International meeting: New diagnostic tests are urgently needed to treat patients with Chagas disease.

Trypanosoma cruzi infection is often not detected early on or actively diagnosed, partly because most infected individuals are either asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic. Moreover, in most places, neither blood banks nor healthcare units offer diagnostic confirmation or treatment access. By the time patients present clinical manifestations of advanced chronic Chagas disease, specific treatment with current drugs usually has limited effectiveness. Better-quality serological assays are urgently needed, especially rapid diagnostic tests for diagnosis patients in both acute and chronic phases, as well as for confirming that a parasitological cure has been achieved. Some new antigen combinations look promising and it is important to assess which ones are potentially the best, together with their requirements in terms of investigation and development. In August 2007, a group of specialized researchers and healthcare professionals met to discuss the state of Chagas infection diagnosis and to build a consensus for a plan of action to develop efficient, affordable, accessible and easy-to-use diagnostic tests for Chagas disease. This technical report presents the conclusions from that meeting

GOALS survey: P6 pupils and further and higher education

The Quality in Education Centre (QIE) at the University of Strathclyde was commissioned bythe GOALS Project team to provide baseline data from pupils who had not, as yet,participated in the GOALS programme for the purpose of contributing to a larger evaluation ofthe impact of the GOALS Project, and to make recommendations on the future developmentof the project. This report summarises and discusses data from surveys of a sample of P6pupils and interview data from a smaller sample of their parents

Small towns big returns: economic and social impact of the Karen resettlement in Nhill

Increased resettlement of migrants and refugees in regional Australia has been an on-going focus of the policies of successive governments. One recent regional resettlement experience, initiated at the local level, has yielded significant outcomes for a small regional community and the refugees involved. This case study – Small towns, Big returns – provides new and important insights into the economic and social value that can accrue through these initiatives, and identifies factors that contribute to their success. These insights can both create the case for, and inform planning of, resettlement in other Australian communities. Since early 2010, approximately 160 Karen refugees have resettled in Nhill, in north western Victoria. Nhill is a small, relatively isolated agricultural town in the wheat-belt Wimmera region of Victoria. Like a number of small regional towns, Nhill has faced a declining working-age population, which has had flow-on implications for the economic and social prosperity of the town. The context of a declining population, combined with very low unemployment, was a key catalyst in this resettlement. In particular there was a need for labour to support expansion of Luv-a-Duck, the largest local commercial business, and driven by a combination of economic and humanitarian motivations, Luv-a-Duck management identified the Karen as potential employees. Through a staged recruitment and resettlement process, the Karen community now comprises approximately 10% of the Nhill population, including significant numbers of working age adults and families with young children. Furthermore, labour force participation linked to this population increase is high. Fifty-four Karen are directly employed in Luv-a-Duck, and seven are employed in businesses that supply Luv-a-Duck. Beyond this, the increased population has enabled the creation and filling of additional jobs across a number of broader community businesses and services. A total of 70.5 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) positions have been added to the regional economy over the five year period of analysis, representing approximately 3% of total employment across Hindmarsh. The economic impact of this increased labour supply, in terms of Gross Regional Product – as modelled by Deloitte Access Economics, is estimated to be $41.5 million in net present value terms. The wider social impacts of the resettlement of the Karen in Nhill provide the story behind the numbers. In short the Karen resettlement in Nhill has helped to: • redress population decline for the township • revitalise local services and attract increased government funding • increase social capital across both communitie

Financial inclusion: Policies and practices

As a key enabler for development, financial inclusion is firmly placed on the agenda of most governments as a key policy priority. Against this background, this round table provides a global and regional perspective on the policies and practices of financial inclusion. Using macro data, the collection reveals the diversity in the efforts towards achieving financial inclusion and the need for a progressive approach in financial inclusion. Further to this, the round table provides the regional perspectives on the policies and practices of financial inclusion in India, South Africa, and Australia

Support for the Rightscon Toronto 2018 conference

The report documents key advances, significant research findings, important outcomes, and innovative outputs of the conference. RightsCon is the leading global summit on human rights in the digital age. By bringing together a diverse community of world leading experts, a wide-ranging program addressed key issues at the intersection of human rights, technology, and society. Thousands of the world’s leading experts convened to participate in, and advance conversations around these issues. Twelve hundred participants (from Azerbaijan, Brazil, Cameroon, Egypt, Gambia, Honduras, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Thailand, Uganda, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and other Global South countries) received complimentary tickets

On multiple access random medium access control

In this paper, we develop a new class of medium access control protocol, which allows each user to transmit at different data rates chosen randomly from an appropriately determined set of rates. By using successive interference cancellation, multiple packets can be received simultaneously. In slotted Aloha type Gaussian networks, we show that the achievable total throughput of the proposed protocol is at least a constant fraction of the mac sum rate when the number of transmission rates at each node is equal to the number of users in the network. We also study the case when only a limited number of transmission rates is available at each node. Extension to rate splitting is discussed. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol can achieve a significant throughput gain over the conventional Aloha

Access

In respect of data access a vertical and a horizontal regulatory dimension can be distinguished. The first one regards access to data and related processing information by single data subjects vis-à-vis data controllers. From this perspective, access rights are a substantiation of the principle of transparency and are an essential means for the protection of data subjects’ fundamental rights, first of all the fundamental right to data protection. The horizontal perspective relates to access to data among third parties, such as other businesses or public institutions. From this perspective, thus, access regimes and corresponding rights advance the free flow of personal data within the internal market for the ultimate promotion of market innovation objectives