Trash or Treasure! Opportunities and Challenges for Artisan Enterprise from Recycled Waste

Scavenging, or informal recycling, represents a significant global economic activity (Medina, 2007) allowing certain groups to survive while providing raw materials to various industries including agriculture, housing, industry, and artisan enterprise. In developing areas, artisans use scavenged raw materials to create a wide variety of products including pottery, sandals, lamps, fashion accessories, and textiles. This paper uses two cases in Guatemala as evidence of the informal recycling system. Data were collected in Guatemala through participant observation, interviews with artisans and organizational leaders, and photo documentation of production processes and finished products. Data were analyzed through constant comparison, and resolution of themes, issues, and challenges emerging from the data. In Project #1, artisans wove strips cut from plastic bags into household products and accessories for export. In Project #2 artisans hooked rugs for the U.S. market from used clothing purchased at pacas. Both projects have contributed significantly to economic sustainability for families and communities in Guatemala

Pretransplant HLA typing revealed loss of heterozygosity in the major histocompatibility complex in a patient with acute myeloid leukemia

Introduction Chromosomal abnormalities are frequent events in hematological malignancies. The degree of HLA compatibility between donor and recipient in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is critical. Purpose of the study In this report, we describe an acute myeloid leukemia case with loss of heterozygosity (LOH) encompassing the entire HLA. Materials and methods HLA molecular typing was performed on peripheral blood (PB) and buccal swabs (BS). Chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) was performed using a whole genome platform. Results Typing results on PB sample collected during blast crisis demonstrated homozygosity at the -A, -B, -C, -DR, and -DQ loci. A BS sample demonstrated heterozygosity at all loci. A subsequent PB sample drawn after count recovery confirmed heterozygosity. The CMA performed on PB samples collected during and after blast crisis revealed a large terminal region of copy-neutral LOH involving chromosome region 6p25.3p21.31, spanning approximately 35.9 Mb. The results of the CMA assay on sample collected after count recovery did not demonstrate LOH. Conclusions LOH at the HLA gene locus may significantly influence the donor search resulting in mistakenly choosing homozygous donors. We recommend confirming the HLA typing of recipients with hematological malignancies when homozygosity is detected at any locus by using BS samples, or alternatively from PB when remission is achieved

ESIIL Strategic Plan

The 5 year plan (2022-2027) for the Environmental Data Science Innovation &amp; Inclusion Lab (ESIIL). ESIIL is a next-generation NSF synthesis center led by the University of Colorado Boulder in collaboration with NSF&rsquo;s CyVerse at the University of Arizona, and the University of Oslo. ESIIL enables a global community of environmental data scientists to leverage the wealth of environmental data and emerging analytics to develop science-based solutions to solve pressing challenges in the environmental sciences. This plan highlights ESIIL's mission, vision, and objectives, outlining a roadmap that will guide our efforts towards fulfilling the mission of accelerating innovation and driving just and equitable solutions through the power of data and technology. </p

Alternative Trade Marketing: Three Approaches to Textile Design and Production

Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs) are businesses that are deeply committed to a mission of sustainable, people-centered development. By paying textile artisans as much as possible rather than as little as possible, ATOs contrast dramatically with mainstream textile marketers whose attention is directed to meeting customer demand and expanding shareholder profits. A fair trade partnership between textile artisans and retailers involves joint commitment to paying fair wages, offering equitable employment opportunities, providing healthy and safe working conditions, offering technical training, and honoring cultural identity as a stimulus for textile product development. Textiles are marketed through retail specialty stores and catalogs in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. This paper compares three U.S.-based ATOs on their textile design and production work with artisan groups in India, Guatemala, and Panama. MarketPlace Handwork of India draws on indigenous embroidery, patchwork, and recycling techniques for creating a unique textile line. SERRV guides artisans toward textile line development based on product reviews from New York Gift Shows. PEOPLink connects artisans through the internet with a panel of U.S. based designers who critique artisans\u27 fabric and product desigps. In creating their own WEB pages in collaboration with PEOPLink, artisans have opportunities to present their textile realities to the world. Through cross-group comparisons, effects of gendered behaviors and organizational culture on textile design, production, and artisan empowerment will be explored. Other issues addressed include the value of changing organizational structures for meeting business goals related to artisan group identity, textile quality, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and market diversification

MarketPlace Handwork of India: Impacts on Artisan Capabilities

At the 1998 TSA Symposium in New York City, we presented a paper that documented the work of three textile artisan enterprises. All embraced a fair trade approach to their work. Known as Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs), these enterprises are deeply committed to a mission of sustainable, people-centered development (Littrell and Dickson 1997). More specifically, this fair trade partnership between textile artisans and retailers involves joint commitment to: • paying fair wages within a local context, • providing healthy and safe working conditions, • sustaining the environment, • promoting capacity building through business and technical training, and • honoring cultural identity as a stimulus for textile product development. Following from that paper, in our 1999 book, Social Responsibility in the Global Market (1999), we boldly contended that as a philosophy, fair trade fosters empowerment and improved quality of life for artisans through an integrated and sustained system of trade partnerships. However, since 1999, as we became more engaged in broader issues of corporate responsibility, particularly as related to apparel sweatshops, we began to question whether goals of worker empowerment were in fact being reached among textile artisan enterprises organized under a fair trade philosophy. With a grant from the Earthwatch Institute and the assistance of 24 Earthwatch research volunteers from around the globe, we are in the process of assessing the impacts of artisan work on women’s capabilities, livelihood, and quality of life for the textile artisans involved with MarketPlace: Handwork of India, an ATO and one of the three groups described at the 1988 TSA symposium. The insights we offer in this paper come from our initial interpretation of the interviews with approximately 100 of the women. As a part of the research process, 30 of the MarketPlace artisans used cameras to photo-document and discuss their daily lives and work. Through many of the photos the artisans took, the women offered a pictorial perspective of their households and their work. The research tool of photoelicitation has been employed as a valuable field research tool for informants to produce images of themselves that introduce their own criteria for self-assessing their lives (Roncoli and Sendze 1997). Through photos, informants offer a voice that might not be heard in shaping how their quality of life is discussed and analyzed (Karp 1999)

Preserving Provenance: Collaborative Conversation with a Textile Collector

Introduction Donations of textile collections are essential for universities and museums that rely on historical and ethnographic textiles for research, teaching, and exhibitions. In turn, collectors who have amassed substantial numbers of textiles seek appropriate donation venues. Provenance related to collecting individual textiles may be lost, however, before a donor selects an institution, or before the donation has been accessioned into a university or museum collection. A donation received after the demise of a donor who did not document individual pieces limits the provenance—the history of the source and ownership—of individual textiles. Without provenance, it is tempting to see even the most intriguing textiles as inanimate objects. In addition, limited provenance restricts the story-telling ability of textiles. In this paper, we describe a method intended to capture provenance for each textile in a living donation bequeathed as a planned gift. Judi Arndt Central Asian Collection Judith (Judi) Arndt, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, is a textile artisan and collector. She established a career as a professional interior designer and lived abroad for many years with her husband and children. As time permitted, she studied and developed skills in dyeing and weaving. Informed by her understanding of the patience and time required for handproduced textiles, she collected pieces that were specific to her interest in natural dyes and complex weaving techniques. When did she realize that she had a collection? . . . when I realized that my passion for travel and textiles came together as a single focus, and the textiles were starting to take over my home. While traveling to various underdeveloped areas I also wanted to support what women in these countries were doing to support their families. They were making a living from producing the same crafts that I had been doing since the late 1950s. Judi grew to love Asian textiles, Central Asian textiles in particular. Aware that the strength of her collection lay in dye and weaving techniques, she sought an appropriate educational venue that would use her collection for teaching and research. Her network of textile enthusiasts acquainted her with the strong ethnic focus of the textile program at Colorado State University, where faculty members have strong roots in socially responsible production and marketing of artisan textiles. Based on these factors, she decided on the Museum of Design and Merchandising, a facility housed within the Department of Design and Merchandising at Colorado State University