A Needs Assessment of Caregiving Parents to Children with Substantial Disabilities

Parents who have a child with substantial disabilities have two distinct roles, parent and caregiver. This study sought to understand how parental and caregiver roles require distinct skills, attitudes, and behaviors that are affected by the concept of parental ambiguous loss. Using boundary ambiguity as a predictor of ambiguous loss, this study quantitatively explored levels of ambiguous loss experienced by caregiver parents. Results showed that ambiguous loss, as exhibited through boundary ambiguity positively correlated with levels of depression, and anxiety, but was negatively correlated with levels of parental efficacy, parental satisfaction and familial/friend social support. The results of this needs assessment provided a quantitative gauge of boundary ambiguity among caregiver parents that currently did not exist. Based on these results, a pilot intervention was developed to improve individual and family resilience The results of this needs assessment will potentially inform the larger systems that attempt to provide timely support and auxiliary resources to caregiver parents

Country overview Philippines

The recent and rapid rise of digital technologies among citizens and civil society organizations (CSOs) offers extensive possibilities of strengthening citizen voice not just on political issues, but also regarding the overall performance of the government in the Philippines. This is setting the stage for greater government accountability and transparency. With the advent of various state-of-the-art platforms and channels, the opportunities for political and social participation of citizens have significantly increased. Use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has changed relationships among citizens, organizations, public institutions, and the government. This State of Art Report examines how the Philippines is using technology to complement existing structures of citizen engagement. This includes the government's own initiatives to spur public involvement, as well as its partnerships with civil society and other actors to drive active citizen engagement in the country. The paper starts with a section on the existing policy and regulatory structure of ICTs and citizen engagement in the country, including a brief history of e-governance and an overview of the current state of ICT use in the Philippines. The second section zeroes in more closely on ICT-mediated structures of citizen engagement. It lists relevant examples of ICT initiatives and describes how such initiatives impact government responsiveness and citizen participation. The third and final section analyses whether and how ICT-mediated citizen engagement has caused shifts in meaning, norms, and power within the state-citizen dynamics.DFIDUSAIDSidaOmidyar Networ

Fighting Zero Hunger Amidst The Pandemic

One of the goals of the International Human Rights Movement Philippines is to help the Pastoral Care for Children at St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Subic, Zambales, Philippines in sustaining and fighting zero hunger because the majority of the residents of Matain, Subic, Zambales was greatly affected by the global pandemic, some of them lost their jobs and others lost their business income. The Project was conducted last February 27, 2022 in celebration of the Birthday of the Founding Chairman of IHRM, Dr. Rana Basharat, and the Ambassador at Large / Country Director of the IHRM Philippines in sponsoring the Feeding Program in support to the United Nations SDG 2 Zero Hunger, the said event was also participated by the Honorable Mayor Jonathan John Khonghun, Mayor of Subic, Zambales, Philippines The Researchers would like to cite that there is a need to address the issues on malnourishment and hunger in collaboration with the Government in attaining the Sustainability and Development

Open data and citizen engagement, Philippines

Benigno Aquino III ran for the position of President of the Philippines in 2010, with a campaign slogan of “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap" (when there is no corruption, there is no poverty). Following his win, his administration initiated reforms in government that focused on improving financial management, budget transparency, government procurement, and local government transparency. Key among these was in 2011 when the Philippines became one of the founding partners of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), which aimed to provide an international platform for domestic reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. This case study explores the introduction and implementation of open data by the Government of the Philippines. It first presents the government's enabling motivations and how the programme was conceived, then looks into the introduction and implementation of open data in the Philippines using Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration as the analytical lens. It focuses on the key policy, technology, data, and public engagement components of the ODP implementation, including significant milestones and critical issues. The study aims to show how these work streams and the programme itself dealt with aligning the supply and demand sides of open data. It then assesses how effective open data has been as an ICT tool to achieve transparency and accountability and make significant shifts in meaning, power, and norms in the context of citizen engagement. At the same time, it looks at how such signification, domination, and legitimation - or the lack of - impacted on the effectiveness of the ODP as well.DFIDUSAIDSidaOmidyar Networ

Evolving an open e-governance index for network societies

The Open e-Governance Index (OeGI) is a framework for measuring open e-governance, developed and tested in four Asian countries in 2012. This report discusses the second phase of OeGI project, which examined whether the framework was applicable to countries outside Asia. It describes the concept and methodology of the OeGI and provides an overview of its use in Colombia, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Uganda. Open e-governance is about how state and non-state actors use information and communications technologies (ICTs) to steer society collectively. The OeGI project defines open e-governance as the presence of: • meshed e-government: the ability of government to provide integrated, citizencentric online services • e-participation channels: the existence of digital channels for public engagement that complement existing face-to-face or traditional media-led interactions • digital inclusion: the presence of policies and programmes that support the public’s wider use of ICTs for development • civil society use of ICTs: the use of ICTs by non-state actors to promote their interests in the public sphere • an open legal and policy ecosystem: the extent of access among the general public to information and knowledge, and government recognition of the right to free expression and rights over personal communication, cultural freedom and the use of local languages. This framework was used to assess e-governance in five countries. This revealed that while there is progress towards open e-governance, there are dimensions that need to be strengthened. For example, while there is a great demand for online participation among citizens, there are many policies and programmes that governments need to undertake before this can happen. Further, norms for transparency and accountability are critical in ensuring that national ICT systems can be used for political and socio-economic progress.DFIDSidaUSAIDOmidyar Networ

Interview with Caroline Twist

Supporting oral interview conducted for the The Norquest Family: a porción of Edinburg publication.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/chapsoralhistories/1031/thumbnail.jp

Characterization of Fluorescent Proteins for Three- and Four-Color Live-Cell Imaging in S. cerevisiae

Saccharomyces cerevisiae are widely used for imaging fluorescently tagged protein fusions. Fluorescent proteins can easily be inserted into yeast genes at their chromosomal locus, by homologous recombination, for expression of tagged proteins at endogenous levels. This is especially useful for incorporation of multiple fluorescent protein fusions into a single strain, which can be challenging in organisms where genetic manipulation is more complex. However, the availability of optimal fluorescent protein combinations for 3-color imaging is limited. Here, we have characterized a combination of fluorescent proteins, mTFP1/mCitrine/mCherry for multicolor live cell imaging in S. cerevisiae. This combination can be used with conventional blue dyes, such as DAPI, for potential four-color live cell imaging

Detection of apoptotic events, using different methods, in renal tissues after acute haemorrhage.

Apoptosis plays an important role in cellular damage caused by acute renal hypoperfusion. The aim of this study was to detect apoptotic events in an animal model of acute haemorrhage, followed by volume replacement with different intravenous solution

Nutrient Return from Plant Litter and Cattle Excretion Grazing on N-Fertilized Grass or Grass-Legume Pastures in North Florida

Nutrient recycling via plant litter and livestock excreta is an important ecosystem service provided by grasslands. This study determined nutrient return via these pathways in three grazing systems. The experiment was conducted from May to October (2016 and 2017) and treatments were: 1) Nitrogen fertilized bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum Flügge) pastures (112 kg N ha-1) during the warm-season, overseeded with a mixture (56 kg ha-1 of each) of ‘FL 401’ cereal rye (Secale cereale, L.) and ‘RAM’ oat (Avena sativa, L.) during the cool-season (BGN); 2) Ecoturf Rhizoma peanut (Arachis glabrata Benth.)/bahiagrass pastures during the warm-season, overseeded with similar rye/oat mixture fertilized with 34 kg N ha-1 plus a mixture of clovers (Trifolium incarnatum L., T. pretense L., and T. nigrescens L.) during the cool-season (BGRP); 3) unfertilized bahiagrass pastures during the warm-season, overseeded with similar rye/oat grass/clover mixture + 34 kg N ha-1 during the cool-season (BG). Litter mass was evaluated every 5wk. Litter decomposition was evaluated with incubation periods of 0, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256 days. Urine and fecal samples were collected for N concentration analysis. There was a net return of 47 kg N ha-1 season-1 via litter in all three systems without differing among them. In addition, litter decomposition rates were not different in the three systems. Conversely, N returned via excreta (urine and feces) was greater (63, 27, and 51 kg N ha-1 season-1) than that returned via litter (58.6, 41.6, and 41.2 kg ha-1 season-1). When assessing the proportions of N returning to the system via litter or excreta, no differences were observed among treatments, and on average 65.1 % of the N returned via excreta vs. 34.9 % returning via litter. The introduction of legumes could reduce the inputs from N fertilizers in grazing systems and keep the productivity similar because of more efficient N cycling