OVC costing technical consultation meeting report

This item is archived in the repository for materials published for the USAID supported Orphans and Vulnerable Children Comprehensive Action Research Project (OVC-CARE) at the Boston University Center for Global Health and Development.The two day meeting explored the challenges and lessons learned from existing OVC program costing and outcome evaluation studies from various countries, and how these country and program specific models can lead to more robust methodologies to strengthen national OVC planning and programming.The USAID | Project SEARCH, Orphans and Vulnerable Children Comprehensive Action Research (OVC-CARE) Task Order, is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development under Contract No. GHH-I-00-07-00023-00, beginning August 1, 2008. OVC-CARE Task Order is implemented by Boston University. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agency

Contract law – The South Pacific: customary and introduced law

The author examines the practical effect of the combined influence of customary and introduced common laws on the law of contract operating in the South Pacific – particularly the twelve island countries within the region with membership of the “University of the South Pacific” (USP). Published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

Acute kidney injury: an acceptable risk of treatment with renin-angiotensin system blockade in primary care?

Background: Use of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) blockade has become increasingly widespread driven by evidence-based guidance. There is concern about the role of these agents in the genesis of avoidable acute kidney injury (AKI). Objectives: To investigate the association between AKI and use of RAS blockade. Design: Multilevel hierarchical analysis of a large cohort of patients registered with UK general practitioners. Setting: Primary care practices in East and West Kent, United Kingdom. Patients: 244,715 patients from 27 practices. Measurements: Demographic, clinical, biochemical and prescription data. Methods: Analyses of data acquired between 02/3/2004 and 17/04/2012 using multilevel logistic regression to determine the relationship between AKI and use of RAS blockade; further analysed by indication for treatment with RAS blockade. Results: Sufficient serum creatinine data were available to define AKI in 63,735 patients with 208,275 blood test instances. In 95,569 instances the patient was prescribed a RAS antagonist of which 5.4% fulfilled criteria for AKI. The unadjusted odds ratio (OR) for AKI in those prescribed RAS blockade was 1.93 (1.81-2.06, 95%CI) falling to 1.11 (1.02-1.20, 95%CI) when adjusted for age, gender, co-morbidity, GFR category, proteinuria, systolic blood pressure and diuretic therapy. In patients with an evidence-based indication there was no difference in absolute risk of AKI. However, prescription of RAS blockade in the absence of indication appeared to be associated with greater risk of AKI. When analysis was repeated with AKIN2/AKIN3 as the outcome, although risk of AKI remained significant when unadjusted (OR 1.73, 95%CI 1.42-2.11, p<0.001), after full adjustment there was no increased risk (OR 0.83, 95%CI 0.63-1.09) in those taking RAS antagonists. However, when analysed by indication AKIN2/AKIN3 was significantly more likely in those prescribed RAS antagonists without indication (OR 2.04, 95%CI 1.41-2.94, p<0.001). Limitations: Observational database study. No information concerning hospitalisation. Prescribing assumptions and potential inaccurate coding. Potential survival bias; patients surviving longer will contribute more data. Conclusions: Use of RAS antagonists increased the risk of AKI, independent of common confounding variables. After correction for confounders the risk fell away and became non-significant for moderate and severe AKI. However, where there was no evidence-based indication for RAS antagonists the risk of AKI, whether mild, moderate or severe, remained greater

A local lattice Boltzmann method for multiple immiscible fluids and dense suspensions of drops

The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for computational fluid dynamics benefits from a simple, explicit, completely local computational algorithm making it highly efficient. We extend LBM to recover hydrodynamics of multi-component immiscible fluids, whilst retaining a completely local, explicit and simple algorithm. Hence, no computationally expensive lattice gradients, interaction potentials or curvatures, that use information from neighbouring lattice sites, need be calculated, which makes the method highly scalable and suitable for high performance parallel computing. The method is analytic and is shown to recover correct continuum hydrodynamic equations of motion and interfacial boundary conditions. This LBM may be further extended to situations containing a high number (O(100)) of individually immiscible drops. We make comparisons of the emergent non-Newtonian behaviour with a power-law fluid model. We anticipate our method will have a range applications in engineering, industrial and biological sciences

Computer simulation of liquid crystals

A review is presented of molecular and mesoscopic computer simulations of liquid crystalline systems. Molecular simulation approaches applied to such systems are described and the key findings for bulk phase behaviour are reported. Following this, recently developed lattice Boltzmann (LB) approaches to the mesoscale modelling of nemato-dynamics are reviewed. The article concludes with a discussion of possible areas for future development in this field.</p

Access to care for supported residents

The Aged Care Financing Authority (ACFA) is an independent statutory committee whose role is to provide independent, transparent advice to the Australian Government on financing and funding issues in the aged care sector. ACFA considers issues in the context of maintaining a viable, accessible and sustainable aged care industry that balances the needs of consumers, providers, the workforce, taxpayers, investors and financiers. Under its operating framework, ACFA is required to provide advice by 31 December 2015 to the Assistant Minister for Social Services on cost neutral mechanisms to ensure access to care for supported residents, including reviewing the supported resident ratio. This work entails analysing the efficiency, effectiveness, and appropriate level of: the supported resident ratio for each aged care planning region; and the 25 per cent discount applied to the maximum accommodation supplement amount where a service does not provide more than 40 per cent of its eligible care recipient days to supported residents. In order to assess these two mechanisms it is important to have a clear understanding of what is meant by ‘effective’, ‘efficient’ and ‘appropriate’. For the purposes of this paper a basic definition of each term may include: Effective: successful or capable of producing a desired or intended result Efficient: achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense Appropriate: suitable or proper in the circumstances To assist in the development of its advice to the Assistant Minister, ACFA is seeking the views of stakeholders. Background A principle underlying aged care means testing is that people who can afford to contribute to the cost of their care should do so, and those that cannot afford to pay should not be denied access to services. While aged care accommodation is considered a personal expense, in line with the above principle, the Australian Government has a safety net for those who cannot afford to pay all or part of their accommodation costs. For the purposes of this paper, supported residents are considered to be those residents who are eligible for Government support toward the cost of their accommodation. Submissions closed&nbsp; 9&nbsp;June 2015

Inventarisasi Keanekaragaman Hayati Sebagai Modal Pengelolaan Wisata Dan Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Di Wana Wisata Gunung Puntang

Selain pemerintah dan masyarakat, pihak swasta/perusahaan juga wajib terlibat dan mengambil peran untuk melakukan perlindungan terhadap lingkungan sebagai upaya konservasi terhadap dampak dari kegiatan yang dilakukan. Salah satu lokasi stategis yang memerlukan kajian keanekaragaman hayati secara berkelanjutan adalah Kawasan Wana Wisata Gunung Puntang, di Kabupaten Bandung. Kolaborasi pengelolaan kawasan ini dilakukan oleh Perhutani, Yayasan Owa Jawa, Pemerintah Daerah, Lembaga Masyarakat Desa Hutan (LMDH) Bukit Amanah, Institut Pertanian Bogor dan PT. Pertamina EP Asset 3 Subang Field. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menginventarisasi keanekaragaman jenis tumbuhan dan satwa liar (kupu-kupu, burung, dan herpetofauna) di Kawasan Gunung Puntang. Hasil invetarisasi keanekaragaman hayati menunjukkan bahwa hanya terdapat tingkat pertumbuhan tumbuhan bawah dan semai di petak pengambilan data. Hasil analisis vegetasi menunjukkan indeks keanekaragaman (H’) = 2,94; indeks kekayaan (Dmg) = 5,52; indeks kemerataan (E) = 0,82. Ditemukan sebanyak 36 jenis dari 24 famili pada lokasi penelitian. Pada kupu-kupu ditemukan sebanyak 21 jenis yang dari 4 famili. Hasil analisis dengan H’ = 2,73; Dmg = 4,69; E = 0,90. Jumlah jenis burung yang ditemukan sebanyak 12 jenis dari 10 famili dengan H’ = 2,27; E = 0,91; Dmg = 3,27. Hasil pengamatan herpetofauna ditemukan 6 jenis dari 5 famili dengan H’ = 1,68; E = 0,52; Dmg = 1,55. Pemanfaatan kawasan dan sumberdaya hayati perlu dilakukan secara berkelanjutan, baik itu untuk kegiatan wisata maupun kegiatan produksi. Pengembangan potensi dari sektor wisata harus selaras dengan perlindungan keanekaragaman hayati agar terwujud pertumbuhan ekonomi lokal yang berkelanjutan. Kata Kunci : Berkelanjutan, Keanekaragaman hayati, Kekayaan, Kemerataa