End-users\u27 perceptions : an exploration on the study of electronic resources

The introduction of technology into the quest for information stimulates a need to educate, instruct, and guide end-users in their ability to effectively manipulate various electronic resources (i e, online public access catalogs (OPAC), CD-ROM databases, and the Internet). A study from the end-user’s perspective was conducted at Emmanuel School of Religion, a graduate seminary, located in Johnson City, Tennessee to illustrate the need for end-user education. Over 80% of the end-users surveyed indicate a greater use of the Internet than to the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) and CD-ROM databases (American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and Religious and Theological Abstracts (RTA)). Respondents, in spite of the age of technology, continue to find human interaction, i.e., personal assistance from a librarian or another student to be a useful part of the instruction process. This study also reveals that many of the respondents do not use available help screens even though there is an active use of the electronic resource. = Suggestions to the information professional as to how they can develop programs geared toward end-user instruction are made based on the responses generated from the end-user’s perspective

To Teach as Jesus Would: Inclusive Education in one Catholic Elementary School

Throughout the history of Catholic schools in Los Angeles, the mission of Catholic schools and the Archdiocese governing its schools has been clear: Catholic schools must strive to serve children with varied learning needs. However, despite calls for inclusion from the Vatican, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and efforts from trained administrators and professionals to help facilitate inclusion in schools, Catholic inclusive programs are not able to include all learners. Using qualitative research with semi-structured interviews, focus group, and document review, this study uses the framework of ableism and disability studies to research and analyze the two questions regarding inclusive practices in one Catholic elementary school that has had a program running for five years. The research questions are as follows: 1) What are St. Mary teachers’ beliefs, experiences, and perceptions about disability and inclusive education? 2) What do St. Mary teachers and administrators think are the best ways to foster acceptance of inclusive education in the school? Despite the fact that Catholic educators recognize that Catholic schools, as a matter of social justice, should be teaching all children, it is challenging and frustrating for them. Due to a lack of resources and support, limited exposure and experience of people with disabilities, and technical special education training, even the most dedicated, talented, and sympathetic Catholic educators wanting to serve children with special needs have difficulty doing so. Reasons relating to inconsistent teacher training, beliefs and experiences that students with special needs are “trouble,” limited resources, and teachers’ perceptions of fairness, time, and equity, all contribute to teachers’ frustration and limitations when including learners with special needs in their classrooms. The significance of this research study lies in documenting a Catholic school’s experience of developing, evolving, and establishing a working model of an inclusion program in one Los Angeles Catholic elementary school. To this end, this study provides larger contextual data to those in similar Catholic school settings across America about Catholic teacher training and the implementation of inclusive practices in Catholic schools. Also, this study hopes to further the discussion in the field of Catholic education about the right(s) of all Catholic children, regardless of ability, to a Catholic education, since, according to the Vatican, that it is a matter of human dignity that they receive a spiritual and emotional education as well as one that is appropriately academic

Development of next-generation biopesticides as a control method for the small hive beetle Aethina tumida murray (coleoptera: nitidulidae), a serious pest of the European honey bee Apis mellifera

The small hive beetle (Aethina tumida) is a serious pest of the European honey bee (Apis mellifera), responsible for causing significant economic damage to the apiculture industry in North America and Australia. In 2014 A. tumida was detected in Italy, highlighting the potential for an outbreak within the UK. Current control measures rely on the use of organophosphate and permethrin, both are highly toxic to honeybees and continued use can give rise to resistance. Given these issues alternative control strategies are urgently required. The aims of this thesis were to explore potential for the development of next generation biopesticides, including RNA interference (RNAi) and fusion protein technology, as an alternative control method for A. tumida The sequence specificity of RNAi makes it an ideal strategy to combat this parasite of honey bees. Here we report that microinjection of low (2-10 ng) doses of V-ATPase subunit A and Laccase 2 dsRNAs resulted in 100 % mortality of A. tumida larvae. Quantitative PCR analysis confirmed that injections induced significant decreases in mRNA levels of the target genes with an enhancement of gene suppression over time providing evidence for systemic RNAi effects. Whilst oral delivery of V-ATPase subunit A dsRNA via “soaking” in dsRNA solutions resulted in 50 % mortality and malformed survivors, gene suppression could not be verified by qPCR analysis. Our results showed that dsRNAs are prone to degradation by extracellular nucleases following ingestion by feeding, but not wandering stage, larvae. We suggest that the lack of consistent RNAi effects in feeding experiments was a consequence of dsRNA degradation within the gut of A. tumida. Target specificity was confirmed by a lack of effect on survival or gene expression in honey bees injected with A. tumida dsRNAs. A. tumida show a robust response to injected dsRNA but further research is required to develop methods to induce RNAi effects via ingestion. The spider-venom peptide ω-hexatoxin-Hv1a (Hv1a) is highly potent by injection to a range of insects, but not vertebrates making it an ideal candidate for the development of bioinsecticides. Oral delivery of the toxin is largely ineffective due to failure to access its site of action in the central nervous system (CNS). Fusion protein technology allows oral delivery of Hv1a to the CNS via fusion to a “carrier” protein, snowdrop lectin Galanthus nivalis agglutinin (GNA), directing transport of the toxin across the insect gut to the circulatory system. Constructs encoding Hv1a or modified Hv1a (K>Q modification to remove potential KEX2 cleavage site) linked to the N- or C-terminus of snowdrop lectin (GNA) were used to produce recombinant GNA/Hv1a, Hv1a/GNA fusion proteins and K>Q. All four fusion proteins were toxic by injection to A. tumida. The LD50’s for GNA/Hv1a and GNA/Hv1a(K>Q) were a similar 0.44 and 0.47 µg/µl, whilst Hv1a/GNA and Hv1a(K>Q)/GNA LD50’s were slightly lower, at a respective 0.33 and 0.25 µg/µl. In contrast no effects on honeybee survival were observed when 20 fold higher doses were injected. When fed to A. tumida larvae, GNA/Hv1a was 2x more effective than Hv1a/GNA, GNA/Hv1a(K>Q) and Hv1a(K>Q)/GNA (LC50s of 0.52, 1.14, 1.18 and 0.89 mg/ml, respectively). When fed to A. tumida adults no mortality was recorded for GNA/Hv1a(K>Q) or Hv1a(K>Q)/GNA treatments. However, both Hv1a/GNA and GNA/Hv1a were toxic to adults, with similar LC50s of 2.52 and 2.02 mg/ml, respectively. Reduced efficacy of Hv1a/GNA and K>Q variants against larvae was shown to be attributable to differences in the stability of the fusion proteins in the presence of extracellular gut proteases. In laboratory assays A. tumida larval survival was significantly reduced when brood, inoculated with eggs, was treated with GNA/Hv1a. The dominant digestive protease in A. tumida larvae was identified as trypsin. Consequently, a trypsin inhibitor (Soybean Kunitz trypsin inhibitor: SKTI) was incubated together with A. tumida gut extracts and GNA/Hv1a and Hv1/GNA, with both fusion protein remaining fully intact after 24 hr. This contrasted with previous analysis that showed no intact GNA/Hv1a or Hv1a/GNA after incubation with gut extracts in the absence of the trypsin inhibitor under comparable conditions. Consequently, SKTI was evaluated as an alternative carrier protein to GNA for the delivery of Hv1a to the circulatory system of A tumida. Preliminary studies indicated transport of SKTI into the haemolymph, suggesting SKTI could be used as an alternative carrier protein. An initial construct was designed based on GNA/Hv1a, however no biological activity was observed after injection into A. tumida larvae. It was speculated that the lack of insecticidal activity was attributed to the misfolding of the toxin during expression in the yeast cells. As such two additional fusion proteins were designed incorporating either a flexible (Gly-Gly-Gly-Gly-Ser motif) or rigid linker (Proline rich motif region) to improve protein folding and function. Only inclusion of a rigid linker showed limited biological activity after injection into A. tumida larvae, again suggesting misfolding of the toxin. Both RNAi and fusion protein technology hold enormous potential for the control of A. tumida in apiculture and to our knowledge this is the first study to demonstrate the use of a protein based biopesticide and RNAi as a possible control method for A. tumida

Smoothing 3-manifolds in 5-manifolds

We show that every locally flat topological embedding of a 3-manifold in a smooth 5-manifold is homotopic, by a small homotopy, to a smooth embedding. We deduce that topologically locally flat concordance implies smooth concordance for smooth surfaces in smooth 4-manifolds.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Human Rights in the Oil and Gas Industry: When are Policies and Practices Enough to Prevent Abuse?

Multinational enterprises are aware of their responsibility to protect human rights now more than ever, but severe human rights violations, including physical integrity abuses (e.g., death, torture, disappearances), continue unabated. To explore this puzzle, we engage theoretically with the means-ends decoupling literature to examine if and when oil and gas firms’ policies and practices prevent severe human rights abuse. Using an original dataset, we identify two pathways to mitigate means-ends decoupling: (a) while human rights policies alone do not reduce human rights abuses, firms with a high-quality human rights policy over the long-term reduce severe human rights abuses; (b) firms that combine preparedness—which we define as a firm’s capabilities, practices, and engagement—with a long-term human rights policy also reduce the likelihood of human rights abuses. Preparedness, we argue, can lead to reinforcement dynamics between long-term policy efforts and additional capabilities that provide a more holistic understanding of firm behavior

Intergenerational food-focused media literacy in Jamaica

Media use has been linked to unhealthy eating, but there is evidence that parent discussion about media and media literacy can inoculate against negative media effects. Therefore, we examined the relationships between mothers’ food-focused media literacy and their discussions about media and their adolescents’ food-focused media literacy in a survey of 82 mother-adolescent dyads in Jamaica, a middle-income country where obesity is rising. As expected, mothers’ food-focused media literacy was both greater than and positively related to their adolescents’ food-focused media literacy. The nature of the discussion (i.e., emotional intensity) about the time adolescents spent using media (TV, computer/electronics) positively related to adolescents’ media literacy. This study contributes to understanding how mothers may shape their adolescent’s media literacy and underscores the importance of considering parent-adolescent discussions for food-focused media literacy

What Ambitious Donors Can Learn From The Atlantic Philanthropies' Experience Making Big Bets

By the time The Atlantic Philanthropies closes its doors in 2020, it will have distributed more than $8 billion—its entire endowment—to advance opportunity and lasting change for disadvantaged and vulnerable people worldwide. Founded in 1982, it was Founder Chuck Feeney's intention to champion "giving while living" and when the foundation closes, Atlantic will make history by becoming the largest foundation to complete its giving in the donor's lifetime.In its grant making, over 60 percent of Atlantic's overall giving ranks as big bets, investments of$10 million or more. Thirty percent of those bets went to social change causes, including gifts to human services, the environment, and international development. Such big bets have the potential to have big impacts on advancing social change goals. Yet as Bridgespan reported in the December 2015 Stanford Social Innovation Review article, "Making Big Bets for Social Change," investments of this size for social change are rare. Just 20 percent of philanthropic big bets went to social change causes between 2000 and 2012.Why? A number of barriers exist: it's hard to find and structure big bets, "shovel-ready" opportunities are few and far between, personal relationships between donors and nonprofit leaders can take years to nurture, and the long time horizons required for change and often-murky results make it difficult to measure success. In short, big bets on social change can feel risky.The story of Atlantic, however, illustrates what can happen when donors take that risk. This report, What Ambitious Donors Can Learn From The Atlantic Philanthropies' Experience Making Big Bets, looks at a number of big bets Atlantic made and how those achieved significant results. It identified four themes that ran through Atlantic's work and that were particularly evident in its most influential big bets:Pick distinctive investment spots and funding gaps in the landscape.Support organizations and strong leaders, often with unrestricted or capacity-building funding.Pursue advocacy in a complex social, policy and legal environment, and use both traditional grant funding and 501(c)(4) funding as tools.Give with the foundation's end in sight and sustainability in mind.The report also highlights the challenges and failures Atlantic faced along the way. Despite the inherent risk in big bets, Atlantic held the belief that a big bets strategy would be the best way to achieve lasting impact. It is a promising path that is yielding strong results, and Atlantic's experience offers potential strategies for other donors seeking similar goals