Hollywood Homeless Youth Point-in-Time Estimate Project: An Innovative Method for Enumerating Unaccompanied Homeless Youth

Homeless youth are greatly undercounted in the United States.  Census methods for homeless adults are inappropriate for homeless youth; thus, nationally, organizations are determining new methods for counting homeless youth.  In collaboration with the Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership, we utilized an agency-based approach to count and survey all homeless youth entering their facilities and encountered on their outreach activities. Between October 19 and October 25, 2012, 460 unique homeless youth were counted and surveyed in Hollywood. Of these, 222 experienced literal homelessness on the night of Thursday, October 18, 2012, and 381 experienced literal homelessness within the previous year.  Literal homelessness refers to youth who are either living in emergency or transitional housing or living on the streets or in parks, abandoned buildings, cars, subway tunnels, or other places not meant for human habitation. Of the surveyed youth who experienced literal homelessness in the last year, 65% were male, their average age was 21 years, their average age of first literal homelessness experience was17 years, and 43% were from Los Angeles. Our week-long, agency-based approached was successful in enumerating homeless youth in Hollywood.

Les TICE au service de l'apprentissage d'une langue vivante étrangère en cycle 3, pourquoi et comment ? L'exemple de la webquest

Utiliser des webquests pour s'inscrire dans la démarche actionnelle préconisée par les programmes pour l'apprentissage d'une langue vivante étrangère par des élèves de cycle 3 est-il vraiment réalisable ? Pour répondre à cette question, plusieurs étapes seront nécessaires. Tout d'abord, dans une première partie, il paraît important d'expliciter ce que sont les TIC afin de bien comprendre de quoi il s'agit, mais également les TICE (puisque la webquest en fait partie), afin d'en saisir les origines et la nuance. Ensuite, nous mettrons en relation ces deux notions avec les programmes, puisque ce sont eux qui déterminent les enseignements dispensés à l'école, et qu'il est donc nécessaire de faire un lien entre la technologie et les techniques d'apprentissage. Nous découvrirons alors le rôle des TICE dans la pédagogie des langues vivantes, leur utilisation et leur utilité au cycle 3. Dans une deuxième partie, nous pourrons étudier la webquest en proposant une définition et en expliquant ses origines, avec son fondateur, ses principes, son utilité, son fonctionnement, etc. Cette dernière partie sera donc consacrée à la mise en place d'une webquest au cycle 3, à l'observation des points forts, des atouts et des limites, dans le but de proposer une remédiation possible afin d'en améliorer l'efficacité

A MDL-based Model of Gender Knowledge Acquisition

This paper presents an iterative model of\ud knowledge acquisition of gender information\ud associated with word endings in\ud French. Gender knowledge is represented\ud as a set of rules containing exceptions.\ud Our model takes noun-gender pairs as input\ud and constantly maintains a list of\ud rules and exceptions which is both coherent\ud with the input data and minimal with\ud respect to a minimum description length\ud criterion. This model was compared to\ud human data at various ages and showed a\ud good fit. We also compared the kind of\ud rules discovered by the model with rules\ud usually extracted by linguists and found\ud interesting discrepancies

Niho taniwha : communicating tsunami risk : a site-specific case study for Tūranganui-a-Kiwa; an exegesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Design at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

For some people living in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, tsunami are recognised as a natural hazard that could threaten the entire East Cape region at any time. However for most, an ethnographic study of local residents reveals high levels of complacency within the Gisborne urban community when it comes to being aware and prepared for tsunami risk. A recent study by Dhellemmes, Leonard & Johnston (2016) was conducted along the East Coast of the North Island of Aotearoa to explore the changes of tsunami awareness and preparedness between 2003–2015. Results from this study revealed coastal communities including Tūranga had low levels of tsunami awareness and high expectations of receiving a formal warning before evacuation (Dhellemmes, et al. 2016). As a result Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS) with the Joint Centre for Disaster Research (JCDR) have identified that the population needs to respond with urgency to natural warning signs (one being an earthquake) rather than assuming an official warning will come through formal Civil Defence channels. There is also a need to raise tsunami awareness by understanding what influences tsunami preparedness in communities. The tangata whenua of Tūranganui-a-Kiwa hold various bodies of knowledge that can contribute to our society and future risk management. Māori oral traditions are often mapped to the whenua and anchored in our genealogies, which King, Goff & Skipper (2007) explains enables the transfer of knowledge down through the generations. The method of acknowledging the contextual location of Tūranga is crucial in understanding the community’s need to raise tsunami awareness for their own iwi, hapū and whanau. This process proposes that by allowing the community to share responsibility for their response to an unfolding crisis, it opens up new opportunities to raise awareness. This design-led research explores how Human-Centred-Design (HCD) methodology underpinned by Mātauranga Māori principles can contribute new ways of designing novel tsunami communications for Tūranganui-a-Kiwa. This project intends to create a site-specific work based on an extensive community-based design

Our Day Has Finally Come: Domestic Worker Organizing in New York City

This dissertation tells the story of Domestic Workers United (DWU), an organization of Latina and Caribbean nannies, housecleaners and elder care providers based in New York City. I trace DWU\u27s efforts from its campaign to win basic employment protections for domestic workers in New York State through its efforts to enforce those new rights and to raise working standards above the minimum. The driving motivation behind this work is the search for new paradigms for worker organizing that respond to the political and economic challenges of our times. I argue that domestic workers and other low-wage workers of color are the paradigmatic workers of the 21st century. The dynamics of the domestic work industry are an extreme expression of broader trends towards decentralization, informalization, low-wage work and commodified reproductive labor. DWU is part of a national movement of domestic workers\u27 organizations that are developing new organizing models that can help workers in other industries navigate these trends. Domestic Workers United\u27s work highlights the constraining and stratified models of economic citizenship that shaped labor politics in the last century, suggesting a more expansive, integrative and dynamic approach to worker organizing. Their work provides an example of an intersectional approach in which the incorporation of work to address race and gender oppression expands the terrain of class struggle, rather than narrowing it. DWU\u27s model also points towards the need to re-imagine economic citizenship and to conceptualize a new social contract. Their work indicates that, in order to respond to the dynamics of our times, we need to radically expand the realm of state protections, and it also suggests that we need to transform the framework of collective bargaining in the United States in order to enable effective negotiations between workers and employers. DWU\u27s implicit vision for a new social contract also offers a space for contestation over the social organization of reproductive labor. Finally, DWU\u27s demonstrates the need for more complex and dynamic approaches to understanding class relations and workers\u27 struggles that works through the racialized and classed differences between working people rather than focusing only on their shared experiences

Does the Voluntary Standards for Excellence Program Improve Reporting Qualities & Financial Ratios of Nonprofit Organizations?

Problem Statement The issue of accountability in the nonprofit sector has increased over the past few years, and along with it, questions about the adequacy of information in the 990 forms filed annually by nonprofits to the IRS. The intent of the 990 form is to provide the public with necessary information to evaluate the performance of a nonprofit; however, a number of studies show that there are significant errors on the 990 returns. At the same time, there has been a rise in nonprofit watchdog groups who use the information available on the 990 forms to calculate nonprofits’ financial ratios, and in turn, use those ratios to rank and determine the effectiveness of a nonprofit organization. The practice of ratings has increased over the last few years and is putting pressure on nonprofit organizations to cut their management and spending costs. Research Question Does participation in the voluntary Standards for Excellence program improve the reporting quality and financial ratios of nonprofit organizations? Research Strategy The research design for this analysis is a quasi-experimental design of a before and after tests with a treatment and comparison group. The 990 forms of some charities that participated in the Standards for Excellence program developed by the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations was examined the year before and the year after they received certification to see if there are any improvements in reporting quality and financial ratios. That data was compared to a comparison group who did not receive the Standards for Excellence certification to see if there were any differences between the two groups. The t-test was used to see if there were any significant statistical differences among and between the pretests and posttests of the treatment group and of the control group. The t-test was also used to determine if there was a significant statistical difference in the change of errors and financial ratios between the two groups. Major Findings No statistical differences could be found to indicate that voluntary participation in the Standards for Excellence program improves the reporting quality or the financial ratios of nonprofit organizations. Consequently, the study cannot determine if there is a treatment effect for the certified organizations. Summary The findings of this study points to the fact that the Standards for Excellence program does not resolve the reporting problems related with the 990 form that is a widespread issue throughout the nonprofit sector, nor does the program improve the financial ratios of certified organizations. Other measures will have to be found to remedy the problem with the quality of information disclosed on the 990 form and the issues surrounding using financial ratios to rate the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations

Relative Scrap

I’ve foregone putting out a more formal artists’ statement in fear that anything static might self-sabotage; I’d rather not over-inform an approach to this project by applying my single interpretation and excluding however much more I’m not considering, or worse yet, instruct you in what this project and the works present mean to one person. Rather, I’d encourage you to take it as your own experience and look for what interests or sticks out to you! That said, if you would like to know a little more, through my process and godly vision, seek me out! Work Present: 8623 Faces - “Approximately” Right Snips - Literally Drawn (in) Abundance - 3 variations, scanned and stitched. Scanned Lights - Google image search turns up nothing remotely similar to the pictures this title names. I feel accomplished in having made images that I can’t find things similar to using their simplest descriptions possible. Un/seen sides - 3 pairs Sculptures (various) - Made primarily from Ilford Multigrade FB Classic photo paper, sourced from the photo building student darkroom. Spirals Squares - Also made from photo paper. Also sourced from upstairs Darkroom Detritus - Evidently