Fraud Prevention for Seniors

The senior population has been a target for fraudulent crimes. The determined contributing factors for the senior population being susceptible to fraud is being gullible, lacking knowledge of strategies to prevent fraud, and having cognitive decline due to aging. Fraudulent crimes can have major consequences such as, monetary cost, negative effects on health and unreported cases. Fraudulent crimes against seniors is a growing issue and must be addressed. In order to address this issue within the community a capstone project was developed and implemented in collaboration with the Monterey County District Attorney\u27s Office of Consumerism and Environmental Protection Division. This project focused on serving the Spanish speaking senior population in the Salinas city area of Monterey County. The objective of the project was to offer education and strategies on how to prevent fraud for seniors. Participants learned about various types of fraud, how to detect possible fraud, how to protect themselves from fraud, and identity helpful resources in the community. Results from the evaluation of the project suggest the project presentation was effective and useful for educating and promoting self empowerment for seniors to be able to protect themselves from being victims by using strategies to ultimately prevent fraud

Abuse of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Federal Prison System

There is a systemic pattern of federal prison staff using their power over inmates to coerce victims into sexually abusive situations. Inside federal institutions, staff works to protect each other from facing the consequences of their actions. On a broader scale, the Bureau of Prisons does not effectively investigate all allegations of abuse, enabling abusive individuals and institutions to remain undetected. This is a serious matter as victims are left vulnerable to sexual abuse and there is no recourse to prevent future victimizations. Prison inmates are human beings who are currently and historically been silenced and subject to abhorrent sexual abuse, their reality must be taken seriously, researched, properly investigated, and prosecuted to the fullest extent. This paper examines how the federal prison staff constructs cultures of sexual abuse that are systemically maintained by the Bureau of Prisons. The analysis draws evidence from previous research, investigative journalism, and a Senate report all of which detail sexual abuse inside the federal prison system. Within four sections, the paper outlines the roles and cultures of sexual predators, how sexual abuse occurs, how sexually abusive environments are cultivated, and the systemic failures of the Bureau of Prisons.&nbsp

From Test Scores to Language Use: Emergent Bilinguals Using English to Accomplish Academic Tasks

Prominent discourses about emergent bilinguals’ academic abilities tend to focus on performance as measured by test scores and perpetuate the message that emergent bilinguals trail far behind their peers. When we remove the constraints of formal testing situations, what can emergent bilinguals do in English as they engage in naturally occurring classroom interactions about content? Using six months of naturally occurring emergent bilingual talk, this article shows that (1) emergent bilinguals produced a wide range of academic speech acts in English while engaged in English language arts tasks, (2) these speech acts were aligned with state academic expectations, and (3) even emergent bilinguals considered “struggling” by conventional standards used in schools showed evidence of using English to accomplish academic tasks in ways aligned to state academic expectations. I argue that determining emergent bilinguals’ English language proficiency using test scores alone provides an incomplete view of what they can and cannot do in English

“I Don’t Get It. I Need Help”: Emergent Bilinguals Seeking and Receiving Help From Peers in Language Arts

This study examines how emergent bilinguals seek help in language arts and how peers respond to their requests for help. Using 6 months of naturally occurring student talk in a U.S. fourth grade classroom, this article shows that (a) emergent bilinguals more frequently use general requests than specific requests to obtain help, (b) only 41% of emergent bilingual requests for help succeeded in eliciting helpful peer responses, and (c) there is no significant difference between specific and general requests for help and help received. Findings suggest the need for policies and practices that foster the educational environments necessary for peer collaboration that promotes academic understanding

Instructional Supports: Facilitating or Constraining Emergent Bilinguals’ Production of Oral Explanations?

This qualitative study examined how specific instructional supports intended to scaffold emergent bilinguals’ oral production of explanations facilitated or constrained students’ attempts to explain. Findings demonstrate that explanations were very rarely produced, and when they were produced, the explanations were not particularly informative. Furthermore, the teachers’ attempts to support emergent bilingual talk via sentence starters, guiding questions, and rephrasing questions inadvertently undermined the students’ attempts to explain

"Our Bodies, Our Souls: Creating a Trans Latina Archive Through Critical Autoethnography"

Transgender Latina immigrants occupy a limited and unfavorable space in the popular imagination. Essentialist and reductive master narratives erase the richness and complexity of this community. General representations of trans Latinas fixate on gender and racial violence, and victimization. Rarely do these representations focus on experiences that embody trans Latinas’ everyday lives, struggles, love, aspirations and acts of resilience.The need for alternative discourses for trans Latina immigrants is especially pressing now under the Trump administration when immigrants are depicted as economic and cultural threats to the “Great American” way of life, and immigrant families are torn apart as parents get deported en masse and their children abandoned to an uncertain future. There are very few published works written by transgender Latina immigrants. Accounts of transgender women’s experiences in the media, and in the fields of medicine and psychiatry vastly overwhelm those of actual transgender women. My research addresses this gap in the literature by centering and facilitating recovered histories and experiences of Trans Latina immigrants through a methodology I call critical autoethnography. Using participatory action research, I will recruit, engage, and guide the participation of transgender Latina immigrants to help design a way of writing about the self that is both a personal narrative about their life experiences, as well as a critical self- reflection—hence the name, “critical autoethnography.” This collaborative writing method generates transgender Latina immigrant narratives as told by the participants, themselves, in their own voices, and focuses on issues, struggles, and experiences that they choose to make the subject of their narrative. Not only do these critical autoethnographies challenge anti-immigrant and white heteropatriarchal rhetoric, they also contribute to a trans Latina immigrant archive and epistemology. This methodology offers a new way for trans Latinas to write themselves into history, as Chicana historian Emma Perez advocates, and thus decolonize their representation

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Service Life Design for Infrastructure (SLD4)

SLD4 is a conference on Service Life Design for Infrastructures which is jointly organised by Delft University and Tongji University as part of the RILEM week 2018 in Delft, The Netherlands. The conference builds on the success of the previous three events on this topic held in Shanghai (2006), Delft (2010) and Zhuhai (2014). Service Life Design for Infrastructure is a very broad topic involving aspects starting from the material properties and behaviour, via structural performance, serviceability and durability to integral design and asset management. All related topics from experimental research to modelling and from codes and standards to applications are welcomed to the conference. The conference consist of 3 key-note papers and 132 regular papers presented over 3 days. Parallel to the SLD4 Conference a symposium on Concrete Modelling (CONMOD2018) and a workshop honouring Professor Klaas van Breugel were organised with topics that are related to Service Life Design. In total more than 350 participants took part in the events organised during the RILEM week 2018

Assessing safety net readiness in response to food price volatility

In 2008, when food prices rose precipitously to record highs, international attention and local policy in many countries focused on safety nets as part of the response. Now that food prices are high again, the issue of appropriate responses is again on the policy agenda. This note sets out a framework for making quick, qualitative assessments of how well countries'safety nets prepare them for a rapid policy response to rising food prices should the situation warrant. The framework is applied using data from spring 2011, presenting a snap?shot analysis of what is a dynamically changing situation. Based on this data safety net readiness is assessed in 13 vulnerable countries based on the following criteria: the presence of safety net programs, program coverage, administrative capacity, and to a lesser degree, targeting effectiveness. It is argued that these criteria will remain the same throughout time, even if the sample countries affected will be expected to vary. Based on thisanalysis the note highlights that though a number of countries are more prepared than they were in 2008, there is still a significant medium term agenda on safety net preparedness in the face of crisis. In this context, strategic lessons from the 2008 food crisis response are presented to better understand the response options and challenges facing governments and policy makers. The note concludes by calling for continued investment and scale up of safety nets to mitigate poverty impacts and help prevent long term setbacks in nutrition and poverty.Food&Beverage Industry,Safety Nets and Transfers,Emerging Markets,Rural Poverty Reduction,Regional Economic Development

Proceedings of the Symposium on Concrete Modelling, CONMOD2018

CONMOD2018 is a symposium on Concrete Modelling which is jointly organised by Delft University and Ghent University as part of the RILEM week 2018 in Delft, The Netherlands. The symposium is the 5th in a series dealing with all aspects concerning modelling of concrete at various scales. The symposium consist of 3 key-note papers and 62 regular papers presented over 3 days. Parallel to the CONMOD2018 symposium a conference on Service Life Design (SLD4) and a workshop honouring Professor Klaas van Breugel were organised with topics that are related to concrete modelling. In total more than 350 participants took part in the events organised during the RILEM week 2018

Cultivo de folículos primordiales de ratón como modelo para la restauración de la fertilidad

Una de las vías de activación de los folículos primordiales es la vía PI3K. Una vez activadas, llegaran a formar unos óvulos maduros que formarán embriones después de ser fertilizados. Se realizó el siguiente experimento usando ovarios de ratones de 3 días de edad: 1) las piezas de tejido ovárico fueron pretratadas por 24 horas con o sin activador PI3K 500μg/ml) más el inhibidor PTEN 1μM para activar los folículos primordiales; 2) las piezas fueron cultivadas en presencia de ácido ascórbico 100μg/ml y activina A 50ng/ml hasta por un período de 24 días. Los folículos secundarios aislados de estos cultivos fueron puestos en cultivo por 13 días más para obtener ovocitos maduros. Como resultado de estos cultivos, se incrementó en un 200% la obtención de folículos secundarios; no obstante, solo se obtuvo un 50% de ovocitos maduros comparados con el control. El sistema de activación in vitro usado en estos experimentos funcionó; sin embargo, en un estudio más detallado a nivel de anormalidades cromosómicas y niveles de transcritos de genes de importancia para el crecimiento de folículos secundarios y maduración de óvulos deben ser realizados. Este tipo de cultivo tiene potencial de uso para pacientes con cáncer, mujeres menopáusicas o con falla ovárica prematura.Trabajo de investigació