Incorporating household structure and demography into models of endemic disease

The spread of infectious diseases is intimately linked with the strength and type of contact between individuals. Multiple observational and modelling studies have highlighted the importance of two forms of social mixing: age structure, where the likelihood of interaction between two individuals is determined by their ages; and household structure, which recognizes the much stronger contacts and hence transmission potential within the family setting. Age structure has been ubiquitous in predictive models of both endemic and epidemic infections, in part due to the ease of assessing someone’s age. By contrast, although household structure is potentially the dominant heterogeneity, it has received less attention, in part due to an absence of the necessary methodology. Here, we develop the modelling framework necessary to predict the behaviour of endemic infections (which necessitates capturing demographic processes) in populations that possess both household and age structure. We compare two childhood infections, with measles-like and mumps-like parameters, and two populations with UK-like and Kenya-like characteristics, which allows us to disentangle the impact of epidemiology and demography. For this high-dimensional model, we predict complex nonlinear dynamics, where the dynamics of within-household outbreaks are tempered by historical waves of infection and the immunity of older individuals

Right Here Right Now (RHRN) pilot study: testing a method of near-real-time data collection on the social determinants of health

Background: Informing policy and practice with up-to-date evidence on the social determinants of health is an ongoing challenge. One limitation of traditional approaches is the time-lag between identification of a policy or practice need and availability of results. The Right Here Right Now (RHRN) study piloted a near-real-time data-collection process to investigate whether this gap could be bridged. Methods: A website was developed to facilitate the issue of questions, data capture and presentation of findings. Respondents were recruited using two distinct methods – a clustered random probability sample, and a quota sample from street stalls. Weekly four-part questions were issued by email, Short Messaging Service (SMS or text) or post. Quantitative data were descriptively summarised, qualitative data thematically analysed, and a summary report circulated two weeks after each question was issued. The pilot spanned 26 weeks. Results: It proved possible to recruit and retain a panel of respondents providing quantitative and qualitative data on a range of issues. The samples were subject to similar recruitment and response biases as more traditional data-collection approaches. Participants valued the potential to influence change, and stakeholders were enthusiastic about the findings generated, despite reservations about the lack of sample representativeness. Stakeholders acknowledged that decision-making processes are not flexible enough to respond to weekly evidence. Conclusion: RHRN produced a process for collecting near-real-time data for policy-relevant topics, although obtaining and maintaining representative samples was problematic. Adaptations were identified to inform a more sustainable model of near-real-time data collection and dissemination in the future

Toward Semantic Foundations for Program Editors

Programming language definitions assign formal meaning to complete programs. Programmers, however, spend a substantial amount of time interacting with incomplete programs - programs with holes, type inconsistencies and binding inconsistencies - using tools like program editors and live programming environments (which interleave editing and evaluation). Semanticists have done comparatively little to formally characterize (1) the static and dynamic semantics of incomplete programs; (2) the actions available to programmers as they edit and inspect incomplete programs; and (3) the behavior of editor services that suggest likely edit actions to the programmer based on semantic information extracted from the incomplete program being edited, and from programs that the system has encountered in the past. This paper serves as a vision statement for a research program that seeks to develop these "missing" semantic foundations. Our hope is that these contributions, which will take the form of a series of simple formal calculi equipped with a tractable metatheory, will guide the design of a variety of current and future interactive programming tools, much as various lambda calculi have guided modern language designs. Our own research will apply these principles in the design of Hazel, an experimental live lab notebook programming environment designed for data science tasks. We plan to co-design the Hazel language with the editor so that we can explore concepts such as edit-time semantic conflict resolution mechanisms and mechanisms that allow library providers to install library-specific editor services

NOTCH signaling in skeletal progenitors is critical for fracture repair

Fracture nonunions develop in 10%–20% of patients with fractures, resulting in prolonged disability. Current data suggest that bone union during fracture repair is achieved via proliferation and differentiation of skeletal progenitors within periosteal and soft tissues surrounding bone, while bone marrow stromal/stem cells (BMSCs) and other skeletal progenitors may also contribute. The NOTCH signaling pathway is a critical maintenance factor for BMSCs during skeletal development, although the precise role for NOTCH and the requisite nature of BMSCs following fracture is unknown. Here, we evaluated whether NOTCH and/or BMSCs are required for fracture repair by performing nonstabilized and stabilized fractures on NOTCH-deficient mice with targeted deletion of RBPjk in skeletal progenitors, maturing osteoblasts, and committed chondrocytes. We determined that removal of NOTCH signaling in BMSCs and subsequent depletion of this population result in fracture nonunion, as the fracture repair process was normal in animals harboring either osteoblast- or chondrocyte-specific deletion of RBPjk. Together, this work provides a genetic model of a fracture nonunion and demonstrates the requirement for NOTCH and BMSCs in fracture repair, irrespective of fracture stability and vascularity

Oxfam and the problem of NGO aid appraisal in the 1960s

During the United Nations’ first Development Decade (the 1960s), NGOs forged a place for themselves within the professional world of long-term development. Within this context, one British organisation – Oxfam – asked a straightforward question: does aid work? To answer, it appointed its own ‘aid appraiser’. This article examines what happened when the organisation was confronted with his reports. The self-perpetuating nature of development work has long been observed. How Oxfam responded to self-critique shows that the capacities for organisations to engage in self-assessment, absorb criticism, expand and maintain a positive vision of their future direction were evident as soon as appraisal began