26 research outputs found

    Extension\u27s Role in Responding to Community Crisis: Lessons from Klamath Falls, Oregon

    Get PDF
    Extension has a long history of support for communities, primarily through programs such as agriculture and 4-H. When an entire community faces a crisis, however, the needs of the community can expand beyond the goals of a specific program. In the summer of 2001, Klamath Falls, Oregon experienced a crisis when a federal decision eliminated irrigation water to over 1200 families farming more than 220,000 acres. The Klamath County Extension Office recognized the role they could play and organized and facilitated three countywide meetings to identify needs and strategies for action. The actions that evolved from the meetings were substantial, and the Extension office learned several key lessons about responding to crisis

    Rewards for Ratification: Payoffs for Participating in the International Human Rights Regime?

    Get PDF
    Among the explanations for state ratification of human rights treaties, few are more common and widely accepted than the conjecture that states are rewarded for ratification by other states. These rewards are expected to come in the form of tangible benefits - foreign aid, trade, and investment - and intangible benefits such as praise, acceptance, and legitimacy. Surprisingly, these explanations for ratification have never been tested empirically. We summarize and clarify the theoretical underpinnings of "reward-for-ratification" theories and test these propositions empirically by looking for increased international aid, economic agreements and public praise and recognition following ratification of four prominent human rights treaties. We find almost no evidence that states can expect increased tangible or intangible rewards after ratification. Given the lack of empirical support, alternative explanations seem more appealing for understanding human rights treaty ratification.Governmen

    Torture Approval in Comparative Perspective

    Full text link
    Torture is (almost) universally condemned as barbaric and ineffective, yet it persists in the modern world. What factors influence levels of support for torture? Public opinion data from 31 countries in 2006 and 2008 (a total of 44 country-years) are used to test three hypotheses related to the acceptability of torture. The findings, first, show that outright majorities in 31 country-years reject the use of torture. Multiple regression results show that countries with high per capita income and low domestic repression are less likely to support torture. Constraints on the executive have no significant effect on public opinion on torture

    The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

    Full text link
    This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

    Culturally situated design tools: Generative justice as a foundation for stem diversity

    No full text
    The " pipeline " model of STEM education conceives of underrepresentation by race, gender and class in terms of leaks that fail to deliver students to their destination in the science and technology workforce. But that model fails to consider the role of STEM in producing underrepresentation. This can only be solved by moving from the extractive approach of the pipeline model to a generative model in which the value produced by STEM students cycles back to their own communities. We report on our experience creating and evaluating Culturally Situated Design Tools. Using a framework of " generative justice " , we contrast the cyclic social damage, which reproduces underrepresentation with the potential for STEM education as a niche in the technosocial ecosystem that can address underrepresentation and causal factors
    corecore