LESSONS FROM APPROACHES TO INCREASE WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN DEVELOPMENT: WORKSHOP SUMMARY

Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital,

The black minority ethnic third sector: a resource paper

Contributing towards building a foundation of knowledge on the black minority ethnic (BME) third sector, this paper offers an introductory resource on research in this field. The paper begins with discussion on the (contested) concept of a BME third sector (BME TS) and the existing narrative of distinctiveness; it then goes on to highlight the importance of robust comparative analyses to identify empirical trends of difference between subsectors in order to examine the policy implications for the different subsectors. In an attempt to bring together a disparate collection of material on the BME third sector the remaining section of the paper provides brief overviews of material about different types of organisation that might constitute the BME TS in the broadest sense of the term. These include: refugee and asylum seeker organisations (RCOs), faith based organisations, diasporic immigrant community organisations, black organisations, gypsy and traveller organisations and multicultural organisations. In closing, the paper identifies gaps in the current research base that will be of interest to the wider research community and will inform TSRC's cross-cutting equality research programme

Preconception nutrition knowledge, dietary intakes and lifestyle characteristics of Auckland women : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Nutritional Science at Massey University

Introduction Adequate nutritional status prior to conception and during early pregnancy is important in achieving a healthy pregnancy outcome. This study examined preconception nutrition knowledge, and dietary and lifestyle habits in Auckland women of childbearing age. Methods Women aged 18-45 years (n=115) were recruited and data collected using a detailed questionnaire, anthropometric measurements and a diet history to evaluate dietary intakes. Results 18 women were attempting to conceive and 97 women indicated they were not currently planning pregnancy. The reproductive history of the women identified that 53 women had previously been pregnant but only 47% of these pregnancies had been planned. Nearly all of the women (93.7%) had heard of folic acid and 65% were aware that folic acid was required for pregnancy. Although 53.9% of the women knew that folic acid prevents birth defects, only 31.3% of women had specific knowledge that folic acid use a month before conception can prevent neural tube defects. All of the women in the study who were currently planning a pregnancy had heard of folic acid and 13 (72%) were taking a folic acid supplement (≥400μg). Although 80% of the women thought that dietary habits in the preconception period could affect pregnancy outcome few women thought preconception diet could influence risk of miscarriage, preterm delivery or maternal deficiencies. 83% of women used alcohol, 13.0% had a caffeine intake >300 mg/day, 8% smoked and 26.0% were overweight or obese. Conclusions Women recruited to the study demonstrated a lack of awareness of the importance of preconception nutrition and were not in an optimal physical state for pregnancy. The high rate of unplanned pregnancies in New Zealand is a significant obstacle to preconception care and efforts to increase the awareness of the importance of preconception nutrition are needed

What are Some Best Practices in Assessing Employee Performance Without Using Performance Reviews?

[Excerpt] A 2014 Deloitte Survey reported that 58% of organizations believed that performance appraisals were an ineffective use of time. This finding carries great significance given a typical manager spends on average 210 hours a year working on appraisals. Due to the incongruence between time spent and value, many companies are eliminating formal reviews. Some companies are opting to eliminate ratings all together while others are choosing to eliminate the numerical/ranking component of the appraisal. Case studies that include outcomes are a useful tool in examining how this pertains to the management of low performers

The “new managerialism”: Experiences of introducing formal management education into the public sector through the mechanism of the MBA dissertation

Paper presented at the 3rd international Integrating for Excellence conference at Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, UK, 27-28 June 2007.This paper reflects upon the authors' experience of supervising dissertations on a public sector executive MBA programme run for a large metropolitan council. The research method is based on participant observation and reflection whilst directing the work undertaken by the MBA students in carrying out their dissertation. We assess the benefits that accrue to staff teaching on the programme and reflect on the new opportunities, in terms of career development and better management practice afforded to executives who have participated in the programme. Academic staff benefits include: interesting and stimulating work which sometimes leads to refereed publications at conferences and in journals; consultancy & significant applied teaching materials and improvements to the applied knowledge base of teaching staff. Lessons have also been learned about good practice in supervising dissertations. Executive benefits include progression to promoted posts & gaining new insights into better or best working practices. Organisational benefits include cross fertilisation of ideas produced through interaction between programme members. This paper discusses how the MBA programme meets the demands of various interested parties

\Gamma-extensions of the spectrum of an orbifold

We introduce the \Gamma-extension of the spectrum of the Laplacian of a Riemannian orbifold, where \Gamma is a finitely generated discrete group. This extension, called the \Gamma-spectrum, is the union of the Laplace spectra of the \Gamma-sectors of the orbifold, and hence constitutes a Riemannian invariant that is directly related to the singular set of the orbifold. We compare the \Gamma-spectra of known examples of isospectral pairs and families of orbifolds and demonstrate that it many cases, isospectral orbifolds need not be \Gamma-isospectral. We additionally prove a version of Sunada's theorem that allows us to construct pairs of orbifolds that are \Gamma-isospectral for any choice of \Gamma.Comment: To appear in the Transactions of the AM

Parabolic Catalan numbers count flagged Schur functions and their appearances as type A Demazure characters (key polynomials)

Fix an integer partition lambda that has no more than n parts. Let beta be a weakly increasing n-tuple with entries from {1,..,n}. The flagged Schur function indexed by lambda and beta is a polynomial generating function in x_1, .., x_n for certain semistandard tableaux of shape lambda. Let pi be an n-permutation. The type A Demazure character (key polynomial, Demazure polynomial) indexed by lambda and pi is another such polynomial generating function. Reiner and Shimozono and then Postnikov and Stanley studied coincidences between these two families of polynomials. Here their results are sharpened by the specification of unique representatives for the equivalence classes of indexes for both families of polynomials, extended by the consideration of more general beta, and deepened by proving that the polynomial coincidences also hold at the level of the underlying tableau sets. Let R be the set of lengths of columns in the shape of lambda that are less than n. Ordered set partitions of {1,..,n} with block sizes determined by R, called R-permutations, are used to describe the minimal length representatives for the parabolic quotient of the nth symmetric group specified by the set {1,..,n-1}\R. The notion of 312-avoidance is generalized from n-permutations to these set partitions. The R-parabolic Catalan number is defined to be the number of these. Every flagged Schur function arises as a Demazure polynomial. Those Demazure polynomials are precisely indexed by the R-312-avoiding R-permutations. Hence the number of flagged Schur functions that are distinct as polynomials is shown to be the R-parabolic Catalan number. The projecting and lifting processes that relate the notions of 312-avoidance and of R-312-avoidance are described with maps developed for other purposes.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figures. Identical to v.2, except for the insertion of the publication data for the DMTCS journal (dates and volume/issue/number). This is two-thirds of our preprint "Parabolic Catalan numbers count flagged Schur functions; Convexity of tableau sets for Demazure characters", arXiv:1612.06323v