Discrimination against Women in Accessing Higher Education in Cambodia

Young women in Cambodia face challenges in accessing higher education. Social norms, financial constraints and other problems are the main root causes in the limitation of opportunities for women to pursue higher education. Social norms of the older generation in Cambodia remain from the past and they often think that it is not necessary for women to study in higher education institutions since a women’s role is to just be a housewife after marriage. Another restriction on women’s access to higher education is that they often have financial problems in supporting their education. Some women have to work in order to support their families, so they have no chance to pursue a higher education. Additionally, since most universities are located in cities, parents often feel insecure about their daughters studying far away from home. Currently there is increased enrollment of young women in higher education due to Government action, as it has ratified international conventions and enacted domestic laws. As well, there is government cooperation with NGOs to establish some strategies and action plans to promote and protect gender equality in all sectors, including the education sector, by improving scholarship opportunities or building dormitories for female students to live in while studying at university. However, these supports cannot provide access to higher education for young women in all areas in the Kingdom of Cambodia, and Cambodia has not yet enacted specific laws to promote the participation of women in higher education. This research aims to explore the opportunities that have been provided to young women to pursue higher education, particularly at the university level. After exploring the opportunities, the researcher will analyze data regarding the challenges for women in accessing higher education. Finally, the researcher will provide some possible recommendations to address these challenges. This research utilized multiple methods, including desk review and structured interviews. Interviews were conducted face-to-face and in focus group discussions (FGD). Desk review focuses on all relevant international and national laws, strategic and action plans related to the promotion of women studying at university and the de facto equality of that issue

El rol de los telecentros comunitarios en las comunidades indígenas de Sololà

Desde hace muchos años saber utilizar la computadora en las oficinas era un conocimiento requerido para las personas, en los mercados laborales. En nuestras escuelas rurales, las necesidades básicas aun no están cubiertas, existen muchas escuelas en donde los niños reciben sus enseñanzas en condiciones deplorables.  Tener una escuela rural en donde exista un laboratorio que permita el aprendizaje sobre los medios electrónicos de comunicación, es sencillamente un sueño que esta lejano a la realidad. En nuestros países tercermundistas, la inversión social se destina a cubrir las necesidades más vitales de la población y la inversión en infraestructura para la enseñanza-aprendizaje de las tecnologías de información y comunicación, ocupan los últimos lugares en la escala de prioridades.Este artículo presenta la situación en las comunidades indígenes de Sololá, en Guatemala, a la luz de lo mencionado. Since many years ago knowing how to use a computer in offices has been a mandatory skill for people entering jobs markets. In our rural schools, basic needs are not provided, with many schools in a sorry state. To have arural school with a computer lab is a far away dream. Since in our developing countries socila investment is destined to the population's basic needs, and investment in infrastructure for teaching and learning with ICT is way back in the priority list. This paper discusses, under the ideas just presented, the activities of the community telecenters in Solola, Guatemala, an indigenous community. &nbsp

Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for stable isotope metabolic tracer studies of living systems

Sub-nanogram per gram levels of molybdenum (Mo) from human blood plasma are isolated by the use of anion exchange alumina microcolumns. Million-fold more concentrated spectral and matrix interferences such as sodium, chloride, sulfate, phosphate, etc. in the blood constituents are removed from the analyte. The recovery of Mo from the alumina column is 82 +/- 5% (n = 5). Isotope dilution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ID-ICP-MS) is utilized for the quantitative ultra-trace concentration determination of Mo in bovine and human blood samples. The average Mo concentration in reference bovine serum determined by our method is 10.2 +/- 0.4 ng/g, while the certified value is 11.5 +/- 1.1 ng/g (95% confidence interval). The Mo concentration of one pool of human blood plasma from two healthy male donors is 0.5 +/- 0.1 ng/g;The inductively coupled plasma twin quadrupole mass spectrometer (ICP-TQMS) is used to measure the carbon isotope ratio from non-volatile organic compounds and bio-organic molecules to assess the ability as an alternative analytical method to gas chromatography combustion isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-combustion-IRMS). Trytophan, myoglobin, and beta-cyclodextrin are chosen for the study, initial observation of spectral interference of 13C+ with 12C1H+ comes from the incomplete dissociation of myoglobin and/or beta-cyclodextrin. The interference species is most sensitive to the aerosol gas flow rate. Carefully decreasing this parameter can eliminate 12C1H+ interference. 13C/12C ratios in myoglobin and beta-cyclodextrin can be determined precisely and quantitatively. The best relative standard deviation (RSD%) obtained in the 13C/12C study is 0.91%, which is close to the limiting precision predicted by counting statistics (1.16%);Many improvements have been made to the current ICP-TQMS device. A new skimmer interface together with the new ion optics arrangement improves the ion collection efficiency 19-fold. A second-generation ion beam splitter has been designed to reduce the background count rate and improve the ion transmission. A modified ion beam splitter transmits 5 times more ions while maintaining the performance characteristics of the ICP-TQMS system. The precision is further improved by measuring each data point for a longer dwell time (9s instead of 1.5s) and keeping the total ion collection time low ( ≤ 50s instead of 150s)

Juvenile and Mature Performances of Handpollinated Rubber Progenies and the Implication in Hevea Breeding

The RRIM's 1988 Hand-Pollination Programme was conducted using two different sources of materials. e.i. Wickham and Amazon. The progenies obtained from the Hand-Pollination Programme were used to establish a Seedling Evaluation Trial at RRIM Experiment Station, Sungai Buloh. Test tapping was carried out at three and half years after planting. The trial was opened for normal tapping at seven years old. The p erformances of progenies using data both at immature and mature stages were studied. Generally. progenies from W x Am crosses were inferior to that of W x W crosses in latex yield. However. there was a W x Am family (PB 5/51 x 64/151) and produced high yield in normal tapping that was comparable to the best of W x W families. High correlation (r = 0. 972) was found between the two test tapping yield characters (mean yield over three cycles and five cycles of tapping). The correlation between normal tapping yield and the two test tapping yields were significant but lower (r = 0.660 and 0.715, respectively). The family ranking order based on yield of normal tapping in comparison with that on yield of test tapping was not very much different except for few cases. There were families that produced better yield at normal tapping than in test tapping and vice versa. Selection for top 10% yield of test tapping can get only about half of expected individuals in the same proportion selected on yield at normal tapping

Computing Graph Roots Without Short Cycles

Graph G is the square of graph H if two vertices x, y have an edge in G if and only if x, y are of distance at most two in H. Given H it is easy to compute its square H2, however Motwani and Sudan proved that it is NP-complete to determine if a given graph G is the square of some graph H (of girth 3). In this paper we consider the characterization and recognition problems of graphs that are squares of graphs of small girth, i.e. to determine if G = H2 for some graph H of small girth. The main results are the following. - There is a graph theoretical characterization for graphs that are squares of some graph of girth at least 7. A corollary is that if a graph G has a square root H of girth at least 7 then H is unique up to isomorphism. - There is a polynomial time algorithm to recognize if G = H2 for some graph H of girth at least 6. - It is NP-complete to recognize if G = H2 for some graph H of girth 4. These results almost provide a dichotomy theorem for the complexity of the recognition problem in terms of girth of the square roots. The algorithmic and graph theoretical results generalize previous results on tree square roots, and provide polynomial time algorithms to compute a graph square root of small girth if it exists. Some open questions and conjectures will also be discussed

The Cambodians in Sydney

Cambodians began coming to Australian in the mid to late 1970s, predominantly after the fall of the country's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime to invading Vietnamese forces in 1978. The majority fled to Thailand, either overland or by sea, where they waited in refugee camps for resettlement. A large part of the existing community arrived in the 1980s, either as refugees or as family reunion migrants. Today in Sydney there are 8,900 people of Khmer ancestry, and 4,507 of Chinese Cambodian ancestry (out of a national population of 25,553 of Khmer ancestry and 9,667 of Chinese Cambodian background). Over 60 per cent of those of Cambodian background who live in Sydney reside in the Fairfield local government area. Community life centres on the Khmer temples of Fairfield and Liverpool and the commercial and cultural centre of Cabramatta

An iterative method for the extrapolation of band-limited functions

AbstractWe derive an iterative algorithm to extrapolate band-limited functions using the operators of Fourier transform and projection on convex subsets. The algorithm allows the use of a priori knowledge in the extrapolation procedure

The square of a block graph

AbstractThe square H2 of a graph H is obtained from H by adding new edges between every two vertices having distance two in H. A block graph is one in which every block is a clique. For the first time, good characterizations and a linear time recognition of squares of block graphs are given in this paper. Our results generalize several previous known results on squares of trees

Graph Powers: Hardness Results, Good Characterizations and Efficient Algorithms

Given a graph H = (V_H,E_H) and a positive integer k, the k-th power of H, written H^k, is the graph obtained from H by adding edges between any pair of vertices at distance at most k in H; formally, H^k = (V_H, {xy | 1 <= d_H (x, y) <= k}). A graph G is the k-th power of a graph H if G = H^k, and in this case, H is a k-th root of G. Our investigations deal with the computational complexity of recognizing k-th powers of general graphs as well as restricted graphs. This work provides new NP-completeness results, good characterizations and efficient algorithms for graph powers

THE DEPENDENCE OF SCHOTTKY BARRIER HEIGHT ON THE RATIO OF DIFFERENT METAL COMPONENTS

In order to understand the variation of the barrier height of different metal-semiconductor contacts, a model for common effective contact (CEC) was proposed. The CEC consists of several primary diodes prepared or formed by different metals on the same semiconductor substrate. The smallest interfacial area of each primary diode was assumed to be the smallest limitation of area on which the Schottky contact's properties exist. The results of the investigation show that all electrical properties - the barrier height especially - of the CEC depend on the ratio of the interfacial area occupied by each metal component in the common effective interface. This result may be applied to the metal compound-semiconductor contact to investigate the variation of potential barrier height, as well as the electrical characteristics of multilayer metal-semiconductor contacts