Women's Issues and Project Appraisal

SUMMARY Exploring issues especially concerning women involves many of the difficulties found in evaluating the position of the poorest and most invisible. In addition the paucity of background literature may mean a weaker conceptual framework for providing a check list of enquiries. Nevertheless, there have been common effects of agricultural development projects on women's work and lives which offer hypotheses for testing. Quantitative information is important and a brief RRA needs to concentrate on changes in women's work patterns and terms of access to resources for both their own well?being and the fulfillment of their roles. Women are often more forthcoming than men and information gathered from them can help to avoid the serious mistakes in planning that have affected them in the past. RESUMEN Las condiciones de la población femenina en la evaluación de proyectos La indagación de las condiciones que conciernen especialmente a las mujeres encierra mucha de las dificultades que se encuentran a la hora de estimar la posición en que se encuentra el sector más pobre y menos visible de la población. Además, la escasez de estudios previos que puedan informar sobre las condiciones de fondo puede conducir a un marco conceptual endeble a la hora de suministrar la lista necesaria de los puntos que necesitan respuesta Sin embargo, los efectos de los proyectos de desarrollo agrícola han afectado por igual el trabajo y la vida de las mujeres, lo cual suscita hipótesis a comprobar. La información cuantitativa es importante y una Rápida Evaluación Rural de carácter breve necesitará que se ponga atención en los cambios que se produzcan en la configuración del trabajo de las mujeres y en las condiciones de su acceso a los recursos conducentes a su bienestar y al desempeño de su papel en la vida. Ocurre con frecuencia que las mujeres responden con más facilidad que los hombres, por lo que los datos que se obtengan de ellas pueden servir de ayuda para evitar los serios errores de planificación que les han afectado en el pasado. RESUME Condition féminine et évaluation des projets L'étude des questions concernant les femmes présente des difficultés analogues à celle de la situation des plus déshérités et des plus invisibles. En outre, la pauvreté de la documentation débouche souvent sur un cadre conceptuel trop médiocre pour fournir une liste de contrôle des sujets d'enquête. Néanmoins, les projets de développement agricole ont eu des effets communs sur le travail et la vie des femmes, qui offrent des hypothèses à vérifier. L'information quantitative est importante et une évaluation rurale rapide doit se concentrer sur les changements du mode de vie des femmes et sur leurs conditions d'accès aux ressources tant pour leur bien?être que pour l'accomplissement de leurs rôles. Les femmes sont souvent plus ouvertes que les hommes et les données recueillies auprès d'elles peuvent aider à éviter les graves erreurs de planification qu'elles ont à subir dans le passé

Analyzing landslide hotspots and susceptibility in East Tennessee transportation corridors

Landslides in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee often activate and reactivate. Often triggered by high-intensity or prolonged rainfall, landslides are responsible for infrastructure damage, closure of transportation routes, and even fatality. The study area is defined by the New River Watershed which has high elevation and steep slopes cutting through State Route 116. The route has hairpin turns and has experienced damage from past landslide events. The geology here is mostly shale and sandstones with coal bedding throughout. Much of the soil consists of a fine-loamy texture. Most drainage occurs from the New River, fed by runoff from slopes into roadways. This area experiences heavy rainfall with a yearly average of 70 inches. Landcover consists of a mostly forested landscape with shrubs and grassland. In response to previous landslides, the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) recently repaired six areas within the route intercepted by recent landslides. Aside from the landslides near TDOT’s corridors, approximately 50 additional landslides have been found using Google Earth and LiDAR data. Landslide hotspots were identified using kernel density estimation and the nearest neighbor index. A heuristic landslide susceptibility model was prepared by weighing the ArcGIS layers: slope, soil particle, geology, curvature, elevation, distance from the stream, and land cover, in their contribution to the previous landslides. Results indicate that additional sites in Anderson and Morgan County should be studied further for potential landslide-related damage. The study will improve the proactive decisions of TDOT and justify timely monitoring, maintenance, and strategic protection of the route from slope hazards

Chapter 2: Dumbart jen jen – first steps

This chapter is written as a conversation (held in December 2016) between David Palmer (host), Ingrid Cumming, Jennie Buchanan (both Research Associates of the project) and Gideon Digby (President of Wikimedia Australia), who introduce themselves and go on to discuss their roles in the Noongarpedia adventure

Chapter 3: Noongar boordier gnulla katitjin – The influence of Noongar knowledge.

Despite the history of settler colonisation and state control (Attwood, 1989), where Indigenous people and their knowledge has been ‘classified, excluded, objectified, individualised, disciplined, and normalised’ (Best and Kellner), it is important to recognise that this is not the complete story. Western science and knowledge systems have had a long history of interrelationship with Australian Indigenous cultural life and systems. As bell hooks (1992) put it when describing the influence of African-Americans on US culture (see also Todd Boyd, 1997), even in the worst circumstances of domination, blacks have an ability to manipulate, shape and open up exchanges with white knowledge systems

Chapter 7: Gnulla Koorliny – Working with other groups

The success of the Noongarpedia Project has depended on forging relationships with groups already active in the Noongar knowledge space. Perhaps the most important relationships were built with Storylines (State Library of Western Australia) and Wikimedia Australia. Organisations such as Noongar Boodjar Language Cultural Aboriginal Corporation, the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council (SWALSC) and South Coast Natural Resource Management were also important, particularly in offering support in identifying key resources and offering expert advice on Noongar language and knowledge

Chapter 8: Bulla djandanginy – Challenges and tensions

Some of the difficulties confronting a project like this are the consequence of a history of colonisation and institutional oppression of Aboriginal people in south-west Western Australia (Haebich, 1992; 2000; Haebich and Morrison, 2014). It is a history characterised by land theft (Reconciliation, n.d.); a history in which only a minority of the original, Indigenous population survived the first decades of colonisation (Green, 1984; Swain, 1993; Aboriginal Legal Service, 1995), and a history in which that population was then subject to a period of discriminatory legislation and the denigration of Noongar language and culture which lasted well into the late twentieth century (Haebich, 2000). More recently, Noongar language and knowledge has increasingly been celebrated in mainstream cultural life – festivals, theatre, music, literature, exhibitions and the like, along with numerous examples of general urban and street signage and, of course, Welcomes to Country. It has become a major denomination in the currency of identity and belonging in this part of the world

The influence of body mass index and age on C-peptide at the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes in children who participated in the diabetes prevention trial-type 1

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: The extent of influence of BMI and age on C-peptide at the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) is unknown. We thus studied the impact of body mass index Z-scores (BMIZ) and age on C-peptide measures at and soon after the diagnosis of T1D. METHODS: Data from Diabetes Prevention Trial-Type 1 (DPT-1) participants <18.0 years at diagnosis was analyzed. Analyses examined associations of C-peptide measures with BMIZ and age in 2 cohorts: oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTTs) at diagnosis (n = 99) and mixed meal tolerance tests (MMTTs) <6 months after diagnosis (n = 80). Multivariable linear regression was utilized. RESULTS: Fasting and area under the curve (AUC) C-peptide from OGTTs (n = 99) at diagnosis and MMTTs (n = 80) after diagnosis were positively associated with BMIZ and age (P < .001 for all). Associations persisted when BMIZ and age were included as independent variables in regression models (P < .001 for all). BMIZ and age explained 31%-47% of the variance of C-peptide measures. In an example, 2 individuals with identical AUC C-peptide values had an approximate 5-fold difference in values after adjustments for BMIZ and age. The association between fasting glucose and C-peptide decreased markedly when fasting C-peptide values were adjusted (r = 0.30, P < .01 to r = 0.07, n.s.). CONCLUSIONS: C-peptide measures are strongly and independently related to BMIZ and age at and soon after the diagnosis of T1D. Adjustments for BMIZ and age cause substantial changes in C-peptide values, and impact the association between glycemia and C-peptide. Such adjustments can improve assessments of β-cell impairment at diagnosis

The atp6 Coding Region Has Been Disrupted and a Novel Reading Frame Generated in the Mitochondrial Genome of Cytoplasmic Male-sterile Radish&quot;

The gene atp6, encoding subunit 6 of the mitochondrial Fo-ATPase complex, has been characterized from both the normal (fertile) and Ogura (male-sterile) radish cytoplasms in order to determine if previously identified atp6 transcriptional differences could play a role in cytoplasmic maIe sterility. Normal radish atp6 encodes a 262-amino acid polypeptide that exhibits approximately 80% sequence identity with other plant atp6 polypeptides. A tRNA&quot;&quot;&apos; gene is located 150 base pairs 5&apos; to atp6, and the two genes may be co-transcribed. As a result of extensive rearrangement, sequences that comprise the normal atp6 locus are present in three widely separated regions of the Ogura mitochondrial genome. Both 5&apos; and 3&apos; rearrangement breakpoints have been identified and found to be associated with short repeated sequences. The normal and Ogura atp6 loci share a common 987-base pair region containing most of the atp6 coding region and 106 base pairs of the 3&apos;-flanking region. A 105-codon open reading frame is transcribed as the first gene of an Ogura atp6 bicistroaic mRNA. This sequence is not present in normal radish mitochondrial DNA. There are many nucleotide differences in the Ogura atp6 5&apos;-flanking and coding regions that can be expected to eliminate normal translation of atp6. At least two possibilities exist for translation of Ogura atp6, both of which would result in an NHz-terminal amino acid sequence different from that of normal radish