Delivering Quality Early Learning In Low-Resource Settings: Progress And Challenges In Ethiopia

The potential of high quality early childhood care and education ECCE programmes to deliver positive outcomes for children and society is well recognised. But delivering on this potential presents huge challenges, especially in low and middle income countries. This final working paper in the Transitions in Early Childhood series focusses on Ethiopia. While in many respects Ethiopia is a success story of Education For All, in terms of increased enrolments in primary education, the early years of schooling is faced with numerous access and quality challenges. This working paper reviews the government of Ethiopia's 2010 policy framework for ECCE and highlights these different challenges in rural and urban areas of Ethiopia, drawing on survey and qualitative research data collected as part of Young Lives longitudinal research

Preventive Detention of Immigrants and Non-Citizens in the United States since September 11th

The attacks of September 11, 2002, have dramatically altered the policy andscape in Washington, but it is important to reject the notion that there is a necessary trade-off between security and civil liberties. One of the most serious threats to civil liberties has been the adoption of a policy of preventive detention that has resulted in the secret jailing of hundreds of Arabs and Muslims when there is no evidence linking them to terrorist activity. This has been done, not by using the limited new authorities granted the government in the post-September 11 terrorism legislation, but by improperly using pre-existing criminal and immigration authorities. Secret arrests are antithetical to a democratic society. A targeted investigation that focuses on actual terrorist activity and respects the legitimate political and religious activity of citizens and non-citizens would be more effective than a dragnet approach that has resulted in the secret arrests of hundreds of individuals.Les attentats du 11 septembre ont changé de façon dramatique le paysage politique à Washington. Néanmoins, il importe de rejeter la notion que pour obtenir la sécurité, il faut nécessairement sacrifier les libertés civiles en échange. Ainsi, une des atteintes les plus sérieuses contre les libertés civiles a été l’adoption d’une politique de détention préventive, qui a permis la détention au secret de centaines de ressortissants Arabes et de musulmans malgré qu’il n’existe aucune preuve les liant aux activités terroristes. Ceci a été accompli non pas en appliquant les pouvoirs limités donnés au gouvernement par les lois anti-terroristes adoptées après le 11 septembre, mais en évoquant, à tort, des pouvoirs préexistants dans le domaine du criminel et de l’immigration. Les arrestations secrètes constituent l’antithèse même d’une société démocratique. Par contre, une enquête ciblée se concentrant sur des activités terroristes réelles et menée dans le respect des activités religieuses et politiques des citoyens et des non citoyens, serait bien plus efficace que l’approche d’une drague ratissant large et qui a abouti à l’arrestation secrète de centaines d’individus

The ISCIP Analyst, Volume IX, Issue 10

This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy

Anytime Coalition Structure Generation with Worst Case Guarantees

Coalition formation is a key topic in multiagent systems. One would prefer a coalition structure that maximizes the sum of the values of the coalitions, but often the number of coalition structures is too large to allow exhaustive search for the optimal one. But then, can the coalition structure found via a partial search be guaranteed to be within a bound from optimum? We show that none of the previous coalition structure generation algorithms can establish any bound because they search fewer nodes than a threshold that we show necessary for establishing a bound. We present an algorithm that establishes a tight bound within this minimal amount of search, and show that any other algorithm would have to search strictly more. The fraction of nodes needed to be searched approaches zero as the number of agents grows. If additional time remains, our anytime algorithm searches further, and establishes a progressively lower tight bound. Surprisingly, just searching one more node drops the bound in half. As desired, our algorithm lowers the bound rapidly early on, and exhibits diminishing returns to computation. It also drastically outperforms its obvious contenders. Finally, we show how to distribute the desired search across self-interested manipulative agents

Breeding ecology and fasting tolerance of scaup and other ducks in the boreal forest of Alaska

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2007Information on the breeding ecology of boreal forest ducks is lacking, despite management concern for species such as the lesser scaup (Aythya affinis), whose population has declined markedly since the 1980s. The mechanisms impacting population growth of scaup, and which component of their population dynamics is most affected, are unknown. Previous investigators hypothesized that food deprivation in the spring may reduce breeding success. My objectives were to: 1) examine reproductive parameters of lesser scaup and other ducks on the Yukon Flats in interior Alaska, and 2) measure the tolerance of captive scaup to fasting, in comparison to sympatric Northern shovelers (Anas clypeata) and American wigeon (Anas americana). Although breeding probability of paired females was assumed to be 1.0, the breeding probability of paired female scaup was between 0.12 (SE = 0.05, n=67) to 0.68 (SE = 0.08, n=37), and was positively related to body mass. These results suggest that managers may overestimate the productivity of boreal ducks using traditional survey methods. In addition, captive female scaup completely recovered from a loss of 11% body mass in only four days, suggesting that mass loss can be rapidly reversed, and may be able to obtain the body condition required for reproduction, if food supplies are adequate.Comparative demography of lesser scaup and other boreal ducks on the Yukon Flats, Alaska -- Fasting tolerance of scaup and other ducks : testing the spring condition hypothesis

Building an Infrastructure for Down Syndrome Care

People with intellectual disabilities experience greater obstacles in attaining their full health potential. The most common identifiable cause of intellectual disability is Down syndrome. Established in September 2021, the Down Syndrome Program at The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) aims to meet the healthcare needs of members of the Southern Nevada community with Down syndrome and their families. However, there is currently no infrastructure in place in Southern Nevada to provide Down syndrome care, or clinical services dedicated to individuals with the condition. This work discusses options that were explored to develop such an infrastructure. A series of educational workshops were recorded on the topic of nutrition in Down syndrome with the following instructional goals: (1) To describe the importance of Down syndrome care; (2) To list common conditions that co-occur with Down syndrome; and (3) To define care coordination as it pertains to individuals with Down syndrome. Modules were developed along with the videos to provide knowledge assessments, intended for current and future healthcare professionals interested in learning more about Down syndrome care

Microhabitat choice in island lizards enhances camouflage against avian predators.

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep19815Camouflage can often be enhanced by genetic adaptation to different local environments. However, it is less clear how individual behaviour improves camouflage effectiveness. We investigated whether individual Aegean wall lizards (Podarcis erhardii) inhabiting different islands rest on backgrounds that improve camouflage against avian predators. In free-ranging lizards, we found that dorsal regions were better matched against chosen backgrounds than against other backgrounds on the same island. This suggests that P. erhardii make background choices that heighten individual-specific concealment. In achromatic camouflage, this effect was more evident in females and was less distinct in an island population with lower predation risk. This suggests that behavioural enhancement of camouflage may be more important in females than in sexually competing males and related to predation risk. However, in an arena experiment, lizards did not choose the background that improved camouflage, most likely due to the artificial conditions. Overall, our results provide evidence that behavioural preferences for substrates can enhance individual camouflage of lizards in natural microhabitats, and that such adaptations may be sexually dimorphic and dependent on local environments. This research emphasizes the importance of considering links between ecology, behaviour, and appearance in studies of intraspecific colour variation and local adaptation.This work was supported by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council studentship, by the British Herpetological Society and Magdalene College, Cambridge (K.L.A.M), and by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and David Philips Research Fellowship (grant number BB/G022887/1) to M.