Resources File on Records of Boston Social Welfare Agencies

One of the Healey Library\u27s areas of collection focus is 19th century private social welfare and charitable agencies of the Boston area. This paper reports on the creation of an electronic resource file with entries on every organization, institution, and society that fits that category

Dorchester House Multi-Service Center: One Hundred Years of Community Service, 1887-1987

Dorchester House has remained a vital part of its community since it was established in 1887. Beginning as a one-room industrial school in the Fields Corner neighborhood, Dorchester House has grown from a settlement house into a modern, multi-service center offering a wide range of social, educational, recreational, and health services to people of all ages. Over the past one hundred years, Dorchester House has continuously met the ever changing needs of the Dorchester community

Thompson Island: Learning By Doing

Thompson Island has provided unique and outstanding educational services to young people for more than 150 years. The following narrative and historical photographs chronicle how five successive organizations have each pursued the original goal of using the island\u27s remarkable resources to improve the lives of youth from Boston and the surrounding area.A continuous Board of Trustees has governed the island during the past century and a half. Currently, the resident organization is known as the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center. Although it is new to the island, Outward Bound is proud to carry on the progressive traditions described in this booklet by offering challenging hands-on learning experiences to many of Boston\u27s most deserving youth. We plan to develop the island into a place as well known and respected as it was in centuries past, with a program revised to fit the needs of the 21st century. We trust that these pages will reveal to you the sources of inspiration and the rewards that have motivated so many Thompson Island supporters in the past, and encourage you to join our new generation of friends for this enduring urban treasure. From an introduction by the Board of Trustees for the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center, 199

The serviceability of cotton sheetings as indicated by measurements of abrasion resistance

The objectives of the study were to determine the effect of the fiber properties, staple length, and strength, on abrasion resistance; and to compare three methods of measuring abrasion resistance as an indication of their value in predicting wearing quality. Data were collected from two methods of testing abrasion resistance used in the Southern Regional Textile Project SM-18, the flexing and abrasion method using the Stoll Weartester, and the strength difference method using the Taber Abraser. Abrasion resistance measurements were made using the occurrence of yarn breakdown method with the Taber Abraser. The sample of this study consisted of the experimental sheetings used at the North Carolina station in the regional project. The sheetings were classified into four fiber property groups. They were divided into two treatment groups; use and laundering, and laundering only. Measurements were made prior to treatment, and after five, and fifteen launderings for each treatment group

Reliability of Striatal [11C]Raclopride Binding in Smokers Wearing Transdermal Nicotine Patches

PURPOSE: In studies where [(11)C]raclopride (RAC) positron emission tomography (PET) is used to assess changes in striatal dopamine, it is important to control for cognitive states, such as drug craving, that could alter dopamine levels. In cigarette smokers, transdermal nicotine patches (TNP) can control nicotine craving, but the effects of nicotine patches on RAC binding are unknown. Thus, we sought to determine the test-retest reliability of RAC binding in the presence of nicotine patches. METHODS: Eleven male smokers were scanned twice with RAC on separate days while wearing TNP. RESULTS: Across the striatum, test-retest variability was 7.63 ± 5.88; percent change in binding potential was 1.11 ± 9.83; and the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.91 (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Baseline RAC binding is highly reproducible in smokers wearing nicotine patches. This suggests that TNP are an acceptable method for controlling cigarette craving during studies that utilize RAC to examine changes in dopamine

Ageing, Temporality and Performance: Joan Rivers’ Body of Work

Joan Rivers’ performance in the public sphere revolved around the visibility and cultural inscription of an ageing and older woman. Linking aesthetic, professional and physiological processes, her body, work and performance merged as and in an extended and finite professional practice. A pioneer of stand-up comedy as a genre, and one of its most significant and visible female practitioners, Rivers is known for her aggressive and often outrageous wit, which was directed at both herself and other celebrities, as well as her extensive plastic surgeries. When she died in 2014, at the age of 81, she was still fully engaged in a relentless schedule of live performances and televised appearances. By then, Rivers was well established as an ubiquitously present elder who refused to conform to long-standing stereotypes of asexuality, able to thrive in a rapidly shifting cultural landscape of surgically enhanced bodies, surveillance as entertainment and public confession. At the heart of the discussion in this article is the spatio-temporality of the performing body, borrowing from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s understanding of the body as a “nexus of living meanings” and Jacques Derrida’s development of Merleau-Ponty’s use of the term “invagination” to embrace generic textual strategy. In stand-up as a genre, both originality and continuity are paradoxically valued by audiences in equal measure. Success – that is, laughter – is largely determined by the extent to which these align coherently with the comedian’s bodily presence and her onstage social, cultural and/or political positioning. Focusing primarily on the expression of Rivers’ persona via a variety of mutually reinforcing cultural texts in the final three years of her life, this article analyses how her performing body in every medium was importantly always made present through its sexual difference and attendant gendered ageing processes

Institutional capacity for health systems research in East and Central African schools of public health: experiences with a capacity assessment tool

BACKGROUND: Despite significant investments in health systems research (HSR) capacity development, there is a dearth of information regarding how to assess HSR capacity. An alliance of schools of public health (SPHs) in East and Central Africa developed a tool for the self-assessment of HSR capacity with the aim of producing institutional capacity development plans. METHODS: Between June and November 2011, seven SPHs across the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda implemented this co-created tool. The objectives of the institutional assessments were to assess existing capacities for HSR and to develop capacity development plans to address prioritized gaps. A mixed-method approach was employed consisting of document analysis, self-assessment questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and institutional dialogues aimed at capturing individual perceptions of institutional leadership, collective HSR skills, knowledge translation, and faculty incentives to engage in HSR. Implementation strategies for the capacity assessment varied across the SPHs. This paper reports findings from semi-structured interviews with focal persons from each SPH, to reflect on the process used at each SPH to execute the institutional assessments as well as the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the assessment process. Results The assessment tool was robust enough to be utilized in its entirety across all seven SPHs resulting in a thorough HSR capacity assessment and a capacity development plan for each SPH. Successful implementation of the capacity assessment exercises depended on four factors: (i) support from senior leadership and collaborators, (ii) a common understanding of HSR, (iii) adequate human and financial resources for the exercise, and (iv) availability of data. Methods of extracting information from the results of the assessments, however, were tailored to the unique objectives of each SPH. Conclusions This institutional HSR capacity assessment tool and the process for its utilization may be valuable for any SPH. The self-assessments, as well as interviews with external stakeholders, provided diverse sources of input and galvanized interest around HSR at multiple levels.DFI

Association of Human Herpesvirus-6B with Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Steve Jacobson and colleagues report finding human herpesvirus-6B DNA in brain resections from 11 of 16 patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, strengthening the evidence for a role for this virus in this condition

Teaching the Harlem Renaissance in the 21st Century

Designed for teachers and community educators, this resource presents student-centered curricula for grades 6-12. Each of the nine modules uses critical inquiry approaches to encourage students’ examination of the materiality of different texts and media as the means for exploring and synthesizing content to arrive at their own new understandings of the Harlem Renaissance. Teaching the Harlem Renaissance in the 21st Century accompanied the Wallach Art Gallery exhibition, Uptown Triennial 2020 (on view September 24, 2020–February 28, 2021). The resource is the result of a partnership with the Wallach Art Gallery, the Double Discovery Center, and Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Columbia University