Climate Smart Farming for Women in East Africa

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 60% of East Africans live as subsistence farmers. This population is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change which has increased the duration and intensity of droughts and floods. Droughts and floods can destroy an entire season’s harvest, causing sustenance farmers and their families to struggle for food until the next season. In an attempt to mitigate the severe effects of climate change on these farmers and reduce food insecurity in East Africa, the team has designed a small-scale aquaponic farming system that simultaneously grows fish and vegetables. This system is founded on sustainability, as aquaponics uses significantly less water to grow crops than traditional farming, making it more resilient to both severe droughts and floods, the system also does not rely on external fertilizers, and it uses recycled materials as often as possible. This aquaponic system was designed for women’s collectives in East Africa who requested help in building a portfolio of projects that they can teach to women in rural East Africa. These women’s organizations work in rural villages throughout Uganda and Kenya to help local women and their families adapt to the changing climate. Currently, their efforts have been focused on improving the quality and supply of water in the villages by constructing latrines, water filters, and rainwater catchment systems. During the 2017-2018 academic year, team members designed and built the aquaponic system in Santa Clara, California, then deployed the first prototype in Kampala, Uganda, and trained several of the collective’s leaders how to build and operate the system

What Caused the Crime Decline?

Crime across the United States has steadily declined over the last two decades. Today, the crime rate is about half of what it was at its height in 1991. What was once seen as a plague, especially in urban areas, is now at least manageable in most places. Rarely has there been such a rapid change in mass behavior. This observation begs two central questions: Why has crime fallen? And to what degree is incarceration, or other criminal justice policy, responsible? Social scientists and policy experts have searched for answers. Various explanations have been offered: expanded police forces, an aging population, employment rates, and even legalized abortion. Most likely, there is no one cause for such widespread, dramatic change. Many factors are responsible.This report isolates two criminal justice policies -- incarceration and one policing approach -- and provides new findings on their effects on crime reduction using a regression analysis. This report issues three central findings, which are summarized: Increased incarceration at today's levels has a negligible crime control benefit:One policing approach that helps police gather data used to identify crime patterns and target resources, a technique called CompStat, played a role in bringing down crime in cities:Certain social, economic, and environmental factors also played a role in the crime drop

Teach a Man to Fish: Market Development Analysis

This report presents a market analysis of each researched product which includes: relevant quantitative data from the poverty assessment, qualitative data from social enterprise and school visits, and product particulars including market saturation, barriers to entry, and price points. A second section analyzes schools’ propensity to sell social value products, and the differences between urban versus rural and secondary versus primary schools. Our recommendation for which social value products to sell, along with partnership roadmaps, concludes the report, supplemented by an appendix detailing accounts of each social enterprise meeting and school interviews we conducted

Diabetes Education and Exercise

This project seeks to explore the current local options and resources for community members receiving care at Brookfield Primary Care in Brookfield, Connecticut. Furthermore, this project provided a pamphlet to increase provider and patient awareness about free and low-cost resources within the local community to encourage diabetic patients to increase their activity level. Ideally, this project will also break down notions that \u27vigorous\u27 exercise is the only good way to exercise.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1826/thumbnail.jp

Do you really want to hurt me?: Exploring the role of Narcissism, driver comparison and ego threat in driver aggression using a conceptual definition of aggression

The present study examined the extent to which narcissism and driver comparisons contribute to driver aggression and aimed to determine whether these relationships were moderated by threats to one’s driving ego. In doing so, the research sought to define and operationalise driver aggression by replicating how it is defined in the general aggression literature - as behaviour intended to harm. A total of 286 participants (188 women) were recruited from a community sample of Australian drivers who completed an online questionnaire and watched a video vignette showing a provocative driving event. As expected, narcissism and driver comparison predicted higher levels of driver aggression, and aggression was higher in conditions where a driver’s ego was threatened. However, there was no interactive effect of ego threat and narcissism or driver comparison on driver aggression. Our findings have implications for the development of a consistent, theoretically grounded definition of driver aggression that focuses on intention to harm, and for the development of measures that operationalise the construct in this manner

The Negative Relationship between Religiosity and Substance Use

The negative association between religiosity and substance abuse is well established in previous literature. Scholarly research continues to find support for both intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity functioning as protective factors against substance abuse with intrinsic religiosity’s negative correlation with substance use being more established in literature than extrinsic religiosity. This study focuses on the relationship between college student intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity, measured by the Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religiosity Scale and substance use, measured by the Texas Christian University Drug Screen-5 (TCUDS-5). The Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religiosity Scale and the TCUDS-5 are well established instruments with historically high internal consistency. We hypothesized that there was a negative correlation between religiosity scores and substance use scores among our population. Additionally, we hypothesized that intrinsic religiosity would have a stronger relationship with substance use than extrinsic religiosity would. In order to test our hypothesis, a survey was administered to undergraduate students at a university in the southeast. After cleaning the data, our total sample consisted of 386 students. Of those surveyed, 256 are female, 127 are male, and 1 classified other. The majority of the population identified as White (n = 328), followed by Black (n = 28), Hispanic (n = 23), and Asian, Native American/Pacific Islander, Multiracial, or Other (n = 7). All students received extra credit as an incentive to voluntarily complete a larger battery of measures related to habits and addiction. However, this analysis will only include the Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religiosity Scale (M = 12.019, SD = 5.55) and the TCUDS-5 (M = 0.762, SD = 2.004). A Pearson correlation was completed to determine whether there was a statistically significant relationship between religiosity and substance use in college students. All analyses were conducted using JASP. Results supported our hypothesis with findings indicating evidence for a statistically significant negative correlation between intrinsic religiosity and substance abuse (r = -.142, p = .005). Our hypothesis that extrinsic religiosity will not be as strongly related to substance use as intrinsic religiosity was supported for social extrinsic religiosity (r = -.121, p =.018), but not supported for personal extrinsic religiosity measure (r = -.15, p =.002). The results of this study contribute to the converging evidence that intrinsic religiosity is inversely related to substance use and could serve as a protective factor against problematic substance use. Those who have internalized their faith may rely on faith to cope with stress rather than use substances or restrict use due to religious beliefs. Thus, this study provides potential support for the theory that religiosity is a protective factor against substance use disorders. Future research should investigate the longitudinal impact of religiosity on substance use in college students and other populations

Strengthening Community Cohesion in Maitland Garden Village

The Maitland Garden Village (the village) in Cape Town, South Africa, faces low community cohesion, leading to struggles with drug abuse, high teen pregnancy rates, and unemployment. Our sponsor, Ronell Trout, founded the Green Light Project (Green Light) to combat these issues. However, Green Light struggles to engage the community with its current offerings. To address this concern, we interviewed community members, program leaders, and our sponsor; attended community programs; and observed the village\u27s community dynamics. Using our findings, we developed several recommendations: increase funding, secure meeting space, improve the structure of existing programs, and create new programs targeting youth. These steps can help Green Light to effectively strengthen cohesion

Risk factors for child food contamination in low-income neighbourhoods of Maputo, Mozambique: An exploratory, cross-sectional study.

In low- and middle-income countries, food may be a critical transmission route for pathogens causing childhood diarrhoea, but basic food hygiene is often overlooked in public health strategies. Characterising child food contamination and its risk factors could help prioritise interventions to reduce foodborne diarrhoeal disease, especially in low-income urban areas where the diarrhoeal disease burden is often high. This cross-sectional study comprised a caregiver questionnaire coupled with food sampling, and food preparation observations, among the study population of an ongoing sanitation trial in Maputo. The aim was to determine the prevalence of child food contamination and associated risk factors. The prevalence of Enterococcus spp., as an indicator of faecal contamination, was estimated in food samples. Risk factor analyses were performed through zero-inflated negative binomial regression on colony counts. A modified hazard analysis and critical control point approach was used to determine critical control points (CCPs) that might effectively reduce risk. Fifty-eight linked caregiver questionnaires and food samples were collected, and 59 food preparation observations were conducted. The prevalence of enterococci in child foods exceeding 10 colony forming units per gram was 53% (95% confidence interval [40%, 67%]). Risk factors for child food contamination were identified, including type of food, food preparation practices, and hygiene behaviours. CCPs included cooking/reheating of food and food storage and handling. This exploratory study highlights the need for more research into diarrhoeagenic pathogens and foodborne risks for children living in these challenging urban environments