Regulation of labour market intermediaries and the role of social partners in preventing trafficking of labour

This report aims to contribute to the development of a best practice guide for public authorities on monitoring and enforcing rules and regulations relevant to labour market intermediaries to prevent trafficking for labour exploitation. The report brings together research findings on two main areas: how labour market intermediaries are regulated by public authorities in the different Member States, and to what extent social partners’ activities contribute to preventing trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation. The main focus of the report is on trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation and does not cover trafficking for sexual exploitation. The report is based on information provided by Eurofound’s network of European correspondents across all 28 EU Member States and Norwa

Visualizing Geometric Structures on Topological Surfaces

We study an interplay between topology, geometry, and algebra. Topology is the study of properties unchanged by bending, stretching or twisting space. Geometry measures space through concepts such as length, area, and angles. In the study of two-dimensional surfaces one can go back and forth between picturing twists as either distortions of the geometric properties of the surface or as a wrinkling of the surface while leaving internal measures unchanged. The language of groups gives us a way to distinguish geometric structures. Understanding the mapping class group is an important and hard problem. This paper contributes to visualizing how the mapping class group acts on geometric structures. We explore the geometry of closed, compact, and orientable two-dimensional manifolds through direct visualization and computation. We prove that the mapping class group of a torus is isomorphic to SL2Z via direct matrix multiplication on the generating elements of the fundamental group. While the fundamental group of the torus has only one possible presentation, up to homeomorphism; the case for the genus 2 surface is more complicated. We prove that an octagon representing a genus 2 surface can have its edges identified in different combinations to produce exactly four different possible presentations of fundamental groups. We explore surgeries on one of those types and show that surgeries that preserve that type are equivalent to Dehn twists on the surface, which are generators of the mapping class grou

Heart failure nursing in Australia: Challenges, strengths, and opportunities

Australia has a land mass similar to the United States of America, supporting a population of just over 20 million, which is distributed predominantly across the coastal perimeter. The Australian society is rich in cultural diversity fostered by decades of migration. Both these factors present challenges for health care. First, because resources are scare in rural and remote regions, health outcomes are poorer in these regions, especially among indigenous populations. Second, the cultural diversity of Australians is a challenge to providing evidence-based treatment recommendations. In Australia, in parallel with international trends, there is a strong association between socioeconomic status, chronic conditions, and health outcomes

Beyond precautionary measures : the commitment and practice of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights to implement a gender and multicultural perspective

New iterations of violence have emerged in Latin America as democratic governments replaced old dictatorships. However, human rights abuses have continued as new models of neoliberalism and globalization reinforce old structures of gender, race and ethnicity. The human rights systems, besides its cosmetic procedural changes and new programs, seem to be navigating cautiously and slowly these new iterations and evolving economic models while attempting to monitor and defend human rights. This thesis engages in a reflection on how human rights mechanisms, in general, and precautionary measures in the Inter-American Commission, in particular, are protecting people and communities in vulnerable situations today. Gender-mainstreaming has led to a slow, but visible rise in practices around gender sensitivity in the Inter-American System. As a result of multiculturalism in the human rights regimes, the System has celebrated the rise of collective and cultural rights, but the logic of multicultural neoliberalism has presented challenges to communities accessing the System. Where the literature has fallen short and this thesis makes a contribution is that there must be an intersectional analysis of these two trends—gender mainstreaming and multiculturalism—in order to understand many of the opportunities and challenges confronting the System. The gender violence that results from or exists in the context of multicultural neoliberalism is often silenced but becomes visible in this thesis through a survey of different cases of precautionary measures. Femicides, disappearances, and the assassination of human rights defenders are all on the rise. And these iterations of violence threaten in particular ways the lives of women and indigenous and afro-descendant women. In general, the study aims to expand on the literature of human rights, engage in a reflection of human rights mechanisms, and identify the opportunities and limitations of international human rights systems in achieving gender, multicultural and racial justice as part of transformative, counter-hegemonic projects during a time of neoliberalism.Latin American Studie

Biophysical Characterization of the Par-4 Tumor Suppressor: Evidence of Structure Outside the Coiled Coil Domain and Interactions with Platinum Chemotherapeutics

Prostate apoptosis response-4 (Par-4) is an apoptosis-inducing tumor suppressor protein. Full-length Par-4 has previously been shown to be a predominantly intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) under neutral conditions, with significant regular secondary structure evident only within the C-terminal coiled coil domain. However, IDPs can gain ordered structure through the process of induced folding, which often occurs under non-neutral conditions. Previous work has shown that the Par-4 leucine zipper, which is a subset of the C-terminal coiled coil domain, is disordered under neutral conditions, but forms a dimeric coiled coil at acidic pH. Increase in ionic strength was also shown to increase leucine zipper formation. Building on this work, we undertook to study the effects of environment on a naturally occurring Par-4 segment, the cl-Par-4 fragment. During apoptosis, intracellular full-length Par-4 is cleaved at aspartic acid 131 by caspase-3, generating a 24 kilodalton fragment (cl-Par-4). Cl-Par-4 enters the nucleus and inhibits pro-survival genes, thereby preventing cancer cell proliferation. Here, the structure of cl-Par-4 was investigated using circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), intrinsic tyrosine fluorescence, and size exclusion chromatography with multi-angle light scattering (SEC-MALS). Biophysical characterization showed that under conditions of low salt and neutral pH, cl-Par-4 forms large soluble aggregates. We have clearly identified two disparate conditions under which cl-Par-4 forms non-aggregated largely helical structures. First, with low salt and acidic pH, c l-Par-4 folds into a predominantly alpha helical and coiled coil structure. Second, at neutral pH and high ionic strength, cl-Par-4 forms highly helical tetramers. Together, these results suggest that the cellular environment influences the in vivo structure and self-association state of cl-Par-4 and that the tetramer may be the active conformation under specific intracellular conditions. A third area of research involves the chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin and its trans isomer transplatin. We have shown that both bind directly to full-length Par-4 and the caspase-cleaved fragment. It appears that this binding interaction occurs through coordination of platinum to sulfur ligands in the protein, such as methionine and/or cysteine residues. This direct binding of cisplatin and transplatin could also subsequently influence apoptotic activity and Par-4 structure

Effects of Integrating Mathematical Concepts Into An Animal Science Curriculum

Nationwide, mathematical scores have been a topic of concern among elementary and secondary educators for many years. Decreasing math skills are also trickling into post-secondary education, requiring universities to provide additional remedial math instruction in colleges and universities. Studies have been conducted to discover the most effective pedagogical methods of teaching math. Teaching contextualized math has been found to be effective and includes providing a direct application to real-life scenarios rather than teaching linear equations and algebraic principles outside of their application. A study was conducted measuring the effects of integrating mathematical skills in an animal science curriculum. Eight Utah schools participated in the research study. Students received a pretest measuring their existing mathematical skills and self-efficacy in math. All students were taught a unit of instruction about animal nutrition and feeding. The control group received a typical nutrition unit and the treatment group received the same unit of instruction with the addition of mathematical skill integration. Students were taught to use the Pearson Square to calculate feed rations as well as solve basic equations to balance rations. Following the unit of instruction, students completed a posttest survey, which included a math attitudinal scale, posttreatment self-efficacy scale, and posttreatment math skills quiz. There was no statistically significant difference in math self-efficacy or math skills between the control group receiving a typical nutrition unit and the treatment group which received the math-enhanced unit of instruction. Correlational statistics were gathered and showed a strong positive relationship between students\u27 self-efficacy and math skills. Gender, grade level, highest completed math class, and grade received in highest-level math class were not found to be statistically significant predictions of math skills. Highest level of math completed and overall grade point average were statistically significant factors in predicting math self-efficacy