Helping other women succeed



APRIL 28, 2023. One of our graduates, Kathryn Morrow, is founder of The White Picket Fence Project, marriage coaching that keeps families together. Having operated 7-figure businesses and become known for sustaining her marriage through adversity, Morrow helps women who are feeling lost, unstable and insecure develop as strong, powerful people who can show up in their relationship and business and grow in every aspect of their lives.

Kathryn works successfully with her own husband and is trained by The Gottman Institute and qualified in therapeutic modalities such as Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), marriage therapy, sex therapy, addiction recovery and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Her flagship program, The 6-figure Nap, teaches parent entrepreneurs how to make $100k per year while their kids are sleeping. Read some of her advice in the article ‘6 Strategies For Successfully Working With Your Romantic Partner’ at Forbes website: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jodiecook/2023/05/15/6- strategies-for-successfully-working- with-your-romantic-partner/ amp/ Kathryn Morrow has completed a program in Master of Science at Atlantic International University and received CUM LAUDE honors.

18th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON Interdisciplinary Social Sciences



Call for Papers This Conference will be held 19–21 July 2023 at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK. We invite proposals for paper presentations, workshops/ interactive sessions, posters/ exhibits, colloquia, focused discussions, innovation showcases, virtual posters, or virtual lightning talks.

2023 Special Focus:
“Agency in an Era of Displacement and Social Change” Theme 1: Social and Community Studies. Theme 2: Civic and political studies. Theme 3: Cultural studies. Theme 4: Global studies. Theme 5: Environmental studies. Theme 6: Organizational studies.

Theme 7: Educational studies. Theme 8: Communication. Become a Presenter:

1. Submit a proposal
2. Review timeline
3. Register
Final registration deadline July 19, 2022 Visit the website: https://thesocialsciences.com

Graduated with Distinction



JUNE, 2023. This graduate student completed their program with a high cumulative grade point average, which reflects the quality of performance within their major. Congratulations!

DISTINCTION
Ndawo Victorine
Doctor of Finance
Quantitative Finance FIND MORE NEWS FROM AIU FAMILY

Anita’s path to independence



By Raúl Barragán, Anita’s Father | Excerpt

Introduction All parents want our children to be independent when they have reached their full development and therefore a professional degree, but when you have a person in the family who was born with some type of difficulty, that desire becomes more difficult and this is the case of Anita Carolina, who was born with Down Syndrome. She is currently 39 years old and has just finished her higher studies in Gastronomy at Atlantic International University (AIU). The paths that have been taken to reach that goal have been long and very hard, and what has allowed Anita to obtain her professional degree has been her perseverance and the help of her family. The goal has been for her to be an independent person, who can carry out the activities that are presented to her inside the home and outside it, for which tasks were carried out that allowed little by little to train Anita with the ability to generate a habit. of work. This allowed her to complete her studies in an important profession related to food preparation.

The first years The birth of Anita and the diagnosis of Down Syndrome caused a lot of pain and concern in the family. The most difficult thing was not knowing how to face this difficulty, since all the medical diagnoses were aimed at the fact that she was going to have numerous difficulties both in health as in learning, that is, everything was negative for us. At that point, the willpower of her mother Alicia was born. She stated that she would move her daughter forward and it was concluded that with dedication Alicia would try to partially overcome all the problems that according to the specialists Anita Carolina was going to have. She began with all kinds of therapies such as physical and language, until she was able to walk and speak correctly. Then she entered and finished her primary studies. I have to point out that the only girl in the classroom with a disability was Anita. After completing elementary school, she began a learning process in ceramic making, where he remained for seven years, always with the help of our family, which included Alicia, her mother, Víctor Raúl, the brother, and me, her father. Unfortunately, in 2005, after a long illness, Alicia passed away and everything was interrupted, because the family felt very affected and it took us some time to recover from the loss of the person who was the center of kindness and affection. Anita was 21 years old at the time.

High school studies Later, Anita was enrolled in a distance high school. I must point out that I was always with her, so the obstacles were gradually overcome. I believe that everything has been possible due to Anita’s willpower and desire to learn, she was always very helpful... [and] she obtained her bachelor’s degree.

Her training in food preparation Anita had great cooking skills, so she began preparing all kinds of food at home. ... Each day, three people were in charge of giving the final verdict regarding the presentation, colour, flavor and aroma of each dish she prepared.

Her admission to AIU At that time, it was necessary to find an alternative in a university that would improve Anita’s knowledge and thus support her to obtain a professional degree. Everything we were looking for was offered by AIU, where we were given all the facilities so that she could enroll and continue her studies. I must point out that we always had the necessary help from each of teachers and tutors at the university. Now Anita is a graduate, she reached a goal that at the beginning was just a dream. Thanks to all who make up the AIU teaching and administrative staff, today she feels very proud to be a professional in Gastronomy.

Conclusions 1. Every effort leads to a reward and that is what Anita has achieved. 2. We can only achieve our independence through study, as this allows us to better prepare ourselves to face the difficulties that arise in life. 3. It is harder when a person has some type of limitation, but that is what parents are for, to help their children overcome difficulties. 4. We should always find a way for our children to develop independently in all activities of life. 5. The education that Anita has received at AIU will allow her to be independent, because she had excellent tutors who trained her to practice her profession —Gastronomy.




Sapalo Anibal Estevao
Master of Economics
Economics
Angola
Patricia Rosana Renaudo Astudillo
Bachelor of Science
Psychology
Argentina
Florence Yasmine Andrews
Doctor of Develop ment Studies
Development Studies
Belize
Dinla Henry
Master of Accounting
Accounting
Cameroo n
Kouatedzo Jean Paul
Master of Logistics
Logistics
Cameroo n
Idam, Christiana Ogboali
Master of Social and Human Studies
Humanitarian Studies
Chad
           
Nereida Mosquera Delgado
Bachelor of Science
Psychology
Chile
Jonathan Ominyi Ahulo
Master of Science
Information Technology
China
Gina Paola Vergara Torres
Doctor of Science
Psychology
Colombia
Fifi Mongo Mariana
Bachelor of Business Administration
Business Administration
Congo (DRC )
Freddy Gabriel Abarca Rojas
Master of Science
Civil Engineering
Costa Rica
Luis Maria Hernández Vargas
Doctor of Education
Andragogy
Dominican Republic
           
Ana Iris Areche Veloz
Bachelor of Psychology
Organizational Psychology
Dominican Republic
Jesse Miguel Mazara Villa
Bachelor of Systems Engineering
Systems Engineering
Dominican Republic
Nelia Francisca Babo Soares da Silva
Master of Science
Public Health
East Timor
Ramona Raquel Sinoha Lopete
Doctor of Philosop hy
Finance and Administration
Equatorial Guinea
Hamda Milkeso Irkeso
Doctor of Science
Civil Engineering
Ethiop ia
Nejat Girma Wakjira
Doctor of Philosop hy
International Relations
Ethiop ia
           
Sandeepa Chavan
Doctor of Education
Education
Ghana
Pablo Ignacio Huertas López
Bachelor of Science
Information Systems
Guatemala
Ramiro Morales Sazo
Master of Business Administration
Business Administration
Guatemala
Panchami Manish Mistry
Doctor of Arts
Fashion Design
India
Liran Brenner
Doctor of Philosop hy
Computer Science
Israel
Kalesha Latania Henlon
Doctor of Education
Education
Jamaica
           
Thomas Kitingu Ndambu
Master of Public Health
Public Health
Kenya
Mary Mutua
Bachelor of Science
Psychology
Kenya
Peter Mahfouz
Doctor of Philosop hy
Social and Human Development
Leba non
Evelyn Serwaa Gyasi
Doctor of Architecture
Arch. Psychology and Sust. Int. Env. Design
Madagascar
Peter Nkosi
Doctor of Philosop hy
Strategic Management
Malawi
Festus Uwakhemen Asikhia
Post-Doctorate of Psychology
Governance and Leadership
Nigeria
           
Sam Kweki Andenyang
Doctor of Philosop hy
Human Studies
Nigeria
Joseph Mejida Ikwulono
Doctor of Health Economics
Health Economics
Nigeria
Abba Oluwaniyi Peter
Doctor of Philosop hy
Transportation and Logistics
Nigeria
Lurys Bourdett Stanziola
Doctor of Science
Virology
Panama
Isabel Del Carmen Leguías Ayala
Doctor of Science
Information Technology
Panama
José Alejandro Martínez Cáceres
Bachelor of Science
Nutrition Sciences
Peru
           
Rone Alexis
Doctor of Arts
Special Education
Saint Lucia
Caleb Ravie Paul
Master of Science
Psychology
Saint Lucia
Olivette Linda Barnette
Bachelor of Tourism Management
Planning and Development
Sierra Leone
Isatu Bangura
Bachelor of Business Management
Coaching and Leadership
Sierra Leone
Edmond Kposowa
Master of Project Management
Project Management
Sierra Leone
Eddy Rhulani Arnold Khosa
Doctor of Philosop hy
Leadership and Change Management
South Africa
           
José Joaquín Solís Santos
Bachelor of Political Science
Social Policies
Spa in
Luai Hussain Adam Ahmed
Bachelor of International Relations
International Relations
Sudan
Gerald Samwel Ng'ong'a
Bachelor of Arts
Leadership
Tanzania
Sybris Abiola Harvey
Master of Science
Clinical Psychology
Trinidad and Toba go
Arda Özertan
Bachelor of Science
Electrical Engineering
Türkiye
Beyhan Yildirim
Master of Arts
Human Behavior
Türkiye
           
Ali Uçak
Bachelor of Arts
Business Administration
Türkiye
Rosie Agoi
Doctor of Develop ment Studies
Development Studies
Uganda
Ragy R.Sabahelkhair Fadel Elmola
Master of Management
Project Management
United Arab Emirates
Luis Azahares Guevara
Master of Science
Mechanical Engineering
USA
Lourdes Farias Bartolomé
Bachelor of Communication
Communication Sciences
USA
Mauricio Jose Serpa Barros de Moura
Doctor of Science
Political Science
USA
           
Juan Carlos Wiski Liranzo
Bachelor of Science
Information Systems
USA
Cynthia Ifeoma Udeozor
Master of Arts
English Language
USA
Ndawo Victorine
Doctor of Finance
Quantitative Finance
USA
Shelly Antoinette Jack
Bachelor of Education
Education
USA
Jacqueline Ella Valveta Chevers
Doctor of Business Administration
Business Administration
USA
Annette Mpundu Chipeleme
Master of Science
Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Zambia

Find More Graduates

Gallery: aiu.edu/Graduation/grids/currentgallery.html
Interviews: www.aiu.edu/Graduation/grids/interviews.html
This month we have graduates from: Angola · Argentina · Belize · Cameroon · Chad · Chile · China · Colombia · DRC · Costa Rica · Dominican Republic · East Timor · Equatorial Guinea · Ethiopia · Ghana · Guatemala · India · Israel · Jamaica · Kenya · Lebanon · Madagascar · Malawi · Nigeria · Panama · Peru · Saint Lucia · Sierra Leone · South Africa · Spain · Sudan · Tanzania · Trinidad and Tobago · Türkiye · Uganda · UAE · USA · Zambia


Forever learning

By Dr. Rosa Hilda Lora M. Advisor at AIU | rosa@aiu.edu


We are in a world that seems to be unknown: 1. Governments with leaders who exhibit the little knowledge they have. 2. A society with platforms and platforms without any regulation. 3. A society of lies. 4. Increase in poverty. 5. Decrease in the schooling of children and young people The aforementioned concepts were the ones that generated the 17 proposals to achieve a development that would allow well-being for all human beings: Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Those 17 development proposals would allow it to be so that life would be possible since what was seen to be happening was that all possibility of existence was ending. The 17 proposals were the result of the meeting of heads of government, representatives of civil society and the United Nations Organization (UN) at its 70th General Assembly, held in New York, in September 2015. It’s a sustainable development agenda for the people and by the people.

In the elaboration of this agenda there was an active participation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “To shift to a sustainable future, we need to rethink what, where and how we learn, to develop the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that enable us all to make informed decisions and take individual and collective action on pressing global issues, local, national and global”. Education for Sustainable Development– Road Map. 2020, p. 8. https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000374896 Depending on the proposed objective, the actions to be carried out are very evident. According on current life, the situation seems to have become more complicated with the development of Platforms with very little regulation where they publish all possible lies. Quality Education was the proposal to be achieved from 2015 to 2019 but given the experience we have, the problems generated by the Covid 19 pandemic, the agenda has been extended to 2030 and is known as the Sustainable Development Goals 4.7 agenda, which means: Sustainable Development Goals from number 4 integrated to 17. SDG 4.7 Learning is learning to live and act differently from how we are doing it. The way we live is without caring what we destroy. Without caring about the other.

Nowadays we are in which we have to destroy the other to achieve what we want instead of developing our skills. It seems that the important thing is to destroy. Aristotle and nature itself teach us that we are gregarious: a newborn can’t develop alone in its early life. We have to learn to take care of our livelihood and to develop the skills that are possible for us according to our biological heritage also to develop the skills that our culture offers us. “Putting digital technology at the service of lifelong learning for all • Launch of “Towards 2050 – digital learning technologies for the common and public good”. UNESCO. Adopt a Culture of Lifelong Learning. 2021, p. 9 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ ark:/48223/pf0000377810 Learning must be throughout life because otherwise we are left out of the world in which we live. We already have a considerable problem having generated a development without looking, anywhere, now we have to do what we didn’t achieve before and generate a sustainable way of life and achieve more learning so that what we live today doesn’t happen to us.

“The international community increasingly recognizes that lifelong learning —available to all, at every stage and in all spheres of people’s lives— is key to addressing the multiple challenges facing them. humanity faces” UNESCO. Adopt a culture of lifelong learning. 2021, p. 10 https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000377810 Life without learning what the world is becoming would be very difficult for every human being. Nowadays we live the consequences of the lack of learning due to the easy way in which the populist rulers appropriate the consciences of these human beings to achieve their objectives and do what they want with the peoples. UNESCO has, in Hamburg, Germany, an Institute for Lifelong Learning. The Institute has a focus on literacy, non-formal basic education, continuing education and adult education.

The Institute, among other activities, publishes. It also seats fellows, interns, and visiting researchers. UNESCO. UNESCO Institute for lifelong learning. https://www.uil.unesco. org/en/unesco-institute For there to be lifelong learning, Higher Education institutions offer support for it. We know that the objectives of Higher Education are teaching, dissemination of science and extension of culture. “…to achieve the vision formulated in the SDGs and articulated concretely in SDG 4, it will be necessary to substantially transform higher education institutions, in particular universities”. UNESCO. International Research Project: the contribution of higher education institutions to lifelong learning. https://uil.unesco.org/en/ long-life-learning/internationalresearch- project-contributionto- institutions Universities have proposals to help education throughout life, such as the Atlantic International University (AIU) where at the end of each job they ask you to make a local, national and international application. You also have to take into account an objective of the 17 SDGs. In your research you have, to look for people in your community and integrate them into the solution in order to achieve it.

UNESCO also has a global network of Learning Cities. “The 292 members of the network collaborate closely to share good practices, strategies and activities that guarantee learning for young people and older people”. UNESCO. Join the UNESCO global network of learning cities. https:// articles.unesco.org/es/articles/ join-the-world-network-oflearning- cities-of-unesco We always have to learn because otherwise we stay out of the society in which we live. You always have to learn in your studies, instead of spending time looking for ways to present a work without understanding, without knowing what it says there, it’s better to spend that time on what, how, why and for what of the topic on which you are doing your research. In any case, at present, when looking for a job, companies have many tools to know if the knowledge and skills that you say you have is true. Also, at work the skills you have will be demonstrated, so it’s wasted time copying or having someone else do the research for you.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. UNESCO. Adoptar una cultura de aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida. Retrieved from: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000377810 | UNESCO. Desglosar el objetivo de Desarrollo Sostenible 4 - Educación 2030. Retrieved from: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ ark:/48223/pf0000246300_spa.locale=es | UNESCO. Educación para el Desarrollo Sostenible – Hoja de ruta. Retrieved from: https://unesdoc.unesco. org/ark:/48223/pf0000374896 | UNESCO. Instituto de la UNESCO para el aprendizaje a lo largo de toda la vida. Retrieved from: https://www. uil.unesco.org/es/unesco-instituto | UNESCO. Proyecto de Investigación Internacional: la contribución de las instituciones de enseñanza superior al aprendizaje a lo largo de toda la vida. Retrieved from: https://uil.unesco.org/es/aprendizaje-lo-largo-vida/proyecto-investigacioninternacional- contribucion-las-instituciones | UNESCO. UNESCO y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible. Retrieved from: https://es.unesco. org/sdgs | UNESCO. Unirse a la red mundial de ciudades del aprendizaje de la UNESCO. Retrieved from: https://articles.unesco.org/es/articles/ unirse-la-red-mundial-de-ciudades-del-aprendizaje-de-la-unesco

A STUDY OF THE Clothing practices of Rabari community

Panchami Manish Mistry | Doctor of Fashion Design | Part 1/2


Abstract The study focuses on the clothing practices of Rabari community in and around Ahmedabad. This study aims to document and analyze the changes in clothing practiced over the last 50 years, the influence of urbanization and causes that lead to this change and how far this change has come. Key words: Rabari, Community, Clothing, Practices, Usage, Traditional, Evolution, Urbanization, Ahmedabad.

Introduction India is rich in handlooms and handcrafted textiles. Each region expresses their environment, emotions, narratives, and traditions through their craft where nomadic communities are inherently linked to their environment. This is expressed through crafts, which are a celebration of harmony between human life and the surrounding environment. These are living customs linked with historic customs. Gujarat is the home to many diverse communities each with its own culture expressed through their craft traditions. Nomadic groups or community have ability to survive and to adapt their surroundings by all means. Previously camelherding pastoral wanderers, today the Rabari community is living in regions of Gujarat- India, allover the Kutch, Saurashtra and northern regions, and in western and southern Rajasthan. Rabari community is generally individual and distinctive. The community is very much divided in to subgroups in allover the Kutch, Saurashtra and northern regions, and in western and southern Rajasthan. In past, when the nature and surroundings no longer supported the group of camel herders and herd, they scattered and traveled in search of new place. Group of wanderers have great ability of adopting the physical environment and the needs of neighbours along with their distinct cultural identity. Ability to adaptation can be seen in their embroidery where they balanced between the need to adapt surroundings and to maintain their identity, which is important Rabari ethnicity. Originally, the Rabari were keeping camels as their herd but in recent times they have started keeping sheep and goats as well. The rabari community treasure their customs, history and heritage, which are closely interwoven to their traditional occupation of animal keeping.

The Rabari do large-scale migration to various parts (Gujarat and other states of India to graze their animals. In the Kutch district, the Rabari’s follow three distinct patterns of migration, which are seasonbased movements: small-range migration within Kutch; longrange migration between Kutch and Gujarat hinterlands, and circular migration within a delimited area, outside Gujarat.) (Salpeteur et al. 2015). Today a Rabari who does not prefer to do migration or those who have sold their goats and sheep’s have come back to their native places and prefer to maintain cows and buffaloes. They work in fields, drive rickshaw, keep shop, etc. They prefer to remain self-employed instead of working in company or doing job. Traditionally Rabari community forms a very cohesive group, which shows change in current decades due to adaptation of modern times. In Rabari community men wear kediyu, which is upper garment, a dhoti, which is lower garment and over the head they wear pagadi, which is draped on head. All this garments are always white in colour and in cotton material. On special occasion like weddings, men wear a khes, which is like a scarf kind of garment worn over the shoulder, which is woven from wool and intricately embroidered in traditional way. The women of Rabari community wear kapadu, which is a blouse like upper garment, ghagharo, which is like a skirt and to cover the head, a scarf like drape called chundari over the head. Ahmedabad, the city named after Sultan Ahmed Shah and situated on the banks of the River Sabarmati, was the state capital until 1970. Ahmedabad is also called as Karnavati or Amdavad. It is a cluster comprising the district of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Mahesana, Patan, banaskantha and sabarkantha from central to northern part of Gujarat. Ahmadabad is known as the Manchester of India because of the high quality cotton mills and this became prevalent during the British Rule. Ahmedabad is largest manufacturer of denim fabrics in India. In past the major industry were textile industries and after several mills were established it became major center for commercialization. Due to its industrialization, commercialization and urbanization, it provides lot of opportunity for work, therefore lot of people from villages and from near by cities migrates towards this place in search of betterment.

Statement of research problem Change in clothing practices from traditional to contemporary has been observed over a period of time. Due to urbanisation and exposure to it, it has led to changes in Rabari communities social lifestyle.

Objectives of research • To study the clothing practices of the Rabari community in Ahmedabad- Gujarat
• To study the changes in clothing practices over last 50 years
• The influence of urbanization in clothing practices • To study the present clothing practices

Research design
This research approach is expected to generate qualitative data. Different research tools and techniques will be used: Research Techniques

• Rabari community-based surveys will be undertaken to study the change.
• Interviews will be conducted with the Rabari community. (any and every sub-group available in Ahmedabad and near by Ahmedabad.)
• Participant Observation technique will be adopted in order to establish a comfortable relationship with the Rabari community.
• Snowball technique will be used to identify Rabari community for observation and interview.
Research Tools • Questionnaires will be developed for Rabari community.

Since they are often illiterate or semi-literate, the questionnaire will be orally administered. Qualitative data from interviews will be recorded which will be later transcribed, coded and categorized.

Methodology • Informal Interaction
• Literature Study
• Visit to Site
• Verbal Interaction
• Questionnaire
• Data Compilation and Analysis
• Observations
TO BE CONTINUED

Publications by students: https://www.aiu.edu/student-publications/

Learning

Microlearning

Create content that beat the forgetting curve.

Microlearning is a way of teaching and delivering content to learners in bite-sized (3-5 minutes) bursts at the point of need, with a focused and specific learning outcome. The learner is in control of what and when they are learning, and can complete their training at a time and place that suits their busy schedule. Think about how you consume content in your day-to-day life. Most likely, it’s via short bursts of information on your social media feed, or news update notifications on your mobile phone. Microlearning content harnesses this behavior by replicating your existing habits, allowing you access to short bursts of information that are more engaging and easily digestible. The concept of microlearning is based on the Hermann Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, which demonstrates that when people take in large amounts of information, retention of what was learned tends to degrade over time. In fact, people typically lose 80% of the knowledge they learn within a month. Microlearning combats the forgetting curve by breaking information down into bite size chunks and allowing learners to revisit training over time, improving retention of key points and enabling them to incorporate this into their daily workflow. Microlearning content can take many different forms. The one non-negotiable, unsurprisingly, is that it must be short and succinct. ... Read full text:

Disability

Be sure to know the three models.

How people think about disability affects how they feel about it. Although people have various individual perspectives on disability, these viewpoints can be categorized into three overarching models of disability. ... Moral model. Disability is seen as having meaning about the person’s or the family’s character, deeds, thoughts, and karma. From this perspective, disability can carry stigma, shame and blame, particularly if the disability is seen as a mark of wrongdoing. Alternatively, disability can be seen as a sign of honor, faith or strength. For example, someone who is religious may believe they were chosen to have a disability due to God’s faith in them. ... Medical model. Disability is perceived as an impairment in a body system or function that is inherently pathological. From this perspective, the goal is to return the system or function to as close to “normal” as possible. Professionals with specialized training are the “experts” in disability. ... Social model. Disability is seen as one aspect of a person’s identity, much like race/ethnicity, gender, etc. From this perspective, disability is believed to result from a mismatch between the disabled person and the environment (both physical and social). It is this environment that creates the handicaps and barriers, not the disability. From this perspective, the way to address disability is to change the environment and society, rather than people with disabilities. ... Read full text:


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Cancer screening

Could predict tumors decades before they start growing.

After scientists identified a link between the risk of cancer and clusters of chemicals in an individual’s cells, a screening program that could detect tumors decades in advance is on the horizon. The chemicals are called circular RNAs, and when they stick to DNA strands in great enough numbers they can cause tumors known as oncogenes. The breakthrough offers hope of developing personalized vaccines for vulnerable patients. “Environmental and genetic factors have long been believed as the major contributors to cancer,” explains lead author Professor Simon Conn, of Flinders University in Australia. “We call this revolutionary finding ‘ER3D’ —from endogenous RNA-directed DNA damage’. It ushers in an entirely new area of medical and molecular biology research. [It] opens the door for using these molecules as markers of disease at a very early stage, where the likelihood of curing cancers is much higher.” The study compared neonatal blood tests, or ‘Guthrie cards’, of babies who went on to develop acute leukemia as infants. One specific circular RNA was present at much higher levels at birth, prior to the onset of symptoms, compared to peers with healthy blood. The findings suggest it’s the abundance of the circular RNA molecules which is a major determinant for why some develop these specific oncogenes and others do not. ... Source:
Read full text:

Earth’s axis

...is shifting due to groundwater depletion, study claims.

Besides depletion of natural resources, the Earth is experiencing climate changes due to exploitation, as evident in natural disasters that are now becoming more common. Now, a new study [published in Geophysical Research Letters] reveals that the Earth’s tilt has changed by 31.5 inches (80 cm) between 1993 and 2010. Humans have pumped so much groundwater from Earth that its tilt has been affected. Between this time period, humans have sucked out 2,150 gigatons of water from natural reservoirs. Owing to this enormous displacement of water, the Earth’s axis has been affected, scientists say. Scientists studied various models that would cause changes in the Earth’s rotational pole. They found that it is affected by climate processes like melting of icecaps and the aforementioned changes in the distribution of water. When they added pumped out water to their models, they discovered that the model was off by 31 inches. “Earth’s rotational pole actually changes a lot,” said the study’s lead author, Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul National University. “Our study shows that among climate-related causes, the redistribution of groundwater actually has the largest impact on the drift of the rotational pole.” Such changes in tilt are capable of affecting the seasonal weather on the planet’s surface. Scientists now wonder whether shifts of the rotational pole could cause climate ... Read full text


AIU makes a huge contribution to the world by giving new scient ifics the space for original investigations and research. Visit MyAIU Evolution



“Leather”

Made of seafood waste.

For two years since the founding of TômTex, Uyen Tran has carried this wallet —an early prototype crafted from her company's bio-based synthetic leather— with her everywhere. The black, subtly shimmering snakeskin material had gently conformed to the shape of her credit cards, just like a well-loved, real leather wallet. More importantly, it showed no signs of peeling or cracking. Even in vegan leathers that purport to be plant-based, a hefty portion of the layers, binders, and finishes are fossil-fuel-based plastics. The leather alternative by Tôm- Tex is what’s known in the consumer products world as a mono-material, made of 100% chitosan (pronounced “kai-toe-san”), a biopolymer created from chitin, the building block for crustacean shells, mushroom cell walls, and insect exoskeletons, making it one of the most abundant biopolymers on earth. ... Read full text:

Sylvia Nyaga

Creating universal access to safe and appropriate sanitation.

Sylvia Nyaga remembers living with her grandfather, who was a person with mobility challenges. As a young child, she did not understand what it meant for him not to have assistive technology that would help him around the house. She later learned that the lack of assistive technology was hard on him, and he often had to use a bucket as a toilet, since he could not use the regular toilets. With this newly found knowledge, she set to work on a design that could be used by people with mobility challenges. This was the beginning of Syna consultancy. Syna Consultancy is a social enterprise committed to delivering fair and inclusive sanitation solutions. While their mandate has transformed over the years, their major objective is to ensure universal access to safe and appropriate water and sanitation, with special emphasis paid to the needs of underprivileged communities. One of their best-selling products is the UTULAV toilet, an idea that was born following a chat between the Syna team and the parents of a disabled child. Hearing of the challenges with existing infrastructure, the team began to develop a solution that would help countless families facing similar challenges every day. The UTULAV toilet support frame includes wheels for mobility. This compact form is easily disassembled and light, allowing for easy carrying and movement. This toilet includes a simple waste disposal system that can be used safely and hygienically, reducing interaction with waste, and promoting hygienic practices. It also has an airtight valve to ensure that no odours are emitted from the waste. The design has been developed for effectiveness within informal settlements, where space is a premium. ... Visit: atinnovatenow.com Read full text

SenseRobot Go

Go game AI teacher

SenseTime, a leading global artificial intelligence (AI) software company, has unveiled its latest addition to its SenseRobot family —the SenseRobot Go. Specifically designed for young learners of the game Go, this innovative product integrates SenseTime’s cutting-edge AI and robotic arm technology, allowing users to practice and play Go on a real board. This robot offers an immersive and engaging gaming experience, featuring a vast library of professional AI Go exercises, human-to-machine and online human-to-human gameplay functions, along with a range of visual, auditory, and tactile interactions. This feature-packed product is an ideal one-on-one intelligent companion for children, empowering them to develop critical thinking skills, and enabling Go AI to reach millions of households. ... Read full text

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Chronic stress

How it drives the brain to crave comfort food.

When you’re stressed, a highcalorie snack may seem like a comforting go-to. But this combination has an unhealthy downside. According to Sydney scientists, stress combined with calorie-dense ‘comfort’ food creates changes in the brain that drive more eating, boost cravings for sweet, highly palatable food and lead to excess weight gain. A team from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research found that stress overrode the brain’s natural response to satiety, leading to non-stop reward signals that promote eating more highly palatable food. This occurred in a part of the brain called the lateral habenula, which when activated usually dampens these reward signals. ... The researchers discovered that at the centre of the weight gain was the molecule NPY, which the brain produces naturally in response to stress. When the researchers blocked NPY from activating brain cells in the lateral habenula in stressed mice on a high-fat diet, the mice consumed less comfort food, resulting in less weight gain. The researchers next performed a ‘sucralose preference test’ —allowing mice to choose to drink either water or water that had been artificially sweetened. “Stressed mice on a high-fat diet consumed three times more sucralose than mice that were on a high-fat diet alone, suggesting that stress not only activates more reward when eating but specifically drives a craving for sweet, palatable food,” says ... Read full text:

Medications

but little therapy are prescribed to children with anxiety.

If children and teenagers receive any help for an anxiety disorder, it's usually medication — not counseling — according to a study published in Pediatrics. ... As the number of youth with anxiety disorders has risen continually since 2006, the number of children receiving psychotherapy has decreased. “This really shows that the burden of treating mental health conditions among patients is growing,” said study author Laura Chavez, a senior research scientist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “Even when they’re able to navigate the health care system and visit with a physician in an office setting, they may not receive the treatment that they need,’ she said. There are several possible reasons, including stigma and a lack of access to pediatric therapists, according to the Child Mind Institute. ... This finding echoes multiple other studies showing dramatic increases in youth mental health conditions. Overall, approximately 5.8 million children in the U.S. had a diagnosed anxiety disorder in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year, the influential U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that children as young as 8 be screened for anxiety. While the new report ends in 2018, it’s possible a rise in screening could result in even more children being prescribed medication. ... Read full text:


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Solar panels

—an eco-disaster waiting to happen?

While they are being promoted around the world as a crucial weapon in reducing carbon emissions, solar panels have an average lifespan of 25-30 years. ... “The world has installed more than one terawatt of solar capacity. Ordinary solar panels have a capacity of about 400W, so if you count both rooftops and solar farms, there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels,” says Dr Rong Deng, an expert in solar panel recycling at the University of New South Wales in Australia. According to the British government, there are tens of millions of solar panels in the UK. But the specialist infrastructure to scrap and recycle them is lacking. Energy experts are calling for urgent government action to prevent a looming global environmental disaster. “It’s going to be a waste mountain by 2050, unless we get recycling chains going now,” says Ute Collier, deputy director of the International Renewable Energy Agency. “We’re producing more and more solar panels —which is great — but how are we going to deal with the waste?” she asks. It is hoped a major step will be taken at the end of June, when the world’s first factory dedicated to fully recycling solar panels officially opens in France. ROSI, the specialist solar recycling company which owns the facility, in the Alpine city of Grenoble, hopes eventually to be able to extract and re-use 99% of a unit’s components. ...
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Electric vehicles

Rowan Atkinson used to love them, but now...

The government (UK) has proposed a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. The problem with the initiative is that it seems to be largely based on conclusions drawn from only one part of a car’s operating life: what comes out of the exhaust pipe. Electric cars have zero exhaust emissions ... but if you zoom out a bit and look at a bigger picture that includes the car’s manufacture, the situation is different. In advance of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, Volvo released figures claiming that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are nearly 70% higher than when manufacturing a petrol one. The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all electric vehicles: they’re absurdly heavy, huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they are estimated to last only upwards of 10 years. It seems a perverse choice of hardware with which to lead the automobile’s fight against the climate crisis. ... New ‘solid-state’ batteries are being developed, but they are years away from being on sale. ... Hydrogen is emerging as an interesting alternative fuel, even though we are slow in developing a truly “green” way of manufacturing it. But let’s zoom out even further and consider the whole life cycle of an automobile. The biggest problem we need to address in society’s relationship with the car is the “fast fashion” sales culture that has been ... Read full text:

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Uganda

The cost of Uganda’s east Africa oil pipeline.

Oil companies plan to pump crude oil from Lake Albert, Uganda to the coast of neighbouring Tanzania, with the goal of producing 1.4bn barrels over the next two decades. But the pipeline project has created a human tragedy for those living in its 900-mile path. The area around Lake Albert is now a huge construction site. After years of discussions between the Ugandan government and international oil companies, TotalEnergies of France won the largest deposit. It has since drilled 400 oil wells, including 100 in the middle of the Murchison Falls national park, a haven of biodiversity vital for Uganda’s tourism industry. The Chinese oil company CNOOC won the exploitation rights to a smaller field south of the lake. Once extracted, the crude oil will be heated to 50C (120F) and injected into the 900-mile East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), heading for the Tanzanian coast, at a rate of 240,000 barrels a day. In order to build the pipeline and other infrastructure, tens of thousands of Ugandans had to be moved off their land. They are known as ‘projectaffected people’, or ‘PAPs’ in TotalEnergies jargon. Most are subsistence farmers. On the shores of Lake Albert, nearly 31,000 people had to abandon their land. In this part of Africa, land ownership is often the only bulwark against poverty. In many villages, expropriation is causing human tragedy. Many farmers have been barred from working their land ...
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Hong Kong

A song for freedom is banned.

Hong Kong’s government is trying to ban a song —and get major tech firms to act as accomplices. The tune in question is Glory to Hong Kong, a protest song from 2019. Apparently, Hong Kong authorities and their Beijing overlords are not yet satisfied with the level of repression they’ve already imposed, which includes absurd extremes, like jailing authors of children’s books for sedition. Books. Songs. They clearly want to ban anything that might remind people they have rights. To ban a song, however, Hong Kong’s authorities need tech companies to play along, because, well, this isn’t the 1970s, and they can’t just send police around to the record stores to gather up all the vinyl. The global giants involved in the streaming and sharing of music —like Apple, Google (including YouTube), Meta, Twitter, and Spotify— run the music distribution world today. So, the Hong Kong government is seeking an injunction by the High Court of Hong Kong to ban the broadcasting and distribution of the song. If the court issues the injunction, it would require companies to remove the song from their online platforms. And at that point, the tech companies will have to decide what to do: uphold freedom of expression or cave into China’s authoritarian demands. Obviously, human rights groups and tech rights groups are strongly urging the companies to do the former. They need to take a stand against the Hong Kong government’s censorship. ...
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Octopus farm

World’s first proposals alarm scientists.

A plan to build the world’s first octopus farm has raised deep concerns among scientists over the welfare of the famously intelligent creatures. The farm in Spain’s Canary Islands would raise about a million octopuses annually for food, according to confidential documents seen by the BBC. They have never been intensively farmed and some scientists call the proposed icy water slaughtering method “cruel.” The Spanish multinational behind the plans denies the octopuses will suffer. The confidential planning proposal documents from the company, Nueva Pescanova, were given to the BBC by the campaign organisation Eurogroup for Animals. Nueva Pescanova sent the proposal to the Canary Islands’ General Directorate of Fishing, which has not responded to a BBC request for comment. Octopuses caught in the wild using pots, lines and traps are eaten all over the world, including in the Mediterranean and in Asia and Latin America. The race to discover the secret to breeding them in captivity has been going on for decades. It’s difficult as the larvae only eat live food and need a carefully controlled environment, but Nueva Pescanova announced in 2019 that it had made a scientific breakthrough. The prospect of intensively farming octopus has already led to opposition: Lawmakers in the US state of Washington have proposed banning the practice before it even starts. ...
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The other Amazon

A flying river of water vapor: the forest’s exhalation.

High in the Andes Mountains, the mighty Amazon River begins. It trickles from glaciers and oozes from mountain wetlands. It gains momentum and volume and feeds into clear streams and muddy rivers that pass through high cloud forests and lowland valleys. The torrents of the waters carry nutrients through the vast Amazon River basin, some 4,000 miles across the rest of the South American continent. At the same time, in the rainforest and delta estuaries, another, more ethereal —but no less essential— river is forming. Across the Amazon rainforest, water is being sucked up by plant roots, transported through their bodies, and emitted or “transpired” from their leaves. In the air, this vapor rises and cools, condensing into clouds. Thus suspended, it becomes a sort of “flying river” of water vapor, flowing west, back toward the Andes. Along its own winding journey, its contents will fall as precipitation, forming upland rivers, wetlands, and mountain snow and icepack to feed, once again, the Amazon. ... The Amazon rainforest is prized for its climate-regulating role of absorbing and sequestering prodigious amounts of carbon. But it might be the forests’ exhalation of water vapor that has an even larger impact on climate overall, through mass-scale cloud formation, moisture transport, and other largescale connections of water and weather cycles. ...
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Campus

THE 6 ELEMENTS OF sustainability

Sustainability requires a completely different way of thinking and being in the world. It also requires concrete action. In this section, we lay out 6 elements to initiate transition to a truly sustainable society.

We must reduce We must relocalize We must ration We must restore We must rethink We must remember

As you read through each element, you’ll see that all the elements are related to one another. We can’t ration if we don’t reduce. We can’t relocalize if we don’t restore the natural environment. And we can’t do any of this if we don’t rethink our way of being in the world, remember our connections to and dependency upon nature, and make revolutionary, not just incremental, change. These are mutually supporting efforts that entail fundamental shifts in the goals we pursue in our culture and economy. Achieving them will require far-reaching political vision and leadership, some level of global cooperation, and an emergency mobilization of all society.

Element 1: We must reduce Reusing is trendy, recycling is mainstream, but reduction is taboo. We live in societies built on growth, where economic stagnation or negative population growth is considered an emergency. To move towards sustainability, we must dramatically reduce the size of the economy (including the amount we consume) and the size of our population. Reducing consumption includes reducing and eventually eliminating our consumption of cars. The average household in the United States owns 1.88 cars. This is not sustainable. Population, contrary to popular belief, can reduced in humane ways. It begins with making culturally-appropriate family planning, sex education, and birth control widely available. It also requires reproductive freedom for women. Such programs have been proven effective to reduce birth rates to below replacement level (2.1 children per woman), which means population will go down. Reducing our consumption and our population is a key element to enable a rapid weaning off industrial fuels, energy, and materials, along with industrial agriculture (one of the main industries destroying the planet).

Element 2: we must relocalize We live in the most mobile, globalized society to ever exist, depending on fossil-fueled trucks, cars, trains, airplanes, and ships to transport huge quantities of goods and huge numbers of people all over the planet on a daily basis. This is ecologically untenable. The fact that many of us enjoy rapid, convenient travel is not important compared to life on this planet. Reversing ecological collapse isn’t about what we want and desire. It’s about what the planet can sustain. A sustainable future is a local future, in which people live, work, and get the basic necessities of life close to home, and rarely travel long distances. The “locavore” movement has proposed the idea of a 100-mile diet to combat an unsustainable food system. The same concept should be adapted to travel. Producing and powering automobiles is incredibly destructive to nature, and so a sustainable world means we must retire all cars and stop producing new ones. Reducing and eliminating car production and use means almost everything about our lifestyles has to change. If we try to completely replace cars with public transportation —attempting to allow the kind of freedom of travel we currently enjoy— we’re just going to create new problems to replace the old problems. Some public transportation will help in the transition to a world in which we all travel less, but the reality is, we’re all going to have to learn how to travel less. This will be incredibly disruptive, but not as disruptive as ecological collapse. And there are benefits. In the future, we’ll walk and bike more, which means we’ll work close to where we live. We’ll need to depend more on our local communities. To carpool, or share a car with a neighborhood during a transition period, we’ll need to get to know the people we live next to a whole lot better. We won’t move as often, and we’ll probably live closer to our friends and families so we don’t have to travel so far to see them.

Relocalizing also means relocalizing what we consume, including food, clothes, what we use to build our homes and the stuff we put in them, medical care, and more. Currently, our society relies on global shipping networks of ships, trains, and trucks to deliver the things we use. This global shipping network cannot exist in a truly sustainable society. Therefore, we must learn how to live using only what we can get from our local areas. Initially that local area may be the entire country, then perhaps the state we live in, and then, finally, our local community. We must be careful in the process of relocalizing because without simultaneously reducing population and consumption, this process could quickly destroy the environments around our local communities. It is critical that we prioritize what is most important —food, water, shelter, basic medical care— as we relocalize our communities and minimize our use of all material goods that are not absolutely essential.

Element 3: We must ration Confronting ecological reality means confronting scarcity. When we stop making new cars, and begin gradually eliminating fossil fuels, the wealthy and powerful may seek to hoard resources (let’s be real: they’re already doing it). This results in violence and suffering, and will exacerbate shortages already occurring due to overshoot and ecological collapse. Faced with this predicament, the moral approach is to ration what is left. Rationing must of course be accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the consumption of energy as well as material goods. A reasonable starting goal here (depending on the level of consumption in a given region) would be to rapidly reduce energy and material consumption by half, then aim for 90 percent or more.

Rationing should be implemented in fair ways and will require guardrails and procedures. For example, food, medical care, and other basic needs should be prioritized over shopping malls, consumer goods, entertainment, and so on (people should continue having fun, of course —but not in ways that are wasteful of energy and materials). This rationing should also be implemented fairly and equitably on an international level. People in the U.S. and Europe, for example, should not be “rationed” an allotment of cobalt mined by slave labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nor should Congolese people be “rationed” an allotment of salmon exported from the Pacific Rim. Rationing will feel more dramatic in the wealthiest nations, because we use way, way too much. In poorer countries, rationing will not be as dramatic. We don’t subscribe to the colonial assertion that all countries should aim for a “Low-energy European lifestyle,” as is a common refrain in some degrowth communities. A low energy European lifestyle is grossly unsustainable when compared to land-based peoples, the only sustainable societies on Earth.

Element 4: We must restore As we implement reduction, relocalizing, and rationing, we must simultaneously take action to protect forests, rivers, prairies, and other wild lands from development, logging, mining, and other destructive activities. As much as possible must be preserved. To be effective, this will require a dramatic shift in economic structures. For example, jobs in extractive industries must be temporarily replaced with jobs in restoration (removing dams, tearing up concrete, dismantling malls and vast parking lots, earthworks to reduce erosion and build soil, waterworks to increase soil health and restore aquifers, and so on) —beginning with the least materially important/most frivolous sectors, and rapidly expanding to other areas of the economy. As we reduce consumption —of everything— the economy as we know it will no longer exist. Going to the grocery store to get food that arrives there from all over the country and the world will no longer be an option. The food we eat will need to come from local sources, which means restoring habitat, soils, and watersheds. Surviving as part of nature rather than by dominating nature will not be an option without healthy, flourishing natural communities. Restoring these natural communities (“ecosystems”) and our relationships with the natural world should become everyone’s top priority.

Restoring our local environments is also what will enable us to find enough food, clean water, and materials to build shelter without degrading the natural communities we depend on: we cannot relocalize without also restoring. Focusing on restoration rather than a growing consumption-based economy will require global, widespread education programs and job retraining programs that can educate people in ecosystem restoration, watershed health, subsistence food production, biology, ecology, and permaculture. This education should begin with young children, and as many people as possible should be put to work tearing down destructive infrastructure and replacing it with restored natural communities. Small-scale, place-based, ecologically embedded methods for survival and flourishing should be developed simultaneously. Shifting government subsidies from extractive, military, and other ecologically destructive activities would provide funding for these programs.

Element 5: We must rethink Shifting from a lifestyle of consumption, immediate gratification, and a worldview that we are separate from the world and that the world is ours to consume will require completely changing how we think and the stories we tell. We must change from stories of domination to stories of cooperation, respect and gratitude for our place in the natural world. Our entire media landscape is focused on selling us things, most of which we don’t really need. This is what keeps the growth economy growing. These stories perpetuate and expand unsustainable lifestyles of consumption, and they do so all around the world. Instead, we need stories that help us understand how to live in a world of ecological collapse, a world in which our society, our population, and our consumption must scale down, rather than scaling forever up. We need stories that are local, that teach us how to live well in the place we are now, and how to deal with the challenges we all will face as we shift in our way of being in the world. And we need culture, education, music, poetry, and other traditions that support that shift.

Element 6: We must remember Karl Benz was the first person to sell cars. Between 1888 and 1893, he sold 25 Benz gas-powered vehicles, or “horseless carriages,” to customers. The Motorwagen, as it was called, had a 1 liter single-cylinder engine with 2/3 of one horsepower. By 1899, Benz was the largest car company in the world, selling 572 cars. Many of you probably have great grandparents, or great-great grandparents, who were born before 1899. It’s likely none of them owned a car. And yet it is unthinkable for most people in the United States to imagine life without a car, or without being able to get on a plane, or a train, or a bus. In little more than 130 years we’ve completely transformed our society from one in which most people walked everywhere to one in which most people own a car and drive whenever they want. Three generations —a blink of the eye compared to the 300,000 or so years humans have been on this Earth— is all it took to forget what it’s like to get around without a motor.

We can remember. If your grandparents or great grandparents are still alive, ask them what it was like before most people owned a car. Ask them what it was like before we had plastic, when most things people purchased were made to last a lifetime. This is just the beginning of the remembering required to change our stories. We must remember that before industrial civilization, before we forgot that we aren’t at the top of some imagined hierarchy allowed to take whatever we want from the world without giving anything back, humans lived in cooperation with the rest of the natural world, and the stories our ancestors told each other reflected that. These are the stories we must remember.

Facing Reality If all of this sounds like a fantasy to you, we feel the same way. The massive transformation we’ve outlined in these elements is incredibly unlikely to happen at the speed and scale necessary to halt the ongoing ecological crisis. There is simply too much inertia and power behind endless growth. This makes it likely we are facing the collapse of civilization in coming years and decades. In fact, the gradual unraveling has begun. Everything is heading in the wrong direction: population growth and consumption goes up, so economic growth goes up, so development goes up, so extraction goes up, so pollution goes up, and so habitat and species loss goes up. These trends have been described by the International Geosphere- Biosphere Program (IGBP) as the Great Acceleration, and you may be familiar with the graphic the IGBP published in 2015 illustrating skyrocketing trends across 24 socioeconomic and earth system categories.

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B2P –Bottle to pen.

This line by Pilot features brilliant G2 gel ink colors, such as lime, orange, pink & purple, with matching barrel colors. Now you can go green at home, school or work. Fine point. 12-pack. www.amazon.com

Reusable beeswax food wraps.

Get rid of single-use plastic baggies and wraps, and keep all of your food fresh. Wrap, rinse, reuse. When it’s time to get new ones, they can be composted or used as a fire starter. www.amazon.com

Amigo.

Outdoor lounge chair with sun shield. features an adjustable shade panel to protect your head or upper body. The backrest has three positions. The high-tech fabric is weatherproof and UV-resistant. store.moma.org

Stella Young. (1982–2014).

“No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp.”

Stella Young. (1982–2014). Australian comedian, journalist and disability rights activist.

Jelly drops.

Bite-sized, sugar-free sweets containing 95% water and added electrolytes. Dehydration is a common challenge for older people, especially people with dementia. Memory problems mean that they can often forget to drink enough water. www.jellydrops.com

Say what?

“I saw a study that said speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. Number two was death. This means to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.”—Jerry Seinfeld


BACHELOR’S DEGREE in Art

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND HUMAN STUDIES

The Bachelor of Art (BA) program helps students develop and refine their skills in craftsmanship through aesthetic expression to expose their talents to a broader scope, to inspire them to a greater height of expression, artistic excellence and exemplary skills, and to work towards national and international recognition in the promotion and development of Art. The Bachelor of Art program is offered online via distance learning. After evaluating both academic record and life experience, AIU staff working in conjunction with Faculty and Academic Advisors will assist students in setting up a custom-made program, designed on an individual basis. This flexibility to meet student needs is seldom found in other distance learning programs. Our online program does not require all students to take the same subjects/courses, use the same books, or learning materials. Instead, the online Bachelor of Art curriculum is designed individually by the student and academic advisor. It specifically addresses strengths and weaknesses with respect to market opportunities in the student’s major and intended field of work. Understanding that industry and geographic factors should influence the content of the curriculum instead of a standardized one-fits-all design is the hallmark of AIU’s unique approach to adult education. This philosophy addresses the dynamic and constantly changing environment of working professionals by helping adult students in reaching their professional and personal goals within the scope of the degree program.

Important:

Below is an example of the topics or areas you may develop and work on during your studies. By no means is it a complete or required list as AIU programs do not follow a standardized curriculum. It is meant solely as a reference point and example. Want to learn more about the curriculum design at AIU? Go ahead and visit our website, especially the Course and Curriculum section: http://aiu.edu/course-curriculum.html

Orientation Courses:

Communication & Investigation (Comprehensive Resume)
Organization Theory (Portfolio)
Experiential Learning (Autobiography)
Academic Evaluation (Questionnaire)
Fundament of Knowledge (Integration Chart)
Fundamental Principles I (Philosophy of Education)
Professional Evaluation (Self Evaluation Matrix)
Development of Graduate Study (Guarantee of an Academic Degree)

Core Courses and Topics

Philosophy
History of Art
State of the Art
Art trends
Sociology of culture
Communication and museums
Selected Subjects of Universal Art
Critical cultural studies
Art criticism workshop
Exhibition management
Selected topics of art and education
Applied semiotics
Memory, document and image
Image, body and representation
Aesthetics and audiovisual narrative
Philosophy and theories of education
Hermeneutics

Research Project

Bachelor Thesis Project
MBM300 Thesis Proposal
MBM302 Bachelor Thesis (5,000 words)

Publication

Each graduate is encouraged to publish their research papers either online in the public domain or through professional journals and periodicals worldwide.

Contact us to get started

Submit your Online Application, paste your resume and any additional comments/ questions in the area provided.

aiu.edu/apply-online.html

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Honolulu, HI 96813
800-993-0066 (Toll Free in US)
808-924-9567 (Internationally)


About Us

Accreditation

Atlantic International University offers distance learning degree programs for adult learners at bachelors, masters, and doctoral level. With self paced program taken online, AIU lifts the obstacles that keep professional adults from completing their educational goals. Programs are available throughout a wide range of majors and areas of study. All of this with a philosophically holistic approach towards education fitting within the balance of your life and acknowledging the key role each individual can play in their community, country, and the world. Atlantic International University is accredited by the Accreditation Service for International Schools, Colleges and Universities (ASIC). ASIC Accreditation is an internationally renowned quality standard for colleges and universities. Visit ASIC’s Directory of Accredited Colleges and Universities. ASIC is a member of CHEA International Quality Group (CIQG) in the USA, an approved accreditation body by the Ministerial Department of the Home Office in the UK, and is listed in the International Directory of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). The University is based in the United States and was established by corporate charter in 1998.

Our founding principles are based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights; per article 26, AIU believes that Higher Education is a Human Right. The University has implemented a paradigm shifting educational model for its academic programs that have allowed it to move closer to this goal through the self-empowerment of its students, decentralization of the learning process, personalized open curriculum design, a sustainable learning model, developing 11 core elements of the Human Condition within MYAIU, and utilizing the quasi-infinite knowledge through the use of information technology combined with our own capacity to find solutions to all types of global issues, dynamic problems, and those of individuals and multidisciplinary teams. Due to these differentiations and the university’s mission, only a reputable accrediting agency with the vision and plasticity to integrate and adapt its processes around AIU’s proven and successful innovative programs could be selected. Unfortunately, the vast majority of accrediting agencies adhere to and follow obsolete processes and requirements that have outlived their usefulness and are in direct conflict with the university’s mission of offering a unique, dynamic, affordable, quality higher education to the nontraditional student (one who must work, study what he really needs for professional advancement, attend family issues, etc.). We believe that adopting outdated requirements and processes would impose increased financial burdens on students while severely limiting their opportunities to earn their degree and advance in all aspects. Thus, in selecting the ASIC as its accrediting agency, AIU ensured that its unique programs would not be transformed into a copy or clone of those offered by the 10,000+ colleges and universities around the world. Since ASIC is an international accrediting agency based outside the United States, we are required by statute HRS446E to place the following disclaimer: ATLANTIC INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY IS NOT ACCREDITED BY AN ACCREDITING AGENCY RECOGNIZED BY THE UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF EDUCATION. Note: In the United States and abroad, many licensing authorities require accredited degrees as the basis for eligibility for licensing.

In some cases, accredited colleges may not accept for transfer courses and degrees completed at unaccredited colleges, and some employers may require an accredited degree as a basis for eligibility for employment. Potential students should consider how the above may affect their interests, AIU respects the unique rules and regulations of each country and does not seek to influence the respective authorities. In the event that a prospective student wishes to carry out any government review or process in regards to his university degree, we recommend that the requirements of such are explored in detail with the relevant authorities by the prospective student as the university does not intervene in such processes. AIU students can be found in over 180 countries, they actively participate and volunteer in their communities as part of their academic program and have allocated thousands of service hours to diverse causes and initiatives. AIU programs follow the standards commonly used by colleges and universities in the United States with regards to the following: academic program structure, degree issued, transcript, and other graduation documents. AIU graduation documents can include an apostille and authentication from the US Department of State to facilitate their use internationally.

The AIU Difference

It is acknowledged that the act of learning is endogenous, (from within), rather than exogenous.

This fact is the underlying rationale for “Distance Learning”, in all of the programs offered by AIU. The combination of the underlying principles of student “self instruction”, (with guidance), collaborative development of curriculum unique to each student, and flexibility of time and place of study, provides the ideal learning environment to satisfy individual needs.

AIU is an institution of experiential learning and nontraditional education at a distance. There are no classrooms and attendance is not required.

Mission & Vision

MISSION:

To be a higher learning institution concerned about generating cultural development alternatives likely to be sustained in order to lead to a more efficient administration of the world village and its environment; exerting human and community rights through diversity with the ultimate goal of the satisfaction and evolution of the world.

VISION:

The empowerment of the individual towards the convergence of the world through a sustainable educational design based on andragogy and omniology.

Organizational Structure

Dr. Franklin Valcin
Presi den t/Academic Dean
Dr. José Mercado
Chief Executive Officer
Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Ricardo González, PhD
Provost
     
Dr. Ricardo Gonzalez
Chief Operation Officer
and MKT Director
Linda Collazo
Logistics Coordinator

AIU Tutors Coordinators:

Deborah Rodriguez
Amiakhor Ejaeta
Amanda Gutierrez
William Mora
Miriam James



Admissions Coordinators:
Amalia Aldrett
Sandra Garcia
Junko Shimizu
Veronica Amuz
Alba Ochoa
Jenis Garcia
Judith Brown
Chris Soto
René Cordón
Dr. Anderas Rissler



Academic Coordinators:
Dr. Adesida Oluwafemi
Dr. Emmanuel Gbagu
Dr. Lucia Gorea
Dr. Edgar Colon
Dr. Mario Rios
Freddy Frejus
Dr. Nilani Ljunggren
De Silva
Dr. Scott Wilson
Dr. Mohammad Shaidul Islam
   
Dr. Miriam Garibaldi
Vice provost for Research
Carolina Valdes
Human Resource Coordinator
   
Dr. Ofelia Miller
Director of AIU
Carlos Aponte
Teleco mmunications Coordinator
   
Clara Margalef
Director of Special Projects
of AIU
David Jung
Corporate/Legal Counsel
   
Juan Pablo Moreno
Director of Operations
Bruce Kim
Advisor/Consultant
   
Paula Viera
Director of Intelligence Systems
Thomas Kim
Corporate/
Accounting Counsel
   
Felipe Gomez
Design Director / IT Supervisor
Maricela Esparza
Administrative Coordinator
   
Kevin Moll
Web Designer
Chris Benjamin
IT and Hosting Support
   
Daritza Ysla
IT Coordinator
Maria Pastrana
Accounting Coordinator
   
Daritza Ysla
IT Coordinator
Roberto Aldrett
Communications Coordinator
   
Nadeem Awan
Chief Programming Officer
Giovanni Castillo
IT Support
   
Dr. Edward Lambert
Academic Director
Antonella Fonseca
Quality Control & Data Analysis
   
Dr. Ariadna Romero
Advisor Coordinator
Adrián Varela
Graphic Design
   
Jhanzaib Awan
Senior Programmer
Vanesa D’Angelo
Content Writer
   
Leonardo Salas
Human Resource Manager
Jaime Rotlewicz
Dean of Admissions
   
Benjamin Joseph
IT and Technology Support
Michael Phillips
Registrar’s Office
   
Rosie Perez
Finance Coordinator
 
     

FACULTY AND STAFF PAGE: www.aiu.edu/FacultyStaff.html


School of Business and Economics

The School of Business and Economics allows aspiring and practicing professionals, managers, and entrepreneurs in the private and public sectors to complete a self paced distance learning degree program of the highest academic standard. The ultimate goal is to empower learners and help them take advantage of the enormous array of resources from the world environment in order to eliminate the current continuum of poverty and limitations. Degree programs are designed for those students whose professional experience has been in business, marketing, administration, economics, finance and management.

Areas of Study:

Accounting, Advertising, Banking, Business Administration, Communications, Ecommerce, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Home Economics, Human Resources, International Business, International Finance, Investing, Globalization, Marketing, Management, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Public Administrations, Sustainable Development, Public Relations, Telecommunications, Tourism, Trade.

School of Social and Human Studies

The School of Social and Human Studies is focused on to the development of studies which instill a core commitment to building a society based on social and economic justice and enhancing opportunities for human well being. The founding principles lie on the basic right of education as outlined in the Declaration of Human Rights. We instill in our students a sense of confidence and self reliance in their ability to access the vast opportunities available through information channels, the world wide web, private, public, nonprofit, and nongovernmental organizations in an ever expanding global community. Degree programs are aimed towards those whose professional life has been related to social and human behavior, with the arts, or with cultural studies.

Areas of Study:

Psychology, International Affairs, Sociology, Political Sciences, Architecture, Legal Studies, Public Administration, Literature and languages, Art History, Ministry, African Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Asian Studies, European Studies, Islamic Studies, Religious Studies.

School of Science and Engineering

The School of Science and Engineering seeks to provide dynamic, integrated, and challenging degree programs designed for those whose experience is in industrial research, scientific production, engineering and the general sciences. Our system for research and education will keep us apace with the twenty-first century reach scientific advance in an environmentally and ecologically responsible manner to allow for the sustainability of the human population. We will foster among our students a demand for ethical behavior, an appreciation for diversity, an understanding of scientific investigation, knowledge of design innovation, a critical appreciation for the importance of technology and technological change for the advancement of humanity.

Areas of Study:

Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Communications, Petroleum Science, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Nutrition Science, Agricultural Science, Computer Science, Sports Science, Renewable Energy, Geology, Urban Planning.

Online Library Resources

With access to a global catalog created and maintained collectively by more than 9,000 participating institutions, AIU students have secured excellent research tools for their study programs.

The AIU online library contains over 2 billion records and over 300 million bibliographic records that are increasing day by day. The sources spanning thousands of years and virtually all forms of human expression. There are files of all kinds, from antique inscribed stones to e-books, form wax engravings to MP3s, DVDs and websites. In addition to the archives, the library AIU Online offers electronic access to more than 149,000 e-books, dozens of databases and more than 13 million full-text articles with pictures included. Being able to access 60 databases and 2393 periodicals with more than 18 million items, guarantees the information required to perform the assigned research project. Users will find that many files are enriched with artistic creations on the covers, indexes, reviews, summaries and other information.

The records usually have information attached from important libraries. The user can quickly assess the relevance of the information and decide if it is the right source.

Education on the 21st century

AIU is striving to regain the significance of the concept of education, which is rooted into the Latin “educare”, meaning “to pull out”, breaking loose from the paradigm of most 21st century universities with their focus on “digging and placing information” into students’ heads rather than teaching them to think. For AIU, the generation of “clones” that some traditional universities are spreading throughout the real world is one of the most salient reasons for today’s ills. In fact, students trained at those educational institutions never feel a desire to “change the world” or the current status quo; instead, they adjust to the environment, believe everything is fine, and are proud of it all.

IN A WORLD where knowledge and mostly information expire just like milk, we must reinvent university as a whole in which each student, as the key player, is UNIQUE within an intertwined environment. This century’s university must generate new knowledge bits although this may entail its separation from both the administrative bureaucracy and the faculty that evolve there as well. AIU thinks that a university should be increasingly integrated into the “real world”, society, the economy, and the holistic human being. As such, it should concentrate on its ultimate goal, which is the student, and get him/her deeply immersed into a daily praxis of paradigm shifts, along with the Internet and research, all these being presently accessible only to a small minority of the world community. AIU students must accomplish their self-learning mission while conceptualizing it as the core of daily life values through the type of experiences that lead to a human being’s progress when information is converted into education. The entire AIU family must think of the university as a setting that values diversity and talent in a way that trains mankind not only for the present but above all for a future that calls everyday for professionals who empower themselves in academic and professional areas highly in demand in our modern society. We shall not forget that, at AIU, students are responsible for discovering their own talents and potential, which they must auto-develop in such a way that the whole finish product opens up as a flower that blossoms every year more openly.

THE AIU STANCE is against the idea of the campus as a getaway from day-to-day pressure since we believe reality is the best potential-enhancer ever; one truly learns through thinking, brainstorming ideas, which leads to new solutions, and ultimately the rebirth of a human being fully integrated in a sustainable world environment. Self-learning is actualized more from within than a top-down vantage point, that is to say, to influence instead of requesting, ideas more than power. We need to create a society where solidarity, culture, life, not political or economic rationalism and more than techno structures, are prioritized. In short, the characteristics of AIU students and alumni remain independence, creativity, self-confidence, and ability to take risk towards new endeavors. This is about people’s worth based not on what they know but on what they do with what they know.

Read more at: www.aiu.edu

AIU Service

AIU offers educational opportunities in the USA to adults from around the world so that they can use their own potential to manage their personal, global cultural development. The foundational axis of our philosophy lies upon self-actualized knowledge and information, with no room for obsoleteness, which is embedded into a DISTANCE LEARNING SYSTEM based on ANDRAGOGY and OMNIOLOGY. The ultimate goal of this paradigm is to empower learners and help them take advantage of the enormous array of resources from the world environment in order to eliminate the current continuum of poverty and limitations.

This will become a crude reality with respect for, and practice of, human and community rights through experiences, investigations, practicum work, and/ or examinations. Everything takes place in a setting that fosters diversity; with advisors and consultants with doctorate degrees and specializations in Human Development monitor learning processes, in addition to a worldwide web of colleagues and associations, so that they can reach the satisfaction and the progress of humanity with peace and harmony.

Contact us to get started

Now, it’s possible to earn your degree in the comfort of your own home. For additional information or to see if you qualify for admissions please contact us.

Pioneer Plaza / 900 Fort Street Mall 410 Honolulu, HI 96813
800-993-0066 (Toll Free in US) info@aiu.edu
808-924-9567 (Internationally) www.aiu.edu

Online application:

https://www.aiu.edu/apply3_phone.aspx