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This exploratory study examines the role of project-based learning (PBL) in an Eigogaku (English linguistics) course for preservice English teachers studying at an English medium college in Japan. Three projects were designed to connect the course modules on phonetics/phonology, morphology, and syntax with language teaching applications. At the start and conclusion of the course, students completed a survey that included an open-ended question about the role of linguistics in language teaching and 29 Likert-scale response items targeting their understanding of linguistic concepts, pedagogical applications of linguistics, their beliefs and values about language teaching and learning, and learner autonomy. Responses to the open-ended question showed an increase in explanations of how linguistics can inform pedagogical practices and increase teacher agency. Responses to the Likert-scale items indicated greater understanding of linguistic concepts, pedagogical practices, and learner autonomy, but minimal change regarding beliefs about language learning and teaching. Implications for these findings and recommendations for future research on linguistics education for language teachers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Health is increasingly affected by multiple types of crises. Community engagement is recognised as being a critical element in successful crisis response, and a number of conceptual frameworks and global guideline documents have been produced. However, little is known about the usefulness of such documents and whether they contain sufficient information to guide effective community engagement in crisis response. We undertake a scoping review to examine the usefulness of conceptual literature and official guidelines on community engagement in crisis response using a realist-informed analysis [exploring contexts, mechanisms, and outcomes(CMOs)]. Specifically, we assess the extent to which sufficient detail is provided on specific health crisis contexts, the range of mechanisms (actions) that are developed and employed to engage communities in crisis response and the outcomes achieved. We also consider the extent of analysis of interactions between the mechanisms and contexts which can explain whether successful outcomes are achieved or not. Scope and findings: We retained 30 documents from a total of 10,780 initially identified. Our analysis found that available evidence on context, mechanism and outcomes on community engagement in crisis response, or some of their elements, was promising, but few documents provided details on all three and even fewer were able to show evidence of the interactions between these categories, thus leaving gaps in understanding how to successfully engage communities in crisis response to secure impactful outcomes. There is evidence that involving community members in all the steps of response increases community resilience and helps to build trust. Consistent communication with the communities in time of crisis is the key for effective responses and helps to improve health indicators by avoiding preventable deaths. Conclusions: Our analysis confirms the complexity of successful community engagement and the need for strategies that help to deal with this complexity to achieve good health outcomes. Further primary research is needed to answer questions of how and why specific mechanisms, in particular contexts, can lead to positive outcomes, including what works and what does not work and how to measure these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Infectious disease outbreaks like Ebola and Covid-19 are increasing in frequency. They may harm reproductive, maternal and newborn health (RMNH) directly and indirectly. Sierra Leone experienced a sharp deterioration of RMNH during the 2014–16 Ebola epidemic. One possible explanation is that donor funding may have been diverted away from RMNH to the Ebola response. Methods: We analysed donor-reported data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)'s Creditor Reported System (CRS) data for Sierra Leone before, during and after the 2014–16 Ebola epidemic to understand whether aid flows for Ebola displaced aid for RMNH. We estimated aid for Ebola using key term searches and manual review of CRS records. We estimated aid for RMNH by applying the Muskoka-2 algorithm to the CRS and analysing CRS purpose codes. Results: We find substantial increases in aid to Sierra Leone (from $484 million in 2013 to $1 billion at the height of the epidemic in 2015), most of which was earmarked for the Ebola response. Overall, Ebola aid was additional to RMNH funding. RMNH aid was sustained during the epidemic (at $42 m per year) and peaked immediately after (at $77 m in 2016). There is some evidence of a small displacement of RMNH aid from the UK during the period when its Ebola funding increased. Conclusions: Modest changes to RMNH donor aid patterns are insufficient to explain the severe decline in RMNH indicators recorded during the outbreak. Our findings therefore suggest the need for substantial increases in routine aid to ensure that basic RMNH services and infrastructure are strong before an epidemic occurs, as well as increased aid for RMNH during epidemics like Ebola and Covid-19, if reproductive, maternal and newborn healthcare is to be maintained at pre-epidemic levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review the previously compiled seismic magnitudes for underground nuclear explosions at the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Novaya Zemlya Test Site, and analyze these data in the context of published details about individual tests and official Russian reports of annual cumulative explosive energy release at the test site. We derive relationships between teleseismic body wave magnitudem b and explosive yield Y by predicting the yield of each test usingm b and minimizing the difference between predicted and reported annual cumulative yield. A linear relationship between mb and logY with a slope of 0.82 provides a good fit to the annual total yield, with a root mean square (rms) misfit of 0.095 logY units. A spectral magnitude relationship based on the explosion source model of Mueller and Murphy (1971) with a single-free-parameter provides a slightly better fit. For the 10 tests for which individual yields can be directly deduced from the official reports, the rms misfit of reported yields is less than 0.1 logY units or about 25%. More complex relationships that differentiate between the northern and southern test areas, or take account of variations in the scaled depth of burial, do not provide substantially better fits to the reported yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares community responses to Ebola and Covid-19 in two regions of southern and eastern Sierra Leone with reference to the theory of institutional dynamics proposed by the anthropologist Mary Douglas. Institutions, Douglas argued, are conveyed by styles of thought, shaped by the ways human communities, through everyday practices, reinforce systems of classification and denotation. Pandemic advice to 'follow the science' proved problematic, since there is no single institution of science, and institutions never stand alone but are bundled with other institutions, reflecting the manifold and intertwined practices of human social life. The paper explores some of the ways a traumatic epidemic of Ebola Virus Disease in Sierra Leone shaped a distinctive local response to this deadly infectious disease in the absence of an effective vaccine. This local approach emphasised social rules based on ideas about sequestration and testing. Communities then proposed to continue this rules-based approach to the pandemic of Covid-19 and showed little initial enthusiasm for vaccination. With Ebola, the adoption of rules resulted in dramatic drops in infection rates. But Covid-19 spreads in different ways, and good results from the application of social rules were much less apparent. The paper shows how communities began to grapple with this new situation. In some cases, vaccine hesitation was overcome by treating the requirement for vaccination as a new form of social discipline. More generally, it is concluded that epidemiologists need to pay specific attention to institutions and institutional dynamics in order to better understand and anticipate public reactions to new disease threats.