Institutional Learning and Change: An initiative to promote greater impact through agricultural research for poverty alleviation

The ILAC Initiative consists of an evolving community of individuals committed to increasing the contributions of agricultural research to sustainable poverty reduction around the world. ILAC promotes research, methodology development and capacity development to increase understanding of agricultural change processes and increase the effectiveness of interventions to stimulate pro-poor innovation. This paper presents a broad overview of ILAC, including its background, origins and evolution, objectives and activities. It also presents the initiative’s central hypothesis and a set of guiding questions. Theoretical frameworks that show promise for increasing understanding of issues related to capacities to learn, facilitate innovation, and contribute to poverty reduction are introduced.agricultural, research, ILAC, pro-poor, innovation, farmers, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Control into infinitival relatives

This article focuses on a novel English construction involving control and infinitival relatives. Examples such as this is John's book to read have a head noun (book) modified by an infinitival relative clause (to read) and a prenominal possessor (John's). I argue that there is a control relation between the prenominal possessor and the PRO subject of the infinitival relative. I show that this control relation bears the structural hallmarks of obligatory control whilst at the same time permitting PRO to be interpreted as arbitrary. I discuss these empirical facts in the context of a syntactic, Agree-based theory of control.</jats:p

Do Facebook Usage Patterns Influence Individuals’ ICT Engagement?

Research problem: Information Communication Technology (ICT) access and information literacy appear to be increasingly linked with individuals’ personal, social, educational, vocational and economic outcomes. Social media, especially Facebook, is increasingly ubiquitous amongst online adults, and some studies have found significant negative correlations between social media and educational outcomes, and also in some contexts positive correlations. If Facebook usage patterns significantly influence ICT engagement, then they therefore may also impact on users’ broad socioeconomic outcomes and well-being. Methodology: This research is based in the quantitative tradition, and is a cross-sectional correlational study. Questionnaire instruments were used, as quantitative approaches using questionnaire instruments have previously been successfully used in cross-sectional studies to measure ICT engagement and educational outcomes. The instruments were designed to measure three variables: individuals’ average duration of weekly Facebook access; average frequency of the same; and ICT engagement. Inferential statistical analyses were used to determine correlations between the Facebook usage variables and ICT engagement. The target population was online New Zealanders (this limit was imposed to assist feasibility) aged 16 and over. To maximise representativeness and minimise sampling bias, links to the questionnaire instrument were offered to the general public via public libraries across New Zealand. Results: While there was no significant correlation found between the duration of users’ average weekly Facebook access and ICT engagement, a significant (though weak) positive correlation of .279 at the 0.01 level (two-tailed) using the Pearson product moment correlation. Interestingly, Facebook access frequency and Facebook access duration were also similarly significantly positively correlated, though here only at .299. This suggests that while users’ frequency of access and duration of access patterns do influence one another, there is a wide range of effect of this influence. Thus it appears that users’ Facebook access patterns can be quite varied and heterogeneous, at least so far as the combinations of duration and frequency of access are concerned. Implications: Due to methodological limitations, as discussed in this report, further research and replication of the findings is advised to better inform the consideration of implications of this research’s results on digital divide issues and broad socioeconomic outcomes, and the subsequent recommendations for updates to information professionals’ practice or governmental policy in these areas. Based on the findings of this report, it appears possible that facilitating users’ frequent access to Facebook (and perhaps, speculatively at this stage, across a variety of devices e.g. desktop computer, laptop, pad or tablet, smartphone etc.) could have a significant positive impact on overall ICT engagement. Due to digital divide issues and the possible relationship between ICT engagement and broad social outcomes, this may raise issues of governmental and information professional obligation to work deliberately to facilitate said access, particularly for individuals and groups characterised by low Socioeconomic Status (SES) or ICT access groups. This might include funding and educational workshops directed at assisting and advocating Facebook access in a broader range of contexts and devices throughout individuals’ daily activities. As a correlational study though, an important caveat is that the direction of causation (if causation indeed exists) is naturally unclear

Job-Related Stress and Burnout in Charter School Leaders: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the impact of stress and burnout on charter school leaders in the western United States. The research questions were designed to understand how the role of charter school leadership impacts stress and burnout for charter school leaders. The theories guiding this study included the managerial stress cycle theory, and the multidimensional theory of burnout. While existing research has documented the stressors of traditional public-school administrators, little research has explored the distinctive challenges faced by charter school administrators. Data collection included individual interviews, a focus group interview, and observations. The identification of themes came from the reading and coding of the transcriptions using qualitative analysis software to discover the essence of stress and burnout as experienced by charter school leaders. The causes of stress and burnout described by participants included relationships with local school boards, maintaining student enrollment, and the broad scope of the job of charter school leader. Participants indicated job-related stress and burnout negatively impacted personal and professional relationships, job performance and satisfaction, and physical and mental health. Participants reported periods of chronic stress leading to incidents of burnout

Using Oral Quizzes in an Engineering Mechanics Course

Engineers are required to be competent technical experts and also effective communicators. This paper describes the development of a rubric for oral quizzes in engineering mechanics courses. The rubric was developed collaboratively with the engineering and world languages departments, and tested in a single section of Engineering Mechanics: Statics in the spring of 2014. The goals of the oral quizzes were to increase students’ comfort with explaining a solution method, competency using appropriate technical language, and ability to organize the problem solving method. Oral quizzes (versus pen-and-paper or online quizzes) also provide the instructor with the ability to immediately prompt a student who might be unsure of how to proceed with a problem and identify misconceptions or areas of weakness for specific students. The rubrics provide a means to measure the student performance in each of the goal areas: technical language, organization, content, clarity, and attitude. This paper includes anecdotal evidence from students on their attitudes about the oral quizzes, and compares performance on oral quizzes with the same questions given in a traditional format

Time of arrival difference estimation for narrow band high frequency echolocation clicks

Funding: Scottish Government as part of the Marine Mammal Scientific Research Program MMSS/002/15; Natural Environment Research Council, Grant No. NE/R014639/1.Algorithms are presented for the accurate time of arrival difference estimation of high frequency narrow band echolocation clicks from Harbor Porpoise. These clicks typically have a center frequency of around 130 kHz (wavelength ∼1.2 cm) and duration of 10 dB these errors can be reduced by over two orders of magnitude through a combination of up-sampling the data and parabolic interpolation of peaks in the cross-correlation functions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Modular categories as representations of the 3-dimensional bordism 2-category

We show that once-extended anomalous 3-dimensional topological quantum field theories valued in the 2-category of k-linear categories are in canonical bijection with modular tensor categories equipped with a square root of the global dimension in each factor.Comment: 71 page

Infection frequently triggers thrombotic microangiopathy in patients with preexisting risk factors : a single-institution experience

Thrombotic microangiopathies are rare conditions characterized by microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, microthrombi, and multiorgan insult. The disorders, which include hemolytic uremic syndrome and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, are often acute and life threatening. We report a retrospective analysis of 65 patients presenting to our institution from 1997 to 2008 with all forms of thrombotic microangiopathy. Therapeutic plasma exchange was a requirement for analysis and 65 patients were referred to our institution; 66% of patients were female and median age at presentation was 52 years. Bacterial infection was the most commonly identified etiologic factor and in the multivariate model was the only significant variable associated with survival outcome (odds ratio 5.1, 95% confidence interval, 1.2-21.7). As infection can be considered a common trigger event for thrombotic microangiopathy, patients with hepatobiliary sepsis may benefit from elective cholecystectomy. We conclude that bacterial infection frequently triggers TTP and other thrombotic microangiopathies in patients with preexisting risk factors and propose a model for the development of these syndromes

Predicting Empathy From Resting State Brain Connectivity: A Multivariate Approach.

Recent task fMRI studies suggest that individual differences in trait empathy and empathic concern are mediated by patterns of connectivity between self-other resonance and top-down control networks that are stable across task demands. An untested implication of this hypothesis is that these stable patterns of connectivity should be visible even in the absence of empathy tasks. Using machine learning, we demonstrate that patterns of resting state fMRI connectivity (i.e. the degree of synchronous BOLD activity across multiple cortical areas in the absence of explicit task demands) of resonance and control networks predict trait empathic concern (n = 58). Empathic concern was also predicted by connectivity patterns within the somatomotor network. These findings further support the role of resonance-control network interactions and of somatomotor function in our vicariously driven concern for others. Furthermore, a practical implication of these results is that it is possible to assess empathic predispositions in individuals without needing to perform conventional empathy assessments

Models of Care for High-Need, High-Cost Patients: An Evidence Synthesis

This brief analyzes experts' reviews of evidence about care models designed to improve outcomes and reduce costs for patients with complex needs. It finds that successful models have several common attributes: targeting patients likely to benefit from the intervention; comprehensively assessing patients' risks and needs; relying on evidence-based care planning and patient monitoring; promoting patient and family engagement in self-care; coordinating care and communication among patients and providers; facilitating transitions from the hospital and referrals to community resources; and providing appropriate care in accordance with patients' preferences. Overall, the evidence of impact is modest and few of these models have been widely adopted in practice because of barriers, such as a lack of supportive financial incentives under fee-for-service reimbursement arrangements. Overcoming these challenges will be essential to achieving a higher-performing health care system for this patient population