Rape Attribution for African-American Students

The purpose of this quantitative research project is an examination of the influence of gender on the attribution of blame for rape among African-American undergraduate students at Georgia State University. The attribution of blame in a rape scenario (male perpetrator/female victim) will be presented in four pairings, manipulating the race (Black/White) of the victim and perpetrator. The attribution of blame will be measured using a modified 5 point Likert-scale and 14 point Likert-scale based on two pre-existing rape attribution scales: Kanekar and Kolsawalla’s “Responsibility and Imprisonment” 21 point scale (1988) and George and Matrinez’s “Victim Blaming” 10 point Likert-scale (2002). The researcher will use SPSS to determine whether or not significant gender differences in the attribution of rape are apparent in each of the scenarios. Gender issues remain a comparatively unexplored area of research within African-American Studies. This research may bring attention to the degree to which the attribution of responsibility for rape is both raced and gendered within the African-American community. In doing so, this research will potentially provide an additional platform on which more open and honest dialogue between African-American men and women can occur

Religious Pluralism, Conflict and HIV/Aids Education in Refugee-Affected Regions of North-Western Kenya

This paper examines how multi-religious factors influence the teaching and learning of HIV/AIDS education in refugee schools based on a qualitative study conducted in refugee-affected communities in North-Western Kenya. The study involved a total of 3 primary schools from Kakuma Refugee Camp (KRC) and 3 from the host community. A sample of 617 respondents of diverse nationalities, including 356 male and 160 female pupils, was used. The study utilized semi-structured interviews, observation, FGDs, documentary analysis and drawings to generate data. The findings reveal that, first; traditional ethnic cultures interacted with religion to influence the nature and level of interaction between boys and girls during HIV/AIDS education lessons, thereby determining the process of learning. Whereas Somali Muslim pupils sat and worked in same gender clusters, Christian Sudanese and Turkana boys and girls interacted across genders more freely. Consequently, the cultural and religious tendencies denied Muslim Somali boys and girls an opportunity to work together as allies in addressing pertinent and effective strategies in HIV/AIDS education. Further, unlike the Christian Turkana and Ugandan girls who seemed open and outgoing in their participation in HIV/AIDS education activities, Somali and Ethiopian Muslim girls remained quiet, reserved and shy as a way of showing respect to male teachers and pupils. In this regard, Kenyan Christian teachers interpreted the behaviour of Somali and Ethiopian Muslim girls to mean disobedience and hence, tended to exclude the girls during classroom activities.  Because religion determined the teacher’s interpretation of the content,  pupils received different and sometimes conflicting messages on similar topics depending on the teacher’s religious background. It was therefore concluded that religious beliefs influenced the learning of HIV/AIDS education in refugee schools in a complex manner, which teachers need to understand clearly  for them to be able to enhance inclusive and responsive learning Keywords: Religious Pluralism, Conflict, HIV/AIDS Education, Refugee-Affected Regions, North-Western Keny

Channel monitored channel duplexer for optimization of bidirectional passive optical network

Method of optimizing the optical network transmission in access network has been investigated in many years. Unidirectional optical transmission system is the earliest method of delivering the information. In recent years, bidirectional optical transmission system is the most popular network and shall be the first right of refusal to deploy nowadays. It is justify enough by the massive deployment of the popular state-of-the-art network named Passive Optical Network (PON) in Fiber To The Home (FTTH) technologies. Combining 3 wavelengths includes (1) 1310nm, (2) 1490nm, and (3) 1550nm within a fiber is the method used on Gigabit Capable Passive Optical Network (GPON) or Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network (GEPON/EPON). Combining 2 different wavelengths for uplink and downlink on Small Form Pluggable (SFP) lasers also has been a method used to optimized and saved the fiber infrastructure. Compared those techniques, the research optimization focusing on introducing a passive optical duplexer that combined the same wavelength from both end with the element of monitoring via different wavelength to confirm the network availability. In the design, a unidirectional converter able to operate at a nominal 1310nm or 1550nm windows shall be demonstrated up to 10Gbps Ethernet signal

Urban sprawl and its impact on sustainable urban development: a combination of remote sensing and social media data

Urbanization is one of the most impactful human activities across the world today affecting the quality of urban life and its sustainable development. Urbanization in Africa is occurring at an unprecedented rate and it threatens the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Urban sprawl has resulted in unsustainable urban development patterns from social, environmental, and economic perspectives. This study is among the first examples of research in Africa to combine remote sensing data with social media data to determine urban sprawl from 2011 to 2017 in Morogoro urban municipality, Tanzania. Random Forest (RF) method was applied to accomplish imagery classification and location-based social media (Twitter usage) data were obtained through a Twitter Application Programming Interface (API). Morogoro urban municipality was classified into built-up, vegetation, agriculture, and water land cover classes while the classification results were validated by the generation of 480 random points. Using the Kernel function, the study measured the location of Twitter users within a 1 km buffer from the center of the city. The results indicate that, expansion of the city (built-up land use), which is primarily driven by population expansion, has negative impacts on ecosystem services because pristine grasslands and forests which provide essential ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and support for biodiversity have been replaced by built-up land cover. In addition, social media usage data suggest that there is the concentration of Twitter usage within the city center while Twitter usage declines away from the city center with significant spatial and numerical increase in Twitter usage in the study area. The outcome of the study suggests that the combination of remote sensing, social sensing, and population data were useful as a proxy/inference for interpreting urban sprawl and status of access to urban services and infrastructure in Morogoro, and Africa city where data for urban planning is often unavailable, inaccurate, or stale

Children's daily travel to school in Johannesburg-Soweto, South Africa: geography and school choice in the Birth to Twenty cohort study

This paper has two aims: to explore approaches to the measurement of children’s daily travel to school in a context of limited geospatial data availability, and to provide data regarding school choice and distance travelled to school in Soweto-Johannesburg, South Africa. The paper makes use of data from the Birth to Twenty cohort study (n=1428) to explore three different approaches to estimating school choice and travel to school. Firstly, straight-line distance between home and school is calculated. Secondly, census geography is used to determine whether a child's home and school fall in the same area. Thirdly, distance data are used to determine whether a child attends the nearest school. Each of these approaches highlights a different aspect of mobility, and all provide valuable data. Overall, primary school aged children in Soweto-Johannesburg are shown to be travelling substantial distances to school on a daily basis. Over a third travel more than 3km, one-way, to school, 60% attend schools outside of the suburb in which they live, and only 18% attend their nearest school. These data provide evidence for high levels of school choice in Johannesburg-Soweto, and that families and children are making substantial investments in pursuit of high quality educational opportunities. Additionally, these data suggest that two patterns of school choice are evident: one pattern involving travel of substantial distances and requiring a higher level of financial investment, and a second pattern, involving choice between more local schools, requiring less travel and a more limited financial investment

Necessary fictions: indigenous claims and the humanity of rights

Indigenous right insistently challenges the surpassing arrogations of sovereign right. In so doing, it affirms dimensions of being-together denied or stunted in sovereign modes of political formation. This force of Indigenous right is amplified here through legal and literary instantiations. These, in turn, uncover the continuously created and fictional quality of rights, revealing them to be necessary fictions

Learning at the Interstices; Locating Practical Philosophies for Understanding Physical/virtual Inter-spaces

Virtual worlds are relatively recent developments, and so it is tempting to believe that they need to be understood through newly developed theories and philosophies. However, humans have long thought about the nature of reality and what it means to be “real.” This paper examines the three persistent philosophical concepts of Metaxis, Liminality and Space that have evolved across more than 2000 years of meditation, contemplation and reflection. Our particular focus here is on the nature of the interface between the virtual and the physical: at the interstices, and how the nature of transactions and transitions across those interfaces may impact upon learning. This may, at first, appear to be an esoteric pursuit, but we ground our arguments in primary and secondary data from research studies in higher education

Education for Sustainable Development and retention: unravelling a research agenda

This paper considers the question of what education for sustainable development (ESD) research might signify when linked to the concept of “retention”, and how this relation (ESD and retention) might be researched. It considers two different perspectives on retention, as revealed through educational research trajectories, drawing on existing research and case studies. Firstly, it discusses an ESD research agenda that documents retention by focusing on the issue of keeping children in schools. This research agenda is typical of the existing discourses surrounding Education for All (EFA). It then discusses a related ESD research agenda that focuses more on the pedagogical and curricular aspects of retention, as this provides for a deeper understanding of how ESD can contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning within a wider EFA retention agenda