Perceptions of Risk within Pastoralist Households in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia

Perceptions of risk may vary within households as well as across households and communities. In this paper, we take advantage of panel survey data collected quarterly over a period of 2 ½ years to see how perceptions of risk vary across individuals over time. The surveyed households are in pastoralist communities in Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia and the survey period coincides with a severe drought in this region and the beginning of the recovery. We identify the structural heterogeneity of the perceptions of risk of these individuals. Because of the nature of panel data, we can also test how the perceptions of risk are affected by shocks in previous periods. In particular, we ask how an individual's risk perceptions change when shocks happen to him or herself, to other members of his or her, family, or to members of his or her community. This allows us to ask how expectations adapt based on the things that are happening to others and allows us to look at issues of social networks and learning.Risk and Uncertainty,

Interpersonal, Intertemporal and Spatial Variation in Risk Perceptions: Evidence from East Africa

This study investigates variation over time, space and household and individual characteristics in how people perceive different risks. Using original data from the arid and semi-arid lands of east Africa, we explore which risks concern individuals and how they assess their relative level of concern about these identified risks. Because these assessments were gathered for multiple time periods, sites, households and individuals within households, we are able to identify the degree to which risk perceptions vary across time, across communities, across households within a community, and across individuals within a household. We find the primary determinants of risk rankings to be changing community level variables over time, with household specific and individual specific variables exhibiting much less influence. This suggests that community based planning and monitoring of development efforts that address risk exposure should be prioritized. We also find that individuals throughout this area are most concerned about food security overall, so that development efforts that directly address this problem should be given the highest priority

Introduction to The Special Issue: Advances in Methods and Measurement in Family Psychology

This special issue presents a collection of reports that highlight recent advances in methods and measurement and also shed light on the complexity of family psychology. The importance of theory in guiding solid family science is evident throughout these reports. The reports include guides for researchers who incorporate direct observation into their research protocols and the ever-expanding field of tele-health interventions. Advanced analytic approaches are offered in the areas of grid sequence analysis, latent fixed-effects models, and the Factors of Curves Model (FOCUS). These sophisticated analytic approaches may be applied to advance systemic thinking in family psychology. The last set of articles illustrate how complex and innovative methodologies are applied to address important societal issues. Work experiences and marital relationships in African American couples address the importance of spillover effects in contemporary families. The creation of biobehavioral plasticity index has the potential to inform gene x environment contributions to family functioning. Finally, the unique methodological issues that are particularly germane to the diverse nature of stepfamilies and nonresident fathers are addressed. We hope that readers of this special issue will return to these reports as resources and examples of theory-driven methods and measurements

Laser-Ionized Underdense Passive Plasma Lens for Focusing Electron Beams

Next generation accelerators and colliders using relativistic electron beams are continuously pushing the demand for higher luminosity beams with smaller and smaller spot sizes. To address this need, passive plasma lenses operating in the nonlinear blowout regime of beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) are capable of providing focusing forces to electron beams orders of magnitude stronger than conventional quadrupole magnets. To realize these lenses in practice, high intensity lasers can be used to ionize a small volume of gas and producing a plasma lens with precisely determined density profile. The quality of an electron beam focused by a plasma lens is determined by the phase space evolution of the beam while it is within the plasma wakefield. The strong electric fields can also increase an electron beam's emittance through chromatic phase spreading, which deteriorates the transverse quality of the beam. This dissertation covers the formalism used to describe the focusing of an electron beam from a passive, underdense plasma lens and demonstrates use cases for these lenses in experiments using relativistic electron beams. To perform plasma lens experiments, we propose a setup to ionize a 100&nbsp;&micro;m&nbsp;scale plasma lens via laser ionization of a gas jet outflow at the FACET-II accelerator facility of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. We investigate possible focusing aberrations induced by nonuniform transverse density profiles. Finally, we report on experimental progress towards the demonstration of an underdense thin plasma lens, including the analysis of preliminary data from commissioning shifts carried out at FACET-II.</p

Using ChatGPT with Novice Arduino Programmers: Effects on Performance, Interest, Self-Efficacy, and Programming Ability

A posttest-only control group experimental design compared novice Arduino programmers who developed their own programs (self-programming group, n =17) with novice Arduino programmers who used ChatGPT 3.5 to write their programs (ChatGPT-programming group, n = 16) on the dependent variables of programming scores, interest in Arduino programming, Arduino programming self-efficacy, Arduino programming posttest scores, and types of programming errors. Students were undergraduates in an introductory agricultural systems technology course in Fall 2023. The results indicated no significant (p \u3c .10) differences between groups for programming rubric scores (p = .50) or interest in Arduino programming (p = .50). There were significant differences for Arduino programming self-efficacy, (p = .03, Cohen’s d = 0.75) and Arduino posttest scores, (p = .03, Cohen’s d = 0.76); students in the self-programming group scored significantly higher on both measures. Analysis of students’ errors indicated the ChatGPT group made significantly (p \u3c .01) more program punctuation errors. These results indicated novice students writing their own programs developed greater Arduino programming self-efficacy and programming ability than novice students using ChatGPT. Nevertheless, ChatGPT may still play an important role in assisting novices to write microcontroller programs

EFFECTIVENESS OF VESTIBULAR STIMULATION IN CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL COORDINATION DISORDER

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to find out the effects of vestibular stimulation in developmental coordination disorder (DCD) children. Methodology: Thirty children (n=30) were screened using the DCD questionnaire (DCDQ). After baseline screening among the 30 children, 15 were confirmed as suspects of DCD. Vestibular stimulation was given for all the 15 children. Results: It is revealed that the motor coordination was improved significantly in children with DCD. Conclusion: The present study concluded that vestibular stimulation is effective to enhance performance in tasks requiring motor coordination

Perspectives on Development in Arid and Semi-Arid East Africa: Results of a Ranking Exercise

This study investigates perspectives on development held by individuals living in arid and semi-arid areas of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. Overall, we find that interventions to meet basic human needs (access to water, health care and education) are the most highly desired. Projects supporting pastoral livelihoods (livestock health and marketing-oriented, restocking and conflict resolution) are second most important, followed by those that support alternatives to pastoralism (cropping, other income generating activities). Econometric analysis indicates that variation in rankings is mostly driven by variation across communities rather than across households within communities, lending support to community-based approaches to priority setting

Educational Investments in a Dual Economy

This paper presents a simple two-period, dual economy model in which migration options may affect the informal financing of educational investments. When credit contracts are universally available and perfectly enforceable, spatially varied returns to human capital have no effect on educational investment patterns. But when financial markets are incomplete and informal mechanisms subject to imperfect contract enforcement must fill the breach, spatial inequality in infrastructure or other attributes that affect the returns to education create spatial differentiation in educational lending and consequently, in educational attainment. Although migration options can increase the returns to education, they can also choke off the informal finance on which poorer rural households depend for long-term, lumpy investments like children\u27s education

Temporal Evolution of the Light Emitted by a Thin, Laser-ionized Plasma Source

We present an experimental and simulation-based investigation of the temporal evolution of light emission from a thin, laser-ionized Helium plasma source. We demonstrate an analytic model to calculate the approximate scaling of the time-integrated, on-axis light emission with the initial plasma density and temperature, supported by the experiment, which enhances the understanding of plasma light measurement for plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) plasma sources. Our model simulates the plasma density and temperature using a split-step Fourier code and a particle-in-cell (PIC) code. A fluid simulation is then used to model the plasma and neutral density, and the electron temperature as a function of time and position. We then show the numerical results of the space-and-time-resolved light emission and that collisional excitation is the dominant source of light emission. We validate our model by measuring the light emitted by a laser-ionized plasma using a novel statistical method capable of resolving the nanosecond-scale temporal dynamics of the plasma light using a cost-effective camera with microsecond-scale timing jitter. This method is ideal for deployment in the high radiation environment of a particle accelerator that precludes the use of expensive nanosecond-gated cameras. Our results show that our models can effectively simulate the dynamics of a thin, laser-ionized plasma source and this work is useful to understand the plasma light measurement, which plays an important role in the PWFA.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure