ECOSYSTEM APPROACH AS A MECHANISM FOR INVESTIGATING THE REGIONAL SYSTEM OF ADDITIONAL EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN

Государственная политика в сфере образования определяет значимость дополнительного образования детей как элемента общей системы выявления и развития талантов и способностей у детей и молодежи. Дополнительное образование, являясь подсистемой общего образования, в региональном контексте рассматривается как открытая вариативная педагогическая система, работающая на достижение общенациональной цели по развитию талантов и самореализации подрастающего поколения. Отвечая вызовам современности, постепенно формируются новые региональные практики управления сферой дополнительного образования, включающие активные горизонтальные и межуровневые связи, интеграцию внеинституциональных поставщиков образовательных услуг в общий содержательный контур, децентрализацию управленческих механизмов. Рассматриваемое как основа «образования в течение жизни» понятие «дополнительное образование детей» приобретает новые смысловые характеристики, включающие требования к содержанию образовательных результатов, преемственность образовательных программ, ориентацию на различные категории обучающихся. Для разрешения противоречия между складывающейся региональной практикой и недостаточной научной обоснованностью используемых подходов требуется переосмысление традиционно применяемых исследователями методологических подходов к управлению сферой дополнительного образования на региональном уровне. Предпринята попытка применения экосистемного подхода к описанию сферы дополнительного образования в условиях конвергентной образовательной среды. The state policy in the field of education actualizes the importance of additional education of children as an element of the overall system for identifying and developing talents and abilities in children and young people. Additional education, being a subsystem of general education, is considered in the regional context as an open variable pedagogical system that works to achieve the national goal of developing talents and self-realization of the younger generation. Responding to the challenges of our time, new regional practices of managing the field of additional education are gradually being formed, including active horizontal and inter-level relations, integration of non-institutional educational service providers into the general content circuit, and decentralization of management mechanisms. Considered as the basis of “long life education”, the concept of “additional education of children” acquires new semantic characteristics, including requirements for the content of educational results, continuity of educational programs, orientation to different categories of students. To resolve the contradiction between the emerging regional practice and the lack of scientific validity of the approaches used, it is necessary to rethink the methodological approaches traditionally used by researchers to manage the field of additional education at the regional level. The article attempts to apply an ecosystem approach to the description of the field of additional education in a convergent educational environment.

Autonomous Service Drones for Multimodal Detection and Monitoring of Archaeological Sites

Constant detection and monitoring of archaeological sites and objects have always been an important national goal for many countries. The early identification of changes is crucial to preventive conservation. Archaeologists have always considered using service drones to automate collecting data on and below the ground surface of archaeological sites, with cost and technical barriers being the main hurdles against the wide-scale deployment. Advances in thermal imaging, depth imaging, drones, and artificial intelligence have driven the cost down and improved the quality and volume of data collected and processed. This paper proposes an end-to-end framework for archaeological sites detection and monitoring using autonomous service drones. We mount RGB, depth, and thermal cameras on an autonomous drone for low-altitude data acquisition. To align and aggregate collected images, we propose two-stage multimodal depth-to-RGB and thermal-to-RGB mosaicking algorithms. We then apply detection algorithms to the stitched images to identify change regions and design a user interface to monitor these regions over time. Our results show we can create overlays of aligned thermal and depth data on RGB mosaics of archaeological sites. We tested our change detection algorithm and found it has a root mean square error of 0.04. To validate the proposed framework, we tested our thermal image stitching pipeline against state-of-the-art commercial software. We cost-effectively replicated its functionality while adding a new depth-based modality and created a user interface for temporally monitoring changes in multimodal views of archaeological sites.

Trend of Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Ethiopian Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2000-2018)

Background. Ethiopia is one of the tropical countries with a heavy burden of soil-transmitted helminths. As a result, the nation has been implementing mass drug administration, water, sanitation, and hygiene and health extension programs to control those parasites. Hence, updated data about the prevalence and trend of parasites over time has a pivotal role to assess the success of existing control programs. Methods. Studies conducted between 2000 and 2018 were searched from PubMed, Google Scholar, and local journals for systematic reviews and meta-analysis following the PRISMA guideline and checklists. Eligible studies were selected based on preset inclusion and exclusion criteria. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale in meta-analysis. Heterogeneity between studies was assessed using the Cochran Q test and I 2 test statistics based on the random effect model. Comprehensive meta-analysis (CMA 2.0) was used to calculate the pooled prevalence, and metaregression was run to assess the trend of parasite prevalence over time. Results. Thirty-eight studies recruiting 16,266 participants were included in the review. The pooled prevalence of intestinal parasites was 52.0% (95% CI: 44.4-59.5). Amhara region was with the highest prevalence (60.3%; 95% CI: 50.1-69.6). Among soil-transmitted helminths, Ascaris lumbricoides (11.2%; 95% CI: 8.4-14.8) was with the highest pooled prevalence followed by hookworms (10.4%; 95% CI: 7.9-13.7) and Trichuris trichiura (3.6%; 95% CI: 2.4-5.4). Metaregression analysis revealed that all soil-transmitted helminths did not show a significantly decreasing trend over time ( p > 0.05 ). Conclusion. Despite various control efforts having been made, soil-transmitted helminths are of high distribution, and their prevalence is not significantly decreasing in Ethiopia. Hence, other control approaches like community-led sanitation should be integrated with mass drug administration to achieve the national goal of soil-transmitted helminth elimination by 2025.

Grand Strategy and Foreign Policy: How Grand Strategy Can Aid Bangladesh's Foreign Policy Rethinking?

There has been much talk lately about the rethinking of foreign policy of Bangladesh in the post-Cold War ‘new world order’. This article argues that formulation of grand strategy can aid to Bangladesh’s foreign policy and contribute to the rethinking of Bangladesh’s foreign policy. The article investigates the root of misconception about grand strategy and discusses the modern meaning of grand strategy in the 21st century. The article also discusses relations of foreign policy and grand strategy and their place in the statecraft. Through examining secondary literature the article illustrates how grand strategy can aid Bangladesh’s foreign policy and can contribute to the rethinking of Bangladesh’s foreign policy by giving rationale to Bangladesh’s foreign policy, giving better foreign policy direction, helping to prioritize goals of foreign policy, aiding to take cautious foreign policy, cementing consistent foreign policy, seeking long term national goal, undertaking proactive foreign policy and even aiding to shape emerging regional future. The article concludes advocating for furtheradvanced research regarding grand strategy in Bangladesh.

Evaluation of relative performance of Indian states in PV resource utilization through MPI

To participate in the global fight against climate change, India has set an aggressive target of installing 100 GW of photovoltaic (PV) energy resources by 2022. However, only about 37% of this target is achieved till date, and, presently, the set target appears to be elusive. Hence it is crucial and the need of the hour to analyze the performance of different utilities to identify the regions that need a course correction. In the present work, the relative performance of the Indian states in realizing the national target of PV installed capacity is analyzed through the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. Time series analysis of the PV sector’s growth in different Indian states over the period 2017–2021 is quantified through the Malmquist productivity index (MPI). The applied methodology revealed that Rajasthan, which has the highest PV potential and second-highest PV installed capacity, is less productive than the small hilly states and union territories, which have meager PV potential. The result provides insight into the factors contributing to the inefficiencies in the development of the PV energy sector, which will help the policymakers take necessary corrective actions to improve the states’ productivity and thereby contribute more effectively to the national goal. The work may be extended to other regions of the world to strengthen the global effort to fight climate change.

Increasing Forest Cover for a CO2 Neutral Future: Costa Rica Case Study

In the last quarter of 2020 the Costa Rican Ministry for the Environment and Energy (MINAE), announced the signing of two major agreements, the first for US$63 million with the World Bank cooperative program for forest emissions reductions, and the second for US$54 million with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) under the results-based program. These two agreements, are the last of the first-generation of Payment for environmental services (PES), signifying the culmination of a long process that attained a reduction of 14.7 million tC02e for the results-based payment with the GCF and 12 million tCO2e emissions fixed in regenerated forestland and forest fires control with the WB.The first generation of PES was critical in the country´s effort to increase forest cover from the lowest historic point of 21% in 1987 to 57% mark by 2017. There is, however, a new national goal to become CO2 neutral by 2050 as recommended by the Paris agreement since 2015. As a consequence, Costa Rica pledge to further increase forest cover, fixed CO2 in soils and combat forest fires.Costa Rica is one of more than 120 countries committing -under the Paris agreement-to become CO2 neutral by 2050. To achieve this goal each country needs to transform every economic sectors in order to become carbon neutral, either by reducing emissions or by compensating at the national level. However, the country is reaching its maximum capacity to increase forest cover, hence, it needs to consider an integral approach to reach the c-neutral goal. This approach requires to keep generation of electricity based on renewables; to switch transportation from fossil fuels dependency to a cleaner source of energy; and to use every available land to fix as much carbon as possible. That means ensuring the most effective and efficient use of the forest cover that exists today and shifting the focus from a primarily quantitative measurement of forest cover, to a new one that further values the qualitative benefits of species utilized and services produced. In addition, halting deforestation in sensitive areas, increasing forest coverage in areas still available (approximately 3% for forest and 5% for agroforestry) incorporating agroforestry, silvopastoral and multi-use systems that will allow for more sustainable production systems, increasing ecosystem services.Nevertheless, the government’s plan will only succeed if there are negative CO2 emissions from the land use sector (therefore compensating emissions added in other economic sectors); which will require a second-generation of PES (PES 2.0), evolving to an inter sectorial economic instrument. MINAE is currently working on this second-generation instrument. The new PES 2.0 should concentrate in ecosystem services rather than only in forest service and should promote the conversion of land under agricultural production (i.e. cattle and diary) into agroforestry operations. Costa Rica also need to replace the PES funding sources coming mainly from the 1996 fossil fuel tax, ideas such as CO2 trade may provide on future funding option. This paper syntheses government pledges, interviews and the authors’ experience working with the first generation of PES, and presents initial recommendations to increase the effectiveness and impact of PES 2.0.

A Study to Assess the Knowledge regarding Blood Donation among Non Medical Students of selected Colleges of Mount Abu, (Rajasthan)

Introduction: Blood transfusion is a medical procedure that is designed to provide patients who need Blood or blood products to correct a defect .Secure supply of safe blood components; Based on voluntary, non-remunerated blood donation is an important national goal to Prevent blood shortages. Now a day, in many low and middle income countries, blood Supply is critically inadequate. We therefore set out to determine knowledge regarding Blood donation among non-medical students. Design: A Descriptive Survey research design. Participants: 100 Non Medical Students were selected using Probability Simple random sampling technique in selected colleges of Mount Abu, Rajasthan. Tool: Self Structured Questionnaire was used to assess the level of Knowledge of Non Medical Students regarding Blood Donation. Results: In this study overall the highest percentage in the demographic data including the Age group 50% (20- 22), Gender 54% (Female), Religion 90% (Hindu), Residence 46% (Rural), Monthly Income 644% (less than 10000), father education 36% (primary education), mother’s education 64% (no formal education), father occupation 50% (others), mothers occupation 88% (house wife). Majority of students (46%) of non-medical students were having poor knowledge regarding blood donation, (32%) having average knowledge, (18%) having good knowledge and only 4% having excellent knowledge. Findings revealed that there was significant association between age and level of knowledge at 0.05.Conclusion: The result of study clearly shows that there is poor knowledge regarding blood donation among Non-Medical Students. Further research and multi centric studies required to assess the real problem behind their lacking knowledge.

NATIONAL RESILIENCE STRENGTHEN THROUGH THE RESERVE COMPONENT TO RESIST NON-MILITARY THREATS

National Resilience is a nation dynamic condition, and a nation struggle to achieve national goal will be disturbed. National identity, national integration and national life sustainability have stronger than threat, challenge, disturbance and obstacle. This research uses qualitative research method to analyze potential threat, challenge, disturbing and obstacle for Indonesia, which come both from internal and external sources and national resources to face them. , potential threat will be dominated by nonmilitary threat. The Indonesia Armed Forces ( Nasional Indonesia), as the main component in Indonesia should face the potential threat. But TNI has its limitations, supporting power is necessary, and one of the potential powers is national resources which or converted to reserve component. The role of reserve component in future will contribute to Indonesia national resilience strengthen efforts.