ICT, cultural knowledge, and teacher education in\ud Africa

In this paper, we make a case for the need to carry out more culturally\ud appropriate research on ICT and teacher education in Africa generally and in\ud Uganda more specifically. We begin by examining the promise of ICTs and digital\ud literacies, and highlight the importance ascribed to ICTs for national development\ud and educational change. While agreeing that ICTs may have transformative\ud potential in developing countries, we argue that the much-hyped potential may not\ud be realized if the major focus of promoting ICTs in a developing country like\ud Uganda is merely to provide greater access to global information, rather than\ud encouraging local knowledge production for wealth creation. We frame our\ud argument with reference to the New Literacy Studies perspective of viewing\ud literacy as a social practice situated in a specific sociocultural context

A needs assessment of incarcerated mothers and their children

An analysis of the needs of incarcerated women and their children was conducted in 1999 for the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department in Boston, Massachusetts. This earlier study concluded that incarcerated mothers had a wide variety of challenges including lack of access to stable living arrangements, unsafe and inadequate housing, marginal education, limited job skills, poly-drug addiction, and family instability. It was argued, at that time, that ignoring the difficulties faced by these mothers and their children was setting the stage for increased risk for recidivism among the mothers and poor health, education, and behavioral outcomes for the children (Gabel & Johnston, 1995).The goal of this study is to determine the current educational, familial, economic, health, criminal justice and social conditions of sentenced or awaiting trial women at Suffolk County House of Corrections to provide an overview of the challenges faced by these women as they try to re-enter mainstream society

Once a criminal always a criminal? A 15-year analysis of recidivism among female prisoners in Massachusetts

The study of prisoner recidivism has long captured the interest of criminal justice researchers. Recidivism studies attempt to answer a variety of questions ranging from what are the characteristics of those who reoffend, what factors predict offender recidivism, and how long does a recidivist remain in the community before finding themselves in conflict with the law again. Unlike many studies that examine recidivism over a relatively short term – three to five years, this study investigates recidivism over a 15-year period among a group of female offenders released from a Massachusetts prison in 1995. Findings point to three propositions moving forward. First, correctional programming geared specifically toward youthful offenders might be necessary to promote desistance over the life course. Second, offender monitoring and accountability up to 36 months after release from incarceration may reduce the risk of re-offending. Third, studies with a follow-up period of ten years would be a valuable addition to the recidivism literature to advance our understanding of chronic offending among women.El estudio de la reincidencia de los presos ha captado el interés de los investigadores de justicia penal durante mucho tiempo. Estudios sobre reincidencia intentan responder una serie de preguntas que van desde lo que son las características de los que reinciden, qué factores predicen la reincidencia delincuente, y cuánto tiempo una persona reincidente permanece en la comunidad antes de que se encuentre en conflicto con la ley de nuevo. A diferencia de muchos estudios que examinan la reincidencia en un plazo relativamente corto - tres a cinco años-, este estudio investiga la reincidencia en un período de 15 años entre un grupo de mujeres delincuentes liberadas de una prisión de Massachusetts en 1995. Los hallazgos apuntan a tres proposiciones. En primer lugar, podría ser necesaria la programación correccional orientada específicamente hacia las delincuentes juveniles para promover el desistimiento a largo de la vida. En segundo lugar, la supervisión y rendición de cuentas hasta 36 meses después de su liberación de la cárcel pueden reducir el riesgo de reincidencia. En tercer lugar, los estudios con un período de seguimiento de diez años, serían una valiosa aportación a la literatura sobre reincidencia para avanzar en nuestra comprensión de la delincuencia crónica entre las mujeres

The Care, Custody, and Control of Incarcerated Women in Ecuador

This paper presents findings on the custody, care and control of incarcerated women in Ecuador. Although the interrelationship of abuse, poverty, drugs and incarceration is often perceived as a U.S. phenomenon, this paper presents data on a group of structurally and institutionally vulnerable women who are serving mandatory sentences of 6 to 8 years for drug possession and trafficking. Our mixed methodology of survey data, personal interviews, and secondary source materials uncovers some disturbing human rights violations and documents the challenges these incarcerated women face as mothers and inmates

Meaning and Practice of Palliative Care for Hospitalized Older Adults with Life Limiting Illnesses

Objective. To illustrate distinctions and intersections of palliative care (PC) and end-of-life (EOL) services through examples from case-centered data of older adults cared for during a four-year ethnographic study of an acute care hospital palliative care consultation service. Methods. Qualitative narrative and thematic analysis. Results. Description of four practice paradigms (EOL transitions, prognostic uncertainty, discharge planning, and patient/family values and preferences) and identification of the underlying structure and communication patterns of PC consultation services common to them. Conclusions. Consistent with reports by other researchers, study data support the need to move beyond equating PC with hospice or EOL care and the notion that EOL is a well-demarcated period of time before death. If professional health care providers assume that PC services are limited to assisting with and helping patients and families prepare for dying, they miss opportunities to provide care considered important to older individuals confronting life-limiting illnesses

"It's just horrible": a qualitative study of patients' and carers' experiences of bowel dysfunction in Multiple Sclerosis

Background: Around 50% of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) experience neurogenic bowel dysfunction (constipation and / or faecal incontinence), reducing quality of life and increasing carer burden. No previous qualitative studies have explored the experiences of bowel problems in people with MS, or the views of their family carers. Objective: To understand 'what it is like' to live with bowel dysfunction and the impact this has on people with MS and carers. Methods: Using exploratory qualitative methods, 47 semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants recruited from specialist hospital clinics and community sources using purposive and chain-referral sampling. Data were analysed using a pragmatic inductive-deductive method. Results: Participants identified multiple psychological, physical and social impacts of bowel dysfunction. Health care professional support ranged from empathy and appropriate onward referral, to lack of interest or not referring to appropriate services. Participants want bowel issues to be discussed more openly, with clinicians instigating a discussion early after MS diagnosis and repeating enquiries regularly. Conclusions: Bowel dysfunction impacts on the lives of people with MS and their carers; their experience with care services is often unsatisfactory. Understanding patient and carer preferences about management of bowel dysfunction can inform clinical care and referral pathways

Abdominal massage plus advice, compared with advice only, for neurogenic bowel dysfunction in MS:a RCT

This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health TechnologyPeer reviewedPublisher PD

The ChaMPlane bright X-ray sources - Galactic longitudes l = 2-358 deg

The Chandra Multiwavelength Plane (ChaMPlane) Survey aims to constrain the Galactic population of mainly accretion-powered, but also coronal, low-luminosity X-ray sources (Lx <~ 1e33 erg/s). To investigate the X-ray source content in the plane at fluxes Fx >~ 3e-14 erg/s/cm^2, we study 21 of the brightest ChaMPlane sources, viz. those with >250 net counts (0.3-8 keV). By excluding the heavily obscured central part of the plane, our optical/near-infrared follow-up puts useful constraints on their nature. We have discovered two likely accreting white-dwarf binaries. CXOPS J154305.5-522709 (CBS 7) is a cataclysmic variable showing periodic X-ray flux modulations on 1.2 hr and 2.4 hr; given its hard spectrum the system is likely magnetic. We identify CXOPS J175900.8-334548 (CBS 17) with a late-type giant; if the X-rays are indeed accretion-powered, it belongs to the small but growing class of symbiotic binaries lacking strong optical nebular emission lines. CXOPS J171340.5-395213 (CBS 14) is an X-ray transient that brightened >~100 times. We tentatively classify it as a very late-type (>M7) dwarf, of which few have been detected in X-rays. The remaining sources are (candidate) active galaxies, normal stars and active binaries, and a plausible young T Tauri star. The derived cumulative number density versus flux (log N - log S) relation for the Galactic sources appears flatter than expected for an isotropic distribution, indicating that we are seeing a non-local sample of mostly coronal sources. Our findings define source templates that we can use, in part, to classify the >1e4 fainter sources in ChaMPlane.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, ApJ in pres