Sex differences in perceived risk and testing experience of HIV in an urban fishing setting in Ghana

The concept of neighborhood remains important in criminology but there is an increasing academic interest in the potential impact of the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) on neighborhood based studies. In the present study data over arson from the Swedish rescue services 2007-2012 have been employed to analyze MAUP in the city of Malmö, Sweden. The city has been divided into 50*50 meter pixels as micro-places (n=64540) which have been assigned a value for arson from frequency of arson within the pixel. The analysis is based on a comparison of two types of administrative geographical units alongside 40 randomly generated sets of thiessen polygon geographical units. Empty two-level hierarchical regression models with the micro-places as level 1 unit have been used to calculate Intra-Class Correlations (ICC) separately with each of the 42 different geographical units of analysis as level 2 units. The analysis is repeated with two alternative methods, kernel density and euclidian distance, to calculate a value for each micro-place. Results show that administrative geographical units of analysis in some cases just are marginally better than geographical units with random boundaries if the basic urban structure is taken into account

Addressing the climate challenge

In 2021, colleagues from across the University of Birmingham community were invited to write articles about topics relevant to the COP26 climate change summit. In this series of articles, experts from across many different disciplines provide new insight and evidence on how we might all understand and tackle climate change

Conservation conflict: managing forestry versus hen harrier species under Europe's Birds Directive

In this paper we examine an example of a conservation conflict that is encountered in Ireland arising from the designation of Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for the Hen Harrier under the European Birds Directive (Directive, 2009/147/EC) and the consequent restrictions that are placed on forestry activities within these SPAs. We examine the causes of the Hen Harrier-forestry conflict; identify what stakeholders believe are the policy instruments and management strategies that may be useful in managing the conflict and finally identify plausible solutions that may be relevant to similar conflicts around multi-functional forests elsewhere in Europe and globally. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key actors in this conflict. Drawing on Walker and Daniels’ conflict triangle theory, a qualitative analysis of the transcripts of these interviews revealed that the conflict between Hen Harrier conservation and forestry in Ireland has a number of deep-rooted dimensions including those relating to the substance (e.g. restrictions on forest management activity in the SPAs), as well as procedural (e.g. lack of stakeholder engagement) and relationship dimensions (e.g. lack of trust). The polarisation of views in this conflict testifies to how entrenched stakeholders can become through lack of communication and trust. The policy instruments that stakeholders identified as having potential to address the conflict include the introduction of incentives/compensation scheme; changes to restrictions; more data and research on Hen Harrier bird surveys; implementation of landscape management models; and better communication and stakeholder engagement. The study highlights that conservation conflicts persist due to the multi-functional nature of forests and also due to repeated mistakes in terms of the lack of engagement with local stakeholders. Increasing the involvement of local actors has important substantive and instrumental benefits including improving the quality of decisions, as well as creating a greater chance of policies being better socially and politically acceptable. The need for more and better capacity-building across EU Member States for statutory and government agencies to learn from one another in terms of how to avoid repeating the same mistakes from one site to another is highlighted

Using drones to transport suspected COVID-19 samples; experiences from the second largest testing centre in Ghana, West Africa.

BackgroundThe declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11 2020, by the World Health Organisation prompted the need for a sustained and a rapid international response. In a swift response, the Government of Ghana, in partnership with Zipline company, launched the use of Unmanned Automated Vehicles (UAV) to transport suspected samples from selected districts to two foremost testing centres in the country. Here, we present the experiences of employing this technology and its impact on the transport time to the second largest testing centre, the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) in Kumasi, Ghana.MethodsSwab samples collected from suspected COVID-19 patients were transported to the Zipline office by health workers. Information on the samples were sent to laboratory personnel located at KCCR through a WhatsApp platform to get them ready to receive the suspected COVID-19 samples while Zipline repackaged samples and transported them via drone. Time of take-off was reported as well as time of drop-off.ResultsA total of 2537 COVID-19 suspected samples were received via drone transport from 10 districts between April 2020 to June 2021 in 440 deliveries. Ejura-Sekyedumase District Health Directorate delivered the highest number of samples (765; 30%). The farthest district to use the drone was Pru East, located 270 km away from KCCR in Kumasi and 173 km to the Zipline office in Mampong. Here, significantly, it took on the average 39 minutes for drones to deliver samples compared to 117 minutes spent in transporting samples by road (pConclusionThe use of drones for sample transport during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced the travel time taken for samples to be transported by road to the testing site. This has enhanced innovative measures to fight the pandemic using technology