Trauma Informed Community Building Evaluation: A Formative Evaluation of the TICB Model and its Implementation in Potrero Hill

This formative evaluation of the TICB model and its implementation in the PTA public housing community was conducted between September 2014 and July 2015 by an evaluation team from the HOPE SF Learning Center. This evaluation was designed to support the further development of the TICB model as well as inform efforts to implement the model in Potrero Terrace and Annex and other communities. This evaluation seeks to examine the implementation and impact of the TICB model at PTA in order to: * Understand the impact of ongoing TICB-informed programming through analysis of outputs and outcomes prioritized by stakeholder partners [see Appendix A]. * Identify facilitators and barriers to implementation of the TICB model in community-building work within PTA and the surrounding Potrero Hill neighborhood. * Inform BRIDGE Housing's work to improve programming, and guide future program priorities and structures. * Generate information to better understand the impact of the financial investment in helping to build community with and between public housing residents and residents of the surrounding neighborhood. * Assess implications for replicability/reproducibility at other public housing communities, including the additional HOPE SF sites, and beyond

Smallholder Farmer Development: International Donor Funding Trends

In order to enable more coordination between these various initiatives, FSG and the Smallholder Coalition have catalogued and analyzed $12 billion in funding from 29 donors representing more than 1,700 smallholder-focused projects active from 2009 onwards. Our intention with this analysis is to provide the community of donors, corporations, networks, NGOs, and governments involved with smallholder development with a first-of-its-kind snapshot of the state of smallholder funding flow trends

Accuracy of sex determination for northeastern Pacific Ocean thornyheads (Sebastolobus altivelis and S. alascanus)

Determining the sex of thornyheads (Sebastolobus alascanus and S. altivelis) can be difficult under field conditions. We assessed our ability to correctly assign sex in the field by comparing results from field observations to results obtained in the laboratory through both macroscopic and microscopic examination of gonads. Sex of longspine thornyheads was more difficult to determine than that of shortspine thornyheads and correct determination of sex was signif icantly related to size. By restricting the minimum size of thornyheads to 18 cm for macroscopic determination of sex we reduced the number of fish with misidentified sex by approximately 65%

Chronic helminth infection burden differentially affects haematopoietic cell development while ageing selectively impairs adaptive responses to infection

Throughout the lifespan of an individual, the immune system undergoes complex changes while facing novel and chronic infections. Helminths, which infect over one billion people and impose heavy livestock productivity losses, typically cause chronic infections by avoiding and suppressing host immunity. Yet, how age affects immune responses to lifelong parasitic infection is poorly understood. To disentangle the processes involved, we employed supervised statistical learning techniques to identify which factors among haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC), and both innate and adaptive responses regulate parasite burdens and how they are affected by host age. Older mice harboured greater numbers of the parasites’ offspring than younger mice. Protective immune responses that did not vary with age were dominated by HSPC, while ageing specifically eroded adaptive immunity, with reduced numbers of naïve T cells, poor T cell responsiveness to parasites, and impaired antibody production. We identified immune factors consistent with previously-reported immune responses to helminths, and also revealed novel interactions between helminths and HSPC maturation. Our approach thus allowed disentangling the concurrent effects of ageing and infection across the full maturation cycle of the immune response and highlights the potential of such approaches to improve understanding of the immune system within the whole organism

Poetry’s Outsiders: Why the Academy Should Embrace Poetry Slam and Its Audiences

This thesis addresses the problem of poetry’s declining audience in America by investigating the relationship between the academic poetry and poetry slam communities. Primary and secondary research on the history and current state of these two poetry communities reveal that the academic poetry community does not currently embrace Poetry Slam and its audiences. First, an audience survey of the three largest Poetry Slam audiences in New York City and interviews with slam poets who perform for these audiences suggest that Poetry Slam has the ability to cultivate audiences for poetry outside of the academy. Second, the results of an online survey of poetry professors suggest that poets in the academic poetry community currently accept slam but distance themselves from it. Further, case studies of individual poets who cross between the academic and poetry slam communities show that there are positive benefits of collaboration between these two communities. As a result, I argue that the academic poetry community should embrace the poetry slam community for the benefit of all poetry communities in America. At a time when poetry’s audiences are declining, the academy must recognize that poetry slams have the potential to cultivate audiences for all poetry communities. Only when the academy has embraced Poetry Slam can poets truly say they have done their best to bring poetry to the largest audience possible

Young people feel distant from the ‘pale, male and stale’ political class, but are eager for change

The General Election showed further evidence of young people’s disengagement from politics, with turnout continuing to lag behind older voters. But does this mean that young people don’t care? Simon McMahon and Jessica Allen argue that this is not the case, and that distance from the political class should not be equated with disinterest of disengagement