Can Sexuality Education Advance Gender Equality and Strengthen Education Overall? Learning from Nigeria's Family Life and HIV Education Program

The imperative to prepare the largest generation of young people in history for adulthood has driven a search for fresh approaches to educating adolescents about their bodies and sexuality. Recently, there have been calls among health experts and educators for a comprehensive, integrated approach to sexuality education that addresses not only health issues such as HIV and pregnancy, but also helps to achieve broader outcomes such as ensuring gender equality, increasing access to education for girls, and improving the quality of education overall. Considerable international attention has been paid to the Family Life and HIV Education (FLHE) program in Nigeria. While the program does not formally aim to achieve broader development goals, nongovernmental organizations in some states have effectively brought a strong commitment to gender equality into local FLHE programs.This report synthesizes a two-tiered review of the FLHE program. It draws both on a formal case study examining effects of the training on teacher attitudes and practices and on a wider, more informal program analysis. The findings from both resonate with each other and are synthesized in this report

POWER LESSONS: Women's Advocacy and the 2030 Agenda

In September 2015, the 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 related targets, the "2030 Agenda" tackles a range of global challenges, including eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, addressing climate change and promoting peace. If implemented successfully, this new agenda could transform the lives of women and girls all over the world

Division and the Giambelli Identity

Given two polynomials f(x) and g(x), we extend the formula expressing the remainder in terms of the roots of these two polynomials to the case where f(x) is a Laurent polynomial. This allows us to give new expressions of a Schur function, which generalize the Giambelli identity.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Space Radiation and Impact on Instrumentation Technologies

Understanding the interactions of the Sun, Earth and other natural and man-made objects in the solar system with the space radiation environment is crucial for improving activities of humans on Earth and in space. An important component of understanding these interactions is their effects on the instrumentation required in the exploration of air and space. NASA's Glenn Research Center (GRC) fills the role of developing supporting technologies to enable improved instruments for space science missions, as well as improved instruments for aeronautics and ground-based applications. In this review, the space radiation environment and its effects are outlined, as well the impact it has on instrumentation and the technology that GRC is developing to improve performance for space science

Paramagnetic, Silicon Quantum Dots for Magnetic Resonance and Two-Photon Imaging of Macrophages

Quantum dots (QDs) are an attractive platform for building multimodality imaging probes, but the toxicity for typical cadmium QDs limits enthusiasm for their clinical use. Nontoxic, silicon QDs are more promising but tend to require short-wavelength excitations which are subject to tissue scattering and autofluorescence artifacts. Herein, we report the synthesis of paramagnetic, manganese-doped, silicon QDs (Si_(Mn) QDs) and demonstrate that they are detectable by both MRI and near-infrared excited, two-photon imaging. The Si_(Mn) QDs are coated with dextran sulfate to target them to scavenger receptors on macrophages, a biomarker of vulnerable plaques. TEM images show that isolated QDs have an average core diameter of 4.3 ± 1.0 nm and the hydrodynamic diameters of coated nanoparticles range from 8.3 to 43 nm measured by dynamic light scattering (DLS). The Si_(Mn) QDs have an r_1 relaxivity of 25.50 ± 1.44 mM^(−1) s^(−1) and an r_2 relaxivity of 89.01 ± 3.26 mM^(−1) s^(−1 )(37 °C, 1.4 T). They emit strong fluorescence at 441 nm with a quantum yield of 8.1% in water. Cell studies show that the probes specifically accumulate in macrophages by a receptor-mediated process, are nontoxic to mammalian cells, and produce distinct contrast in both T_1-weighted magnetic resonance and single- or two-photon excitation fluorescence images. These QDs have promising diagnostic potential as high macrophage density is associated with atherosclerotic plaques vulnerable to rupture