Needle-Moving Community Collaboratives: A Promising Approach to Addressing America's Biggest Challenges

Communities face powerful challenges -- a high-school dropout epidemic, youth unemployment, teen pregnancy -- that require powerful solutions. In a climate of increasingly constrained resources, those solutions must help communities to achieve more with less. A new kind of community collaborative -- an approach that aspires to significant community-wide progress by enlisting all sectors to work together toward a common goal -- offers enormous promise to bring about broader, more lasting change across the nation

Lessons in Funder Collaboration: What the Packard Foundation Has Learned about Working with Other Funders

As the Foundation approached its 50th anniversary this year, it asked The Bridgespan Group to assist in taking stock of what Packard can learn from its many collaborations. When it comes to the structure of collaborations, Bridgespan has identified five main models: knowledge exchange, coordination of funding, coinvesting in an existing entity, creating a new entity, and funding the funder. As with all taxonomies, these five categories are meant to serve as signposts along a continuum. Each collaboration differs in a variety of ways, whether it is the flow of funds, decision making, expectations and roles of funding partners, or legal structure. Bridgespan focused on Packard's collaborations that require alignment and more intensive coordination by program staff. Six case studies provide an in-depth look inside examples of all four types of collaboration that venture beyond exchanging knowledge

Evaluation of a programme of transferable skills development within the PhD: views of late stage students

Recent years have seen an increasing emphasis placed upon the development of transferable skills within PhD degree programmes. This paper reports on steps taken to evaluate a programme of transferable skills development at a research intensive university in the UK, focussing on the views of late stage PhD students in the science, engineering and medical disciplines. It shows that most students report a positive impact from having taken part in transferable skills initiatives and that they have a positive attitude towards them. Participants report an enduring positive impact on their behaviour and consider that the training meets their perceived needs as they progress as researchers. However, amongst the population as a whole, there were differences in views. For example, it was found that females, overseas students and those mainly motivated to do the PhD by career-related reasons attach the greatest importance to such opportunities to develop transferable skills

Substitution among capital, labor, and raw materials in upholstered furniture manufacturing

The potential for substitution among capital, labor, and raw materials Is relatively low In the U.S. upholstered household furniture Industry. In general, therefore, the industry prospers In areas where all the Input factor costs are relatively low, and efforts to attract upholstered furniture producers to specific areas must consider all the Inputs to production. Based on these results, and considering nationwide trends In demand, foreign competition, and regional comparative advantage, the upholstered furniture industry should continue as an Important source of demand for forest products In the southern United States

Effect of HIV-1 infection on T-Cell-based and skin test detection of tuberculosis infection

RATIONALE: Two forms of the IFN-gamma release assay (IFNGRA) to detect tuberculosis infection are available, but neither has been evaluated in comparable HIV-infected and uninfected persons in a high tuberculosis incidence environment. OBJECTIVE: To compare the ability of the T-SPOT.TB (Oxford Immunotec, Abingdon, UK), QuantiFERON-TB Gold (Cellestis, Melbourne, Australia), and Mantoux tests to identify latent tuberculosis in HIV-infected and uninfected persons. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 160 healthy adults without active tuberculosis attending a voluntary counseling and testing center for HIV infection in Khayelitsha, a deprived urban South African community with an HIV antenatal seroprevalence of 33% and a tuberculosis incidence of 1,612 per 100,000. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: One hundred and sixty (74 HIV(+) and 86 HIV(-)) persons were enrolled. A lower proportion of Mantoux results was positive in HIV-infected subjects compared with HIV-uninfected subjects (p < 0.01). By contrast, the proportion of positive IFNGRAs was not significantly different in HIV-infected persons for the T-SPOT.TB test (52 vs. 59%; p = 0.41) or the QuantiFERON-TB Gold test (43 and 46%; p = 0.89). Fair agreement between the Mantoux test (5- and 10-mm cutoffs) and the IFNGRA was seen in HIV-infected people (kappa = 0.52-0.6). By contrast, poor agreement between the Mantoux and QuantiFERON-TB Gold tests was observed in the HIV-uninfected group (kappa = 0.07-0.30, depending on the Mantoux cutoff). The pattern was similar for T-SPOT.TB (kappa = 0.18-0.24). Interpretation: IFNGRA sensitivity appears relatively unimpaired by moderately advanced HIV infection. However, agreement between the tests and with the Mantoux test varied from poor to fair. This highlights the need for prospective studies to determine which test may predict the subsequent risk of tuberculosis

A literature synthesis of personalised technology-enhanced learning: what works and why

Personalised learning, having seen both surges and declines in popularity over the past few decades, is once again enjoying a resurgence. Examples include digital resources tailored to a particular learner’s needs, or individual feedback on a student’s assessed work. In addition, personalised technology-enhanced learning (TEL) now seems to be attracting interest from philanthropists and venture capitalists indicating a new level of enthusiasm for the area and a potential growth industry. However, these industries may be driven by profit rather than pedagogy, and hence it is vital these new developments are informed by relevant, evidence-based research. For many people, personalised learning is an ambiguous and even loaded term that promises much but does not always deliver. This paper provides an in-depth and critical review and synthesis of how personalisation has been represented in the literature since 2000, with a particular focus on TEL. We examine the reasons why personalised learning can be beneficial and examine how TEL can contribute to this. We also unpack how personalisation can contribute to more effective learning. Lastly, we examine the limitations of personalised learning and discuss the potential impacts on wider stakeholders

"It All Ended in an Unsporting Way": Serbian Football and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia, 1989-2006

Part of a wider examination into football during the collapse of Eastern European Communism between 1989 and 1991, this article studies the interplay between Serbian football and politics during the period of Yugoslavia's demise. Research utilizing interviews with individuals directly involved in the Serbian game, in conjunction with contemporary Yugoslav media sources, indicates that football played an important proactive role in the revival of Serbian nationalism. At the same time the Yugoslav conflict, twinned with a complex transition to a market economy, had disastrous consequences for football throughout the territories of the former Yugoslavia. In the years following the hostilities the Serbian game has suffered decline, major financial hardship and continuing terrace violence, resulting in widespread nostalgia for the pre-conflict era

The Opportunity Cost Of Education: Where Do The Lost Years Go?

Economists often introduce their classes to opportunity cost concepts by pointing out the additional incomes students could be earning were they employed full time rather than attending university.&nbsp; A potential additional cost, a reduction in years of future labor force participation, is unlikely to be mentioned.&nbsp; We argue that although this ‘work-life’ effect may safely be ignored in calculating rates of return to education, it must be taken into account if the goal is to correctly identify the cost of individuals’ time out of the labor force, particularly for purposes other than education.&nbsp; The fact that this issue was raised in a court case by a vocational analyst provides “real” life example of how this “work life” effect matters and may serve to intrigue our students and validate the study of our discipline.&nbsp; Our paper demonstrates the appropriate methodology and information necessary to identify work-life costs and suggests introducing the concept at introductory levels

Health literacy, health status, and healthcare utilization of Taiwanese adults: results from a national survey

Abstract Background Low health literacy is considered a worldwide health threat. The purpose of this study is to assess the prevalence and socio-demographic covariates of low health literacy in Taiwanese adults and to investigate the relationships between health literacy and health status and health care utilization. Methods A national survey of 1493 adults was conducted in 2008. Health literacy was measured using the Mandarin Health Literacy Scale. Health status was measured based on self-rated physical and mental health. Health care utilization was measured based on self-reported outpatient clinic visits, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations. Results Approximately thirty percent of adults were found to have low (inadequate or marginal) health literacy. They tended to be older, have fewer years of schooling, lower household income, and reside in less populated areas. Inadequate health literacy was associated with poorer mental health (OR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.35-0.91). No association was found between health literacy and health care utilization even after adjusting for other covariates. Conclusions Low (inadequate and marginal) health literacy is prevalent in Taiwan. High prevalence of low health literacy is not necessarily indicative of the need for interventions. Systematic efforts to evaluate the impact of low health literacy on health outcomes in other countries would help to illuminate features of health care delivery and financing systems that may mitigate the adverse health effects of low health literacy.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78252/1/1471-2458-10-614.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78252/2/1471-2458-10-614.pdfPeer Reviewe