Community decisions on Mvula Trust projects

Community management of rural water supply projects is increasingly common in the new South Africa. This management role requires decisions by the community that can have a major bearing on the ultimate success and sustainability of a project. Since 1993, the Mvula Trust has developed a comprehensive set of procedures that maximise the involvement of the community in decision making. Using the experience of Mvula rural water projects in the Eastern Cape, this paper focuses on the key decisions taken by communities during the project implementation cycle. The aim of this paper is to examine the influences on, reasoning behind and effectiveness of, these key community decisions. Research in the form of a thorough committee interview was undertaken at eight projects underway or nearing completion. The ultimate objective is to identify the key decisions affecting project sustainability, and suggest measures that will improve the effectiveness of these decisions

A metamorphic inorganic framework that can be switched between eight single-crystalline states

The design of highly flexible framework materials requires organic linkers, whereas inorganic materials are more robust but inflexible. Here, by using linkable inorganic rings made up of tungsten oxide (P8W48O184) building blocks, we synthesized an inorganic single crystal material that can undergo at least eight different crystal-to-crystal transformations, with gigantic crystal volume contraction and expansion changes ranging from −2,170 to +1,720 Å3 with no reduction in crystallinity. Not only does this material undergo the largest single crystal-to-single crystal volume transformation thus far reported (to the best of our knowledge), the system also shows conformational flexibility while maintaining robustness over several cycles in the reversible uptake and release of guest molecules switching the crystal between different metamorphic states. This material combines the robustness of inorganic materials with the flexibility of organic frameworks, thereby challenging the notion that flexible materials with robustness are mutually exclusive

Vitamin D did not reduce multiple sclerosis disease activity after a clinically isolated syndrome

Low serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), and low sunlight exposure, are known risk factors for the development of multiple sclerosis. Add-on vitamin D supplementation trials in established multiple sclerosis have been inconclusive. The effects of vitamin D supplementation to prevent multiple sclerosis is unknown. We aimed to test the hypothesis that oral vitamin D3 supplementation in high-risk clinically isolated syndrome (abnormal MRI, at least three T2 brain and/or spinal cord lesions), delays time to conversion to definite multiple sclerosis, that the therapeutic effect is dose-dependent, and that all doses are safe and well tolerated. We conducted a double-blind trial in Australia and New Zealand. Eligible participants were randomised 1:1:1:1 to placebo, 1000, 5000, or 10 000 IU of oral vitamin D3 daily within each study centre (n=23) and followed for up to 48 weeks. Between 2013 and 2021, we enrolled 204 participants. Brain MRI scans were performed at baseline, 24 and 48 weeks. The main study outcome was conversion to clinically definite multiple sclerosis based on the 2010 McDonald criteria defined as either a clinical relapse or new brain MRI T2 lesion development. We included 199 cases in the intention-to-treat analysis based on assigned dose. Of these, 116 converted to multiple sclerosis by 48 weeks (58%). Compared to placebo, the HRs (95%CI) for conversion were 1000 IU 0.87 (0.50, 1.50); 5000 IU 1.37 (0.82, 2.29); and 10 000 IU 1.28 (0.76, 2.14). In an adjusted model including age, sex, latitude, study centre, and baseline symptom number, clinically isolated syndrome onset site, presence of infratentorial lesions, and use of steroids, the HRs (versus placebo) were 1000 IU 0.80 (0.45, 1.44); 5000 IU 1.36 (0.78, 2.38); 10 000 IU 1.07 (0.62, 1.85). Vitamin D3 supplementation was safe and well tolerated. We did not demonstrate reduction in multiple sclerosis disease activity by vitamin D3 supplementation after a high-risk clinically isolated syndrome. Trial registration Australian Clinical Trials Registration Number ACTRN12612001160820

Confirmed 6-Month Disability Improvement and Worsening Correlate with Long-term Disability Outcomes in Alemtuzumab-Treated Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: Post Hoc Analysis of the CARE-MS Studies.

INTRODUCTION In the 2-year CARE-MS trials (NCT00530348; NCT00548405) in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, alemtuzumab showed superior efficacy versus subcutaneous interferon beta-1a. Efficacy was maintained in two consecutive extensions (NCT00930553; NCT02255656). This post hoc analysis compared disability outcomes over 9 years among alemtuzumab-treated patients according to whether they experienced confirmed disability improvement (CDI) or worsening (CDW) or neither CDI nor CDW. METHODS CARE-MS patients were randomized to receive two alemtuzumab courses (12 mg/day; 5 days at baseline; 3 days at 12 months), with additional as-needed 3-day courses in the extensions. CDI or CDW were defined as ≥ 1.0-point decrease or increase, respectively, in Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score from core study baseline confirmed over 6 months, assessed in patients with baseline EDSS score ≥ 2.0. Improved or stable EDSS scores were defined as ≥ 1-point decrease or ≤ 0.5-point change (either direction), respectively, from core study baseline. Functional systems (FS) scores were also assessed. RESULTS Of 511 eligible patients, 43% experienced CDI and 34% experienced CDW at any time through year 9 (patients experiencing both CDI and CDW were counted in each individual group); 29% experienced neither CDI nor CDW. At year 9, patients with CDI had a -0.58-point mean EDSS score change from baseline; 88% had stable or improved EDSS scores. Improvements occurred across all FS, primarily in sensory, pyramidal, and cerebellar domains. Patients with CDW had a +1.71-point mean EDSS score change; 16% had stable or improved EDSS scores. Patients with neither CDI nor CDW had a -0.10-point mean EDSS score change; 98% had stable or improved EDSS scores. CONCLUSION CDI achievement at any point during the CARE-MS studies was associated with improved disability at year 9, highlighting the potential of alemtuzumab to change the multiple sclerosis course. Conversely, CDW at any point was associated with worsened disability at year 9

An Experimental Study of Cryptocurrency Market Dynamics

As cryptocurrencies gain popularity and credibility, marketplaces for cryptocurrencies are growing in importance. Understanding the dynamics of these markets can help to assess how viable the cryptocurrnency ecosystem is and how design choices affect market behavior. One existential threat to cryptocurrencies is dramatic fluctuations in traders' willingness to buy or sell. Using a novel experimental methodology, we conducted an online experiment to study how susceptible traders in these markets are to peer influence from trading behavior. We created bots that executed over one hundred thousand trades costing less than a penny each in 217 cryptocurrencies over the course of six months. We find that individual "buy" actions led to short-term increases in subsequent buy-side activity hundreds of times the size of our interventions. From a design perspective, we note that the design choices of the exchange we study may have promoted this and other peer influence effects, which highlights the potential social and economic impact of HCI in the design of digital institutions.Comment: CHI 201

Hybrid polyoxometalates: aromatics, asymmetrics and oligomers

ABSTRACT This thesis looks at the synthesis of hybrid polyoxometalates (POMs), a family of polyoxometalate compounds grafted to organic moieties. Focussing particularly on the Mn-Anderson hybrid, it looks at new ways of isolating and purifying them and at how the organic component can be used to alter their crystal structure or to link multiple Mn-Anderson cores together to form short oligomer chains. In the first section, two Mn-Anderson hybrids are prepared with large aromatic organic moieties, as a continuation of earlier work looking at how aromatic organic components can influence the structure of Mn-Anderson compounds in the solid state. The two compounds, one based on an anthracene moiety (three fused aromatic rings) and another based on a tetraphenylphthalic moiety (five linked aromatic rings), were both synthesised and crystals were grown of their tetrabutylammonium (TBA) salts. These crystal structures were then analysed and their structure thoroughly described and compared to previous aromatic Mn-Anderson aromatic hybrids. In the second section, a set of methods are presented for the preparation and isolation of asymmetric Mn-Anderson hybrids, where two different organic moieties are linked to the same POM core. These methods use high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and normal liquid chromatography (LC) techniques to separate the mixtures of symmetric and asymmetric products which inevitably result from the synthesis of the asymmetric compounds, formed via both pre- and post-functionalisation techniques, so long as the two organic moieties have sufficiently different hydrophobicity. In order to by-pass the hydrophobicity requirement, a "Universal" asymmetric Mn-Anderson was developed with a free amine and an FMOC-protected amine. This allows for good separation and also gives a product which can be used to form more complex asymmetric compounds via post-functionalisation reaction without further LC purification, and an asymmetric compound with two hydrophilic substituents was synthesised to prove this strategy. All compounds were then fully analysed to confirm the purity of the asymmetric products. Also included is a means to remedy unwanted protonation of TBA Mn-Anderson salts. In the final section, the easy access to asymmetric Mn-Anderson hybrids provided by the previous project is exploited to produce a series of short-chain POM oligomers. A coupling strategy using alkyne and azide Mn-Anderson hybrids was developed, and a series of symmetric and asymmetric building blocks based on these functional groups were synthesised. These were then strategically combined to form a dimer and trimer of Mn-Anderson cores, which could then be further functionalised with alkyne groups and have an additional two Mn-Anderson units added, to give a tetramer and a pentamer. Methods were then developed to successfully purify these oligomers from the excess starting materials used to make them and the compounds analysed to confirm their identity. Size-exclusion HPLC and ion-mobility mass spectrometry (IM-MS) were then performed to gain more information about the structure of these compounds and how they arrange themselves in solution and in the gas-phase

Cost recovery at any cost?

Scarce financial, human and water resources are major constraints on the delivery of sustainable water supplies to the previously disadvantaged rural communities of South Africa. Of these constraints on sustainability, the scarcity of financial resources has received the most attention. During the period from 1994 –2000, the prevailing view in the South African water sector was that some form of cost recovery from the beneficiary communities was necessary to compensate for the scarcity of external funding. Cost recovery became to be seen as so central to sustainability that, in many schemes, it became almost an end in itself. However pronouncements during the local government election of 2000 regarding the provision of “free” water have called into question the appropriateness of cost recovery. This paper will step back from a detailed assessment of specific cost recovery methodologies and focus on the broad objectives and principles underpinning cost recovery on rural water schemes. It will ask whether the pursuit of cost recovery is really worth the cost given the changing political priorities (best illustrated by the recent promise of 6kl of “free” water) and evidence that efficient cost recovery severely reduces household consumption

Software process engineering for measurement-driven software quality programs—realism and idealism

This paper brings together a set of commonsense recommendations relating to the delivery of software quality, with some emphasis on the adoption of realistic perspectives for software process/product stakeholders in the area of process improvement. The use of software measurement is regarded as an essential component for a quality development program, in terms of prediction, control, and adaptation as well as the communication necessary for stakeholders’ realistic perspectives. Some recipes for failure are briefly considered so as to enable some degree of contrast between what is currently perceived to be good and bad practices. This is followed by an evaluation of the quality-at-all-costs model, including a brief pragmatic investigation of quality in other, more mature, disciplines. 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Curtis, B., Hefley, W.E., Miller, S., and Konrad, M. (1995). The People-CMM. Software Process Newsletter 4: 7-10. DeMarco, T. (1982). Controlling Software Projects. Yourdon, New York. Debou, C., Liptak, J., and Schippers, H. (1994). Decision Making for Software Process Improvement: A Quantitative Approach. Journal of Systems and Software 26: 43-52. Denning, P.J. (1992). Editorial - What is Software Quality? Communications of the ACM 35(1): 13-15. Dion, R. (1995). Starting the Climb Towards the CMM Level 2 Plateau. Software Process Newsletter 4: 1-2. Dorling, A. (1993). SPICE: Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination. Information and Software Technology 35(6/7): 404-406. Goldenson, D.R., and Herbsleb, J.D. (1995). After the Appraisal: A Systematic Survey of Process Improvement, its Benefits, and Factors that Influence Success. Technical Report CMU/SEI-95-TR-009, Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh. Gottesdiener, E. (1996). What Is Your Development Maturity? Application Development Trends March: 60-73. Hayes, W., and Zubrow, D. (1995). Moving On Up: Data and Experience Doing CMM-Based Process Improvement. Technical Report CMU/SEI-95-TR-008, Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh. Herbsleb, J., Carleton, A., Rozum, J., Siegel, J., and Zubrow, D. (1994). Benefits of CMM-Based Software Process Improvement: Initial Results. Technical Report CMU/SEI-94-TR-14, Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh. Hollom, J.H., and Pulford, K.J. Experience of Software Measurement Programmes and Application of the ami Method Within GEC. GEC Journal of Research 12(1): 17-25. Hon, S.E. III, (1990). Assuring Software Quality through Measurements: A Buyer’s Perspective. Journal of Systems and Software 13: 117-130. Humphrey, W.S. (1996). Using a Defined and Measured Personal Software Process. IEEE Software May: 77-88. Huyink, D., and Westover, C. (1994). ISO 9000. Irwin, New York. Jeffery, R., and Berry, M. (1993). 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Applications of fuzzy logic to software metric models for development effort estimation

Software metrics are measurements of the software development process and product that can be used as variables (both dependent and independent) in models for project management. The most common types of these models are those used for predicting the development effort for a software system based on size, complexity, developer characteristics, and other metrics. Despite the financial benefits from developing accurate and usable models, there are a number of problems that have not been overcome using the traditional techniques of formal and linear regression models. These include the non-linearities and interactions inherent in complex real-world development processes, the lack of stationarity in such processes, over-commitment to precisely specified values, the small quantities of data often available, and the inability to use whatever knowledge is available where exact numerical values are unknown. The use of alternative techniques, especially fuzzy logic, is investigated and some usage recommendations are made.Unpublished[1] N. Fenton. Software Metrics, a Rigorous Approach. Chapman & Hall, London, 1991. [2] T. Mukhopadhyay and S. Kekre. Software effort models for early estimation of process control applications. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 18(10):915-924, 1992. [3] A.L. Lederer, R. Mirani, B.S. Neo, C. Pollard, J. Prasad, and K. Ramamurthy. Information system cost estimating: a management perspective. MIS Quarterly, 159-176, June, 1990. [4] B. Londeix. Deploying realistic estimation (field situation analysis). Information and Software Technology, 37:665-670, 1995. [5] S. Kumar, B.A. Krishna, and P.S. Satsangi. Fuzzy systems and neural networks in software engineering project management. Journal of Applied Intelligence, 4:31-52, 1994. [6] R.W. Selby and A.A. Porter. Learning from examples: generation and evaluation of decision trees for software resource analysis. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 14:1743-1757, 1988. [7] K. Srinivasan and D. Fisher. Machine learning approaches to estimating software development effort, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 21:126-137, 1995. [8] T. Mukhopadhyay, S.S. Vicinanza, and M.J. Prietula. Examining the feasibility of a case-based reasoning model for software effort estimation. MIS Quarterly, 16:155-171, 1992. [9] A.R. Gray, and S.G. MacDonell. A comparison of model building techniques to develop predictive equations for software metrics. Information and Software Technology, to appear, 1997. [10] J.-M. Desharnais. Analyse statistique de la productivitie des projects de development en informatique apartir de la technique des points des fontion. Master’s Thesis, Universite du Montreal, 1989. [11] S.G. MacDonell and A.R. Gray. Alternatives to regression models for estimating software projects. In Proceedings of the IFPUG Fall Conference, Dallas TX, IFPUG 279.1-279.15, 1996. [12] A.J. Albrecht. Measuring application development productivity. In Proceedings of the IBM Applications Development Joint SHARE/GUIDE Symposium, Monterey, CA, 83-92, 1979. [13] J.E. Matson, B.E. Barrett, and J.M. Mellichamp. Software development cost estimation using function points. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 20(4):275-287, 1994. [14] J.J. Dolado. A study of the relationships among Albrecht and Mark II function points, lines of code 4GL and effort. Journal of Systems and Software, 37:161-173, 1997. [15] R.I. Kilgour, A.R. Gray, P.J. Sallis, and S.G. MacDonell. A fuzzy logic approach to computer software source code authorship analysis. Submitted to The Fourth International Conference on Neural Information Processing -- The Annual Conference of the Asian Pacific Neural Network Assembly (ICONIP'97). [16] Y .I. Liou. Knowledge acquisition: issues, techniques and methodology. DATABASE, 59-64, Winter 1992