A State Sponsored System of Segregation : Examining the Contemporary Impact of Redlining

The west side of downtown Jacksonville is home to historically black neighborhoods which for over a century were economically thriving. However, if you were to visit those areas today you would be greeted by vacant lots, abandoned buildings and a large homeless population. In the 1930’s predominantly black neighborhoods of Jacksonville were marked as hazardous areas unfit for loans: a process known as redlining. The Economic Innovation Group’s Distressed Community Index will be analyzed to determine if there is a correlation between redlining and the disproportionate economic hardship of historically black areas to predominantly white areas of Jacksonville. Utilizing GIS technologies, zip code level data will be spatially displayed. Scatterplots display the Pearson zero-order correlation between the percent minority share and distress levels of communities. Preliminary findings suggest the impact of redlining is still evident in the persistent racial and socioeconomic segregation of communities in Jacksonville, Florida. Further research should be done to determine if other cities have similar levels of economic distress in previously redlined areas. There is an actionable need for a social science perspective when urban planning decisions are made. Researchers should be encouraged to engage in the political process in order to educate legislators in desegregation efforts

Changes in hedgerows in Britain between 1984 and 1990

1. This report summarises the results of work on changes in hedgerows which was commissioned by the Directorate of Rural Affairs, DOE, as part of the analysis of data collected during 'Countryside Survey 1990'. 2. The primary purpose of the report is to present data on change, and to provide descriptions of the methods used to obtain them. Discussion of results, and especially their relevance to countryside policy matters, is minimal although a short comment section is included to cover research and methodological aspects

Todavía en peligro: los desalojos forzosos en las zonas urbanas de Afganistán

El gran número de desplazados afganos representa un reto en cuanto a protección y desarrollo urbano para el Gobierno y la comunidad internacional

Online Learning Program Strategic Planning And Execution: Considering Goals, Benefits, Problems And Communities Of Practice

The nation’s social agenda for improving education and training has converged with national economic forces (Hornbeck & Salamon, 1991).  The emphasis on lifelong learning of the workforce through education, training and development, demands for ever-improving productivity and significant technological advancements have required new tools to deliver education and training at a distance when and where it is requiredneeded.  With the emergence of online learning, organizations have reaped the rewards of a well-educated and trained workforce.  Yet, in surveys, educators reported that strategic planning was not being conducted for online learning programs (Berge & Muilenburg, 2001; McNickle & Cameron, 2003), and what planning that was done was deficient in areas such as policy (U. S. General Accounting Office, 2003) and organizational culture (European Union, 2003).  Sawyer (2005) found that the leaders and managers of online learning programs (from from the academic community, business and industry, the non-profit sector and government) needed hhelp developing and executing strategic plans for their programs, people and systemsave ha.  When evaluating whether to move content to (or develop content for) an e-Learning program, deciding to purchase tools and/or content, internally designing a new distributed learning system, or beginning to plan for the future, Sawyer (2005) found that the state of the research at that time left the decision maker(s) to make critical choices based on their skill (and/or desire) to assemble and analyze the necessary information that would lead to relevant considerations being taken into account.  One large area where the hleaders and managers of online learning programs needed help developing and executing strategic plans for their programs was that they needed a single source that could be located and leveraged to gain an insight into online learning’s goals, benefits or problems to use as a decision aid or analysis tool.  Until now, a comprehensive list did not exist.  Sawyer’s 2005 study was designed to present a comprehensive list of online learning’s goals, benefits and problems that could be applied as a decision aid/analysis tool to aid in strategic planning.  This paper presents some of the key findings from this exploratory study which used the emergent, inductive approach of content analysis to conduct a cross case analysis of 607 research reports published over a two year period to establish the existence and frequency of the dependent variables goals, benefits and problems.  This analysis resulted in the identification of 61 goals that have been set for online learning programs, 131 benefits that have been documented, and 371 problems that have been encountered. Conceptual and relational analysis were concurrently applied to identify key concepts and their semantic relationships which resulted in the development of  a concept map that, when combined with the content analysis,  led to the identification of seven recommended online learning communities, as well as a consolidated planning and decision aid to help decision-makers in their strategic planning effort

AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE DETERMINANTS OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY USE AND ITS IMPACT ON SUPERVISORSUBORDINATE INTERACTIONS

Continued advancement in computer and telecommunications technology provide new options for organizational restructuring and process redesign. A common area of activity is the use of a combination of computer and telecommunicalion technology to operate and effectively support remote work sites. This paper provides preliminary findings regarding the factors determining the use of electronic communications technology and the impact of its use on supervisor-subordinate communications where the supervisor is located a[ the core organization and the subordinate is located at a remote site. The sample consists of eighty-five subordinates and fifty-seven supervisors based on 360 questionnaires from three major public accounting firms. Results indicate that accessibility to the technology, a critical mass of communication partners, the social symbolism of the technology, and the organization of work are Ihe most important factors associated with communication media use. Electronic mail is highly dependent on network externalities and some of the more popular technologies such as voice mail and facsimile machines were used with equivalent frequency in core and remote localions. As predicted, supervisor-subordinate interactions were affected by the supervisor-subordinate relationship and the organization of work. 25

DNA Authentication of St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum L.) Commercial Products Targeting the ITS Region

open access articleThere is considerable potential for the use of DNA barcoding methods to authenticate raw medicinal plant materials, but their application to testing commercial products has been controversial. A simple PCR test targeting species-specific sequences within the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was adapted to screen commercial products for the presence of Hypericum perforatum L. material. DNA differing widely in amount and extent of fragmentation was detected in a number of product types. Two assays were designed to further analyse this DNA using a curated database of selected Hypericum ITS sequences: A qPCR assay based on a species-specific primer pair spanning the ITS1 and ITS2 regions, using synthetic DNA reference standards for DNA quantitation and a Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) assay separately targeting the ITS1 and ITS2 regions. The ability of the assays to detect H. perforatum DNA sequences in processed medicines was investigated. Out of twenty different matrices tested, both assays detected H. perforatum DNA in five samples with more than 103 ITS copies µL−1 DNA extract, whilst the qPCR assay was also able to detect lower levels of DNA in two further samples. The NGS assay confirmed that H. perforatum was the major species in all five positive samples, though trace contaminants were also detected

50 years of research on social representations : central debates and challenging questions

International audienceTo mark 50 years of research on social representations (SR), we planned both a special issue and a conference to bring together some of the most significant papers from the last 50 years. We are delighted to present the main trends of this special issue in this editorial, and are also extremely happy with the level of thought and debate it has produced. In launching the call for the special issue, rather than reduce this celebration of the 50 years of SR to an obsessive trend towards bibliometrics and impact factors, we felt it would be more informative and thought-provoking to have a collection of papers nominated by those who use them-researchers, teachers, peers, students-as the most debated, insightful, illustrative or valuable for them in their research and teaching. This issue brings together the best of these commentaries, together with the original papers chosen in those commentaries as the most significant and, in some cases, further commentary from the original authors. Hence a defining feature of this special issue was dialogue-dialogue not only between older and newer texts and protagonists in SR, but also between teachers and students, and between researchers with different perspectives, working in different contexts with different methods and politics of research and with different intervention needs and different goals for the futur

PlantID – DNA-based identification of multiple medicinal plants in complex mixtures

Background An efficient method for the identification of medicinal plant products is now a priority as the global demand increases. This study aims to develop a DNA-based method for the identification and authentication of plant species that can be implemented in the industry to aid compliance with regulations, based upon the economically important Hypericum perforatum L. (St John’s Wort or Guan ye Lian Qiao). Methods The ITS regions of several Hypericum species were analysed to identify the most divergent regions and PCR primers were designed to anneal specifically to these regions in the different Hypericum species. Candidate primers were selected such that the amplicon produced by each species-specific reaction differed in size. The use of fluorescently labelled primers enabled these products to be resolved by capillary electrophoresis. Results Four closely related Hypericum species were detected simultaneously and independently in one reaction. Each species could be identified individually and in any combination. The introduction of three more closely related species to the test had no effect on the results. Highly processed commercial plant material was identified, despite the potential complications of DNA degradation in such samples. Conclusion This technique can detect the presence of an expected plant material and adulterant materials in one reaction. The method could be simply applied to other medicinal plants and their problem adulterants

Applied Barcoding: The Practicalities of DNA Testing for Herbals

open access articleDNA barcoding is a widely accepted technique for the identification of plant materials, and its application to the authentication of commercial medicinal plants has attracted significant attention. The incorporation ofDNA-based technologies into the quality testing protocols of international pharmacopoeias represents a step-change in status, requiring the establishment of standardized, reliable and reproducible methods. The process by which this can be achieved for any herbal medicine is described, using Hypericum perforatum L. (St John’sWort) and potential adulterant Hypericum species as a case study. A range of practical issues are considered including quality control of DNA sequences from public repositories and the construction of individual curated databases, choice of DNA barcode region(s) and the identification of informative polymorphic nucleotide sequences. A decision tree informs the structure of the manuscript and provides a template to guide the development of future DNA barcode tests for herbals