Hoping for a better tomorrow’: a qualitative study of stressors, informal social support and parental coping in a Direct Provision centre in the West of Ireland

This paper focuses on informal social support and coping amongst parents living in a Direct Provision (DP) reception centre in the rural west of Ireland. Since 2000, asylum seekers in Ireland are subject to DP where the state provides accommodation and food to asylum seeking families, and a small supplementary allowance. Despite calls for its abandonment and that it constitutes ‘citizenship based discrimination’, DP features prominently in Irish policy on asylum seeking. Drawing on qualitative interview materials from an evaluation of childcare services in one asylum seeker reception centre, we argue that children living in DP are frequently exposed to risky behaviours, and that the DP system adversely affects children’s resilience, stifling their educational, emotional and social development. In Ireland, supports for families and children living in DP are relatively weak, and despite protests for enhancing asylum seekers’ rights in housing and employment, asylum seekers interviewed for this study feel abandoned by the state. Instead, they rely heavily on local services for emotional and financial supports to cope with living conditions in DP. The paper argues for a culturally responsive approach to policy-making that is grounded in human rights and family support which recognizes the importance of community services in providing emotional and practical supports to parents

Program Evaluation for the Nevada School of the Arts

A program analysis and evaluation of the Nevada School of the Arts (NSA), a forty-year-old non-profit organization that provides musical education and advocates for the arts in Southern Nevada, was conducted. This paper serves as the completed report for the Nevada School of the Arts program evaluation and provides thorough analysis, findings from the graduate students’ research, observations, and recommendations for the organization to voluntarily accept

Spectroscopic and Mechanistic Studies of Heterodimetallic Forms of Metallo-β-lactamase NDM-1

In an effort to characterize the roles of each metal ion in metallo-β-lactamase NDM-1, heterodimetallic analogues (CoCo-, ZnCo-, and CoCd-) of the enzyme were generated and characterized. UV–vis, 1H NMR, EPR, and EXAFS spectroscopies were used to confirm the fidelity of the metal substitutions, including the presence of a homogeneous, heterodimetallic cluster, with a single-atom bridge. This marks the first preparation of a metallo-β-lactamase selectively substituted with a paramagnetic metal ion, Co(II), either in the Zn1 (CoCd-NDM-1) or in the Zn2 site (ZnCo-NDM-1), as well as both (CoCo-NDM-1). We then used these metal-substituted forms of the enzyme to probe the reaction mechanism, using steady-state and stopped-flow kinetics, stopped-flow fluorescence, and rapid-freeze-quench EPR. Both metal sites show significant effects on the kinetic constants, and both paramagnetic variants (CoCd- and ZnCo-NDM-1) showed significant structural changes on reaction with substrate. These changes are discussed in terms of a minimal kinetic mechanism that incorporates all of the data

The Canine Oral Microbiome

Determining the bacterial composition of the canine oral microbiome is of interest for two primary reasons. First, while the human oral microbiome has been well studied using molecular techniques, the oral microbiomes of other mammals have not been studied in equal depth using culture independent methods. This study allows a comparison of the number of bacterial taxa, based on 16S rRNA-gene sequence comparison, shared between humans and dogs, two divergent mammalian species. Second, canine oral bacteria are of interest to veterinary and human medical communities for understanding their roles in health and infectious diseases. The bacteria involved are mostly unnamed and not linked by 16S rRNA-gene sequence identity to a taxonomic scheme. This manuscript describes the analysis of 5,958 16S rRNA-gene sequences from 65 clone libraries. Full length 16S rRNA reference sequences have been obtained for 353 canine bacterial taxa, which were placed in 14 bacterial phyla, 23 classes, 37 orders, 66 families, and 148 genera. Eighty percent of the taxa are currently unnamed. The bacterial taxa identified in dogs are markedly different from those of humans with only 16.4% of oral taxa are shared between dogs and humans based on a 98.5% 16S rRNA sequence similarity cutoff. This indicates that there is a large divergence in the bacteria comprising the oral microbiomes of divergent mammalian species. The historic practice of identifying animal associated bacteria based on phenotypic similarities to human bacteria is generally invalid. This report describes the diversity of the canine oral microbiome and provides a provisional 16S rRNA based taxonomic scheme for naming and identifying unnamed canine bacterial taxa

Memory in Microbes: Quantifying History-Dependent Behavior in a Bacterium

Memory is usually associated with higher organisms rather than bacteria. However, evidence is mounting that many regulatory networks within bacteria are capable of complex dynamics and multi-stable behaviors that have been linked to memory in other systems. Moreover, it is recognized that bacteria that have experienced different environmental histories may respond differently to current conditions. These “memory” effects may be more than incidental to the regulatory mechanisms controlling acclimation or to the status of the metabolic stores. Rather, they may be regulated by the cell and confer fitness to the organism in the evolutionary game it participates in. Here, we propose that history-dependent behavior is a potentially important manifestation of memory, worth classifying and quantifying. To this end, we develop an information-theory based conceptual framework for measuring both the persistence of memory in microbes and the amount of information about the past encoded in history-dependent dynamics. This method produces a phenomenological measure of cellular memory without regard to the specific cellular mechanisms encoding it. We then apply this framework to a strain of Bacillus subtilis engineered to report on commitment to sporulation and degradative enzyme (AprE) synthesis and estimate the capacity of these systems and growth dynamics to ‘remember’ 10 distinct cell histories prior to application of a common stressor. The analysis suggests that B. subtilis remembers, both in short and long term, aspects of its cell history, and that this memory is distributed differently among the observables. While this study does not examine the mechanistic bases for memory, it presents a framework for quantifying memory in cellular behaviors and is thus a starting point for studying new questions about cellular regulation and evolutionary strategy

‘Hoping for a better tomorrow’: a process study evaluation of the Greater Tomorrow Crèche and Ballyhaunis Community Preschool Services, Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo, Summary Report

This report presents the results of a qualitative, process study evaluation of the Ballyhaunis Community Preschool and ‘Greater Tomorrow’ crèche services, conducted by the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre (UCFRC), NUI, Galway in 2015. Currently, the community preschool and the crèche facility are located in the grounds of St Mary’s Abbey and the Old Convent grounds respectively, close to Ballyhaunis town centre, Co. Mayo. Together, both services provide childcare spaces for approximately 60 children, employing seven staff in total. In both services, all staff members are qualified to NFQ Level 5 standards or higher. One senior staff member in the crèche is trained to NFQ Level 7, and the manager of both the crèche and preschool services is completing an NFQ Level 8 degree programme in Early Childhood Studies and Practice at NUI, Galway. The Greater Tomorrow crèche caters for children aged between 18 months and 3 years and operates a 4-day service from Monday to Thursday. The preschool caters to children aged 39 months or older and operates a 5-day service per week (Monday to Friday). Both the crèche and preschool services implement aspects of the ‘HighScope’ curriculum, which emphasises active and participatory approaches to learning and teaching

An informed pedagogy of community, care and respect for diversity: evidence from a qualitative evaluation of early years’ services in the West of Ireland

This article draws on qualitative evidence from an evaluation of the Greater Tomorrow Crèche and Ballyhaunis Community Preschool in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, Ireland in 2016. The article focuses on the approach to practice and the underlying ethos of these two services, reflecting a clearly articulated respect for diversity and the privileging of relationships with families by the practitioners and management team. We argue for the significance of early years services in offsetting risk factors associated with adverse childhood experiences and environments, reflecting international research evidence for the potential benefits of high-quality early childhood education and care. The practice orientation within the settings operationalises the national quality and curriculum frameworks of Aistear and Síolta in foregrounding the concepts of identity and belonging, well-being, and partnership with families in daily practice. The services under study were established during a period of rapid social and cultural change in Ireland; heightened economic activity beginning in the mid-1990s was a catalyst for increasing female employment and inward migration. This article argues that in such a context, these services responded to the needs of the uniquely diverse community they serve, contributed to children s early learning and development, and provided material and emotional supports to children and parents.2018-07-0

Hoping for a better tomorrow: a process study evaluation of the Greater Tomorrow crèche and Ballyhaunis Community Preschool, Ballyhaunis Co Mayo

This report presents the results of a qualitative, process study evaluation of the Ballyhaunis Community Preschool and ‘Greater Tomorrow’ crèche services, conducted by the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre (UCFRC), NUI, Galway in 2015. Currently, the community preschool and the crèche facility are located in the grounds of St Mary’s Abbey and the Old Convent grounds respectively, close to Ballyhaunis town centre, Co. Mayo. Together, both services provide childcare spaces for approximately 60 children, employing seven staff in total. In both services, all staff members are qualified to NFQ Level 5 standards or higher. One senior staff member in the crèche is trained to NFQ Level 7, and the manager of both the crèche and preschool services is completing an NFQ Level 8 degree programme in Early Childhood Studies and Practice at NUI, Galway. The Greater Tomorrow crèche caters for children aged between 18 months and 3 years and operates a 4-day service from Monday to Thursday. The preschool caters to children aged 39 months or older and operates a 5-day service per week (Monday to Friday). Both the crèche and preschool services implement aspects of the ‘HighScope’ curriculum, which emphasises active and participatory approaches to learning and teaching.non-peer-reviewe