American Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Sindy Yaneth De La Torre Pacheco1, Oswaldo Méndez Ramírez2

In Latin America, food insecurity remains prevalent in regions where extreme poverty and political instability are common. In Mexico, “Los Altos” (highlands) in Chiapas is one of the regions with the highest level of malnutrition. Following the theory of humanitarian action, the federal, state and municipal governments have implemented a total of nine food aid programs in the area. The effectiveness and effects of food aid programs have been questioned in other countries. This study compares the nutritional status of four communities, per the results of the National Health and Nutrition Survey (ENSANUT) 2012, with two scales of social capital designed by the researchers (inter and intra community redistribution) to understand the effects that participation in food redistribution programs (monetary and in foodstuffs) has on the level of food security of the communities. The results indicate that communities with a higher level of participation in intra-community redistribution are more food secure.

*Dr. Peter Onyango Onyoyo, 1Justice Joel Ngugi, 2Justice John Mativo 3Justice George Odunga Al-Gurair

 Legal hermeneutics is the science that considers the study of law as interpretation and understanding. The Romans would refer to the art of law as the practice of bono et aequo or the science of good and justice. This legal research is anchored on the High Court ruling on the legality of awarding tender for printing presidential ballot papers of 2017 to Al-Gurair company printing and publication. The allegation was that the lawful procedures of tendering process were not respected by the respondent, in this case, the Independent Elections and Boundary Commission (IEBC) making the court quash the tender. The study therefore, surveys the questions of interpretation and understanding of the rule of public participation in the Republic of Kenya.

Milan KLEMENT

Technological and polytechnic education in the field of computer aided design in 2D and 3D at non-technical secondary schools represents a new and relatively unexplored area. Approaches to promoting technological and polytechnic education are numerous. However, the problem tends to be simplified to the issue of processing materials, which does not take into account the wide range of techniques and technologies, nowadays largely represented by information and communication technologies. With these facts in mind, an experiment was conducted, focused on the addition of a thematic unit of computer aided design in 2D and 3D supported by CAD system to the curriculum of grammar schools, for the time period of 6 months. The submitted study presents a summary of contributions and results of the experiment, using the method of investigative research carried out among the students and teachers of grammar schools, who had implemented the training of the above mentioned subject.

1*Dr. Morris Thomas, 2Dr. Pawan Tyagi, 3Dr. Carl S. Moore 4Dr. Pamela Hampton-Garland

Effective teaching approaches require a lot of time investment in student activities during the class period and lead to less coverage of the syllabus. Incomplete course coverage and the amount of time required by an instructor for designing active teaching strategies are cited as the common hindrance in adopting student active teaching. To address these widely recognized inhibiting factors the authors implemented a new active learning approach. This approach is based on the students’ presentation and hence termed as the Student Presentation Based-effective Teaching (SPET). The SPET approach was designed to address the key components of effective teaching. However, to understand the efficacy of SPET for different instructors it was implemented into five courses. This study presented the responses and insights garnered from the different instructors who participated in the study. Employing the case study methodology participating instructors reflected their views about the advantages and challenges associated with the adaptation of SPET as compared to lecture based designed courses. The results provided implication for instructional strategies that instructors can consider when integrating active-learning approaches in their courses.  

Ashutosh Mishra1, Ranjan Kr. Mishra2, Sunil Kr. Choudhary3 Ramnivas Pandey4 and Girija Nandan Singh5

 The ground water pollution is of great concern to the people of middle Gangetic belt, particularly along river Ganga from Sultanganj to Pirpainti of Bhagalpur district. The probable sources of arsenic contamination is reported to be through geological formations. The proportion of iron and H2 S (Hydrozen Sulfide) is very high in this part of the land and the rural population are worst affected by stiffness of skin and skin-cancer. Keeping in view the severity of the situation, an attempt was being made to bring out the nature and extent of arsenic contamination in the underground water level of Nathnagar Block of Bhagalpur District. Wells and tube-wells have been considered as a source of ground water. The depth of the wells varies between 8-12 metres, and arsenic level ranged from 25-60 ppb (in well), that of shallow and dead tubewells between 6-80 metres and arsenic level ranged from 10-950 ppb (part per billion). Selection of villages is based on random sampling out of the villages located south of river Ganga 30 villages have been selected to carry out the research work. The paper shows that how the use of arsenic contaminated ground water is affecting people`s health in the Ganga Valley and suggests the storage and use of rain water as an alternative for drinking purposes to overcome the problem.

Dr. Megha Shree

Over the years, women’s participation in industrial and service sector has increased in developing countries as well as in India as a result of shift from traditional agriculture sector. In particular, electronics manufacturing has shown a huge potential to create new employment opportunities. In view of this, the main objective of the present study is to explore the working conditions of women workers especially migrants in electronics manufacturing industry. The study has adopted ‘Decent Work’ framework of International Labour Organisation to examine the objectives. This study is based on household level secondary data of National Sample Survey (Government of India) and field survey conducted among 100 migrant women workers in electronics firms situated in the National Capital Regions (Noida).This research is based on an inter-disciplinary perspective to examine the women workers’ rights at the workplace in the electronics industry. There is a dearth of studies related to migrant women employed in this modern sector. The study provides important insights, which can help in improving the employment conditions of women workers in the overall manufacturing industries and contribute to the future policy making

Efa Tadesse1, Gutema Imana2*

Academic world has largely neglected the prospects and challenges that urbanization has been potentially posed on the livelihood of farming community living adjacent to urban. A number of studies indicated that urbanization causes both prospects and challenges in the area where the urbanization process is taking place. However, the prospects and challenges of the urbanization up on farming community living adjacent to the urban are basically missing. The emprical studies indicated that urbanization process cause upsides and downsides not only within urban perse but also on the its peripheries. This study dedicates to study the prospects and challenges of urbanization on the farming community surrounding Finfinne with particular emphasis on livelihood. The paper employs both quantitative and qualitative research method to investigate the livelihood scenario or prospects and challenges of peri-urbanization process. The baseline finding revealed that living condition of the farming community were secured and stable. However, unchecked urbanization with alarming rate induced impacts on the overall living patterns of the farming community. Accordingly, living condition have been deteriorated. The growing land dispossession accompanied by inadequate and ineffective compensation packages caused impoverishment though urbanization brought up alternative livelihood strategies. This indicates that all the necessary care should be given not to evict the community haphazardly rather due attention should be given to the community’s preferences where to live and how to live. In addition, the government should subsidize the peri-urban farmers so as to empower them in order to compete in the market and utilise its opportunities. For instance, the government can provide them awareness on the know-how of business plan and entrepreneurship skills. 

Halimah Mohamed Ali

Myths are sacred narratives. They describe how this world was created and also how the living beings came into existence as they exist today. Myths are normally said to be untrue thus unbelievable. However, there are thinkers that say that myths are at times a higher form of truth. These types of myths can be labelled as sacred myths. The study of myths is interdisciplinary and international. This essay will analyse the myths of creation from two countries, Malaysia and Australia. The myths chosen are aboriginal myths. The theoretical framework will be built using the theory of myths by G.S. Kirk (1984) and Theodor H. Gaster and simple definitions on myths. These will be used to analyse the selected texts, from Malaysia titled “Asal Usul Ka’adat”, dan “Asal Usul Padi”, and from Australia titled “ The First Men and Women” dan “The Discovery of Fire”. 

Dr. Prabuddh Kumar Mishra

 Soil erosion is a serious threat to counter global population growth with increased and sustainable agricultural production. Soil erosion is a crucial problem in Sikkim Himalaya where mountains and still tectonically active. Although deforestation, overgrazing and intensive agriculture, due to population pressure, have caused accelerated erosion, natural phenomena inducing erosion, such as exceptional rains and earthquakes, flooding in the high Himalayas are also common. In this context information on the effectiveness of soil and water conservation (SWC) measures was collected from field experiment in the Papung-Ben Khola watershed of Sikkim Himalaya. The overland flow and soil loss were estimated from 5 experimental plots under each type of conservation practices during 2009-2010 in monsoon seasons. These were estimated using natural shallow surface run-off and artificially delineated plots following Singh et al., (1983); Rai and Sharma (1998); and Sharma et al., (2001). The delineated plot size was 3×3m for estimations of overland flow and soil loss, and three plots were laid in each type of conservation practices Results provided by running a soil erosion assessment method overland flow was recorded to be highest in open land/barren land (1.34%). Among other land-uses the lowest overland flow was observed in large cardamom based agroforestry (1.08%), followed by terrace cultivation (1.10%), mandarin based agroforestry (1.11%) and mixed cropping ranked the top (1.21%) in the watershed. Overland flow varies in different types of SWC practices depending on their capacity to stand against the erosional power of rainfall. This paper deals with assessment of run-off and soil loss under different land-use practices in the watershed

Rafif A. Alsedrani

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) often struggle with completing tasks in the classroom due to a myriad of reasons. One of the approaches to improve task completion with these students is to use positive reinforcement, a technique that uses a positive reward such as social praise or a tangible toy when students complete tasks correctly in order to increase that response in the future. My research question was: What happens to task completion with children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) when the teacher focuses on appropriate individualized positive reinforcement? I went to an autism center in a Midwest city to observe teachers interacting with students while using positive reinforcement techniques. These observations, paired with teacher and parent interviews and a literature review, have led me to conclude that for my own classroom, appropriate individualized positive reinforcement would be a very successful method to improve task completion with children with ASDs. From the research, I concluded that the most important component of successful positive reinforcement with students with ASDs was to focus on reinforcements that the child preferred and that were effective, even after continued use. There is no approach that seems to work with every child, which highlights the need for appropriate individualized reinforcement to improve task completion.