Learning and power in international development partnerships: a case study of Iowa Farmers in Uganda

Mutual learning in international development partnerships, especially learning by the developed country, helping partners, is not well understood, despite convincing arguments supporting the possibility and desirability of such learning. This research explores the process of learning and its relationship to power in the ‘Bridging the Gap’ project, an international agricultural development partnership in which Iowan farmers were the helping partners and Ugandan farmers were the benefi y partners. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews of twenty-eight Ugandan farmers, seven Iowan farmers, and four programme staff and were analysed using a grounded-theory based approach. The results showed that both Ugandan and Iowan farmers learned through the project. Learning by members of both groups included ordinary learning, which helped them achieve their pre-existing goals, and transformational learning, which shifted their frames of reference and the goals and power relations embedded therein. The greater power of the Iowan farmers however presented some cognitive barriers to their learning from the Ugandan farmers. These power differences reduced slightly over time as both groups of farmers learned from each other, particularly when both groups recognized that the Iowan farmers could and did learn from the Ugandan farmers. The experiences of farmers involved in this project are consistent with the arguments that power presents barriers to learning and that learning by the helping partner can reduce power differences in international development partnerships

Managing Dynamics of Power and Learning in Community Development: A Case Study of Iowan Farmers in Uganda

Extension professionals facilitate community development through the strategic manipulation of learning and power in peer-to-peer learning partnerships. We discuss the relationship between empowerment and power, highlight relevant literature on the difficulties power presents to learning and the efficacy of service learning tools to facilitate mutual learning and present original findings from our research on an international development partnership in which Extension professionals had partial success in creating opportunities for mutually empowering learning among farmers from Iowa and Uganda. We recommend that Extension professionals encourage learning across power gradients by providing opportunities for informal conversations and encouraging reflection by participants

Efforts at evicting street hawkers from the streets of Accra: the good and the bad

By operating in public spaces not authorized for trading activities, street hawkers offer various products for sale in order to eke out a living. However, the activity of street hawking finds itself at the wrong side of the laws governing the use of city-space. Several attempts by city authorities to evict hawkers operating at these unauthorized locations have yielded limited results. The number of street hawkers multiply day in and day out, even at locations previously not noted for hawking on the streets of Accra. This study sought to understand the motivation for the return of street hawkers amidst city authorities’ ban of street hawking and subsequent forceful eviction by city taskforce personnel. The study finds that hawkers have and will continue to resist eviction from the street as their own survival and that of an average of four (4) dependents solely rest on daily incomes made from hawking. The study also finds that the persistence of traffic congestion, the lack of effective policing of hawking spots, the minimal entry capital required to start hawking and the potential of obtaining substantial turnover over and above public sector wage will continue to fuel street hawking in Accra. The study recommends that an assessment and enforcement of the land use regulations as well an effective management of traffic flows in the city are likely to serve as a disincentive to hawking. Again street hawking is likely to be controlled if policies are directed at keeping children in school beyond junior high school level. Hawking in Accra is dominated by people who are not able to pursue academic study beyond senior high school and therefore have little employable skills. Suggestions are also made with regards to the reconciliation of data on street hawkers and their contributions to the economy both at the local and national level, in order to appreciate the demographic characteristics of city dwellers as well as their need to survive even as they strive to maintain modern cities and towns. Key words: Hawking, Metropolis, Accra, Taskforce, Living, Cit

Estrelas de solitons oscilantes com rede de paredes de domínios.

As estrelas de solitons oscilantes (também conhecidas como "oscillatons"), isto é, os objetos auto-gravitantes, descritos por uma solução solitônica do sistema acoplado de equações de Einstein-Klein-Gordon (EKG) foram estudadas por muitos autores. As "Oscillatons"podem ser classificadas em dois ramos, o ramo estável e o instável. O ramo estável é a parte em que a estrela atingiu a massa crítica (limite de massa superior Mc ), após esta massa crítica a estrela entra em regime de instabilidade. Neste regime ocorre o colapso gravitacional e a fase final deste colapso é a formação de um buraco negro. Neste trabalho estudamos os "Oscillatons"com rede de paredes de domínios. Consideramos uma Lagrangeana com três campos escalares reais acoplados via potencial escalar. Nós escolhemos um potencial apropriado para suportar a formação de rede de paredes de domínios com as "oscillatons". Com pequenas perturbações aplicadas a este potencial, calculamos numericamente as equações de EKG e analisamos o perfil de massa desse novo objeto. Desse resultado discutimos como a estabilidade das "oscillatons"são afetadas pela rede.Oscillating soliton stars (also known as oscillatons) i.e self-gravitating objects, described by a solitonic solution to the coupled system of Einstein-Klein-Gordon equations (EKG) have been studied by numerous authors. Oscillatons can be classified into two branches, the stable and unstable branch. The stable branch is the part where the star has not yet reach a critical mass (upper mass limit Mc), after this critical mass the star enters a regime of instability, in this regime gravitational collapse occurs and final stage of this collapse is the formation of a black hole. In this work we study oscillatons with network of domain walls. We consider a Lagrangian with three scalar fields coupled among themselves by a potential. We choose an appropriate potential to admit the formation of network of domain walls with the oscillatons. With small perturbations applied to this potential, we then compute the EKG equations numerically and analyze the mass profile of this new object. From this results we discuss how the stability of the oscillatons are affected by the network.Cape

The effect of timeliness and credit ratings on the information content of earnings announcements

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of timeliness and credit ratings on the information content of the earnings announcements of Greek listed firms from 2001 to 2008. Using the classical event study methodology and regression analysis, we find that firms tend to release good news on time and are inclined to delay the release of bad news. We also provide evidence that the level of corporate risk differentiates the information content of earnings according to the credit rating category. Specifically, firms displaying high creditworthiness enjoy positive excess returns on earnings announcement dates. In contrast, firms with low creditworthiness undergo significant share price erosions on earnings announcement days. We also observe a substitution effect between timeliness and credit ratings in relation to the information content of earnings announcements. Specifically, we find that as the credit category of earnings-announcing firms improves, the informational role of timeliness is mitigated

The global imperialism project: lessons from television, movies and radio

Old and latest trends in discussions in the sphere of the role of mass communication in media and cultural imperialism have centred on cultural hegemony and cultural colonialism among other such lines of ideological debate. Some debates have also pointed to globalization as the only way to spread development across the world. Others see globalization as portending some dangers for the cultures of developing countries as they will end up being annihilated. Based on the premise that mass communication and mass media have led to cultural imperialism in the world, the essay uses the cases of music, television programming, television news and films to discuss how United States of America, especially, has dominated the cultures of other countries through the latter’s consumption of American cultural products. Pivoted on the cultural imperialism theoretical framework, the discussion moved a step further by looking at the concept of cultural/media imperialism as Americanization of both the media and the cultural landscapes of the world and no more a generalization of Western countries dominating the cultures of developing countries – this is because some of the Western countries themselves have become victims of this phenomenon of Americanization. It is now therefore the issue of Americanization of the cultures of the world.Keywords: hegemony, media, mass communication, imperialism, globalizatio

An Exploratory Survey of Drivers’ Knowledge of Right of Way at Freeway On-ramp Merging Areas

Motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. The most recent data available show that in 2006 there were almost 6 million police-reported motor vehicle crashes in the United States where a total of 42,642 people were killed and an additional 2.6 million were injured. The majority of these motor vehicle crashes occurred at intersections or within the intersection influence areas. Traffic conflicts occur at intersections due to traffic streams moving in different directions interfering with each other, and as a result they become areas with high potential for traffic crashes compared with non-intersection areas of the roadways. In order to reduce the potential conflict points, access to a freeway is only provided through gradeseparated intersection ramps (also known as interchanges). Freeways play a major role in providing mobility due to their high operational speeds and their being fully access controlled. Like other intersections, freeway-ramp areas have also been identified as locations highly prone to crashes as compared to other segments of freeways. A number of studies have been conducted to determine the causes and characteristics of crashes that occur at freeway ramps in order to devise and apply preventive countermeasures to reduce the occurrences of such crashes. Most of these studies have focused on developing and calibrating factors that contribute to traffic crash occurrences such as highway geometry, traffic volume, ramp location, and type of interchange. Other studies analyzed the type and patterns of crashes on urban freeways. For instance, a study by McCartt et al highlighted types and characteristics of ramp-related crashes, which showed that the type of crashes that occur at entrance ramps and exiting ramps are generally different. The most common type of crashes at exit ramps involve vehicles running-off the road while speeding. For the entrance ramps, sideswipe and cut-off crash types are the most frequent ones, with lack of yielding of right of way involving merging drivers from entrance ramps identified as a major cause. What is not clear, however, is whether at-fault merging drivers (from entrance ramps) know who had a right of way at the freeway merging area. In the present study, we assumed that most of these atfault drivers think that they have a right of way over drivers already on mainlines. To date, we have not found any study that has examined the factors that influence on-ramp merging drivers not yielding the right of way to freeway mainline traffic. In particular, the contribution of drivers’ knowledge of who has the right of way at the freeway-entrance ramp merge area has not been addressed. By determining what drivers know about right of way at the freeway merge area, including their driving actions, appropriate countermeasures such as education, engineering, and legislative actions can be implemented as future crash countermeasures. In addition, some states’ driver’s license testing handbooks inform new drivers to accelerate at on-ramps to attain the freeway mainline speed. This is also in accordance with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) guidelines whereby auxiliary (acceleration) lanes are provided in order to minimally affect the through traffic operations. Normally no yield sign is needed for ramps having standard-length acceleration lanes. The abovementioned reasons may also cause some on-ramp merging drivers to think that they share equally the right of way with the mainline traffic; this misconception may be one of the contributing causes of collisions at on-ramp merging areas. Furthermore, traffic safety studies acknowledge that certain demographic factors contribute to most of the motor vehicle crashes. For instance, gender and age differences in traffic crash involvement are well documented. The youngest and oldest drivers are more likely to be involved in motor vehicle crashes; similarly, younger males are more likely than younger females to be involved in motor vehicle crashes. On the other hand, females older than 50 years of age are more likely than the same age males to be involved in fatal crashes. Specifically, half of fatal crashes involving old drivers (80 years and older) tend to occur at intersections, and young drivers (16–25 years old) have a risk of being involved in traffic crashes to the order of 2.5 times higher than that of other drivers. Therefore, in the present study, we assumed that gender and age will be associated with drivers’ knowledge of freeway merging areas’ right of way. Particularly, the objective of this paper is twofold: to explore the knowledge of drivers concerning who has the right of way between the one on mainline lanes of a freeway and the one entering the freeway through the on-ramp junction lane and to explore the drivers’ actions when driving in the vicinity of freeway-entrance ramp merge areas, whether driving on the freeway mainline lanes or entering through the ramp junction lanes

EXPOSURE TO MALARIA PREVENTION MESSAGES AND INSECTICIDE TREATED BEDNET USAGE AMONG CHILDREN UNDER FIVE YEARS IN GHANA

This paper assesses exposure to messages on malaria prevention among household heads with children 0-4 years in Ghana, and examines whether exposure influences use of ITNs among these children in their households and if certain types of exposure (television, radio, health worker) are associated with ITN usage. We used data collected in the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey for which over 12,000 households were selected for interview. We used a final sample of 1770 households in our analyses. Bivariate and multivariate techniques were employed to examine the relationship between household head's level of exposure to malaria prevention messages and use of ITNs among children under five. Children under five years whose household heads had exposure to malaria prevention messages had over twice the odds of using ITNs as those whose household heads had no exposure. Household heads who were exposed through health workers and the radio had about 40 percent higher odds of using ITNs for their children under five years compared to those who did not have exposure through these channels while controlling for other channels. Campaigns must go beyond the production of messages regarding the hanging of bednets to include information on behaviour of mosquitoes to improve use of ITNs. Community-based educational campaigns involving health workers are recommended to target universal use of ITNs among under-five children in Ghana. There is also the need to improve literacy in order for other channels of information such as newspapers and posters to achieve similar results

Developing a Cloud Computing Framework for University Libraries

Our understanding of the library context on security challenges on storing research output on the cloud is inadequate and incomplete. Existing research has mostly focused on profit-oriented organizations. To address the limitation within the university environment, the paper unravels the data/information security concerns of cloud storage services within the university libraries. On the score of changes occurring in the libraries, this paper serves to inform users and library managers of the traditional approaches that have not guaranteed the security of research output. The paper is built upon the work of Shaw and the cloud storage security framework, which links aspects of cloud security and helps explain reasons for university libraries moving research output into cloud infrastructure, and how the cloud service is more secured. Specifically, this paper examined the existing storage carriers/media for storing research output and the associated risks with cloud storage services for university libraries. The paper partly fills this gap by a case study examination of two (2) African countries’ (Ghana and Uganda) reports on research output and cloud storage security in university libraries. The paper argues that in storing university research output on the cloud, libraries consider the security of content, the resilience of librarians, determining access levels and enterprise cloud storage platforms. The interview instrument is used to collect qualitative data from librarians and the thematic content analysis is used to analyze the research data. Significantly, results show that copyright law infringement, unauthorized data accessibility, policy issues, insecurity of content, cost and no interoperable cloud standards were major risks associated with cloud storage services. It is expected that university libraries pay more attention to the security/confidentiality of content, the resilience of librarians, determining access levels and enterprise cloud storage platforms to enhance cloud security of research output. The paper contributes to the field of knowledge by developing a framework that supports an approach to understand security in cloud storage. It also enables actors in the library profession to understand the makeup and measures of security issues in cloud storage. By presenting empirical evidence, it is clear that university libraries have migrated research output into cloud infrastructure as an alternative for continued storage, maintenance and access of information