Upgrading School Buildings in Mexico with Social Participation: The Better Schools Programme

This review of Mexico’s Better Schools Programme was conducted in 2012 by the OECD Centre for Effective Learning Environments (CELE). In 2008, the federal government created the Programme to repair and improve the physical infrastructure of schools for basic education throughout Mexico. A key characteristic of the programme is social participation and the engagement of the each school community. The review team’s recommendations offer lessons to all governments investing in educational infrastructure to improve the quality of education

Liposomal Encapsulation of Silver Nanoparticles Enhances Cytotoxicity and Causes Induction of Reactive Oxygen Species‐ Independent Apoptosis

Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) are one of the most widely investigated metallic NPs due to their promising antibacterial activities. In recent years, AgNP research has shifted beyond antimicrobial use to potential applications in the medical arena. This shift coupled with the extensive commercial applications of AgNP will further increase human exposure and the subsequent risk of adverse effects that may result from repeated exposures and inefficient delivery, meaning research into improved AgNP delivery is of paramount importance. In this study, AgNP were encapsulated in a natural biosurfactant, dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine, in an attempt to enhance the intracellular delivery and simultaneously mediate the associated cytotoxicity of the AgNP. It was noted that because of the encapsulation, liposomal AgNP (Lipo-AgNP) at 0.625g ml(-1) induced significant cell death in THP1 cell lines a notably lower dose than that of the uncoated AgNP induced cytotoxicity. The induced cytotoxicity was shown to result in an increased level of DNA fragmentation resulting in a cell cycle interruption at the S phase. It was shown that the predominate form of cell death upon exposure to both uncoated AgNP and Lipo-AgNP was apoptosis. However, a reactive oxygen species-independent activation of the executioner caspases 3/7 occurred when exposed to the Lipo-AgNP. These findings showed that encapsulation of AgNP enhance AgNP cytotoxicity and mediates a reactive oxygen species-independent induction of apoptosis

Modernising Secondary School Buildings in Portugal

The quality of school buildings is critically important in the drive for improving education. Good quality facilities provide teachers and students with supportive environments which are responsive to their changing needs and can make a real difference to learning and teaching. This report is a review of the Portuguese Secondary School Building Modernisation Programme (SMP), a major programme to rehabilitate the secondary schools in Portugal

Prevalent posttraumatic stress disorder among emergency department personnel: rapid systematic review

This research review synthesized the evidence on the prevalence of posttraumatic stressdisorder among emergency department personnel in Canada and the USA. No previous suchsynthesis, specific to this crucial aspect of North American health care had previously beenpublished. Broad keyword searches of interdisciplinary research databases, both peer-reviewed and grey, retrieved 10 surveys published between 1996 and 2019. Their outcomeswere synthesized with sample-weighted, pooled analyses. The most significant reviewfindingwas that one of everyfive such emergency care personnel met posttraumatic stress disorderdiagnostic criteria; 18.6% (95% confidence interval 16.9, 20.4). However, this synthesis ofgenerally small, nonprobability surveys with high nonparticipation rates, could only suggestthat the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder is perhaps nearly two-fold greater amongemergency department nurses (25.8%) than physicians (15.6%). Additionally, it seems thatgender (being a woman) may play an important role in the relatively greater risk of nurses.Better controlled, more powerful probability surveys that examine the profession by genderinteraction, are needed to affirm (or refute) these syntheticfindings. Qualitative inquiries thattap into the key informing experiences of diverse emergency department personnel are alsoneeded to best plan and implement their preventive and therapeutic care

Intersection of Indigenous Peoples and Police: Questions about Contact and Confidence

Despite much anecdotal, journalistic, and statistical evidence of their oppression by colonial and neocolonial police practices, little is known about Indigenous peoples’ attitudes towards the police in Canada. Th e theory that involuntary police–citizen contacts increase citizens’ mistrust, fear, and dissat- isfaction and, ultimately, decreases confi dence in the police was advanced. Hypotheses arising from this historical-theoretical context were tested with the 2014 panel of Canada’s General Social Survey, including 951 Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, or Inuit) and 21,576 non-Indigenous white participants. Indigenous identity and involuntary contacts were both signifi cantly associated with a lack of confi dence in police, p \u3c .001. As hypothesized, the odds associated with involuntary contacts (odds ratio [OR] = 2.66) were stronger than those associated with being Indigenous (OR = 1.81). While the hypothesized ethnicity by contact interaction was not observed, Indigenous participants (5%) were two and a half times as likely as non-Indigenous white participants (2%) to have had relatively frequent (two or more) involuntary contacts with the police during the past year. Th erefore, at the population level Indigenous people are at much greater risk of coming into involuntary contact with the police and of consequently lacking confi dence in police. Policy implications and future research needs are discussed

Critical elements in implementing fundamental change in public environmental policy: Western Australia’s mine closure and rehabilitation securities reform

Development of public policy is a key role of government. Following the framework for Australian governments to uphold when developing public policy alone will not guarantee good policy development. This research critically explores the policy development process of the Department of Mines and Petroleum in Western Australia for mine closure and rehabilitation securities reform, where significant costs for mining companies, and large environmental and community legacies were at stake. Fundamental change from use of individual bonds to a central Mining Rehabilitation Fund resulted; offering financial advantage for mining companies and government alike, and a mechanism for rehabilitation of historically abandoned mines. Critical elements in the policy development process were: (1) openness in clearly articulating the policy problem at the outset, (2) retaining focus on the policy scope relevant to the jurisdictional level, (3) use of trusted experts especially for contentious aspects of the reform agenda, (4) commitment to stakeholder engagement throughout, and (5) acknowledging and managing uncertainties through transparent and consultative data gathering processes. Attention to these matters enabled an innovative and effective mine closure and rehabilitation policy solution to be implemented by the Government of Western Australia that is unique in Australia, and perhaps the world

Puzzled: Navigating extractive policy information jigsaws for best practice and transparency

This viewpoint article was written in response to our attempt to explore mechanisms that promote financial 'transparency' in the minerals and energy extractive. We controversially forward our opinion that the trajectory of existing transparency mechanisms is likely to generate an obfuscating mass of disclosed information-not 'transparency'. Using a jigsaw analogy, we make a distinction between 'disclosure' and achieving the more challenging 'transparency': it is both being able to have the pieces (disclosure), and put them together to see the big picture. It is just as important to identify missing pieces of the puzzle to prevent selective disclosure. We critically analyze extractive financial policy, and provide an example where a 'best practice' mining securities policy has markedly advanced transparency in a major mining state. The policy substantially reduces government financial risk of a mining company default at no additional cost; reduces costs to industry around ten-fold; incentivises ongoing site rehabilitation; creates a fund for historical abandonments; and; sustains an impressive publically available information instrument of disturbed footprints and associated rehabilitation for every tenement at high precision on an annual basis. Yet it still remains deficient in terms of transparency in particular aspects, of which we clarify and discuss

Differential effectiveness of prevalent social work practice models: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis of 45 recently published (1990–1994) independent studies of social work\u27s differential effectiveness by prevalent practice models builds on the more general findings of related meta-analyses that have estimated that three-quarters of the clients who participate in social work interventions do better than the average client who does not. It found that the effectiveness of interventions based on different practice models—personal versus systemic-structural—was moderated by their primary focus for change. When the focus for change was clients themselves, personal orientations seemed more effective, whereas systemic-structural models were found to be more effective in supporting the change of other targets, such as environmental factors (structural change) rather than personal adaptation to environmental challenges