Empty Apologies: Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Crisis

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) crisis is a human rights crisis that demands swift and concrete action from the Canadian government. Indigenous women and girls in the United States and Canada are disproportionately affected by violence due to racist, white supremacist, colonialist values ingrained in society and the federal government. This paper looks into the findings of Canada’s 2016 National Inquiry into the MMIWG crisis and determines the progress that the Canadian government has made toward ending the crisis. The paper concludes that the Canadian government has used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse for delayed action and their programs will take years, even decades to be implemented considering the pace of the National Inquiry. If the Inquiry’s Calls to Action are met with inadequate solutions implemented for optics, Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people will continue to be taken from their families and communities. The next few years will reveal whether the National Inquiry was a political ploy to temporarily appease the public, or a genuine effort to end this severe human rights crisis

The Need for a School-based Student Obesity Prevention Program: Perceptions of Rural Elementary Principals

This phenomenological study investigated the perceptions of elementary principals regarding the need for a school-based student obesity prevention at eight, rural elementary schools in North Central Texas. Face to face interviews were the primary method of data collection from the eight participants. Findings indicated that school-based obesity prevention programs are needed to decrease the occurrence of student obesity, improve student diets and health related behaviors, educate families on obesity prevention measures, and improve the academic performance of students. The need to inform and include relevant stakeholders in the creation and implementation of school-based obesity prevention programs was identified as an essential component to the success of the program. The findings provide school leaders with components needed for an effective school-based obesity prevention program along with barriers for consideration

The ethnic identity complexity of transculturally placed foster youth in the Netherlands

This study addresses the ethnic identity of transculturally placed adolescent foster youth with ethnic minority backgrounds in The Netherlands. We conducted qualitative interviews to provide insight into the lifeworlds of twenty foster youth. We found that constructing an ethnic identity was complex for these ethnic minority foster youth. The foster youth showed ethnic identity ambivalence, and contradictory messages about ethnicity by birth parents, foster parents, peers, and strangers contributed to this process. The foster youth also sometimes distanced themselves from their ethnic minority background whereby the intersection of their ethnic minority background and the background of being a foster child could play a role. Additionally, some foster youth told stories of longing for and belonging to their ethnic minority background, especially when birth parents and foster parents cooperated in ethnic socialization. Overall, contradictory and intersecting messages provided by birth parents, foster parents, and peers influenced the extent to which they experienced their ethnic identity as complex. Therefore, future studies should be conducted to provide more insight into these processes, so foster care agencies and foster parents can be trained to fulfill a more guiding role in the ethnic identity development of transculturally placed foster youth

The ethnic identity of transracially placed foster children with an ethnic minority background:A systematic literature review

BackgroundEthnic minority foster children are frequently placed in families with ethnic majority backgrounds. In the international literature these placements are most commonly called transracial placements.AimsWith this study, we aim to obtain an encompassing view of the empirical scientific literature on how transracial placements may affect the ethnic identity of foster children.Materials and methodsTo gain insight into the ethnic identity of transracially placed foster children and the way they are ethnically socialized, we conducted a systematic literature review. We thereby followed the guidelines of the PRISMA statement.ResultsTransracially placed foster children may experience higher fluctuations in their racial/ ethnic identity over time than adolescents with a minority background in the general population. They also seem to be prone to experience disconnection from, or on the contrary, connection with the birth network; and some transracially placed foster children struggle with societal messages they receive about minority ethnicity and race. They may have an increased awareness of their minority ethnic background because of different physical appearances between themselves and the foster family. Foster parents can play a pivotal role in these processes, since culturally competent foster parents may guide foster children in their ethnic identity development by being open towards children’s cultural minority background as well as being self‐reflective regarding their own cultural values and beliefs.DiscussionThe ethnic development of transracially placed foster children seems to be influenced by intersecting mechanisms of being in foster care and having a minority ethnicity. Although the selected articles assume that foster parents impact the ethnic identities of their ethnic minority foster children, none of them measured the impact of foster parents’ skills and knowledge on foster children’ s ethnic identity development directly.ConclusionBeing transracially placed impacts the ethnic identity of foster children. Foster parents need to be cultural competent to encourage their foster children’s ethnic identity development

Working with and for social enterprises: the role of the volunteer ethnographer

Purpose – This paper considers the specific opportunities and challenges of engaging in ethnographic research with organisations in which the researcher participates as a volunteer ethnographer. Design/methodology/approach – The findings in this paper are based on four years of ethnographic research within a social enterprise. Findings – This paper finds that there are significant benefits of the role of the volunteer ethnographer and suggests ways to address some of the challenges. Research limitations/implications – As the field of social enterprise and ethnography grows and researchers engage with methodological discussions about participant observation, the authors suggest that attention should also be paid to the specifics of the role of the volunteer ethnographer. Originality/value – There is growing interest in the use of ethnography in social enterprises. This paper offers unique insight into how this methodology has been applied in the context of self-reliant groups and the importance of the engaging with discussion about the specific role of the volunteer ethnographer

Morphological evolution of creek networks in 10 restored coastal wetlands in the UK

Coastal wetlands provide crucial ecosystem services including flood protection and carbon storage, but are being lost rapidly worldwide to the combined effects of sea-level rise, erosion and coastal urbanisation. Managed Realignment (MR) aims to mitigate for these losses by restoring reclaimed land to tidal influence. Data of creek evolution is critical to assess the performance of design strategies and improve design and implementation practices. This data descriptor provides a dataset of the horizontal morphological evolution of creek systems from various initial conditions in 10 MR schemes across the UK. Using a semi-automated workflow, morphological creek parameters were extracted from 52 lidar datasets at 1 m horizontal resolution spanning 2 to 20 years post-breach. This constitutes the most comprehensive systematic monitoring of MR creek morphology to date. The dataset will assist future MR design and provide baseline morphological information for ecological and biogeochemical surveying

The Vehicle, Fall 2004

Table of Contents Six-Billion to One AgainstRyan Maneypage 5 May 25th, 2004Megan Rankinpage 6 Summer DeliveryAnthony Shootpage 7 A Young Family, Smithland, Kentucky. October 1935.Clementinepage 8 UntitledJonathan M. Cookpage 9 October 23, 2021Ryan Maneypage 10 Last NightKaty Dwigginspage 11 UntitledMegan Rankinpage 12 Clever DisguiseSarah Johnsonpage 13 conspiracy against grandmaClementinepage 14 ThunderKitty Apodacapage 15 UntitledJonathan M. Cookpage 16 Self PortraitAnnette Carlinpage 17 LeavesAnthony Shootpage 18 UntitledKaty Dwigginspage 19 The Woman I Almost UnderstoodGreg Lyonspage 20 Flesh and SandJonathan M. Cookpage 21 Lunch DateAlisa Habelpage 22 Like and Unlike Everyone ElseC. Alan Doughtypage 23 Thankfully SwayedSarah Johnsonpage 24 A Warm Winter DayJoshua D. Andersonpage 25-26 Oak, Maple, SassafrasClementinepage 27-30https://thekeep.eiu.edu/vehicle/1080/thumbnail.jp

Facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue to manage natural resource competition: A synthesis of lessons from Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia

Rural development or natural resource management program planning and implementation frequently confront challenges of environmental resource competition and conflict, particularly where common pool resources are a major component of rural livelihoods. This paper reports on an approach to multistakeholder dialogue, supported by participatory action research, to address the roots of such competition and conflict. The approach, called “Collaborating for Resilience,” includes principles and guidance on building a shared understanding of risks and opportunities, weighing alternative actions, developing action plans, and evaluating and learning from the outcomes. Working in partnership with government, community and civil society actors, the approach was developed and refined through applications in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. This paper presents a synthesis of lessons addressing practitioners in government, nongovernmental development organizations, and international development agencies. These lessons include guidance on the context of multistakeholder dialogue processes, addressing gender equity, building stakeholder relationships and accountability across scales, and encouraging learning and innovation over time

The Future of Sensitivity Analysis: An essential discipline for systems modeling and policy support

Sensitivity analysis (SA) is en route to becoming an integral part of mathematical modeling. The tremendous potential benefits of SA are, however, yet to be fully realized, both for advancing mechanistic and data-driven modeling of human and natural systems, and in support of decision making. In this perspective paper, a multidisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners revisit the current status of SA, and outline research challenges in regard to both theoretical frameworks and their applications to solve real-world problems. Six areas are discussed that warrant further attention, including (1) structuring and standardizing SA as a discipline, (2) realizing the untapped potential of SA for systems modeling, (3) addressing the computational burden of SA, (4) progressing SA in the context of machine learning, (5) clarifying the relationship and role of SA to uncertainty quantification, and (6) evolving the use of SA in support of decision making. An outlook for the future of SA is provided that underlines how SA must underpin a wide variety of activities to better serve science and society.John Jakeman’s work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. Joseph Guillaume received funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (project no. DE190100317). Arnald Puy worked on this paper on a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, grant number 792178. Takuya Iwanaga is supported through an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Scholarship and the ANU Hilda-John Endowment Fun

A metapopulation model to assess the capacity of spread of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ST398 in humans.

The emergence of the livestock-associated clone of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) ST398 is a serious public health issue throughout Europe. In The Netherlands a stringent 'search-and-destroy' policy has been adopted, keeping low the level of MRSA prevalence. However, reports have recently emerged of transmission events between humans showing no links to livestock, contradicting belief that MRSA ST398 is poorly transmissible in humans. The question regarding the transmissibility of MRSA ST398 in humans therefore remains of great interest. Here, we investigated the capacity of MRSA ST398 to spread into an entirely susceptible human population subject to the effect of a single MRSA-positive commercial pig farm. Using a stochastic, discrete-time metapopulation model, we explored the effect of varying both the probability of persistent carriage and that of acquiring MRSA due to contact with pigs on the transmission dynamics of MRSA ST398 in humans. In particular, we assessed the value and key determinants of the basic reproduction ratio (R(0)) for MRSA ST398. Simulations showed that the presence of recurrent exposures with pigs in risky populations allows MRSA ST398 to persist in the metapopulation and transmission events to occur beyond the farming community, even when the probability of persistent carriage is low. We further showed that persistent carriage should occur in less than 10% of the time for MRSA ST398 to conserve epidemiological characteristics similar to what has been previously reported. These results indicate that implementing control policy that only targets human carriers may not be sufficient to control MRSA ST398 in the community if it remains in pigs. We argue that farm-level control measures should be implemented if an eradication programme is to be considered