The Gatekeeping Behind Meritocracy: Voices of NYC High School Students

Survey and focus group sampling of students in high achieving schools compared to lower achieving schools were used to examine why there are fewer black men graduating from high schools in New York City as well as high schools around the country compared to other groups of students. Race is disaggregated in order to look at the difference in achievement rates for African American, black Hispanic, African, and Afro-Caribbean men. The findings support the contention that foreign-born blacks do better academically than native blacks. Focus groups consist of black males, females, and staff at six of the 12 schools; field notes are included for the other five. The research includes 23 faculty members, and 155 participants with quantitative data on 151 student participants, largely black males. Schools were sampled across four typologies: alternative, empowerment, private, and public to compare high achieving and low achieving schools. The findings uncover some of the reasons as to why fewer black males were graduating from high school. Some of the reasons include weak family, school, and community networks, and low skill levels. Successful black males report strong familial and school community networks, positive school culture that encourages learning, and high teacher expectation. Students report violent schools, teachers who do not make learning relevant, and apathetic teachers and staff hinder learning. The findings intend to inform the development of programs, designed to address the needs of black male students who attend John Jay, other City University of New York colleges, and schools across the country. Given the interest in growing incarceration rates and penal policy, this research explores proactive measures for dealing with at risk youth, e.g. creating tutoring and mentoring programs, recruiting and retaining more teachers and administrators who represent the student body, providing more funding for NCLB, diverting first time offenders, and expanding breakfast and lunch programs

Donor-Assisted Land-use Planning in the Philippines: Insights from a Multi-Level Survey

Land requires fair and transparent management to allow for equal participation and for its sustainable use among rivaling stakeholders. Land use planning is the mechanism to allow for this kind of resource management and the reconciliation of diverging interests. It is thus not surprising that the governance of land resources has become a prominent topic among donors and development practitioners in the last decade. It is theorized that good administration and management of land is crucial to poverty reduction, conflict transformation, disaster risk management, improvement in the quality of local governance and ultimately sustainable economic growth. The report at hand presents first results derived from a quantitative impact evaluation of an intervention for enhanced land use planning in the Philippines. The SIMPLE (Sustainable Integrated Management and Planning for Local Government Ecosystems) approach embedded in the Philippine-German cooperation’s “Environment and Rural Development (EnRD)” program was implemented between 2006 and 2015, managed by the Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The report draws upon quantitative cross-sectional data collected in 2012 on household, village and municipal level. It provides first insights into program outcomes and impacts. A follow-up impact evaluation of the intervention, based on a rigorous before-after design, will be published in 2017

Estrés laboral y compromiso organizacional en trabajadores de empresa de construcción en minería – 2021

El trabajo de investigación titulado: “Estrés laboral y compromiso organizacional en trabajadores de empresa de construcción en minería, 2021”. Ha tenido como objetivo describir la relación entre el estrés laboral y el compromiso organizacional en trabajadores de empresa de construcción en minería, 2021. La metodología fue de tipo básica, buscó información de la realidad problemática, con el diseño no experimental, no se dio durante la presente investigación la manipulación de las variables de estudio, fue de corte transversal y de tipo correlacional. La población estuvo conformada por 400 trabajadores, de la cual se obtuvo una muestra de 197 colaboradores; asimismo, se aplicaron 2 encuestas, la primera sobre estrés laboral y la segunda sobre compromiso organizacional, ambos instrumentos cuentan con el requisito de validación por juicio de expertos y cuentan con una confiabilidad favorable. El método utilizado es el hipotético deductivo, para determinar la correlación de las variables se aplicará Rho Spearman Los resultados obtenidos muestran un coeficiente de correlación de Rho =- 0,045, así como p = 0.527 (p>0.05), lo cual indica que no existe relación directa y significativa entre el estrés laboral y el compromiso organizacional en trabajadores de empresa de construcción en minería

Collaborative Community Approach to Migrant Education

This is the result of a project of the European Centre for Modern Languages within its “Learning through languages” programme 2012-2015. The ECML is a Council of Europe institution promoting excellence in language education in its member state

Examining the transport to school patterns of New Zealand adolescents by home-to-school distance and settlement types

Background: Scholarship on active transport to school has largely focused on children, (large) urban areas, the umbrella term of “active transport” which considered walking and cycling together and without taking into account walking and/or cycling distance. This research examined adolescents’ patterns of transport to school in diverse settlement types and in relation to home-to-school distance in the Otago region of Aotearoa New Zealand. Methods: Patterns of transport to school by home-to-school distance, and across school locations, are described for a sample of 2,403 adolescents (age: 15.1 ± 1.4 years; 55% females) attending 23 out of 27 schools in large urban areas (n = 1,309; 11 schools), medium urban areas (n = 265; three schools), small urban areas (n = 652; four schools) and rural settings (n = 177; five schools). Empirical data were collected through an online survey, in which adolescents reported sociodemographic characteristics, travel to school, and perceptions of walking and cycling. Home-to-school distance was measured on the shortest route determined using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based network analysis. Results: Transport to school patterns differed significantly by home-to-school distance and across settlement types. Profiles of different transport user groups showed significant variability in sociodemographic characteristics, family factors, average distance to school, self-reported physical activity, and perceived health. Conclusions: Initiatives to promote active transport and reduce reliance on car transport to school, whether to improve health and the environment or to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, need to pay closer attention to the settlement types, distance to school, and characteristics of different transport user modes

Definitions, Criteria and Global Classification of Mast Cell Disorders with Special Reference to Mast Cell Activation Syndromes: A Consensus Proposal

Activation of tissue mast cells (MCs) and their abnormal growth and accumulation in various organs are typically found in primary MC disorders also referred to as mastocytosis. However, increasing numbers of patients are now being informed that their clinical findings are due to MC activation (MCA) that is neither associated with mastocytosis nor with a defined allergic or inflammatory reaction. In other patients with MCA, MCs appear to be clonal cells, but criteria for diagnosing mastocytosis are not met. A working conference was organized in 2010 with the aim to define criteria for diagnosing MCA and related disorders, and to propose a global unifying classification of all MC disorders and pathologic MC reactions. This classification includes three types of `MCA syndromes' (MCASs), namely primary MCAS, secondary MCAS and idiopathic MCAS. MCA is now defined by robust and generally applicable criteria, including (1) typical clinical symptoms, (2) a substantial transient increase in serum total tryptase level or an increase in other MC-derived mediators, such as histamine or prostaglandin D 2, or their urinary metabolites, and (3) a response of clinical symptoms to agents that attenuate the production or activities of MC mediators. These criteria should assist in the identification and diagnosis of patients with MCAS, and in avoiding misdiagnoses or overinterpretation of clinical symptoms in daily practice. Moreover, the MCAS concept should stimulate research in order to identify and exploit new molecular mechanisms and therapeutic targets. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base

With or without force? : European public opinion on democracy promotion

A Large part of the education provided at colleges and universities of today requires for thestudent to be more independent in their studies. This demands that the physical space,where the students choose to study, is designed in a way that can encourage and supportlearning. It seems as though that many of the learning spaces of today don’t always meetthe students’ needs. The university library at the University of Umeå is currently planningto design new learning spaces for the students. The aim of this study is to examine how thephysical learning space can be designed to engage and encourage the students in theirlearning process. Based on literature describing learning spaces we have initially identified three mainareas to examine- Learning, Information Technology and Learning space design. Theseareas are all important features in the design of new learning spaces. With informationdrawn from that literature we conducted an empirical study at the library of the Universityof Umeå. The empirical study was carried out through observations and focus groupinterviews. To give us more insight about the students’ thoughts about the learning spacewe also compared our findings with a survey conducted by the library personnel in 2008and 2010. The result of our study shows that there are some areas to be improved in theexisting learning space. The students are working more collaboratively which requiresmore group areas. Our study also shows that flexibility, more student interaction and asocial and engaging environment are all important features in the design of new learningspaces

Genomic Legacy of the African Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus

Background Patterns of genetic and genomic variance are informative in inferring population history for human, model species and endangered populations. Results Here the genome sequence of wild-born African cheetahs reveals extreme genomic depletion in SNV incidence, SNV density, SNVs of coding genes, MHC class I and II genes, and mitochondrial DNA SNVs. Cheetah genomes are on average 95 % homozygous compared to the genomes of the outbred domestic cat (24.08 % homozygous), Virunga Mountain Gorilla (78.12 %), inbred Abyssinian cat (62.63 %), Tasmanian devil, domestic dog and other mammalian species. Demographic estimators impute two ancestral population bottlenecks: one \u3e100,000 years ago coincident with cheetah migrations out of the Americas and into Eurasia and Africa, and a second 11,084–12,589 years ago in Africa coincident with late Pleistocene large mammal extinctions. MHC class I gene loss and dramatic reduction in functional diversity of MHC genes would explain why cheetahs ablate skin graft rejection among unrelated individuals. Significant excess of non-synonymous mutations in AKAP4 (p\u3c0.02), a gene mediating spermatozoon development, indicates cheetah fixation of five function-damaging amino acid variants distinct from AKAP4 homologues of other Felidae or mammals; AKAP4 dysfunction may cause the cheetah’s extremely high (\u3e80 %) pleiomorphic sperm. Conclusions The study provides an unprecedented genomic perspective for the rare cheetah, with potential relevance to the species’ natural history, physiological adaptations and unique reproductive disposition

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research