The Criminalization of Black Girls in K-12 U.S Schools: A Public Health Issue

This research examines the criminalization of Black girls in K-12 schools in the United States and presents possible solutions to the issue. A series of interviews conducted with Black girls and women who attended elementary, middle, and high school throughout the United States were used to develop the following research. The interviews were semi-structured with a set of questions surrounding the interviewees’ relationships with school professionals, their experience with in-school discipline, and their sense of belonging within the school setting. Interviewees o en expanded on the set questions with in-depth anecdotes of their personal experiences and what they witnessed in school. The interview responses were used to understand what experiences Black girls are having in school in relation to discipline; in addition, Black Critical Theory was used to further analyze and explain the recurring anti-Black treatment targeted towards Black girls. Interviews repeatedly revealed that Black girls are having ongoing encounters with violence, intolerance, lack of support within school, and exclusionary discipline. Additionally, this research found that Black girls are experiencing adultification as early as kindergarten and have developed personal and shared trauma as a result of their school experiences. Furthermore, this study unveiled a strong need for school professionals and involved organizations to acknowledge the unique experiences of differing cultural and identity groups while constructing classroom environments and discipline policies

Library resources, student success and the distance-learning university

Purpose - Research at the Open University Library Services has been investigating the relationshipbetween access to online library resources and student success to help to understand whether there is asimilar relationship at a distance-learning university to that found in other institutions. Design/methodology/approach - A small library data project was established to investigate this area.The study analysed online library resource data from access logs from the EZproxy and OpenAthens systems. A data set of 1.7 million online resource accesses was combined with student success data for around 90,000 undergraduate students and a series of analyses undertaken.Findings The study found a pattern where students who are more successful are accessing more library resources. A chi-square test indicated a statistically significant association between library resource accesses and module result, while an ANOVA test suggests a medium sized effect. The study also found that 152 (76%) of 199 modules had a small, medium or large positive correlation between student success, measured by the overall assessment score, and online library resource accesses.Originality/value - This study builds on evidence that there is a relationship between library use and student success by showing that this relationship extends to the setting of a non-traditional, innovative library service supporting part-time distance learners

Creating Hard-working, Responsible Parents: A New Labour Structure of Feeling?

This thesis uses and extends Raymond Williams' (1961; 1977) structure of feeling approach to locate a mood about parenting during the New Labour years, and to consider what this approach can reveal about the presence, power and position of policy in parents' lives. It adapts the structure of feeling approach in two particular ways: by including interviews alongside policy and popular cultural sources; and by extending the notion of feeling to include personal feelings and their interaction with the wider public mood. These aclaptions were particularly relevant for a subject as personal as parenting, and for a cultural context which placed so much attention on the personal and personal responsibilities for monitoring and supervising the self (Giddens, 1991; Rose, 1999). In locating and analysing the structure of feeling, the thesis draws on the concepts of ideological dilemmas and interpretative repertoires which have been described as a range of competing ideologies that make up beliefs, values, practices and wisdoms of particular cultures, and a range of different rhetorical resources people have available to them to discuss and make sense of the dilemmas (Billig, 2001; Edley, 2001). In identifying three particular dilemmas - about the genclered nature of parenting, expertise about parenting, and work in the context of parenting - the thesis locates dominant and alternative ideas about parenting which point to a structure of feeling that is full of contestation which is managed through discourses of 'choice' and 'what works'. The thesis explores the personal responsibilities placed on parents for managing these dilemmas and the strategies they deploy to do this, and reveals that these strategies can vary according to parents' personal dispositions but also their social positionings. This thesis demonstrates the usefulness and significance of the structure of feeling approach for locating and understanding social inequalities and their (lack of) transformation in a cultural era emphasising the personal and personal responsibility

Poly(ethyl glyoxylate) Solid-Core Particles for Drug Delivery

The ability to trigger the degradation of polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) by a specific stimulus can provide a method of improved drug targeting and selective release capabilities in vivo. The challenge for most polymeric drug delivery systems remains the necessity for many stimuli events to trigger the release of cargo. Polymeric nanotechnology containing “self-immolative polymers” looks to alleviate the reliance on high concentrations of stimuli by undergoing complete end-to-end depolymerization via a single stimulus-mediated reaction of an end-cap. Herein, NPs were developed using poly(ethyl glyoxylate) (PEtG) blended with poly(d,l-lactic acid) (PLA) to encapsulate a hydrophobic cargo to be released upon stimulus-triggered cleavage of the PEtG end-cap. The PEtG-PLA NPs were formed using an oil-in-water emulsion-evaporation technique. Particles responsive to stimuli including UV light and reducing conditions were prepared and studied. Cleavage of the end-caps of these polymers was accomplished by introducing the relevant stimuli, resulting in a rapid degradation of the particles and subsequent release of cargo. Nile red as a fluorescent probe and the drug celecoxib were encapsulated within the particles and were shown to be released upon introduction of small amounts of the appropriate stimulus. Initial cell culture studies were performed to investigate the behavior of the systems in vitro. This system provides the ability to tune the responsiveness of the NPs by simply changing the PEtG end-cap, making them a great prospect for stimuli-responsive drug delivery vehicles

Representation of South Asian people in randomised clinical trials: analysis of trials' data

Excluding patients of ethnic minority groups from clinical trials is unethical, introduces substantial bias, and means that findings are based on unrepresentative populations. The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act 1993 requires that all minority groups be represented in the sample in research projects supported by the National Institutes of Health, unless there is a clear and compelling justification not to do so. In the United Kingdom no such legislation exists

Space Qualified High Speed Reed Solomon Encoder

This paper reports a Class S CCSDS recommendation Reed Solomon encoder circuit baselined for several NASA programs. The chip is fabricated using United Technologies Microelectronics Center's UTE-R radiation-hardened gate array family, contains 64,000 p-n transistor pairs, and operates at a sustained output data rate of 200 MBits/s. The chip features a pin selectable message interleave depth of from 1 to 8 and supports output block lengths of 33 to 255 bytes. The UTE-R process is reported to produce parts that are radiation hardened to 16 Rads (Si) total dose and 1.0(exp -10) errors/bit-day

A verification logic representation of indeterministic signal states

The integration of modern CAD tools with formal verification environments require translation from hardware description language to verification logic. A signal representation including both unknown state and a degree of strength indeterminacy is essential for the correct modeling of many VLSI circuit designs. A higher-order logic theory of indeterministic logic signals is presented

Diagnosable structured logic array

A diagnosable structured logic array and associated process is provided. A base cell structure is provided comprising a logic unit comprising a plurality of input nodes, a plurality of selection nodes, and an output node, a plurality of switches coupled to the selection nodes, where the switches comprises a plurality of input lines, a selection line and an output line, a memory cell coupled to the output node, and a test address bus and a program control bus coupled to the plurality of input lines and the selection line of the plurality of switches. A state on each of the plurality of input nodes is verifiably loaded and read from the memory cell. A trusted memory block is provided. The associated process is provided for testing and verifying a plurality of truth table inputs of the logic unit

Radiation tolerant combinational logic cell

A system has a reduced sensitivity to Single Event Upset and/or Single Event Transient(s) compared to traditional logic devices. In a particular embodiment, the system includes an input, a logic block, a bias stage, a state machine, and an output. The logic block is coupled to the input. The logic block is for implementing a logic function, receiving a data set via the input, and generating a result f by applying the data set to the logic function. The bias stage is coupled to the logic block. The bias stage is for receiving the result from the logic block and presenting it to the state machine. The state machine is coupled to the bias stage. The state machine is for receiving, via the bias stage, the result generated by the logic block. The state machine is configured to retain a state value for the system. The state value is typically based on the result generated by the logic block. The output is coupled to the state machine. The output is for providing the value stored by the state machine. Some embodiments of the invention produce dual rail outputs Q and Q'. The logic block typically contains combinational logic and is similar, in size and transistor configuration, to a conventional CMOS combinational logic design. However, only a very small portion of the circuits of these embodiments, is sensitive to Single Event Upset and/or Single Event Transients

Apprendre pour vivre : transformer les vies à la bibliothèque centrale de Birmingham

Mes chers collègues, mesdames et messieurs, bonjour. Je suis flatté d’avoir été invité à vous parler aujourd’hui de la formation à la bibliothèque centrale de Birmingham. Nous sommes en effet très fiers de nos réalisations dans le domaine de la formation tout au long de la vie, et c’est un plaisir de vous les présenter aujourd’hui. Malheureusement, il me faut vous parler en anglais car mes compétences en français n’ont pas bénéficié de l’excellent service offert à la Bpi… Je suis sûr cependan..