Towards understanding enabling environments for good practices in disaster risk management: an analysis of critical junctures in Manizales, Colombia

The city of Manizales in Colombia has been widely recognized as a good practice case in disaster risk management (DRM). Previous research has sought to amplify learning from Manizales through examining the characteristics of its innovative practices. These are championed by an inter-institutional alliance that includes academia, the local government, the regional environmental authority and service providers. This paper argues that this learning needs to be accompanied by a nuanced understanding of the historical trajectories that have allowed Manizales to create and consolidate its current enabling environment for DRM. The argument derives from an analysis of fieldwork data, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation and secondary data, through a critical juncture approach. Focusing on the critical juncture of seasonal heavy rains in 2003, the paper illustrates how institutional changes configured cultural–cognitive, regulatory and normative conditions for the emergence of one of Manizales’ most recognized good practices, the Guardians of the Slope programme

Old-growth Characteristics of Northern White-cedar Stands

Northern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis; hereafter white-cedar) communities have received relatively little research attention, and managers lack the tools used in the management of other commercial tree species. This includes the recognition of old-growth characteristics and the differentiation between old-growth and partially harvested stands, particularly in the context of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC-US) certification. Specifically, there is very little information about characteristics that define old-growth white-cedar stands despite the species’ abundance and wide distribution. Regional indices for late-successional or old-growth stands (Whitman and Hagan, 2007) do not include white-cedar. Forests dominated by white-cedar represent a type that currently lacks quantitative benchmarks for old-growth characteristics. To identify the structural characteristics unique to old-growth white-cedar stands, we inventoried 16 old-growth and 17 partially harvested stands in Maine and New Brunswick. In Chapter 1, we report the outcomes from a range of structural metrics commonly used in forest management such as basal area (BA, m² ha-1), quadratic mean diameter (QMD, cm), large tree (≥ 40 cm dbh) density, and volumes of coarse woody material (CWM, m³ ha-1), along with a set of structural complexity indices (e.g., diameter distribution index, mingling index). Two significant predictors were identified that, in combination, differentiate old-growth from partially harvested white-cedar stands: advanced-decay coarse woody material volume (logs in decay stages 4 and 5 using a 5-stage system) and live tree QMD. No structural complexity indices were useful in predicting old-growth status. Our research improves the understanding of old-growth characteristics in white-cedar stands and provides an important tool for the successful management of white-cedar. In Chapter 2, we present a practitioner-oriented guide to aid in the application of our findings by forest managers. Specifically, we provide an equation for determining the probability that a white-cedar stand has old-growth characteristics, as well as supporting information about how to collect and prepare the data needed to use this prediction tool. Illustrations and photographs are used to demonstrate the forest attributes of interest, and to aid the practitioner in measuring and determining the decay classes of coarse woody material. In addition, we discuss the relevance of our findings to ecological forestry prescriptions. This guide will prove useful for forest managers working under FSC guidelines, wherein the recognition of old-growth characteristics is institutionalized in requirements for reserving old-growth stands and maintaining old-growth characteristics where they are found in managed stands

Svabhava in the Philosophy of Zen Buddhism

When the Zen master asks, who are you? a reply as to your name, age, and place of residence would be out of order. The proper answer might be silence. But if silence were consciously resorted to in contrast to sound, this would still be no answer. In fact, the only acceptable answer would lie in your merely being what you are at that very moment, without a second, or reflective, thought. And this amounts to being what you have always been and always will be. The question has to do with your original nature, that which you were before you were born or even conceived. This nature is of the nature of voidness. To Western ears such statements may sound absurd. To us self is for the most part identified with what call I, the subject; selfhood is that particular individuality which the body encloses and defines, or perhaps mechanistically gives rise to. But from the fact that we can say my body and my self a deeper sense of selfhood arisen--the sense that something other than the body and even other than the self-conscious mind resides within the body

Respect, it goes both ways : exploring school connectedness and students\u27 experiences of microaggressions from teachers : a project based upon a joint project

This mixed-method study explores what kind of microaggressions high school students of various ethnicities and racial identities experience from their teachers, and if type and responses to microaggressions vary according to the levels of perceived school climate. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to find out what types of microaggressions were experienced. Using quantitative measures of school connectedness and teacher support as well as qualitative thematic analysis, the study analyzed differences in the ways in which students who experience low and high levels of school connectedness responded to these microaggressions. Twenty-one participants were interviewed, and nine were further sampled using quantitative measures. The findings were that students experience teachers stereotyping, teachers making students feel erased and adopting color blind narratives, teachers singling out students and calling out differences and teachers minimizing student concerns. School connectedness and teacher support appear to be protective factors for students who experience these kinds of microaggressions

De-Colonising Planning Education? Exploring the Geographies of Urban Planning Education Networks

Urban planning as a networked field of governance can be an essential contributor for de-colonising planning education and shaping pathways to urban equality. Educating planners with the capabilities to address complex socio-economic, environmental and political processes that drive inequality requires critical engagement with multiple knowledges and urban praxes in their learning processes. However, previous research on cities of the global South has identified severe quantitative deficits, outdated pedagogies, and qualitative shortfalls in current planning education. Moreover, the political economy and pedagogic practices adopted in higher education programmes often reproduce Western-centric political imaginations of planning, which in turn reproduce urban inequality. Many educational institutions across the global South, for example, continue teaching colonial agendas and fail to recognise everyday planning practices in the way cities are built and managed. This article contributes to a better understanding of the relation between planning education and urban inequalities by critically exploring the distribution of regional and global higher education networks and their role in de-colonising planning. The analysis is based on a literature review, quantitative and qualitative data from planning and planning education networks, as well as interviews with key players within them. The article scrutinises the geography of these networks to bring to the fore issues of language, colonial legacies and the dominance of capital cities, which, among others, currently work against more plural epistemologies and praxes. Based on a better understanding of the networked field of urban planning in higher education and ongoing efforts to open up new political imaginations and methodologies, the article suggests emerging room for manoeuvre to foster planner’s capabilities to shape urban equality at scale

Cross sections for single and double strand breaks in SV-40 virus in EO buffer after heavy ion irradiation: Experiment and theory

Measured cross sections after heavy ion bombardment, for both single and double strand breaks of SV-40 virus in EO buffer (which emphasizes indirect effects), are consistent with the theory of Butts and Katz for 1-hit detectors

De-Colonising Planning Education? Exploring the Geographies of Urban Planning Education Networks

Urban planning as a networked field of governance can be an essential contributor for de-colonising planning education and shaping pathways to urban equality. Educating planners with the capabilities to address complex socio-economic, environmental and political processes that drive inequality requires critical engagement with multiple knowledges and urban praxes in their learning processes. However, previous research on cities of the global South has identified severe quantitative deficits, outdated pedagogies, and qualitative shortfalls in current planning education. Moreover, the political economy and pedagogic practices adopted in higher education programmes often reproduce Western-centric political imaginations of planning, which in turn reproduce urban inequality. Many educational institutions across the global South, for example, continue teaching colonial agendas and fail to recognise everyday planning practices in the way cities are built and managed. This article contributes to a better understanding of the relation between planning education and urban inequalities by critically exploring the distribution of regional and global higher education networks and their role in de-colonising planning. The analysis is based on a literature review, quantitative and qualitative data from planning and planning education networks, as well as interviews with key players within them. The article scrutinises the geography of these networks to bring to the fore issues of language, colonial legacies and the dominance of capital cities, which, among others, currently work against more plural epistemologies and praxes. Based on a better understanding of the networked field of urban planning in higher education and ongoing efforts to open up new political imaginations and methodologies, the article suggests emerging room for manoeuvre to foster planner’s capabilities to shape urban equality at scale

Cross sections for single and double strand breaks in SV-40 virus in EO buffer after heavy ion irradiation: Experiment and theory

Measured cross sections after heavy ion bombardment, for both single and double strand breaks of SV-40 virus in EO buffer (which emphasizes indirect effects), are consistent with the theory of Butts and Katz for 1-hit detectors

OLANZAPINE COMBINED WITH STANDARD ANTIEMETIC REGIMENS FOR PREVENTION OF CHEMOTHERAPY THERAPY-INDUCED NAUSEA AND VOMITING: A SINGLE-CENTER EXPERIENCE FROM SOUTH INDIA

  Objectives: Olanzapine, an antipsychotic agent, exhibits significant antiemetic properties due to its inhibitory activity on neurotransmitters at multiple receptors involved in chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). CINV can have an immensely negative impact on patient's quality of life (QOL) and daily activities. Our objectives were to determine the effectiveness of adding olanzapine to standard antiemetic regimens for the prevention of CINV in cancer patients and to compare the QOL of such patients with those receiving standard antiemetic regimens.Methods: A prospective, observational, cohort study was done on patients receiving either highly or moderately emetogenic chemotherapy (MEC). The patients who received only the standard antiemetic regimens were considered as the control group and those who received 10 mg of olanzapine once daily on days 1-5 of chemotherapy in addition to the standard antiemetic regimens were considered to be the study group. The patients were assessed for grades of nausea and vomiting using National Cancer Institute common terminology criteria for adverse events and for QOL using European Organization in Research and Treatment of Cancer QOL questionnaire.Results: Patients were evaluated for a total of 168 cycles of chemotherapy. Compared to the control group, the study group patients showed significant improvement in response to acute nausea (p=0.02) but not in acute vomiting (p=0.09). However, response to delayed nausea and vomiting improved significantly (p=0.004 and p=0.05, respectively). The QOL of study group patients showed significant improvement in functional scales and symptom scales (p<0.02). Global health status also increased significantly (p=0.02) in the study group patients.Conclusion: Olanzapine containing pre-medication regimens can reduce acute and delayed nausea and delayed vomiting and improve the QOL of cancer patients receiving highly or moderately emetogenic chemotherapeutic agents as compared to the standard pre-medication regimens