain maximum thickness at optimum depth i.e. beneath 1000-1500m; and (iii) and their shale characteristics. To evaluate these, borehole core logging, petrology and organic geochemistry were used extensively. Petrology involved the use of thin section, scanned electron and transmission electron microscopy for mineralogy as well as the identification of sedimentary features, organic matter and nano-scale porosity. These were coupled with standard organic geochemistry techniques such as Rock Eval. analysis, open pyrolysis gas chromatography and thermovaporisation to quantify the free gas, total organic carbon (TOC), present-day gas generative potential and kerogen type. The results show that the Whitehill Formation, away from the CFB and not intruded by dolerite, has the most potential for shale gas. Microscopic studies of this pyritic black shale reveal the occurrence of porous amorphous matter, indicating thermal maturity within the gas generation zone (i.e. > 1.1 percent Ro, 120ºC). The TOC content is consistently high within the Whitehill (exceeding industry requirement of 2 percent), attaining maximum of 7.3 percent. The highest yields of free and desorbed gas, especially methane, were emitted within this formation (S1 and nC1 peaks); mostly within its dolomitic units. In addition, dissolution porosity within dolomite units of the Whitehill Formation was identified as the predominant type of porosity. Thus, it is deduced that the dolomitic units of Whitehill Formation potentially contain the greatest volumes of free gas. HI values attain maximum of 25 mg HC/g TOC, whereas the OI values 26 mg CO2/g TOC. Such low HI and OI values are typically attributed to the dominance of Type IV kerogen, and consistent with overmaturity. Open pyrolysis (GC) show the main the chemical compound of the organic matter to be m-p-xylene, consistent with a mix of Type III, Type I/II and Type IV kerogen. Lithologically, the Whitehill Formation is composed of ~ 35 quartz, 13 percent feldspar, 26 percent illite and ~ 23 percent dolomite with variable amounts of pyrite. The dominance of quartz is directly proportional to the brittleness of the rock. Thus it can be deduced that the Whitehill Formation is relatively brittle and therefore fraccable. Burial trends indicate increasing depth (from ground level) to the top of the Whitehill Formation towards the south and south-eastern portion of the basin. It is in the southern region where thicknesses of this black shale exceeding 50m occur at depths more than 1500m; 1000m beneath fresh water aquifers. It therefore concluded that Whitehill Formation in the southern portion of Karoo Basin, but away from the thermo-tectonic overprint of the Cape Orogeny, is the most probable shale gas reservoir in South Africa

El E-Business Y Su Aplicación En La Casa Textil Élite Deportiva Del Cantón La Libertad, Provincia De Santa Elena, Año 2012

La aplicación de la herramienta e-business en casa textil élite deportiva del cantón La Libertad, provincia de Santa Elena, tiene como objetivo aplicar la herramienta e-business mediante la implementación de procedimientos empresariales que guíen el uso la tecnología a fin de que se generen mejores prácticas productivas en los procesos de producción marketing y servicios e incremento de las oportunidades de ofertas de esta institución. Actualmente los procedimientos empresariales se desarrollan de una forma empírica y de forma tradicional. Basados en una análisis realizado obtenido mediante la tabulación de encuestas realizada a los directivos, colaboradores y clientes, observación directa aplicada en la empresa, y entrevista a un profesional con conocimientos en el tema planteado, se obtuvo como resultado la necesidad de automatizar los procesos de producción de élite deportiva, se desarrolló un prototipo de una página web centrada en la gestión de relación con el cliente, esta plataforma virtual permitirá a la empresa desarrollar diversas ventajas competitivas en sus procesos, generando en el área de marketing una publicidad agresiva, mejor posicionamiento, promoción, valoración y distribución de las diferentes prendas deportivas, brindando mayor información a los clientes y por ende más comodidad y beneficios para estos, puestos que ahora podrán realizar sus pedidos a cualquier hora del día, con la captación de los pedidos de los clientes, permitirá en el área de producción un mejor control del abastecimiento de materia prima, y mantener un cronograma con una mejor planificación en series de tiempos, y en el área de servicio permitirá fortalecer la relaciones con los clientes, aumentar la tasa de retención de estos y por ende un aumento en la cuota de sus gastos. Se obtendrán estas ventajas competitivas si la aplicación del e-business se da de forma adecuada en cada proceso y si se capacita oportunamente a los colaboradores

The Narrative Performances of Teenage Girls: Participation, Identity, and Authority as the Foundation for Power

This thesis explores the ways in which teenage girls use narrative performance to negotiate participation, social and gender identity, and individual authority in order to establish ratified and equal statuses of power within their social peer group. Although previous work on narrative discourse has shown that narratives can act as the catalyst for the complex co/construction of identity especially in social situations of talk, little work has been done to focus on the way teenagers, particularly girls, use this discourse to their benefit as they fulfill social and gender goals in social and conversational settings. Furthermore, while multimodal, narrative performance has been discussed as a cognitive and participation centered function of narrative discourse, this work has been largely quantitative. Consequently, the field of sociolinguistics, predominantly in the realm of narrative discourse, could use more work on the social function of narrative performance. This project, then, combines an analysis of teenage girls’ narrative co/construction in social contexts with a qualitative analysis of their use of narrative performance to show the ways in which this combination allows the girls to do complicated social and linguistic work to manage membership statuses, via complex participation frameworks. Data for this project consists of 5, one hour long, audio and video recorded instances in which four teenage girls, who make up an established peer group, hang out during regular social meetings. An analysis carried out via a lens of Narrative Discourse influenced by Conversation Analysis (CA), revealed that teenage girls are doing a great deal of power negotiation during their social interactions and that moments of narrative, particularly those in which narrative performances are utilized, function to make these negotiations both visible and therefore more influential on overall group dynamics. Suggestions for how this research could be continued in the future are discussed

Gestión de calidad en el área de quirófano en el Hospital Básico Naranjito, Guayas, Ecuador, y propuesta de un plan gerencial de gestión de calidad total, 2020

El trabajo de investigación titulada “Gestión de Calidad en el área de Quirófano en el Hospital Básico Naranjito, Guayas, y propuesta de un plan gerencial de gestión de calidad total, 2020”, presenta como objetivo describir el nivel de gestión de calidad en el área de quirófano en el Hospital Básico Naranjito, Guayas y elaborar una propuesta de un plan gerencial de gestión de calidad total, 2020.; se utilizó un paradigma de tipo cuantitativo, teniendo como diseño de investigación descriptivo no experimental, en la cual la muestra estuvo compuesta por 33 personas que conforman el personal directo que labora en el Área de Quirófano, el instrumento fue validado por expertos y se sometió a prueba de confiabilidad. Para el logro del objetivo descrito se realizó la aplicación de una encuesta sobre gestión de calidad, la cual estuvo conformada de 31 preguntas. Dentro de los resultados obtenidos, observándose que el nivel de gestión de calidad en el Área de Quirófano es regular (47,47%), por otro lado teniendo en cuenta las dimensiones de la variable gestión de calidad se observa que la tendencia entre estas es variable, siendo la dimensión contexto de la organización (57,58%) en nivel malo, dimensión liderazgo (60,61%) nivel malo, en cuanto a la dimensión enfoque a proceso (69,70%) nivel regular, siendo que la dimensión apoyo (75,76%) nivel regular, dimensión compromiso de las personas (57,58%) nivel malo y, la dimensión mejora continua (42,42%) nivel malo. Finalmente, concluyendo que el nivel de gestión de calidad en el área de Quirófano es regular y esto se debe a la falta de inobservancia de las dimensiones que lo conforman