We need to stop female genital mutilation!

Over the next decade around 30 million girls under age 15 are at risk of FGM/C. Given that there is no physical benefit for the girls and acknowledging that FGM/C involves physical, psychological, social and reproductive harm, we, along with major international and national governmental and non-governmental organizations find FGM/C a severe violation of human rights. We must encourage vigorous action among health providers, civil society, womens organizations, funders, international agencies, international and national courts of justice, global and religious leaders, and governments to change this unacceptable practice.Fil: Belizan, Jose. Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Miller, Suellen. University of California; Estados UnidosFil: Salaria, Natasha. Biomed Central; Reino Unid

THREE ESSAYS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY

This dissertation explores three different relevant questions in political economy. Chapter 1 is devoted to understanding why populist-outsider candidates get elected, and what conditions may favor/hinder their electability. The results show that countries with a higher income and wealth concentration are more likely to elect populist outsiders than countries where income and wealth are more equally distributed. It is also shown that elections with a runoff also are less likely to bring these populist outsiders into office. Chapter 2 in turn explores the role of the middle class in moderating political outcome in a framework where money and votes play two distinctive roles in the election process. In this chapter, a three-class model of heterogeneous agents is developed in which groups affect policy outcomes through their voting behavior and contributions to political campaigns, and where income inequality can lead to extreme policy outcomes. Increasing the size of the middle class reduces the likelihood of extreme policy outcomes, as does a richer middle class. This result highlights the importance of a large and strong middle class for political stability. Finally Chapter 3 looks at the question of why inequality has remained persistently high in Chile despite its success in reducing poverty and achieving high growth for two decades while having a mostly pro-poor structure of public expenditures. We show that the key factors explaining this persistent inequality have been a low level of fiscal expenditures caused by low tax revenues that have not permitted enough public investment in human capital and R&D

The true cost of maternal death: Individual tragedy impacts family, community and nations

The death of a woman in pregnancy and childbirth is globally considered an individual tragedy and a human rights violation. Given the inequities in death that occur to marginalized, poor, and vulnerable women in low and middle income countries, there is no doubt that maternal death is a horrific injustice. However, the long term global burden of disease goes far beyond this tragedy. Recent research is demonstrating that there are disastrous consequences in infant and child mortality, loss of economic opportunities, spiraling cycles of poverty in the families and communities where women die giving birth. The journal Reproductive Health has published a supplement “The True Cost of Maternal Death,” which includes original research from two major study groups. Harvard’s Francois-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights conducted a multi-country, mixed methods study of the impact of maternal mortality on newborn health and survival, family functioning, interrupted education and economic degradation in four high maternal mortality countries, Tanzania, South Africa, Malawi, and Ethiopia. A collaborative group from Family Care International (FCI), the International Center of Research on Women (ICRW), and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)-Center for Disease Control (CDC)-Research Collaboration conducted research into true costs of maternal death in Kenya. These articles demonstrate the enormous costs that ripple out from the maternal death, and the intergenerational and multi-sectorial disruptions related to maternal mortality. It is important in this period of post-MDG strategy planning period that donors, governments, and NGOs be aware not only of the individual level tragedy of the loss of a mother’s life, but also the financial and health costs associated with maternal mortality, and to keep the focus on maternal health as a key issue in all aspects of development, not just health.Fil: Miller, Suellen. University of California; Estados UnidosFil: Belizan, Jose. Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Treatment of cyanide by using the Mexican modification of the Merrill-Crowe process

Journal ArticleCyanide consumption can be a major factor which contributes to operating cost for cyanidation. Also after extraction and recovery of precious metals substancial amounts of cyanide are delivered to tailings ponds which creates environmental problems due to the toxicity of cyanides. In this regard, the air-sparged hydrocyclone (ASH) has been used as a reactor for the treatment of cyanide solutions in two ways; first for cyanide recovery by acidulation using the Mexican modification of the Merrill-Crowe process and second for cyanide destruction by oxidation with the use of chlorine dioxide (C102). In both cases excellent performance can be archieved using the high capacity ASH technology

Morphological variability in second language learners: an examination of electrophysiological and production data

We examined potential sources of morphological variability in adult L1 English L2 Spanish learners, with a focus on L1 L2 similarity, morphological markedness, and knowledge type (receptive vs. expressive). Experiment 1 uses event related potentials to examine noun adjective number (present in L1) and gender agreement (absent in L1) in online sentence comprehension (receptive knowledge). For each feature, markedness was manipulated, such that half of the critical noun adjective combinations were feminine (marked) and the other half, masculine; half were used in the plural (marked) and the other half in the singular. With this set up, we examined learners’ potential overreliance on unmarked forms or “defaults” (singular/masculine). Experiment 2 examines similar dependencies in spoken sentence production (expressive knowledge). Results showed that learners (n=22) performed better with number than gender overall, but their brain responses to both features were qualitatively native like (i.e., P600), even though gender was probed with nouns that do not provide strong distributional cues to gender. In addition, variability with gender agreement was better accounted for by lexical (as opposed to syntactic) aspects. Learners showed no advantage for comprehension over production. They also showed no systematic evidence of reliance on morphological defaults, although their online processing was sensitive to markedness in a native like manner. Overall, these results suggest that there is facilitation for properties of the L2 that exist in the L1 and that markedness impacts L2 processing, but in a native like manner. These results also speak against proposals arguing that adult L2ers have deficits at the level of the morphology or the syntax

A to Z of the Muon anomalous magnetic moment in the MSSM with Pati-Salam at the GUT scale

We analyse the low energy predictions of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) arising from a GUT scale Pati-Salam gauge group further constrained by an A4 × Z5 family symmetry, resulting in four soft scalar masses at the GUT scale: one left-handed soft mass m0 and three right-handed soft masses m1, m2, m3, one for each generation. We demonstrate that this model, which was initially developed to describe the neutrino sector, can explain collider and non-collider measurements such as the dark matter relic density, the Higgs boson mass and, in particular, the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon (g − 2)μ. Since about two decades, (g − 2)μ suffers a puzzling about 3σ excessoftheexperimentallymeasuredvalueoverthetheoreticalprediction,whichour model is able to fully resolve. As the consequence of this resolution, our model predicts specific regions of the parameter space with the specific properties including light smuons and neutralinos, which could also potentially explain di-lepton excesses observed by CMS and ATLAS

Evaluating a workspace's usefulness for image retrieval

Image searching is a creative process. We have proposed a novel image retrieval system that supports creative search sessions by allowing the user to organise their search results on a workspace. The workspace’s usefulness is evaluated in a task-oriented and user-centred comparative experiment, involving design professionals and several types of realistic search tasks. In particular, we focus on its effect on task conceptualisation and query formulation. A traditional relevance feedback system serves as a baseline. The results of this study show that the workspace is more useful in terms of both of the above aspects and that the proposed approach leads to a more effective and enjoyable search experience. This paper also highlights the influence of tasks on the users’ search and organisation strategy

Student and Instructor Perceptions of Effective Instructional Methods in a University Aviation Human Factors Course

Aviation human factors instructors employed by University Aviation Association (UAA) member institutions and aviation flight students from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC) were asked to rank nine teaching methods according to perceived effectiveness in each of four subject areas: flight physiology, flight psychology, aeronautical decision-making (ADM), and crew resource management (CRM). Responses were compiled into two categories, students and instructors. Analysis using the Spearman\u27s rank correlation coefficient indicated that students and instructors generally agreed on teaching methods they considered appropriate to the four subject areas

Behind Derogatory Migrants\u27 Terms for Venezuelan Migrants: Xenophobia and Sexism Identification with Twitter Data and NLP

The sudden arrival of many migrants can present new challenges for host communities and create negative attitudes that reflect that tension. In the case of Colombia, with the influx of over 2.5 million Venezuelan migrants, such tensions arose. Our research objective is to investigate how those sentiments arise in social media. We focused on monitoring derogatory terms for Venezuelans, specifically veneco and veneca. Using a dataset of 5.7 million tweets from Colombian users between 2015 and 2021, we determined the proportion of tweets containing those terms. We observed a high prevalence of xenophobic and defamatory language correlated with the terms, with the latter perpetuating a sexist portrayal of female Venezuelan migrants