59 research outputs found
Kids Can Read!
No full textTen fables are presented with one illustration adapted from Arthur Rackham for each. One can hear the text read in English. One can also click on objects or words for names, sound effects, syllables, Spanish, or more explanation. Included are The Crab & his Mother, FG, GA, The Travellers & the Plane Tree, CP, DS, TMCM, The Cat & the Birds, The Quack Frog, and FC. Technology moves quickly enough that this disk may have some compatibility problems with computers younger than it. I had to go to Start, Run, and D: install with a double click on Discis.exe to get it going in my new machine.Language note: Bilingual: English/Spanis
My First Book of Fables
No full textThe sharpest illustration in this book is that of GGE on the title page. The others tend to lack sharpness. Ten fables, many in verse, with explicit morals marked as such. Each page is framed with a colored edge in one of three patterns with designs in either black or white. There are some unusual--and mostly disappointing--features in the versions here. In CP, can the tiniest drop get up to the brink ? In GGE, the intervention comes, at the wife's insistence, after only one egg has been produced. In TH, the hare takes a nap (as in La Fontaine) before he starts the race. The illustrations for The Bundle of Sticks are placed in China. In FC, the crow speaks once with the cheese in his beak before he breaks forth in song and loses it; how can that happen? In TB, one illustration shows the man (carrying a lute for some reason) standing face-to-face with the bear. Another has the bear still in sight after the tree-climber has come back down, in direct contradiction to the text. Did Mansbridge read the story? Despite all of that, the pictures give the book a charm of its own
La Fontaine et Le Gaucher
No full textThis is an unusual find. The unusual part starts with the fact that shipping cost more than the item itself. The item is a combination of a book and a compact disc by Pierrejean Gaucher. Its title contains a wordplay and perhaps even more wordplay than I can catch. Le Gaucher means the lefty. The word shows up here because Pierrejean Gaucher did the composition and arrangements of the music and the composition of the pamphlet. The 28-page pamphlet is itself highly unusual. It is 5½ x almost 10. It offers excellent contemporary graphic-novel illustrations for six of the fables presented on the compact disc. Illustrated are OF, TH, FC, TMCM, and CW with one final illustration for GA. There is also a curious cover picture of TH as gunslingers that makes me think there is even more wordplay here. Fourteen fables are in French, besides one Italian version of OF and Thornbury's English version of GA. OF features a particularly grand Ka-Blouie! In TH, the rabbit starts the race, falls in love, gets married, raises a huge family, and then notices on TV that the tortoise is nearing the finish line! This presentation has good cartoon work and good tracking of La Fontaine's approach to this fable. In FC, the crow is perched atop a seven-storey apartment building, and the fox drives by in a racy car. TMCM has the liveliest colored cartoon work! The wildest illustration work may be on CW. It features some fascinating hybrid faces and an offputting picture of a nude woman eating a mouse! The non-illustrated fables have texts offered at the back of the book. I will keep the disc in the cardboard case that forms the covers for the book.Language note: FrenchJean de La Fontain
The Role of Innate APOBEC3G and Adaptive AID Immune Responses in HLA-HIV/SIV Immunized SHIV Infected Macaques
Full text linkThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Beyond Sorted: Developing Critical Adult Financial Education
No full textThis research sought to reimagine financial education from a critical theory perspective. This study proposes how a community of learners operating a critical pedagogy could be used to deliver adult financial education, and to provide a curriculum for use by such a community of learners. To achieve that aim, the objectives of this research were to complete an investigation into financial education discourses within New Zealand, to identify elements that compose financial education within each of these discourses and to combine those elements to create a comprehensive curriculum that when combined with the pedagogical approach form a critical adult financial education programme.
These objectives were achieved by conducting an investigation into the financial literacy and capability discourses in New Zealand to determine how these may be synthesised into an inclusive discourse. Four major discourses were identified following the collection and sorting of a wide selection of stakeholders within the financial education domain. The groupings were labelled governmental, community, commercial and academic to determine where there were overlaps and voids in the themes contained within these discourses. The key themes were then incorporated into the learning areas of a new curriculum matrix that became the research platform for this study.
The curriculum matrix included key competencies drawn both from the financial education discourses and from critical pedagogy influenced strongly by the theories and practises of Paulo Freire and Eduard Lindeman. The financial competencies identified were: financial decision making, financial goal setting, personal financial management and financial communication. The competencies evolving from the pedagogy were: critical thinking, self-reflection and agency. Also included were broad learning areas that would help identify topics for inquiry. These were: financial language, financial calculations, financial administration, financial products, financial services, consumerism and citizenship, seeking advice or remedy, and financial identity. The learning areas also included ‘institutions’ and ‘structures’ that support the neoliberal ideology dominant in New Zealand and much of the rest of the western world at this time in history. The inclusion of these indicated that a critical adult financial education must intend to identify and challenge injustices in local and global political and economic spheres to aim for emancipation from such injustices. The final element in the matrix was a selection of general and educational values used to support the effective operation of the community of learners. These values were suggestions only and the research platform recognised that each community of learners would create their own set of values to reflect the community’s ethos. Rather than include specific learning intentions or achievement criteria in the matrix, it was intended that the communities of learners would determine their own intentions and criteria. The curriculum matrix and pedagogical approach were presented as a programme for critical adult financial education.
In order to evaluate the programme, a qualitative Delphi inquiry was conducted over two rounds. The first round asked for two sets of feedback from experts within education and financial education domains. The first was to comment on the matrix and identify what they perceived as its strengths and weaknesses. The second question asked for feedback on the feasibility of the community of learners approach, operating a critical pedagogy, and applied to financial education. The results from the first round were synthesised, summarised and presented back to the participants via the web-based research platform, and further questions about specific issues common to many of the responses were posed in order to seek clarification of areas of high interest. The data from the Delphi provided varying responses and levels of support or critique for the programme. Respondents asked many questions, often seeking context for the programme or querying the choices of language use in the matrix or the overall operation of the community of learners.
No concrete conclusions about the potential effectiveness of a critical adult financial education delivered via the proposed programme were obtained from the Delphi inquiry. Instead, the results showed that further clarification and contextualisation of the programme was sought by the majority of respondents. Respondents sought the inclusion of achievement criteria within the matrix even though this was antithetical to the intentions of the design. Regarding the community of learners approach, the respondents were sceptical about whether an effective learning dynamic could be created considering the usually personal nature of financial learning. The purpose of adult education and adult financial education was examined as a part of the inquiry, which revealed that expectations of financial education are often so deeply entrenched in mainstream discourses that the notion of a critical approach is rejected even in theory. Overall the data showed that this programme, or possibly any critically located financial education programme, would be unlikely to find widespread support from those operating in mainstream financial education
Quality of life and wellbeing among HIV outpatients in East Africa: a multicentre observational study.
Full text linkBACKGROUND: Global health investment has reduced HIV mortality and transmission. However, little is known of patient-reported outcomes alongside ART rollout. This study aimed to measure wellbeing using patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS) among outpatients at PEPFAR-funded facilities. METHODS: In a multicentre 2 country cross-sectional study, adults attending 12 facilities in Kenya and Uganda gave self-reported data on quality of life (physical and mental wellbeing dimensions), functional and a measure of multidimensional problems (physical, psychological, social and spiritual). RESULTS: Among the 1,337 participants, multidimensional problems were more common in psychological, spiritual and social domains than in physical. In multivariable analysis using GEE to adjust for facility effect, the mental health subscale of quality of life was lower for people with limited functional status (B = -5.27, 95% CI -5.99, 1. -4.56 p < 0.001) and higher for wealthier people (B = 0.91, 95% CI 0.48, 1.33, p < 0.001). The physical health subscale of quality of life was lower for those with limited functional status (B = -8.58, 95% CI -9.46 to -7.70, p < 0.001) and those who had a caregiver present (B = -1.97, 95% CI -3.72 to -0.23, p = 0.027), higher for wealthier people (B = 1.14, 95% CI 0.65, 1.64, p < 0.001), and positively associated with CD4 count (B = 1.61, 95% CI 1.08-2.14, p < 0.001). Multidimensional problems were more burdensome for people with limited functional status (B = -2.06, 95% CI -2.46 to -1.66, p < 0.001), and less burdensome with more education (B = 0.63, 95% CI 0.25-1.00, p = 0.001) or ART use (B = 0.94, 95% CI 0.34-1.53, p = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: Multidimensional problems are highly prevalent, and worse with declining function. Importantly, ART use does not appear to be protective for self-reported physical and mental dimensions of quality of life. Assessment and management of self-reported wellbeing must form part of HIV care and treatment services to ensure maximum benefit from ART investment
Estimating the contents of Chlorophyll, Nitrogen, and Yields on Rice through Sentinel-2 Vegetation Indices in Heterogeneous Land Management
Full text linkAddressing the global food demand is an urgent priority for governments worldwide. Efficient and effective methods for gauging crop production are crucial. Relying solely on ground-based measurements proves inefficient and expensive, prompting exploration of remote sensing using vegetation indices as a viable alternative. This study sought to achieve three objectives: estimating chlorophyll content in paddy fields, evaluating leaf nitrogen content, and predicting yields. The investigation utilized Sentinel-2A satellite imagery, Soil Plant Analysis Development (SPAD) for chlorophyll measurement, and employed statistical and accuracy analyses. Findings revealed an increase in chlorophyll and leaf nitrogen content from the vegetative to maturity phases, followed by a decline at maturity. NDVI and GNDVI emerged as superior to SAVI and VARI for chlorophyll estimation, attributed to their spectral sensitivity. Likewise, nitrogen prediction showed similar trends, with NDVI and GNDVI exhibiting better RMSE values compared to SAVI and VARI, albeit marginally. However, yield prediction accuracy varied, with NDVI proving most accurate, followed by SAVI, VARI, and GNDVI, indicating the latter's reduced predictive precision due to nitrogen sensitivity. In scenarios where nitrogen is not the predominant yield-limiting factor, NDVI could outperform GNDVI in forecasting yield. Received: 2023-07-22 Revised: 2024-04-18 Accepted: 2024-08-24 Published: 2024-10-10
Current concepts on oxidative/carbonyl stress, inflammation and epigenetics in pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Full text linkChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a global health problem. The current therapies for COPD are poorly effective and the mainstays of pharmacotherapy are bronchodilators. A better understanding of the pathobiology of COPD is critical for the development of novel therapies. In the present review, we have discussed the roles of oxidative/aldehyde stress, inflammation/immunity, and chromatin remodeling in the pathogenesis of COPD. An imbalance of oxidants/antioxidants caused by cigarette smoke and other pollutants/biomass fuels plays an important role in the pathogenesis of COPD by regulating redox-sensitive transcription factors (e.g., NF-κB), autophagy and unfolded protein response leading to chronic lung inflammatory response. Cigarette smoke also activates canonical/alternative NF-κB pathways and their upstream kinases leading to sustained inflammatory response in lungs. Recently, epigenetic regulation has been shown to be critical for the development of COPD because the expression/activity of enzymes that regulate these epigenetic modifications have been reported to be abnormal in airways of COPD patients. Hence, the significant advances made in understanding the pathophysiology of COPD as described herein will identify novel therapeutic targets for intervention in COPD
Travestien über Fuchs und Rabe
No full textHere are seventy-five German presentations of FC, starting from Martin Luther's. They are fun! They certainly go in different directions. I have not read the commentary from Freud, but I have enjoyed the Notarikon from Friedrich Logau (12), a puzzling version from an unknown poet (19), Joseph von Eichendorff's akrostichon (25), Wagner's alliterative version Füchse fressen fröhlich (33), Wilhelm Busch's verse (36), Arthur Conan-Doyle's Geheimnisse eines Schlossparks (42), five German limericks (60), Knäbli und Räbli for first-grade schoolchildren (78), and a script for a television presentation for children (94). Just as she returns home from shopping, Herr Fuchs asks Frau Rabe if he might borrow her newspaper. She goes into the house to get it for him, and returns of course to find that the cheese is gone from her shopping bag. There is a short essay on the meaning of Travestie by the author at the very end.This is a hardbound book (hard cover)This book has a dust jacket (book cover)Language note: GermanGerhard Grümme
[Perkembangan Penggunaan Big Data pada Bidang Pertanian di Indonesia] : Review
Full text linkSektor pertanian menghadapi banyak masalah, terutama di negara berkembang, dan masalah ini sangat membutuhkan solusi yang sangat tergantung pada kemanfaatan teknologi seperti data besar, mesin pertanian, dan inovasi modern lainnya. Tujuan review ini adalah mengkaji perkembangan penggunaan data besar dalam bidang pertanian di Indonesia, beberapa keunggulan dan kelemahan dan memberikan saran pengembangan penggunaan data besar di Indonesia. Hasil review lima aplikasi teknologi big data di Indonesia (HARA, E-Tani, Keraba Tani, KATAM dan Tandhur) menunjukkan bahwa aplikasi yang memanfaatkan big data tersebut masih dalam taraf awal pengembangan. Review ini memberikan rekomendasi aspek aspek yang secara potensial bisa dikembangkan
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