Rags2Riches: Social Impact Survey

To improve impact measurement, the fellows created and piloted a social impact survey. The purpose of the survey is to develop social impact measurements that will allow the enterprise to assess artisans’ livelihood development and quality of life. In order to improve efficiency of data collection and analyses, this paper-based survey was then converted into a mobile application, upon return to campus in the fall

Rags2Riches: Community Expansion Module

This module serves as an extensive training manual to teach new communities of Rags2Riches everything they need to know about becoming artisans of the social enterprise. The community supervisor will visit the community-intraining on a weekly basis in order to instruct them on this manual as well as check their on-going progress. Since there is a tremendous amount of material to be taught during this process, it is important for the community supervisor to be knowledgeable on every subject covered

Rags2Riches: Action Research Findings

The poor lack access to market and income opportunities all over the world; this reality is more pronounced among women. Rags2Riches, Inc. (R2R hereafter) addresses this problem in the Philippines by creating social and economic opportunities through livelihoods for its artisan partners and their communities. By providing training in weaving skills and financial literacy, R2R assists each artisan, their families, and their communities. In order to measure its impact, R2R developed a social impact survey; however, it was paper-based and was not well suited to gather the social impact data that donors and investors require. R2R seeks to continue scaling its impact by partnering with more communities. To support the training of new artisans and communities, R2R has used an educational tool, however activities were not standardized into a timeline or documented in a module

Becoming Women Engineers: Dismantled Notions and Distorted Perspectives

In an investigation of (non-international) undergraduate students’ experiences with their engineering major, we interviewed 10 young women asking questions about their interactions with instructors, academic successes/struggles, and any challenges they felt they had faced as women/girls in engineering. Initial findings echoed those in previous research serving to affirm held notions of interventions that would improve women/girls’ experiences in engineering. In reflecting on the research methods and troubling its design, we realized that we had approached the data with limited perspectives. A new approach to analysis opened up concepts and yielded findings that offer a different course of action for abating the STEM crisis. Identity/being and becoming for our participants were framed in reference to different entities and were intermingled with themes of prestige, proof of self, and womaness. Our study invites us to look for solutions to recruitment/retention problems in creative ways. More camps, role models, or extracurricular involvement do not meet the supports these women/girls need. Instead of striving for proportionality, perhaps we should shift the conversation to address the multidimensional ways of being constituted and reconstituted by discursive practices that are always already generating gendered positionings. Let’s equip our students and colleagues with ways of recognizing and questioning these entanglements, not in order to solve a problem, but rather to work through a problem and think more about the processes of being and becoming

"Women's rights, the European Court and Supranational Constitutionalism"

This analysis examines supranational constitutionalism in the European Union. In particular, the study focuses on the role of the European Court of Justice in the creation of women’s rights. I examine the interaction between the Court and member state governments in legal integration, and also the integral role that women’s advocates – both individual activists and groups – have played in the development of EU social provisions. The findings suggest that this litigation dynamic can have the effect of fueling the integration process by creating new rights that may empower social actors and EU organizations, with the ultimate effect of diminishing member state government control over the scope and direction of EU law. This study focuses specifically on gender equality law, yet provides a general framework for examining the case law in subsequent legal domains, with the purpose of providing a more nuanced understanding of supranational governance and constitutionalism

Critical analysis of self-doping and water-soluble n-type organic semiconductors: structures and mechanisms

Self-doping organic semiconductors provide a promising route to avoid instabilities and morphological issues associated with molecular n-type dopants. Structural characterization of a naphthalenetetracarboxylic diimide (NDI) semiconductor covalently bound to an ammonium hydroxide group is presented. The dopant precursor was found to be the product of an unexpected base catalyzed hydrolysis, which was reversible. The reversible hydrolysis had profound consequences on the chemical composition, morphology, and electronic performance of the doped films. In addition, we investigated the degradation mechanism of the quaternary ammonium group and the subsequent doping of NDI. These findings reveal that the products of more than one chemical reaction during processing of films must be considered when utilizing this promising class of water-soluble semiconductors

Extended M1 sum rule for excited symmetric and mixed-symmetry states in nuclei

A generalized M1 sum rule for orbital magnetic dipole strength from excited symmetric states to mixed-symmetry states is considered within the proton-neutron interacting boson model of even-even nuclei. Analytic expressions for the dominant terms in the B(M1) transition rates from the first and second $2^+$ states are derived in the U(5) and SO(6) dynamic symmetry limits of the model, and the applicability of a sum rule approach is examined at and in-between these limits. Lastly, the sum rule is applied to the new data on mixed-symmetry states of 94Mo and a quadrupole d-boson ratio $nd(0^+_1)/nd(2^+_2) \approx 0.6$ is obtained in a largely parameter-independent wayComment: 19 pages, 3 figures, Revte

Evaluation of Southern Ocean cloud in the HadGEM3 general circulation model and MERRA-2 reanalysis using ship-based observations

Southern Ocean (SO) shortwave (SW) radiation biases are a common problem in contemporary general circulation models (GCMs), with most models exhibiting a tendency to absorb too much incoming SW radiation. These biases have been attributed to deficiencies in the representation of clouds during the austral summer months, either due to cloud cover or cloud albedo being too low. The problem has been the focus of many studies, most of which utilised satellite datasets for model evaluation. We use multi-year ship-based observations and the CERES spaceborne radiation budget measurements to contrast cloud representation and SW radiation in the atmospheric component Global Atmosphere (GA) version&nbsp;7.1 of the HadGEM3 GCM and the MERRA-2 reanalysis. We find that the prevailing bias is negative in GA7.1 and positive in MERRA-2. GA7.1 performs better than MERRA-2 in terms of absolute SW bias. Significant errors of up to 21&thinsp;W&thinsp;m&minus;2 (GA7.1) and 39&thinsp;W&thinsp;m&minus;2 (MERRA-2) are present in both models in the austral summer. Using ship-based ceilometer observations, we find low cloud below 2&thinsp;km to be predominant in the Ross Sea and the Indian Ocean sectors of the SO. Utilising a novel surface lidar simulator developed for this study, derived from an existing Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) Observation Simulator Package (COSP) &ndash; active remote sensing simulator (ACTSIM) spaceborne lidar simulator, we find that GA7.1 and MERRA-2 both underestimate low cloud and fog occurrence relative to the ship observations on average by 4&thinsp;%&ndash;9&thinsp;% (GA7.1) and 18&thinsp;% (MERRA-2). Based on radiosonde observations, we also find the low cloud to be strongly linked to boundary layer atmospheric stability and the sea surface temperature. GA7.1 and MERRA-2 do not represent the observed relationship between boundary layer stability and clouds well. We find that MERRA-2 has a much greater proportion of cloud liquid water in the SO in austral summer than GA7.1, a likely key contributor to the difference in the SW radiation bias. Our results suggest that subgrid-scale processes (cloud and boundary layer parameterisations) are responsible for the bias and that in GA7.1 a major part of the SW radiation bias can be explained by cloud cover underestimation, relative to underestimation of cloud albedo.</p