Education Policy Impacts: 2007-2014

Communities for Public Education Reform (CPER) is a national funders' collaborative committed to improving educational opportunities and outcomes for students -- in particular students of color from low-income families -- by supporting community-driven reforms led by grassroots education organizing groups. A project of NEO Philanthropy, CPER has engaged 76 local and national fund members, investing $34 million in 140 community groups, advocacy allies, and national coalitions over the Fund's eight year lifespan.Powered by multi-year campaigns that involved organizing, advocacy, research, communications, and alliance building, CPER grantees played a key role in securing more than 9 policy wins at the school, district, state and federal level between 2007 and 2014. This summary of selected wins begins with those achieved at the federal level and follows with district- and state-level reforms grouped by CPER's six investment sites across the country. Organizations must remain united to defend these wins, monitor their implementation, and ensure that policies will stick

Greater Power, Lasting Impact: Effective Grantmaker Strategies from the Communities for Public Education Reform Fund (CPER)

CPER (also referred to here on as the "Fund") is a national funders' collaborative committed to improving educational opportunities and outcomes for students -- in particular students of color from low-income families -- by supporting community-driven reforms led by grassroots education organizing groups. CPER originated in discussions among funders active in Grantmakers for Education's Working Group on Education Organizing.They launched the collaborative in 2007, in partnership with NEO Philanthropy (then Public Interest Projects), the 501 (c)(3) public charity engaged to direct the Fund. CPER's founding funders saw that, in the education debates of the day, the perspectives of those closest to the ground were often left out. These funders recognized that students and families have a crucial role to play in identifying, embracing, and sustaining meaningful school reform. Students and families know their own needs and see first-hand the inequities in schools. Organizing groups help them get a seat at the decision-making table and develop workable solutions, building on community assets that are vital to addressing the cultural and political dimensions of reform. These grassroots groups are essential to creating the public accountability and will needed to catalyze educational reforms and ensure they stick. They can be the antidote to the ever-shifting political conditions and leadership turnover that plague reform efforts. At the same time, they help community members develop leadership and a grassroots base, building individual civic capacity and community power that strengthens our democratic infrastructure for the long term. Because educational improvement requires tackling persistent inequities in race and income, supporting leaders in low-income communities of color also helps build the social capital needed to solve integrally related social challenges. CPER was initially conceived to run for a minimum of three years -- a timeline consistent with most foundation grants but short for the transformative kinds of changes the Fund hoped to achieve. CPER's lifespan eventually stretched to eight years because of the recognized power of its supported work. Over this period, NEO Philanthropy engaged a highly diverse set of 76 local and national funders in the CPER collaborative. Incentivizing new resources through matching dollars, CPER raised close to $34 million and invested nationally in some 140 community groups and advocacy allies in national coalitions and in six target sites of varying scale (California, Chicago, Colorado, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Philadelphia). These groups, in turn, developed local leadership, national coalitions, and cross-issue alliances that helped to achieve over 90 school-, district, and state-level policy reforms that strengthen educational equity and opportunity. CPER's history of impact illustrates the efficacy of community organizing as an essential education reform strategy, along with the more commonly supported strategies of policy advocacy, research, and model demonstration efforts. But CPER's story is also more broadly instructive. In this period of "strategic philanthropy " when focused, foundation-led agendas are increasingly seen as the surest route to achieving desired ends, CPER offered a very different, bottom-up, multi-issue alternative that proved effective. In sharing CPER's story, we hope to deepen understanding of the value of community organizing for education reform while contributing to the larger conversation about how grantmakers can effectively support social movements to strengthen opportunity and justice

The influence of digital customer network strategy on hotel business

Dissertação de mestradoThe digital age evolution is transforming and influencing the hotel industry in various ways. The hotel industry is one of the sectors where present-day customer satisfaction impacts future business positively or negatively. In the digital age, customer feedback and reviews have moved to digital platforms leading to the formation of customer networks. Digital customer networks influence consumer perceptions, attitudes, and decisions to purchase. However, these digital customer networks are applicable as strategies to improve sales, reduce costs, and build loyal relationships with customers by maximizing access, engaging the customers, connecting, and collaborating with them. The present research slicked to assess the influence of digital customer network strategy on hotel business. For this purpose, it has been conducted an exploratory study, through interviews, in July 2020 and near five General Manager of five different hotels based in Portugal. The study shows that nowadays the digital is effectively transforming the way stakeholders do business, innovate, work and cooperate. It also adds that in future this influence will be higher, which demands an accurate attention from the management and an incorporation of digital on hotel strategies.A evolução da era digital está a transformar e a influenciar, de várias maneiras, a indústria hoteleira, que é um dos setores onde a satisfação do cliente atual impacta os negócios futuros de forma positiva ou negativa. Na era digital, o feedback e as avaliações dos clientes migraram para plataformas digitais, originando a formação de redes de clientes. E estas redes digitais de clientes influenciam as perceções, atitudes e decisões de compra do consumidor. No entanto, essas redes digitais de clientes são aplicáveis como estratégias para melhorar as vendas, reduzir custos e construir relacionamentos de fidelização com os clientes, maximizando o acesso, envolvendo os clientes, conectando-se e colaborando com eles. A presente Tese procurou avaliar a influência da estratégia de rede digital de clientes na Hotelaria. Para o efeito, foi realizado um estudo exploratório, através de entrevistas, em julho de 2020 e junto de cinco Diretores Gerais, de cinco diferentes hotéis, sediados em Portugal. O estudo mostra que hoje o digital está efetivamente a transformar o modo como os stakeholders fazem negócios, inovam, trabalham e cooperam. Acrescenta, ainda, que no futuro esta influência será maior, o que exige uma atenção apurada da gestão e uma incorporação do digital nas estratégias hoteleiras

Willingness to Pay for the Preservation of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park in Vietnam

Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park has great value in terms of biodiversity but preserving the park is a great challenge for the Vietnamese government. This study estimated the willingness to pay of households to preserve Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park, using the contingent valuation method. We employed the single-bounded dichotomous choice question format to estimate how much households in Ho Chi Minh City were willing to contribute towards a preservation plan for the park. This plan comprised twelve preservation activities and compensating the local communities for their foregone income. The study found that households in Ho Chi Minh City were willing to pay at least VND 6,209 per month for three years for the preservation of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park. With protest votes included, factors strongly affecting households' willingness to pay were bid amount and the amount of their monthly electricity bill. The education level of the respondents and the number of working people in the household had significant but lesser impact on their willingness to pay. Without protest votes, the bid amount, monthly electricity bill amount and education level of respondents significantly affected willingness to pay. We found that the annualized benefit value of the project was larger than its annualized cost. This indicated that the preservation plan was economically viable. This study does not provide the total value of Lo Go - Xa Mat National Park, but it shows the great value of the park in terms of local households' willingness to pay for its preservation and this is important information for policy-makers in deciding how to protect the park efficiently.willingness to pay, Vietnam

Central Control Of Body Fat And Thermoregulation Through Shared And Separate Sympathetic Circuitries And Sensory Feedback

More than 30% of the population suffers from obesity, which increases the risk of death and secondary health problems. Body fat [white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT)] are innervated and regulated by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). WAT stores energy, while BAT generates heat for thermoregulation. Fat also has sensory innervations, but the roles of sensory nerves are still being elucidated. Hence, understanding the neuroanatomy of the SNS innervations of fat and the neural regulation of fat metabolism will be valuable for advancing obesity treatment. Using trans-synaptic tract tracers with unique fluorescent proteins, we defined and compared the SNS innervations of visceral fat [mesenteric WAT (MWAT)] and subcutaneous fat [inguinal WAT (IWAT)] and of IWAT and interscapular BAT (IBAT) in Siberian hamsters. MWAT and IWAT have moderately shared SNS innervations within the hindbrain, but separate SNS innervations in rostral regions. In contrast, IWAT and IBAT have relatively separate SNS circuitries throughout the brain yet some overlap in SNS nuclei known to regulate thermogenesis. We tested for the presence of functional coordination between IWAT and IBAT defined by overlap in IWAT SNS and IBAT SNS innervations. When IBAT function was impaired by SNS denervation, IWAT SNS drive, thermogenic activity, and beige adipocyte recruitment increased in cold exposed hamsters likely through coordination with IWAT SNS pathways. Conversely, we found that only SNS drive to IWAT increased during acute food deprivation suggesting that populations of SNS neurons singly innervating each fat depot may contribute to differential SNS drive to fat. Lastly, we demonstrated that IWAT sensory nerves mediate the functional coordination between IWAT and IBAT and the regulation of SNS drive to fat. The absence of IWAT sensory feedback via sensory denervation differentially decreased SNS drive to IBAT and IWAT itself, but not to MWAT, retroperitoneal WAT, and epididymal WAT in cold exposed hamsters. Collectively, the studies in this dissertation provide neuroanatomical evidence of separate and shared SNS brain sites likely receiving sensory signaling and regulating SNS drive to fat, and direct evidence of the roles of SNS and sensory nerves innervating fat to energetic homeostasis and thermoregulation

Developing novel potato properties using gene editing

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the most important tuber food crop worldwide and a significant component of food security. A major use of potato is their processing into crisps and French fries. Potato tubers that accumulate hexose sugars and exhibit browning after frying are rejected, causing economic losses and waste. Acrylamide formation when potato tubers are deep-fried also presents a health risk for consumers because acrylamide is a potential neurotoxin/ carcinogen. The aim of this project was to upgrade existing potato cultivars (Atlantic and Desiree) using gene editing (CRISPR/Cas9) to reduce the expression of the vacuolar invertase and asparagine synthetase 1 genes, to minimise cold-induced sweetening and acrylamide formation in fried potato products. The Cas9 and gRNAs were delivered into plant cells either as expression vectors using Agrobacterium tumefaciens or directly by particle bombardment as a ribonucleoprotein complex. A total of 20 transgenic edited events and one transgene-free edited event were obtained. Ten transgenic events were further analysed, and small insertions and deletions that ranged from 1 bp to 35 bp accounted for 67.9% of mutation frequency. Biochemical analysis from cold-stored, edited tubers (four months at 4°C) revealed that hexose sugars in cold-stored tubers and acrylamide levels in crisps were significantly reduced, accompanied by a noticeably improved colour intensity of fried crisps. Hexose sugar in edited events was reduced up to 21 times and was extremely low in one event; only 0.02 mg/gfw glucose and 0.13 mg/gfw fructose were detected. The acrylamide content was decreased up to 3.7 times in Atlantic-derived events and 6.8 times in Desiree-derived events, and the lowest recorded acrylamide level was 332.9 ng/g. Overall, gene-edited events generated in this project exhibited better properties for human consumption/health. This research successfully demonstrated that CRISPR/Cas9 can be used to improve economically important potato cultivars

Essays on the Vietnam Stock Market

This thesis consists of three substantive studies about the Vietnam stock market. In particular, I study the asymmetric information, corporate governance (CG) practices, and foreign investment of publicly listed companies in Vietnam, presented in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, respectively. In Chapter 2, I investigate the effectiveness of a market surveillance system (MSS) on improving the market quality of the Vietnam stock market, as measured by liquidity and informed trading level. I find that market liquidity decreased after the introduction of the MSS, and that the effect is more pronounced for small firms. Although informed trading, on average, does not change significantly after the MSS, subsample analysis indicates a significant decrease in informed trading among large and liquid firms. In Chapter 3, I investigate the relationship between firms’ CG practices and informed trading. I find a negative relationship between the two variables. Firms with better CG practices have a lower level of informed stock trading. Moreover, a natural experiment on a shock of firms’ CG practices generated by the CG policies shows that the negative relationship between CG practices and informed trading is a causal one, in which a change in the former causes a change in the latter. In another analysis around the implementation of the MSS, I find that the implementation of the surveillance system affects the relationship between the two variables, and this effect is driven by large and liquid firms. In Chapter 4, I investigate whether foreign investors in the Vietnam stock market are informed about firms’ performance. Using the residuals of foreign investor ownership as a measure of the abnormal foreign investor holding, I find that the abnormal foreign investor holding is positively correlated with firm performance in the following one year. I also find a positive correlation between abnormal foreign investor holding and the stock returns in the next three quarters. These findings indicate that foreign investors are informed about the firms up to a one-year period

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNING STRATEGY USE IN ENGLISH AND MOTIVATION OF STUDENTS AT A COLLEAGUE IN CAN THO CITY, VIETNAM

Among the many factors that increase students’ achievement in the mastery of foreign languages, including English, are motivation and use of language learning strategies. Previous studies by a range of researchers have identified these two elements as the most important in obtaining success in language learning. This study carried out on 152 university students, roughly equal in gender, studying at a university in Can Tho, Vietnam, sought to discover the relationships between these two factors within the Vietnamese language learning context. In particular, the study sought to 1) discover which of two types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic, is most prevalent among the students studied; 2) their use of language learning strategies; 3) reveals the relationship between students' motivation and use of language learning strategies; and 4) describe the differences in their use of language learning strategies based on whether their motivation was high, medium or low. Research instruments included Schmidt et al.'s Questionnaire on Motivation in Learning English, and Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (both modified for the Vietnamese language learning context and translated into Vietnamese), plus an interview with 18 of the students to gain greater insight into the answers they gave on the questionnaires. Results were obtained using standard deviations and t-tests. They showed that Vietnamese university students are mainly extrinsically motivated; that all strategies were used at least at a medium level, amidst other fluctuations; and that those metacognitive strategies are most prevalent among medium and high motivated students but affective strategies are most common among low motivation students. Recommendations flowing from these results are that teachers should prioritize the formal teaching of learning strategies and should attempt to increase intrinsic motivation by putting greater emphasis on making language learning fun and relevant to the students' interests and passions. Article visualizations