593 research outputs found
Demonstrating Impact Through Replicable Analysis: Implications of an Evaluation of Arkansas\u27s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program
Get PDFThe evaluation described in this article focused on the effectiveness of Arkansas\u27s Extension-based Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) but demonstrates an analytic approach that may be useful across Extension programs. We analyzed data from 1,810 Arkansas EFNEP participants\u27 entry and exit Behavior Checklists to assess reliability of the checklist tool and explore behavior changes. The results demonstrate continued effectiveness of Arkansas EFNEP in delivering impactful health-related programming. Details of our process may provide direction for program leaders in determining which programmatic areas need attention to improve outcomes and in identifying best practices within particular program areas
Qualitative research into families' experiences and behaviours in the Childcare Affordability Pilots (CAP09): actual costs pilot [+ appendix]
Get PDFThe Childcare Element (CCE) of Working Tax Credits (WTC) is designed to offer working parents financial support for the payment of childcare costs. Subject to a range of eligibility criteria, working families were able to claim 80% of their total childcare costs via this system at the time of the Pilot. Since April 2011, families can claim up to 70% of their childcare costs.
The aim of the Actual Costs Pilot was to assess whether an alternative method of paying the CCE would change customer experiences and behaviour of claiming, and help them report their childcare costs more accurately. It is hoped this evidence may help the government understand how it can support families with children into sustainable employment.
The Actual Costs system involved reporting childcare costs every four weeks to the dedicated team in the Tax Credits Office (TCO), and having up to 80% of these costs reimbursed within a limit of total childcare costs at £175 for one child, and £300 for two or more children, as in the standard system
Modelling threat causation for religiosity and Nationalism in Europe
Get PDFEurope's contemporary political landscape has been shaped by massive shifts in recent decades caused by geopolitical upheavals such as Brexit and now, COVID-19. The way in which policy makers respond to the current pandemic could have large effects on how the world looks after the pandemic subsides. We aim to investigate complex questions post COVID-19 around the relationships and intersections concerning nationalism, religiosity, and anti-immigrant sentiment from a socio-cognitive perspective by applying a mixed-method approach (survey and modelling); in a context where unprecedented contagion threats have caused huge instability. There are still significant gaps in the scholarly literature on populism and nationalism. In particular, there is a lack of attention to the role of evolved human psychology in responding to persistent threats, which can fall into four broad categories in the literature: predation (threats to one's life via being eaten or killed in some other way), contagion (threats to one's life via physical infection), natural (threats to one's life via natural disasters), and social (threats to one's life by destroying social standing). These threats have been discussed in light of their effects on religion and other forms of behaviour, but they have not been employed to study nationalist and populist behaviours. In what follows, two studies are presented that begin to fill this gap in the literature. The first is a survey used to inform our theoretical framework and explore the different possible relationships in an online sample. The second is a study of a computer simulation. Both studies (completed in 2020) found very clear effects among the relevant variables, enabling us to identify trends that require further explanation and research as we move toward models that can adequately inform policy discussions
The Astropy Problem
Get PDFThe Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community
effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster
interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this
project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots,
self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by
the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has
always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors
receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now
critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible
solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the
sustainability of general purpose astronomical software
A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity
Get PDFOur growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe
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