Gridlocks and Padlocks

Gridlocks and Padlocks is a collection of short fiction and personal essays whose goal is to create characters with depth in both real-world and not-entirely-real-world situations. The strength of nonfiction is the capacity to observe the writer\u27s thinking and motivation. Ashes to Ashes, Trust to Dust is a personal essay that explores my struggle with the faith I was raised in, with an emphasis on how friendships and relationships have shaped my perceptions. The List of Unacceptable Faults is a personal essay about unwanted interactions with the opposite sex; it is an examination of men and boys through the lens of naive dissatisfaction. Sing Me Rebecca is a personal essay that delves into my relationship with my mentally handicapped sister. While the nonfiction writer focuses on his or her own development and struggles, a fiction writer can investigate the human condition by exploring the depth found in imagined people who face everyday situations and what characteristics and behaviors make them believable and absorbing. Object of Study is a short story about a girl named Taylor, who in her formative years stumbles upon a friendship between her sister and a boy she does not trust. This story examines Taylor\u27s quirky, multi-faceted character through the actions she takes to investigate and ultimately end the friendship between a boy and her younger sister. Crossing Fault Lines is a work of short short fiction that focuses on three characters-a mother and her two sons-and their strained relationship. Whether writing personal essays or fiction, my goal is to create overarching conflicts that reflect people\u27s struggle with being stuck in some situation in life

Exploring the moral imagination through relational pedagogies in pre-service teacher ethics

Whilst there is significant research examining the pedagogical development of pre-service teachers’ knowledge and skills after their internship experience, there has been little examination of their experience of ethical tension and little investigation into ways to further enhance pre-service teachers’ ethical reasoning. This paper documents some of the ways that pre-service teachers reason about ethically charged situations. It aims to extend conceptions of the moral imagination and its place in the teaching of ethics to pre-service teachers by discussing findings from a teaching project pilot study designed to investigate the ways in which pre-service teachers experience and respond to ethical tensions. Whilst recognising common difficulties in responding to ethically charged situations, our analysis utilises pre-service teacher dialogue in the form of an assessment strategy based on a ‘community of inquiry’ model and examines the ways in which pre-service teachers utilise the moral imagination to reason through ethical issues. This paper indicates some ways professional development could provide opportunities more aligned with pre-service teachers’ learning needs in the development of their ethical reasoning, and argues that the moral imagination is a fundamental feature of ethical practice and decision-making

Marks of Professionalism: Academic Women's Clothing Choices and Perceptions of Identity

Guidelines surrounding �professional� dress in academic spaces can be implied or obvious, but instead of following a particular formula, these guidelines are viewed as a representation of professional accomplishment, developed and honed throughout a career. However, unlike pedagogical approaches to the composition classroom, professional dress for women is a continually debated idea, following multiple unwritten codes, cultural influences, and generational perspectives. While many points of academic research have centered on ambiguous recommendations about academic women�s dress, none have conducted direct interviews based off of these recommendations. Furthermore, even more research centers on the perceptions of female academic�s identities and how they influence perceptions of validity within academic spaces. In order to understand the gap between these two aspects of research, I explore how these recommendations influence academic women�s perceptions about their scholarly identities. I posit that perceptions about the professional, physical, and behavioral presentation of the female instructor influences perceptions of validity in academic spaces, and these perceptions are rooted in the belief that a woman�s physical presentation contains markers of her identity and capability in academic spaces. Therefore, I suggest a term that identifies this complicated way of seeing: the academic gaze. I suggest that this term can be used to identify the frames through which bodies are monitored, understood, and validated in academic geographies. The academic gaze draws on John Berger�s identification of the assumed male heterosexual audience, the patriarchal organizational structure of academia, and the subordinate positioning of women and female-associated traits within those structures. Considering these perspectives on visual rhetoric, the academic gaze positions women at the intersection of objectification and professionalization, both of which favor masculine definitions of power and seek to remove or deny female agency. Ultimately, my exploration of the ways in which the female body is viewed in academic spaces creates the basis for understanding women�s experiences in academic spaces and the implications of the perceptions of women and their alignment or dissonance with the professional recommendations made by and to female academics for success.Englis

“You have to continue doing the work”: Black women essential workers coping amidst the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism

This study sought to examine the experiences of Black women essential workers and their perspectives on wellbeing and coping during the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism. We used a qualitative approach and purposive sampling techniques to interview 22 essential workers who identified as Black women. Research took place in a large southeastern portion of the United States. Data collection included a brief demographic questionnaire and individual interviews. Thematic and content analysis were used to identify themes and quantify the types of mechanisms used to cope with the pandemics. Four themes were identified to reflect these essential workers’ experiences coping with the pandemics: pervasive distress; varied responses to emergent events; mechanisms for survival; and the persistent obligation to remain strong. Predominant coping mechanisms included the use of social support, faith and spirituality, and increased food consumption. Despite concerns related to imminent threats to their health, widespread uprisings against police brutality, and shifts in caretaking responsibilities, these women’s narratives demonstrated a persistent obligation to remain strong. Moreover, contextual factors related to their roles as essential workers and caretakers, such as others’ reliance on them, contributed to the necessity for survival and their display of strength during such turbulence. These findings highlight the emotional toll essential workers experienced while managing their work-related responsibilities and navigating caregiving roles. Future research should focus on the development of culturally relevant coping strategies to mitigate unwanted effects from pandemic-related stress and dismantling systems of oppression to improve general wellbeing for essential workers and their families

From conceptual pluralism to practical agreement on policy: global responsibility for global health.

BACKGROUND: As the human cost of the global economic crisis becomes apparent the ongoing discussions surrounding the post-2015 global development framework continue at a frenzied pace. Given the scale and scope of increased globalization moving forward in a post-Millennium Development Goals era, to protect and realize health equity for all people, has never been more challenging or more important. The unprecedented nature of global interdependence underscores the importance of proposing policy solutions that advance realizing global responsibility for global health. DISCUSSION: This article argues for advancing global responsibility for global health through the creation of a Global Fund for Health. It suggests harnessing the power of the exceptional response to the combined epidemics of AIDS, TB and Malaria, embodied in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to realize an expanded, reconceptualized Global Fund for Health. However this proposal creates both an analytical quandary embedded in conceptual pluralism and a practical dilemma for the scope and raison d'etre of a new Global Fund for Health. To address these issues we offer a logical framework for moving from conceptual pluralism in the theories supporting global responsibility for health to practical agreement on policy to realize this end. We examine how the innovations flowing from this exceptional response can be coupled with recent ideas and concepts, for example a global social protection floor, a Global Health Constitution or a Framework Convention for Global Health, that share the global responsibility logic that underpins a Global Fund for Health. CONCLUSIONS: The 2014 Lancet Commission on Global Governance for Health Report asks whether a single global health protection fund would be better for global health than the current patchwork of global and national social transfers. We concur with this suggestion and argue that there is much room for practical agreement on a Global Fund for Health that moves from the conceptual level into policies and practice that advance global health. The issues of shared responsibility and mutual accountability feature widely in the post-2015 discussions and need to be addressed in a coherent manner. Our article argues why and how a Global Fund for Health effectuates this, thus advancing global responsibility for global health

Protecting Crowded Places from Terrorism: An analysis of the current considerations and barriers inhibiting the adoption of counter terrorism protective security measures

© 2018, © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. While much of the literature concerning counterterrorism focuses on policies and strategies aimed at removing either the terrorist environment and/or the groups or individuals willing to utilize political violence to achieve their goal(s), there is a much smaller body of work concerned with antiterrorism, namely those defensive measures that are designed to prevent or deter terrorist attacks. Increasingly, crowded places have become popular targets for terrorists and the research presented in this article connects the planning, design, and development of real estate with respect to the adoption of protective counterterrorism measures. It seeks to develop new understandings of the considerations that real estate developments have toward terrorism, as well as the barriers that may inhibit counterterrorism protective security measures in future development projects. The analysis is based on qualitative research, namely semi-structured interviews conducted in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia with professionals involved in all core strands of the real estate development process. The findings suggest that considerations toward terrorism vary considerably as a consequence of a range of factors and that while expected factors such as cost and aesthetics are important determinants for decision making, a range of other barriers exist

Radio observations of the planetary nebula around the OH/IR Star OH354.88-0.54 (V1018 Sco)

We present radio observations of the unique, recently formed, planetary nebula (PN) associated with a very long-period OH/IR variable star V1018 Sco that is unequivocally still in its asymptoticgiant branch phase. Two regions within the optical nebula are clearly detected in nonthermal radio continuum emission, with radio spectral indices comparable to those seen in colliding-wind Wolf-Rayet binaries. We suggest that these represent shocked interactions between the hot, fast stellar wind and the cold nebular shell that represents the PN's slow wind moving away from the central star. This same interface produces both synchrotron radio continuum and the optical PN emission. The fast wind is neither spherical in geometry nor aligned withany obvious optical or radio axis. We also report the detection of transient H2O maser emission in this nebula.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX (mn2e.cls), incl. 9 PostScript (ps or eps) figures and 2 tables. Accepted by MNRA

Dietary Intake and Nitrogen Balance in British Army Infantry Recruits Undergoing Basic Training

We assessed dietary intake and nitrogen balance during 14 weeks of Basic Training (BT) in British Army Infantry recruits. Nineteen men (mean ± SD: age 19.9 ± 2.6 years, height: 175.7 ± 6.5 cm, body mass 80.3 ± 10.1 kg) at the Infantry Training Centre, Catterick (ITC(C)) volunteered. Nutrient intakes and 24-h urinary nitrogen balance were assessed in weeks 2, 6 and 11 of BT. Nutrient intake was assessed using researcher-led weighed food records and food diaries, and Nutritics professional dietary software. Data were compared between weeks using a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with statistical significance set at p ≤ 0.05. There was a significant difference in protein intake (g) between weeks 2 and 11 of BT (115 ± 18 vs. 91 ± 20 g, p = 0.02, ES = 1.26). There was no significant difference in mean absolute daily energy (p = 0.44), fat (p = 0.79) or carbohydrate (CHO) intake (p = 0.06) between weeks. Nitrogen balance was maintained in weeks 2, 6 and 11, but declined throughout BT (2: 4.6 ± 4.1 g, 6: 1.6 ± 4.5 g, 11: −0.2 ± 5.5 g, p = 0.07). A protein intake of 1.5 g·kg−1·d−1 may be sufficient in the early stages of BT, but higher intakes may be individually needed later on in BT

Loss of MTCH-1 suppresses age-related proteostasis collapse through the inhibition of programmed cell death factors

The age-related loss of protein homeostasis (proteostasis) is at the heart of numerous neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, finding ways to preserve proteome integrity in aged cells may be a powerful way to promote long-term health. Here, we show that reducing the activity of a highly conserved mitochondrial outer membrane protein, MTCH-1/MTCH2, suppresses age-related proteostasis collapse in Caenorhabditis elegans without disrupting development, growth, or reproduction. Loss of MTCH-1 does not influence proteostasis capacity in aged tissues through previously described pathways but instead operates by reducing CED-4 levels. This results in the sequestration of HSP-90 by inactive CED-3, which in turn leads to an increase in HSF-1 activity, transcriptional remodeling of the proteostasis network, and maintenance of proteostasis capacity with age. Together, our findings reveal a role for programmed cell death factors in determining proteome health and suggest that inhibiting MTCH-1 activity in adulthood may safeguard the aging proteome and suppress age-related diseases