Identity In The Wake Of The State: Local, National, And Supranational Dynamics Of The Syrian Conflict

While much of the civil war literature considers the impact religious or ethnic identities have on the character or duration of conflict, scholars have failed to address why different identities become salient in territories outside the state’s control. Using subnational case studies from the Syrian conflict, I claim that we must consider the interests and character of those actors who strive to attain authority and build governing institutions in the absence of the state. I find that civilian actors are more likely to promote local identities, such as clan, tribal, or city-based identities. Armed groups, however, are more likely to choose more abstract or space-based identities, such as ethnic or national identities. The three cases vary in terms of the involvement of civilian and armed actors in institution building. The first case study analyzes an area where civilians played the primary role as institution builders, the second case study describes two areas in which armed groups served as the primary institution builders, and the third case covers an area in which civilian and armed actors controlled different aspects of public life. External actors can also play a supporting role in the development of institutions by local actors or a negative role by destroying groups’ capacity for institution building. The project leverages the availability of materials created by local authorities and disseminated over social media to evaluate identity promotion in dangerous areas. It also uses photos and videos of protests to evaluate the effectiveness of local identity promotion efforts in shifting the salience of civilians’ identities. This work joins an ongoing conversation on the character and effects of rebel governance as well as debates on the relationship between local dynamics and national/international cleavages in times of civil conflict. It also adds to a growing literature on Syria by illustrating the variation of local institution building and identity promotion and by problematizing the emergence of particular cleavages

Lipid Coated Gold Nanoparticle Cores: Synthesis and Characterization

Including environmental, industrial, and biomedical sciences, applications of gold nanoparticles are on the forefront of research in many areas. By altering the surface treatment of spherical gold nanoparticle cores, particularly those smaller than 100 nm (nanometers), one can influence their potential use in a number of ways. Lipid coated nanoparticles with specifically selected surface ligands can be used for multiple biomedical functions, including medical imaging, for use as colorimetric and plasmonic sensors within the body, and as cell or organelle specific targets for therapeutic drug delivery or cancer treatment. Here, spherical gold nanoparticles ranging in size from 8-40 nm (avg. diameter 23-48 nm) have been synthesized and coated with poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) and a mixed lipid solution of 1:1 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-L-serine (POPS) and lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), two of the four major types of lipids found in the human body. Characterization was performed using a NanoSight LM10HS particle sizer, and shows a gradual increase in size after each step in the coating process for nanoparticle cores ranging in size from 16-27 nm. The thickness of these purified and lipid coated nanoparticles was consistently 2-3 times that of the PAH coated sample it was layered onto, suggesting a successful, multi-layered coat that ranges in size based on the PAH coated core size. UV-Vis spectroscopy shows a slight red shift, indicating an increase in size and change in refractive index, which supports the presence of lipid coating on the PAH coated gold nanoparticle cores

Factors Associated with Low Birth Weights in Kenya

Sustainable development goal number three aims at attaining healthy lives for all at all ages come 2030. This is at the backdrop of the continued experiences of adverse birth outcomes in most of the developing countries, births whose effects on life quality cannot be denied. This paper employed multinomial logistic regression analysis on 2008/09 Kenya demographic and health survey data to identify factors that contribute to low birth weights in Kenya.  Of the assessed factors, only work status of the mother and maternal age were found not to be significantly associated with low birth weights. Births to women who had not attended any antenatal care visit had a more than double likelihood of being low birth weights than those births to women who had attended a minimum of four antenatal care visits.  To reduce on cases of low birth weights is a call for promoting women education beyond elementary level, improving the living standards of women especially during pregnancy, checking on urban lifestyles, and encouraging women to attend optimum antenatal care visits. Keywords: low birth weight; antenatal care visits; Kenya demographic and health surve

Enhancing Scholarly Productivity Among Physical Therapy Faculty through Professional Networks

Purpose Let\u27s build a talented workforce of physical therapy educators with diverse ideas who collaborate on projects and discover new knowledge! Faculty are the educational leaders in physical therapy. With growing demands on workload and time, it is essential to attract talent to academia and provide a supportive team to navigate the path toward a successful career. Scholarly productivity accreditation requirements are challenging, especially for new faculty with primary teaching responsibilities or those without an academic doctoral degree. Evidence suggests that network connections can improve faculty performance, innovation and retention. This study arose from concerns in recent years related to the large number of early career faculty joining physical therapy schools across the country. The purpose of this session is to show how effective professional networks for physical therapy faculty aid in success with scholarly activity. This session will apply key principles of the social capital theory to challenge future educational leaders to carefully examine their professional network connections and the role of these connections in their work-related outcomes. Social capital, marked by trust, reciprocity and cooperation can be acquired via professional network connections. One who has an effective network can leverage their social capital to access information and resources, retain support and cohesion, and attain introductions to new professional contacts from brokers within their network. In higher education, there is also evidence that knowing about the value of professional connections can aid in higher performance and varied collaborations - all important for faculty recruitment, development and retention. Methods and/or Description of Project During this session, we will explore the results of a one-year nationwide study of early career physical therapy faculty and the most effective professional network structure and composition. In addition, participants will have an opportunity to compare components of their own professional network against several existing models among physical therapy educators. There is no perfect network model however knowing about how network connections are built and maintained can help individuals leverage their network knowledge for purposeful advancement in their career path. During this session participants will identify individuals who are important sources of work-related information. We will review information about these network contacts such as gender, academic rank, location of work, and discuss connections among the individuals in the network. This information will be used to illustrate networks via network maps that visualize the connections. Participants will learn about certain elements of their network to better understand and characterize their professional network connections. In addition to the size of one\u27s network, we will discuss interconnectedness (density), homophily (similarity to the faculty member), and heterogeneity (diversity of network characteristics), and what these concepts mean for professional network development. Results/Outcomes Network composition results from over 50 early career PT faculty from 39 different institutions across the country will be shared. We assessed network size and density (connectedness) and six measures of homophily ( characteristics similar to the early career faculty member) and 18 measures of heterogeneity ( diversity). We used univariate analysis and multiple logistic regression to explore how the baseline network structure and composition predicted scholarly activity one year later. The results from this study demonstrated that a more open, less interconnected network was associated with greater quantity and higher-quality scholarly activity, even after controlling for the duration as a faculty member and achievement of an academic doctoral degree. Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme Key take-aways related to faculty development from this session include: 1) some early career faculty are productively using their network connections, despite the Carnegie Classification of their institution, duration in their faculty job, and earning an academic doctoral degree; 2) the structure of a most effective professional network for scholarly activity is open with low connectedness among contacts; and 3) mentors can guide early career faculty to systematically and strategically modify their network to be more effective and support their scholarly agendas

The Ancient Tree Inventory: a summary of the results of a 15 year citizen science project recording ancient, veteran and notable trees across the UK

Ancient, veteran and notable trees are ecologically important keystone organisms and have tangible connections to folklore, history and sociocultural practices. Although found worldwide, few countries have such a rich history of recording and treasuring these trees as the UK, with its extensive Royal and aristocratic land ownership, unique land management methods and long-standing interest in natural history and species record collecting. As a result, the UK has collated an extensive database of ancient, veteran and notable trees called the Ancient Tree Inventory (ATI). The ATI is the result of a successful, long-term citizen science recording project and is the most comprehensive database of ancient and other noteworthy trees to date. We present here the first review of the ATI in its entirety since its initiation in 2004, including summaries of the UK ancient, veteran and notable tree distributions, the status and condition of the trees, and key information about the recording process and maintenance of the database. Statistical analysis of components of the dataset, comprising 169,967 tree records, suggest there are significant differences in the threats, size, form and location of different types of trees, especially in relation to taxonomic identity and tree age. Our goal is to highlight the value of the ATI in the UK, to encourage the development of similar ancient tree recording projects in other countries, and to emphasise the importance to conservation of continued efforts to maintain and expand databases of this kind

Retrieved Atmospheres and Inferred Surface Properties for Exoplanets Using Transmission and Reflected Light Spectroscopy

Future astrophysics missions will seek extraterrestrial life via transmission and direct imaging observations. To assess habitability and biosignatures, we need robust retrieval tools to analyze observed spectra, and infer surface and atmospheric properties with their uncertainties. We use a novel retrieval tool to assess accuracy in characterizing near-surface habitability and biosignatures via simulated transmission and direct imaging spectra, based on the Origins Space Telescope (Origins) and LUVOIR mission concepts. We assess our ability to discriminate between an Earth-like and a false-positive O$_3$ TRAPPIST-1 e with transmission spectroscopy. In reflected light, we assess the robustness of retrieval results to un-modeled cloud extinction. We find that assessing habitability using transmission spectra may be challenging due to relative insensitivity to surface temperature and near-surface H$_2$O abundances. Nonetheless, our order of magnitude H$_2$O constraints can discriminate extremely desiccated worlds. Direct imaging is insensitive to surface temperature and subject to the radius/albedo degeneracy, but this method proves highly sensitive to surface water abundance, achieving retrieval precision within 0.1% even with partial clouds. Concerning biosignatures, Origins-like transmission observations ($t=40$ hours) may detect the CO$_2$/CH$_4$ pair on M-dwarf planets and differentiate between biological and false positive O$_3$ using H$_2$O and abundant CO. In contrast, direct imaging observations with LUVOIR-A ($t=10$ hours) are better suited to constraining O$_2$ and O$_3$, and may be sensitive to wavelength-dependent water cloud features, but will struggle to detect modern Earth-like abundances of methane. For direct imaging, we weakly detect a stratospheric ozone bulge by fitting the near-UV wings of the Hartley band.Comment: 44 pages, 11 figures, 4 figure sets, 7 tables, accepted for publication in PS

Effects of Cannabidiol Cream on Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

Cannabidiol is used for treating anxiety (Bertoglio, Day, Gulmaraes, Jurkus, Lee, & Stevenson, 2016), reducing epileptic seizures (FDA, 2018), as well as reducing inflammation (Zurier, 2003). Limited clinical evidence, however, has been provided to support the therapeutic use of cannabinoids in skeletal inflammation despite the promising preclinical data (Bura, Maldonado, Negrete, & La Porta, 2014). PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to explore the use of Cannabidiol (CBD) cream and its effectiveness to reduce delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). METHODS: Thirteen participants (Age = 25±3.8 yrs, height = 164.3±11.0 cm, weight = 77.5±27.1 kg) performed two sets of squats to exhaustion; one with weight (5lbs for women and 8lbs for men) and one without weight in order to induce DOMS. Cannabidiol cream was then applied generously in a circular motion for 15 seconds until evenly spread on one anterior thigh (specifically the quadriceps area) and a placebo on the other. Both legs were wiped clean after 10 minutes. Participants rated their pain 24 and 48 hours after using a 0-10 pain assessment tool. Data was analyzed using a repeated measure ANOVA to assess pain differences. Alpha was set at .05. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in DOMS between the legs across time points, F(3, 10) = 2.17, p = 0.15. There was also no significant difference in DOMS after combining the time points, t(12) = .779, p = 0.45. CONCLUSIONS: No significant difference suggests that the CBD cream had no effect on delayed onset muscle soreness. Future studies should isolate muscles and have multiple cream applications to further explore its effectiveness

A Insight into Corporate Social Responsibility in Kenya

ABSTRACT Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has risen to prominence in recent years, and has subsequently been identified as having the potential to make significant positive contributions to developing countries (Visser, 2006). Yet, CSR practices vary from country to country. This dissertation questions the way in which CSR manifests itself in Kenya. The research uses the concept of CSR within a framework of corporate social performance (CSP) to investigate CSR in Kenya. The research adopts the central tenets of institutional theory (IT) as used in sociology. Institutional factors are assumed to influence CSR, and subsequently are used to evaluate CSR in Kenya. Through web content analysis of seventy companies operating in Kenya, and web based surveys, this dissertation demonstrates the various types of CSR present in Kenya. Companies display different interpretations and practices of CSR. Motivated by various pressures in the institutional environment - regulative, normative and coercive companies focus on different issues and formulate different CSR processes. Thus, the pattern of CSR is not consistent across Kenya. However, isomorphism between companies does occur, both between and across industries, which accounts for similar CSR approaches taken by certain companies. The dissertation shows that CSR is motivated by institutional factors. It also shows that the understanding of CSR in Kenya differs from those in developed countries. Whereas CSR is understood to be mainly altruistic with the sole aim of contributing to the welfare of society in Kenya, companies originating outside Kenya recognise its potential for achieving economic objectives. Accordingly, companies display different types of CSR reflecting their different motivations. These motivations are closely linked to institutional pressures. Domestic companies are heavily influenced by local norms and socio-economic conditions. International companies are more influenced by their stakeholders and peers who encourage CSR consistent with global norms. As the need to develop CSR in response to local needs has come to the forefront of the CSR agenda, companies are tailoring their CSR policies and practices accordingly. The dissertation discusses the implication of the findings to practice and policy, proposing that the lack of government regulations and effective CSR institutions in Kenya need attention

By-Products of Prosperity: Transborder Hazardous Waste Issues Confronting the Maquiladora Industry

The maquiladora program allows Mexican laborers to work in American factories operating in Mexico. This program was specifically designed to generate employment and stimulate industry in Mexico. After a brief discussion of the current status and significance of the maquiladora industry, this Article explains the procedures for the transborder shipment of hazardous waste from Mexico to the United States, a hallmark of the maquiladora program. The authors analyze these procedures in light of anticipated regulatory and economic trends in the region. The analysis includes a discussion of the issue of commingled waste, as well as how NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) will impact Mexico\u27s environmental policies. The authors conclude that the maquiladora program has a prosperous future, despite the hazardous waste issues that threaten the health of the industry