Poverty Elimination Strategies that Work: A Human Rights Toolkit for Addressing Poverty in Your Community

This report highlights numerous local solutions that are currently being implemented in communities around the state and the country. This report is meant to be a resource to assist neighborhood groups, faith communities, service providers, policymakers, and others, in creating solutions to fundamentally address poverty. The report provides over 50 poverty elimination strategies that work along with hyperlinks to sources which contain information about highlighted solutions and additional resources that may be useful in developing and implementing poverty elimination strategies locally

Novel Amphiphilogels: Potential as Topical Drug and Vaccine Delivery Vehicles.

Purpose: To characterise amphiphilogels (gels where both solid and liquid phases are amphiphilic and investigate their potential as topical drug and vaccine delivery vehicles. Methods: Amphiphilogels were prepared by mixing and heating the components (nonionic surfactants) at 60°C to form a clear isotropic sol phase; this was then cooled and set to a semisolid. The gels were characterised with respect to their microstructures, gelation temperatures (Tg), and flow properties. Some small hydrophobic drugs were incorporated into the gels, and the release of such drugs from the gels, through a semi- permeable membrane, measured in vitro with the use of diffusion cells. The permeation of a model protein into full-thickness pig skin in vitro using the diffusion cells was investigated; as was the immune responses elicited following topical application of this model protein antigen when formulated into the gels. In vivo skin irritation studies evaluated the irritation potential of the gels following single and repeated applications. Results: The gels are smooth, opaque, thermoreversible semisolids with a lifetime greater than two years. The microstructure consists of a 3-D network of interconnected gelator tubule clusters, or fibres, which immobilises the continuous phase. Within the tubular aggregates, the gelator molecules seem to be arranged in lamellae. Increasing gelator concentration results in a denser microstructural network, higher viscosity, and higher Tg. Three drugs were solubilised at concentrations up to 20% w/w in some amphiphilogeis. The drugs could also be incorporated into the gels by simply mixing the drug and gel; this method enabled a greater release rate of drugs from the gels. An aqueous phase (containing dissolved solute) could be incorporated within the more hydrophilic amphiphilogeis (to form water-in-gel systems) with little compromise to the gel stability. Hydrophilic molecules, e.g. proteins and vaccines, can thus be incorporated into the gels. The permeation of protein from water-in-gel systems into the epidermal layers of the skin was demonstrated in vitro. Immunisation studies showed no differences between the immune responses generated to a model antigen administered topically within the gels or when dissolved in aqueous solution. Skin irritation studies showed that the amphiphilogeis caused very little perturbation to the skin. Conclusions: This research indicates that the amphiphilogeis have the potential to be developed into topical drug delivery vehicles

Reconstructing educational psychology in the South African context : school systems consultation as a dimension of service delivery

Summary in English.Bibliography: leaves 92-99.This study aims to illustrate, explore and argue for school systems consultation as a dimension of educational psychology service deli very which is appropriate in the South African context. It connects with the principles which guide policy development in education, and particularly, education support services in the country. A qualitative inquiry approach was adopted, in which case study methodology was employed to illuminate systems analysis and intervention at a special school in Cape Town. The participants included all adults who were employed in the school, with focus on the management, teachers and teacher-assistants. A variety of methods were used including interviews, observation, role-play and facilitation of group process. A qualitative, thematic approach was employed in the analysis and interpretation of data, extrapolating patterns, themes and relations around communication, beliefs, change and power

Disabled: Watching Stories of the Malagasy Deaf

Dislabeled: Mislabeled and Disabled - two words that Malagasy Deaf individuals have used in this project to describe themselves and the struggles of their community. This project explores dynamics between the mainstream Malagasy society and the marginalized Deaf community as well as the dynamics within the Deaf community of Antsirabe. I argue that mainstream stereotypes of the Deaf are manifested in the ways these individuals see themselves as well as the opportunities that society offers them. I also argue that individuals who have high proficiency in Malagasy Sign Language have wider access to public services as well as a higher degree of participation in daily life, both with other Deaf individuals as well as hearing communities

A Comparative Study: Intensity of Pakistan-China Inflation a Multi-Components Regime

The main portfolio of the study was to revamp and refurbish a result oriented stratagem to reevaluate all components linked directly or indirectly with inflation like consumer price index (CPI), currency, stock market, wages, population, unemployment, GDP, foreign exchange reserves, balance of trade, government debts, industrial production and retail sales may cause to inch up the rate of inflation in Pakistan. Periodical fluctuations and recent data of inflation were examined and compared with China to underpin real intensity of imperfections and the differences between both economies. The focus was to analyze the stream of inflation and suggest parameters for controlled and balanced position. Key words: Economy, Examine, Inflation, Intensity, Increase, Measures, Rate

Learnings from the Impact of Online Learning on Elementary Students\u27 Mental and Social-emotional Well-being Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

This research examined practices that might foster students’ mental and emotional well-being, quality relationships among students and staff and safe and inclusive school climates through online platforms, especially during times of crisis such as during the COVID 19 pandemic. In order to achieve that goal, this study sought to identify the kinds of protective and risk factors that help or hinder students’ ability to cope and thrive, through a scholarly framework of Critical Race Theory (Yosso, 2005), Online Learning (Hughes, 2004) and Social-emotional Learning (Durlak et al., 2011). The researcher conducted personal interviews with a variety of educators serving at largely low-income public primary schools and mostly bilingual and non-native English-speaking parents in Marin County. The findings of these interviews highlighted that students don’t equate to academic selves, that the level of expected responsiveness was surprisingly high while online, and that new connections and social and emotional support systems emerged. These findings have important implications for understanding how teachers and educational professionals iterate their practices of online learning going forward

Configurable data center switch architectures

In this thesis, we explore alternative architectures for implementing con_gurable Data Center Switches along with the advantages that can be provided by such switches. Our first contribution centers around determining switch architectures that can be implemented on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to provide configurable switching protocols. In the process, we identify a gap in the availability of frameworks to realistically evaluate the performance of switch architectures in data centers and contribute a simulation framework that relies on realistic data center traffic patterns. Our framework is then used to evaluate the performance of currently existing as well as newly proposed FPGA-amenable switch designs. Through collaborative work with Meng and Papaphilippou, we establish that only small-medium range switches can be implemented on today's FPGAs. Our second contribution is a novel switch architecture that integrates a custom in-network hardware accelerator with a generic switch to accelerate Deep Neural Network training applications in data centers. Our proposed accelerator architecture is prototyped on an FPGA, and a scalability study is conducted to demonstrate the trade-offs of an FPGA implementation when compared to an ASIC implementation. In addition to the hardware prototype, we contribute a light weight load-balancing and congestion control protocol that leverages the unique communication patterns of ML data-parallel jobs to enable fair sharing of network resources across different jobs. Our large-scale simulations demonstrate the ability of our novel switch architecture and light weight congestion control protocol to both accelerate the training time of machine learning jobs by up to 1.34x and benefit other latency-sensitive applications by reducing their 99%-tile completion time by up to 4.5x. As for our final contribution, we identify the main requirements of in-network applications and propose a Network-on-Chip (NoC)-based architecture for supporting a heterogeneous set of applications. Observing the lack of tools to support such research, we provide a tool that can be used to evaluate NoC-based switch architectures.Open Acces

Can We Have Our Cake and Eat it Too?: What Masterpiece Cakeshop and Religious Refusals Mean for Texas’s Adoption Bill

Abstract forthcoming