Monitoring and Evaluation in Global Social Development Programs: A Case Study of a Scholarship Program for HIV+ Young Adults in Uganda

As access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART) expands globally, extending survival and rendering HIV a chronic disease rather than an acute condition, care and treatment for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) becomes more complex. Treatment now includes ensuring quality of life as well as medical treatment via ART. As with any vulnerable population, PLWHA have social needs that can significantly influence their health related quality of life (HRQOL). Social needs in this context can include education, peer support, microfinance, etc. The benefit of vocational education training (VET) and other social development programs has yet to be explored extensively in the literature. However, it is believed that VET programs for PLWHA, have the ability to address these social needs and improve the physical and mental health of PLWHA. These improvements are linked to increased self-esteem, which can significantly influence HRQOL and even increase the likelihood of ART compliance (Takanda, 2012). The Holzworth Scholarship Program (HSP), based in Kampala, Uganda, is a unique VET program for young PLWHA that helps address the skill and education gaps found in this population due primarily to poverty and illness. Given the lack of literature surrounding VET programs for PLWHA, it is important that this program be carefully monitored and evaluated to help prove the value of such programs for similar vulnerable populations. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in conjunction with continuous quality improvement (CQI) provide a framework for assessing the impact of educational programs such as the HSP. The HSP is presented as a case study in this paper to illustrate how M&E and CQI can be applied to assess the local impact of this innovative VET program and ideas are discussed for how to extrapolate the program in the global community.Master of Public Healt

Early Scottish museum collections of Haida argillite carving

This thesis is about four historical collections of Haida argillite carvings now at the National Museum of Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museums and the Perth Museum and Art Gallery. Since the early nineteenth century Haida artists have carved argillite, a carbonaceous shale, into objects featuring Haida and European-inspired motifs, for trade or sale to non-Haida others. Scots Colin Robertson, William Mitchell, James Hector and John Rae acquired argillite as part of broader collections from the Northwest Coast of Canada made during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Each of these men was employed by, or affiliated with the Hudson’s Bay Company. This thesis questions how the meanings and statuses of these objects, collected and deposited in Scottish museums between the 1820s and 1860s, have changed over the nearly two centuries of their existence. Research at these three museums, and at British and Canadian archives, provided the material that shed light on the historical circumstances of the approximately 30 objects constituting these collections. Semi-structured interviews with Haida carvers, community members and experts, and with museum curators elicited insights into the ways these objects are made meaningful today. The thesis examines the collections in four key contexts. First, it explores the ways in which they have been displayed and interpreted at the three museums, shedding light on the trajectories by which museums have represented the objects of others. Secondly, it describes the context in which the argillite carvings were produced, circulated and collected by sketching the social and political character of the Northwest Coast as it transformed through the decades of the fur trade to European colonization. How these objects transformed in status and value according to the agendas of their collectors is the third context, which reflects the character of relationships between Indigenous peoples and newcomers. Finally, I resituate these collections in the context of contemporary Haidas’ perspectives on the value and meaning of argillite carving(s), and propose that these objects can be understood as “inalienable commodities.” The argillite carvings in these Scottish museum collections are objects of exchange, produced and circulated in the contact zone of the mid-nineteenth century Northwest Coast. As such, they are windows into relationships between Indigenous and European people during this period. Collected as curiosities but remade into objects of science, biography and art, this study traces their shifting statuses as they have moved through various regimes of value. This thesis therefore characterizes the exchanges that have occurred around these objects as ongoing and dynamic

Seeking and sharing: why the pulmonaryn fibrosis community engages the web 2.0 environment

Background Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a rare, progressive disease that affects patients and their loved ones on many levels. We sought to better understand the needs and interests of PF patients and their loved ones (collectively “reader-participants”) by systematically analyzing their engagement with the World Wide Web (the current version referred to as Web 2.0). Methods Data were collected from three PF-focused, interactive websites hosted by physician-investigators with expertise in PF. All data generated by reader-participants for approximately 10 months were downloaded and then analyzed using qualitative content analysis methods. Results PF experts posted 38 blog entries and reader-participants posted 40 forum entries. Blogs received 363 responses, and forum entries received 108 responses from reader-participants. Reader-participants primarily used the three websites to seek information from or offer a contribution to the PF community. Information was sought about PF symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, treatments, research, pathophysiology, and disease origin; reader-participants also made requests for new posts and pleas for research and sought clarification on existing content. Contributions included personal narratives about experiences with PF, descriptions of activities or behaviors found to be helpful with PF symptoms, resources or information about PF, and supportive comments to other PF sufferers. Conclusions PF patients and their loved ones engage the Web 2.0 environment at these PF-focused sites to satisfy their needs to better understand PF and its impacts and to support others facing similar challenges. Clinicians may find it beneficial to encourage PF patients’ involvement in internet forums that foster dynamic, bi-directional information sharing

Las Vegas Review-Journal v. City of Henderson, 137 Nev. Adv. Op. (Dec. 23, 2021)

District courts must apply the catalyst theory to determine whether a party prevails in litigation related to public records. A district court abuses its discretion when it fails to consider all five factors under Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department v. Center for Investigative Reporting, Inc., 136 Nev. 122, 460 P.3d 952 (2020) (“CIR” factors). Courts must make proper findings for each of the five factors and balance the factors to determine whether a party prevailed

Las Vegas Review-Journal v. City of Henderson, 137 Nev. Adv. Op. (Dec. 23, 2021)

District courts must apply the catalyst theory to determine whether a party prevails in litigation related to public records. A district court abuses its discretion when it fails to consider all five factors under Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department v. Center for Investigative Reporting, Inc., 136 Nev. 122, 460 P.3d 952 (2020) (“CIR” factors). Courts must make proper findings for each of the five factors and balance the factors to determine whether a party prevailed