The Economic Benefits of Cleaning Up the Chesapeake

Information on the economic benefits of environmental improvement is an important consideration for anyone (firms, organizations, government agencies, and individuals) concerned about the cost-effectiveness of changes in management designed to achieve that improvement. In the case of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment), these benefits would accrue due to improvements in the health, and therefore productivity, of land and water in the watershed. These productivity changes occur both due to the outcomes of the TMDL and state implementation plans, also known as a "Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint" itself (i.e., cleaner water in the Bay) as well as a result of the measures taken to achieve those outcomes that have their own beneficial side effects. All such changes are then translated into dollar values for various ecosystem services, including water supply, food production, recreation, aesthetics, and others. By these measures, the total economic benefit of the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint is estimated at $22.5 billion per year (in 2013 dollars), as measured as the improvement over current conditions, or at$28.2 billion per year (in 2013 dollars), as measured as the difference between the Clean Water Blueprint and a business-as-usual scenario. (Due to lag times—it takes some time for changes in land management to result in improvements in water quality, the full measure of these benefits would begin to accrue sometime after full implementation of the Blueprint.) These considerable benefits should be considered alongside the costs and other economic aspects of implementing the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint

Ours is a Great Work : British Women Medical Missionaries in Twentieth-Century Colonial India

Drawing from the rich records of Protestant British women’s missionary societies, this dissertation explores the motivations, goals, efforts, and experiences of British women who pursued careers as missionary doctors and nurses dedicated to serving Indian women in the decades before Indian independence in 1947. While most scholarship on women missionaries focuses on the imperial heyday of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, this study highlights women medical missionaries in the late colonial period and argues for the significance of this transitional moment, a time of deepening change in medical science and clinical practice, imperial rule and nationalist politics, gender relations, and the nature of the missionary enterprise in both India and Britain. Analysis of the relationship between missionaries in India and their managers in Britain reveals the tensions among women who shared a common commitment, yet brought different perspectives and priorities to women’s missionary work. A life-cycle approach to work and career allows examination of individual women’s development as healthcare professionals and as missionaries. Telling the stories of missionaries’ everyday experiences shows that a sense of purpose, preparation, professionalism, and positive role models sustained those women who were able to meet the great demands of medical missionary work. These missionaries often overcame obstacles and challenges through negotiation and collaboration with patients and their families as well as reflection and learning from experience. Many came to believe they had achieved measurable progress and made a positive difference in the quality of Indian women’s lives. The missionaries’ commitment to Christian medical service for Indian women reached beyond the colonial era and eventually embraced a transfer of leadership to Indian Christians. [WU1] [WU1]Your abstract will not be accepted if it exceeds the limit by even one word

Sed Contra, Ergo, Responsio: Honoring the Legacy of Christopher Morse as a Teacher of Christian Theology

In the fall of 1991, with two years of course work toward our doctoral studies completed, we began two years of work as UTS Tutors for Professors Christopher Morse and James Cone in the introductory theology sequence of ST103 and ST104. To say this experience was formative would be an understatement. A central component of Christopher’s ST104 course, Foundations of Christian Theology, was gaining skills in theological argumentation in order to demonstrate how Christian doctrines can be applied to contemporary issues. Generations of Union students developed this skill through writing Utrum essays. In this exercise Christopher adapted the steps of "theological dialectic" set forth by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae. We were lucky to be working with Christopher as he was completing his seminal work, Not Every Spirit: A Dogmatics of Christian Disbelief, and enjoyed applying the Utrum form to the foundational theological claims. In Not Every Spirit Christopher states, "The purpose of this exercise is to develop the complementary skills in addition to doing scriptural exegesis and historical exposition required for what is called "dialectic," meaning here the pros and cons of argument involved in adjudicating disputed issues, a task of dogmatic theology as a "testing of the spirits." Reading dozens of Utrum essays and watching Christopher demonstrate this skill in many classes over two semesters of tutoring ST104 shaped our own theological method profoundly. Learning to examine contemporary theological and ethical issues through the Utrum format remains one of the most important intellectual and academic skills we gained in our doctoral programs at Union

Type 1 diabetes in young people: the impact of social environments on self-management issues from young people’s and parents’ perspectives.

In the UK, young people with type 1 diabetes generally have poor glycaemic control. Managing type 1 diabetes in young people is complex, and is underpinned by relationships with significant others in the social environments they inhabit. This qualitative study explores the social environments of young people with type 1 diabetes and their potential influence on glycaemic control. Twenty young people with type 1 diabetes and their parents (n=27) were interviewed about their experiences in the environments of the home, with friends (social), at school and in the diabetes clinic. It was found that the diabetes clinic was vital to the medical management of type 1 diabetes, and the family provided stable support for most young people with type 1 diabetes. However, there were barriers to self-management in school and social environments. It was concluded that each family had a unique story about the social factors in the environments they encountered that affected self-management of type 1 diabetes

The Body as Fiction / Fiction as a Way of Thinking: On Writing A Short (Personal) History of the Bra and its Contents

This thesis uses fiction as a research technology for investigating and thinking about issues to do with bodies and knowledge at the cusp of the 20th and 21st centuries. It includes sample material from a novel in progress -- A Short (Personal) History of the Bra and its Contents -- to illustrate some of the unique outcomes of this approach to exploring cultural history and writing cultural criticism. One of the advantages of fiction is that it allows me to create a discursive field in which it is possible for the very wide range of issues raised by my topic to coexist, work off each other and cross-fertilise. These include ideas regarding gender, sexuality, nurture and subjectivity; issues to do with the implants controversy, the cancer industry and the corporatisation of medicine (and hence various current debates within science and medicine); as well as movements in fashion history and popular culture -- all of which contribute to making up the datasphere in which and through which we continually reproduce ourselves as subjects. [...]Doctor of Philosoph

If we know what works, why aren't we doing it?

High rates of child removal from parents with learning disabilities persist despite substantial evidence that parents with learning disabilities can provide their children with satisfactory care given appropriate support. Child welfare interventions disproportionality based on disability status presents a compelling social issue deserving urgent attention. Co-operative inquiry was used to analyse attitudinal and structural barriers that perpetuate inequitable treatment of parents with learning disabilities and their children, drawing on policy and practice examples from Australia and the United Kingdom. Bacchi’s “What is the problem represented to be?” approach to social policy issues was used to answer the question: if we know what works to support parents with learning disabilities, why aren’t we doing it? This commentary contends that the pervasive representation of parents with learning disabilities as inherently deficient in the requisite skills (‘parenting capacity’) needed for safe caregiving has been difficult to shift due to systematic ableism. Neoliberal policies stigmatise a need for support (‘dependence’) as an individual failing and recast assessments of long-term support needs as an unsustainable burden on support services/systems. We conclude that a social model of child protection that is accessible to all involved returns to principles of interdependence, relationality and ethics of care

If we know what works, why aren't we doing it?

High rates of child removal from parents with learning disabilities persist despite substantial evidence that parents with learning disabilities can provide their children with satisfactory care given appropriate support. Child welfare interventions disproportionality based on disability status presents a compelling social issue deserving urgent attention. Co-operative inquiry was used to analyse attitudinal and structural barriers that perpetuate inequitable treatment of parents with learning disabilities and their children, drawing on policy and practice examples from Australia and the United Kingdom. Bacchi’s “What is the problem represented to be?” approach to social policy issues was used to answer the question: if we know what works to support parents with learning disabilities, why aren’t we doing it? This commentary contends that the pervasive representation of parents with learning disabilities as inherently deficient in the requisite skills (‘parenting capacity’) needed for safe caregiving has been difficult to shift due to systematic ableism. Neoliberal policies stigmatise a need for support (‘dependence’) as an individual failing and recast assessments of long-term support needs as an unsustainable burden on support services/systems. We conclude that a social model of child protection that is accessible to all involved returns to principles of interdependence, relationality and ethics of care

System-theoretic case study from the financial crisis

Thesis (S.M. in Technology and Policy)-- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-105).There is currently much systems-based thinking going into understanding safety in complex socio-technical systems and in developing useful accident analysis methods. However, when it comes to complex systems without clear physical components, the techniques for understanding accidents are antiquated and ineffective. This thesis uses a promising new engineering-based accident analysis methodology, CAST (Casual Analysis using STAMP, or Systems Theoretic Accident Models and Processes) to understand an aspect of the financial crisis of 2007-2008. This thesis demonstrates how CAST can be used to understand the context and control problems that led to the collapse and rapid acquisition of the investment bank Bear Stearns in March 2008. It seeks to illustrate the technological and regulatory change that provided the context for the Bear Stearns accidents and then demonstrates how a top-down systematic method of analysis can produce more insight into the accident than traditional financial accident investigations such as congressionally-mandated inquiries.by Melissa B. Spencer.S.M.in Technology and Polic