Transformative Learning in Nicaragua: A Retrospective Analysis of University Agriculture Students’ Long-Term Changes in Perspective After a Study Abroad Course

Study abroad courses have become a priority for institutions of higher education because of a need to broaden students’ perspectives of the world. However, a dearth of knowledge existed regarding whether the reported outcomes of study abroad courses, such changes to students’ perspectives, endure over time. In response, this retrospective study explored how university agriculture students’ (n = 5) shared experiences during a one-week study abroad course to Nicaragua influenced their long-term changes in perspective after returning to the U.S. in 2018. Through our phenomenological analysis, three themes emerged: (1) dichotomous learning outcomes, (2) recognition of power and privilege, and (3) advocacy for global experiences. In the first theme, dichotomous learning outcomes, participants’ long-term changes in perspective appeared to vary based on their level of academic maturity. Meanwhile, in the second theme, as university agriculture students compared their lived experiences in Nicaragua to their existing assumptions of the U.S., it appeared to elicit powerful shifts concerning how they viewed the world. And, as a result, they reported their experiences prompted them to consider the implications of social inequities more deeply. In the final theme, participants reported that after returning home, they began to advocate for global experiences among their peers, family, and friends. Consequently, our findings supported the use of short-term study abroad courses to foster a positive transformation in students’ global perspectives and behaviors after returning to the U.S

Awakening Transformative Learning: A Comparison of the Dissonance Experienced by Agriculture Majors During Study Abroad Courses to Costa Rica and Thailand

Students who have participated in study abroad courses exhibit an improved capacity for citizenship, emotional growth, and global competence. However, achieving such requires that study abroad courses be designed to allow students to question their underlying beliefs and values – a concept called dissonance. When individuals reflect on dissonance, it has been reported to spur a process in which their previously held perspectives are transformed. As such, this investigation sought to compare the dissonance experienced by agriculture majors (N =21) at Louisiana State University during study abroad courses to Costa Rica and Thailand. We bounded cases by academic college, degree level, and year. However, they were distinct regarding context and duration. As a result, two forms of dissonance were consistent across cases: intellectual and moral. However, within cases, we also distilled context-specific dissonance that students grappled with that helped them reconsider their previously held worldviews. Our findings demonstrated that when students processed dissonance productively, their global knowledge and perspectives were transformed. We also concluded that although shared forms of dissonance existed, it is imperative for faculty to design students’ experiences abroad purposefully to nurture students’ perspective changes in transformative ways

Potential bioavailability of representative pyrogenic organic matter compounds in comparison to natural dissolved organic matter pools

Pyrogenic organic matter (PyOM) from wildfires impacts river corridors globally and is widely regarded as resistant to biological degradation. Though recent work suggests PyOM may be more bioavailable than historically perceived, estimating bioavailability across its chemical spectrum remains elusive. To address this knowledge gap, we assessed potential bioavailability of representative PyOM compounds relative to ubiquitous dissolved organic matter (DOM) with a substrate-explicit model. The range of potential bioavailability of PyOM was greater than natural DOM; however, the predicted thermodynamics, metabolic rates, and carbon use efficiencies (CUEs) overlapped significantly between all OM pools. Compound type (e.g., natural versus PyOM) had approximately 6-fold less impact on predicted respiration rates than simulated carbon and oxygen limitations. Within PyOM, the metabolism of specific chemistries differed strongly between unlimited and oxygen-limited conditions – degradations of anhydrosugars, phenols, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were more favorable under oxygen limitation than other molecules. Notably, amino sugar-like, protein-like, and lignin-like PyOM had lower carbon use efficiencies relative to natural DOM of the same classes, indicating potential impacts in process-based model representations. Overall, our work illustrates how similar PyOM bioavailability may be to that of natural DOM in the river corridor, furthering our understanding of how PyOM may influence riverine biogeochemical cycling.</p

Polar opposites? NGOs, left parties and the fight for social change in Nepal

In the early 1990s, when NGOs were rising to prominence as an ostensible force for social change in Nepal, the Maoists were also beginning to organise, and denounced NGOs as agents of imperialism. The Maoists came to prominence by fighting a People’s War launched in 1996, with the intention of improving life for the poor peasant and working-class majority. But after a decade-long struggle, the Maoists became incorporated into the parliamentary system. While Nepal’s first democratic revolution in 1990 met formal, popular political demands, which were consolidated in a subsequent revolution in 2006 overthrowing the monarchy and bringing the People’s War to an end, there was little socio-economic progress for the vast majority. The argument advanced in this article is that this lack of progress relied on the interplay of two phenomena: an anti-Maoist alliance consisting of the international community, the domestic ruling elite and NGOs, and a fundamental ambiguity at the heart of the Maoists’ political theory

Women and citizenship post-trafficking : the case of Nepal

The research for this paper was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council – ESRC Res-062-23-1490: ‘Post Trafficking in Nepal: Sexuality and Citizenship in Livelihood Strategies’. Diane Richardson would like to acknowledge the support provided by the award of a Leverhulme TrustMajor Research Fellowship, ‘Transforming Citizenship: Sexuality, Gender and Citizenship Struggles’ [award MRF-2012-106].This article analyses the relationship between gender, sexuality and citizenship embedded in models of citizenship in the Global South, specifically in South Asia, and the meanings associated with having - or not having - citizenship. It does this through an examination of women's access to citizenship in Nepal in the context of the construction of the emergent nation state in the 'new' Nepal 'post-conflict'. Our analysis explores gendered and sexualized constructions of citizenship in this context through a specific focus on women who have experienced trafficking, and are beginning to organize around rights to sustainable livelihoods and actively lobby for changes in citizenship rules which discriminate against women. Building from this, in the final section we consider important implications of this analysis of post-trafficking experiences for debates about gender, sexuality and citizenship more broadly.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

PRIRATE 2020 guidelines for reporting randomized trials in endodontics: a consensus-based development

In evidence-based healthcare, randomized clinical trials provide the most accurate and reliable information on the effectiveness of an intervention. This project aimed to develop reporting guidelines, exclusively for randomized clinical trials in the dental specialty of Endodontology, using a well-documented, validated consensus-based methodology. The guidelines have been named: Preferred Reporting Items for RAndomized Trials in Endodontics (PRIRATE) 2020. A total of eight individuals (PD, VN, HD, LB, TK, JJ, EP, SP), including the project leaders (PD, VN) formed a steering committee. The committee developed a checklist based on the items in the Consolidated Standards for Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guidelines and Clinical and Laboratory Images in Publications (CLIP) principles. A PRIRATE Delphi Group (PDG) and PRIRATE Face-to-Face Meeting group (PFMG) were also formed. Thirty PDG members participated in the online Delphi process and achieved consensus on the checklist items and flowchart that make up the PRIRATE guidelines. The guidelines were discussed at a meeting of the PFMG at the 19th European Society of Endodontology (ESE) Biennial congress, held on 13th September 2019 in Vienna, Austria. A total of 21 individuals from across the globe and four steering committee members (PD, VN, HD, LB) attended the meeting. As a consequence of the discussions, the guidelines were modified and then piloted by several authors whilst writing a manuscript. The PRIRATE 2020 guidelines contain a checklist consisting of 11 sections and 58 individual items as well as a flowchart, considered essential for authors to include when writing manuscripts for randomized clinical trials in Endodontics

Strange bedfellows: bridging the worlds of academia, public health and the sex industry to improve sexual health outcomes

The public health response to sexually transmitted infections, particularly HIV, has been and continues to be overwhelmingly focused on risk, disease and negative outcomes of sex, while avoiding discussion of positive motivations for sex (e.g. pleasure, desire, love). Recent advocacy efforts have challenged this approach and organisations have promoted the eroticisation of safer sex, especially in the context of HIV prevention

Youth futures and a masculine development ethos in the regional story of Uttarakhand

Research on the Uttarakhand region, which became a new state in 2000, has focused largely on agrarian livelihoods, religious rituals, development demands, ecological politics and the role of women in regional social movements. This essay discusses another dimension of the regional imaginary—that of a masculine development ethos. Based on ethnographic research and print media sources, this essay focuses on stories, politics, mobilities and imaginations of young men in the years immediately after the achievement of statehood. Despite increased outmigration of youth in search of employment, many young men expressed the dream of maintaining livelihoods in the familiar towns and rural spaces of Uttarakhand, describing their home region as a source of power and agency. In rallies and in print media, young (mostly upper caste) men expressed their disillusionment with the government and the promises of statehood, arguing that their aspirations for development and employment were left unfulfilled. Gendered stories of the region, told in Hindi in rallies and print media, contained references to local places, people and historical events and were produced through local connections and know-how, fostering a regional youth politics. The article argues that Uttarakhand as a region is shaped by the politics of local actors as well as embodied forms of aspiration, affiliation and mobility.IS

Representing the function and sensitivity of coastal interfaces in earth system models

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Ward, N. D., Megonigal, J. P., Bond-Lamberty, B., Bailey, V. L., Butman, D., Canuel, E. A., Diefenderfer, H., Ganju, N. K., Goni, M. A., Graham, E. B., Hopkinson, C. S., Khangaonkar, T., Langley, J. A., McDowell, N. G., Myers-Pigg, A. N., Neumann, R. B., Osburn, C. L., Price, R. M., Rowland, J., Sengupta, A., Simard, M., Thornton, P. E., Tzortziou, M., Vargas, R., Weisenhorn, P. B., & Windham-Myers, L. Representing the function and sensitivity of coastal interfaces in earth system models. Nature Communications, 11(1), (2020): 2458, doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16236-2.Between the land and ocean, diverse coastal ecosystems transform, store, and transport material. Across these interfaces, the dynamic exchange of energy and matter is driven by hydrological and hydrodynamic processes such as river and groundwater discharge, tides, waves, and storms. These dynamics regulate ecosystem functions and Earth’s climate, yet global models lack representation of coastal processes and related feedbacks, impeding their predictions of coastal and global responses to change. Here, we assess existing coastal monitoring networks and regional models, existing challenges in these efforts, and recommend a path towards development of global models that more robustly reflect the coastal interface.Funding for this work was provided by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) as part of the Predicting Ecosystem Resilience through Multiscale Integrative Science (PREMIS) Initiative. PNNL is operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. Additional support to J.P.M. was provided by the NSF-LTREB program (DEB-0950080, DEB-1457100, DEB-1557009), DOE-TES Program (DE-SC0008339), and the Smithsonian Institution. This manuscript was motivated by discussions held by co-authors during a three-day workshop at PNNL in Richland, WA: The System for Terrestrial Aquatic Research (STAR) Workshop: Terrestrial-Aquatic Research in Coastal Systems. The authors thank PNNL artist Nathan Johnson for preparing the figures in this manuscript and Terry Clark, Dr. Charlette Geffen, and Dr. Nancy Hess for their aid in organizing the STAR workshop. The authors thank all workshop participants not listed as authors for their valuable insight: Lihini Aluwihare (contributed to biogeochemistry discussions and development of concept for Fig. 3), Gautam Bisht (contributed to modeling discussion), Emmett Duffy (contributed to observational network discussions), Yilin Fang (contributed to modeling discussion), Jeremy Jones (contributed to biogeochemistry discussions), Roser Matamala (contributed to biogeochemistry discussions), James Morris (contributed to biogeochemistry discussions), Robert Twilley (contributed to biogeochemistry discussions), and Jesse Vance (contributed to observational network discussions). A full report on the workshop discussions can be found at https://www.pnnl.gov/publications/star-workshop-terrestrial-aquatic-research-coastal-systems