Fighting for the Commons: The Case of the Women of Plachimada, India

The protest campaign organized and led by the women of Plachimada in the early 2000s became a landmark event in the international water rights movement. For three years, the people of this small village in the Indian State of Kerala protested a corporate soft drink bottling plant that had been established in the village in 2000. The plant was overdrawing the village’s groundwater, causing hardship among the residents of the village. Finally, in 2003, participants were successful in their efforts, and the local panchayat (governing body) revoked the plant’s operating permit. This protest campaign drew the attention of activists, media, and researchers throughout the world, not only for its success in the defense of water rights, but also because women played a pivotal role. Although the event was well-publicized, very little research has been done regarding what has occurred in Plachimada since the revocation of the permit, the effects of this movement on the women of the village, or what lessons can be learned from the grassroots movement. The methodology for this study includes interviews with female protest participants on the ground in Plachimada, field observations of the village, and document research, to explore current sociopolitical orientations arising from the protest and to outline a more detailed chronology of protest events than has previously been offered in the published literature. Furthermore, by analyzing the case of Plachimada, it is possible to better understand the implications of this struggle for the future of women-led collective action in India, and for the broader water rights movement.Ohio State University College of Arts and SciencesPhi Kappa Phi National HonoraryUndergraduate Student Government at Ohio StateA five-year embargo was granted for this item.Academic Major: Environmental Policy and Managemen

Establishing a Research Framework to Assess Permeable Pavement Sites at Ohio State

ENR 2367Ohio State has several permeable pavement sites, but university officials are not convinced that permeable pavement is right for campus. This project is a framework for student-led research that will assess permeable pavement's durability and impact on soil quality at Ohio State.Academic Major: Environment, Economy, Development, and SustainabilityAcademic Major: Environmental Scienc

Using contractual incentives in district nursing in the English NHS: results from a qualitative study

© 2018 The author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Since 2008, health policy in England has been focusing increasingly on improving quality in healthcare services. To ensure quality improvements in community nursing, providers are required to meet several quality targets, including an incentive scheme known as Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN). This paper reports on a study of how financial incentives are used in district nursing, an area of care which is particularly difficult to measure and monitor

Assessment of cognition in early dementia

Better tools for assessing cognitive impairment in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are required to enable diagnosis of the disease before substantial neurodegeneration has taken place and to allow detection of subtle changes in the early stages of progression of the disease. The National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association convened a meeting to discuss state of the art methods for cognitive assessment, including computerized batteries, as well as new approaches in the pipeline. Speakers described research using novel tests of object recognition, spatial navigation, attentional control, semantic memory, semantic interference, prospective memory, false memory and executive function as among the tools that could provide earlier identification of individuals with AD. In addition to early detection, there is a need for assessments that reflect real-world situations in order to better assess functional disability. It is especially important to develop assessment tools that are useful in ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse populations as well as in individuals with neurodegenerative disease other than AD

Lewy body dementias

The broad importance of dementia is undisputed, with Alzheimer's disease justifiably getting the most attention. However, dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson's disease dementia, now called Lewy body dementias, are the second most common type of degenerative dementia in patients older than 65 years. Despite this, Lewy body dementias receive little attention and patients are often misdiagnosed, leading to less than ideal management. Over the past 10 years, considerable effort has gone into improving diagnostic accuracy by refining diagnostic criteria and using imaging and other biomarkers. Dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson's disease dementia share the same pathophysiology, and effective treatments will depend not only on successful treatment of symptoms but also on targeting the pathological mechanisms of disease, ideally before symptoms and clinical signs develop. We summarise the most pertinent progress from the past 10 years, outlining some of the challenges for the future, which will require refinement of diagnosis and clarification of the pathogenesis, leading to disease-modifying treatments