Getting a Piece of the Pie: Lebanese Women Become Deminers

The Swedish Rescue Services Agency was one of the first organizations to enter Lebanon after the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. The enormous amount of unexploded ordnance littering southern Lebanon led to a need for a more sustainable program than the initial small operation provided. The more expansive program sought deminers and, to the surprise of the SRSA, many women showed interest. Several were hired and trained, and proved themselves to be able workers in the field. The success of the program in Lebanon has had some wondering why it has taken so long for women in the Middle East to enter into the field of mine clearance and disposal

The Impact of Circadian Misalignment on Cardiometabolic Health

The circadian system is important in all living organisms because it generates a 24-hour rhythm for physiological and behavioral processes enabling anticipation and adaptation to daily changes in the environment. The prevalence of cardiometabolic diseases, which are linked to lifestyle choices, has been rising at an alarming rate. Modernization and globalization are two of many factors to blame for lifestyle changes resulting in circadian disruption. The purpose of this literature review is to explore circadian misalignment with regards to its mechanism and impact on cardiometabolic health and to determine possible interventional measures. The primary focus is on lifestyle change, particularly sleep, as an interventional measure for circadian misalignment. Studies were included if they included a cardiometabolic disease risk factor studied in the context of circadian alignment/misalignment or sleep duration/architecture. The data indicates that circadian misalignment and sleep deprivation impede cardiovascular function and cause a decrease in glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity; however, restoring circadian rhythmicity and correcting for sleep deprivation improves several health indices including glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, and cardiac remodeling

Characterization of Consolidated Granular Salt

Granular salt is likely to be used as backfill material and a seal system component within geologic salt formations serving as a repository for long-term isolation of nuclear waste. Pressure from closure of the surrounding salt formation will promote consolidation of granular salt, eventually resulting in properties comparable to native salt. Understanding the consolidation processes dependence on stress state, moisture availability, and temperature is important for demonstrating sealing functions and long-term repository performance. This study includes the characterization of laboratory-consolidated salt by means of microstructural observations, measurement of physical properties related to the pore structure, and quantification of pore sizes areas under differing conditions. Samples for this study were obtained from mine-run granular salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and Avery Island which were consolidated hydrostatically with varying conditions of stress up to 38 MPa, temperatures up to 250C, and moisture additions of 1%. Porosities achieved from consolidation ranged between 0.01 and 0.22. Microstructural observations using optical and scanning electron (SEM) microscopes were made to provide direct insight into deformation mechanisms during consolidation. Porosity, specific surface area, permeability, and tortuosity factor were quantified through multiple techniques including point counting, petrographic image analysis (PIA), porosimetry, and steady-state gas permeametry. Pore area distributions categorized into micropores (\u3c1000 m2) and macropores (\u3e1000 m2) were developed from Back-Scattered Electrons (BSE) SEM images analyzed in Fiji. Overall, the addition of moisture produces a higher degree of cohesion among grains, lower permeabilities and porosities as well as higher specific surface areas and lower macropore frequency at higher temperatures. A higher stress was also seen to lower porosity, increase specific surface area, and lower the frequency of micropores. Higher temperature samples experienced low porosities, more grain boundary cohesion, and, in WIPP samples, a higher frequency of macropores in the range from 1000 to 2500 m2. From microstructural observations, samples with 1% added moisture or those which were unvented during consolidation demonstrated clear pressure solution processes with tightly cohered grain boundaries and areas of occluded fluid pore spaces. Samples consolidated without additional moisture exhibited mainly cataclastic and plastic deformation. Recrystallization was also observed in samples consolidated at temperatures of 90C with added moisture and 250C. Porosities obtained from methods that measured both total and connected porosity were similar, suggesting a connected pore network within samples. From image analysis, a general trend of increase in specific surface area with a decrease in porosity was observed. Permeability values decreased with decreasing porosity and are comparable to permeability-porosity relationships for rock salt published by others. The tortuosity factor was calculated from the Carman-Kozeny model, which incorporates permeability, porosity, and specific surface area, and generally increased with decreasing porosity. Pore area analysis reveals porosities consisting predominately of macropores and minor changes in pore area frequencies with respect to consolidation conditions. It is well known that stress, temperature, and moisture affect the behavior of salt consolidation, but complete studies on deformation mechanisms and the evolving pore structure over a large range of conditions is not abundant. Information provided here enhances the current understanding of granular salt consolidation by offering direct insight into micro-mechanic processes and transformation of pore structure components

Guatemalan diasporic fiction as refugee literature : an analysis of Héctor Tobar’s The tattooed soldier and Tanya Maria Barrientos’s Family resemblance

textDespite a large influx of Guatemalans to cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., their narrative has largely been subsumed in the traditional Latino/a immigrant narrative. The importance of the historical specificity and traumatic nature of Guatemalan immigration, as a consequence of the Central American revolutions, has only now begun to be studied by scholars such as Arturo Arias and Claudia Milian, though the field of Latino/a studies is still largely focused on immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Thus, through an examination of two novels by Guatemalan-American authors, Héctor Tobar’s The Tattooed Soldier (1998/2000) and Tanya Maria Barrientos’ Family Resemblance (2003), I compare how each novel differently positions Guatemalan diasporic identity around traumas surrounding the Guatemalan civil war and diaspora. Ultimately, I argue that Tobar establishes Guatemalan diasporic fiction as a kind of refugee literature, while Barrientos attempts to fit the Guatemalan diasporic narrative into a traditional Latino/a immigrant narrative using the genre of chica lit, thus flattening out the unique historical experience of the Guatemalan civil war while also highlighting the constraints of the chica lit genre for Central American-American women writers.Englis

What are the issues involved in using e-portfolios as a pedagogical tool?

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyIn Initial Teacher Training (ITT), one of the technologies rapidly being adopted to support the development of trainee teachers is the e-portfolio. Research into successful use of e-portfolios beyond their function as a repository has been scanty to date. The purpose of the current study was to extend the boundaries of understanding of e-portfolios beyond this function. This was undertaken through two in-depth case studies where e-portfolios were used as a pedagogical tool intended to support the development of reflective practice on a one year postgraduate ITT course, during two years of investigation in one university A mixed-methods approach was adopted to capture the richness of participants’ self reports of their experiences, statistical data regarding interactions on the e-portfolios and analysis of reflective writing. Data were collected and analysed from questionnaires, student and tutor interviews and interactions with the e-portfolio together with analysis of the content of reflective e-journals, with a special emphasis on the place and depth of reflection. What emerged was a rich contextual understanding of e-portfolio use by trainee teachers and tutors and the problematic nature of conceptualising and assessing reflective thinking, together with the extent to which the development and depth of their reflective thinking had been supported by e-portfolio use. The results confirm previous concerns related to the training requirements of users and also the time needed for students and tutors to engage in interactions. Further they imply that the prerequisites of successful use of e-portfolios, as a pedagogical tool, to support the development of reflective thinking include common agreement about what constitutes reflection and reflective thinking embedded within a strong, rigorous and well theorised conceptualisation of course structure and content. Implied also is the need for a well understood and transparent framework to assess the depth of reflective thinking that should complement the competencies that underpin Standards, and support the professional development of teachers

The Impact of Circadian Misalignment on Cardiometabolic Health

The circadian system is important in all living organisms because it generates a 24-hour rhythm for physiological and behavioral processes enabling anticipation and adaptation to daily changes in the environment. The prevalence of cardiometabolic diseases, which are linked to lifestyle choices, has been rising at an alarming rate. Modernization and globalization are two of many factors to blame for lifestyle changes resulting in circadian disruption. The purpose of this literature review is to explore circadian misalignment with regards to its mechanism and impact on cardiometabolic health and to determine possible interventional measures. The primary focus is on lifestyle change, particularly sleep, as an interventional measure for circadian misalignment. Studies were included if they included a cardiometabolic disease risk factor studied in the context of circadian alignment/misalignment or sleep duration/architecture. The data indicates that circadian misalignment and sleep deprivation impede cardiovascular function and cause a decrease in glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity; however, restoring circadian rhythmicity and correcting for sleep deprivation improves several health indices including glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, and cardiac remodeling.https://commons.und.edu/pas-grad-posters/1017/thumbnail.jp

Developing a community of practice for trainers: towards a culture of conscience in clinical research

This developmental research study concerned how trainers, drawn mainly from the commercial (pharmaceutical) sector of the field of clinical research, shared understandings of practice in a professionally localised community, as part of their continuing professional development. Trainers in this community had a heterogeneous range of identities including full-time and part-time trainers: clinical research trainers, training managers; clinical research managers, clinical research associates, compliance managers, auditors and others. The main aim was to explain conditions shaping this community and its concept of practice. The study involved observing practice from an interlocutory position, using Cultural- Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), to reveal the cultural complexity of the concept of practice within this community. Two competing rationalities, expressed within contrasting pedagogies with associated cultural standards of compliance or conscience, were established for training:- • as a restricted technical function focussed on the transmissive delivery of content, or • as an expansive approach to organisational learning focussed on deliberative enquiry. These competing rationalities reflected the struggle of an emergent profession to establish autonomy of standards, with implications for the field of practice and wider society: establishing the moral order through a culture of conscience, based on standards of excellence or because a system of regulatory governance dominates the drive to uphold standards through a culture of compliance. A conceptual-analytical framework, substantiated by empirical evidence, was proposed to describe and analyse the concept of practice embodied in the community’s object of activity. Through demonstrating CHAT at the level of declarative conceptions, procedural models, and social discourses/interactions, a link was established between the dominant concept of practice (expressed within a transmissive pedagogy) in the community and the larger sociocultural context (compliance culture rooted in the system of regulatory governance). The contribution of this study is to show how CHAT can be applied with theoretically formulated and empirically tested evaluative tools, to reveal the richness of human experience and the complexity of human activity in terms of its cognitive and cooperative social elements, identified as objective regularities unique to the activity system under investigation

Psychosocial antecedents of sex offender criminality and violence.

Sexual abuse and sexual violence perpetrated against women and children in the United States are social problems that need to be addressed. The United States is one of the most sexually violent societies in the world, having one of the highest rates of any industrialized country of rape and sexual violence (Stewart, 2002). Although any type of sexual victimization is problematic, sexual violence in particular can have particularly devastating effects for the victim. We urgently need to know why some adults sexually abuse and assault (Cannon, 2001). Examination of the psychosocial antecedents of sex offender criminality and violence will add to the research literature that has explored the predictors of criminality and violence in sex offenders. These results will be useful in developing assessment instruments and treatment programs for sex offenders and developing preventive interventions for individuals who are at risk to commit criminal, violent and sexual offenses. The major predictors of sexual offense recidivism have been found to be factors related to previous specific sex crimes and to a lesser extent previous crimes in general (Hanson, 2000). Criminal and sexual offense history along with other static predictors of recidivism among sex offenders have been used by clinicians and researchers to predict a likelihood that a sexual offender will reoffend and if they will reoffend violently. The literature also suggests that exposure to violence and sexual maltreatment in childhood is a major predictor of sexual offending in that it encourages the continuation of abuse to the victims\u27 own children and general members of the public in the form of criminal behavior (Falshaw, Brown & Hollin, 1996). There is constant pressure from the legal system for psychologists to make predictions concerning the likelihood for an individual sex offender to reoffend. Legal and ethical considerations mandate that the psychologists\u27 opinions are guided by empirical evidence (Campbell, 2000). In this study, psychosocial antecedents of sex offender criminality and violence will be examined