Does Your Carer Take Sugar? Carers and Human Rights: The Parallel Struggles of Disabled People and Carers for Equal Treatment

This paper considers the struggle being waged by unpaid carers (sometimes referred to as ‘carergivers’) for recognition as ‘rights holders’. It locates the origins and describes the growth of the ‘carers movement’ and argues that it has many similarities with the Disabled People’s movement that came to prominence in the 1970’s. The paper: (1) identifies the distinct legal status that carers have in the majority of states in the world; (2) describes carers’ shared history of adverse treatment within most states; and (3) argues that carers’ social exclusion arises from a widespread hostility to ‘dependency’ – a hostility that is gendered and particularly evident in neoliberal political discourse. The paper argues that there is a substantive human right ‘to care’ – one that fits most comfortably within the civil and political right to ‘privacy / private life’; that states have positive human rights obligations to carers; and that ‘being a carer’ should (and will) become a protected status for the purposes of non-discrimination legislation, on the same basis as other protected statuses (such as disability). The paper concludes with a caveat: that the recognition of caring as a human right and of carers as ‘right holders’ (although inevitable and of great importance) will not in itself be sufficient – that this much we also learn from the Disabled People’s movement

Project POKE: Developing a STEM Community to Offset Learning Loss Amidst COVID Pandemic Through Aerospace Technologies Project-Based Learning in Hawaii\u27s K-12 Classrooms

Project POKE (Providing an Opportunity for the Keiki in Engineering) is a unique opportunity for middle and high school keiki (‘children’ in Hawaiian) in Hawaii to gain hands-on aerospace experience through interaction with a 1U CubeSat kit. The focus of the project is to build a STEM community based on collaboration and project-based learning to offset learning loss amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The Project POKE program includes an educator course, CubeSat kit, collaborative digital space, open-ended design challenge, and symposium. Middle and high school teachers concurrently participate in the program’s educator course and meet with their students to teach the provided content. Project POKE builds off of the Artemis CubeSat Kit while adapting the educator course materials to K-12 education. Students are challenged to develop a mission concept to study a problem affecting their community using a CubeSat and present their design concept to STEM professionals at the culminating symposium. The first iteration of the program was completed in the 2021-2022 school year with 14 teachers and over 100 students. Surveyed participants indicated positive sentiment and several learning outcomes upon completing the program. Project POKE creates a diversified STEM community in Hawaii, while demystifying space science and aerospace engineering

Flavour Changing Neutral Currents, Weak-Scale Scalars and Rare Top Decays

We examine the decays $t\rightarrow c\gamma$ and $c Z^0$ in the Standard Model with an extra scalar doublet and no discrete symmetry preventing tree-level flavour changing neutral currents. The Yukawa couplings of the new scalars are assumed to be proportional to fermion masses, evading bounds on FCNC's from the light quark sector. These rare top decays may be visible at the SSC.Comment: (some wording changed, and several references added) 13 pages, 2 figures included, uses harvmac.tex and epsf.tex, UCSD/PTH 93-0

Cost analysis of the development and implementation of a spatial decision support system for malaria elimination in Solomon Islands

BACKGROUND The goal of malaria elimination faces numerous challenges. New tools are required to support the scale up of interventions and improve national malaria programme capacity to conduct detailed surveillance. This study investigates the cost factors influencing the development and implementation of a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for malaria elimination in the two elimination provinces of Isabel and Temotu, Solomon Islands. METHOD Financial and economic costs to develop and implement a SDSS were estimated using the Solomon Islands programme's financial records. Using an ingredients approach, verified by stakeholders and operational reports, total costs for each province were quantified. A budget impact sensitivity analysis was conducted to investigate the influence of variations in standard budgetary components on the costs and to identify potential cost savings. RESULTS A total investment of US$96,046 (2012 constant dollars) was required to develop and implement the SDSS in two provinces (Temotu Province US$ 49,806 and Isabel Province US$46,240). The single largest expense category was for computerized equipment totalling approximately US$ 30,085. Geographical reconnaissance was the most expensive phase of development and implementation, accounting for approximately 62% of total costs. Sensitivity analysis identified different cost factors between the provinces. Reduced equipment costs would deliver a budget saving of approximately 10% in Isabel Province. Combined travel costs represented the greatest influence on the total budget in the more remote Temotu Province. CONCLUSION This study provides the first cost analysis of an operational surveillance tool used specifically for malaria elimination in the South-West Pacific. It is demonstrated that the costs of such a decision support system are driven by specialized equipment and travel expenses. Such factors should be closely scrutinized in future programme budgets to ensure maximum efficiencies are gained and available resources are allocated effectively

University of Hawaii\u27s Spaceflight-Ready, Low-Cost, Open-Source, Educational Artemis CubeSat Kit

The Artemis CubeSat Kit is a spaceflight-ready, low-cost, educational 1U CubeSat kit, which acts as a foundation enabler in aerospace engineering education and commercializing small satellites. The hardware kit accompanies a standalone Spacecraft Mission Design curriculum in the public domain, which includes a self-guided course outline, textbook, and digital lab modules. Funded by NASA\u27s Artemis Student Challenge Program, the Kit is developed and maintained by students attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa and supervised by the Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL). The purpose of the Artemis CubeSat Kit and accompanying curriculum is to provide educational accessibility for university-level students and faculty interested in designing, building, and flying their own small satellite missions. This paper describes the technical design of the Artemis 1U CubeSat, the topology of the standalone curriculum, and the lessons learned by the team while developing the Artemis CubeSat Kit

New Study Underway to Estimate the Impact of Lesser Scaup on Arkansas’ Baitfish Industry

The baitfish industry is an important economic enterprise for many aquaculture producers in Arkansas. The industry generates approximately $30 million annually in farm-gate sales of these small fish that include fathead minnows, goldfish and golden shiners. Diving ducks known as scaup, or “Bluebills,” spend late fall through early spring in Arkansas and Mississippi on deep water wetlands, rivers, and aquaculture ponds. The notion that scaup are consuming an abundance of baitfish in Arkansas ponds has concerned commercial growers for several years

New Study Underway to Estimate the Impact of Lesser Scaup on Arkansas’ Baitfish Industry

The baitfish industry is an important economic enterprise for many aquaculture producers in Arkansas. The industry generates approximately $30 million annually in farm-gate sales of these small fish that include fathead minnows, goldfish and golden shiners. Diving ducks known as scaup, or “Bluebills,” spend late fall through early spring in Arkansas and Mississippi on deep water wetlands, rivers, and aquaculture ponds. The notion that scaup are consuming an abundance of baitfish in Arkansas ponds has concerned commercial growers for several years

Scaup Depredation on Arkansas Baitfish and Sportfish Aquaculture

Lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) and greater scaup (A. marila), hereafter scaup, consume a variety of aquatic invertebrates, plants, and occasionally small fish. Scaup have foraged on commercial aquaculture farms in the southern United States for decades. However, the types, abundance, and rate of fish exploitation by scaup on baitfish and sportfish farms are not well documented. Thus, information is needed to understand how fish and other foods influence scaup use of aquatic resources, and any potential economic effects of depredation of fish. From November–March in winters 2016–2017 and 2017–2018, we conducted 1,458 pond surveys to estimate the abundance and distribution of scaup on Arkansas baitfish and sportfish farms that commercially produce species such as golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas), fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas), goldfish (Carassius auratus), and sunfish (Lepomis spp.). We also collected and processed 531 foraging scaup and quantified the proportion of scaup consuming fish and the proportion of their diet obtained from fish. Fish consumption was highly variable between years. In our survey area, we estimated total fish consumption at 1,400 kg and 60,500 kg for winters 2016–2017 and 2017–2018, respectively. Sunfish ponds experienced the maximum loss (18,000 fish/ha) during winter 2017–2018, while goldfish ponds experienced a loss of just 2,600 fish/ha during the same winter. The estimates of baitfish and sportfish loss to scaup revealed potential management strategies for minimizing fish loss and can inform economic analysis of the financial impact of scaup on producers