Assessment of the Foster Care Pilot Project in Albania

CELCIS was contracted by UNICEF Albania in August, 2013, to carry out an evaluation of the pilot foster care project (FCPP). UNICEF had contributed to funding for a foster care project which operated in Tirana and Shkodra. The operational aspects of the projects were run by two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) called Bethany Social Services (BSS) and Every Child Albania (EC). The consultants carried out a brief literature review and a desk review of relevant documentation. They also undertook a period of fieldwork in Albania, interviewing key stakeholders and carrying out observational visits

Governing the invisible commons: Ozone regulation and the Montreal Protocol

The Montreal Protocol is generally credited as a successful example of international cooperation in response to a global environmental problem. As a result, the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances has declined rapidly, and it is expected that atmospheric ozone concentrations will return to their normal ranges toward the end of this century. This paper applies the social-ecological system framework and common-pool resource theory to explore the congruence between successful resolution of small-scale appropriation problems and ozone regulation, a large-scale pollution problem. The results of our analysis correspond closely to past studies of the Protocol that highlight the importance of attributes such as a limited number of major industrial producers, advances in scientific knowledge, and the availability of technological substitutes. However, in contrast to previous theoretical accounts that focus on one or a few variables, our analysis suggests that its success may have been the result of interactions between a wider range of SES attributes, many of which are associated with successful small-scale environmental governance. Although carefully noting the limitations of drawing conclusions from the analysis of a single case, our analysis reveals the potential for fruitful interplay between common-pool resource theory and large-scale pollution problems

Adult college students perceptions on science education : reclaiming lost ground in science education in preparation for health science programs / by Anita Graham.

This study was based upon the issues surrounding science education and how they impact students’ further science education as well as their everyday lives. The research was a qualitative study that used an interview guide. Six adult college students who had graduated from the Pre-Health Sciences Program and continued with Health Science Programs were interviewed for this study. Their perceptions on how science education had influenced their further science education as well as everyday lives were analyzed and similar themes evolved from the data. Findings revealed that high school science education for these students generally did not generate interest or desire to learn science, except when they participated in lab activities. In contrast, these students found that the college science education interested them and inspired them to learn. This may be more due to intrinsic values for learning science since students articulated that they needed to learn the science because they wanted to enter Health Science Programs after the science prerequisites were fulfilled. The findings showed that students wanted labs and hands-on activities as part of their learning. Also, science literacy in the students was evident from the stories they shared about their everyday lives

On Some Geometric Properties of Slice Regular Functions of a Quaternion Variable

The goal of this paper is to introduce and study some geometric properties of slice regular functions of quaternion variable like univalence, subordination, starlikeness, convexity and spirallikeness in the unit ball. We prove a number of results, among which an Area-type Theorem, Rogosinski inequality, and a Bieberbach-de Branges Theorem for a subclass of slice regular functions. We also discuss some geometric and algebraic interpretations of our results in terms of maps from $\mathbb R^4$ to itself. As a tool for subordination we define a suitable notion of composition of slice regular functions which is of independent interest

Dissociable Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Modulation of Pain and Anxiety? An fMRI Pilot Study

The down-regulation of pain through beliefs is commonly discussed as a form of emotion regulation. In line with this interpretation, the analgesic effect has been shown to co-occur with reduced anxiety and increased activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), which is a key region of emotion regulation. This link between pain and anxiety modulation raises the question whether the two effects are rooted in the same neural mechanism. In this pilot fMRI study, we compared the neural basis of the analgesic and anxiolytic effect of two types of threat modulation: a “behavioral control” paradigm, which involves the ability to terminate a noxious stimulus, and a “safety signaling” paradigm, which involves visual cues that signal the threat (or absence of threat) that a subsequent noxious stimulus might be of unusually high intensity. Analgesia was paralleled by VLPFC activity during behavioral control. Safety signaling engaged elements of the descending pain control system, including the rostral anterior cingulate cortex that showed increased functional connectivity with the periaqueductal gray and VLPFC. Anxiety reduction, in contrast, scaled with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during behavioral control but had no distinct neural signature during safety signaling. Our pilot data therefore suggest that analgesic and anxiolytic effects are instantiated in distinguishable neural mechanisms and differ between distinct stress- and pain-modulatory approaches, supporting the recent notion of multiple pathways subserving top-down modulation of the pain experience. Additional studies in larger cohorts are needed to follow up on these preliminary findings

Collegiate Leadership Competition: Deliberate Practice Leading to Expertise

Deliberate practice (Ericsson & Pool, 2016), the scientific process often attributed to developing expertise, requires a well-developed field and a teacher who can design, provide, and facilitate purposeful activities that target specific goals related to performance in that field. Components of purposeful practice include (a) well-defined goals, often related to skills that others have figured out how to do; (b) timely, continuous, and specific feedback; (c) deliberate practice outside of one’s comfort zone; and (d) developing previously acquired skills through continuous improvement. USM students’ participation in Collegiate Leadership Competition (CLC) practice sessions include components of deliberate practice aimed toward the goal of developing expert leaders. Through intentional learning activities grounded in applied leadership and specific performance outcomes, CLC practices include innovative strategies for leading and influencing high performing teams, solving complex problems, improving intergroup communication skills, and enhancing critical thinking skills; and each learning activity concludes with focused debriefing sessions that include feedback from the instructor and peer students. While 10,000 hours of deliberate practice in a leadership environment may be unrealistic for most college students, the CLC facilitates an accessible alternative

Moving Forward on Alternative Care : Assessment of the Foster Care Pilot Project in Albania

CELCIS was contracted by UNICEF Albania in August, 2013, to carry out an evaluation of the pilot foster care project (FCPP). UNICEF had contributed to funding for a foster care project which operated in Tirana and Shkodra. The operational aspects of the projects were run by two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) called Bethany Social Services (BSS) and Every Child Albania (EC). The consultants carried out a brief literature review and a desk review of relevant documentation. They also undertook a period of fieldwork in Albania, interviewing key stakeholders and carrying out observational visits. The findings of the evaluation were that the FCPP had made a positive start to establishing foster care services in Albania. Training, procedures and support systems for 80 families had been provided. The project was successful in identifying and supporting families where a child was already living in the family, and in supporting kinship foster care. It was less successful in placing children out of institutions and into non-related foster care, where kinship care was not an option. The weakness in the FCPP was that when funding ran out for one part of the project and the cases were handed to the municipality, no further support was given to these families

Land-Use Legacies Are Important Determinants of Lake Eutrophication in the Anthropocene

Background: A hallmark of the latter half of the 20 th century is the widespread, rapid intensification of a variety of anthropogenically-driven environmental changes—a ‘‘Great Acceleration.’ ’ While there is evidence of a Great Acceleration in a variety of factors known to be linked to water quality degradation, such as conversion of land to agriculture and intensification of fertilizer use, it is not known whether there has been a similar acceleration of freshwater eutrophication. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using quantitative reconstructions of diatom-inferred total phosphorus (DI-TP) as a proxy for lake trophic state, we synthesized results from 67 paleolimnological studies from across Europe and North America to evaluate whether most lakes showed a pattern of eutrophication with time and whether this trend was accelerated after 1945 CE, indicative of a Great Acceleration. We found that European lakes have experienced widespread increases in DI-TP over the 20 th century and that 33 % of these lakes show patterns consistent with a post-1945 CE Great Acceleration. In North America, the proportion of lakes that increased in DI-TP over time is much lower and only 9 % exhibited a Great Acceleration of eutrophication. Conclusions/Significance: The longer and more widespread history of anthropogenic influence in Europe, the leading cause for the relatively pervasive freshwater eutrophication, provides an important cautionary tale; our current path of intensive agriculture around the world may lead to an acceleration of eutrophication in downstream lakes that could tak