Religion in education : findings from the Religion and Society Programme : editorial

The present special issue of the Journal of Beliefs and Values includes a selection of the papers presented to the conference ‘Religion in Education: Findings from the Religion and Society Programme’, which was held at the University of Warwick in July 2011. The conference was hosted by the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU) as part of the Religion and Society Programme (jointly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council—AHRC—and the Economic and Social Research Council—ESRC), at the behest of the Director of the Programme Professor Linda Woodhead. The main aim of the conference was to offer a forum for the dissemination of (in some cases initial) findings from the various education projects in the programme. The conference was held under the aegis of the Religion and Society programme, the largest cluster of research projects on Religion and Society so far to have been conducted in the United Kingdom

Migration, Remittances and Gender-Responsive Local Development: Executive Summaries. Case Studies: Albania, the Dominican Republic, Lesotho, Morocco, the Philippines and Senegal

The complex links between globalization and development have made contemporary migration a key area of investigation. It is estimated that over 200 million women and men have left their countries of origin to live and work abroad. Occurring simultaneously are equally intensive internal movements, primarily from rural to urban areas. Demographically, many country-specific flows have changed, both in terms of numbers and composition by sex. Studies on the feminization of migration2 have revealed women’s significant role and impact as actors in the migration process. Despite the rapid increase in the volume and diversity of knowledge on the migration-development nexus, research and debate on the gender dimensions of this issue, including the role of women within migratory flows, continues to be scarce. In 2007, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) began a joint project entitled “Gender and Remittances: Building Gender-Responsive Local Development. ” The project has sought to enhance gender-responsive local development by identifying and promoting options for utilizing remittances for sustainable livelihoods and for building social capital in poor rural and semi-urban communities. The research phase of the project has been implemented in six countries: Albania, the Dominican Republic, Lesotho, Morocco, the Philippines and Senegal. The strategic aim of the project is to generate action-oriented research that will be used to: Increase awareness and improve access of women-headed, remittance-recipient households to productive resources, while augmenting their assets and strengthening their capacities; Provide relevant information to local and national governments to identify and formulate policies that will optimize remittance utilization for sustainable livelihoods and for building social capital; and Contribute to enhancing key stakeholders’ capacities to integrate gender into policies, programmes, projects, and other initiatives linking remittances with sustainable livelihoods and building social capital. The six case studies aim to narrow the knowledge gap on the gender dimensions of migration and remittances through an interlinked analysis of migration and development. Particular attention is paid to the impact of remittances (financial, in-kind and social) on gendered development processes in countries of origin and amongst transnational households spanning the origin and destination countries

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Beliefs of At-Risk Women

Cervical cancer is primarily caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) and is the second most common cause of cancer-related mortality among women. Female college students may be at risk for contracting HPV based on their sexual behavior. Following the release of the HPV vaccine, Gardasil®, this cross-sectional study was developed to (1) determine awareness of HPV and Gardasil®, (2) assess attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs about the HPV vaccine, and (3) identify information sources that female college students are accessing. Female college students voluntarily completed a self-administered questionnaire. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlations and paired sample t-tests. Sexually active respondents would recommend the HPV vaccine to others and disagreed that vaccination would encourage risky sexual behavior. Correlations were identified on how self-reported knowledge influenced attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs regarding the HPV vaccine. These findings should assist in developing integrated public health education efforts for HPV vaccination that are targeted towards this at-risk population

Human interleukin-1 receptor antagonist is expressed in liver

AbstractUsing PCR and Northern blot analysis, an IL-1 receptor antagonist specific transcript was amplified from HepG2- and liver mRNA, cDNA clones coding for IL-1 receptor antagonist were isolated from a liver cDNA library and sequence comparison revealed complete identity with the secreted, monocytic form of IL-1 receptor antagonist

Retrieving Decadal Climate Change from Satellite Radiance Observations-A 100-year CO2 Doubling OSSE Demonstration.

Preparing for climate change depends on the observation and prediction of decadal trends of the environmental variables, which have a direct impact on the sustainability of resources affecting the quality of life on our planet. The NASA Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) mission is proposed to provide climate quality benchmark spectral radiance observations for the purpose of determining the decadal trends of climate variables, and validating and improving the long-range climate model forecasts needed to prepare for the changing climate of the Earth. The CLARREO will serve as an in-orbit, absolute, radiometric standard for the cross-calibration of hyperspectral radiance spectra observed by the international system of polar operational satellite sounding sensors. Here, we demonstrate that the resulting accurately cross-calibrated polar satellite global infrared spectral radiance trends (e.g., from the Metop IASI instrument considered here) can be interpreted in terms of temperature and water vapor profile trends. This demonstration is performed using atmospheric state data generated for a 100-year period from 2000-2099, produced by a numerical climate model prediction that was forced by the doubling of the global average atmospheric CO2 over the 100-year period. The vertical profiles and spatial distribution of temperature decadal trends were successfully diagnosed by applying a linear regression profile retrieval algorithm to the simulated hyperspectral radiance spectra for the 100-year period. These results indicate that it is possible to detect decadal trends in atmospheric climate variables from high accuracy all-sky satellite infrared radiance spectra using the linear regression retrieval technique

Economics of Marital Instability

This paper focuses on the causes of divorce. Section I developsa theoretical analysis of marital dissolution incorporating uncertaintyabout the outcomes of marital decisions into a framework of utilitymaximization and the marriage market. Section II explores the implica-tions of the theoretical analysis with cross-sectional data,primarilythe 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity and the Terman sample. Therelevance of both the theoretical and empirical analyses in explainingthe recent acceleration in the U.S. divorce rate is discussed.

Approaches to Tsunami Risk Assessment

This report provides an overview of the existing methods of tsunami risk assessment. The analyses focus on the process of risk assessment, its basic steps and output. Therefore, the specific components of risk, such as hazard, consequence or vulnerability are not discussed in detail. The reviewed studies are classified according to the country of origin or their place of the application. Since literature on tsunami risk assessment is limited, other risk assessment methods applied for floods and landslides are briefly discussed and studied their commonalities with tsunami risk. In conclusion, the report suggests a possible strategy for addressing the tsunami risk in the TRANSFER project. For this purpose, a general framework for tsunami risk assessment has been prepared.JRC.G.7-Traceability and vulnerability assessmen

Correlation between capillary oxygen saturation and small intestinal wall thickness in the equine colic patient

The surgical evaluation of haemorrhagic infarcted intestine and the decision for or against bowel resection require a lot of experience and are subjective. The aim of this prospective, clinical study was to examine the correlation between oxygen saturation and small intestinal wall (IW) thickness, using two objective methods. In 22 colicky horses, the blood flow, oxygen saturation and relative amount of haemoglobin were measured intraoperatively via laser Doppler and white light spectroscopy (O2C, oxygen to see, LEA Medizintechnik) at six measuring points (MPs) in small and large intestines. Furthermore, the IW thickness was measured ultrasonographically. Nine of 22 horses had an increased small IW thickness greater than 4?mm (Freeman 2002, Scharner and others 2002, le Jeune and Whitcomb 2014) at measuring point 1 (MP1) (strangulated segment), four horses had a thickened bowel wall at measuring point 3 (MP3) (poststenotic) and one at measuring point 2 (MP2). The oxygen saturation was 0 at MP1 in six horses, at MP3 in two horses and at MP2 (prestenotic) in one. Oxygen saturation and small IW thickness were independent of each other at MP1 and MP2. At MP3, the two parameters were negatively correlated. In summary, it is not possible to draw conclusions about oxygen saturation based on IW thickness

Multilevel Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods for Lognormal Diffusion Problems

In this paper we present a rigorous cost and error analysis of a multilevel estimator based on randomly shifted Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) lattice rules for lognormal diffusion problems. These problems are motivated by uncertainty quantification problems in subsurface flow. We extend the convergence analysis in [Graham et al., Numer. Math. 2014] to multilevel Quasi-Monte Carlo finite element discretizations and give a constructive proof of the dimension-independent convergence of the QMC rules. More precisely, we provide suitable parameters for the construction of such rules that yield the required variance reduction for the multilevel scheme to achieve an $\varepsilon$-error with a cost of $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^{-\theta})$ with $\theta < 2$, and in practice even $\theta \approx 1$, for sufficiently fast decaying covariance kernels of the underlying Gaussian random field inputs. This confirms that the computational gains due to the application of multilevel sampling methods and the gains due to the application of QMC methods, both demonstrated in earlier works for the same model problem, are complementary. A series of numerical experiments confirms these gains. The results show that in practice the multilevel QMC method consistently outperforms both the multilevel MC method and the single-level variants even for non-smooth problems.Comment: 32 page