This paper explores the discrepancy between the protection available to traditional refugees—as defined in art 1A(2) of the Refugee Convention—and other displaced people, including migrants and internally displaced people (IDPs), and the protection available to people displaced due to climate-related factors. This paper proposes changes to the current definitions as a way to secure protection rights for those displaced due to climate-related factors, without having to change the current legal framework or create a new one. The paper begins by examining the current legal definitions, highlighting precedents for changing the legal definitions of refugees over the years. It then presents the rationale for the proposed changes, describing three common scenarios to demonstrate the plight of those displaced due to climaterelated factors, before offering recommendations to secure their protection under both international and domestic law.
Is there a correlation between someone’s relationship to Biblical text and their views of gender equality? To answer this question, 159 individuals were surveyed, and five women were interviewed. Rather than focusing on more abstract questions to measure one’s perceived views of gender equality (e.g. you believe men and women are equal?), this study zeroed in on the question Do you believe that women can be in all forms of church leadership and carry the title of pastor? Focusing in on this question, the survey data revealed three data points which had a direct correlation—the self-reported gender identity of the participant, the participant’s believed gender of God, and the participant’s belief regarding errancy of Biblical text—while the interviews revealed one data point that had direct correlation: the believed gender of God.
Cold War historians tend to overlook Congress’s role in shaping U.S. foreign policy, focusing instead on the executive branch. As a result, scholars have not sufficiently scrutinized the legislature’s influence on foreign relations. The 1970s saw the rise of an unusually activist Congress after public trust in the presidency eroded due to the combination of the unpopular Vietnam War and the extended political fallout from President Nixon’s Watergate scandal. This article helps fill in the historiographic gap by honing in on a specific political flashpoint in the House over the military budget for 1974. In 1973, a bipartisan coalition of Congress members tried to find a “peace dividend” in the budget by making significant cuts to Pentagon appropriations for the following year. This effort broadly polarized the House into a dovish faction and a hawkish faction, each coalescing around a charismatic leader. The doves followed the lead of Congressman Les Aspin (D-WI), while the pro-war House members rallied around Congressman F. Edward Hebert (D-LA). Government records, the memoirs of many of the legislators involved, and Congressman Hebert’s personal records, a part of Tulane University’s Louisiana Research collection, reveal the budget fight’s important implications concerning the history of the U.S. militarism.
This exploratory research project investigates the ways in which formal and informal sex education during high school influences an individual’s development of their sexual identity. Due to changes in federal funding, formal sex education curriculum shifted from an abstinence-only model to a medical model, which focuses on information regarding birth control and self-health. Attending to this change, this research focuses on persons who attended high school during two specific periods: 2006-2010 and 2014-2016. After the primary investigator submitted an application to the UCCS IRB, IRB 19-079 and received approval, twelve semi-structured interviews, with six participants in each time period were conducted. This exploratory project used a snowball technique to recruit participants for this study. Based on analysis, participants’ narratives in the 2014-2016-cohort showed movement away from the use of abstinence-only (AO) education. In both cohorts three major themes were visible: a strong use of fear tactics in the delivery of sex education, a “Mean Girl” method of teaching, and a clear connection between messages learned by individuals during high school regarding sex that have contributed to the shaping of their overall and sexual identity. After conducting this research and analyzing the experiences and information shared by participants, it is clear that the formal and/or informal education individuals received from both cohorts was on a basis of fear and shaming tactics, which continues to affect the ways in which these individuals view and engage with sex in their own lives.
The Cantuna chapel within the St. Francis complex in Quito, Ecuador, was one of the first churches built after the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Named after its native builder Cantuna, the chapel strongly relates to the Incan sun deity, Inti. According to common belief, Spanish accounts place the Franciscan complex atop the palace-temple of the Incan ruler, Inti's incarnation. In this research, I examined vital elements, such as the gilded altarpiece, in Quito's Cantuna Chapel. I argued that the chapel acts as a monument that records Indigenous identities through the Cara, Inca, and Spanish conquests by preserving an aspect of native culture in a material format that transcends time. Most importantly, because the Cantuna chapel remains the least altered viceregal church in the region, it is a valuable testament to the various conquests and religious conversions of the Kingdom of Quito.
This essay investigates the connections between the experiences of multilingual students in L2 composition and the principal appeals of Western rhetoric. The purpose in doing so is to illustrate ways in which writers might be improved in the classroom with little to no expense to their specific ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Closer inspection of these connections suggests that in learning how to negotiate conformity to linguistic expectations and expression of self, educators can maintain the authenticity of student personas and still stimulate improvement and achievement in multilingual student writing.
Are fairy tales still receiving cultural significance in modern-day mediums – such as within the gaming industry? This essay aims to answer that question by analyzing the relationship The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has with Masculinity and Queer Theory, and how this directly parallels the lesser-known fairy tale of Iron Hans, written by the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. By analyzing other significant scholars of fairy tale literature, this paper shows that the conversation of modern-day fairy tales can be applied to new mediums and shed new light into areas unexplored.
This research explores three artists during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) who utilized a surrealist aesthetic while promoting the causes of the Fascist, Nationalist front through their work. By focusing on artists Salvador Dali, Alfonso Ponce de Leon, and Jose Caballero, the usage of “Fascist Surrealism” is explored to analyze its stylistic differences with “traditional Surrealism”. Through paintings and variations in artistic techniques this research questions what factors led to the usage of Surrealism, a movement founded with a fundamentally anti-Fascist, left-wing, agenda, by artists who held vastly different political beliefs. This research examines prior political activities of the conventional Surrealist movement to illustrate their attempts at political change, and the factors that led to argumentation and disagreement among the group’s members. By analyzing its foundational characteristics, Surrealism’s ideological basis is compared with that of Fascism to identify their shared features, and the possible factors that led to their convergence.
The word “south” in American southern literature is often excluded into a common definition and heavily stigmatized. Many writers suggest that it is time to remove the imaginary borders and stigmas encompassing the South, such as those attached to slavery, the civil war, and religious devotion. One such border is the generalization that it is possessed by a singular faith, namely a protestant centered faith. This stagnant faith hanging over the South is conflicted by the variety of faith found in contemporary southern fictional literature. This research elaborates on the definition of the South by introducing a new perspective of faith presented in American southern fiction. Particularly, this research analyzes how three short stories represent multiple versions of faith through the narration, character actions, and literary language used. The representations of faith outlined in this essay include faith in physical works, in the inherent goodness of humanity, and in personal redemption.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently declared gender equality to be ‘the unfinished business of our time’.1 Equality of opportunity, regardless of sex, seems a clear and accepted goal for policymakers. However, in most countries, progress remains slow. This report explores how, and why, some strategies for pursuing gender equality are failing to achieve progress. For decades, education has been promoted as an invaluable tool for promoting gender equality.2 However, research into education in Myanmar challenges this assumption. Women outnumber men at every stage of education, yet remain economically repressed and politically underrepresented. Our research explores why traditional education reform is failing the women of Myanmar. Through policy analyses and interviews conducted in schools, communities, and political arenas, we investigate the disjunction between increased participation of women in education and improvements in post-education outcomes. By affirming existing gender inequality, the current education system is creating an unbroken cycle of discriminatory attitudes and outcomes. We recommend integrated reform of Myanmar’s school curriculum, examination structure, teacher training, and resourcing. By redefining children’s experience in school, Myanmar’s government can transform education into a tool to empower, not repress, the women it shapes.
Influenza is a significant source of morbidity and mortality both worldwide and also in the United States. In the U.S., the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates over 490,000 hospitalizations and 34,000 deaths during the 2018-2019 influenza season [2]. The objective of this research is to determine the epidemiologically important parameters of the H1N1 influenza virus such as the infection and recovery rates using mathematical modeling. Publicly available influenza incidence data from the CDC webpage was used to validate the mathematical model. The spread of the H1N1 influenza virus is modeled using the Susceptible-InfectedRecovered (SIR) compartmental model. To account for vaccination and treatment of the virus, SIVR and SITR models are considered. The models were run on the computer software MATLAB to compare the predictions of the model to the CDC data. To ensure the model’s precision, the parameters were manipulated so that the model predictions could mirror the data. It was found that the 2018-2019 season H1N1 influenza infection rate is 0.2567 per day and the recovery rate is 0.1774 per day. Finally, the identifiability of the models was analyzed through Monte Carlo Simulations, which were performed on MATLAB. The results show that the average relative errors of all the model parameters remained lower than the measurement errors. Thus, these results validate the identifiability of the epidemiological models considered in this study and the reliability of the parameter estimates.
Gene Expression and Epigenetic Regulation of Dopamine D2 Receptor and Fibroblast Growth Factor Genes in Addiction-Like Behaviour in Rat Model
CRISPR/Cas9 technology facilitates gene editing by removing or adding nucleotides at specific DNA sequences. This results in a gene removal (knock-out) or insertion (knock-in), thus causing a cell to manipulate gene expression. Using Agrobacterium-mediated DNA delivery, CRISPR/Cas9 was utilized to genetically modify a transgenic RM-1 tobacco plant that expresses a reporter gene, β Glucuronidase (GUS). The CRISPR/Cas9 integrated plants, named HaG, were regenerated, and the presence of Cas9 gene in these plants was confirmed by qPCR. The T1 and T2 progenies of the HaG plants were screened for effective gene editing by GUS staining assays. The GUS negative plants were selected and grown; the DNA was then extracted, sequenced, and compared to the original GUS gene sequence. Our results demonstratethat GUS expression had diminished in the CRISPR plants. DNA sequencing showed a deletion occurred in the expected coding region of the GUS gene, this resulted in a gene knock-down instead of a complete knockout.
Within the United States public education system, many teachers encounter feelings of demoralization. They feel they can no longer access the inherent moral benefits that initially drew them to have the desire to teach in the first place. This study examined the contributing factors that cause demoralization feelings amongst public educators and the long-term implications for the institution and the students it serves. Factors such as the teaching environment, administrative support, and state-mandated curriculum and testing contribute to a loss of control and ability to serve their students and community best. Analysis of a teacher’s anecdote indicates dissatisfaction with the profession due to demoralization. A demoralizing teaching environment can cause teachers to leave the profession as a whole. Departure from a career as an educator damages the teacher and negatively affects the students and districts that must fill vacant classroom teaching positions. Analysis of literature creates recommendations for further research and open dialogue between teachers, colleagues, and supervisors.
