Incentives for breastfeeding and for smoking cessation in pregnancy: An exploration of types and meanings

Financial or tangible incentives are a strategy for improving health behaviours. The mechanisms of action of incentives are complex and debated. Using a multidisciplinary integrated mixed methods study, with service-user collaboration throughout, we developed a typology of incentives and their meanings for initiating and sustaining smoking cessation in pregnancy and breastfeeding. The ultimate aim was to inform incentive intervention design by providing insights into incentive acceptability and mechanisms of action. Systematic evidence syntheses of incentive intervention studies for smoking cessation in pregnancy or breastfeeding identified incentive characteristics, which were developed into initial categories. Little published qualitative data on user perspectives and acceptability was available. Qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted in three UK regions with a diverse socio-demographic sample of 88 women and significant others from the target population, 53 service providers, 24 experts/decision makers, and conference attendees identified new potential incentives and providers, with and without experience of incentives. Identified incentives (published and emergent) were classified into eight categories: cash and shopping vouchers, maternal wellbeing, baby and pregnancy-related, behaviour-related, health-related, general utility, awards and certificates, and experiences. A typology was refined iteratively through concurrent data collection and thematic analysis to explore participants' understandings of ‘incentives’ and to compare and contrast meanings across types. Our typology can be understood in three dimensions: the degree of restriction, the extent to which each is hedonic and/or utilitarian, and whether each has solely monetary value versus monetary with added social value. The layers of autonomy, meanings and the social value of incentive types influence their acceptability and interact with structural, social, and personal factors. Dimensions of incentive meaning that go beyond the simple incentive description should inform incentive programme design and are likely to influence outcomes

Maria Avila, PH.D (2018) Transformative Civic Engagement Through Community Organizing. Stylus Publishing LLC

Book Revie

New and significant avifaunal records from Batam and Bintan Islands, Riau Archipelago

Observations made during 2000-2003 and 2012, mainly in estuarine and other coastal habitats, increase the list of bird species known from Batam and Bintan islands by 15 (to 137) and two species (to 181) respectively. These records include five species new for the Riau Archipelago (Red-tailed Tropicbird Phaeton rubricauda, Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis, Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola, Curlew Sandpiper Calidris ferruginea and House Crow Corvus splendens). We also present additional records of species previously noted as uncommon or of restricted distribution in the region. Differences between the Riau Archipelago and nearby Singapore in the total number of known bird species (229 and 375 species, respectively) may be partly due to their relative isolation from mainland Southeast Asia, but the much greater survey effort on Singapore over many years must also be a significant factor. Additional, hitherto unpublished, observations by birdwatchers are sought to assess the relative importance of these explanations

The effect of retinal image slip on peripheral visual acuity

Retinal image slip promoted by fixational eye movements prevents image fading in central vision. However, in the periphery a higher amount of movement is necessary to prevent this fading. We assessed the effect of different levels of retinal image slip in peripheral vision by measuring peripheral visual acuity (VA), with and without crowding, while modulating retinal image slip by using gaze-linked stimuli. Measurements were carried out at four isoeccentric positions at 5 and at 10 degrees eccentricity. Gaze position was monitored throughout using an infrared eyetracker. The target was presented for up to 500 msec, either with no retinal image slip, with reduced retinal slip, or with increased retinal image slip. Without crowding, peripheral visual acuity improved with increased retinal image slip compared with the other two conditions. In contrast to the previous result, under crowded conditions, peripheral visual acuity decreased markedly with increased retinal image slip. Therefore, the effects of increased retinal image slip are different for simple (noncrowded) and more complex (crowded) visual tasks. These results provide further evidence for the importance of fixation stability on complex visual tasks when using the peripheral retina.This study was supported by a grant from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, POCTI 2010 & FSE, SRFD/BD/27975/2006

Electronic books as low vision aids

Every year, around 34 000 people in England and Wales are newly registered as sight impaired or severely sight impaired, the majority of whom have some residual vision.1 In order to read books, people with low vision will generally rely on large print books and supplementary optical2 or electronic3 magnifiers. Only about 1.5% of the approximately two million books currently in print are available in large print format.4 Recently, several electronic book readers have become commercially available.5 These consist of a low glare electronic paper screen and internal memory, which can typically hold the full text of between 150 and 2000 full-length novels. Electronic paper has a wide viewing angle of

Investigating unstable fixation in patients with macular disease

To assess the effect on visual acuity of compensating fixation instability by controlling retinal image motion in people with macular disease. METHODS: Ten patients with macular disease participated in this study. Crowded and noncrowded visual acuity were measured using an eye tracking system to compensate for fixation instability. Four conditions, corresponding to four levels of retinal image motion, were tested: no compensation (normal motion), partial compensation (reduced motion), total compensation (no motion), and overcompensation (increased motion). Fixation stability and the number of preferred retinal loci were also measured. RESULTS: Modulating retinal image motion had the same effect on crowded and noncrowded visual acuity (P = 0.601). When fixation instability was overcompensated, acuity worsened by 0.1 logMAR units (P < 0.001) compared with baseline (no compensation) and remained equal to baseline for all other conditions. CONCLUSIONS: In people with macular disease, retinal image motion caused by fixation instability does not reduce either crowded or noncrowded visual acuity. Acuity declines when fixation instability is overcompensated, showing limited tolerance to increased retinal image motion. The results provide evidence that fixation instability does not improve visual acuity and may be a consequence of poor oculomotor control.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, POCTI 2010 & FSE, SRFD/BD/27975/2006 (AFM)

Assessment of Electricity Decarbonization Scenarios for New Zealand and Great Britain using a Plant Dispatch and Electrical Energy Storage Modelling Framework

This paper proposes a methodology to assess the impact of alternative electricity generation and energy storage scenarios for meeting electricity demand on a national level. The method combines real and synthetic electricity generation and demand data to investigate different decarbonization strategies using solar and wind generation and electrical energy storage. This method is applied to provide relevant case studies for two geographically similar electricity systems in New Zealand and Great Britain. Newly available solar and wind data sets at hourly resolution are used within this method for these systems to assess the potential contribution of these technologies and as such, to refresh understanding of the impact of these technologies on decarbonization strategies against historical and future demand patterns. Although wind, solar and storage technologies are found to reduce the carbon emissions in both electricity systems, a key result is quantifying the impact this has on traditional generation as a backup resource. In New Zealand an investment in wind and solar equivalent to less than 15% of the wind/solar capacity in Great Britain is found to (i) reduce fossil fuel use to less than 2% of annual electricity generation requirements in the data assessed and (ii) remove the need for continuous operation of fossil fuel plants. Further, it is shown that existing hydro storage potential could be used to create near complete decarbonization of New Zealand electricity

Everyday visual demands of people with low vision:A mixed methods real-life recording study

Research has demonstrated that low vison aids (LVAs) can have a positive impact on the functional sight of those living with sight loss. Step changes in technology are now enabling new wearable LVAs with greater potential than those available previously. For these novel devices to receive increased acceptance and therefore adoption by those with sight loss, visual task demands have to be understood more clearly in order to enable better alignment between device design and user requirements. The aim of this study was to quantify these requirements. Thirty-two participants aged 18 to 87 wore a spectacle-mounted video camera to capture and narrate all everyday situations in which they would use a "perfect" sight aid during 1 week. Captured scenes were analyzed through categorization and computational image analysis. Results showed large variation in activities and lifestyles. Participants reported no available sight aid or coping strategy for 57% of the recorded activities. Reading made up 49% of all recorded tasks, the other half comprising non-textual information. Overall, 75% of captured activities were performed ad hoc (duration of 0-5 minutes), 78% occurred indoors, 58% occurred at home, 48% were lit by natural light, 68% included the object of interest within reach, and 69% required a single focus plane only. Around half of captured objects of interest had a size of 2 degrees visual angle (2.08 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution [logMAR]) or smaller. This study highlights the need for a sight aid that can make both textual and non-textual scenes accessible while offering flexibility to accommodate individual lifestyles

Regulatory and Financial Hurdles for the Installation of Energy Storage in UK Distribution Networks

This paper examines the feasibility of energy storage in in a low voltage distribution network to facilitate increased Distributed Generation (DG), and electricity demand. Modelling is used to quantify technical and financial benefits of storage over a 10 year period. Technical benefits are achieved through loss reduction, prevention of voltage rise and peak shaving. However, for energy storage to be financially feasible, all multi-stakeholder benefits need to be included in any investment strategy and regulation needs to be updated to foster energy storage adoption

Towards machine-assisted meta-studies: the Hubble constant

We present an approach for automatic extraction of measured values from the astrophysical literature, using the Hubble constant for our pilot study. Our rules-based model – a classical technique in natural language processing – has successfully extracted 298 measurements of the Hubble constant, with uncertainties, from the 208 541 available arXiv astrophysics papers. We have also created an artificial neural network classifier to identify papers in arXiv which report novel measurements. From the analysis of our results we find that reporting measurements with uncertainties and the correct units is critical information when distinguishing novel measurements in free text. Our results correctly highlight the current tension for measurements of the Hubble constant and recover the 3.5σ discrepancy – demonstrating that the tool presented in this paper is useful for meta-studies of astrophysical measurements from a large number of publications